11th June 2023

​Sunday evening is here again and that means some gaming goodness on Board Game Arena.
Line up those numerical cards in this abstract, lightweight and compact set-collecting card game!

Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Cards: Line-it uses 2 types of cards.
  • Number cards: There are card numbered 1-100 in Line-it. Additionally they are further subdivided into to 4 colours/suits.
  • Bet cards: These grey, essentially monotone cards are labelled from +3 to +5. They are used as part of the game's push-you-luck betting mechanic.

How's it play?
Setup

• Jackpot tokens: Place the jackpot tokens in a row adjacent to the central playing area.
• ​Deck: Shuffle all the cards into face-down deck.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Line-it, players will be drafting cards then using them to create a row of cards (The titular line if you will) and this row must either ascend of descend numerically from left-to-right.
Once a line reaches a 'suitable' size, players can then choose score that line by 'completing' and adding it to their personal 'scoring stack' which represents their victory points (VPs).

A round in Line-it is played using a traditional turn order with the first player acting before play progresses to the player on their left and so on.

• Round start: Draw cards from the deck to form The market. The size of the market is equal to the number of players + 2.
• First Player: A round starts with the first player as the active player.
• Draft card: The active player must draft a card from the market, they can then perform 1 of 2 actions with it.
  • Add to line: This card can be added to the active player's line with the following requirements.
    1st card: Any card can be played as the 1st card in a line.
    Left-to-right: Every card that is played after the first must be placed to the right of the rightmost card, thus the line always goes from left-to-right.
    2nd card: The 2nd card added the line will determine whether the line ascends or descends numerically in value. If the 2nd card has a higher value than the 1st, the line with ascend, conversely, if is lower, the line will descend.
    3rd card onwards: All cards played to the line after the 2nd must continue the 'trend' of the line. Thus must be higher in value in a ascending line or lower in a descending line.
    Jackpot: If a player adds a 3rd card of a certain colour to their line, they immediately draft all cards of that colour that have been stacked adjacent to its corresponding jackpot token. More on how jackpots are created below.
    Bet cards: These do not count as number cards and are not affected by the placement rules above. Bet cards represent a push-your-luck element as players are essentially betting on how many cards they think they can play into their line after the bet card. Thus, the higher the bet card value, the more cards must be played to win the bet but also, the more VPs it's worth. Bet cards come into play when completing and scoring a line.
    Only 1 bet card can ever be placed in a line.
  • Add to hand: Alternatively, the drafted card can be added to the active player's hand.
    Players have a maximum hand size of 2.
  • Cannot play: If for any reason the active player cannot perform either of the 2 actions above, they must immediately 'complete' their line and score it. More on scoring below.
• Additional actions: As well as the actions, above, the active player has 2 further actions available to them which can be resolved at any time during their turn.
  • Play from hand: The active player may add a single card from their hand to their line, this must follow the usual placement rules.
  • Complete line: The active player may (Or may be forced to!) score a line by 'completing' it. This has 2 steps.
    • Bet card: If the active player has a bet card in their line, they must first check if they've won their 'bet'.
      Winning a bet: Every bet card has a value from +3 to +5. If the active player has played at least as many cards after the bet as it's value, they have won the bet! They take the bet token with corresponding value and add it to their scoring stack.
      Losing a bet: If the active has not played the required number of cards, they have lost the bet! They take the bet token with the corresponding value, flips it to the negative side and adds it to their scoring stack.
    • Score the line: The active player discards 3 cards from their line and adds the remaining cards to their scoring stack.
      This means if a line has 3 or less cards, it will score 0 when completed!
• End of turn: Once the active player has completed their action(s), play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: Once all players have taken their turns - the round is obviously over and the 2 following steps occur.
  Jackpots: The 2 remaining cards which were not drafted are placed adjacent to their pertinent jackpot tokens and will become available in later rounds for players to gain.
  New first player: The player to the left of the current first player becomes the first player for the next.
  Play will now progress with new cards being drawn to create a new market.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered when there are not enough cards to create a full market at the start of a round. Then the following occurs.
Firstly, any remaining cards from the deck are placed on to their corresponding jackpot tokens.
Then in turn order, each player gets the opportunity to play 1 card from their hand to their line (Increasing their score and potentially gaining a jackpot.).
Finally, all players must complete their current line.

Now players calculate their finishing scores. Each card in a scoring stack is worth 1 VP while bet tokens are worth their displayed values.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Line-it is an abstract drafting game that doesn't attempt to awkwardly shoehorn a tenuous theme on to itself and while I know plenty of players for whom theme is important, I myself have never found the lack of it an obstacle to enjoying a game.
In this regard, some people may be put off by Line-it's lack of theme but YMMV.

Rules-wise, Line-it is a straightforward, easily understood rules-light but luck-heavy game. Players have to draft a card and then choose whether to play it to their line or 'bank' it to play later.
Players will initially look to draft a very low or high card to start a line, giving them the most leeway to create longer lines and players will want to create long lines.
The game's action economy dictates that (Ignoring jackpots.) completing a line after 6 drafts will score 3VPs - which is 0.5VPs per action but completing a line with just 4 cards would score 1VPs and that works out to be only 0.25 per action.
Worse of all, having to complete a line of 3 or less cards would give 0VPs for per action. Something players will definitely want to avoid.

Because of the inherent luck present in Line-it, at times players will have to deal with much less than optimal choices while drafting cards - doubly so when a player is going later in the round and their choices lessen even more.

Of course jackpots throw something different into the mix, sometimes justifying completing a line 'early' to gain those bonus cards. E.G., discarding a line of 3 yellows to gain a yellow jackpot card would earn 1VP which works to be .33VP per action. Having said that, getting 3 cards of the same colour will not be particularly quick, especially if other players can get there quicker.

Bet cards also provide a extra element to think about. Although their usefulness will vary: They can be a good source of VPs in the early game or early in a player's line but conversely be very negative in the late game or of if added later in a players line.
Players will need to think carefully when considering the risk of adding a bet card to their line.

The other element for players to consider is placing a card into their hand. Being able to bank a card can be vital to success. There's a bit of higher level of play in Line-it that can come from storing and playing a card of a certain colour or value can prove advantageous at the right time and sometimes.
Additionally, a player being able to put a card into their hand simply to just to avoid playing it can also be useful.
Wisely, the game limits player hands to 2, otherwise it would be too useful an action.

So while Line-it does give players meaningful decisions to make, the can also be very luck dependant and sometimes players will be faced with nothing but less than optimal choices, particularly when they go later in the turn order and their options dwindle.
The scoring also felt somewhat frustrating, having to discard 3 cards before scoring feels wrong. I know why that mechanic exists - it prevents players scoring short lines of 2 cards or so which is not something you want in a game about creating numerically linear lines of card. Even so, it felt counterintuitive and even unfair!

Another element I found counterintuitive was when I would habitually think, 'I'm going first next round, so I'll draft one of those cards not taken this round' only to see them discarded into their jackpot stacks.
I know this is my fault but again, it felt frustrating and only served to highlight the game's randomness.

I'm probably overthinking it though. Line-it is an accessible game that will probably play quite well with non-gamers. It's also a quick filler game that could be used to begin or end a long gaming session and not something to pour huge amounts of though into.
​If you like a lot of luck in your filler games, Line-it could be for you.
For me though, it didn't have quite enough to engage me. I applaud a game for it's simplicity and accessibility but having said that, I did find Line-it just a bit too simple and random for my liking. 

Component quality is good throughout and there's nothing bad to write about.
The cards are of the standard expected from a modern game and understandably smaller than usual which keeps the game's footprint from getting too large. The frames and coins are all made of sturdy card and also to the standard that is expected from a modern game.
While made mostly of card, the score trackers are both a nice and useful addition, doing away with the need to use tokens to track what is a relatively high scoring game.

