Players are pirate crews who are trying to earn the most doubloons buy collecting booty.  Each player has a set of 30 cards each representing a crew member with a value (1-30), a special ability and a tie-break number.  Each player’s set of cards is the same except the tie-break numbers are different so that no two cards are exactly the same.  Each card’s special ability states if it will be used in the day, at dusk, at night, or at the end of the campaign.  To start the 1st campaign, one player randomly draws 9 cards from their deck, then all the other players draw the same cards.

The game is played over 3 campaigns, each consisting of 6 days when players will play one card each.  At the start of each campaign, booty tiles are drawn at random and placed on each of the 6 days on the board (one token per player).  Most booty tokens are simply worth 1, 3 or 5 doubloons, although treasure maps are only worth 12 doubloons combined if you have at least 3 of them.  There are also cursed booty tokens worth -3 doubloons, as well as saber and Spanish officer tokens which are worth no doubloons but have special effects (see below).

On each day, players are competing to take a booty token from those available that day.  Each day is resolved over 4 phases:

• Sunrise: Players simultaneously select a card to play which are then revealed and placed in order of ascending value.  Ties are broken by the tie-break value (1-6) on each card.
• Day: In increasing value order, each player uses the day ability of the crew they played (if they have one).
• Dusk: In decreasing value order, each player takes 1 booty token and uses any dusk ability their crew may have.  Then, the player places their used crew card in their ‘den’ (in front of them), unless they claimed a Spanish Officer token when the crew member is discarded.  (If they claimed a saber token, they make the player to their left or right discard a crew member from their den.)
• Night: Players use any night abilities of crew in their ‘den’; for example, earning doubloons by discarding crew from the den, earning doubloons from saber tokens, etc.

When a campaign is finished, players use any end-of-campaign abilities of crew in their den, then add up and record the dubloons earned.  Then, all the booty tokens go back in the bag and all crew in dens are discarded.  One player draws 6 new cards from their deck at random, then all the other players draw the same cards too, and add them to the 3 cards remaining from the previous campaign.

Overall, Libertalia is a simple game but the different powers on each card, the different card values, the different booty tokens up for grabs, and knowing other players have similar cards delivers a lot of interesting decisions packed into a relatively short time.

Picking which value crew to play each day is very interesting as you try to work out what booty you want (and don’t want), what other players may play, whilst trying to balance playing a good ability and a good value card.  For example, sometimes you want to play a low value card for its ability but don’t want last pick of the booty, or you want to play a high value card to take booty early but its low tie-break value means it may be wasted if other players also play the same card.

Whilst players gain the same cards at the same time, players will end up using cards at different times which means their remaining cards start to differ and players carry over different cards into the second and third campaigns.

I like how you only use 21 of the 30 crew cards in each game (and only 18 of those will actually get played), so each game will have its own different mix of cards and the times the cards appear will vary too.  Also, the random mixtures of booty tokens offer variety and makes some days feel different to others and require a different strategy.

It can be quite a brutal game – definitely don’t get attached to any crew in your den as they tend to get killed off pretty easily.  Also, players aiming for the big booty items are relatively easy to spot and other players aim to hinder them quite quickly; however, players using den cards to subtly gain dubloons are just as dangerous so need to be watched for too.

The crew abilities seem nicely varied and some are quite funny such as the monkey that allows you to pass on all the cursed booty tokens you have (although that did seem quite powerful).  The game plays quickly with a short pause at the start of each campaign to read the special abilities each crew card has and consider how these may be best used, but that will get quicker the more times you play.

So, are there any negatives?  There was one aspect that didn’t sit quite right with me and that was the tie-break system.  As mentioned, any ties in card number are broken using each card’s tie-break value (1-6).  The tie-break values are evenly spread between the players’ decks and spread sequentially through each set of 30 cards.  (For example, if A and B’s number 18 crew cards have tie-break values of 3 and 4 respectively, then A and B’s number 5 crew cards will have tie-break values of 4 and 5 respectively.)

This means that once you notice the difference between you and another player, you can predict what their tie-break number will be by looking at your own value.  Also, it means a player knows a card with a tie-break 1 value will always lose ties (which are reasonably likely as all players have the same cards).

I can see this system has been created to ensure the player decks are evenly balanced; however, it can be frustrating knowing which way the tie will go.  Also, it means each player deck has a specific set of tie-winning cards (and one player deck has an unbeatable card - value 30 card with tie-break 6).  Plus, as you only use 18 of the 30 cards, luck-of-the-draw can allow one player to play more cards with higher tie-break values than another player.

I think there could be other options that would be more fair.  For example, have a ‘tie-break player’ – similar to having a start player in other games – so that ties are resolved by starting with the tie-break player and going clockwise (the tie-break player moves on one player each day).  Or, the tie-break player changes each day and they decide how ties are broken – whilst not as fair as my first suggestion, it adds a bit more player interaction.

Another element that felt a bit strange was that some cards abilities aren’t very useful at the start of each campaign when there’s no booty or crew in dens.  As a result, players are likely to pick very similar cards on the first and second day.  However, players will have different views on what to play and/or collect soon enough as they use cards and gain booty.

In the end, neither of these issues were a major problem.  Libertalia was good fun, I enjoyed playing it and would like to play it some more.  Playing different value cards to set the order in which booty is picked is important, but the abilities of the cards play a big part too which is a nice extra layer of game play.  It can be quite brutal, but I think that’s fine in a relatively short and light game.

James.
[Played with 5 players]

Set in Venice, Rialto is played over 6 rounds – one for each of the Venetian islands on the board.  Players are aiming to score the most victory points (VPs) which are  primarily earned by having councilors on the islands at the end of the game.  Players each have a marker on the Doge track and this splits all ties and determines some order of play.

Each island has 1 connection to each of its 4 neighbouring  islands.  During the game, these 12 connections each get filled with either a bridge or a gondola token.  Each bridge and gondola token has two values on it (one on each end) – bridges have values between 3-6 VPs; whereas, both values on gondolas are always value 1.  This is important because the final VPs gained by players with councilmen on each island are based on the total of each island’s 4 connections’ values.

At the start of each round, several (number of players + 1) rows of cards are laid out each consisting of 6 face-up and 2 face-down cards.  In Doge track order, players select one row of cards, add any extra cards they may have (such as from the previous round), and discard down to 7 cards.  The player may own some buildings which allow them to have more cards to select from, or keep more than 7 cards) but players must pay 1 gold for each building used. 

Once all players have selected a row of cards, the rest of the round takes place over 6 phases and only one specific card type can be played during each phase.  Going clockwise, players play any number of  the phase’s cards (plus jokers).  Playing more cards gives a greater benefit and the player that plays the most cards in each phase gets that phase’s bonus action.  The list below shows the phases in order, the benefits and the bonus (where x represents the number of cards played):

• Doge cards: Move x spaces along Doge track (Bonus: +1 move)
• Gold cards: Gain x gold (Bonus: +1 gold)
• Building cards: Take building of value equal to x or less  (Bonus: +1 building value)
• Bridge cards: Score x per card (Bonus: Place bridge between two islands)
• Gondola cards: Move x councilmen from your general supply to your personal supply (Bonus: Place gondola between two islands plus 1 councilman onto one of the islands it connects)
• Councilman cards: Move x councilmen from your personal supply onto current island (Bonus: Place +1 councilmen)

All players get the benefit of the cards they play, i.e. a player who plays 3 gold cards in the gold card phase will gain 3 gold (or will gain 4 gold if they played the most gold cards).  Whilst cards are played in clockwise order, the effects are executed in Doge order and any ties are decided by the players’ position along the Doge track.  In some cases the resolution order makes no difference (like when taking gold) but it can make a difference such as when moving on the Doge track (as the player on the top of another on the same space of the Doge track is ahead) as well as taking buildings (as they are in limited supply).  The player that won the bonus action in one phase is the player that starts the next phase.  Some buildings can be used to have 1 card count as 2 cards of another type, etc.

Buildings give players very useful extra abilities and are worth VPs at the end of the game.  As mentioned above some can be used to affect the cards you draw and keep, some let you affect playing cards, and there are some others that do things like upgrading buildings, gaining VPs etc.  The effects of the buildings may seem minor to start with but they’re very useful and can be even more effective when combined.  The buildings you select will give you more tactics/choices.  However, you must use cards to build them and must pay 1 gold to use each building (once per round).  So, you need to make sure you gain gold to be able to keep using them.

At the end of the game, players with the most councilmen on an island score VPs equal to its value, the player with second most gets half of that, third most place gets half of that, and so on.  Plus, there are some other VPs to be added too such as VPs for buildings.

Overall, I enjoyed Rialto.  From reading the rules, I wasn’t sure if there was going to be much depth to it, but there’s a lot going on.  You never have enough cards to everything you want (an aspect I always like) and this forces you to make difficult choices, especially as you’re not sure what other players will do so can not guarantee you will win the bonus actions.

The placement of the bridges ans gondolas is very clever as it means the VPs for each island take shape over the course of the game and makes each game different.  However, it also means that winning the bonus actions to place the bridge and gondola pieces is very important and can really effect the game.  You may add lots of councilmen to an island but you need to make sure bridges get placed to make it worth a decent amount of VPs too.  Also, placing gondolas is important as you can ensure they don’t get allocated to the islands where you have councilmen, but you can also allocate them to where your opponents have their councilmen.

Players have lots to balance – use lots of cards of one type to get a single, big benefit and hopefully gain bonus action, or use lots of different cards to do multiple, different types of actions.  Also, players need to move councilmen from the general supply into their own supply so they can then be placed on the islands.  Buildings need coins to power them but gaining coins means doing fewer other things. So, everything you do is at the expense of doing something else.

There also seemed several tactical routes to take.  In my first game, one player decided not to bother with the Doge track at all – resigning himself to losing all ties and being last to pick cards but at the benefit of not needing to collect or use and Doge cards at all (and he made it work too).  Players can focus on buildings (also worth VPs), or placing bridges/gondolas to maximise their score and hinder others, or purely aim for placing councilmen.

There are some interesting ways to affect the game’s result too.  For example, not only does winning the gondola round allow you to place a low-scoring gondola to connect islands that other players will score, but it is also the only way to add a councilman to an island that isn’t the current round’s island.

One minor negative is that resolving each phase can be a little bit fiddly.  The order you play cards in is simply clockwise, but the order in which you resolve them is then in Doge track order (which is important for some phases).  This is simple but the changing order can make it a bit fiddly – just enough to disrupt the flow – and players need to be strict in following this order.

Another negative is that I found some areas of the rules very unclear – primarily the description of the timing and order of resolving each phase.  All the facts are stated in isolation, but that doesn’t clearly explain how the game flows – a bit like a list of ingredients doesn’t explain how to cook a meal.  Just a little bit more description, or an example of play when resolving a phase of card play, would have solved this.

