30th December 2021 Thursday afternoon gaming on Board Game Arena continued with Dice Hospital. Doctor, doctor, please Oh, the mess I'm in Doctor, doctor, please Oh, the mess I'm in Mismanaging your hospital in Dice Hospital will definitely lead to a big mess! What's in a game?
The component quality in Dice Hospital is all round good. The tiles are study and cards are of the expected quality. The game's 60 or so dice are plastic but with well rounded corners and satisfying to roll. Finally, all the meeples are stylised after medical staff, it's a nice touch and appreciated, they're made of wood too! Good stuff. All of the art for the different departments on the hex tiles is quite small but also well detailed and depicts a variety of different medical equipment and hospital furniture, I quite like it. The specialist cards have headshots of doctors, it's sort of average artwork but on the hand, they look like medical staff, what more could you want? Besides, how much more exciting could you make the portrait of a urologist look! We found the game's iconography initially a little confusing but after a couple of references to the rulebook, it was always sorted out. None if it's a dealbreaker. How's it play? Setup
On to play Dice Hospital is played over 6 phases, some of these phases are completed in turn order and some can be completed simultaneously.
Endgame Play continues until 8 rounds have been completed. Upon reaching the end, players calculate their final scores, this includes: VPs for discharging patients over the 8 rounds. +1 per unspent blood bag. -2 per fatality token acquired. Scores are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
As well as randomly determining which improvements appear, I like how the game makes use of dice as both a randomiser and a resource to be managed. Using dice value to gauge health levels and colours to represent different types of malady is innovative and great. There's a lot of good gameplay in Dice Hospital and a lot to like. Figuring out how to strike balance the hospital's different needs, requirements and aspects is a satisfying challenge. In this regard, the game's 2-tier drafting mechanics work well, drafting patients that are easier to heal means going later when drafting hospital improvements, that's a good balancing mechanic with meaningful decisions. There's also a higher level of play at work here, if you can anticipate which patients/improvements other players are looking to acquire, you can either try and either deny them what they want or make it easier to get what you want. For example, if no one else wants a red doctor, then going last in the improvement drafting phase is not a problem. Knowing what and when to draft is probably the single most important aspect of the game, using those combinations of special abilities to heal multiple patients at a time is vital. It's also contextual, depending on the colour of patients and improvements appear and what a player already has in their hospital. Players may find themselves having to reappraise their strategy from turn to turn. Willingness to trash an improvement for a blood bag can also be a powerful play, used right, blood bags can provide much more than a single VP. Luckily, the game provides fairly good opportunities to combo departments and specialists off each other, especially toward the latter half. However, getting that balance wrong leads to sub-optimal play, having to many departments leaves them unused and too many specialists means they just do nothing. Even though it's an abstract dice game, it genuinely feels a bit like you're running a hospital, having to try and find ways to treat and discharge patients before the next influx of unending patient. This is not a coincidence. Players start the game with 3 patients and acquire 3 more every round, this means by the end of the 3rd round, they'll have filled all their wards (Provided they haven't already discharged any patients.), as a consequence, players will need to discharge 3 patients a round just to avoid sending some to the morgue. Thanks to the scoring though, there's a wrinkle here. Discharging patients in drips and drabs doesn't score many VPs. Players will actually want their patient numbers to build up a bit and discharge as many of them at once as possible to optimise scoring. It's a another balancing act and it all combines to make Dice Hospital a good game. If you like worker placement mechanics, blended with a bit mid-complexity, light randomness, meaningful choices and almost engine building elements; then Dice Hospital is worth a try. One I found an enjoyable experience.
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7th December 2021 The 2nd game of Tuesday night gaming with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns in Woking was Village Pillage. The life of a villager is full of strife and woe, mostly due to those other pesky neighbouring villages who covet your turnips and hide away their own! Village Pillage is about showing those nasty neighbours who's boss! What's in a game?
