30th May 2021

It's a Sunday and I'm logged on to Board Game Arena on my PC, time for the first game of the night.

Monk Tybor Kwelein had spent his life cataloguing the 4 kingdoms of plants, fungi, insects and animals in the pages of the titular Codex Naturalis. Now he is no longer with us, will one-to-four other people take up the mantle and carry on his work in the form of a neat little card game.

What's in a game?
Codex Naturalis is a card game and unsurprisingly, has a lot of cards. All the cards are about half the size of normal playing cards which is sensible, as otherwise the game would have a massive footprint, most of the cards share some similar features.

• Starter cards: These cards are double-sided, each side will have 1-4 'visible corners', which is to say these are corners which are 'colourless', 'hidden corners' are corners where the card's art fills the corner.
  Each side will also contain symbols which represent 1-4 of the 4 kingdoms, which may be on the visible corners or in the 'middle' of the card.
• Resource cards: Also double sided; on the 'front' side there will be 2-3 visible corners which may or may not contain kingdom symbols, they may or may not also contain 'objective' symbols. These are a quill, inkpot & manuscript, more on them later. Occasionally, resource cards will score a point.
  The 'back' side of resource cards always have 4 visible corners and a kingdom symbol in the middle of the card.
• Gold cards: As the name suggests, these cards are actually decorated with gold foil and again, they are double sided. On the front they will also have 2-3 visible corners, generally there are no kingdom symbols in the corners, although there may well be objective symbols.
  All gold cards have a requirement in kingdom symbols before they can be played, thus if a gold card displays 3 plant symbols, then the active player must have 3 symbols visible in their playing area before the card can be put down.
  Additionally, all gold cards score points and there are a variety of ways to score.
  Finally, identical to resource cards, the backs of gold cards have 4 visible corners and a kingdom symbol in the middle.
• Objective cards: These are the only cards which are not double sided, the front will show objectives that score extra points at the end of the game if the conditions are met.
  ​There's 2 varieties of objective, some require players having certain resource or objective symbols displayed in their area at the end of the game. The other type requires cards to be placed in specific order and colour, these can be quite tricky to achieve.
• Scoring board: A standard board for tracking player scores.
• Tokens: Standard wooden discs used with the board.

The scoring board and tokens are pretty standard quality game components and perfectly acceptable.
The cards feel very thick and sturdy (Maybe because of the smaller size?) and seem to be made to a high standard, all the gold cards and numerous resource cards are embossed in actual gold foil, which is a really nice touch and despite their small size, most of the cards all have charming, highly detailed monochrome illustrations themed by their colour. Finally, all the cards are coated in a glossy finish.
The only criticism I have is of the small symbols at the bottom of the gold cards, they are quite small and some players have complaint that it can be hard to discern between the symbols, particularly the blue and the green.
Otherwise, these are some of the highest quality card components I've seen and it all comes wrapped up in a compact tin.

How's it play?
Setup

• Shuffle the resource cards and deal 2 into the centre of the play area, the remaining resource cards should be placed adjacent in a face-down deck.
• Shuffle the gold cards and deal 2 into the centre of the play area, the remaining resource cards should be placed adjacent in a face-down deck.
• Deal a starter card to all players, each player can choose which side to use as their starting card.
• Each player now draws 2 resource cards and 1 gold cards from the respective decks.
• Shuffle the objective cards into a face-down deck.
  2 objective cards should be drawn and placed into the playing area face-up, these are common objectives, all players can earn points by completing their requirements.
  2 objective cards should then be dealt to all players, these are secret objectives, each player should select one to keep and discard the other to the bottom objective deck. These cards should be hidden from other players, the owning player can earn points by meeting their requirements.
• Determine a starting player.

On to play
The objective in Codex Naturalis is to create an expanding spread of overlapping cards in their playing area. The basic process of actions to achieve this in Codex Naturalis is simple, a player plays a card, then draws a card, of course there's more to it than that. 

points, this card probably scores the most if you can manage to fill the doughnut hole!​

• Draw card: Once a card has been played, the active player must draw a card, this can be any of the 4 face-up cards or drawn blindly from either the resource of gold face-down decks. A player can never have more than 3 cards in their hand.
  If a face-up card is taken, it's immediately replaced by a card from its respective deck.

The player to the left then becomes the active player.
Play continues one player's score reaches 20 or more, then the endgame is triggered.

Endgame
After the endgame is triggered, the current round is completed, then one final round is played.
After this, players count the score from the cards they've played and then calculates the score they get from completing both common objectives and their secret objective.
Score are tallied and highest score wins!

Overall
Codex Naturalis has simple rules, but also a fairly deep level of gameplay. Despite only having a hand of 3 cards, players are given a wide variety of choices and strategies to pursue when placing cards.

A lot of this comes from the objectives, you'll obviously need to play gold cards to score but it's important not to ignore objectives, scoring from the gold cards will generally put your score into the low-to-mid 20s, but objectives which are scored after the end and can push your score higher, especially since they can be scored multiple times. That everyone has a secret objectives means that the final outcome is not known until the final scoring and keeps the stakes high.
Players must also learn to manage their hands and objectives, there are 4 colours of card, but only 2 of each type of card is ever displayed face-up, it's likely that player's won't always see the cards they need.
Codex Naturalis can also give players agonizing choices because they'll frequently be given the option to cover up a resource or objective symbol with the corner of another card. When that symbol is covered up, it's gone for the rest of the game, forcing players to choose which to prioritise. Only symbols that appear in the middle in of a card cannot be covered.
Finally, because face-up cards never have more than 3 visible corners, players will need to think how to place cards with future placement in mind, the visible corner of a card can be 'locked' by placing another card with a hidden corner adjacent to it. This essentially ends that line of expansion, which can limit options later on.

Codex Naturalis is a little too long for a filler and perhaps a little too short for a main game, which is only a minor quibble really. Otherwise, I found it to be a solid, easy-to-learn, mid-to-light game with good replay value and high production values.
Definitely worth a try.

23rd May 2021

It's Sunday evening and I'm logged into Skype and Board Game Arena​ on my PC and it's time for the final game of the day.

Drafting. Rawr! Dinosaurs. Rawr! T-rexes. Rawr!
Draftosaurus has it all, drafting and well... you get the idea. This is a game where scientists have discovered how to clone dinosaurs and now parks of them are opening everywhere, all in a completely non-copyright infringing manner of course!

Caveat: We've only played Draftosaurus digitally online.

What's in a game?

• Player boards: These boards are double-sided and each provide a slightly different game experience/difficulty. The 'summer' side is easier than the 'winter' side.
  Player boards represent zoos and are divided up into 4 different 'areas'; the grassland and woodland regions and left & right sides of the river, each area contains 3 dinosaur pens. There's some crossover between areas, so grasslands will be found on both side of the river for example and every pen is in 2 different areas, there are a total 6 pens. The player boards also have a 7th area called 'The River', this isn't a pen.
  This is true of both sides of the player boards.
• Dinosaur meeples: There are 6 types of differently coloured dinosaur in the game and 10 meeples of each type, including t-rexes!
• Placement die: This is a 6-sided die, each face has a unique symbol.

Artwork on the player boards is colourful and clear.
There's not much more I can say, I can't talk about the physical components which also include a draw bag.

