30th April 2022

It's a Saturday afternoon and Wogglecon 3 with the Woking Gaming Club is in full swing.

The next game of the day was Machi Koro 2 which is the follow up to the most excellent original Mach Koro and which you can read about here.

Like its predecessor, Machi Koro 2 is a tableau and engine building card game all about constructing a city,

What's in a game?

• Cards: Machi Koro 2 makes use of several types of colour coded cards which are broadly divided into 2 categories, establishments and landmarks
  • Establishments: Each establishment card has various icons.
    Type: In the top left corner of each establishment card it shows its type and whether it can 'combo' off of other cards.
    Activation number: In the middle at the top, each card has an activation number that ranges from 1-12 and the card's colour determines when activation is applicable.
    Action: The lower half of cards contain text explaining how they function when activated.
    Cost: The bottom left corner of each card is the cost to buying it.
    Finally, establishments are further divided into 2 sub-categories, depending on their activation number; these are 1-6 and 7-12, which is displayed on the card backs.
  • Landmarks: Each landmark in Machi Koro 2 is unique but they all share some similar features.
    Cost: Most landmarks have a set of 3 costs, generally rising in value from left-to-right.
    Type: Each landmark will also have symbol determining whether it has a single use or ongoing effect.
    Action: The bottom half of each landmark will also contain text explaining how that card works.
• Coins: The game comes with chunky plastic coins which are definitely and upgrade from the original's card coins.
• Dice: These are 2 typical six-siders.

Components in Machi Koro 2 are all good. The cards are pretty standard cards as you'd expect. The coins feel solid and the dice are slightly larger than usual dice, they're plastic but also rounded, chunky and have a bit of heft to them.

Machi Koro 2 uses an art style that's identical to the original. Brightly coloured stylised almost cartoony illustrations of establishments and landmarks. The colours are very distinct, which is good because colour plays an important part in the game.

There are a few icons in Machi Koro 2, for the different types of establishment and types of effects on landmarks. It's all pretty clear what they mean and it won't provide an problems for players.

How's it play?
Setup

• Drafting area: Sort the cards into their 3 types, then shuffle them into 3 individual face-down decks and place them into a vertical line.
  Draw cards from each deck and place them face-up in a row next to their respective deck. Do this until you have 5 different kinds of card in each row. Any duplicates drawn should be stacked on a single space.
• Coins: Give each player 5 coins.
• First player: Determine a start player.
• Buy-in: Beginning with the first player and proceeding in turn order, each player has the opportunity to purchase 1 of any available card in the drafting area. Any spaces that appear after a card is taken are immediately refilled.
  Repeat this 3 times.

On to play
Machi Koro 2 uses the traditional turn order with the active player playing their turn before the the player to their left becomes the active player.
During their turn, the active player has 3 phases to play through.

• Roll the dice: The active may choose whether to roll 1 or 2 dice.
  This is different to the original where a landmark had to be constructed to unlock the 2nd die.
  The result of the roll is the activation number.
• Activations: When the activation number is declared, all players must look at their own cards to see which, if any are activated - cards with a matching activation number are potentially activated! Thus if the activation number is a '5', any card with a 5 activation may possibly be activated.
  When a card is activated, the action described on the bottom half of the card is resolved.
  Whether a card is activated or not, depends on its colour.
  Red cards: Red cards generally allow you get coins off of other players during the game and are only activated in another player's turn, the active player never actives their own red cards.
  E.g., if any non-active player has 1 or more red cards with a matching activation number it will allow that player to take money off the active player. Only the active player is affected by red cards.
  Blue cards: These cards are activated in any player's turn, thus both the active and non-active players may activate blue cards. Blue cards always earn coins from the bank and are obviously the most activated type of card.
  Green cards: Only the active player may activate green cards. Non-active players cannot activate their green cards. As with blue cards, green cards earn the controlling player coins from the bank. Some green cards are combo cards and earn coins dependant on other cards with the matching type.
  Purple cards: Like green cards, purple cards can only be activated by the active player. Purple cards have a variety of effects, including taking coins from other players, swapping establishments with them and more!
  Landmarks: While landmark cards have no specific activation numbers, if they have an ongoing effect, then they will have some other criteria, that when met will activate the landmark. Criteria include rolling doubles or having having a type of card activated by the roll and so on. Each landmark is unique and they have a wide variety of actions that can be resolved.
  Pity coin: Not an action per se, but the pity coin rule occurs at the end of the activation phase: If after resolving all activations, the active player has 0 coins in their personal supply (Perhaps due to other player's red cards!), then they can take 1 (Pity!) coin from the bank for their troubles to use for purchasing.
• Purchase card: The active player may purchase any 1 single card from the drafting area by paying it's cost. Players may over several turns purchase more than 1 copy of red/blue/green cards, the exception being purples; players may only have 1 copy of each purple.
  Landmark: Each landmark card has 3 costs. The 1st landmark a player purchases costs the 1st value, the 2nd landmark costs the 2nd value and the 3rd landmarks costs the 3rd value. If a landmark card is single-use, it's effect is triggered immediately upon purchase.
• Next turn: Once the active player has bought a card or passed, play progresses to the player on their left who becomes the new active player.

Endgame
When any player purchases their 3rd landmark, they immediately win the game.

Overall
Machi Koro 2 is a that's fairly easy to pick up and play light-to-mid weight game that has a quick playtime.
The game generally presents players mostly straightforward but meaningful decisions about buying cards.

Should a player spread their cards over a range of numbers to get better coverage, or concentrate on fewer numbers but getter pay outs when the numbers come up.
Players will also need to consider what those numbers are. e.g., 6-8 will come up most often - provided players are rolling 2 dice have a good chance of being activated.

Speaking of rolling dice, in Machi Koro 2 players are able to choose to roll 1 or 2 right from the start. This is another decision that players can make, sometimes they'll want to roll certain numbers or avoiding rolling them and using 1 or 2 dice can alter odds of doing this.
Much of this ties in with how the activation numbers are distributed across the cards. A lot of the 1-6 cards will immediately generate cash but the cards that combo off of them tend to be in the 7-12 range. Going to 2 dice was described by a player as 'going up a gear'.
It can be pretty hard to slowly build up cash over rounds to get landmarks because other players can essentially 'nickel and dime' it away, gearing up makes it easier to get big cash in a single roll to avoid this.

And talking of nickel and diming, another strategy to consider is the red card strategy.
Using red cards to fleece other players of their coins is a pretty effective strategy, it denies them coins and earns them at the same time - but you won't make any friends that way!
The downside of this approach is that canny players will try their best to spend all their coins, the game's timing explicitly states that red activations occur before any other, thus if opponents have no coins, you can't collect them with a red since their blues/greens/purples activate after red.
It means that in a quirky reflection of real cities, players will want to be as close to bankruptcy as possible!
Unlike blue/green cards, reds are not guaranteed to generate income.

Machi Koro 2 is a little on the light side (Not that I consider that an issue.) and perhaps a little too quick to end, which may not be to everyone's taste.
One other thing to mention is that there's definitely a dollop of luck to the game, I'm fine with it and actually think it's an important part of the Machi Koro experience but some players will find this off putting.

I do have a couple of relatively minor issues with Machi Koro 2.
In the original Machi Koro, the card variety in the base game was fairly low, when 'The Harbour' expansion was added to the base game, Machi Koro went from being a 'nice' game to a 'great' game.
I feel the same is true of Machi Koro 2 as well. There are only 20 different types of establishment and 10 will be visible right from the start. After playing a few games, players will have more or less seen everything the game has to offer at a basic level and and will habitually fall into familiar patterns or strategies depending how establishments emerge. An expansion would shake that up, I would love to see extra cards for Machi Koro 2.
Finally, the rules for landmarks having actions that all players can activate in their turn is a little inelegant, requiring players to remember what landmarks other players have acquired or be reminded of them by those other players.

​Otherwise, I think Machi Koro 2 an un-taxing (Sic.) fun and breezy game to play that's worth trying if lighter games are your thing.

How does it compare to Machi Koro?
I've heard Machi Koro 2 described as Machi Koro 1.5 and there's definitely a sliver of truth to that. Anyone who's played the original will be familiar with nearly everything in Machi Koro 2. If it's not broken...

So apparently there was also some criticism of the original where it was stated that there was a lot 'whiff' in the early game - where players would roll the dice and nothing would be activated. There was further criticism that the original had too long a play time.
It's clear that Machi Koro has tried to address these issues.

The 3 rounds of buying will allow players to have a better spread of numbers at the start. 
Having to only buy 3 landmarks will also make play quicker (Although the cheaper landmarks are way more expensive than the cheapest landmarks from the original.).

Landmarks with ongoing effects that activate in any player's turn also make the game quicker and can add an extra layer of interaction between players, although I've frequently seen players avoid these cards, instead optioning for once-only landmarks and I sort of feel that way myself.
This is the only thing I see as a possible misstep.

Changes to the game have made the red cards a bit more powerful, there's little opportunity to punish players who buy red cards in Machi Koro 2, other than one of the landmarks (Machi Koro had the publisher card to do this.). I don't think this is too much of change though and YMMV.

