Category: Board Games

I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for more point salad from Feld and a way cool looking board.

Click to head over to the Kickstarter for Aquasphere

Views: 1981

Looking forward to Ophir from Terra Nova Games. The ship artwork looks very similar to my recent Kickstarter delivery of Fantasy Frontier but I’m a sucker for pickup and deliver/ship games.

From the Kickstarter page:

Ophir is a pick up and deliver, set collection, resource management game set in an ancient, prosperous world for 2-4 players. In Ophir, you’re an influential merchant of government, trade, or religion with a singular focus – the construction of the Temple.The Temple is built layer by layer through collective contributions of Silver and Gold. These precious metals are delivered by your merchant ship for Victory Points at the Temple, one of the seven locations you’ll be visiting in Ophir.To afford these precious building materials, you must navigate the region’s seas against your clever rivals to collect Goods. You must then decide whether to fulfill the demand at the Market for Coin, or exchange the goods for Favor with the Temple.Well-timed trades, efficient cargo storage, and tactical transportation will be the keys to your success. But you must be swift in your travels, because the game ends immediately once the construction of the Temple is complete. Will it be you whose name is spoken alongside the stories of Ophir’s wonder?Ophir’s accessibility makes it a joy to play for families — and with its modular setup, exclusive player roles, and mercurial market, Ophir has tactics, tension, and replayability for experienced gamers to savor!

It’s got some pretty cool 3D bits too!

Views: 2075

A few weeks ago I threw my name in a Tasty Minstrel Games-shaped hat in hopes of getting a review copy of Harbour sent to me and I was lucky enough to be picked. I’ve reviewed games direct from the designer and publisher before butit’s not all that common and I enjoy the opportunity to play and review what’s coming up.

Harbour is a card collection game that uses an action selection mechanism via the placement of a single “worker”. A field of cards in the center of the table provides a selection of buildings you can purchase and when someone builds their fourth building, the round ends and the player with the most points (from the buildings) is the winner.

A turn requires the player to move their single worker from one building to another building and to take the action the building provides. Players are trying to earn goods (tracked on a personal board) and time the sale of those goods in the volatile market to earn money to purchase a building. However, owning a building doesn’t mean its action is out of play; it just means that other players might need to pay you to use its ability.

Players start with a special starting building that includes a special ability that other players do not possess as well as small tableau where one keeps indicators of goods earned. In addition to a building’s action, they also depict a purchase price, a point value, and special icons that provide other bonuses and/or stacking features when the owner takes actions during the game.

I’ve played the game the game a few times and I must say that it’s, frankly, not much fun. The game seems to work mechanically but I found no reason to want to play again. The last time we played, we decided to shut it down after everybody built only two of the four buildings.

The buildings depict consistent iconography for their actions but in a strangely mathematical manner. A player in my game group went so far as to call in Algebra. The game has a much slower pace than I’d prefer since each building provides only meager advancements in earned goods. The market is extremely volatile and it’s easy to get trapped with large number of goods that were worth a lot but when the market collapses after a sale you can be left with a relatively worthless load of crap. Luckily the cards provide enough chaos that within a turn or two you might be back in the running.

I found the artwork whimsical but not to my liking. The artwork didn’t provide anything to the enrichment of the theme of a harbour depicting trolls, gnomes, skeletons, robots, etc.; a mishmash of characters with no cohesive plan and at times, uneven. The backs of the building cards have very nice artwork but then the fronts seem to have been designed by someone completely different with an entirely different style.

Unfortunately I was disappointed in the game but I hope they can clean up some of the rough spots before Kickstarting it in a few weeks. I wish them luck though.

Views: 7069

I’m a sucker for quick and easy card games and Yardmaster really fits the bill. 1-4 players vie for points in the simple set collection game with attractive minimalist artwork. Players are essentially collecting goods to load onto an appropriate cargo car and when they do that they can claim the filled car for their own freight yard. Depending on the type and value of the last card in your train, you may or not be able to attach the filled car to your train but when you do, it’s permanent and you can score the points. The first person to meet a point goal determine by the number of players wins.

