23rd May 2021

It's Sunday evening and I'm logged into Skype and Board Game Arena​ on my PC and it's time for the final game of the day.

Drafting. Rawr! Dinosaurs. Rawr! T-rexes. Rawr!
Draftosaurus has it all, drafting and well... you get the idea. This is a game where scientists have discovered how to clone dinosaurs and now parks of them are opening everywhere, all in a completely non-copyright infringing manner of course!

Caveat: We've only played Draftosaurus digitally online.

What's in a game?

• Player boards: These boards are double-sided and each provide a slightly different game experience/difficulty. The 'summer' side is easier than the 'winter' side.
  Player boards represent zoos and are divided up into 4 different 'areas'; the grassland and woodland regions and left & right sides of the river, each area contains 3 dinosaur pens. There's some crossover between areas, so grasslands will be found on both side of the river for example and every pen is in 2 different areas, there are a total 6 pens. The player boards also have a 7th area called 'The River', this isn't a pen.
  This is true of both sides of the player boards.
• Dinosaur meeples: There are 6 types of differently coloured dinosaur in the game and 10 meeples of each type, including t-rexes!
• Placement die: This is a 6-sided die, each face has a unique symbol.

Artwork on the player boards is colourful and clear.
There's not much more I can say, I can't talk about the physical components which also include a draw bag.

How's it play?
Draftosaurus is about placing dinosaur meeples into the pens, different pens have different requirements, which is explained below.
Setup

• In the physical game, meeples would be placed into the draw bag, the amount is dependent on the number of players.
• ​Give each player a player board, all boards should be placed on the same side.
• Determine the starting player and give them the placement die, they are the current active player.

Draftosaurus is played over 2 rounds and each round consists of 6 turns, thus each player will get to place a total 12 dinosaur meeples. Turns may and probably will play out differently for players other than the active player.

• Draw meeples: At the start of each round all players draw 6 dinosaur meeples, these should be kept secret by each player.
• Roll placement die: The active player should roll the placement die, the die's result will determine where the other players may place a dinosaur meeple (See below for info.).
  Conversely, the active player can place a dinosaur meeple into any pen they choose.
• Place dinosaur meeple: All players choose a meeple and simultaneously play it, other than the active player, all players must place their meeples as dictated by the placement die.
  ​​Woodland: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens in the woodland area of their board.
  Grassland: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens in the grassland area of their board.
  Left of river: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens that are left of the river.
  Right of river: Other players must place a meeple into 1 of the 3 pens that are right of the river.
  Empty Pen: Other players must place a dinosaur meeple into any empty pen on their board.
  ​Not with a t-rex: Other players can place a dinosaur meeple into any pen that does not contain a t-rex.
  Different pens have different set collecting requirements to score points, one pen requires all the dinosaurs in it to be identical, another requires them to all be different or another only scores for identical pairs and so on, there are 12 different ways to collect and score sets across both sides of the board. Generally, the more you complete a set, the more you score for it.
  Players can choose to (Or may have to!) place meeples in the river, which scores each meeple a flat +1 point.
  T-rexes score bonus points, but depending on the placement die, can cause trouble.
• Pass dinosaur meeples: Once players have placed their chosen dinosaur meeples, every player must pass their remaining meeples to the player to their left.
• Pass placement die: The active player passes the placement die to the player on their left who will become the active player in the next turn.

Play continues until all players have placed 6 dinosaur meeples, then players draw another 6 and play resumes as explained above until another 6 meeples have been placed.

Endgame
Once the 12th and final dinosaur meeple has been placed by all players, the endgame is triggered.
​Players score all of the sets they've created on their board, plus any bonuses or penalties. Highest score wins.

Overall
When playing Draftosaurus, more often than not, players will find themselves having to place meeples into unexpected pens thanks to the placement die. Without this element, the game would be too predictable.
How players deal with, manage and anticipate these these situations is key to victory. Often there will be a conflict between which set to increase or start on and keeping a pen open for another type of dinosaur.
It also pays to try and remember which dinosaur meeples will be coming round.
The winter side of the board makes it harder to collect different sets and provides more challenge but somehow a little less fun?

It's hard to find a lot more to say about Draftosaurus, it's quick, fairly light game to learn and play that's also quite luck based. If you don't like this sort of game, Draftosaurus will probably infuriate you. I think that maybe it's a bit too luck based for me to play extensively.

Not taken too seriously and played as a filler game and Draftosaurus is a reasonable diversion.

23rd May 2021

Sunday night game rolls on and I'm logged into Skype and Board Game Arena.

The final game of the night was Forbidden Island: A cooperative race against time to escape a mysterious island about to be swallowed by the ocean.

Forbidden Island is the older sibling of Forbidden Desert, you can read my blog about it here.

Caveat: We played the game digitally but in the past have played the physical game.

What's in a game?

• ​Tiles: There are 24 square tiles, each one has an illustration that depicts a different location or landscape. These tiles are also double sided, one side features full colour, while the other has a monochrome blue and white illustration of the same subject. 8 of the tiles also display symbols that relate to the 4 figurines (More on figurines below.).
  These tiles are used to represent the titular island.
• Flood cards: These 24 cards correspond to the 24 island tiles. Each flood card has an identical image to the island tile it represents.
• Treasure cards: There are 4 types of treasure card that correspond to the 4 elements, fire, earth, water & air. There are 5 of each type, thus 20 in total.
  Also included among treasure cards are special cards, there are 3 types, Helicopter lift, Sandbag & Waters Rise!
• Player cards: Each player assumes a different role in the game, these 6 different coloured cards explain each role's special ability.
• Pawns: There are 6 differently coloured pawns that correspond with the 6 player cards.
• Figurines: There are 4 figurines, each one is a stylised representation of 1 of the 4 elements and are the game's objectives/treasures.
• Standee: Used to track the rising water level and increasing frequency of flooding that occurs throughout the game.

All the components are made to a level of quality that you'd expect from a modern game. The tiles and standee are appropriately thick, pawns are equally solid, the figurines are fairly chunky and weighty.
Eye-catching, good quality artwork is used on the flood cards & island tiles, they also come with suitably evocative names such as Temple Of The Moon, Cave Of Embers, Breaker's Bridge and so on. Art on the treasure cards is also good and matches the nicely sculpted figurines.
All-in-all, the components are good.

How's it play?
Forbidden Island is a race against time to recover 4 treasures (In the form of the 4 figurines.) and escape the ancient island as it collapses into the ocean waves. Collecting treasures is done by heading to certain locations with a set of cards and acquiring them,
Setup

• Create Island: The island is randomly created each game by shuffling the 24 island tiles and laying them out in a sort of diamond-shape with their coloured sides face-up, this forms the game's 'board'.
• Set difficulty: A marker on the standee is used to track the game's constantly increasing difficulty. There are 3 starting 'notches' for the marker that represent the 3 levels levels of difficulty.
• Begin flooding: The island is already sinking into the ocean as the game begins!
  Shuffle the flood deck and place it face-down, then one-by-one draw 6 cards into the discard pile. For each flood card drawn, flip the corresponding island tile to its blue and white side, these locations are now flooded!
• Deal player cards: Shuffle the player cards and deal one to each player, then place the corresponding pawn on it's starting location as indicated by the island tiles.
• Deal treasure cards: Shuffle the treasure cards into a face-down deck and deal 2 to each player.
• Determine starting order.

On to play
During their turn, the active player will have 3 action points to spend on various actions. Once all players have had a turn, then the game gets to have its turn.

