Pocket Mars Review

This review originally appeared on the Polyhedron Collider website, but if you didn't read it there, you can now enjoy it here too!

Game: Pocket Mars

Designer: Michał Jagodziński

Artist: Jarosław Wajs

Publisher: Board & Dice

Player Count: 1 - 4

Runtime: 15 - 30 minutes

“Mars is there, waiting to be reached.” - Buzz Aldrin



Mars. The Red Planet. The Roman God of War has hung in the night sky capturing the imagination of man, and drawing the creative mind to it like gravity since it was first gazed upon. In the last few years, the fiction was left behind as science began to catch up, and we now know more about this baron and hostile planet than ever before. Yet, the more we know, it seems the more our imagination runs rampant and so the notion of the colonisation of Mars seeps into our consciousness, filling our screens, bookshelves and of course, our boardgames. It is in this vein that we explore Pocket Mars.

 

[caption id="attachment_2653" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Getting an even spread of your colonists is one of the methods of winning[/caption]

 

This is a fairly simple, quick, micro hand management game from those multi-use-card-aficionados at Board & Dice who have brought us SUPERHOT, Multiversum, and InBetween. Pocket Mars sits very comfortably in the mix with those games, which although all have very different themes and even mechanics, they all, to echo Mr Tudor (Mr Tudor Mr Tudor Mr Tudor), share a tonality that’s hard not to notice. So, if you like those previous games, just stop reading and go buy Pocket Mars, you’ll probably like it too. If, on the other hand, you want to know more about a game whose marketing campaign was based on growing potatoes in shit* then read on.

Pocket Mars pits up to four rival companies vying to be the first to establish a safe, successful, and secure colony on Mars. To do this you’ll need to transport your scientists from earth, via your shuttle to the Red Planet, and to one of the four pre-established buildings. Through the use of a series of project cards, you’ll upgrade the buildings to become more efficient and thus setting up the necessary infrastructure to support a mass colonisation. You’ll do this with a bunch of cards, some cubes and all within about 30 minutes. Which is pretty flippin’ impressive.

[caption id="attachment_2659" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Enter / Prize classic....[/caption]

Each player begins the game with a joke-poking named shuttle with one colonist aboard and six further colonists back on Earth. The five main buildings needed to conquer the barren red landscape are in situ, so all you need to do is get them working properly. Queue the Project Cards that will do just that. These cards can be used in one of two ways, from the two cards in your hand, or from the two face-down cards in front of you known as the Prep Module.

In short, this is a game of hand management and set collecting, you’ll want to shift cards from your hand - where they have a weaker, but more immediate action - I like to think of this as maintenance your colonists are making - to your Prep Module. From here you’ll play them against one of the buildings on Mars. This is the chunkier, multi-faceted action that you’ll need to do to shift colonists from your shuttle and into a building - I like to think of this as “Installing” you are putting new equipment into the building that it needs, thus one of your colonists needs to be there.

Now, this action makes up the bulk of the game, as the game ends when one player gets all of their colonists on to Mars, but it is also the most interesting process in the game. The Project cards are numbered (or ranked if you want to follow my analogy) from one to seven. You’ll install your card against the existing one (or the building itself), and, if your Project card has a higher score - thus a better upgrade you put your colonist in that building.

[caption id="attachment_2658" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Stark, austere graphic art with vibrant colours[/caption]

You’ll then get to trigger the card’s actual ability - the thing that your Project actually does, then; because, you used the building, the building’s ability also triggers. This happens even if the Project you installed is not as good as the previous version, like Windows 10, but these buildings don't use a Microsoft operating system, so it’s all good. The other, interesting, little used, action you can do that is very similar to this, is play a card from another player’s Prep Module. This doesn’t allow you to shift any colonists, and they get the card ability, but you get the building ability AND you get to stop them placing a colonist. It is very sneaky, and feels a little off theme, but is a very worthwhile action and adds a devious hint of player interaction.

So, what makes Pocket Mars interesting, different and worthy of your time, and/or money. Well, it’s because of what this game is really about, and that is area control. It just doesn’t really look like it, or rather, the bit that looks like area control - the cubes - isn’t the interesting area control bit of this game. Still with me?

[caption id="attachment_2652" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The Water Building allows you to easily recycle the project cards you don't want[/caption]

Pocket Mars is more about controlling the cost associated with the buildings, about planning and playing ahead. By inflating, or artificially lowering the cost against a building in one turn, and with the knowledge of what type of cards the other players have in their Prep Modules you can take advantage of this supply of information. What the card can do is only one small part of the information you need to be able to counter or block other players. What type of card and more importantly where that card is, is actually more important. And you can see all of this at a glance.

