24th January 2022

It's time for some impromptu Monday gaming in lieu of Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena.

Can't Stop Express is the roll & write cousin to the excellent push-your-luck dice game; Cant' Stop.

Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Dice: Can't Stop Express comes with 5 six-siders, which is 1 more than Can't Stop, so something is definitely different.
• Scorecard: Each player gets their own scorecard which is a sheet full of checkboxes and looks suspiciously like a spreadsheet.
  In essence there are 11 rows numbered 2-12 (For each potential result from rolling 2 six-siders.) and each row has 10 checkboxes, 4 in 'negative', 1 in 'neutral' and 5 in 'positive.
  Each row also has a 'scoring value', this varies according to how likely that number is to come up on a roll of 2 six-siders; the rarer the number, the higher the value. The extremes 2 and 12 are worth 100 VP per positive checkmark, while the most common result 7, is only worth 30 VP per positive checkmark.
  Finally, there's another 3 rows of 8 checkboxes for tracking the 5th die.

And that's it!, Can't Stop Express is a very minimal game and that applies to all of it. I can't comment on the quality of the components, there's no art to speak of in the game and no iconography either.

How's it play?
Give each player a scorecard and you're ready to go.

​Can't Stop Express has in one regard a similar mechanic to Can't Stop, which is that after every dice roll, players are putting together 2 sets of 2 dice, the 5th die has a different role (Sic). Where Can't Stop Express differs is that once the dice are rolled, the results are used by all players simultaneously.

• Roll the dice: Once the dice have been rolled, everybody performs the following 2 actions:
• Assign pairs: All players create 2 sets of dice that will create 2 numbers from 2-12. Then, on their scorecard, all players mark off checkboxes for those numbers (Going from left-to-right.). If a player has a 4 and a 9, they would mark off the leftmost empty checkboxes on the rows for 4 and 9.
• 5th die: So what does the 5th die do? After assigning the 2 pairs, the player must​ assign the value of 5th die to one of the 3 rows in the 5th die area of the scorecard and mark off a checkbox. So if the 5th die was a 6, the player would write '6' in one of the rows and mark off the first checkbox.
• Next roll: When all players have finished assigning all their dice, the game then proceeds to the next roll and players again assign 2 sets of dice to their scorecard.
  Once again the player will need to assign the 5th die, except now it must be to one of the 2 remaining 5th die rows. This number must have a different value to the number they previously assigned, using the example above, the player must assign a value different to 6 (And mark off a checkbox.).
  After the third roll, a final unique number will be assigned to the last row. Now that 3 numbers have been to the 5th die rows, a new rule comes into play when the dice are rolled.
• 5th die restriction: From now on, whenever a player chooses which dice to assign to the 2 sets, the value of the remaining 5th die must match 1 of the 3 numbers in the 5th die rows. This means it's likely that players will not always get to choose all the dice they want for their sets because a die may be needed for it's 5th die row instead. Furthermore, every time a value is assigned to the 5th row, one of its checkboxes is marked off.
  If none of the dice match any of the 3 numbers in the rows, then they is no need to assign a 5th die.
• Scoring: There are 3 types of checkboxes in each scoring row, negative, neutral and positive, they are always marked off from left-to-right. This means starting with the 4 negative boxes which must be marked off before the neutral, which must be marked off before the positive boxes.
  Negative: Even a single marked off checkbox here reduces that row's score to -200, that's right -200! This doesn't change until after all 4 negative boxes are marked off.
  Neutral: Once all 4 negative boxes are filled, then the 5th box, i.e. the neutral checkbox can be marked off. This takes the row's score up to 0! Bargain!
  Positive: Finally, when a player gets to the positive checkboxes, each one marked off scores that row's scoring value. Each marked off positive checkbox in the 2 row would score 100 and each one in the 7 row would score 30! Bonus - literally!
  Each row has 5 positive checkboxes, so the maximum the 7 row can score is 150, any dice assigned to a maxed row add nothing to the score.

