I liked the idea of an Orient Express themed deduction game. so was very open to trying Mystery Express.  I’m not a fan of Clue/Cluedo as it’s too dry and massively dependent on dice rolls.  The preview information released about Mystery Express indicated it was very different and had a lot more logic to it.

During the game, you are trying to work out the 5 facts about the crime – where, who, what, why and when.  Each turn, you have a fixed amount of time to spend on actions (based on which part of the journey you’re on, i.e. which turn) and each action is located in a different carriage of the train.  Once you’ve been in a carriage, you can’t return to it during the same turn.

Most of the deduction of the crime’s facts is a process of elimination.  Players hold cards of the various possible facts – there are 2 identical cards of each apart from the actual facts of the crime of which there is only 1 copy of each (because 1 has randomly been removed at the start of the game).  I actually felt this was still very much like Clue/Cluedo.  Read the rest of this entry »

(With Spiel in Essen only just over one week away, there are so many games I’ve played this year that I have still yet to review.  Always so many reviews, so little time.  Rather than let my thoughts gather dust during the on-coming mass of reviews of new games, I’m going to post some ‘Thoughts On’ articles over the next few days.  First up, Fresco.)

In Fresco, players buy and mix paint colours so they can paint the cathedral ceiling to earn points.   The main game mechanic is a worker placement game but there are some clever twists.  At the start of a turn, each player places one of their workers to determine turn order by saying when their workers will get up to start work.  Going (getting up) early is good because you get the first pick of the paints to buy and have first chance to paint sections of the cathedral which makes them unavailable to other players.  However, going (getting up) early is bad because the paints at the market cost a lot more, plus the workers become less happy (which can mean one may go on strike next turn).  This is an excellent balance and I find it’s the most fun decision-making part of the game as you (and the other players) struggle to decide which position in the turn order would be best. Read the rest of this entry »

Queen Games have released a lot of games I enjoy with great components so I’m always interested in any of their new games.  Fresco was good but, recently, their releases have included quite a lot of slightly updated versions of their existing games with a small tweak or addition here and there but not enough to make it a new game.

So, it’s great to see a new game hinted at on their web site called Castelli.  Until recently, there was only the cover art on their site but they have just added a picture of the game itself which looks very intriguing.  With less than 10 days to Spiel, Queen Games are leaving it quite late to release info on it if it’ll be released at the show, but I shall definitely check it out if it’s there.

James.

FantasyFlight Games has released 2-player game Dragonheart.  This is an English version of Drachenherz which I’ve already reviewed on this blog.

So, anyone looking for a review of Dragonheart should click here to read the review.

Ingenious goes by several names (such as Genial and Mensa Connections).  Ingenious is a good name for an English version as pulling out a game called Mensa makes most players wince at the idea and they have to be convinced to ignore the name and discover a really good game.  Fortunately, I think it was only called Mensa in the UK.

THE GAME
Ingenious is an abstract game where players place tiles with coloured shapes on in order to score points.  The tiles are made of two hexes and each hex shows one of 6 different colours (shapes).  Players take turns placing one tile from their hand of 6 tiles.

When a tile is placed, both colours on the tile are scored – you score 1 point for each matching colour that can be traced in every direction from the tile in an unbroken line (neither of the colours on the tile itself count).  It’s really simple and I’ll give an example using the screenshot on the right:  A tile is placed in the right-most column just below the two red stars already present with a red star is at the top and yellow circle at the bottom.  This would score 3 red points and 1 yellow point.  If a player reaches 18 points in any one colour, they immediately take another turn. Read the rest of this entry »

Many serious gamers may feel Carcassonne is too simple for them as it’s a great gateway game; however, I recommend they don’t dismiss Carcassonne on iPhone as it has a lot to offer.

