2nd July 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming fun and distraction.

Bring harmonious equilibrium to the world by seeking balance between the four elements, nature and spirits in the game Sagani. How is this achieved? By drafting and placing tiles of course, in this quite abstract game.

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

What's in a game?

• ​Tiles​: Square tiles are used in Sagani and come in 4 colours, each one associated with an element, fire is red, earth is green, water is blue and air is white.
  While not double-sided per se, each side of a tile conveys some information.
  Front: The front will display 1-4 coloured 'arrows' pointing away from the card 1 or more of the 8 directions, the colours of these arrows will be in some combination of the game's 4 elemental colours. The front will also show a 'vessel' - which in thematic terms is meant to contain a spirit, it also displays a victory point (VP) value. This VP value is directly linked to the number of arrows; 1 arrow has 1VP, going all the way up to 4 arrows which has 10VPs.
  Back: The flip side of a tile will show a 'released spirit'. It will also show its colour and VP value. Thus players can ascertain how many arrows are on the other side but not their positioning or colours.

There's a fairly minimal use of art in the game, mainly being the 'vessels' on the front of the tiles and elemental spirits on the back. It's perfectly adequate and gives Sagani a clean and uncluttered look that lends the game a bright and colourful appearance on the table when played.

Iconography is also kept to a minimum here, consisting only of numbers and arrows. Players will not encounter any problems with iconography when playing Sagani.
I will add that the 'arrows' are displayed 'thematically', which means red arrows look like flame and so on. I'm not a particular fan of this as it made the arrows look less like arrows.

On to play
Setup

• Tiles: Shuffle all the tiles into 3 equal face-down stacks.
• Players: Give each player the 20 discs in their player colour to create their own personal supply.
  Additionally, each player should put their score token on the score tracking board.
• Starting tiles: Deal 5 tiles from one of the stacks into a face-up row to create a drafting area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

​On to play
In Sagani, players will be drafting tiles into their personal playing area to create a display and also create objectives which will need to be completed. This is done by matching coloured arrows to their colour on other tiles.
For the most part, Sagani uses the typical turn order with the active player acting before play progresses to the person their left. However, once in a while actions will occur in order of scoring position on the score tracker.
In the active player's turn, the following actions are performed.

• Draft tile: The active player must draft a tile from available selection, how this is done is based on how many tiles are available to draft.
  • 2-5 tiles: If there are 2-5 tiles in the drafting area, then the active player must draft one of those.
  • 1 tile: If there is only 1 tile left to draft, the active player has a choice.
    Draft the tile: The active player can draft the remaining tile.
    Blind draw: Alternatively, the active player can place the last tile into one of the intermezzo spaces above the score tracker and then must flip and take the topmost tile from the draw stack. This is why it's important to have an idea what's on the front of tiles.
• Place tile: The drafted tile must be placed into the active player's display. It can be rotated to any position but must be placed orthogonally adjacent to another already played tile (Unless obviously, it is the 1st tile placed.).
• Place discs: Next, the active player takes a number of discs equal to the arrows shown on the newly placed tile from their personal supply and places them on the centre of that tile, thus they will take 1-4 discs.
  Insufficient discs: If the active player does not have enough discs in their personal supply, then they must take a cacophony disc for each of their own discs that is missing. Each cacophony disc taken will cost the active player -2VPs! However, players retain any cacophony discs they get which can be reused later in the game.
• Match arrows: Now the active player should check all the 'uncovered' arrows on all their tiles.
  Any arrow(s) that is pointing directly at a tile which matches the arrow's colour (Regardless of distance.) can be 'resolved'. This is done by taking a disc from the centre of that tile and covering that particular arrow.
  After a tile is placed, it is possible to resolve multiple arrows across multiple tiles.
• Score tiles: If all the arrows on a particular tile have been covered. That tile has been completed.
  The active player should return the discs to their personal supply, this then frees the discs - including any cacophony discs to be used on other tiles later on in the game. Next, flip the tile and then score it on the score tracker. A flipped tile can still be used to resolve other arrows.
• End of turn: A couple of events may occur at the end of the active player's turn.
  • Intermezzo: If at the end of a player's turn all 4 intermezzo spaces are filled with tiles, then the game goes to a intermezzo round.
    Draft intermezzo tiles: Players may now draft one of the tiles on the intermezzo spaces. This is not done in the usual turn order. Instead the player with the lowest score goes first and so forth until the player with the highest score goes last. Any tiles taken are placed with the usual placement rules.
    Discard tiles: If none of the 4 available tiles on intermezzo spaces were taken, then all 4 are discarded out of the game. If at least 1 was taken, the others remain.
  • Refill drafting area: If there are no tiles in the drafting area at the end of a player's turn, draw 5 new tiles.
  • Next player: Play no progresses to the player on the left of the active player.

Endgame
Play progress until the scoring threshold is reached on the score tracker, this is dependant on player count.
Play then continues until all players have had equal turns.

Score are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Sagani's theme is pretty thin and almost negligible.
Elements and spirits? Tiles and arrows? It all feels a bit forced and if theme is important to you, then you may find Sagani a little unengaging. For me, it's not too much of an issue and didn't put me off the game.

Mechanically, Sagani almost feels like more of a puzzle than a tile-laying game. It's all about the optimal placement of those tiles and putting down a tile that will match up the most arrows. Players will find themselves placing tiles in such a way that they will hope to get the right coloured tile later in the game.
Sometimes it felt like an exercise in frustration, I found myself wanting to complete every tile and essentially solve the puzzle but in a game like this, that's never possible.

This brings me to an interesting element of the mechanics; namely having a limited number of discs to place on tiles.
​It means that playing tiles - particularly the higher value tiles that might not be completed for while is a twofold risk, not only may the tile not get completed but it also ties up the disks, potentially forcing players to take cacophony discs. The penalties for taking a couple isn't too great but it's something to avoid if you can.

This is balanced with how the higher value tiles genuinely offer more value.
E.g.
A 1VP tile requires 1 arrow to be resolved, earning 1VP 'per resolution'.
A 10vp tile requires 4 arrows to be resolved, earning 2.5VP 'per resolution'.
It means a 10VP tiles offer much better efficiency over any other tiles provided it can be completed.
It's a good implementation of an element of risk/reward that forces players to consider short and long term goals.

There's also a higher level of play that comes from watching other players and potentially drafting a tile they might need.

Sagani is also pretty straightforward and accessible to non-gamers, the basic concept of pointing an arrow at its particular colour is easily understood, the only wrinkle being the intermezzo rules which are a touch fiddly but nothing close to a game breaker.

However, while I feel that Sagani has solid gameplay, I also feel that the light rules that makes it accessible do mean it doesn't really stand out from the crowd for me. There are plenty of games that pretty much do what Sagani does just as well.
I'd happily play Sagani if someone else wanted to but personally, I can't think why I'd choose it over any of the other good drafting and tile laying games.

I do think that this would be a good introductory game to people unfamiliar with this style of game.

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

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

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

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

How's it play?
Setup

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

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

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

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

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

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30th May 2023

It's a Tuesday evening again and that means it's time for some gaming goodness with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns.

Bandido is a wily one!. The sly criminal has finally been caught and sent to jail. But Bandido is never one to rest and soon has found a way to dig tunnels out of his cell.
Can the players manage to coordinate in this cooperative card-laying game to stop Bandido escaping?

There's not much to say about Bandido's minimal components.
The starting tile is notably thick and chunky in contrast to the cards which feel a touch flimsy - possibly due to their unusual proportion. This is not an issue though and unless the cards are mistreated they will be fine.

Bandido's artwork is equally minimal, there's a touch of stylised art for Bandido himself and well.... that's pretty much it other than the illustration representing dead-ends and the tunnels themselves.

You could argue that the hand holding the flashlight is an icon, otherwise there's no iconography in the game. Everything is instantly understandable.

