9th June 2022 We're in Aldershot for an evening of board gaming fun. So; in Isle of Cats, some evil bad guy is heading to the titular island (Which as the name might suggest, is filled with the felines.) to kill al the cats!!! Players have a limited number of rounds to save as many as possible. What's in a game?
Component quality is for the most part very good. Tiles are suitably thick and chunky and all the wooden tokens. The game boards feel fine too. The only quibble I have is that the cards feel a little flimsy. The artwork in Isle of Cats is excellent throughout with plenty of illustrations of weird and wonderful looking cats on all the tetromino tiles and many of the cards. The boards and other cards also display nice colourful artwork. I do have a minor criticism here too: The colours for the common and rare treasures is a little too similar to each other, they could have done with being a bit more distinct. There are few icons used in the game and they're all clear, however, I do have a of minor grumble. Each personal game board is divided up into 7 'rooms'. It can be hard to see how the board is split up in this manner, particularly when scoring at the end with all the clutter of tiles. The publisher's were aware of this as they put distinct little icons in the square for each room to help but even so, it's tricky thing to comprehend. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Isle of Cats, players are competing to cover as much of the the grid that is shown on their personal board as possible. This is done by acquiring and placing cat and treasure tiles. Players will also be looking to group cats by colour (Or family.) as much as possible as well as fulfilling whatever objectives they gain during the course of the game. Isle of Cats is played over a number of phases, with players acting in turn order during each phase. Note that the turn order is different to player order in Isle of Cats and can and probably will change from turn-to-turn,
Endgame Once the 5th round has finished, the game is over and it's goes to scoring. There are several sources for scoring points and the lesson cards in particular provide many ways to score:
That's right, it possible to lose VPs!
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
There's a few things to think about in Isle of Cats but it's all paced out fairly well and never feels too complex. That's not to say there's no strategising to be done - because there is. The chief concern for players should be the management of their fish! Fish are not only used to buy cats but also discovery cards and they're the route to not gaining more VPs but initiative or gain bonuses. E.g., if you really want a certain tile, playing rescue cards with high 'boots' is important, but you'll need to keep them during the drafting phase - and pay for them. Players will need to balance their spending with their priorities and recognise when and what is more important at what time. Acquiring cat tiles is very important, building families, filling rooms, covering rats and treasure maps are all significant but so are going first or getting lesson cards and so on. Despite players having their own player boards, there's also a higher level of play about watching the actions of other players. For example; if another player has a big family of a certain breed of cats, it might be a good idea to deny them a beneficial card during the drafting phase and so But since this is a drafting game, players will also have to adapt to circumstances as they occur, such as having to take a cat tile that isn't wanted and finding a way to place it to maximise it's potential - or minimise it's damage! Isle of Cats is a mid-weight game that's pretty easy to learn and combines several mechanics in to a engaging cat-themed game. Whether it's deciding which cards to keep and later which ones to play, as well as what tiles to take and where to place them, Isle of Cats All nearly always gives players meaningful decisions to make and that's the sign of a good game.
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29th May 2022 It's a Sunday Evening and we're on Board Game Arena for some gaming entertainment. Copenhagen; largest city in and capital of Denmark. Few know though, of the cities secret history of builders having ties with errr.... tetromino shapes? At least that's what the game Copenhagen would have you believe... sort of! Caveat: we've only ever played Copenhagen digitally. What's in a game?
The components for Copenhagen are pretty colourful and bright, although there's barely any art to speak of. There's also barely any iconography to speak of. The symbols on the ability tiles aren't immediately obvious and will probably require looking up in the rules a couple of times. Other than that though, everything else is easily understood. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Copenhagen, players take turns either gathering cards or playing them to gain tiles which they put on to their player board to score points. During their turn, the active player may perform exactly 1 of 2 possible actions.