It is the almost perfect information that makes this game so quick, but not at the expense of strategy. To score well, you need to have an even spread of colonists across Mars, you’ll want to get some of them into the “office” of each building too. So, control the costs and you’ll control a piece of Mars, but really you need to control lots of different pieces at different times.

[caption id="attachment_2655" align="alignnone" width="4032"] I'd love to see little astronaut meeples, I understand why they are cubes, but I'd still like to see them...[/caption]

That’s not to say that this game isn’t without its flaws, and despite being a self-confessed Board & Dice fan, this game does fall particularly foul of a recurring ‘issue’ I have with their games, namely; abstraction. Theme and the implementation of the mechanics are abstracted from what they’re “meant to be”, this does make this game a little less accessible I find, and when introducing this game to people, as I have done so in this review, I feel I have to add the character and descriptions/context to actions. This is amplified by the condensed rulebook which is almost completely bereft of flavour, reducing this game of celestial colonisation down to little more than its bare bones. The austere un-named cards with their stark graphic ‘art’, the buildings are only named on the last page of the rulebook and Matt Damon is indistinguishable from his fellow scientists. All of this leads to a fairly abstract game of layering cards and shifting cubes. But...

[caption id="attachment_2656" align="alignnone" width="4032"] A mini space adventure[/caption]

But, all of that is okay when you step away from the telescope and look at what you have with a little bit of distance. You’ve got a very small, cheap, four-player game which has some interesting mechanics, choices and interactions. It even has a solo mode. It is a perfect little thinker of a game for lunch breaks, to travel with and for the damage, it’ll do to your wallet and game shelf this game provides a mini exploration to mars in half an hour. Pocket Mars may not be the slice of Mars game you’ve been waiting to try, but it is still a short, worthwhile game.

Disclaimer:  This review was based on a full priced retail edition paid for out of my own money from my own pocket.

*Just go watch the brilliant Martian and it will all make sense.

 

Waggle Dance Review

In the realm of board game mechanics and their marriage to theme few games do so well as Waggle Dance, taking worker placement and applying it to a theme synonymous with hard work, with busy work, with lots of work. With this game, the worker placement mechanic has never been more at home. That is not to say that Waggle Dance is not the most thematically rich game you’ll ever play no, but one can not help but admire the simplicity and elegance of this pairing.

[caption id="attachment_2683" align="alignnone" width="1600"] This is how it all begins! Look how pretty, and neat and tidy it all is[/caption]

Game: Waggle Dance

Designer: Mike Nudd

Artist: Mateusz Szulik

Publisher: Grubblin Games

Player Count: 2 - 4

Runtime: 30 - 90 minutes

Waggle Dance is a term used in beekeeping to describe the moves a bee performs when returning from a bountiful trip out in search of nectar. Upon returning to the hive, said bee communicates through the method of dance the location of these wonderful flowers, allowing the other bees to further aid the hive in success. This game is not about interpretive dance, it’s about working really hard and really smart to make loads of honey.

Once the very beautiful array of low polygon art cards are laid out, running A - G, and colourful cubes of nectar are positioned and the exquisite dice are handed to up to four players you can set to work increasing your beehive, your workforce and ultimately making honey. Your worker bees are dice, and at the beginning of each day/turn you’ll roll them all, and then start to allocate them in turn. With the exception of the central six flowers, each action card has six available slots for workers to be assign, numbered one through six, meaning you can only assign your number two worker to the number two spot, but on any action.

[caption id="attachment_2682" align="alignnone" width="1600"] Whatever you roll, there is an opportunity to do some actions, you just have to get there early[/caption]

Alternatively, you can always place a worker on one of the six types of flower, again numbered one through six, however this time, it comes down to more of an area control thing, as the more bees you have on any one flower the more nectar you take, and the more you deprive your opponent bees.

Of course, you’ll want more bees, as more bees means more actions, more dice rolling, and as every gamer knows rolling more dice is better than rolling fewer. But, to get a new worker you first need to get your queen to lay an egg and then you to incubate and nurture that egg in order for it to hatch, not only that, but an egg takes up a lot of space in your hive, very valuable space needed for honey. Managing your hive is an extremely important part of this game, making your hive bigger is easy - providing there is space on that action card for one of your dice, getting an egg is easy, again assuming you can get one worker to that action.

[caption id="attachment_2684" align="alignnone" width="1600"] Already this hive is getting full, extra bees will help...I hope[/caption]

Hatching an egg, making honey or moving nectar around your hive are all slightly trickier actions as it requires not only you to roll a double; any double will do (they’re just like dreams that way), but then you have to allocate that double to that task instead of monopolising on some precious nectar. Yet converting nectar to honey is the whole aim of this game, and as should always be the case with great games, that should be easier said than done. Honey can only be produced when you have four types of the same nectar in the same honeycomb, making the whole process of collecting and organising the nectar, followed by turning it into honey not only a time consuming and laborious task but also very fitting.