How's it play?
Draftosaurus is about placing dinosaur meeples into the pens, different pens have different requirements, which is explained below.
Setup

• In the physical game, meeples would be placed into the draw bag, the amount is dependent on the number of players.
• ​Give each player a player board, all boards should be placed on the same side.
• Determine the starting player and give them the placement die, they are the current active player.

Draftosaurus is played over 2 rounds and each round consists of 6 turns, thus each player will get to place a total 12 dinosaur meeples. Turns may and probably will play out differently for players other than the active player.

• Draw meeples: At the start of each round all players draw 6 dinosaur meeples, these should be kept secret by each player.
• Roll placement die: The active player should roll the placement die, the die's result will determine where the other players may place a dinosaur meeple (See below for info.).
  Conversely, the active player can place a dinosaur meeple into any pen they choose.
• Place dinosaur meeple: All players choose a meeple and simultaneously play it, other than the active player, all players must place their meeples as dictated by the placement die.
  ​​Woodland: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens in the woodland area of their board.
  Grassland: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens in the grassland area of their board.
  Left of river: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens that are left of the river.
  Right of river: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens that are right of the river.
  Empty Pen: Other players must place a dinosaur meeple into any empty pen on their board.
  ​Not with a t-rex: Other players can place a dinosaur meeple into any pen that does not contain a t-rex.
  Different pens have different set collecting requirements to score points, one pen requires all the dinosaurs in it to be identical, another requires them to all be different or another only scores for identical pairs and so on, there are 12 different ways to collect and score sets across both sides of the board. Generally, the more you complete a set, the more you score for it.
  Players can choose to (Or may have to!) place meeples in the river, which scores each meeple a flat +1 point.
  T-rexes score bonus points, but depending on the placement die, can cause trouble.
• Pass dinosaur meeples: Once players have placed their chosen dinosaur meeples, every player must pass their remaining meeples to the player to their left.
• Pass placement die: The active player passes the placement die to the player on their left who will become the active player in the next turn.

Play continues until all players have placed 6 dinosaur meeples, then players draw another 6 and play resumes as explained above until another 6 meeples have been placed.

Endgame
Once the 12th and final dinosaur meeple has been placed by all players, the endgame is triggered.
​Players score all of the sets they've created on their board, plus any bonuses or penalties. Highest score wins.

Overall
When playing Draftosaurus, more often than not, players will find themselves having to place meeples into unexpected pens thanks to the placement die. Without this element, the game would be too predictable.
How players deal with, manage and anticipate these these situations is key to victory. Often there will be a conflict between which set to increase or start on and keeping a pen open for another type of dinosaur.
It also pays to try and remember which dinosaur meeples will be coming round.
The winter side of the board makes it harder to collect different sets and provides more challenge but somehow a little less fun?

It's hard to find a lot more to say about Draftosaurus, it's quick, fairly light game to learn and play that's also quite luck based. If you don't like this sort of game, Draftosaurus will probably infuriate you. I think that maybe it's a bit too luck based for me to play extensively.

Not taken too seriously and played as a filler game and Draftosaurus is a reasonable diversion.

23rd May 2021

It's a Sunday and I'm logged into Skype and Board Game Arena, ready for an evening of gaming.

The first game of the night was Happy City, a cheerful looking, light engine-building card game about building up a city, a happy city no less. 

Caveat: We've only played this game digitally on Board Game Arena.

What's in a game?

• Happy market cards: These 5 starter cards are double-sided, on one side they are white and on the other each one has one of the different colour/symbols. All happy market cards generate 1 income per turn.
• Building cards: These cards have a cost and a symbol/colour for building type, they may also have a income rating and population or happiness rating that ranges from -1 to +3.
  There are 3 'levels' of building cards, the higher the level the better the card, but the higher the cost.
  Level 1: Cost 1-3 coins to buy.
  Level 2: Cost 4-5 coins.
  Level 3: Cost 6-9 coins.
• Dwelling cards: These cards are similar to standard building cards, except they are only dwellings, thus they only have a cost, population rating and the green symbol.
  There are 3 types/levels of identical dwellings.
  Level 1: Cost 1, population 1.
  Level 2: Cost 3, population 2.
  Level 3: Cost 6, population 3.
• Special building cards: These cards have no cost, instead they have a requirement which must be met with colours/symbols.
• Coins: Standard currency.

I can't comment on the physical quality of the components but all the cards are decorated with colourful and interesting illustrations. The art is excellent.
Symbols are clear and easy to read.

How's it play?
At it's core, Happy City is a tableau-building game, adding cards increases income or score. 
Setup

• ​Give each player a happy market card, this should be put with the white side up in the player's area and represents the beginning of their tableau.
  The building cards should be sorted by level, then each deck should be shuffled. All 3 decks should be placed face-down in the central area to form a column.
• The dwelling cards should be sorted by type and placed in 3 face-up stacks, the number of cards in each stack should be equal to the number of players minus one.
• Shuffle the special building cards and place a line of them face-up in the central area, the number of cards used should be equal to the number of players plus two.
• Give each player 2 coins.
• Determine starting player.

On to play
In Happy City, the starting player's first turn is slightly different to subsequent turns, as explained below.

• Income: At the start of their turn, the active player receives coins equal to their income.
• Draw building card(s): ​In this next stage, there must always be a choice of 3 building cards available for the active player to purchase. Thus, since there are no building cards available at the start of the game, the starting player must draw 3 building cards and place them face-up next to the building decks. The player can select cards from any deck.
  In subsequent turns, the active player may discard a face-up building card before drawing more. Thus the active player will always have the option to draw 1 and maybe 2 cards.
• Take action: The active player can choose from 1 of 3 actions.
  Buy a building card: Pay for a building and place it in their tableau.
  Buy a dwelling: Pay for a dwelling and place it in their tableau.
  Pass and gain a coin: Self explanatory.
• Acquire special card: If the active player has cards in their tableau with colours/symbols that meet the the requirements of a special card, then the active player may take that special card as a free action, players can only ever have 1 special card in their tableau.

Once the active player has completed their action, the player to their left becomes the active player.

Expert game
Happy City has 2 levels of play; family & expert. This blog describes the family version.
The expert game differs in 2 ways.
All the happy market cards are flipped to their differently coloured sides and laid out, then the players draft one to become the starting card in their tableau and giving them some choice in how they start the game.
Special buildings also differ; the family Special cards give players a boost to their income, happiness or population. The expert special cards however, are different, they confer different benefits, sometimes variable and situational.

Endgame
The game continues until a player has 10 cards in their tableau, upon which the current round continues until all players have had an equal number of turns.
Each player's score is calculated by multiplying the total value of happiness symbols in their tableau by all the population symbols.
​Highest score wins.

Overall
Gameplay in Happy City gives players the choice between increasing income or accumulating happiness/population. Income will give the player more buying power but happiness/population contributes towards the end score.
Having 3 decks of building cards at different cost ranges is an interesting mechanic when it comes to drawing cards. The player will always have the option to draw 1 or 2 cards, higher level cards will be better, but may prove more risky to draw. E.g., If a player has 4 coins, drawing a level 1 card will be safe as level 1 cards only cost 1-3 coins each, level 2 cards cost 4-5 coins, so there's a risk that a level 2 card will be unaffordable and will have been drawn pointlessly. It can give players a quandary when drawing building cards.
The game's scoring mechanic also adds an extra layer to decisions, failing to pay attention to how the points are spread between happiness/population can lead to lost scoring opportunities.

