Review: Happy Pigs

 

Game:	Happy Pigs	Release Date:	2013
Designer & Artist:	Kuraki Mura	Player Count:	2 - 6
Publisher	IELLO	Play Time:	30 - 40 mins

In this smart, pleasantly frustrating and cute spin on one of the oldest board game genres you’ll be a cuboid-pig farmer, attempting to rear, grow, and sell on your biggest and best pigs for good old fashion dollars!  Each turn you’ll desperately have to gauge the market to make the best use of the scant options available to you, hoping (or if you’re smart, planning) the best strategy so that you’ll get the best returns for all that pig mess you’ve had to stand in to get there!



The game is played over one year, made up of the four seasons, which in turn is made of four rounds. (You may start to notice some symmetry here)  In which you choose from the same four possible actions: Buy, Mate, Feed, or Sell.  

When buying you’ll be able to buy more pigs (you have a choice of four sizes), or items such as inoculations love potions or special food.  Mate, surprisingly allows you to add a new little piglet to your pig farm if you have a breeding pair.  Feed makes your pigs bigger, which helps you make more money when you eventually sell your pigs, with large pigs being worth five times more than a piglet.



On top of this, each round has a Seasonal Effect card which affects the game in some way for that round only, these range from market fluctuations, special offers, to Bacon Festivals.   Yes, Bacon Festivals, with a capital “B”.

Finally, at the end of each season, any pigs that you haven’t inoculated unfortunately die off (not the real sad part of this game).  At the very end of the game, all players sell off their livestock and whoever has the most money wins. A very mechanically simple, slick game then by the sounds of it, right?

This Little Piggy Went to Market

The core of the game comes from how a player gets what they’re after.  It isn’t a simple case of first come first serve, or the highest bidder, no.  Happy Pigs has a very simple, yet very effective supply and demand system powering its engine.  In each round, the four actions are only available X amount of times (where X is different for each action and in each round) and you’ll have to share X with every other player who wants that action at the same time as you.  So, when you want to feed your pigs, you have to consider and be prepared for the fact that you may not be able to use all eight Feed actions.  You may have to split those eight actions anywhere between two, and six ways - and that doesn’t leave a lot of food.

This does two really interesting things to the game.  One, it will really tick you off.  A lot.  I’m quite a vocal and...shall we say animated gamer.  I actually managed to make an opponent cry when playing this game - with laughter at how colourful my language became when describing my frustration - but still, he cried.

And the second interesting thing it does is it keeps you above the game, this game has zero player versus player mechanics and in many ways you’re tableau building, but unlike other tableau building games, where it is often too easy to become solely focused on your own creation with little concern for the other players.  That isn’t possible in Happy Pigs, every player has to be aware of what the competition is doing each and every round.

All seasons are created equal, but some seasons are more equal than others.

I’m just going to come out and say it, this game is swingy, it can also suffer from a runaway leader, and arguably has a dominant strategy.  All of these issues arise from the Seasonal Effects.  For me, these hamper (HAMper, get it?...I’ll get my coat) an otherwise very interesting and enjoyable game.  In total there are 24 of these cards, only 16 of which will be used each game, however many of them are repeated (or virtually repeated anyway).  A quick count tells me there a 6 cards that raise the prices to varying degrees, 5 of them give $25 payout, there are 4 copies of the Season of Love card, and then a further 5 cards that give you one or other of the goods.  In short, of the 24 cards but only really 7 types of card.  Even the action numbers are pretty static, and once you’ve had a close look the strategy becomes fairly obvious.



This quite frankly pees me off, because it creates a very uneven playing field.  Prior game experience is pretty much always going to put you in a better winning position in most games (more so those that don’t have a big luck aspect), but in Happy Pigs, a novice player will stand very little chance against someone that knows the scant card probabilities.  Which, in my mind defies the whole point of the seasonal effects in the first place, they should either be consistent, or widely varied.



 

Here an Oink! There an Oink.!  Everywhere an Oink! Oink!

Happy Pigs has a lot of components. There is lots of cardboard in this box, every single possible item is represented as a cardboard chit.  There are literally hundreds of pigs.  