• Actions: There are 4 actions every player can perform, additionally each character will have a unique special ability they can use at the cost of an action point. Actions may be repeated.
  Move: Spending 1 action to move orthogonally to an adjacent tile.
  Shore up: For each action point spent, the active player may flip they are on or an orthogonally adjacent tile from it's flooded side to its normal side.
  Give a treasure card: If you or more characters are on the same tile, the active player may use an action point to give a treasure card to one of the close by characters.
  ​Acquire a figurine: Each of the 4 figurines has 2 island tiles associated with it; if the active player is on one of those 2 tiles and has 4 matching treasure cards, then they can spend an action to acquire that figurine.
  Use ability: Each character has a unique special ability such as being able to move other characters, or being able to move diagonally. Each use of the special ability costs an action point.
• Special cards: Of the 3 types special card, 2 make be used by players in any player's turn. The Waters Rise! card is explained elsewhere.
  Helicopter Lift: Can move any number of characters from any one tile to another tile.
  Sandbag: Can be played to shore up any island tile on the board.
• Draw Treasure cards: Once a player has completed their turn, they draw 2 treasure cards into their hand (Max hand size is 5.). If any of the cards is a Water Rise! card, then this spells trouble for the characters, this affects the flood deck and more on this is explained below.

After every player turn, 'the game' has it's turn, which is done using the flood deck.

• Waters Rise! Strictly speaking, Waters Rise! cards are resolved at the end of a player's turn, but since it affects the flood deck, I'm explaining it here.
  When the active player draws 2 treasure cards, if any of them are revealed to be a Waters Rise! card, then the following occurs.
  Increase flood level: Put the marker on the water level standee up a notch, this may or may not increase the number of cards that will be drawn.
  Shuffle drawn flood cards: All flood cards that have been drawn are shuffled together and placed on top of the flood deck.
  The Waters Rise! card is discarded into the treasure cards' discard pile.
• Flooding: Reveal a number of cards from the flood deck equal to the value that the marker that the water level standee is pointing at, this will be 2-5 cards. Each corresponding tile will be affected as follows.
  Flood: If a tile is 'normal' when it's card comes up, then it is flipped to it's flooded side.
  Sink: If a tile is already flooded when its card comes up, then it sinks! The tile and its flood card are removed from play for the remainder of the game. This can potentially prove dangerous to characters on that tile. Furthermore, characters cannot cross 'gaps' created by sunken tiles, unless it is the diver character.
  After this discard all the revealed cards (That did not cause sinking.) into the discard pile.

That's it for the game's actions, play then progresses to the next player and alternates until the endgame is triggered.
If, during play either of the decks is depleted, simply shuffle the discard pile back into a deck.

Endgame
As a cooperative game, the players collectively win or lose. Forbidden Island has several ways to lose and 1 way to win!

There are 9 'critical' island tiles on the board.
Each figurine has 2 tiles which are used to acquire the it, if both tiles for a figurine sink before it is acquired, then it's game over as there's now no way to get that figurine.
Similarly, if the Fool's Landing island tile (Which contains the helipad sinks.), then there's no way to escape and it's also game over.
If a tile with a character on it sinks, the character must swim to an adjacent tile, if there are no adjacent tiles, then unless that character is the diver, they will meet their water end! If any character is lost then it's game over for all players!
Finally, if the marker on the water level reaches the skull & crossbones, then well.... you get the idea. Glub!
​
Winning; easier said than done!
Any single player must collect 4 identical treasure cards, then must reach one of the 2 island tiles associated with that treasure and spend an action to acquire that treasure's figurine. This must be done for all 4 figurines.
That's not the end though, now all the characters must reach the helipad and a Helicopter Lift card must be played by any player to escape to victory.

Overall
Like other cooperative games I've played, Forbidden Island injects a dose of luck into the gameplay in order to consistently challenge players and how players manage that luck is key to victory.

Broadly speaking the gameplay is; player shores up island - game tries to sink island - player shores up island and so on. Players have to keep the island a safe as possible long enough to survive and get the cards they need to win the game.
It's not as straightforward as it sounds though, the 3 actions points each player is given to do stuff never seems enough. Players have to choose between working towards objectives or saving the island and the clock is always, always ticking.

The way the flood deck works means that tiles which have already suffered a flood will be more prone to suffering further floods because when a Waters Rise! card appears and refreshes the flood deck, cards that were already revealed are put back on the top of the flood deck, meaning they will be the first to be revealed again.
Obviously protecting the critical island tiles is.... well critical but choosing to protect other tiles is a harder choice. Sure you can allow a unimportant tile at the edge of the board to sink and it won't immediately affect the game, however, when a tile sinks, its flood card is removed from the deck, slimming it down and meaning that flood cards for tiles you are trying to protect will appear more often. Keeping cards in the flood deck can act as a buffer against other parts of the islands sinking, provided you're willing to spend the action points of course....

A hand limit of 5 is also another area of the game which forces players to make decisions, just like action points, the hand limit never seems enough.
It takes 4 cards to gain a figurine, giving player's space for only 1 other card in their hand! Through gritted death, players will frequently have to discard useful cards because they're not useful right now.

To win Forbidden Island, the players will need to cooperate, coordinate and optimise the use of action points, they'll need to make every decisions count and use special cards appropriately and decisively.
Choosing when to let a tile sink or save it, or when and what card to give to another player are all vital decisions and most of the time player's will be forced to make compromises, rarely will their decisions be no-brainers.

I find Forbidden Island to be an enjoyable cooperative game and I'm happy to play it.

Sometimes the luck of the draw can go with and give you a slightly easier time or it screw you over (Nothing like drawing Fool's Landing in the starting 6 flooded tiles, drawing Waters Rise straightaway and watching Fool's Landing immediately sink....).
But if it was always easy or fair, what would be the fun it that?

2nd April 2021

It was a Friday and I was logged into Board Game Arena on my PC.

As the name suggests, Stone Age is a game about the trials and tribulation faced by the inhabitants of prehistoric communities.

Caveat: The digital version of this game was played at this time, but we had played the physical version on previous occasions.

What's in a game?
Stone Age is a worker placement game and at its core takes place on a central game board which is divided into various different locations, into which workers can be placed to activate the associated action. Some locations may contain any amount of workers, others are limited by numbers.

• Board: A stone age settlement in a wilderness vista is shown on the board, settlement locations are concerned with the advances and inventions and wilderness locations are used for gathering resources. As well as the obligatory scoring track, the board contains the following elements:
  Tool maker: There is only 1 space here for a single worker, using this location allows a player to gain or improve their tools.
  Field: There is also only 1 space herer, this allows a player to increase their tribes agriculture score on the agriculture track.
  Hut: There are 2 spaces here, to utilise the hut a player must place 2 workers on to the 2 spaces at the same time. This allows the player to acquire an additional worker.
  That's right, this is the nookie shed!
  Plains: This is where workers are placed to acquire food, presumably by gathering food or hunting animals. Any amount of workers can be placed here.
  Forest: Workers are placed here to acquire wood. Up to 7 workers can be placed here.
  Clay pit: Players can acquire clay here, also has a maximum of 7 worker spaces.
  Quarry: Used to gain stone, also has a maximum of 7 workers spaces.
  River: Players can place workers here to pan for gold, again, a maximum of 7 workers can be placed here.
  Agriculture track: Used to track the agriculture level of each time. This also represents the advancing knowledge of a tribe and ability to stave off hunger through farming.
• Building tiles: There are 4 spaces on the board for building tiles. Tiles each have a space for a single worker which is used to buy the tile. The cost varies according to the tile, but is always in resources. Tiles score victory points.
• Civilisation cards: As with building tiles, there are 4 spaces on the board for civilisation cards, the cost of civilisation cards is also paid in resources but unlike building tiles, the player can choose which resources to spend. Cost ranges from 1-4 resources and is dictated by which space the card is filling on the board, the leftmost space costs 4 and each space to the right decreases the cost by 1 down to a cost of 1 on the 4th and rightmost space.
  Like building tiles, each card has a single space for a worker, allowing the controlling player to purchase the card.
  Civilisation cards have a variety of benefits, most cards give a one-off bonus, typically resources and most cards can also contribute towards collecting a set for victory points.
• Player board: Each player has their own board, used to store resources and workers. They are also used to display which building tiles and tools they have accumulated, face-down civilisation cards are also placed on the board.
• Meeples: Each player has 10 workers in their colour and starts the game with 5, the remaining workers can be earned during the game.
• Food tokens: Standard round card tokens that are used to represent food.
• Resource tokens: All of the game's 4 resources (Wood, clay, stone & Gold.) are represented by wooden tokens.
• Tool tokens: These double-sided square card tokens show either 1 & 2 or 3 & 4 on their sides.
• Dice: There are 7 dice, used when gathering food or resources.