However, these negatives are minor items and Rialto is a solid Eurogame with more difficult and interesting choices than it may first appear.  Plus, there is almost no downtime as players are involved in every phase.  It’s actually quite a simple game but with lots of elements to balance (although it may be a bit too unusual for players who are new to boardgames).

James.
[Played with 4 and 5 players]

OVERVIEW
The game is set on a Pacific island and players place huts, gain tribe members, build buildings, make offerings to the gods, and so on.  The game lasts 6 rounds and the winner is the player who finishes with the most  victory points (VPs).  Many VPs are earned during the game, but there are also lots of bonus VPs that can be awarded at the end of the game (although, as you’ll read later, these are quite tough to achieve).

Each round players first roll their 3 dice and then take turns placing one at a time on one of the action tiles allowing them to perform the appropriate action.  Next, players use the ability of one of their man tiles and the ability of one of their woman tiles.  Then, the status track (scoring VPs and determining  turn order), temple track (scoring VPs and a bonus for one player) and jewelry purchases are all resolved.  Finally, players must complete or discard one of their 3 objective tiles before taking a new one.  (All unclaimed man and woman tiles, objectives and jewelry are cleared from the board and new ones added for the next round.)

THE BOARDS
In the middle of the table is the game board showing the 12 island areas (split across 5 islands) as well as the temple track, status track, etc.  Plus, each player has their own board which, at first glance, look quite bewildering; however, the left-hand third of the board is actually a useful player information card.  The main area of the player board has 12 spaces which are initially filled with huts (apart from one). Empty spaces are important because man and woman tiles can only be placed on empty spaces, so you constantly need to manage making space (primarily by using the ‘Expand’ action to place huts onto the main board).

The player’s board also has space for the player’s current 3 objective tiles (see below) and the player’s building zone – a 3×4 grid and each square shows one of the 3 building materials.  When a player gains building materials, they are placed on a matching square.  When a player builds a building, they place one of their 2×1 building tiles onto the grid replacing (and spending) 2 materials which are covered up.

PHASE 1: THE CORE DICE ACTION PLACEMENT SYSTEM
Next to the main board are the very important action tiles.  These show the different actions a player may be able to take on their turn.

• Gain a man/woman: Take one man/woman tile from the display and place on your player board in an empty slot
• Expand across land/water: Place a hut from your player board onto a main board area that is adjacent to an area containing one of your huts
• Build: Place a building tile onto your player board (which replaces the materials already laid out there)
• Temple: Send one of your 3 priests to the temple track
• Helper: This does lots of small things (explained below)
• Fishing: Earns a flat 2VPs

(Some actions are combined onto a single tile with fewer players which is a nice balancing mechanic ensuring there is always competition over placing dice on the action tiles.)

At the start of each round, all players roll their 3 dice.  They then take turns placing one dice each and performing the associated action.  A dice can place be placed on any action tile BUT the dice must be a lower value than any dice already on that action tile.  ALSO, the value of the dice placed determines how much effect the action has – the higher the number placed, the better the options or greater the effect.

For example, the ‘gain a man’ action tile allows a player to take one of the 6 man tiles on display; however, placing a dice value of 2 only allows the player to take one of the 2 left-most tiles, whereas, placing a 5 would allow them to take any one of the 5 left-most tiles.  Another example is when expanding to place a new hut – each path between adjacent areas has a numbered value; therefore, placing a 4 on the ‘expand’ action allows the player to expand from one of their current huts in any direction marked with a value of 4 or lower.

This is clever in two ways.  First, there’s no such thing as a bad dice roll – you may not roll what you want but all combinations have their advantages.  The reason for this is that high-value dice are great to give you more effect to your actions but they’re harder to place than low values once other players have placed dice on actions.  Conversely, low-value results may not give you large effects but they’re usually easier to place.

Second, as all players can see each others’ dice, there is scope for humorous screwage by placing a dice knowing it will block another player.  Turn order makes a big difference so it can be important to earn a better position.  I mainly rolled 1′s and 2′s all game but I was first player a lot so placing my first 1-value dice blocked an action before anyone else could use it – mwa-ha-ha-haaa…

So, this game mechanic delivers some clever effects as well as a lot of tension as you wait to see if someone else will block you from an action you plan to use (like many worker placement games).  I liked how another player’s use of an action before you doesn’t always block you out from using it – it depends on the number, and how much they want to be mean to you.  I think the different dice outcomes can alter the feel of a game as sometimes the actions will be easier to gain but not so during other games.  Also, the results other players roll will affect how you consider using your dice too.

It’s important to note that some types of God cards can be played to override the dice placement rules – one type allows you to place a dice normally but activate it like it was a 6, and another type lets you ignore any previously placed dice.  So, these are very useful but they do come at the cost of using actions to gain both the cards and the offerings that must accompany them.

I’ll mention here that a player can always place a dice on the ‘Fishing’ action to gain 2VPs no matter what other dice are there.  I thought this would get used a lot, but we only used it twice in our game (even with my low rolls) so there’s usually some worthwhile action to do.

Helper Action
The ‘Helper’ action does several smaller items and allows the player to spend their die value on several different things such as upgrading males or females (once each only), moving huts on the player board, and gaining building materials, god cards and offerings tokens.  Upgrading males gives them tattoos (giving status which in turn earns VPs and sets player order); whereas, upgrading females lets them collect shells which can be spent to make jewelry (which earn VPs).

Status and Turn Order
Turn order makes a big difference so gaining status during a turn is good so you are earlier in turn order.  However, gaining a little status each round doesn’t earn as many VPs as gaining the same total status but in a single round.  Yet another interesting game mechanic to balance.

Temple Track
The temple track has 6 slots for the players’ priests.  New priests are added by using the ‘Temple’ action allowing the player to places their priest on any slot equal to their dice’s value or lower.  A priest already on the same slot is bumped down one and this can have a chain reaction that bumps a priest off the end, which means higher-value priests are likely to last longer.  Players earn VPs for each priest plus a bonus for the player with the most priests in the temple.

PHASE 2: USING THE MEN AND WOMEN TILES
After all players have used their dice for actions, each player gets to use one of their man tiles and one of their woman tiles.  The effects are things such as build a building, place a hut, take god cards, earn prestige, etc.  There are multiple man and woman tiles of the same type and a player with multiple identical man (or woman) tiles gets a better effect.  For example, having one man tile that lets you build a building value 1-3, but having two of these man tiles would let you build a building value 1-6.  Whilst the powers of the men and women may seem slight, they are important and can give you an edge over your opponents.  It’s interesting to balancing having multiple different types (so you have a choice of effects) against having multiple similar types to boost their effects.  Also, having no women or no men is a bit of a waste as you’re not maximising your gains.

PHASE 3: END OF ROUND ACTIVITIES
At the end of each round, players resolve the status track (which determines the new turn order and earns VPs), resolve the temple track (VPs for each priest plus bonus for player with most priests), and make jewelry (spending shells to make the jewelry tiles on display for that round).  Finally, the player must complete or discard an objective before taking a new one.

The Objective System
The objective system is interesting as each player always has 3 objective tiles (which are public information) on their player board.  Objectives cover all sorts of things such as having 3 different male tiles, having huts on 4 different terrain types, showing 3 identical god cards, etc.  At the end of each round, players MUST complete one objective tile on their board or discard one.  A player can reduce one requirement on an objective with a specific god card but this scores 4VPs, instead of scoring 6VPs for an objective completed without help.  After this, players each take one of the new objectives from those on display on the main board (in player order) to replace the one they removed.

The objectives mechanic is another clever system as all players are viewing the board slightly differently (an aspect I always like), plus players are forced to develop in directions they may not have considered,  players can see what each other are aiming for, and a player can keep an objective (so they can plan on completing it in a later turn) so long as they complete/discard a different one.

END OF THE GAME SCORING
After 6 rounds, players will still have 3 objective tiles (as they take a new one in the final round like other rounds).  Players now complete or discard these 3 objectives as usual, so a player can complete up to 9 objectives throughout the game.

Now, final scoring takes place.  There are VPs for unused God tiles (joker God cards requiring no offerings), VPs for the fish value of each area (earned by the most recent player to expand into each area) and VPs for jewelry tiles (1-9VPs each).

Lastly, there are 9 separate ways players can score 6 extra VPs.  Players score 6VP if they have completed 9 objectives, built all 6 buildings, placed all 12 huts, and so on.  They are each quite demanding and require focus so I’d be amazed if a player can complete them all and score 54 bonus VPs.

It was the one area of the game that I found a bit odd – the different methods are hard to achieve so require a lot of focus – any slip up and you’ll fail, so the reward seemed quite small for the effort required.  In future, I’m not sure I would go out of my way quite as much to achieve the more ‘fragile’ of the bonuses such as completing 9 objectives as any discarded objective along the way can not be re-gained; whereas filling the construction grid is a bit more forgiving as you can buy multiple materials or build multiple buildings in any single round.  Also, a couple seemed too closely linked such as 6VPs for placing all huts and 6 VPs for having 12 tribes people – that seems odd as you can’t place all 12 tribe members unless you have placed all 12 huts.

CONCLUSION
As you can see from the above there is a lot going on in Bora Bora, but it’s not a complicated game, just rich in content. As a result, it’s not a good game for players who have not played many board games, but is great for more experienced players and also probably a good introduction to deeper games for those already familiar with simpler eurogames.

The central dice-placement-action game mechanic is very clever, works well and I love how rolling low can be just as good as rolling high.  There is real anticipation when players roll their dice and they want to see what they and other players rolled. Ideally you want a mix of high and low.

However, Bora Bora is more than just this clever mechanic as it is in the middle of a very rich game, rather than being naked and feeling very obvious.  There are lots of elements to balance and you always want to achieve more than you’re able to each turn.

Overall, I thought Bora Bora was an excellent game and I look forwards to playing it more.

James.
[Played with 3 players]

The Kickstarter project is for the Achtung! Cthulhu Keeper’s and Investigator’s handbooks which can be played with the Basic Role-Playing system as well as the Savage Worlds system too.  It has already reached a lot of stretch goals which means the two books will be full-colour hardbacks; however, other stretch goals already reached mean many backers will also be receiving loads of extra supplements in PDF form (with an option to upgrade to physical versions).

One supplement is the superbly named campaign ‘Assault on the Mountains of Madness’.  A piece of concept art for the campaign is shown here.  The first two parts of this campaign have been unlocked already and the third (and final) part is within reach.  Some other stretch goals already reached are another campaign (Shadows of Atlantis) and some sourcebooks too.

If you’re not aware of Achtung! Cthulhu, it  is a World War Two setting mixed with Cthulhu horror.  The official web site says “Discover the secret history of World War Two – stories of the amazing heroism which struggled to overthrow a nightmare alliance of science and the occult, of frightening inhuman conspiracies from the depths of time, and the unbelievable war machines which were the product of Nazi scientific genius – and how close we all came to a slithering end!”

