Given the reputation of Mindclash Games as a producer of well themed and sufficiently complex games, I was quite optimistic about getting Cerebria: The Card Game on the table. Designed by István Pócsi and Frigyes Schőberl, the game was released in 2018, and it was due to arrive on my doorstep in March.
Once the box arrived and I saw the cutesy artwork by Villő Farkas, Jamie Sichel, and Pedro A. Alberto, I prepared a little space in my heart for the love of the game that was already starting to develop. The illustrations are playful, family friendly, and reflect the theme very well.
 
In Cerebria: The Card Game, we are organizing and controlling our emotions while toying with the emotions of others. The theming overlaid on the gameplay here works well with regard to what we are doing with our actions, but there is no explanation of who we are or why we are in this situation we find ourselves. I would have liked to see a better developed contextual narrative for the game.
Thanks to busy spring work schedules, it took a bit of time to gather friends over to play. The first game came together at the last minute when my friend Aaron was in town visiting for the weekend and our regular gaming friends John and Meagan dropped by. The five of us crowded around our gaming table, my husband Christopher explained the rules, and then we went at it.
To play the game, cards are pulled out of the main deck to form three decks laid out in vertical columns and the card at the top of each deck is flipped over and available to draw. Every player is dealt four cards. Players take turns drawing from one of the face up cards to their hand, playing cards from their hand to their personal tableau and collecting emotion fragments (blue fragments for gloom and orange fragments for bliss) on those cards if possible (some cards don’t collect fragments but have other special abilities), or both (two actions are mandatory each turn).

During a turn, a player may also activate emotion abilities of eligible cards in their tableau. These abilities involve actions that directly benefit the player, take-that actions that hurt other players, or combo actions that manage to do both at once. Gameplay moves pretty quickly and is not subject to much analysis paralysis. A round ends when any of the three draw piles is empty. At that juncture, all the emotion fragments collected in each player’s tableau are squirreled away to their personal cache and any bonus fragments are awarded to players (emotion cards have vibe symbols on them and bonus fragments are awarded for tableaus that meet set collection goals such as three different vibes or four identical vibes). If any player has amassed either twelve of the same color emotion fragments or seven of each color, they win and the game ends. If not, the game resets with the discard of any existing face up cards, replenishment of the three vertical decks, and all players drawing back up to (or discarding down to) four cards. Then play resumes and unfolds as in the previous round.

None of us are really fond of “take that” games, so the more aggressive and vindictive emotion abilities our cards presented us with weren’t used as frequently as they might have been with a different group of players. But that didn’t stop anyone from winning the game as the game has a lot of room for creative strategies and there are multiple paths to victory.

Subsequent games I played with other groups were just as enjoyable. This week, for example, I played a 4 player game at a youth center with three teens and everyone had a good time. There was a bit more time required before the under 16 crowd really understood the rules and how everything fit together but overall it went well. There were definitely more take-that actions taken by the teens than any of the adults I played with.
 

Three years ago Japanime released an English version of Dynamite Nurse (originally published in 2011) via Kickstarter. Although we added this take-that deck building game to our collection earlier this year, it took a bit of time to find some friends from our various gaming circles willing to play the game given the boundary pushing artwork. The character illustrations are in the style of anime - colorful and detailed - but bordering on pornographic.

In making a case for the game's merits, I pointed out that Dynamite Nurse is centered on strong female characters (sure, the nurses are barely clothed and poses provocatively but they’re the main focus of the game and hold all the power). Also, the game has an interesting storyline. In Dynamite Nurse, players take on the role of nurses competing to save patients who have been severely wounded while out exploring dungeons. Fun fact: in an odd parenthetical note, the rulebook states the characters are actually doctors that are simply referred to as nurses in the fantasy realm of the game.

Components for Dynamite Nurse include 214 double sided glossy cards, 30 cardboard tokens, and a 34 page rulebook. You’ll definitely want to sleeve the cards for frequent use.

Gameplay is straightforward and easy to learn. In the first phase of each player’s turn, they do the following:

(1) play cards from their hand

(2) decide between treating patients in their hospital or purchasing a new card to add to their discard pile

These two main actions can be done in any order. If a player elects to treat patients, the treatment points on cards in their hand are used to conduct surgery (to fully heal a patient and add them to their victory point pile) or treat with care (to bring a critical care patient about to die to stronger health, while still leaving them in their hospital for further treatment). If electing to buy a card, a player is limited to purchasing a single card from the purchase decks, as is common in a traditional deck builder.

In the next phase of a player’s turn, they draw a patient from the Dungeon Deck and lay them out in the back of the ambulance, ready to be moved to a waiting hospital. When a patient is admitted to the ambulance, they are tagged with the hospital marker of one of the players, signifying they are under the care of that nurse. If there is no room in the ambulance for the patient (the ambulance can hold a number of patients equal to the number of players in the game), instead of drawing a patient from the Dungeon Deck, the patient in the front of the ambulance is flipped over, entering critical condition. This is bad for the player whose hospital tag is on that patient as the patient may eventually die and accrue Kill Mark Cards (also known as penalty points) for the associated player.

To wrap up a player’s turn, they complete hospital admissions (optional) and check for patients in critical condition in their hospital. If a player decides to admit patient(s), they move one or more patients tagged with their hospital token with from the ambulance to their hospital. Admissions must be carefully balanced as a hospital only has 2 beds. If there are more patients than beds available, the player must select a number of patients equal to the bed shortage and put them in critical condition. Patients in critical condition are at risk for death if bed shortages continue over subsequent turns.

The title of Dynamite Nurse is held by the player with the most dead patients. It’s initially acquired by the first player to have a patient die. It’s a traveling status, in that, it will immediately shift to any player whose dead patient count exceeds the player who previously held the title. The designation provides some strategic advantages during the game (perhaps as a catch up mechanism) but earns -2 victory points at the end of the game for the player still holding the title.

The game ends when either the Dungeon Deck or the Kill Mark Card deck runs out. A player wins by amassing the highest victory point total. Victory point formula: healed Patient Card VP total – Kill Mark Card penalty point total. 

Dynamite Nurse is subject to a bit of analysis paralysis, but it’s very limited because the pressing tasks required to keep from losing (treating sick patients) clearly take priority.

I really enjoyed the gameplay here. It was competitive without being too complicated, which is just how I like my card games to be (card games always have a bit more of a casual feel to me and I turn to them when I want a relaxing game). We had a lot of laughter during our games and the take-that actions didn’t upset anyone too much as they were pretty evenly distributed among all players. I love almost everything about Dynamite Nurse. That being said, I’m disappointed Japanime doesn’t publish a family-friendly version of the game so that I can play with a wider audience. I’m not naïve; I understand that racy artwork adds to the appeal for a certain demographic but the sexualization of the characters in Dynamite Nurse isn’t subtle – it’s right in your face on every card and a major turn off for players who are more conservative, have strong feelings about portraying women as sexual objects, or those who want to play the game with the under 18 crowd. There is no way we could play this with our kids and it’s only because of the artwork. During one of our games, we spent four minutes debating what the inanimate object was between one of the nurse’s legs pressed up against her panties (cell phone was the consensus but one of my friends insisted it was a cheese grater). Another minor complaint - we found the included rulebook to be a bit confusing. Multiple times we had questions that the rulebook did not seem to provide a clear answer on and so our group had to come to a agreement on a house rule. For example, under Transport, the rulebook notes to draw a Patient Card from the top of the dungeon and place it in the ambulance in “the furthest location from the dungeon”. As the dungeon is left of the ambulance, this would mean placing the card to the right of any existing patients in the ambulance like so:

D   P1  P2 P3 NewPatientHere

However the drawing two pages later in the rulebook meant to illustrate how to transport shows the new patient being added to the ambulance in the the location closest to the dungeon like so:

D NewPatientHere P3 P2 P1

Aside from the rulebook confusion and the risqué illustrations, Dynamite Nurse is a compelling game that can be played in under an hour.  I’m giving it a OUI rating (take note Japanime – the rating will climb to a OUI OUI should a family friendly version be released).

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Publisher: Japanime Games
Players: 3-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About an hour
Game type: deck building, take-that
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Japanime recently sent me a review copy of their storytelling game Cartooner  from designer Jason Thompson, and as soon as I read the detailed description of this real-time drawing game I was a bit anxious about playing it. In Cartooner , players take on the role of cartoonists tasked with creating comic strips that carry their artistic vision and the narrative demands of their readers. I am a terrible artist. Stick figure level artistry, if we are being honest. My fragile ego doesn’t always react well to attempting tasks I am terrible at (hello shame and feelings of self-loathing). But all three of my kids love to draw and were quite excited about the game so I reluctantly brought Cartooner to the table one recent afternoon and we gave it a go as a family.

In the first round of the game each player is dealt three theme cards which represent their core artistic vision and they must draw a comic strip with two panels during the allotted time period (in student mode, which we played under, it’s eight minutes). Fame points are awarded for drawing in every panel (scribbles don’t count), incorporating the themes, and using no more than three word balloons (unlimited sound effects and symbols are allowed). In the second through fourth rounds, the rules and point qualifications are the same except that there are additional panels that must be filled (four panels total in the 2^nd round, six in the 3^rd, and eight in the 4^th), the storyline must logically follow from the first round’s comic strip, and additional fame points are available for adhering to the guidelines on selected trend cards which represent the content demands of our comic strip readers.

After each round of Cartooner, fame points are awarded to players by the consensus of all competitors as to how well each player qualified. At the end of the 4^th round, the player with the most fame points is declared the winner.

Components include 136 theme cards, 52 trend cards, 160 fame tokens, 64 pages for drawing comics, and the rulebook. Everything should hold up well under typical usage. There are colorful illustrations from Konstantin Pogorelov on the trend cards and the cover box but as this is a game designed for the players to create their own artwork, illustrations and print design are otherwise quite limited. Players will want to photocopy the comic book pages (or order additional books from the publisher) as the initial supply extends only to four games, assuming four players each game.

I was a ball of self-doubt going into round one as everyone began drawing, but once my storyline starting flowing out of my pen, I got lost in the creative process and really began to enjoy myself. Over each successive round I cared less and less that my drawings were Highlights magazine submission quality. I was heavily invested in the development of my characters and the evolution of my storyline. I also took a lot of pleasure in reading the comics of my competitors. Everyone did an amazing job with their strips and the stories were funny and fascinating.

My husband Chris drew a comic strip about a deadly virus, the bad guys who want to unleash it, and the team out to save the world from it. Our son Locke created a lighthearted strip about puppets dancing in space while our other son Max devised a comic about an agoraphobic lock that was being pursued by evil keys wanting to pry it open. Our daughter Helenipa shared her thieving ghosts at the heart of her comic strip and I terrified everyone with my tale of the unfortunate twins separated at birth who are reunited only when the one left at the orphanage returns to seek vengeance.

By the time we were finished, we didn’t even care much about the points and winning. We were really happy with our stories and the experience of sharing them. No one at our game table experienced any analysis paralysis but there was a low-level undercurrent of anxiety that progressively increased each round as we all wondered if we would get our panels completed before the time ran out (spoiler: we frequently didn’t).

Cartooner is the re-implementation of a previously released game, Mangaka, from the same designer and publisher. Therefore, while its mechanisms are not unique, the subject matter has shifted from anime to American style comic strips. This is a significant enough change to justify adding Cartooner  to your collection, even if you already own Mangaka. If you’re trying to decide between the two, note that Cartooner  features simpler themes and trends that will appeal to a broader age base and cultural demographic. We only needed to remove a handful of cards to keep the game family-friendly.

I’m really glad I pushed through my anxiety and played Cartooner. It’s a great game for stimulating creative ideas, building a cohesive narrative, and honing the ability to work under tight deadlines. The sharing portion of each round fosters good will and allows players to encourage and build up one another, making it a great family game or even a good icebreaker for less familiar groups. This is definitely a game that’s going to come out to our gaming table again and again.

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Publisher: Japanime Games
Players: 1-8
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About an hour
Game type: real-time, storytelling
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

T he kind folks at Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) recently sent me a preview copy of Old West Empresario, which will debut at GenCon 2019 today. We already have about ten TMG games in our collection that we thoroughly enjoy (with Crusaders and Gentes being the most recent additions) and so my husband Chris and I were both feeling pretty good about the chances of this new release being a good fit for us as well.

Old West Empresario  picks up its narrative where its prequel, Pioneer Days (also from TMG) left off. Players take on the role of Empresarios, settling the old west. They are charged with building new towns so prosperous and populated that one will be chosen as the state capital, winning the game for its Empresario.

As with Pioneer Days, the  artwork from Sergi Marcet reinforces the Western theme and uses bright, appealing colors. I appreciated the racial diversity depicted in the illustrations.

Components include double sided building cards, currency tokens, victory point (i.e. population) tokens, and die number tiles (all constructed from heavy cardboard); as well as a set of eight brown dice, a wooden first player token, thin cards for the wanted and character cards, a scoring pad, and the rulebook.  Most of the components should last a long time under regular use but the character cards and wanted cards should possibly be sleeved to prevent bending or tearing.

The gameplay here is a bit reminiscent of Suburbia in that victory points (VP) are partially earned based on the placement of constructed buildings in a player’s town relative to other constructed buildings in the town. For example, the Mine scores 2 VP at the end of the game if adjacent to at least 1 Inn and 1 VP per adjacent Distillery. In addition to victory points earned based on the adjacency rules, a number of constructed civic buildings award end game points to the owning player based on meeting certain qualifications such as owning x amount of cash, y amount of victory tokens, or z amount of native settlement buildings. There are also four other ways to earn victory points in Old West Empresario :

• owning the largest contiguous block of native settlement buildings
• construction of buildings tied to the railroad, stock, or oil industries
• accumulation of wanted cards (awarded for being the first or second player to accomplish the objective listed on the card)
• accumulation of wealth (1VP for every 3 coins)

So how do we construct buildings in our towns and what else can they do for us besides award end game VP? Well, each round, the starting player rolls the set of dice (2 for each player + 1 extra) and then places each die on top of the corresponding die number tile. Each die number tile has two buildings positioned underneath it selected from the pool of unconstructed buildings and native settlements.  Unconstructed buildings can be activated later in the game once added and constructed in a player’s town.  Native settlements do not require construction and have a one time activation effect when added to a player’s town.