So anyway, all of this makes the game clearly quicker to play but I feel that perhaps it's a little too quick. Sometimes (Especially when someone gets a good roll or two.)  a game can be over before players can adopt an emergent strategy.
I never found that the original was overlong.

Don't let this put you off playing Machi Koro 2, it's of a similar quality as they original. Even though I own the first game, I was happy to buy and play the second  and would recommend it to players of the original as well as to people who have never played it.

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?

• Board: In the Hall of the Mountain King comes with a double-sided board and the player count determines which side is used. Regardless of this; both sides depicts a mountain surrounded by wilderness and features a square grid that contains a large number of icons and is divided into 5 zones.
  Heart of the Mountain: This fiery spot sits at the centre of the board and is surrounded by 5 bands of colour which form the game's 5 zones. The furthest zone away is dark grey, the next is light grey, then red, orange and finally yellow which is the closest band.
  Buried resources: Across the board are a number of these icons on spaces.
  Rubble spaces: These spaces will hinder players as they expand through the mountain.
  Start spots: There are player starting spots throughout the dark grey band.
  Statue spots: There are also starting spots for statues littered throughout the dark grey band.
  Workshop spaces: These are empty spaces upon which players can build workshop if they get the opportunity.
  Pedestal track: Outside of the grid is this track which keeps tally of which type of pedestal have been built in each zone. There 3 types of pedestal and thus 15 spaces.
  Score tracker: Finally a score tracker runs the perimeter of the board.
• Player board: There are one of these long rectangular for each player in their colour and every board contains information on the pricing structure/scoring for tunnel tiles as well as listing turn actions and the scoring for statues/pedestals.
  Along the top row are 4 indicators for card positioning and finally, the central area has a storage space to place resources.
• Tiles: The game makes uses of numerous types of tiles.
  Gate Tiles: These are small tiles that fit on a single space on the board, there are 4 of them in player colours and they represent the starting spaces for players.
  Great Hall tiles: These square and rectangular tiles of varying size display artwork for different types of rooms, they go from 2x2 up to 4x4.
  Each tile has an altar space which is a blue/orange/white circle. Each tile also displays two different VP scores - more on this later.
  Tunnel tiles: These are sort of like tetramino shaped tiles except they come with a varied number of blocks ranging from 2-5, some of which have holes in them called anchors. They allow players to see the colour of the square and thus the zone beneath the anchor.
  Workshop tiles: These single space tiles will be placed by players on the workshop spaces during the course of play. Workshop tiles have special abilities which can be utilised by players.
• Cards: There are various types of cards that In the Hall of the Mountain King makes use of.
  Spell cards: Each of these cards contains a spell that will benefit the player who uses it in some way.
  Troll cards: These cards are subdivided into even more types! The top half of each card features a picture of a troll and the bottom half will display resources.
  Starter troll cards: There are 4 sets of the 6 starter cards in each player colour. The starter cards feature 2 rows of resources delineated by a dotted line
  Troll card: The subdividing continues! The standard troll cards are further divided into type 1, 2 and 3. The higher the type, the more resource symbols the card will contain and therefore produce.
• Tokens: In the Hall of the Mountain King also makes use of various tokens.
  Coronation tokens: There are 2 of these round card tokens, valued at 5 and 3 VPs respectively. As well as scoring for players, they trigger the game end.
  Pedestal point tokens: These small square tokens are used in conjunction with the pedestal track on the board, consequently there are 15 of them, valued from 1-4 VPs each.
  Pedestal reminder tokens: That's right, the game has tokens to remind players to do something and that something is to do with pedestals! These tokens are each coloured blue/orange/white.
  Resource tokens : Yep, In the Hall if the Mountain King also makes use of lots of different types of resources, 7 to be exact.
  Stone: Little grey wooden cubes are used to represent this resource.
  Iron: These are little black wooden cubes.
  Heartstone: These little wooden cubes are red.
  Carts: These brown wooden tokens are actually shaped a little like carts.
  Hammers: Green wooden tokens shaped like... hammers!
  Runes: These are actually translucent acrylic purple gem shaped tokens.
  Coins: Standard round card currency tokens.
• Draw bag: A bag used to blindly draw pedestal tokens.
• Meeples: There are 2 types of meeple the game makes use of.
  Statues: There are 3 types of statue in the game, they are coloured blue/orange/white. Blue statues represent ice and at the top, are shaped a little like an ice crystal I guess. Orange represents fire and has a flame shaped top, while the white statues are shaped like a crescent moon.
  Pedestals: Pedestals are identically shaped and come in the same three colours as statues.

That's it for components and In the Hall of the Mountain King uses a lot of them!

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

• Board: Which side of the game board that is used will be dictated by player count.
  Statues: The board must be populated with statues. Randomly choose the colour of the first statue and put a statue meeple of that colour it in any statue space, then randomly select a statue from the remaining 2 colours and place it in the next statue space going clockwise. Finally place the final colour of statue clockwise after the second statue.
  Now that there's a pattern of 3 colours, repeat the pattern going clockwise until all statue spaces are occupied
  Pedestal point tokens: Randomize the tokens face-down and place them in the 15 spaces on the pedestal track. Then flip them face-up
• Workshop tiles: Shuffle the workshop tiles into a face-down and stack and draw 2 per player plus 1 more and place them out face-up. The remaining tiles have no use in the game.
• Tunnel tiles: Sort the tunnel tiles by type.
• Spell cards: Shuffle the spell cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 face-up. These 3 cards are called the spell book.
• Bag: Put all the pedestal meeples into the draw bag and give it a vigorous shake.
• Troll cards: Sort the troll cards by type and shuffle them into respective 3 face-down decks, then deal cards from the deck according to their type. When they are all placed, they should form a sort of ziggurat shape so they don't line up in columns, they are known charmingly as the Horde.
  Type 1: Deal 5 type 1 cards and place them in a row at the 'bottom' of the ziggurat.
  Type 2: Deal 4 of these cards and place them in a row directly above the type 1 cards but vertically positioned between the cards from the row below.
  Type 3: Deal 3 type 3 cards and also place them in a row above the type 2 cards, again vertically positioned between the cards from the row below.
  Pedestal meeples: Randomly draw 4 pedestal meeples from the bag and place them on the row of type 2 cards.
  Pedestal reminder tokens: Place 1 of these on each card in the type 3 row.
• Coronation tokens: Depending on the player count put out 1 or both of these tokens.
• 1st player: determine a start player.
• Player boards: Give each player the player board, gate tile and starter troll cards in their player colour
  Gate tile: In turn order, each player should put their gate tile on to one of the starting spots on the board.
  Starting trolls: Each player should shuffle their 6 starter cards into a face-down deck, draw 2 and then should put 1 of the 2 cards into any of the 4 allotted spaces above their player board.
  Now draw another card and again put 1 of them into the 3 remaining spaces. Repeat this until all 4 spaces are filled in a row. This is the beginning of each players Trollmoot and as further cards are added will eventually resemble a pyramid.
  Each player should now have 1 card in their hand and 1 card left face-down.
  Resources: Each player gains the resources listed on the bottom row of the 4 cards they put into their playing area. Once the resources have been gathered, partially slide the cards under the player board so that the bottom row of resources are hidden.
  Bonus resources: The first player does not gain any bonus resources! However, all other player do. They will gain resources from the bottom row of 1 or 2 of the cards they didn't put into their play area depending on their position in the turn order.
  Regardless of whether players gain bonus resources or not, the 2 un-played starter troll cards are discarded out of play.

Phew! We're ready to go now.

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.

