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.

Review: Escape the Dark Castle

 

Publisher:	Themeborne Ltd.	Publish Year:	2018
Designers:	Alex Crispin, Thomas Pike, James Shelton	Player Scale:	1 – 4
Artist:	Alex Crispin	Run Time:	20 Minutes

You've spent years languishing inside that dank, dark pit; the dungeon of the Dark Castle, and now, now you have your means of escape.  All you have to do, to once again breathe deep the free air is make it past un-named inhuman beasts, guards and ne’er-do-wells beyond number.

Oh, and the traps.  

And the wicked temptation of booby-trapped treasure.  

And of course, the evil overlord of the Dark Castle itself who awaits at the very end.  But then, once you’ve bested that nightmare, then you'll finally be free.  Not bad for twenty minutes of gameplay.



Escape The Dark Castle not only throws you and your fellow prisoners into jail, but it throws you back in time with the lovingly nostalgic choose your own adventure style gameplay. Everything about it screams atmospheric-retro adventure/horror fun.  From the stark white-on-black box, the fonts used and of course the eye grabbingly bleak artwork.  The Kickstarter video has to be one of my all-time favourite promotional videos capturing the essence of the game and the gameplay itself.  In Escape from the Dark Castle one to four players will choose their characters, and upon collecting your character specific, custom die you’ll set forth.  And it is from here, the very beginning of the game, you’ll notice something is very different, you are not choosing heroes.  No, far from it, you are but simple folk, Tailors, Cooks, Abbots and the like, and much like the style of the game, your chances of survival are bleak.



The game is incredibly simple, reveal a Chapter Card from your individual story/adventure deck of fifteen cards – and you’ll do so just like turning a page in a book. The Page Turner reads aloud the text on the card - which is pretty much all flavour - no additives or preservatives in sight – and as a group make your choice, roll some dice, match some symbols and that's it.  Continue exploring your own adventure until you’re out, or someone dies.  And death comes all too easily in the Dark Castle.    You’ll very quickly come to realise the fragility of your characters and relish those literal rotten apples which provide meagre, but much needed health points.



Most of the challenges you'll face, including combat, are resolved using your character dice, with each character’s die being slightly different.  Your character card will show how many of each symbol - Might, Cunning, and Wisdom - appears on your die (by the very atmospheric scratches on the wall), meaning every character has a couple of doubles.  

[gallery ids="2473,2479" type="rectangular"]

The in-game conflict comes in the form of simply rolling matching symbols to those of the Chapter Card.  On some of the meatier monsters, this will be three or four symbols plus a chapter die roll from each player, on some of the “easier” challenges you’ll be given a chance roll X number of Wisdom in Y amount of attempts.  Fail to kill or complete the Chapter and you’ll lose (read: haemorrhage) health.



This does mean that the game hinges heavily on the luck of a roll - yet in doing so the game accomplishes its main objective: immersion.  There are no cards to sort or shuffle (once you’ve completed set-up), no tokens or pawns to move around and once you remember what each of the symbols are called, you’ll probably never need the rulebook.  This simple, easy elegance keeps all players in the game, and more importantly, invested in their story.  When you play this game you’ll be “Telling a story”, just as much as you’re playing a game.  With forty-five total chapter cards, and only fifteen used each game there are many ways to Escape the Dark Castle and many stories to be a part of.



One cannot help but smile when a string of cards are drawn consecutively that make a cohesive sense, whether by design or chance that this deck of cards just happens to be telling a logical story.  None of the Chapter cards in my experience are "good" they are varying shades of bad, and the pattern I've come to notice is, the more darkness in the picture, the more health you'll almost certainly lose.  One of my favourite parts of this game is watching the face of the person who reads the card.  That moment when their face drops, usually from just looking at the picture.  Upon reading it out there is quite often another groan.  

Another great and simple mechanic I love is the “role” of the Page Turner - this game is fully cooperative, with no turn orders, so each time a chapter is completed the players must decide who is going to turn the page.  Why is this important?  Because the Page Turner comes under the effects of “you” on the revealed card.  So when I destroy the nest of that hulking monster I’m the only one that gets attacked.  Bugger! If I fail that Might test, I’m terrified when fighting that Spectre, and so can’t really hurt it. Double Bugger.