Taking turns beginning with the start player, each player selects a die from a die number tile and then either (1) collects one of the buildings underneath the die number tile to add to their town (2) activates all the buildings in their town that have the same number on their die icon as the die selected, or (3) discards one of the buildings underneath the die number tile to the game discard pile and collects $3.

Each player begins the game with only one constructed building in their town – the town hall – which has, as one of its activation effects, the ability to construct another building in the town for the resource cost of $1. In addition to the town hall, each player selects a native settlement or unconstructed building to add to their town at the start of the game. Note that the town hall can be activated by any die number. This means that on any player’s first turn, they are able to activate their town hall to construct an unconstructed building already in their town. If the first building they construct is the Carpenter building, they now have two constructed buildings capable of constructing new buildings when activated.

Aside from construction as an activation effect, the accumulation of VP tokens, cash, or additional building tiles are also possible, depending on the specific building under activation. One building (the Church) allows a player to activate another building from their town that otherwise would not be activated that turn for a small fee. And the Undertaker building forces opponents to discard cash (Aha! Take that!).

The game ends and victory points are tallied after the round in which one or more players host at least 15 buildings in their town, or the building supply deck or VP token supply runs out.

In my first game of Old West Empresario, I played against my husband. His strategy was to turn the game into some kind of massive engine builder. He worked hard to construct buildings in his town that ALL had the same activation number. I took the opposite approach and tried to cover all the dice outcomes so that I knew I always had at least one building other than my Town Hall to activate if desired. I focused on earning VP tokens through building activation effects and the wanted cards while he focused on earning VP through adjacency rules. I beat him by one point.

In another game with friends, I took the same approach and won again even though my friends also tried to focus on these items. Rinse repeat across a few more games. But when I played against my husband a second time and he focused less this time on adjacency rules and more on building activation effects to collect VP tokens, he was able to beat me. This is where his ploy to have several buildings with the same activation number gave him the edge – I might activate one building on a turn that gave VP tokens as an activation effect while he activated four on a turn that did so. I’ll need to match his strategy in grouping activation numbers if I am going to have a chance to beat him.

I have now played the game several times since receiving it, across all players counts. A few summary takeaways from these plays of Old West Empresario:

1. The game is easy to learn but it takes awhile for players to memorize the activation effects of each building. It can be helpful to photocopy the back cover of the rulebook that documents this information and give one sheet to each player for reference.

2. Game time consistently hovers around an hour, regardless of player count or number of previous plays under the players’ belts.

3. There are multiple paths to victory and winning strategies to explore due to a myriad of ways to earn victory points.

4. Huge spreads across the final player scores are unlikely. They never occurred in our games. It’s very much a neck and neck competition till the end and no one is certain of the winner until the final scores are tallied.

5. The iconography can be confusing for new players. The designer overlays a circle with a a slash through it on top of a picture of a resource to indicate the cost of an action. However, almost every new player interpreted the image at first glance to mean none of the resource was required to perform the action (perhaps thinking normally one  or more units of the resource is required by default).

Overall, Old West Empresario  is an engaging, lightweight to medium strategy game that can work with many different play groups. It’s a good game for drawing non-gamer friends into tabletop gaming and to give hardcore gamers a more relaxing hour of gameplay. I am going to keep the game and I’m thinking of picking up Pioneer Days  to set up a back to back gaming event where we begin with PD and move onto OWE, perhaps with a viewing of a film like Rio Bravo wedged in the middle. The $60 retail price point is a bit steep but strategy gaming market pricing continues to trend upward with the rising demand for new games so it would be a mischaracterization to imply TMG isn’t pricing games competitively; they are on par with other large publishers. 

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Publisher: Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG)
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 60 minutes
Game type: tile placement, tableau building

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me

My favorite board game as a child in the early 1980s was Clue. Put the clues together, use your deduction skills, and solve the mystery before anyone else. Aha, now you’ve got it! Aren’t you the smart one! Board games have come a long way since then, with increasing complexity in structure and mechanics; deduction games are no exception. If you liked Clue as a child, you’ll probably love Cryptid.

Released by Osprey Games, Cryptid is a deduction game designed by Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers. Players take on the role of cryptozoologists searching for an unidentified cryptid (an animal that people claim exists, but which has yet to be verified) in North America.

The geographic search area in Cryptid is comprised of six modular board tiles, which are arranged in rows of two tiles each stacked to form a 2x3 grid, which looks like this:

Because the boards can be rotated and moved around, this results in around 46,000 different board set-ups. There are five terrain types possible for each hexagonal space: water (blue), mountain (gray), forest (green), swamp (purple), or desert (yellow). These colored spaces are clustered and liberally distributed all over the board. The geography also includes cougar territory (outlined with red) and bear territory (outlined with a dashed black line). Finally, there are structures placed within the territory- standing stones and abandoned shacks - which can be blue, white, green, or black. A deck of cards is provided to guide players in arranging the boards and selecting clues to be used in the game. Each time Cryptid is played, a new card is selected from the deck. One side of the card has a picture depicting how the boards should be arranged and the other side has, based on player count (3, 4, or 5), an assigned clue from the player clue books given the arrangement.

Players can also use the Cryptid app to generate the maps and clue assignments. Using the deck of cards or the app, the game designers have carefully assigned each player only one piece of information from a set of 24 clues, such as “The habitat is within one space of forest” (this is for the normal game; the advanced game allows negative information such as “The habitat is not within one space of forest.”, which pushes the set of clues to 48). These pieces of information, when coupled with the constructed game board, result in only one possible space for the cryptid to be located, out of 108 spaces. The seemingly innumerable variations and possible combinations are truly dizzying. Cryptid is a game that would be difficult to create and implement outside of the modern computing age - I’m certain the designers used an algorithm to generate all the possible combinations.

At the start of the game, each player chooses a space on the board where, according to their clue, the Cryptid could not be located, and places a cube on that space. This action is repeated one more time, so that every player has 2 cubes on the board before the game begins. Over the course of the game, players take turns selecting a space on the map and then either (1) asking another player whether, according to that player’s clue, the Cryptid could be located there, or (2) initiating a search to indicate they think the Cryptid is likely there. If asking another player, the player who is to answer does so by placing a cube in the space (if it can’t be there) or by placing a circle in the space (if it could). If the player answers with a cube, then the asking player must also place a cube somewhere on the map to share information with others. If a search has been initiated, the player places a circle in the space and then the player to the left of the player whose turn it is places either a cube or circle in the space to indicate the possibility of the Cryptid’s presence. If a cube is placed, the searching player must place a cube on the board as when they are asking, and the turn ends. If a circle is placed, the next player in line, going clockwise, places either a cube or circle, and so on. If all players place a circle on the space, the searching player has found the Cryptid and won the game. Otherwise, play continues with the next player’s turn.

The components in Cryptid are well constructed. The modular boards are sturdy cardboard and the wooden pieces (five colors for each of the possible players, and pieces for the standing stones and abandoned shacks in four colors) are high quality. The artwork is functional, and I would have liked to see more detail put into the shacks and stones, but because this game is one-step away from an abstract deduction game, the artwork isn’t the focus. The real focus is on the critical thinking aspect of the game, which is where it really shines. Every single time I played this game over the past six months, I watched my opponents, both on their turns and between their turns, quietly furrowing their brows and cycling between examining the board and examining the set of possible clues, as they frantically tried to deduce which clue belonged to which player, based on the cubes and circles presently laid out on the board. That’s because once you have discerned what each player’s clue is, you just need to find the one spot on the map that satisfies all of them, and you’ve won the game.

A big debate around our gaming table was whether to allow players to take notes during the game. My husband drew a big advantage over others during a game in which we house ruled that notes were ok. That isn’t surprising since he has a PhD in statistics. Once you reduce Cryptid to a math problem on paper, the more adept mathematicians will likely pull into the lead. After that, I came out strongly against note taking and remain in the no notes camp still today. Of course, your experiences and preferences may vary. If you’ve a whole crowd of math gurus, having a “math off” might be fun for you.

Cryptid is subject to a significant amount of analysis paralysis. It never seemed to bother any of the players around our table though, because while the active player is deep in analytical though, so are the rest of the players. It isn’t as though you spend the time between your turns twiddling your thumbs growing impatient. In fact, it’s nice to have the time to work out what your next move is going to be while the other players are taking their turns.

Cryptid is not my favorite board game. My top picks in the category all provide rich theming, a deep narrative, and detailed artwork. That’s just my personal bias toward those types of games. But Cryptid is my favorite abstract game. I can’t think of a single abstract game that outshines Cryptid. It’s worthy of a spot in any serious gamer’s collection.

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Publisher: Osprey Games
Players: 3-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 60 minutes
Game type:  deduction

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me

That second slice of cheesecake when the Cheesecake factory was running their $0.88 a slice promo. The late night boardgame marathon when I had to work early the next morning. Hosting a dinner party every night for 12 days during the 12 days of Christmas. I fell in love with the idea of all these things, but once I experienced them, I realized they were mismatched to my temperament. They were so enticing, and they whispered to me with promises of fun, but I couldn’t love them the way I wanted to. That’s what Shadows in Kyoto did to me too. I picked up a copy of the game based solely on the artwork. It’s beautiful, as we have come to expect from Maisherly Chan. I should have known what I was getting into because we already own other games that lean heavily toward the abstract - such as Hanamikoji (another game for which Maisherly provided artwork; see my review for it here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1718238/what-jenni-said-about-hanamikoji) - and I have never come to love those games the way I do others in my collection. Perhaps it is because my frustration tolerance is pretty low for repeatedly losing game after game and that’s what happens with these 2-player abstract games in my collection. I play them against my husband (who holds a PhD in statistics) and I bend and twist and strain my brain to outwit him and it doesn’t work. I just end up with a headache and feelings of self-loathing. That’s exactly what happened every time we played Shadows in Kyoto.

The game puts players in the roles of Spy vs Spy in a battle between Oniwaban agents (backed by the Japanese Shogunate or military government) and ones employed by the new government that replaced the Shogunate. It’s a great theme that wraps around the strategic gameplay well. In our household there was much speculation as to whether the designers started with the historic theme and designed a game that fit it or created a theme around an abstract game they designed first.

The components are well made and include a sturdy center board, high quality thick cards, and wooden pawns.

The gameplay for Shadows in Kyoto is deceptively straightforward. Each player places their six pawns on the six starting locations on their side of the board as they see fit, with the markings for which ones are carrying real intelligence and which ones are carrying fake intelligence facing the player, so that the opposing player cannot see the markings. To win, a player must complete one of the following objectives:

• trick the opponent into capturing three of the player’s agents carrying fake intelligence
• capture both of the agents carrying real intelligence from the opponent
• get one of their agents carrying real intelligence to the back row of the opponent

Movement is controlled, in part, by playing location cards, which allows players to move to the designated type of space, following the movement rules (move only forward, move only 1 space at a time, cannot move into a space already occupied by your own agent). Instead of playing a location card, players can also play tactic cards that trigger movement. For example, the tunnel card allows a player to move any 1 of their agents horizontally to any other space on the same row, stopped only by an encounter with another pawn.

Encounters between pawns (when a pawn of one player moves into the space of the opposing player, “attacking” it) are resolved by revealing the markings on the back of the defender’s pawn and then comparing it to the markings on the back of the attacker’s pawn (which remains visible only to the attacker). If the comparison reveals the attacker’s pawn wins the encounter (3>2, 2>1, 1>0, and 0>3), then the attacker captures the defender’s pawn. Alternatively, if the defender’s pawn wins the encounter, it stays in its location on the board with its markings revealed and the attacker moves his pawn back to the location it was in before the encounter.

To spice up the game, Shadows in Kyoto also includes Charisma and Equipment cards. These cards can be distributed to the players to provide enhanced powers or abilities that alter some aspect of the rules in favor of the player. For example, the Ayane card allows a player to return a location card to their hand after playing it instead of putting in their discard pile.

No matter which way I placed my pawns initially, my husband was able to deduce my hidden information (i.e. the markings on the back of my pawns) after just a few encounters or find a way to move one of his agents carrying real intel quickly to the back row of my board. Again and again, I tried to make some kind of strategic progress and always failed to do so. I wanted to cry. I’m pretty sure I did cry at one point.

How could something with so few components and such basic rules be so difficult? Really, that’s the beauty of the game, if you’re one for elegant logic puzzles. In this way, Shadows in Kyoto is a fantastic game that should be highly appreciated by its target audience. It’s simple to learn, plays quickly, and requires a great deal of reasoning and strategy, both in the initial placement of one’s pawns and the ensuing gameplay. And the artwork is an exquisite bonus. The game’s just not right for me though, and that’s why I’m giving it one “oui”.

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Publisher: Deep Water Games
Players: 2
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 20 minutes
Game type: abstract deduction
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Black Skull Island is a quick playing 2-9 player card game from Strawberry Studio (now under the publisher Board and Dice).

I was sent a review copy of the game and it only seems to make it onto the table when we need a filler game to serve as an appetizer before a meaty Euro. The gameplay is extremely simply: each player gets 2 pirate themed character cards and selects one of them to play during a round, keeping the other one in hand. Every card is numbered from 0 to 15. All players reveal their character cards simultaneously and then the actions on the cards are executed by the players who hold them in sequential order of the the card numbers. Most actions focus either on (1) drawing booty (treasure cards or coin cards), (2) stealing or deactivating other players’ character cards, (3) stealing or swapping booty cards  from/with another player or (4) an order for all players to pass a character card to their left or right. Over successive rounds, booty cards worth 0-4 coins build up in players' hands and as soon as a player acquires their 7th booty card, the game is over. At that point, whichever player has the most coins in their booty collection wins the game.