How's it play?
Setup

• Starting tile: Put the starting tile in the central playing area, select the side with 5 exits or for a supposedly harder game select the side with 6 exits. There didn't seem a discernible difference in difficulty as far as I could tell.
• Cards: shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 face-down to each player. Players should keep their hand secret from other players.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

​On to play
In Bandido, players are cooperatively trying to stop Bandido from escaping by playing cards to block off all tunnels.
The game uses a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
A turn plays out as detailed below.

• Play card: The active player must play a card from their hand with the following criteria.
  • Orientation: When playing a card, it can be rotated to any orientation and must be adjacent to the tunnel from at least 1 other card or starting tile.
  • Honour connections: When playing a card, it must honour all connections that it is placed adjacent to, that is, it must connect to all tunnels.
    The placed card cannot cut off a tunnel. If this would occur, then that card cannot be play in that way.
  • Cannot play: If for any reason the active player does not have a card they can legally play, then they must place their entire hand at the bottom of the deck and draw new hand of 3 cards, their turn is now over.
• Draw card: After playing a card, the active player draws back up to a hand of 3 cards.
• Next player:  Play now progresses to the player on the active players left.

Endgame
Play continues until 1 of the 2 following conditions are met.

If the deck becomes depleted and none of the players have any cards left to play and there is at least 1 un-blocked off tunnel, then Bandido manages to escape! The player collectively lose.

If on the other hand, the players manage to block off all tunnels at any point during the game, then Bandido is trapped. The players immediately and collectively win!

Overall
Bandido's theme is sort of stuck-on​ and perhaps a little offbeat (I mean stopping the titular character escaping!) but it fits the game well enough and will be understood by all players.

Whilst the game's rules light, don't be fooled by this simplicity. Bandido is quite a hard game to win. This is especially true when playing at a higher player count. In a solo game, the player will know exactly which cards are available but with 3 companions, it becomes much harder to predict.
(One criticism I have of Bandido is that as the tunnel network invariably grows, it may expand in unexpected ways - more than once we've had to shift the entire map because it was going off a table edge - which is a fairly fiddly affair.)

There is without a doubt also a degree of luck involved (As is the case with most cooperative games.) which may not appeal to all players but there's also a good chunk of having to think ahead and trying optimise how cards are played.
 
It's hard to resist the urge to play dead-end cards that close tunnels down in the early game but it can be vital that you don't always do this.
Management of 'moving' tunnels around the playing area is key to success.
E.g., directing tunnels towards each other and connecting them can create 'loops' which essentially closes both. Additionally looping 2 tunnels into 1 then closing it off is equally useful.
There are only a limited amount of dead-end cards and using them up too early means they won't be available to use in the late game.
It's something players must plan for.
Players must also make sure they don't create any situations with card positioning which will render a tunnel impossible to close.

Because Bandido is so straightforward, with a easily recognisable goal and accessibility, it's a great game for all the family, more causal players and younger players and can prove a lot of fun.
That this is a cooperative game is even better, many cooperative games have intricate systems that must be managed in order to make them work, which not the case here.
It's definitely worth trying.

5th February 2023

It's another Sunday evening and we're logged into Board Game Arena again for some gaming fun.

Nova Luna; the new moon.

No, this is no a game based on those dodgy vampire films. It's a pretty standard draft and tile placement game.

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

What's in a game?

• Game board: Nova Luna features a 'moon wheel', a sort ring or wheel shaped board. Along the wheel is a 24-space track upon which are displayed different phases of the moon and is used to track player order. Around the wheel's outside are 12 spaces to place the game's square tiles.

• Moon meeple: This token continues the game's moon theme.
• Tokens : There are 21 of these disc shaped tokens in each of the game's 4 player colours.

​The game's only art is found on the moon wheel, there's some fairly detailed styling around the wheel as well all the faces of the moon.
Otherwise, Nova Luna is fairly light on artwork. It does make good use of bold bright colours however, which I like and think makes it look eye catching.

If you understand numbers and coloured dots, then you'll understand Nova Luna's iconography. It's very straightforward and easily understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Game board: Put out the moon wheel board. Put the moon meeple at the topmost outer space.
• Tiles: Shuffle the tiles into a face-down stack. Then draw and place tiles face-up in all the spaces around the outside the moon wheel (Other than the space with the moon wheel.).
• Tokens: Give player all the tokens in their chosen player colour. Each player should place a token on the topmost space on the moon track.
• First Player: Determine a turn order for the first round.

On to play
In Nova Luna, players will be drafting tiles from the moon wheel and placing them adjacent to each other in their personal play area with the intent of connecting tiles of certain colours to each other in order to complete the objectives or tasks on those tiles.

Nova Luna does not use a traditional turn order, player order is based on the respective position of each player's token position on the moon track. Furthermore, whenever a player takes a tile, their token will move along the track.

• Active player: Whoever is 'furthest' back along the moon track becomes the active player. If tokens from 2 or more players share the same furthest back space, then the token on the top becomes activated.
• Draft: The active player must draft a tile according to the following rules.
  Refill: If there are no tiles left around the moon wheel, the active player must refill the empty spaces. If there are 1 or 2 tiles left, they may choose to refill the wheel.
  Take tile: Then the active player must take a tile. The tile taken must from the first 3 occupied spaces in front of the moon meeple (Empty spaces are skipped.).
  Move meeple: Once the active player has taken a tile, they must move the moon meeple to the space where they just took the tile from.
  Move token: The active player now moves their personal token along the moon track, they move the token a number of spaces as indicated by the time in the top left corner of the tile they just acquired, thus will move it 1-7 spaces along the track.
• Place tile: Now the active player must place the tile they took into their personal playing area.
  Placement: When placing a tile, it must go orthogonally adjacent to another tile, obviously this does not apply to the first tile placed.
• Check tasks: Once the active player has placed the tile, they should check to see if tasks on already placed tiles and also the tile they just placed have now been completed. How are tasks completed? Read on.
  • Task criteria: ​Inside each circle on a tile will be 1-4 dots of varying colour. When other tiles with colours that match those dots are connected to this tile, that task on this tile is completed.
    Note: A set of orthogonally connected tiles with the same colour can all be counted as connected. Thus if a task requires 3 connected red tiles, if  3 reds are connected to each other, then only one of them needs to be connected to the tile with the task.
  • Place token: Once a task has been completed, the active player should place one of their tokens on the pertinent circle to mark it as completed.
    It is possible to complete more than one task at a time and place as many discs as required.

• Next player: Once the active player has completed their turn, play progresses to whoever is now furthest back along the moon track. If the active player has taken a tile with a very low number, it's possible that they will still at the back and will become the active player again.

Endgame
There are 2 ways the game can end.

• Tokens: If a player has placed all their personal tokens on tasks in their play area, then the game immediately ends and they win.
• Tiles: If the supply of tiles is depleted, the game ends and the player who has the least tokens remaining, i.e., whoever has completed the most tasks wins the game.

Overall
Nova Luna's new moon/lunar theme is a bit left field and in fact, the rulebook actually describes Nova Luna as an abstract game. However, abstract nature aside, let's discuss the gameplay.

Nova Luna presents two elements that player will need to think about, which are the drafting and then placement of tiles.

The drafting element presents players with some potentially interesting choices.
Taking a tile will likely alter the active player's position in the turn order.
They will generally have the option of taking 1 of 3 the tiles ahead of the moon meeple. When the situation occurs that there are less than 3 they can elect to fill the spaces but may choose not to, instead selecting from the smaller selection if those tiles are what they want.
Players can sometimes manipulate the situation to get more tiles they need as there may be times when the active player could take a tile with a low time value and immediately act again, however, what's to stop a player always doing that?
Well, tiles with low time values tend to have tasks that are harder to complete and require more connections. So there's a bit of a balancing mechanic there.

Tile placement is also very important.
It's vital to try and think ahead when doing this
Optimal tile placement is key.
Players will want to position tiles so that they complete current tasks but also leaves tile edges open to complete tasks later in the game or open to be connected to other tiles later on.
Like a lot of games of this type. It will be tricky to always place the tile you want, when you want and they'll be moments of frustration when this occurs. Sometimes players will to adapt or change tactic.

