Review: Happy Pigs

 

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

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



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

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



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

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

This Little Piggy Went to Market

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

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

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

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

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



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



 

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

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



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

 

 

 

[gallery ids="2457,2456" type="rectangular"]

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

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

 

 

 

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Squeal Piggy...a pig loving critique

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

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

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

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

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

By the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin

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



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

 

The Good

Tense player interaction

Great engine building

Mechanically simple and easy to teach

Some great artwork

 

The Bad

Too many chits and tokens

Not enough variety in Seasonal Effects

Swingy

Easy potential for Runaway leader

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

7 Wonders Duel

Game Name:	7 Wonders Duel	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	Repos Productions	Player Scale:	2
Game Designers:	Antoine Bauza & Bruno Cathala	Run Time:	30 – 60 mins

7 Wonders Duel takes you back three–thousand odd years or so, to once again rule over an empire in this tricky, thought provoking, and ultimately brilliant riff on its big brother; 7 Wonders. If you have never played 7 Wonders don’t panic, as these games are very different, yet are clearly related.  If you’ve played 7 Wonders, and, love it or hate it, this game is worth investigating.  A relatively small footprint, and gameplay under an hour it is great for couples, lunch breaks or just as a cracking head-to-head game that wraps up in under an hour.



After each selecting four of the available wonders each – yes that does mean there will be eight of them in total, but only seven can be built – and your starting coins, in turn, you will select one the available cards from the pyramid style display and add it to you civilisation, paying any costs associated and thus gain its benefits/resource.

There are three ages to the game, where each subsequent Age the range of resources changes and evolves, advancing your civilisation forward.  The game will come to a natural close at the end of the Third Age, where all points are calculated and a winner is declared.  Alternatively, victory can be achieved through a ‘Scientific’ channel – collecting six of the seven possible scientific icons, or via the ‘Military’ route, whereby you crush your opponent beneath sandal shod foot.  These latter two are much harder to achieve – but believe me, it feels really, really good when you do.

 

[caption id="attachment_1873" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Pyramid of the 1st Age[/caption]

 

A central feature of the game, and one that makes the game look very different from many, is the table layout of the cards for each of the Ages.  Not only does it look cool, and it is also pretty thematic but it provides a great assimilation of the drafting mechanic used in 7 Wonders, but for two players.  Which is far, far better than the two player mode that exists in that game.  From this very simple set-up, each player is beset by an array of choices and consequences, in a greater fashion that you would normally experience in a draft.  With about 50% open information – since roughly half of the cards are placed face down – the questions of what to take, what to leave behind, what to open, or leave for your opponent to open form your basic, yet difficult choices that must be made each turn.

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When playing this game, there is a definite sense of flow, with the game’s pace charging ahead as the Ages fall, as your civilisation becomes more coherent and more structured, choices become more clear, but never simpler.  Ways and means of blocking your opponent become more recognisable, but ultimately more costly if they don’t also benefit you.  If you fall into the category of a “Classic Gamer”, one who likes strategically planning ahead, second guessing your opponent and basically planning your victory from four or five moves away, 7 Wonders Duel will be right up your street, with a nice flourish – in that every now and then, a revealed card scuppers even your best laid plan.  On the flip side of this though, if you are prone to Analysis Paralysis this game can, for those same reasons feel a little daunting at times.

 

[caption id="attachment_1880" align="alignnone" width="4032"] 8 of the 7 Wonders...erm...yeah, 8[/caption]

 

Players already familiar with 7 Wonders will feel right at home playing this game, coming armed to the table with an understanding of how the tableau and resource building works.  There is a significant change in the way Commerce, Science, and Military are handled, but not so much so to create a barrier.  New players to this cannon will quickly be able to make sense of the rule book, which provides plenty of examples plays for the more ‘complex’ rules.  The rulebook, isn’t the most concise, and looking for rule clarity and reminders isn’t always as straightforward as one would like – I always forget how many coins you start with during set up, and I also forget I have to go to page six to find out.  Of particular note is the iconography, particularly on some of the Science tokens, Guides and Wonders – once you know what they mean the symbols do “make sense” but that meaning doesn’t spring forth, so early games can become slowed while you look them up.