Play progresses with the dice being rolled and assigned until the endgame is reached.

Endgame
When a player fills the 8th and final checkbox in any one of their 5th die rows, then they stop scoring and the game is over for them.
Once all players can no longer score dice, the game is over and players calculate their scores for all scoring rows, rows that have no boxes checked off score 0.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
One thing I found interesting about Can't Stop Express is how it twists the paradigm of Can't Stop.

In Can't Stop, the objective is to reach the top of any 3 tracks using the results of the dice rolls, which tracks are used is unimportant; they all score a point each. Since it's much easier to get a 7 than a 2, this is balanced out by needing to get many more 7s to reach the top than you would for 2s.
The points have equal value but getting them requires varying numbers of dice results depending on the number.

In Can't Stop Express players are also trying to move along tracks but it is changed around. To reach a scoring position for both 2 and 7 requires getting the same number of pertinent results, either six 2s or 7s, but in Can't Stop Express, they score differently.
Six 7s will score 30 but six 2s will score 100 and in fact seven 2's would more than all ten 7 results.
The dice results required for each track to score are equal but they score varying amounts depending on the number.

Anyway, talk about mechanics aside, I found Can't Stop Express to be a bit of a middling game.
I like how it shares a concept with Can't Stop of setting aside 2 sets of 2 dice and it probably plays a little quicker. There's no going bust, so no 'wasted' rolls - at least in theory. Luck can mess with players in Can't Stop Express, just in a different way!
The push-your-luck element works very differently here, there are no extra dice rolls to make here. Instead players will need to judge which rows to try and fill out and it's in the planning where players push their luck, when a player decides to start marking off the checkboxes in a specific row, they're essentially gambling on that number reappearing again and again.
The 7 row is the safest bet but is not much of a scorer. The further away from 7 you move, the greater the rewards but also riskier it is to fill out 6 or more checkboxes.

​In terms of what I don't like Can't Stop Express is a game completely lacking in theme and feels a little dry (Although to be honest Can't Stop's mountain climbing theme is paper thin.).
My biggest bugbear though is the scoring; those first 4 checkboxes that penalise players 200 VPs, occasionally being forced to mark off checkboxes in rows you don't want to and watching your score drop by hundred of points can be very frustrating.
I know why it's there, it replaces drawback of going bust from Can't Stop, even so, it makes the game feel negative and I'm not fond of it.

I don't think Can't Stop Express is a bad game, mechanically speaking it's pretty solid but it lacks the extra bit of thrill that comes with deciding to re-roll the dice from Can't Stop and doesn't really bring anything new or different to the table.
I'd have no issue with playing Can't Stop Express more times but if given the choice between this and Can't Stop, I'd pick the latter every time.

15th January 2022

The Wogglecon day of gaming continued with Rolling Realms.

They see me rollin'
They hatin'
Patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty

OK, Rolling Realms isn't about rapping but it is about rolling and is a quirky little roll-and-write mini-game collection.

What's in a game?

• Realm cards: These are mini-game cards, there are 6 sets of 11 identical cards in different player colours.
  Each mini-game references a game already released by the publisher such as the Wingspan mini-game which loosely emulates the 3 habitat tracks from Wingspan. 
  Each card has a different layout and is played and scored differently and will provide resources and VPs in their own way.
  Along the bottom of each realm card is a row of 6 stars which translate into VPS.
  
• ​Dice: Rolling Realms wouldn't be much of a roll & write game without something to roll. The game makes use of pair of normal six-siders which are slightly oversized and chunky with distinct hexagonal pips, the dice feel weighty and satisfying to roll.
• Resource tracker cards: There is 1 in each player colour and they are used to track the game's 3 sets of resources; peaches, hearts and coins.
• Score/dice tracker cards: Again there is 1 in each player colour. It contains 9 sets of 2 squares to track dice rolls and along the bottom are 3 squares to track scoring and a end square to track the final score

That's pretty much it for components other than pens and wipe-cloths.