Components in Stone Age are what you'd expect, the cards, tiles and boards are solid if unremarkable, they do the job and look as if they'll last well, which is all you can ask for. The meeples and the 4 sets of resource tokens in are constructed of wood and are the nicest components.
The game board has a bright and colourful depiction of a stone age community on the edge of the wilderness that's quite eye-catching. The player boards have similar, if plainer artwork, again this is fine since most of the time they'll be covered in components.
The civilisation cards essentially all use the same piece of artwork with elaborate game iconography providing some variation and the same is true of the building tiles. It's nothing to write home about (Or blog about I suppose?) but is perfectly acceptable.
For the most part, the art is good. ​

How's it play?
Setup

• Give each player 5 meeples and a player board, also give each player 12 food.
• Put all the food and resources on to the game board in their allotted places, food goes on the plains, wood on to the forest and so on.
• Shuffle the civilisation cards and place 4 of them on to their 4 allotted spaces face-up. The remainder of the cards should be placed as a face-down deck next to the board.
• All 28 building tiles should be shuffled into 4 stacks of 7. The number of stacks available in a game should equal to the number of players participating. Each stack used should be placed face-up in one of the 4 allotted spaces for them.
• Determine starting player.

That's more or less it, now the game's ready to go.
Gameplay is broken up into 3 phases, place workers, resolve workers and end of round.

• Place workers: Starting with the 1st player and going clockwise, each player may put meeple(s) into a single location, there are some stipulations though:
  Worker limits: Most spaces limit to the number of workers that can be placed there, obviously this cannot be exceeded.
  No reinforcements: Once a player has placed any number of workers into a location, on a later turn they cannot add any more workers to that same location, regardless of how many open spaces might be available.
  No passing: Players cannot pass and must place all of their workers.

Once all players have placed their workers, it's time to resolve those actions.
Again starting with the first player, they must remove all of their workers from one location at a time from every location they've placed workers and immediately resolve the associated actions as they do so, returning the meeple to the player's board. Players are free to remove their meeples in whatever order they see fit (This can have significant impact on game play.). The following actions are available:

• Tool maker: Allows the player to take a tool token or increase a tool token's level. A player may have up to 3 level 4 tools.
  Tools are beneficial when a player's tribe goes gathering food or resources (See below for more information.).
• Hut: Allows the player to take one of their unused meeples and add it to their player board, ready to be deployed in the next round. Players can have a maximum of 10 workers at their disposal.
• Field: Allows the player to increase their agriculture level, (This can be very important, see below.).
• Gather food: The active player may gather food, they take a number of dice equal to the workers they placed on the plains location and roll them. Then divide the result by 2 and round-down, that's how much food they get. Thus with 2 dice, the average result is 7 which would net the player 3 food.
  Tool tokens may be used once per round to increase the value rolled by the value of the tool, which can be very useful.
• Gather resources: Functionally, this is identical to gathering food except it gets harder because the number used to divide the dice roll gets higher.
  Gathering wood requires the player to divide the result of the dice roll by 3 instead, so 2 dice with an average result of 7 would net the player 2 wood. This incrementally increases for all the resources, culminating with gold which requires the dice roll to be divided by 6! 2 dice getting an average of 7 would net the player 1 gold and if they rolled 5 or less (Not that improbable.) then they'd get 0!
  Tools can also be used to increase the value of these rolls.
• Buy building tile: The active player can buy the building tile they placed a worker on by paying its cost as indicated on the tile. This immediately increases the player's score as displayed.
• Buy civilisation card: The active player can buy the civilisation tile they placed a worker on to, paying the 1 - 4 resources as required and placing the card face-down on their player board.

Once the first player has removed all their workers, play proceeds clockwise until all players have retrieved all their workers, then the game goes to the end of round.

• Feeding: Firstly, each player acquires extra food equal to their level on the agriculture track and adds it to their player board.
  Then they must feed their tribe. Feeding a tribe requires spending an amount of food equal to the amount workers a player has available, since all players begin the game with 5 workers, this cost will always be at least 5.
  If a player have used all their food and still doesn't have enough, then they can substitute in resources on a 1-to-1 basis (Which can be pricey!), if a player is unwilling or unable to do this, then they immediately suffer a -10 point penalty! That is undoubtedly harsh.
• Restock civilisation cards: If any civilisation cards were bought during the round, slide cards to right to fill the empty spaces, then deal cards from the deck into the spaces now on the left. This is a typical 'conveyor belt' mechanic.

The first player marker move clockwise and a new round begins.

Endgame
There are 2 conditions that can trigger the endgame.
If any of the building tile stacks have all 7 of their tiles purchased, it triggers the endgame, the current round is concluded and the game goes to the end game and then scoring.
At the end of a round, if there aren't enough civilisation cards to fill a 4 spots on the board, then the game immediately ends and goes to scoring.
In both instances, tribes must be fed for a final time.
Final scores are tallied by adding the score from the victory point track, points that come from sets of civilisation cards and 1 point for each (Non food) resource the player possesses.
Highest score wins.

Overall
If I have one criticism of Stone Age, it's that the first 3 opening moves in any given round are generally always no-brainers, that's because the tool maker, hut & field locations are such a high priority because they confer very good rewards that would usually be stupid for players to pass up. If you're the 4th player, you won't get a look in unless another player is really desperate for something else or doesn't know what they're doing.
I'm not sold on the resource gathering mechanic either, yes it's quite nice but it can leave you at the mercy of the dice rolls that makes low rolls feel frustrating but somehow high rolls not feel satisfying.

Otherwise Stone Age is a mid-to-light worker placement game that is fairly easy to learn but feels perhaps a little generic, however, it does provide a fair level of depth.
The game manages to generally provide a choice or two too many for players to cover with workers, forcing them to prioritise their actions and making meaningful decisions. An extra worker is good, so is the agriculture required to feed them, the tools can help with gathering resources which are useful to buy cards and tiles and so on.

So if you want to play a worker placement game that isn't too taxing on the grey matter, you could do a lot worse than Stone Age.

28th March 2021

I'm logged into my PC and Sunday gaming on Board Game Arena continued.

The next game of the day was Potion Explosion, a game about creating magic spells through set collecting and a match 3 mechanic.
That's right.
"Yer a wizard Har," no, no, let's not go there!

Caveat: The digital version of the game was played, but previously we have also played a physical copy.

What's in a game?

• Marbles: the game comes with actual glassy marbles in 4 colours, red, blue, yellow & Black. These represent the 4 different types ingredients used to create potions.
• Dispenser: This is a box with 5 holes on the top and protruding out of one side of it are 5 sloped grooves or tracks. Marbles are poured into the box through the top and then roll out into the tracks to create 5 (hopefully) random columns of marbles.
• Potion tiles: These obviously potion shaped tiles are double sided. There are various different types of potion that have differing effects in game.
  On one side, the main part of the tile/bottle is split into 2 or 3 different coloured segments, each of these segments contain holes which allow the marbles that players collect to sit on the tile.
  ​The other side of potions tiles show the points they score after completion.
• Player board: These large tiles have two recessed curves that allow potions to fit into the recesses, there is also a space with 3 holes to store 3 unused marbles.
  This is designed to look a bit like a worktop with a pair of Bunsen burners and a flask.
• Skill tokens: These rectangular tokens are accumulated throughout the game and earn bonus victory points, they also serve as a countdown timer to end a game.
• Help tokens: Players can take these to receive some help but they also deduct from victory points at the end of the game.

All of the components in Potion Explosion are top notch, the dispenser and the marbles may seem gimmicky but in practice work quite well. The remainder of the components, the tiles and tokens are all made of good quality materials.
The game's art style and theme obviously draw some inspiration from the you-know-who films but that's fine. For the most part there isn't too much art on the components but what there is, is bright and colourful.

