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.

22nd December 2019

Sunday is here at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus so for the final get together before Christmas we're playing board games.

The first game was 'Agatha Christie's Death On The Cards'.
Will the other players learn your darkest secrets? Will you catch the murderer? Or will you manage to get away with murder! Only the cards can decide in... Death On The Cards!

What's in a game?
Death On The Cards uses 3 different types of cards. Secret cards, game cards and the 'Murderer Escapes!' card , game cards are further divided into other cards:

• Secret cards: These contain the kinds of secret most people to keep errr secret? Things like being alcoholic and so on. One of these cards will be 'The Murderer' and another will be 'The Accomplice'.
• Detective cards: These represent different Agatha Christie detectives such as Poirot or Miss Marple. Detective cards are played in sets to reveal secret cards.
• Event cards: These cards allow players to perform actions such going through the discard pile and taking a card or stealing a secret card from another player.
• Devious cards: Devious cards for devious people! Devious cards are not played like other cards. Certain cards make players swap or pass cards from their hands to other players. When a player passes a devious card to another player, that's when a devious card is triggered and the recipient is the target of the cards effect (Hint; it's never a good effect!).
• 'Not So Fast' cards: These cards can be played at any time, they cancel the action of another player.
• 'Murder Escapes!' card: There's only one of these, when it appears... well you get the idea.

All of the cards a illustrated with nice little cartoons and all the text is written in an appropriate font. Giving the cards an authentic feel.

How's it play?
First there's setup, which is a little different depending on the number of players.

• 3 secret cards are randomly dealt to each player. Amongst these cards must be The Murderer card and depending on the number of players, The Accomplice card (Both card must not be dealt to the same player.). Players look at their cards but keep their secret card face-down in front of them. Any remaining secrets are put away and not used in the game.
• Deal 1 'Not So Fast' card to each player, shuffle the remaining 'Not so Fast' cards into the game cards.
• Shuffle the game cards and deal 5 to each player. These 5 cards plus the 'Not So Fast' card form each player's hand.
• The remaining game cards form the draw deck. The Murderer Escapes! is placed at the bottom of this deck.
• 3 cards are drawn from the deck and placed face-up in a row next to the draw deck. Whenever a card is drawn from the deck, it can be taken from these 3 cards. When a card is taken in this way, it is immediately replaced with a card from the deck.
• If the game has an accomplice, then all players closes their eyes and the murderer and accomplice reveal themselves to each other.

Now we're ready to play.

• The player who has 'The Murderer' secret card is attempting to get away with murder, they either want to deplete the draw deck, or paralysis the other players with 'social disgrace'.
• If the accomplice is in play, then their objective is to help the murderer. Just as any self-respecting accomplice should.
• All the other players are trying to reveal which secret card is 'The Murderer'. 

The active player can perform 1 of the following actions:

• Play an event card from their hand and do whatever it says on the card.
• Play a set of identical detective cards. Detective cards come in sets of 2 or 3. Different sets can do different things, but generally playing a set will force a player to turn one of their secret cards face-up.

After the active player has completed their action, they can choose to discard any number of cards from their hand, then they draw card to take their hand back up to 6.
Social disgrace
What's social disgrace? When a player has all of their secret cards turned face-up, all of their secrets have been revealed and they're disgraced.
What does this mean? It means that when they become the active player, all they can do is discard exactly 1 card and draw 1 card.
It is possible to come back from social disgrace as there some cards that allow secret cards to be turned back face-down.

Endgame
​How the game ends will depend on the player's role in the game.

• If the murderer secret card is revealed, then that player loses along with the accomplice. All other players win.
• There are 2 ways for the murderer to win.
• If all the other players (Not including an accomplice.) are socially disgraced, then the murder wins.
• If the last card of the draw deck (The 'Murderer Escapes!' card.) is revealed, the murder wins.
• In all circumstances that the murderer wins, the accomplice also wins. Regardless of whether the accomplice is socially disgraced or not.

