Saturday! Saturday! Saturday!Saturday! Saturday! Saturday!Saturday night's alright for fightin'. Get a little action in.
Yes, it's Saturday, and while it's not night quite yet (at least, where I am a
Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Saturday night's alright for fightin'. Get a little action in.
Yes, it's Saturday, and while it's not night quite yet (at least, where I am at time of posting), that doesn't mean that it's not time for fighting. Though I'm not actually swinging my own fists around. It's my character in D&D. I hope you're out there swingin', too, be it with an RPG character or toy soldiers or on a video screen. Whatever your fight du-jour might be. I know you're here for some reviews, so let's dive into those.
Today we have: Tiny Epic Mechs, Creature Forge Overwhelming Swarm, Waterdeep Dragon Heist D&D Minis, Tyranny of Dragons D&D Minis, Ravage: Dungeons and Plunder, Minerva, and Cat Lady.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the BRAND NEW Creature Forge: Overwhelming Swarm from Wizkids/Neca! This just hit the stores and I will have to say - super impressed with the sculpts, paint quality and poses. They did an awesome job with these and I cant wait to see more releases! It also really excites me about the future with all their other lines in the D&D universe. We got an amazing random pull with 20 of the 28 available new miniatures in this inaugural release! So tune in for a full blind pack opening of the gravity well box (24 packs) and close up video of all 20 miniatures we got!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the New-ish Waterdeep Dragon Heist set and its awesome! I really love the sculpts in this one, quality is great, paint is vibrant and I can't wait to use these in my games.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Tyranny of Dragons an Icons of The Realms set from Dungeons and Dragons. This set is a little older but offers the best dragon sculpts I have seen in these sets. I got an awesome pull from this brick but definitely want more of the dragons.
A dungeon-delving board game where you, the player, get to control a band of Orcs; ain’t no paladins or dwarfs here. Raid dungeons, slaughter monsters for their teef and complete objectives and level up along the way.
Minerva is a tile-laying resource-management game for one to four players. Players are Roman city planners trying to best develop their cities. The player with the most points wins.
Cat lady is a simple set collection game which uses a card drafting variant as the way to obtain your cards. At the beginning of the game, nine cards from the main deck are laid on the table in a 3×3 grid. (The cards that are used depend on the number of players, with some cards only included in 3 or 4 player games.) The rest of the cards form a draw pile. The Stray Cat cards are shuffled and the top three cards are turned face up next to the play area. The cat token is placed next to one of the rows or columns in the grid. (The person sitting next to the start player chooses where to place it.)
Quite a lot of you are at Gen Con this weekend. But I know that you still want those reviews you so desperately desire. So let's not waste any words.Today we have: MegaLand, Magic Maze, Vengeance, Mou
Quite a lot of you are at Gen Con this weekend. But I know that you still want those reviews you so desperately desire. So let's not waste any words.
Today we have: MegaLand, Magic Maze, Vengeance, Mountains of Madness, Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, Dark Souls, The Edge: Dawnfall, The Artemis Project, The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, Neuroshima Hex, Senshi, Warhammer Champions, and Thunderstone Quest.
We were beyond excited when we first learned that Red Raven Games had a video game inspired board game coming to Target stores nationwide. I’m a big fan of Ryan Laukat’s games and the worlds he creates are so much fun. So does this new world of MegaLand deserve a space on your game shelf? Let’s find out.
MegaLand is a pretty generic video game world that’s beautifully illustrated in the same style as Laukat’s other games like Above and Below or Near and Far. The goal is to be the first to reach 20 coins over the course of the game. Players will press their luck as they adventure to find treasure in the world. This treasure can be traded for buildings or health upgrades for your character.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components,Setup, player actions, and playing the game. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Components,setup, wronging phase, montage phase, combat phase, enemy activation, den clearing, and end game conditions. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components,setup, player turn sequence, end game conditions. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components,setup, player turns, end game conditions, and the rogue ghost expansion. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components, setup, enemy activation, player turn, and boss battle. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the brand new The Edge: Dawnfall board game and this thing is MASSIVE! It offers 3 modes of play: a competitive miniatures game, a fully cooperative multi-player campaign game and a solo campaign experience.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at a preview of the brand new Grand Gamers Guild title: The Artemis Project. Here we are are colonizing one of Jupiter's moon's Europa. Love the theme on this one and the game play is smooth and strategic. You really get the feel of building out a colony on the planets moon and trying to survive its harsh conditions. The title offers dice, worker placement, and programming mechanics. Coming to kickstarter on Sept 12th 2018 - you don't want to miss out on this one!
In The Thing, most players will play a human who want to clear all three sectors of the outpost and then get on the helicopter to escape. Some player(s) will play an Imitation who want to move the Contagion Level up, destroy the outpost before it’s cleared, or to stow away on the helicopter. All roles are kept hidden until the end of the game.
Neuroshima Hex is one of my favorite 2 player games. Although it has rules for 3 and 4 player battles, it really shines as a you-versus-me experience.
Today we are taking a look at the Neuroshima Hex Iron Gang Hexpuzzles. This expansion gives you solo puzzles to recreate the Neuroshima Hex magic even if there is no one else around to play with.
The ailing master is finally dying, and it’s up to his students to prove their worth in order to succeed him. But success isn’t easy. It’s not enough to develop one trait in isolation; you must achieve balance in the four great characteristics of Senshi:
Blue.
Yellow.
Red.
Green.
Can you dominate one trait while not neglecting the others?
Thunderstone returns with Thunderstone Quest. Recruit your heroes, arm your party, then visit the dungeon — and the dungeon has new perils not seen in prior Thunderstone releases. All-new dungeon tiles create new challenges and rewards as you explore deeper and deeper in the dungeon. Each quest brings new dungeons as well as new side adventures!
Thunderstone is a fantasy deck-building game. Each player starts with a basic deck of cards that they can use to purchase, or upgrade to, other, more powerful cards. Thunderstone Quest brings new play modes to the table. The game will tell a specific story with a series of pre-set dungeon tiles, monsters, heroes and support cards. Each will come with a series of mini-adventures and a story booklet that tells players what happens as they progress through the scenarios.
Hey everyone,Sorry about the posts the other day. As I'd mentioned previously, I wasn't at the office the last couple days. And, well, you know the old saying, "if it isn't one thing, it's another"? T
Hey everyone, Sorry about the posts the other day. As I'd mentioned previously, I wasn't at the office the last couple days. And, well, you know the old saying, "if it isn't one thing, it's another"? That kinda sums up my last 2 days. Not anything godawful, but just... "well... ok, then." So, you kinda got a quick bit of stories this morning, and with the Review Roundup, hopefully we'll be back on track here.
Anyway, today we have: Ganz Schon Clever, Getaway Driver, Onitama: Sensei’s Path Expansion, Impulse, Alien Artifacts, and Tadmor.
If you follow along with board gaming news, you might have been scratching your head at the announcement of the “roll and write” game Ganz schön clever being nominated for the “gamers game” award, the Kennerspiel des Jahres. “They nominated a game like Yahtzee?” you might ask. But you’d be selling this game short.
Much like the popular Bruno Cathala game Mr. Jack, Getaway Driver is an asymmetric two-player game where one player is trying to catch the other. But that’s where the similarities end. In Getaway Driver, The Police chase The Driver through an ever-evolving map, trying to corner them before they can escape.
Ontitama: Sensei’s Path comes in an adorable little mini box that mirrors the larger one of the base game. It contains 16 new movement cards that will fit into the original box. Four symmetrical (green) actions are added, and 6 each opposing asymmetrical (red and blue) movements. These are shuffled together with the original cards during set up, adding additional movement types to the game. No rules changes or additional components are added, just more movement abilities.
Each player in Thanos Rising will control their own team of Marvel superheroes and starts with one character: Captain America, Gamora, Dr. Strange, or Black Panther. At the beginning of the game, you will roll four dice each turn, but as you recruit additional heroes you will gain additional dice and abilities.
Impulse is a space game that has you exploring planets, researching technologies, blasting enemies, and mining for resources. To understand the game is to understand the impulse. The impulse is central a row of up to 4 cards that dictate the actions of every player’s turn. You will activate the cards in the impulse one at a time in the order in which they were added to the impulse. Nearly every action you do in the game revolves around the cards in the impulse.
The goal of Alien Artifacts is to create the greatest most powerful space empire. Earn points by building ships, developing technology, and settling planets. Also by attacking other players and alien civilizations, and by scoring operational technology cards which require specific arrangements of elements within your empire. Each player’s civilization also has a unique way of scoring points.
Tadmor is an intense worker placement game about epic journeys, trading and personal prestige across the dangerous and endless caravan routes of the Syrian Desert.
Players take the role of rich merchants based in Tadmor (also known as Palmyra). They will increase in power and prestige by expanding their trading routes and by contributing to the political and religious life of the city. In the game, a merchant’s success is measured in Prestige Points. The winning merchant is the one who scores the most Prestige at the end of the game.
Hooray for Saturday!What can't be accomplished on a day like today?Well, I can accomplish some RPG-ing. You can even watch if you want.But what I know you're actually here for: Reviews! So let's get t
Hooray for Saturday! What can't be accomplished on a day like today? Well, I can accomplish some RPG-ing. You can even watch if you want. But what I know you're actually here for: Reviews! So let's get to it.
Today we have: Outpost: Amazon, Gloomhaven, Clank! The Mummy's Curse, Covalence, Ganz Schon Clever, Helionox, The Mind, Wreck Raiders, Getaway Driver, and Boss Monster: Rise of The Minibosses.
The goal in Outpost: Amazon is to not only endure every card of the expedition deck, but to also capture wild monsters in cages. In this cooperative game, each player controls a unique explorer with their own special powers and hit points. The actual game is played over a series of rounds in which each player takes a turn.
Gloomhaven is a legacy style, dungeon crawler board game that will have you controlling a fantasy character throughout their career. The goal of the game, other than to beat the scenarios and advance the overall campaign, is to get your character to finish their personal quest, thus retiring them and unlocking new characters for you to play next. The main part of the game is handled in a dice-less dungeon crawl that uses cards for combat abilities and also as a randomizer. There is a wealth of content in Gloomhaven and you can expect to put in 100+ hours if you intend to finish everything.
The title for Clank!: The Mummy’s Curse basically explains everything gamers want to know. There’s a mummy wandering around the dungeon, moving between 4 different dungeon sections. There are also curses. Each curse acquired by a player yields -2 victory points. Sometimes these curses are acquired from just moving, but also attacking the mummy grants a curse.
One player takes on the role of the Knower, who looks at the hidden structure of the compounds that the rest of the players, known as Builders, need to construct. Each Builder gets a set of atoms tiles (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen) each double-sided to provide various options for bonding. Clue and guess tokens are then assigned to the builders based on player count and desired game difficulty, with less tokens for a harder game. Three unknown compounds are then dealt out to each player, with difficulty of the compounds adjustable based, the level of challenge.
Ganz Schön Clever is a roll-and-write game for one to four players. Each round, each player will be the active player once and the passive player on each other player’s turn. Players will complete their personal sheets using the different dice that are rolled. The player with the most points wins.
Helionox is a movement based deck building board game where great leaders vie for control in a shattered solar system. One to four players can attempt mastery over competitive, cooperative, and solo modes. Designed to play fast with a quick setup and an imminent ending, Helionox has tension to spare from the first turn to the last. The Deluxe Edition of Helionox brings together the original core set of Helionox: The Last Sunset and incorporates it with a brand new expansion called Mercury Protocol. The Kickstarter will offer a full sized box and game board along with the expansion and can be purchased via Kickstarter with or without the original core set.
From time to time there is a discussion around whether or not something is a game or an activity – Apples to Apples comes to mind. These are games which have minimal depth of strategy and derive their enjoyment more from the social interaction than the rules and gameplay. Recently, Spiel de Jahres nominee The Mind has renewed this debate amongst board gamers. Read on to find out if it might be a game for you.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the brand new installment of Boss Monster - Boss Monster: Rise of The Minibosses. Oh ya baby, its Boss Monster 3 in all its glory! This version is great and offers two main new mechanics: coins and minibosses. Both are implemented very well and it adds even more robust customization of your deadly dungeon. Bring on the epic heroes, for they have no choice but to give you their soul for the win!
Saturdaaaaaaaaaay! Woo!My favorite day of the week, as you all know. And while I'm not probably going to be doing much gaming, by the time you read this, I should be stuffed full of tacos and empanada
Saturdaaaaaaaaaay! Woo! My favorite day of the week, as you all know. And while I'm not probably going to be doing much gaming, by the time you read this, I should be stuffed full of tacos and empanadas and churros. So I'm still having a pretty spectacular day.
But while I take a siesta, let's get you those gaming reviews I know you so desperately desire.
Today we have: Gunfights and Gambling, Vikingjarl, Evil Corp, Raccoon Tycoon, Rising Sun Broken Token Insert, Neuroshima Hex: Iron Gang, Ticket to Ride: France and Old West, Vanguard of War, Feudum, Street Masters, The Mind, and The Tea Dragon Society.
For those inexperienced with game inserts, they’re basically third-party provided box organizers which allow owners of a game to fit as much as possible into the original game box. They can also make it so that pieces are easier to deploy and put away. Some of these are premade from foam core or plastic. Others, like the one to be discussed here, are wood but require self-assembly. Broken Token provided their Rising Sun Daimyo Collection Organizer for yours truly to try out in this edition of Level Up My Game.
As of this article, the Daimyo Collection Organizer costs $120 (Core Box Organizer – $70), so fans are going to really want to know if they’re getting their money’s worth when it comes to this insert. In the following article, we’ll take a look at build process, build quality, organization, and fit in the box.
Neuroshima Hex is far and away my favorite game to play with 2 players. In fact, it was recently number 7 on my Top 10 games ever! Portal Games continues to expand the world of Neuroshima Hex with additional armies, each with unique abilities and units.
Today we are taking a look at Neuroshima’s resident bikers—the Iron Gang. They are a heavily armored group of ruffians that will try to surround your units and hunt them down.
Ticket to Ride is perhaps the most popular modern board game outside of Catan. For almost 15 years now, it has been a gateway game that introduces new players into the ever-expanding board game hobby. The franchise continues to expand with new map packs and today, we are looking at the most recent, France and Old West. How does it change things up from the tried-and-true Ticket To Ride experience? Let’s take a look…
If Wind in the Willows met the board game renaissance, their baby would be Raccoon Tycoon. This game combines set collection, commodity exchange, engine building, and bidding into a terrific intro game for new players or gamers looking for a something longer and more in-depth that you could still have a conversation over. A light euro for two to five players, Raccoon Tycoon takes about an hour to play. Its sweet spot is 3-4 players.
Vanguard of War (VoW) is a 1-4 player game focused on the defense of a small church deep inside the decaying ruins of a once great city now known only as “the Whispers.” Players will use their heroes to hold the line against seemingly endless waves of demons while their allies inside the church desperately attempt to learn how to use the fel army’s own doomsday weapon against them.