Black Skull Island  is a lot of luck mixed with a little take-that and honestly, it all feels very random by the end, regardless of what cards you’ve played. I couldn't muster up anything but apathy for the outcome as I felt it was completely divorced from my actions.

The components consist of 109 well-constructed cards (no sleeving is necessary as the cards are coated unless you play very frequently), with cutesy artwork that I'd deem adequate but unremarkable.

That's really the best way to summarize the entire game - unremarkable. If you're into take-that filler games, there are much more compelling and entertaining options out there and likewise if you love point collection card games, there are many I'd recommend over Black Skull Island. The saving grace for this game is that it's kid friendly, so if you need an easy and accessible game to teach to your little ones and give them something to do with their friends, you could pass this their way. An inexpensive birthday gift for a tween perhaps or the kind of thing you might bring to a secret Santa exchange. Otherwise, meh.

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Publisher: Strawberry Studio
Players: 2-9
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 10 minutes
Game type: point collection, take-that
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

The team at NSKN names (now Board and Dice) sent me a review copy of Teotihuacan and I’ve had the opportunity to play several times in the months since, across all player counts, including solo against the Teotibot.

Scholars tell us that Teotihuacan was, in its prime, the largest city in the Americas as well as the sixth largest city in the world. It’s only fitting that a prominent board game designer should make it the focal point of a compelling strategy game. Daniele Tascini is that designer, and in Teotihuacan, players take on the role of noble families working to build the great city and its Pyramid of the Sun while accruing wealth and glory.

Odysseas Stamoglou is the artist behind the illustrations and tile carvings in this game. A casual glance from a player like myself (who is not steeped in deep knowledge of Mesoamerican art but has visited the Teotihuacan ruins) observes that the illustrations are reminiscent of the decorations found on structures and items from the famed city. With a bit of research I was able to track down further information on the genesis of and inspiration for the artwork, as explained by Odysseas in a BoardGameGeek.com (BGG) thread:

“All the symbols, masks and murals you see in the game are original Teotihuacano art, with some minor adjustments. The temple icons as well as the various patterns you see are not just random decorations. For example, the red pyramid, associated with the pyramid of the Sun has the fire god as its symbol. The red patterns and decorations are symbols associated with the fire god (like triangles, pointed or romboid shapes, etc). So I went out of my way to make sure each visual element is thematic and as true to the theme as possible. The great pyramid symbol and the dice icons are invented, following the style of Teotihuacan with goggle eyes and headdress for the Pyramid and Maya signs for the dice. I used the mural of the Great Goddess as inspiration for the pyramid symbol.”

Clearly, Odysseas has put a lot of time and effort into his work here and it reinforces the game’s theme extremely well. The theme and the artwork are woven together beautifully. It might have been nice to include custom dice that feature thematic Mesoamerican etchings in place of ordinary pips, but that can drive up the retail price of the game, so it may have already been discussed and dismissed by the design team as too costly. I would also like to see obsidian incorporated into the theme somehow (perhaps in a future expansion?) as that was prominent in Teotihuacan art.

Components for the game include cardboard and wooden tokens, a large main board, 4 sets of dice, and beautifully made tiles (construction material feels and looks similar to dominos) used for building the pyramid. I really love the color palette used on the main and action boards. Player aids would be nice and such an obvious plus that it’s hard to understand why they were overlooked. The good news is that there has been a collaborative effort on BGG to create effective player aids; we downloaded the latest version from beonyourway (shown below; https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/177055/yet-another-teotihuacan-player-aid) and found them to be very useful.

Getting into the gameplay, Teotihuacan is predominantly a worker placement game (with set collection aspects) that features dice deployed as workers utilizing a rondel. Players begin the game with 3 worker dice each and take turns moving a worker die they control 1-3 spaces around the main board, from one action board to another, completing the desired action(s) on the action board their worker lands on and earning any associated victory points.

Most actions also allow the player to increase the numeric value of the worker die by 1 and when the die reaches 6 in value, the worker “ascends”, allowing the player to choose from a selection of valuable bonuses (including the acquisition of a 4^th worker die) and resetting the die back to 1 in value. The actions represented on the various action boards include earning resources (cocoa, stone, wood, gold), constructing the pyramid, decorating the pyramid, building houses, worshipping to advance on temples and earn discovery tiles, and securing technology.

Extra actions or bonuses may be granted to a player when they have more than one die on an action board at the time they complete the action on that board – this is usually a result of moving a die to an action board where the player previously moved a die but some discovery tile bonuses allow players to move more than one worker die at a time, which can also lead to the accumulation of multiple dice belonging to one player on an action board. It’s not exclusively take, take, take in Teotihuacan. Players must give up resources in order to complete most actions. Additionally, they must pay resources – specifically cocoa - at the end of each phase or “eclipse” of the game (payment is proportionally to the number of worker dice they control and the numeric value of those dice) as well as whenever they wish to take an action where other players currently have worker dice positioned (payment is proportional to the number of other players who have worker dice already on that action board).

Almost every game has gone down the same for me– I find creative ways to pull out far ahead of the other players in the beginning, but I usually struggle with building an engine and eventually their engines take off and they overcome me. I couldn’t even pull off a win against the Teotibot on the easiest level. I finally had a win last week by focusing heavily on the construction action board, as three of the technologies gave bonuses for that action.

There are many ways to score points in Teotihuacan and it opens up a lot of avenues for creatively driving point accrual. The many options also allow for replay experiences that feel like a different game each time. Of course, a multitude of choices can also lead to analysis paralysis and Teotihuacan can suffer from this, dragging the playing time out typically anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes on average in our house.

Strategy tip: players need to be flexible and adapt tactics each game, taking  into consideration the action board arrangement and the available technologies on the alchemy action board.

Teotihuacan is the only game in my collection with a Mesoamerican theme, one of the few incorporating a rondel, and as an added plus, it includes solo mode.  It has so much to offer including a well-researched and implemented theme, a consistent intellectual challenge across all player counts, and quality components. All of these features suggest it would be a great addition to any game library, but it’s the ever-changing gameplay created by the variable action board placement and technologies that really compelled me to give Teotihuacan a permanent home in my game collection.

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Publisher: NSKN Games (now Board and Dice)
Players: 1-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 90-120 minutes
Game type: Worker Placement, Rondel, Set Collection

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me

Deep Water Games provided me a review copy of Mystery of The Temples , an abstract area control game designed by Wei-Min Ling. It's one of three games in my collection from the Deep Water Games catalog that were originally published by EmperorS4 and feature artwork by Maisherly Chan (Shadows in Kyoto and Hanamikoji are the other two).

In Mystery of the Temples, players take on the role of adventurers on a quest to collect ancient runes protected by dark curses.  In order to break the curses, crystals must be collected and aligned. During game setup, five temple cards are arranged face up in a circle and two wilderness cards are placed in between each pair of temple cards (the picture below shows an alternative arrangement for a 2-player game). A stack of rune cards (4 cards per stack; these cards provide valuable crystal bonuses) are placed face down above each temple card and the top card in each stack is flipped face up. Temple objective cards are laid out; these cards provide additional victory points for breaking temple curses. Each player is given a grid to collect crystals on.

During the game, each player moves their curse breaker meeple clockwise across the temples and wilderness, obeying the detailed rules provided in the rule book. Ending a turn on a wildness card allows a player to collect crystals to carefully arrange on their grid.

Ending a turn on a temple card allows a player to turn in crystals (which must be connected on their grid sheet in the precise order specified on the temple card) to break a curse and earn victory points. There are multiple strategic decisions to be made during a turn as each wilderness card offers up different crystal gathering opportunities and each temple card provides victory points ranging from 3 to 8, depending on how many crystals a player is able to pattern match and discard. Each of the various crystal combinations on the temple cards can only be claimed once so a player must decide whether to amass the minimum amount of crystals to quickly fill in the lower victory point slots before their opponents can, or work at a slower pace, giving themselves time to collect and arrange longer chains of crystals on their grid sheets that will be worth more victory points.

The game ends at the conclusion of the first round in which a player has broken their fifth curse. Victory points are then tallied and the player with the highest victory point total wins the game. Once players are comfortable with the standard rules of play, they can experiment with the advanced rules, which provide for more complexity and variability in play and scoring. As with most area control games, scaling player counts can be an issue. The designer has addressed this in Mystery of the Temples by providing a 2-player variant that uses extra player markers (to block off temple curse claim spots), less wilderness cards, and an extra player meeple (to occupy random temple and wildness card spaces and block movement to those spaces; the meeple moves after each player’s turn). We found these adjustments allowed for the 2-player game to be just as compelling as with higher player counts.

Replayability is high due to the abstract nature of the game play in Mystery of the Temples. There are no narrative cards to tire of and the unique move combinations that can be sequenced to earn victory points are numerous as the temple and wilderness card layout vary each game. There is a moderate amount of analysis paralysis but it is manageable. Game play lasts around 45 minutes on average.

Game components include beautifully illustrated plastic coated cards (everything Maisherly Chan creates is visually appealing and the card and box cover art here are no exception), cardboard tokens, wooden player markers and meeples, and acrylic crystals. Everything should hold up well under regular use. The crystals are sparkly and fun; I absolutely love them.

While the other Deep Water Games titles didn’t work for me (too frustrating in the depth of analysis required), this one is a keeper. It’s the only one of the three games that hits the conceptual sweet spot for me of challenging but still fun. There is a nice flow to the game; the rhythm of moving my meeple each turn and collecting crystals is pleasant.  Mystery of the Temples provides plenty of intellectual challenge in a small box (this game is not easy by any means) with beautiful artwork and an affordable price point.

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Publisher: Deep Water Games
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 45 minutes per game
Game type: area control, abstract

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

There are some games in my collection that I get excited about when they arrive at my house but it takes me months to get them to the table. Typically in these cases the artwork is lovely, the theme is interesting, and the mechanics look promising but there is something standing in the way of playing the game right away. For Triora: City of Witches (designed by Michael C. Alves), what stood in the way is the game’s rulebook. It absolutely flummoxed me.  Even with the errata notes released a few months ago, it’s hard to make sense of the rules. It made a mess of things. And look what’s it’s done to my review – I usually like to start with a nice overview of a game’s theme, cover the components and artwork, and then dive into the gameplay.  But the rulebook is so awful in this case, I’m forced to lead with that. The publisher needs a skilled editor to rewrite the rulebook entirely. It’s laden with spelling errors and unclear language.

So that’s the bad news; the rulebook is subpar. The good news is the game itself is quite interesting. In Triora: City of Witches, players take on the role of witches and their familiars who have traveled to the city to face off against the nobility and the inquisitor, both of whom have been persecuting local women they suspect are witches. To win the game, a player must have the highest total victory points (referred to as doom points and sometimes ruin points in the rulebook) at the conclusion of the game. The end of the game happens at the end of the round in which one of two conditions are met:

[1] three of the four main locations in the city are destroyed,

or

[2] a witch is captured by the inquisitor after they have already accumulated the maximum inquisition points. Note that a witch captured this way is out of the game and ineligible for victory, as all of their doom/ruin points are forfeited.

Gameplay centers on making and using potions toward strategic ends. Players can create potions both by simply moving their witch meeple to a new location (grants 1 cauldron automatically, which can be used to make one type of potion from the requisite herbs held by the player) and by visiting a location with their witch or familiar that grants a cauldron as part of the action of that location. Note that there is an entire subroutine for generating the requisite herbs on a player’s board; once used to make a potion, herbs shift to a seed state and then must pass through planting and harvesting phases before they transform into usable herbs once more. Potions are consumed when visiting locations on the board that require a potion to complete an action at a location (either as an upfront cost to initiate the action or as an input to the action such as when changing potions into silver or taking control of villagers).  Certain locations on the board are defined targets for destruction; when players move their witch or familiar to these locations (there are 4 of them), as part of the location’s action, they place one of their wooden player tokens on the location. When the required number of tokens have been placed, the location is destroyed.

I’ve mentioned players moving their witch or their familiar on their turns. A player gets two turns per round; one turn to move their witch and the other to move their familiar. It is up to the player to determine which to move first. There is more freedom in moving witches (familiars cannot be moved to a location where a witch or another familiar is currently located) and moving a witch grants extra benefits (the automatic cauldron as mentioned above but also there is a witch’s bonus at each location that is granted only when a witch is moved to the location). However, there is also more risk in moving a witch and so it must be done with great attention to detail. This is because in addition to the witches and their familiars, there is also an Inquisitor meeple moving around the board (up to 2 spaces per round; it moves after all players have finishes their witch and familiar movements for the round). If the Inquisitor lands on a location where a witch is standing, the controlling player of the witch receives a penalty, which can include the immediate loss of the game if they have sufficiently high inquisition points already (inquisition points are assigned when completing certain actions as well as each time the Inquisitor catches your witch). In fact, in all of the games I played, the ending was triggered because a player didn’t carefully consider the Inquisitor’s upcoming movement when moving their witch on their turn and thus they found themselves caught by the Inquisitor and disqualified from winning. And these were smart opponents with several years of experience playing strategy games. So remember to be mindful of the Inquisitor’s current location and movement possibilities before you pick up your witch to move her.

In addition to the Inquisitor, there is a meeple representing the spirit of Morgana, the great witch who drew the witches and familiars to Triora. If Morgana catches up to a player’s witch on the board, the player is granted doom points or shovels (used in the seed to herb subroutine) if they are willing to accept some inquisition points as the cost for these benefits.