While I feel that Nova Luna is a game that plays well and I'd have no problems joining a game if someone wanted to play. It is however, also the kind of game I've played a lot before.
The whole draft and place tile gameplay is something that's already been done quite a lot and while some of the mechanics utilised for this in Nova Luna are unique, I don't think it's enough to differentiate itself from other games of its type.

If you've played games similar in gameplay to Nova Luna, you probably won't find much in here that's new.
However, if you're new to this kind of game or looking for a game in this style, then Nova Luna is equally worth considering, it's not particularly difficult to learn and gives players meaningful decisions and choices to balance in a bright and colour package.

11th November 2022

It's a Friday and I'm at the office in Woking for some end-of-week gaming fun.

You know you can't go wrong when you're playing a board game set in Renaissance Italy.
In this case it's Florence and about princes which is about as Renaissance as it gets! All you need are some Medici and Borgia to round it all off!

In The Princes of Florence players take on the role of wealthy nobles trying to out do each other by enticing artist and scholars to their estates to create 'works' which in turn gives players bragging rights - which is what is important obviously.

• Cards: There are several types of cards in The Princes of Florence.
  Bonus cards: These cards can increase the value of works when they are created. 
  Prestige cards:  Endgame bonus PPs can possibly be earned by prestige cards.
  Profession cards: There are 21 professions in the game that players will be looking to recruit.
  Recruiting cards: Used to err.. recruit professions! Specifically, profession cards played by other players.
• Tiles: There are landscape and building tiles and they're sort of tetramino shaped. Building tiles: There are 10 types and they come in small, medium and large. Each one depicts a building of some sort, ranging from a chapel to a university.
  Landscape tiles: There are parks, lakes and forests.
• Tokens: There are a number of card tokens.
  Freedoms: There are rectangular tokens for each of the 3 'freedoms', freedom of travel, opinion and religion.
  Builders: Square tokens represent builders, which aid when acquiring building tiles.
  Jesters: These are circular tokens. Jesters provide bonuses when scoring the value of a work.
  Money: Finally, there's circular tokens of various sizes to represent differing denominations of florins; the game's currency.
• Pawns: There's a pawn in each player colour used to track PPs as well as a black 'first player' pawn.
• Discs: There are also chunky scoring discs in each player colour to track work values, there is also a black disc is used to track the round count.

All the components in The Princes of Florence are well made. The tokens and cards are what you'd expect. The tetramino tiles feel nice and sturdy, as do the game and player boards.
Amusingly, the pawns are all wearing wide-brimmed hats, got to have some protection from that scorching Mediterranean sun!

Broadly speaking there there are 2 art styles utilised in The Princes of Florence.
Tiles, tokens and some of the player boards are decorated with full colour illustrations. They are quite stylised and almost simplistic illustrations but they are effective and feel appropriate for the setting.
All the game's cards (Particularly the profession cards.) are illustrated with a sepia coloured line art style. It contrasts with the art style but also compliments it and again, is appropriate for the setting.
The standout art-wise is the game board where nearly each space on the scoring track has its own unique illustration. It shows that little extra effort put into the presentation that shows care for the game which I appreciate.

There's little in the way of iconography, mostly its appears on the player boards in the form of silhouetted tetramino shapes for buildings but even so, they are also labelled.
Most information is relayed through text. Speaking of which...
The game uses a distinct and flowery font for text. It looks suitable for a renaissance themed game but can be a little harder to read than it could be and also tends to make the player board and cards a little more complex then they actually are.
It's a minor quibble and in no way a gamebreaker though.

On to play
The Princes of Florence is played over 7 rounds.
Each round is divided into an auctioning phase and an action phase.
Auctions allow players to bid for items which will aid them during action phases.
The action phase uses the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.

• Auction phase: During this phase, players may bid on 1 of 7 different objects, there are some rules for auctions.
  • Auctions: In a round, there will be a number of auctions equal to the number players, additionally, there are some rules when resolving auctions.
  • Opening bid: Whoever starts a bid chooses 1 of the 7 objects to bid on. The objects are: Forest/Lake/Park landscape tile, builder token, jester token, prestige card or recruitment card.
    Once they've placed their opening bid, other players in clockwise order may place a higher bid or pass.
  • Passing: If a player passes on a bid for any reason, then they are out for the rest of that particular auction.
    Winning: When all players bar one pass, that player wins the auction, the winner take the object they won pays for it and cannot participate in any further auctions in that round. Thus, a player can only 1 object per round through auctions.
  • 1 auction per object type: Once a object has been won in an auction, no further objects of that type can be bid on.
  • Objects: When a player wins a bid, they take 1 of the 7 following objects as explained below:
    Landscape tiles: Forest lakes and parks. When one of these is taken, it must immediately be placed on their board's grid.
    Builders: These tokens are added to their allotted spaces on the player board going from left-to-right. They will provide bonuses when building.
    Jesters: These tokens should placed on the palazzo space, they increase the value of works... with the strength of their humour I guess!
    Prestige cards: Draw 5 and keep 1, placed the remainder at the bottom of the deck.
    Recruitment cards: Take a recruitment card, it can be used immediately or saved and used during the controlling player's turn later.
    Playing recruitment card allows a player to take a profession card that has been played by another player.
  • End of auction: Once all players have won an auction, play progresses to the action phase.
• Action phase: During their turn, the active player may perform 2 actions from the following list of 5.
  • Build: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player may buy and place a building tile on their grid. The tile can be placed in any orientation on the grid but cannot be directly adjacent to another building unless the player has acquired at least 2 builder tokens. Builder tokens can also give discounts to the cost of buying buildings.
    Finally, when a building has been placed on the grid, the player immediately earns 3PPs.
  • Acquire a bonus card: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player pays for a bonus card and draws 5 cards from the deck and keeps 1, returning the 4 other cards to the bottom of the deck.
  • Buy a 'Freedom': This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active player may buy one of the freedoms and immediately places it on the appropriate space on their player board.
  • Buy a profession card: This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active pays for a profession card then draws 5 and keeps 1, returning the other 4 to the bottom of the deck.
  • Complete a work: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    With this action, the active player may complete a 'work', this has several steps and involves calculating the work's 'value'.
    Play profession card: The active must play a profession card from their hand. Each profession has 3 things they 'want'; a building, landscape and freedom. Each one of these that that the active player owns will add to the work's value.
    Jesters and profession cards in hand or played also add to the value.
    Finally, if the active player has a bonus card, it can be played now to add to the value of the work.
    From this, the value of the work will be calculated.
    Minimum work value: If a work's value does not meet the minimum value of works for the round, it cannot be completed. Minimum values start at 7 in round 1 and go up to 17 in round 7.
    Rewards: Once a work has been completed and it's value has been calculated, the active play will gain rewards.
    ​Firstly; the active player moves their disc to along the scoring track to the number that matches the work's value.
    Then the active player gains 100 Florins per point. The player can choose to keep the money or immediately trade it in for PPs at a cost of 200 Florins per PP. This must be done immediately, it cannot be done later.
• Earn money: This is not one of the actions a player can take per se but any point in the game, any player may spend PPs to gain Florins at a rate of 100 Florins per PP.
• ​Next Player: Once the active player has completed their 2 actions, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Next round: Once all player have completed their turns, the round is over and the following 2 steps occur.
  Best Work: Whoever has created the single highest value work for the round gains 3PPs. All players should remove their discs in preparation of scoring works in the following round.
  First player: The first player marker should be moved to the player on the left who will start the bidding in the next round.

Endgame
Once the 7th round has been completed, the game goes to scoring.
Players now reveal any prestige cards they've acquired and score them, adding whatever they're worth to their score on the game board.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
In terms of gameplay, there's some nice mechanics going on. There's some interesting balancing that occurs with buildings. By virtue of their sizes, the larger buildings will be harder to fit in the grid and take up more room but they are wanted by more professions.