Feudum (latin for fiefdom) is an economic medieval game of hand and resource management for 2-5 players. With many strategies at their disposal, players optimize four actions per turn in attempt to score the most victory points over five epochs.
Street Masters is a 1-4 player cooperative miniatures board game inspired by classic fighting video games. Featuring over 65 highly detailed miniatures, unique decks for fighters & enemies, custom dice, and lightning-fast gameplay, Street Masters lets players match up powerful fighters against villainous organizations in a wide array of exciting scenarios. Designed by Adam Sadler and Brady Sadler, the game offers modular and elegant gameplay set in a unique and exciting world of brutal combat.
There are some people that I just share a bond with. My wife and I are often thinking the same things independently when one of us will blurt it out. My older sister and I are sometimes accused of sharing a brain.
The Mind asks the question: can you share a brain with a friend, or with a complete stranger? Can you become so in sync with the other players at the table that you can play numbered cards in order, even without communicating?
Does this sound weird? Intriguing? Vaguely paranormal? The Mind is all of these things.
I really enjoy light, quick card games that offer a bit of strategy, but not too much brain burn. Bonus points if they have an accessible theme that most people will like. These are the games that I can get anyone to play, they’re perfect for weeknights, and they see the most play of anything I have in my collection. Jaipur, Port Royal, Biblios, Cat Lady, and Sushi Go are just a few examples of games that meet these criteria.
So when I saw The Tea Dragon Society on the horizon, I thought it would tick all of those boxes for me. I hoped it would fit into my collection alongside my trusted favorites. So the question is: Will I be having tea with these dragons forever, or was this a one time tea party?
In which I totally mess up the date for when this was supposed to post and then go back and fix it. :PLook, these things happen sometime!Anyway, here's the regular grouping of review articles I know y
In which I totally mess up the date for when this was supposed to post and then go back and fix it. :P Look, these things happen sometime! Anyway, here's the regular grouping of review articles I know you all so desperately desire.
This week we have: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, Rush in the Forest: Three Little Pigs, Torres, Exoudus Fleet, Steepseers, Super Hack Override, This War of Mine, Assembly, Noria, Get Off My Land, and Monster Card BLVD.
In this Flip Through join Matt as he becomes one of Bigby’s students as we study Mordenkainen’s view on different rivalries over the years and the monsters involved in those campaigns.
Torres takes place over 3 phases (known as years), with each year divided into a number of rounds. At the beginning of each year, players are given tower pieces in stacks, with the number of stacks equal to the number of rounds during that year.
Each player in Exodus Fleet is allied with a certain Faction at the beginning of the game. This gives the player a starting command ship and a starting exploration card. This also determines the player’s starting income of money.
Rounds of play in Exodus Fleet give each player a chance to choose an action. Once chosen, all players will get to bid money on turn order for taking the action. Usually this results in a more advantageous action result, but in all cases, the player choosing the action, the “Admiral”, gets a bonus.
To Teenaged Alex, a ‘cup of tea’ meant a Lipton or Bigelow bag dunked in some hot water for an indeterminate amount of time, with a healthy dose of sweetener. As I grew older, a little more well-rounded, and married, I realized that teas came in a wide variety of flavors, varieties, and colors. Walking with my wife into the tea store (yes, tea store!), I was shocked at just how many different varieties were available, with combinations I would not even dream of. Jasmine pearls, red teas, white teas, all with different herb and fruit varieties – positively overwhelming. I’ll just take a nice cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot, thank you very much.
Steepseers, the upcoming title from KinSoul Studios, puts you in the role of an oracle who can use various brews of tea to trigger visions of the future. By collecting different combinations of ingredients and allying with various mystical spirits, you can make the population believe in the power of foresight through the haze of brewing tea.
Steepseers is a set collection and memory game for 2-4 players. Steepseers plays well at any player count.
Super Hack Override is a quick filler game where players will attempt to earn the respect and adoration of their fellow hackers without drawing too much attention to themselves. Take down too many government systems and you’ll be put in hacker jail for sure.
It’s designed to be played with just a deck of cards and plays 2-6 players in about 15 minutes.
In November 2014, This War of Mine (TWoM) was released on PC, Mac and Linux. The game focused on the survival of citizens during the siege of a fictional city, although the creators of TWoM cited the Siege of Sarajevo as the influence of their setting.
The game was well received, spawned ports to multiple console and Android/iOS and was eventually licensed as a board game that successfully funded on Kickstarter in May 2016.
I really looked forward to playing This War of Mine because of its unique theme of being focused on the survivors instead of the soldiers during wartime.
Having neither played the computer game nor backed the board game, my review will focus on the retail board game only. In addition, my review will contain no spoilers outside of referencing general gameplay mechanics and the phases of the game.
Personal log: “I don’t know for certain what happened. there was a meteor shower; fiercer than we anticipated. It was carrying some kind of virus that somehow breached the station and killed the crew. Well, almost. There’s just two of us left. We have to get off, the computer is shutting everything down, including life support, we don’t have much time to do what this station was designed for; build a ship and then get back to Earth.”
Part of me is tempted to write this entire review for Assembly in the style of the game, mainly because the setting for this little 2 player game is both wonderfully simple and rich. But, I fear that would get old very fast, so I shall just wax lyrical in my typical rambling fashion.
Noria is a “wheel-building” action selection and stock manipulation game for two to four players. Players are industrialists in the booming fantasy world of Noria competing for prestige by contributing to the four great projects of Norian society. The player with the most points wins.
Get Off My Land is a game of building and expanding your farm, sometimes legally, but sometimes in ever so slightly illegal ways. Like “accidentally” breaking a fence so your neighbor’s pigs eat all their corn, or “appropriating” your neighbor’s property to expand your own farm. The goal is to have the most money at the end of the game.
There are a lot of nit-picky rules to the game, but in keeping with the theme here, we don’t need no stinkin’ rules. Or at least not all of them. So I’m just going to give you a high level overview of the game.
Monster Card Blvd. is an epic 90 card, illustrated strategic card game. No two cards are alike. It is easy to learn, but hard to master. Each card is unique, featuring a silly, seductive or scary monster with a clever name to go with that specific monster’s theme. The game has been completed (aside from the two backer reward cards) and tested, and is extremely addicting!
Saturdaaaaaaaaaay! Woo! Time to go out and... schedule this post, have some breakfast, get groceries, and then do some gaming! Woo! Going to a friend's place to hang out, have some game time, do some
Saturdaaaaaaaaaay! Woo! Time to go out and... schedule this post, have some breakfast, get groceries, and then do some gaming! Woo! Going to a friend's place to hang out, have some game time, do some cooking out on the grill, and just having a good day, all before next week's blitz that is CMON Expo. After that, D&D the week after. Needless to say, my gaming dance card is full for a while. But it all starts with scheduling this post. So let me get to that.
Today we have: Are You Going to Eat That?, Fire Tower, Omen: Reign of War, Treasure Mountain, Sickest Witch, Sparkle Kitty Nights, Dream Home: 156 Sunny Street Expansion, Food Truck Champion, Iquazu, Council of 4, Karuba, North American Railways, Kaiju Crush, and Blight Chronicles: Agent Decker.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at a brand new one from Breaking Games - Sparkle Kitty Nights. Its basically a mature version of Sparkle Kitty and its hilarious! This a great mature group game for your adult friends - bring this out at the bar or at home over some drinks and get ready to laugh until you cant breath! The game offers two ways to play, either all players being knights in equal teams or if you have an odd number of players - one player is the mighty Dragon. You will string 2 and 3 words together to form some interesting things to say out loud - generally causing everyone around you to either bust out laughing or blush. Get in on this low cost party game that is sure to make everyone laugh and have a good time. The names on cards are not even a mature rated word in looking at them individually, its only once you start to string them together and use your "dirty mind" that it becomes something else entirely!
The biggest change is that the expansion adds support for 5-6 players. 48 new cards are added (split between resource and room cards) along with the necessary player and main boards. For those looking to play with more players, this is a welcome change. The new cards aren’t simply rehashes of cards from the base game, but many change things up and offer unique rooms (more on this in a bit).
The goal here is for players to complete as many orders from customers as possible. Players who complete orders which match their signature ingredients can win awards and score bonus points. At the end, points decide the winner.
Each card in the game features three sections: Ingredient, Order, and Staff. If a card is used as an ingredient, only that side of the card matters. The same with the staff side of the card. However, if the card is intended to be an order from a customer, the center of the card takes focus.
In Iquazú, players take on the role of the native Inox people seeking to hide their precious gemstones from the evil invading Rhujas. The theme and even the artwork clearly draws inspiration from the 2009 blockbuster movie, Avatar. But the theme is mostly pasted on anyway, so let’s get to the game play.
Council of 4 combines route building with set collection (and a little racing) to create an engine that will grow your business empire over the course of the game. Your goal is to become the most successful merchant in the kingdom (AKA, earn the most victory points). So how do you do this?
At the beginning of your turn, you will draw a politics card and add it to your hand. These are really just colored cards that you’ll be collecting and using to manipulate the council in your favor. This is an important step. Don’t do what we did in our first game and forget this. Cards are scarce enough as it is without forgetting to draw one every turn!
Karuba: The Card Game is a network-building/hand-management card game for two to six players. Players are adventurers trying to connect explorers to their matching temple sites while picking up as much gold and crystals on the way as they can. The player with the most points wins.
In the card game North American Railways, 3-5 players build railroads in the United States. They become directors of up to five different companies and try to acquire a majority of shares. In the end, the player with the most cash wins.
North American Railways is mechanically simple but very tough to play well.
Kaiju Crush is a light strategy game with limited grid movement, shared objectives, and intransitive combat on a modular board.
In the game, players choose one of four giant monsters to play and proceed to crush buildings and fight other kaiju for victory points. On each player’s turn, they choose to play either their own movement card or the shared movement card to land on and crush a city tile (a.k.a. a building). The player picks up the city tile and drops a territory marker in its place. City tiles score different points and territory markers can yield victory points based on objective cards that show goals like connected or unconnected territory markers, the number of city tile groups a player claims, and shapes created on the city grid.
I have just said "wow" out loud. I've turned over a card in Blight Chronicles: Agent Decker during my third game and revealed a card that has just surprised me, surprised me because the effect it could have on my deck is both really clever and potentially very useful, but it's another card to add to my deck which is already getting bloated and the myriad of decisions available to me have been laid open. I have just said "wow", out loud, while playing a solo game.
Agent Decker is a solo story driven deck-building game, and although that sounds like a mash up of concepts and mechanics, I am telling you right now it works, and it works very well. You play the titular Agent Decker (though you won't be doing any blade running) as you attempt to sneak into some top-secret facility to grab a McGuffin. I'm going to leave the plot details purposefully vague, because Agent Decker is a story driven game and I really don't want to spoil anything.
Welcome back again to Saturday. I hope you're enjoying it. I'm being a busy bear around the place, looking to finally tidy the den up after the long winter. Ok, so it's not really been winter for seve
Welcome back again to Saturday. I hope you're enjoying it. I'm being a busy bear around the place, looking to finally tidy the den up after the long winter. Ok, so it's not really been winter for several weeks now, so color me a little lazy to actually get this project started. But before I start dusting, vacuuming, and whatnot, I need to schedule up this post to get you all the reviews I know you so desperate desire. So, for all those unfortunate enough to not be at Salute, let's see what we've got.
Today's articles include: Gruff: Stuff of Nightmares, Time of Crisis, Exorcism at the House of Monkton Falls, Paperback: Unabridged Expansion, The Bark Side, Tak, BetaBotz: Byte of Passage, The City of Kings, and The Grimm Forest.
Players first setup The Exorcism at the House of Monkton Falls (EHMF) by laying out a series of room cards. Some cards have a lock pictured on them which means they are placed face-down. Other rooms are immediately available and so are placed face-up. Locked rooms can be unlocked as rewards from completed Tasks
The Unabridged expansion is a modular system with over 80 new cards that you can add to your Paperback experience. You don’t necessarily have to throw them all in at once, and you can mix-and-match to customize your game as you see fit and give some added variability each time you play.
The starting player will lay down a card and subsequent players will lay down cards higher than the last card played or, lacking a higher number, the lowest card in their hand (called a tail-tuck). After everyone has played, the cards are discarded and the player who laid the highest card starts. Once a tail tuck has been played, players can lead with full sets of a number and players will have to follow with higher value sets or the same number of lowest valued cards in their hand.
Before fully understanding the following description of rules, readers would do well to keep an open mind. While the game described shares some similarities with games seen as “kids games” there is an undercurrent to the purpose of these rules.
Enhancing your Betabot and completing missions to earn Bitz are the two main phases of the game. At the start, you will flip over Betabots cards equal to the number of players. Each card has a starting level of agility, firepower, structure, and processor that they will be able to modify throughout the game.
This world used to be a garden full of life; from the flying Vadora to the deep-dwelling Dwarves – but that was before Vesh came. The world has been lost and only one city remains; the oldest city in the world – and the last refuge for all of us. Now… we fight back.
The City of Kings is a cooperative tactical roleplaying board game for 1 – 4 players in which your character is tasked with exploring the hazardous world, trading for vital resources, and battling your enemies whilst uncovering a story of a world imperiled.
You start by choosing one of seven stories or twelve scenarios, then select your hero, with each of the six heroes featuring twelve unique skills and nine customizable stats that allow you to specialize in attacking, healing, tanking, worker management, or whatever you desire. Aside from your hero, you need to manage your workers, who must gather resources in order to trade for new items and build structures to gain powerful bonuses.
Once upon a time there was a trio of men who had a severe obsession in board games. Because of this obsession, they spent many hours playing, discussing and criticising their games, arguing about which was best. Needless to say, they almost never agreed.
It turns out that on occasion, the stars do align and said trio of man-children do reach a consensus. Unfortunately for the Grimm Forest, it's not a positive outcome.
It's Saturday and I'm painting minis.... I'm not good at painting minis...But, y'know, it's just about getting the colored goop on the figure. I'm not going to be winning any Golden Demons or Crystal
It's Saturday and I'm painting minis. ... I'm not good at painting minis... But, y'know, it's just about getting the colored goop on the figure. I'm not going to be winning any Golden Demons or Crystal Brushes, but hey... they'll be painted.
But while the last color dries, I'm gonna post your reviews for you.
Today we have: War of Supremacy, Laruna: Age of Kingdoms, Harvest Dice, Ex Libris, Legacy of Dragonholt, Boom Blast Stix, A Column of Fire, Cytosis, Dream Catchers, Arkon, Fabled Fruit, Queendomino, and Clans of Caledonia.