Bear in mind though that each honeycomb of the hive can only support up to four pieces of nectar or one egg, and if you are only able to snag bits and pieces of nectar and not consolidate the types your hive will end up in a hodgepodge mess of colours and cubes. Further to this, once nectar has been converted into honey, the honeycomb can’t store anything so playing this game means you have to be diverse, you have to play the long game, having a lots of workers or a big hive are great, but only if they can be supported, and there's no point doing that if you’re not bringing in any of the much-needed nectar.

[caption id="attachment_2685" align="alignnone" width="1600"] Time to make some more honey![/caption]

Waggle Dance supplies choices hand over fist; with but a few cards and a few dice from the first turn to the last each turn you’ll be questioning not only what you will do, but how and when you’ll go about doing it. Since this game has perfect information you can see and try and gauge what your opponents will be doing, and that is part of the brilliant and beautiful puzzle Waggle Dance presents. One of the things I love most about this game is the move away from the “issue” normally presented by dice chucking games, luck, although there is still a degree of getting the dice you want when you want them, this is significantly mitigated by the fact that rolling a one in Waggle Dance is just as good a rolling a six. It is more of a question of the array of dice rather than any individual die roll. If you’ve seen this game and thought to yourself “I don’t really like dice games” then stop, look closer. This is a worker placement game with a great twist.

All of this choice does come with a sting in the tail however in the form of Analysis Paralysis, more so in the early turns, players can become overwhelmed by choices and figuring out what to do, when and how can be a little too much. As the game progresses though this does flatten out somewhat, yet the possibility for it is ever present in this type of game.

[caption id="attachment_2681" align="alignnone" width="1600"] I love the vibrant colour of this game, bring on the Summer![/caption]

Another thing you might be surprised to hear of though is the player interaction, not something terribly common in worker placement games, yet Waggle Dance does provide this too in the form of the Queen cards. These cards present special abilities ranging from getting a temporary worker bee, to being able to mix your nectar or to giving one of your opponent’s bees a bug so the call in sick (I know, hilarious right?). These Queen Cards can cause a little confusion, in a bid to make the game language neutral there is no text beyond the rule-sheet, which will need to be heavily referenced by all players until they are very familiar with what all these cards mean.

Now, let us not forget about how flipping beautiful this game looks. Just putting this game out on the table is an open invitation for summer to arrive, the vibrant colours, the minimalist low polygon art and the dice – true story, I played this at my FLGS one Saturday afternoon with my other half, as soon as she saw the dice she told me I had to buy the game, so I did. The pips are honeycombs, the one is a bee, they’re so bright they could easily be confused with sweets.

I do wish the Queen cards had text on them so they could be more easily understood, and I’d love to see a board or better yet a cloth/neoprene play mat for this game, mainly so I could play it in a beer garden at the height of summer and not have to worry about the wind blowing the cards away. Once you get past the AP, once you dive in and start making decisions and doing the work this game shines. The rules are slick and simple, roll dice, follow the order of cards, make honey. Everything else, all the magic and charm of this game is in the playing of it - as all great games should be.

Waggle Dance is my favourite worker placement game, beautiful, fun, and it scales perfectly with player count and game length, I know I’ll never have trouble getting it to the table!

Disclaimer:

This review was based on a full-priced retail copy of the game and was paid for out of my own money from my own pocket.

Inbetween Review

Game: Inbetween

Designer: Adam Kwapiński

Publisher: Board & Dice

Artist: Seweryn Borkowski, et al

Player Count: 2

Runtime: 30 - 60 minutes

Upsideville is the quintessential little US town (probably somewhere in Maine), it has all the staples you’d expect of a good town, a decent High School, a great drive-thru, and your atypical friendly neighbourhood police sheriff. Yes, living in Upsideville is pretty great. Or at least it used to be, there is something else there now too. The veneer of the American dream is being slowly scratched away, eroded by some indeterminate malevolent force. A darkness, a Creature if you will, is warping, twisting and turning that white picket fence into a dark splinter of its former self. It’s happening to the Townsfolk too.

[caption id="attachment_2619" width="3647"] Full box art, front and back. It's all about the flipside[/caption]

If that sounds like Stranger Things the board game you’d be 99% right, you’d be a hair’s breadth away from being IP infringing right. If you love that show and love board games look no further (put down the Stranger Things Monopoly and step well away from that Eggo monstrosity). If you’ve not heard of or had time to binge watch that show, then you’ll be glad to hear that no prior knowledge of it is needed to fully enjoy this game - you’ll just notice all the little nods to it while you play if you are familiar.