Village Pillage is a card game with some tokens, the build quality is standard for a modern game and what you'd expect it to be. The game utilises a strong palette of colours to distinguish the different card types. It also makes use of brash and colourful cartoony artwork throughout the game which suitability fits its not-so-serious theme. All of this makes Village Pillage pleasing on the eye. Village Pillage only makes use of 4 symbols for the 4 card types, there's also some wording rules as well. It's not particularly complex but for a light game, it's not immediately understandable. Having said that it's in no way any kind of game breaker. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Village Pillage the objective is to acquire 3 relics before any other player does. However, each player is only directly competing with their 2 neighbours, that is the players directly to their left and right, this means that in a 4 or 5 player game, there will be 1 or 2 players that you might never interact with. A round in Village Pillage is played more or less simultaneously over 3 phases.
Endgame Play continues until a player buys their 3rd relic, in which case, they immediately win the game. Overall
There's no denying it, Village Pillage is essentially a glorified implementation of rock-paper-scissors with card, that's not a criticism of it, far from it in fact. Unlike rock-paper-scissors, which is a context-less exercise in determining a winner, in Village Pillage players will have motivations and objectives for their actions, which can and probably will change from round-to-round. Additionally, the outcome a player will get against a neighbour can be unexpected depending on the context of the resolution, sometimes there is no 'winner'. It's important to pay attention to what your neighbour is doing. If they have a lot of turnips, it may mean that they're looking to buy a market card or relic, which means that they may not try and interfere with you right now and it might be safe to grow some turnips of your own. Or it might be a good time to try and interfere with them. Provided, of course, that you have correctly anticipated their actions. Or if a neighbour has no turnips, they may be looking to steal yours and you'll need to prepare appropriately: It's no coincidence that growing turnips gets you 3 but stealing them gets you 4! It funnels players into interacting and conflicting with each other and that's what is at the core of Village Pillage. It seems deliberately quite hard to get accumulate turnips to purchase relics without trying to exploit your neighbour. All of this means that players always confronted with the possibility of having to make meaningful decisions and this is always a good thing. Whilst there are only 4 types of card, the variation within these categories in the market cards keeps the game fresh with just the right amount of unpredictability. While this sort of lightweight, chance driven conflict with other players can be a lot of fun, this kind of confrontational style won't be to everyone's taste. For a light game, I also found the rules a little fiddlier than I'd like; pretty much each card has it own rules for how it resolves against the 4 card times which can slow the game down. The timing rules are unavoidably also a little fiddly. None of this is any kind of deal-breaker and if you want a fairly straightforward, colourful, raucous filler game, then Village Pillage is worth a look. 21st November 2021 Sunday evening gaming Board Game Arena continued. The next game of the night was Chocolate Factory. Have you ever wanted to own your own chocolate factory? Since pretty much everyone's a fan of chocolate, why not? Unfortunately, there's no eating chocolate in Chocolate Factory, only a resource-management and light programming game instead. Caveat: we've only ever played Chocolate Factory digitally. What's in a game?
