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 »

Quantum is a light, space-themed game.  Players have ships which are represented by dice that travel between the planets trying to colonise them (place cubes on them).  The first player to place all their cubes wins.

The ships (dice) are rolled to determine what type of ship they are – a low number means they are slow moving but powerful in combat, and vice versa.  (In fact, the dice value is how many spaces they can move which makes things simple.)  Each type of ship has a special power too, such as transporting another ship, swapping places, changing a ship’s value and this makes each quite different.

On their turn, a player can take 3 actions.  An action can be used to activate a ship (move/attack), re-roll a ship, bring a ship on from the scrap yard, or carry out research.  A player can use 2 actions to place a cube on a planet if they have ships next to the planet that add up to the planet’s number and if there is still room to place a cube there.  (A player can also place a cube if they win enough combats.) Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, this year’s 5th Annual Game Giveaway is a competition where you could win a copy of Funforge’s new game Quantum and it has now started!

See the competition page for details.  Competition ends at 5.00pm on Monday 28th October (UK time).

Good luck,

James.

I am very pleased to announce that this year’s Metagames’ Annual Spiel game giveaway is being supported by Funforge and I will be running a competition for one of you to win a copy of Funforge’s promising new game Quantum.

Funforge have very kindly provided a copy of Quantum for the competition.  You can read my preview of Quantum here.  You can also find out more about Quantum and read the rules on Funforge’s website by using this shortlink: bga.me/quantum

More details of the competition will be coming in the next week so stay tuned.  The competition this year will revolve around the games I have previewed for this year’s Spiel.

James.

I always have time for Funforge’s games as they’re always really nicely produced.  This year, they are releasing a light, space-themed game called Quantum.  Players have dice (which are ships) that travel between the planets trying to colonise them (place cubes on them).  The first player to place all their cubes wins.

The ships (dice) are rolled to determine what type of ship they are – a low number means they can not move far but are powerful in combat, and vice versa.  In fact, the dice number is how many spaces they can move.  However, each type of ship has a special power too, such as transporting another ship, swapping places, changing a ship’s value.

On their turn, a player can take 3 actions.  An action can be to move/attack with a ship, re-roll a ship, bring a ship on from the scrap yard, carry out research, or use 2 actions to construct a quantum cube on a planet which still has space for one.  A player can place a cube if they have ships next to the planet that add up to the planet’s number, or if they win enough combats. Read the rest of this entry »

In Tokaido, players are travelling along a road visiting villages, seeing great vistas, visiting temples, staying at inns,etc. in order to earn victory points (VPs).  The player with the most VPs at the end of the game wins.

Players move along the road from left to right.  On their turn, they can go to any empty space ahead of them (up to the next inn where they must wait for any other travelers to catch-up).  Spaces at each location are limited (usually one or two spaces) so a player may not be able to visit a location if it is currently full of other travelers.  This is very important because a player can never move backwards along the road.

So, you can rush ahead to ensure you land at a location you want to, but at the cost of never being able to visit any of the skipped locations on your way there.  However, moving slowly means opponents may move into the locations you will want to so they could be full when it is your turn and you have to pass them by. The player who is furthest back is the player who moves next – so it’s not wise to move too far ahead of this last player as it will allow them to land on every location between themselves and the next player. Read the rest of this entry »