[caption id="attachment_2621" width="4032"] Thanks to having 2 icons, Maggie is almost Secure...[/caption]

So, Inbetween; it’s a game of good versus evil, of the Townsfolk of Upsideville rallying against an insidious menace that is trying to destroy the very fabric of reality. On the flipside of that, it is a game of a Creature from another plane of existence, that is trying to reach through and conquer ours, and in doing so, it will pollute and twist our world to fit its own. And that is the key point in this game, the flipside, the other version, the duality, it rings out in theme and mechanics. It is a game of direct conflict, take that style mechanics and is ultimately a tug of war, not just for the town on the whole, but for the people that make it.

[caption id="attachment_2624" width="4032"] Everybody is just going about their daily lives as if nothing is wrong.[/caption]

The game starts with ten of the townsfolk, five in each dimension; Town and Creature - this does not mean that those individuals are safe or lost, far from it, it is simply their starting state; an Inbetween (see what they did there?). A player’s turn is denoted by the Activity Marker, a wooden cylinder where the ends indicate the player’s turn, it moves and flips at the end of each player’s turn, and it is really important, as sometimes, sometimes you’ll play out of sequence, depending on how the game progresses. On your turn, you’ll play a card from your hand, and matching the symbol on that card allows you to shift the Safety Marker one space. Each Townsperson has four spaces, four levels of safety, from Alert to Secure, or Nervous to Devoured. Getting three characters secured or devoured is one of the possible victory conditions.

[caption id="attachment_2618" width="4032"] When there is something very much going on, it is just a matter of time[/caption]

Alternatively, you can clone the symbol type on the card and add that to any Character; so I can make Rodney both a Sheriff type and a Community type - making him far easier to secure in subsequent turns. This is a really interesting, and clever way of balancing out the character mix.

[caption id="attachment_2622" width="3904"] With two icons, there are now more opportunities to Secure Rodney[/caption]

Now, when the Activity Marker is on any character where the Safety Marker is anywhere but the top space, it will trigger the character's ability. And these are really quite special, forming a large part of any strategy, and it is here that the twist comes, and it is this twist that makes this game for me. Firstly, the player whose dimension the Activity Marker is in gets to increase their (potentially game-ending) Awareness - which also grants a terrific one-shot ability for use at the beginning of the player’s turn. After this, the Character ability kicks in - regardless of whose turn it is. The effects vary from character to character, but they are all very worthwhile, and many a game I spent my time struggling to keep Timmy Guarded (spots 2 or 3) just so I can use his ability.

The combination of Activity Marker movement and character ability require a degree of planning, of orchestration, ensuring you have the cards and energy to dish out some much-needed damage to your opponent, or that they manipulate the game state to your advantage. These manoeuvres have a sense of a plot twist, or a major beat in the story you are unravelling.

Something I particularly appreciate in this game is duality, it seeps through from the theme into the mechanics, forming two very different player roles and styles. All the cards have multiple abilities, all the character cards are dual sided. Inbetween is a duel between two forces that are equally, and reflectively matched, but are different, it tricks you into thinking it is a classic Tug-of-War game, but that implies a fundamental equality between the two sides. The fairness in this game stems from the differences between to two roles, not their similarities. There is a subtle asymmetry to Inbetween making the two roles noticeably different, and interesting.

[caption id="attachment_2626" width="3224"] A birds-eye view of the game[/caption]

Inbetween utilizes multiple Game End/Victory Conditions which is something I love in my board games as it opens up gaming strategy and variability. Not only does this make each game potentially very different, but in a tug of war game, this system can result in some fantastic surprises. Rather splendidly, these conditions all work in tandem for at least the first half of the game, and depending upon how the game progresses you will often have at least two of the three options remaining open as viable victory methods, and it is, as I can personally attest to, very easy to switch between strategies and have your ass kicked.

I really like the art in this game, it would have been all too easy (and dangerous) to duplicate the Stranger Things pencil style artwork, instead Board & Dice call upon Seweryn Borkowski and gang to produce something that reminds me a lot of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn series - which is no bad thing at all! And the box! It has to be one of my favourites on the shelf, mainly because of how different it is - no logos, no text, not even the game name. Front and back are full art - and I love it.

[caption id="attachment_2627" width="3740"] This box really stands out on the shelf by how different it is[/caption]

One thing I would like to see tweaked, however; is the abstraction of the components, blue, red, and purple cubes look at odds within the theme and art style, and the little counters are unnamed which when playing takes you out of the game, more so for the Creature: “I’m going to play this little cloud thing, and Terrify Jamey.” Maybe not all players use all the in-game terminology all the time, but its absence means that I can’t. A very simple thing, but the lack of names, in a game which is otherwise very on point with its theme, stands out.