The art direction in Village Rails is also for the most part good. It has a watercolour aesthetic that depicts the steam trains of old and bird's eye views of the games 5 different landscapes of yesteryear with nice little touches such as horses in pastures and buildings or patches of garden in villages.
Unfortunately, the art does fall down a bit when depicting the differences between the lake and forest terrain types which should be obviously different but somehow, with a murky mixture of blue-green palettes can be conflated with each other. This brings me to the game's other problem with presentation; iconography.

Village Rails has icons for the 5 different types of 'feature' which can be found on the train lines. It also has icons for the game's 5 different types of landscape but these symbols are tiny and can tricky to spot! Worse still, they can be lost against the noise of a landscape with a dark background. This is compounded by the fact that the cards are small.
It's not a gamebreaker but it is a oversight that can add some unnecessary fiddliness to proceedings.

Otherwise the iconography is pretty straightforward, easily understood and shouldn't prove too complicated.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Sort the cards into their 2 types.
  • Railway cards: Ensure that the railway cards all on the same side and shuffle them into a deck with the trip side face-up. 
    Track market: Deal 7 cards from the deck, flipping them so the track side is face-up and  in a row heading away from the railway deck
    Trip market: Then deal 4 cards with the trip side face-up, also placed in a row heading away from the railway deck and adjacent to the track market row
  • Terminus cards: Shuffle the terminus cards into a face-down deck. Deal 3 to each player.
• Money: Give each player their starting money.
• Frames: Give each player the pieces of a frame which they should piece together.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Village Rails, players will be drafting track cards to create train lines within their frame in a 3x4 grid to score VPs, they can also draft trip cards to make those train lines earn even more VPs. Finally, they will be using terminus cards to earn money.
Village rails plays over exactly 12 rounds and uses a typical turn order with the active player taking their actions before play progresses to the player on their left.

In their turn, the active play performs the following actions.

• Drafting: When drafting, the following 2 draft-actions may be performed in any order the active player chooses.
  • Draft track card: The active player must draft a track card. They can take any of the 7 available cards but only the one furthest away from the railway deck is free. If the active player wants to take a card further along the 'line', they must place £1 on each track card they skip.
    When gaining a track card, the player also gains any coins on it.
    Place track card: The track card must be placed be inside the players frame, either adjacent to the inside edge of the frame or orthogonally adjacent to another track card.
    Additionally, track cards can only be placed in the landscape orientation, although they can be rotated 180'. Because of how the tracks are laid out, they will invariably lead the train lines downwards and/or rightwards, eventually going outside of the 3x4 grid. When this happens, that track line is 'completed'. Depending on card placement, up to 2 lines can be completed at a time.
    Completing train lines: If a player completes 2 lines at the same time, they can choose the order in which they are resolved.
    Resolving a line involves calculating the VPs it scores: There are numerous ways this can happen dependant on the features on the line.
    VPs might come from a number of the same landscape type, or a variety of different terrains that the line passes though.
    VPs may come from symbols on the line.
    Some features straight up score VPs.
    VPs are then added to the players score tracker.
    Only 'sidings' are not immediately scored.
    Completed trip cards: If a completed train line also has any attached trip cards (See below.), then they are scored according to their objectives and added to the score tracker.
    Once scored, completed trips cards are discarded to the bottom of the railway deck and a terminus card is played - see below for more info on terminus cards.
    Replace card: Once a card has been taken, the space left is filled by sliding cards away from the deck to fill it, then a new card is drawn and placed closest to the deck.
  • Draft trip card: The active player may choose to draft 1 of the 4 available trip cards. Unlike track cards, this is never free! First they must pay £3 to the bank, then they can take a trip card.
    The trip card furthest away from the deck has no additional cost but if the active player wants a trip card closer to the deck, as with the track market, they must place £1 on each trip card they skip.
    And as with track cards, the player gains any coins on a trip card they acquire.
    Place trip card: Trip cards are placed outside the frame and adjacent to one of the 7 starting train lines - provided it has not already been completed. A trip card cannot be placed on a completed line nor would it earn any VPs for it, so it's a good idea to place trip cards before track cards.
    Up to 2 trip cards can be placed at the start of a train line.
    ​Replace card: Once a card has been taken, the space left is filled by sliding cards away from the deck to fill it, then a new card is drawn and placed closest to the deck.
• ​Terminus cards: Once any train lines have been completed and any associated trips cards have been resolved, the player must place a terminus card outside the frame where the completed train line started (Essentially replacing any trip cards that might have been there.).
  Depending on the objectives on the terminus card, it can score the player £3-£10.
  When a terminus card is placed, the active player immediately draws a new one to replace it. Players should always have 3 terminus cards to choose from.
• Next player: The player to the left of the active player now becomes the active player.

​Endgame
Once all players have taken exactly 12 turns, the game is over.
Each players now calculates VPs earned from sidings and adds it to their score tracker.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Thematically, Village Rails, especially with its artwork, harks back to an age of steam before the existence of personal transport when trains represented an opportunity to go on holiday to the coast or sightsee through the countryside. 

Mechanically, Village Rails is on recognisable ground. 
It's drafting and placement rules, will be familiar to many players, as will the coin-and-conveyor belt mechanic for replacing cards.
The set-collecting, point soring mechanics will also be familiar. Sometimes players will want a set of the same landscape, or alternatively they'll want a variety of different ones on their line and so forth.

Where Village Rails does differentiate itself is in the use of trip cards to add an extra layer of scoring opportunities to the proceedings. Players will now be looking to combo trip cards off the routes they are creating. E.g., a player may be creating a route with only a type of terrain and would look for a trip card that complements that objective.
The game has a fairly wide variety of trips cards, including trip cards that score off of other trip cards.
Interestingly, there are some trip cards that work well on short train lines. It's possible to create a train line with only 1 card that immediately goes out of the playing area and a trip card that requires only 1 type of terrain would score easily off of that line.

Additionally, in the early game, Village Rails also has quite a harsh cash economy. Money is very useful for getting cards that a player needs but is in quite short supply at the start and players can soon run out of cash - and there's only 2 ways to get more - playing terminus cards after completing lines or drafting cards with coins on them.
This presents an interesting dynamic to players: I imagine most players will instinctively want to create the longest most elaborate trains lines to increase their scoring opportunities. Sometimes though, it can be good to complete a line quickly to get an injection of funds which can prove beneficial in the late game. This adds a nice little balancing act to the game, creating short and long term needs.

All of this provides players with more meaningful decisions to make and this is especially true since not only do players only have 12 turns until their playing area is filled. There will only ever be 7 train lines available to be completed, Players will need to optimise the placing of track cards

I don't usually refer to other games when blogging about the current game but it's worth mentioning that Village Rails is a re-iteration of its predecessor Village Green's 3x4 card grid mechanic which Village Rails definitely improves upon.
Where in Village Green a mistake meant leaving a gap in the grid, in Village Rails it means playing a card that scores less optimally. Mechanically the result may be identical but it makes Village Rails feels a little more forgiving, less frustrating and ultimately makes for a better game.

I found Village Rails to be an enjoyable game of its type that squeezes quite a lot into a small package, providing players with interesting options and meaningful decisions to make, albeit with a slightly flawed presentation.
​If you like route-building games with some drafting elements and it's train travel theme, then its one to try.
Finally; I would definitely recommend Village Rails over Village Green, there's nothing  wrong with Village Green but this is the superior game.

30th April 2023

Another Sunday is here and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming goodness.

Roll over! Fetch! Beg! Sit! Spots is game about collecting Dalmatians, only not 101 of them but only 6 in this push-your-luck, dice rolling game about dog tricks.

Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• ​Dogs cards: Each dog card will depict 1 or more Dalmatians or other dogs with spots in the artwork. These spots are positioned so that they resemble the spots found on a die and have boxes surrounding them to emphasis this. Some dog cards also display a paw - which is used to acquire treat tokens.
  Finally each dog card is double-sided with a grey side used during player and coloured side used to track scoring. The coloured side also omits the die boxes.

• Treat tokens: These tokens are shaped like stylised dog bones.
• Dice: Spots uses a whole bunch of normal six-siders.

Spots uses very stylised cartoony artwork throughout. Much of it is humorous which suits the game's lightweight nature well and is also style that I like.

There's minimal iconography in Spots and what there is of it, is easily understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Trick tiles: Players can elect to use a predetermined set of trick tiles or choose a random selection, although the 'Howl' & 'Roll Over' tiles are always mandatory.
• Players:
  Dog cards: Shuffle the dog cards into a deck and deal 2 to each player. These should be placed with the grey side up.
  Treat token: Give each player 1 treat token.
  ​Dog yard tile: Give each player a dog yard tile.
  Die: Give each player a single die, which they should then roll and 'bury' (Burying a die or dice means placing them on the dog yard tile.
• First player: Whoever buried the highest value die becomes the first player.

On to play
In Spots players are attempting to place dice on the relevant spaces on their dog cards without going bust.
Spots uses a traditional turn order with the active player performing their action before play progresses to the player on their left.
In their turn the active player may perform 1 of the following 2 actions.

• Perform trick: The active may choose to undertake a 'trick', this involves the following.
  • Trick tile: The active player picks any face-up 'active' trick tile and resolves the action(s) on that tile.
    Usually this involves rolling one or more dice in some manner, sometimes it may involve something else.
    Then: Frequently a trick will have a secondary THEN action which the player may perform after the first action.
    Additionally, some trick tiles allow the active player to gain a treat token, speaking of which....
    Treat tokens: The active player may spend a treat token to reroll all dice. This can be done as many times as the player has treat tokens.
  • Flip trick: Once a player has completed the actions on a trick tile, they must flip it to the other 'used' side.
    Reset: If once a player has flipped a trick tile to the used side and only 1 tile remains active, then all tiles should be returned to the active side. Thus a player will always have at least 2 trick tiles to choose from during their turn.
  • Place dice: Most tricks require the active player to roll a number of dice and place them on dog cards. Once the active player has finished rolling dice, they may be placed on dog cards with dice boxes that contain matching values. E.g., a '3' can go on a box displaying a '3'.
    Burying: Any dice not placed on dog cards must be placed on the dog yard tile, this is called 'burying'.
    Going bust: If at any time the total value of dice placed on the dog yard tile exceeds 7, then the active player goes bust and the following occurs.
    End turn: The active player's turn immediately ends!
    Wipe all dice: All dice on all cards and tiles are removed and returned to the central supply!
• Score dogs: Instead of performing a trick, the active player may score all their completed cards.
  The active player removes all dice on the completed cards and returns them to the supply.
  All completed dog cards are flipped to their 'completed' sides.
  Draw new cards: For each dog card that is scored, the active player draws a new dog card from the deck and places them grey-side up.
• End of turn: Once the active player has performed their action, player progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
As soon as any player has scored their 6th dog, they immediately win the game.

Overall
Spots' light-hearted artwork and amusing theme fits its lightweight gameplay quite well.

Mechanically there's not too much to say about Spots. It's a push-your-luck game in which players choose when they want to take risk.
As with all games of this type, luck plays a significant part here and players must learn to recognise good luck and mitigate bad luck.
Often this takes the form of giving players extra opportunities to roll dice after the initial roll, usually in the form of THEN actions.
Players must decide how many extra rolls to make and if they can deal with bad results, i.e', bury dice without going bust. Going bust feels quite harsh in Spots as it not only wipes the progress of the current turn but all current progress which makes pushing luck a tricky decision.
Having said that, this is a game that plays quickly and lost progress can be recovered reasonably fast.

Another aspect of luck that will affect players are related to trick tiles. Players will frequently find that their choices of available trick tiles will be limited due to the rules for flipping them and occasionally they'll have a choice of all 6!
I guess there could be a higher level of player about players trying to plan moves ahead and when tiles become active again but generally, it's a case of 'you take what you're given'.

There is an area of concern for me though which is to do with the distribution of numbers on the dog cards potentially effecting game balance.
If a player has cards with 4s, 5s & 6s, it means they'll end up burying dice showing 1s, 2s & 3s.
But if they have cards with 1s, 2s & 3, it means they'll be burying 4s, 5s & 6s which are much harder to deal with than the lower numbers and will be more likely to make a player go bust.
Since dog cards tend to have multiple numbers, if the numbers are well distributed then perhaps this won't occur. I will add that some cards also can gift treat tokens to players when scored which may make them more useful.

However, despite what I've written above, I don't think this is much of an issue. Spots is a light, fun and luck driven game - just roll the dice, take the chance, have fun! If players are looking too deeply into the balance of number distribution on cards, then they're probably playing the wrong game.

I'm not so sure that dedicated gamers will find much to engage with Spots, there are definitely some meaningful decisions to make but also significant amount of chance at play.
With its fun theme and light gameplay, Spot is clearly aimed at a family audience and also younger players. With being fairly quick to play, it also serves as a reasonable filler game.

9th April 2023

Sunday night on Board Game Arena means gaming goodness.

Ruffle your feathers, flap you wings and squawk for this err... bird and fruit themed set collecting card game.

Caveat: We've only played this game digitally.

What's in a game?
Cards: Toucan consists of a deck of 70 cards, broken down into 3 types.

• Fruit cards: These form the bulk of the game's cards.
  They each depict 1 of a selection of different fruits with a colourful illustration.
  Furthermore each type of fruit displays its own set-collecting rules as shown on each card.

Tucano features colourful and bright cartoony illustrations throughout.
It's a nice art style that works well with cheerfully anthropomorphic fruit and stylised birds that suits the game's lightweight nature.

The game's only iconography are the 3 symbols found on the toucan cards and icons used for set collecting scoring on fruit cards.
All of these are easily and quickly explained and understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Separate all the toucan cards from the deck and put them aside.
  • Shuffle all the remaining cards and deal them into 2 face-down decks.
  • Now take the toucan cards and shuffle them into one of the 2 decks, ensuring it all remains face-down.
  • Finally, take the other deck and place it on top of the deck with the toucan cards.
    ​Thus all the toucan cards will be in the lower half of the deck.
• Columns: Deal 3 cards face-up into the central area to form the beginnings of 3 columns. Then deal another card face-up into the middle column.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play.
In Tucano, players will drafting cards from a column in the central area and add to their personal area with the aim of collecting sets which will in turn score them maximum victory points (VPs).

Tucano uses a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before play moves on to the player on their left.
The active player will perform the following.

• Draft: The active player picks any 1 of the 3 available columns and adds all the cards in that column to their personal area.
  It's a good idea to sort cards by type at this point.
  Toucan cards: If one of the cards that were drafted is a toucan card, its action must be immediately resolved.
  Joker: If one of the drafted cards is a joker, it does not need to be assigned to a set until the game end.
• Refresh: Once the active player has finished their turn, a card each is added face-up to the 3 columns - including the empty one.
  Next player: Play then progresses to the player to the left of the current active player who then becomes the new active player.

Endgame
Play continues until the deck has been depleted and there's only 1 column of cards left in the central area.

At this point, any players with a joker card may choose which set to add it to.
Sets are then scored.