What's in a game?
Setup

• Establish a turn order and give each player a player board.
• Fill the dispenser with dice. All 5 tracks should be filled with marbles.
• Set out all the potions that will used (Not all potion types are used in every game), then set out the marked starting potion tiles. The remaining potions should be shuffled and placed into 5 stacks with the uncompleted side up.
• Create a stack of help tokens, size dependant on the number of players.
• Players each take a starting potion one at a time in the order specified and add it to their player board until everyone has two potions.

Now the game's ready to go.

On to play
In Potion Explosion, players use the marbles to complete their potions, these earn victory points. Completed potions can also be used to give the respective player a special action to perform.
Play starts with the starting player and progresses clockwise. The following actions are available to players.

• Take ingredient: The active player must take 1 marble from any spot in any of the 5 tracks in the dispenser.
  Potion explosion: When an marble is removed from a track, the marble(s) above will slide down and hit the marble below (Provided there is a marble below.), if the marbles that collided are the same colour, then this triggers the titular potion explosion. The active player then collects the marbles of the same colour that hit each other, this includes other marbles of the same colour connected to the marbles that connected. Once these marbles are collected, it possible that another potion explosion can be triggered and another and so on. This is essentially a match-3 or in this case a match-2 mechanic.
  Place ingredients: Once the active player has collected all the marbles available, those marbles must be placed on the empty holes on their potion tiles and the colours must match; red marbles must go on to holes on the red segment of a potion and so on. If there are not enough holes for all the marbles the player has accumulated on the potion tiles for any reason, then they can place up to 3 on the flask, these can be used in later turns.
  Any excess marbles must be returned to the dispenser. 
  Complete potion: Once all the holes on a potion tile are filled with marbles, it has been completed. All marbles should be removed and returned them to the dispenser. The tile is removed from the player board, flipped to the opposite (completed) side and placed next to the player board.
• Gain a skill token: If a player successfully completes 3 identical or 5 different potions, then they take a skill token.
  Skill tokens are worth victory points.
• Use potion: A player can use completed potions at any time in their turn, even straight after completing it.
  Potions have various different effects, such as removing or taking certain ingredients from the tracks on the dispenser or stealing another player's ingredients from their flask.
• Take help token: At any time, a player may choose to take a help token, this allows them to take an ingredient from one of the tracks, it does not trigger a potion explosion though.
  Additionally, help tokens deduct from a player's victory point total at the end of the game.

Once a player's turn has ended; if they have completed any potions, then they now take new potion tiles from one of the 5 potion stacks to ensure they have 2 potions at the start of their next turn.
Play continues until the endgame is triggered

Endgame
The game's stack of skill tokens are also used as a countdown time, once the stack is depleted, the endgame is triggered.
Then the current round is completed, ensuring that all players have had an equal number of turns, skill tokens can still be earned and are drawn from remaining previously unused reserve of tokens.
Then victory points from completed potions are scored as are skill tokens, finally points are deducted for every help token taken.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
When a marble is removed from a track, there's a satisfying little clink sound when the other marbles hit one below that's down to the use of proper marbles instead as plastic components. The designers and publishers have put thought into the look and feel of the game, it shows and adds too the game.

There's a degree of luck when playing Potion Explosion. Sometimes how the chips - or in this marbles fall can have a big influence on a player's turn and how many marbles they get to collect in a turn.
A player draws a single marble from the dispenser in their turn, but really they should always be aiming to raw as many as possible because the game is essentially a race between players to complete potions. Potions can be used to facilitate this and despite feeling counter-intuitive to use, so can help tokens. Being able to remove a marble before drawing one can sometimes turn getting a single marble into triggering a chain reaction.
Players must also be able to adapt to constant changes in the dispenser, there's no point in planning your move until it's your turn. Every time a marble is drawn it will figuratively change the landscape, sometimes dramatically. Keeping your fingers crossed, hoping that no one spots a combo you've seen probably isn't the best of strategies.

Additionally, when a player takes a new potion, they're faced with a choice, do they go for the highest scoring potion, or go for a potion that works towards completing a set, or a potion with specific ability?
Players need to pay attention to the spread of colours of their current uncompleted potion and any new potion they take, repetition of colours between potions can slow a player down. It can be irritating when you draw a handful of marbles in a colour you can't use.

All in all, this gives Potion Explosion a subtle depth that belies it's simplicity and seemingly gimmicky mechanic. Winning requires players recognise when it's best to use potions or exploit the help tokens in order to most efficiently accumulate ingredients, which then in order means that players must recognise which new potions to acquire.
Ultimately players always have meaningful decisions to make and that makes it an engaging game.

24th March 2021

It's a Wednesday evening and I'm logged into Zoom and Board Game Arena on my PC.

It was time for a game that spanned the ages and the creation of massive monuments and the civilisations they represented. Luckily, it doesn't take that long to play 7 Wonders!

Caveat: We played the game online but have previously played the physical copy. Photos were taken for this blog post.

What's in a game?
​The purpose of the game is for each player to create their own civilisation through the construction of various types of buildings and ultimately create one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.
7 Wonders is card game played over 3 sets of rounds (or ages). Each age has its own set of cards which are used. There are numerous types of cards, some of these types can be more or less common in different ages.

• Cards: All the different cards share some common elements, such as cost which can be in resources, money or even free. Each card also has its name along its left hand edge (This can be very important in later ages.). Cards also show in small writing what cards they chain with.
  Resource cards: These brown cards represent raw resources such as wood, stone and so on that are foundations of your civilisation. They only appear in ages 1 & 2.
  Goods cards: These are manufactured goods such as cloth or glass, they are important in the construction of advanced buildings for your civilisation. These cards are grey coloured. Like resource cards, these do not appear in age 3.
  Civic buildings: Blue cards are civic buildings such as baths, aqueducts, temples and palaces. Civic buildings score victory points as displayed on each card.
  Science buildings: This is where the games set collecting element comes into play. There are 3 different scientific symbols and collecting a set of all 3 scores victory points but victory points can also be scored by collecting sets of the same kind, 2-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind and so on for all 3 symbols. Green is used to represent scientific cards.
  Commercial buildings: These yellow cards represent businesses that allow the player to gain additional resources, goods or money in various manners, sometimes they also allow the player to accumulate victory points.
  Military buildings: Guard towers, archery ranges and training grounds and the like are all red military cards. Unsurprisingly, they increase a civilisation's military strength by 1-3 points. There is no direct combat between different players in 7 Wonders, but there is automatic conflict between neighbouring civilisations at the end of each age.
  Guild cards: These purple cards only appear in age 3, they sort of combine the mechanics of commercial buildings with the scoring of civic buildings.
• Wonder cards: These are not used during play but can be used to randomly determine which wonder board (See below.) each player gets and whether the A or B side is used.
• Wonder boards: As you would expect, there a 7 wonder boards, one for each ancient wonder. Each board is slightly different and also have an A and B side for more variation and complexity but all contain a resource or good they manufacture for the controlling player.
  Nearly all the wonder boards have 3 spaces (One board has 4 and another 2!) at the bottom. When these spaces are filled, they give the controlling player victory points or a special once only or ongoing bonus.
• Conflict tokens: These tokens are valued at +1, +3, +5 or -1 and they modify victory points.
• Coins: Standard currency, comes in 1s or 3s.

The cards, tokens and coins are of the usual quality you'd expect, the wonder boards are made of fairly thick grey board and feel sturdy.
The text and icons are all mostly clear (I tended to confuse stone and ore icons, because the ore icon looks like a pile of stone to me.), the symbology used for special rules on cards is also generally clear, the rulebook does a good job on clarifying these in cases of confusion.
I also like how the layout allows cards to be more or less stacked while still displaying pertinent information.
In terms of art quality, the wonder boards are quite large and very nicely decorated in eye-catching illustrations of the 7 titular wonders. Art on the cards are of a similar quality but obviously on a smaller scale.