THE GAME
In Carcassonne, players place tiles which show parts of roads, cities and monasteries and place them together to build an entire countryside.  On their turn, a player takes and places one tile so that it fits next to any already placed tiles ensuring features like roads continue onto newly placed tiles.  After placing a tile, the player has the opportunity to place one of their 7 meeple (mini people) onto the just-placed tile.  Placing meeple is the way to score points and a meeple can be placed on a road, in a town, in a field or on a monastery. Read the rest of this entry »

Valley Games usually has one or two games that intrigue me each Spiel (Container, Municpium, Master Builder) and this year it’s Crows.  Crows is a tile placement game where you try to entice as many crows to the tile which has has your shiny object on it.  Players know how the Crows will move at the end of each round, as they follow a set of rules, so placing the tiles and your shiny object strategically is they key to scoring points.  It seems like attracting crows away from opponents’ shiny objects will be half the battle (and fun).  Plus, there are a few special actions that can be earned and used too.  The games sounds cute and a little bit different plus, for some reason, I like the idea of the crow meeple pieces.  I’m not expecting too much from it and hope it will be one of the lighter games I enjoy from Spiel this year.

With so many new games coming out each year at Spiel, we often give them nicknames to make it easier to remember which one is which.  The game Powerboats is like Formula De but with boats, so got nicknamed as ‘Formula Boat’.  Battlestar Galactica is co-operative with a potential traitor like Shadows Over Camelot so gets called ‘Cylons Over Camelot’.  And Claustrophobia got called Dungeon Hulk (as it’s Space Hulk in a Dungeon).  As there is tile-placement in Crows I’m already calling it ‘Crowcassonne’.

Ys is an area control game where players gain gems and points by placing their pieces in different areas of the city.  It’s a fairly simple game but with some clever subtleties and interwoven game mechanics that make it stand out.  I usually split out the game description from my opinion but  I’ll look at each one as I explain them on this occasion

Hidden Value Piece Placement
Each player has a set of wooden cylinders in their colour which have a value on one end from between 0 to 4.  During the game, players take turns placing two of their pieces into any of the 3 areas in any of the city’s 4 neighbourhoods, or onto the market grid.  An interesting game mechanic is that one of the two placed pieces is placed with the number showing (numbered end face-up) and the other piece is placed with the number hidden (numbered end face-down).  This means that players have some knowledge of what the competition in each area might be but not exact knowledge.  I found this created really interesting gameplay as it allows for a bit of bluffing as well as posturing. Read the rest of this entry »

In Vineta, players are Norse gods trying to sink the city of Vineta in order to score points primarily by removing houses from the sunken sections.  The game board is made up of nine city sections that fit together to create make a city comprising of 3 rings of 3 areas. Lots of coloured houses are placed on the city areas at the start by the players (usually quite spread out).

Each player has a hand of cards and two secret objective tiles – one shows which city area the player will get bonus points for if it is the one area that survives, and the other tile shows which colour of houses they will get bonus points for if any of that colour survive too.

Each round, players take turns playing a card from their hand.  Cards fall into two main types – wave cards and special actions. Wave cards have a value of 1 to 4 and, at the end of the round, the city area with the highest wave total will sink. Read the rest of this entry »

Like me, you may know Wabash Cannonball as Chicago Express as that’s the name under which it was released by Queen Games.  For this review, I’ll refer to the game as Wabash Cannonball as that’s the name of the iPhone app and the original game, but the games are (as far as I’m aware) the same.

THE GAME
During the game, the players develop railroad networks in America.  Different to many games, players don’t own a single railroad company but, instead, can buy shares in any of the railroads and earn money from dividends. Going clockwise, players take an action to either start an auction for a share in a railroad, extend a railroad (in which they own shares) by 3 pieces of track, or develop a space.  Each round, there are 3 auction, 4 development and 5 lay track actions available.  When two of these three action types have all been used, the round ends and dividends are paid to railroad shareholders.  The dividend paid per share is the railroad’s value (based on the spaces it runs through) divided by the current number of shares owned. Read the rest of this entry »