[caption id="attachment_2623" width="3576"] The Tokens of no names...[/caption]

Every turn is valuable, with each action that you do something you are also not doing something else. There are interesting choices in this game, and as the game progresses those choices become weightier. It encapsulates the tug-of-war rather brilliantly, with an attitude of it is better to win the game rather than Secure/Devour that character. It is a game of pivoting possibilities, where your luck or your tactics can change quickly, and with dynamic effect, but the game never feels out of control. It is a game that can be a little tricky, or maybe finickity to teach, as each Phase has sub-sections to it, and cards and actions have multiple ‘moving’ parts, but it is a game I feel really rewards repeated plays. Inbetween it is one of my favourite two-player experiences, giving me everything I want in a game in a very small package.

Disclaimer:

This review was based on a full priced retail edition that I pre-ordered and paid for out of my own money from my own pocket.

Onitama Review

Review: Onitama

Designer: Shimpei Sato

Publisher: Arcane Wonders

Artist: Jun Kondo and Mariusz Szmerdt

Player count: 2

Runtime: 10 minutes

“Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend.”

― Po from Kung Fu Panda

Onitama roughly translates as “Awesome Kung Fu themed abstract game”, which, like a tin of Ronseal, it does exactly as it says on the tin, or in this case, box. This game also graciously offers you the opportunity to constantly refer to your opponent as “Young Grasshopper”, to say things like, “Your Kung Fu is strong”, and of course, “Stop trying to hit me, and hit me”. There is such a thing as being a poor winner, so watch it, as the tide of battle can turn very quickly in Onitama.

[caption id="attachment_2592" align="alignnone" width="2776"] Say it with me now...TIGER UPPERCUT![/caption]

One cannot but notice the similarities between Onitama and Chess on first impressions, and although this is true, it is only fleetingly so, it is much like comparing a Harley Davidson to a BMX, more on this later, first bow into the dojo and we shall begin.

You and your opponent are rival Kung Fu dojos, who are battling it out for supremacy, and to the field of this great battle, you take four of your most skilled warriors. Facing off against one another across the tranquil arena you stretch and shake off that nervous pre-fight excitement, bow first to your master, and then respectfully to your opponent and go.

[gallery ids="2597,2588" type="rectangular"]

Fight!

Fight!

Fight!

Not quite, Onitama is a game of skilful, precise strikes, of calculated risks, and of considered judgement. Of knowing your opponent, and predicting their attacks and retreats. It is Kung Fu (well, as much as a board game can be Kung Fu). Unlike a game of chess, of near countless openings, strategies and moves, Onitama, deftly, and simply imposes restrictions and limits on your form and creativity. And it does this with a handful of cards. These cards are your movements, all of your attacks and retreats, all with an appropriately Kung Fu-ey related animal names, like Frog or Crab.

[caption id="attachment_2590" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Love the stylised Chinese writing here depicting the animal[/caption]

Each card further abstracts the game board and depicts it as a simple grid, with a number of the squares shaded, with one being darker than the others. This darkest square is your warrior, any of them, and the shaded cells are all the possible squares they can move to. Should you land on an opponent you take them and they are removed from the game. It is that simple, and yes, up to this point, the game may sound a little linear, and you’d be right, but obviously, that isn’t the game.

You see, you only get five cards per game, randomly drawn from the deck. These are the only moves any player can make. Five cards. Five attacks, five prescribed movements that both players can see, predict and plan for. Again, that may sound a lot more interesting, and it is, but that still isn’t the game.

[caption id="attachment_2595" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The Reds are making full use of the arena width[/caption]

These five cards total all the cards you’ll use, and you will share them with your opponent in a manner that makes this game very, very interesting. Two will be dealt to you, two to your opponent and the remaining card placed between you both. Any of your pieces can move as either of your cards show, but then you’ll place that card to one side and take the card that was previously left out of the game. Now your opponent does the same, sifting one card at a time between the cards in front, to the card at the side.

This mechanic creates a flow, almost a sense of a dance across the play area as you and your opponent/partner sway back and forth. It creates a harmony and a balance which sits right at home with the theme. One of the things I love about this game is how quick and accessible it is, there is no text to read, its a case of pattern recognition in the moves you can make now, what your opponent can make and what move you can make later. A game of Onitama is so very quick, I don’t think I’ve played a game longer than ten minutes, and in that way the game too feels very kinetic. Although Onitama is an abstract game, the production and these notes of energy and flow really capture and encapsulate that Hollywood-stylised essence of Kung Fu.