[gallery ids="2481,2470" type="rectangular"]

You know the deck is only fifteen cards long.  Yet, despite what you know there is a compulsion to rush through this short game, the overarching narrative, with the addition of the chilling artwork ushers you along when what you really need to do is slow down and sneak out of the castle.  Unlike ye olde choose your own adventure, actions here do not feel quite so binary, although realistically they are - don’t mistake me here, binary does not mean simple or easy for there is a loss attached to either option. Fight or flee being your main choice when a card gives you one.  Some of my favourite beasties are those that allow an additional choice of attack strategies, these cards really stand out and I’d love to have more of them in the deck.  Mechanical simplicity aside, the advent of the character and chapter dice adds spades of randomness that feels right.  The Tailor doesn't feel like a character with a lot of Might, and the weighted dice realise this in a way that some sort of stat or profile card simply wouldn't.  



Escape the Dark Castle is an enjoyable, immersive quick adventure story/game that is easy to teach, quick to set up and easily accessible to many, including young children - just be prepared for some nightmares.  This game will look different on your table, it will look different to the other games on your shelf.  The beautifully bleak black and white art and graphics, the incredibly simple rules and brevity of the game create a fabulous mixture of short, intense storytelling, that, like any good game, or book will have you revisiting time and again.      



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

Review: Farlight

 

Game Name:	Farlight	Published Year:	2017
Game Publisher:	Gamesalute	Player Scale:	2 - 5
Game Designer:	Nick Sibicky	Run Time:	45 mins

In the not too distant future, you’ll be able to pop off on your jollies to visit the Sea of Tranquility instead of Lanzarote if what Mr Branson is selling comes about, in the meantime, you can conquer that pesky atmosphere and go boldly into that void with Farlight. Much like Branson, Musk and Bezos, you’ll be running your high tech aerospace company in a tight, and faced paced race, attempting to outmanoeuvre, outwit and outclass your competitors.

 

[gallery ids="2430,2429" type="rectangular"]

 

Farlight is an auction and tile placement game in which each round players will bid on parts for their ship, to then connect those parts before attempting one of the all-important missions. This is as simple as it sounds, in turn, each player will place two of their 5 bidding tokens - ranked from zero to four - on any ship upgrade or facility at Farlight Station, with the option of adding one of their scarce and valuable crew to the bid to increase it by one. Once all bids are placed, the winner of each is revealed, losers who bid more than zero gain one additional crew for their trouble and then parts are added to the ship.

 

[caption id="attachment_2432" align="alignnone" width="3963"] My super-cool spaceship with big meaty engines![/caption]

 

 

This is a victory point game, with only one real way to gain points (there are also bonus points and as the name suggests, the bonuses are just that, they’ll make the difference between finishing second or third, they won’t win you the game). At the top of the board, there will be a selection of Mission Cards, arranged into three columns, and missions ranked from lowest value to highest and then the game ending Climatic Mission.

 

[caption id="attachment_2417" align="alignnone" width="3233"] Bonus Tiles - three of which are used each game[/caption]

 

These missions form the focus of each game, and there is a nice assortment of them, as missions can vary with their requirements as a mixture of, or a sole requisite of Science, BioTech and/or engines. And it is here that we encounter the most interesting, and most frustrating aspect of this game: getting the right parts at the right time. At the beginning of the game the board is filled with parts, and then at the end of each round, anything that was 'sold' is replaced.  However, since there is no seeding of the deck, nor a separate deck for each part "type", the draft is very random.  So, important, game-necessary cards, like, I don't know, engines, for example, don't appear quite as frequently as one would hope

 

[caption id="attachment_2421" align="alignnone" width="2539"] Engine dice - these dictate how powerful your engine is.[/caption]

Now kids, remember getting into space is really difficult because you have to break away from the Earth’s gravitational pull. Which is really, really hard. In order to do that you need really powerful engines. So when only one appears in Farlight Station, it becomes very highly sought after. Even Two engines mean that most players are going to be bidding on both of them, and probably bidding high, this essentially creates a bottleneck of bids, since only empty slots are replaced, you can end up with only two or three cards being drafted. So the “issue” is not only exacerbated but is self-serving.

 

 

[caption id="attachment_2427" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Not every Mision requires engines, these few are easy pickings for Science & Biotech ships[/caption]

 

 

Is it really a problem? For me, it’s not a deal breaker, it is frustrating, and I think there are some easy ways around it, or even a little House Ruling to make it flow a little better. But, for others, this could be too much. It does create an individual economy per game, in the same way that a scarcity of one resource in say, Splendor does alter how everyone plays, but unlike Splendor, there is no way to get around not having an engine on your spaceship (although you can get around Science and BioTech, which is odd). And if you ever hope to achieve one of the Climatic Missions then you need engines. At least two, but more likely three.

