5th August 2022 It's a Friday and we're in Aldershot for some gaming! When you go into a national park, you may find yourself hiking along trails. Which is a slightly tortured segue into how Trails is actually a follow up to the excellent Parks game and shares some similar concepts. So let's hit the errr... trail and see how it stacks up? What's in a game?
For the most part, component quality in Trails is good. The wooden meeples look and feel good as does the die. I also like the wooden resource cubes, although I'm not a big fan of the colours which I feel are a little too muted and sometimes in poor light, the grey and the green colours can feel hard to distinguish. I also found the player colours a little muted too. All the tiles and tokens are constructed of thick card and feel weighty. However, I would describe all the cards as average in quality and perhaps a little flimsy. It's not really an issue though, Trails is not a card game and they won't be handled much so should stand up to repeated handling. Without a doubt, all the art in Trails is excellent. Much of it is sourced from the Fifty-Nine Parks art project which also provided the same art for Parks and will be familiar to players of that. So even though Trails is reusing artwork, it doesn't matter because it's such good quality. Having said that, a lot of images are heavily cropped and the fact they're all on relatively small components means they just don't look as impressive. Original art appears on the badge cards in the form of a series of quite stylised images. It's a different style to art that appears on the tile and photo cards but I have to say I think it looks good. All the main icons which appear on the tiles and die are easily understood. It's not quite so obvious with some of the rewards on badge cards and players will need to refer to the rules and clarifications on occasion. It's nothing game breaking though. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Trails, players will travel back and forth along the path, taking photos and accumulating resources which they will use to buy badge cards. The game follows a typical turn structure with the active player resolving their turn before play progresses to the left. As their action, the active player can move their meeple and resolve the tile it lands on.
Endgame When a player take as sun action that moves off the last leftmost icon on the trail end, they resolve that action as usual and take the sun token. Play progresses normally, until the player to the right of sun token holder has completed their action, upon which the game ends. I.e., once sun has taken the sun token, all other players get 1 more turn. Players now calculate their VPs.
Overall
I'm not over fond of comparing one game to another, a game should be taken on it own merits but in this case, there might be some value in doing so. Parks and Trails come from the same family of games and as such share some thematic elements. Both are about hiking along tiles, collecting resources to acquire photos and cards, as well as using canteens for a bonus. However, Trails differs in several ways as explained below. Unlike it's predecessor, hikers from multiple players can happily coexist on the same space so the stress and need to try and anticipate where other players' hikers will go is gone, as the tactic of trying to block other players. It makes the game a little lighter (By no means a bad thing.) and focuses players on getting badge cards (Which are the game's biggest source of VPs.) and players will encounter something of a conundrum here. They may have the urge to collect as many resources as possible which can be prudent but at the same time, they'll want to reach the trail head & end tiles quickly to get a certain badge card before other players. Trails is a game about optimisation especially since there are only 3 types to manage - although that 8 cube limit can be punishing. I also like the addition of the day turning into night mechanic, not only is it visually pleasing to watch the sun set, it adds some momentum to the game, upping the ante by giving players more resources and making it easier to get more badge cards. Players that have done well in the early game are not guaranteed victory. So is Trails a sufficiently different game to Parks to warrant having both? I would say yes. I bought copies of both and I'm glad I did. Trails felt like an easy game to learn and despite the fairly lengthy rules writeup above, is a reasonably light game that requires a little less brain power and also a little less directly competitive. Although for a lighter game is has a reasonably long play time - far too long to be considered a filler game. That's a minor criticism though and ultimately, Trails is a fun experience and is worth trying.
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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?
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
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.
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.