Since we've only played Chocolate Factory digitally, I can really comment on the qualty of the components. However, I can say what are there is, is quite nice and colourful, it has an early 20th century vibe to both the art style and subject of the art. The game uses a fair amount of iconography, luckily for the most part, it was pretty straightforward to comprehend. How's it play? Setup
On to play Chocolate Factory is played over 6 rounds - Monday to Saturday and each round has 2 phases, a drafting phase which goes twice in turn order and a factory phase which can be played out simultaneously. Drafting phase
Factory phase Each player will now have a factory part and a employee card. Factory parts are added to the player's board in one of the spaces above or below the conveyor belt spaces, a factory part can be used to replace an already existing factory part. Employee cards serve 2 purposes, firstly they grant the player some sort of bonus and secondly, they allow the controlling player to sell chocolate to the department store they work for. Unlike factory parts, employees only stay in play for 1 round. So how does the factory phase work? The factory phase has 3 shifts and in each shift players first take a bean and place it on the conveyor belt tile that's about to enter into the factory. Then each player must push their conveyor belt tiles along 1 space from the left to right so that the tile they placed a bean on goes into the factory, it's also possible that a tile will be slid out of the exit on the other side. Anything on that tile is placed into the respective player's storeroom. Once this is done, the factory parts can be used, each part costs mostly 1 but sometimes 2 coal to activate. A factory part can only be used on resources adjacent to it. For example the basic roaster factory party will turn a bean into coca, a upgrader factory part will change any resource into the next level of resource (E.g., coca into chocolate fingers.). Converters will turn chocolate into wrapped chocolate or boxed chocolate and so on. There are some limitation here, each factory part can only be activated once per shift. Once the 1st shift is finished, the 2nd begins, another tile is placed at the entrance to the factory with a bean on it and then the conveyor belt is pushed along another space and factory parts can be activated (Or reactivated.). Thus the conveyor belt will move 3 times a day. Selling When all 3 shifts have been run, players must sell chocolate, they can only keep 2 pieces in their storeroom between rounds, any excess is lost and players think ahead to avoid losses! Chocolate can be sold to corner shops and each one has their own demands. Like the factory phase, selling can be completed simultaneously. When selling to corner shops, they have 1-3 tiers of demand that must be met depending on their size and lower tiers must be completed before the higher ones. When a tier is completed it is immediately scored, when all tiers are scored the card is discarded and the player must draw a new corner shop card or any size they want. Selling to department stores is a little different. Firstly a player can only sell to a department store that matches the employee they drafted. Secondly, when fulfilling the demands of a department store, points are not immediately scored, instead a marker in the player's colour is moved along the 9 spaces. Once selling is concluded, a new round is set up, coal is distributed to players and new factory part and employee cards drawn, then the new round commences. Endgame Play continues until the 6th and round is completed, then the 5 department store scores are calculated. Whoever has completed the most corner shop cards earns a bonus Whoever has their marker the furthest along scores for 1st place, if the next player is at least half as far along as 1st place they score for 2nd place and if a 3rd player is half as far along as 2nd place, they score for 3rd place. Furthermore, players can earn a bonus for selling chocolate to 3, 4 or all 5 department stores. Finally, remaining chocolate and coal can earn points. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Chocolate Factory gives players several important factors to think about. Firstly, during the drafting phase, players must prioritise what they think is important to them, do they want a factory part more than an employee, they'll get both, but not necessarily in the ones they want if they wait to the 2nd drafting phase. Cards that players draft can dramatically change the situation for players. Most obviously are employee cards which determine which department store a player can sell chocolate to. If a player is geared to sell the kind of chocolate a particular department is demanding, then getting the employee that gives you access can be paramount. This is even before considering which benefit the employee card also confers on the controlling player. Factory parts will form the core of the player's ability to produce and sell chocolate, getting a part that wasn't wanted or needed will force player to reconsider their strategies for at least one round. Unlike employee cards, factory parts can stick around for the entire game, although they can be replaced and since players will acquire 6 factory parts and only have 5 spaces in their factory, it means something will have to go. Where these parts are placed can have a significant impact. Place them too far to the right and it'll take a while for resources on the conveyor belt to reach them. Put them too far to the left and players risk screwing up their engine. Putting factory parts in factory is an exercise in optimisation. Speaking of optimisation, the game has a fairly unforgiving action economy. It's obviously a deliberate design decision, but there's never enough coal. Players start with 5 coal in round 1, they'll have 3 factory parts to activate - and that's over 3 shifts! Even in round 6, when each player can have a full factory, they only get 10 coal each, they'll on average