The Kickstarter page is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/achtung-cthulhu-the-ww2-keepers-and-investigators which has 22 days to go.

Disclaimer: I know one of the writers on the project which is how I’m aware of it, but am posting this as I’ve always enjoyed Cthulhu role-playing and this sounds really interesting.

The Inland Port is played over 12 rounds and the winner is the player with the highest total value of cash and buildings (which each have an end-game value).  Each round consists of a fixed number of actions (3 actions to start increasing to 9 actions by game’s end) and players take turns taking 1 action to either buy or use 1 building.  At the start of each round, some buildings are added to the market.

Players each have two boards in front of them.  One is their warehouse – a grid with 4 resource markers (clay, wood, grain, fish) where the total of each resource is the marker’s row number (multiples of three) plus the marker’s column number.  When a player gains or loses resources, they move the markers in specific grid directions – this may sound unnecessary but is a clever system and I’ll explain why later.

The other player board is the main game mechanic which shows a circle divided into 6 sectors where buildings are placed once they have been bought.  The circle has an arm like a clock’s minute-hand with 6 values around the part at the circle’s centre (0, 2, 3, 4, 4+1 and !) – these 6 values each match up to the circle’s 6 sectors.  At the end of a round, players both advance their clock hand by one sector so the values  in the centre now point at the next adjacent sector – as a result a building that was next to the zero will now be next to the 2; a building that was next to the 2 will now be next to the 3, and so on.  Any building now next to the ! symbol is immediately sold for half of its value.

On their turn, a player can buy one building in the market by paying the resources (sometimes cash) marked on the building tile and this places it on the player’s board in the sector next to the zero on the clock-hand.  Alternatively, a player can use their action to use any effect of any building on the player boards that is not next to the zero.

On this player’s board, there is one building in the zero sector, three buildings in the 2 sector, and two buildings in the 3 sector.

Each building’s tile shows what effect it has and the number it is next to on the clock hand is the number of times the player can use that effect when used; for example, a building whose effect moves a player’s wood marker vertically one space which is next to the 3 when used allows the player to move their wood marker vertically 3 times.  Players can use their opponent’s buildings as if they were their own, but must pay 1 cash to their opponent to do so.

A used building remains on its owner’s board but still gets placed in the sector next to the zero.  So, using any building means neither player can use it again in the same round.

Each building has a different effect – some increase resources (sometimes specific ones and sometimes player’s choice), some buildings generate cash (sometimes costing resources to do so), some tiles have no effect but just have value at the end of the game (often based on resources or other buildings owned).  Some effects also have extra additional effects which aren’t based on the number they are next to.  (Note that the 4+1 space I mentioned is the same as the 4 but also gives the user 1 cash.)

The building tiles always enter the game in specific rounds and their effects (and values) generally increase as the game progresses.  During their turn, players can sell any of their buildings back to the market to receive cash equal to half their value.  When the game ends, players add up the value of their buildings plus any cash – highest total wins.

Overall, Le Havre: The Inland Port is a simple game but with continual, tricky decisions to be made.  I’m always interested in 2-player Eurogames as many great games that work well with more than 2 players just don’t work well when played with only two.   Also, 2-player games are hard to create because of the transparency and only having one opponent to contend with, i.e. if player A does one thing, player B just counters that.  However, The Inland Port overcomes this with lots of choices and no way a player can do the same action immediately after their opponent – so, very quickly, your position and your opponent’s become very different.

The warehouse board is clever because only moving resource markers in certain directions means there is a limit to continually moving a resource marker in the same direction, i.e. moving right to gain 1 resource will eventually be useless when you reach the right-hand edge and can not go any further.  Also, you can only move in certain directions when spending resources which means you sometimes have to overspend, i.e. if a marker is in the far-left column, you would only be spend that resource by moving it vertically downwards, lowering its value by 3, even if only 1 or 2 is required.

The player board is also clever because it adds a ‘cooking’ element to the game by which I mean the longer you wait, the better a single use of a building will be.  However, you need to consider how likely it will be that your opponent may use it first which would reset it.  I’m usually so busy with my own plans that I’m not sure what my opponent’s intentions are to intentionally get in their way, but maybe more plays would give me this skill.

The effects of different buildings are quite varied.  Whilst a little bewildering at first, there are lots of options to choose from every action and you quickly start to formulate short-term and longer-term plans, although you’ll likely need/want to re-adjust as you go.  I enjoyed working out what buildings I wanted to own, which I could afford, which would work well together and which would increase my end game value.  Actually, that last one’s important to keep in mind because generating resources feels very attractive and leaves your options open, but resources are worth nothing at the end of the game on their own (unless you also have specific buildings).

This player has 2 fish, 9 clay, 12 wood and 17 grain. Buildings that move the red marker 2 or more to the right will not have their full effect.

I had a couple of minor issues.  First, the game has a fixed schedule for introducing buildings each round so they get more powerful/valuable as the game progresses which is fine; however, it means the players know who will have the first chance to buy the buildings whose end value are based on resources (i.e. 1 cash per fish, or 10 cash per building with anchor icon).  For example, the player taking the game’s first action always has first chance to buy the building whose value is based on grain later.  I don’t think it’s a massive problem, but it just feels like it could pre-determine some of the players’ strategies.

Second, I found the number of actions taken is not immediately obvious – You can usually count the building tiles in the zero sectors, but it’s fiddly as many later buildings with no effects are placed at the side of the board, plus the zero sector moves each round.  As a result, the current turn number is not immediately obvious which is annoying as it’s very important.  The building chart (showing each building’s cost and entry round) could have been a round/turn track instead (or at least had that on its rearside), especially as the information on the building chart can be better displayed simply by placing all the tiles in rows.

In the end, the two issues above are minor items and Le Havre: The Inland Port is a great 2-player game requiring constant decisions and the great feeling that you don’t have enough actions to do all that you need.  I hope I will get to play the 2-player version of Agricola sometime too.

James.
[Played with 2 players]

Each player has an identical set of 18 cards and each turn they pick 3 of the 6 cards from their hand.  Cards can be climbing cards (values range from 1 to 3) or acclimatisation cards (used to increase your climbers’ health).

Once selected, all players reveal their 3 cards simultaneously.  The player with the highest climbing total must take one of the 3 face-up risk tokens.  These tokens range in value from 0 to 2 and the player must pay that cost with movement points, acclimatisation points, or their climbers’ health.   A new token is revealed to make a total of 3 for the next round.

On their turn, players allocate each of their 3 cards to either of their climbers to move them, pitch a tent, or increase their health.  If a climber’s health goes above 6, it always goes down to 6 at the end of each turn, which adds a nice limit so climbers are never too far from the chance of perishing.

The climbers move up the network of linked spaces on the mountain.  Moving to an adjacent space costs 1-3 movement points (depending on the space) and rope cards have a greater value when used for moving down the mountain.  Each climber has a tent they can pitch in a space by paying movement points equal to the cost of moving to that space; however, once pitched a climber’s tent can never be moved.  Spaces at different heights have maximum occupancy limits, although climbers can always pass through.  This number varies based on the number of players so this adds some good scaling (no pun intended, but duly noted).

Once all players have used their cards, players alter their climbers’ health levels.  A climber in a space with one of their own colour tents gains 1 point as do climbers in the lowest altitude spaces.  Climbers at higher altitudes reduce their health level according to the space plus, each turn, weather conditions can reduce health at certain altitudes.  Players can see the weather 3 to 6 days (turns) in advance so can plan for it (although that foreknowledge still didn’t stop 2 climbers in our game dying).  Any climber at zero health perishes.

The game ends after the 18th day.  Each climber scores points based on the highest space they reached (so long as they survived the game) and a player’s is the total of these.  If any perish they only score 1 point.  Tie-breaks between players who reached the summit are based on who reached the summit first, so this adds a race element to the game (although even without this rule, players are competitive creatures so it feels like a race anyway).

Overall, K2 was really good fun.  The core gameplay is picking the 3 cards you will use each round and this is usually entertainingly difficult because you always feel you need more than 3 cards to achieve what you want.  Plus, you’re constantly fighting your own instinct to go as fast as possible which usually jeopardises your climbers’ safety.  The maximum climbers per space adds an element of needing to deduce where your opponents are going as they could block you and ruin your plans, so turn order is important.  When to use the tents is an interesting choice, as gaining 1 health can make all the difference, but it comes at the cost of movement points which already feel scarce and you never want to pitch your tent too early.

It’s really important to factor in the weather as moving out of (or not moving into) a specific altitude band can be the (in-game) literal difference between life and death.   I completely messed up with my acclimatisation and allocated some to the wrong climber – as a result, my successful dash for the summit (which would have won me the game) ended in disaster the next turn when the extreme weather was just one point too many and he perished.  (One of my opponent’s climbers perished the same round so the race to the top was still on.)

With a few more plays, I would learn how to manage my cards better, as well as read the weather better too, but I don’t think I would ever feel safe – and this is a good thing as the tension of the game is one of its key rewarding elements.  The game board has two sides – easy and hard – and has two sets of weather cards – summer and winter.  This adds nice replayability as well as a difficulty setting.  We played the easy board with summer weather – the hard board with winter weather must be seriously difficult (which means players need to seriously consider how high they will try to reach).

The risk tokens are an interesting system.  Players, of course, pick the token with the smallest penalty which means that the penalties are likely to get worse as the game progresses as the least harmful ones get used first.  It’s a subtle but clever game mechanic which penalises the player trying to go furthest and it adds a slightly unknown element into each turn (as you’re not sure if you need to include the extra penalty into your plans which are always already very tight).

The only element I wasn’t keen on was turn order which simply goes clockwise and start player moves on clockwise one position each round.  This is simple but turn order is critical as going first in a round is a big advantage because moving first allows you to fill a space to block other climbers getting there, plus you know you don’t have to factor in other player’s movement.  So, this leaves a bit of the game down to luck that the important moves for you will align with being early in the turn order.  I would have preferred another mechanism such as going in order of who is trying to move the furthest (in the same way the risk token is allocated each round) and I think this works thematically too.  However, this is a minor issue and probably less important when playing with more players.

At the end of our game, we each had one climber left each and I was beaten to the summit.  With no way to out-score my opponent (as he reached the summit first and we both had 1 climber left) , I decided the only honourable thing to do was to abandon my attempt on the summit and try to block him  from coming down so he’d be killed by the exposure to the elements.  Ah, the noble pursuit of victory – I’m not quite sure this was what the designer had inn mind.  I wasn’t able to hinder the descent much, but if there had been just one bit of bad weather, my opponent would not have survived the extra exposure as he had no acclimatisation cards.   Unfortunately for me, all the weather was perfect and he survived.

In the end, K2 proved to be a tense, fun game full of tricky decisions and it also worked well with 2 players.  I think the designer has done a great job of creating great mechanics that deliver an entertaining game and that really bring out the theme too.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know I went on a trek in the Himalayas a couple of years ago when I walked to an altitude of 5,416 metres which is the same height as K2′s base camp.  I will always cherish the photos of me with my meeple at the top, but now I wish I’d had the K2 climber meeples (and that we could have played K2 on the trip).