There is a moderate amount of analysis paralysis inherent in the game, but it’s not extreme. What will cause slowdowns during gameplay is trying to determine consensus on the rules as questions arise that the rulebook fails to address. For example:

1 . For the two player setup, the rulebook notes that two extra familiars should be placed on the board; these will move around the board each round and serve to occupy spaces and simulate the limitations on familiar movement that players would normally encounter during a three or four player game. Once they are initially placed (instructions say each player should place one familiar), are players limited to controlling the extra familiar they placed or can they select either of the extra familiars to move? The rulebook just states that before or after a player moves their own familiar they should move one of the extra familiars. We had much debate on this; I thought you should be able to move either familiar but my husband thought it made more sense that you should only be able to move the one you initially placed otherwise you could just move the one your opponent placed each turn to get it out of your way.

2. Do players alternate with other players their turns in which they place their witch and their familiar or does play pass from one player to another only after a player does both their turns?

3. When and how often do villager bonuses trigger? The rulebook states that they grant a bonus to the player in the final round, which implies the end of the game. But the bonus list includes “produce 1 shovel”, which would do no good in the final round so that doesn’t make sense. We think it should have read in each round, but we can’t be sure. Also, it’s a high price to play for a villager if you get its bonus only once per game as most villagers cost 3 potions.

4. More villager confusion: the rulebook notes that villagers may be used for actions in the Swamp House. But the only action available in the swamp house is to corrupt and acquire more villagers. It’s not clear how a player would use a villager to corrupt and acquire another villager.  And the rulebook also states that villagers may be used for the action in the City location. But the City is the other location where you corrupt and acquire villagers. Based on this, we think the rulebook was trying to convey that these 2 locations are where you get villagers, not where you use them as is actually written.

5. If a player is not at max inquisition points but the result of the Inquisitor catching their witch would take them over 32 points, does that also trigger the end of the game?

Once players get the rules sorted out (they will likely will need to decide on house rules for the questions above or request feedback from the publisher), they can dive in and enjoy the mechanics of the game. The artwork is lovely and the components are pretty well made (components include plastic coated cards, wooden meeples, wooden and cardboard tokens, cardboard player boards, and the large central board hosting all the locations).

I’m really indecisive on the final rating I should award Triora: City of Witches. A perfect rating (oui! oui! oui!) is out of the question because there are some minor problems with the game independent of the rulebook. For example, a round begins with nightfall and the movement of the Inquisitor and Morgana come after that during the day phase but on the top of the main board the Inquisitor’s movement is the very first item shown on the left, followed by Morgana’s movement; nightfall is shown at the end of the line. Why does the sequence of phases on the board not match the actual sequence of play? Is it possible that in earlier drafts of the game nightfall marked the end of the round instead of the beginning and the board was designed based on those drafts?  If the rulebook wasn’t a disaster the game could absolutely be worthy a oui! oui! rating.  So how heavily should the rulebook factor in here? It’s entirely possible that the problems with the rulebook aren’t the result of shoddy work but simply language translation issues (the game originated in Brazil; I am assuming the English rulebook is a translation). That makes me feel bad about dropping my rating down a notch. But with an oversaturated board game market (I heard last week that approximately 3000 new games are published yearly), I can’t in good faith recommend folks invest in a game that is such a headache to sort out how to play. So Triora: City of Witches gets a oui! from me for now. I’m going to hold onto the game and may play it occasionally and I’m happy to take another look at the game as a courtesy to the publisher should they fix their rulebook and ask me to re-evaluate.

Bonus side story: when posting pictures of the game to Instagram, I found out the village baker in Triora and other folks interested in the city track the #triora hashtag. This came to my attention because these individuals began to send me private messages on IG. They had heard a game was being made about their village but they didn’t know the details. They wanted to know the locations in the village depicted on the board (to see if they corresponded to actual locations). They wanted to know how one wins the game (imagine how awkward it was to explain that one of the goals of the game is to destroy the city). They wanted to see pictures of the game. It was a very entertaining series of conversations and now I’ve actually made a new friend from overseas after having chatted with him at length about the game and the village and its historical events regarding witchcraft.

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Publisher: Meeple BR Jogos
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): varies widely depending on whether the game ends via Inquisitor or destruction; 10-60 minutes.
Game type: worker placement, area control

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

It might be mildly offensive to the scores of board game designers out there, but until just recently, I’ve never played a board game that was so unique it made me want to learn more about the designer and why they designed the game. A lot of games are exceedingly wonderful, and they push me to stay tuned for what the designer might release next, but that's altogether different from wanting to understand what motivates the designer and makes them tick.

And then along came Wingspan, designed by Elizabeth Hargrave, and released by Stonemaier Games. We have close to a thousand in our collection, and I’ve never seen anything like Wingspan before. It’s a game centered on birds. Beautiful, fascinating birds of all sizes, habitats, colors, and species. One hundred and seventy birds to be exact, in this first release of the the base game. It’s so richly and specifically themed; even with Jamey Stegmaier’s signature stamp of influence (goal oriented worker-placement game with win-win actions and well implemented solo mode), the designer’s innovative, well researched, and creative output takes center stage. I wanted to know more about her.  It took me just a few minutes online to find this interview of Ms. Hargrave that Punchboard Media released earlier this year and when I read it I was astonished to discover that she is not, in fact, an ornithologist who had that one great idea, but a board game designer by trade who takes inspiration from across her many interests. Her idea for Wingspan grew out of the charts she created to track birds she’s spotted in nature.

In Wingspan, players compete with one another (or against the automa during solo play) to build the most attractive aviary. The winning aviary will prove itself in victory points from the birds it hosts (birds are worth varying amounts of victory points as printed on their cards and birds tucked under other birds are worth 1 point each), their eggs and cached food (1 point each), and the goals met (detailed on bonus cards and round tracker; goals are usually oriented toward collecting birds with a certain quality [such as name includes a color or having a certain type of nest], toward numbers of birds in certain habitats, or toward having eggs in certain habitats or nests).

Components include plastic coated cards; cardboard player aviary mats, food tokens, goal tiles, first player token, and goal board; custom wooden dice, action cubes, and eggs; a scorepad; a bird tray to hold bird cards during the active game; a custom dice tower; and all components needed for playing against the automa in solo mode. All of these components are well made and the eggs are some of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Likewise, the artwork is phenomenal, with illustrations by Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Natalia Rojas, and Beth Sobel.

My review copy of Wingspan arrived at my door back in late July, when I was still on vacation in Europe. As soon as we got home, I tore into it, excited to see what all the buzz was about (the game has been on the lips of every board game enthusiast for months; I first spotted a copy back in December when it was still under hush hush review copy only distribution in the hands of a fellow reviewer). We invited our friend David over to play our first game and he fell for these birds so hard that he ordered his own copy the very next day from Stonemaier’s website.  My husband and I were hooked after just one game as well and we’ve gone on to play several games since then, across all player counts, including solo against the automa.

As I mentioned above, Wingspan is a worker placement game, where you use wooden action cubes to execute one of the four basic actions each turn:

• Play a bird to your aviary
• Gain food used to attract new birds
• Have your birds lay eggs
• Draw new birds

Each action, save for playing a bird, is tied to a specific row (i.e. habitat) on a player’s aviary card. Gain food is associated to the forest habitat, lay eggs is tied to the grassland habitat, and draw cards is paired with the wetland habitat. To complete the action, a player references the first empty space (reading from left to right) in the action’s habitat, and follows the visual instructions. In the picture below, I’ve circled in red the 4 action types on the player board. The habitat type for each action is indicated by the icon to the left of the action.

One of the genius mechanisms deployed in Wingspan is the reduction of actions available over each successive round. When the game begins, everyone has eight wooden action cubes they may exhaust to complete eight different actions. At the end of the first round, players give up one of their cubes to mark their first round results on the goal board. Each follow on round sees players doing the same thing, so that by the time the last round rolls in, there are only five actions available for a player to execute. Brilliant! Luckily, Wingspan provides plenty of opportunity to build a strong engine and so the pain of only having a handful of actions during the final round isn’t too severe. It does so by assigning powers to bird cards (these powers often include the ability to take one of the four actions in a specific limited way such as “gain a cherry”; such action powers are color coded brown) and having players re-execute the brown powers of all the birds in a given habitat, from right to left, anytime a player chooses to use that habitat action during a turn.

Wingspan is not subject to much analysis paralysis. There’s usually a bit of hesitation when deciding which bonus and bird cards to select during the game setup as well as when drawing or playing bird cards during the game but it was rare that I ever sat waiting for someone to decide which action to take overall.

Both the competitive and solo modes of Wingspan are challenging and engaging. I’ve averaged 80 points across my competitive games and my solo games have seen me come in just slightly higher at about 85 points a game. I found the solo mode to be very relaxing.

Lessons learned:

• First and foremost, prioritize adding birds to your aviary with star type nests. These are wildcard nests, which will count for every type of nests with regard to achieving goals. Every winner I’ve witnessed included an assortment of wildcard nest bird cards in their aviary.
• Follow the advice printed in the rule book; in the beginning of the game focus on adding birds to your aviary that give resources when activated (in my first few games I focused more on high point birds instead and lost).
• Work hard to win end round bonuses – their point differentials can swing the game in your favor.
• Build a better engine over focusing on bonus completion if you have to choose between birds that will do one or the other.

I love that every game of Wingspan comes with a free biology lesson on birds. This bird lives in this habitat and that  bird eats that prey and that other bird has a wingspan of x number of meters. Fascinating, and it makes the game great to play with kids as a learning experience. My favorite type of bird encountered in the game so far is the Yellow Breasted Chat. It’s power allows it to move around from habitat to habitat, allowing you to use its characteristics to meet goals across any habitat from round to round.

I can only offer one complaint against Wingspan and it’s quite minor – the round goals are two sided tokens but their shape indicates a front versus a back side; they should be perfectly flat if no side is to take precedence.

Stop what you’re doing right now and make and take a step toward building your love for Wingspan. If you don’t own it yet, drop by your local game store to pick up a copy or check availability on Stonemaier’s website. Seriously, like right now. If you do own it and you haven’t gotten to the table yet or in awhile, commit to playing it at least once this week. Text your friends (up to 4 others) to come play with you, or set it up for solo mode. The important thing is to get it on the table, because as soon as you do you are going fall a little more in love with it.

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

~Mary Oliver

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Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 90 minutes per game
Game type: worker placement

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

After I reviewed Railroad Rivals , the publisher (Forbidden Games) sent me Raccoon Tycoon to evaluate. It’s by the same designer, Glenn Drover. He’s an award winning, well known designer credited with the creation of more than 25 different board games. I’ve only ever played one other game of his (Railroad Rivals) so I’m not sure if it’s the case across all his games, but there’s definitely a similarity in creative style evident in these two games. Like Railroad Rivals, Raccoon Tycoon is a mid-weight strategy game that can be played in under 90 minutes, featuring elements of auction/bidding, set collection, and price speculation.

In Raccoon Tycoon, players take on the role of capitalists building businesses, towns, and railroads, financed by speculative production and selling of commodities. This all takes place in a land populated by adorable anthropomorphic animals -raccoons, skunks, cats, and dogs, just to name a few. One thing I wondered during play was whether we were also animals in this story. I assume so, and in that case, it would have been extra awesome if identity cards giving each player an animal persona and backstory were included in the components. Identity cards would help reinforce the theme and pull players deeper into the story. An idea for an expansion perhaps, with differing special powers granted to each persona?

Over a series of rounds, players take turns completing actions, until either all the railroads or towns are sold, which marks the last round of the game. At that point, play continues until each player finishes the current round and victory points from railroads, towns, buildings, and building bonuses are tallied to determine the winner (victory points from mission objectives are tallied at this time if playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion).

Drover shows restraint in the action options available to players; there are only five possible choices on a turn. Players can produce various commodities and raise commodity prices (as directed by the price/production cards in their hand), sell a self-selected quantity of a commodity to reap the financial reward, start a bidding war to buy shares in one of the railroad companies, purchase a building (a business), or purchase a new town. Sometimes the action selection is limited by one’s financial resources – if you don’t have enough money to buy anything you’re going to need to produce or sell. Other times your options are wide open (these are the moments when a bit of analysis paralysis can creep in) and you’ll need to make careful decisions to optimize your economic fortunes. Strategy tips we’ve learned along the way:

• The Auction House is a great building to purchase if it comes up early in the game. So much of Raccoon Tycoon centers on buying railroads and if you have this building, you’ll make $5 every time one is purchased. That money can really come in handy for buying towns or winning railroad auctions.
• Unless you’re worried about a competitor tying your score or you’ve got a mission card that specifies cash as a victory point condition, it’s best to focus the last few rounds on spending your cash to purchase towns and railroads (or stockpiling commodities if you’re playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion and commodities are tied to your mission). Money is otherwise worthless at the end of the game.
• It’s better to win auctions when it’s not your turn. Let others start auctions on their turns while you focus on winning them. This will force your competitors to use their valuable turn action to attempt a rail purchase while you gain the chance to buy one and still have your turn action available to accomplish other tasks. Of course, to do this, you’ll need to ensure you always have a pile of cash at the ready in case a railroad you need to complete a set comes up for bidding.
• Each building owned extends the owning player’s commodity stockpile limit by 1, so if you’re playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion and your mission card is tied to amassing commodities, focusing on building purchases (especially the warehouses which each increase the limit by 4) in tandem with stockpiling commodities will allow you to get the maximum amount of victory points.

The artwork for Raccoon Tycoon is provided by Jacoby O’Connor and Annie Stegg. It’s quite nice; there’s a Thomas Kinkade kind of feel to the railroad and town card illustrations, while the box cover art is reminiscent of folk art.

The components for Raccoon Tycoon are well made. This seems to be a hallmark of the publisher, Forbidden Games. There are thick cardboard tiles (buildings), plastic coated cards (railroad, town, price/production cards, and mission cards), wooden tokens (commodities), plastic coated paper money, a giant artsy wooden raccoon (start player token), the rule book, and the main game board.