While Happy City is simple to learn, enjoyable and fast to play, making it a good filler game, it's perhaps also a little too basic for dedicated gamers. After a few games it was fairly easy to spot an optimal strategy to pursue and it became a race to develop that strategy. So I feel that the game doesn't offer a lot of longevity.
Ultimately, because it's such a light game, it's probably a good game for families or more casual players which is probably who the game is aimed at.

We also played the expert level a few times but felt like it added little to the game.
The varied happy markets are nice and offered a little extra strategy but the expert level special cards weren't so good. The problem was that they seemed harder to acquire than the family special cards, which meant they were acquired later in the game and therefore their benefits were limited, we found it wasn't worth specifically trying to get one, getting one by happenstance was fine, but then that sort of makes having a choice of starting happy market card pointless.
We enjoyed the family version more.
​
The family version is a game I'd play, but not too often.

24th March 2021

It's a Wednesday evening and I'm logged into Zoom and Board Game Arena on my PC.

It was time for a game that spanned the ages and the creation of massive monuments and the civilisations they represented. Luckily, it doesn't take that long to play 7 Wonders!

Caveat: We played the game online but have previously played the physical copy. Photos were taken for this blog post.

What's in a game?
​The purpose of the game is for each player to create their own civilisation through the construction of various types of buildings and ultimately create one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.
7 Wonders is card game played over 3 sets of rounds (or ages). Each age has its own set of cards which are used. There are numerous types of cards, some of these types can be more or less common in different ages.

• Cards: All the different cards share some common elements, such as cost which can be in resources, money or even free. Each card also has its name along its left hand edge (This can be very important in later ages.). Cards also show in small writing what cards they chain with.
  Resource cards: These brown cards represent raw resources such as wood, stone and so on that are foundations of your civilisation. They only appear in ages 1 & 2.
  Goods cards: These are manufactured goods such as cloth or glass, they are important in the construction of advanced buildings for your civilisation. These cards are grey coloured. Like resource cards, these do not appear in age 3.
  Civic buildings: Blue cards are civic buildings such as baths, aqueducts, temples and palaces. Civic buildings score victory points as displayed on each card.
  Science buildings: This is where the games set collecting element comes into play. There are 3 different scientific symbols and collecting a set of all 3 scores victory points but victory points can also be scored by collecting sets of the same kind, 2-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind and so on for all 3 symbols. Green is used to represent scientific cards.
  Commercial buildings: These yellow cards represent businesses that allow the player to gain additional resources, goods or money in various manners, sometimes they also allow the player to accumulate victory points.
  Military buildings: Guard towers, archery ranges and training grounds and the like are all red military cards. Unsurprisingly, they increase a civilisation's military strength by 1-3 points. There is no direct combat between different players in 7 Wonders, but there is automatic conflict between neighbouring civilisations at the end of each age.
  Guild cards: These purple cards only appear in age 3, they sort of combine the mechanics of commercial buildings with the scoring of civic buildings.
• Wonder cards: These are not used during play but can be used to randomly determine which wonder board (See below.) each player gets and whether the A or B side is used.
• Wonder boards: As you would expect, there a 7 wonder boards, one for each ancient wonder. Each board is slightly different and also have an A and B side for more variation and complexity but all contain a resource or good they manufacture for the controlling player.
  Nearly all the wonder boards have 3 spaces (One board has 4 and another 2!) at the bottom. When these spaces are filled, they give the controlling player victory points or a special once only or ongoing bonus.
• Conflict tokens: These tokens are valued at +1, +3, +5 or -1 and they modify victory points.
• Coins: Standard currency, comes in 1s or 3s.

The cards, tokens and coins are of the usual quality you'd expect, the wonder boards are made of fairly thick grey board and feel sturdy.
The text and icons are all mostly clear (I tended to confuse stone and ore icons, because the ore icon looks like a pile of stone to me.), the symbology used for special rules on cards is also generally clear, the rulebook does a good job on clarifying these in cases of confusion.
I also like how the layout allows cards to be more or less stacked while still displaying pertinent information.
In terms of art quality, the wonder boards are quite large and very nicely decorated in eye-catching illustrations of the 7 titular wonders. Art on the cards are of a similar quality but obviously on a smaller scale.

How's it play?
Setup
7 Wonders is a 3-7 player game but also contains some special rules to allow 2 player games. This blog post talks about the normal 3-7 player game.

• Shuffle the wonder cards and deal 1 face down to each player, after this each player flips their card, revealing which wonder board they take and the card's orientation will display whether to use the A or B side.
• 3 decks must be constructed for each of the 3 ages. Deck size is dependant on the number of players and each will consist of 21-49 cards. Cards display which game size they are suitable for. Finally 5-9 of the 10 available guild cards are added to the age 3 deck.
  These 3 decks are shuffled.
• Deal all of the age 1 cards face-down to all players, each player should now have 7 cards.
• Give all players 3 currency.

And we're ready to play.

On to play
Each player in 7 Wonders is neighboured by a player to their left and right; why this is important will be explained below.
​Each player takes a card from their hand and plays face down in front of them, then they pass the remaining cards clockwise to the next player, the direction of play alternates between rounds.
Once every player has chosen a card, all player then simultaneously reveal their card, plays it and executes one of the 3 actions below.

• Construct building: The most common action, put the chosen card into play, it may be a resource/good or a building, but the rules are identical. Each card has a cost of some sort shown in top left corner. This may be a combination of the following factors below.
  Free: Some cards have to cost and are free to play.
  Chain: If a building name is displayed next to a card's cost and that player has that named building already built in their game area, then the building cost of the currently played card is reduced to zero.
  Money: Players will have to spend money to construct this building.
  Resources/goods: Some cards will require a single or mixture of resources and goods to build. The player must have cards already in their play area that display the relevant resources or goods they need. Thus if building requires 2 wood to construct, the player must have 2 cards in their playing area showing a wood each, or a card with 2 wood symbols, the symbols on wonder boards contribute to this.
  This also where your neighbours matter. A player can also use the resources and goods of one or both of their neighbours, they have to pay for it though; 2 coins for each used. This is unaffected by how a neighbour is using their own resources and goods, also the neighbour cannot refuse to sell resources - after all, money is money!
• Build their wonder: Wonders are built in stages, typically 3 stages. All wonders are built in a linear fashion from left to right.
  Cost: Each stage of a wonder will have a cost similar to constructing a building.
  Place card: Finally, when a stage has been paid for, it is built. The player takes they card they chose earlier and places it face-down underneath the space on the wonder board they just built, never revealing what card was used. Thus, building part of a wonder replaces the normal build card action.
• Gain money: A player may discard the card they chose for 3 currency, this card is always discarded face-down and is permanently out of the game. I guess players do this if they're really desperate for funds.

Overall
​I'm going to nit-pick a couple of things about 7 Wonders.
Set up feels a little long for a game that's quite short, having to sift through all 3 decks at the game start feels irritating, probably because there's 3 decks to construct instead of 1 and if the player count changes between games, then all 3 decks will need to be rebalanced.
The game is quite involved and perhaps a little too complicated for its expected playtime. I found myself frequently forgetting the rule about chaining buildings
Scoring is convoluted, specifically scoring the scientific cards where each symbol will scored twice. I wouldn't be surprised that more time was spent making sure this was correct than the rest of the scoring.