• Spells and workshop: The active player may perform one or both of these actions.
  Spells: The active player may spend a rune token to use the ability of any one of the 3 revealed spell cards by placing it on the pertinent spell card.
  Once a spell has accumulated 3 runes, it's discarded and new spell is drawn from the deck.
  Workshop: The active player may make use of one workshop's abilities which is connected to their tunnel network. It can be used as many times as it is connected to any tunnel network - even that of another player.
  Typically workshops allow players to swap around resources, any gained this way are placed into the storage on the active player's board.
• Dig or recruit: The active player must perform only 1 of the 2 following actions.
  Dig: This involves spending resources to acquire a tunnel tile and place it on the board, there are obviously some restrictions and quite a few rules here.
  ​The cost of purchasing a tunnel tile is equal to the spaces it occupies, i.e., a 4 space tile costs 4 resources. This can be paid in only stone or only iron or only heartstone and not any mix if the 3. Players can trade any 4 resources for 1 of their choice at any time. When a tunnel tile is bought, it immediately scores VPs depending on it's size (Except the 2 space tunnel which scores nothing.) and the type of material used to construct the tunnel. Stone scores the least and heartstone scores the most as indicated in the bottom right corner of the player board.
  Next, the active player must put the tunnel tile on to the board; all positioning of and measuring of these tiles is done orthogonally. A tunnel tile can be rotated or flipped anyway the player chooses but must go adjacent to the active player's gate tile or a tunnel tile connected to the active player's tunnel network. Furthermore, there must always be at least 1 space between the networks of all players - no 2 networks can connect.
  If the tile covers any rubble spaces, the active player must spend hammer tokens equal to the rubble spaces being covered.
  If the tile covers any buried resources icon(s) or a statue meeple, the player gains them. Resources are placed into the storage space on their player board and statues are placed back on the same space on the game board but now on the tunnel tile.
  If the tile has been placed adjacent to an empty workshop space, the active player may place one of the available workshop there.
  If the tile that has been place has an anchor point on it and the active player has a pedestal in their storage then they may put the pedestal on the anchor spot, this can only ever be done just after the tile has been placed. There's a further restriction, each zone can only ever contain 1 pedestal of any colour. Since there are 5 zones, there can only be 5 pedestals of one colour in the game at any time and only 3 (One of each colour.) in each zone. There can be a maximum of 15 pedestals in the game which matches the 15 spaces on the pedestal track. Speaking of which, when a player puts a pedestal on the board, they immediately gain the pedestal point token from the space that matches the zone where the statue was placed and the statue's colour. This should be kept face-down in the players storage and revealed during scoring.
  Recruit: The active player may recruit one of the trolls from the Horde and depending on which level the troll is recruited from, it may cost 2 or 5 coins.
  If a type 1 troll is recruited, it costs nothing, if a type 2 troll from the middle row is recruited, the 2 troll cards beneath it must be bribed​ with 1 coin each, thus 2 coins. If a type 3 troll is recruited, then the 2 trolls beneath them must be bribed and then the 3 trolls beneath the the 2 must also be bribed for a total cost of 5 coins. all bribes are placed on the troll card itself. If a troll card acquires 4 coins, it's removed from play and replaced.
  When the active player takes a troll card, they also get anything on the card, including coins. So for a type 2 troll that would be the pedestal on it and on a type 3 the pedestal reminder token means they can take the pedestal of their choice from the bag.
  After a troll card has been taken, it is immediately replaced from it's relevant deck. For type 2 trolls, new pedestals are randomly drawn from the bag and for type 3, the reminder tokens are placed on them.
  Now the player must put the troll card into their Trollmoot. When doing this, it must go position above 2 other troll cards and overlap their top corners. Thus the 2nd row of a Trollmoot will contain 3 cards, the 3rd 2 troll cards and the top row will contain a single troll card, who become the chieftain of the Trollmoot. When the active player gains their chieftain, they can take one of the coronation tokens if there is one available.
  Additionally, when a card is added to the Trollmoot, it is activated, this means that the player acquires the resources listed on the card. Not only that, the 2 cards beneath the card are also activated and then the 3 cards beneath the 2 are activated and so forth in a cascading effect. This means that when the chieftain card is placed, it will activate all cards in the Trollmoot.
  When resources are acquired this way, they are placed on the troll card that generated them and not on the storage space on the player board. This is important to remember because if a troll card is already contains a resource it produces, then the player does not acquire it.
  This means it's a good idea to use resources on troll cards before those on the storage or to use workshops to cycle resources off of troll cards.
• Great Hall: The active player may place 1 great hall tile per turn into their network by placing it on top of their tunnel tiles. However, the player's tunnel network must contain an area at least as large the great hall tile to accommodate it. E.g., a tunnel network must contain an area at least 3x3 in to to accommodate the 3x3 great hall tile.
  Every great hall tile has an altar space and 2 differing VP values. The 2nd value is what the tile is worth if a statue of any colour is placed on the altar space
• Move Statues: The active player spend cart tokens to move statues.
  Cart tokens that come from the players storage on their player board can be used to move statues of any colour.
  Cart tokens that come from troll cards can only move statues that match the colour of the cart icon on that troll card. I.e., the cart token on a troll card with a white cart icon can only be used to move a white statue - even though the cart token itself is brown!
  Each cart token spent allows the active player to move a statue to anywhere on another tunnel tile (Or another space on the same tile - only 1 statue can ever occupy a single space.).
  This can involve putting the statue on a pedestal of matching colour which doubles the statue's VP value.
• Next player: when the active player has completed all 4 phases, play progresses clockwise to the next player.

Okay, that's it for the main rules.

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 night games with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns continued with Fantastic Factories.

I don't know if factories are fantastic but I guess we're going to find out.

What's in a game?

• Player board: These rectangular boards contain recessed spaces to assign 3 rows of up to 3 dice each and considered each player's headquarters.
  Research: This is the first row, dice of any value can be assigned here.
  Generate: Dice showing values 1-3 can be assigned here.
  Mine: Finally, dice displaying 4-6 can be assigned here.
• ​Dice: Fantastic Factories comes with quite a few dice. They're normal six-siders constructed of translucent acrylic with rounded corners and dots.
  There are 5 sets of 4 dice in player colours and a generic set of 8 grey-white dice which players can acquire temporarily.
• Tokens: The game makes use of various types of card tokens.
  Energy tokens: These round tokens are unsurprisingly marked with lightning bolts.
  Metal tokens: Metal bars are used to indicate these are metal tokens
  Goods tokens: There are 2 types of these token that show 1 or 2 crates and correspondingly represent 1 or 2 goods.
  Tool type tokens: There is 1 each of these 4 tokens and they show a cog, wrench, hammer and shovel. They are used to determine the type of tool required to hire contractors (See below for more on contractors.). Tool type symbols also appear on blueprint cards.
• Cards: There are 2 types of cards in Fantastic Factories.
  Blueprints: These are the factories that players will build.
  In the top left it lists the cost to build the factory, this will include some combination of energy and metal as well as a tool. Additionally, when a blueprint is discarded, it will generate that tool type.
  In the top right corner it shows the VPs the card is worth when built. 
  Finally, in the bottom half, the card shows what kind of ability that blueprint will have when built, e.g, spending energy to get goods or something along those lines.
  ​Contractors: These cards have once-only abilities that are triggered when the card is bought (Contractor is hired.). Hiring contractors will cost a tool, the exact type of tool is determined by the tool type tokens.
• First player marker: The game features a wooden first player token shaped like a factory, it even has a pair of polluting smokestacks!

The components in Fantastic Factories are average in quality, which means they're perfectly acceptable, there's nothing poor here. Having said that, the translucent dice look good despite not being wooden, speaking of which, the wooden first player marker is a nice touch.

From an art perspective, the game makes good use of cheerfully bright colours. The art itself uses heavily stylised illustrations of both factories and contractors which is fine and suits the game's slightly light-hearted theme.

When built, factories provide a varied amount of special actions, consequently the game makes use of quite a varied amount of iconography. For the most part it's straightforward, however, on occasion 2 cards may seem similar but they'll be a small difference between denominated by a single small icon or sometimes they'll just be something 
​I wouldn't say it's any kind of a gamebreaker or that there's too much iconography but for a few turns players will probably end up referring to the rules.

How's it play?
Setup

• Tool tokens: Put out the 4 tool tokens in a line, the order does not matter.
• Contractors: Shuffle the contractor cards into a face-down deck, then deal 4 face-up with each one in line beneath each tool token.
• Blueprints: Also shuffle these into a face-down deck and again, deal 4 face-up, this time below the contractor cards.
  Marketplace: Thus this row of 4 tokens with 2 rows of 4 cards beneath also forms 4 columns and is what is called the marketplace.
• Players: Give each player a player board, 4 dice in their player colour, 2 energy and 1 metal token.
  Finally, deal 4 blueprint cards to each player.

On to play
Broadly speaking, a round is broken into 2 phases; a market phase which occurs in turn order and a work phase, which can be performed simultaneously by all players.

• Market phase: Starting with the first player and going in turn order, everyone may perform the optional action, then must choose one of the following 2 actions.
  • Optional action: By spending an energy or metal token, the active player may wipe one of the two rows of cards in the marketplace and have 4 new cards revealed.
  • Hire contractor: The active player may hire 1 contractor card by paying it's cost which will a combination of whatever energy/metal tokens it may require plus the tool symbol for the column it's in, the active player does this by discarding a card from their hand with a matching tool symbol.
    When a contractor is acquired, it's ability is used immediately and the card is discarded.
    That's not very realistic, if it was, the contractor would do nothing for 3 rounds and then charge the player again before doing anything!
    OR
  • Gain blueprint: The active player may buy a blueprint much as they would do with a contractor card except they do not need to pay the tool cost. When the active player acquires a blueprint card, it goes into their hand.
• Work phase: This phase can be carried out by all players simultaneously if they wish.
  Roll dice: The first action that occurs in the work is rolling dice.
  After this, there are several types of action that can be performed during the work phase and players carry them out in any order they choose.
  • Headquarters/basic actions: All 3 basic actions involve assigning the rolled dice to spaces on the headquarters board. The numbers rolled will affect where those can be assigned and what they do.
    • Research: Dice with any value can be assigned to this action. For each dice assigned this way, the player can draw a card from the blueprint deck (Not the face-up cards.)
    • Generate: Only dice numbering 1-3 can be assigned to this action, then the player would acquire energy tokens equal to the value of the dice assigned. E.g., if a 1 and a 3 are placed in generate, the player would gain 4 energy.
    • Mine: Only dice numbering 4-6 can be placed here and each die assigned earn the player a metal token.
      Matched numbers: If a pair of matching numbers are assigned any single basic action, it increases the amount the player gain by 1. If 3 matching numbers are assigned, it would earn the player an extra 2.
      Putting 5 and 5 into research or mine would earn the player 3 blueprints/metal tokens.
      If a player somehow would manage to put 3, 3 and 3 into generate, it would earn them 11 energy!​
  • Build blueprints: Players may build any number of blueprint cards from their hand provided they can meet all the costs, this will of course involve discarding blueprint cards with the identical tool symbol.
  • Activate buildings: Players may activate buildings that have been built in any order they see fit. Each building can only be activated once per turn however.
    Buildings have an activation cost, this might be a resource or even a die and will produce some other resource for the player.
• Extra dice: Some abilities allow players to acquire extra dice to use, these always come from the supply of grey/white dice, are temporary and will return back to their supply at the end of the round.
• Next round: Once all players have finished their actions, the first player marker moves to the player on the right and a new round begins with the next market phase.