This game is currently up on Kickstarter and was just recently funded so give it a shot and help get the amount up to some of the nice stretch goals.

Views: 2597

Review: Freedom: The Underground Railroad

Freedom: The Underground Railroad is a cooperative game for 1-4 players. Designed by Brian Mayer for a 2012 release, the game has players select a unique role and participate, as a group, in helping slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. The game has a unique system of movement of “slave catchers” that roam the eastern United States looking for slaves that players are trying to move north to Canada all taking place within a rich historical context.

At the beginning of the game, players select a role from one of the characters. They’re not specific historical characters but a type of character that would have played an active role in the Underground Railroad. This character gives each person a unique special ability. The game lasts a maximum of 8 rounds and within each round, players first roll a pair of dice to determine where the slave catchers move on the large map. If the catchers arrive at a location where slaves are present, they’re captured and sent to the slave markets to return to the plantations.

After the catchers move, each player gets a chance to purchase up to two tokens from a selection of three types: support, conductor, and fundraising. The game features an interesting time movement across the years 1800-1865 split into three periods: 1800-1839, 1840-1859, and 1860-1865. Tokens and cards are placed in each region but the items in the regions aren’t available until the game progresses to that point in time. However, rather than time moving at a regular pace through each round, it’s up to the players to purchase the support tokens in each period to advance the time clock and unlock the next region. The support tokens are very expensive and represent the local political and personal support for the abolitionist movement. You can’t win without purchasing all of them so as a team, you need to obtain the local support. But since they’re so expensive, at times you’ll need to make some sacrifices to spend money in other ways. Money in the game is extremely tight.

After purchasing up to two tokens, players then get to perform a actions from a list of available options. The purchased tokens let players move slaves out of the plantations and from one city to the next across the map. However, as they move, they trigger the slave catcher movements towards moving slaves. Sites for slaves are limited but another prerequisite for winning is that you must move a specific number of slaves safely to Canada (the exact number changes depending on the number of players). To make it difficult (and sometimes seemingly impossible) slaves have to move out of the way of the plantations leaving openings for other slaves to escape but doing so may (most definitely will) trigger the slave catchers to catch somebody.

At the end of each round, a new group of slaves from the slave market must be assigned to the plantations and if you don’t have enough room to house them (because you didn’t move enough out onto the map in the previous turn), the remaining slaves are “lost”. Lose too many and you’ll lose the game. When the slave catchers catch slaves, they are assigned to the slave markets so they aren’t immediately lost but the captured slaves will come back onto the board at one of the southern plantations (if there is room) in hopes of having another chance at freedom.

At the very end of the round, some cards in a queue of “Abolitionist Cards” are discarded and new cards come out from the deck assigned to the period of time you’re currently playing. Players can buy & resolve one card per round which gives an immediately ability or an ability that can be saved for later. However, there are also, “bad” cards that sometimes trigger negative things when they’re purchased or removed from the queue (e.g. you must return one support token to the board) or trigger a bad situation as long as they’re present in the queue (e.g. support tokens cost more than normal).

I really like the game and find it very challenging. The theme is outstanding and play is a bit puzzly trying to figure out how best to play cat-and-mouse with the slave catchers drawing them back and forth across the map as slaves move north. As I said, money is very tight. You need it to purchase tokens to move slaves and cards to take advantage of their actions but you so badly need it to purchase support tokens. The team has to manage many aspects of the historical context to pull out a win, the cards in the Abolitionists Queue providing real historical events and people to the theme, so discussion of what people will do on their turn is strongly encouraged (and is definitely going to be necessary).

Views: 2261

A few weeks ago I was asked to contribute a blog entry to TableTop. I suggested several topics and they settled on “traveling while board gaming” which is a fun topic and easy to write about.

I’d love to add more remote places to my list of gaming destinations but I’m extremely grateful that I’ve been able to experience what I already have in Iceland and New Zealand. I am planning on attending BGG.CON later this year for my first time (registered and the hotel is booked) and I’m really excited to do that. If you’ll be there, let me know and let’s see if we can get a game in.