I want to especially call attention to the plastic-coated paper money because it’s a brilliant way to provide economic resources that approach the quality and enjoyment of metal or clay coins, but at a fraction of the cost. Kudos to the design team member who made that decision. The only deficiency in the components is the lack of player aids. This is a problem with many games published today so I don’t want to beat up too much on Forbidden Games specifically, but it’s just so frustrating. They’re such a valuable item to offer players and they don’t add much to the cost of production, so I don’t understand why so many times player aids are not included. To get us through our first game, I photocopied the action choices from the bottom of page 6 in the rulebook and handed out the sheets to each player.

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of games with people outside of my core game group. I volunteer at a local youth center playing games with teens once a month, I play with relatives who visit from out of town, and my husband and I bring games on work or personal travel to play with people we meet. There’s a strong demand in such situations for games that can be taught and learned easily but are complex enough in strategy to keep myself (or any other advanced gamers who end up in the mix) engaged. Raccoon Tycoon meets that demand. It’s fun, it’s clever, it’s adorable in its theme and artwork, and it can be played in a reasonable amount of time; a great choice for an addition to any game library.

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Publisher: Forbidden Games
Players: 1-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 60-90 minutes
Game type: set collection, auction/bidding, price speculation
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Earlier this year, the team from Wyvern Gaming provided me with a review copy of Sojourn. This solo game was designed by Philip Loyer and released in 2019.

In Sojourn, a player takes on the role of a time traveler trying desperately to return home. To travel to a specific named time period (such as the one in which the traveler’s home exists), the traveler must use a Timesphere, which has unfortunately shattered into fragments that have been scattered across different time periods. Luckily, the traveler still has a handful of temporal charges at the ready that allow them to jump into random time eras in search of the fragments that can be reassembled into a working Timesphere. Before running out of the charges, or dying from injuries sustained in the various destination time periods, the traveler must find all of the fragments and make the leap home.  

The premise here is very good, even if it does evoke classic time travel tropes (Quantum Leap anyone?). The problem is in the execution. I got Sojourn to the table several times over the past couple of months, and each time I hoped I’d have a better experience than before, but it never worked out that way. The components feel cheap – while the wooden cubes are adequate, the included cards are very thin and poor in quality (easy to bend and tear). The artwork is unremarkable. 

The rulebook is lacking. It doesn’t include an inventory of items, which is one of my pet peeves. How are you supposed to know if anything is missing or what things are without a proper inventory? For example, the rules reference Lockout cards, but without a visual inventory, I had no idea what these were until I thumbed through all the cards (turns out they are part of the Timestream card deck). The rules also reference the traveler meeple, but don’t indicate whether that is the blue or red meeple included in the components. I’m assuming it is the blue meeple based on a picture in the rulebook showing the game set up for play, but it would be nice if the designer included specifics in the text of the rulebook. More unanswered questions – how many Paradox cards are in the deck? This is important since a Paradox card lets you make a time jump without using a temporal charge and thus is the only way to win the game if you’ve run out of charges.

A lot of these problems might be possible to overlook if the gameplay itself was engaging. It isn’t.

At any time during the game one can play Timestream cards from one’s hand (these cards have positive effects such as restoring temporal charges, healing the traveler, etc.), open a new destination in the timeline, or travel to a destination in the timeline. You must travel to multiple destinations to collect the fragments, but each time the traveler makes a jump to a destination, they risk injury, which is calculated by rolling dice and comparing the outcome to the injury risk value printed on each destination time period card. There are so many destinations with 50% or higher values that it makes it very difficult to survive for long in the game. I felt as though I was just going through the motions as each game progressed, and there wasn’t any joy in it. Perhaps executing the game in two player competitive mode would spice things up, but that requires two complete copies of the game, and I don’t think it’s worth the $30+ gamble to find out. 

I have another game from this designer on my “To Play” shelf, and I’m willing to keep an open mind and give it a try (because everyone has ideas that don’t work out well in practice from time to time) but I cannot endorse Sojourn as a game that belongs in anyone’s collection.

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Publisher: Wyvern Gaming

Players: 1

Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 15 minutes

Game type: solo game (competitive and coop modes available by combining decks), dice rolling, action queue

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:

OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.

OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.

OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.

NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

I love a good area control game. I'm crazy about Islebound, Scythe, Spirit Island, Blood Rage, Forbidden Stars, Vindication, Fate of the Elder Gods, and Twlight Imperium IV (my FAVORITE game outside of Brass Birmingham).  So I had high hopes for Kemet. It’s an older game (released in 2012), designed by Jacques Bariot and Guillaume Montiage and it’s been on my wishlist since I started playing board games at a neighborhood gaming store about a year after its release. My best friend and I would be at the store playing whatever new game we’d bought that month, and I’d admire the Kemet cover art from where I sat. It just looks absolutely thrilling.

Because we were heavily into the cult of the new at that time, we never prioritized adding an older game like Kemet to our collection. This was finally rectified when Matagot sent me a review copy.  I was so excited to open the box, especially when I discovered the artwork on the inside was just as well illustrated as the box cover I’d admired all those years before.

In Kemet, players are Egyptian Gods, fighting against each other in dynamic power plays using their troops and temples. The first player to earn eight victory points is declared the winning God.  Players start the game with three pyramids dedicated to them and must decide to allocate three points  (called “prayer points”; theming is really well implemented) - among the pyramids – either three level 1 pyramids, or one level 2, one level 1, and one level 0 pyramid. Note that the designer has cleverly chosen to use gigantic D4 dice for the pyramids.  Level 1+ pyramids are placed onto the main board and grant the controlling God additional powers shown on corresponding tiles, which they may purchase using prayer points. Some of these tiles automatically provide victory points for the owner while others aid in battle or give other benefits. The cost to raise pyramid levels is also paid in prayer points, and victory points can be earned by raising a pyramid level up to level 4. Prayer points are handed out automatically during the beginning of each round (called the Night phase), so there is always an opportunity to prioritize increasing pyramid levels and buying new tiles. Players are given an action board to track prayer point balance and actions across the rounds. During the second half of each round (Day phase), players take 5 turns choosing  and executing an action (gain more prayer points, raise a pyramid, buy a power tile, recruit units onto the main board for battle, and move/attack). Moving and attacking opponents allows a God to win battles and earn more victory points. Recruiting units is important to overpower the other Gods in battle because unit count in an attack is one of the base factors in determining the victor and earning those coveted victory points. Moving and successfully attacking also bring victory points from  controlling the areas where various temples are situated on the main board.

So that’s the gameplay- a restorative Night phase followed by an active Day phase, rinse and repeat until one of the Gods has 8 victory points. It sounds kind of dull when laid bare yet it’s anything but that during gameplay thanks to a plethora of choices available to players during the game. The decision tree of choices and outcomes for just one game is quite complex. Will you rush to build up your red or blue pyramid and power tiles first to improve your battle outcomes? Or take a chance that you won’t be attacked immediately and build up your white pyramid and power tiles to maximize prayer point accumulation (which in turn let you build up the other pyramid and powers faster)?  Another exciting part of the game are the battles and anticipation of them.  You sit there, watching your opponents amass units and powers on their turns and wonder when they’re going to come for you, while you are silently calculating when and where it will be best for you to strike in battle yourself. And I haven’t even told you about the creatures yet.

The creatures might be the best part of the game for many players. There are several power tiles tied to creatures – when you procure the power tile, you control the associated creature. It’s added to one of your group of units (a troop) on the main board and has special powers. For example, the Phoenix and any troops with it can ignore walls, walking right through them. Bonus: if you own Cyclades (another board game from Matagot) and purchase the C3K Creatures Crossover (also from Matagot), you can use the creatures from Cyclades in Kemet.

It took me a few weeks to schedule our first game. There’s a specific subset of our gaming friends that enjoy aggressive conflict and area control games and being busy professionals it can be hard for them to carve out time to play.  We gave everyone the homework assignment to read up on the game and its rules before we got together for the first game. That’s my strong recommendation for anyone playing Kemet for the first time, as it’s important to become familiar with all the different power tiles and creatures  in order to do well at the game. Fortunately, the rulebook is well written, so everything within is fairly easy to understand.

The first time we played, we all agreed that the game was brilliantly fun with lots of tension, especially toward the game’s end. I struggled with prioritizing which pyramids to level up but it was enjoyable to experiment with the different creatures and their effect on battle.  Our scores were all very close throughout the game, and it was anyone’s guess who the winner was going to be. We played with 4 players that first time and it took us 5 hours (all our games take forever because we have 2 players with severe analysis paralysis; plus there was not a lot of attacking in the first few rounds and attacking is the quickest route to earning victory points).  Subsequent games went faster as we got more familiar with the game, but we never managed to get under 2 hours in any of them.

The game plays well at all player counts because the designers have taken the time to customize the board, offering a 2 sided board with one side to be used for 2/4 player games, and the other side for 3/5 player games. This is really important in an area control game, which can otherwise suffer from too large a playing field under lower player counts.

Kemet  is a game I’m keeping in my collection and will be in the steady rotation of area control games that come to the table. The theming of the game and uniqueness of the creatures make Kemet distinct enough from other games that feature warring factions and special creatures (like Blood Rage or Cyclades) to not feel duplicative. The game is subject to a ton of analysis paralysis but I’m ok with that. I’m interested in exploring the different strategy paths available and whether a consistent pattern of decisions leads to victory in most games or whether every game’s decisions have to be carefully tailored to the choices opponents are making.

I hope you’ll pick up Kemet (and the C3K Creatures Crossover if you own Cyclades already) and give it a try with your game group and let me know what you think.

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Publisher: Matagot Games
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 2 hrs+
Game type: are control, card drafting, action points
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Machi Koro  was one of the first games my husband Chris and I played together. It was released in 2012 and when we started gaming together in 2013, it was still a popular game on reviewer blogs and videos as we sought guidance in what to play and what to buy. Once Machi Koro  was in our collection, I spent every game trying my best to outthink Chris and acquire the best combination of establishment types to ensure victory. As we were enticed by other new games coming out and were drawn deeper into heavy Euros, we left Machi Koro on the shelf more frequently, with an occasional wistful comment about how we should play again.

At GenCon earlier this year, Machi Koro Legacy  was the talk of the town. Designed by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Masao Suganuma (Masao is the original designer of Machi Koro), it promised to breathe new life into Machi Koro through a campaign style series of ten games, revealing new aspects of gameplay in each session at the table. We love legacy games, so we were sold on the idea right away.

The artwork for Machi Koro Legacy  features two of the principal artists from Machi Koro , Noboru Hotta and Jason D. Kingsley, and the signature cutesy cartoonish illustrations from the original are dominant in this legacy edition as well.

In Machi Koro Legacy, players take on the role of mayors competing to build the most attractive town on the Island of Machi Koro. During each game, every mayor is vying for the title of Best Mayor and must also work with the other mayors to build a landmark on the island. Players are given a starting assortment of establishment cards to select from for their town, and on each turn the following steps are taken:

(1) The active player rolls a die or a pair of dice, depending on the phase in the campaign.

(2) All players activate the establishment cards in their towns that match the sum of the die/dice roll and are applicable. Activating an establishment card means gaining the benefit listed on the card (usually collecting income). 

(3) The active player takes one action. Actions to select from vary widely depending on the phase of the campaign but always include purchasing new establishments from the market to add to one’s town, building a landmark in one’s town (landmarks are special buildings that change one aspect of the rules for the owning player), or contributing toward the community landmark. 

When one player has built all of their landmarks and contributed to the community landmark, they are declared the best mayor and win the game. As the legacy campaign progresses two main effects are felt. First, an overarching narrative slowly reveals itself. Second, as new legacy components are unboxed, the complexity of the game grows. The gameplay never grows in difficulty beyond a lightweight strategy game, but the new components present additional factors to consider when making decisions and also introduce more variability in the marketplace.

We decided to play through our review copy with our ten year old son, Max. We thought it would be a good fit because he’s quite adept at board games and loves Space Base, which features a similar mechanism (drafting cards+rolling dice to collect benefits based on the card numbers that match the dice rolls).  He also understands the concept of legacy games as Chris is playing through another legacy game, Zombie Kids, with him and our other children.

As we settled into our first game, I got a good look at the components. The coins are plastic, which I’ve never seen before. It’s a good middle ground between cost saving cardboard coin tokens and the more luxurious clay or metal coins some games includes. Besides the coins, the starting components include cardboard tokens for player flags and town boards, two standard d6 dice, a sticker sheet, 65 plastic coated cards, a legacy deck of plastic coated cards (which must be opened  and worked through in sequence when instructed), and six “mystery” boxes to be opened as instructed during the course of the campaign. All the components are sturdy enough to hold up to repeated play.

My son Max was enthusiastic about Machi Koro Legacy from the first turn and his enthusiasm continued to blossom as he won game after game. He quickly capitalized on the obvious strategies – buy up establishments that are statistically more likely to be activated during dice rolls, then push toward dice (vs die) rolls as soon as possible. This meant collecting a lot of establishments that activate when 7 or 8 are rolled.  My husband followed the same strategy but didn’t always remember to build his town landmarks in a timely fashion, so he only won a few games. Me, I was a tragic tale of bad strategy. I opted to corner the market on single die roll establishments during my first few games, which didn’t work out well at all. Even in future games when I shifted to a 2 dice strategy, I was unable to gain any ground as some of the legacy components unboxed that Max and Chris had quickly scooped up gave a strong advantage over the rest of the campaign. At times, I felt it was impossible for me to win and I felt frustrated that Machi Koro Legacy  doesn’t provide a good catch up mechanism or some way to balance out the power of the more powerful legacy components. Without giving away any spoilers, I want to offer this essential tip: when components are unboxed that you have to prioritize taking specific actions to earn, TAKE THOSE ACTIONS AND EARN THOSE COMPONENTS. Some of the components won’t prove to be game changers, but some will and if you let your opponents take all of them you will be at a serious disadvantage the rest of the campaign with no way to rebalance the game.