Endgame
Play continues until either a player has built their 10th card or acquired their 12th good.
In either case, the current round ends and 1 more round is played.
Players then total the VPs from their buildings and the goods they gained.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
On a basic level, Fantastic Factories is mechanically pretty straightforward; acquire blueprints, acquire resources to build factories, use factories to acquire resources.

It's a mid-weight engine building game that provides players with strong card synergy and offers a good selection of choices and avenues to follow for building that engine.
I feel for the most part that players will want to focus on blueprints and building them, which is natural as this is what gets resources and VPs.
Players shouldn't neglect the contractors who provide instant if transitory benefits for a relatively low cost. Applied at the right time, they can be game changers - provided they're available at the right time! Once again, it's a case of reacting to opportunities as they are revealed.

There are a couple of there elements that make Fantastic Factories interesting.

Firstly; dice rolling. Players will never be guaranteed getting the results and thus the resources they want. It means that players may not be able to build the card they originally wanted to and will need to adapt and react to the situation as it arises for optimal play. Of course it's always possible to play it safe and have all the required resources before getting a card, it's safer but it's also slower.
Secondly; Fantastic Factories makes use of a hand-as currency mechanic. This forces players to think ahead, players may need to get blueprint cards just to discard for another building, or may be forced to discard a blueprint they still want in order to build another, it can be a tough decision.

There's also some high level play, where it pays to watch what other players are working towards then wipe the marketplace to deny another a player a card they want.

Fantastic Factories is a well balanced game, it's rules aren't particularly complicated and are easy to learn but also have depth that comes from recognising how to exploit the available cards that appear during the game to build their engine optimally and to maximum efficiency.
​The gameplay is solid and will appeal to fans of engine building games, which I am. so I guess factories can be fantastic!

16th December 2021

It's a Thursday and we're round Simon's for some gaming.

​The game of the night was Le Harve; have you ever had the urge to run a business on the French coast, construct buildings and ships, manage goods, feed your ever expanding workforce and avoid going into debt?
If the answer is yes, then maybe, just maybe, Le Havre is the game you're lookng for.

What's in a game?
Le Havre uses a lot of components, I mean it, A LOT!

• Game board: The game board is composed of 3 large tiles that are placed down together to form the board. It depicts the titular harbour with a wharf and warehouses and it's a fairly busy board too with a lot of spots and locations.
  Resource spaces: There are 6 spaces for the games 8 resources, wait, did I say 8 resources, since the resource tiles are double-sided that means the game actually has 16 resources. Finally there's a spot for the 17th resource - money.
  Supply spaces: There a row of seven of these circular spaces directly beneath the resource spaces.
  Offer spaces: And beneath the port spaces are 7 offer spaces. As the game progresses, goods will move from the resources down to the offer spaces.
  Special buildings: this is where the special buildings deck goes.
  Building proposals: These are 3 spaces which will contain regular building cards which can be built but not bought.
  Ship spaces: There are 4 spaces for the 4 different types of ship that will appear during a game.
  Round cards space: Finally, there's a space for the round cards, there not actually round but are used to track the game's round.

• Cards: Le Havre uses numerous decks of cards.
  ​Round cards/Ship cards: Not all of these are used during a game, depending on player count.
  ​They are arranged in numerical order and are used to not only track rounds, but other events such as harvesting and bringing special buildings into play. They are also double sided and on the other side are ships. When a round is over, the round card is flipped to the other side and becomes a ship available to be bought, thus more and more (And better.) ships become available as a game progresses.
  Ship cards are very useful cards, they allow players to trade resources for cash and also provide food when needed.
  Building cards: These come in 3 types, starter, standard and special and can be bought or used by players. They are functionally more or less identical though. Each card has a cost to buy in some combination of resources and money, it may also have a symbol for it's type. Then the card lists what ability it has, typically this is generate or upgrade resources, although some will construct buildings or ships. 
  Standard cards have a couple of bits of extra info, first, in the top right corner it shows a number, this is the sort order number and determines the order in which cards appear. Finally, at the bottom it repeats the buying info, which will be displayed when the cards are put out.
  Loan cards: If a player runs of cash, then they can take a load card to acquire more money, although this comes at a price...
  Buttery/Player guide: This double-sided card has a buttery on one side and a quick guide to the rules on the other.
• Tokens: As with cards, Le Havre makes use of a lot of tokens. All of them are made of card.
  Cash: These round tokens represent francs.
  Resources: All of these are double-sided, with the basic resource on one side and the upgraded resource on the other. Resources provide food and energy amongst other things and include.
  Cattle/Meat: Produces more cattle and food on the upgraded side.
  Grain/Bread: Produces more grain and also produces food
  Iron/Steel: Used for building.
  Clay/Brick: Also used for building.
  Wood/Charcoal: Produces energy.
  Fish/Smoked fish: Produces food.
  Coal/Coke: Produces energy.
  Hide/Leather​: Can be sold.
• Meeples: Each player is given 2 wooden meeples in their colour, a ship which is used in the port and a disc, which is essentially a worker and placed in buildings.
• Supply tiles: There are 7 of these circular tiles that fit on the supply spaces. Each tile displays an action that must be resolved during the game.

​The art in Le Havre is a bit of a mixed bag. The game board uses fairly simplistic and colourful illustrations that I personally found clear, distinct and looked quite evocative, the same is true of illustrations on the cards. However, the tokens used monochromic artwork which is a little old school. Having said that, it was always clear what they represented.
Which brings me to iconography. Between all the different actions on all the building cards in particular, Le Havre uses a fair amount of iconography. Much of it is straightforward and apparent but some of it will require looking up in the rules. none of it game-breaking though.

How's it play?
Setup

• Round cards: Take the round cards appropriate for the number of players and place them face-up in numerical order on their allotted space. Round cards come into affect at the end of each round.
• Supply tokens: Shuffle the supply tokens into a face-down stack and then place 1 of each face-down on the row of supply spaces.
• Starter buildings: Put out the 3 starter building cards next to the board. These are owned by the town. Furthermore any buildings that are built by players are also owned by the town (Until players purchase them, that is.).
• Building cards: Shuffle the standard building cards into a face-down deck, then deal the cards into 3 smaller face-down stacks.
  Now turn each stack over and sort it buy its sort order number in the top right corner. Thus certain cards will appear earlier in the game than others. Each of the 3 stacks goes into a space on the board but they do not sit stacks. Instead, spread each stack up, so that the info on the bottom of each card is visible and players can see the cost of upcoming cards. Only the top card in each proposal space are available to be built by players.
  Special building cards: Shuffle the deck of special building card and deal 6 cards face-down into a deck on their space on the board. The rest of the deck will not be used in this game.
• Resources: Put all the resources into their specified spaces, then place 2 money, 2 fish, 2 wood and 1 clay token into their respective offer spaces.
• Player: Give each player a ship and disc meeple in their colour as well as 5 cash and 1 coal. Each player's ship should be placed just left of the first supply tile.
• First player: Determine a first player.

On to play
Acquisition of wealth is goal in Le Havre and money becomes victory points at the game end.
The game is played over a number rounds dependant on the number of players. In each round there are 7 turns, you will note that this means that players will not have an equal number of turns and this is by design.
In their turn each player must perform the supply action and has a single main action they can also perform, in addition the active player can also perform buy/sell actions.
When all 7 turns have been completed, there are some end of round actions to resolve before moving on to the next round.
Free actions: These can be performed by the active player at any time.

• Loan: If a player does not have the money to pay for something, then they can take a loan card which gives them 4 currency to spend, paying off a loan card costs 5. Every loan card that a player has during the game end will essentially cost them 7 victory points, so you don't want to keep them!
  Additionally, sometimes players with loan cards will have to pay interest to the supply.
• Buying/Selling: The active player may buy or sell any number of available buildings or ships at any time in their turn, provided they meet the requirements of course. Players cannot buy buildings in the building proposal spaces, because they're not built yet.
  When something is sold, it is at half the cash cost for the building and is sold to the town who will now own it.