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! Gaming totals for July '22 are below. It was a slow month for first plays but an overall increase in games played. Looks like we fell back on playing games we knew and loved. Total games: 57 Different games: 31 First plays: 5 Saturday 2nd on Board Game Arena
Martian Dice - 16 Lucky Numbers - 28 Sunday 3rd on Board Game Arena Pandemic - 3 Codex Naturalis - 22 Can't Stop - 17 Stella - Dixit Universe - 9 Lucky Numbers - 29 Tuesday 5th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Raccoon Tycoon - First Play! Paper Tales - 4 Thursday 7th Aldershot Race for the Galaxy - 15 Honshu - 4 Heckmeck - 12 Sushi Roll - 6 Saturday 9th on Board Game Arena Lucky Numbers - 30 Regicide - 2 Martian Dice - 17 Sunday 10th on Board Game Arena Regicide - 3 Jump Drive - 9 Dragonwood - 11 Fruit Picking - 5 Azul - 6 Lucky Numbers - 31 Martian Dice - 18 Tuesday 12th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Hellapagos - 2 Muffin Time - 3 In Vino Morte - First Play! Thursday 14th Aldershot The Crew: Deep Sea Mission - 31 Railroad Ink - 30 Saturday 16th on Board Game Arena Regicide - 4 Lucky Numbers - 32 Sunday 17th on Board Game Arena Regicide - 5 Railroad Ink - 31 Parks - 10 Can't Stop - 18 Lucky Numbers - 33 Tuesday 19th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Switch & Signal - 2 Saturday 23rd on Board Game Arena Race for the Galaxy - 16 Lucky Numbers - 34 Regicide - 6 Martian Dice - 19 Sunday 24th at The Sovereigns Love Letter: Adventure Time - First Play! - Switch & Signal - 3 Sunday 24th on Board Game Arena Regicide - 7 Loco Momo - 10 Barenpark - 3 Sushi Go! - 14 Can't Stop - 19 Lucky Numbers - 35 Tuesday 26th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Escape: The curse of the Temple - First Play! - Space Base - 13 Sunday 31st on Board Game Arena Regicide - 8 Chromino - First Play! Space Base - 14 Railroad Ink - 32 Azul - 7 Can't Stop - 20 Lucky Numbers - 36 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?
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
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.
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. 26th July 2022 It's Tuesday! That means it's time to meet up with the Woking Board Gaming Club at the The Sovereigns. Time to steal the idol... and escape, Indiana Jones has nothing on this real-time, cooperative dice game, well at least until those crappy rolls inevitably turn up! What's in a game?
Escape: The Curse of the Temple has good quality components. The tiles all feel suitably thick and sturdy. The acrylic gem tokens are kind you see in a lot of games which use them to depict gems, they are a sparkly, pleasing shade of green though. The bespoke dice and meeples are wooden which is always a nice touch. There's not much art to speak of, the tiles show flagstones and that's about it. It's clear artwork that does not get in the way. About half a dozen icons are used throughout the game, luckily they most relate to the dice and there's never a need to refer to the rules - which is a good thing since this is a real time game with a countdown. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Escape: The Curse of the Temple players are collectively attempting to explore a lost temple to find the exit and escape before becoming trapped. It's not so simple though; not only must they find the exit, they'll also need to activate the gem tiles and spaces to make their escape possible. The game is played over 3 rounds and does not use a typical turn structure. Instead, turns are actually synchronous, in other words, players perform all their actions at the same time and in real time! This involves all players rolling their dice and resolving their actions simultaneously. How is this all done? Read on.
Endgame When the 3rd and final round begins, all players must get to the exit tile and successfully perform the escape action.
The soundtrack has a total countdown across all 3 rounds of 10 minutes. If one or more players are still in the temple when the countdown has finished, then they collectively lose the game. If all the players have escaped before the time runs out, then the players collectively win! Overall
I'm going to start by saying that I'm a bit ambivalent towards real time games. I've played some good ones and can see how they have their place in gaming but for me but broadly speaking, it's not why I like and play board games. I like to think out my decisions and choices at least a little bit. Add to the mix a push-your-luck dice mechanic and you've a game of a lot of quick frantic rolling. You really don't want to roll those dice off the table! Having said all of this, I think Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a solid game and there's a lot to like about it. Firstly, rules and theme mesh together well. Chucking dice as quickly as you can to escape feels good. The synchronous dice rolling is a clever little system. Generally real time games are always trying to impress upon players that they're up against the clock, this can be a little jarring in a game where players are having to wait for another player's time to run our and get their turn. By having synchronous actions, it heightens the sense of urgency as everyone is in it together. Being able to provide assistance another player on the same tile is equally clever. It's an elegant mechanic that also feels organic and makes sense. This means it would seem like a good idea to have players explore the temple as a group, it would make shifting gems and unlocking dice easier... But there's a couple of rules that throws a spanner into that strategy. Firstly; exploring as group can slow down that exploration. Players can't escape if they don't shift enough gems or find draw exit tunnel from the stack. Secondly; players will