Endgame Either one of two ways can trigger the game end. If the End Game card is drawn (Can only occur after shuffling the discard pile back into a draw deck.) then the game immediately ends. If a player scores a 12th point then the game immediately ends. In either case, points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Mechanically, Copenhagen is a fairly light, accessible game; players are either drafting cards or drafting tiles. It's the relationship between those 2 actions that's interesting. Firstly, there's not many tiles that go into the game, e.g., only 1 5-space tile is available in each colour and only 3 each of the other sizes in each colour, which is all quite deliberate. It takes more cards and thus more actions (And longer.) to get the bigger tiles which are the better tiles but there's the risk a player won't get the one they want. The bigger tiles are better because of the windows (Or lack of.) on them. Getting a lot of 2-space tiles will mean 50% of filled spaces on a player's board will be windowless, while getting a lot of 5-space tiles means only 20% of spaces are windowless. Completing a row or column with all windows essentially doubles the points that line is worth and the more windows a player can get on their board, the more likely they are to do this. This brings me to the next point, other than the 1-space tiles, every tile has a windowless space. This means it's very hard to create lines that all score windows. Players will want to position windowless spaces to minimise their effect and provides players with meaningful decisions to make. These two factors means that players are faced with a dilemma. Go for the quicker easier to get tiles and probably get a smaller score, or take the risk of losing our by going for bigger, better scoring tiles. There's definitely a higher level of play that involves watching what cards other players are drafting and trying to anticipate what colours they're going for. This kind of knowledge allows players to adapt to what they think their opponent is doing. I think Copenhagen is a fairly easy to learn game that has a streak of depth to it. Most people will pick it up fairly quickly. Having said that I personally found the game a little dull. There's nothing here that I haven't seen elsewhere, it's just packaged differently here. Copenhagen also played just a little too quickly for my liking (Normally something I'd never criticise a game for!); playing with just 3 people meant that frequently 6 cards were being drawn from the 70 card deck every round, this means the game would reach the end of the deck twice after 20-something cards drafts for each player. It felt like the game is mostly likely to deplete it's deck before a player gets to 12 points. To put that into perspective; if a player has 20-something card drafting actions, that in turn gives them the ability to draft around 50 spaces worth of tiles. The quickest way to reach 12 points is to have 6 filled rows, all with windows. That would require filling in 30 spaces at a minimum, this is provided they got the cards and tiles they wanted. I'm sure there are players out there that would find the challenge of getting to 12 points compelling but for me. It meant that I found the game unsatisfying and combined with it's blandness made it average and unremarkable. I can't really fault the game, it's just a little dull. 1st May 2022 It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming. Azul; not a game about a villainous god-entity from Ghostbusters but actually a game about creating mosaic, decorative wall patterns with multi coloured tiles. My friend's a plasterer, wonder if he'd be good at this! Caveat: We've only ever played Azul digitally. What's in a game?
Azul doesn't make use of icons and the relationship between tokens and a player board is clear. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Azul, the player's objective is to place tokens on to their respective spots on the wall grid of their player board, which scores them VPs. This is done by filling in the horizontal lines in the pattern lines grid; players must collect tokens of the type they need and place them in the spaces on the respective horizontal line. Depending on the line, it will require 1-5 tokens to fill a line. When a line is filled, one of those tokens can be placed in the matching space on that line at the end of the round. All tokens will score 1 or more VPs when placed, tokens can also score again at the game end. Azul makes use of a traditional turn order, with the active player performing their action (Which will involve taking 1 or more tokens of the same type.) before play progresses to the player on the left.
Endgame When any horizontal line in the wall grid on any player's board has been filled, the endgame is triggered. The current end of round actions and scoring are completed and the game goes to final, bonus scoring. Bonus VPs can be scored scored by the following:
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
On a rudimentary level, Azul's mechanics involve drafting handfuls of tokens and then placing them on to a board where their relative positioning scores varying amounts of VPs. It's a mechanic (Or a variation of that mechanic.) that have been employed in several other games and I'd say that Azul is a mid-weight iteration of it. As written the rules feel a little opaque and counter-intuitive but in application, they're pretty straightforward. Where Azul get its weightiness comes from two areas of the rules; how the drafting - particularly drafting from mats works and then where and when tiles should go on the grids. As a basic concept, collecting as many tokens as possible to fill out the pattern lines and consequently get tokens on the wall grid is the way to go. However, there's more to it than. For example, simply collecting too many tokens can sent the excess to the floor line and cost VPs, this is more important than it sounds, because as tokens are taken from the mats, it's inevitable that other tokens will build up in the centre and trying to predict this can be very important. Depending on circumstances, a lot of tokens of a particular type may well build up in the centre. A player may want 4 red tokens for example, should they try and take them in drips and drabs from several mats over several turns or wait for them to accumulate in the centre? Provided of that they do accumulate in the centre, what if too many go to the centre? There's definitely a higher level of play where watching what other players are doing is important. Quite often it's clear what they're prioritising, what they want or don't want in the next few turns. If they have a single token in the 5-space line on the left, it's likely they'll be looking to fill that out. Conversely, if they've already got 1 or more scoring tokens on the right side, they'll be unlikely or unable to use more of those tokens. Being able to predict other