Archive for the 'Content Type' Category

The rules for 7 seemed relatively straight forwards when read, but when you see the game laid out it can be quite daunting as there are a lot of different decks of cards, different tokens, even several boards.  (Not that daunting is necessarily a bad thing.)

In 7, the players are heroes in a fantasy setting working together to stop the Unnamed returning to the world.  The players win if they can close all 6 portals, or if they can collect the 7 pieces of armour with at least one hero having a Might score of 30+.  If all 14 cataclysms take place, the players lose.  However, whilst the game is co-operative, there can be only one winner (so long as all the players don’t lose) and that will be the player with the most might. Read the rest of this entry »

Carson City is a people placement game that I really enjoyed on my first play (initial review).  Lots to think about and plenty of difficult decisions.  I was looking forwards to my second play and was interested to see if it would offer new challenges and opportunities.

During my second play, all the different characters continued to have their own appeal which was great as it meant no-one feels they’re left with a choice of total duds, although you can still find the characters that best fits your plan are not available because other players have already taken the ones you’d like most. Read the rest of this entry »

I enjoyed Factory Manager a lot when I played it (initial review here).  A second play (again with experienced gamers) was just as enjoyable and a chance to try my gained knowledge to improve my efficiency.

Like my initial play, I found there were lots of decisions to make which is not common to find in a relatively short game.  So, it held my interest as before and kept my brain very busy.  I still really like how the turn order is balanced by the later players getting discounts on all their purchases.  It’s a really nice game mechanic as it means that turn order doesn’t over-dominate the game, which means players who have more workers available because they’ve gone the manpower efficiency route don’t automatically get to dominate the game.  I can’t tell yet if it’s almost too balanced as few players have bid for these tiles in my games and no-one’s ever bid more than one worker, but it’s a nice system. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first of my on-going updates of games which I have already reviewed, have now played again and had some more thoughts about them.

Tobago is a fun, relatively simple game with some fresh gameplay mechanics, a beautiful board and lovely pieces (initial review here).  I’ve even seen talk of it being a nominee for the Spiel des Jahres – I can imagine that coming true but it’s a long way off yet.

On first play, the game may seem fun but shallow; however, this play of Tobago revealed that there are some light tactics to be found within the game, especially in the final turns.  Adding clues to multiple treasure searches is a great way to gain treasure cards without neccesarily needing to move to pick the treasure up – so it pays to co-operate with others.  However, one player will always find it tempting to dominate one treasure by playing lots of their own cards on it.  This is fine early on but doing this late in the game means you’d better be able to pick it up yourself because no-one else is likely to do it for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Priests of Ra is based on the classic game Ra, also by Reiner Knizia.  I shall be reviewing Priests of Ra as if not having played the original game because not everyone has played the original game and it is important to see it for the game it is and not just the comparison.  I’ll add comparisons separately at the end.

Priests of Ra is a bidding and tile collection game played over three epochs (rounds).  Players are aiming to score the most victory points which are scored by collecting different sets of tiles.  Players bid for tiles using their three bidding stones and each stone has a unique number on it from 1 to 15. Read the rest of this entry »

If you live in the UK, and are near Reading on Saturday (14th November), you should come along to the Berkshire All-Day Gaming extravaganza in Reading (known as BADGER) when GameSetupMatch.com and Eclectic Games will be hosting another day of gaming.  This time all the games being played will be games releases from Spiel 09. Read the rest of this entry »

Day & Night is a two-player only game which has already won awards.

Players take on the roles of Day or Night with the goal of building temples on the squared board.  At the start of the game, all tiles on the board are neutral but, during the game, these tiles will be changed into day or night tiles many times.  As soon as a player has an area of 9 contiguous tiles of their type, these become a temple and remain fixed from then on.  The first player to build two temples wins. Read the rest of this entry »

In my review about Strada Romana, I mentioned that I had some thoughts on how the two-player game may be better with a different scoring system and said I would post them here. Read the rest of this entry »

Games which are simple but have something different about them always intrigue me and the rules of Strada Romana sounded like it fit in that category.

In Strada Romana, players take turns moving carts which are crossing the board – some from left-to-right and some right-to-left.  The goal is to score as many points as possible, which are scored by completing contracts as well as correctly guessing which wagons will arrive first and some bonus victory points. Read the rest of this entry »

Playing role cards each round to perform actions isn’t a new idea but the fresh ideas in this game sounded like they would give it a new and interesting twist.

In Havana, players try to earn as many points as possible by using workers, cash and materials to build buildings.  Each turn, players will carry out two actions based on the role cards they have in front of them.  These actions include things like taking half the cash in the middle, gaining workers, stealing materials from other players, and more.  Each player starts the game with an identical set of role cards to pick from. 

Each role has a single digit on it and turn order each round is based on players comparing the two-digit number that these two digits create.  Read the rest of this entry »