​Most sets will score according to how many cards a player has collected of that set.
However, some sets score based on how many cards a player has collected in relation to other players. In this case whoever has the most cards will score the larger amount and all other players with cards in that set will score the lesser amount.
It is possible in some circumstances for sets to lose players VPs!

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
I guess toucans collecting fruit is a good a theme for a set collecting game as any! 

When playing, players are broadly speaking, faced with 3 choices during their turn which on the surface is not a lot.
However, Tucano does a clever thing is by having some sets earning increasing VPs, some sets intermittently scoring VPs and some losing them - and then having columns that get longer.
Invariably, when a column contains a card that loses VPs; players will initially ignore that column, this means that over the rounds more cards will be added to that column, making it more appealing to draft.
As a result; sometimes players will have no-brainers on what to draft but sometimes they will have to choose between columns which will add negative cards to their collections. They'll be looking to minimise the negatives and hoping to get rid of them at some later point.
Which brings me to the toucan cards, these wisely appear in the latter part of the game - where they'll have the most impact. The right use of toucan cards when they appear can be a real game changer (And also frustrating!), particularly when giving cards to other players: In the right circumstances a player can remove a negative from one of their collections and add it to an opponent's!

There's not more to add. Tucano is a pared down, fairly simple set collecting game and I'm pretty certain I'm not the target audience here.
Even as a filler or short game, I'm unsure it offers enough depth for seasoned players. Personally I found it a fairly shallow experience and the mechanics of the toucan cards a little frustrating.

Conversely though, just from the appealing, colourful art, it apparent Tucano is squarely aimed at younger players.
Its simplicity makes for a accessible game and a great way to introduce set collecting mechanics to budding future gamers and for family gaming.

9th April 2023

​Sunday is here again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming fun.

'Triiiiooo, triiiio
I want a trio,
And I want now.'

I'm showing my age here, but this is not a game about a chocolatey biscuit, instead it's a set collecting card game.
Furthermore, Trio is apparently a reskin of a game called Nana, which disappointingly, is not about collecting grannies.

Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Trio uses​ a deck of 36 cards, numbered 1-12 three times.
  Along the bottom of each card will be 1 or more numbers that relate to the numbers on other cards which when added/subtracted mathematically reach 7.
  E.g.; the 1 and 6 cards are related because 1+6=7.
  ​Additionally; 4 and 11 are also related because 11-4=7 and so on.
  A 2 will be related to a 5 and a 9. 5+2=7 and also 9-2=7
  These sets of 2 related numbers are known as 'spicy' sets!
  
  

That's it for components.

Trio features cards decorated with quirky little monochrome illustrations with what appears to be a Mexican day of the dead theme? These illustrations are set against colourful backgrounds which are associated with each of the 12 differently valued cards.
I'm not sure how the them ties with the game but the cards definitely look colourful, dynamic and eye catching.

Cards are numbered 1-12, there's no other iconography. This is all very easily understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck.
• Players: Dependant on player count deal 5-9 cards face-down to each player.
  All players should sort their cards into numerical order.
• Central playing area: All the remaining cards (Which will be 6-9 cards.) should be dealt face-down into a central playing area.
  This means all cards will have been dealt either to players or the central area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
There are three ways (A trio!) (SIC) to win Trio. Each involves revealing cards to collect sets of identical values.

Trio follows the typical turn order with the active player taking their turn before play progress to the player on their left.
During their turn, the active player may reveal up to 3 cards by performing the following actions.

• 1st action: The Active player may choose 1 of the following 2 actions to perform which will result in revealing a card..
  • Reveal highest or lowest: The active play may ask any single player to reveal their single highest or lowest value card, the active player may also choose themselves to reveal a card.
    Any revealed card should be played face-up into the playing area.
  • Reveal from central area: The active player may flip a single card face-up from the cards in the central area.
• 2nd action: The active player now again chooses 1 of the same 2 actions above to perform, which will result in revealing a 2nd card
  • No match: The the 2nd card to be revealed does not have the same value as the 1st revealed card, then the active player's turn is over.
    Any card revealed by a player is returned to their hand.
    Any card that was revealed from the central area is flipped face-down again.
  • A match: If the 2nd card revealed matches the 1st card revealed, then the active player gets to take a 3rd action!
• 3rd action: The active player now gets a 3rd action and once again, must choose from the 2 actions described above.
  • No match: If the 3rd card revealed does not match the 1st and 2nd cards, then the active player's turn is over.
    Any cards revealed by a player is returned to their hand.
    Any cards that was revealed from the central area is flipped face-down again.
  • A match: If the 3rd card revealed matches the 1st and 2nd cards, then the active player has revealed all 3 cards of the same number! They collect all 3 cards and place them into their personal playing area.
• ​Next player: Regardless of whether the active player failed to match 3 revealed cards or managed to collect a set, play then progresses to the player on their left who now becomes the active player.

Endgame
​There are 3 ways a player may Trio.

• 3 sets of 3: If a player collects 3 sets of 3 cards they immediately win.
• Spicy set: If any player collects a spicy set, then they immediately win.
• Collect the 7s: If a player collects the 3 7 cards, they immediately win!
  Interestingly, the 7 value cards are the only cards not in a spicy set.

Overall
​Trio's has a fairly abstract theme but to be fair I don't it detracts from what is a fairly accessible game.

In fact, Trio is such a straightforward game that almost has nothing to write about. It mixes simple deduction and memory mechanics.

Players will want to remember what cards are revealed and where they are revealed from, allowing them to create sets of 3.
Players can also glean information from what their opponents reveal, either from their own questions of those of others. E.g., if someone is asked to reveal their highest card and it's an 8, then it's obvious they wont have cards of higher values. This is useful when deciding which sets to try and work towards.

There's also something mechanically interesting going on with the game's probabilities.
Generally, players should look to collect sets of either the highest or lowest value sets - simply by virtue of being able to only reveal the highest and lowest value cards of opponents.
This is why collecting the 7's insta-wins the game, because the 7's will likely be in the middle of players' hands and will be harder to collect
This becomes even more likely in games with lower player counts as each player will have bigger hand sizes. Conversely the distribution of cards will be less even in games with a higher player count, making it a little more unpredictable.

Talking of player count, we played with 3 players and I felt it was a little underwhelming. Trio can play with up to 6, I think the game improves with more players and the greater unpredictability adds to the experience.
We also played online which I feel detracts from a game like this which benefits from interaction between players.

Trio is obviously a lightweight game and will have crossover appeal to families and more casual gamers, it's set collecting, memory-based gameplay is something most people will be familiar with to some degree or other. I that's something that might appeal, them Trio is worth a look.

I would say it might be a bit too simple for seasoned games but truthfully, I think can serve as a filler game or an ender for the night.
It's something I would like to try with the physical version at a higher player count.

7th March 2023

Tuesday evening is here again and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns.

'It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.' - Paul Cezanne.

Canvas is a game about creating paintings - well sort of and you actually start with a blank canvas - well sort of!

The tokens are all constructed from suitably thick card stock and feel satisfyingly sturdy. The tuck box is made from the same material used for tuck boxes that contain decks of cards and like those boxes, it's fairly flimsy but unless it's mistreated, it should be fine.
​The scoring cards are made of standard card.

For a game about art, as you might expect, there's a lot of art in Canvas. However, it's all 'patchwork' art that comes in small elements which during the course of the game, players will combine to make their sort of own artwork.
Canvas provides lots of these small pieces of art in a variety of styles and sizes. It's hard to say whether it's good or bad because it's not meant to constitute finished art. Regardless of that, it all looks OK to me. Certainly, there's a lot of bright colour going on, which is something I like.