One of these days I’ll attend Essen…

Views: 1844

Board gamers are a varied lot but given its continued success, BGG must be serving them all with the nourishment that the species desires. Amid the normal banter about actual games, rules questions, image uploads, new game announcements, Geek of the Week discussions, contest announcements, website bugs and suggestions, etc., BoardgameGeek (BGG) is also well-populated with topics that border on the über-niche. These topics never cease to amaze me.

Here’s a run down of sample of some “über-niche” topics gleaned from just a few minutes of browsing topics. I didn’t even have to search, I just paged through recent posting made in the last hour or so…

• Awkward grammar usage in rules and counting uncountable nouns (e.g. take two wood)
• English speakers from Lima, South America that are specifically interested in historically accurate military games.
• The design of the Amerigo cube-tower and how its printed construction directions don’t provide adequate statistical “release” of cubes as does the supposedly exact design of the Wallenstein tower
• A man in Greece wanting information about where in Palo Alto one might pick up specific types/brands of paints so that he can tell a friend to get them and then bring them back to him in Greece.
• Is it time to re-rank all the games in the database (debating pros and cons)
• Hasbro’s customer service, “Sucks Balls”
• Introducing a new dice roll simulator mobile app including comments concerning the accuracy of using words like dice and die correctly
• Debating if Modge Podge could be used to repair stickers on wooden tokens
• How do you store your Carcassonne?
• A designer requesting feedback concerning how long should a rule book should be for a design he was working on. Should they use longer rules with examples or shorter rules and an “almanac” style companion booklet.
• Who has the best wife. Seriously. Of course, it was geared towards how well wives (and really spouses in general) tolerate and/or embrace games.
• Should a game collection be insured? When/why?
• A request for game “meet-up groups” for “girls” in Georgia
• A Belgium-only Math Trade announcement
• A question regarding good cards games for 6 year olds
• Discussions about what celebrities will be attending BGG.CON in November
• What games can be played successfully outside
• A request for help to name a game where “players control a team of two bicycle riders (in the 30s-50s), trying to coordinate them to take advantage of other players moves to slipstream and avoid exhaustion from being in front. Until the end, where the point is to be in front.”
• An announcement for a Kickstarted “Pot: The Board Game: Trade and barter frantically to collect 7 grams of the most potent cannabis. First player to 420 points wins!”

Again, keep in mind this is just a sampling and more comes out every day. On one hand you get a front row seat to discussions where OCD and pedantic behavior are common. Internet trolling exists but BGG moderators and the community do a good job at keeping overt negative behavior in check. On the other hand, we’re an intellectual crowd, I learn something new most days, and I do feel a kinship to many members.

I didn’t pull any topics from Chit Chat which borders on insanity but very fun (“Who has the best donkey?”) or RSP (Religion, Sex, Politics) which also borders on insanity (“Subject: Majority of Americans without health insurance now oppose Obamacare. Perhaps our freedom-hating, thieving, economic-wrecking plantation overlords can finally admit defeat — and go away?”). Although I never post in RSP, I periodically browse and lurk and learn how to and and how not to debate a topic intellectually, factually, and without emotion. Even amid the knights that say NICHE!, there’s something to learn if you go looking for it.

Views: 2163

VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game Publisher Unboxing from Dice Hate Me on Vimeo.

A first look inside an advanced production copy of VivaJava Dice!

Views: 1995

I’ve participated in numerous Math Trades on BGG including the 1st, 2nd, and most recently, the 5th largest (total number of games) in BGG’s history. For the uninitiated, Math Trade bring together lots of people who have items they’re willing to trade for other items. In general people offer and receive games in trade but it’s not uncommon for trades to involve other products like gift certificates, DVDs, electronic equipment, tickets, magazines, second born children, etc. You name it, somebody has probably offered it in a Math Trade. BGG only provides the listing mechanism through its support of “GeekLists” but other 3rd-party software is used to align wants with offers, organize and maximize trades, etc. To make it more interesting, the trades are not necessarily 1:1, but indirect. I may ship a game to a different person than the person who sends me the game I wanted in trade. Take a moment to let that sink in. Hundreds of people, all trusting one another to ship games (and other stuff) to one another. It only works well when everybody plays by the rules and everybody plays the role of a good citizen of the trade. It all hinges on the honor system.

