Sunset Over Water Review

Those of us who lack the always enviable skill of artistry, especially that skill of painting can rejoice, finally, that there is now an alternative to colour-by-numbers and those adult colouring books (which failed my expectation on the adult front) with Sunset Over Water, a lightweight, quick game of painting landscape masterpieces and selling them off.

Warning: This review was written with a thesaurus close at hand, primarily used for synonyms of charming and delightful, because, well, Sunset Over Water is both charming and delightful. Indeed, you will be enchanted by the simplicity of the rules, and you’ll find the artwork presented on the landscape cards to be quite enchanting, but there is more to this game than meets the eye, in fact, you’ll have a very jolly, if not somewhat twee and bohemian time playing this little gem.



For this game, you need not a beret, paintbrush, easel or pallet, just your eight little action cards and your colour matched lazy-arsed, yet fetching artist meeple, posed sitting down, staring off into space not really doing anything.

Twenty-five landscape cards are arranged in a five by five grid, a number of art studios (one more than there are players) advertise for specific commissions, and then there are the typically artistic daily goals to be attempted. Now, before you start playing the game take a moment to stop and smell the roses-look at this tremendous and beautiful artwork, then consider the very accessible, easily understandable and yet utterly understated graphics present on the top left of each card. Sunset Over Water is a simple, beautiful and graceful set collection game, that wants you to take your time with it, to enjoy each turn and minute spent playing.



Each turn you’ll draw three of your action cards, select one and once all players are ready you’ll reveal that chosen card. A neat aspect here is that the two you rejected are placed at the bottom of the deck, in the order of your choosing, meaning they will reoccur in a later turn, or as they are amusingly referred to in this game, days, making the game six days long. These action cards dictate the time of the day you’ll awaken (turn order), which direction you’ll hike with a canvas under the arm, and how productive you’ll be by the number of landscapes you'll paint. These cards all have typically varying limitations such as an early start but not much movement and only one painting, against sleeping until noon and still managing to paint three lovely landscapes.

The simplicity of these choices and the scope for error are engagingly juxtaposed, you’re all working towards the same commissions, you can all see the same possibilities, your previous positioning in the play space, the cards you declined for later use all come together in a fascinating mixing pot. And those days fly by, the actions, once chosen are rapid with commissions flying out at a sometimes-alarming rate-particularly for the artist that had a lie-in.



Sunset Over Water does apply a soothing balm for the last player though, that although may not feel like much at the time (each Daily goal is worth but a lowly 2 prestige points) these soon stack up. Awarded for the player to last perform an action, such as move horizontally, or to end in a corner: always the last player tough. This catch-up mechanic does feel very, well, mechanical and so stands out a little from the otherwise delightful and unobtrusive rule set but is a necessary system within the game.

The captivating artwork that I have gushed about all through this review, is, however, not beyond critique; the one simple flaw being its duplication. On the one hand, I can appreciate that sixty unique cards would have had an impact on the price, but there is a small pang of disappointment often accompanied by an audible “Oh” when the same landscape artwork occurs on adjacent cards. It’s like going to the sandwich fridge at the shop, seeing it fully stocked but then realising it has only Tuna Cucumber and Egg Mayo available - yes, they’re sandwiches, and yes, they’ll do the job, but one cannot help but be a little dissatisfied, and left wanting just a little bit more; like a coronation chicken, or maybe something with pickle.



Sunset Over Water also sports a solo mode, which I was pleased to see in a game that is about a very solitary pursuit, and happier still to find it an equally absorbing puzzle - this mode introduces a vexing variability to the available commissions by way of the alarm clock system used in the multiplayer, and Ranger Stations which cannot be painted but are one of the few ways to replace the vacant slots from previously painted landscapes.

This pleasingly minimalistic set-up from simple, yet considered insert makes Sunset Over Water very quick and easy to set up, and more importantly, to refresh - which given the brevity of this game is, I think, is a huge part of its appeal. This game is very light, offering fun and interesting choices in small doses. I cannot help but feel the similarity between this and Splendor, not that this is a contender to that game’s shelf space, but it feels like a relative to that modern classic. There is little in common mechanically, really but there is that sense of familiarity between them.