only be able to activate 3 or 4 of their parts per shift. If forces player to make meaningful decisions which is always good and also makes them think across 3 shifts instead of 1, but it also feels a little frustrating and uneventful when half of the engine you've been building isn't used in a shift and maybe isn't used in the entire round. Scoring also presents players with choices. Each round, every player will have the opportunity to score their 3 corner shops and work towards scoring 1 of the 5 department stores. Corner shops are pretty straightforward to manage, the only wrinkle being that their demands must be met in tier order. It means that players will sometimes need to adapt to changing demands that a corner shop might present. Department stores are a proposition that's a little more interesting though. Because scores are based on relative positions between players, it can lead to some interesting outcomes. E.g., if a player sells just 1 item to a department store and no one else does then they'll get the full reward for 1st place but conversely, if they sell 5 items to a department score and another player sells more, then they'll get less. This adds an extra option or strategy to the game and unlike some tableau-engine building games, it becomes beneficial to watch what other players are doing and what they're producing and who they're selling it to. And while I feel that the majority of player's victory points will come from corner shops, department stores can't be neglected. They exist in a sweet (sic) spot where they can tip the balance in a player's favour. I'm kind of conflicted about Chocolate Factory, it has some solid mechanics that present players with choices, I particularly like how players can chose where to sell their chocolate to maximise their profit. But parts of it are also a little unexciting, where the effort creating an engine feels greater than the rewards it provides. I would have no problem playing Chocolate Factory again, but not too often. I think occasionally, it would be a good change of pace 12th November 2021 It's a Friday night and we're round Simon's for some impromptu evening gaming. “I beg your pardon,” said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. “You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me." Well, Everdell is new to me, mixing various game mechanics and lush anthropomorphic artwork. What's in a game? Everdell is a game that has a big footprint and a lot components.
The components are well made and the attention to detail for the most part is excellent. In particular, the resources look great as do the individualised meeples. We didn't use the tree but it's a nice touch Even if the anthropomorphised artwork is not to your taste, it's hard to fault the quality of the artwork and rich, warm colour palettes used throughout on the board and all the cards. Iconography is where the game could be improved though. Sometimes, the text used on the critter and construction cards is perhaps a little too small as are the symbols and sometimes, to maintain the game's aesthetic, you'll encounter a small around of tiny writing surrounded by a lot of unused space. Having said that, it's a quibble, not a gamebreaker and doesn't really detract from the game's quality How's it play? Setup
On to play The objective in Everdell is to construct the best city, that is the city that scores the most victory points. Players achieve this by playing critters and constructions into their tableau. When somebody becomes the active player, they can perform 1 action from a choice of 3 and then player progresses to the player to the left. Players continue performing actions until they have to or choose to stop; in which case the season has ended for them. Everdell is played over 4 seasons.
Endgame When the 4th season is completed, then the game is over. Victory points can be scored from a variety or sources, including cards, tokens and events. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
It's obvious that a lot of thought and care has gone into the game's presentation and charm. It's one of the best looking games I've seen in a while and I always appreciate the extra effort committed to a game. Hmmm, what else to say about Everdell; for the most part, it's initially a pretty solid, straightforward game, although it feels a like a bit of a slow burner. While the game's cards provide players with a variety of approaches choices and plays to make. Having said that, the game's action-economy is actually quite tight, almost too harsh. E.g, in the 1st season, players will only have 2 workers to gain resources in order to play cards, it means players will have to pay close attention to optimising their plays and actions. card synergy can make a big difference. It gave me the feeling that players will need to know what they're doing from their first action in order to play Everdell competitively. Additionally, in comparison to other tableau building games, it feels like the tableau in Everdell provides much more limited benefits that lacks the satisfaction putting together a good tableau. At best, production cards are reactivated once every other season - or round - but because players have multiple actions in a single season, it means a lengthy gap before those reactivations. This is something players will need to consider when playing cards. All of this makes the choices in Everdell important - which is the sign of a good game. Ultimately though, I just found it a little unexciting and unengaging and while it wouldn't be my first choice, I'd have no qualms about playing Everdell again. 19th October 2021 Tuesday evening has come around again and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club. The first game of the night was Unearth; a dice-rolling, worker placement game set after a distant apocalypse where players command a band of 'delvers' searching for lost wonders of the long past age. Basically archaeologists sans the bullwhips and giant rock chases! What's in a game?