Like other drafting games of this style, early in the game players will struggle to decide what's going to be important to them or not, but by looking at their wonder board, players will see what they need to build their wonder and what benefits it gives them as some guidance.
One interesting feature about 7 Wonders is how players can pay to utilise their neighbours resources and goods and of course, players will want to keep and eye on their neighbours' military forces. It's a nice little spin that adds to the game.
​Since there are 7 ways to score points, players will have a lot of options on which strategy to pursue.
For example, civic buildings give a lot of victory points, but nothing else.
Military strength can score a lot of points (and cost your neighbours a few), but only if you dominate, getting caught in a war of escalation can be distracting and costly.

Quibbles aside, 7 Wonders is a straightforward game to learn that has a quick turnaround and is a fun game to play, players will want to strategize, but the luck of the draw means they will need to adapt to circumstances.
The game always provides players with meaningful choices, which is what you want.

22nd March 2021

Monday night gaming on Board Game Arena continues with the final game of the evening; Sushi Go!

Like sushi? Like conveyor belts? Then you'll like this.... probably!

Caveat: This was played online, but has also been played with the physical game, photos are from my copy.

What's in a game?
Sushi Go! comprises of a single deck of 108 cards with 8 different types of cards. 

• Chopsticks: Chopstick cards allow a player to sacrifice their action in their current turn to have 2 actions in a later turn. Chopsticks are worth 0 points.
• Dumplings: This is a set of cards, the more dumpling cards a player collects, the more points they score at the end of the round
• Maki rolls: Whoever has the most make rolls at the end of the round scores, 2nd place scores half as many points. Maki roll cards each contain 1-3 maki rolls.
• Nigiri: There are egg, salmon and squid nigiri cards, they score 1, 2 or 3 points respectively.
• Puddings: These cards are only ever scored once, they don't score at the end of any of the rounds, instead they are retained between rounds and are scored at the end of the game (Being puddings obviously!). The player with the most puddings scores points, the player with the least or no puddings loses points! Everyone else in between gets 0.
• Sashimi: This is another set, collect 3 sashimi cards to score points, otherwise 0 points are scored.
• Tempura: Another set, collect 2 tempura  to score points.
• Wasabi: On its own, a wasabi card is worthless when played. However, if during a later turn a player puts down a nigiri card, it must go on the wasabi card and the nigiri card's value is then tripled.

There's not much that can be said about the components, it's a deck of standard quality cards.
The art is clear, distinct and colourful with appropriately themed cheerful faces on all the foods.
My copy came in a little steel tin.
The only component that the game is lacking are scoring counters, as it stands, scores at the end of each round need to be recorded somehow on scrap paper or a phone or something. On the other hand, adding scoring tokens would increase the game's size, making it less of a neat compact little package, so your mileage may vary.

How's it play?
Set up
Shuffle and deal a hand of cards face-down to each player, the hand size depends on the number of players, the remaining cards form a draw deck for later rounds, then the game is ready to begin.

On to play

• Each player looks at their hand and plays one card face-down in front of them. Then they pass the remaining cards, still face-down, to their left (Or possibly right, if using optional rules.).
• Then, simultaneously, all players reveal their chosen card.
• All players pick up the cards passed to them, a new turn starts and the two steps above are repeated.
• Play continues until all cards have been played. Then, except for the pudding cards, all cards are scored. The scored cards are all discarded and not shuffled into the draw deck.
• A new round begins, new hands are dealt to the players and the steps above are repeated.
• Play continues for a total of 3 rounds.

Endgame
Once the 3rd round is over and scored, the puddings are scored.
Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
As you can see from the short length of this blog post, Sushi Go!'s rules are simple, accessible and easy to learn. The game's depth comes not from rules complexity but from decisions available to each player, which is great game design in my opinion.
The game also fits the theme of having food going round on a conveyor belt remarkably well.

Sushi Go! constantly forces players to make decisions and some of these decisions will be gambles, based on the hope that another right card will come around further along the game.
Players will also get the right card at the right time on random occasion, but this isn't perceived as a no-brainer, they're seen as spots of good luck to be exploited.
​
Canny players will try to memorise hands that get passed along, they might also spend time looking at what cards others have put down, trying to predict their decisions. If 2 players look like they're trying to collect the same set of cards, then they're going to be a premium and those players aren't going to pass those cards on.
Then there's puddings, the wrinkle in the rules that produces the pudding war of escalation that forces players to think about what cards might be played in the future rounds and play cards just to avoid losing points!

It makes Sushi Go! a blend of calculation and unpredictability. There is no winning strategy, players must adapt to not only the cards dealt to all players but other player's strategies

Sushi Go! comes in compact package, is easy to learn, quick to set up and play and enjoyable experience. A great filler game.

27th October 2020

Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues in what would the last game of the last meetup before Lockdown 2 came into effect.

The third and final game of the evening was 'Skulls of Sedlec', in what seems to be a game about digging up skulls and then errr... proudly displaying them in a pile for all to see?

Skulls of Sedlec is a microgame that comes from microgame publisher Button Shy who appear to specialise in creating games with 18 cards.
Their games are hand crafted and they aim to release 1 a month.

What's in a game?
As is befitting the name microgame, Skulls of Sedlec is small enough to fit in your pocket. 

• ​Cards: Skulls of Sedlec consists of 18 cards and that's it! Each card displays 2 'layers' of skulls (one in the top half and the other in the bottom.) and each skull is from 1 of 5 'classes'.
• Plastic wallet: The game fits into this tiny wallet, it's not strictly a game component, but it's cool enough to be worth mentioning.

The cards has nice and colourful skulls! There's not more I can really add, that's it - 18 cards.
The wallet is of course a bit of a gimmick, but it's a nice addition and I like it.

How's it play?
Set up

• Shuffle the cards and place them into 6 face-down stacks of 3 cards each, arranged in a 3x2 grid.
• There are no more steps, I just added this to justify putting the set up into bullet-point format!

The objective of ​Skulls of Sedlec is to create a pyramid shaped layout of cards. Points are scored depending on how cards are placed in relation to other cards.
The size of the pyramid depends on the number of players but always has 3 layers of cards and thus 6 layers of skulls. Layers of cards are 'offset' (Like bricks in a wall.), this is important when calculating which cards are 'adjacent' to other cards.


On to playing
When 'building' a pyramid, players must start at the bottom and work up, thus there must be at least 2 cards in a layer before a card can be placed on the layer above.

In their turn, a player can perform 1 of 3 actions.

• Dig: The active player can turn over 2 face-down cards, then they take 1 of the 2 into their hand.
• Take card: The active player can take 1 face-up card (If face-up cards are available.) into their hand.
• Play: The active player can play a card from their card into their pyramid. There's a maximum hand size of 2, so if a player has two cards in their hand at the start of their turn, they must play a card.

​​Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been taken and played into pyramids.
Then pyramids are scored, there are 5 class of skull and thus 5 ways to score points.