Not anywhere near enough money tokens, and plenty of cardboard chits for each of the three items available at market (if you are so inclined to get the expansion Happy Pigs: Farm Friends, or even some of the promo Ducks and/or Penguins you’ll have a box  (thankfully bereft of any insert) bursting with cuboid cardboard animals, but enough that each player can play with their own animal) and every time you play this game you’ll have to get them all out, use a fraction of them and put them all away again.  

 

 

 

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Why there isn’t a tracker per player for their items and/or money I don’t know.  I like my box organisers, and I like to do whatever I can to speed up the set-up, but I do find it frustrating that I have far too many of one component and not enough of another.  In short, a game about money should have plenty of money.

The art from Christophe Fossard is gorgeous (as it always is and I recommend giving him a follow on Twitter or Instagram too if you like the stuff he churns out for, well pretty much every major games publisher), and hats off to him for making a cuboid piglet look so darn cute - but, one can’t help but feel a little disturbed by the giant pigs complete with sweat and bags under their eyes.

 

 

 

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Squeal Piggy...a pig loving critique

Fair warning: the below “rant” about Happy Pigs is arguably superficial, and highly subjective (as all reviews should be).  If the theme of a game is of no consequence to you, skip to “Rant Mode Complete” and avoid reading about why I will never play this game again.

>>Rant mode engaged<<Fundamentally I have two (and a bit) issues with the game itself.  The repetitive Seasonal Effects and swingy nature aside - as those aspects do actually add to some of the frustrations and fun I have when playing.  Yet, I have an issue with the theme, and as a novel irk, the name of the game itself!  

That’s right Happy Pigs, what a delightful sounding game?  However, the game is not concerned at all, in any way with the emotional or even physical well being of the pigs.  Even the box art sees a very cartoony pig RUNNING FOR ITS LIFE from an equally cartoony pig farmer bent on its capture.  This isn’t Okja, the Happy [Super] Pig playing in the mountains of Korea, no. This is Fat Pig, Fat Wallet: Happy Farmer.  

The theme too is a little on the unpleasant side for me.  I’m an animal lover, and if I had space at home there is a fair chance I’d own (or at least have seriously considered) a pig as a family pet.  I don’t eat pork either, so a game about rearing pigs, feeding them to the extreme only to sell...well, I just don’t like it.  Neither can I fully get over the idea that obesity is not only celebrated in this game but is highly rewarded.  

With minimal work the game could be re-skinned as Happy Pandas or Happy >Insert Endangered Animal Here< and not only would you still have the interesting economic game at the core, but it could also have educational and conservation lessons in there too. >>Rant Mode Complete<<

By the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin

On the whole, this game is not what it appears or alludes to be.  It looks very cute and very friendly, you may even mistake it for a family or children's game with its bubbly art style, and cheerful name.  I can pretty much guarantee that playing this game at “family” time will cause a ruckus.  It is cutthroat, it is a tightly wound economic engine which will have you screaming blue- effing-murder at your opponents before the end of the first season.  What appears to be a simple choice of four simple actions has massive and long-lasting implications, and before you make that choice you have to decide if you are going to hamper an opponent or try and help yourself.  Once you get the swing of this game it does tick by at pace, where you feel busy most of the time, even when you’re not physically moving pigs or items around your farm or market, the cogs will still be turning trying to work out not only what your next move is, but everyone else's is too.  This is more so the case once you have a firm grasp of the game and play each round simultaneously - this does mean that up to 6 players can get a game played in around 60 minutes.  If you aren’t paying attention, or if you are on the wrong side of the swing you can and will see the entire game slip away from you as one or two players steam ahead leaving you up to your ears in something that you hope is just mud.  



In many ways I feel like this game is almost there, Rant Mode notwithstanding, it is like a Kickstarter that really should have hit more of its stretch goals.  A greater variety of Season Cards could have put a lot of my qualms about this game to pasture.  I have frustrations with this game, and yes some of those are fun, but not fun enough to keep me going back for more.

 

The Good

Tense player interaction

Great engine building

Mechanically simple and easy to teach

Some great artwork

 

The Bad

Too many chits and tokens

Not enough variety in Seasonal Effects

Swingy

Easy potential for Runaway leader

This game was purchased at a reduced rate from Zatu for the purpose of a review.