All the cards in the game feel reasonably sturdy especially since they're laminated. 
The dice are definitely a nice touch and have been manufactured with rounded corners, they're about as good as non-wooden dice can get.

Rolling Realms features almost no art except some stylistically simplistic illustrations on a few cards, which is fine as otherwise it would probably interfere with whole roll & write thing.

The game's core iconography which appears across all cards is easily comprehensible, however, each individual mini-game is likely to contain its own unique icons which must all be learned.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Give each player the realm cards, score and resource tracking cards in their colour. All players should set out the scoring and resource cards in their personal playing areas.
• Prepare realms: Select a player to shuffle their realm cards into a face-down deck, draw 3 and put them out. Put the remaining realm cards aside as they will be used in later rounds
  All other players should find the same realm cards and place them out.
• Dice: Choose a player to roll the first set of dice.

On to play
Rolling Realms is played over 3 rounds and each round consists of 9 turns, which means 9 sets of dice are rolled each round, there is no turn order in the normal sense and players resolve their choices simultaneously.

• Roll the dice: The 2 dice are rolled and each should record the result as individual results on their score tracker, a result '3' & '5' should be written as '3' & '5' on the tracker.
• Resolve dice: Players then apply the dice to the mini-games as they see fit, with the following restriction.
  Each die can only be used once and each realm can only be activated once: Thus 2 realms will be activated once per turn. Although the expenditure of resources can change this. Once all players have finished their actions, play progresses to the next turn.
• Use resources: A player may spend the resources they've accumulated at any time.
  Peaches: These resources allow players to modify the result of a die up or down. They may also be spent to allow a die to be used on a realm that's already been activated, thus allowing 2 dice to be used in a single realm in a single turn.
  Hearts: Spending these resources allows a player to duplicate a die result that has been rolled, giving them an extra die to use in the realm they haven't activated.
  Coins: Coins can also be used to gain a 3rd die, its value is equal to the coins spent.
  
• Next roll: The dice are rolled again and players record the results again, then they choose how to use the dice again.
• End of round: Play progresses on until all 9 turns have been completed and scores are then calculated.
  Mini-games can score up to 6 points each, unspent resources score 0.1 VPs each. Points are then tallied in the allotted space.
• Next round: Players wipe all their resources off their resources card, regardless of whether they were spent or not. Then the tracked dice numbers should be wiped off the score tracker, obviously the round score should not be wiped off!
  ​New cards: Next, from the unused realm cards set aside earlier, randomly draw 3 more, all other players should put out the same realm cards.
  Now we're ready to begin the next round.

Endgame
Once 3 rounds have been completed, that is 9 realm cards have been used, then the game is over. Players should calculate their results from all 3 round.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Rolling Realms is undeniably unique and inventive, a game about mini-games based on games that the publisher has already released. It's impressive how the mini-games generally manage to distil a game's mechanic and/or them down to a simple, related iteration and one that makes use of numbers 1 to 6!
The game comes with 11 realm cards and the publisher has released a bunch of expansions and promo cards go along with it.

Rolling Realms balances its priorities quite well and mostly makes player decisions meaningful. Players will naturally want to focus on using dice to gain VPs but neglecting resources will give them lass flexibility later on
Because the game uses a randomiser, it's hard to plan ahead, that 6 you really need to earn you those last couple of points on a card might never appear.... That means that players need a dollop of adaptability to manage unwanted numbers and that's when resources come in useful.
Particularly useful are the abilities to generate a 3rd die result, it can essentially increase your gains by 50%.

It's hard to summarise Rolling Realms because there is a lot of little things going on, but I did enjoy it, the variation provides an interesting challenge and every round brought a new set of challenges. A game that uses a lot of mini-games risks being a mixed bag and couple were a bit more obtuse than the others but there were no outright stinkers.