 



So let’s do the maths. In a five player game, each player is going to really want/need three engines, so that will be fifteen engines in all. Of a possible sixteen, and to me that seems pretty tight, and in the games I've played, it has been.

 

[caption id="attachment_2428" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Missions aplenty for your would be tech companies to attempt[/caption]

 

The Climatic Missions themselves also present their own quirk, and that is a linear narrative. These missions almost force the game to move in a specified direction - which really does feel like your choices are being stricken off as you advance through the game.  Normal missions are stacked in front of these, so the Climatic Missions can’t be attempted until the stack is clear, meaning that as soon as two of the normal missions are resolved, all players now focus on that column, making the others more or less redundant, since winning a climatic mission will pretty much bag that player the win.

 

[caption id="attachment_2433" align="alignnone" width="3026"] Winning the game comes with a little winner card - which is nice[/caption]

 

Since these missions are so high scoring that in some cases it can be the only mission a player accomplishes and they still end up winning.  Obviously, this does sour the milk a little for everyone else playing.  That being said, you can stop a player running away with the lead,  you can outbid them as rarely will an opponent just need one part.  It is within every player's power to stop and hinder that winning bid, but again, by doing so, this limits your choices.

 

[caption id="attachment_2424" align="alignnone" width="4032"] He really wants that piece...or are all of those low bids, it could be 4, or 11[/caption]

 

You could argue that the game is broken, or that it isn’t balanced, etc. and I could argue with you, but I wouldn’t argue particularly hard or for very long. However, and it’s a big HOWEVER, the game is really good fun. I’ve really enjoyed playing it, each and every time. Unlike Steampunk Rally (which has a similar feel, and tile placement mechanic), where all the players are building at the same time, in Farlight you have time to take stock and see what everyone else is doing. You can bluff and inflate the cost of a valuable piece for your opponents that you know they really, really want while you pick up that other thing. And there is a great sense of satisfaction when you win a tile on a low bid because you’ve misdirected everyone. Or when you bid here, and then there, to do that, so that next turn you can do the other thing. It’s a game that wants you to plan and more importantly to it wants you to scheme. It creates a wonderful market conflict and for a game with only indirect player interaction, there is usually a lot of trash talk too.

 

[caption id="attachment_2423" align="alignnone" width="3320"] Enter a caption[/caption]

 

Farlight makes for a very enjoyable experience, perhaps a little too random and linear for some gamers, but I've found it to be just the right amount of fun to counterbalance those failings.

The Good

A thought-provoking economics game

Really good fun to play

With the right crowd, it will have some great player interaction

The Bad:

Doesn’t feel very balanced,

Can suffer from a runaway leader

Has a linear and predictable conclusion

This game was purchased/ backed on Kickstarter so some of the contents may vary from retail editions of the game

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.

 

Hoplomachus: Origins - Review

Game Name:	Hoplomachus: Origins	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	Chip Theory Games	Player Scale:	1-2
Game Designer:	Adam Carlson, Josh J. Carlson	Run Time:	15-30 min

 

“Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant”

Introduction

The Hoplomachus series brings us back to ancient times, to fight as a group of gladiators in the Roman arena games. There are currently 3 games in the series, but I will talk about the more recent one released, Hoplomachus Origins. On this one, instead of playing in the arenas of Rome, you’ll be playing in 3 different arenas of other civilisations trying to gain fame to finally make it into the greatest arena. This game differentiates from the other two in the series as the fight conditions change and it incorporates a drafting mechanic at the beginning of the game.

How it plays



The first part of the game corresponds to the drafting. The two players will have to choose, one at a time, the gladiators and tactics they wish to use for their combats. There are different gladiator houses that you can choose from and you can mix as you wish. You will choose a total of 8 chips, and in every combat, you will use a maximum of 6. You’re also limited to use only one champion per combat, though you can draft multiple if you wish, these are more powerful gladiators.

There are two different kinds of chips you can choose from. Gladiators, which have different abilities depending on their class, and different stats. There is a wide range of abilities in the game, ranging from basic attacks of different kinds to alternative attacks or passive abilities. This is one of the most interesting parts of the game as depending on the different mix of abilities you have in combat you’ll have different strategies. The other kind of chips are tactics, these are special abilities you can deploy in a fight to temper with your opponent or aid you, but at the expense of taking the space of a gladiator.



