Archive for the 'Content Type' Category

Madame Ching looks like a really interesting eurogame.  Players send their boats on expeditions across the sea by playing cards (each showing a number, a colour and a symbol) – so far that sounds very normal, but the central game mechanic is unusual.

At the start of each round, players simultaneously reveal one card from their hand of cards.  In order, based on their card number (highest to lowest), players each take a turn playing the card they revealed.

If a player’s card has a higher value than their previous card, the player’s ship advances across the sea grid of numbered spaces moving it one space to the right.  If the card has added a new colour to their expedition’s cards, the ship also moves down one space too.

Whilst not essential to understanding the game, there’s one bit I want to highlight because I think it’s rather clever (especially as I admire the maths of it).  Each space on the grid shows a number.  If a player wants to check if their ship is on the correct space, they look at the cards in their expedition and multiply the number of cards by the number of different coloured cards.  The total number matches the space’s number.  Clever. Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh from their SdJ nomination with Splendor, Space Cowboys are releasing the very fun-looking, pirate game of Black Fleet.

The board shows a sea full of Caribbean islands and ports.  Players each have a pirate ship and a merchant ship, plus there are 2 navy ships on the board too.  On their turn, players play a movement card from their hand (usually only 2 cards).  This states how many spaces their merchant ship, their pirate ship, and one specific navy ship can move.  The ships can be moved in any order and each can perform one action during its move too.

Pirate ships not already carrying treasure can attack an opponent’s merchant ship if in a neighbouring space earning 2 dubloons and taking 1 of its cargo (plus sinking the merchant ship if it has no cargo remaining).  Pirate ships carrying treasure (stolen cargo) can bury it on specific islands to earn extra dubloons.  Merchant ships can deliver goods at ports that will accept for them (ports pay different amounts for different colours of goods, but don’t accept all colours).  Selling goods means the merchant ship then gains a full load of goods of the colour that matches the port too.  The navy ships can be moved next to opponent’s pirate ships to sink them (earning 2 dubloons too).  Sunk ships may be inconvenient but they are back in play at the start of your next turn so you’re never without all your movement options. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always interested in the games that Funforge create as their production quality is superb and I’ve liked a lot of what they’ve published, such as Quantum, Pony Express and Tokaido.  This year it’s a co-operative game called Samurai Spirits.

Up to 7 players each play a Samurai hero defending a village from some raiders.  The board shows a village with some barricades, farmsteads and families. On their turn, a player can choose to fight a raider, support another player, or pass.  When a player chooses to fight, they draw a raider card and either confront it (placing it on the right of their player board), or defend against it (placing it on the left of their board).  The total attack strength of all raiders on the right of a player’s board is marked on their ‘battle track’ and, if it equals the highest value, the player performs their character’s kiai ability.  The Kiai ability not only has a special effect but it also removes their earliest fought raider which usually results in the total attack strength going down.  If the total attack strength exceeds a player’s battle track, they have no choice other than to pass on their turn. Read the rest of this entry »

Takamatsu is a new game by Martin Schlegel – the designer of Aqua Romana (an SdJ nominee released by Queen in 2005 – the first Spiel I attended).  I really like Aqua Romana (even though I think one of the game mechanics could be improved) so I’m very interested in this new game.

In Takamatsu, players move their samurai meeple around the rooms in a building trying to gain cards and prevent others from doing so.  Most cards give players victory points (some are secret until revealed) and the first player to 20 victory points wins.

On your turn, you can move samurai from any room where at least one of your samurai is located; however, there are some restrictions.  You must move at least one of your own samurai, plus at least one opponent’s samurai (if there are any opponents in the room).  Also, if there are more than 2 samurai in a room, you must leave at least 1 behind.  The samurai get moved clockwise around the building’s rooms and they are moved forwards a number of rooms equal to the number of samurai moved.  Whilst the rooms are arranged in a loop, it’s not completely linear as there are some branches. Read the rest of this entry »

Very early on and already both players have caused some damage to each other’s blocks. Towards the end of the game, blocks are full of collapse markers and fires.

I hadn’t played Block Mania for over 25 years and decided to give it another try this week.  If you’re not aware of it, it was a game made by Games Workshop (back in the days when they did more than just their own licences) set in the world of Judge Dredd (from the 2000AD comics).  The ultra-large high-rises (blocks) of Mega-City 1 sometimes start fighting with their neighbouring blocks for good or bad reasons (or, sometimes, for no reason at all).

When I played it when released in 1987, I found it was a great idea but just didn’t deliver the massive action it should have done.  It seemed there were too few units on the board (because they were easily killed but not easily added).  The reason for this is that each player would get 2-12 (2d6) action points (APs) to spend on their turn.  This made the game very swingy, especially if one player rolled low and the other high.