James.
[Played with 2 players]

However, I shall be adding new reviews once again starting today with K2.  I’ll be adding reviews of the other main games I played at Spiel back in October as well as many others including X-Wing Miniatures Game, Archipelago, Rattus: Card Game, and Le Havre: The Inland Port.

I had the opportunity to download and play the iPhone version of Stone Age just before it hit the iPhone store.

I’m really pleased to say it seems excellent. I’ll write a proper review of it soon but the initial impression is that it’s an exact copy of the board game’s gameplay, plus the implementation is very clever.

Fitting everything on a tiny screen is a big challenge in Stone Age as there are lots of different board areas, but this has been achieved very well by displaying the main village areas on one screen and having the resource areas as overlays that slide on- and off- screen very quickly. Also, information about the other players like number of resources and cards held, as well as info on your own position are well handled with info tabs sliding out at a single tap. It’s very slick. Proper review to follow soon.

James.

Oddville is a eurogame with a city building theme and a very compact game design.  By that, I don’t mean its physical playing-size on the table; instead, I mean that the game mechanics are neatly compressed.  As a result, Oddville contains a clever, inventive design with more game than you may expect from a relatively short game.

During the game player’s gain resources, money and characters as well as construct buildings  so they can score the most victory points (VPs).  The game ends as soon as any player places their 6th worker in the city.

Each player has their own deck of 4 action cards.  On their turn, a player can play 1 action card which allows them to either gain the cash shown, or gain 1 of the resources shown, or gain 1 building from the 6 building cards on display (the card affects the price).  The cards range from strong to weak and the player gets these cards back once they have used all 4, or they can spend cash to get all used ones back (but the more cards still hand, the greater the cost).

When a player chooses to gain one of the resources on their action card, they place one of their workers on the lowest market price for that resource (which are limited in number) and pays the price.  The worker on the board shows the player has that resource until they spend it when building.  The game scales with 2 players as there are fewer cheap resources available.

When a player chooses to gain a building, their action card determines which of the 6 buildings on display are free and which will cost cash – the ones on the left (the oldest) are the ones most likely to be free.  This sort of mechanic is in other games (like Gloria Mundi) and I like it because it makes newly added buildings (added to the right-end of the row) more expensive.  If a player uses their action card to gain cash, they take a building card from the top of the deck because the back of the building cards show the 1 gold piece each.

Major bonuses include cash and resources, but can also allow the player to take the top-most character from the guild with the matching crest as their new building.  Characters give their owners special abilities such as converting a cash card into a building card (which is done by flipping the cash card over as the buildings are on the other sides).  If a player needs to gain a character and there are no more left of the required guild, all players must return all the characters of that guild to the pile first.  This seems like a nice extra element to the gameplay and efficient too as it requires few characters.

As well as bonuses, the player places one of their workers on their newly built building too – they will earn VPs from the buildings they own at the end of the game.  The VPs are scored in lots of different ways and the icons on them are very clear.  Some give specified VPs, some give VPs for neighbouring buildings, for buildings in the same row or column, for all buildings with specific guilds marked on them in the city, etc.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Oddville as there are lots of interdependent elements that you need to balance and think about (plus you must cope with your opponents’ actions/choices too), yet it remains a simple game too.  The multi-use action cards worked well – I like games where cards can be used for multiple purposes as it creates interesting decisions about how to use your hand best.  Plus, I never felt I wasted a turn because I didn’t have the ‘right’ action card, but could adapt my plans based on my situation and still and get some value out of my action cards.

The resource market is subtly clever – some resources are more scarce than others (appearing on fewer action cards) so gaining these can be challenging so gaining them from constructing buildings can also be important.  However, each resource has limited spaces that cost 0 or 1 gold (unlimited costing 2 gold each) so even the more common resources are fought over as no-one likes paying more cash for them than another player.

When it comes to buildings, there are some really interesting decisions to balance as you need to gain building cards that match your resources, plus they need to fit onto the city layout, plus you want to place them so they will earn you bonuses, plus you want to place them so they will score lots of VPs for you (and not for your opponents).  That’s a lot to balance and its a lot of fun.  In addition to that, the buildings you place early on can also influence your decisions later as you try to construct further buildings that will make your other buildings score more too, i.e. building in a column when you own a building that gains VPs based on buildings in the same column.  There’s plenty of tension too as you hope your opponents don’t disrupt your plan by building in the space you want, buying the building card you want, or blocking the cheap resource you need – so there’s no time to feel secure.

The characters can be very influential as they deliver some nice bonuses and they’re quite varied too.  So, players will actively try to build specific buildings to gain specific characters; however, the more players gain them, the more quickly the characters get returned to the pile too.  I really liked that aspect.  In our game, I thought I had the win until the last turn when one of my opponents beat me by taking a new character which meant I had to return mine and that made the difference between 1st and 2nd place.  Most annoying, but I had to admire a very good move.

There really weren’t any obvious downsides to the game.  It might be nice if there were a few more characters so you played each game with a sub-set to create different mixtures each game, but that’s a wish list item in my mind and not an issue.

In the end, Oddville has a very interesting mix of eurogame mechanics with some new ideas too all compacted into a small space.  It’s a light game (as all the game mechanics are simple) but with plenty to think about which is even more surprising as it is a relatively short game at around an hour.  Many light city building eurogames have been released in the last couple of years and Oddville is top of my favourites, and I hope will become one of my favourite games overall.

James.
[Played with 4 players]

The Stone Age game app for iPhone has been submitted to Apple and should be released in December.  It’s been developed by Campfire Creations and, from the screen shots so far, it looks very promising.  Stone Age is one of my favourite games (definitely top 10) so I’m looking forwards to seeing how it plays.

Their press release says, “Stone Age: The Board Game will include Pass-n-Play multi-player, three AI opponents, and asynchronous or synchronous online multi-player through Game Center” which sounds great.

The press release also says, “The app will also feature a ranked League Play option for the truly competitive Stone Age players. Campfire is already developing new language support, additional AI opponents, iPhone 5 support, a universal iPad upgrade, and a variety of other features and enhancements.”

Below are some screenshots.

For each robot fight, players first need to build their robot by adding 20 tiles to their 5×5 grid – the centre space is always the cockpit and 4 spaces (determined by a card each fight) must remain empty.  Tiles show engines, weapons, decorations and armour, plus they also show the underlying bodywork too.  When building, you can place tiles on any empty grid space; however, if any tile is not contiguously connected by bodywork before the fight starts then it will fall off.

Ideally the game is played with 2 teams of two players, and I’ll describe how the game plays this way.  First, player A on each team draws 5 random tiles, keeps 3 and gives 2 to player A on the other team who also drew tiles.  These players now add their 5 tiles to the grid.  Player B then does the same, then player A again and then player B again – so both teams place 20 tiles each.  To speed things up, player B in a team can start drawing tiles while player A is placing the ones they already have, and vice versa.  (With 3 players, one player builds a robot on their own, and with 2 players, both players build robots solo).

After building, any unconnected tiles fall off and players pick 4 of their 7 hidden agenda cards.  Now the fight starts which takes place over 4 rounds.  One team member is the Pilot who determines if the robot will turn (the side facing the opponent will fire its weapons) and which side of the opponent it will attack (the opponent may turn before the attack).  These actions can require engine power which is limited by the engine tiles on their robot (if these get destroyed, options can become more restricted in later rounds).

Three tactics cards are revealed (which give combat advantages such as re-rolling dice) and the Tactician (not the Pilot) on each side secretly picks which card they want.  Then, they simultaneously reveal and get the card they picked, unless they both picked the same card where the team with the most unused engine power gets it and the other team gets nothing.

Next, both robots fire.  Players roll dice based on the number of weapons being fired (maximum 5) plus any tactics card effects.  Each column of a robot’s 5×5 grid is numbered 1-5.  Dice that roll 1-5 cause 1 hit of damage to the first tile in that column (rolls of 6 are misses).  Most tiles are destroyed (removed) by 1 hit (unless they have armour) and any areas that are now unconnected by bodywork fall off.  The player who rolled the dice can choose the order of the hits as this can make a difference.  A robot is out of a fight if it has no remaining weapons or the 4 goblin figures in the cockpit (2 per owning player) are killed; otherwise, another combat round takes place starting with new tactics cards.

When the fight is over, players reveal their hidden agenda cards and score their VPs, plus any for winning the fight.

HALFWAY THROUGH THE FIGHT After 2 rounds, things were not going well for the green and blue player’s robot.  Some of their robot fell off before the fight even started and a hit to a critical tile shaved off some more.

AFTER THE FIGHT After round 4, however, the green and blue player looked back at round 2 and thought how good things were back then. (Note that even the 2 green goblin pilots have been killed too.)

THOUGHTS
Overall, Goblins Inc is very enjoyable and fun.  The game mechanics feel fresh so the game has its own identity and stands out.  Building the robot is engaging as is picking your hidden agenda cards.  Selecting and passing tiles back and forth works well and, whilst you’re playing as individuals, there’s a commraderie in the teams (even when the teams change).  As the robots are built of random tiles, they should be quite varied when replayed.

Shooting your opponent is highly enjoyable and seeing pieces fall off their robot is very funny indeed.  There’s a definite atmosphere of anticipation to see the result of the combat rolls and their resultant damage.  If you have fewer engines than your opponent (so you will lose a tie and get no card if you pick the same tactics card as them), picking your tactics card is a very entertainingly tense moment as you try to figure out what your opponent picked and think if he’s thinking what you’re thinking.  So, the game is definitely compelling and fun.

The difference between a good tactics card and a bad (or no) tactics card may be a bit too great because the bonuses can make a big difference.  However, I don’t mind this too much as it makes the choice of tactic card one of the most tense moments in the game.  Also, you’ll find weak spots in your robot’s construction in one direction or another are almost inevitable but that’s part of the fun.

However, I found a couple of downsides with the game as a gaming experience which resulted in me feeling that I had little control over my performance.  First is that it’s hard to actively maximise VPs from your hidden agenda cards.  Potentially you can give your opponent tiles for which you’ll gain VPs if destroyed, and keep tiles for which you’ll gain VPs if they survive; however, this didn’t feel very influential in practice because you only give 4 tiles to your opponent (although this would be 8 if building a robot solo).  Plus, giving away dangerous tiles like weapons, armour and engines because you want to score VPs if you then destroy them won’t score you many VPs when those tiles are used to pound you into dust before you get a chance.  So, you’ll most likely give your opponent the weakest tiles and pick the 4 hidden agenda cards with the most potential (as you see your opponent’s finished robot before choosing).