Having said that, it felt like a bit of a chore having to go explain 3 sets of rules to unfamiliar players each round, especially since it seems there will always be this one player who just doesn't get something.
I also felt the game sat in weird middle-ground of being a bit too long for a filler but a bit too short for a main game for the night. The box says 30 mins, but that's highly ambitious in my opens.
These are minor quibbles though.

The mini-games are reasonable light but provides enough depth and definitely variation to keep most players engaged. It's one I'd play again

4th July 2021

It's a Sunday evening and I'm logged into Board Game Arena. the next game of the night is Railroad Ink. Do you spend a lot of time coming and going? Because that's what you'll be doing in Railroad Ink.

Caveat: we've only ever played Railroad Ink digitally online. Additionally, we've only played the basic version of Railroad Ink Blue without the rives and lakes dice.

What's in a game?

• Game board: Railroad Ink has a game board for each player.
  Most of the game board is taken up with a 7x7 square grid, along each of the 4 outside edges of the grid are 3 exits, 12 in total and they alternate between railway lines and roads.
  Above that is some space for calculating and tracking scores.
  Up further are illustrations of all the possible results on the standard route dice.
  Finally, at the top are depictions of the game's 6 special routes. These are not actually dice that are rolled in game, but represent different types of routes and stations that a player can make use of.
• Route dice: These six-siders don't have numbers, instead each face shows one of various different types of rail and road routes. Railroad Ink has 2 different types of route dice, 3 of one kind and 1 of the other, which makes 4 route dice in total.
  Type 1: These dice depict the following different routes that players can use on their board:
  A straight.
  A 90' turn
  A T-junction.
  They are depicted once each for both railways and roads, thus six times in total.
  Type 2: This die only has 3 symbols, each of which is printed on 2 of the die's faces. The routes depicted here are a little more specialised.
  Overpass: This allows a railway and a road to cross over each other (They do not connect.).
  Straight station: A station allows a route to change from a railway to a road or vice-versa.
  Curved station: A 90' turn that's also a station which allows transfers between railways and roads across the turn.
• Rivers and lakes dice: These special dice can be introduced into games to add some extra complexity. We never made use of them.

That's pretty much it for the components.
Since we only played railroad Ink digitally, there's not much that can be said about the quality of the components.
Neither does the game have any significant artwork to speak of, the boards look bright and cheery, but that's about it.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Each player is given a player board and well.... that's it!

On to play
​Railroad Ink is played simultaneously by all players over 7 rounds.

• Roll: All 4 route dice all rolled and thus 4 routes will be shown.
• And Write: All players must draw all 4 routes on their game board according to the results of the dice roll. There are specific rules when doing this as explained below:
  Connection: At least 1 part of a route must connect to either; an exit at the edge of the grid, or a pre-existing route, this connection must be of the correct kind, i.e., rail-to-rail or road-to-road.
  When drawing the route, the dice result may be rotated into any orientation, or flipped/mirrored.
  ​Special routes: Each special route is a 4-way connection and can only be used once per game, furthermore, a player may only use 1 special route per round and total of 3 special routes in a game.

That's it for rules, pretty straightforward.

Endgame
Once all 7 rounds have been completed, the game goes to scoring.
Railway: Each player scores their single longest unbroken railway line, gaining 1 point per connected square.
Road: Each player scores their single longest unbroken road, also at 1 point per connected square.
Centre: Each of the 9 central squares on the grid scores the player an additional point for a railway or road that runs through it.
Exits: Each player scores their single biggest network of connected exits, it scores differently to railways and roads and there's a chart to calculate this. Generally each exit in the network scores 4 points, except if you manage to connect the 12th and final exit, which scores 5 instead!
Dead end: Each player loses a point for each route that is a dead-end, i.e. does not connect to anything or does not connect to the edge of the grid (does not necessarily need to be one of the 12 exits though.).
Final amounts are tallied, highest score wins!

Overall
Railroad Ink is a game that hits that sweet-spot between rules-simplicity and depth-of-choice that has good potential crossover appeal to non-gamers.
From the relatively short length of this blog, you can see that it's an easy game to learn, consisting mostly of; well, drawing what you see!