Auctioning in particular is also well balanced.
Because a player can only win 1 auction per round, it means someone who has a lot of cash cannot dominate all the proceedings. It means that every player can only ever get 1 object per round and it means that if a player has lost every auction and is the last player left in it, they can get any remaining object, unopposed and for just the cost of the opening bid.

During the action phase, synchronicity is important. Getting landscapes, buildings, freedoms and professions that 'riff' off each is very useful. E.g., both the goldsmith and bell maker want a 'workshop, or both the theologian and painter want freedom of travel.

Players will be looking to optimise their decisions especially when it comes to creating works which is a major source of income and potentially PPs.
Why is this so important? The Princes of Florence only has 7 rounds, which is only 7 auctions and 14 actions! Even the most efficient of players will probably find themselves unable to do everything they want they want to do in the rounds given. This forces them to make difficult decisions which is generally a good thing.

The Princes of Florence also has distinct early and late game states. Early on players will be looking to build up their estate, buildings, freedoms etc. In the late game they will likely be looking to create as many works as possible and convert them to PPs. If a player creates 2 works in a round, only the highest value one counts for end of round best work bonus but both will pay out Florins and consequently PPs.

I suppose that The Princes of Florence is a sort of 'mid-weight' game and by that I mean a game that isn't too complex but probably has a bit too much going on to be a good introductory or crossover game.
With having to win auctions to gain certain objects and cards, buildings to place, works to create and more, as well as having to consider how everything relates to everything else, there's a lot to think about.

But for more seasoned players, The Princes of Florence is a solid experience with well structured gameplay elements that all have a clear purpose which in turn presents players with meaningful decisions to make.
It also blends the individual aspect of a player building up their own palazzo and estate with the interaction of auctioning and drafting.
The Princes of Florence is definitely one to try.

11th August 2022

Thursday is here again and we're in Aldershot for more gaming goodness.

Do you like dungeons (Of the D&D kind of course...)? Do you like interior decoration?
Well now you can channel your inner ​malevolent Changing Rooms desires in this tile laying game of stylish dungeon creation for your fiendish and and most definitely picky overlord!

What's in a game?

• Dungeon tiles: These card tiles are all double-sided and come in 2 types.
  • Generic tiles: These tiles all have a 'grey' background and are also identical, one side features a room and the other, a tunnel passageway.
  • Dungeon tiles: These 120 tiles form the bulk of the game's tiles and they all have black backgrounds.
    Some dungeon tiles will contain assistant icons, more on assistants below.
    Decoration side: This side will display numerous types of icons to represent different decorations. Additionally, the decoration side may also contain a green symbol, this is symbol that can temporarily become a wild symbol when used in conjunction with a ​decorative mimic token. There may also be colour on the corner.
    Curiously, the manner in which the icons are presented on this side also provides information on what dungeon feature will be found on the other side.
    E.g., white icons at the edge mean a entrance way, so 2 white icons opposite edges of the tile would indicate a corridor, a white symbol on the edge of all 4 sides of a tile would indicate a crossroads. 
    This side also contains a unique number.
    Dungeon side: This other side displays various dungeon features such as rooms, junctions, tunnels, etc. Whilst many of the features will be grey, others will have colours.
• Starting tiles: There's one of these crossroad tiles for each player.
• Hourglass tiles: There are 3 of these and they're used to trigger the game end.
• Cards: Cards in Dungeon Decorators provide scoring opportunities to work towards and they also come in 4 types.
  Shape goal cards: This kind of card will score VPs for the player if their dungeon corridors and rooms matches the shape criteria on the card.
  Decoration goal cards: These cards can score VPs, provided the player meets it's decorative criteria.
  Blue boss goal cards: These cards are illustrated with a big bad boss who might be the dungeon's ruler. Boss cards provide a global scoring opportunity, that is, a boss card can score points for all players.
  ​Yellow boss goal cards: Functionally identical to the blue boss cards but providing a different type of global scoring opportunity and... in yellow.​
• Player boards: These come in player colours and each one features a humorous take on dungeon-themed interior decoration along with suitably cartoony artwork.
  Finally, each board contains 2 spaces to contain up to 2 dungeon tiles if a player decides to reserve them.
• Wooden cubes: Wooden cubes! There's only 4 of them though, coming in player colours, they are used to track players' scores.
• Pawns: These are the classic pawns you would find in classic games and come in player colours. They aren't used to move around a board or anything like that. Instead they're used to track turn order.
• Draft board: This board contains 2 rows of 5 spots for player pawns, one row at the top and one at the bottom.
  Between these 2 rows is another row, this time it's a row of 4 box shaped spaces to place dungeon tiles, between boxes 2 and 3 is the special 'middle' space. More on the draft board later.
• Tokens: There are 10 each of these 2 types of token.
  Arcane architect tokens: A round card token.
  Decorative mimic tokens: A colourful square token with a grinning face!
• Bags: Dungeon Decorators comes with not 1 but 2 bags (1 blue and 1 red!) to draw tiles from!

Component quality is good throughout Dungeon Decorators as you'd expect from any modern game. The tiles and tokens are all suitable sturdy as the cards, nothing bad here but nothing standout either.
The wooden cubes are a welcome addition and the traditional playing pawns are plastic - and that's fine, although to be honest they feel like a bit of left-field choice but they're also relatively big and practical, so that's good.

Most of the game's art appears on the player boards and cards, particularly the boss cards but it even carries over to some of the tokens. With bright and cartoony character art, it conveys the game's humorous theme and it's an appealing style.
Artwork for the corridors, junctions and rooms is straightforward but always practical.

There's quite a few icons to Dungeon Decorators though and players will need to learn them. This is most apparent with the decoration side of the dungeon tiles where there's the 'double-whammy' of not only having to learn what the various icons represent, but what their positioning in relation to each other means.
It's a bit fiddly and belies the games light theme and rules and will probably require referring to the rules.

How's it player?
Setup

• ​Dungeon tiles: Shuffle the ​dungeons tiles into a face-down stack. Remove 20 tiles from the game, then put 50 tiles into the blue bag, put the other 50 into the red bag, now add the 3 hourglass tiles to the red bag.
  Finally, give both bags a good shake.
• Boss cards: Sort the boss cards into their 2 types and shuffle both into face-down decks.
  Deal 1 card from both decks: These are the global scoring objectives for the game.
• Goal cards: Sort the goal card into their 2 types and shuffle them into 2 face-up decks.
• Players: Give each player the following.
  Pawn and game board in their player colours.
  A starting tile.
  Deal 3 shape goal cards and 3 decoration goal cards to each player, then everyone should discard any 2 of those cards. All discards should be done face-down.
• First player: Randomly determine the turn order for the game's 1st round. Player pawns should be placed accordingly from left-to-right along the top row on the draft board.

On to play
The objective in Dungeon Decorators is to create a dungeon in certain shapes as well as adding decorations to the dungeon in certain positions.
What these shapes and positions will be is determined by the 2 boss cards which will apply to all players and by individual goal cards players have hidden in their hands.
During each round, the active player's turn is split into 5 phases.
Dungeon Decorators does not follow the usual turn structure, once the active player has completed their actions, play does not progress to the player on their left, instead the next player is determined by whose pawn is next in line on the draft board.
The following occurs in a round:

• Draft board: First, any tiles still on the draft board from the previous round should be discarded out of the game.
  Drawing tiles: Tile will initially be drawn from the blue bag. Once all the tiles have been used form this bag, players switch to drawing from the red bag and it's the red bag that contains hourglasses which trigger the game end.
  Draw 4 tiles from the current bag and fill the 4 boxes on the draft board. For this, the decoration side is used. The order the tiles go on to the boxes is determined by the number on each tile. The lowest numbered goes on the leftmost and going rightward in increasing numerical order, so that the highest numbered tile goes on the furthest right.
• Draft tile: Whoever is first on the draft board goes first.
  They decide which tile they want to take and place their pawn on the adjacent spot on the opposite row. This will determine the player's position in the turn order for the next round.
  Middle space: If the player puts their pawn on the middle space which has no tile, the instead randomly draw a tile from the current bag.
  Then they take the tile.
• Activate assistant: Some tiles will display 1 of 4 assistant icons, these are immediately resolved when that tile is chosen.
  Goblin sapper: Allows the active player to take a generic tile which can be stored or played as per the tile placement rules (Explained below.).
  Burrow bro: The active player draws 2 tiles from the current bag, then along with the initial tile they drew, they choose which of the 3 to use, the other 2 are discarded out of play.
  Arcane architect: The active player take a arcane architect token.
  The active player may spend one of these tokens during their build phase. This allows them to reposition a tile that they've already played in a previous build phase, this includes being able to flip from one side to the other. Usual building rules apply.
  ​Decorative mimic: The active player takes one of these tokens, they can be spent during the scoring phase in their turn or during game end scoring.
  In either case, a  token can be used to make a green symbol represent any type of decoration for the purposes of a single scoring opportunity.
• Build: During this phase, the active player can chose one of the following actions.
  • Store: The tile just taken by the player can be put on to a empty box on their personal player board, each player board has room for 2 tiles.
  • Play tile: In this instance, the active player must then add the tile to their personal dungeon. There are of course some restrictions to this.
    Decoration tile: A decoration tile must be placed with at least 1 side adjacent to a wall on a dungeon card. A decoration cannot placed against a open passageway so as to block it.
    Dungeon tile: At least 1 open side of a dungeon tile must connect to another open passageway in the player's actual dungeon - it must be possible to trace a line from the newly placed tile to the starting tile. However a passageway from a dungeon tile cannot lead directly into a decoration.
    Furthermore, there should always be at least 1 unfinished passage way in a players dungeon after placing a tile.
  • Discard: If a player cannot build or store a tile, it must be discarded out of play.
• Score: The active player may reveal 1 or more goal card from their hand and score them. Points are immediately added to the score tracker and the played cards are discarded.
• Refill hand: If the active players has less than 4 goal cards, they draw from either of the decks, one at time until they have 4 in hand.
• Next player: Once the active player has finished their turn, player progresses to the next player on the draft board.
• Next round: Once all player have gone, new tiles are drawn to fill the draft board and a new round begins with a new turn order according to pawn positioning on the draft board.

Endgame
There are 2 ways the game can end.

If the 3rd and final hourglass is drawn from the red bag when refilling the spaces on the draft board, then the game immediately ends.
If the final hourglass is drawn during an action, such as placing a pawn in the middle space on the draft board our using a burrow bro action, then the current round is played out and the game ends with players having had even turns.

There are a variety of ways to score VPs.

• Goal cards: These should already be tracked on the score tracker.
• Boss goals: Boss cards reward VPs to players for having the most of some criteria related to dungeon or decoration tiles. The player with the most gains 10 VPs, 2nd place gets 4.
• Stars: Stars on dungeon tiles in a player's dungeon score VPs.
• Number of colours: Players score VPs for having different colours on dungeon tiles in their dungeon. More different colours means more VPs
• Amount of colour: Players also score VPs for the how many dungeon tiles of a single colour in their dungeon. The large the number of that colour, the more VPs.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
No doubt about it, Dungeon Decorators has a quirky theme along with quirky presentation to go with it.
At it's heart though, it's a pretty straightforward game of it's type, draft a tile and play it into a expanding network of tiles to maximise connections, albeit with a couple of nice little innovative touches in the form tile flipping and personal scoring opportunities, which I'll talk about below.
​
As is typical of this kind of game, players will need to position tiles in order to optimise the points they will score. 
Talking of scoring, Dungeon Decorators provides 2 clear routes to scoring points; how a dungeon is shaped and how decorations are placed which brings to me to the double-sided tiles.
​When placing a tile, players will need to choose which side to use and this will be heavily contextual. Players will need to take into consideration what tiles they already have in play as well as their personal goal cards and global scoring cards.

Unlike most tile-laying games, there's no connection between different scoring opportunities on the tiles, that is shape and decoration scoring is completely separate to each other with no way to place a tile to score both, it's one or the other. Yet, they also rely on each other or at least decoration tiles rely upon their presence of walls to be placed against. This means players will need to think, how can they can place a dungeon shape that allows me to play decorations.

Personal goal cards are also an interesting addition.
Firstly, they add some asymmetrical scoring opportunities which will lead to player adopting different approaches to what they prioritise and essentially some asymmetrical  tactics.
Secondly, they provide players with some flexibility when deciding how to prioritise certain elements of the game.
E.g., a when scoring goal cards, a player can choose to only draw shape goal cards and concentrate on playing dungeon tiles over decorations.

​However, even with these 2 innovative mechanics, I feel that Dungeon Decorators fails to stand out of the crowd. For me it doesn't feel different enough to other games of s similar type.
It's a perfectly acceptable game with solid core gameplay that provides an entertaining experience and I would happily play this if someone else wanted to but there are other games I would personally choose over Dungeon Decorators.

If you're a big fan of drafting, tile laying games and want to try something familiar but a fresh twist on the mechanics or the fun theme tickles your fancy, then you may want to give this a look-in.

4th August 2022

It's a Thursday and we're round Simon's for a evening of gaming entertainment.
​
Cascadia: 'A land of falling waters,' generally referring to a large wilderness area in the Pacific north-west of the USA.

In Cascadia players vie to create a diverse landscape of habitats and wildlife in this tile placement game.

What's in a game?

• Tiles: Cascadia uses 2 types of hex tile, however, they all share some common features.
  Each hex space will feature 1 or 2 of the game's 5 habitats and 1-3 of the 5 wildlife types. Finally some hex spaces will have a pinecone icon - usually this is a hex that only has 1 habitat and 1 animal on it.
  Starter tiles: There are 5 of these and they are a little different from the main tile in that they are actually 3 hex tiles combined into 1.
  Habitat tiles: There are about 80 of these tiles.
  The game's 5 habitats are:
  Forest
  Mountain
  Prairie
  River
  Wetland
• Tokens: There are a 100 wooden disc tokens in the game that come in 5 types. Each type represents a different animal/colour.
  Bear/brown
  Elk/earthy brown
  Fox/orange
  Hawk/blue
  Salmon/red
• Bag: A small used in conjunction with the tokens.
• Cards: There are 5 types of card in Cascadia for the 5 wildlife types and 4 cards in each type, thus 20 cards in total. One card will be used from each wildlife type during the game.
  Cards provide different scoring opportunities for each wildlife type as explained below. Additionally each of the 4 cards for all wildlife have slightly different scoring criteria and are rated A-D with A being the easiest to score and D the hardest.
  The different types of card score as follows.
  Bear: Bears score for being solitary or in small packs as determined by their card,  generally they cannot be adjacent to other bears.
  Elk: These score by being in herds, the shape the herd must take will be dictated by the elk card used.
  Fox: Foxes score by being adjacent to different wildlife types.
  Hawk: These score by being in line-of-sight of other hawks, generally they cannot be adjacent to other hawks.
  Salmon: Salmon score by being in a continuous line, the longer the better.
• Pinecone tokens: These are standard card tokens that depict pinecones. After being acquired, pinecones may be spent to trigger a couple of special actions or score VPs at the game end.

For the most part the components are all high quality. The tiles and tokens are sturdy and the wildlife tokens in particular are chunky and tactile.
The pinecone tokens are average quality by modern standard - which means perfectly acceptable.
The same is true of the cards, they feel a little flimsy but since they're only used to display information and won't really be handled much, they too are perfectly acceptable.

The art used on cards is fantastic, having said that, each set of 4 only uses 2 images which are flipped and used a 2nd time, it's a minor quibble but it feels touch cheap.
Art on the tiles is good too but is hard to appreciate since they are relatively small. Importantly, it's also uncluttered, differences between habitats is for the most part very easy to distinguish. Similarly, the wildlife icons are easy seen.