player's objectives will help when making decisions. It can also allow a player to try and deny tokens to other players and curiously, on some occasions force other players to take tokens they don't want. Players will also want to think about how and when to place their scoring tokens. Putting them down willy-nilly is a sure way to minimise points. Obviously in order to optimise points, tokens should ideally be put on to the wall adjacent to other tokens. Placing them vertically is a good way to go, since completed vertical lines earn an additional 7 VPs each, unless a player is looking to end the game, in which case they can go for the horizontal line! This brings me to an interesting facet in the mechanics, scoring the diagonal, i.e., putting all the tokens of 1 type on to the wall grid scores the biggest bonus; 10 VPs but as they are diagonal, they can't score off of each other! Additionally, once a diagonal of a type has been completed, the player can no longer score tokens of that type at all, collecting those tokens will now just incur penalty points in the floor line. Should a player hold off getting the diagonal until later which lowers the risk of sending tokens to the floor line or wait? Waiting will mean risking not completing it at all. I have to say I'm not fond of mechanics which lose players points especially if it can occur out of their control, it irritates like a unreachable itch and can be a little stress inducing. I find that's the case with Azul as well. However, having said that, the truth is; this is what makes Azul a good game and gives it depth. It means that collecting tokens either earns VPs (Or contributes towards acquiring VPs.) or loses VPs. It's always a meaningful decision. Other iterations of these mechanics are a little less stressful, brain-boiling and perhaps more accessible. But if depth is what you're looking along with a dollop indirect interaction between players, then Azul is worth a try. 15th April 2022 It's a Friday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some afternoon gaming. Take a road trip across America, visit the landmarks, go wildlife spotting, play some sports, end where you started? Send a postcard (Or write a letter from America.), walk 500 miles, maybe walk 500 more... OK, enough of the tenuous references. Boomerang: USA combines set collecting and roll and write mechanics into a point salad of a scoring game. Caveat: We've only ever played Boomerang: USA digitally. What's in a game?
The only artwork in the game appears on the 28 cards and is obviously referencing the locations the cards represent. It's pretty artwork too, with blue skies and bright colours. Using letters/symbols for cities is a smart move and easily understood. Boomerang: USA makes use of 4 types of sets to collect and each set will feature its own range of icons, it means that the game has a fairly large array of icons. Luckily, it's clear which icons belong to which set and players don't need to reference a rulebook to know what they mean since the game is about matching icons in their respective sets. How's it play? Boomerang: USA is played over 4 rounds and uses a drafting mechanic where players pick a card from their hand and then passes the remaining cards to their left, then all chosen cards are revealed (Or not for the first card.) simultaneously. This continues until all cards have been selected and players have acquired 7 cards.
Endgame Once the 4th round is completed and scored, players then total their final score from across all 4 rounds. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
On a basic level, Boomerang: USA is a straightforward drafting game. It's point salad of scoring mechanics makes the game complex, most of the blog above talks about the 7 ways to score VPs. Some of the scoring methods have pretty standard elements, collecting matching pairs or 1 kind of set are common, however, restrictions on how these are scored, particularly for Americana activities add an unusual twist. The throw and catch mechanic is the standout here, presenting players with a clear risk and reward choice right at the start of a round especially when this is when they'll have all 7 cards to choose from. Play a 1 as the throw card and it's guaranteed to score but is only worth 1 VP. Playing a 7 as the throw card earns 7 VPS but requires a 7 as the catch card; since player have no control over what their last card will be it's a risky proposition. Typical for a game of this type, it's more or less impossible to score well in all categories at the same and the dilemma of what a player should prioritise is what drives the gameplay. Should a player concentrate on getting locations and regions (Which are another type of set really.) over other sets? Is it a good idea to have a steadily increasing Americana score over round, or go high then score 0 to score high again? When is a good time to try and get a good score in a particular activity? A lot of this will be contextual or unpredictable, it's the nature of this kind of drafting game. Players will probably start a round with no clear direction and will need to adapt to a strategy and recognise what to prioritise as it emerges from whatever cards they pick. There's also a higher level of play where players can watch their opponents to try and gauge what they're concentrating on and deny it to them: If it looks like an opponent is trying to complete coast-to-coast, a player might chose and play a card with the location needed themselves in order to deny that other player. Although I'm not sure that denial tactics are that effective though, it's entirely possible blocking a opponent will involve blocking yourself as well. I felt like the travelling, roll and write element was a bit out of place here, adding extra layers of what seem like unnecessary complexity the game. So while the game has depth thanks to all these scoring opportunities, it actually felt like it was perhaps a little detrimental to the experience, increasing thinking time and inducing some analysis-paralysis as a consequence. Otherwise I can't really find fault with Boomerang: USA, it's not a bad game by any stretch, it just somehow didn't appeal and seemed a little unengaging. Maybe the theme of being a tourist did quite gel with me? I feel that there are other mechanically similar games that are a little more accessible and quicker to play. Obviously, YMMV, a fan of card drafting games who plays them often might find the roll and write part of Boomerang: USA a fresh take in the category. 15th March 2022 We're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for some Tuesday evening entertainment. Four Gardens is a game about you guessed it... four gardens, it's also about spinning a pagoda! I'm not sure if Spinning Pagodas would be a better name or not? Why are players spinning a pagoda? Apparently, the pagoda contains some gods! Who... I guess... like... being spun? What's in a game?