Overall
'Death On The Cards' plays with 2-6 people and what's interesting is how the game changes depending on the number of players.

With 2 players, there's no secret to who's the murderer. The game is a war of attrition.

Now, for some maths (Hopefully my maths is correct.).

Let's look at it with 3 players.

• There are a total of 9 secret cards in plays and total of 18 cards are dealt to players. This means there are 43 cards in the draw deck (The draw deck has 61 card, not including 'The Murderer Escapes!').
• This means in the worse case scenario, there will be a maximum 43 actions to reveal all 9 secret cards, or a secret card will need to be revealed every 4.8 action.
• Additionally each player will have 14.3 turns before the game ends.

Now lets look at a 6 player game.

• There will be 18 secret cards and 25 cards in the draw deck.
• Therefore there will be a maximum of 25 actions before the game ends. So in the worst case scenario, 18 secret cards will need to be revealed in 25 actions, or 1 secret every 1.4 actions! A lot lower than with 3 players!
• Finally each player will only have 4.2 turns before the game end. 

This means it becomes easier for the murderer to get away with it in bigger game. Now I don't see this as a flaw, but it is definitely something that changes the dynamics of the game.

With 3 players for example, 'Death On The Cards' can be played as a straightforward card game.

With 6 players, it's much harder to capture the murderer. Players will need to form alliances and target suspicious players as quickly as possible. But then, this gives the murderer and accomplice opportunities to bluff, lie, double cross and sabotage their 'allies'. It becomes a lot more like a hidden role game.

Anyway, regardless of the mathematics, the game mechanics fit the theme very well. 'Death On The Cards' can learned quickly and plays quickly too . It's a great filler game and even though I'm not a fan of hidden role games, it's a lot of fun. 
It's definitely worth giving it a try.

16th November 2019

Gaming night at 'Matakishi's' continues.

The final game of the night was 'Ringmaster: Welcome to the Big Top'.

​Step right up! Step right up! Come and see which player can creates the most magnificent circus.
Watch! As players become catastrophically confused by cunning card-plays of weirdness Gasp! As players are perilously perplexed by uncannily unpredictable game mechanics.

Yes Sir! All the fun of the circus!

What's in a game?
Ringmaster is a card and all it has and needs is a deck of cards.
All the cards are illustrated with nice and occasionally humorous pictures. Many of the cards are tongue-in-cheek.
Finally, the game comes with a nifty little draw string to to carry the game in, if you don't want to lug the box about. It's a cool little addition.

How's it play?
First, the deck is shuffled and 3 cards are dealt to each player, the remaining cards from a draw deck. A first player is then determined.
The active player draws a card from the deck and then plays 1 card. 

There are 4 types of card in the game:

• Stars: These cards are played in front of the active player. Star cards tend to give the player some sort of benefit every round.
• Attractions: These are also played in front of the active player.
• Events: When an event is played it is discarded, events can be considered  'one-offs'.
• Sideshows: These cards are played in another player's area and are generally detrimental to them.

Play then proceeds with the player to the left.

I can't really explain much about the rules, because players simply do what's written on the card they're playing.

Endgame
There are no endgame conditions in Ringmaster! OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the endgame is determined by cards that are played. This means that different players will most likely have different winning criteria.

This makes Ringmaster unpredictable and the game tends to end very suddenly and abruptly.

Overall
Ringmaster ticks the right boxes! Easy to learn, quick to play and fun.
As well as random ending conditions, there are cards that occasionally completely change the game, forcing all players to discard their entire hands or every card they've played etc.
Ringmaster can be random and chaotic, but retains enough strategy to still engage players.

If you've just spent the last 3 hours playing a monstrosity of a game that's made your brains dribble out of your ears. Then Ringmaster makes a great finisher for the evening.

27th October 2019

Sunday at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking and our gaming continues.

The final game of the day was 'Forbidden Desert', the second game in the 'Forbidden series' of co-operative games.