While Canvas uses an average-ish amount of iconography, I found some of it to be rather abstract and counter-intuitive.
The bonus silver ribbons and colous are easily understood, but triangle representing shape and a striped box representing texture?
It's also complicated a little further by whatever the scoring criteria are on the scoring cards which seemed not quite as simple as they could be. Players especially need to be aware of the scoring criteria
It's a bit of a steep curve but ultimately not a gamebreaker though and requires some learning.

How's it play?
Setup

• Game mat: Put out the game mat.
  Scoring cards: Either use a chosen selection or randomly deal 4 scoring cards into the 4 spaces on the matt.
  Art cards: Shuffle the art cards into a deck and place them into the tuck box, then place the tuck box on to the rightmost space on the game mat. Deal 5 cards from the tuck into the 5 available spaces.
• Players: Give each player the following.
  Background cards: Give each player 3 background cards, these should be in  transparent sleeves.
  Inspiration tokens: Give each player 4 inspiration tokens.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Canvas, each player is creating 3 paintings - which will be created by layering 3 art cards over a background card. Once a painting is created, it will earn ribbon as per the scoring criteria. Then, once the game is over, ribbons will earn VPs.
Canvas uses a traditional turn order with the active player acting, then play progressing to the player on their left.

During their turn, the active player in basic terms has 2 choices.

• ​Draft art card: The active player may draft 1 of the 5 available art cards into their hand with the following restrictions.
  Cost: The active player may take the leftmost art card for free but any card further along must be paid for with inspiration tokens. 1 token must be placed on every card that is 'skipped'.
  Acquire tokens: Conversely, the active player may collect any tokens on a art card which they draft.
  Conveyor belt: Once a art card has been taken from the drafting track, cards are slid to the left to fill the gap and a new card is added to the rightmost space.
  Max hand: A player can never have more than 5 art cards in their hand at any time. If a player has collected 5 arts, they cannot draft anymore and must instead create a painting.
• Create painting: When a player has 5 art cards in hand, they must create a painting, if they have 3 or 4 art cards, they can choose to create a painting.
  ​Exactly 3 art cards are required to create a painting.
  Creating a painting is technically easy; the active player takes 3 of their art cards and layers them on top of each other in any order they see fit and them places them into one of the sleeves with a background card.
  Score artwork: The active player then scores the newly created artwork.
  The artwork will be scored across all 4 scoring cards.
  Only visible scoring icons can be scored, that is, any that were covered by other icons are not scored.
  ​A painting will earn ribbons of the corresponding colour for meeting each scoring card's scoring criteria. It is possible to earn more than 1 ribbon from a scoring card by meeting it's criteria more than once. Additionally, silver ribbon scoring on actual art cards may provide extra ribbons.
• Next Player: Once the active player has either drafted or created, play progress to the player on their left.

Endgame
Once a player has created 3 paintings, their turns are skipped, once all player have created 3 paintings, the game ends and goes to scoring.

Players should now sort their ribbons by colour.
Each scoring card will determine how many victory points (VPs) its set of coloured ribbons will score.
Silver ribbons earn 2 VPs each.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
​Canvas merges its theme with its central mechanic quite well and I have to say it's a a fairly unique mechanic I quite like that also feels fresh. I also like how the game produces some pretty unusual names for the paintings.

Canvas is in implementation, a fairly straightforward game, it utilises familiar drafting and conveyor belt mechanics commonly seen elsewhere. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a good crossover game as I feel the scoring rules are a little obtuse but gamers should have no problems understanding Canvas.

Where the game's depth comes from is in the creation of paintings.
Players can freely choose to layer the art cards they choose to use how they wish but any scoring icons that are not visible are not scored.
This puts players into a quandary, they will need to not just select the art cards for a painting that provide them the best scoring opportunities but also how to layer those art cards to do so!
Furthermore, over multiple plays, the wide choice of scoring cards will force players to approach game slightly differently. Between this and the variety of art cards, there's a lot of replicability to the game.

Thus players must carefully draft whatever cards they might need as well as think about how to use them.
Synergy between cards is key to optimal scoring but I found it was quite hard to get the mix of icons that I wanted and I'm sure that Canvas is one of those games where players will rarely get the 'perfect scoring' they want.
That's a good thing because it means players will have to choose between choices and are pushed to make meaningful decisions, although I must admit that I found it sometimes veered to being close to frustrating instead of challenging.

There's not much more to say really; Canvas is a game that's quick to pick up and relatively quick to play with a easily understandable theme that meshes well with gameplay that feels a little different to anything else.
It's a game definitely worth trying especially if you're looking for a game that has some unique elements.

13th October 2022

It's a Thursday and we're in Aldershot for a evening of gaming entertainment.

Do you like salads? Do you like points? If so, then maybe you'll like Point Salad, a game about well... about making salads and scoring points with a literal point salad mechanic!

What's in a game?

• Cards: Point Salad uses a deck of 108 cards and that's it. OK, there's a bit more to it.
  Each card is double sided with a veggie side and a scoring side. The veggie side features 1 of 6 vegetables/colours and the other,  the scoring side has scoring criteria related to the veggies.
  Veggie side: The vegetables (Or veggies) types are:
  Cabbage/purple.
  Carrot/orange.
  Lettuce/green.
  Onion/dark red.
  Pepper/yellow.
  Tomato/red (Yes, technically, tomatoes are a fruit but I digress.).
  Scoring side: The flip side of the cards each feature a scoring criteria or manner of point scoring, of which Point Salad has a wide variety.
  The scoring criteria tend to be based on combinations of veggies. For example,  8 victory points (VPs) per 3 onions or 10 VPs for the most tomatoes or 5 VPs for each pair of carrot and lettuce and so on. Some cards will give points for certain veggies and deduct VPs for others, some may score for not having any of a certain type of veggie!
  Finally, in the corner on a scoring card it will display which veggie is on the other side.

Point Salad's cards are pretty basic, they don't seem laminated and feel a little flimsy. Although unless you treat them badly, it shouldn't be a problem.

There isn't much art to Point Salad, only the illustrations for the 6 types of veggie. These are colourful, chunky illustrations with thick line art. I like it and think it suits the game's light, breezy theme.

The game's only iconography is the 6 vegetable types. For the most part, they are clear  and distinct. EXCEPT for the onion and tomato images which not only look a little similar but both use shades of red for their associated colour. It's not a gamebreaker by any means but it definitely can be a little confusing and could have been clearer
The scoring criteria are pretty easy to understand, it uses a mixture of the icons and text to explain their individual rules.

• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Point Salad players will be drafting cards from the central selection.
They will be drafting veggies to create sets and drafting scoring cards to score those sets.
Point Salad uses the typical turn structure with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.

During their turn, the active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions, additionally, they may then also perform a free action.

• Draft: The active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions.
  Take 1 scoring card: The active player may take 1 card from the 3 scoring decks and place it in their personal area, keeping it with the scoring side-up.
  Take 2 veggie cards: The active player may take any 2 of the 6 veggie cards and add them to their personal playing area, keeping them veggie side-up and collating them into sets
  The cards that were taken are replaced by flipping and placing cards from their corresponding decks.
• Optional free action: Once per turn, the active player may flip 1 card from the scoring side to its veggie side. Players cannot flip cards from the veggie side to point side!​
• Next player: Once the active player has drafted and possibly performed their free action, player passes to the player on their left.
• Empty deck: At any time, if 1 of the scoring decks becomes empty, simply take the largest of the remaining decks and split it into 2 decks.

Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been drafted and then goes to scoring.

All cards are scored all ways! That means that if for example, a set of carrots can gain VPs from 2 scoring cards, then they are scored twice and so on.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Point Salad is a easy to learn game, there are only 2 actions (And 1 free action.) to choose from and 1 core tenement to remember; scoring cards score off of veggie cards.
The depth comes from what is done with those 2 decisions.