Once the draft is done, the fights begin. You will play on the 3 arenas, but at in a randomly chosen order. Every arena has a different objective. In the Atlantis Arena, the first gladiator deployed will be your leader, which will have double the life, and the objective is to kill the other leader. In El Dorado arena, both teams have a treasure chest, and your objective is to carry it to the other side of the arena. And the third arena, Xanadu, you’ll need to control the centre of the arena, where at the beginning of the round you’ll score a point for every gladiator you have in those hexes and whoever gets to 6 points first wins the fight. Alternatively, you can always win by killing all the gladiators from the other team.

The fights play with a very simple set of rules: deploy, move, attack. In a player’s turn you will be able first to deploy a gladiator and/or tactic, then you’ll be able to move all your gladiators deployed in previous rounds and finally attack with those gladiators. Then is the other player’s go. As you can see the gameplay is very simple, but there is a lot of strategy behind your choices, as the fights are brutal and fast to play, every decision matters.



As a handicap for the winner, the player who’s lost will choose one of the chips in the opponent’s pool and will eliminate it from the game. Also as you are running a house of gladiators you will earn and lose reputation as you keep winning or losing. This reputation will hold for all your games of Hoplomachus Origins, and will modify the drafting rules at the beginning of every game just for you. This is a very cool addition to the game, that you don’t need to use if you don’t like it, but is a very cool system to compare scores with your friends, and remain in the top of the reputation chart will be a real challenge, as for every 10 reputation a harder handicap will come in effect.

The solo game



The game comes with specific solo rules, in the form of 20 different trials. In the solo game, you will face different challenges against special champions. You will only draft 6 and the rules for drafting will be different for every trial. These start quite easy but will rapidly increase in difficulty and will be a real challenge in the latest ones. The premise of the solo game is that once you win a trial you can go to the next one, and if you fail you can attempt it once more or you will fall to the previous trial. The opposing team will follow some simple AI rules to move and attack, plus the champions will act depending on the dice rolls.

Opinion

The game system is very simple, so is very easy to explain and get going, but there is so much strategy in those combats with all the different abilities, that makes every game unique and very challenging to master. There is a lot of interaction between the different gladiators that you can exploit in your favour. Fights play in 5/10 min each, so is very fast to play, and it makes for a very interesting game in such short gameplay time. Just using this game, you have 33 different skills, not counting the different basic attacks. The game comes with a total of 20 Gladiators from 5 different schools, plus 8 tactics. But the good thing is that if you own the other games you can mix the units to have a bigger pool for the draft, increasing the choice and replayability of the game even further, which is already big. The solo mode is very well implemented and makes for a challenging and very entertaining game that plays fast and is quite different even if you replay the same trial.



Component wise, this is very high quality, the games are not cheap but they are worth every penny, not just for such a good gameplay but you get top notch components. All the information is displayed in the heavy poker chips and the art is quite good. The arena maps are on neoprene mats with very cool art. This game is the cheapest of the 3 in the series so it makes a good entry point if you are interested. The games can only be purchased from Chips theory games website directly, they do that to keep the cost down as and now they support EU friendly shipping with very reasonable prices. The box is quite big and it comes a bit empty, but they will probably release more content for it in the future, plus there are already a few mini expansions that are compatible if you want to increase the pool of gladiators.

The good: Lots of strategy and tactics involved in the game and it plays fast with simple game mechanics. The components are very good quality. The solo game is excellent. The house reputation is a neat addition to the game.

The bad: The price is high, you get quality, but it might put some people off. For me is worth it, and this is the best entry point being the cheapest of the three. It will take a few games until you see some abilities in play and start forging your tactics.

You might also like: Hoplomachus: The Lost Cities, Hoplomachus: Rise of Rome and Too Many Bones.

That’s it for my review of Hoplomachus Origins folks.

I’ll see you around in the arena and don’t expect mercy!

Jesus

 

Review: Steampunk Rally

Game Name:	Steampunk Rally	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	Roxley Games	Player Scale:	2 - 8
Game Designer:	Orin Bishop	Run Time:	45 – 60 mins

 

The greatest scientific minds have converged across time and space in a bid to discover who the best inventor of all time is; naturally, the only way to truly compare scientific achievement is to have them all build giant steampunk engines and race around the Alps.  How else would you compare the contributions of Marie Curie, Elijah J McCoy, and Nikola Tesla?