With an almost perfect and useful box insert, quality components including the nifty military tracker, Repos Productions have done exactly what you would expect of a major game distributor.  Unfortunately, they have even managed to make the card sizes irritating again – in 7 Wonders they are unnecessarily big, in Duel, too small – yes it helps keeps the footprint down, but if a standard poker card size had been used very little would have been lost.

There are no ‘Take That’ actions you can make in this game, no way you can directly stop or hamper your opponent, other than removing or limiting their options (a couple of the Wonders do allow you to destroy one of your opponents resources).  Military actions do provide a little back and forth, but never enough that you ever feel like you are focussing solely on that aspect of the game, and certainly not enough to spoil anyone's enjoyment.  All the player interaction happens above the table; one player out-smarting, out-manoeuvring and out-playing the other. The tit-for-tat of selecting the card you know you opponent needs soon becomes too costly, and so as the game progresses so too must a player’s ability to plan and strategize.



After a game of 7 Wonders Duel, I feel compelled to play it again, and again.  Throughout each game there is a palpable competition and conflict, and far more so than one would expect from such a small, compact box.  Some iconography feels obtuse, and the cards are a little too small for me to be able to comfortably shuffle, but really, these are the only bad points about the game...in fact, I wish I could play a multiplayer version of Duel, that wasn’t 7 Wonders.

It plays in under an hour, is a great two-player game with enough depth, strategy and variation to ensure each game will feel and play differently.  It also looks both interesting and beautiful on the table. 7 Wonders Duel, really does feel like it pits you head-to-head, in an all-out rivalry against your opponent in a way that many larger games just don’t seem to capture.  I strongly believe everybody needs a solid two-player game in their collection, and you can’t go far wrong with this game at all.

 

The Good:

Compelling game play

Great pacing

Strong competition

Thought provoking

Multiple paths to victory

 

The Bad:

Cards are too small for “man hands”

Icons can be very confusing

Rulebook is a little on the naff side

Can only be played two-player!

Don't just take my word for it though, check out what Meeple Like Us or Creaking Shelves have to say about this game.

Review: Boss Monster

Game Name:	Boss Monster	Published Year:	2013
Game Publisher:	Brotherwise Games	Player Scale:	2 - 4
Game Designer:	Johnny O'Neal & Chris O'Neal	Run Time:	20 – 40 mins

Boss Monster flips the typical and clichéd narrative of heroes vanquishing monster at the end of a perilous dungeons and makes YOU the Boss Monster.  You’ll be building trap rooms, monster hatcheries, and haunted libraries etc. in an attempt to save your scaly and monstrous hide from a range of would-be heroes.  If that doesn’t already sound like fun, you’ll be playing this game in a wonderfully retro homage to the 8-bit computer games of the eighties and nineties.

Your mission is simple, lure fabled heroes into your ever growing, and increasingly dangerous dungeon to destroy them.  The Boss Monster who collects ten hero’s souls first is declared the winner, and boss amongst bosses.  Alternatively, the last Boss left standing wins if any Heroes are able to penetrate you’re almost death-trap and score five wounds.

Boss Monster presents a wonderful merging of theme and mechanics in this quick and light game of tableau and pattern building, harking back to the late eighties and early nineties video games like Super Mario Brothers, with its replication of side scrolling dungeon exploration, and monster crushing.  Dungeons are made up of a maximum of five Dungeon room cards, and each of which will carry with it a damage value, a treasure type and special rule.



 

Each turn players may add another room to their dungeon that can be at the end of the tableau of cards or layering a card over an existing one, in this way players can adjust the damage and special effects of cards, chaining them together for maximum effect.  This will also allow players to attract (or repel) the various Heroes that appear in town each turn.  With four different types of hero with their own treasure preference; fighters like fighting, thieves like gold and so on

 

On the surface, Boss Monster is a very simple game, you have only one build action per turn, and your choice of that action extends as far as your hand of dungeon room cards.  Equally, your dungeon is built with a very tight construct: only placing cards to the leftmost space or over an existing card.  Spell cards are another action that you can take, and you can play any as many of these in a turn as you can afford to, with the simple limitation of being played during the build phase, or whilst an adventurer is in a dungeon (Adventurer Phase).  Unlike Dungeon room cards, Spell cards aren’t drawn each round, getting more of these very useful cards will require particular room effects.