As a minor aside: Prairies are depicted as yellow, which I guess represent dry grasslands. The yellow definitely does not represent desert! And yes; some of the yellow tiles have salmon icons on them, because, believe it or not, prairies can have water features.
If you ever play the game and someone says, 'why are their fish in the desert', then let them know!!
Anyway, back to talking about components.

The iconography is easily understood in Cascadia. It's obvious what the wildlife ​icons represent and the icon for pinecones is equally as obvious.

How's it play?
Setup

• Starting tiles: Randomly give a starting tile to each player who should put it face-up in their personal playing area.
• Cards: Sort the cards by type and shuffle them into 5 face-down decks. Draw 1 from each deck and put them into a face-up row.
  These will provide players will the scoring criteria for the wildlife tokens.
• Wildlife tokens: Put all the wildlife tokens into the bag and give it a good shake.
• Tiles: Select the number of tiles to use as per player count and shuffle them into some face-down stacks, the exact number of stacks does not matter.
• Drafting area: Draw 4 tiles and place them in a row, next draw 4 wildlife tokens and put them in a row adjacent to the 4 tiles.
  ​Thus there will be 4 pairs each of 1 tile and 1 token.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Cascadia, players will draft tiles and wildlife tokens, using them to create a personal landscape by placing tiles adjacent to each other and putting tokens on top of them in order to create habitats and patterns of animals to score points.
Cascadia follows a usual turn order with the active player resolving their action before play progresses to their left.

• Overpopulation: The first thing the active player must do is check the wildlife tokens in the drafting area for overpopulation.
  4 identical tokens: If all 4 wildlife tokens are identical, the active player must remove all of them, put them to one side and draw 4 new wildlife tokens.
  3 identical tokens: If 3 of the 4 tokens are identical, the active player may choose to put the 3 tokens to one side and draw 3 new ones.
  It is possible to trigger overpopulation multiple times dependant on the tokens that are drawn but regardless of this, once overpopulation no longer occurs, return all set aside tokens back to the bag (And give it a good shake!).
• Pinecone tokens: If a player has acquired any pinecone tokens on previous turns (See below for info getting them.) then they can be spent for 1 of 2 actions.
  Take any tile and token: This actions allows the active player to take any tile and any wildlife token, regardless of their positions in the drafting area.
  Remove any wildlife tokens: The active player may set aside any number of wildlife tokens and then draw new tokens to replace them. Rules for overpopulation still apply here.
• Draft: The active player takes one of the 4 pairs of 1 tile and 1 wildlife token and according to the following rules, places them in their playing area.
• Place tile: The active must put the tile with one of it's faces adjacent to the face of a tile already in play. When placing tiles, the habitats on the tiles do not need to match, i.e., you can place mountains next to rivers but's a good idea to do so. Larger habitats score more VPs later on.  
• Place wildlife token: Wildlife tokens can only go on a tile that contains the matching animal icon. E.g., a fox token can only be placed on a tile which has a fox icon.
  If a wildlife token is placed on to a tile with a pinecone icon, then the active player immediately takes a pinecone token and adds it to their personal supply.
• Replacements: A new tile is drawn from a stack and a new wildlife ​token is drawn from the bag to replace those that were drafted.
• Next player: Play now progresses to the player left of the active player.

Endgame
Play continues until all the face-down stacks of tiles have been depleted and only 3 tiles remain in the drafting area, which should also be a even number of player turns.
VPs are scored from several sources.

• Meeting the scoring criteria on the 5 cards.
• Players score VPs for the biggest single grouping of tiles for each of the 5 habitats. If a player has groupings of 2 mountains and 5 mountains, they only score the group of 5 mountains. The bigger the grouping, the more VPS
  Bonus: For each of the 5 habitats, bonus VPs are awarded to the player with the biggest grouping of that habitat and the player with the 2nd biggest grouping.
• Pinecones: Each unspent pinecone contributes a VP.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
The rulebook for Cascadia talks about the real life habitats and biomes that inspired the game and it's obvious that this is one of those games where a bit of extra attention has been put into the details. 

On to the game itself: Cascadia has a nice mixture of quick to learn rules and depth of gameplay.
This depth comes from forcing players to make tricky and meaningful decisions. This occurs because Cascadia has 3 axis' of play which will influence players' choices.

The first comes from wanting tiles with specific habitats on them; players may want to expand their forests or rivers for example and will be looking for tiles that facilitate that.
The second axis comes from also wanting tiles with specific wildlife icons. If a player needs a fox token in a certain spot, then they'll need a tile with a fox icon.
The third and final axis comes from getting the actual wildlife tokens that are needed to score the wildlife cards.

​All of this means that it's unlikely that players will get all 3 that they want when picking a single pair which would be a no-brainer, they'll probably end getting 2 of they want and sometimes only 1.
​Players will need to adapt and re-strategize contextually, look to optimise their picks and finding other scoring opportunities. Players will probably have to gamble a little bit on getting what they need later in the game.

Pinecone tokens can of course change things. Used at the right time they can really open up a player's choices, getting any pair can make a difference, as can clearing all wildlife tokens in the drafting area if a player is really looking for a certain token.

Cascadia also has a fairly quick playtime, although it sort of occupies a game length that's way too long to be a filler but a little too short to fill an entire evening. I don't consider that a bad thing, you could just play twice! The randomness in setup and scoring gives it a lot of replayability.

If I had a criticism of Cascadia, it would be that sometimes the card scoring can be a little unclear and finicky. The rulebook does offer elaborations on this, but it's a definite little niggle.

Otherwise though, I think Cascadia is ab excellent tile-laying and set collectiing game.
For me it ticks a lot of boxes that good games should; straightforward rules, some depth for decision making and a brisk playtime.
It's one of those games I frequently like to carry in my board game bag when going to game events, so if I meet someone who's never met played Cascadia, they can try it.
As should you!

31st July 2022

It's a Sunday night and we're logged into Board Game Arena for a evening of gaming entertainment.

Chrome: A reference to colour (Not the browser!).
Ino: The last syllable of 'domino'.
Chromino: Colour domino!

And that's exactly what Chromino is - dominos with colours instead of numbers.

Caveat: We've only ever played Chromino digitally.

What's in the game?

• Tiles: These tiles are not the usual dominoes though. Instead of having 2 numbers, they have 3 colours. One colour on each end and one in the middle in any combination of 5 colours.
• Wild tiles: There are 5 wild tiles, these differ from the normal in that their centre spaces contain 'wild' colours which can be used as any colour.
• Bag: The physical version of the game also comes with a draw, that tiles are blindly drawn from.

There's very little to be said about the components here. No artwork is used, only 5 colours: blue, green, purple, red and yellow. These are bright plain colours too with no symbology to help colour blind players distinguish between them, which seems like a bit of a omission by today's standards.

Only 1 icon is used in Chrominos - which is the 'wild' symbol that always appears on a white background in the centre space.

How's it play?
Setup

• Starting tile: Randomly draw one of the wild tiles and place it into the central playing area.
• Players: Each player should randomly draw 8 tiles from the remaining tiles, keeping them hidden from other players.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Chromino, players take turns playing tiles from their hand with the intention of emptying their hand first and thus winning.
On their turn, the active player will perform 1 of the following actions.

• Play tile: If the active player can play a tile, they must do so, however, there is a specific rule when doing so.
  2 contact rule: When a tile is played, it must be placed orthogonally adjacent to another tile already in play and at least 2 of its colours must orthogonally touch matching colours. Mismatched colours cannot touch. A wild symbol counts as any colour and this applies to a tile in play or about to be played.
• Draw tile: If the active player cannot play a tile they must draw a new one.
  If the tile they drew can be played, then it must be played.
  Otherwise the new tile is added to the player's hand.
• Next player: Once the active player has played or drawn a tile, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
When a player has only 1 tile remaining in their hand, they must shout "Uno!", or more sensibly just announce this is their last tile to all other players and then turn that last tile face-up for all to see. Play then continues normally. 
A new rule is introduced when a player has a only 1 tile left; which is that the last tile a player puts down cannot be a wild tile. If this would be the case, they must draw a new one instead.