Having done a lot of game designing since then, I now know how to address these things so, for this game, I decided to alter the AP system.  I would have liked two identical decks of cards with different APs written on each card and players would draw a card from their own deck each turn – this would give relatively random APs per turn but each player would get the same overall as they’d both go through their identical decks.  However, rather than make anything specific, APs were instead 1 dice + six (1d6+6) making them 7-12 per turn.  This would give more APs so more action was possible.  I suggested if a player rolled a 1 they should get +1 next turn but my opponent said not to bother – which they regretted later after rolling four 1’s in a row. Read the rest of this entry »

The full game of Nations is an excellent civilsation game which uses euro-style game mechanics and focuses more on building civilisations and indirect interaction plus has no landscape board.  It’s an excellent, tight and unforgiving game which I have enjoyed (and hope to review soon).

This year sees Nations: The Dice Game being released which looks very promising from reading the rules.  The dice game contains simplified and streamlined version of the core elements of the main game but, as the name suggests, it uses a dice mechanic.

Each player has their own board with limited spaces for tiles representing buildings, advisors, and wonders (colony tiles can be unlimited).  Each of these items can be built for a cost which then gives its owner a benefit.

Over 4 rounds (ages), players take turns taking actions.  At the start of a round, you roll the dice shown on your tiles (players start with basic buildings) and the results display the resources each dice is worth.  One action is to buy a tile from the common pool by spending resources (those shown on your dice as well as resource counters already earned).  Dice spent this way are ‘used’ so are unavailable until the next round. Read the rest of this entry »

Race to the Rhine is a game for up to 3 players who each play a WWII Allied General.   You may be on the same side of the war but this is not a co-operative game – first player over the Rhine, or the player with the most medals if time runs out, wins.  As you’re on the same side, there’s no combat against each other but you are in competition for the central supplies and you can place enemy forces to hinder your opponents.

THE GAME
Race to the Rhine is about planning and logistics as you need to keep your Corps supplied with Ammo, Fuel and Food which requires careful timing of your actions.  Players take turns performing two actions: Move Corps, Gain Supplies, Gain Trucks, Place Trucks (moves supplies),  Recon, and Airborne Units.

Movement & Combat
Each player moves their units (Corps) towards the Rhine via a network of roads; however, each player stays within their coloured section which occasionally overlap.  A Move action moves one Corps up to 3 locations (costing 1 fuel) drawing a card when entering each empty location to see what happens.  You normally draw from your own deck (mostly beneficial with a few negative cards).  If the location contains an Axis marker, you draw from the Axis deck (tough enemy).  If you successfully enter a location, you place one of your control markers there.  Combat against Axis forces requires spending various amounts of ammo and sometimes fuel; otherwise, you lose the combat, spend what you can, but don’t enter the location. Read the rest of this entry »

Spiel in Essen is now less than 3 months away so the information about (and the buzz around) games being released there has begun.  It’s always an exciting time of year as lots of new games get announced in the lead-up to the event in October.  I will be looking to do the same as I did last year and post short previews of games that catch my interest.

As it’s not possible to write a preview of every interesting game (plus, I notice some games some time before I’m able to post a preview), my Spiel 2014 page will show a full list of all the games I find interesting (whether previewed or not) and links to any previews I’ve posted.

James.

King and Assassins is an asymmetric, 2-player game where the King player controls the king and his knights; whereas, the Assassin player controls the villagers in the town of which 3 are assassins who are trying to kill the king.

The rules are simple.  Each player has a number of action points (APs) to spend on their turn which can be used to move their figures, make attacks, etc.  Each turn, a card is drawn which determines how many APs the King player can spend (there are separate amounts for the king and to be spent amongst the knights), plus it shows if a knight can arrest 1 villager that turn (permanently removing it).   Also, each card shows how many APs the Assassin player can spend on their villagers/assassins too.  If the cards run out or the king is killed (wounded twice) before reaching the castle, the Assassin player wins. Read the rest of this entry »

The winners of the Spiel des Jahres and the Kennerspiel des Jahres were announced yesterday.  The winners were Camel Up and Istanbul.  It’s always interesting to try and work out the winners because I know what I like the most (and would vote for) is definitely not the same as what I think will be voted for by the jury, because the SdJ awards are for a more general German game-playing audience (and not a more serious gamer audience).

If it was my choice, it would have been Splendor for the main prize as it’s the one I enjoy the most; however, I guessed Camel Up would be picked as the winner as it’s a more accessible game for a wider audience and the card pyramid offers an appealing, physical element.  So, Camel Up winning wasn’t a surprise to me.

The Kennerspiel was a hard one to call – I had it down to Istanbul and Rokoko.  I really like Istanbul but I wondered if it was slightly too light for the Kennerspiel, even in the context of the SdJs.  However, Rokoko was maybe too far the other way as it’s a tense game with a lot of elements to balance and time correctly.  So, I was happy with either of those being the winner.

I thought this year’s SdJ was a good one as I found all the games to be good quality – whereas, some years I scratch my head wondering how some of the games were picked.  In fact, it’s the first year I’ve found myself playing all the nominees, and playing some of them quite a lot.  I still think Lewis & Clark should have been at least a recommendation though (if not a nominee) for the Kennerspiel.

Links to my reviews of all the SdJ nominees, winners and some recommendations are on my SdJ 2014 page.

James.