Blasting your opponent to pieces before they do the same to you seems much more important/critical than choosing the order in which hits occur to the opponent, and rotating your robot to try to protect weak areas (as the enemy can target any side).  So, your primary motivator is to destroy the opponent, rather than placing yourself at a disadvantage just to gain a few potential VPs – you’ll score lots for an intact robot and for a damaged opponent’s robot, plus your opponents will not.

The second downside is that the combat dice introduce a very large element of luck.  You spend half the game selecting robot parts, placing them, considering hidden agendas and trying to get the best tactics card, but then the combat result is almost entirely down to the luck of the dice roll.  Only one tactics card will let you target one dice on a specific column (if it’s available that round); otherwise, it’s all down to the dice roll.

This luck element is critical to success because if you lose weapons/engines, you won’t be able to reduce the enemy’s weapons/engines resulting in them continuing to damage you but leaving you with no response (except to litter the battle arena with your debris).  If you are lucky and pound your opponent, you will knock off most of their tiles, keep your tiles and will score well for your hidden agenda cards (whilst your opponents will not).

FINALLY
The downsides above don’t make Goblins Inc a bad game at all – as I mentioned it is compelling, fun and very different to other games.  It is a light game too so a larger element of luck is acceptable - I just felt the luck factor was so great that I didn’t feel I could influence the outcome very much.  Maybe with more plays I would find that I could affect my VPs a bit more, but I suspect it’ll be by a relatively small amount.

Whilst there are variants in the rules, I’d love to see a non-dice  (or greater input) combat system.  Maybe the two players simultaneously reveal cards for which columns they want to fire at – any matching ones fire, any non-matching ones are random (representing the two players fighting over the controls).  Or, maybe players allocate attacks to specific columns before rolling and then there’s a 50% chance of hitting the target column and those that do not hit their intended column either hit one of the other columns or miss. These are just thoughts off the top of my head to show that I think there are other options than pure randomness.

James.
[Played with 4 players]

The gameplay uses an interesting hidden-movement game mechanic as the outlaws try to move to where the sheriffs and marshal are not located so they can steal money and avoid being arrested.  (I’ll explain the game mechanic in a bit of detail as it’s the core of the game – it’s actually simple but requires careful explanation.)

GAMEPLAY
The board shows various towns and cities connected by roads – towns have poker game tiles (worth $300-$600), cities have bank tiles (worth $500-$3,200), and stagecoaches move to towns and cities along pre-determined routes (worth $800-$1,200 when robbed).  Note that the tiles are random and values hidden so outlaws don’t know exactly what they’re worth.

Wooden figures on the board (meeple) show the locations of each outlaw, the marshal and the sheriffs (1 sheriff per outlaw player).  Each outlaw and marshal player has a deck of cards: 1 card showing each town/city plus 1 saloon card.  Each of the 5 rounds is split into a planning phase followed by an evaluation phase.

Planning Phase
First, the marshal player can move any sheriffs to adjacent towns/cities and moves the coaches 1 step along their paths.  Then, the sheriff lays 1 card face-down which secretly determines which town they will move to next.  If it’s the 1st card placed this round, the location must be adjacent to where the marshal’s meeple is located; otherwise, it must be adjacent to the previous card’s location.  The saloon card can be used to remain in the same location; however, as there’s only 1 card for each location, the player will have to move around.  Next, the outlaws each pick a location to move to in the same way.

A very important gameplay element is that each outlaw has 1 action disc which can be placed once each round.  When an outlaw places a card, they can place their disc at that card’s location (revealing the card to the marshal to prove they will be there) but only if there are more outlaws placing discs at the location than there are sheriffs, i.e. 2 or more discs must be placed if there is 1 sheriff present.  The action disc can be placed either on the poker game tile (if there’s one at the location), or on the stagecoach (if there’s one at the location).  If a player is in a city and doesn’t place a disc, they can scope out the bank to reveal the value of that city’s bank tile (as well as revealing their location card to the marshal).

The marshal and outlaws repeat this process (marshal moves sheriffs, moves coaches & places a card, followed by outlaws placing a card each) 5 times.

Evaluation Phase
Now, the marshal and outlaws reveal their location cards in sequence one at a time, move their figures to the stated locations and resolve any effects.  If an outlaw is ever on the same space as the marshal, the outlaw is captured and will not move further or be involved in any actions this round.  Also, captured outlaws must give the card matching the location where they were arrested to the sheriff, so they will never be able to enter that city again during the game.  (Captured outlaws escape at the start of the next round and can play as normal.)

If outlaws move to where their action discs are, they get to rob the poker game or stagecoach; however, there must be enough outlaws with their action discs present that there would be more than the number of sheriffs that were present when they placed the discs.  For example, if 2 outlaws placed discs at a stagecoach when there was 1 sheriff there, both outlaws would need to be present during the evaluation phase for it to succeed – if one was arrested before reaching their disc then the hold-up would fail because there would not have been more outlaws than sheriffs.  You can build some contingency into your plans by placing more action discs than the minimum required (so there’d still be enough if one was arrested) but, of course, this means fewer outlaws doing actions elsewhere.

At the end of all 5 movements, any banks where there are more outlaws than sheriffs get robbed and the outlaws take the bank tile.  (A new bank tile is added for the next round – note that no new poker tiles ever get added and any robbed stagecoach continues along its journey from the next starting point.)

THOUGHTS
Overall, Desperados is a light, hidden-movement game which is a lot of fun especially as the gameplay is all about working out what you think your opponent will do.  The game mechanic reminds me of Dracula’s movement in Fury of Dracula and the gameplay feels like other hidden movement games like Scotland Yard and Letters From Whitechapel - all of which are a good thing.  However, Desperados also feels different to these games so it has its own identity and has a great setting to go with it.

At the start of the game, there are lots of options for the outlaws but, as the poker tiles get removed, the action becomes more focused and the marshal has a slightly easier job.  However, even though the marshal player can look at the bank tiles at any time so they know which are more valuable, the marshal’s job is never an easy one as it’s quite hard to work out what the outlaws are up to and they have many options.  Keeping a sheriff with each stagecoach seems like a good idea, as it makes them harder to hold-up, but then this needs to be balanced with getting sheriffs to cover the cities at the end of each round to stop bank robberies which is also important.  So, spread too thin and you can get outnumbered, but bunch up and you can’t cover enough options – it’s a good balance as it creates interesting decisions (in fact, that’s true for both outlaws and the marshal).

When outlaws use their action discs, the marshal gets information on their location.  If an outlaw uses an action early in a round then the marshal has a lead on their location/direction so they have more time to try to chase/arrest them; however, using an action later in a round means the marshal knows more about where bank robberies may occur.

As an outlaw, being captured can foil actions; however, the resultant loss of a location card has greater effects than it may seem too (because not being able to visit one location reduces your movement options on parts of the board and can make it difficult to reach locations at a time you want).  This means being captured is a concerning threat and gives weight to the marshal’s limited presence so outlaws are scared of the marshal (plus, of course, there’s the smugness of the marshal player who caught you because they read your intentions).

Outlaws can discuss and co-ordinate their plans (in front of the marshal player) by showing cards to each other.  Now, you’d think this would make it easy, but it was amazing how our outlawing planning was such a shambles with players suggesting locations and then going somewhere else, or not telling other players the plan had changed.  It was humorous and we were more like Disorganados than Depserados.

If the outlaws co-ordinate well, I think the game could be much harder for the marshal player; however, the game could always be made harder for the outlaws by removing some of the highest value tiles, setting a greater win condition, adding an extra sheriff, or removing a random city card per outlaw from the start.

One wishlist item I would have liked would have been some extra rules for an advanced version of the game where the outlaws have a chance of betraying each other too (but that would be a bonus and isn’t a negative).  With regards to negatives, the gameplay doesn’t have any major ones.  However, there is one big negative which are the English rules as these are very badly translated – there are a lot of typos (both spelling typos and phrases that don’t make sense), but the main issue is that it is actually hard to work out the rules of the game.  Even with 5 experienced gamers, it took us a lot of time to work out the rules by reading and re-reading sections as well as discussing them.  The problem is that the game flow is badly described, some rules are only mentioned in the examples but not in the main rules description, and other sections are confused because rules are mentioned in places that refer to other game phases so they confuse the issue rather than clarify it.

The weak rules translation is such a shame because Desperados is a good game and I hope this issue doesn’t obscure that from people and people don’t stick with it.  A revised set of rules would really help.  (Even one of the game designer’s comments on a Boardgamegeek thread trying to clarify the confusing rules doesn’t match what the printed English rules actually say.)

In the end, Desperados is a fun, light, humorously interactive, and relatively quick game with plenty of trying to guess what your opponent is up to.  Just remember that the effect of the sheriffs takes place during the planning phase, and the effect of the marshal takes place during the evaluation phase – this may not make sense in terms of realism, but it works really well as a game mechanic which, after all, is what matters.

James.
[Played with 5 players]

A player board can be seen at the bottom of the picture. Notice the cubes in the square holes marking the advances gained.

Clash of Cultures is a civilisation building game by the designer of Merchants and Marauders and this sole fact meant it was on my ‘must play’ list as Merchants & Marauders was a superb game.  In Clash of Cultures, players start as rival tribes in corners of the realm with no technology.  Over 6 rounds, the players explore the land, generate resources, build cities, create technologies, trade, potentially fight each other, and do whatever they can to be the most successful.  At the end of the game, victory points (VPs) are scored for building cities (1VP per piece), advances in technology (1/2VP each), completing objective cards (2VP each) and building wonders (5VP each) – the player with the most VPs wins.

GAME
The board/map is made of tiles (each showing 4 hexes) of various types: water, mountains, barren, grassland, forest.  Unexplored regions remain face-down until entered when a player turns the tile over and sometimes gets a choice on its orientation.

Players all start the same with 1 settler, the Farming and Mining advances and 1 basic city.  During the game, cities can be improved by adding a port, academy, temple and/or fortress.  The size of a city is equal to the total number of pieces – the bigger the size, the more resources it collects and influence it has; however, city size is limited by the number of cities you own so you can’t just have one super-city.  A city that is happy functions like a city of 1 larger size; whereas, an angry city functions like a city of size 1.

Actions
Each of the 6 rounds is broken into 3 turns when each player will carry out 3 actions each.  An action can be used to:

• Gain an advance – Gain 1 advance (costing 2 food or 2 ideas)
• Found a city – A settler figure in a non-barren location can be replaced with a city
• Activate a city
  • Spend resources to add an improvement (fortress, port, academy or temple)
  • Spend resources to build units (settler, troop, ship)
  • Collect resources equal to their size (so larger cities gather more in 1 action) from the city’s terrain and empty neighbouring terrains (fields/food, mountains/ore, forest/wood).  Each terrain can only be gathered from once each action, so if your city only has access to 1 mountain terrain then you can only gather a maximum of 1 ore each action.
• Move Units – Move up to 3 groups of units.  Ships can move to any connected sea space, and can move around the edge of the map with the Navigation advance.
• Civic improvement – Spend mood tokens equal to the city’s size to increase a city’s mood one step
• Cultural influence – Try converting a city piece in an opponent’s city near yours.  For example, make an opponent’s port into your port in their city.  Spending culture tokens gives you a better chance of success and/or longer range.