'Forbidden Desert' is a co-operative game of exploration.

The players are a band of adventurers and explorers, scouring the desert (Which I guess is a forbidden?) for the remains of a legendary flying machine. But during your trip, a ferocious sand storm forces your helicopter to crash in the remains of a lost city. The only way to escape the desert is to fly back out of the desert. Your helicopter is a wreck, so your only hope of survival is to find and reconstruct the flying machine before the storm and desert spell your doom!

What's in a game?
'Forbidden Desert' comes in a natty tin box, the game's components are good quality with some nice artwork.

• City tiles: There are 24 of these tiles, except for the starting tile, they are all turned face-down at the start of the game.
• Sand tokens: There's a whole stack of these, they are used to represent the moving sands throughout the city.
• Storm track: As the game progresses, the storm will get more and more violent. This is tracked on the storm track.
• Storm cards: This deck of cards are used to dictate the sandstorm's behaviour.
• Gadget cards: Useful cards that the players acquire during the game.
• Flying machine: The flying machine is a plastic model. The 4 missing parts of it are made of plastic, metal and acrylic. They are weighty and high quality.
• Adventurer classes: There are 6 of these, each class has it's own card and meeple. Each character has their own water track and also has it's own unique ability.

How's it play?
Setup.

• Randomly deal or choose a class for each player. Each class has it's unique ability and water track shown on the pertinent card. Each class also has its meeple.
• Shuffle the location tiles and place them face-down in a 5x5 grid. Hang on, a 5x5 grid has 25 spaces, but there are only 24 tiles? When placing the tiles into a grid, the centre space is left empty. The empty space is the 'eye of the storm'. The starting tile and 3 oasis tiles can be identified even when face-down.
• Place sand tokens on to 8 of the city tiles in a 'diamond' shape. The remaining sand tokens should be placed in a stack close to the playing area.
• Shuffle the gadget cards into a face-down deck.
• Shuffle the storm cards into a face-down deck.
• Set up the storm track, there are different tracks depending on how many players there are. Additionally, the game has several difficulty levels that determine the starting point on the track.
• One of the city tiles is double sided and represents the crashed helicopter. This is the adventurer's starting tile. Place all the meeples on to this tile.

Now, we're good to go.

Player actions
During the active player's turn, they have 4 actions that they can perform (in any order and repeatedly.). These are:

• Move: A player can move their character's meeple left, right, up or down to an adjacent tile, provided there is no more than 1 sand token on that tile. If there is more than 1 sand tile, then the area is blocked by a sand drift and is currently inaccessible. Furthermore if the tile the meeple is currently standing on has more than 1 sand token on it, then the meeple is trapped!
• Excavate: If a meeple is standing on a face-down tile with no sand tokens on it, then the player can excavate and turn it face-up. There are several different types of tile in the game and different actions will occur when they are revealed. Some tiles are blank, so nothing happens. There are the 3 'oasis' tiles, one is a mirage, the other 2 will provide water when excavated. There are 3 tunnel tiles, this allows characters to move between them with 1 action regardless of their locations in the game area, tunnels also provide shelter from the sun. There are 8 'clue tiles', each part of the flying machine has 2 clues associated with it. One clue shows the vertical position of the part and the other for the horizontal position. When both clues are revealed, they are cross-referenced to show the actual location of the part. Launch pad tile, nothing happens when this tile is revealed, but when the players have acquired all 4 machine parts, they must all meet on the launch pad to escape and win the game. Finally any card that displays a 'cog' in the corner allows the active player to draw a gear card.
• Remove sand: As sand tokens build up in the playing area, they will need to be removed for various reasons. For 1 action a character may remove a sand token from their tile or an adjacent tile. The sand token is returned to the sand token supply.
• Retrieve part: When a machine part has been revealed, if a character is on the same tile as the part, they can spend an action to retrieve it.

The storm
Once the active player has completed their 4 actions, the storm gets to act.
Cards are drawn from the storm deck, the number drawn depends upon how severe the storm is, this ranges from 2-6 cards. There are 3 types of storm card.