want to avoid creating single long corridors, they will need to return to the starting tile twice and the further away they are from it, the further it is to get back. This will force players to split up or go in pairs or stick close by if they have the option, at least for the first 2 rounds. This can change contextually when certain tile are revealed or have to be put in play in a certain way or a player get too many locked dice and so on. Players will have to think quickly and decisively as well as adapt to emergent events. Escape: The Curse of the Temple obviously has a quick playtime - 10 minutes! That feels a little strange because the setup and explanation time almost feels longer than a single game. It's reasonably easy to learn, I can't imagine novice gamers struggling to learn the concepts here. It also not a game to be taken too seriously and leans heavily on luck which is not unusual for cooperative games. Although, even accepting this, a bad run of rolls can sour the experience. But treat Escape: The Curse of the Temple as a cooperative, silly, fun, filler of a game and it will be a enjoyable time. So long as your luck is better than mine... much better! So this is a sort of First Play! Love Letter: Adventure time, like Love Letter: Batman is a reskin of the original Love Letter. I'm not going to go into any particular detail here and will only list the notable differences. if you want to know more, the blog on original can be found here. Unsurprisingly, all the art featured throughout the game is sourced from the cartoon and the characters will be recognisable to fans. If you're not a fan, it's quirky and very cartoony-styled gentle parody of the original artwork with a bright palette, a style I find perfectly acceptable. Annoyingly though, some of the cards have been renamed; 'The Prince' becomes 'Hero', 'Handmaid' becomes 'Companion' and so on. I know that it's probably a better fit with the show's narrative and theme but it still means that even players who know Love Letter well will be referring to the rules! Instead of standard hearts or cubes, Love Letter: Adventure Time uses bright, multicoloured acrylic 'gems' to track scores and I have to admit they are pretty nice. With a couple of exceptions, the rules are broadly speaking, identical to vanilla Love Letter. Luckily, these additional rules don't break the game like some other reskins do but by the same measure, nor do they add anything to it and truth be told, can be easily ignored. Which is something I would do since I've always found the original Love Letter to have the best implementation of the rules. So is it worth getting Love Letter: Adventure Time? If you've already got some version of Love Letter; unless you're a completionist or a fan of the cartoon then you can skip this. However, if you're a fan and don't have a copy of Love Letter, it's a fantastic game and you should definitely get one and this version is a good as any. In fact if you don't have a copy of Love Letter, you should get one regardless! 12th July 2022 Another Tuesday is here and it means we're at the The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club for an evening of gaming fun. In Vino Morte (In wine there is death!) is a much more depressing phrase than in vino veritas but is this a more depressing game? Well... since it's about poisoning your friends to death, I'll let you decide... What's in a game?
The cards are a standard quality you'd expect from a modern game. Like all games from Button Shy Games, this comes packaged in a wallet. The 2 pieces of artwork used for In Vino Morte have a sort of flat colour illustration style, it looks bright and pleasant. There's no iconography or text in the game and it's only 2 images contain a bunch of grapes or a skull & crossbones. It's all self explanatory. How's it play? Setup
On to play Each round, cards representing wine will be dealt out to all players and may or may not contain poison. The objective is to avoid drinking the poison and stay alive and last player standing is the winner.
Endgame Play continues until only 1 player remains and they are declared the winner. Overall
There's not much I can say about In Vino Morte other than it's probably the most unalloyed, unfiltered bluffing game I've played. It's simplicity and accessible rules make it a game of guessing and second guessing, players must try and anticipate what their opponents' motives will be. However, there's definitely a peculiar quirk and asymmetrical gameplay at work here. When a player is the the dealer, they'll have the opportunity to notably alter the playing time. E.G., The more poison cards the dealer doles out, the more players will be eliminated. A bold dealer could give out poison to all other players and see where it goes for example! I imagine it will present dealers with some intriguing propositions. In Vino Morte also has player elimination which is something I'm not fond of and usually consider a bad thing. Luckily, the game is almost a spectator sport and even when you're knocked out, it's still fascinating to watch how the remaining rounds will play out. It helps that it's also a pretty fast game to get through. With a quick play time and easily understood rules it can make a great little filler or party game, especially since it plays up to 8 - provided of course that the players like this type of game. If you don't like bluffing games, then this is one to avoid; but if you do, then you'll probably love In Vino Morte and it's definitely one to try. 5th July 2022 It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club for an evening of gaming. The world of Victorian anthropomorphic railroad magnates is a cutthroat one in this game of acquiring train lines and towns. Buy low and sell high to become the... Raccoon Tycoon! What's in a game?