How's it play?
Setup
7 Wonders is a 3-7 player game but also contains some special rules to allow 2 player games. This blog post talks about the normal 3-7 player game.

• Shuffle the wonder cards and deal 1 face down to each player, after this each player flips their card, revealing which wonder board they take and the card's orientation will display whether to use the A or B side.
• 3 decks must be constructed for each of the 3 ages. Deck size is dependant on the number of players and each will consist of 21-49 cards. Cards display which game size they are suitable for. Finally 5-9 of the 10 available guild cards are added to the age 3 deck.
  These 3 decks are shuffled.
• Deal all of the age 1 cards face-down to all players, each player should now have 7 cards.
• Give all players 3 currency.

And we're ready to play.

On to play
Each player in 7 Wonders is neighboured by a player to their left and right; why this is important will be explained below.
​Each player takes a card from their hand and plays face down in front of them, then they pass the remaining cards clockwise to the next player, the direction of play alternates between rounds.
Once every player has chosen a card, all player then simultaneously reveal their card, plays it and executes one of the 3 actions below.

• Construct building: The most common action, put the chosen card into play, it may be a resource/good or a building, but the rules are identical. Each card has a cost of some sort shown in top left corner. This may be a combination of the following factors below.
  Free: Some cards have to cost and are free to play.
  Chain: If a building name is displayed next to a card's cost and that player has that named building already built in their game area, then the building cost of the currently played card is reduced to zero.
  Money: Players will have to spend money to construct this building.
  Resources/goods: Some cards will require a single or mixture of resources and goods to build. The player must have cards already in their play area that display the relevant resources or goods they need. Thus if building requires 2 wood to construct, the player must have 2 cards in their playing area showing a wood each, or a card with 2 wood symbols, the symbols on wonder boards contribute to this.
  This also where your neighbours matter. A player can also use the resources and goods of one or both of their neighbours, they have to pay for it though; 2 coins for each used. This is unaffected by how a neighbour is using their own resources and goods, also the neighbour cannot refuse to sell resources - after all, money is money!
• Build their wonder: Wonders are built in stages, typically 3 stages. All wonders are built in a linear fashion from left to right.
  Cost: Each stage of a wonder will have a cost similar to constructing a building.
  Place card: Finally, when a stage has been paid for, it is built. The player takes they card they chose earlier and places it face-down underneath the space on the wonder board they just built, never revealing what card was used. Thus, building part of a wonder replaces the normal build card action.
• Gain money: A player may discard the card they chose for 3 currency, this card is always discarded face-down and is permanently out of the game. I guess players do this if they're really desperate for funds.

Overall
​I'm going to nit-pick a couple of things about 7 Wonders.
Set up feels a little long for a game that's quite short, having to sift through all 3 decks at the game start feels irritating, probably because there's 3 decks to construct instead of 1 and if the player count changes between games, then all 3 decks will need to be rebalanced.
The game is quite involved and perhaps a little too complicated for its expected playtime. I found myself frequently forgetting the rule about chaining buildings
Scoring is convoluted, specifically scoring the scientific cards where each symbol will scored twice. I wouldn't be surprised that more time was spent making sure this was correct than the rest of the scoring.

Like other drafting games of this style, early in the game players will struggle to decide what's going to be important to them or not, but by looking at their wonder board, players will see what they need to build their wonder and what benefits it gives them as some guidance.
One interesting feature about 7 Wonders is how players can pay to utilise their neighbours resources and goods and of course, players will want to keep and eye on their neighbours' military forces. It's a nice little spin that adds to the game.
​Since there are 7 ways to score points, players will have a lot of options on which strategy to pursue.
For example, civic buildings give a lot of victory points, but nothing else.
Military strength can score a lot of points (and cost your neighbours a few), but only if you dominate, getting caught in a war of escalation can be distracting and costly.

Quibbles aside, 7 Wonders is a straightforward game to learn that has a quick turnaround and is a fun game to play, players will want to strategize, but the luck of the draw means they will need to adapt to circumstances.
The game always provides players with meaningful choices, which is what you want.

22nd March 2021

Monday night gaming on Board Game Arena continues with the final game of the evening; Sushi Go.

Like sushi? Like conveyor belts? Then you'll like this.... probably!

Caveat: This was played online, but has also been played with the physical game, photos are from my copy.

What's in a game?
Sushi Go comprises of a single deck of 108 cards with 8 different types of cards. 

• Chopsticks: Chopstick cards allow a player to sacrifice their action in their current turn to have 2 actions in a later turn. Chopsticks are worth 0 points.
• Dumplings: This is a set of cards, the more dumpling cards a player collects, the more points they score at the end of the round
• Maki rolls: Whoever has the most make rolls at the end of the round scores, 2nd place scores half as many points. Maki roll cards each contain 1-3 maki rolls.
• Nigiri: There are egg, salmon and squid nigiri cards, they score 1, 2 or 3 points respectively.
• Puddings: These cards are only ever scored once, they don't score at the end of any of the rounds, instead they are retained between rounds and are scored at the end of the game (Being puddings obviously!). The player with the most puddings scores points, the player with the least or no puddings loses points! Everyone else in between gets 0.
• Sashimi: This is another set, collect 3 sashimi cards to score points, otherwise 0 points are scored.
• Tempura: Another set, collect 2 tempura  to score points.
• Wasabi: On its own, a wasabi card is worthless when played. However, if during a later turn a player puts down a nigiri card, it must go on the wasabi card and the nigiri card's value is then tripled.

There's not much that can be said about the components, it's a deck of standard quality cards.
The art is clear, distinct and colourful with appropriately themed cheerful faces on all the foods.
My copy came in a little steel tin.
The only component that the game is lacking are scoring counters, as it stands, scores at the end of each round need to be recorded somehow on scrap paper or a phone or something. On the other hand, adding scoring tokens would increase the game's size, making it less of a neat compact little package, so your mileage may vary.

How's it play?
Set up
Shuffle and deal a hand of cards face-down to each player, the hand size depends on the number of players, the remaining cards form a draw deck for later rounds, then the game is ready to begin.

On to play

• Each player looks at their hand and plays one card face-down in front of them. Then they pass the remaining cards, still face-down, to their left (Or possibly right, if using optional rules.).
• Then, simultaneously, all players reveal their chosen card.
• All players pick up the cards passed to them, a new turn starts and the two steps above are repeated.
• Play continues until all cards have been played. Then, except for the pudding cards, all cards are scored. The scored cards are all discarded and not shuffled into the draw deck.
• A new round begins, new hands are dealt to the players and the steps above are repeated.
• Play continues for a total of 3 rounds.

Endgame
Once the 3rd round is over and scored, the puddings are scored.
Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
As you can see from the short length of this blog post, Sushi Go's rules are simple, accessible and easy to learn. The game's depth comes not from rules complexity but from decisions available to each player, which is great game design in my opinion.
The game also fits the theme of having food going round on a conveyor belt remarkably well.

Sushi Go constantly forces players to make decisions and some of these decisions will be gambles, based on the hope that another right card will come around further along the game.
Players will also get the right card at the right time on random occasion, but this isn't perceived as a no-brainer, they're seen as spots of good luck to be exploited.
​
Canny players will try to memorise hands that get passed along, they might also spend time looking at what cards others have put down, trying to predict their decisions. If 2 players look like they're trying to collect the same set of cards, then they're going to be a premium and those players aren't going to pass those cards on.
Then there's puddings, the wrinkle in the rules that produces the pudding war of escalation that forces players to think about what cards might be played in the future rounds and play cards just to avoid losing points!

It makes Sushi Go a blend of calculation and unpredictability. There is no winning strategy, players must adapt to not only the cards dealt to all players but other player's strategies

Sushi Go comes in compact package, is easy to learn, quick to set up and play and enjoyable experience. A great filler game.

21st March 2021

Sunday afternoon gaming continues; I'm logged on to Board Game Arena and Zoom, the second game of the day is Tokaido.

I know several people who have visited Japan but to my knowledge none of them had made the 500km trip along the Tokaido route.
If you like the idea of taking a hike to enjoy hot springs or staying at an inn or looking at beautiful scenery, then maybe this is the game for you.