A game about painting pictures, should, and in this case, does, have artwork at its very fore - making the game hugely accessible and I really wouldn’t be surprised to see this box soon gracing the shelves of a Waterstones or Borders near you. It certainly wouldn’t be out of place in the gift shop of an art museum either, albeit a more forward-thinking one. It is light, quick fun, with enough allure to make it a welcome visitor to my gaming table again and again. With a theme and art that really is alluring, this game can be introduced and enjoyed by new or veteran gamers, young or old.

This review first appeared on Polyhedron Collider.

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

Villagers Review

“If we build it, they will come.”

“But we need them to come so we can build it.”

“Good point. If we make some delicious food, they will come, and then we’ll build it.”

“Do you know anyone who can make ‘delicious’ food?”

“I do a pretty decent Spaghetti bolognese?”

“...”

Game: Villagers

Designer: Haakon Gaarder

Publisher: Sinister Fish Games

Artist: Haakon Gaarder

Player Count: 1 - 5

Run Time: 30 - 60 mins

This review first appeared on the Polyhedron Collider website, but if you didn’t catch it there you can enjoy it here now.



The plague has run rampant across the land, devastating and ruining lives in its wake, but we humans are nothing but resilient, and so we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and begin again. This is where you start, at the very beginning, you’ve found a suitable patch of land to build upon, and so construction can get underway. As people flee their old lives, or search out a better way to scratch out their livings they come across your blossoming village. If they have the right stuff you’ll offer them food and lodgings in return for their contribution to the greater good (the greater good).

Villagers is a smooth, uncomplicated engine builder. Your goal is simple; become the most prosperous village, achieved by attracting the most skilled and industrious villagers who in turn will generate the most gold. You need to not only feed and house them but you’ve got to be able to supply them with the materials and tools they need to do their job also. Not forgetting that you need to draft them into your own personal pool of villagers before any of your neighbours do so; which is the first phase of the game:



Players draft villagers in turn from a central ‘market row’ or is this game the Road, where there will be 6 face-up cards and 6 face-down stacks; I like to think of this as the face-up cards being those who are close enough to be able to identify, and those that are a little further away so you know roughly their trade. These six stacks also represent the general populace of the land, and the game ends once they have all been emptied. At the bottom of the second and the final stack is the Market Round, which is where you inhabitants will sell their wares and make the all-important, game-winning gold.



There are 10 different types or suits of villagers, ranging from Ore to Lumber to Grapes. You’ll draft as many villages up to the amount of food your fledgeling settlement produces, food being one of the two basic resources you’ll need to manage.

The build phase is where you’ll take those drafted villagers up into your hand and start adding them to the village proper. Naturally, this is also limited, this time by the number of builders you have. In short, to get people into your village you need food, then before they can start contributing to the village they need a house. Simple.

Now, to the nuts and bolts of you engine building village: it’s all based upon simple supply chains, to do G you F, which needs E, but if you had D then E is free, D obviously needs C, and if you have B then you’ll make more from G, but that also requires A. Which is very typical of this type of game, what Villagers does though is it takes this pseudo-algebraic nonsense and distills it in to a very accessible, very intuitive setting of 14th Century Europe…ish.

In the above gibberish what I really want is a Wine Trader – because on Market day the Wine Trader rakes in a pretty decent amount of gold, but before he can sell his wares a Vintner must first make it, and a Graper has to gather the choice grapes before that. But the Wine Trader also needs bottles from the Glass Blower, and the Vintner also needs barrels from the Cooper….and so on.



Villagers tricks you into believing you only have two resources to worry about; Food and Buildings, and that with its cute minimalist artwork style it’s a simple game. Whereas what you actually have is essentially two little engine builders that overlap one another creating rich, if not occasionally crippling decisions each turn. Each villager is a resource in themselves, providing a service or goods for anywhere between 1 and 10 other villagers (indicated by the keychain symbol). This includes neighbouring villages, meaning if you don’t have the required villager, but your opponent does, you have to pay them.



It isn’t always the largest village that prospers, it’s the most economical, and there are multiple ways to achieve this. A few of the direct supply chains end in very high-value cards, such as the Jeweller and Tailor, but an Ore Muler, Log Rafter, or Freemason can dish out plenty gold based upon who else is in your village during the final Market Round. Also, by just having those root villagers that everyone else will need you can gain a huge income from the other players like the Blacksmith and Carpenter.