I will be taking a look at this new Kickstarter tactical card game from Lost Treasure games called War of Supremacy. I will give you a basic rundown of the different cards and their role within the game. A look at how the game is setup and basics of player turns and combat. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
In this video I will be taking a look at a brand new game on Kickstarter. All components are prototype versions and will be much better with the final production version. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Charterstone from StoneMaier Games. You are pretty much getting one special experience in this box. Its a legacy game and a fantastic one that offers 12 games within the campaign and then the ability to flip the board over and purchase the recharge pack to play the entire campaign again (if you choose to). You will be building out a small charter within this world and working to lock in the most VP's per game. You are constantly balancing either building, opening crates, going for advanced upgrade cards or just stocking up on resources. There are so many strategies to deploy in obtaining VP's. There are also really cool hidden "special" things you will be unlocking you will never expect. At this point, this is a favorite of mine and the final map will be framed on the wall! It does not get much better than this fantastic legacy experience for the entire family. Jamie and Stonemaier Games - well done - very well done! Team this is a 100% buy recommendation.
As you might expect from a roll and write game, Harvest Dice is easy to learn. Each player starts with a blank harvest sheet and a pencil. Each round, the first player rolls the 9 veggie dice (3 dice per crop). Then, each player drafts one die and adds it to their plot. When adding a die, you must place the crop in a column that matches the number on a die. The trick is, a veggie must be placed orthogonally next to the same type of veggie (after the first).
In Ex Libris, you are attempting to collect book cards and assemble them into rows that both stack above each other and are arranged in alphabetical order. At the start of the game, each player chooses a library tile. These tiles provide a unique assistant for each player as well as two workers.
Like other roleplaying games, a campaign of Legacy of Dragonholt (the only way to play) begins with character creation. Characters do not have attributes like Strength or Dexterity. They merely have a list of Skills, a Stamina score, tracked Experience, and an Equipment list.
The skills a character may have is based on a selection of a Race and Class, both of which are mostly typical high fantasy selections based in the world of Terrinoth, Fantasy Flight Games’ generic fantasy world of choice. Once characters are created, players read the introduction in the first book and the game mostly introduces rules as needed.
The goal in Boom Blast Stix isn’t to be the winner, just not to be the loser. On a player’s turn, they place one of the triangle shaped sticks on top of the canister cap. If nothing happens, the next player takes their turn. If the pile explodes, that player is the loser.
A Column of Fire is an adaptation of the third novel in Ken Follett’s “Kingsbridge” series following The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. (The novel is titled A Column of Fire in English, and Das Fundament der Ewigkeit (“The Foundation of Eternity”) in German.)
In the game, set in Europe during the time of Elizabeth I, Catholics and Protestants compete for power and influence in England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In this politically unstable environment, resourceful operatives and courageous secret agents plot to secure power for their rulers. The balance of power shifts back and forth amidst foiled assassinations, successful rebellions, and futile invasions — and not infrequently, those who sympathize with the weak are expelled from the country.
Cytosis: A Cell Building Game is a worker placement game that takes place inside a human cell. Players start out with a number of workers and on a player’s turn, they will place one of their workers in any available location within that cell. Some of the locations provide players with resources (e.g., mRNA, ATP); some with actions (e.g., convert resources, collect cards). Resources are used to build enzymes, hormones and/or receptors, which score Health Points. The player with the most Health Points at the end of the game wins!
Dream Catchers is a cooperative casual game for 2 to 4 players. Players are dream catchers who visits children in their sleep to collect sweet dreams and remove nightmares to help them sleep tight for the night.
Play power cards to catch a sweet dream for the sleeping child or remove a nightmare to prevent them from attacking the poor kid. Players may trade cards with each other to help in their task.
I was going to start this review by saying that Arkon is a bit like Ronseal, and then I realised that not everyone in the world will be familiar with a wood staining product and its advertising slogan. For those who haven't got a nostalgic history of UK television commercials, Ronseal's slogan was "it does what is says on the tin" and I feel that by describing Arkon as a take-that card game with set collection and bidding, you more or less know most of what you need to about the game, but we have been tasked with reviewing this product and so we are honour bound to tell you more.
Hopefully you’re very thirsty or really dig the latest health drink craze, because the goal in Fabled Fruit is to collect sets of fruit to mix into particular juices. Innovative designer Friedemann Friese combines worker placement and set collection, but that’s not the game’s central conceit. Rather he has worked those two familiar mechanics into his inventive Fable System – a sort of minimalist campaign-style twist and/or legacy element. Except you don’t permanently alter anything like most legacy games, so you can start over any time. And it’s not a campaign as in a contained story, but more an ongoing evolution of game play. That’s the design’s draw.
To concoct delicious juices players will visit location cards. There are fifty-nine different locales. Don’t worry…they’re not all out at once! Indeed you’ll play with but a handful each game. The locations deck is stacked in descending numerical order. Each spot (except #59) has four copies. Your very first game begins with all of the first six locations stacked together by number. These are places you may visit.
Queendomino is, like its predecessor, a tile-laying game that takes the familiar game of dominoes and adds a few twists. The goal in Queendomino is the same as in Kingdomino: Score the most points to win the game. (Since Queendomino shares a lot of commonalities with Kingdomino, for the sake of brevity here I’ve glossed over some of the common aspects in this review, both in terms of rules and basic strategy. If you’ve never played Kingdomino, please read my earlier review to get a sense of that game.)
In Clans of Caledonia, you lead a Scottish clan over the course of six rounds in an effort to cultivate and export agricultural goods. Each round, players will successively take a single action until all players have passed. On your turn, you have a litany of actions to choose from.
You can deploy a unit from your player board to the map by paying the cost of the unit and the cost printed on the map. The unit must be placed adjacent to one of your units already on the map and be on the appropriate type of terrain. Miners go on mountains, sheep go in fields, etc.
Helloooooooo, Saturday. You know you're my favorite. I hope the other days of the week get jealous, but you're just so great. Time to put on some appropriate music and relax... and probably play some
Helloooooooo, Saturday. You know you're my favorite. I hope the other days of the week get jealous, but you're just so great. Time to put on some appropriate music and relax... and probably play some games, too. I plan on doing that as well. But, before I go do that, I gotta make sure the people get the gaming reviews I know they so desperately desire.
This week, we have: Go Nuts for Donuts, Loot N Shoot, London, Centipede, Stellium, DropMix, Cursed Court, Einstein, Peptide, Empires: Age of Discovery, Test of Honour Ronin, Photosynthesis, and Fast Forward series (Fear, Fortress, Flee).
Ah the donut. A beautiful ring of delicious dough and sugar. The donut is a miraculous dessert that comes in so many flavors. Will we find Go Nuts for Donuts from GameWright Games just as irresistible or will this cute filler game leave a bad taste in your mouth like an old jelly filled donut?
London takes place in the years following the Great Fire which decimated much of the older parts of London. Players are tasked with rebuilding the city and stemming the rising tide of poverty that comes with a rapidly developing city.
Since this is an asymmetrical game, the Gnome and Centipede player’s set-up and turns will be different. Once set-up is complete, play begins with the Gnome player with two phases:
1. Refresh the Dice Pool: If there’s only 1 die left you re-roll all dice.
2. Activate 1 Die: Choose 1 die and take all actions listed on the die, then move that die out of the die pool.
The game board is comprised of six rotating disks held together with a cardboard boundary. Marbles drawn from a bag represent the astronomical objects placed on one of seven spaces on each disc. Objective cards are also set up beside the board that shows the configurations of colors of marbles required for scoring points.
There are actually three different ways to play DropMix, the most addicting of which is Freestyle. No rules, no challenges, just play cards and create awesome mixes (hopefully). How does it work? The DropMix board connects to your mobile device (phone or tablet) and uses a free app.
The intrigues and scandals of the realm’s greater nobility are a subject of fixation, and even obsession, for the entire kingdom. Most especially for the minor nobility, whose fortunes can be elevated — or shattered — by what happens at court.
In Cursed Court, you must consider both public and hidden information, some of the latter shared among different pairs of players, when wagering your limited influence in each season of the year. As the machinations of the nine key nobles are progressively revealed, your fortunes rise and fall. After three years, a winner is crowned.
As Albert Einstein transcended science and became a recognizable figure around the world, so the game Einstein focuses on simple rules and quick playability, an accessible strategy game for gamers and non-gamers alike.
Peptide is an open-drafting card game with resource management elements. Basically, players compete to link amino acids side-by-side, forming what’s called a Peptide Chain (in biology, this process is called RNA Translation). In order to do so, players must first select from a number of available open-drafted face up cards, which in the game represent cellular organelles. Each organelle rewards players with either molecular resources or cellular actions. Final scores are based upon the types of amino acids in your Peptide Chain, and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
It would appear that we at Polyhedron Collider are a shower of dirty liars and hypocrites. "What is the reason for this confession?" you may ask. It seems that we may have made the statement on an earlier podcast that “it’s not all about the bling”. Whilst true, my track record on this sort of thing isn’t exactly exemplary as I’ve got a growing number of games in my collection with more shinies than Malcolm Reynolds after having Serenity diamond-encrusted - one of which is Empires: Age of Discovery, a hefty Worker Placement/Area Control game from Eagle-Gryphon.
You are in charge of a species of tree (or you are the trees, however you want to look at it) and it’s your job to get as much energy from the sun as you can so that your trees can grow, thrive, produce seedlings for the next generation, and ultimately end their life cycle as strong, healthy trees. Succeeding at this means, inevitably, weakening the other trees in the forest, but such is the circle of life. The strong survive, the weak become mulch.
Fast Forward is a new series of games from Friedemann Friese that do not come with rulebooks. Instead, the games in the Fast Forward series are sorted decks of 90 cards each, and the rules of each game are discovered during play. The Fast Forward games also use Friese’s Fable System, introduced in Fabled Fruit, which evolves the gameplay from one game to another but whose components are fully resettable.
The series was launched with three games–Fear, Fortress, and Flee–and each game is stand-alone, yet it makes sense to review them together. For one thing, part of the fun of each game is discovering it as you go, so I have to be vague on some details to avoid spoilers. And for another thing, the system works pretty similarly in each game.
It's Saturday. And not just any type of Saturday, but Saturday of a 3-day weekend. I can't think of a much better sort of Saturday... Well, maybe Saturday of Gen Con. But that's a pretty damn busy Sat
It's Saturday. And not just any type of Saturday, but Saturday of a 3-day weekend. I can't think of a much better sort of Saturday... Well, maybe Saturday of Gen Con. But that's a pretty damn busy Saturday. But for "above average" Saturdays, I'd say that 3-day weekend Saturday is a pretty good Saturday. Do you think I've typed the word "Saturday" enough by now? Well, I don't know what you've got going on today, but I'm going to be delivering games to a friend, and then possibly having minis delivered to me. Because it's an awesome Saturday. I'm also here to show off some reviews for you.
This week we have: Nemesis, Everdell, Fox in the Forest, Hamsterrolle, Codenames: Disney, Escape Room in a Box: The Werewolf Project, 878: Vikings, Kepler-3042, Okey Dokey, Santorini, Finished!, Ex Libris, and Hunger: The Show.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the BRAND NEW and STILL IN PROTOTYPE Nemesis by Awaken Realms and rebel. what is even more awesome about this is the fact theMCGuiRE review is GIVING AWAY THIS LIMITED PROTOTYPE to one lucky subscriber.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Everdell a brand new game from Starling Games and Game Salute. We are doing yet another prototype giveaway on this title. The game is awesome and follows a traditional worker placement game and mechanic. you have to be very decisive as you can only take one action on your turn (place worker, play a card or activate the season). Artwork is amazing and the game drips with theme and visuals. You will want to play this game just on how its looks and feels - game-play is very fun and end game design is perfect with this genre.
Thanks to some holiday get-togethers, I had plenty of gaming time with the family last month. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that one, as board games make any holiday party that much better.
As you know, in Parental Guidance, I introduce new games to my parents outside of the usual gateway games. The goal is to help you find new and interesting games to play with your family and non-gamer friends. While we all love the old standbys, variety is the spice of life.
As usual, I’ll start by giving you a quick summary of the game I chose, followed by my thoughts on why I thought it would be a good fit for a pair of non-gamers. Then my mother will close things out by letting you know how good she thought my selection was.
This game takes the same format as your standard escape room: you have 60 minutes to complete your mission by finding clues and solving puzzles. This game puts you in the role of having to find the cure for a werewolf virus.
When you to start the clock, you unpack the Escape Room in a Box to find a bevy of materials, papers, locked boxes and the like, all which provide clues to be used in solving a series of puzzles in some manner in order to proceed further into the game. Along the way, hints become available at specific time intervals if you get stuck on a specific puzzle. In the end, solving the culminating puzzle allows you to discover the cure to the lycanthropy and win the game. If time runs out, or if you use too many clues (and are honorable gamers) then the game defeats you and you turn into a werewolf.
The game begins with the English faction player(s) setting up the unsuspecting forces of England by placing plastic army figures throughout the map. Cities and towns have garrisons of units, but much of the countryside shires are barren of military force. The Viking player(s) will populate their first army led by the leader(s) represented through cards. Units are placed directly on the card if they are part of the leader’s army.
Kepler-3042 is played over 16 rounds in which players will compete to explore, colonize, and terraform various planets in the galaxy. The board is divided into three zones, with only the planets in the zone closest to Earth initially visible. The planets are spread around the board randomly, adding to the replay value of the game.
Each turn you can perform one of nine actions, optionally up to 2 bonus actions, and then move your ships. Available actions include building spaceships, generating resources, colonizing planets you have landed on, and terraforming planets you have colonized. You also have a technology board which to spend actions on, allowing you to upgrade your proficiency with various technologies, effectively powering up future actions. Progress on the technology track becomes crucial to unlock your ability to travel faster, exchange goods between planets, and produce on and terraform your colonies.
The animals have gathered for a music festival to all play their part in this special event. In the deck, there are five suits of different colors numbered 1-8. The main idea of the game is to try to play all the musicians to complete a grid of 5 rows and 10 columns with each row making up one of the colors in the deck. Seems like a simple task, but the restrictions on how those cards can be played is where the game begins.
Santorini is primarily a 2-player game, pitting players in a contest of skill to see whose workers can build a tower and ascend to the top of it. Variant rules for 3 and 4 players are included.
Finished! is a solitaire hand-management/deck-sorting puzzle game. The goal is to sort the deck in ascending order from 1-48 before you run out of coffee.
Ex Libris is a worker placement/set collection hybrid that also manages to include a spatial element in the gameplay. You’d think that this might be one mechanism too many, but it all works well together.
In Ex Libris, you are trying to win the coveted position of Grand Librarian. This position is awarded to the person with the best library. To win the job, you’ll have to send yourself and your assistants out into the world to source the finest books. Once you’ve got them, you have to shelve them in order, create strong bookshelves to hold them, and make sure you feature prominent works and avoid banned books. Plus, you want a variety of books to cater to all readers!
A casting call has gone out for the reality show “HUNGER”! Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Do you have the wits to survive, with other participants, on a deserted tropical island? Or simply want to win $1,000,000? If so, HUNGER is searching for self-reliant contestants to attempt this bold adventure.