Turn actions:

• Supply action: The active player must perform the supply action. This involves moving their ship meeple on to the first available supply token (Going from left to right.), turning over the tile and resolving its action. Usually this involves moving tokens from one resource supply to it's respective offer space.
  Supply tiles are only turned over once during a game and when revealed stay in the same order for the remainder of the game.
• Main action: There are 2 main actions available to the active player and they can perform 1 of them only.
  Take offer: The active player take all the resources on 1 offer space which they can use immediately.
  Enter building: The active player may take their disc and place in any available unoccupied building and use that building's ability.
  Available buildings include any buildings owned by the town or the player, furthermore, a disc may be placed in another player's building, but this will incur a entry fee that must be payed to that player.
  Next player: Once a player has completed their actions, play progresses to the player to the left.

A round ends when the player on the last supply token finishes their turn and leads directly into the end of round actions. This involves resolving the actions on the current round card and include the following.

• Harvest: If this action occurs, players with cattle or grain increase them respectively.
• Feeding: All players must feed their populations, this requires discarding food, how much is needed depends on the round card and a ship lowers this requirement. Money can be used in place of food and must be used if a player does not have enough food.
• Construction: A building from the standard or special buildings may be built by the town and now becomes available to be used or bought players.
• Ship: The round card is flipped over and becomes a ship, it is placed into its relevant spot and can bought by players.
• Next round: All player ship meeples are placed back at the start of the supply track and a new round begins. Whoever was last in the previous round is the starting player in this one, thus they get a double-turn.

Endgame
When the final round is completed, all players have 1 final main action they can perform, after this, the game goes to scoring.
Now each player calculates their wealth which are victory points. This is done by totting up the following:
Value of all building and ships a player owns.
Cash they possess.
Every loan card a player still possess at the game end deducts from the total.
Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
When playing Le Havre players will need to pay attention to several areas of the game. Buildings are very important and players will probably spent a significant number of actions on them, not only do they have to think about to what they've built, what the town owns and what it available to build but what other players have built. Being able to make use of other player's building adds an interesting spin on the game.
Players will need to adapt their strategy to the buildings that become available and while there is a ordering number for buildings, it's still no guarantee of the actual order they become available.

That doesn't mean you can risk ignoring ships or acquiring resources of course, food is vital, probably the single most important thing in the game, you'll constantly need food otherwise you'll eventually be plunged into spiralling debt.
Managing all the resources is also key and the game deliberately forces players to make the hard choice between using a building or taking a resource from an offer space. Resources tend to be relatively scarce at the start of the game and player's will want to optimise their strategies.
Generally money can be used in place of some resources but it's essentially sucking up victory points and getting players closer to having to take a loan, something to avoid if you can.

Players will need to also pay attention to the supply track and their position on it and when their turns will come up, as well as when resources will be moved into the offer spaces.

Even though there were some more rules which I skipped over describing, I wouldn't call La Havre a very heavy game. I did find it a little fiddly with the occasional little rule popping up here or there and at the start I did find the game a little obtuse.
​Once you get over that hump Le Havre becomes a mostly straightforward game and proves a challenging game with meaningful decisions to make.

I do have a criticism of Le Havre though - and that's the playtime, it's just too long! This is a known issue too as the rules contain a 'shortened' variant of the game!
A 5-player game is expected to take 210 minutes over 20 rounds, that's 3 ½ hours and quite frankly, that's an underestimation.
Think about it; 210 minutes over 20 rounds is 10 minutes 30 seconds per round and each round has 7 turns, that works out at 90 seconds per turn. Do you think that the kind of players that like this type of game spend just 90 seconds per turn? If every player spends 2 minutes taking their turn instead of 90 seconds, it would add 70 minutes to the playtime. 😭

It meant that the down time between turns felt like it lasted forever and at times was just more frustrating than fun or compelling, which was what I ultimately took away from it.

If you like resource-management games that are slightly on the heavy side, then Le Havre might be worth a look, provided you can commit the time.
To be honest, it's a game that rainy, chilled Sunday afternoons are perfect for.

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?

• Board: The game's central board has a couple of functions, it tracks rounds, coal values and scores, it also has spaces for the game's sets of cards. Speaking of which...
• Cards: Chocolate Factory uses quite a few different types of cards.
  Factory parts: It makes sense for a game called Chocolate Factory to have factory part cards! These smaller-than-usual cards will be used to manufacture chocolate and are part of the engine building mechanic. There are 2 types of card, A & B.
  Corner shop orders: These represent the wide variety of orders that players can fulfil. Corner shops come in 3 sizes, small, medium and large and respectively have 1-3 tiers of order to complete each. Once fulfilled, they can be replaced with new orders.
  Department store orders: There are 5 department stores in Chocolate Factory that always want the same type of chocolate. These double-sided cards are used to fulfil those orders and each had 9 spaces to track how much every player has provided. Unlike the corner shop orders, these are only scored at the end of the game and the points earned are relative to where players have reached on each card, there are scores for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
  Employees: There are 5 different types of employee card that directly correspond to the 5 different department stores that are demanding chocolate. Even though all the department stores want chocolate, players cannot sell it to a department unless they've acquired an employee of that respective store. Employee cards also confer a 1 round benefit to the player that acquired it.
• Player board: The player boards depict each player's factory; which consists of a conveyor belt that runs from left-to-right, the conveyor belt has an entrance and exit as well as 4 spaces; both above and below each conveyor belt space is a factory part space - thus 8 factory part spaces in all. The player boards come come with 3 factory parts already installed.
• Tiles: Chocolate Factory also comes with a fair amount of tiles for each player.
  Conveyor belt tiles: Each player will have 7 of these square tiles which will form their conveyor belt.
  Coal bunker tile: Each player has one of these tiles to store their coal.
  Storeroom tile: This is where each player their chocolate once it's exited their factory. They're not very good storerooms; because while players can store as much chocolate in their storerooms during a round, they can only store 2 pieces between rounds!
• Tokens: There's a lot of chocolate in Chocolate Factory and thus a lot of tokens! For the most part, players will be looking to use their factory to upgrade from one type of chocolate token to another to then fulfil orders. Essentially these are all resources that need to be managed in some way or other.
  Below is the 'order of value' for tokens.
  Bean tokens/Cocoa tokens:
  Chocolate finger tokens/Chocolate chunk tokens:
  Wrapped caramel chocolate/Wrapped nut chocolate tokens:
  Premium boxed chocolate tokens:
• Coal tokens: No, not chocolate but used to power factories.
• Markers: These come in player colours and are used to track various bits of information.

That's pretty much it for components.
​
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

• ​Factory parts: Separate the cards into face-down decks by their A and B types. Shuffle each deck then place the A deck on top of the B deck. Thus the B cards will not appear until the late game.
• Corner shop orders: Sort these cards by their 3 types and shuffle them into 3 face-down decks.
• Employees: Sort these cards by their 5 types and then also shuffle them into 5 face-down decks.
• Department store orders: Put out these 5 cards next to the game board.
• Player boards: Give each player their factory board along with their conveyor belt, storage and coal bunker tiles.
• Starting player: Determine a starting player.

Now we're good to go!

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

• Coal: First give each player coal tokens which will range from 5 to 10 according to the day.
• Factory parts: Draw factory part cards and arrange according to the number of players.
• Employees: Draw 1 employee from each of the 5 employee decks and arrange as per the number of players.
• 1st draft: Beginning with the first player, everyone will end up taking either a factory part card from the available selection or an employee card.
• 2nd draft: Once the 1st draft is over, there's a second! However, this draft is in reverse turn order, each player drafts another card, except this time it must be from the opposite selection. So each player will end up with a factory part and an employee.

That's it for the first 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.

• Game board: Everdell's board is a curious circular shape and the central area is called the 'meadow'. Around the meadow with numerous spots to place the game's resources. There also various worker locations dotted across the maps, including some blank worker spaces that will be populated with randomly determined worker locations during the game setup. There also some location for 'events'. More on events later.
  Most of the worker locations earn players some combination of the game's resources and/or cards. E.G., 2 twigs and a card or 1 resin and a card.
• Tree: The game comes with a tree made of gameboard that can be constructed, placed on the board and used to hold various components.
• Basic event tiles: These score point when acquired.
• Resources: Everdell uses 4 main types of resources, berries, twigs, resin and pebbles. These are represented by shaped 3d plastic tokens.
• Meeples: Each player has up to 6 workers they can use, these wooden tokens are shaped in the style of different type of anthropomorphic animals.
• Cards: Broadly speaking, the game uses several different types of cards.
  Critter & construction cards: These are the core of the game and as the name suggests, come in 2 types. In the top left corner is the requirement or cost to play them, just below is the card type and at the bottom of each card it displays what benefit it confers such as victory points and more. There is a wide variety of different benefits available, this may even include extra places to put workers and sometimes these are modified by other cards.
  Special event cards: These cards are a variation on the event tiles above and as such will score when player's meet their requirements.
  Forest cards: These are used on the board to provide randomly generated worker spots in each game.
• Victory point tokens: Standard card tokens.

No doubt about, Everdell has fantastic production values.
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

• Meadow: Shuffle the critter & construction cards into a face-down deck, then draw and place 8 of them face-up into the meadow on the board.
• Forest cards: Shuffle the forest cards and deal out the allotted amount as per player count face-up on to the blank spots on the board. This means that some of the worker spots are randomly generated each game.
• Events:
  Event tiles: Put out the basic event tiles on to their allotted spaces on the board.
  Special event cards: Shuffle these cards and deal 4 face-up on to their allotted spaces.
• Cards: Determine the starting player; then each player should draw cards from the deck, starting with the 1st player who gets 5, then 2nd gets 6 and thus forth.
• Meeples: Each player takes only 2 meeples in their colour, the remaining 4 will be acquired before the game's 3 later turns. 