• Peasant: Each 'peasant' skull in the pyramid scores a point.
• ​Royalty: A 'royal' skull scores a point for each other royal and peasant skull in a layer below it. I guess they like to lord it over other cards.
• Priest: Each layer that has a priest skull score 2 points, additional priest cards in the same layer score 0. Remember there's 6 layers in a pyramid.
• Rogue: A 'rogue' skull scores 2 point for each priest card it is adjacent to. Typically, the church always has all the wealth.
• Lover: When a 'lover' is adjacent to another 'lover' card, they score 3 points each (Collectively scoring 6.), 'lover's' can only be scored once. If a 'lover' is adjacent to 2 other 'lover' cards No extra points are scored. Infidelity's worth nothing in this game!

Points are tallied.
Highest score wins.

Overall

Simple to learn, but lots to think about. Skulls of Sedlec packs a some solid gameplay into a tiny package.

I really like that the face-down stacks of cards visually represent a graveyard and 'digging' turns them over. It's a clever touch and good example of maximising what's available in a game. Less can be more.

The 2 card hand limit is a great mechanic too: It gives players enough choice  to give them tricky decisions, but it stops players from hording cards - making their decisions easier.
Every card can potentially score points, so every decision when playing a card is meaningful and you really can't ask for more from a game in my opinion.

Skulls of Sedlec is a 2 or 3 player game. It's worth noting that that there's an expansion that takes the player count to 4, adds a new class and increases the deck size up to a heady 24 cards! 

A good little microgame that is a perfect filler with some depth. One I'd like to own and that's not just because it comes in a neat wallet (Although it does add to the appeal.).
​
​I'm just glad that the publisher hasn't started numbering their wallet games, that would be too hard on my real wallet!

13th October 2020

Tuesday is here and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

Time for the Woking Gaming Club to play a game and tonight we will be playing 'The Networks'.

This is a game for the budding media mogul inside everybody; create TV shows, hire film stars, fire chat show hosts, stick advert breaks everywhere, well at least during primetime! Fun for everyone.

When we played The Networks, a couple of expansions were also used.

What's in a game?
The Networks is a card game that has some nice additional components.

• Starting cards: Each player is given 3 TV show cards, 1 Star card and 1 Advert card.
• TV show cards: Each show has a production cost/requirements, a possible upkeep cost and a genre. All shows run for 4 seasons and the card will show how many viewers it accumulate have per season.
• Star cards: Stars are everybody from Shakespearean actors to cookery show chefs. Star cards have a hiring cost/requirements and possible upkeep. Stars are hired for up to 4 seasons and can be put on to a show. They add a varying amount to a show's audience for each of those 4 seasons. Some stars will add less audience if they are not put onto a show of specific genre. A talk show host won't add much to a soap opera's audience figures for example.
• Advert cards: Unlike the previous 2 types of card, a player will earn money if they take an advert! Furthermore, if an advert is attached to a show, it will generate money for every season the show runs. Certain adverts will make more money if attached to certain genres.
• Network cards: These cards grant the player a bonus or advantage of some kind, it may immediate, at a certain time or at the game end.
• Player boards: Each player has their own player board. Each player board has 3 spaces on either side. The 3 spaces on the right are used for the 3 timeslots you control (8pm, 9 pm & 10pm.). The 3 left spaces are The Green Room, Reruns and Archive.
• Genre card: Part of an expansion I believe, each card shows the game's 9 genres and also has a bonus track.
• Scoring board: Tracks player's accumulated audience figures and turn order which can change from season to season.
• Tokens: The Networks also includes tokens, including cubes of the soulless little wooden cube variety!
• Currency: Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning a games currency, but The Networks uses little plastic tokens for money, each one looks like a pile of money.

All the cards are very nicely illustrated with cartoony artwork and flavour text that cheerfully spoofs various different TV programs. Our game was played with an expansion that added classic British TV programs, I'm sure you'll recognise 'The IV Crowd', 'Drake's 8', & 'Creepy Puppets Save The World Again'.
All the other components are standard, except the money tokens which are cool.

How's it play?
Setup

• Each player takes a player board and starting cards.
• The 3 TV show cards are put into all 3 slots on the player card. The Star card and advert card are both put into the Green Room.
• Starting player is determined, this also determines starting money for each player.
• All the cards are put into their relative decks and shuffled.

And the game's ready to go.

The Networks is played over 5 'seasons'.
At the start of each season, TV show, star and advert cards a dealt in 3 rows.
Network cards are only dealt out from the 2nd season onwards.
After this, in turn order, players take 1 action each. This continues until there are no more actions that can be performed or all players have chosen to finish for the season, this is called 'drop & budget'.
The actions are:

• Produce a TV show: If a player wants a TV show, they have to pay for it. A TV show must be immediately placed into a time slot, any show that is currently in the chosen slot must be removed and then put into Reruns. Furthermore TV shows may require a star and/or an advert. If a player does not have the required star/advert in their Green Room, they cannot produce it. Some shows allow players to optionally add stars and/or adverts. In either case, any stars or adverts in The Green Room when the show is produced can be added to the show as part of the same action. Each show also has a limit to the number of Stars and Adverts that can be added to it. Finally; the player must put a marker on to the 1st season row on the TV show card.
• Hire a Star: A player must pay to hire a star, the star is then added to the player's Green Room, not added to a TV show.
• Get an Advert: As their action, the active player can take an Advert, unlike acquiring a TV show or star, the active player is paid to take an advert. Like a star card, an Advert cards goes into The Green Room.
• Acquire a Network card: A player can take any available Network card. It's effect may occur immediately or later in the game, or at the endgame. Network cards become available from the 2nd season onwards.
• Move a Star or an Advert: As their action, the active player can move a single star or advert from their Green Room to a TV show. They maybe some other requirements that must be met, otherwise the card might be flipped upside down to it's less effective side.
• Drop & Budget: The active player, as their action can choose to end their turn (Effectively ending their season.). They then choose to either receive either money or an increase in audience figures. The earlier a player does this  - in relation to the other players, the more money/audience they acquire. This also determines the turn order in the next season.

Once all players have ended their seasons, the next steps occur:

• Balance budget: Certain shows and stars require an upkeep and adverts generate profit. Once these are balanced, you may earn extra money or have to pay some money. If you don't have the money to pay your costs, then you lose audience figures instead.
• Calculate audience figures: Each show will generate audience figures for it's current season, plus any bonus conferred by an attached star. Shows in the Rerun slot also generate audience figures for one more season.
• Age shows: All shows in the Rerun slot are moved to the Archive slot. Then all remaining shows are aged. This is done by moving the marker on the current season row down to the next lowest row. If a show was in its last season, then it is put into Reruns.
• Set up new seasons: Any cards which were not taken from the current season are removed and discarded and an entirely new set of shows, starts, adverts and network cards a dealt out. Thus cards are only ever available for a single season before disappearing. Then the new season begins with the new turn order.

There are additional rules about acquiring shows of certain genres, but that's more or less it for the main rules.
​
Endgame
The game continues for 5 seasons, at the end of the 5th season the shows are still aged. Then a 6th season is scored (No new cards or other actions occur).
​Accumulated audience figures are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
The Networks has some cool design choices that give players interesting decisions to make.

A player can keep going and acquire more stars and adverts for as long as they've got money, which can give them an advantage later on because having these cards in their Green Room means that it's easier and quicker to develop shows. But ending your season early gives you more money/audience, more importantly though, it allows the player to be earlier in the turn order for the following season. So when the new cards appear, that player will get first dibs.