For the ruins cards, Unearth uses some distinct eye-catching colour palettes and isometric cuboid artwork to depict the long destroyed structures. For the delver cards, an almost cartoony style is used to illustrate the workers/dice. Overall, I like the art style. The game doesn't make much use of iconography, what there is of it is pretty simple to comprehend. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Unearth, players take turns and are attempting to use delvers to acquire sets of ruin cards, that is place rolled dice on ruins card and also build wonders by accumulating and placing stone. Broadly speaking there can be 2 phases that the active player acts in, the delving phase and the building phase.
Endgame Play continues until the end of age card is revealed, any instructions on that card are immediately resolved, then play continues until all ruins cards have been claimed. Players then score for each set of the same colour they've collected. Sets range from 1-5 cards and score 2-30 points per set. there are also points for sets of each colour collected. Players can then score points from the individual wonders they've built, they also score for building 3 or more wonders. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
The sum of Unearth's parts make it a fairly unusual game. It provides 2 distinct paths to scoring points and neither can be entirely ignored. Set collecting is one way to earn victory points and the card collecting mechanics are quite solid, giving players who fail to acquire a card some sort of other benefit and the range of dice available to players that give them a couple of options is key to this. Players can play for the card or try and play for the stones - the eight-sided die has a slightly better chance of roll higher than a six-sider and four sided die has a 75% chance of rolling 3 or lower, they each give advantage but don't guaranteed success. The other path to victory points - building wonders requires players to both plan ahead and also adapt to opportunities and changes as they appear, collecting stones of a particular colour can always prove tricky, especially if another player is also on the hunt for stone tokens. There are also some restrictions on how stone tiles are placed and depending on what a stones a player is trying to get, placing them may require a small amount of planning and forethought. I found Unearth a little unengaging and I can't quite put my finger on why, maybe it's the game's slightly abstract nature or maybe that it feels like little is ever happening. Very little seems to occur in a player's turn, quite often a player rolls a dice and there's no immediate effect, sometimes they get a stone, sometimes they don't, occasionally they get a ruins card. Often it felt like that despite my decisions, little was in my control. All of this makes the game sort of light on decision making. Players choose which ruins card to gamble a doe on and when to use a delver card, or where to place a stone token when they gain one and that's about it. There's just not that much to it. I can't find much to fault Unearth but then I can't find much to praise it either. It's all a little unexciting. 12th October 2021 It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club. The first game of the evening was Sushi Go Party!. The big brother and follow up of the excellent Sushi Go!, if you've not read it, check out my blog about Sushi Go! here and then come back. I'm not going to talk too much about Sushi Go Party!, other than where it's different to Sushi Go!. Mechanically, it shares almost exactly the same blend of drafting and set collecting rules as its predecessor. What Sushi Go Party! brings is a bunch of new cards with new ways to collect sets and/or score points. In fact, Sushi Go Party! brings so many new cards to the game, that they can't be all used at the same time and introduces the concept of menus. More on menus below. What's in a game?
The components in Sushi Go Party! are all pretty good, the tiles and board feel sturdy enough and the cards made well enough. The game maintains the same excellent, cheerfully colourful illustrations of cartoonish looking food as it's predecessor. If it ain't broke... There's not much iconography to the game, it's mostly just numbers. How's it play? It plays almost identically to Sushi Go!, the same take-a-card and pass-your-hand and set collecting mechanics played over 3 rounds that made the original so good are found here. Sushi Go Party! only differs in 2 ways. In setup, Sushi Go Party! requires the players to create a menu from the available sets of cards. This consists of the nigiri cards (Which are used in every game.), 1 rolls set, 3 appetiser sets, 2 specials sets and a dessert set. The rules provide a large, varied list of menus to use. I guess there's nothing stopping players from creating or randomly selecting their own menus. After the menu has been finalised, the relevant tiles are placed into the relevant recessed spots on the board so that all players can see what sets will be in the game. Finally, all the sets in the menu are shuffled together into a face down deck and dealt out to players as per the rules. The second difference: In Sushi Go!; the game goes through the deck without reusing it, i.e., at the end of a round, all played cards are scored, then discarded out of the game - except for puddings of course. But in Sushi Go Party!, the played cards are shuffled back into the deck, along with more pudding cards to balance out any that were taken players. Then the reshuffled deck is reused in the next round. It's a subtle difference, but it technically makes Sushi Go Party! a tiny bit more predictable as the composition of cards in the deck will 'reset' from round-to-round. Whereas in the original, once they're played, they're played. Overall