Now we're pretty much ready to go.

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.

• Place worker: The active player may place a worker on a available spot. This will allow them to gain a mix of resources, cards or victory points depending on which spot it is.
  Some spots only allow for the placement of a single worker but some allow multiple players to make use of them. Furthermore, some cards that may get played have spots to place workers and acquire whatever benefits the card confers. This means a player may end up placing a worker in another player's tableau!
• Play card: The active player can play a card as their action, cards provide lots of actions or abilities which can be performed, too many to list here.
  Broadly speaking, cards come in two categories; critters and constructions which can also be common or unique. Cards also have a type such as Tan Traveller or Green Production which affect what function the card performs.
  For example Tan Traveller cards have a once-only benefit, but Green Production cards produce something whenever a production phase is triggered.
  Playing a card requires spending the relevant resources, having said that, the game has some synergy between cards and some critters can be played for free if the linked construction is already in the player's tableau.
  Players can play card types in sets to acquire event tiles/cards; e.g. the Grand Tour event can be earned if the player puts 3 destination cards into their tableau.  
• Prepare for Season: Players can continue taking actions until they run out of workers and cards that can be played, when this happens, the player must prepare for the next season.
  This involves taking back their workers plus an additional worker or two from the supply, players may be able to re-activate production cards in their tableau or take cards from the meadow, all depending on the season.

When all players have prepared for season, then the current season is over and play moves to the next one.

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.

5th October 2021

Tuesday night is here and the Woking Gaming Club is at The Sovereigns in Woking.

The first game of the evening was Jump Drive, whisk through the Galaxy instead of racing through it!
Jump Drive is a streamlined version of the great Race for the Galaxy and like it, shares a setting with games New Frontiers and Roll for the Galaxy.

What's in a game?
Jump Drive uses 2 different types of cards which will be familiar to players of Race for the Galaxy. All cards have a cost and may also have icons for exploring, genetics or military, they may also powers, victory points or income.

• Developments: Developments are recognisable from the diamonds in the top left corner which also contain the card's cost, these cards represent technological, scientific or other kinds of advancement.
  Survey team: This is a special type of development card, more is explained below.
• Settlements: These are marked out by circles around the cost.
  Like Race for the Galaxy, settlements come in 4 types, blue (Novelty.), tan (Rare elements.), green (Genes) and yellow (Alien tech.), as well as neutral grey.
  Military worlds: If the circle and the cost are outlined in red, it means the settlement is a military world.
• Exploration tokens: These square tokens are used when performing exploration actions.
• Victory point tokens: These hexagonal tokens will be very familiar to players of any of the games in this setting.

That's it for the components, their quality is pretty good as you'd expect. The cards ae well made and the tokens are suitability thick.
Jump Drive's art style matches that of the other games in the series and at least some of the artwork is recycled and as I've said before, it's not a bad thing as it lends them all a consistent look.
The game's iconography is for the most part straightforward and certainly less intimidating than Race for the Galaxy. 

How's it play
Setup

• Survey teams: Set out a number of Survey Team cards face-up equal to the number of players. Each player may only have 1 survey team card in a game.
• Player hands: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and deal 7 to each player. Then all players must discard 2 cards each.

Play is now ready to begin.

On to play
Rounds in Jump Drive are played out simultaneously over 3 phases and players have choice from 3 actions, 2 of which can be completed in 1 turn.

• Action phase: In this 1st phase, payers make take one of the 3 actions, alternatively they may take the develop and settle action in the same turn - with a proviso of course.
  Choose: Players privately choose which action(s) to perform. If they want to explore they take an exploration token. If they want to develop, they play a development card face-down, to settle a settlement card must also be played face-down. Finally, if playing both develop and settle, one card of each must be played face-down.
  Reveal: Once all players have chosen, all cards are revealed simultaneously and the 3 actions are played out in the order below. Any cost that must be payed is paid with cards from the acting player's hand. As with Race for the Galaxy, a player's hand is also their currency in Jump Drive. 
• Explore: When performing the explore action, the player takes an exploration token. This allows them to draw 5+ cards from the deck and keep 2, the more explore symbols they have in their tableau, the more they can draw.
• Develop: This action allows players to put development cards into play. If a player is only performing the develop action, then they have -1 to the cost. They do not receive this benefit if also playing the settle action.
  Survey team: Interestingly, as their only action, a player is guaranteed getting a survey team card, which means they'll get an income of 1 no matter what.
• Settle: As you'd imagine, this allows players to put settlement cards into play. If the player is only performing the settle action; once they've paid the cost of the card, they can draw a card from the deck. They do not receive this benefit if they performed the develop action.
  Military worlds: These worlds cannot be bought and must be conquered. A player can only put a military world into play if their military score is equal or higher than the cost of the card. The upside is that there's no other cost to putting a military world into play.
• Victory point phase: During this phase, all players count all the victory points their cards are currently generating and increase their victory point total by that amount. Cards are scored every round after they've been played.
  You'll notice that this will increase players' scores exponentially, e.g., having a 1 VP in round 1 grants 1 VP, adding a 2 VP card in round grants 3 VP and so on.
• Income phase: In this phase, players draw cards into their hands; mechanically, this works identically to accruing VPs with the same exponential increase occurring.
  Hand size: At the end of the round, all players must have no more than 10 cards in their hand, discarding any excess. This may sound like a reasonable amount but when you're drawing 15+ cards a round, it involves a lot of decision making and deck shuffling.

Endgame
When any player's score reaches 50+ VPs, then the game will end with the current round.
All players should calculate their VP total.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Jump Drive plays very quickly and the game can be over in a handful of turns; at the start  50 victory points may seem like a lot but thanks to the exponentially increasing scores, players will suddenly find themselves hitting the endgame.
They cannot afford the luxury of meandering in their decisions or make frivolous choices.
Players must learn to be ruthless with spending their hand of cards, keeping more than 1 or 2 cards back will really slow them down, this is even more true in Jump Drive than Race for the Galaxy as Jump Drive provides players the choice to put down 2 cards a time and that double cost can easily empty a players hand.
Sure, it's fine and prudent to play one card at a time but if opponents are putting down 2 at a time instead, they risk streaking ahead and it may be necessary to keep up with them!
Jump Drive is not only about engine building, it's about optimisation, players have try an exploit the opportunities given to them instead of searching too hard for them.

It's also impressive how Jump Drive manages to distil so much of Race for the Galaxy into a streamlined, more accessible and quicker iteration. Pretty much everything that makes Race for the Galaxy a good game is is present here: The hand of cards as currency, hidden choices, engine building and synergy and so on.

Jump Drive is an enjoyable experience, reasonably easy to learn with a quick set up and play time that provides players with meaningful choices, a game well worth trying: If you like Race for the Galaxy, you'll find a lot to like here.

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?

• Superhero cards: There are 7 of these oversized cards, each one representing a DC comics superhero such as Hawkman, Nightwing, Booster Gold and each one has a unique special ability.
  You'll notice that there's no playable Superman, Batman et al, that's because they're all already available in the core set. Anyway, who doesn't want to play as Batgirl over Wonder Woman, right?
• Starter cards: Each player begins with the same set of 10 starter cards.
  7 punch cards: Each punch card provides 1 point of currency, called Power in this game.
  3 vulnerability cards: These are basically trash cards, they do nothing but take up room in a player's hand.
  If you've played a deck-builder before, then I'm sure this will all be familiar to you.
• Cards: These cards are bulk of cards in the game, they contain various types of cards such as heroes, villains, superpowers, locations etc. They all function differently, but basically all have a cost (In power) and confer some sort of bonus such as extra power or extra card draws, some also provide a method of affecting other players or provide defence against attacks.
  Many cards will also provide victory points.
• Kick cards: These are slightly more powerful versions of the starter punch cards, the also provide 1 victory point each and are always available to purchase.
• Supervillains: Supervillain cards are a little like villain cards but differ in 3 ways.
  First appearance: When a supervillain card is flipped and revealed, it immediately has a once-off effect, this is ​typically negative and affects all players with an attack.
  Cost: Like other cards, supervillain cards can be bought with power and added to a player's discard stack, however they coast a significantly higher amount of power.
  Victory points: Supervillain cards also provide victory points, as with the cost, they tend to be higher than victory points provided by normal cards.
• Weakness cards: Every weakness card that a player owns during the game end deducts a point from their victory point total. Obviously players don't buy these, but negative events or attacks will force players to take weakness cards.

That's pretty much it for components.
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

• Supervillains: Shuffle the supervillain cards into a face-down deck.
• Kick cards: Put these into a face-up deck
• Weakness cards: Also put these into a face-up deck.
• Cards: Shuffle these into a face-down decks and deal 5 of them, these will become the 'line-up', cards that the active player may purchase.
• Superheroes: Either randomly give each player a superhero card or choose one each.
• Player decks: Give a set of 10 starter cards to each player, who should then shuffle them into a face-down deck and draw 5.
• Begin: Determine the start player.