Then, when a player places their final tile, the current round is concluded and any players who have placed all their tiles are declared winners.

Overall
From the brevity of the rules description, it's apparent that Chromino is a light game, which is no bad thing, it makes the game easy to learn and accessible to non gamers. It is after all, dominoes.

For me though, this level of simplicity makes the game unengaging.
I know there's a touch of strategy to be found from watching other players, possibly seeing which colours they're having trouble matching and trying to put those colours out to stymy them.
Also, when a player reveals their last tile, opponents will get an idea on how to block it but truth be told, it will also rely on luck to use these strategies.

This brings me to my main issue with the game: It's just very heavily dependent on luck more than anything else.
They'll be times when someone won't be able to play anything and will just have add a tile to their hand. This becomes even more frustrating when you watch an opponent then play a tile, this now means there's now a 2-tile difference between you and them - which in Chromino can be quite a lot.
And this seemed borne out in play. Often there would be a player - who through no fault of their own would have 2 or 3 more tiles than their opponents. Usually it meant they would never be in the running to win.

So unengaging and frustrating is how I would summarise Chromino.
​I'm not sure who would like it, fans of heavier games will shy away from this and more casual players will probably gravitate to more traditional games.
However, if you want a lightweight game a bit like dominoes... well you could just play dominoes.

23rd June 2022

It's another Thursday evening and we're in Aldershot for another gaming night.

​Village Green - a local game for local people?
It turns out that competitions between local villages to have the best village green can be serious business!

What's in a game?

• Green cards: These cards each depict some garden feature such as trees, a fountain or a gazebo.
  In the top-left of most cards is a symbol which dictates the card's flower type and colour.
  At the bottom of the card may be one or more of various icons, such as types of trees, lawns etc. These are mainly used to meet scoring criteria, although some symbols have special actions associated with them.
• Award cards: These cards all contain scoring criteria, that is, ways to score points from green cards. There's a pretty diverse selection of scoring methods here. Some of the cards include ways to lose VPs which player will obviously want to avoid.
• Village cards: There are 5 of these double sided cards. The 'front' of each card depicts a individual village in full colour (Along with 1 VP.), while the flip side show's the same village but monotone and missing the VP.

​Well that's it for the components - a deck of cards.
The card quality average and what you'd expect from games nowadays.

Watercolour styled artwork is used throughout the game on the green and village cards. depicting various items that could be found on an English village green (SIC). It's a pleasant style and the artwork all looks appropriately good, fitting it's theme quite nicely.

The iconography is not so well implemented though. I felt the symbols used for the different types of flower could have been a bit more distinct or individual, especially since the icons are quite small.
I also felt the 3 different types of tree icon displayed on the bottom of the green cards and award cards could have had been more distinctive.
Otherwise, the iconography is fine.

How's it play?
Set up

• Village cards: Randomly deal a village cards to each player. Each should put it down face-up with the side showing 1 VPS.
  This will constitute the top-left of their 'tableau' in their personal playing area.
• Green cards: Take the allotted number of green cards (As determined by player count.) and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
  Next; deal 3 green cards face-down to each player.
  Finally, draw 3 cards from the deck and place in them face-up in a row next to the deck.
• Award cards: Shuffle the award cards into a face-down deck. Unlike the starting green cards, 3 award cards are dealt FACE-UP to each and placed in a row next each player's respective village card and are considered already in play.
  Then, as with the green cards, draw 3 award cards and place them face-up in a row next to the award card deck.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
The objective in Village Green is to construct a tableau of 3x3 green cards while on the 'outside' of this 3x3 grid create a row and column of award cards to score points off of the green cards. Thus creating an overall 4x4 grid - including the village card which will be in the top-left corner.
Village Green uses the usual turn structure of having the active player complete their action then having play progress to the player on their left.
The active player can take 1 of the following 2 actions.

• Bonus action: OK, this is not 1 of the usual 2 actions a player can take, before their action, the active player may perform 1 of the 2 following action once per game by flipping their village card over (And losing the VP it provides.).
  • Wipe all 3 cards from either the green card or award row and replace them.
  • Place a green card on top of another green card (This is not permitted otherwise.), however, the criteria for matching symbols/colours must still be met - see below for more on this.
• Draw and play a green card: The active player must take one of the 3 green cards (Or draw blindly from the green card deck) from the central area and add it to their hand. Then they must play or discard any card from their hand.
  Play green card: A green card may be played face up in any part of the green card 3x3 grid, however there is a restriction; the flower type and colour must match at least 1 of the those elements with all orthogonally adjacent green cards.
  E.g., if a player wants to put down a card with a blue rose symbol, all the orthogonally adjacent cards must have either a rose type and/or blue colour.
  If there are no matching types, then a card cannot be played.
  Finally, green cards cannot be played on top of other green cards - unless the card has a lawn symbol.
  Green cards also have the following rules, depending on the symbols  at the bottom of the card.
  Lawn: If a green card has a lawn, that means it may be covered by another green card later in the game, although the usual rules about type and colour still apply. Covered cards do not score at the game end.
  Pond: Every visible pond symbol scores VPs at the game end.
  Structure: When a green cards with a structure symbol is played, the active player must immediately draw and place an award card following the usual rules for award cards.
  Trees: There are 3 types of trees and they can appear in various combinations on cards. Typically, trees are used for scoring.
• Draw and play an award card: The active player must take a award card from the display of 3 (Or draw blindly from the award deck.). Then they must play it face-up into the column or row outside the 3x3 grid. An award card can be played anywhere in a row or column and unlike green cards, may be placed on top of other award cards. This means the award card beneath is no longer scored and may be something that a player wants to do if a award card will score negative or low VPs.
• End of turn: Whenever a card is taken from either the green or award card rows, it is immediately replaced. Once the active player has concluded their action, play progress to the player on their left.

Endgame
There are 3 criteria which may end the game.
If either the green card or award card deck is depleted, or a player has placed 9 green cards, then the end has been triggered. The current is completed and the game goes to scoring.

Player score from the following sources:
A face-up village card scored 1 VP
Each visible pond scores 2 VPs.
Award cards score all the (Up to 3.) cards in their respective row/column.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
On a basic level, Village Green is a fair simple game - pick a card and play a card, which makes it straightforward and quick to understand.
However, like all good games, it's easy to learn but hard to master and this is definitely the case with this game.

What makes Village Green tricky is having to literally think 2 steps ahead. Players will need to pay attention to a green card's type and colour when playing it because it will influence what is played next to it.
Not only is positioning important when playing a green card but the order in which they are played will matter too.
E.g., putting a green card into the centre of the 3x3 grid means that all 4 orthogonally adjacent cards placed subsequently must match the flower type and colour for that card. If the centre card is played last, then it would have to match all 4 cards already played and that requires planning ahead.
Matching 3 types and 3 colours might not seem difficult but remember, players will only have a hand of 3 green cards and a row of 3 cards to draft from.
Sure, a player can keep drawing and discarding green cards to hopefully get what they need, but this can catch a player out. Once the deck is gone - it's game over. Additionally, while rinsing through green cards, other players may be completing their 3x3 grids, which is also game over.
Ultimately, players will need to commit to taking some risks and play early cards with gaps between them for some wriggle room for placing later cards and also rely on a bit of luck to get what they need.

Award cards are also tricky to manage but in a different way.
Players start with three, which can be good as it gives each player a initial individual scoring target to aim for. However, as green cards get played and players may be forced to put them in certain positions thanks to type and colour, it may end up that a award card scores less, zero or even worse - negative VPs!
Luckily, award cards can be nullified by covering them with other award cards later. This though raises another quandary for players to ponder.
The later an award card is played in the game, the harder it will be to place in a way to maximise it's scoring potential.

Finally, there's some potential for higher level play by watching what cards other players are putting down, trying to anticipate their actions and denying them what they need.
Although, since some of the icons are so small, it can be physically tricky looking at other players' tableaus with leaning over them!