HUNGER: The Show is a fast paced family game with rich player interaction. To win, you have to predict your opponent’s actions. On the island, you can gather fruit and catch chickens to get more food. But to win, you also have to collect raft pieces. It’s a good thing that no one would ever think of stealing food and raft parts from other participants…
Saturday!Woo!I don't know about you, but for me, that first week of 2018 seemed to take an eternity! Not that it was bad, mind you. I even got to play a new game. But there were several days where I w
Saturday! Woo! I don't know about you, but for me, that first week of 2018 seemed to take an eternity! Not that it was bad, mind you. I even got to play a new game. But there were several days where I was just going, "wait, it's not even noon yet?" But yeah, we're now firmly into the first weekend of the year. Hopefully you're able to get some gaming in. I will be. But even if you're unable to get out, you can still check out some reviews.
This week we have: Heaven and Ale, Favelas, Fallout: The Board Game, Codenames: Disney, Witches of the Revolution, LIberatores, The Ruhr: A Story of Coal, and Time's Up!: Title Recall.
Players begin the game by laying out a series of tiles on the main board spaces. Hexagonal tiles represent the ingredients needed to make beer (yeast, hops, wheat, water, and wood for the fire and/or barrels). Round tiles are monk tiles. These will be useful for activating the hexagonal resources and improving the skill of the brewmaster.
In Favelas, players attempt to beautify the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in a way to appease the city’s council. The game is played over three rounds and in each round, certain colors will be prized more highly, but players can influence which colors are in demand as well.
In Fallout, each player controls a wanderer from one of five classic factions: Vault Dweller, Wastelander, Super Mutant, Ghoul, and Brotherhood Outcast. Armed only with a starting item and a skill, they must venture out into the wasteland to try and score agenda points (victory points).
A game of Fallout is played in a series of rounds, with each player getting two actions on a turn. Different actions include: moving, exploring new tiles, fighting enemies, questing and encountering, and resting. After all players have had a turn, the round ends with a random group(s) of monsters activating and looking for wanderers to attack.
If you have every played Codenames before, you can skip down to the next section as, for the most part, nothing has changed.
In the family edition of the game, the cards are laid out in a 4×4 grid. Players can choose if they want to use the pictures side or the text side. Teams are formed and one player from each team will be the clue giver. The clue masters look at the secret key card that shows which cards in their grid belong to their team.
Witches of the Revolution is a cooperative game. You and your fellow players lead covens of witches determined to see a ?edgling nation achieve freedom from tyranny. You must recruit powerful allies, unleash potent relics, overcome menacing events, and ultimately fulfill four keystone objectives before time runs out. Will you specialize, or prepare for anything? Will assisting allies spread your resources too thin, or unlock success?
In Liberatores: The Conspiracy to Liberate Rome, players are senators that are part of the “Liberatores” — secret conspirators of ancient Rome, whose main goal is to kill Julius Caesar.
A pile of coal, a dream, a barge, and a river. It’s not much, but it’s all you have. You roll up your sleeves and start loading your barge with coal. It’s hard and it’s dirty, but it’s honest work and with some determination it might even prove lucrative. Barge loaded, you head down the river and start your deliveries. The money is nice – could even buy you a couple of luxuries – but you know better. You invest it in your business. Now things are rolling. The money’s coming in and it’s all paying off. All of this thanks to the river, all thanks to The Ruhr.
Party games are often the bane of a hobby gamer’s game time. When there are lots of people present, it can be awkward to suggest splitting up, but large-group party games are like gases: they have a way of filling whatever space they’re offered, and once you start playing them, they tend to eat up a whole game night, especially with casual players. So hosts must be careful that the party morsels they set before their guests are worthy, otherwise they’ll find themselves staring into either their friends’ horrifying exposed gums or their own soul, wondering how it has come to this.
Thankfully, there are lots of good hobby party games. But there are also sometimes excellent party games available where you least expect them: in the mass market. Time’s Up! is one of these.
The year is coming to an end. 2017 has been full of twists and turns. 2018 is looking like it will certainly be an interesting one. Certainly one of potential change. To all of you, I wish you a happy
The year is coming to an end. 2017 has been full of twists and turns. 2018 is looking like it will certainly be an interesting one. Certainly one of potential change. To all of you, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year. I also wish you would read all of these review articles. Actually, you don't really have to read all of them, but they're here if you want to check 'em out. ;)
This week we have: Dragon Pets, Too Many Bones, Circle the Wagons, Shipwrights of the North Sea, The Ruhr: A Story of Coal, Pile-Up Rush, and Summit.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Dragon Pets another great title from Japanime Games! In this title you are hunting for dragons and trying to breed as many as possible for the win! Great mechanics, excellent components, fantastic artwork and fun for kids and adults.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components, Player, board and combat setup, phases of a round, end game conditions and combat. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
Button Shy Games has got a thing for small packages. They’re producing a line of wallet-sized games with themes as varied as gamers could hope for. Each game comes in a faux-leather wallet and usually relies on the placement of cards or other thin components. Playtimes and player counts are also on the low end typically.
Circle the Wagons is one of many offerings in this line. Players take the role of town architects in the pioneer days hoping to outdo their opponent in points by playing landscape cards in configurations to get the most points. As a two-player card drafting game, a single play goes fast in just 15 minutes.
Three of those games are designed by Shem Phillips. His game design credits go back to 2009, but he’s made a name for himself recently with the release of a trilogy of Viking themed games. The first of these is Shipwrights of the North Sea, a card game with drafting and resource management for 2-5 players. When played with 2 players, the best player count, it takes an hour. Higher player counts can take up to 90 minutes.
For 2017, Thomas Spitzer and Capstone Games have released the game’s second edition as the second game in their Coal Trilogy (the first being Haspelknecht) under the new name The Ruhr: A Story of Coal. As a bonus, the team had also packaged it with a standalone expansion called The Ohio 1811-1861.
The Ruhr: A Story of Coal is a pick-up-and-deliver/worker placement game for 2-4 players that takes between 90 and 120 minutes to play. It plays best with 4 players.
Put your stacking and building skills to the ultimate test in Pile-Up Rush. The goal is to construct a tower and be the first player or team to win four building blocks from your opponent, all while under the pressure of the clock. Or sand timer.
Each player or team begins with an identical set of ten blocks in odd shapes and varying sizes. They will stack these in alternating turns on a round base. The starting player begins the sand timer and, with one hand, may place up to three of their blocks on the base…before time runs out. As soon as they decide they’re done, they flip the timer and the next player/team hurries to add to the tower, this time placing as many blocks as they wish before the sand empties. Builders may only use one hand and cannot touch any piece already in play, though they may use their current block to nudge or orient other bits already stacked.
Summit: The Board Game is a survival game which, thanks to its two-sided game board and variable mechanisms, can be played competitively, cooperatively or solo.
In a competitive game, players race up and down the deadly mountain while managing their resources, building their path, overcoming obstacles, and attempting to survive their competition. Summit uses a unique karma system that allows players to actively help or hinder their opponents — but it also affects end game scoring. For a few extra points, you could share some of your valuable food or oxygen, or maybe you can afford to lose some points so you choose to cut their rope and watch them disappear down the mountain.
Saturdaaaaaaaaaaay!I'm sure a lot of you are probably traveling today, or perhaps hanging out with some non-gaming family. So, to take your mind off of things, here's your regular list of reviews I kn
Saturdaaaaaaaaaaay! I'm sure a lot of you are probably traveling today, or perhaps hanging out with some non-gaming family. So, to take your mind off of things, here's your regular list of reviews I know you so desperately desire.
Today we've got: Guild Ball Blacksmith's Guild, Rail Raiders, Naruto Shippuden The Board Game, Zendo, Cottage Garden iOS, Meeple Circus, Gut Check, Mountains of Madness, Import/Export, Ticket to Ride Map Collection 6: France/Old West, Welcome to Centerville, Hunt for the Ring, and Master of Wills.
Guild Ball is roughly based on an odd little soccer variant called "Calcio storico" or "historical Florentine football" which is about kicking and punching people and looking dead 'ard with slitted pants on. Somewhere between the 54 lads kicking the snot out of each other there's also a ball on the field. Have a look, it's insane. I've watched a documentary about it a bunch of years ago and all I can say is that it's very impressive and very odd.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Components, Setup, player turns, player actions, sample turns, end game conditions, and scoring I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Naruto Shippuden the board game and its really fantastic in game play, use of mechanics and character interaction synergy! I think Yoka Games has really nailed it with this title and its fun every time. You basically get to work your way through the anime battling monsters, villains and familiars to fight the ultimate boss at the end. The outcome of every round in the game makes a difference for that final showdown and I love the build up to that final battle that makes of breaks the outcome of the overall game! If you come across this title - don't miss out on an excellent co-op experience.
In Zendo, one player will act as the mediator, building a structure out of plastic parts that meets a very specific rule. There are pieces in three different shapes (blocks, wedges and pyramids) and three different colors (red, blue, and yellow). The rule may be something as simple as “must include at least 1 blue shape” or as complicated as “must contain one red shape on top of a blue shape.” You can even forego the included rule cards and make up your own rules if you feel the need.
In general, players in Cottage Garden are scoring points when completing grids by placing tiles. On each turn, players will place multi-block tiles of flower designs onto one of two garden grid boards. Each garden grid has spaces which include flower pots or plant covers, which are worth points. By placing tiles that avoid overlapping the pots or plant covers, players can score for those items when the garden grid is eventually completely filled in.
A game of Meeple Circus is played over three rounds. Each round begins with a drafting phase as players select two tiles in turn. Each tile will show what components a player adds to their collection.
The rules for Gut Check are pretty straightforward. Each turn, players can take a few different actions based on the cards in their hand and what they have on their player board. The player board shows which healthy and unhealthy microbes, also known as pathogens, they have. Additionally, if a player has any infections, these cards live here. The main board mostly serves as a score track and organizer for cards.
Despite the ominous name, Mountains of Madness is almost more of a party game than anything else.
Your goal is to escape from the Mountains of Madness while fighting off madness and injury. It’s a cooperative game, and everyone must work together if you hope to survive. In order to escape, you’ll need to explore the mountain and collect relics, then reach the mountain peak and escape safely.
Import/Export is a role-selection, hand management, tableau-building, multi-use card game for two to six players. Players are shipping magnates who are seeking to control the import/export market. The player with the most credits when the game ends wins.
This is a “Map Pack,” so you’ll need another full version of Ticket to Ride to Play. That could be the original TTR (USA) or TTR Europe. From those “full” games you’ll need to scavenge the trains, score markers, and train car cards. Everything else you need comes in this box.
Master of Wills can be played one-versus-one or two-versus-two. It’s all about moving the cards—you want to move as many points to your side of the board as possible while your opponent is trying to do the same for their side. Community cards are each assigned a value, and each card is represented by a character from one of the eight sectors of the Community. Moving those cards can trigger the basic movement of other cards on the board.
Saturday and I have all the baking to do. Baking for friends. Baking for coworkers. Baking for friends that are coworkers. Baking for coworkers that are friends.I mean, I bought 4 pounds of unsalted b
Saturday and I have all the baking to do. Baking for friends. Baking for coworkers. Baking for friends that are coworkers. Baking for coworkers that are friends. I mean, I bought 4 pounds of unsalted butter. I'm going to be busy today. But before I get up to my elbows in cookie dough, I need to type up those review articles I know you all so desperately desire.
Today we have: Arena Rex, Seikatsu, New York Slice, Dragonfire, Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn, Macroscope, Kingdomino, and 1750: Britain vs. France.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Components, Setup, player turns, and the breakdown of actions and reactions. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Setup, player turn sequence, end game, and scoring. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
It’s hard to resist a good pizza and it’s even tougher to resist a good game about pizza. New York Slice from Bézier Games lets players slice their way to victory by collecting sets of pizza slices. In this video review, Ric and Ryan talk about how the game plays and discuss why this might be a great fit for your family game shelf.
Players choose an adventure to start the game. An adventure takes place over multiple scenes and describes how to set up the game, including setting up the encounters (monsters and/or locations that the players must defeat).
If you’re familiar with BHH and the Baldur’s Gate video game then the BBG theme will be nothing new. The shadow of Bhaal falls over Baldur’s gate and adventurers set-out to defeat the evil, but one may be a traitor.
I think most gamers have played BHH at least once and should be familiar with the rules so I’m going to do an overview and focus on the changes. Here’s the PDF of the rules if you want to see for yourself.
The main mechanism that diverts Civ: A New Dawn from its forebears is the Focus Row. Five action cards occupy five numbered slots (1-5) in front of each player. On their turn, a player will select a card to activate with the card’s action modified either by the number of the slot or by the terrain type associated with the slot. For example, activating a Science card yields 1 to 5 points of advances in technology. Activating an Economy card allows a player to move a trade caravan as long as they are of certain terrain types that match the action card’s slot or lower.
The main component of the game is the Macroscope which acts as both the cardholder and imagine cover. On top are removable tokens that players will remove a few at a time to give you a peek at the image. The game offers two distinct ways to play.
In Kingdomino, you are a Lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore all the lands, wheat fields, lakes, and mountains in order to spot the best plots. But be careful as some other Lords also covet these lands…
Dominoes with a kingdom building twist. Each turn, connect a new domino to your existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play. The game mechanics for obtaining the tiles is clever: the order of who picks first depends on which tile was previously chosen. Make sure to secure tiles with crowns- these royal treasures help to multiply the worth of your kingdom at the end of the game! The game ends when each player has completed a 5×5 grid, and then points are counted based on number of connecting tiles and crowns.
1750: Britain vs. France adopts one of the years between two of those global conflagrations. Two players guide the political, economic and military fortunes of the titular empires vying for influence over other European powers and military control of colonial possessions.
Quite abstractly. Because the whole affair is conducted by cards – from the board to your units to resources and events. Thusly splayed about your table, you direct your affairs as if combing over maps and documents, feeling very much the strategist in an age when warfare was far more neat and gentlemanly, without sacrificing any of its grandeur. Except instead of through gunpowder, sails, courtesans and treaties you’ll employ equal measures set collection, card combat and area control.
Ok, so I was being a little facetious, saying that we were expecting a Snowpocalypse here in Atlanta, with the little bit of snow that was coming down at the time... but... yeah... we had a bit of a S
Ok, so I was being a little facetious, saying that we were expecting a Snowpocalypse here in Atlanta, with the little bit of snow that was coming down at the time... but... yeah... we had a bit of a Snowpocalypse. That was the view from my front door last night and it was still much the same this morning. Thankfully, since then, the sun's come out and much of it is melting. But still... yeah, quite a thing. Good day to stay in and do some gaming. But what games? Well, you can find out what games are like with the Review Roundup!
This week we have: Villages of Velaria, Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - Box of Monsters Expansion, Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition, Wizards Wanted, Braintopia, NMBR9, Ticket to Ride: Germany, Planetarium, Barbarians: The Invasion, Space Race, The Captain is Dead, and Heaven & Ale.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Setup, Player turn, player actions, end game conditions, and scoring. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
Note: This review will be a spoiler free look at Pandemic Legacy: Season 2. Everything discussed in detail can be found in the rulebook and the prologue.
Unlike the first season, Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, starts off quite a bit different from a vanilla game of Pandemic. Instead of trying to prevent disease cubes from being added to cities, you are trying to add and keep supply cubes in each city. Season 2 offers a prologue that you can play through any number of times to get used to the slightly different setup.