The 48 advances are very varied. Click on the image to view it close-up and read what each does.

Advances
In front of each player is a player board which records the player’s resources (food, ore, wood, ideas and gold) and their population’s levels of culture and happiness.  The main area of the player board shows the 48 different advances in technology (simply called ‘advances’).   When gaining an advance, players record this by placing a cube in the hole next to the relevant advance’s description (you can see this in the lower section of the photo at the top of this page).

Advances give you various advantages and abilities; for example, Tactics (warfare) allows you to move troops, Fishing (maritime) allows you to collect food from sea spaces, Storage (agriculture) allows you to store more than 2 food, Sanitation (construction category) makes you immune to plague and epidemic events, and so on.  Some advances are required before you can gain some others, but in general you just need the top-most advance before any of the others in a category.

When you gain some advances, you gain a level of happiness or culture.  When either of these reaches 3, 5 or 7, you draw an event card (which can sometimes affect everyone) which can be barbarians attacking your cities to plague breaking out.  Some can be positive, but we saw enough negative ones that we all braced ourselves every time someone drew one.

Combat
Combat is quite simple.  Players roll 1 dice for each of their involved units and divide the total by 5 – the result is the number of enemy units that are removed.  Combat continues until one side is wiped out, or the attacker chooses to stop.  Players with the Tactics advance can play 1 of their cards for its combat ability to gain an advantage.  Players can battle opponent’s units, neutral barbarians, or even opponent’s cities – ships can also battle ships.

Game End
After 3 turns, the round ends.  Players receive 1 advance, 1 action card (giving you a special power) and 1 objective card (giving you personal goals that will earn you VPs if you fulfil them).  Both types of card also have special combat powers on them too so they are multi-purpose.

THOUGHTS
The first things that strikes you when you set-up Clash of Cultures is that the figures not only look great (and there are plenty of them) but the pieces that make a city are very clever.  The central city piece is circular and the extra improvements (fortress, etc.) fit around the outside so that not only can all 5 pieces combine to make a large circular city but, when an improvement is controlled by an opponent, the opponent’s colour piece can be placed in the city instead, i.e. a yellow city with a red fortress piece.  The game benefits from each city improvement are nicely different too.

As you would expect from a civilisation game, resource management is key to success – in Clash of Cultures, having bigger cities (and some advances) is more efficient, but these require resources and advances to build them.

However, action management is critical (maybe even more than resource management) to success, because you only get 3 actions each turn (9 per round).  So, you must make the most of every single action to maximise your gains.  Teasingly, you will usually find yourself wanting just 1 extra action so you could achieve something even better – I believe this is always the sign of a good game design and you look forwards to your next turn.

Mood and Culture are interesting aspects which are integrated well into the game too – they’re subtle and thematic, but still important.  Having an angry city is quite crippling as they can gather only 1 resource per action, can not grow and can only be used once per turn.  Having lots of culture tokens means you can take over parts of other cities, plus they’re important to build wonders.  Mood tokens can also be an important commodity too.

The advances system is excellent and is core to the game.  Not only are there 48 advances to choose from, but these can be mixed in many ways because most do not require other advances first.  Players are tempted to dabble in several categories as some are required before you can build certain city improvements, i.e. you must have the Writing (education) advance before you can build a library.  The advances are all interesting (although you’ll find some more appealing than others depending upon your current needs and status) and work well thematically, plus some also give players access to new actions.  Some advances increase the player’s happiness or culture level and this adds an extra factor when deciding which to build next.  The player board wth cubes in each slot

As a result of both the actions mechanic and the advances mechanic, you really have a lot of choice each turn and can really choose how you want to develop your civilisation – not just which advances you gain, but what you build, where you explore, how you gather resources, where you start new cities, etc.

In addition to building cities and advances, I like how the VP system encourages players to prioritise their objective cards which can deliver a lot of VPs and they are quite varied so you start developing in ways you probably would not have considered otherwise.  Plus, the objectives mean each player has a different perspective of the game which is another aspect I like in games.

There seems to be plenty of variety in replay due to the varied map each game, as well as the varied event cards, objective cards, plus the way each player develops.

I’m not a very experienced player of civilisation-style games (my opponents were seasoned veterans).  However, I was very pleased to see that my peaceful ways managed to secure me 2nd place as I used trade routes and ships to gather lots of resources (eventually) and build 2 wonders (which are expensive).  This was with a small amount of asking one nearby player not to attack me as I posed no threat to them – primarily because barbarians had already destroyed one of my peaceful cities (I only had 2!).  I had the last laugh on the barbarians though as I used my city’s cultural influence to convert one of their settlements into a new city for me (hurrah), although this was then invaded by another player (boo).

In the end, I really enjoyed Clash of Cultures due to all the options and strategies I had to decide between.  If you’re a trader or explorer, you don’t have to be a pushover and can still quickly toughen up your defences – especially as the paranoia of a nearby, well-armed opponent (or neutral barbarians who have a tendency to attack) is always lurking.  The objective cards and advances definitely made me pursue things I would not have thought of and there are lots of different things I’d like to pursue in future games.

James.
[Played with 4 players]

Read the rules on the Z-Man Games web site: here

Ginkgopolis is by one of the designers I really like – Xavier Georges (Carson City, Royal Palace, Troyes and Tournay).  Ginkgopolis is a game with the theme of futuristic, city building.  As with many of Georges’ games, the game mechanic is a bit unusual (it’s actually relatively simple, although it may not seem so at first).  As a result, I felt it important to explain the gameplay quite clearly (so please excuse the length of this review) because a brief outline would offer little insight.

GAME
At the start of the game, there are 9 building tiles in a 3×3 grid – 3 red, 3 yellow and 3 blue buildings with values 1, 2 and 3 – surrounded by lettered discs A-L.  The initial card deck contains cards for each letter and each of the 9 starting buildings.  Players start with some resources (cubes) of their own colour and some building tiles.  During the game, the players will add building tiles to the 3×3 grid (on the outside as well as laying new tiles on top of existing ones).  Players score victory points (VPs) when placing some tiles, and at game end for controlling areas plus bonus VPs based on cards they own. The player with the most VPs at the end of the game wins.

Actions
On their turn, players simultaneously select one card from the 4 cards in their hand and optionally place a tile face down on it too.  (At the end of each round, players pass their 3 remaining cards to their neighbour who draws one new card and adds it to them to make their new hand of 4 cards.) Players then resolve their cards which are either a building card (red/yellow/blue numbered 1-20 – each matching a building tile), or an urbanisation card (lettered A-L).  There are three possible actions depending upon the card played and whether a tile accompanied it:

An example of the initial tile layout

1. Gain Resources/Tiles/VPs
   (a) Playing a building card on its own gains the player resources (if it’s a red card), tiles (blue card), or VPs (yellow card).  The amount received is based on the height of the matching building.
   (b) Playing an urbanisation card on its own gains the player 1 resource or 1 tile.
2. Build New Building
   Playing an urbanisation card with a tile allows the player to place the new building tile where the matching letter is (moving the lettered disc outwards).  The player must place one of their resources on the new tile (showing their ownership which can change during the game) and places a grey marker on the tile to show it is newly built.  The player gains resources/tiles/VPs based on the tiles adjacent to the one they just placed (i.e. if next to a 2-high red building and a 3-high yellow building, they receive 2 resources and 3 VPs).
3. Develop Existing Building
   Playing a building card with a tile allows the player to place the new building tile on top of the building tile shown on the card.  A player must place resources on it equal to the number of tiles now in the stack, and places a grey marker on the tile to show it is newly built.  If any opponent’s resources were on the tile, they get them back, plus an equal number VPs.  If the new building tile is a different colour to the existing one, the player must pay an extra resource. If the new building tile has a lower value than the existing one, the player must pay the difference in VPs – so, it can be an expensive business.  Once played, the player keeps the building card – these are ‘bonus cards’ which are very important (see below).

When the card deck runs out, the discard pile is shuffled and cards matching each newly placed building tile (the ones with grey markers) are shuffled in too.  (Note: If a player doesn’t have enough resources (or a tile) required for an action, they can’t do that action.)

Bonus Cards
Actions 1 and 2 (above) give the player resources/tiles/VPs and the cards are discarded; whereas, action 3 means the player gains no resources/tiles/VPs but places the card in front of them for the rest of the game giving them one of two things:

(a) Action Bonuses
These bonuses are earned when the player performs the matching action (in addition to any normal gains).  For example, the player gains an additional tile when performing action 3, or +1VP and +1 resource each time they perform action 2, etc.

(b) End of Game Bonus VPs
The cards state how the extra VPs will be earned at the end of the game.  For example, +1 VP for each building of height 1 or 2 the player has resources on; or +2 VPs for each card that gives a bonus when doing action 1, etc.

Game End
The game ends when any player has placed all of their resources or the tiles have run out.  Players add the VPs from their bonus cards, plus each district is scored too. A district is an area of 2 or more contiguous coloured buildings.  The player with the most resources in a district scores VPs equal to the total resources in the district, and the player with the second most resources gets VPs equal to the number of their own resources.

THOUGHTS
Overall, Ginkgopolis is a tightly, interwoven game with some interesting game mechanics.  With 4 cards to choose from and 3 potential actions with each, you have quite a few options but not so many to be overwhelming and too hard to compare.  If you don’t have resources or tiles, then your options are quite limited as you can only do action 1.  So, maintaining some resources and tiles is very important, but sometimes it’s worth using what you have to do actions 2 or 3 too.

The decision on what to do each turn can be surprisingly deep.  On the surface, you want to immediately gain resources/tiles/VPs so you look at what each gives you, but then you also think about how good the bonus actions on the cards you hold could be if you owned those.  Also, is it better to have bonus VPs or action bonuses?  If the latter, which actions and which bonuses will work best with your current ones and which are you likely to use most?  Then, there’s the effect you can have on districts to consider – taking over an existing opponent’s tile, placing a tile to split a district, or join districts together (plus you must consider any costs of placing the tile if you don’t have the right type or value).  Then, you also think about what card you don’t want the next player to have.  So, there are a surprising amount of factors in your decision which makes them enjoyably tough, but with just 4 cards and limited resources/tiles, you’re usually trying to decide between just 2 or 3 options.

Balancing your bonus actions is important.  If you have lots that gain you extra tiles but no resources (or vice versa) you will still have limited options.  Also, do you gather multiple bonuses for the same type of action, or spread them across all the actions?

The area control game mechanic that awards VPs for control of the districts adds the extra player interaction that stops the game from feeling like a multi-player solitaire game.  This simple mechanic really does make a difference as it can be worth a lot of points.  However, some players may not like that the locations where they can affect districts is dependent upon their hand of cards each turn, but I didn’t mind this.