On to play

• Play cards: The active player may play any or all of the cards in their hand in any order and resolve them accordingly. Cards are played in front of the active player and remain in play until the end of their turn.
  Purchase cards: The active player may use power generated to purchase any available cards including kick cards and revealed supervillains, if they have enough power they can purchase multiple cards. However, any cards bought are not immediately replaced, so there are limits to how many cards can be bought.
  Any cards purchased go into the active player's discard pile.
  Card abilities: Card may allow players to draw more cards, go through their discard pile, attack other players, force them to draw weakness cards and so on. These can be resolved in any order the active player chooses.
• End of turn: Once the active player has finished their turn, the following events occur.
  Discard hand: The active player discards any cards they did not play.
  Powers: Any cards with 'end of turn' powers are now triggered.
  Discard played cards: The active player now discards cars they played, these cards are now no longer considered in play.
  Refresh line-up: Any cards that were purchased from the line-up by the active player are now replaced from the deck.
  Draw cards: The active player (Whose hand should be empty.) draws 5 cards into their hand.
  Supervillain: If no supervillain card is visible; which will be the case in the first turn or if the active player just bought (Defeated!) one, then flip a supervillain card over and put it on top of the supervillain deck. The first appearance action is then immediately triggered.
  Next player: The player to the left of the current player becomes the active player.

​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!

5th September 2021

Sunday night gaming on Board Game Arena continued with New Frontiers.

Galaxies: The New Frontier, these are the games of the website of 3 Spellcaster and a Dwarf.
Dodgy puns aside, New Frontiers is a sibling-game to Race for the Galaxy and Roll for the Galaxy and shares the same universe. Players will find many similarities between the 3.

Caveat: We have only ever played the digital version of New Frontiers

What's in a game?
Unlike the previously mentioned games, while New Frontiers is a board game, players of the other games will recognise many elements here.

• Player boards: Each player gets one of these double-sided, strangely shaped player boards. Roughly in the centre of each side of the board is a starting planet.
  Beneath the starting planet is a 3x4 grid with 12 spaces, but not a normal square spaces, instead each space on the grid is a sort of sideways chevron space.
  Finally, 3 of the 4 sides are lined with semi-circular indents, 8 in total. This is what gives the player boards their strange shape.
• Planet tiles: Planet tiles are double-sided and round - like planets and obviously slot into the indentations on the player boards. One side is grey and represents an explored planet, the other is coloured and represents a settled planet.
  Planets have a victory point value as well as a cost in money or military strength and colonists. Some planets are 'grey but most come in 1 of 4 colours which represents the type of goods they produce, most planets have some sort of special ability or bonus of some kind.
  Planets come in 3 types.
  Production worlds: These planets have a solid colour around their cost.
  Windfall worlds: These planets have a coloured nimbus around their cost. Windfall worlds start with 1 good in their respective colour when they enter the game.
  Military worlds: Military worlds can also be production and windfall worlds, however a military world are marked out by red lettering for the cost. Unlike the other types of planet which are paid for with money. Military worlds are settled by having military strength equal or greater than the planet's cost.
• Development tiles: These chevron shaped tiles are designed to fit on the player board's grid, all development tiles have a cost and confer some sort of benefit. Like planets, they are double-sided with different abilities on each side.
  Developments come in 2 types.
  Normal sized: Take up 1 space on the grid.
  Double width: These tiles take up 2 spaces on the grid and are more expensive but confer stronger abilities than the usual tiles.
• Goods: There are 4 types of good in New Frontiers, each type is pertinent to it's similarly coloured planets. Players of the earlier games will recognise them.
  Blue: Novelty goods.
  Tan: Rare elements.
  Green: Genes.
  Yellow: Alien artefacts.
• Action tiles: There are 7 action tiles, these determine player actions, more on them below.
• Priority tile: Used to determine player order.
• Player disks: Used in conjunction with the priority tile.
• Victory point tokens: These cards are made of card and are common to all Galaxies games
• Colonists meeples: These are one of the game's types of currency
• Credit tokens: The game's other type of currency.
• Bag: Used with planet tiles.

The art in New Frontiers is all of a good quality, I'm sure some of it has been reused from the previous games, as have the names of developments and planets. But that's no bad thing, since it gives all 3 games a unified look.
Like its siblings, New Frontiers uses an abundance of symbols and icons which can be daunting for new or inexperienced players.

How's it play?
Setup

• Action tiles: Set out the action tiles.
• Development tiles: Set out the 2 sets of development tiles.
• Victory points: Put out 12 VP per player.
• Colonists: Put out 12 colonist meeples per player.
• Planet tiles: Put the planet tiles into the bag and give it a good shake.
• ​Player order: Determine the player order and then set up the disks with the priority board accordingly.
• Player board: Randomly deal a player board to each player.
  Then, in turn order, each player choose a side and thus their starting planet.
  Give each player their starting credits.
  Finally give each player a colonist meeple.

On to play
In New Frontiers, turns are carried out according to the turn order as shown on the priority board. Actions are not simultaneous.
On their turn, the active player chooses a single action tile and performs the action on it, all other players may follow, in other words also perform that action. However, there is a bonus that only the active player gets for triggering a tile.
Each tile can only be used once per round, thus only 1 player benefits from the bonus a tile may confer. Furthermore, actions are actually performed in the order they are selected, there are no numbered phases in New Frontiers.
There are 7 actions that can be chosen, most of these will be familiar to players of Race for the Galaxy or Roll for the Galaxy.

• Explore: The active player draws 7 planet tiles and keeps 1, then in turn order, each other player also colonist takes a planet tile.
  Bonus: Once all other players have chosen their planets, the active player takes a 2nd planet. Remaining planets are returned to the bag.
  When acquired, planet tiles are placed grey-side-up in a circular indentation on the player's board. This planet has been explored but not colonised.
• Develop: The active player may purchase one of the available developments, then in turn order, so may the remaining players. Purchasing developments requires spending credits.
  Bonus: The active player pays 1 less credit when purchasing a development.
  Bonus tiles are placed on the grid on the player's board.
  
• Settle: The active player must either add 2 colonists to their reserve or settle on one of their explored planets. Other plays also must either take 2 colonists or settle a planet.
  Bonus: The active player gains a colonist before performing their action.
  Settling a planet requires a player to spend both relevant credits and also colonist meeples.
  Once a planet has been settled, it is flipped to the colour-side-up. The credits spent are returned to the supply, but colonist are placed on the planet they colonised and never returned to the supply. If it's a windfall world, it immediately acquires a goods token in its colour.
• Trade, Consume: Each player does the following 2 actions.
  Trade: Players may sell a single good on one of their planets for credits, the amount of credits gained depends on which one of the 4 types of good it is.
  Consume: If a player has goods in their tableau, they must use any and all consume powers they have at their disposal.
  Bonus: The player who triggered this action acquires 1 victory point.
• Produce: Players produce goods on all their production worlds.
  Bonus: There are 2 bonuses a play may get for triggering the Produce action. Firstly, the active player may produce a good on a windfall world. Secondly; in every round that Produce is not triggered, it acquire a credit, the active play may take all those credits when choosing Produce.
• Retreat Into Isolation: When this action is selected, nothing happens, no one gets anything!
  Bonus: This is the first of 2 actions 'unique' to New Frontiers.
  The player who activates this action gets 2 credits! Score!
  I guess a player may want to select this action to ensure other players don't benefit from their action... Or they really need 2 credits?
• Send Diplomatic Envoys: This is the other action unique to New Frontiers.
  Again, nobody gets anything when this action is selected.
  Bonus: Again this action has 2 bonuses, the active player acquires a victory point and then moves to the front of the priority board, this means they go first in the next round.

Round end: Once all players have had their turn, the round is over. If the Produce action wasn't selected this round, then add a credit to it.
Now a new round begins, possibly with a new player order and all the action tiles are now selectable again.
Rounds continue until the endgame conditions are met.

Endgame
Once the endgame is triggered, the current round ends and points are scored.
There are 4 ways to trigger the game end.
Settlements: A player adds a 7th settled worlds to the game board.
Developments: When the 11th or 12th development space on a player's board has been filled with a development.
Victory points: When the supply of victory points is depleted.
Colonists: When the supply of colonist meeples drops lower than 5.

Points come from settled planets and developments bought, some developments offer additional routes to earn point and finally, victory points are counted.
Points are tallied, highest score wins!

Overall
Players of the previous 2 games will find a lot here instantly familiar.
New Frontiers contains the same mix of intricate and mechanical interdependencies between planets and developments that feature in the other two games which allow players to create varied combinations of engine building and combinations.

There are a couple of mechanics New Frontiers does differently, particularly the action mechanic, firstly there's no set action order for actions to occur and more importantly, only 1 player can benefit from an action's bonus per round. If a player really needs a bonus action, it can make turn order very important. The existence of a turn order is new as well.