Because the game is very much about card drafting, players really have to think about how they prioritize their actions, as all players will be vying for the same cards.

Players have to try and use their actions as efficiently as possible, there's a fine balance between doing all the actions you want to do and ending your turn quickly.

All in all, The Networks gives players important decisions to make throughout the game and that's a good thing.

28th January 2020

Tuesday is here and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking to play board games.

Popular opinion states that most restaurant fail in the first year, so running one is hard work (And believe me I know!). What could be harder? Running a whole chain of restaurants! 

That's where 'Food Chain Magnate' comes in. Now you too can know what it's like to run restaurants without all the 'fun' of inconsistent staff, irritating customers, infuriating regulations and interfering local authorities. 

What's in a game?
There's quite a lot to Food Chain Magnate and quite a lot of components too.

• Tiles: Each tile depicts some buildings (Represented by white areas with grid lines.) and roads (Shown in blue.). A number of tiles are placed together to form the main playing area, essentially representing a neighbourhood.
• Meeples: There are 2 types of food (Burgers and pizzas.) and 3 types of drink (Soft drinks, lemonade and beers.), these are represented by very nice wooden meeples.
• Staff cards: All the staff your chains of restaurants could ever need are depicted on these cards. Delivery boys, chefs, managers, HR and err zeppelin pilots? When staff cards are played, they must be placed in a hierarchy. This hierarchy can have up to 3 rows, but in order to have more rows, a player will need more managers to manage the staff in the lower rows.
• Display stand: Amazingly, the game's lid is flipped over and becomes a display stnd for all the staff cards. This is not just a nice touch, it actually saves a lot of room as displaying all the staff cards flat on the playing area would take up so much space.

How's it play?
First; setup.

• The tiles are randomly placed to form the playing area. This will determine the placement of buildings and roads. The number of tiles used depends on the number of players.
• The staff cards are put in their display
• Players are given 3 restaurants and the starting order is determined.
• Each player is given a 'CEO' staff card.

That's pretty much it for setup, let's get to playing.
A round of Food Chain Magnate is played over 7 rounds.

• Staff hierarchy; during this phase, players put down their staff cards (Face down, they are all revealed at the same time.). At the start, players only have a CEO. The CEO can manage 3 other staff (In the row below) and has the ability to hire another member of staff (This new staff card is not immediately put into play.). The CEO can hire staff like chefs etc, but in the long term the player will also need to hire managers, managers will manage other staff (A bit like a CEO.), so if a CEO gets a couple of managers, they can manage 6 staff. Players will also need to hire trainers, when staff are hired, they are at a 'junior' level, training staff make them more effective; managers can manage more people, cooks can cook more, etc. There are a lot of staff that do a lot of different things. Any staff cards that a player has that are not in their hierarchy spend the day at the beach!
• Determine new player order; the order in which players act is recalculated every turn. Basically, the player who has the most 'empty' spaces in their hierarchy gets t choose where in turn order they go (They could choose to go first or last or anywhere in between.). Then the player who has the 2nd highest number of empty spaces goes next etc.
• Actions; in turn order, each player carries out the actions for the staff they have in their hierarchy. Actions include hiring and training. They also include marketing (Marketing creates a demand for food & drink.), getting food & drink, placing new houses (Creating houses creates customers) and gardens (Gardens are attached to houses and increase demand.) and finally placing new restaurants and moving existing ones.
• Supply the demand; players can carry out actions to create a demand for food & drink. Provided a player has generated food & drink, they can try and then supply that demand. How does this work? Well, 'people' from houses will go to the cheapest restaurant selling the food & drink that they want (Players can hire staff to push the price of their food & drink down.), however the further that 'people' have to travel, the more it costs. Every time customers visit a player's restaurant, that player earns money. 
• Wages: Players now have to pay the wages of their staff.
• Marketing campaign: Even though a player may have created a marketing campaign in the 'Actions' phase, the effect of the campaign doesn't kick in until now, so players need to think ahead. There are various different types of campaign that a player can undertake, that have different ranges and areas of effect and can have differing duration. This includes using billboards, mail shots, radio and even planes for advertising.
• Clean up; excess food & drink is discarded and various other end of round actions are completed here. The game includes 'milestones', these are varied objectives to meet, the player who completes a milestone first, gets an in game benefit for it in this phase. If multiple players achieve a milestone in the same phase, then they all get the benefit.

Endgame
​Play continues until all the allotted money from the 'bank' supply is depleted, in which case any remaining money is paid out from the reserve supply.

The player who has accumulated the most money, wins.

Overall
Food Chain Magnate markets itself as a 'heavy' game and it's not kidding.

The aim of the game is to build housing and create marketing campaigns, this generates a demand for whatever particular food & drink the player decides advertise.
Then the player produces the relevant food & drink to fill that demand, this equals profit.

Except it's not so simple.

There is a lot to think here and all of it is important.

How a player structures their company is crucial.  All of the other actions options will become avaialable based on the staff cards that you recruit and play.
A lot to think about.

You need food? Pizza chefs will produce pizza and burger chefs will produce burgers.
You want drinks? You need an errand boy to go and collect them.
Want to be more competitively priced? Get a pricing manager.
Need an advertising campaign. You'll have to get marketing staff.
Want to place more housing? A business developer is what you need.
Your staff need training to be more effective? Trainers are what you need.
You got too many staff? Get more managers!
Need to recruit people even quicker? Recruiters are what's needed.

And so on.

Marketing needs to be targeted. There are different types of marketing that target a player's audience at different 'ranges' and they tend to be of varying length. Players will need to optimise creating their demand.
Advertising can have a real sting in the tail. Because other players can benefit from it too. If one player creates a demand for burgers and another player then opens a burger joint closer to the housing that's been targeted, then the customers will go there instead (Customers have absolutely no loyalty!). Or if another player slashes the price of their burgers, then other restaurants will be ignored.
Sly players will definitely try and exploit other player's marketing.

This brings me to 'pricing'. This is a great game mechanic. Instinctively, players will want to increase prices to generate more revenue. But a player really needs to undercut their opponents, because less profit is better than no profit. Pricing is a real race to the bottom and forces players to make horrible choices - always a good thing!

Players will also need to think about food & drink production, as more and more demand appears, players will need to get better and better at production to meet that demand. Also, as demands get more complex, fulfilling those demands gets equally as complex (A house's demands cannot be only partially fulfilled and must be fully met.).

And don't forget milestones, the benefits they can confer can be very important.

When we played this game, the owner explained to us that he thinks at the start there's a couple of different routes to follow for 'opening moves' that there are 'no brainer' moves (These are to do with milestones.). It seems some of the milestones can be completed in the first couple of turns and only the first player(s) that complete them get the benefit, not following the 'no brainer' moves means a player can lose out on those benefits.

This implies that early moves (Or mistakes really!) can affect the entire game.
I'm not sure how I feel about this? I don't like 'no brainers', because what they do is remove choice from a game. On the other hand, maybe it was overstated. I guess the game would need to be played multiple times to see if this is the case

All of this contributes to make Food Chain Magnate a deep game that requires a lot of forethought and strategy. There is no luck or chance in this game. If you like genuinely heavy games, this may interest you.

For me though, I found it to be a little bit difficult to play the game on all the levels it required and mostly ignored the marketing side. It felt a strangely unengaging game, perhaps it was the theme?