Caveat: We played a digital version of this game, we have also played the physical version previously.

What's in a game?

• Game board: A faint map of Japan is shown on this very wide game board, it also depicts The Tokaido Road as a line that threads its way east/west along the coast.
  From this line there are many branching lines that lead to symbols that represent what are essentially tourist traps that players can visit, each branching line also displays 1 or 2 dots. Dots determine how many players may stop at a particular location at any given time.
  Apart from the starting inn, there are a further 4 inns along the road that sort of divide the game up into 4 rounds.
  Finally the board has spaces for the 7 decks of cards used in Tokaido.
• Cards: Tokaido uses a lot of cards, mostly for the sets that players will be collecting.
  Souvenir card: When a player stops at a village, they will have the option to buy souvenir cards. There are 4 different sets to collect and each set can have up to 4 cards in it.
  Encounter cards: Players may stop at random encounters along their journey, this means drawing an encounter card and following it instructions.
  Hot spring cards: Unsurprisingly, these cards are collected by visiting hot springs, each card is worth either 2 or 3 points.
  Meal cards: When a player reaches an inn, they will have the option of purchasing a meal which will be worth victory points.
  Sea, Mountain & Field panorama cards: These 3 sets of cards form 3 wide vistas of the relevant terrain type. As you collect the cards for a set in numeric sequence, the vistas widen until the set is completed. 3 cards for the fields, 4 for the mountains & 5 for the oceans.
  That's not all!
  Achievement cards: Players earn additional victory points for various achievements
• Meeples: Your standard wooden player meeples that come in a variety of colours.
• Coins: Standard quality card chits themed to look like Japanese coins.
• Character tiles: Each player is randomly given a character tiles that grants them some unique benefit or bonus action.

All of the components are of a reasonable standard quality. Artwork and the art direction is suitably stylised with a Japanese theme, colourful and looks good. The panoramas in particular look very nice.
Art on the board looks quite minimalistic with white as the dominant colour, consequently the Tokaido route draws the eye's attention. However, the symbols used to represent the different destinations along the route are quite small and look samey despite being distinctly coloured from each other. It was something found to occur on both the physical and online version. This is only a minor gripe.

How's it play?
Setup
Each player is given a meeple and a randomly determined character tile, the 7 decks are prepared and placed on to their allotted spaces on the game board. The starting order is determined at the first inn, then money is then given to players according to the starting order.

On to play
Game play is very simple to understand, the purpose of Tokaido is to travel to the eastern end of the road, having the most pleasant journey, this is done by stopping at the various locations along the way.

• Tokaido does not have a round order per se; instead the player at the 'back' (and the furthest from the end destination) is always the active player, if a player is several spaces behind the other players, it is possible that they can have several turns in a row. At the start of the game the fist player is actually at the back.
• The active player decides how far they want to move their meeple along the Tokaido road, up to and including the next inn stop. They may choose to skip branches and other players.
  They can stop at any open available space along one of the branching routes, if a branch has all of its spots already taken, then the active player cannot stop there. 
• Once the player stops, they carry out the action associated with the type of location they stopped at (See below for more info.).
• Play then continues with the player in last place.

Now we know how to move across the board and stop at locations, but what do those locations do?

• Encounters: When a player stops at a encounter location. they draw an encounter card, this will give the player some sort of benefit.
• Farms: Stopping at a farm earns the active player 3 coins, I guess those farms are wealthier than they look!
• Hot springs: Stopping at a hot spring allows the active player to draw a hot spring card, this immediately score them 2 or 3 points.
• Panoramas: There are 3 types of panorama locations, field, mountain & sea. 
  Panorama cards are not randomly drawn. When the active player stops at a one, they take a panorama card of that particular type. All panorama cards are numbered and the player take the lowest numbered car that they do not already posses, thus, the first time they stop at a particular panorama they always take a '1' card, followed by a '2' and so on until they complete a panorama. Players immediately score points equal to the number on the card they just played.
• Temples: A player who stops at a temple can donate 1-3 coins to the temple for an equivalent amount of victory points that are immediately scored.
• Villages: Upon entering a village location, the active player draws a number of souvenir cards, then they can buy any number of them (Provided they have the funds.), remaining cards are put at the bottom of the souvenir deck. Souvenir cards are put into sets and are scored at end of the game.
• Inns: Including the last inn, there are 4 inns that all players must stop at during their journey. The first player at an inn reveals a number of meal cards and can choose to buy one, the remaining are left available for following players to purchase. Thus the early players have the best choice.
  Meal cards cost 1-3 coins and always immediately score 6 points. You may be wondering why the cost of buying meal cards vary when the victory points they confer is always 6? This is explained below.
  When all the players have arrived at the inn and have purchased a meal card (Or not.), then the next leg of the journey can commence. The player who came in last is still considered behind the other players and goes first and so on.

Endgame
Play continues until all players have reached the last inn.
Souvenir sets are now scored.
Then achievements are scored. There are achievements for completing panoramas first, having the most encounters, donating the most money to temples and so on. One achievement earns victory points for spending the most on meals at inns - which explains the varying costs for meals.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Tokaido is a fairly straightforward game to play, on the surface the game gives players a simple decision to make - where to stop and what to collect? It's a little more involved though, the question is; how much do you want to visit a certain spot?
As the active player, someone can choose to move their meeple as far as they need to in order to reach a specific spot, however, moving too far means that a player will end up sitting around as other players get multiple turns. Conversely, moving too slowly risks locations being filled with other players. It feels like quite a balancing act.
Generally we found that there's a basic strategy of moving as little as possible in an attempt to maximise the number of turns that are available and just collect what you can.
The games other balancing act is money; knowing when to keep money and knowing when to spend it is important since spending money can earn victory points and it needs to be done as efficiently as possible.

There's minimal player interaction here and generally player's can't interfere with each other. A canny player can try and predict where other players are looking to go (All cards are kept face-up.) and try to get there first but it mostly it hardly seems worth it.

All of this makes Tokaido a gentle, laid back game to play, it sort of fits the theme of talking a walking holiday.
Players used to heavier games may find that they feel like nothing is happening during the game. This may be partially down to playing online.
The online version doesn't feel as good as the physical one. Being able to collect and build panoramas or complete souvenir sets with physical components feels a lot better than when they're collected in the online version. It's a small sense of achievement but a sense of achievement nonetheless.

If you want a light and chilled game to play though, you can do worse than Tokaido.

21st March 2021

It's a Sunday lunchtime and I'm logged on to my PC in the living Room and signed into Board Game Arena.

The first game of the day was Takenoko, a game about gardening in Japan... and pandas.

Caveat: We played this game online, but I own a physical copy which I've set up for the photos.

​What's in a game?

• Tiles: Hexagonal tiles to be precise, they represent plots of land.
  Pond: This blue tile is the starting tile.
  Plots: Plots come in 3 colours, green, pink and yellow. There are 9 in each colour and some of the plots come with hexagonal improvement symbols (more about improvement symbols below.) that confer special rules. The artwork on these tiles is uniformly bright and colourful. The tiles are printed in thick board and feel sturdy.
• Bamboo segments: There are 3 types of bamboo, green, pink and yellow, corresponding to the 3 types of plot. These are designed to stack up, representing the surging upwards growth of bamboo. Unlike the plot tiles, there is NO even distribution between the different coloured bamboo, green bamboo is the most common and pink is the least common.
  They're made of colourful pieces of plastic and are designed to slot into together, it's a little fiddly as the pieces feel slippery but it's not a deal breaker and they do make the game look nice.
• Irrigation tokens: These little blue wooden sticks are used to track which plots have been irrigated or not.
• Improvement chits: These hexagonal little chits confer special rules when placed on a plot, they are identical to the symbols that come printed on some plot tiles. They are pretty standard quality chits with functional art. There are 3 types of improvement.
  Enclosure: The panda cannot eat bamboo on a plot with an enclosure.
  Fertilizer: When bamboo grows on a tile with a fertilizer improvement, it grows twice as quickly
  Watershed: A plot with a watershed improvement does not require irrigation.
• Objective cards: These cards are smaller than typical playing-card sized cards and are standard quality, the art is fairly functional but continues the game's is bright and colourful art direction. Completing objectives is how players earn points. There are 3 types of objective:
  Plot objective: When plots are placed into the game area in a certain manner (For example; 3 green tiles in a row.) and irrigated, it can be claimed as completing the objective, 
  Gardener objectives: To complete a gardener objective bamboo must be grown to a certain height.
  Panda objective: The panda must eat a certain amount of bamboo of certain colours to complete these objectives cards.
• Emperor card: This is the only other card in the game, it is worth 2 points and the player who triggers the endgame will earn it.
• Action markers: Two of these round wooden markers are used by each player to track their actions each turn.
• Weather die: This is a very nice largish wooden die with rounded corners and special symbols on each face.
• Player boards: These boards are used to track player actions and store bamboo, irrigation and improvement token acquired. They are colourful and nicely illustrated.