Entering into a Math Trade, especially the really big ones, is daunting to newcomers. Here’s a little guide to the Five Stages of a Math Trade.

• Denial and Isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

I. Denial and Isolation

I subscribe to the Math Trade Announcements forum so any time there is a Math Trade, I get a subscription notice and I jump out to BGG and see what kind of trade is being hosted. I like the big trades in hopes of being able to choose from thousands of offers, the smorgasbord of goodness.

However, many times I don’t see what I want to see so I have to resort to posting items to the trade’s “request” list in hopes of finding someone who will offer the items I want. Without good trade offers, I feel lonely, left out in the cold. I only offers the really good games. Who can deny that goodness. My “like new” is like, well, like really new, hardly played, sure…punched, but just a little dusty. Why don’t I see hundreds of dollars in gift certificates being offered for these games! Why should it matter that my copy of Oasis is the 5th copy being offered; my copy is the good one, right?

II. Anger

I subscribe to the “request” and the “offer” geeklists so for the big trades, I receive hundreds of subscription updates every day and I can see the lists grow by leaps and bounds and like a hungry dog seeing a line of Beggin’ Strips, I follow each subscription to the end reading every comment, update, and reply.

But as every trade progresses, I start seeing the eccentricities of users kick into full force and I have to refrain from commenting. Some people are rude. Some people don’t recognize how far out on the bell-curve of normality they are. But then again, I remind myself that I’m on that bell curve of behavior myself and the curve is different for everybody.

BGG attracts all flavors of gamers and it’s readily apparent when you see people commenting that they want pictures that depict exactly how the shrinkwrap has split on an “in shrink” game (that must matter some how?), or exactly the version/release/month of manufacture (this one I do relate to – there can be huge difference from one release to the next), or what someone really means when they say “free shipping to the lower 48” (with comments like, “What?! Why do you hate Minnesota?!”)

In my next Math Trade I’m going to strive not to trigger comments where someone thinks I might be more comfortable in Nazi Germany. Godwin’s law must apply to Math Trade Geeklists as well.

III. Bargaining

After the offer deadline passes, participants enter into the phase of using a tool called the OLWLG, the Online Want List Generator. The OLWLG allows users to align their offers with other offers. This intersection of offers represent your “wants” and all of them together represent your “want list”. Using this tool is a bear and it takes patience, experience, hope, despair, and yes, even prayer (and I’m not even religious.)

The process of creating your want list splits you into two personalities. On one hand, you want those good games that others are offering and on the other hand, you’ve got these good games you have to give up to get them. Getting these two independent entities to work together is difficult. One side points out shipping costs and some sentimental memories of playing a game, the other points out practical facts like you’ve not played the game in four years, your group hates it, there’s a small tear in one corner, it’s got no box fart. Meaningful stuff! You’ve got to consider everything!

IV. Depression

Finally you submit your want list and then the trade comes to a close and the OLWLG is locked down. With great anticipation I wait for the results but the big trades take hours to obtain results, and then there’s validating them and checking for cases of arbitrage. During the lock-down period my mind wanders, “Oh for crying out loud, why did you not add another game to that one trade and why did you offer your old grail game for that piece of hyped crapola!”

I start questioning my wants and begrudging my offers. I’ve even read the small print that what I thought I was trading for wasn’t exactly what I thought I was trading for. What?! there’s no expansion with that?! That’s the first edition that had mold problems?!

V. Acceptance

And the results are in! And you just have to bend over and take what you get. But if you enter into it knowing that since you’re in complete control, you shouldn’t ever be disappointed in what you do get. It’s not unlikely that you won’t be disappointed in what you don’t get but at least you’ll hang onto your old crappy games that looked so bright and shiny about 2 stages ago.