• Storm moves: This is by far the most common card in the storm deck. The empty space in the game area represents the 'storm'. When the storm moves, it shuffles a tile into the empty space and creates a new empty where the tile was previously located. Depending upon circumstances, up to 4 tiles can be moved this way. Every tile that is moved this way accumulates a sand token. Sand tokens can build up very quickly.
• ​High temperature: When this storm card is drawn, the adventurers encounter savage heat. If a character is on a tunnel tile, they are safe from the heat. Every character not in a tunnel must lose 1 water from their water track.
• Storm intensifies: When this card is drawn, move the marker 1 space further along the storm track. After moving the marker 3 or 4 spaces, the storm will reach 'the next level' and from the next turn onward an additional storm card will be drawn at the end of a player's turn.

Gear Cards
Gear cards are all beneficial for the players and can be played at any time by the owning player.

Endgame
Losing conditions:

• If at any time, a characters water track reaches the end, then the character dies and the players lose the game.
• If at any time, the storm reaches it's maximum level, the players lose the game.
• If at any time, sand tokens need to be put on a tile and there are none remaining, the players lose the game.

Winning condition:
If the players manage to retrieve all 4 missing parts of the machine, all manage to reach the launch pad at the same time and the launch pad is unblocked. Then the players win the game. As the adventurers escape in their new flying machine.

Overall
Forbidden Desert has essentially 2 timers running, the sand tokens pouring on to the tiles and the strength of the storm (Which also increases the rate in that sand tokens appear.).
Water is a resource that must be managed.

Players are faced with the choice of being prudent to preserve their water levels, acting to manage the sand token levels or having to work towards their objectives. Especially since the storm can move the game area about which can cause big problems or be an opportunity to exploit.
I think the key to doing well in Forbidden Desert are the characters. Each character has their own special ability. Remembering to utilise these abilities and working them into any strategy used vital in my opinion.

​Forbidden Desert is a cooperative game in which the players play against 'the game'.
Games of this type must balance strategy and randomness in order to be good games.
Too much strategy and once the players learn the game's systems, they'll learn to rinse it every time.
Too much randomness and player decisions become meaningless as their fates will be left to the whim of luck.

Forbidden Desert manages to straddle this line pretty well and is one of the better examples of this type of game.

15th October 2019

Tuesday evening has rolled around again and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. This can only mean it's games night.

Our game of the evening is 'Gold West'. A game for rootin' tootin' prospectors and quite possibly outlaws and bandits.

What's in a game?​
There are quite a lot of components in Gold West. The general game components are:

• Game board: The game board contains a lot of information. As well as a scoring track, it has 3 precious metal delivery tracks, a 'boomtown' area and most importantly a hexagonal map area, a river sits in the middle of the map area (Will be explained later.).
• Hexagonal map tiles: These hex tiles are actually composed of 7 hexes, each hex on a tile has a colour. There are 4 colours to represent the 4 different types of terrain in game.
• Resource tokens: On one side it depicts a 'mining shovel and pick' in the colour of one of the 4 terrain tiles. On the other side of the token it depicts 2 or 3 resources.
• Resource blocks: Little blocks that represent the 5 different resources that are used in Gold West. These are wood and stone, and the precious metals gold, silver and copper.
• Boomtown tiles: These are placed on the boomtown area and earn players points.
• Contract cards: These cards represent contracts that can be fulfilled by players and earn them points.
• Stagecoach meeples: These are used to track deliveries of precious metals

As well as game components, there are also several components for individual players. These include:

• ​Personal game board: There are also 4 'influence' tracks (One for each of the 4 terrains.) and a 'supply' track on the board. There is also space for player tokens.
• Tents: These are little tent shaped meeples that sit on the player's board until used, there are 10 tents.
• Influence token: These disc shaped tokens sit on the player board until used.

That's more or less it.