Getting scoring cards early on will give a player an objective to aim for but also can limit their drafting options.
Conversely, concentrating on veggie cards early will give a player some flexibility when it comes to acquiring scoring cards, the risk here though is that optional scoring cards may never become available because other players may get them first or they may get flipped to the veggie side or in game with a lower player count, may not even be in the game.

All of this means that planning ahead can be a two-edged sword. It's definitely worth trying to plan ahead, synergy between scoring cards, i.e., multiple scoring cards that score off 1 type of veggie can led to big scores.
However, the drafting area's landscape is likely significantly change from turn-to-turn and players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they arise. Players will also need to mange having to take cards they don't need or want and look to create or exploit new scoring opportunities as they appear.
The optional free card flip rule offers players a little flexibility. They'll be times that a points card with a negative may prove a liability might be worth flipping which negates the negative and also provides a veggie for another points cards. Again, this is all contextual.

There's also a higher level of play at work here. Players can try and anticipate their opponents are hoping to do and possibly stymy them. Taking specific veggie cards or scoring cards they might want or even taking veggie will cause points cards from the related column to be flipped to replace them

It means that Point Salad generally provides players will meaningful decisions and choices to make.

I find Point Salad an enjoyable game, it makes a great filler, plays up to 6 and also a good crossover or family game.
It's a game that you shouldn't take too seriously, it's a light, fun quick game. In fact it's so quick to play that it seems like the set up time longer than the play time! Which is my only, minor criticism of an otherwise good game.
It this sounds like your kind of thing, you should definitely give Point Salad a try.

9th October 2022

Another Sunday and another gaming session on Board Game Arena.

Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.
Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.
When the dice are good, so are you.
Next time you roll, you know what to do.
Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.

OK, dodgy references to 80's adverts aside, Roll'n Bump blends trick taking, set collecting with a dash of push your luck into a interesting little dice game.

• ​Dice: Roll'n Bump uses normal six-sided dice.
  Player dice: There are 5 dice in each of the game's 5 player colours.
  ​Bonus die: There is only 1 white bonus die in the game. Depending on circumstances, players may get to roll it with their dice during their turn.

Each of the 4 colours used on cards also have a unique pattern associated with them. This is a good accessibility feature. The joker card is of course the exception, having all 4 colours and all 4 pattern types on it.
Otherwise, the game has no artwork.

There's almost no iconography to the game either. There's only the 3 types of card to learn and that's trivially easy to learn.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Take the joker card a place it in the middle of the central playing area. Then shuffle the remaining cards into a face-down deck.
  Deal the cards face-down into 6-12 stacks of 6-3 card each depending on player count. Arrange these stacks around the joker in the central playing area, then flip the top card on each stack face-up.
• Dice: Give each player the dice in their personal player colour.
  Bonus die: Put the white die adjacent to the cards in the central playing area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
​Players roll dice to create tricks to place on cards and then claim those cards in which in turn scores them VPs.
​Depending on the available cards, there are 3 ways this can be done. Additionally, the active player has the possibility of 'bumping' other players' dice. I.e., the other player's dice are removed from the card and replacing by those of the active player!
Roll'n Bump uses the typical turn order of the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
On their turn, the active player takes the following actions.

• Claim card: Firstly, if the active player has dice on any cards in the central area at the start of their turn, they take those cards and their dice back.
  All cards taken should be sorted by colour and kept in the active player's personal area.
  When a card is claimed, the face-down card beneath is flipped face-up.
  Obviously a player can't claim cards on their first turn.
• Claim bonus die: How a bonus die can be claimed is explained below but regardless of this, if they can claim it, they do so now.
• Roll dice: The active player now rolls all of their dice and may choose to keep the result or reroll them up to twice as described below.
  Reroll: Once this is done, they may chose to set aside any number of dice - including 0 and reroll the remainder.
  2nd reroll: The active player may set aside more dice and/or take back dice they had previously set aside and roll the remainder again.
  Once the 2nd reroll is completed, there are no more rerolls
  Bonus die: The bonus die is used identically to a player's usual 5 dice, it can be rolled, set aside or rerolled as the player wishes.
  The bonus dice comes into it's own once the active player has finished rolling. The player can now change the side of any one of their normal dice to match the side shown on the bonus die. The bonus die itself is never placed on cards, players always have their 5 normal dice to place.
  
• Place dice: Now that active player has the result of their dice rolling, those dice may be placed on cards in the central playing area.
  • Singles: If a card is displaying a single number, the active player may place 1 or more dice with the matching number on to that card. E.g., if a card shows a '3', the active player may put a die showing a '3' on it.
    Bump: If a singles card already has another players die or dice on it, they can be 'bumped' off by putting more dice with the matching number on that card.
    E.g., if a card has a '4' on it, 2 4s will bump it off. Consequently, 2 4s can be bumped by 3 4s and so forth.
  • Straights: These cards display 3-5 overlapping blank boxes. This indicates the size of straight that must be placed on it to claim it. Thus 4 overlapping boxes means a straight of 4 dice must be placed on the card.
    A straight is considered a number of dice in numerical sequence without a break. 
    Bump: A straight can be bumped by another higher value straight. So a '2, 3, 4' can be bumped by a '3, 4, 5'.
    Note: If a straight ends in a '6', it cannot be bumped.
  • Sets: Blank squares are used to indicate sets cards and they come in 2, 3 or 4 spaces, except for the joker which has 5.
    These cards can be claimed with sets of any matching number. A set of 2 can be claimed with 2 5s, or a set of 3 can be claimed with a 3 1s.
    Bump: A set may be bumped by another set with a higher value. E.g., 3 1s can be bumped with 3 2s.
    Note: As with straights, high value sets cannot be bumped, i.e., any set that uses 6s cannot be bumped.
  • Unused dice: If the active player has dice that they cannot or choose not to place on cards, they can potentially be put aside next the bonus die to be claimed in the next turn.
    Bump: If another player has already placed dice adjacent to the bonus die, those dice can be bumped too! This can be done if a player has unused with a higher total value than dice already placed next to the bonus die.
    
  • Bonus die: If the active played used the bonus die on this action, once they've finished placing their dice, the bonus is returned to the side of the playing area.
• Next turn: Once the active player has finished their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until one of the decks has been emptied (The joker does not count.), when this occurs, all players immediately claim cards they have dice on and the game goes to scoring.

Scoring
All cards score in 2 ways, firstly they score their base VPs but then they also score as sets as per their colours: The more cards in a colour set, the more bonus VPs it earns. The joker can be added to any single colour set as chosen by the owning player.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Roll'n Bump is such a pared down game focused on the core of its push-your-luck driven gameplay without almost no 'schticks' that it's hard to find much to write about!
It does exactly what it says on the tin.

It has fairly straightforward, light rules which can be picked up very quickly, especially since it utilises mechanics which will be familiar in some way or other to many people.
Creating straights or sets, rerolling dice twice, it's all common stuff. Roll'n Bump would make a good crossover game.

Decision making is also pretty straightforward. Players must recognise and decide when and how to push their luck.
Roll'n Bump provides a classic risk-and-reward conundrum; settle for a low-scoring card or risk reducing that score to 0 to potentially score a different, higher value card.
Despite the overall simplicity of Roll'n Bump, there is a innovative mechanic to be found in the game; the bonus die.
I like how it can give an edge to a player without giving them extra dice to place. Being able to bump other players' used dice from the bonus dice can provide players with meaningful decisions. There will be times when a player might not put a die on a card because it could be used to acquire the bonus die for their next turn.