If you like Sushi Go!, you'll like Sushi Go Party!, no doubt about it and if you play Sushi Go! a lot, then this is probably also worth playing, the extra cards go a long way to increasing the game's longevity. But there's something that makes Sushi Go Party! less appealing than its predecessor and I think it's immediacy. Sushi Go! is pretty much the epitome of a quick, pick-up-and-play game; shuffle the cards, deal them out to players and you're ready to go. Clean up after the game end involves collecting the cards and putting them away. Conversely, in Sushi Go Party!; the board must be set up, a menu agreed upon and placed the relevant tiles placed on the board, then the pertinent card sets must be taken from the available sets, only then can they be shuffled and dealt to players. It doesn't end there though, when Sushi Go Party! is over, all cards must be put back into their sets before packing away. Not only that, Sushi Go Party! by necessity comes in a bigger tin, while the original is compact enough to fit in coat pocket. Gone is the portability and convenience. It sounds like I'm dissing Sushi Go Party! but I'm not, it's a great game. It's just that I don't feel the need to play it over the original, it doesn't offer a different enough experience to warrant the extra effort. However, like I said, if you play a lot of Sushi Go!, you should give this a try and if you've never played Sushi Go! or this, then you should definitely try one of them. 26th September 2021 Sunday evening gaming on Board Game Arena continued with Cloud City. Travel around Cloud City and defeat Darth Vader and his stormtroopers... oh wait... what? This is an entirely different Cloud City! Be an architect and build up tower blocks in your model city to create walkways between them in this 3D tile laying game. Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game?
The games iconography is similarly minimal but easily understood. I will add that since we've only played Cloud City digitally, it's hard to gauge how it would look with physical components, which could be quite good, judging from the photos I've seen. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Cloud City each player will create a 3x3 grid of tiles, buildings and walkways. Points are scored from walkways which are worth points according to their length, thus walkways score 1-8 points each.
Endgame Play continues until all players have completed their 3x3 grid, which always takes 8 rounds. Each player's victory points is equal to the value of the totalled numbers on all the walkway tokens they played. Points are tallied. Highest score wins Overall
In some ways, Cloud City is a standard tile-laying game: Put down tiles to create links and score points from them. However, because Cloud City adds a extra dimension (Sic.) to gameplay, the game has that sweet spot of simplicity of rules but depth of choice. Players can choose to try and create single long paths that score big on walkways or zigzagging small paths that score little but often. Players will also want to utilise all the empty space that their tiles inevitably generate. Managing to have walkways pass over or under others is an efficient way to rack up points. It lends Cloud City a almost puzzle-like quality. The rule limiting walkways to 2 per building is excellent, a good example of less is more, it prevents players from relatively easily creating a web of walkways and forces them to try and anticipate the direction they will need to take when putting down buildings, getting it wrong can cost points. Ideally, players will want to have a single snaking walkway that goes from building to building. That brings me to the game's other central mechanic; drafting. Cloud City employs 2 instances of drafting. Most obviously, is the tile drafting. Players can choose which tile from 3 to take to replace one they've played or draw blindly. This is a common implementation of drafting in tile placement games. It's the other type of drafting that's more interesting. Cloud City's rules mean that player's do not need to immediately connect buildings with walkways and this can present players with a conundrum: If a player does not immediately place walkways on their buildings, they can be taken later and placed in way to optimise scoring. There's a risk though, since there's a limited number of each walkway, particularly the 8 pointers, of which there are only 3 in each colour. Once they're gone, they're gone and to get one later can make a player lose out. Conversely, players can take and place walkways immediately, this is safer in one regard, but the risk here is that the tiles placed later may provide alternate better ways to score. This is something that players will always need to bear in mind. Cloud City mostly presents players with meaningful decisions to make and I found the urge to try and create the perfect network of walkways fairly compelling. It was a enjoyable experience that was easy to learn and played fairly quickly. 21st September 2021 The final game of Tuesday gaming with the Woking Gaming Club in The Sovereigns in Woking was DC Deck Building Game: Heroes Unite, which is both quite a mouthful and not pirate themed game, unless of course there's a Pyscho-Pirate card in there somewhere or something? So apparently there are several differently themed DC Deck Building Games out there and Heroes Unite is one of them, it is both an expansion to the core game and a standalone game. All these deck-builders make use of a game-engine called the Cerberus System. What's in a game?