The resource tokens felt like they were wooden and the wooden cubes were pretty standard wooden cube components, which is something I like. The tiles were standard quality card tile and fine, I thought having tiles with little hole to hold resource tokens was a pretty smart move. The card were also pretty standard quality from what I could tell. From the large, eye-catching and rotating pagoda to the tactile resource tokens shaped and coloured identically to their icons in the game; Four Gardens has excellent presentation. The backs of the cards which, when placed together form the panoramic views of the titular feature excellent, colourful and interesting art. Four Gardens features a fair amount of iconography, from the 4 scoring tracks and types of gardens to symbols for resources and different actions available on cards. For the most part, it's instantly understandable and there should be few problems with the iconography. How's it play? Setup
On to play As the name suggests, the objective is to create 4 garden panoramas using the backs of the cards. Four Gardens uses the traditional turn, with the active player acting with play then progressing to the player on the left. During their turn, the active must perform exactly 3 actions. Each action also requires the player to play or discard one of the cards in their hand. There are 4 actions that can be performed, these can be performed in any order the player sees fit. The actions are:
Endgame Depending on the player count, once 8-10 panorama cards have been constructed by any player, play goes into the endgame and the current round is completed. Players calculated VPs earned from the 4 scoring tracks and points they may have gotten from a bonus VP track. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
I'll start by discussing the pagoda - the game's most obvious feature. Is it a gimmick mechanic? Maybe. Does it work well? Definitely. It's also quite a unique mechanic and not something I've seen anywhere else. When used in conjunction with the rule limiting how many resources can be collected on the planning tile, it forces players to really think about how they have to manipulate the pagoda to get the resources they need: It takes an action to empty a planning tile that's been filled unnecessarily and that's an action that could be used elsewhere. I think it's a set of mechanics that works very well. Talking about the pagoda does lead me to one gripe: Which is the rule where all players should sit around the pagoda at 90' angles. Players don't always have the right gaming space to accommodate this and while strictly speaking, it's not necessary as players can remember what side of the pagoda is meant to be facing them, it's inconvenient and finicky. The card-synergy, or more accurately score-synergy is a pretty clever rule, providing players a reason to work towards completing panoramas. The 4 scoring tracks seem a little unnecessary but in practice they work fine. This brings me to the knock-back mechanic. It feels a little harsh that, if a player gets their scoring marker knocked off the board, it can't come back into scoring. On the other hand if a player has reached maximum on a track and other players are lingering at the bottom, it's probably not a priority for those other players, so not that much of a loss. So yes, it feels a bit harsh but it's not game breaking. All of this means players will look to optimise the order in which they play cards to optimise how they increase their scores. Concentrating on increasing scores in 1 or 2 tracks can potentially knock-back other players. Conversely, working towards completing panoramas can earn bonuses which may prove useful elsewhere; sometimes you'll be able to do both but sometimes not and looking for opportunities to exploit these times is vital. The also makes use of a variation of the hand-as-currency mechanic, except here it's used to trigger actions and not to actually pay for something. Despite this difference, it places that same conundrum on players; which is how to choose which card to discard? Obviously, they'll be times when it has to be a card with the action they need but otherwise, it's another meaningful decision to make. In conclusion; Four Gardens is a fairly easy to learn set-collecting game that provides players with enough decisions to be engaging, fun and provides unusual resource gathering and scoring mechanics which makes it feel unique. I enjoyed it and think it's worth a try. 20th February 2022 It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming fun. I don't know what Loco Momo means but I kind of hope it means crazy fun with cute animals. Hmm, that didn't sound right, how about wholesome crazy fun with animals. Loco Momo is actually about (I kid you not!) organising the disarrayed wildlife population of the forest for a group photo! Caveat: We've only ever played Loco Momo digitally. What's in a game?
It's good quality artwork though, a bright palette and bold cartoony style suit the game's light-hearted theme well. The game's only iconography appears on the player boards. It's not immediately apparent what they mean but quick read of the rules makes them clear. How's it play? Setup
On to play The objective of Loco Momo is for players to fill their boards with tiles to score VPs and the game provides various approaches to achieve this. Although this mostly involves collecting various kinds of sets. Loco Momo uses the traditional structure with the active player taking their 2 actions - a drafting action and placing action with play then moving to the player on the left.