Raccoon Tycoon has excellent production values. Wooden tokens are used for commodities and first player token which is a good move, they always have a quality to them and also look cool. The cards (And paper money) have a sturdy feel to them while the tiles are satisfyingly thick. The game's art direction is also equally high. Anthropomorphic art is used throughout the game and I've found that it's a divisive style which most people do or don't like. Regardless of your view on this, it's undeniable that the quality of the art is high. The standouts are the railroad cards which use a oil painting style to display whimsical characterful animals in Victorian clothes. Curiously, the building tiles use a completely different style, instead displaying line illustrated buildings and subjects with mostly flat and barely shaded colours. It's a striking contrast that should theoretically be jarring but actually fits quite well. Icons used to represent commodities on cards are easily understood. Most other game information is relayed via text which is usually very clear. How's it play? Setup
On to play Players are trying to earn VPs in Raccoon Tycoon, this can be done by collecting sets of railroad cards, acquiring town cards to pair with railroad cards and gaining building tiles which are not only worth VPs but can provide avenues to scoring more VPs. All of this requires money and commodities, players will need to manipulate the commodities market to maximise the profit gained from selling their own commodities while trying limit the profit of other players. Racoon Tycoon follows a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their action before play moves on to the player on their left.
Endgame Play continues until one of the following 2 criteria is met.
VPs come from a variety of sources. Sets of railroad cards. Town cards paired with railroad cards. Building tiles earn 1 VP each. Bonuses from building cards may also provide additional VPS. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Even without the anthropomorphic artwork, Raccoon Tycoon would be something or a quirky game. It packs quite a lot of mechanical systems into a single game albeit to a fairly simple level. A little bit of stock market manipulation, a touch of set collecting, a dash of auctioning and a sprinkling of engine building. It could be a recipe for disaster but in the case of Raccoon Tycoon; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A large part of this I feel is due to the building tiles. Their unique bonuses both provide some asymmetrical gameplay elements and can also give players a bit of strategic direction. Raccoon Tycoon is a bit of a balancing act between acquiring cash for railroad cards/building tiles and commodities for town cards. It's hard to work towards both at the same time. Adaptation is important here, as is planning ahead. Players could look to finding ways to raise commodity values to increase profit when selling them later This brings me to commodity manipulation. There isn't too much interaction between players other than auctioning and commodity manipulation, Watching what opponents are doing can prove useful and is something of a higher level of play. I.e., if 2 players are accumulating the same commodity, there's a possibility that one of them will sell it, causing that market to crash. Beating a opponent to the punch so to speak, can cost them lots of cash! Raccoon Tycoon is fairly rules light and I think seasoned gamers won't have any problems grasping all the systems at work here. For less experienced gamers, the curve will be steeper, I don't feel it's a gamebreaker but I imagine it could be off putting. While there's enough gameplay to give players thoughtful and meaningful decisions to make and a fun experience, I also found the game to be a little unengaging and uncompelling, I never felt like I was building railroads or towns and despite the unique art style, it didn't feel like it stood out from the crowd. here's nothing wrong with Raccoon Tycoon but it wouldn't be my first pick for a game, although I'd have no problem playing it if someone else wanted to. The gaming totals for June '22 are below. Played slightly more games in June compared to May but lightly less first plays! Total games: 48 Different games: 36 First plays: 9 Wednesday 1st Simon's
Forgotten Waters - 5 Thursday 2nd on Board Game Arena Loco Momo - 8 Fruit Picking - 2 Splendor - 18 Azul - 4 Sushi Go! - 13 Lucky Numbers - 24 Friday 3rd Simon's Arcadia Quest - First Play! Sunday 5th on Board Game Arena Fruit Picking - 3 Stella - Dixit Universe - 8 Carcassonne - 8 Space Base - 12 Railroad Ink - 28 Lucky Numbers - 25 Tuesday 7th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Merv - 2 Thursday 9th Aldershot Isle of Cats - First Play! Chariot Race - First Play! Sunday 12th on Board Game Arena Jump Drive - 7 Fruit Picking - 4 Barenpark - First Play! Martian Dice - 14 Lucky Numbers - 26 Tuesday 14th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Hidden Leaders - First Play! For Sale - 8 Deep Sea Adventure - 7 Thursday 16th Aldershot Love Letter - 57 Machi Koro 2 - 3 Sunday 19th on Board Game Arena Barenpark - 2 Dice Forge - 10 Jump Drive - 8 Cloud City - 13 Loco Momo - 9 Lucky Numbers - 27 Tuesday 21st at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Terminator: Dark Fate The Card Game - First Play! Port Royal - 21 Thursday 23rd Aldershot Welcome To - First Play! Port Royal - 22 Village Green - First Play! Saturday 25th on Board Game Arena Fluxx - 4 Race for the Galaxy - 14 Martian Dice - 15 Sunday 26th on Board Game Arena Hanabi - 2 Can't Stop Express - 3 Via Magica - 10 Azul - 5 Railroad Ink - 29 Thursday 30th Aldershot Burger Boss - First Play! Tiny Epic Galaxies - 7 30th June 2022 It's a Thursday and we're at Aldershot for some gaming goodness. Burger Boss! What's better than being a king? Being a boss of course! Be a boss of those burgers in this game of resource management and worker placement or if you want to be specific; dice-placement. What's in game?