Max loved Machi Koro Legacy so much that we agreed to binge play. We ran through the entire campaign of 10 games in just one week. We didn’t face any serious analysis paralysis during gameplay, so each game took no more than 45 minutes. In the end, Max won six games, Chris won four, and I didn’t win any. The game offers a great amount of replayability - when the legacy campaign is over, players can continue to play the game using a modified set of rules and a subset of the components. Chris feels that the permanent game we are left with is a bit more interesting than the original Machi Koro  edition, so would be purchasers should consider Machi Koro Legacy  an investment in not only ten distinct game session experiences, but also a fun, kid-friendly, permanent, upgraded edition of the original game. I have to agree that Machi Koro Legacy  is one of the most kid-friendly legacy games in the board game marketplace. You absolutely want to add this to the Christmas present pile for your under 18 set, where the gift becomes not only the game, but the time you’ll spend playing it with them. And while hard core Euro gamers will likely skip over the game in pursuit of heavier strategy picks, gamers who enjoy lightweight strategy games will enjoy the easy-to-learn, quick-to-play experience that Machi Koro Legacy  offers. 

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Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 30-45 min
Game type: card drafting, dice rolling
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

I don't keep my finger on the pulse of all the independent Kickstarter campaigns running at any given time. There's just too much unique content being produced month after month for me to sift through everything. I leave that to those who write previews and reviews for a living (I am an IT Consultant for a living; I write reviews as a hobby because I'm passionate about board gaming). The only way an independent Kickstarter campaign is going to be on my radar is if the designer/publisher reaches out to me to let me know the campaign is running or if it's created a bit of buzz already in the key circles that I frequent. I definitely wasn't closely monitoring Kickstarter campaigns four years ago when the original edition of Middara  was initially funded. It was an adventurous dungeon crawl that promised to be so much more than an ordinary dungeon crawl. With options to run in campaign mode for an ongoing narrative or crawl mode for one off gameplay, it could work as a long term project for committed game groups as well as a fun game for casual players. It was a long road from its 2015 campaign to its 2019 fulfillment with a lot of unhappy backers along the way who voiced frustration at the late fulfillment of the game. In early summer 2019, a few months after delivery of the original Middara  game was completed, Succubus Publishing launched their Middara: Unintentional Malum Triology  Kickstarter campaign. This offered a reprint of the original game (retitled Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1), expanding it to over 80 hours of content, as well as two new adventure expansions (Acts 2 and 3) and a host of other Kickstarter exclusive add-on and stretch goal content. It also promised a faster turnaround on delivery to backers. Suddenly Middara  and its designers (Clayton Helme, Brooklynn Lundberg, Brenna Moncur, and Ian Tate) were the talk of the town and my husband Chris and I had an intense discussion about backing the second campaign. We were torn - yes the game sounded really cool, but we already own one behemoth campaign dungeon crawl (I’m looking at you Gloomhaven). Did we really need another? We hemmed and hawed and let the decision hang in the air. And then then publisher decided for us, by sending us a review copy of Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1 (M:UMA1).

As soon as the box arrived at the end of June, I poured over all the components. So much stuff! Such a huge box! The artwork (conceived and illustrated by Stephanie Gustafsson, Alex Hansen, Hector Sevilla Lujan, Rhett Mason, and Jon Troy Nickel) is absolutely beautiful. The illustrations are well drawn, well detailed, and bursting with color.
The game could have an audience in the tween set if the drawings were a little less risqué, but as marketed to older teens and adults, everything is within decency standards.

The minis are of good quality; well sculpted. I do wish that at least the starting adventurer minis came pre-painted (I always wish that because I have no painting skills or supplies) especially when M:UMA1 is priced at $150. The components are sturdy and should hold up to regular usage. We haven’t sleeved our cards yet and because of the sheer quantity of them (hundreds) they’ll likely remain unsleeved. I especially enjoy the custom dice, separated by color to indicate which dice should be used during dice rolls.

After examining all the game contents, my interest was definitely on the upswing and Chris and I  set about assembling a crew to play the game in adventure mode. It’s daunting to find others willing to commit to 80+ hours of gameplay, but soon enough we had a happy foursome. One of the players, Craig, actually owned the original edition of Middara but hadn’t found the time to assemble a group and get it on the table. Our other player was his coworker and friend Matt.
Craig showed up for our first night of gameplay with a sweet surprise – he had ordered the fancy game mats and was happy to share them with us for our adventure.

In M:UMA1  adventure mode, players begin the first game by taking on the roles of young students preparing for their Magical Aptitude and Skill Test (MAST). We spent that first evening getting to know the four starting characters (called adventurers) and deciding who would role play each one. Every adventurer has their own unique backstory, motivations, starting equipment (armor, weapons, relics, consumables, etc.), and vivid personality.  I chose Nightingale because I saw myself in her and thought I would really enjoy playing her. Chris chose Rook, Craig took Remi, and Matt selected Zeke.
M:UMA1  adventure mode breaks down the overall campaign (called the adventure) into many sessions called encounters. We typically play one or two encounters each evening we get together, with each encounter lasting anywhere from one to two hours. To start an encounter, all players gather round the table and lay out their adventurer cards and equipment. The narrative is read from the Adventure book, or alternatively listened to on the Middara app. We all really love the app. It’s available on the Apple App store or Google Play store and allows players to hear the narrative bits of the story without requiring one of them to do the reading aloud. The voice actor Succubus Publishing hired is fantastic; she is an expressive reader who brings the characters alive. While the entire adventure in M:UMA1  is narrative driven and so every encounter advances the plot at least a little bit, there are some encounters that have several pages of story so using the app is really nice. After the narration is finished, the location boards are set up for the encounter, forming the terrain, similar to any other dungeon crawl. Directions for setup are given in the Adventure book with modifications in the Diagram book. Some elements of the terrain may have their details partially hidden, such as loot tokens (which hide the exact reward until a character performs an encounter adjacent to the token) and totem tokens (which hide what they represent until an adventurer comes within line of sight of the token). The starting spaces on the board for each adventurer and the monsters (called combatants) are specified in the Adventure book. Once everything is setup, the game begins; turn order for adventurers and monsters is driven by initiative cards that were shuffled and randomly laid out in a row during setup.
During the encounter, players spend their turns moving their adventurers around the terrain, following movement rules, as they work to complete the encounter goals. Usually this involves reaching the exit token, but other goals are possible. Since players typically get rewards (gold, equipment, experience points, etc.) each time their adventurer slays a monster, most will want to prioritize battling the monsters over making a quick run for the exit token. There isn’t a lot of analysis paralysis during game play as the best options for next steps on a player’s turn are usually fairly obvious. Combatants spend their turns completing actions as specified on their description cards. Those that are designated as adventurer opponents are called intelligent combatants and have intelligent combatant cards, while the ones that players control and that fight on behalf of adventurers are called command combatants. 

Exploring the terrain and battling intelligent combatants are governed by an extensive set of rules (60+ pages!) provided in the rulebook. It took us at least three encounters before we really understood most of the basic rules and even now, we find ourselves frequently checking the summary poster we printed out as a giant player aid. There’s just too much information to memorize it all, especially when the information is subject to change due to errata. Which brings me to one of the few complaints I have about this game -the large volume of errata. You either have to remember to frequently check the long list of corrections and changes (to the 1.0 rulebook and to the text printed on various components such as equipment cards, combatant cards, etc) and update gameplay as you go along,  or dedicate a session to reviewing all the changes and corrections and marking up the components with the correct text in one sitting. We started off trying to do the former but it was so frustrating that we switched to the latter and it took me at least an hour.  For the rulebook errata, you can take a shortcut to getting the updates in place (if you don’t mind the ink and paper expense) by printing out the updated 1.08 rulebook from the Succubus website. Another note on the rules- deciding which rule set to play under has become a complicated issue that players will need to come to agreement on as Succubus has compiled and released an entirely new version of the rules (v1.1) that changes several of the fundamental aspects of the game. This was done in response to the feedback from players who have extensively played through the game using the original 1.0 rulebook with errata corrections. The major overhaul is meant to strengthen aspects of the game that felt too weak and weaken aspects that seemed overpowered, but not all players agree on the changes. Also, the 1.1 changes are still in Beta release and so they are subject to change as they continue to be finalized. Our little group likes to keep things simple, so we opted to stick to the 1.08 rule set, at least for now.
Theme is really important to me, so I was very happy to discover that Middara’s theme is well implemented across all components and the gameplay thus far in M:UMA1 . This is where the game really shines over its competitors. Its narrative is extremely detailed and offers so much depth in the characters. More so than Gloomhaven. More so than any other board game I’ve played. An experienced  screenwriter could easily adapt the storyline into a fantastic adventure film for the big screen and I’d go see it. My two year stint playing through the Pathfinder Skull and Shackles Adventure Card Game is a distant second in plot development, and even then, that game only had such a rich narrative track because we employed a user written storyline that we found on BGG (the publisher offered little in the way of quality narrative for the game). I come back to the table each week to play M:UMA1 , not just for the fun of fighting monsters and gaining rewards, but also to find out what happens next in the story. Bonus: as the plot unfolds, adventurers grow in skill and discipline and new content becomes available.
At the time of this writing, we've played through all of Chapter 1 and are partway through Chapter 2 (about 10 distinct sessions). Once we are finished with M:UMA1  in adventure mode (we estimate it will take us over a year, meeting weekly) there are plenty of scenarios and special content for us to replay M:UMA1  in crawl mode.  In fact, a large portion of the Kickstarter promo box is content exclusively for use with crawl mode and I’m excited about eventually digging into that.
Based on my experience with M:UMA1  so far, I highly recommend the game. Not only is the game worthwhile on its own merits, but the friendship building that comes from playing a year+ long adventure with others is wonderful. You can make a full afternoon or evening out of each session, sharing a meal together before sitting down to play the game. Although I was given a review copy of Act 1, I like Middara so much that I’ll be purchasing Acts 2 and 3 myself (or putting them on my Christmas list). You can pre-order the entire trilogy or any part of it on the Succubus Publishing website once the publisher reopens wave 2 pre-orders.
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Publisher: Succubus Publishing
Players: 2-4 (We played with 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 1 - 3 hours per encounter
Game type: narrative driven, dungeon crawl, campaign, action points, role playing, cooperative, dice rolling, grid movement
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Because I love a good story and groove on rich immersive themes, legacy games really appeal to me. The chance to be part of an unfolding narrative is wonderful. It provides a structure for friends to commit to an investment of their time together on a regular basis. It holds everyone's interest over time (when the story is well written and executed). Especially valuable for me is that it lessens the bitter taste of a loss; I get so interested in the plot that I don't care as much about winning. I'm trying to tamp down my competitiveness and narrative driven games help. Finally, I’m a huge fan of Inka and Markus Brand (we have a number of their games in our library already, including all of the Exit  games, Encore, and Raja of Ganges). For all of these reasons, I was really excited when Ravensburger sent me a copy of Inka and Markus’s newest legacy game, Rise of Queensdale, to review.

I actually received my review copy early in 2019, but our RoQ group consists of parents with busy schedules so we can only get together about once a month to play. We've made our way through 13 games so far, and with only 2 or 3 more to go before we finish the legacy series of games, I thought it was a good time to sit down and share my thoughts on the game (Especially in light of Christmas approaching).

Rise of Queensdale  is a legacy worker placement game set in Medieval times. Players take on the role of subjects to King Nepomuk II and Queen Margaret and are tasked with building a new city, Queensdale, on behalf of the royal family. Each player is given jurisdiction over one quarter of the city and is competing against the other players to build the best borough.

As the legacy series of games progresses, players continue to build different types of structures to earn favor with the royal family (fame points) in the midst of dealing with political drama, disease, and other Medieval happenings. Each game in the series sees players attempting to reach their next epoch goal (a target number of fame points). If they are successful, they will have a new, higher epoch goal during the subsequent game.  Note that multiple players can reach their epoch goals during the same game as gameplay continues through the end of the current round once one player reaches their goal. The winner of each game is the person who surpassed their epoch goal by the most points.

The artwork in the game is illustrated by Michael Menzel with graphic design provided by the Fiore GMBH studio in Germany. Michael is probably most familiar to the US based board game community as the illustrator for the Legends of Andor series of games. He brings the same fantasy style drawings he used in that game, with their romantic fonts and soft palettes of color to his work here and it’s lovely. There are a lot of components included in Rise of Queensdale   and Michael does a good job of tying them all to the theme as a cohesive set with the artwork.

Components include dozens of different types of wooden tokens (huts, meeples, player score markers, etc.); the city building board,  scoreboard (epoch tracker, fame counter, and more), action board, player boards, building tiles, and other pieces made out of cardboard; and wooden dice. Everything has held up wonderfully as the months and games have gone by. The rulebook is flipped through frequently and while it’s showing signs of wear, it’s still holding together, staples in place. The rulebook is straightforward and we haven’t had any issues understanding the nuances of the rules.

The narrative in Rise of Queensdale is well written.  It’s memorable and everything that happens makes sense in the framework of the fictional universe laid down by the designers. We’ve played a lot of narrative driven games (Pandemic Legacy, Betrayal Legacy, Middara, Aeon’s End Legacy, Legacy of Dragonholt, Charterstone,  and Seafall, just to name a few) and Rise of Queensdale ranks near the top for narrative driven games that do a good job of incorporating the game play into the storyline. Some legacy games feel more like a story was loosely slapped on top of the game mechanisms, but that isn’t the case here. At the same time, this isn’t an RPG with some board game elements thrown in. The mechanics of the board game have been adeptly planned and implemented; they’re challenging and provide a compelling experience. As the legacy series unfolds, more actions are added to the action board; no one gets complacent or bored because new options keep coming available. Our game group has agreed that there seems to be enough components and actions to allow for replayability as a standard board game even after we’ve reached the very end of our last game in the legacy series.