How's it play?
Setup

• The starting pond tile is placed in the centre of the play area, the panda and the gardener are both placed on it.
• The plot tiles are shuffled and placed in a face-down stack.
• Each type of objective card is shuffled and placed face-down in its own deck.
• Each player takes a player board and 2 action markers.
• One of each objective card is dealt face-down to each player, these should be kept hidden in hand and only revealed when completed.

Now we're ready to go.

On to play
​After a starting player is chosen, play proceeds clockwise.

• Weather die: Other than in the very first round, at the beginning of their turn each player must roll the weather die, this will usually give the active player a bonus of some sort.
  Sun: When the sun face comes up, the active player can take 3rd action in their turn which must be different from their other 2 actions (More on this below.).
  Rain: The active player may place a bamboo segment on the irrigated plot of their choice.
  Wind: The active player may chose to perform 2 identical actions instead of 2 different actions.
  Storm: The active player can place the panda on the tile of their choice, the panda will eat a segment of bamboo as per usual (See below for more information.).
  Clouds: The active player may take an improvement chit of their choice, this can be immediately put on to a plot tile or on to the player's board to be used later.
  ?: If the ? face comes up, the active player can choice one of the 5 other weather results to apply.

Once the weather die has been rolled, the active player can then take 2 different actions from a choice of 5, depending on the result of the weather die, they may get 3 different actions or a choice of 2 identical actions.
Actions

• Draw plot tile: The active player draws the top 3 plot tiles, keeps 1 and returns the other 2 face-down in any order they choose. Then they must place the tile they kept down in the playing area; either it must go next to the starting pond tile OR next to 2 other tiles.
  The tile will immediately grow a bamboo segment of its colour if it is placed next to the pond OR adjacent to an irrigation token. This can only ever happen once for a tile.
• Take an irrigation token: After taking an irrigation token, the active player may put it on their board for use later or immediately place it on the playing area as per the rules.
  Other than plots directly adjacent to the pond or with watershed symbols, all plots need to need to be irrigated to produce bamboo.
  When placing an irrigation token, it must either start from the pond tile or continue previously laid irrigation token. When laying this token, it runs along the edge of a plot tile or between 2, however it never runs along the edge of the pond tile.
  The token will irrigate the 1 or 2 plots it touches, as per usual, if this is the 1st time a plot is irrigated, it will grow a bamboo segment of its colour.
• Move gardener: The active player can move the gardener. The gardener can only be moved in a straight line and 'through' the 'face' of the hexagonal plot tile, thus there are a maximum of 6 ways he can move. He can move as far as the active player decides and can cross any number of tiles, he cannot however move through any gaps encountered.
  Bamboo will grow on the plot tile that the gardener stops on, additionally bamboo will also grow on any adjacent irrigated plots of the same colour.
• Move panda: Moving the panda follows the exact same rules as moving the gardener. When the panda stops in a plot tile, he will eat 1 segment of bamboo from that tile if available. The active player takes that segment and places it on their player board.
• Take objective card: The active player may take a single objective card of their choice from one of the 3 objective decks into their hand. Players have a 5-card hand limit.

Free actions
Some actions do not count towards the usual 2 action limit. The active player can carry out any number of free actions at any time during their turn.

• Complete objective: The active player may complete one or more objectives by placing the card(s) out of their hand into their playing area.
• Place irrigation token: The active player may place any number of irrigation tokens that are reserved on their player board, following the normal rules for irrigation.
• Place improvement chit: The active player may place any number of improvement chits that are reserved on their player board, following the normal rules for placing  improvement chits.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered after someone has played a certain number of objective cards, dependant on the number of players.
The player that triggered the endgame immediately take the Emperor card and conclude  the rest of their turn normally. Then continuing in clockwise order, every other player has one more turn.
After this, scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Firstly I'll mention how the game is uniformly nice, presentation is excellent and component quality is good, nothing to criticise here.

Since there are always objectives to work towards in Takenoko, there are generally always meaningful decisions to make.
The game's player interaction comes from conflicting objectives such as one player getting the gardener to grow bamboo and another getting the panda to eat it.
This is also a game about recognising opportunities and adapting to the card and plot tiles you draw and to a lesser extent the results from the weather die and not about strategizing too much.

There is some strategy regarding the uneven distribution of bamboo (Generally objectives that involve the less common bamboo score more points.) but that's about it. I suppose there could be a high level strategy where you watch what other players are doing and try to anticipate what objectives they're going for and try and scupper them but you'll probably scupper yourself as well in the end.
Optimising your actions per turn seems to be very important.

Takenoko is a relatively simple and straightforward game to play, the concepts behind it should make it a fairly accessible crossover game. For dedicated gamers there might not be enough meat on the bone to satisfy them though.
Ultimately Takenoko is a light somewhat gentle game that you shouldn't take too seriously if you play it. ​If you want something heavy on strategy and direct interaction, it's probably not the game for you. However, if you're in the mood for an undemanding game, it's a reasonable diversion. 

27th October 2020

Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues in what would the last game of the last meetup before Lockdown 2 came into effect.

The third and final game of the evening was 'Skulls of Sedlec', in what seems to be a game about digging up skulls and then errr... proudly displaying them in a pile for all to see?

Skulls of Sedlec is a microgame that comes from microgame publisher Button Shy who appear to specialise in creating games with 18 cards.
Their games are hand crafted and they aim to release 1 a month.

What's in a game?
As is befitting the name microgame, Skulls of Sedlec is small enough to fit in your pocket. 

• ​Cards: Skulls of Sedlec consists of 18 cards and that's it! Each card displays 2 'layers' of skulls (one in the top half and the other in the bottom.) and each skull is from 1 of 5 'classes'.
• Plastic wallet: The game fits into this tiny wallet, it's not strictly a game component, but it's cool enough to be worth mentioning.

The cards has nice and colourful skulls! There's not more I can really add, that's it - 18 cards.
The wallet is of course a bit of a gimmick, but it's a nice addition and I like it.

How's it play?
Set up

• Shuffle the cards and place them into 6 face-down stacks of 3 cards each, arranged in a 3x2 grid.
• There are no more steps, I just added this to justify putting the set up into bullet-point format!

The objective of ​Skulls of Sedlec is to create a pyramid shaped layout of cards. Points are scored depending on how cards are placed in relation to other cards.
The size of the pyramid depends on the number of players but always has 3 layers of cards and thus 6 layers of skulls. Layers of cards are 'offset' (Like bricks in a wall.), this is important when calculating which cards are 'adjacent' to other cards.


On to playing
When 'building' a pyramid, players must start at the bottom and work up, thus there must be at least 2 cards in a layer before a card can be placed on the layer above.

In their turn, a player can perform 1 of 3 actions.

• Dig: The active player can turn over 2 face-down cards, then they take 1 of the 2 into their hand.
• Take card: The active player can take 1 face-up card (If face-up cards are available.) into their hand.
• Play: The active player can play a card from their card into their pyramid. There's a maximum hand size of 2, so if a player has two cards in their hand at the start of their turn, they must play a card.