In order to keep things as spoiler free as possible, I’ll just give a general overview of what’s new the expansion, and limit photos to what’s in the first sealed box.
Much like the base game, the expansion comes with four boxes to open over the course of four games. To go along with the 4 characters from the core box, players can now use Luna Lovegood as their hero. She has a base power that heals someone the first time she draws extra cards. The expansion also includes a new power for each of the other heroes.
Chances are you already know how to play Axis and Allies so I’m not going to bore you with a lengthy gameplay overview. For those of you that aren’t, I’ll give you the quick basics. You can also download a PDF of the rules here.
Axis & Allies is a war game set during World War II between the Axis powers of Germany, Russia and Japan against the Allies of Great Britain, Russia and the USA. The Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition comes with two ways to play. Either 1941 or 1942, depending on what period of the war you want to use. They each feature different setups and turn order, but other than that have the same core gameplay.
Each player takes a wizard player board which grants the player one of four charms (in four separate colors). These charms give bonus money and fame to players as they complete spell jobs at village locations on the board. The player board also has a space for a player’s pixie dust which powers spells and extra movement.
Each turn, players choose how far they will move and whether or not they will take an action. Moving a higher number of spaces costs more pixie dust. In addition, a player can use multiple teleportation type spaces to zip around the map. This is important because budgeting pixie dust for movement vs completing spell jobs is an important calculation in the game.
Braintopia puts your mental synapses to the test. The goal is to recognize patterns, memorize images, solve puzzles or otherwise use your brain faster than the other players. One card at a time. It’s basically cerebral Slapjack.
The rules are simple. Flip over one card from the deck. Players try to deduce the card’s answer based on its category. If you think you’ve solved it, slap it with your hand and leave it covered. The one with the quickest reflexes gets to announce the solution. Correct answers win the card. Guess poorly, and you sit out the next round. Collect two cards to earn a brain token. Gather four brains to win the game.
NMBR 9 is all about stacking tiles as high as possible to maximize your points, and it’s not as easy as you might think. Here’s how it works.
From a single deck of cards holding 2 copies of each of the numbers 0 – 9, a card is flipped over. Everyone takes the tile represented on the card and adds it to their own personal stack of tiles, with just a few restrictions.
The first thing to note is that Germany isn’t a map pack expansion. (Although perhaps it should have been. More on that down below.) It’s a full fledged game in its own right, meaning you don’t have to own any of the other versions of Ticket to Ride to play.
The basic rules are almost exactly the same as basic Ticket to Ride, though. You’re collecting sets of cards, trading them in for trains to claim routes, and scoring points based on how long those completed routes are. The only two notable exceptions are the passengers and the inclusion of two decks of destination tickets, divided into long and short routes.
Matter swirls around a new born star, coalescing on the planetoids that orbit it. Planets evolve, grow and migrate in their orbits, forming a unique solar system by the end of every game. Planetarium is a game of creation, chaos and terraforming on the grandest scale.
Players are competing to crash combinations of elements onto planets that then allow them to play cards to evolve the planets in a variety of ways, with each player looking to evolve planets in the system to suit their own secret endgame goals.
In Barbarians: The Invasion, you control a barbarian clan and lead it on its path to glory. Place your champions on the 3D Volcano to gather resources, construct buildings, pray to gods, and lead your troops in fierce battles to conquer the most regions and become the greatest clan of all time.
The world struggles in the Cold War, and many see the sky as the next battlefield. The era of Space Race has just begun. Do you have what it takes to lead a daring space agency into a new age of human achievement?
Space Race takes place during the first seven decades of the space conquest, and players become directors of newly established Space Agencies. Their goal is to expand them and to achieve astonishing breakthroughs. During the game, players will develop their Space Agencies by acquiring various cards (engineers, technologies, space programs) from a shared pool of cards called Universe.
The Captain Is Dead is a co-op game for 2 to 7 players. All you have to do is get the ship’s engines (aka “Jump Core”) back online and you win, but because there is a hostile alien ship trying to destroy you, that is easier said than done.
You have an impressive star ship full of useful systems that will help you fend off the aliens, and get the Jump Core back online. Each system gives you an advantage while it remains online. The assault from the hostile alien ship tends to keep knocking those systems offline however. So you need to balance your time between keeping the ships system’s online, fending off the alien threat, and completing your objective.
It's Saturday. Usually, that would mean gaming. But Friday meant gaming for me, as a friend came over after work and we played some Guild Ball, Bunny Kingdom, and Apotheca. Great way to spend a Friday
It's Saturday. Usually, that would mean gaming. But Friday meant gaming for me, as a friend came over after work and we played some Guild Ball, Bunny Kingdom, and Apotheca. Great way to spend a Friday. So, what am I up to Saturday? Well, I'm in the CMON Offices, helping pack orders for the holiday sale. Yeah, seems people loved those deep cuts. And since I feel partially responsible (as the one they tasked with actually changing the prices on all those things), I felt it only right to help pack everything up. But while I get orders together, I know you're here for a heaping helping of reviews. Heaping helping because we didn't have a Roundup last week, due to the holiday.
So, this week we've got: Near and Far, Queendomino, The Oregon Trail: Hunt for Food, Dog Might Games Traveler Dice Tower, Campy Creatures, Camel Up, A Game of Thrones Card Game, Colt Express, Truth Bombs, Ex Libris, Star Trek: 5-Year Mission, Slide Blast, Happy Salmon, DownForce, Smash Up iOS, Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time, Ink Monsters, The Quest for El Dorado, Reef Route, Crabs, Werewords, Fog of Love, Museum Heist, Crosstalk, Potato Pirates, Tulip bubble, The Chameleon, Ulm, Asset Drop Subscription Box, Tortuga 1667, Dwar7s Fall, The Expanse, Tokyo Highway, and Ulock!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at The Oregon Trail Hunt for Food the card game. This is an expansion based off The Oregon Trail card game released last year and overly popular Target store purchase. Both of these are exclusive to Target and I do recommend picking them up (if you can find them). Each game has a different feel and that is what I like best about this expansion. It offers another type of experience that can be enjoyed as a stand alone or add-in to the original.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the new DOG MIGHT Traveler Dice Tower. This thing is pretty cool and hold up to 20 dice while allowing for 7 dive to be rolled all at once. It offers a back carving in the wood and a lazer engraved image in the front. You can choose from up to 20 different different woods/finishes and its on kickstarter doing very well right now! It has super small form factor for a dice tower and is a great add on to the Component Collector if you already have that.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Setup, the different phases of the game and how they work, player turns, and final scoring. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
Campy Creatures is a love letter to the 1950’s monster movies played out as a deduction card game. You’ll be playing as a mad scientist on his devilish mission to collect mere mortals for your zany experiments. Of course, you’re not going to put yourself in danger, so you'll instead send one of nine different monsters to capture innocent engineers, teenagers and archaeologists.
Camel Up is a fun, fast paced racing game for the whole family. It has won numerous awards since it’s release in 2014; blending simple to understand gameplay with the perfect mix of strategy and luck, all rolled into the unique theme of camel racing.
Players control a set of camels racing around a track in the desert with coloured dice, betting on the camels as they go. Each camel has its own dice of the same colour that controls how many spaces forward it moves each time it is rolled. There are rewards for predicting the winner of each leg and the overall winner and loser of the entire race, with the person who has collected the most prize money at the end of the race becoming the winner.
A Game of Thrones is an advanced strategy game for 3-6 players designed by Christian T Peterson, the creator of the legendary Twilight Imperium and founder of Fantasy Flight Games.
The game is set on the island of Westeros, where each player takes on the role of one of the six Great Houses who inhabit the island at the start of the story. Over the course of ten game rounds, each player will attempt to gain control of the most castles and strongholds to cement their claim as holder of The Iron Throne, and subsequently ruler of Westeros.
Hold on to yer’ hats and climb aboard the Colt Express for a rootin’ tootin’ robbery ride and the chance to bag some serious loot. Colt Express is a turn-based family board game that puts you in the shoes of a Wild West Bandit looking to rob a train. Using cards from your hand, you take it in turns perform actions that will help you pilfer the most loot before your rival bandits get there first.
The game is designed for 2-6 players and features not only one of the best “boards” I have played on but also some of the most genuinely fun moments in my board-gaming career. The game table is comprised of a locomotive at the front of the train and then train carriages equal to the number of the players in the game, plus one.
A great party game for me involves learning some embarrassing truths about my friends and being able to taunt them for it, in a friendly well-meaning way of course. I got my hands on Big Potato games’ new party game ‘Truth Bombs’ and assembled the Playopolis team for a few games this week.
Ex Libris is a game about being a librarian, which at first may seem a bit monotonous, but given your library is set in a fictional town, where gnomes, goblins and mummies reside it is anything but dull. Add in one of the most anal library inspectors you will ever meet and hundreds of different books, and you have something a bit special.
As a self-confessed bookaholic I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Ex Libris to play and review. Published by Renegade Game Studios and designed by Adam P. McIver, Ex Libris was first debuted at the 2017 GenCon and generated a great deal of hype.
Games that are attached to a well know Intellectual Properties can be a bit hit and miss. What you tend to find is that many of these games rely heavily on the IP to drive sales (I’m looking at you, every TV/film version of monopoly) because the core gameplay isn’t all that great or different. Occasionally though, a games mechanics and its theme go together like bread and butter, with each element complimenting the other and providing a greater experience for players as a result. Is Star Trek: 5-Year Mission a shameless money grab or can it boldly go where no man has gone before?
After a little bit of time off, we are back with another edition of Parental Guidance. If you haven’t read any of our past articles, the goal of this series is to help you find games to play with your family and friends outside of the usual gateway games (which you are already probably sick of). Once again we are going to take a look at three board games I chose to play with my parents during our latest gaming session. For these reviews, I’ll provide a quick summary of the game, followed by why I thought it would be a good choice for my non-gamer parents. My mother will then comment on what she thought of the game.
On one side of the coin, Near and Far is a game about equipping an adventuring party by visiting various buildings in town. On the other side, players make choices about which locations outside of town to visit and, possibly, have adventures requiring heroic choices. The results of these and the placement of camps deliver journey points, the victory currency of the game.
The gameplay contained in Smash Up relies on a multitude of half-decks of cards, each with a theme (pirates, aliens, zombies, wizards, etc…).Each player makes a deck of cards from two different themes. The goal is for a player to take control of bases, which are worth a varying number of points, and the player with the most strength at the base when the threshold is reached, wins it. On a turn, a player can play 1 minion card to a base and 1 action card. Usually, players are trying to play cards with abilities to give them higher strength, play more minions, or disrupt other players. Once a player manages to get 15 points from winning bases, the game is over and highest points wins.
The goal in Professor Evil is to rescue 4 treasures before the Professor can lock enough away. Each player will get to control a unique character, each of which specializes in a specific area of the game (movement, locks, etc…). Once the board is seeded with switches and treasures, you are ready to begin.
Ink Monsters is played over a series of rounds. Each round, a 12-card circular layout of monster cards is placed on the table with the pen card above one of the monsters. Every player also has a hand of 3 action cards.
Every turn, players may play an action card to manipulate the movement of the pen card and draw a replacement. Then, they MUST take the card located under the pen. Once they do this, the pen moves to the next monster.
One of the most common ways people sum up a game (and indeed the same way Board Game Quest does it) is to mention the primary mechanisms in a game. For example, a press-your-luck, dice rolling game might immediately conjure visions of Yahtzee and other derivative games. Unfortunately, this can also have the effect of turning noses in the air when a particular mechanism is mentioned.
This deserves mentioning because the game reviewed here has two of the mechanisms some gamers love to hate. The Quest for El Dorado is a deck building race game set in the wilds of a South American jungle. Two to four players will be acquiring cards representing useful resources or personalities and use them to navigate the various terrain types.
There are some games that kids somehow become familiar with by the time they are about three years old. Tag, and all of its varieties, is one of those. At my son’s preschool they play a somewhat modified game of tag called Sharks & Minnows, which is basically tag where you try to be the last minnow standing.
Reef Route might as well be Sharks & Minnows: The Board Game. It plays 2-4 players, aged 5 and up, in about 15 minutes.
Crabs is a hand management card game for three to five players. Players are catching, raising, and binding crabs to fulfill contracts and get valuable crabs. The player with the most points after the points threshold is met wins.
Werewords is a social deduction guessing game for four to ten players. Players are members of a village on either the villager team or the werewolf team, trying to either guess the magic word or prevent it from being guessed, respectively. The team that reaches their goal without being discovered by the other team is the winner.
To begin, mix together the mayor card, a werewolf card, and the seer card, plus villager cards to equal the number of players +1, then deal one card to each player, placing one card face-down in the center of the table. The player who receives the mayor card receives the Yes/No, Maybe, So Close, and Correct tokens, takes the face-down role from the center of the table, and starts the app.
Fog of Love is a card-based “storytelling” game that attempts to replicate the experience of falling in (and sometimes out of) love with a partner. There are the usual butterflies of excitement at first, followed by the drama later. (Dealing with the in-laws, anyone?) I’m not going to try to explain every rule and phase of the game. It’s best understood as more of a story. The mechanics support the story, but it’s easier to wrap your head around it if you see what the game is trying to achieve.
Your goal is to satisfy your character’s destiny. You begin the game with the same number and type of destinies in hand as your partner. During the game you will gradually secretly discard destinies until you have only one left. This will be the one you must achieve at the finale in order to win. (More on that in a minute.)
The goal of Museum Heist is to claim 3 artifacts. Each round, a group of 7 thieves pursues 1 piece of artwork, but only one player will be able to claim it.
At the start of a round, each player secretly chooses one of the 7 thieves, placing a corresponding card facedown in front of them. No one knows who you chose, and you don’t know who others chose, and it’s entirely possible two or more players chose the same thief.
CrossTalk is the party game of subtle conversation in which two teams race to guess secret keywords. Each round, teams select a clue-giver, and those clue-givers are given knowledge of the same secret keyword. The goal of the clue-givers is to help their teammates guess this keyword before the other team.
Roast, mash, or fry your opponents and send them down to Davy Jones’ locker — but before you can reign terror on the high seas, you have to first master the art of potato war. Use programming concepts such as functions, loops, and conditionals to fortify your attacks. If that’s not enough, you could just loot and hijack your way to victory by saving Potato King from the deadlock of doom.
When in need, summon the Kraken to your aid and deny everything…
In 1637, the tulip craze fuelled one of the first speculative investment bubbles. Coveted tulip varieties led to skyrocketing prices with tulip bulbs costing more than houses in Amsterdam. Then just as suddenly as it started, the bubble burst when investors could no longer afford even the cheapest bulbs, leaving economic turmoil.
In Tulip Bubble, players buy and sell on a fluctuating market, trying to earn the most guilders. The game flow includes a preparation phase, buying phase, and selling phase, with these phases recurring until the bubble collapses or someone manages to outwit the markets by purchasing a black tulip for 120 guilders before that collapse occurs.