What struck me about Ginkgopolis is that it has several clever but subtle game mechanics at work under the surface.  First, I thought the card passing was for players to have insight into what they may get to use on a later turn (7 Wonders-style), but this isn’t really the case as you can’t rely much on getting an unplayed card back, especially with 4 players.  What it does do though is deplete the card deck slowly (1 card per player, rather than 4 per player each turn) which reduces the administration when the draw deck is empty so the game keeps flowing.  In a 2-player game, it’s possible to plan using an unplayed card later, but your opponent will try to use it first if it’s obviously beneficial.  Another subtle element is that keeping the bonus cards means these cards are no longer in the deck which is clever administration as they would be almost useless afterwards because the relevant tile is now buried.

As for downsides, there aren’t really any in the gameplay itself.  You can end up with a hand of cards that are not very useful, but you know you can try to mitigate this by aiming to get specific bonus cards that will make actions more fruitful.  The key is to play to your (bonuses’) strengths and manage your level of resources and tiles so you have options.  So, luck can play a part but not enough for me to feel it’s an issue.

One option I have yet to use is the drafting set-up.  Normally, each player starts with a predefined set of 3 characters (giving different, balanced mixes of bonus actions).  The advanced rule has players each choosing their 3 characters from 3 sets of cards.  So, players need to decide what mix of bonus actions they want from those available, but the characters also determine each players’ starting resources/tiles too.  I like the idea of this.

The only issue I found with Ginkgopolis is that it’s described as a city-building game but that’s purely a theme only.  Yes, you’re spreading buildings and making them taller (so city building makes clear thematic sense), but it’s not really a game of city-building deep down as placement and types of building aren’t tied in with the city aspect.  It doesn’t diminish Ginkgopolis as a really good Eurogame, but just don’t expect to be planning where the airport goes, or what will happen if you put the school next to the dump.

Solo Play
Ginkgopolis can be played solo.  I’m pretty demanding when it comes to single-player games as most just don’t give you interesting decisions or are too prescriptive; however, I enjoyed Ginkgopolis as a solo experience.  It’s played the same way, but you get a hand of 2 cards each turn and an invisible opponent (called Hal) performs action 2 or 3 each round (with a randomly drawn tile) and gains VPs instead of tiles/resources.  Hal keeps cards from action 3 as usual and gets the end of game bonus VPs from them, but not the action bonuses.

Played solo, the decisions are still interesting as you try to balance your resources/tiles/cards and manipulate control of districts.  As Hal, plays a randomly drawn card and tile each turn, his effect on the districts is quite random and can weaken as much as strengthen his position.  Also, Hal can’t play so his actions have synergy with his bonus VP cards.  As a result, the solo game is against a random opponent (making their score quite random too); however, I still found it a good challenge and enjoyed working out how to get the best out of my turns to get the best score I could.

CONCLUSION
In the end, I really enjoyed Ginkgopolis.  My first game felt like I was playing, and not just learning, the game; however, my second game was when I really started playing as I then understood my options and their impact better.

In my professional work (improving games designs and mechanics) and in this blog, I always come back to the importance of interesting decisions because these lay at the heart of any good game – and Ginkgopolis really does contain these.  The city-building aspect may be thematic only, but Ginkgopolis is a really interesting and clever Eurogame which packs lots of hard decisions into a short game length.  I could imagine this being nominated for the Spiel des Jahres next year – just not sure if it would be for the regular or complex prize.

James.
[Played with 1 and 2 players]

Players are each trying to obtain 10 goods listed on their objective cards – for example,  4 luxury goods, 3 pieces of clothing, 2 food and 1 electrical.  The first player to collect all of their items wins, or the player that collects the most of their items by the end of the game.

Each round a few goods will arrive at some of the 5 stores.  First, before knowing what will arrive where, players take turns adding any of their people (meeple) who are not in queues to the queues.  Then, goods cards are revealed which determine how many goods arrive at which stores, e.g. 2 electrical items at the electrical store, 3 foods at the food store, etc.

Next, each player draws 3 cards from their deck and then take turns playing cards.  The cards allow players to manipulate the queues; for example, ‘a friend lends you a baby’ allows you to move one of your queuers to the front of the queue they are in.  Other cards let you move other players backwards, reverse an entire queue, move a good from one store to another, close a store for one round, etc.

Playing cards is a tense game of trying not to make too many enemies and trying not to show your intentions too early.  There are several factors that make this even more interesting.  First, each player only has 10 cards in their deck to last them 5 rounds (Monday to Friday), so using 3 cards in one round means having fewer than 2 cards in a later round.  Second, if you pass, you can not play any more cards that round, so sometimes you play cards just to stay involved so you can react to any further changes other players make to the queues.  Third, any unused cards go back to the top of your deck so you know what you’ll get next round, but sometimes you also know you want to use the card so next round you don’t get the same card.

Once everyone has passed, card playing ends and the meeple at the front of queues at open shops with goods take 1 good each until the goods are gone.  Just before the round ends, players queued at the market (separate to the shops) can exchange goods they have for those available – so any surplus goods you gain can still be useful; however, it’s an expensive process as you usually need to spend 2 goods to gain 1 other good (if it’s available).

That’s me (red) at the back. I reversed the queue (hurrah). Then someone closed the store (crap).

Overall, Kolejka is a superb Eurogame with very tight resources – every card and item is important and there’s lots of interaction (humorous rather than aggressive).  However, the key that makes it a good game is that almost every choice is interestingly difficult as you work out how to make the best out of your cards and react to what others play too.

Not only are the goods very limited, you get few cards each round too and even then you don’t have enough cards to play all 3 every round.  As everyone wants the same goods, competition over every item is high.  Each card played can make a big difference so avoiding passing can be very important but must be balanced with using the card to do so.

The theme fits perfectly and feels a solid part of the game, not simply pasted on; plus, the theme is very different too.  The game was created by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance to ensure people do not forget the events of the 80′s and the rule book also includes a history of the real events.  So, the Institute has not only achieved their goal, but have created a fine game that would stand-up on its own too.

The only downside (which is minor) is that whilst the game comes with multiple rulebooks (one for each language), there is one set of cards printed in Polish.  Each rulebook has two sheets of stickers which you need to carefully stick onto the cards, over the title and description, to convert the deck to your language.   As there are 100 stickers, it takes quite a while, is quite fiddly, plus it takes a while to work out which sticker goes where (and you don’t want to make any mistakes).  It’s an interesting way to save cost and, once done, is not a problem (just be careful when shuffling so the stickers don’t catch on other cards).  So, this is not a problem – just something that’s a bit different.

In the end, I hope Kolejka gets good distribution via Rebel.pl.  It is an excellent Eurogame with lots of interaction, tight and tense play, and a fitting and unique theme.

James.
[Played with 4 players]

P.S. One of the humorous ironies at Spiel was that my friend that bought this got the last one on the stand (taking the display copy as they had run out that day).  Then, in a further, fitting twist, I bought a copy the next day as they had fresh stock.

Good co-operative games need two very important  components.  First, the players need to be given interesting/difficult choices so they feel they have input and are playing the game, not merely a passenger.  Second, the game must create some  random elements (like events) which aren’t too random that they don’t make sense or are overpowered, but also aren’t too predictable or small that they don’t make any difference.  Back in the 80′s, Games Workshop released a solo-play game called Chainsaw Warrior which I always hold up as an example of how a game where you play against the game can be done badly.  A card deck determined random events but you had little choice and was so random that you could just look through the deck  and see if the card order meant you’s almost certainly win or lose.

In Robinson Crusoe, players start on one area of the island with few supplies and little shelter.  At the start of each turn, an event occurs such as a wild dog attacking, a player gets bitten by a strange spider, the weather is more rainy than usual – which can be more serious than it sounds, etc.  Players then allocate their two action discs to various actions.  Action discs can be placed on:

• Regions of the islands – players can gather resources from explored regions, or can explore/reveal unexplored ones
• Various inventions so they can be built and used later – these require resources, other inventions and even certain terrain types have to be discovered to be able to build an invention
• Parts of the camp so the shelter can be built or improvements can be made to the roof (protection from weather), palisade  (protection from storms) or weapons (better for fighting beasts)
• Hunting to fight beasts on the island
• Arranging the camp to gain determination tokens and improve team morale
• Resting to gain health
• Threat cards to resolve the threats before they have an adverse effect

As you can see, there are lots of options to pick from and all of them useful.  However, this game mechanic is made more interesting because some actions (building, exploring and gathering) can have either 1 or 2 action discs allocated to them.  If 2 discs are allocated, the action is an automatic success; however, if only 1 disc is allocated then the player must roll dice to determine the outcome.  Not only do the dice dictate if the player succeeds or not, but they also show if the player gets injured and/or if an adventure card must be drawn.  There are separate adventure card decks for exploring, building or gathering which makes them contextually relevant too.

This whole system means players not only have to choose what to do with their limited actions, but also how thin or thick to spread them.  Do you do a few actions for certain, or do you do lots at the risk of them not being successful and other events happening?

The adventure decks are one of the great things about Robinson Crusoe as they really increase the game’s story-telling.  It’s great that complications from adventure cards when building/gathering/exploring are related to building/gathering/exploring.  However, it goes a step further because, after the top-half takes effect, the adventure card gets shuffled into the event deck so that the bottom-half of the adventure card will get triggered sometime later when event cards are drawn at the start of each turn.  For example, an adventure card in our game said that a wild dog bit me when I was exploring a new region – the card was shuffled into the event deck and later in the game we found the wild dog dead near our camp and got to use its fur.  It’s an elegant and effective game mechanic.

Each player has a character which gives them some special abilities, determines the amount of damage they can endure before dying.   plus dictates at which points, when they take damage, that they bitch so much that team morale goes down.  The Cook is a bit of a whiner.  Team morale affects the first player each round and can have a big, draining effect if ignored.  Players can gain determination tokens which can be required for the use of some skills.

Once players have resolved all their actions, the night time phase takes place.  Players resolve the effect of the weather (cold weather requires wood, and wet weather ruins wood and food).  Also, players without a shelter will lose health.  Then players need to eat or lose health (and all unused perishable food is useless the next day).  The scenario being played determines when the game ends and what the players need to do to win.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Robinson Crusoe.  It’s designed by the designer that created Stronghold so I was looking forwards to it, but I enjoyed it even more than I expected.  The story-telling is rich and works really well but without pre-determining your actions so much that you feel you’re ‘on rails’.  This is created by the mixture of the event deck (which has some nice variety), the adventure cards (which I mentioned above in more detail), and the scenarios which add different objectives, equipment and potential actions.

Each of the 6 scenario cards has a different objective (and each scenario card has a fittingly different, matching visual style).  One scenario has players rescuing a (non-player) shipmate who is stranded on a rock and then escaping on a raft which is very different to creating a signal fire, or fighting off cannibals, or a volcanic eruption.  This seems like a decent amount of variety, although I hope more will be released too.