All of this makes Boss Monster very, very easy to teach but it takes a lot longer to master.  You don’t want to attract too many heroes too early, as there is a very good chance you’ll end up taking wounds and getting knocked out of the game, but you also need to start building up your dungeon and this needs to be relative to your opponents.  If players are tied for the most gold, the Thieves wait in town until there is a clear leader, and since you can build over existing rooms you can use this ability to force bottle-necked heroes into you opponents dungeon when they are ill-equipped to deal with the onslaught – even better if you have a few nasty spells up your sleeve.

The limited actions do sometimes feel very limited, every now and then you can end up with a hand of dross particularly in the later stages of the game or spells that won’t have any worthwhile effects, so your hand becomes cluttered and full.  This stagnation can be more frustrating if an opponent is running away with the lead.  The obvious solution to this comes in the form of expansions, of which there are many, adding more and new flavours and jokes to your games.

 

[caption id="attachment_1735" align="alignnone" width="4032"] One can't help but notice the likeness of a young bespectacled wizard facing off for the Counter Spell[/caption]

There is, I feel a very fine balance between direct and indirect player interaction that Boss Monster strikes.  The Spell cards introduce a clear Take-That aspect to the game yet none of them have a particularly nasty sting, so no-one’s fun is ruined solely by a spell.  Indirectly, good or experienced players will monitor and be aware of the dungeons around them, which heroes are being attracted, the room combinations that are particularly effective and so that you can plan and scheme your machinations of destruction by building your dungeon to conflict or contract with theirs.

Boss Monster is made up of a few simple decks of cards, Heroes, Dungeon Rooms, Bosses, and Spells and the art work, and iconography throughout is all simple and totally on theme; capturing the tone and feel of those 8-bit games.  When playing Boss Monster you cannot possibly forget you are playing a table top adaptation of those games and for many gamers who grew up with and loved that era of gaming Boss Monster will resonate with you immediately, and there is a fair chance you in fact already own this game.  Younger games will still be impressed by its charm and the small flourishes and nods to fantasy works such as Jonny of the Evening Watch.



This game looks great on the table it even looks great on the shelf with the loving recreated pixelated art, theme and box.  It is super quick and easy to pick up and play and understanding the finer points to the game’s strategy all evolve at a good steady pace when you’re all new to the game.  The luck of the draw can limit your choices when only playing with the core set, which also means that more experienced gamers may fatigue of this game after a few playthroughs.  It is a very charming, fun small box game, one which you are unlikely to ever forget playing.

 

The Good:

Balance Take-That and indirect player interaction

Loving homage theme and art

Very simple and easy to learn

The Bad:

Luck of the draw can limit player’s hand and thus choices

Expansions are “needed” to keep the game fresh and challenging for higher replayability

 

If you like Boss Monster you may also like Quadropolis – which is also a tableau/pattern building game which is very reminiscing of classic city building computer games of the eighties and nineties.

Review: Statecraft

Game Name:	Statecraft	Published Year:	2016
Game Publisher:	Inside The Box Boardgames (ITB)	Player Scale:	2 – 6
Game Designer:	Peter Blenkhan	Run Time:	30 – 90 minutes

In Statecraft, players are leaders of their own political Factions as they compete to build their manifestos, gain the vote of the fickle supporters and navigate the world's ever-changing and turbulent political, economic and natural landscape.  If that sounds a little dry, dangerously educational and informed, wait, just wait, because Statecraft explodes from the table with vibrant graphic pop art, a sardonic smile and tongue firmly and securely in cheek.  Be warned though, there is a good chance you will learn something playing this game, whilst having a cracking time.