Ulm is at its heyday. The construction of the Ulm cathedral has not yet been completed, but the city is already wealthy and prestigious. In Ulm, players try to expand their spheres of influence and to make optimal use of the hustle and bustle on the marketplace around the cathedral.
I recently ran a news item about a brand new subscription box service – Asset Drop. Andy from Asset Drop very kindly offered me the November box to review – here are my thoughts…
I must admit, I did rather enjoy The Curse of the Black Pearl – Captain Jack running around the Caribbean drunk and sunburned was an entertaining film that refreshed the way we looked at pirates. Even if it was responsible for a million poor attempts at dreadlocks from Hallowe’en partygoers from then on.
I say refreshed – we’ve always loved pirates and it seems that Façade Games agrees as their most recent game, Tortuga 1667, is centred around the loveable, survy-ridden rogues as they plunder a galleon for more booty than a Beyonce music video.
The initial reaction to Tortuga 1667 is that it is gorgeous. Even down to the fake book that it’s stored in and the roll out map you play on. It’s such a lovely looking game that you can’t help but like it right from the off.
I think I must secretly be a Dwarf. At 175 cm tall, it’s hard to justify that statement, but I have a beard, I don’t mind being underground, I like large stone structures, I enjoy drinking ale and I listen to loud music. So, I’m going with it. This kinship I’ve just made up is going to be used to thinly explain why I find Dwarfs’ Fall from Vesuvius Media so appealing, at least the idea of it anyway.
Actually, there’s a few reasons why I backed Dwarfs’ Fall on Kickstarter and it wasn’t entirely based on my affinity for rock. The artwork is very whimsical and I love its cartoon style. It’s cute and serious at the same time. There is the other hefty reason that it is in fact a worker placement, so of course I gave it a looksee being the Euro-lover here are Collider Towers.
It's feeling a lot like Saturday 2: Sat Harder (editor's note: rework that title before publishing) here. Yesterday I spent much of the day at home, hanging out and working on my friend's Guild Ball m
It's feeling a lot like Saturday 2: Sat Harder (editor's note: rework that title before publishing) here. Yesterday I spent much of the day at home, hanging out and working on my friend's Guild Ball minis. He moved recently and a bunch of his stuff got jumbled and busted up. Plus, there were some new kits he'd gotten in that he wasn't sure when he would be able to assemble them. Putting figures together is arguably my favorite part of the whole hobby, so I've offered to fix his busted minis, assemble his new ones, and even move some of his other figures over to sculpted bases he'd gotten. There's ~35 minis that are getting some kind of work on them, from assembly, to those bases, to fixes, to green-stuffing the slots. It's been a fun project. Certainly kept me busy. Plus, next time I see them on the other side of the pitch, I don't have to see a bunch of half-assembled and busted figures. :P But I'm currently taking a break (my hand's cramping from using a pin vice all morning) to bring you those reviews I know you all so desperately desire.
This week we have: Storm Hollow, The Mysterious Forest, Pandemic Legacy Season 2, Vengeance, Gloom of Kilforth, Spoils of War, Santorini, Kerala, Mini Rails, Armageddon, By Order of the Queen, NMBR 9, Coded: Card-Time Strategy, Legend of the Five Rings, Woo-Hoo!, AquaSphere, and Cities of Splendor.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Storm Hollow the adventure Storyboard game. There is a ton of content in this system and I am impressed with its smooth mechanics, simple game play, and high level of quality components. It really is a fantastic gaming system for the family and I highly recommend this if you are a RPG'er or have considered getting into something like this with the family. All fairy-tails and stories from this realm are a reality in Storm Hollow. You will go on awesome magical adventures both fun to tell, as the game master, or experience as a player. The introduction is quick for the game master and players will be ready to play and start quickly. It also features a co-op board game experience as well - so if you simply want to set the adventure story mode aside and play a board game like experience, you can do that as well.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at The Mysterious Forest from iello games. This is a great kids game which offers memory, group collaboration and tactical execution skill building. Its got a great theme, super high quality components and a low price point. Its a definite recommend from me for the kids and family gaming experiences.
Step into the shoes of a hero that has been bashed and tortured by one or more of the four gangs in the game. You win by building up your hero, scouting gang dens to find the baddies who wronged you, then taking bloody revenge through action-packed fight sequences made up of dice based puzzles.
The land of Kilforth is a perilous domain filled with nefarious monsters, mysterious Strangers and treacherous Locations, and dominated at its centre by The Sprawl, a huge city where intrepid Heroes begin their journey to fame and fortune. Throughout the land various factions vie for power over each other, such as the supposedly noble Order of the Rose or the terrifying Doom Guard. And presiding over the world outside Kilforth is the ever-present Overlord, Masklaw. Over the coming month, a deadly Gloom will descend upon Kilforth,which the Heroes must Battle through to prove their worth, defeat an Ancient evil, and save the land from darkness. Gloom of Kilforth is a card game of high fantasy with a Gothic edge, playable in 1-3 hours, where 1-4 players, working individually or together, must take their humble adventurers on a journey through a dark world of magic and peril. They will visit strange places, stranger people and overcome powerful enemies in their mission to discover mysterious artefacts and mystical Spells. Players follow their Hero’s tale from modest beginnings through an epic story to an exciting climactic battle for the fate of the world. Gloom of Kilforth takes about 45 minutes per player to play.
The raid is over, and the victorious Vikings gather in the chieftain’s tent to divide the spoils of war! Piled high on a massive oak table are the best treasures taken during the raid: gleaming gems, shiny swords, fine armor, and magical artifacts! Once strong allies, the Vikings are taken by greed, and soon a heated debate ensues — who will get which spoils? Fists pound the table, insults are made, and tempers rise!
Spoils of War is a fast-paced and exciting game of bidding and wagering for 3-5 players. Each round, players roll their dice, then cleverly bluff and bet to outwit their fellow Vikings. The winners of each round get to claim fantastic treasures to add to their collection! With lots of twists and surprises, no one knows who will win until the last treasure is claimed and the spoils are counted!
Santorini is a re-imagining of the purely abstract 2004 edition. Since its original inception over 30 years ago, Santorini has been continually developed, enhanced and refined by designer Gordon Hamilton.
Welcome to the elephant festival in the Indian province of Kerala! Colorfully decorated elephants roam everywhere, and naturally players want to participate and make the most magnificent fairground with as many elephants as possible.
In Kerala, each player wants to take at least one tile of each color, and all tiles of one color should be joined together, but of course the players are constantly getting in the way of one another and grabbing the tiles that someone else wants.
Mini Rails distills the essence of the stock-buying and track-laying game genre into a tight experience that can be finished under an hour.
The game includes only two types of actions — “Buy Shares” and “Build Tracks” — and you must carefully decide how to best use them. You must do each action exactly once per round, and which company you choose affects the turn order on the next round.
In a post-apocalyptic world, players try to rebuild society. Using the debris, they build new towns for the remaining survivors to live in — but these friendly folks aren’t the only ones still out there. Marauders want to pillage your town and see it burn. Scavenge what you can and build new structures to help you defend against the marauder threat. While you can get more things done in town when you house more survivors there, they all have to have a space to sleep or they might turn against you and join the marauders.
Armageddon is a strategy game that offers many tactical choices and different strategies to claim victory.
By Order of the Queen is a cooperative 2–4 player game with a fantasy role-playing game theme. Players take on the role of one of the Guilds of Tessandor, working together to dispatch Heroes to important quests, to combat monsters and to complete the Queen’s Orders themselves.
By Order of the Queen is designed to give players a full fantasy campaign in one 90-120 minute game, by giving players just the highlights of a role-playing adventure.
Players must work together to keep the kingdom from falling apart while trying to complete three Queen’s Orders to win the game.
In NMBR 9, players are trying to earn the most points by stacking different numbers. The game comes with twenty cards numbered 0-9 (twice) and enough tiles for 4 players.
Each round, the top number card is drawn and each player collects the matching number from the tray, placing it on the table. After the first round, each newly placed number must touch a previously played number. Players can also build up to higher levels, as long as it is fully supported by at least two numbers below it.
In Codex: CTS, each player starts the game with a set of heroes (one to three), a starting deck, and a binder… err… Codex… of 24 cards per hero. Each turn, a player’s workers generate a certain amount of gold that can be spent to build up a player’s draw deck with the cards from their Codex.
Players construct a deck using cards from one of seven clans, splashing in cards from another clan and generic cards. Each player has four provinces that serve as the staging area for cards coming into play, and are the target for attack by their opponent. Cards on provinces can either be characters, attachments that enhance characters in play, or attachments that enhance the province they are on. Each player also has a stronghold province that provides players with fate tokens each turn and is more difficult to defeat.
Woo-Hoo has two modes of play to choose from to cater to the kids you are playing with, but both share a fairly similar structure. Players will take turns rolling a die and moving the appropriate numbers of steps up of the elephant slide. Once your pawn reaches the top, you can slide down into the sand box. Yelling Woo-Hoo at this point is optional, but encouraged.
Then in the easy version, you will choose one toy from the box and place it in front of you. If you play with the slightly advanced setup you will roll a different die to determine how many toys, between 1-3, that you will collect.
There are 20 toys, five each of four different colors. The game ends when all of the toys have been collected. If you are playing with the basic rules, you can choose the number of toys to include to shorten the game if you’d like. In the advanced game you can also win by collecting all 5 toys of the same color.
Aquasphere is a point-salad Euro game for two to four players. Players use their engineer and scientist to program and use robots aboard an underwater station. The player with the most knowledge points after four rounds wins.
I was a latecomer to the Splendor love train. When it came out, I looked at it and thought, “That’s it?” Bear in mind, I was in a place in my life where I had time and energy for heavy games and something as light as Splendor was easily dismissed. But life changes. Not long after, everything did a 180 and I found myself with far less time and energy for gaming. I began seeking out lighter games which still possessed some depth, and that search led me back to Splendor.
I fell in love (or at least heavy like) with the base game, yet when I saw there was an expansion on the way, I thought, “Is it a good idea to mess with the simplicity of the original game? Isn’t the simplicity what made it great?” So with some trepidation, I took the plunge into expansion-land. So the question is, did Cities make things better or worse?
I love cyberpunk. I honestly do. It's one of my favorite genres. I know that the new Bladerunner movie has brought it back into the front-and-center. Well, now you can bring a bit of cyberpunk racing
I love cyberpunk. I honestly do. It's one of my favorite genres. I know that the new Bladerunner movie has brought it back into the front-and-center. Well, now you can bring a bit of cyberpunk racing to your tabletops with Neon Knights. Grab your custom car, draft for the best drivers, and hit the raceway, getting across that finish line first. The game is up on Kickstarter now.
From the campaign:
A Cyberpunk Battle Racing Board game. Upgrade your custom car... Drive the modular track... Destroy your opponents! You ready?
Neon Knights is a Cyberpunk Battle Racing game with action taking mechanics, modular tracks, car customization and driver skill upgrades. What's great about Neon Knights:
Exhibition & Campaign Modes Strategic & Tactical Customizable Cars Customizable Drivers Modular Race Tracks High Detail Battle Car Minis Custom Damage Dice Easy to Learn & Teach Push your Luck element Highly Thematic Card Drafting Mechanic Multi-Language Graphic Novel Story Book Digital Music Album Code And more to come with Stretch Goals!
The campaign is up and running now. It's set to go for another 26 days.
Woo! Saturday! Woo!I've... got nothing, really. I'm about to head over to a friend's place to game. So let's just dive into the reviews, shall we? We shall.This week, we have: Wordstacker, Wordsy, Dra
Woo! Saturday! Woo! I've... got nothing, really. I'm about to head over to a friend's place to game. So let's just dive into the reviews, shall we? We shall.
This week, we have: Wordstacker, Wordsy, Dragoon, Founders of Gloomhaven, Quest for the Antidote, Tokaido, Marvel Legendary: Noir, Quiver, Thunderbirds, Beasts of Balance, Stop Thief!, Zoo Ball, Automobiles: Racing Season, Between Two Cities: Capitals, Far Space Foundry, Good Cop Bad Cop, Unlock!, The Cohort, Star Scrapper: Cave In, Century: Spice Road, This War of Mine, Barenpark, Heldentaufe, Kingdomino, Pathfinder Adventures app, and Space Invaders Dice.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Dragoon from Lay Waste Games. We also get a look at the new rogue and barbarian expansions made available through kickstarter!
What a great and fantastic looking game - unbelievable! Available in both Gold and plastic editions! So go for the gold and get 50 gold before anyone else for the win in this awesome tactical game.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Founders of Gloomhaven, the brand new game from Isaac Childres and I can't wait for people to get their hands on this one. It's a euro at heart but fuels the lore of Gloomhaven as you are founding the original city before what you experience in the campaign of Gloomhaven.
You get a lot here in this game! Worker placement, card management, resource management, strategy, great artwork, and fantastic mechanics! the kickstarter is going on right now! If you are a Gloomhaven fan - you are going to want this title in the Gloomhaven universe! (at least I think so - the theme is rich and lore is definitely there - this is a different game though - so please make note of that.)
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Quest For The Antidote, a new one from Upper Deck and a very fun family game indeed! In Quest For The Antidote you are questing around a very fun filled map to acuqire the components you need for your antidote. you only have 50 breaths to make it happen, so make every move and action count!
Tokaido is a game in which you gain VP for the experiences you take in on a journey. But you can only do so much and compete with your opponents for the same experiences.
Marvel Noir is the latest expansion for Marvel Legendary the Deckbuilding Game. It features heroes and villains from the Noir Universe and mixes up gameplay a bit.
The Quiver is a card-carrying case you can use to make your card games or small board games portable. You can even use it for carrying other things you want to keep organized and protected.
Thunderbirds the board game was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the TV show. It is a cooperative game where players must rescue victims, stop disasters and thwart the Hood.
The Capitals expansion adds 3 new elements that, according to Stonemaier Games, are designed to all work together, so you should either play with all of them or none. That being said, you could probably mix and match if you wanted to. In addition to the three game play changes, the expansion also comes with some new city tokens.
The specific functional aspects of Far Space Foundry would take a bit too long to explain in this article. In brief, players are space merchants mining asteroids for two different types of ore. Mining occurs in the first half of the game and a rondel/mancala mechanism delivers that ore to a player’s freighters.
In the second half of the game, the ore is used to produce goods which can then be “charged”. Points are scored for maximizing the utility of a player’s ships and the number and kinds of products produced. Points are also deducted for empty space on ships or not upgrading ships.
Players are assigned the team of either being honest or crooked cops by being dealt three secret role cards to each player, with the majority of role cards in hand determining which team a player is on. Two players are also secretly assigned the role of the leader of each of the teams. The goal of the game is for the players to determine who the leader of the rival team is and eliminate them from the game.
Each game of Unlock! comes with a deck of cards and a smaller “tutorial deck”. The teaching deck is identical in all versions of the game.
Players begin the game with a single card deputizing the room they are in and a deck of cards (we sorted our deck by number before the game to make it easier to find cards). During the game, players will need to solve puzzles to gain access to new cards, leading them further down the rabbit hole.