[caption id="attachment_2593" align="alignnone" width="4032"] That's a strong defensive opening from the Blue Guys[/caption]

So, how much like a game of chess is Onitama? You do move pieces back and forth across a board in varying patterns, the win condition is very similar, it is a greatly abstracted view f a battle, and here, I would say the similarities end. Chess can be “mastered”, there are opening moves that are better than others, someone who has played many games will have little difficulty besting a newbie. Onitama, on the other hand, has such a degree of variability that a “perfect” opening doesn’t exist, as it can’t exist every game. Likewise, chess is often considered a battle above the board as much as it is on it, and Onitama isn’t that. Each of your opponents pieces can only move in two ways, and you can see those two ways, the difference is in this joy of pattern recognition, of building up your opponents move now, and move next and layering that against what you want to do, and the cards/moves you do not want to give them.

[caption id="attachment_2596" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The luxurious, fancy-pants playmat[/caption]

The production of this game, heck, even the box screams “Hey, pay attention to me!”, it has a cool magnetic closed box that looks more like a fancy bottle of whiskey than a board game, the insert is moulded perfectly to fit everything nice and tidy, and of course, you have the neoprene plat mat and the gorgeous oversized cards. However, and it's sizeable, however, it feels overproduced. The moulds on the figures aren’t what I’d expect from a game made in 2014, but even then I think there is a degree of charm, the impression of ancient skill and strategy that this game wants to have is well overshot with plastic models instead of something more solid, timeless and classical. The playmat tough great and functional is, I can’t help but feel is a half inch too narrow, those oversized cards don’t align neatly with my compulsion towards the neat and parallel.

Am I being picky? Yes.

Am I acting like a teenager at a house party dissecting the latest arrival?

(what an odd analogy) Well, yes, I am. But, in my defence, the game is crying out for attention about how it looks more so than how it plays.

And that is the main point, isn’t it? How good is this game? In short, it is a great, quick game that offers an interesting array of game restrictions each time you play. Each game feels noticeably different, and yet fundamentally the same. Part of that greatness stems from its shortness, its brevity, but also for its ‘feel’, it is an abstract game that wears its theme like a well-tailored suit, you’ll see it on the board and the pawns, you’ll see it scrawled across the cards, but you feel it in the game with the flow and sway of combat. Onitama isn’t the type of game you'll play for hours on end, it is the type of game you play between games, while you’re waiting for your dinner, and it’s perfect to travel with or for lunch break games, and at around £25 you’ll get a lot of mileage out of this little gem.

Tortuga 1667 Review

Publisher: Façade Games

Designer: Travis Hancock

Artist: Sarah Keele

Players: 2 – 7

Run Time: 20 – 40 mins

“A dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.” - Jack Sparrow, on the issue of hidden role board games.

You're right, sorry; Captain Jack Sparrow.

There is little doubt or argument that Walt Disney and Johnny Depp made Pirates cool[er] again...a least for a little while, until the whole Mermaid thing - anyway.

Pirates = awesome.

Boardgames = awesome.

Boardgames that look like books = erm...

So, what else could a triple-decker awesome sandwich be, other than timber shiveringly awesome? Ladies and gentlemen, polish your brass monkeys, as I present to you a review of Tortuga 1667 from Facade Games.



You’ll play as a dubiously real pirate, in and around the island of Tortuga in, well 1667. You’ll hop back and forth between the Flying Dutchman, the isle itself and the Jolly Roger all in an attempt to horde as much of the treasure in the hold belonging to you and your countrymen. However, you don’t know who your countrymen are. Also, the whole hoarding thing is a little bit tricky, as it depends where you are, who you are and, who is with you.



This game has a smattering of worker placement, area control, variable player powers, bidding, and hidden roles to label just a few of the core mechanics. If that sounds like jumble ingredients doomed to failure then you are in for a pleasant and sweet surprise because it is the blending of these that makes this game worthy of your gaming table and shelf.



Picture this, you're on a ship in the bay of Tortuga, across the halcyon blue waters are two other ships. One with loads of gold, the other bustling with another group or unruly pirates. Now, if you’re the captain (taking the number one spot on the ship) you can order an attack against it to try and get some of that treasure. If you’re the first Mate (number two spot), you can try and mutiny against your captain and dispatch him to the Island. If you are the very last in the line on the ship, you’re the Cabin Boy (Roger!), and you can shift one of the treasure chests from the French hold to the British hold or vice versa. With the exception of the cabin boy, everything comes down to a vote (I know, I know, these must be the most democratic bunch of pirates in the history of Piracy) where everyone (except the captain during a mutiny) on the ship gets to cast their vote, plus the top card of the Vote Deck. Failures don’t do any harm, except potentially reveal whose side you’re on. Successes result in capturing a treasure chest- and then placing it in a hold (careful now), or you get promoted. But may also reveal whose side you’re on.