The cards are standard quality playing cards as you'd expect. It's also no surprise that they're all decorated with fairly high quality colourful comic book styled artwork, although I'm uncertain if it's been sourced from actual comic books. There's little iconography, most of the game's information is provided via text on cards which is mostly quite clear. How's it play? Setup
On to play
Endgame Play continues until 1 of the following conditions is met. There are no more supervillain cards to flip over, i.e., there are no more supervillain cards. Or. There are not enough cards to fill the line-up with 5 cards, i.e., the deck has run out. When one of these conditions have been, all players put all their cards into their discard stack. Players then total the victory points they get from cards and deduct 1 point for each weakness card they have. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Hmm, what to say about DC Deck Building Game: Heroes Unite. Players will look to use their cards to generate currency that allows them to buy more cards that generate even more currency, eventually acquiring the most powerful cards confer extra abilities and grant victory points. It's pretty standard deck-building fare which contains mechanics and elements that will be familiar ground if you've played other deck-builders, which is to say the core mechanic is pretty solid, enjoyable fun and generally always provides players with meaningful choices to ponder. However, the game adds a few new elements to the traditional formula. The addition of a line-up mechanic is a definite positive, it forces players to adapt to whatever cards become available instead of falling back on tried and tested strategies. Even so. it's still quite easy to quickly create combos and it can be very satisfying to do so; but perhaps it's too easy I was told Ant, the game's owner that sometimes a player gets to build up momentum much quicker than other players and they end up creating more and more combos, allowing them to (In Ant's words.) 'steamroller' their opponents. Heroes Unite also provides a slightly greater focus on targeting players and attacking, both by players and supervillains! It lends the game a slightly different, more antagonistic feel and offers a extra avenue to strategy to pursue. It's hard to fault Heroes Unite but at the same time and apart from the theme, it doesn't really stand out from the crowd. If you don't own a deck building game and fancy getting one, you could worse then getting Heroes Unite, it's a good a place to start as anywhere. If you want a superhero themed deck builder, then this is worth a look. If you want a DC Comics superhero themed deck builder, then it's definitely worth a harder look. If you want a DC Comics superhero themed deck builder where you play as side-kicks and 'B-listers', then this really is the game for you! 12th September 2021 Up from the depths. Thirty stories high. Breathing fire! HIS HEAD IN THE SKY! GODZILLA! GODZILLA! GODZILLA! ….and Godzoo- OK, that's going too far. Take on the role of a kaiju as they rampage against each other for the right to flatten Tokyo! What's in a game?
The dice are very well constructed and feel satisfying weighty to heft, which is good because they be getting a of of use. The boards, cards and standees are lavished with brash, colourful and cartoonish art, it's comical style perfectly fits both the game's style and over the top theme. The game has little iconography which is easy to understand. How's it play? Setup
On to play In King of Tokyo, players take turns rolling and re-rolling dice, then using those results to try and gain some benefit to work towards their objectives. During play there will always be a monster inside Tokyo, while the others are outside, in a 5+ player game, there can be 2 monsters inside Tokyo. A turn goes like this.