The starting player and every player following has three phases to their turn. They first take two cards from the shuffled deck, look at both of them, and give one to a player of their choice and keep the other.
The second phase is optional and allows players to take a card from their hand and place it face-up on the table to start or add to a Cohort. Once a player has played the required number of unit cards to complete the Cohort, the set is placed face down and the player no longer suffers the effect of that unit type. They also choose a player to discard all the cards from their hand. In the last phase, the player discards down to the maximum hand size of 4 if necessary.
I have come to the realisation that the hallmark of a great game is one when you look at your options, mull over your choices and then let out a cry of exasperation. It is that moment when you realise that to pull off that game winning moving you really should have started your plan in motion three turns ago, or that you are simply one action or one resource short of pulling off a complete blinder.
I say this because my time with Star Scrapper: Cave In has been embarrassingly short, to the point where I feel slightly dishonest in using the word review in the title, (not too I guilty mind you as an article titled first impressions never gets the traction it deserves) but I will say within my brief time with Star Scrapper Cave In there have been multiple cries of anguish, so surely it is a truly great game.
I’ll just come out and say it. Century Spice Road from Plan B Games is a surprise for me. And a very pleasant one at that. Steve talked about it in one of our recent podcasts and he liked it. So much so that before he’d finished banging on about it, I’d one-clicked it during the recording and waited to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out that our resident Welshman may have had a point.
Anyone alive in the 90s who owned an Amiga will almost certainly have remembered the Sensible Software game “Cannon Fodder”. If you don’t remember the game, look it up. I’ll wait.
I mention Cannon Fodder because it came with the tagline: “War has never been so much fun”. And it was right – Cannon Fodder was awesome and still stands as one of my favourite games of all time. Making those little men dance across the screen as you shot their twitching corpses was highly entertaining, if a little morbid.
Cannon Fodder, however, is a complete polar opposite to the subject of this review – with the tagline “In war, not everyone is a soldier”. Also beginning life as a video game, This War of Mine is a rather brutal and harrowing depiction of the early 90’s Siege of Sarajevo from the point of view of a group of civilians trying to eke out an existence in a city that’s seen more shells than Blackpool Pleasure Beach. It’s fair to say that absolutely nothing depicted in This War of Mine could be described as “fun”.
The correct term to describe Bärenpark is a polyominoes positioning game (or Tetris shapes as I prefer to call them). Each turn you will attempt to place one of the odd shaped pieces, made of either public amenities or one of the various bear enclosures, into your park. The name of the game is efficiency, as you race to fill your park as quickly as possible but also maximise its scoring.
The day that you have been waiting for has come. At last, you can prove that you are worthy of being a member of the Hero‘s council. Show them your skills by collecting the golden monster teeth. But be aware – the lands of Taora are not as peaceful as they seem. Rumor has it, that in the dark and gloomy Netherworld, some friends become enemies…
Now get up and hurry! The Heldentaufe already started. Be the first who returns the teeth of glory.
As the name implies, Kingdomino is a twist on the classic tile-laying game, dominoes. This game takes it up a notch by adding pretty art, castles, a twist on the turn order rules, and different scoring. The goal remains the same, however: Score the most points.
Each player has king meeples (the number depends on the number of players), a castle, and a starting tile. The castle is placed on top of the starting tile at the beginning of the game and placed in front of yourself. This is the humble beginning of your kingdom.
Once upon a time, we reviewed the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, a legacy-style card game/RPG mashup that let you build your character in the form of a deck and some limited stats over a series of adventures. Now, Pathfinder Adventures is a digital version of PACG available on all platforms – including Steam – and part of Asmodee Digital’s prolific board game app library.
The game’s premise is just like the original: aliens are attacking the Earth and it’s up to you to blast them all to smithereens. Each player takes a score sheet that looks just like the video game, with space invaders neatly laid out in a 11×6 grid and each row of invaders worth different point values. At the top of the sheet are the hard-to-hit UFOs worth the most points.
Saturday!Saturday!Saturday!Umm... read that like Elton John.Anyway, it's Saturday (if you hadn't noticed), so that means it's time to hang out and play some games. But it's also time for some reviews.
Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Umm... read that like Elton John. Anyway, it's Saturday (if you hadn't noticed), so that means it's time to hang out and play some games. But it's also time for some reviews.
Today we have: Unearth, Zooscape, Moonquake Escape, Balloon Pop, Purrrlock Holmes, Neuroshima Hex: Death Breath, Deadline, The Butterfly Garden, Sagrada, Mow Money, Century: Spice Road, Slide Blast, Power Play, Monopoly Gamer, and Gang Rush: Breakout.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Zooscape a game from TMG that offers fun for a larger group and fantastic artwork!! If you like animals or the zoo - I'm sure you will love this title.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at MoonQuake Escape a game from Breaking Games and designer Jeff Johnston. We are doing another giveaway on this title and you definitely want to get in on this one! With this giveaway you are getting the game, 8 buttons, and the promo pack!
So hide your alien and keep them under cover so you can make your way to the landing base and be the first to escape in the only rocket there is. This is a great family and game night title - pick it up, its fun!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Balloon Pop, a game from TMG. In this title you are simply rolling up to 5 dice and trying not to pop your balloon first - thus giving yourself a chance for the highest score in three rounds. This is a very quick 10 min game / filler and a fun recommendation.
The Death Breath army has a unique feel compared to the existing armies as there are quite a few new mechanisms added. Most importantly, when any of your units are killed, they go into a zombie pool. Your HQ has the ability to return units from your zombie pool to the battlefield after a battle. Many of your units have additional strength of initiative highlighted in green that activate only when they are returned in zombie form.
Additionally, some units have a charge ability that allows them to move into the space occupied by an opposing unit they defeat. This is extremely useful for units that activate in multiple initiatives as they can wipe out a whole line of enemies if things go your way.
Once a case is chosen and each player has their detective card, they are ready to begin.
After reading the case description (usually a murder that needs to be solved), a number of clue cards will be accessible to the players. The current “chief detective” then chooses a clue card to begin the round. Each clue card will contain a number of symbols that must be matched to successfully reveal the backside of the clue.
Each round of a game, players will be looking at a hand of Butterfly cards, more Butterfly cards on the table, and Garden cards. At the start of the round, each player selects a Butterfly card from their hand to play. These cards indicate the turn order using a large number in the upper left of the card. They also show the number and type of butterflies the player will gain in their jar.
Sagrada is played over ten rounds, with each round made up of the following three steps:
The first player randomly draws dice from a dice bag and rolls them to establish the draft pool (two dice for each player plus one) Starting with the first player, players may perform each of the following actions in any order (NOTE: Turn order is in a snake draft pattern): Draft a die from the draft pool and place the die in his window Use a tool card which allows the use of special abilities, but for a price (favor tokens) After the first player has taken their second turn, the round is over
The next round starts with the next player clockwise. After ten rounds, the game is over and the final scores are calculated based on:
Public objectives Private objective Favor tokens remaining Negative points for each open space in their window
At the start of the game, players will first set up the neighborhoods and contract cards. Players will then get all of their starting bits and lawn mower. Once they draw five basic bid cards and collect their three bluff cards the game can begin.
Century: Spice Road is an engine-building resource-conversion game for two to five players. Players are spice merchants along the spice road, seeking to produce and trade the spices necessary to fulfill contracts. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
The object of Slide Blast is to build the longest waterslide for your meeple to slide down. Or, in game terms, to build a slide that covers the most tiles and thus earns you the most victory points.
You’ll build your slide by placing tiles and connecting flumes. This is easy-peasy. You will begin the game with one tile in hand. When it’s your turn, draw a tile from one of the tile decks so that you have two tiles in hand to choose from. Place your chosen tile so that it extends your slide and then move your meeple to the end of your slide. Now it’s the next person’s turn.
Power Play is a unique narrative game that combines the freedom of an RPG with the simplified rules, structures, and goals of a board game. It also happens to be competitive.
I’ve been mulling over this game for a long time, trying to figure out what to say about it. It’s not necessary a bad game; it’s playable, and definitely possible to have fun with. I just wonder that it might be stuck between two worlds, unable to find a real audience except for a small niche.
When the members of the underworld start to cross the bridge that leads to their headquarters, nobody knows who will reach the other side. Dash, crash, and cash in Gang Rush Breakout — whoever meets the Godfather with the most loot wins!
Well, it's Saturday. My day was looking like it might be a bit dull, but then a friend was like, "Hey, let's have everyone come over and game." and I was like, "done and done. I just need to type up a
Well, it's Saturday. My day was looking like it might be a bit dull, but then a friend was like, "Hey, let's have everyone come over and game." and I was like, "done and done. I just need to type up a post first." So, that's the sacrifice I'm making for you all. I could be on my way to gaming, but I know how much you need to get your review articles. Such is my dedication to this site and its readers. :P ;) The Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., and Roy Acuff are helping, too.
Today we have: Dairyman, Bottlecap Vikings, Cult Following, Game of Trains, Yamatai, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Balloon Pop, Unearth, Shahrazad, Rhein: River Trader, Dresden Files, Riff Raff, BarenPark, Jaipur, and Sentient.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Dairyman, a new one from TMG for 2017. This is a great little game and one of my favorites from them this year. I don't know why, but I love the concept and game play. Its just fun! In this title you are trying to ensure your milk orders do not spoil and you can produce milk each time its your turn. Otherwise, you are stuck with a back order, which can help you out unless you have the most of them.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Bottlecap Vikings, another TMG title that offers the roundel mechanic and a nice technology skill tree aspect that's always fun to build up. Its a quick and simple game, that I find builds memory and tactics.
Cult Following is a creative storycrafting card game. Each round two or three players are selected to be cultists. All the other players are designated as recruits. Cultists choose three ideas from a hand of five cards and creatively bind them together into a ridiculous cult. Recruits draw cards with questions and choose one to ask the cultists to help them figure out which cult to join. Each cultist takes a turn to answer. The recruit then picks their favorite answer and gives that cultist their question card, which represents a new follower that has joined that cult. The first cultist to reach two followers wins the round.
Alanis Morissette would call it ironic that I am writing a review about Game of Trains while sitting on a train. It’s not ironic, it's just where I seem to spend most of my time these days, squirming on London Midlands putrid green seats that where no doubt designed to eradicate slouching on public transport by 2019. The good thing is Game of Trains is a damn sight more fun than sitting uncomfortably on a morning commuter train, in fact I would go so far as to say that it has been the best game I have played so far in 2017.
The premise of Game of Trains is really simple, you will start the game with seven carriages numbered in descending order with any number from 1 to 88. The first person to arrange their carriages into ascending order is the winner.
Yamatai is a pattern recognition/building resource management Euro game for two to four players. Players are builders trying to beautify the Yamatai archipelago and be named Queen Himiko’s chief builder. The player with the most prestige at the end of the game wins.
Baron Munchausen is a game of telling outlandish tales to impress your friends.
You begin by giving yourself a name and noble title (“character creation”) to be referred by during the course of the game. Whoever is the starting player is given a prompt by the player to their left – this can be completely made up, or from the included list of prompts in the game book. An example prompt might look like this:
“Tell us, Great Duke of Carrotsberry, of the day you saved the moon from falling from the sky.”
The Great Duke of Carrotsberry then proceeds to weave their tale, making sure to present themself as outlandishly heroic, equipped with sheer ingenuity and strength in all forms. The story shouldn’t drag on; only a few minutes should do it, lest the Duke be deemed long-winded. (A player can be cut short with a toast if someone goes on too long).
In Balloon Pop, players start with 3 dice and can choose to reroll some or all, but if you do, you add a die to the next roll. Once a player re-rolls twice or is satisfied with their roll, they record the results on their scoring sheet by circling the numbers listed. The dice are then passed to the next player.
When scoring, it’s important to note that players will only score when a player circles the last red number under the balloon. This signifies a “Break.” If there is a Break during the round, all players continue to take their turn until reaching the starting player. All players then score points equal to the circled numbers in each column. If there are multiple breaks in a round, only one scoring takes place.
After three Breaks, players will total their scores from all 3 Breaks and the player with the highest points is the winner.
In Shahrazad, one or two players cooperatively attempt to place story tiles to make the most successful story to impress the king. To make a great story, the tiles must ascend from left to right and attempt to group colors together as much as possible.
After all tiles are played through two rounds, players take their total score and get a brief review from the king.
Rhein: River Trade is FedEx: The Game. Players take on the role of shipping companies aiming to fulfill contracts that require a certain amount of goods to be delivered to locations out of Basel, Germany within a certain amount of time. The player who manages this task to the achievement of the most profit wins.
Each game of the Dresden Files is broken out into one of the many Dresden Files books. And once you have tackled all of those, there is a stack of “side jobs” you can play for added variety.
Once you’ve selected a book for the game and each player chooses a character from the Dresden Files universe. Case cards are then dealt out into two, face up rows on the game board. Starting with the player controlling Harry Dresden (of course), each player takes one action on their turn.
We are back with another installment of Parental Guidance, where I chose games to play with my parents, and my mother chimes in with her thoughts on the games I brought. The goal of this article series is to help you choose new games that you can pull out with your family and other non-gamers. Ideally, these will be something different from the Ticket to Rides and Catan games you’ve played 1,000 times. If you missed the first installment of Parental Guidance, be sure to give it a read as there are some good options in there. As always, I’ll start with a summary of the game, why I chose it, and my mother’s thoughts. On to the games!
Blame Canada (Day), but it seems that the post got eaten by the system. It happens occasionally, but it's alright. We can rebuild it. We can make it stronger, faster, better... Or mostly the same but
Blame Canada (Day), but it seems that the post got eaten by the system. It happens occasionally, but it's alright. We can rebuild it. We can make it stronger, faster, better... Or mostly the same but with this new intro.
Anyway, this week we have: Werewords, Caverna: Cave vs Cave, Not Alone, Evolution: The Beginning, Black Hat, Big Bang 13.7, Kingdomino, Match Madness, Lady Richmond, Century: Spice Road, Homes: 2 Player Card Game, Coldwater Crown, Quadropolis, and This War Of Mine.
Evolution: The Beginning pits players’ species against each other as they adapt traits in order to consume the most food from the communal watering hole, or other species. At the end of the game, the player who has collected the most food throughout the game is the winner.
Player pawns on a board representing a computer network stand in for the computer access of players as they navigate through information systems. By winning card tricks, players can move their pawns through systems with the aim of staying on the most valuable spaces when scoring occurs at the end of a round. Players will gain points for cards in hand and the spaces their pawns occupy, however, the lowest score wins.
Players in Big Bang 13.7 (hereafter just referred to as Big Bang) take the role of galactic, supreme forces or gods (if you prefer). They shape the cosmos by playing hexagonal tiles representing stars, planets and other cosmological bodies. At the end of the game, players will score points by making sure tiles that match their objectives line up.