 

About this voting business, it’s not quite as clear-cut as saying “yay” or “nay”, your hand of just three Vote cards dictate how you're going to vote on any one of the three viable actions: Attacking, Brawling (vying for control of the island) and Mutinying. An attack needs at least one cannon and one torch - where each bucket of water nullifies a torch. The brawl action is either British or French flags, suggesting who piles into the fight to half-inch the treasure, and Mutinying boils down to a steering wheel or skull and crossbones (obviously). What makes this interesting is that depending on the action, your allegiance and perhaps, more importantly, the allegiance you are trying to present, you can only vote with the cards you have in hand. And you have to vote (hand management, there’s another mechanic for you). This creates an interesting mix, as there are cards you really want to keep for your actions, your plan, but you have to vote when called upon, and that can mean giving up a card you want for a result that might favour you, use a card you don’t want to hang on to, but in doing so you’re either sending the “right” message about your allegiance, or the “wrong” one.



If that wasn’t interesting enough, you’ve also got the Event Cards, a whole deck of them, and these set the pace for the game. The game-ending card - the Spanish Armada - hidden at the bottom. Until that card turns up though, there is a whole deck of shenanigans to get through, and most of these are varying degrees of bad, from the innocently named albatross to the ominous Black Spot. How you get these cards is one of my favourite parts of this game, in your turn, regardless of where on the board you are, you can interact with these cards in a couple of interesting ways. You can look at any two of these cards, you can demand that another player chooses between any two cards, or you can reveal one yourself. Knowing, and keeping track of these cards is almost like a metagame that goes on throughout, this part of Tortuga is about memory, manipulation and backstabbing.

On top of all of this, you’re trying to figure out who everyone is.



Being a hidden roles game, there is the potential downfall of it being very easy to suss out who is on which side, but, I’ve found that to be hugely player dependant. How good you are at lying, bluffing, and how much of a risk you are prepared to take as that deck whittles down. The deck acts not only as a countdown to the end of the game but to a player’s plans. Remaining hidden is of the utmost importance in this game, but you want to strike that delicate balance of also finding out who is on your side. When its crunch time, you need to ensure that you can shift that treasure quickly, you need to know who you can rely on, and who you throw overboard. Be wary of the honest ones!

There is, however, an elephant on the boat, and I think a much-needed caveat when it comes to playing this game: the player count. Technically, it plays two to seven people. Technically. But at two players it is kind of a drag, your actions are pretty prescribed. Three players is much the same. At four you get a big ol’ chunk of flavour. At five it is like you’re playing a different game, but at seven (I know I missed six, get over it), at seven this game is rollicking good fun!



Tortuga 1667 relies on, and flat out requires player and social interaction, so with more players, there is more of that, thus more fun. Further to this, the game becomes more volatile, swaying a vote becomes harder, and more involved. The odd player is Dutch, winning if the English and French draw, it is a brilliant twist on a hidden roles game that I’ve not seen before and Tortuga pulls it off with style. The variability and independence of the Dutch player can have massive consequences, and if played right can hold the tide of the battle in their hands.

And talking of style, I hope that my photos of this game do it justice. The game, the box, the board, art, components everything is flat-out gorgeous. And yet, manages to never feel over produced. It is tight, succinct and comes in at around £25. The neoprene playing ‘board’ juxtaposed by the simple, almost old-fashioned pawns is quite simply delightful.



Tortuga 1667 is one of my favourite games of 2017; it does everything a really good game needs to do. It gets you thinking, gets you interacting and playing. You never feel like you don’t have a choice of actions, and whatever you do you’ll be moving towards your ever approaching the goal. Ultimately the game comes down to being able to carefully balance subterfuge with careful, planned strikes against those players you think/hope are your enemy. Played at the higher player count this game will not fail to entertain and enthral, and oh my, doesn’t it look very pretty on your shelf.



This review was based on a full priced Kickstarter campaign at the Early Bird pledge level.  

Review: Ominoes

Ominoes.  A game for Pharaohs, for Rulers and Sovereigns all.  A game for dice chuckers, a game for those that love and hate Chance in equal measure.  For those that want a generous sprinkling of strategy over their polyhedrons in the morning. And for those that just want a quick tabletop hit, but don’t have time for the chits that comes with those bigger box games.  

A Confession:

Now, while writing this I’ve spent a truly inordinate amount of time trying to concoct a silly story about how this game was played by ancient Egyptians 4,000 years ago.  I also spent far too long looking for hieroglyphs of people playing a board game, of ancient looking dice and so on.  All this for the simple aim of duping you, dear reader, into believing, even for a moment that Ominoes is really a modern re-skin of an ancient game such as Chess, Go, or the Royal Game of Ur.  But, to do this would have been to cheapen the accomplishment of the designer, Andrew Harman.  It also wouldn’t have been particularly funny.  Why would I want to do this?  Simple: Ominoes is startlingly simply to play that it feels like it belongs alongside those ancient games I mentioned before.  It’s hard to believe that this game didn’t exist before Andrew and YAY Games brought it into the world.  It has an almost ageless quality to it.