Endgame Play continues until one of two conditions are met. A player has reached 20 victory points - in which they immediately win or all monster bar one have had their health reduced to 0, in which case the last monster standing wins. Overall
King of Tokyo is a push-your-luck game with a difference, most other games of this type task players with essentially beating the odds and doing so more efficiently than other players, getting to whatever the victory criteria is first. But King of Tokyo has an extra wrinkle, in King of Tokyo, players can target and eliminate other players, I'm not a fan of player elimination but it gives the game an extra approach and dimension to gameplay. Not only that, players will look to prioritise different results at different times, if they're low on health; they'll want hearts. If there's a power card they like the look of; they'll want energy. The rules for getting into Tokyo compliment this well. Getting into Tokyo works for scoring points or attacking enemies. There's an inherent risk to do so, because it makes that player the central target. Managing to stick it out in Tokyo however, earns the player 2 victory points per turn, which on the surface might not seem like much but is actually 10% of the required victory score. Additionally, being in Tokyo is the best way to dish out damage to all other players, hit them hard enough and they'll probably want to heal instead of attack, giving the player in Tokyo more time, because sometimes, attacking the player in Tokyo is a risk. A canny player might yield Tokyo to another player who is low on health because it then puts them on the spot! Throw the usage of power cards into the mix and King of Tokyo becomes an enjoyable blend of strategy, risk and reward and push-your-luck mechanics. Furthermore, players will need to adapt to the unpredictability the game sends their way. King of Tokyo is a easy to learn, light and fun game not to be taken too seriously, it's perhaps a little too long for a filler game but is definitely worth trying, especially if you're a fan of push-your-luck games. 7th September 2021 Tuesday evening is here and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club. The first game of the night was Merv. What's in a game?
Despite its busyness, the game board is well illustrated and colourful, artwork on cards is also clear and colourful. For the most part the iconography is clear and easy to understand. Unfortunately, this does not extend to the symbols used to represent the game's 6 actions, these were a constant source of confusion and error. For example; the mosque action uses a minaret symbol but actually involves moving camel meeples along a track, but the symbols with camels on it is used to represent the caravansary! Why? Because the caravansary used camels to move spices! However, in game, the caravansary action only is used to get spices and has nothing to do with camels This means that camels are used to represent spices and minarets are used to represent camels! It verges on the ridiculous. It didn't help that all 6 symbols were the same colour so that it matched the colour theme of the board. How's it play? Setup
On to play Merv is played over 3 years and in each year there are 4 rounds, players have 1 action per round, thus 12 actions in total. Taking actions in Merv are quite unusual, play takes place around the 5x5 grid and each round takes place across 1 side of the grid (Starting on the north side.), then in the subsequent round, play moves clockwise to the next side of the grid and so on, so by the 4th round, a complete circuit will have been completed.
Endgame Once the 3rd year is over and has been scored, there is there final scoring to calculate. Sets of caravan cards score points. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Merv has several approaches to acquiring victory points but resource cubes is key to nearly all of them and the resource cube economy is very important. Acquiring cubes may conflict with choosing actions if the building site a player wants to activate produces cubes of a different colour, players will have to make choices and adapt. Having said that, it pays to diversify but it also pays to pursue one one strategy such as the caravansary or mosque track. Completing contracts feels like more of a bonus for sharp-eyed players than a long-term approach. Players also need to consider palace actions, placing workers into the right spaces in halls and moving along the favour track can be a good source of points. Players will need to also look towards defending Merv from attackers, losing buildings also loses the ability to gain resource cubes in later turns and of course loses victory points for the affected player(s). Merv is definitely on the heavier side of board games, but to be honest it didn't feel deep, just fiddly. I never got the feeling that I was making clever plays, instead I got the feeling that Merv was a heavy game made for the sake of being a heavy game. When I took an action, it often felt like I was doing 2 half actions instead of 1 whole one and it took multiple different actions to achieve something. E.g., I would undertake the marketplace action and acquire a good, Was I able to sell that good? No! What about spices, what if I'd acquired spices? Can't sell them either. To sell something, that is to complete a contract, I needed influence, which earned by building walls and also scrolls, which are acquired by visiting the library. Of course I also needed resources cubes. I know that some people will love this idea but I found it unengaging and a little dull and verging on tedious. Merv feels a little dry, unexciting and detached. |
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February 2023
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