If I had one criticism of Roll'n Bump and considering it's a push-your-luck game, it might be a facetious criticism, it's that there's a lot of luck to the game!
Taking some big risks to put some dice on a card only to have another player flippantly bump them with a single lucky roll can be pretty frustrating.
Sometimes, someone will win simply because they lucked into a very good roll but that's the nature of the beast and something anyone playing this type of game should come to expect.

Roll'n Bump is unremarkable and doesn't really stand out from the crowd however it manages to tick all the right boxes for a push-your-luck trick taking game and offers a solid, simple and fun game without any associated fiddliness.
It also has a fairly quick playtime and would serve as a good filler or finisher game which is why we actually play it on a fairly regular basis.

If you're on the look out for a push-your-luck, trick taking game, Roll'n Bump is worth considering.

9th October 2022

Another Sunday, another session of gaming goodness on Board Game Arena.

Travel around North America, fulfil tickets, draft cards, create routes in Ticket to Ride. 

• Cards: Ticket to Ride uses 2 types of cards:
  Train car cards: These cards come in 8 different colours that correspond to the connection colours on the board and each colour also displays a different type of train car such a freight or passenger car.
  There also 14 'locomotion' cards, which are 'wild' cards.
  Destination cards: Each one of the destination cards shows the same map of North America as shown on the game board, 2 of the destinations on the card will be highlighted. Finally, each destination card has a associated victory point (VP) value.
• Train meeples: Should these be called 'treeples'? Hmm maybe not, could be confused with trees!
  ​There are 45 trains in each of the game's 5 player colours. The trains are sized so that 1 train meeple fits on 1 segment in a route.

I suppose that you could call the art on the board muted but I would say it's functional and unobtrusive. The board is quite busy as it is with all the routes crossing back and forth, overly elaborate art would just obfuscate important information, so it feels like a good decision to me.
Each colour of train card has it's own unique illustration which helps with accessibility issues. The illustrations are perfectly good if a little plain.
The destination cards essentially replicate the art on the board.

There's no notable iconography in Ticket to Ride and the game is straightforward to comprehend. There's just the 9 types of train car to remember and that's easy and intuitive. I imagine the biggest hurdle to overcome in the game's presentation is finding destinations on the map and the iconography does a lot to make that as easy as it can.

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Game board: Put out the game board.
• Train car cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck, deal 5 cards face-up adjacent to the board.
• Destination cards: Also shuffle these into a face-down deck.
• Players: First give each player all the train meeples in their player colour.
  Train car cards: Deal 4 to each player, this is their starting hand.
  Destination cards: Deal 3 destination cards to each player. Everyone decides how many to keep. A player must keep 1-3 destination cards.
  Destination cards should be kept secret players until the end game scoring, only then should they be revealed.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Ticket to Ride, players broadly speaking have 3 objectives, these are; build as many routes as possible, create a connection between the locations on their destination cards and finally, create the longest contiguous set of connections.
All of these will contribute VPs towards their final score.
This is done by drafting cards which in turn allows players to create routes.
Ticket to Ride uses the typical turn structure of the active player taking their action before play progresses to the player on their left.
In their turn, the active player can perform exactly 1 of the 3 following actions.

• Draft train car cards: This action allows the player to draw 2 of the standard 8 types of train car cards. This can be done by taking it from the 5 available face-up cards or drawing blindly from the deck.
  Locomotion cards: A player can only claim 1 locomotion card as their enntire drafting action.
  Shuffling: If at anytime there's 3 or more locomotion cards in the face-up line of cards, then all 5 are discarded and 5 new cards are drawn. Additionally, if the train car card deck becomes empty, the discard pile is shuffled into a new deck.
• Claim route: A route is a line of oblong spaces between 2 destinations. A route may a have a colour or may be 'grey'.
  To claim a route, the active player must discard train car cards of the matching colour and equal number of spaces to the route. A grey route can be claimed with cards of any colour provided they are all of the same colour.
  Locomotion cards: These can be used as train car cards of any colour.
  Place train meeples: Once a route has been claimed, the active player places a train meeple on every space on the route.
  ​This also means that no other player may claim this route.
  Some adjacent destinations will have 2 routes running in parallel, in games with 4+ players, the 2nd route can be also claimed. In 2 or 3 player games, 2nd routes are not in play.
  Scoring: When a route is claimed, it is immediately scored on the tracker. Routes run 1-6 spaces in length and correspondingly score 1-15 VPs.
• Draw destination cards: As their action, the active player may draw 3 cards and keep 1-3 of them, providing them with additional scoring opportunities (Or not as explained below!).
  Discarded cards are returned to the bottom of the destination deck.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed their action, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
When the active player has 2 or less train meeples remaining, the end game is triggered. Every player including the active player has 1 more turn then the game goes to scoring.

Players will add points from destination cards to their running total from the game and the player with the longest set of connections gains bonus VPs.

Destination cards are now revealed:

• Completed destination cards: Players earn the listed VPs for every destination card that they have completed (That is; any destination card where the owning player may trace a connection of their routes between the 2 destinations.).
• Incomplete destination cards: Every incomplete destination a play has will deduct VPs from that player's total.

Finally, whichever players has the longest contiguous set of routes earns a bonus 10 VPs!

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Ticket to Ride is a very popular, well regarded game and it's easy to see why. Lightweight rules that are genuinely elegant, almost minimalist that're easy to learn, a game that's intuitive to play with a theme anybody can understand. Ticket to Ride is definitely a game with crossover appeal, is a good game for casual play and introduction to board games.
It also has a fairly random distribution of destination cards throughout a game which provides a good level of variety to games.

This pared down set of rules means that Ticket to Ride also provides players with clear meaningful decisions to make.
Basic tactics are pretty straightforward: Players are in a race to connect their personal destinations before they risk getting blocked by other players. They'll need to balance getting cards they need to draft and claiming routes.
Since a player's routes do not need to connect, any player essentially can claim any route, anytime if they have the appropriate cards.

Completing destination cards can be quite satisfying and they add an extra wrinkle to the gameplay. Being able to acquire more of them during play can be a game changer, earning more VPs but conversely, is also risky, getting a card that is not completed obviously costs VPs.
What makes this even more interesting is during the late game this risk/reward mechanic becomes even more pronounced.
Acquiring a destination card late in the game can be very risky because the player may not have the required time to complete the connection. However, late in the game is when a player's train network is at it's biggest, consequently it's possible to gain destination cards which have already​ been connected.

There's also a higher level of play in Ticket to Ride. Watching what opponents are doing and successfully anticipating what connections they're trying to make can allow a player to block or slow their progress down by claim routes they might want. If you look at the map, you will see that that there are numerous routes which are only 1 or 2 space grey routes that are very easy for a player to claim, e.g., a 1 space grey route can be claimed with any train rail card. It's obvious this is by design.

This brings me to my main contention with Ticket to Ride: It's a game that promotes negative gameplay. What do I mean by that?
Claiming a route another player needs will force them to spend additional turns acquiring train car cards and then taking longer to claim routes around the block.
In terms of action economy, a player wasting 1 action to make an opponent waste 5 or 6 can be pretty advantageous.
Preventing an opponent completing a destination card may earn that player no VPs but for their opponents, it will cost them points.

Many Eurogames have mechanics which have sort of a balance to them where if a player screws over an opponent, they will also frequently screw themselves over and only occasionally can they screw an opponent over while advance themselves.
Ticket to Ride is not like that!

Although, in part this will be down to the type of people playing.
Dedicated players will learn and exploit blocking at every opportunity and why not? Games are for winning and getting a score of 1 while opponents get 0 is still winning.

More casual players may not care about higher level tactics. Early games will be light and fun but even so, after a while they'll end up realising (Probably by accident!) how powerful blocking can be.