With so many actions that need to be taken every turn, the choices are interesting and difficult, plus the events each round and the growing amount of equipment we created meant the choices felt different as the game progressed.  We started doing a few actions carefully but quickly realised we needed to speed things up and take more risks.  Then, humorously, we discovered we couldn’t take too many risks either as some things were too vital to risk failure.  So, the choices to be made were satisfying and challenging, especially as you always want to achieve more each turn than you’re able.

The game can be played solo (Friday and the dog characters join you to help you by adding action discs), but you could also play solo as if you were  multiple players too.

James.

[Played with 4 players]

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. Each location offers a way to score VPs: visiting the baths gives instant VPs; visiting vistas allows you to draw the next part of the vista (and each piece is worth more VP); visiting the temple allows you to donate cash for VPs; villages have items for sale and VPs are earned for sets of these; etc.  As well as instant points, various VPs are earned at the end of the game too for the players that donated the most cash at the temples, bathing most, buying most items, eating the most expensive food, etc.

So, there are many ways in which to accumulate VPs and you need to try to focus on a few to ensure you get the most benefit and the bonus VPs too.  As a result, you will want to visit some locations more than others, and you may also want to visit locations to block opponent too so they don’t gain as many VPs.

As mentioned, players must stop at the inns and wait for the other travelers.  They are given a choice of meals which scores VPs, if they purchase one, and they can not have the same meal twice during the game.  This is made tricky because the choice of meals reduces as players arrive and eat, but also the early arrivals are likely to choose to eat the cheaper dishes.  When the players reach the 4th inn, the game ends.

Overall, Tokaido is a quick moving and simple movement game.  It is a light eurogame, but there’s still plenty of decision-making to be done as players jostle for position and try to work out what locations are most important to them, what locations are important to others, and how likely they think the location they want a bit further down the road may be occupied next tun if they don’t grab it now.  There’s a good feeling of light-hearted interaction as players move to locations that their opponents were eyeing up and this adds some good tension without feeling directly hostile.  If opponents get in your way, you may need to re-assess which locations you’re going to focus on visiting to maximise your potential score.  Tokaido is simple, cute and surprisingly short too.

Games from Funforge always look great (Pony Express, Isla Dorada) but Tokaido really stands out and is beautiful.  It’s very pure and clean, is on-theme, but manages to be stylish and has it’s own take on the Japanese setting.  The bright colours and large white background look great.  It would have been an obvious choice to design the board showing a road with the various locations along it (like an aerial view) and that would have looked great too, but this iconic approach is clever and doesn’t diminish the appearance.   Also, the icons on the spaces and related cards work well and I really like how the vista cards build up a panoramic view as they are laid next to one another.

If players use the characters, each player has a different ability during the game.  I like games where each player has a slightly different perception of the game situation, so these were a nice addition. My only issue (and a minor one) was that I felt the abilities of some of the characters seem to be better than others – my character (who could buy 1 village item for 1 cash) didn’t help much as I either had to miss lots of locations to secure reaching a village, or the villages were full when I reached them – so I wasn’t able to use my power much.  However, some other players’ powers were always useful like one player who could eat a random dish at the inns for free which saved them more money and contributed to the eating bonus too.  (I expect the character I had is better with fewer players when it is easier to access the villages as there’s less competition for the locations, plus it may have been unfortunate timing for me.)  This is a minor point though and I didn’t find any negative issues with this game.

In the end, Tokaido is light, fast and fun but with entertaining decisions.  Great for more casual players but enough in there for gamers too.

James.

[Played with 4 players]

Each turn, players either place any amount of their workers or remove any amount of their workers.  Players spend corn to place their workers on the cog(s) they desire taking the cheapest available slot (and the more workers you place in one turn, the more extra corn you must pay too). The unique part of this game is that workers are placed on small cogs which are located around a large central cog.  Each turn, the large cog is turned and this turns all the small cogs which moves all of the workers on them along one step.  When a player removes a worker, they get the benefit that the worker is next to and the longer a worker remains on a cog, the better the benefit when they are removed.

One cog is primarily for earning food (a vital currency in the game), one is primarily for building (you can’t build unless you remove a worker on a building action), another for resources, and another for sacrifices (placing crystal skulls on the wheel earns VPs and raises you up the relevant temple).  On most cogs, the increasing benefits of each ascending slot are not simply more of the same item (i.e. 1 gold, 2 gold, 3 gold) but are often quite different (i.e. improve a technology followed by build a building, or, exchange resources for corn followed by gain a worker).  As a result, timing when you remove your workers is vital to get the benefits that suit your plan and circumstances.

The cog for food is especially interesting as there are several wood or corn markers at each slot.  If a player wants to take corn, they can do so if there is a corn marker, or can take wood if there is a wood marker (which becomes a corn marker as the land is now usable for farming).  However, if you want to take corn when there are only wood markers, you can take corn instead by burning down the wood (marker) but this angers the gods which moves you down one space on a temple.

There are various technologies you can gain (which requires resources and the removal of a worker when aligned with a technology improvement action, of course).  The technologies give you extra benefits such as gaining extra resources or making buildings cheaper.

Interaction between the players is created because some items can be used by one player before another has a chance.  For example, opponents may build buildings, use gather corn tokens, fill crystal skull sacrifice slots, etc. before you have the chance to do so.  Also, players score VPs for being furthest up the temples so there are races there too.  Plus, the player who starts the round (a role that players can claim using a worker each turn) gets to choose if the main wheel moves 1 step or 2 steps.  It’s something each player usually only gets to do once per game, but it can affect other players as their workers pass the key locations they were planning to use – players can use locations they have passed but it costs them 1 corn for each step of distance backwards.  I did this to another player and made them pass the ‘gain a worker’ place, although in my defence I did it so that my workers were further ahead including one now at the ‘gain a worker’ position themself – the effect on my opponent was just a (humorous) bi-product, honest.

There are quite a few ways to earn VPs – moving your markers up the temples is one primary method (building buildings and some slots on cogs let you do this) and building monuments give you VPs based on different requirements too.  Positions on the temples earn VPs twice during the game (with an additional bonus for the player highest up each) as well as some extra resources.

If players have less than 3 corn at the start of their turn, they can beg for corn (giving them 3 corn in total) but this angers the gods.  Players need corn to feed their workers at 4 times during the game (marked on the main wheel) – not doing so costs VPs and angers the gods, but there are some buildings a player can construct that help feed workers.  Moving the wheel 2 steps (instead of the usual 1) shortens the time before players need to feed their workers.  The game ends when the main wheel has made a full revolution and the player with the most VPs wins.

Overall, Tzolk’in is a solid eurogame with lots of tough decisions and elements to balance.  Many worker placement games deliver this, but Tzolk’in’s moving wheels really do add some extra tension/anxiety as the world feels like it will move along without you, so you need to act or miss opportunities – a bit like trying to time your jump into an already moving skipping rope (or something equivalent but more masculine).  I don’t think I have felt this in other games.

As a player must only add workers or remove workers on their turn, it is important to make the most of your turn – removing or adding a single worker feels like a waste.  However, sometimes you also just need to sit and be patient and do little on your turn as you allow your workers to reach the benefits you really want, or get them to a point where they will reap something worth more than it cost to place them.  It’s a bit like making home-made wine and trying to keep your hands off the bucket for the whole week…

I found I was treading water (in terms of resources) for a lot of the game and didn’t build up many resources (or have many workers).  So, I focused on moving up the temples and gaining crystal skulls instead of building buildings and monuments.  One reason I struggled was because I wasn’t timing my workers very well and was using multiple turns to remove them because they lined up with what I needed at different times.  This, of course, was entirely my fault.  I know now that placing them on cogs at places where they will line up at the same time is very important (and means you need enough corn and workers to implement this so you can engineer your workers starting at positions that will line up in the mix you want later).  Also, I needed to let a few more turns pass without removing workers so I could generate more resources with which to work with.  Finally, I now know I needed to gain extra workers earlier (another slot on a wheel) as it’s hard to gather more than you spend with only the 3 workers you start with.

However, whilst I felt I was doing badly, because I didn’t have many resources, I was pleased that my continual scrapping for VPs by focusing on the temples was a valid strategy and meant I came last by only 1VP.  So, I think it proved there are definitely multiple routes to victory.

Are the cogs necessary?  The game is a solid eurogame and could be done without the cogs using workers moving up levels on different tables; although, this would be extremely messy and require a lot of management.  So, the cogs are not only pleasant to look at and different, but they are also necessary to make the game easy to play.

In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed Tzolk’in and it delivers a solid and meaty eurogame.  I am looking forwards to playing it more, especially as the first play is a playable and enjoyable experience, but you know how you’ll do things better on the second play having learnt a lot from the first.  I expect this will be a contender for the complex Spiel des Jahres prize next year.

James.

[Played with 3 players]

Well, Spiel is over for yet another year.  I managed to play 23 games this year over the 3 days I was there.  Usually, I expect to play some games that don’t live up to expectations but this year it was great that there were only a couple that didn’t tick the boxes for me.

I’m always pleased to see how games still find ways to deliver new ideas and innovative designs and these were in evidence this year as usual.  This year also continued to prove that, no matter your research beforehand, there are always games you will discover that are pleasant surprises.  Kolejka was definitely the most pleasant surprise out of the games I played, and cheap too.

Below is a list of the games played (in chronological order) as well as those yet to play.  This year, I was unable to purchase a lot of the Euro games I would usually have done (such as Venise du Nord, Il Vecchio, Taschkent, Castles of Carrara, Spectaculum, etc.) but I hope to get to play these some time soon too.

Games Played

• Gauntlet of Fools
• Oddville
• Goblins Inc
• Robinson Crusoe
• Blackrock City
• Clocks
• City of Horror
• Uchronia
• Mafia City
• Kolejka
• Suburbia
• Siberia: The Card Game
• Spellbound
• Tzolk’in
• Northwest Passage
• Air King
• Tokaido
• Fleet
• Spice Merchant
• Clash of Cultures
• Wilderness
• Coup: City State
• Kalua

Games owned by my group and still to play

• Aztl’an
• Rattus Cartus
• Pyramiddion
• Ginkgopolis
• La Loire
• Phantom
• Desperados
• Asgard
• R
• The Boss Expansion
• Level X
• Archipelgao
• The Doge Ship
• The Cave
• Mercurius
• Space Cadets
• Space Station
• Central Market
• Construction Zone
• Food Chain
• Among the Stars
• Exodus: Proxima Centauri
• Colonies
• Terra Mystica
• Briefcase
• Why First?
• Turned
• Core World: Galactic Orders (expansion)
• Phantom League: Pilot Academy (expansion)
• Eclipse: Rise of the Ancient (expansion)
• Fallen City of Kharez