Villagers does exactly what is said on the box, it’s a game about people building villages. You’re not juggling the raw materials that make a village; laying down roads and building up houses, your only concern is the people who will do this. You’ll be crafting a complex web of individuals, probably across other villages and players, to achieve your goals. Each card played branches out creating a new route and a new possibility. Above all Villagers presents a great engine builder but with a very accessible, and easily understandable theme, the links and chains between any two cards just makes sense.



I’ve walked away from this game each time thinking that I could have done it better, I could have built it more efficiently and I convince myself that next time I will. If you want to know more, or if this has been enough to convince you to get involved you can back this project on Kickstarter right now!

Disclaimer:

This review was based on a prototype version of the game provided by the publisher, as such the final version may differ from what is seen here.

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.

 

Review: Tao Long

Game: Tao Long: Way of the Dragon

Designer: Dox Lucchin, Pedro Latro

Publisher: Thundergryph Games

Artists: Dox Lucchin

Player count: 2 (also with a solo mode)

Runtime: 40 mins

[caption id="attachment_2634" align="alignnone" width="3480"] Using the teleport tunnels is a great way to escape[/caption]

This beautiful, low component abstract game spans across the most grandiose of themes, it is a battle for the very soul of the universe, pitting chaos against order, love against ambivalence, fire against water.  Ying versus Yang. On this battlefield you will command a mighty dragon, a dragon so vast should you somehow cast mortal eyes upon it, it will fill the horizon. How does one control such a creature? Why, with its soul, its Bagua.  Each dragon, the mirror of the other, fights desperately for its half of existence, for its fate is tied inexorably with its twin. Through raging bursts of flame, unrelenting jets of water, and the sheer might you will battle for supremacy for another epoch of man.

Pretty heavy stuff, huh?  You’re right, it is, but it’s actually just a beautiful, interesting abstract game steeped in Chinese mythology.  It is a game with a very different, and very interesting control mechanic, a game that, much like chess rewards repeated plays, of accumulated wisdom.  It looks very pretty, is small and compact but delivers a very solid, vexing punch well above what you may initially think.

[caption id="attachment_2633" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Although smaller, the white dragon is now more manoeuvrable[/caption]

And when I say vexing, I mean the really good, under our skin itch type of vexing that urges you to get this back to the table.

So, your dragon is made up of four tiles, one piece for the head and the remainder are the body, printed on both sides, one side showing a straight connection, and the other a bend in the body.  When you move, you’ll move the head and then fill up the gap from the tail end. This is a very satisfying method of movement which feels both very mechanical, and yet organic, much like the way a caterpillar moves it has that rolling, creeping sensation which feels very at home with the Chinese dragons.  

You’ll aim to move your dragon around the board, to put your opponent in range of a fire or water attack, and/or a bite attack.  Each section of the dragon has four hit points, and so as the game progresses at least one dragon will become smaller and smaller until finally the head is destroyed too.    

[caption id="attachment_2635" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The Bagau in full swing[/caption]

Now, in keeping with the tone game, that is literally how you move, the physical or Board of Human.   The control of that move is done on a separate mini board; the Bagua and it is, in my opinion, incredible.  Frustrating, but incredible.

The Bagua board, or the spirit realm, or in plain old English the User Interface is the traditional representation of the “eight symbols” that in Taoist cosmology represent the fundamental principles of reality.  (Remember it’s still an abstract game, but the Bagua is a fascinating area philosophy that is utterly worth your time reading up on).  In short, each position allows a type of movement for your dragon, and the opposites on the Bagua are rotationally opposite, so where Earth allows you to move horizontally, Heaven moves you vertically.  But you can’t just pick the movement, oh no, you use the Bagua Stones; counters in black and white. To make a move you collect all of the stones on any spot, and then in a clockwise motion deposit one on each subsequent space, with the last space being the move you actually make.

[caption id="attachment_2637" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Water is your health, and fire is your attack, however, water can also be used as an attack when there are water stones in the centre.[/caption]

This is a fantastic little puzzle all in itself.  Look at the board and you know what you want to do, in fact, you know where you want to go, how you want to attack and you can even take a pretty good guess as to how and what your opponent is going to do.  It is the orchestration of that plan, the manipulation of the Bagua board which is going to let you pull this off. It is the combination and the duality of these two boards which makes Tao Long such a good, interesting game.