Endgame Play continues until the 6th round is completed, then scoring occurs.
The bottom row has 5 different animals, scoring 14. Row 2 above has 5 identical animals, also scoring 14. The matching eagles in the 1st column for rows 3 & 4 score 3, plus the eagle in the top row above scores an additional 4. The ducks in column 2 also score 7. The 2 rabbits in column 3, rows 3 & 4 score 3. The bear scores nothing. Finally, 2 rows have the same colour as does 1 column, scoring 15 more. Total score: 60. Overall
Loco Momo is a fairly straightforward game, the gameplay strategies are more or less obvious and there's not much to say about it. During drafting players will look for the optimal method to acquire the most tiles possible or, as will occur on occasion if there's little they want, try to avoid taking tiles. Then, when placing tiles, players may need to make some meaningful choices. Sure, it's easy putting down tiles when a player has got the ones they wanted but frequently, this won't be the case and dealing with those wayward tiles is very important. Players will want to keep scoring opportunities for other tiles/sets open and minimise the damage caused by having to place unwanted tiles. There's also a higher level of play that involves looking at what's available on the central board and what other players are working towards, then trying to anticipate what tiles they'll be looking to gain from themselves. It might be prudent to try and deny other players certain tiles. Or if they're not interested in tile of a particular colour, it might be safe take that tile in a later turn. This brings me to the one niggle I have about Loco Momo, which are the colour scoring rules. We've only played Loco Momo 3 player and because there are 3 colours of tile, we tend to gravitate towards one colour each with little 'stealing' of other players' colours. Which is understandable as completing columns/rows with the same colours confers nice bonuses and during the late-game completing sets scoring the colour instead of the animal gets more VPs. Consequently it also makes decisions 'easier'. I imagine with 4 players, this status quo would be shaken up and the game would become more interesting. Despite the criticism, the game ultimately generally does provide players with meaningful decisions to make. Games about about drafting sets of tiles and placing them on to a player board are pretty commonplace today. So does Loco Momo do anything to stand out from the crowd? I think the answer is... sort of. Loco Momo is a bit unremarkable but at the same time it's an enjoyably light, easily learnt and accessible example of this kind of game with a reasonable playing time. A good introduction or crossover game If this ticks your boxes, Loco Momo might be worth a look. 9th February 2022 It's Wednesday night and we're round Simon's for some gaming fun. The evening's game was In the hall of the Mountain King. Ask yourself: What is it that trolls like to do? Live under bridges perhaps; no. Chase goats maybe; no. What about make trouble on the internet; no. What trolls really like to do is dig tunnels (The fancier the better.) and move statues! What's in a game?
There's certainly a good amount of wooden tokens and meeples here, the acrylic crystals are also a nice addition. None of the other components struck me as being poor quality and they're typical of what is expected in a modern game. There are a couple of minor quibbles though. The pedestal points tokens are a bit small and fiddly to handle The second is a bit of personal grumble - which is that all the carts are brown but depending on where the carts are acquired from will represent different colours. Carts in a player's central area can be used for any colour of statue. But carts from icons on troll cards can only be used to move statutes of a certain colour - which is indicated by the colour of the icon used to acquire the cart! Makes sense... right? Maybe not? Surely it would have been useful to include some carts of the relevant colours? There isn't a great deal of art in the game, mostly on on the spell and troll cards but it's all well illustrated with bold colours and and is fairly varied. There are 4 types (Or clans.) of troll cards and 3 types correspond to the blue/orange/white colour motif that runs through the game and I quite like how those trolls cards have a colour pallet to match it their types. Having said that; the starter cards all feature the same piece of artwork that has been coloured matched to each player colour which is a little disappointing. For the most, the game's iconography is actually straightforward and easily understood. Only the aforementioned issue with carts being a small problem. If the cart icon has a coloured background then a cart that is sourced from that icon can only be used for that colour of statue. Luckily it's not a gamebreaker although it's finicky rule to remember. How's it play? Setup
On to play Play during In the Hall of the Mountain King will have active player performing 4 actions before play moves clockwise to the next player.