7th January 2020

It's the first Tuesday of the year and we're NOT at 'The Sovereigns' (Which is closed for refitting.), instead we're at 'The Wheatsheaf' in Woking for board gaming.

Tonight, we're playing Taverns of Tief....err?
Taverns of Tiefe... err?
It's a game where you run a pub!

So this game tries it's best squeeze in as many game mechanics as it can.
Deck building - yep. Card drafting - yep. Dice drafting - yep. Dice placement - yep. Resource management - yep. Hidden Role - y... wait no, that's about the only thing missing!

What's in a game?
So Taverns of Tiefenthal comes with some optional extras or expansions, apparently we used all of them in the game we played. So there's a lot of components.

• Monastery board: This is a small central board that serves a couple of purposes. It displays what bonus the players receive in each round. There is also a track that players can move their marker round to get bonuses.
• Player tavern board: Each player has their own tavern, therefore each player has their own tavern board. The tavern board looks like a giant misshapen jigsaw puzzle piece. Each tavern board has extra 'bits' that are attached to it, during play they can be upgraded and are flipped to the other side when this is done.
• Tavern attachments: These tiles are the 'bits' that are added to each tavern: Tables, beer storage, beer supplier, barrel, host/reputation, safe, dishwasher, waitress, cash box and monk. 10 in all and all double sided. These will be explained below.
• Entertainer tiles: Periodically throughout the game, entertainers will arrive in your tavern. If you can give them 'schnapps', they will give you a bonus or ability of some kind. These tiles are double sided, each side confers a different bonus.
• Schnapps tokens: Used to ply entertainers.
• Guestbook board: This tile is a way to earn bonuses when it is filled with signatures.
• Signature tiles: Used to fill your guestbook.
• Deck of guest cards: Guest cards are bought with beer! During the game they will be the 'regular' visitors to that player's tavern. When they appear, they can earn the player money.
• Deck of staff cards: These are bought with money. Staff gives the player extra or bonus actions.
• Dice: Normal 6 sided dice. Lots of white dice and 4 sets of dice in player colours, 1 set for each player.
• Beer mats: These little coasters essentially unnecessary, but are used to hold dice.
• Beer mug marker: This is the first player marker.

They are the most important components of the game.
Many of the game's components are made of nice and thick card stock, including the beer mats. The artwork is quite nice and colour and there's some nice detail on the tavern board and tiles.

How's it play?​
We begin with setup.

• Each player takes a tavern board and the 10 other bits that go with it and attaches them to the board with standard side up.
• Each player is given a starting deck of 10 cards, consisting of 7 guests and 3 staff cards, they are shuffled and placed down as a player draw deck.
• Each player takes the 4 dice in their colour, a beer mat then also takes and places 4 white dice on the mat.
• Take all the guest cards that cost 3 'beer' and place them in a face up stack. The remaining guest cards are shuffled and placed down as the guest deck. Deal 4 cards from this deck and place them face up in a line next to the 3 cost cards. Finally place the stack of 'noble' guests face up at the end of the line.
• All staff cards should be sorted into their different types and placed face up in individual stacks in ascending order of cost.

That covers most of the setup.
Now to explain what does what.
Let's start with the tavern board. Many of the abilities on the board are activated by placing dice of a specific value on them.

• Tables; when guests are dealt from a player's deck, they are placed on the tables spaces. Players start with 3 table spaces. This can be upgraded to 4.
• Beer storage; during their turn a player will most likely generate beer. Any beer that is not spent can be stored on this tile. The beer storage holds 2 beer, this can be upgraded to 5.
• Beer supplier; Any dice which are showing a 1 or a 6 can be placed on this tile to generate beer, each die placed here will generate a beer. When upgraded, each die will generate 2 beer.
• Barrel; a die showing any number can be placed here to generate 1 beer. Unlike the beer supplier, only 1 dice can be placed here. When upgraded, it will produce 2 beer.
• Host/reputation; we used the 'reputation' side of this tile. It has a reputation track, when its marker moves round the track it will earn the player various benefits. When the marker reaches the end of the track, it earns a noble guest card and starts round the track again.
• Safe; any unspent money goes here. It stores 2 currency and can be upgraded to store 5.
• Dishwasher; the dishwasher tile does nothing until it is upgraded. When upgraded, it provides the player with a permanent dishwasher (See below for an explanation of what a dishwasher does.).
• Waitress; this tiles too does nothing until upgraded, upon which it provides the player with a permanent waitress.
• Cash box; a single die showing any number can be placed here to earn the player 1 currency, the upgraded version earns 3.
• Monk; any dice showing a 5 here will advance the players marker 1 space along the monastery track. The upgraded version moves the marker along 2 spaces per 5 placed here.

​Talking of the monastery board. It has several functions.

• Turn order; the game is played over 8 rounds and something a little different happens every round, which is all tracked on this board.
• Monastery track: as the player's marker moves round here, they will earn various bonuses.
• Recruit nobles; this table on the monastery board shows the cost (In beer) to recruit nobles.

Now lets go on to what the cards do. Starting with staff cards.

• Beer merchant; when this card is played, it gives the player an extra beer.
• Dishwasher; each dishwasher card played gives the player the ability to increase the result on a single die by 1. Multiple dishwashers allow multiple dice to be increased or 1 die to be increased multiple times. Dice cannot be lowered this way.
• Waitress; each waitress card that is played allows the player to roll an extra die (From their coloured dice.).
• Table; each table card played, grants the player an extra spot to put a guest card.
• Beer supplier; these are different to merchant. They are placed next to the beer supplier tile. Each die used with the beer supplier tile provides 1 extra beer per beer supplier card played.

Now on to guest cards.
Guest cards are acquired by spending beer.

• Guests; guests are recruited by spending beer! When they are placed on your tables, they become extra spots on to which a die may be placed to earn currency. Generally the die which can be placed on a guest is the same as the currency earned. Thus if a guest requires a die showing a 3, it will earn 3 currency. Guests also earn victory points at the end of the game. Some guests also provide a once-only bonus when recruited.

• Noble guests; noble guests always require a 2 to activate and always provide 2 currency. In terms of generating currency, they are amongst the worst guests (I guess it costs so much to please them, players make little profit!), but if more than one noble appears at the same time, then they all go on the same single table and don't take up too much room (They don't like to mingle with the 'rabble' it seems?). The advantage of nobles is that they're worth 10 victory points at the end of the game, which is a lot more than other guests.

​
So at last, finally, we get to how the game plays.
Each round is player over several phases.