A dry description of this game may include words such as abstract, area-control, and pattern-recognition and dice.  My description would only involve three words. Simple. Elegant. Fun.

I was reminded of the famous Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

And there is nothing in this game, nothing, that doesn’t need to be there.  It is incredibly lean, and from this stripped back stance the game gains, no, it earns its elegance.  And it does so in spades.

How to roll dice:

So, the simple rules:  Players need to orthogonally connect four or more Ominoes (dice) that show their respective coloured symbols – this can also include the two different types of wilds – once this is done the Ominoes are scored (1 point each) and removed from the board.  First player to reach the agreed-upon target (depending on players, and/or how long you want to play).

1. In your turn, you’ll roll an Omino.


2. Then you’ll move another Omino with a matching face exactly three spaces.


3. Finally, you’ll add the Omino you just rolled.

Other than the fine print, that is how to play (the YAY-Ra wild allows the roller to move any Omino, and the Omniotep allows the roller to re-roll and replace any other Omino).

SPOILER ALERT (it’s not really a spoiler alert, I was just being melodramatic)

The first time you play this game, it will take you a couple of turns to truly realise how deep the strategy is.  You'll also quickly come to relise that with pretty much every turn you'll be interfering, frustrating and in any other way peeing off your opponents.  

On your subsequent games, the gloves will be off and you’ll come out swinging.  There is this moment I look for now when I play this with others for their first time.  Newbies and veterans alike have this “Oooh” moment when they do a surprise double-take.  The best analogy I can think of is eating a very nice cake, and then suddenly finding it has a gooey sweet centre that you had no idea was there.  If you’re not a “cake person” I hope you can still appreciate the metaphor here.



What I’m getting at, is the surprise that this game packs, is, well surprising.  The game is just a bunch of dice - brilliant, wooden chunky dice with colourful filled engraved icons - and a gridded board.  That’s it.  No cards, tokens, chits.  Certainly no miniatures and not even a whiff of custom meeples.  The game doesn’t need them.  Yet, there is so much game here.  That is why this game feels “classic” like it should have been designed 3,00 years ago, not in 2016.

Two and Three-Player Games

In a two -player game, the rules change every so slightly, each player not only collects sets of their deity/colour, but they will competitively complete sets of the other two that are not in “direct play”, so both players will be trying to finish sets of Ra (Yellow Suns) and Khepri(Blue Scarab Beetle).  In a three-player game, all players can score from the one missing deity/colour.  These changes really help keep the balance, and in fact, make the two-player game far more competitive.  As the board fills up finding just the right spot to not give away point to you opponent becomes harder and harder.

Advanced Games

For those players that want a little more of a challenge, Ominoes answers with Indy’s much despised Snake Pit.  At the centre of the board, there is a two-by-two square “Snake-Pit” that cannot be entered at all, which adds a further level of difficulty very simply.  I’ve found that many newcomers to the game assume that the Snake Pit can’t be entered from the get-go, which makes it an important distinction to make when you play for the first time, as it is much more challenging with the advanced ruless in play.  

With each play of this game, you will face a different problem, regardless of the player count, as Ominoes is, at its core a luck based game, therefore what you roll will determine how each game plays.  Regardless of experience as a gamer, or with this specific game.  Ominoes keeps you on your toes.  There will be games where you roll nothing but little Green Hawks (Horus), and the following game you won’t see one.  Making this game very accessible and, quite simply, very good fun.

Accessing your inner Om

Ominoes does a great job getting around the issue of colour blindness and eyesight issues (for the greater part), all the icons are distinct and clear, even if you can’t make out the colours.  The fundamental depth of this game comes from pattern recognition, you can never truly plan ahead too far, or anticipate your opponent since so much of the game is based upon the roll of a die.



 

All of the above combine to make Ominoes a game that can be played by young or old, experienced or new gamers alike.  And I mean really alike.  This game creates a very level playing field to enjoy some fantastic dice chucking over and over again, with such a very short play time, even with the max player count you can play multiple games within an hour.  This is a perfect breakout game, travel game - especially with the far more transportable Travel edition, which includes a neoprene “board” - or even if you just want to play, have fun and don’t have much time - you won’t get much better than Onimoes.

N.B. The travel version of Ominoes is shortly to be released and at present will only be available direct from YAY Games along with the kick-ass pop-up dice tray



This review is based on a full retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.