Entering into “combat” it becomes far more engaging, far more tactical, as the aggressor you need to keep your opponent pinned down, but you need to keep out of range of a retaliation - not easy when your only four tiles long!  You’ll do this with not only the dragon itself and the obstacles present on your chosen map but on the Bagua. Thunder and Wind both grant a turn of the head and an additional move so you need to keep stones away from them, but equally Heaven and Earth grant double movement, which could lead to an escape.  You’ll be playing this game on two fronts and they do feel very much like a physical and mental a combat, that are both the same thing, but different.  

[caption id="attachment_2638" align="alignnone" width="4032"] When all else fails you can bite the other dragon[/caption]

The chase aspect of the game is hugely entertaining, to begin it is a lot of posturing, and gentle positioning, like two large carnivores, vying for control, in some ways it “feels” like chess, without actually being anything like it (oddly enough the opposite of Onitama, which is also a Chinese themed abstract game).  You’ll want to amass some fire stones before combat, as a fireball attack is efficient and brutal, and prevents you from getting drawn in too close for a counter-attack. This “phase” of the game really feels like a pre-battle sequence, who will break first and make the attack? How will the attack come? Teleport spots on the board can make a huge difference and can be executed with electric efficiency in the right player’s hands...and this is where we approach a stumbling block for this game.

Tao Long is very pretty, and the UI is very interesting, but it is so different it often takes players a little while to get used to it, and some of the iconography isn’t as intuitive as one would hope.  In every game I’ve had with a first timer they are still checking with me that, yes, Lake will allow you to turn your dragon’s head from vertical to horizontal- even towards the end of the game. Tao Long is also a game of accumulated wisdom, the more you play the better you will get by leaps and bounds, you’ll develop tactics and strategies which you can take between games, improve upon, hone and master.  In theory, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but in practice, it does limit who will play this game with me now, as the experience difference is a gulf that can be daunting and/or difficult to cross. I want to move onto the harder, more interesting modes and maps, but my opponents often aren’t ready or comfortable to do so.

[caption id="attachment_2640" align="alignnone" width="4032"] This map provides a great challenge and great fun[/caption]

The rulebook for Tao Long isn’t quite a streamlined as one might like either, it is chocked full of flavour, of quaint philosophical wisdoms, the descriptions of various moves are flowing with the “meaning” of the move, but this does get in the way a little bit (“little bit” in this instance is the very British code for ‘’a lot”). In my first game or two, I found that I was often turning to the rulebook to ensure everything I was learning and teaching was correct, but this backward referencing was slowed by all the bombastic, flowery text.  I found the page, the section I wanted but I had to skim through too much text to realise that yes, I was right or wrong.

Tao Long does a great job of encapsulating a battle, with posturing, positioning and a finally a chase and hard-fought battle.  Manoeuvring your opponent to be right where you want them when you want them isn’t easy but drawing the first blood is hugely satisfying.  Escaping an attack is equally exciting and fraught. The careful balance of the physical position of your dragon and the alignment of the Bagua stones presents a wonderful, complex puzzle that becomes more engaging and more rewarding with each play.  

[caption id="attachment_2636" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The Chase is on![/caption]

This game may not be for everyone though, the bar of accessibility is higher than it needs to be, especially for an abstract game such as this, and without frequent and sustainable opponents you may quickly find that your personal enjoyment is dampened by too many easy games.  Tao Long is a game that demands and deserves repeated plays, it was clearly designed to spend time on the table, not on the shelf. If nothing else this game is certainly worth a look, just because of the balance of the two boards and their intricate and clever link, and for around £20 it’s not too big a risk, at the very least you should certainly give the Tabletopia version a go.

Disclaimer:

This review was based on an Early Bird Retail Edition of the Kickstarter project that I
pre-ordered and paid for out of my own money from my own pocket.  Do I
regret not getting the deluxe edition, with the neoprene play mat,
wooden components and all the mini-expansions?
Yes.
Yes I do.

I know, I know, this song has been in your head ever since you read the word bombastic. You’re welcome.