• Round set; at the start of each of the 8 rounds, every player will be given a choice of gaining 1 of 2 special actions.
• Deal cards; each player deals cards from their own deck. Staff cards go in specific spots around the tavern board. Guest cards go on to the table spaces. Thus if a player has more table spaces, not only can they accommodate more guests, they have a better chance of drawing more staff cards as well. When all the available tables are filled, the player stops dealing cards.
• Bonus dice: If a player drew and placed any waitress cards in the previous phase (Or they have upgraded their tavern to have a permanent waitress.), they gain a number of bonus dice (In their colour.) equal to the waitresses (Maximum of 3.). These dice are immediately rolled and placed to one side.
• Roll dice; all players roll their 4 white dice and place them on their beer mat. Then in turn order, starting with the current first player, each player removes 1 die and places to to one side. Once all players have removed a die, each player passes the beer mat with the player to their left. Again, starting with the first player, each player removes another die passes the beer mat with the remaining dice to the left. Players continue taking dice and passing beer mats until all dice are gone.
• Place dice; now that players have all their dice, in this phase they choose where to place them. As explained above, dice can be placed on various parts of a tavern board or guest cards in order to activate those actions - provided the number match of course.
• Resolve actions; in turn order, each player resolves their actions, usually this involves generating beer and currency and using them to buy guest and staff cards. Unlike most deck builder games, when new cards are bought they go on top of the player's deck, so they will be played in the next round. Players can also upgrade their tavern, which costs currency. Every time a tile is upgraded, the player gains a noble - which like with other cards, goes on top off their current deck.
• At the end of a turn, all cards that were played (Both guest and staff cards.) are placed into the discard pile and play continues to the next round with a new first player.

That's more or less it for how the game plays.

Endgame
Play continues for 8 rounds. 

Victory points are scored from the cards that players bought
​ Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Taverns of Tiefenthal requires a lot of explanation (As you can see above), but in play is actually quite straightforward.
It's more of a game about optimizing strategies than complex rules.

The game gives you a lot of choices and options. Occasionally these will be meaningless decisions because of how the dice fall, but most of the time you'll have to choose between different actions.
A player will nearly always have more options available than actions to perform them.
​This is makes a good game in my opinion.

There's nothing particularly unique about the game, other than how it blends certain game mechanics together to emulate it's subject quite well. The game's presentation is also very good with well made components and colourful and well produced art.

The game's only drawback is its setup time, there's quite a lot to do. But I think the payoff is worth it as I enjoyed it.

22nd December 2019

Sunday is here at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus so for the final get together before Christmas we're playing board games.

The first game was 'Agatha Christie's Death On The Cards'.
Will the other players learn your darkest secrets? Will you catch the murderer? Or will you manage to get away with murder! Only the cards can decide in... Death On The Cards!

What's in a game?
Death On The Cards uses 3 different types of cards. Secret cards, game cards and the 'Murderer Escapes!' card , game cards are further divided into other cards:

• Secret cards: These contain the kinds of secret most people to keep errr secret? Things like being alcoholic and so on. One of these cards will be 'The Murderer' and another will be 'The Accomplice'.
• Detective cards: These represent different Agatha Christie detectives such as Poirot or Miss Marple. Detective cards are played in sets to reveal secret cards.
• Event cards: These cards allow players to perform actions such going through the discard pile and taking a card or stealing a secret card from another player.
• Devious cards: Devious cards for devious people! Devious cards are not played like other cards. Certain cards make players swap or pass cards from their hands to other players. When a player passes a devious card to another player, that's when a devious card is triggered and the recipient is the target of the cards effect (Hint; it's never a good effect!).
• 'Not So Fast' cards: These cards can be played at any time, they cancel the action of another player.
• 'Murder Escapes!' card: There's only one of these, when it appears... well you get the idea.

All of the cards a illustrated with nice little cartoons and all the text is written in an appropriate font. Giving the cards an authentic feel.

How's it play?
First there's setup, which is a little different depending on the number of players.

• 3 secret cards are randomly dealt to each player. Amongst these cards must be The Murderer card and depending on the number of players, The Accomplice card (Both card must not be dealt to the same player.). Players look at their cards but keep their secret card face-down in front of them. Any remaining secrets are put away and not used in the game.
• Deal 1 'Not So Fast' card to each player, shuffle the remaining 'Not so Fast' cards into the game cards.
• Shuffle the game cards and deal 5 to each player. These 5 cards plus the 'Not So Fast' card form each player's hand.
• The remaining game cards form the draw deck. The Murderer Escapes! is placed at the bottom of this deck.
• 3 cards are drawn from the deck and placed face-up in a row next to the draw deck. Whenever a card is drawn from the deck, it can be taken from these 3 cards. When a card is taken in this way, it is immediately replaced with a card from the deck.
• If the game has an accomplice, then all players closes their eyes and the murderer and accomplice reveal themselves to each other.

Now we're ready to play.

• The player who has 'The Murderer' secret card is attempting to get away with murder, they either want to deplete the draw deck, or paralysis the other players with 'social disgrace'.
• If the accomplice is in play, then their objective is to help the murderer. Just as any self-respecting accomplice should.
• All the other players are trying to reveal which secret card is 'The Murderer'. 

The active player can perform 1 of the following actions:

• Play an event card from their hand and do whatever it says on the card.
• Play a set of identical detective cards. Detective cards come in sets of 2 or 3. Different sets can do different things, but generally playing a set will force a player to turn one of their secret cards face-up.

After the active player has completed their action, they can choose to discard any number of cards from their hand, then they draw card to take their hand back up to 6.
Social disgrace
What's social disgrace? When a player has all of their secret cards turned face-up, all of their secrets have been revealed and they're disgraced.
What does this mean? It means that when they become the active player, all they can do is discard exactly 1 card and draw 1 card.
It is possible to come back from social disgrace as there some cards that allow secret cards to be turned back face-down.

Endgame
​How the game ends will depend on the player's role in the game.

• If the murderer secret card is revealed, then that player loses along with the accomplice. All other players win.
• There are 2 ways for the murderer to win.
• If all the other players (Not including an accomplice.) are socially disgraced, then the murder wins.
• If the last card of the draw deck (The 'Murderer Escapes!' card.) is revealed, the murder wins.
• In all circumstances that the murderer wins, the accomplice also wins. Regardless of whether the accomplice is socially disgraced or not.

Overall
'Death On The Cards' plays with 2-6 people and what's interesting is how the game changes depending on the number of players.

With 2 players, there's no secret to who's the murderer. The game is a war of attrition.

Now, for some maths (Hopefully my maths is correct.).

Let's look at it with 3 players.

• There are a total of 9 secret cards in plays and total of 18 cards are dealt to players. This means there are 43 cards in the draw deck (The draw deck has 61 card, not including 'The Murderer Escapes!').
• This means in the worse case scenario, there will be a maximum 43 actions to reveal all 9 secret cards, or a secret card will need to be revealed every 4.8 action.
• Additionally each player will have 14.3 turns before the game ends.

Now lets look at a 6 player game.

• There will be 18 secret cards and 25 cards in the draw deck.
• Therefore there will be a maximum of 25 actions before the game ends. So in the worst case scenario, 18 secret cards will need to be revealed in 25 actions, or 1 secret every 1.4 actions! A lot lower than with 3 players!
• Finally each player will only have 4.2 turns before the game end. 

This means it becomes easier for the murderer to get away with it in bigger game. Now I don't see this as a flaw, but it is definitely something that changes the dynamics of the game.

With 3 players for example, 'Death On The Cards' can be played as a straightforward card game.

With 6 players, it's much harder to capture the murderer. Players will need to form alliances and target suspicious players as quickly as possible. But then, this gives the murderer and accomplice opportunities to bluff, lie, double cross and sabotage their 'allies'. It becomes a lot more like a hidden role game.

Anyway, regardless of the mathematics, the game mechanics fit the theme very well. 'Death On The Cards' can learned quickly and plays quickly too . It's a great filler game and even though I'm not a fan of hidden role games, it's a lot of fun. 
It's definitely worth giving it a try.