All of these mechanics are good because they always provide players with meaningful decisions as they try and positions cards so that they match type and colour as well as scoring criteria.

Having written all of that brings me to a drawback of the game, which is that it can be a harsh and unforgiving experience.
Players will be frustrated when unable to play cards and are instead forced to discard. It's likely that some players will end up without all their possible green or award cards - I know I did on my first play.

So despite being easy to learn, I'm not sure this is a game for more 'casual players'? If it 'groks' with them, they'll be fine. Otherwise it'll probably take a game or two to get handle on where to player cards.

There's not denying it's a elegant, fairly engaging game. It plays quick enough and will provide players the challenge of being able to place all their cards and also optimise scoring opportunities.
Definitely worth a try in my opinion.

12th June 2022

Sunday evening is here and we're logged into Board Game Arena​ for a night of gaming.
​
Does a bear lay tiles in the woods, who knows? What I can tell you is that a bear definitely does lay tiles in the park thanks to Barenpark: A tile laying game about building a park for bears and bears only!

Caveat: we've only ever played Barenpark digitally.

What's in a game?

• Game boards: All boards feature a 4x4 grid, 6 of these 16 spaces will contain 6 icons taken from a combination of 4 different type of icons and finally, one other space will contain a 'pit' space. The remaining 9 spaces are blank.
  Boards come in 2 flavours; starting and standard.
• Tiles: Barenpark uses a number of tetromino style tiles, although many tiles are much bigger or smaller than standard 4-space tertromino tiles. Barenpark has 3 types of tile.
  Green tiles: These tiles display different facilities that would be found at a park such as toilets, playgrounds etc. Green tiles score no points.
  White tiles: A white scoring icon indicates which tiles are white tiles. White tiles represent housing for game's 4 different types of bears.
  Each of the types will have 7 tiles of varying VP value from 1-7.
  Orange tiles: Like white tiles, orange scoring icons indicate which tiles are orange tiles and these represent enclosures for the 4 different types of bears.
  Unlike white tiles, there are only 3 of each type of orange tile, they also have a varying VP value, only from 6-8 instead.
• Bear statue tokens: There are 16 of these are round tokens and are numbered 1-16 which is also their VP value.

Barenpark's art is fairly minimal but effective. It's nothing to write home about but is perfectly functional.
Tiles display artwork themed to their type, so the green tiles feature a portaloo for a toilet, a playground for a play ground and so on.
The white and green tiles show buildings and habitats pertinent to the type of bear they represent. E.g., the polar tiles appear glacial.

There are only a few icons in the game and they are easily learnt. They are also colour coded, thus the wheelbarrow icon - which is green - represents green tiles, thus white cement trucks are for white tiles and orange excavators are for orange.
The work crew icon represents construction crews which is not related to tiles.

One slight criticism here is that while there are green, white and orange tiles, some tiles which are coloured green will actually be white or orange tiles, there are also some glacial blue tiles which are actually orange.
It's a minor quibble, but players will need to remember that a tile's colour is based on its scoring icon. This could have been improved by using unique colours.

How's it play?
Setup

• Game boards: Randomly give each player a starting board.
  Take all the standard gaming boards and shuffle them into 2 equal face-up stacks in the central playing area.
• Tiles: Sort the tiles by type and put them out in the central playing area face-up as per the player count.
  White and orange tiles should be arranged with the highest value tile being placed at the top and descending in value. This means as more and more tiles get taken, the remaining point scoring tiles decrease in value.
• Bear statue tokens: Put out these tokens, again, the player count will determine which tokens are used. They should put out in numerical order.
• Determine a starting player: The starting player should take a 1-space green tile from the supply (In other words take a portaloo tile!) and place it in their playing area, NOT on the board. All other player should take 2 or 3 space tiles as per the player count rules.

On to play
In Barenpark, players complete to create the best bear park ever. Players achieve this by placing tiles on to their boards which in turn allows them to draft more tiles and boards.
​
Barenpark uses a traditional turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progress to the player on their left.
During the active player's turn, they must perform the following actions.

• Play tile: The active player must play one tile from their personal playing area if they can. Tiles can be placed anywhere except on a pit space and can go across multiple boards provided there are enough spaces, tiles may be rotated and flipped as desired. Obviously tiles must fully fit on the available board spaces and cannot go over other tiles.
  First tile: The first tile a player puts down can be anywhere on their player board. Subsequent tile placements must adjacent to a tile already on the board.
  Passing: If the active player does not have a tile available or cannot place a tile because it doesn't fit in any current space; they then must take a green tile (Of their choice.), this immediately ends their turn.
• Draft: After the active player has placed a tile on their board, if they covered any icons, then they draft tiles and/or board as pertinent. If multiple icons are covered by a single tile placement, then all icons are resolved.
  Green wheelbarrow: Every one of these icons covered allows the active to draft a green tile.
  White cement truck: A white tile may be drafted.
  ​Orange excavator: A orange tile may be drafted.
  Construction crew: Covering this icon allows the active to draft a new game board by taking a board from one of the two available stacks and adding to their existing player board.
  The new board must be placed adjacent to a board already in play in the same orientation. A player is limited to a total of 4 boards for their park but may create a park of any shape within that limit, they can be placed in a line or a 2x2 grid or a t-shape or whatever.
• Take bear statue: Now the active player checks to see if all of the 15 spaces on any of their game boards have been completely filled with tiles - except of course, for the pit space.
  If any board has been filled, then the active player takes the highest value bear statue token and places it on the empty pit space on that board, thus finally completing it.
• Next Player: Play now proceeds to the player on the left.

Endgame
When any player completes their 4th game board, that is; collects their 4th bear statue, then the endgame is triggered.
​All other players now have one more turn of play and then the game  goes to scoring.
Players add together the value of all tiles played and bear statues placed on their game boards.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Barenpark is a smart blend between easily understood, accessible rules, meaningful decisions and optimising gameplay. The game is something of a race to get the highest scoring tiles and bear statue tokens first and this can put players in something of quandary.

For the most part, players will want to draft white and orange tiles as often as possible because they score the points. They also cover more of the board and thus potentially draft more tiles. This is particularly true of orange tiles.
It means that players should be looking to cover icons with their tiles placements as effectively as possible to gain more tiles. Using an entire turn just to gain a green tile is not particularly efficient.
Having said that, greens are not bad tiles, sometimes getting green tiles is a useful move, those 1-space portaloos can fill in pesky gaps on a board, working towards getting bear statues.

Talking of bear statue tokens.
Sometimes it's worth taking a less efficient tile just to complete a board and gain a higher scoring token before another player. This is all of course contextual and dependant on the situation.

There's definitely a small degree of higher level of play going on here that comes from watching other players turns and trying to anticipate their next moves. With limited numbers of white and orange tiles, knowing which tile another player might go for gives you the option of employing a denial strategy against them or beating them to the punch for a token.

This brings me to the one criticism I have. When playing Barenpark in some circumstances it sometimes felt like that if one player got 'ahead' they tended to stay ahead.
By ahead I mean managing to fill spaces on the board before other players. This is most apparent when drafting bear statue tokens. At times you can see that a player will complete one of their boards before you and claiming the better scoring token, then they'll also be ahead for the next board and claiming the token ahead of you again.
Of course it's possible to re-prioritise and change which board you're trying to complete but since Barenpark has fairly linear gameplay (By which I mean you can only expand you tiles into areas where you already have tiles.), this can be tricky, although the endgame rules where players get an extra turn after whoever finished it probably goes some way to alleviating this.

I think Barenpark is a good, if unremarkable game that feels a little 'bland' or functional and is a little on the light side of this style of tile-placement game but I don't see that bad thing.

But quibbles aside, if you want a solid, tile-placing game that's not-too taxing but still engaging, Barenpark is a good choice.
Barenpark's accessibility and 'lightness' means means it's a good choice for a gateway or entry game.