All the game's cards are finished in vinyl/plastic and as such feel quite sturdy. The dice plastic, although they have nicely rounded corners. Wooden components are always a plus in my book. The discs used to represent burgers and ingredients are obviously wrongly proportioned but if they were correctly sized, they'd have to be much bigger, otherwise they'd make the handling ingredients even more fiddly than it already is - which is quite fiddly and is my one criticism of the components. Presentation wise, Burger Boss uses a cheerfully brash palette along with cartoonish illustrations. It's a bright, colourful art style that suits the game's light-hearted approach perfectly. There's little iconography used in the game and it's easily understood, mostly consisting of symbol ingredients and and dice values. The manager's special cards use text to provide information, which is a little sparse and will probably have players referring to the rules. It's not something that will occur too often though. Packaging I don't usually talk about a game's packaging - because usually it's just a box. Burger Boss however, comes in a giant burger! Inside are several layers to hold all of the game's components. Yes I know that it won't stack with other games and the manual doesn't fit in the burger and it'll just have to be put all back into it's normal, typical box anyway which technically defeats the purpose of the burger packing - but it gives the game a unique, eye-catching presentation and I like that. Yes, I also know it's just a gimmick but I like gimmicks! How's it play? Setup
On to play The objective in Burger Boss is to fulfil customer orders to earn money, this is done by gaining and cooking the required ingredients. All of these actions are achieved by putting dice on cards, many of these cards will require dice of specific values. The game does not have a traditional turn order and instead uses a mechanic that mixes randomness and player choice to determine player order. Once player order is established, whenever someone becomes the active player, they can take an action by using a die. Each round consists of the following phases.
Endgame The endgame is triggered when the customer card deck is depleted - although there will be customer cards in play. There is then 1 final round of playing then the game goes to scoring. Players total money from the following: Money earned from selling food to customers. Money earned from their secret objective card. Anything still on the grill earns $1 apiece; food in storage earns nothing. Cash is tallied, highest amount wins. Overall
Burger Boss is a light-to-midweight game, as written above, the rules seem a bit complex but in practice they're fairly straightforward. That's not say it's a good game for beginners - because it's not! There are several mechanics and concepts in Burger Boss that that require thinking ahead and someone nuanced decisionmaking. Quite often, it'll be impossible to complete a customer's order in a single round and generally there isn't enough cold storage to hold the required ingredients. This means that players will probably have to put ingredients on to their grill and hope to complete them in a later round. Mistake's can be costly and $1 is scant compensation for losing food. Which brings me to customers. There's a balance to be found between completing a customer order as quickly as possible and waiting for a later turn to earn more money but risking another player getting that customer first! While there is no direct interaction between players in Burger Boss, the game has a lot of open information and it definitely pays to watch what other players are doing; what they've got on their grills, where they're putting their workers and responding to this. This ties in with the turn order mechanic, sometimes players will want to use less workers to go earlier. Worker spaces to gain ingredients are limited and turn order can play a vital role when fulfilling customer orders, in both cases, going later and being stymied by other players' actions (Whether accidentally or deliberately.) can be infuriating. Burger Boss also has a a bit of the unexpected, manager's special card can also throw spanners into the works with unexpected special actions, especially when used judiciously. Despite this, the game provides options to gaining other benefits - or benefits other ways, if the baker or butcher is inaccessible for any reason, there's always the supermarket. There's a pretty generous number of worker spaces on the card for the aforementioned manager's cards. All of these means that rarely is a player presented with meaningless decisions which is always a good thing in games. I found Burger Boss to be a colourful, visually appealing game of making burger (OK, they stacks of ingredients, but still it looks good.) and fun worker placement and resource management game with a reasonable play time and gameplay that's tricky enough to tax the brain enough to be engaging, along with a side order (SIC) of competitiveness. |
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