Review: Sub Terra

Game Name:	Sub Terra	Published Year:	2017
Game Publisher:	Inside the Box Board Games LLP (ITB)	Player Scale:	1-6
Game Designer:	Tim Pinder	Run Time:	45-90 min

What seems to be a small cave expedition with your group of friends for a nice Sunday activity turns out a bit different from what you expected. You find yourselves cut off from the entry point and you need to find another exit before your torches run out of power. But that is not your only problem, you find, quite soon, that something else lives deep inside this cave and is not very friendly...

Welcome to Sub Terra, in this survival horror co-op game, you'll be exploring a cave system laying out tiles and trying to survive a multitude of dangers while you all try to make it alive to the exit.

How it plays

Gameplay is quite simple, starting from the player with the first player token, all cavers will take actions, then if any horror is in play it will move towards the closest caver. Next, you draw a card from the hazard deck and resolve it and finally you pass the first player token to the next player. You'll play a certain number of rounds like this until either you're all unconscious or you escape the cave.

[caption id="attachment_1842" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Game setup[/caption]

While setting up the game you will place the exit tile between the last six tiles in the exploration stack, so you have a bit of control on where and when is going to be placed at the end. The tiles are beautifully illustrated and the iconography is easy to identify while playing. The first time a tile is drawn, some of them will represent a potential threat, but it won't trigger until a matching hazard card gets drawn.

 

[caption id="attachment_1832" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Character mats and meeples[/caption]

 

All players have 2 action points they can use in any combination they want from the action list. Some of the actions need to use both points some only use one. You can always try to exert yourself for a third action point, but you will roll for a skill check, if you fail you'll get a wound. Appart from the common actions, all characters have a special ability/action each, there are 8 different characters in the game, each useful in its own way and making for different combinations.

 

[caption id="attachment_1834" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Hazard cards[/caption]

 

The hazard deck is what is going to make your adventure a horror story and acts as your timer for the game. Depending on the number of players or difficulty chosen you'll form the deck with a different amount of cards. There are 5 different kind of hazards: tremors that might hurt you anywhere you are, deadly gas that will stay active in all gas tiles until the next hazard card gets drawn, cave-ins and floods that are very dangerous if you are in one of the tiles where it happens and will make more difficult to move around the cave system. And last but not least the horrors, that will hunt your group down. If you run out of cards, not everything is lost you still have a small chance to make it out running in the darkness, every caver still inside the cave will have to do a skill check if you succeed then you have an extra turn but if you fail, you're dead.

There are different winning thresholds. Gold if everybody makes it out, silver if one caver is left behind or bronze if two cavers are left to the horrors. If 3 or more cavers didn't make it in time then the game is lost for the whole group. And believe me, you'll need to cooperate and organize quite well to make it out alive.

Opinion

The game is easy to play and is taught in a few minutes. It plays quite fast too, with 6 cavers we are playing in around 45-60 min per game now and it's got that addictive factor of one more game because the game is hard and really fun to play, it invites you to keep trying. It took us a few games until only 4/6 cavers made it out, though we had pretty good attempts that almost made it.

Even though the box says Sub Terra plays from 1 to 6 players, you'll need to play with a minimum of 4 cavers, but is not a difficult task as is very easy to keep track of their abilities and their life points. It plays very well solo and in any number of players, though after numerous games in my group we believe the game shines with 6 cavers in play, you have more abilities to deal with the cave, but at least 4 have to make it to the exit.



Production quality is excellent, sturdy cardboard, gorgeous art, and very easy iconography.  Tiles are easily identifiable and once activated the hazard on them the tokens will mark it and differentiate over the ones not active yet. Replayability is very high, as the cave tiles are randomized and the order and number of different hazards are different in every game. There are also a couple of expansions on the way if you still feel like you need more game.

The game also comes with a few extra perks, like a tile holder and the tiles have spots that light up with UV light, same as the die. It makes as a great experience to play it in the dark with a cave soundtrack in the background.

The good: The game plays fast and is hard, a victory will feel like one. Production quality. Simple mechanics makes for a light game that is really fun to play.

The bad: If a player gets stranded and get knocked unconscious early in the game it might be left behind, and makes for a boring game for that person if nobody comes rescue you. with 4 cavers we've found out for this to happen more often as only half of the group has to make it out.

You might also like: Burgle Bros, Pandemic

That's it for Sub Terra review folks!

If you feel adventurous enough I highly recommend it and watch out for the horrors hidden in the darkness...