Endgame The endgame is triggered when there no coronation tokens left to acquire. The current round is completed and 2 more rounds are played. Players then calculate VPs, a player's VPs may come from the following sources. Score tracker. Statues - depending on their position in the 5 zones and doubled if the player managed to place them on a pedestal. Great hall tokens in a player's network - with or without statues. Pedestal points for placing pedestals. Coronation tokens. Unspent resources; these can earn points. Every 3-of-a-kind scores an extra VP. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Despite having quite a few rule to remember and sounding quite complicated, In the Hall of the Mountain King is actually pretty straightforward in practice and many of the rules are obvious when in action. There's definitely a couple of finicky rules though, and again - it's to do with the carts and pedestals. It feels like an unnecessary complication to have these differently coloured carts to move statues. The rule that restrict pedestals to 1 per colour in each zone also feels a but cumbersome. I know why the rule is there: It encourages competition in a game that otherwise has little interaction between players. Players will want to be the first to get a pedestal as close to the Heart of the Mountain as possible. It locks out completing players and offers a big scoring opportunity. It means that players are put into a balancing act of needing build their tunnel network but also acquire resources to make this expansion happen. Clever placement of tiles will earn players some resources but recruiting trolls is the best way to get them and you'll note that digging and recruiting are pretty much the only 2 mutually exclusive actions in a turn. There's more to tunnel tile placement too, pedestals and thus statues have to go on anchor spots and it's these need to be as close to the centre of the board as possible, sometimes it'll be tricky to get it right, or it'll require not getting something else. Being able to avoid rubble spaces helps as well. Resource management also has more to it. Spending resources from troll cards first is prudent, as is using workshops to change them into other resources - because they go back on to the storage space and not the troll card. It does involve trying to think ahead about what resources can be acquired and what will be needed. This brings me neatly to the Trollmoot/Horde elements of the game, with their overlapping and cascading mechanics for both buying cards and acquiring resources they almost feel like a different game to the tile placement taking place on the game board. I have to say that I like the cascading mechanic, it's simple but provides some interesting decisions for players to make. Building up a Trollmoot, like much of In the Hall of the Mountain King requires a little forethought. If my calculations are correct, the cards in the centre columns will be activated the most. Players will want to identify and prioritise what resources they'll need in their Trollmoot setup. Additionally, deciding where to place a troll card will determine what resources the player immediately. I do also have some concerns about the game, I found using the tunnel tiles, creating pedestals and moving statues more of a chore than satisfying and the game it didn't quite gel with me. I'm also not sure how much value there is in replaying the game. The player and statue starting positions and workshops may vary but mostly the board's resources stay unchanged. And while the card mechanics are good, the cards themselves only vary in which resources they provide. In the Hall of the Mountain King is another one of these games that does nothing really wrong and I've got nothing against the game. If someone else wanted to play it I would happily join in but somehow it's missing that special something that makes me want to play it again. 8th February 2022 Tuesday evening is here and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club for some gaming goodness. The 1st game of the night was Llamaland. A whole land full of llamas, they get everywhere, all over the fields, hills and mountains! What's in a game?
Most of Llamaland's components are good quality, the cards feel a little flimsy but unless they're abused, they should be fine. Otherwise it's all good, the tiles all feel suitability solid and chunky. The tokens are fine, I like how they're the different shaped. The most noteworthy component though, are the cute little llama meeples. The art in Llamaland is nice and colourful, all the tiles are bright and eye catching, the art for the character cards is heavily stylised but I like it. The illustrations used for the llama cards depict them as llama meeples. If you look carefully at several cards, you can see that some of them have slightly different expressions! It's a nice touch and I wonder how often these kinds of detail get noticed? Much of the game's iconography is easily comprehended, however, some of the icons on the character cards can be unclear, this generally applies to cards that confer bonuses for covering other icons because they show the relevant icons being covered and those icons are a little obscure. The blue objective cards will probably require referring to the rulebook to understand. None of this is a gamebreaker though. It's unlikely that players will need to look up anything more than once or twice. How's it play? Setup
On to play LLamaland is played using a traditional turn structure, with the active player taking a turn adding tiles to their estate. Once that's concluded, play moves to the player on the left.