Rise of Queensdale is a great board game for bringing friends and family together. It’s competitive, so those who turn up their noses at cooperative games and like to win against others will find it enjoyable. Everyone is working toward their own epoch goal and multiple players can reach their goal during a game, so everyone can feel accomplished even when they don’t win. This also creates a brilliant built-in catch up mechanism as the player in last place has the nearest epoch goal to reach. The further a player gets ahead of others in the series of games, the farther their epoch goal becomes and the greater the chance that the players behind them will reach their goals before the leader does. In our games, no one has been able to run away with the scoreboard so far. That helps the game stay family friendly. The narrative turns the game into a shared adventure where everyone is an active participant. Better than going to a movie is feeling like you’re starring in one. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, because Rise of Queensdale  is a series of games,  right from the beginning, it fosters a commitment for players to spend time together on a regular basis. That’s the best gift to share with friends and family – our time – and anything like Rise of Queensdale that can make that happen is a wonderful Christmas present to place or find under the tree.

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Publisher: Ravensburger
Players: 2-4 (We played with 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 1 hour per game
Game type: narrative driven, legacy, dice rolling, worker placement
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

At Gamicon , I was introduced to Sentient, from Renegade Game Studios. My friend Katie was manning the session and teaching interested attendees how to play, so with her encouragement, my husband Chris and I sat down and gave it a try.

It was love at first play for me. That probably sounds a bit odd to those who know the game and who know me well because I often emphasize that theming is really important for me and Sentient’s theme is wholly unremarkable. Something about acquiring and programming bots …blah blah blah… but the theme quickly fades from memory as I begin to play and am pulled into the logic puzzle that is at the core of the game. Do you remember those logic puzzles wherein a group of friends go to a movie and a few facts are laid out about each person and where they sat and you have to figure out the precise order of their seating across the row of seats in the theatre? Sentient  feels a lot like that, but with beautiful pastel colors and striking custom dice and it taught me that I’m not as wedded to theme as I thought. If a designer presents a compelling enough game, I’m willing to let a poor theme slide.

Sentient  is played over three rounds, which flow pretty quickly for all but the most deliberating players. I frequently suffer from analysis paralysis and didn’t find myself getting too hung up on decision making. In each round, players must select bots (cards) from an available pool of 4 to add to their network (individual player boards). Players take turns selecting their bots, as dictated by turn order, and prior to selecting bots, all players roll their custom dice and add the dice to their network (each die is placed into the network on top of the square the matches the color of the rolled die).

Each bot provides a condition for network placement, that if met, scores victory points at the end of the round. These conditions are mathematical and relate to the numbers on the dice on either side of the bot position in the network. Once the network is evaluated at the end of a round and points are scored, the bots in a player’s network are taken out of the network and placed into a pile on the side of their network; they will come into play for end game scoring. For example, one bot specifies this condition,  <—EVEN ODD—> ,  which means that when the network is evaluated, the die to the left of the bot in the network must be an even number and the die to the right of the bot in the network must be odd.

Here’s where the game gets tricky – bots cause an immediate effect on the network when placed; they can force an adjustment of the dice to the left and right of the bot’s placement. Adjustment possibilities are +1, –1, or no change. This means that even if you have some of your bots already perfectly placed in your network, ensuring that they meet the conditions specified, the dice they are evaluated against could change in value as the round progresses, upsetting your glorious plans for victory. There is an option to block one or both of the adjustment effects of a bot when placed using assistant tokens distributed at the beginning of the game, but doing so greatly handicaps your ability to score crucial victory points through the investor multiplier mechanism (IMM) at the end of the game. What is the IMM? Well, Sentient  implements an area control game that is conducted simultaneously in conjunction with bot placement. When a bot is selected from the market, the selecting player places one of their 4 agent tokens plus as many of their assistant tokens as they choose above the market space where the bot was taken from.

In this way, the player is competing to dominate the play areas above the market board with their influence (each agent and assistant token provides one influence). At the end of the round, the player with the most influence surrounding each investor token above the marketplace gains that investor token. These tokens are then used as victory point multipliers at the end of the game – each investor token provides 1 victory point for each bot of matching type (color) that the owning player has in their collection at the end of the game. 

I love puzzling out which of the 4 bots I should select on my turn. I evaluate each bot carefully, noting its type (color) and whether that could be useful to me based on the investor tokens I already have.

I also have to consider the point values each bot could bring – my favorite are the bots that specify a die value and offer 7 points if BOTH the die to the left and right of the bot in your network have that value. Finally, I need to survey the investor tokens up for grabs above the marketplace to decide if there are any I must prioritize, either because they help me or because they would help my opponent too much if I don‘t grab them first. If there are, I might need to take a bot I like a little less and figure out how to successfully plug it into my network in order to place influence next to the investor token I want. Note that there’s also an option to select none of the bots and send them all to the discard pile; each player must choose this option at least once during each round. If you’re not happy with any of your choices, it’s a good time to use that option.

Another thing I enjoy about Sentient  is that it doesn’t have a lot of player interaction. I am competing against my opponents to build the best network, but other than swiping a bot or investor token they might want, there isn’t any take-that element to the game. I like take-that games as long as they are light strategy and high luck, but it really stinks in a heavy strategy game to have someone screw you over and render impossible your well planned optimal path to victory. I much prefer the “I do my thing over here and you do your thing over there and we see who did a better thing in the end” style of strategy games.

Sentient  is designed by J. Alex Kevern, with artwork by Anita Osburn, Chris Ostrowski, and Gordon Tucker. As I alluded to previously, the artwork is lovely, with a futuristic vibe and soft color palette. I’ve got at least one other game in my collection designed by Kevern – ArtSee - and I really like it as well, so I’m going to make some time upcoming to check out his other games (he has 9 games released according to BoardGameGeek.com). I’m trying to get better at paying attention to the designers behind the games. I am realizing that game designers, just like great film directors, establish a pattern of style and technical mechanisms in their work,  and so if I really enjoy a game by a designer, it’s likely I will like their other games as well.

The components for Sentient  seem to be well made and I adore the custom dice. There are wooden and cardboard tokens as well as 60 large cards used in play.

The cards are probably the weak point in overall component quality; ours are starting to bend and wear quite a bit. I’d suggest sleeving them for regular use, using standard Tarot card sized sleeves. The rulebook is very easy to follow, grammatically correct, and laid out well.

I haven’t played Sentient  yet with our kids (10 year old boys and a 14 year old daughter), but it feels like it would be a good fit for them as well.  The guidelines on the box list ages 12 and up but I think 10 and up is a better guideline. It’s a solid family game, that plays in less than hour, without any objectionable content. And of course, the bonus is that it helps youngsters improve their logical thinking skills. 

 Strategy Tip: If playing against just 1 other player, it’s ok to pick out a few of the bots it would be nice to have and mentally work out optimum placement in your network of those bots to ensure the dice values are adjusted, if necessary, to score points for all the bots. If all goes well, and your opponent doesn’t select the bots you want most, you can stick to your original plan or select the new bot your opponent reveals at the end of their turn. This strategy does not work nearly as well in a 3 or 4 player game, as by the time your turn comes around again it is likely any bots you had your eye on will be gone. In games with more than 2 players, you need to be much more flexible in what bots you put into your network and perhaps focus more on the area control aspect of the game. 

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Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 2-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 40 minutes per game
Game type: dice rolling, set collection, card drafting, area control, math
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Let's take a moment to talk about the series Exit: The Game, which debuted in the United States in 2016.

Designed by Inka and Marcus Brand and published by Thames and Kosmos, the games are advertised as an Escape Room in a box. In an escape room, you and a group a friends are placed into a room (you may literally be locked in, depending on the fire code of the city where you book the room). Then,  a timer is set, a story is told to you to provide context and atmosphere for your puzzling adventure, and you attempt to solve a series of puzzles, the answers to which will eventually lead you to a key or combination to escape the room - hopefully before time runs out. These rooms typically book for $30+ per person, so the promise of replicating the escape room experience out of a tiny little box for a fraction of the cost is very appealing.

But does Exit: The Game live up to its promise? It does. It absolutely does, with one caveat - some of the games have you puzzling to solve a mystery within the time limit, but you aren't trying to escape anything.

Earlier titles in the series are fairly straightforward. A paper booklet of puzzles; a set each of riddle cards (pair with the booklet to solve the puzzles), answer cards (used to validate puzzle solutions and lead you to new riddle cards),  and help cards (hints for solving the puzzles); a decoder wheel (used to input codes derived from the puzzles); a simple rulebook; and various accessories (usually constructed of cardboard or paper) provide the core of the game experience. Players need to come equipped with scissors (destruction of components is required in nearly every game), pens/pencils, rulers, and a sharp wit to finish the game and calculate their score (measured in stars). The puzzle mechanisms vary, but they will be at least somewhat familiar to players who have done escape rooms or puzzle hunts before.  Depending on the title chosen, the puzzles also vary in difficulty. There is a difficulty rating printed on each box. We found that on average, we finish every Exit title in about 75 minutes; what varies for us across difficulty ratings is how many hint cards we lean on to solve the puzzles.

As the series has progressed in maturity, Inka and Marcus have been able to deliver titles with creative new puzzle mechanisms, changes in solving methodology (such as varying whether the puzzles in the paper booklet must be completed in sequential order or not), and meta puzzles. Meta puzzles are those which you cannot solve without getting a piece of the solution from some or all of the other puzzles included. For example, a puzzle that has you solve for a sentence comprised of words derived from other puzzle solutions is a meta puzzle. A good example of a title from the Exit: The Game series with a meta puzzle is Exit: The Game  - Dead Man on the Orient Express. It includes a meta puzzle that requires players to pay close attention to the passengers, their possessions, and locations throughout the game in order to solve it successfully. That game also introduced envelopes to open as the game progressed and it’s one of the titles that doesn’t see players escaping anything; instead they are trying to issue a code at the end to transmit the identity of a killer to authorities.

By the time the series release of Exit: The Game – The Catacombs of Horror  came around, I really thought the Brands couldn’t have any new tricks up their sleeve. I was wrong. With Catacombs of Horror, they have introduced the two part adventure, giving players a longer puzzling experience in one box. You can play straight through the entire game (allot yourself at least 2 hours) or play the first half and come back to the second half another time. There are also some fantastic new twists on the puzzling mechanisms (a candle is included and must be lit to solve one of the puzzles, for example), and the components got an upgrade (I’m holding onto the adorable little skulls indefinitely). Alongside the puzzle elements, the theming in the series has gotten better and better as new titles are released. Catacombs of Horror provides a well written narrative, albeit very very dark. As we solve puzzles, we find ourselves chasing down what happened to a friend of ours who disappeared into the Catacombs of Paris. It seems he may have met a dark end after having crossed paths with some demonic forces. This title is definitely not for the kiddos, which might be its only drawback. We have clever tweens who enjoy puzzle games, and this isn’t something we can share with them.

There have been at least three more titles released in the Exit: The Game series since Catacombs of Horror  was published in 2018 and more are on the way for 2020. If you’ve previously purchased any of the series, I’d strongly recommend adding Catacombs of Horror  to your must-play list. If this is the first you’ve heard of the series, do yourself a favor, and start with one of the easier titles, such as Exit: The Game – The Sunken Treasure. Then if you have a good time, move onto Exit: The Game – The Pharoh’s Tomb, before sinking your teeth into the most difficult titles like Exit: The Game  - Dead Man on the Orient Express or this one (Exit: The Game – The Catacombs of Horror ).

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Publisher: Thames and Kosmos
Players: 1-4 (we always play with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 2 and a half hours
Game type: puzzle, cooperative
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

  We got Cities: Skylines – The Board Game  a couple of months ago and I really didn't know what to expect before my first play. Sometimes there is a game on the horizon that's all the buzz in my circles and I'm super excited to order it, get it home, and get it on the table. Other times, it's my husband who catches the fever for a game and brings it into our house. And every now and then, a publisher asks me to review a game I've never heard of and haven't built up any anticipatory excitement for yet. Such was the case with Cities: Skylines – The Board Game. The team at Kosmos sent this cooperative game my way and asked me to give it a try. It’s designed by Rustan Hakansson (other works of his I am familiar with include HexRoller and Tribes: Dawn of Humanity) and based on a video game of the same name that’s popular across multiple platforms (Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, & Nintendo Switch).

  I remember opening the box for the first time and setting everything up. The box cover art is nice but the rest of the artwork (provided by the German design studio Fiore) is easily described as adequate. We're not handing out any awards here for most beautiful game, is all I'm saying. I thumbed through the rulebook as we readied for our first game and at least that was a win - I found it to be concise and well-written. I especially liked that the rulebook author made a point to highlight that even though Cities: Skylines – The Board Game is a cooperative game where it's important to collaborate, it is up to the active player to make the decision on their turn. Way to nip that Alpha gaming in the bud!

Once my husband and I started playing the game, I quickly realized it’s very different from other games. It gives me the same feeling of zen as putting together a Stave wooden jigsaw puzzle. We’re not battling a monster or racing against the clock or trying to fend off a pandemic. We’re urban planners, carefully and thoughtfully placing building tiles into our city districts in an effort to score the most happiness (points) possible by the game’s end.  Very relaxing, yet still intellectually challenging.

The game begins with players selecting a set of game board tiles (4 unless you are playing the introductory game with just 3) and arranging them facedown. One of the tiles is flipped over (there is a $$ cost associated with flipping each tile, which is deducted from the starting city treasury funds) and development may begin. Each tile is divided up into districts, formed by the street borders, and all construction takes place within these districts. When new city game board tiles are flipped over (at checkpoints - called milestones - that may only be triggered once every district visible has a building constructed within it), land surfaces must face up against land surfaces and water must face water.

To build out the city, players they use construction cards (dealt in the beginning of the game and also drawn each turn) to put up residential, commercial, industrial, utility, service, and unique buildings.