​​Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been taken and played into pyramids.
Then pyramids are scored, there are 5 class of skull and thus 5 ways to score points.

• Peasant: Each 'peasant' skull in the pyramid scores a point.
• ​Royalty: A 'royal' skull scores a point for each other royal and peasant skull in a layer below it. I guess they like to lord it over other cards.
• Priest: Each layer that has a priest skull score 2 points, additional priest cards in the same layer score 0. Remember there's 6 layers in a pyramid.
• Rogue: A 'rogue' skull scores 2 point for each priest card it is adjacent to. Typically, the church always has all the wealth.
• Lover: When a 'lover' is adjacent to another 'lover' card, they score 3 points each (Collectively scoring 6.), 'lover's' can only be scored once. If a 'lover' is adjacent to 2 other 'lover' cards No extra points are scored. Infidelity's worth nothing in this game!

Points are tallied.
Highest score wins.

Overall

Simple to learn, but lots to think about. Skulls of Sedlec packs a some solid gameplay into a tiny package.

I really like that the face-down stacks of cards visually represent a graveyard and 'digging' turns them over. It's a clever touch and good example of maximising what's available in a game. Less can be more.

The 2 card hand limit is a great mechanic too: It gives players enough choice  to give them tricky decisions, but it stops players from hording cards - making their decisions easier.
Every card can potentially score points, so every decision when playing a card is meaningful and you really can't ask for more from a game in my opinion.

Skulls of Sedlec is a 2 or 3 player game. It's worth noting that that there's an expansion that takes the player count to 4, adds a new class and increases the deck size up to a heady 24 cards! 

A good little microgame that is a perfect filler with some depth. One I'd like to own and that's not just because it comes in a neat wallet (Although it does add to the appeal.).
​
​I'm just glad that the publisher hasn't started numbering their wallet games, that would be too hard on my real wallet!

13th October 2020

Tuesday is here and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

Time for the Woking Gaming Club to play a game and tonight we will be playing 'The Networks'.

This is a game for the budding media mogul inside everybody; create TV shows, hire film stars, fire chat show hosts, stick advert breaks everywhere, well at least during primetime! Fun for everyone.

When we played The Networks, a couple of expansions were also used.

What's in a game?
The Networks is a card game that has some nice additional components.

• Starting cards: Each player is given 3 TV show cards, 1 Star card and 1 Advert card.
• TV show cards: Each show has a production cost/requirements, a possible upkeep cost and a genre. All shows run for 4 seasons and the card will show how many viewers it accumulate have per season.
• Star cards: Stars are everybody from Shakespearean actors to cookery show chefs. Star cards have a hiring cost/requirements and possible upkeep. Stars are hired for up to 4 seasons and can be put on to a show. They add a varying amount to a show's audience for each of those 4 seasons. Some stars will add less audience if they are not put onto a show of specific genre. A talk show host won't add much to a soap opera's audience figures for example.
• Advert cards: Unlike the previous 2 types of card, a player will earn money if they take an advert! Furthermore, if an advert is attached to a show, it will generate money for every season the show runs. Certain adverts will make more money if attached to certain genres.
• Network cards: These cards grant the player a bonus or advantage of some kind, it may immediate, at a certain time or at the game end.
• Player boards: Each player has their own player board. Each player board has 3 spaces on either side. The 3 spaces on the right are used for the 3 timeslots you control (8pm, 9 pm & 10pm.). The 3 left spaces are The Green Room, Reruns and Archive.
• Genre card: Part of an expansion I believe, each card shows the game's 9 genres and also has a bonus track.
• Scoring board: Tracks player's accumulated audience figures and turn order which can change from season to season.
• Tokens: The Networks also includes tokens, including cubes of the soulless little wooden cube variety!
• Currency: Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning a games currency, but The Networks uses little plastic tokens for money, each one looks like a pile of money.

All the cards are very nicely illustrated with cartoony artwork and flavour text that cheerfully spoofs various different TV programs. Our game was played with an expansion that added classic British TV programs, I'm sure you'll recognise 'The IV Crowd', 'Drake's 8', & 'Creepy Puppets Save The World Again'.
All the other components are standard, except the money tokens which are cool.

How's it play?
Setup

• Each player takes a player board and starting cards.
• The 3 TV show cards are put into all 3 slots on the player card. The Star card and advert card are both put into the Green Room.
• Starting player is determined, this also determines starting money for each player.
• All the cards are put into their relative decks and shuffled.

And the game's ready to go.

The Networks is played over 5 'seasons'.
At the start of each season, TV show, star and advert cards a dealt in 3 rows.
Network cards are only dealt out from the 2nd season onwards.
After this, in turn order, players take 1 action each. This continues until there are no more actions that can be performed or all players have chosen to finish for the season, this is called 'drop & budget'.
The actions are:

• Produce a TV show: If a player wants a TV show, they have to pay for it. A TV show must be immediately placed into a time slot, any show that is currently in the chosen slot must be removed and then put into Reruns. Furthermore TV shows may require a star and/or an advert. If a player does not have the required star/advert in their Green Room, they cannot produce it. Some shows allow players to optionally add stars and/or adverts. In either case, any stars or adverts in The Green Room when the show is produced can be added to the show as part of the same action. Each show also has a limit to the number of Stars and Adverts that can be added to it. Finally; the player must put a marker on to the 1st season row on the TV show card.
• Hire a Star: A player must pay to hire a star, the star is then added to the player's Green Room, not added to a TV show.
• Get an Advert: As their action, the active player can take an Advert, unlike acquiring a TV show or star, the active player is paid to take an advert. Like a star card, an Advert cards goes into The Green Room.
• Acquire a Network card: A player can take any available Network card. It's effect may occur immediately or later in the game, or at the endgame. Network cards become available from the 2nd season onwards.
• Move a Star or an Advert: As their action, the active player can move a single star or advert from their Green Room to a TV show. They maybe some other requirements that must be met, otherwise the card might be flipped upside down to it's less effective side.
• Drop & Budget: The active player, as their action can choose to end their turn (Effectively ending their season.). They then choose to either receive either money or an increase in audience figures. The earlier a player does this  - in relation to the other players, the more money/audience they acquire. This also determines the turn order in the next season.

Once all players have ended their seasons, the next steps occur:

• Balance budget: Certain shows and stars require an upkeep and adverts generate profit. Once these are balanced, you may earn extra money or have to pay some money. If you don't have the money to pay your costs, then you lose audience figures instead.
• Calculate audience figures: Each show will generate audience figures for it's current season, plus any bonus conferred by an attached star. Shows in the Rerun slot also generate audience figures for one more season.
• Age shows: All shows in the Rerun slot are moved to the Archive slot. Then all remaining shows are aged. This is done by moving the marker on the current season row down to the next lowest row. If a show was in its last season, then it is put into Reruns.
• Set up new seasons: Any cards which were not taken from the current season are removed and discarded and an entirely new set of shows, starts, adverts and network cards a dealt out. Thus cards are only ever available for a single season before disappearing. Then the new season begins with the new turn order.

There are additional rules about acquiring shows of certain genres, but that's more or less it for the main rules.
​
Endgame
The game continues for 5 seasons, at the end of the 5th season the shows are still aged. Then a 6th season is scored (No new cards or other actions occur).
​Accumulated audience figures are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
The Networks has some cool design choices that give players interesting decisions to make.

A player can keep going and acquire more stars and adverts for as long as they've got money, which can give them an advantage later on because having these cards in their Green Room means that it's easier and quicker to develop shows. But ending your season early gives you more money/audience, more importantly though, it allows the player to be earlier in the turn order for the following season. So when the new cards appear, that player will get first dibs.

Because the game is very much about card drafting, players really have to think about how they prioritize their actions, as all players will be vying for the same cards.

Players have to try and use their actions as efficiently as possible, there's a fine balance between doing all the actions you want to do and ending your turn quickly.

All in all, The Networks gives players important decisions to make throughout the game and that's a good thing.