Endgame Play continues until one of the following criteria is met. There are 4 or less land tiles less, regardless of type. There is only 1 type of llama card left. In either instance the game goes into the endgame and play continues until all players have had an equal number of turns, then it goes to scoring. Every llama card acquired earns its listed VPs. A player marker on a objective card that the player has successfully completed earns that player its listed VPs. Unused crop tokens earn 1 VP each. Every 2 unused coins earns 1 VP. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Broadly speaking, Llamaland's gameplay is divided into 3 areas. I'd say that primarily the game is concerned with tile placing mechanics. Much of the gameplay here will be familiar ground. Players cannot predict exactly what tiles will be available when drafting tiles will be available in their turn and will need to adapt to circumstances and look for opportunities. Pretty standard stuff. The unusual element here is building upwards, it adds an extra axis (sic) to the gameplay. It's vital to build upwards efficiently, there's no other way to get resources and players will want cluster desired resources in such a way that it makes covering them quick and easy. The second element is acquiring and placing llama meeples. When placing them, players will not only have to think about completing blue objectives but also trying to not hinder the placement of later tiles. Chances are that players will have more than one objective for placing llama meeples and they'll want to maximise the placing and there's definitely some synergy going on between objectives. Many purple objectives require 4 of a kind llamas and some blue ones require placing 4 llama meeples on the estate in a certain, thus it's possible to work to both objectives together. The third mechanic and one I find interesting is placing markers on objectives. Placing markers later in the game is safer as players will have better idea on what they can achieve, or might already have achieved however, they end up having to put their markers lower value rows. Placing markers earlier though, means players can go for the bigger VP rewards - provided they can complete the objective. When a player puts one of their marker on an objective, they're essentially making a bet that they'll complete the objective. It's a classic risk and reward mechanic. It also makes individual objectives pretty apparent to all players, if someone's just put their marker on the collect 4 potato llamas objective card, it's safe to assume what they'll be going for and others can respond as they see appropriate. Llamaland is a cheerfully colourful game that manages to always provides players with meaningful choices to make and strategies to utilise which I found it an engaging and fun. 15th January 2022 It's Wogglecon and the final game of the day was Ginkgopolis. What's a Ginkgopolis? Good question, I guess it means Ginkgo city but what does Ginkgo mean? It's a type of tree, so Ginkgopolis must mean tree-city. In Ginkgopolis, players take on the role city planners in tree-city and attempt to manage it's expansion, both outwards and upwards. What's in a game?
Ginkgopolis has solid components, the tiles and tokens are constructed from suitability thick, chunky card as are the screens, while the meeples and resources are wooden which is always appreciated. The game makes good use of colour, effectively mixing primary colours with green and emphasising the ginkgo tree motif employed throughout. Ginkgopolis' artwork is high quality, character cards are well illustrated with slightly cartoonish, colourful individuals that follow the game's red-yellow-blue and green theme, the same is true of the building cards/tiles which depict various different types of structures. The iconography in Ginkgopolis is a bit strange, there's not too much of it and it's fairly simple to understand. However, due to Ginkgopolis' almost counter-intuitive rules, getting to grips with it took a little time. Nothing too bad though. How's it play? Setup
In the basic flow of actions in Ginkgopolis, players simultaneously put down cards and then resolve them in turn order.
There are 2 ways in which Ginkgopolis can end. If the building tile supply is depleted a second time or if a player has put all resource tokens on to the city. In either case, the current round is resolved and the game goes to scoring. VPs come from various sources in Ginkgopolis.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Firstly, one small fascinating thing about Ginkgopolis is how the game almost operates like a machine! Cards played to build something must not be put into the discard pile, otherwise they'll end up going back into circulation and later, players will end with cards in their hands that can't be used to either get currencies or build upwards. Further to this, new buildings must be given a meeple so that players can track which new cards must be added to the building deck as again, it would leave players without cards to gain currencies or build. Get this wrong and like a machine losing cogs, the game will begin grinding to a halt! I don't know what kind of fevered imagination dreamt up this mechanic but it's both convoluted and brilliant! Ginkgopolis' rules are definitely a little counter-intuitive. For example; when you play a card, that's not what you're building but what you're building on top of. Or after building something, getting to keep the card you used to build something. Additionally; it took a little bit for me to wrap my head around the game. Remember: Playing a card without a tile earns currencies. Playing a card with a tile allows a player to build a tile. I would also say Ginkgopolis is little fiddly for beginning player but none of this a dealbreaker, it's more an indicator of how Ginkgopolis feels a little unusual compared to other games I've played and I don't consider this a bad thing. While there are various avenues to follow for scoring, I feel that the biggest source of VPs would come from controlling districts because it's possible to not only score your own resources but those of other players' too! It can be quite hard to plan ahead though due to the card drafting and they'll be times when you'll want to play more than 1 card from your hand. It pushes you to make hard decisions (And hope the other cards come back around.), it means you have to adapt and spot situations you can exploit. It also means watching your neighbours and trying to gauge their objectives. There's quite a lot of player interaction that goes on and putting the right tile into play at the right time can dramatically alter the landscape. There's also an interesting strategy when deciding which tiles to put in the city. Putting a 20-value tile down makes it harder for other players to build over it, they'd have to pay VPs to build a lowered valued tile, or an extra resource to play a 20-value tile in a different colour. On the other hand, keeping a 20-value tile back can give a player the opportunity to build over other higher value tiles later in the game. The building outwards or upwards mechanics provide plenty of scope here. Expanding outwards can be easier (Provided a player gets the right urbanisation cards.) because a player need less resources and will also earn currencies when doing so. The downside is that it's easier for other players to build over your tiles. The opposite is also sort of true, building upwards tends to be costly, but it's also more costly for other players to build over them. Building tiles also puts the related card (And it's bonus action.) in to play in the player's personal area, creating the opportunity to combo actions into bonuses. Players will need to balance the need to acquire currencies with the need to build tiles. However, as the city landscape and a player hand changes, so can the options to do either of these. Adaptation is vital and every decision can be critical This made my choices feel meaningful when playing Ginkgopolis, which is always good. I'd say that Ginkgopolis is a mid-weight tile laying game with some fairly interactive area-control gameplay that gives players interesting and changing options. It took a little time to warm to Ginkgopolis but I enjoyed the game and think it's worth giving a try. 15th January 2022 It's a Saturday and we're at the Bisley Scout Hall with the Woking Gaming Club for Wogglecon, for a day of gaming and hanging with with friends. There are a lot of national parks in the USA and you're about to hike a bunch of them in the first game of the day; Parks. What's in a game?