Use metals
So now that resources have been moved out of the supply track, they must be used. There are 5 resources and 3 of them are precious metals - gold, silver and copper. In this stage, the precious metals are 'spent'.

• Metals can be spent to purchase contract cards, this will earn victory points. Contracts can also confer additional bonuses such as moving a stagecoach along a delivery track.
• A player can spend metals to place an influence token on to a tile in boomtown. These tiles can be used to earn points, provided they player meets the conditions on the tile.
• A player can deliver metals 'back east'. This moves the stagecoach meeples along the 3 delivery tracks (One for each metal). These points are immediately scored. The delivery tracks also have 'break points' which earn whoever gets there first earns a bonus points token.

Any 'unspent' metals are discarded at the end of the turn. But you can always deliver them, so they are never actually wasted.

Build camp/settlement or loot
After using metals, the active player has to build a camp or settlement, or loot. This is done using wood and/or stone resources that were bought out of the supply track along with the metals.

• A camp can be built with a stone or a wood resource. When building a camp, the active player selects a hex which contains a token showing its resources (Not the mining side.) and takes the token and replaces it with a tent meeple from their board. The active player then turns the resource token back over to the mining side and places it on the first available space on the relevant influence track on their board.
• A settlement can be built with a stone and a wood resource. Just like with a camp, the active player takes a resource token, but instead it is replaced with an influence token and a tent on top of the influence token. The active player turns the resource token to the mining side and places it on the relevant influence track, but places it one space further along the track. Thus building a settlement instead of a camp earns more influence.
• If the active player has no stone or wood, then they must loot instead. This is done by taking a resource token as explained above, but no tent or token is placed in the hex and it is left blank. Instead a tent it placed into the 'bandit camp' area on the main game board and incur penalty points at the end. Furthermore, the resource token is discarded and not placed on to a influence track.
• When a resource token is taken from the main game board, any adjacent hexes that have unrevealed resources, have those resources revealed.
• When a resource token is taken either by building a camp or settlement or by looting, then the active player takes the displayed resources and places it in one of the 4 boxes in their supply track. Now since putting the resources in the lowest box will cause headaches when moving them up, why would you ever do it? The answer is points, those boxes are numbered from 0-3 for a reason; that's how many points the active player immediately receives when putting resources into a box in the supply train.

Just with precious metals, any unspent wood and stone resources are discarded at the end of a player's turn.
This means that having more than 1 stone or 1 wood is a waste as these will be discarded. A player only needs a stone or a wood, or a stone and a wood.

That's it for a player's turn, it seems like a lot, but in play it's pretty straightforward.

Endgame
Gold West is played over 11 rounds, players have ten tents to use and there's a further round with no tents. Then we get on to scoring, points are scored in the following ways:

• Each of the 4 terrains types will earn points for the player who has the most influence tokens in the pertinent influence track. 2nd place earns a lesser amount of points. This is done for all 4 terrain types, not all of the terrain types earn the same points.
• Boomtown tokens are scored, there are a large variety of ways these can be scored.
• Bonus tokens are scored.
• Each player earns points for the single longest contiguous line of camps/settlements that they have placed on the map.  
• Finally points are deducted for tents placed into the bandit camp.

Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
There's a lot to like about Gold West.

The supply mechanic is equal parts infuriating and brilliant. If you put your resources in the lower boxes and have trouble getting them out effectively, it's only your own fault for being greedy for points. But if you're able to manage the flow of resources well, it's a good source of points.
Talking of points, Gold West presents players a good variety of ways to score points. There is always a way to accumulate points, it's a question of optimisation and individual strategy. Players are always given meaningful choices on how to approach scoring. Even if a player fails to bring out a stone or wood resource, they still have the open to loot.
I also like how resources become revealed as players build camps and settlements on the map. It's a nice touch.
The game is also a nice looking game, I like the stagecoach meeples and there's something pleasing about looking at the game map covered in lots of tent meeples.

​All in all I liked Gold West.