In Kingdomino, players are seeking to expand their kingdom over the course of the game. Each round, players will be drafting colored tiles, and adding them to their existing territory using a simple tile-laying mechanic. Scoring is based on the size of each area, multiplied by any crown symbols present.
Match Madness comes with rules for two modes of play. In Quick Play, each player gets a set of five puzzle blocks and a number of objective cards are placed face down in the middle of the table in a single stack. The top card is revealed and all players simultaneously race to arrange their blocks to match the card.
If you believe you have made a match, quickly grab the card and then all players will verify that you truly have a match. If so, keep the card and play continues as another card is revealed. If you made an error and your blocks do not match the card, you can no longer compete for it as the others continue to make a match.
Lady Richmond is an auction game for two to five players. Players are potential heirs to Lady Richmond, fighting for their inheritance at the auction block. The player with the most valuable assets at the end of the game wins.
Century: Spice Road is the first in a series of games that explores the history of each century with spice-trading as the theme for the first installment. In Century: Spice Road, players are caravan leaders who travel the famed silk road to deliver spices to the far reaches of the continent for fame and glory. Each turn, players perform one of four actions:
Establish a trade route (by taking a market card) Make a trade or harvest spices (by playing a card from hand) Fulfill a demand (by meeting a victory point card’s requirements and claiming it) Rest (by taking back into your hand all of the cards you’ve played) The last round is triggered once a player has claimed their fifth victory point card, then whoever has the most victory points wins.
In February 1895, London woke up to a loud bang. A large pillar of smoke showed that a bomb had exploded in the Houses of Parliament. Security forces were activated immediately and they arrested a suspicious young laborer near the area.
Mycroft Holmes, at the service of the crown, was commissioned to investigate the relationship of the young laborer with anarchist groups. He thinks it will be an easy task that he can do from the comfort of his armchair in the Diogenes Club — until he is informed of disturbing news; his younger brother Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, has been hired by the boy’s parents to prove the innocence of his son, who believes to be a scapegoat of a dark conspiracy.
Is that “victory” you taste in the salty air? You’ve secured your spot as a competitor in the world-renowned Coldwater Crown fishing tournament, and the contest has just begun! Will you be able to cast the right bait at the right time to reel-in the biggest fish? Will you be able to strategically balance your efforts at the different fishing locations to win the most trophies? Very little is certain on these frigid waters, but it’s guaranteed the fish will be biting!
Coldwater Crown is a fun and clever board game that captures the thrill of fishing in a tabletop experience. Created by acclaimed game designer Brian Suhre, it’s a game of strategic planning, angler’s intuition, and just the right amount of luck! Test your fishing expertise against up to three of your friends or hone your skills at the practice pond. You don’t have to be a master angler to win, but once your trophy count begins to stack up, you might just feel like one!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at This War Of Mine the Board Game! Based on a popular video game, This War Of Mine offers a rich RPG like game play with multiple games phases that take place over the course of a 24 hour period. Although it has aspects of a RPG - it is a true board game. The games offers "saving", which makes it easy to pick up and go after a session and then unpack and start game play right back up.
As you play through the game, you experience real life as it would be in this environment and the design is fantastic!!! This game is so much fun and really takes you on a journey. It's a BUY - 100% ! I could not recommend it more.
It's Saturdaaaaaaaaaaay! Woooooooo!Due to the rain, my initial plans for the day fell through. But I'm hoping to rebound and maybe hang out with some people here and just chill. Yes, just me, them, an
It's Saturdaaaaaaaaaaay! Woooooooo! Due to the rain, my initial plans for the day fell through. But I'm hoping to rebound and maybe hang out with some people here and just chill. Yes, just me, them, and a whole pan of homemade banana pudding cheesecake... But at the moment, I know what you all really want are the day's reviews.
Today we have: Ethnos, Founders of Gloomhaven, Macroscope, Dragonstone Mine, Sheep & Thief, Gyrating Hamsters, Pests, Potion Explosion iOS, Salem, Exit: The Game, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Covil, Meduris, Saltlands, The Flow of History, Sagrada, The Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Greyport, and Ulock!.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Founders of Gloomhaven - the brand new game from Isaac Childres, the designer of the EPIC Gloomhaven board game. Gloomhaven has been taking the board gaming community by storm this year and just hit a record on kickstarter for its second print and currently #4 on BGG!
Isaac takes us through the new euro style game, setting the stage for what we find in the Gloomhaven campaign. So as you choose your race and start to build one of the most influential cities in gaming history, make smart choices and watch your opponents because the fate of Gloomhaven is in your hands!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Macroscope a brand new one from Mayday Games, which was recently successfully kickstarted. This game is great for adults and kids and is a ton of fun trying to guess what the picture is as you slowly remove the dials on top of the device.
That brings me to the Macroscope device, which you assemble once you open the game up. Its a very innovative game component which integrates with the actual game box. Well done Mayday on this one, so grab a copy and see if you can guess what's under the dials!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Dragon Stone Mine from Legion and Jade Dragon Studios. A very nice fun little strategy placement game we have had a great time with and a kid favorite at this point. you mine gems and stack them on your own personal spire for the max points at the end of the game. Although its not as easy as it sounds, watch out for other players to foil your well laid plans!
I definitely recommend - so pick up a copy of this game and enjoy all your gem mining.
Gyrating Hamsters is a fun fast paced hamster themed deck building game. Gameplay is approx 30min and is for 2-4 players.
Gyrating Hamsters got funded on kickstarter within its first week and for good reasons, this game has it all! Replay value is extremely high, after every game you always have someone shou “Lets play that again, I’ll beat you this time!” which to me is a good sign to any game dev! The aim of th egame is to build up your clan of hamsters and use them to battle your opponents, the winner of the battle takes the opponents losing cards.
‘Pests the game’ was sent over to me all the way from the States and I can honestly say I am so glad I got to play test this! It is brought you from the wonderful mind of Michael McFarland who is a keen gamer and has been since childhood.
Bumbling students of potions class mixing colored ingredients to make potions is the subject here. Players will take ingredient-spheres from a rack (dispenser) hoping that the spheres on either side of the selected ingredient cascade down into one another and create explosions which deliver more ingredients to the potion maker. The player who makes the most points worth of potions wins.
Players in Salem control a group of individuals living in the eponymous village. In the basic mode of play, a random set of individuals are laid out in the middle of the table and the object is to discover which ones are witches with deductions similar to Clue. In the more advanced mode, the witches are controlled by other players. The object is the same, to find the witches, but if you control a witch, you’re also able to penalize other players to make sure your witches aren’t caught. In each case, the player to identify the most witches wins.
In EXIT, players are trying to solve a series of puzzles and open the “locked door” of the room they are in, all as quickly as possible. While each game of EXIT has its own theme (currently Abandoned Cabin, Secret Lab, and Pharaoh’s Tomb), the goal remains the same. Start the timer and use the clues at your disposal to solve a series of puzzles to ultimately escape.
Each player is an Italian Renaissance family seeking to impress the church and expand their power. This is accomplished by acquiring cards representing lands, people, activities or ventures. Dice-based workers are placed to action locations while resources such as wood, stone, and money are managed to the highest efficiency. Victory points determine the winner.
In Covil: The Dark Overlords you will struggle for the supremacy of the regions surrounding an isolated town. Each player controls a Dark Overlord with unique powers and countless troops of minions to “defend the world from enemy hordes”, bring “peace and security to the territories” — at a cost, of course!
Following the call of the gods, the players settle at the base of mountain Meduris. Building huts, bringing offerings to the druid, gathering precious runestones, and building monumental temples is the only way to earn the favor of the gods in Meduris.
In Saltlands, the first group of players to find and reach an exit point wins, leaving the rest to the Horde. There are no fixed teams, players can decide to co-operate or backstab each other as they see fit. Each player starts the game with a single captain but may increase his crew as the game progresses. Each crew member represents an extra life and an action each turn. Players move with their land sails according to the wind direction: being able to criss-cross slowly upwind or speed in the fastest direction, sailing on a broad reach. Each player can choose which group of raiders to move at the end of their turn until all raiders have moved. This allows players to help each other or force a confrontation with the Raiders. Players can fight the raiders and take their vehicles as an alternate mode of transport.
History is a harsh river that flows steadily through the ages. Since the dawn of time, numerous civilizations have risen over the fallen ashes of others, and yet every one of them had once shone brightly in its own moment of glory!
The Flow of History is yet another innovative civilization game from Taiwanese designer Jesse Li. Players develop their nation using a unique bidding/price-setting mechanism to purchase new cards, but what is paid to the supply might also be harvested into the pockets of other players later, which puts a twist on your strategy of bidding cards, and also simulates economic inflation in the game. Don’t forget to build a formidable military to clash with cultures led by your enemy, and create an unforgettable tale of your civilization in The Flow of History.
Draft dice and use the tools-of-the-trade in Sagrada to carefully construct your stained glass window masterpiece.
In more detail, each player builds a stained glass window by building up a grid of dice on their player board. Each board has some restrictions on which color or shade (value) of die can be placed there. Dice of the same shade or color may never be placed next to each other. Dice are drafted in player order, with the start player rotating each round, snaking back around after the last player drafts two dice. Scoring is variable per game based on achieving various patterns and varieties of placement…as well as bonus points for dark shades of a particular hidden goal color.
Special tools can be used to help you break the rules by spending skill tokens; once a tool is used, it then requires more skill tokens for the next player to use them.
The Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Greyport is a cooperative deck building game set in the same universe as The Red Dragon Inn. There are a lot of rules and card effects with this game that would take a while to explain, so I’m just going to give you a quick and dirty overview of how the game works.
In each game, you’re trying to beat the chosen scenario. There are seven scenarios in the game of varying difficulty and in order to win you generally must defeat the boss monster for the scenario. (There are occasionally other win conditions and these are spelled out on the scenario card.) Each scenario has its own requirements for which components to use and which monsters will be in play, so game setup varies.
Unlock! is a cooperative puzzle-solving game intended to simulate an escape room for one to six players. Players have sixty minutes to solve the puzzles keeping them from their goals. If they’re able to solve them in that amount of time, they win.
It's Saturday, the day that's full of possibilities (Ok, so every day is full of possibilities, but it just feels moreso on Saturday to me). With any luck, your day is full of gaming.But at the moment
It's Saturday, the day that's full of possibilities (Ok, so every day is full of possibilities, but it just feels moreso on Saturday to me). With any luck, your day is full of gaming.
But at the moment, I know you're all interested in what sort of reviews we've got for you. Well, I won't make you wait any longer (Saturday won't go on forever, after all).
Today we have: Dice of Crowns, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy’s Mask, The Undercity: Black River Irregulars Expansion, Legendary: Deadpool Expansion, Firefly: Crime and Punishment Expansion, Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, Tokaido App, Gloomhaven, Potion Explosion App, Planetarium, V-Commandos, Maximum Apocalypse, Jump Drive, The Colonists, and Stinker.
The Deadpool expansion adds Marvel’s looniest anti-hero to the Legendary deck-building series. It is a fairly typical Legendary expansion except that it brings Deadpool’s lunacy with it.
Crime and Punishment is the latest small expansion for Firefly the game. It adds more Misbehave cards, Alliance Alert cards and some new Setup and Story cards.
Tokaido is a unique board game about taking a journey. You gain VPs by stopping at different places along the path. Read about the digital implementation.
Gloomhaven is a game of Euro-inspired tactical combat in a persistent world of shifting motives. Players will take on the role of a wandering adventurer with their own special set of skills and their own reasons for travelling to this dark corner of the world. Players must work together out of necessity to clear out menacing dungeons and forgotten ruins. In the process they will enhance their abilities with experience and loot, discover new locations to explore and plunder, and expand an ever-branching story fueled by the decisions they make.
So let's get this straight; Potion Explosion is a board game, based on a mobile app that now been turned into a mobile app. Confused? Don't be, because Potion Explosion is a fun little game that works just as well on both the tabletop and your telephone or tablet.
The premise is simple, you need to brew potions and do it better than your opponent. To do this you will need to gather four different ingredients each represented by coloured marbles, in varying quantities. Each turn you are only allowed to collect one ingredient from the rack, but if by doing so two ingredients of the same colour come into contact then they explode and you get to collect all of those of the same colour. If by removing these ingredients you then cause another group of the same colour to come into contact then you also get to collect those as well. It means you can set off a cascade and grab a handful of ingredients by simply removing one key ingredient.
A few months ago when I took a peek at Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy, I may have let slip that I was a student of Astrophysics. Sitting in or on an observatory in the middle of winter was all very well, but it did have a habit of reducing one’s tackle to the size of a cashew nut given that the observatory in question was in Scotland. Thankfully it wasn’t all steering telescopes and going cross-eyed trying to discern one speck of light from another. Part of my study of all things “space” involved the formation of stars and consequentially, the formation of planets. I could start harping on about accretion disks, gravitational fields and potential wells, but I’m sure Steve doesn’t want to lose our readership.
Having said all that, it seems that Game Salute have an interest in planetary formation because they’ve recently released Planetarium following a Kickstarter campaign. Every time I hear that word, I instantly think of the South Park episode – not because of Cartman’s cheesy poofs try-out, but because Dr. Adams can’t pronounce the “T” in Planetarium. According to my better half, saying that repeatedly for 6 weeks starts to wear thin. I fail to see the problem myself.
Players in V-Commandos are WWII soldiers taking on missions of various types including assassination, rescue, stealing plans and overall sabotage. Even if certain commandos are killed on the mission, the team wins (usually) or loses as a whole.
Maximum Apocalypse combines the replay value of classic endless dungeon roguelikes (e.g. Rogue, NetHack) with the best parts of mission directed dungeon crawlers and campaigns (e.g. Imperial Assault, Conan). After randomly generating the map, players choose which survivor role to take on and then determine the post apocalyptic flavor of the day: zombies, aliens or nuclear fallout. Each hellish landscape has a unique set of monsters and missions to overcome and all the while, players are attempting to mitigate limited resources and degrading health.
If you aren’t familiar with Tokaido, can you start by reading our full review. However if you want the quick summary, Tokaido is a game about a journey from Kyoto to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). However unlike in race games, the pace in Tokadio is a leisurely one. It’s about taking in the sights, sounds, and experiences of the journey.
Over the course of this four day trip, players will be stopping at inns, hot springs, temples, and other scenic locations. The goal, of course, is to earn the most victory points by the end of the trip.
Jump Drive is a hand-management card game for two to four players set in the Race for the Galaxy universe. Players are expanding their space empires through researching technologies and colonizing (or conquering) worlds. The player with the most points wins.
The Epic Strategy Game. It’s emblazoned on the front of the box like a badge of honor. Or perhaps it’s a warning. With a self reported playing time of up to 4 hours, The Colonists isn’t shy to let you know that you’re in for a long night of gaming. But worry not. For a game that aims to steal away your evening, it’s relatively easy to learn and play. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not ‘My First Board Game’ material, but it’s not as intimidating as eight pounds of cardboard might initially suggest.
Stinker is a party game for three to six players. Players use their letter tiles to create the best answer to the prompt, judged by another player. At the end of the game, whoever has the most points wins.
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