The quality of Park's components is universally high and it's obvious that a lot of care and attention has been put into the game, this extends even to the packaging and token trays. The cards are fine and the tiles are appropriately thick. The tokens are all wooden, well made and colourful, the individually shaped wildlife tokens are the standout here. Finally, the inclusion of a metal first player marker is pretty unusual but it has a satisfyingly weighty feel to it and is a cool addition. For nearly all of it's artwork, the game sources The Fifty Nine Parks Print Series which as the name suggests, is a project which consists of a picture of each American national park created by a different artist. Perhaps it could be argued that doing this saves on the art budget but honestly, it feels like a great collaboration. As a result the game features excellent and varied artwork throughout, all the park cards and photography tokens are uniquely illustrated, the art also features on all the card backs and even the inside of the box lid! Fantastic! Parks makes use of a fairly wide variety of iconography but for the most part it was easy to comprehend and presented no obstacle to the game. How's it play? Setup
On to play Parks is played over 4 seasons during in which each the players' hikers travels along that season's trail from left to right.
Endgame Once the 4th season has been completed, the game ends. Players score points from the parks they've visited (Bought.), they also score a point for each photo they took and whoever has the first player token at the game end scores 1 point for it. Finally; players reveal their year cards, completing the objective on these usually scores 2-3 points. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Parks is essentially a light worker placement game added where your 2 workers only ever head right combined with resource management. It's a game all about planning trips that means that it's about acquiring resources to buy park cards which generally provide the majority of VPs required to win the game. However, it is impossible to fully plan things out. Going from season to season, players will have a good idea what resources and tiles will be available but not where they will appear. It requires adaption and some creative thinking when faced with a different tile layout. Limiting the resources a player can own to 12 is an solid rule, it prevents players hording too much and splurging out big at once. It also makes players think about optimising their strategies. The initial urge in Parks is to travel as slowly as possible to collect as many resources as possible and in the early-game that's not a bad idea but sooner or later, players will need to use them up and that means visiting parks. Remember, players have only 2 hikers and that means they can only use the visit park action on the trail end twice per season (Provided they don't use any other actions on the tile.), this means that players have 8 opportunities to visit parks, yes; there's an advanced trail tile that allows extra buy actions but there's no guarantee where and when it'll appear. This brings me to the worker placement element of Parks. Each player can use their campfire a maximum of 2 times in a season, it means thinking carefully before moving on to a occupied tile, it also means trying to anticipate how other players will move and if necessary, getting there first! Or perhaps moving the other hiker so that whoever is occupying the tile you need may have moved by the following turn. Ultimately it means that players should look to optimise their moves, balance resource acquisition with card acquisition, players might well be competing for the same park card and watching a card you want being taken by another player because you tarried to collect an extra resource can be galling. Players will have the double-obstacle of reacting to both seasonal changes and the choices made by the other players. The game's rules are not over-complex but also provide a fair amount of depth. There's enough interaction between players to force you to pay attention to their choices . Decisions that players face are always meaningful and getting wrong could lose you out. Add to this the game's top notch thematically appropriate production values and you have a small package that delivers a big game. Having said that, it's not without a couple of drawbacks. Most significantly; the game experience can change notably with player count. A 3-player game will feel quite different to 5-player. The hiker count goes from 6 to 10, the tiles become a lot more crowded and it becomes more challenging to do what you want. While in games with 4 or more players an extra basic tile is added into the mix, it doesn't quite alleviate the increased clutter on the trail. Secondly, a 5-player game seems to last around 2 hours and that perhaps feels a little overlong. Parks doesn't outstay its welcome and it's not a game-breaker but it can feel a little long for what it is. Other than that, Parks is well presented, accessible and satisfying to play (At least when you get the park card you want!). It's definitely one that's worth trying. |
AuthorI play, I paint. Archives
February 2023
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