However, it also gives players lots of choices, all of which will have impact right from the start of the game. The game's grid has 49 spaces and the maximum that can be filled in (In a basic game!) is 31, enough room to manoeuvre and also enough room to commit error.
Players must try to maximise networks and connections and also minimise their potential losses. This involves equally trying to anticipate what they need and also adapting to rolls that don't give them that.
It's a game of shifting optimisation.

Railroad Ink has a lot of randomness and for gamers who like strategizing, this can be an anathema, but in Railroad Ink, the randomness is partially mitigated because it more or less affects everyone equally, i.e., everyone uses the same dice results.
Obviously one player may be luckier than another if the rolls go their way, but it never feels like the dice are treating you worse for you than any other player. Ultimately, despite the dice rolls, it feels like player decisions are still of paramount, finding a way to use a route die that initially seemed bad can be satisfying and it's this blend of randomness and decision-making is what I like about Railroad Ink.

17th March 2020

Tuesday has rolled around again and we're at 'The Sovereigns' with the Woking Gaming Club.

​The club members agreed that due to the threat of the Covid-19 virus, this would be the last get-together for the club until we were no longer required to socially-distance ourselves.

The first game of the evening was 'Cartographers'.
Do you fancy getting out and about, doing a bit of exploring? Perhaps finding a forest or two, or even a river? Then this game may be for you.
That's right, in these days of self isolation and being stuck at home; we played a game about going outside!

Cartographers is a style of game I've yet to play called 'roll and write'.

What's in a game?

• Pad of blank maps: There are 100 of these blank double sided maps. One side features the wilderness and the other the wasteland, the wasteland is the harder map play with. Both sides contain a 11x11 grid with 'mountains' and 'ruins', as well as space for scoring and personalisation. The wasteland side also features an area of wasteland.

• Season cards: There are 4 season cards for 4 seasons! Each season card determines which 2 scoring cards apply that season. A Season card also has a numerical 'time value' that determines the length of that season. 
• Scoring cards: 4 of these are randomly drawn from a deck of 16. Each one is used to determine how scoring occurs at the end of 2 of the 4 'seasons' (Or rounds.). Thus there will be 4 ways to score during the game.
• Edict cards: Labelled A to D, used in conjunction with scoring cards.
• Exploration cards: Generally, each landscape card depicts 1 of the game's 4 main types of terrain. The card will also show 2 shapes a bit like Tetris shapes, sometimes one of these shapes will also a coin next to it. Some exploration cards feature a 'ruin' instead. Exploration cards also have a numerical value that is used to determine the length of a season.
• Ambush cards: Ambush cards contain the game's 5th terrain type - monsters! Each card also contains a shape. There are 4 of ambush cards. These cards allow other players to mess with your exploration.
• Pencils: The game comes with 4 pencils.

All of the components are of an acceptable quality. The cards are mostly covered in information, but what little art there is, is of a reasonable quality.
The only bugbear with the game is the pad of blank maps, which you tear out and give to each player. Even though 100 sheets enough for a lot of games, the idea of it makes me wince!
If you do run out of sheets however, you can download and print extras from the website.
​
Special note!
Dave, the game's owner had the wisdom and foresight to also purchase a couple of sets of coloured fine line markers to use with the game (More about that below.).

How's it play?
First there's setup.

• Put out the season cards in a face-up stack in seasonal order, starting with spring.
• Put out the edict cards in a row, sequentially from 'A' to 'D'.
• Shuffle the scoring cards and draw 4, place one under each of the edict cards. 
• Shuffle the ambush cards, draw 1 ambush card face-down and add it to the exploration deck. Now shuffle the exploration deck and place it in a face-down stack next to the stack of season cards.

We're now ready to go.
Play begins by turning over an exploration card.