Placing buildings can trigger increases or decreases in the city treasury; utilities (power, water, garbage); employment; happiness; and negative externalities (pollution, traffic, crime). If the placement would trigger a decrease beyond what the planners have in the treasury, the building cannot be constructed. You also cannot construct a building if it would cause any of your utilities to drop below -5, cause any of your negative externalities to increase beyond 5, or cause your employment to go out of the range of -5 to 5. And while there is no cap on happiness increases, any construction that lowers your happiness beyond -4 ends the game with a loss immediately. At the milestone checkpoints, utility shortages decrease happiness just before the happiness is transferred to the main score track and at the end of the game negative externalities do so as well. So our first consideration in construction must be how it will impact all of these measures.

Several buildings trigger effects based on having met prerequisites. For example, building a residential zone might trigger an increase in the city treasury if you already have a park constructed in the same district. Or a building a commercial zone might increase the city treasury and happiness if you have both a park and a medical clinic in the district and you can place the zone adjacent to both of them. In order to get the most benefit from these types of constructions, planners need to carefully think and rethink building placement before selecting a building site and so this is a second consideration in construction.  

When selecting residential, commercial, or industrial zones to build, there are a dozen or more tetris-like shaped tokens to choose from. Because buildings can only be placed in a district if they physically fit, and we want to maximize the number and type of buildings we can place into each district, a close examination of the shapes during selection is a third consideration in construction.

In addition to the game tiles, buildings, and construction cards, Cities: Skylines – The Board Game  includes role cards that grant special abilities to each planner, policy cards that provide a one time benefit when played, and news cards that add difficulty in the form of disadvantages. It’s recommended to leave these three card types out of your first game to keep things simple, but they definitely make the game more fun, so I’d recommend incorporating them into your subsequent games.

I want to make an important note regarding player count. The box notes that 1-4 can play Cities: Skylines – The Board Game but there’s no way I’d play this with more than 2 players total. We didn’t even attempt a 3 or 4 player game because it was easy to see it would be frustrating – just too many people to negotiate with on implementing a coordinated plan. I guess if you’re the type of person who would work on a jigsaw puzzle with 4 people at once, you might give it a try? But I’m definitely not that kind of person. As a 1 or 2 player game though, Cities: Skylines – The Board Game is great. We could all use more calm during this crazy COVID-19 pandemic and puzzle games like this one provide it.

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Publisher: Thames and Kosmos
Players: 1-4
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 1 hr
Game type: cooperative, tile placement, hand management, puzzle games, solo games
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Cities: Skylines - Cooperative City-Building Board Game from Kosmos | Based On The Hit Video Game | for 1-4 Players Ages 10+ | Develop & Manage Cities & Neighborhoods

I have been playing board games since I was a kid. Chinese Checkers, Chess, Monopoly, Clue, Skipbo, Taboo, and Pictionary  were in regular rotation on our table when my parents and I or my friends and I sat down to play. Into my adulthood, and over the years since, I have continued to enjoy these games. And then, about ten years ago, I was introduced to "serious" board gaming. I began to play board games from small publishers where the designer and artist are a topic of discussion, as are game mechanisms (e.g. worker placement, area control, etc.), weight of the board game, replayability, and other concerns. I started with Settlers of Catan and then fell for PowerGrid, Puerto Rico, and Robinson Crusoe. Then I joined a few board game meetup groups in my community and my passion for the hobby really bloomed. 900+ games in my collection later, I've come to understand there's a bit of snobbery in board gaming circles. The games I knew and loved as a child are lumped into a category referred to as mass market games and sneered at by the board game elite. What defines a mass market game?  Typically published by a major toy company (vs a dedicated board gaming publisher), it has a lower price point, cheaper components, uncredited or corporate designers and artists, weak narrative, and is light to medium weight in complexity. I have several mass market games from yesteryear in my existing collection and am happy to play them with anyone who asks, so I don’t consider myself a board game snob. On the other hand, I don’t purchase new releases in this category anymore so maybe I’ve got one foot in the elite circle?

Recently, Ravensburger sent me Horrified . Released in 2019,  the game garnered high praise from Tom Vasel, who raved about it on Dice Tower. That piqued my husband’s interest, and he asked me to request it for review. Horrified  is easily classified as a mass market board game but since I’m no board game snob, I looked forward to playing it.

Spoiler: turns out I am becoming a little bit of a board game snob.

If you’ve read my reviews before, you know that theming and narrative backstory are important to me. Why has my character come together with others in the story setting laid out in the game? Do the game objectives make sense in the context of the story? What drives the behavior of the bad vs good guys in the game? What era in time do we exist in? Where are we geographically? None of this is explained in Horrified . In this cooperative game, players just find themselves dropped into a nameless town, fighting a hoard of monsters and escorting villagers to safety. How did we get to this town? Where is this town? When is this happening? Why this particular grouping of monsters? Turns out the answer to the last question is: because it’s a bunch of Universal Studios IP mashed together (but that doesn’t provide an in-game narrative explanation).  “Universal Classic Monsters is a name given to the horror, fantasy, thriller and science fiction films made by Universal Pictures during the decades of the 1920s through the 1950s. They were the first shared universe in the entire movie industry in Hollywood and around the world” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Classic_Monsters). The monsters include Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride, Wolf Man, Creature From the Black Lagoon, and The Invisible Man.

I had additional questions on why our characters would be in this cookie cutter town (I played the archaeologist, whose picture clearly indicates he belongs on a dig somewhere in Egypt) but my husband was able to explain that the characters are straight out of the Universal Studios movies (mine is from The Mummy)  and it only made sense they would be in town if the monsters were also in town.

Setting my problem with the narrative aside, let’s talk about the components. A portion of them are poorly constructed - there are flimsy cards and monster mats that bend easily and there are cheap plastic figurines without much detail – but most of the components are just fine. The cardboard player tokens are well made, there are custom dice (nice touch), and the central game board is easy to read, well laid out, and features bright colors. The rulebook is orderly and sensible and player aid cards are included (always a plus – I get irritated when publishers leave these out). And good news, there’s a fix for shoddy figurines. Someone came up with the brilliant idea to use Funko Pop! Universal Monsters Series mini figures in place of the included figurines and it really elevates the game. Unfortunately, there’s no fix for the flimsiness of the cards, so if you want to play regularly, you’re going to need to sleeve them.

The artwork is simple and cartoonish. I wouldn’t describe it as beautiful, realistic, or haunting; more like family friendly and what you’d expect from a mass market game.

What about the gameplay? I’d sum it up like this – it’s a lot like Pandemic but here we are dealing with monsters instead of ambiguous diseases and the gameplay is less complex. It’s engaging and fun. At the beginning of the game 2, 3, or 4 monsters are selected and placed on the board. On each player’s turn, after the player completes their actions, new items are spawned in various locations on the board (items are gathered by players and used to defend against and defeat the monsters), a special action occurs, and then the monsters move and attack. One of the special actions that can occur is to place a named villager in an assigned location. These villagers add additional depth to the game – players must escort them safely to their designated destination location and then are rewarded with perk cards that offer special abilities. If villagers are left to fend for themselves and are attacked by one of the monsters, they die, and our terror level goes up (terror level also goes up if any character is attacked and doesn’t have enough items to discard to fend off the attack). If the players defeat all the monsters, they win. If the terror level gets to the farthest point on the terror track, or if the monster deck runs out, the players lose. The whole game plays in less than an hour, it’s simple enough for kids to understand, and it plays up to five. The player count is a big plus for us as we have five family members once you count the three kids and so any four player games force us to leave a kid out. Because there isn’t a lot of complexity in Horrified , there isn’t much of a problem with analysis paralysis. Turns flow smoothly and quickly. There are several monsters to choose from when setting up monster combinations at the start of the game and each monster must be defeated in a unique way (thematic to the movie plot from which the monster is borrowed), so there is a good degree of replayability inherent in the box.

Providing a review rating for Horrified  is proving difficult. I’m realizing now that I have become a bit of a board game snob and so the flimsy cards and cheap plastic figurines really turn me off (the Funko Pop! minis fix the figurine problem but I resent having to go track them down at extra expense). And the lack of narrative really irritates me. So for my readers who are serious board gamers and only play with other serious gamers, I think a single Oui! is fair. On the other hand, the gameplay in Horrified  is much better than in your average mass market game. Its monster theme is different from all the other monster themes in the board gaming community (which mostly trend toward Cthulhu or space aliens). The gameplay is engaging – especially for my kids – and so it makes me happy to play it again with the family or with casual gamer friends. For those audiences (families and casual gamers), I’d give it a Oui! Oui!

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Publisher: Ravensburger
Players: 1-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): about 45 minutes per game
Game type: dice rolling, cooperative, pick-up and deliver, mass market

Veteran Board Gamer Rating:                                          

Casual Gamer and Family Gaming Rating:

Rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

My husband Chris and I played another game of Disney Villainous last night.

It’s another mass market game release from Ravensburger.

Refresher: mass market games are those that are typically published by a major toy company (vs a dedicated board gaming publisher),  have a lower price point, cheaper components, uncredited or corporate designers and artists, weak narrative, and are light to medium weight in complexity.

In Villainous, players take on the role of Disney Villains who are competing against each other to be the first to complete their character specific objectives. These objectives align neatly with the narratives of the Disney movies from which the characters have been borrowed. For example, Ursula must find the Trident and the Crown and place them in her lair. And she gets rid of her enemies by using binding contracts! There are six villains included in the base game (more are available through the expansions) and turn sequence for each villain is pretty simple. There are 4 actions spaces on every villains board, and a character token is used to move between them. On your turn, you move your token to a new action space, take as many of the actions visible in the space that you wish, and then draw back up to your hand size limit. Actions include:

• gaining power tokens (the game’s currency);
• playing a card from your hand as a one time effect or to your villain tableau (the 4 columns below your actions spaces);
• activating a card in your tableau;
• moving a card in your tableau to another column;
• playing a card from another player’s fate deck as a one time effect or to their fate tableau (the 4 columns above their action spaces; when you play a card here it covers up some of the actions on the action space below, hampering their success);
• moving a card previously played to your fate tableau;
• vanquishing (discarding) a card previously played to your fate tableau by matching/beating the strength value of the card with eligible card(s) in your villain tableau (cards used to match/beat must be discarded).

The game ends as soon as a player has met their objective.

Since The Little Mermaid  is one of my favorite Disney movies, I played Ursula the first time we got Disney Villainous  on the table.

I really thought I had a great strategy to bring home the victory. That was a six player game that took hours and hours and I lost, as did everyone else, to the Queen of Hearts. But that first game was all it took for me to get hooked; I really enjoy playing this game. Which is odd, because I was worried it wouldn’t click with me after my last foray into mass market gaming (see my review for Horrified, also from Ravensburger, here). So how is it that a gamer girl who thought she was done with mass market games fell for a new one? I think it’s the connection I have with the Disney IP. The iconic artwork. The characters and their backstories provided in all the Disney movies I’ve watched. Their cast of allies and foes. I also feel like every player is immersed in their own narrative when playing Disney Villainous and the narratives are good. We’re all playing simultaneously but each of us is wholly encapsulated in our own storyline that makes sense, based on the movies. Horrified  presented differently; in that game all the IP was mashed up together in one setting and it didn’t make any sense. I also love the component quality in Villainous, especially the artsy character tokens, cast in jewel toned acrylic. Lovely! 

Even though Ravensburger sent me the game to play a few months ago and we’ve played with the kids and our friends before, last night was the first time Chris and I played 1 on 1 against each other. Chris played Jafar and I played Prince John.

His character’s goal was to find and arrange some specific cards in his villain tableau while mine was to accumulate power tokens. I needed to attack him repeatedly with fate cards to stop him but for several turns I was limited in doing so because of a rule we unfortunately misapplied. We didn’t permit consecutive fate attacks against the same player. This is a rule designed to protect players from being attacked repeatedly by multiple opponents but it applies only at higher player counts. Because we learned how to play the game at 6 players, we internalized the rule and forgot to drop it when playing with just 2 players. We didn’t realize and correct our error until halfway through the game and I’m convinced that is at least part of the reason Prince John (and I) lost. I also think that my character is better suited for higher player counts as it’s easier to use the cards in both my villain and fate decks to grab power tokens when there are multiple players gathering tokens themselves (one of my cards lets me get 3 tokens anytime another player has 6 or more) and when there are several players laying fate down against me (one of my cards lets me gain 1 token for every hero fate card laid down against my tableau.  By the way, you’ll be happy to know the two player games takes less than an hour. Four players is probably the sweet spot when it comes to player count for Disney Villainous  - large enough to provide more opportunities to make the most of villain and fate decks, but not small enough to allow for a reasonable length of game.

There isn’t too much analysis paralysis in the game, but players can stretch out turns from time to time when they’re grasping for a winning strategy.

Replayability might be the one weakness in Villainous. No matter which of the six characters are selected for a given session, it’s likely players will run through their entire villain deck by game’s end, leaving nothing new to discover in future games. As soon as you’ve played the game a few times, you start to understand the strength and weaknesses of each villain and fate deck and things feel less exciting. This is definitely a game where you’ll want to pick up one or more of the expansions to reinvigorate gameplay.

My kids love this game. They enjoy playing with the adults and also with each other. It’s very kid friendly. It’s easy to learn and I like that it’s a pretty gentle introduction to the take-that mechanism (as compared to say, Broom Service, which is marketed to kids but is SO BRUTAL in its take-that actions that my kids end up in tears every single time they play).

Components include plastic coated cards, paper player pamphlets, cardboard player boards and power tokens, and the aforementioned acrylic character tokens. Everything is bright and colorful and the raised lettering and fancy font on the box and other components lends an upscale feeling to the game. The rulebook is well written with detailed explanations and setup instructions.

Disney Villainous  is equally challenging and fun for all ages.

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Publisher: Ravensburger
Players: 2-6
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): varies widely depending on player count, 45 minutes to 3 hours per game
Game type: take that, hand management, mass market

Rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.