How's it play?
So we begin with setup.

• Shuffle the citizen deck and deal 4 to each player.
• Deal 5 more cards from the citizen deck in a row. This row is called 'the forum'. The remaining citizen cards form the citizen deck.
• Shuffle and deal 5 afterlife cards in a face-down deck next to the citizen deck.
• Give some currency to each player.

Now we're ready to go.

• The starting player rolls the 3 four-sided dice.
• The active player must play a card from their hand.
• The active player may choose to play a 2nd card, provided it is identical to the first card played. They must pay to do this.
• Resolve any special ability on the card(s) just played.
• The active player then places 2 cards from their hand into the forum and takes 3 cards from the forum in their hand. If they has played 2 cards earlier, then they take an additional card from the citizen deck into their hand (Hand size is always 4 cards.).
• Finally, a card is played from the citizen deck into the forum (To replace the extra card the player took.).
• Play progresses to the left.
• Once all players have had a turn,  the 'first player' moves to the left, who rolls the dice again to begin a new round.
• Once the citizen deck is depleted, the game ends. Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Afterlife cards
There's no mention of afterlife cards, what do they do?
Well when a 'priest' citizen card is played, the active player take a afterlife card and keeps it face-down in their area.
Afterlife cards provide the opportunity to gain extra points during scoring.
Players can only have 1 afterlife card each. If a player acquires more afterlife cards, they draw another one and keep one of the two. The other one is shuffled back into the afterlife deck.
The dice
Dice are rolled every round, what for?
Certain citizen cards make use of these vaguely pyramid shaped dice.
For example:
The 'noble' card will earn the active player currency equal the result of all 3 dice (The dices' values are lowered after this.).
The 'baker' citizen card can buy up to 3 bread tokens at a cost equal to the highest single dice.
Bread tokens
Talking of bakers, what do bread tokens do?
After acquiring bread tokens, the are placed on citizen cards that have been played to increase their value in the endgame scoring.
Additionally, bread tokens on your 'farmer' citizen cards will protect them from being 'enticed away' by pesky 'soldier' citizen cards.

Endgame
Once the citizen deck is depleted and all players have had an equal number of turns, we go into scoring. There are 5 ways to score:

• Each citizen card is worth points, the more important the citizen (In the social hierarchy.), the more points the card is worth. Thus the 'Pharaoh' card is worth is more than a farmer.
• Bread: Every card that has a bread token on it will score points. Generally cards further down the social hierarchy score more for bread (I guess they need it more?).
• Majority: There are 9 types of citizen card in the game, whoever has the most of each type score points for it. The scoring her is the exact opposite of the social hierarchy scoring. Because their are 9 'farmer' citizen cards in the game, who ever has the majority of 'farmer' cards will score 9 points. Conversely there's only 1 'Pharaoh' card and it's only worth 1 point.
• Currency: Each 3 of the currency scores a point.
• Afterlife card: Points can be scored provided the conditions (If any.) can be met on the card.

Overall
Iuni is a game with some interesting mechanics.
Having to return 2 cards to the forum during every turn forces players into making some hard decisions, because not only are you discarding cards which may be useful, you're also giving other players the opportunity to take them.
The dice are also an interesting idea and not something I've seen before in this style of game. The randomness can throw a real 'curve ball' into players' strategies.

Once players have gotten their heads around the slightly unusual way the game works, it's quite quick to play and would be good as a filler or finisher game.

How's it play?
As always we begin with set up.

• A bidding deck is given to each player.
• The location deck is created by randomly using 3 location cards. A number of assistant cards will be added in as 2 small stacks between the 3 location cards. all of these are kept in a deck face-down on the game board.
• Finally the victim deck is created and shuffled. Then a number of cards are turned face up.

Then play can begin.
Campy Creatures uses blind bidding. The highest bid gets to go first and pick the victim card of their choice.