This is an engine-building, card-drafting race game; meaning you’ll draft one card from each of the four decks, pick one and pass the remainder on to the adjacent player.  You can then use those cards to build your steampunk engine or discard them for power represented by the one-hundred-and-eight-dice in blue (Steam), red (Fire) or yellow (Electricity).  Alternatively, you can discard your cards for Cogs, which allow you to change the pips on a die, and give you the all-important re-rolls.  After Venting the previously built up pressure in your machine (lowering and hopefully removing engaged dice) by discarding Cogs, you race; which is where you’ll roll all of those dice you’ve just collected.

These dice are then used to engage parts of your machine, some components will require high rolls, some will allow multiple engagements if you apply multiple dice.  Now, obviously; the aim of your machine is to generally move forward, towards that distant chequered finishing line, but you’ll also want it to reinforce itself, to protect against that notoriously difficult Alpine terrain, and possibly generate more Power or Cogs.  If you don’t vent frequently enough you’ll soon discover that you have no open slots for all the dice you’ve just generated, and if you take too much damage, parts of your engine will fall off and you could even spectacularly explode!

Do not be fooled by this game’s cartoony exterior, this is not the light race game that it looks like, far from it in fact.  Although each of the mechanics, as a standalone tool are straight forward enough, the combination of them in the context of the race is not only a hot molten mess of mechanics, it's counter-intuitive.  There is a faux-strategy to this game, it makes you think you are making worthwhile decisions; that you are presented with choices that need to be weighed, measured and carefully considered – which incidentally is what I think a game should do.  But you are not doing that at all, you pick the best of the hand you are given – and at the beginning that is only four cards, and not only are your choices limited, so too are the outcomes; power, cogs or parts.

This game wants you to build great big, hulking machine monstrosities to traverse the extremely treacherous terrain.  It wants you to have fun with rolling loads of dice, which in turn make you roll more dice, and turn the spinner and gain cogs etc.; which is great, but if you are doing those things you’re not really moving very far, or very fast; which, for a race game is, well…counter-intuitive.  On the other hand, if you build a super lean, economic machine built for movement, you then face the trouble of building up your defence to overcome the terrain, so you stop moving; which, for a racing game is, well…counter-intuitive.  And then when you finally get to the finish line, when you have reached the end of the game, beaten off your opponents to cross the finish line first…everyone gets another go, and the actual winner is the person furthest past the finish line – literal moving goal-posts – which, for a racing game is, well…counter-intuitive.

With a racing game one would expect a huge amount of player interaction; jockeying for positions, overtaking, shortcuts, and with a cartoon steampunk finish, you’d expect to see silly weapons, bombs, claws, trip-wires, rudimental electrical attacks and lasers etc.  Of course you would, it’s a game about a race, between you and your friends/rivals; in fact, if you thought Mario Kart the board game, but with steampunk inventors instead of Italian plumbers, you and I would have had the same thought.  And we would both be wrong.  Very wrong.  For player interaction in this game, you will pass cards to one player, and another will pass you their cards to you.  That’s it.  You’ll roll your dice, they will roll theirs.  They move their standee and you’ll move yours.  Out of politeness, you may well declare what you are doing, but it won’t really affect them in any way at all really.  There are of course some weapons in the Boost deck, but they are few, far between, very limited and, basically you need dice and cogs more than you need a weapon that doesn’t do much.

The artwork in this game is really quite lovely; provided by Lina Cossette and David Forest.  Wonderful caricatures of some of the world’s most famous and recognisable scientific minds, all with a steampunk glaze –Marie Curie has a bionic arm for example.  Each of the component cards has been crafted with great attention to detail and captures the theme and tone of this game brilliantly.  The standees could have been replaced by plastic models to match the colours and machine of the cockpit cards, but that would have been less amazing art on the board and driven the price up.

One thing I really like about this game, and it is something Orin Bishop and the Roxley team should be praised and lauded for is their efforts in creating a rich and diverse player-scape.  It would have been all-too-easy to focus on white, European, male inventors/scientists but there is a large and diverse selection to choose from in this game.  If you want to play this game to have fun and build a giant machine that creates and spends power almost perpetually; you probably won’t win.  And if you play this game to win and get the furthest past the finish line, you probably won’t have had much fun.