• If it's a normal exploration card, it will have a terrain type (Farm, forest, village or water.) and 2 different shapes. Each player must choose one of the shapes and draw it as the depicted terrain type on their map sheet. The drawings need to clearly show the type of terrain it is. The chosen shape can be rotated or flipped in any way the player wishes and marked as the terrain type used. Some shapes allow the player to earn a coin.
• If it's a 'ruins' card, then flip over another card. The shape used from the second card must include a ruins space from the map sheet.
• If it's an ambush card, then each player must pass their map sheet to a neighbouring player, that player then draws the shape on the ambush card on the map sheet. Obviously they should place it in the most inconvenient manner possible! After a ambush card has been resolved, it is removed from play.
• Rift card: If a rift card is drawn, each player gets to draw a single 1x1 box of any terrain type, anywhere normally allowed.

So that's the main rules. There are some clarifications below.

• When drawing a shape, it cannot overlap over a previously drawn shape, a mountain, wasteland or the edge of the  map. It can though, overlap a ruins space and depending on cards drawn may require a ruins space.
• If a player cannot draw a shape for whatever reason, they draw a 1x1 box with any terrain on any legal space instead.
• If a player surrounds a mountain (Orthogonally - diagonals count for nothing in this game!), then they earn a coin.
• When all players have drawn their shape, the next exploration card is drawn. Each exploration card has a 'time value' which is a numerical value. When the combined value of all exploration cards drawn equals or exceeds the time value on the season card, then the season is over. Different seasons have different time values, winter has the least 'time' as winter has less daylight.

Scoring & end of season
Scoring occurs at the end of every season and is broken down as follows (As well as end of round actions.):

• Scoring cards: The 2 scoring cards for that season are scored.
• Coins: Each coin a player has acquired earns a victory point. They are scored over every round a player has them. Thus a coin earned in the first round, will be also scored in all subsequent rounds.
• Monsters: Monsters don't score points, but they do deduct them! Every empty space that is adjacent to a monster space, loses that player a victory point.
• Points from all sources are tallied for the round.
• A new ambush card is added to the exploration deck and all played exploration cards are shuffled back into a new stack. If the ambush card from the round just completed wasn't encountered, then there will be 2 ambush cards in the stack!
• The season card from the completed round is removed from play and the next season is revealed (With new scoring and time value.).

Endgame
Once the score for the winter season has been calculated, the score for all 4 seasons is tallied. Highest score wins. ​

Overall
​Cartographers is a fun and interesting game.

Interesting because of how the scoring works, it gives players short term and long term goals. Not only are there 4 scoring objectives, each objective is scored twice and they are scored asymmetrically.

Objective 'A' is scored in rounds 1 & 4. So working towards it in rounds 1 & 4 will earn a player points. Objective 'A' scores no points in rounds 2 & 3, however working towards objective 'A' in rounds 2 & 3 can pay dividends when it's scored again in round 4. This may mean neglecting other scoring opportunities though.

​Objective 'B' on the other hand, scores in rounds 1 & 2, after that it's worthless. So to make the most of this scoring opportunity, players will have to concentrate on it for the first half of the game.

All of this makes players think about short, long and mid term goals and how to maximise scoring opportunities.
Additionally, players cannot predict what terrain/shapes will appear if at all or the order they appear. Nor can they predict when ambush cards will appear. Players also need to be flexible and be able to change their plans.

This culminates in giving players lots of factors to consider and decisions to make - which is good.

Another interesting thing about Cartographer is the number of players it supports. It's essentially only limited by the drawing implements/time required. You could use the entire pad and play with 100 people at once if you had the time/space/pencils!

There is theoretically no downtime as everyone draws their shapes at the same time. I say theoretically, because they'll always be that player that takes too and wants to draw in too much detail! 'Do you really need to draw the chimneys on the houses in your village. What! Now you're doing the smoke too!'. You know what I mean.

The addition of the coloured markers - whilst an extra expense added quite a lot to the experience. I imagine using the pencils a little duller. It's a shame they couldn't include coloured pencils or something along those lines. Obviously costs need to be kept down though.

Even so, I found it a good game and would play it again.