Regardless, I love a good Math Trade. Let’s be careful out there though, and don’t take any wooden nickels. Unless of course they’re those Kickstarter kind that were part of the stretch goal when GreatBits.com offered them in their second pre-order and they came in that really cool, enameled metal tin. Not the thin tin, but the thicker one that had “V2” stamped on the bottom and were made with more copper…and the black velvet, promo, draw-string bag…

Views: 2187

I’ve been having a lot of fun playing a “new to me” game called Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island. The game is cooperative, in that everybody wins or everybody loses but it also features a solo variant so I have had a lot more opportunities to play the game than I would otherwise.

Robinson is designed to support from 1-4 players and lasts a couple of hours. Players take on the role of a character that has survived a shipwreck on the island and your group has to try to accomplish some goal before being rescued. The game features several scenarios you can choose to play that define the goal you must accomplish but many other aspects of the game will keep that goal interesting and fresh. Each time you play you will be facing all kinds of new situations, events, adventures, beasts, and weather in your attempt to stay alive long enough and to meet your goal.

I’ve been focusing on the first scenario “Castaways”. You goal is to gather enough wood to pile it into a bonfire and to start it on fire some time in turns 10-12. Resources are extremely tight and many times you’ve got to make really tough decisions about using the wood you gather to build other things you need to build rather than adding it to your pile. On top of all that, you’ve got to gather food to survive each day but not too much as food rots each night so every day you’ve got to find at least some. For every situation and requirement the game throws at you that you cannot fulfill, you must take wounds. Too many wounds and you’ll die and lose the game.

The game is steeped in theme and as the rounds unfold you have chances to explore the island placing randomly drawn tiles out onto the board. As you explore, you discover items you might be able to use, see beasts in the jungle that you can choose to hunt for food and fur (they may hunt you when you’re not looking!), etc. However, you may also be forced to participate in an adventure while you were off exploring your new area and during this adventure you may be wounded by an animal, find old items, become injured in a fall that may affect your ability to play well later in the game when you finally can’t take the pain any more.

These adventures can occur during many different actions in the game while hunting beasts, building structures and items, gathering resources, or exploring. As in real life, trying to stay alive is a dangerous business and usually these adventures are a bad thing to have to deal with. They may only affect you but they may come back later to affect your whole group when other more global events occur.

Each round a major event is uncovered, impacting the entire group. This event card is then placed near the bottom of the board and remains for a few turns allowing your group to deal with removing the threat described by the card. If your group ignores the threat, then you’ll be impacted again by the threat further reducing or at least impacting what you’re trying to accomplish.

To prepare for hunting and scavaging predators, bad weather, and the coming winter storms, players can devote resources to building various structures that include a shelter to spend the night in (if you sleep outside you take a wound), a roof to keep off some of the rain, a palisade to fend of wild creatures, and a strong weapon’s level to also fight/kill creatures. If you ignore these structures too long, the weather will eventually do you in as the winter storms are brutal. You’re going to need some protection from them. But not too much; remember you need to put some wood on the pile and light it on fire. But wait, where would do you get fire?

Each scenario starts with a field of inventions or ideas that your group has and if you choose to take actions to build them and manage to build them successfully (and hold onto them), you can take advantage of their special ability. These inventions usually require you to give up some sort of resource or have explored a specific terrain type of the island, others require you to have built a prerequisite invention.

I have to say, after 5 plays of the first scenario I’ve only won once and each game has been really different. The number of cards and which ones show up in any given game means there is an extreme amount of variability and replay value in the box. The rules aren’t overly complex but they’re woefully incomplete and a bit vague. It’s not uncommon to reveal an event and immediately have a question about how you might interpret what is required to fulfill it. However, in most cases, if you just try to think back to the theme and what might happen if the event occurred in real life, you’ll probably be close, if not spot on, to what the rules intended.

I’m really looking forward to my next play. I’ve heard of people playing dozens of times on just the first scenario and not beating it and after having played I can see why. It’s really tough to survive let alone meet the goals of the scenario. That first win really feels like you earned it.

Views: 2401