• Players keep all of their individual deck in their hand at all times.
• Players can choose any one of their monsters to play. The card is played face down. Once all players have put a card down, all cards are revealed and then resolved.
• Generally, the card with the highest number goes first. However, there are special abilities that can change things. Some special abilities a triggered when cards are revealed, some when a victim is captured.
• Thus the highest score gets 1st pick, 2nd highest score gets 2nd pick and so on until the lowest score has to take the last card.
• A new turn begins and new cards from the victim deck are dealt.
• Any cards used for bidding remain face-up on the table, they cannot be used again in this round.
• When the victim deck is depleted, the round is over. The 1st location card is revealed and will have a specific symbol on it. The player who has acquired cards with the most of the matching symbol will acquire the location card (And whatever bonus it entails.).
• The round is scored, all victims (Except assistants.) are returned to form a new victim deck, the extra assistants from location deck is added to the victim deck.
• The next round begins.

Endgame​
Campy Creatures is played over a total of 3 rounds. After the final round, final scores are tallied, highest score wins.

24th September 2019

Tuesday evening is here and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking for games night.

It was an evening of several short games.
We begun with 'Sushi Roll', this game is a follow up to the rather good 'Sushi Go!'. Will Sushi Roll live up to expectations? Let's see.


What's in a game
Sushi Roll comes in a largish box and a whole bunch of components. These are solidly made and of a good quality.

• Dice: There are 30 custom dice. There are 5 different types of dice. Nigiri dice, maki dice, appetiser dice, pudding dice and 'specials' dice. Specials dice have symbols for wasabi, chopsticks and menus.
• Dice bag: For the dice!
• Conveyor belt tiles: There are 5 of these. One of them has a red outline.
• Personal game boards: There are also 5 of these. One of them is given to each player. They basically explain the game and show the results of all the dice and how they are scored.
• Tokens: Lots of tokens. Scoring tokens, pudding tokens, chopstick tokens and menu tokens. Lots of tokens!

How's it play?
We begin with set up:

• Give each player a player board, 2 chopstick tokens and 3 menu tokens.
• Shuffle the conveyor belt tiles and deal one out face-down to each player. They are then turned face-up and whoever has the tile with the red outline is first player.

22nd September 2019

Sunday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. Unfortunately 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus. Instead we shall play some board games.

The first board game of the day was 'Roll Player'.

Have you ever enjoyed creating characters for an RPG more than playing them? Then maybe, just maybe, Roll Player is the game for you.

Roll Player is sort of a set collecting, dice rolling, worker placement game that's all about creating what is ostensibly a D&D character.
The main of the game is that players use dice to generate their stats, but it's not a case of just rolling the dice.

What's in a game
The components for Roll Player are of a good quality. 

• ​Dice: There's a lot of dice in Roll Player. 73 in fact, in 7 different colours.
• Dice bag: To go with the Dice!
• Character sheet boards: These are the equivalent of a character sheet. One for each of the classic D&D PC races such as human, elf, dwarf etc. Like a D&D character sheet, the player boards contain a lot of information. Such as racial stat modifiers for all 6 D&D stats (And space for 3 six sided dice for each stat!). Spaces for character class info, alignment and backstory too.
• Character class tile: This tile goes on the relevant space on the character sheet board. These represent the classic D&D character classes. One will be randomly given out to each player. They are double sided and have 2 classes on each. Character class dictates what values your stats you need to have to score points. They will be different for each character class. Each class also has a unique special ability.
• Alignment tile: This goes on the space for alignment and is randomly determined. Players earn points for getting their alignment to match the target on the tile. The alignment tile is a 3x3 grid that depicts all 9 alignments. A marker is used to show what the character's current alignment is.
• Backstory tile: This is also randomly determined. It gives players an additional target to match, which in turns a player more points. This is based on the colour of dice.
• Initiative cards: These are used to determine the order in which players buy cards from the market. They are numbered from 1 to 5.
• Market cards: Every round, players will have the opportunity to purchase cards drawn from the market deck. Market cards include weapons, armour, skills and traits.