Remember, earlier I said how connecting destinations can feel satisfying, well getting blocked can feel equally unsatisfying.

There's a lot that's good about Ticket to Ride and I wanted to like it but the negative aspect can just be too frustrating. I understand why the game has a lot of fans, I'm not one of them.

25th September 2022

Sunday is here again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness.

Sea Salt & Paper is a pun that plays on sea salt & pepper in this quirkily ocean and err... origami themed set collecting card game.

Caveat: We've only ever played Sea Salt & Paper digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Cards: Sea Salt & Paper has a deck of 50-odd cards. Each card will have several icons in the top left indicating what they are, what bonus they might provide and what victory points (VPs.) they confer.
  Cards come in quite a few different types and also importantly, in one of about 10 colours.
  • Duo cards: Many of the cards in the game are duo cards, which means they are played as pairs. They have a icon in the corner along with the outline of the icon it pairs with. Most duo sets require 2 matching icons, e.g., a pair of crabs or a pair of boats. One duo pairing however, rather grimly requires a shark and a swimmer!
  • Collector cards: These cards have an icon in the top left corner with a column of numbers below. VPs will be scored accordingly, dependant on the number of that collector card that have been acquired.
  • Multiplier cards: Each multiplier card has a number and a icon. Each card with a matching icon scores that many VPs at the end of a round.
  • Mermaid card: Mermaid cards earn VPs based on the amount of cards of 1 colour a player has the end of a round.
    Additionally: If a player manages to acquire all 4 mermaid cards, they win the game, regardless of VPs, they just win!

Sea Salt & Paper makes use of a genuinely unique art style which looks like the creators constructed origami models themed after the game such as mermaids, crabs or penguins etc and then photographed them. Or perhaps high quality renders have been produced in a computer art program. Either way, the game has what I think a fantastic, eye catching theme, colourful and of course, they get to use the Sea Salt & Paper gag.

The game uses 10 colours for cards - and that's a lot. Fortunately each colour has a unique icon associated with it which a handy and welcome accessibility aid.
The downside is that Sea Salt & Paper has quite a lot of icons, there's about 4 icons for each type of card. Luckily most of them are intuitive or fairly obvious.
I don't think it's too difficult to learn may be off putting during early plays.

How's it play?
Setup

• Deck: ​Take all the cards and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
• Discard piles: Next, the game's 2 discard piles must be created by drawing 2 cards and placing each one into the central playing area face-up in 2 stacks.

That's it for setup.

On to play
Sea Salt & Paper is played over a varying number of rounds until a scoring target has been met. Furthermore, rounds will have a varying length and after a certain point, each round can be ended by any player.
The game follows the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progress to the person on their left.
There are 3 actions a player can perform in their turn.

• Draw card: The active player must draw a card into their hand, there are 2 ways this can be done.
  • Draw from discard pile: The active player may draw a card from either of the 2 discard piles.
  • Blind draw: Alternatively, the active player may draw 2 cards blindly from the deck.
    Then they keep 1 card and place the other on either of the discard piles.
• Play duo: In addition to drawing a card, the active player may also play cards. Cards are always played in pairs (Or duos.). Each type of duo gives the active player a benefit of some sort.
  • Pair of boats: Active player immediately gets another turn.
  • Pair of crabs: Active player takes a card from a discard pile into their hand.
  • Pair of fish: Active player adds a card from the deck into their hand.
  • Shark & Swimmer: The active player takes a card from another player's hand.
• End round: Finally, provided the active player has scored at least 7 points from duos they have played and cards in their hand, they may choose to end the round. There are 2 ways this can be done
  • Stop: The active player declares 'Stop', the round immediately ends and goes to scoring.
    Scoring: there are various sources for scoring points. Unusually, both played cards and un-played cards in hand are scored.
    • Duos: Each pair of duo cards scores 1 VP, regardless of whether it has been played or not! However, cards in hand do not activate their special abilities in any way.
    • Collector cards: These cards will score points VPs depending on the size of their respective collections.
    • Multiplier cards: These will score VPs as per the number of that icon the player has in their possession multiplied by the scoring multiplier.
    • Mermaids: Mermaids score using something called a colour set. A colour set is all of a player's cards of the same colour.
      The active player scores 1 VP per card in their largest colour set. I.e., the player gains 1 VP per card for each card with the colour which they have the most of on their cards.
      Additional mermaids: If a player has a 2nd mermaid, it scores the second largest colour set and so on.
    • Finals scores: Once scores are calculated and tallied as described above, they should be recorded before play progresses to the next round.
  • Last chance: This is the other way the active player may trigger the end of a round. This method adds an extra element to the scoring criteria which is essentially a push-your-luck mechanic where the active player is betting that their score for the round will be higher than all the other players.
    Final round: When the active player declares 'last chance', all other players get one more turn to draw and play cards.
    Scoring: The game then goes to scoring. This is essentially identical to how scoring is calculated above but with a significant change once points are tallied.
    • Active player has highest score: If the active player (Who declared last chance) has the highest or tied highest score, they have won their bet! They then also add the value of their largest colour set to their score for the round.
      Other players: All the other players ignore their current scores, instead only scoring their largest colour set.
    • Active player does not have highest score: This means the active player has lost their bet! The active player ignores their score and only scores their colour set.
      Other players: All other players score their cards as usual.
    • Final scores: Once scores are calculated and tallied as described above, they should be recorded before play progresses to the next round.
• ​​End turn: If the active does not or cannot end the round, then play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: Regardless of how a round ends, players should record their scores and all cards are shuffled back into the deck in preparation for the next round.

Endgame
There are 2 ways Sea Salt & Paper can end.
Firstly and least likely, if a player manages to acquire 4 mermaid cards... they win!

Otherwise, the game has a endgame scoring target, which is 30-40 VPs depending on player count. When this target is reached during scoring it triggers the game end and players calculate their final total VPs.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Broadly speaking, Sea Salt & Paper is fairly straightforward; collect sets and play duos. There are several ways to collect sets, including based on colours. Players will often be faced with various on which card to take and optimisation is key here.
Although players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they may need to deal with cards they might not initially want.

Sea Salt & Paper however, puts some quite unusual and unique mechanics into play that have unusual impact on the game and the way some of these mechanics synch up is interesting.

I'm struggling to recall another card game in which cards that are played and cards in hand score equally. It's very important here though since it ties in with the mechanic that allows players to bet on 'winning' the round. 
When a player chooses to announce 'last chance', they'll know what cards other players have played but they won't know what they've kept in their hand. This means there's always an element of push-your-luck because the announcer will never know what others have kept back.
Canny players may decide to not play duo cards in an attempt to lure others into a false sense of security but the trade off is that they won't get utilise those cards' benefits.

There's also a higher level of play about noting what cards other players take and responding. 
Drawing cards blindly gives the player a useful ability of using one of them to cover a card in one of the discard piles, potentially denying it to another player if you think they want it.

While Sea Salt & Paper players has a moderately quick playtime and is mostly easy to learn, it's a bit fiddly when it comes to scoring.
Not only do players have to score both played cards and ones in hand but sometimes they need to discard their scoring and score again... but differently thanks to someone triggering 'Last Chance'.
I'm not sure the the gameplay this push-your-luck mechanic adds to the game is worth the extra hassle it causes with scoring.
Sea Salt & Paper is also seems like something of a slow burn when it comes to gameplay which boils down to choosing which card to take and whether to play duos or not. It can feel a little unexciting or unengaging.

Mechanically, there's some fun things going on with Sea Salt & Paper but the game didn't quite grab me in the times that we played it but as I said, it could just be a slow burn that requires a few more plays to grasp. I wouldn't object to trying it again.