When playing New Frontiers, there are a couple of approaches always available to players, building their tableau or acquiring victory point tokens, or maybe getting one of the 9-point developments and working towards exploiting for points in the endgame. However, players will need to adapt to which planets become available to the, as unlike developments which use a drafting mechanic, planet acquisition will be to some degree, random.

But here's the thing; the additions New Frontiers brings to the table don't add anything to the game other than extra complexity, there's no extra depth or strategy, just extra resources to manage in place of the hand-as-money mechanic that makes Race for the Galaxy such a good game. ​Yet somehow, it even seems to have a shorter, less engaging play time?
You see, in Race for the Galaxy and Roll for the Galaxy, there are 2 ways to end a game; a player can complete their tableau or deplete the supply of victory tokens, both of which require players to play well or at least fast/better than other players. But in New Frontiers, it's possible to end the game by simply triggering the Settle action multiple times. It felt hugely unsatisfying way for the game to end.

Ultimately, New Frontiers is a good game, it has the pedigree of its predecessors, but it's also too familiar and too similar to Race for the Galaxy, which is in my opinion, hands down the better game. I would choose it over New Frontiers every time.

3rd August 2021

Tuesday is here and I'm in Woking with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns pub for gaming night.

The game of the night was Above and Below. Published by the same company who also produce a game  called Near and Far.
Left and right, up and down, in and out: wiggle it all about, here and there, out and about, Far and Away and Home and Away! Some great suggestions for naming more games!

As the name suggest, the players will concerning themselves with the above ground settlement and exploring the caves below the village.

What's in a game?

• ​Reputation board: This central game board shows an area above ground that displays a 5-space track for 'special villages' with a cost beneath each spaces that starts at 2 and rises to ​5.
  Below ground, the board depicts a series of caves which serves as a round tracker and what appears to be a tunnel, which is used as a reputation tracker.
  Additionally, on the left is an allotted space for a barrel token and a column that depicts the game's many goods in increasing rarity.
• Player board: This board depicts a grassy landscape dotted with a few buildings.
  The top left corner displays the player's colour as well as being a trading spot.
  Along the top it shows the different actions a player may perform. These are Explore, Harvest, Build, Train & Labour.
  The grassy landscape is divided into 3 areas by 2 vertical columns of trees. These 3 areas are the ready area, exhausted area and the injured area
  Finally, along the bottom is the goods advancement tracker which runs from left to right, as each space is filled with goods, it will increase the player's income as well as generating victory points at the game end.
• Player cubes: One each for every player in a colour that matches their player board.
• Starting villager tiles: There 4 copies of the 3 identical villagers. Villagers have a hammer (For building.), quill (For training.) or lantern (For exploring.) icon in their top left corner.
  All villagers will also have an icon in their top right corner, consisting of 1 or more lanterns along with associated die numbers above the lanterns, these are used in explore rolls.
• Villager tiles: Villagers that can be trained and recruited during play. As with starting villagers, they will come with come with icons for hammers, quills and exploring.
• Special villager tiles: Not just villagers, but special ones, one that come with special actions! Special villagers can only be found by exploring the caves.
• Starting house cards: There are 4 of these identical cards that each depict 3 beds along the bottom. Beds allow injured villagers to heal and exhausted ones to rest.
• House cards: These 25 cards can be bought during the game and list a cost in the top left corner and whatever special ability they confer along the bottoms; this may be extra beds or ways to earn victory points, or produce goods, increase reputation or money, etc.
• Star house cards: These 6 cards are rarer, more expensive but more useful houses.
• Key house cards: The rarest of house cards, there are 9 of them, but only 4 are used during a game.
• Cave cards: These cards are double sided. On the front is shows a small cave and the numbers 1-6, next to each of these numbers is a further number - which is used in conjunction with the encounter book.
  On the back of the card, a open cave is shown.
  There are 25 cave cards.
• Outpost cards: These are yet another type of house card, however, these can only be built underground as players explore. There are also 25 of these cards. As with other house cards, they may provide goods, victory points or other benefits.
• Goods tokens: These small round card tokens depict the game's 8 types of good. These are:
  Common: mushroom, fruit & fish.
  Uncommon; rope, clay pot & Paper.
  Rare: Ore & amethyst. 
• Barrel tokens: There 10 card tokens each depict a barrel and can be used to remove exhaustion from a villager without using a bed. Apparently those barrels are filled with cider, it must be pretty potent stuff considering what it does.
• Potion tokens: These smaller card tokens depict some sort of drinking jar, no doubt containing some suspect liquid? Using one will remove injury from a villager.
• Dice: Standard six-siders, there are 7 of them.
• Money tokens. Unusually, these card money tokens are rectangular.
• Encounter book: This book is a sort of 'choose your own adventure' book which contains a series of numbered and interlinked paragraphs which the players will encounter when they go exploring.

The components, which mostly consist of cards, tokens, tiles and dice are good quality and what you'd expect of a modern board game. It's nothing to write home about, but still solid.
The game makes good use of its cartoony artwork, particularly with the green, grassy landscapes and cloudy blue skies that appear on many of the cards. Buildings and villagers are also well illustrated. Finally, the underground cards have evocative, mildly forbidding artwork.
There is little iconography used throughout Above and Below and what there is of it, is easy to comprehend.

How's it play?
Setup

• Give each player a player board, a starting house, the 3 starting villagers and 7 currency. The villagers should be placed on the board, where exactly on the board depends on the number of players.
• Put out the reputation board, shuffle the villager tiles into a face-down stack and deal 5 into the tracks on the board.
  Place a barrel token on to its allotted space on the board.
  Place the round marker at the start and each player's cube on the reputation track's starting spot.
  Put the special villagers to one side.
• Shuffle the house cards into a face-down deck and deal 4 face-up
• Put out all 6 star house cards face-up.
• Shuffle the key house cards and deal 4 face-up into the central area, the remaining 5 cards will not be used in this game.
• Shuffle the outpost cards into a deck and deal 4 face-up.
• Shuffle the cave cards into a face-up deck.
• Determine a starting player.

On to play.
Beginning with the starting player and going clockwise, each player performs a single action using 1 or more of their villagers, play continues clockwise until all players have used all their available villagers or have passed. After this, the next round begins.

• Actions: In order to perform actions, the active player must have at least 1 villager in their board's ready area. When undertaking an action, the relevant number of villagers must be moved to the exhausted area, with the exception of exploration - see below for further information.
  Explore: It requires at least 2 villagers to explore the caves below the village (I guess it's a scary place!).
  First a cave card is drawn by the active player, who then places the villagers they intend to use for the explore action on the top part of that card.
  The active player then rolls a die, this will determine which encounter they experience and its pertinent paragraph number.
  The player to the left of the active player takes the encounter book, finds the relevant paragraph and reads the text out to the active player, this usually includes a choice for the active player to make and a difficulty associated with those choices, sometimes there will be multiple paragraphs to play through in the style of a choose-your-own-adventure book. The active player chooses the action they want to attempt and then generates an explore roll.
  This is done by rolling a die for each villager sent exploring, if the die result equals or exceeds the value above the lantern(s), then that number of lantern(s) is added to the explore roll. Additionally, the active player may choose to have villagers exert themselves, which adds a further lantern to the explore result but sends the villager to the injured area on their player board.
  If the total of the explore roll exceeds the difficulty of the action they chose, then they earn the associated reward, this always includes the cave card which was just used for the encounter, which is flipped over to the other side and added to the player's area as an empty cave.
  If the player's explore roll is lower than the difficulty, they fail, which may result in a penalty.
  Regardless of success or failure, any remaining villagers are sent to the exhausted area on the player board.

Overall
For the most part, mechanically speaking, Above and Below is a fairly straightforward, unremarkable game. Players use their workers to increase their resources to acquire more workers and buildings create a strategy to earn victory. Pretty standard stuff, not that there's anything wrong with that, no need to reinvent the wheel.
Even so, there's some depth here and quite a bit of balancing to perform. There's little good acquiring workers without the ability to rest them which means acquiring buildings with beds instead of other benefits, particularly to ability to acquire goods and so on.

This brings us neatly to the merchant track, which is one of the game's two interesting mechanics. Firstly, it more-or-less forces players to diversify in goods in order to reach the higher scoring spots.
Secondly, it does something unusual with the game's 8 goods; which is that the rarity of a good has no bearing of it's worth for victory points, position on the track determines a good's worth and this is likely to be different for each player, meaning they may have different priorities for different goods, regardless of rarity.
Finally, it gives players a conundrum to navigate: Logically, players will want to put the most common goods on the later, higher scoring spots because, well, there's more of the common goods available to stack up for more points. This means using rarer goods earlier in the track, but rarer goods are harder to come by. So should a player start filling out the merchant track as quickly as possible with whatever they get to reach the later spots? Or should they hold off, hoping to get the scarcer goods and use them to fill the earlier spots.
It's an interesting decision to consider.

The second interesting mechanic is exploring, Above and Below really stands out from the crowd when exploring the below. The inclusion of a 'lite storytelling' choose-your-own-adventure element with flavour text and all, is both fun and meaningful, presenting players with sometimes story-based choices and risks to take which directly affect what they earn from their exploration. It's cool and a great addition beyond the usual board game fare. It makes Above and Below worth trying.