Statecraft is a tableau building game with a very clever and highly variable hand management system at its core.  The tableau you’ll be building is that of your Faction of Politicians and its Manifesto of Policy cards.  Each faction has a Leader which is randomly assigned at the start of the game, and from there you will grow your party to include Junior and Senior Politicians with a broader range of specialisms which will allow you to make use of and play a greater range of Policy cards, all of which you need to alter your ideologies and attract those all-important Supporters.

In your turn, you’ll play cards from your hand, and with them you’ll either adjust your Ideology Tracker, recruit new Politicians or poach Supporters from your opponents, and you can do as much of this as you have cards, most of which are Policy cards.  These cards are, I think one of the game's defining features for two reasons:

[caption id="attachment_1465" align="alignnone" width="961"] A whole pile of Policy cards[/caption]

One, each card has four varying and different uses, being split in two with almost opposing policies which affect your Ideologies and Budget differently by whether a player chooses to Announce or Denounce a policy; Announcing a policy will add to your Ideologies and Denouncing will do the opposite.  This mechanic deftly handles the thematic issue of ideology; by not reducing political persuasions to a binary Left or Right, instead, it creates a more complex map of how each/any policy resonates with supporters.  In short, real life politics aren’t black or white, and so neither is Statecraft (literally).

The second great thing about these cards is the intellectual and emotional effect that radiates from the game and the thinking it forces a player to do off the table.  How I personally feel about ‘Immigration Quotas’ and ‘Voluntary Military Service’ is pulled into question, sure I want Authoritarianism score to increase but do I morally agree with playing this card?  I continually feel the need to try and build a fictional utopia, and assess the policies I play accordingly, I quite enjoy declaring that I am Denouncing ‘Data Trawling’ and for a moment I feel like I am doing something good, and just, and right – if only in a card game.

 

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It isn’t all Policies though, within the same deck are Action cards, adding a Take-That element to the game with cards like ‘Assassinate’ (particularly nasty) and ‘Slander Opponent’ (also very nasty).  To further mix things up you’ll add some Event Cards to this deck – these are purple backed so you’ll be able to see and anticipate them before they are drawn.  These cards – and sometimes they are Emergencies – have an immediate effect on all players, and may cause extra issues for the current Incumbent player (the player in the lead) – which makes for a great catch up mechanic too – occasionally, these Incumbent effects can really stiff the lead player, and in particularly close games this can be quite vexing.

Statecraft has ten individual Scenarios for you to play, many of which hinge on gaining the most supporters, however; each is different, they all have a variety of end and win conditions, and some even have additional special rules.  Further to this, each scenario will make use of a different number of the Supporter deck, meaning the demographic landscape of each game changes too.  Upon reading the rule book the game boasts 200,000 permutations, and that’s before you take into account player count and play styles.  From what is a pretty compact box you’ll get a great many games from Statecraft before you start seeing repetition.  One of the issues with Statecraft stems from this variability, some games can be over very quickly – even with larger player counts if one player is able to win supporters early it can result in a short-lived one-horse race – which can be a little frustrating if you’d planned/hoped it would be a cornerstone game of your game night.  Likewise, the games can be drawn-out battle of attrition “The Promise of Culture” for example has the winner being the player with the greatest Budget deficit at the end of eight turns, and just like real life, it turns out it is really easy to spend loads of money meaning these games sometimes feel like they lack complex choices.

[caption id="attachment_1466" align="alignnone" width="961"] Supporters[/caption]

Statecraft looks great on the table, the graphic pop art really differentiates itself from most other games, and visually it draws you, and anybody nearby in, simply because of how charming it all looks when it’s laid out – which, in a two player game is an impressively small footprint for such a “big” game.  Stagecraft really wins with the graphic design too, brilliantly clear and concise iconography streamlines the mechanical complexity making the game very easy to get to grips with quickly.

[caption id="attachment_1463" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Statecraft at the Wednesday night Board Meetings[/caption]

You can play Statecraft just as a game, looking only at the symbols, colours and numbers, it’ll look real nice, and you’ll enjoy it and have fun, there will be a winner and losers.  Satisfied with a good game you’ll put it back on your shelf for another time and that will be that.  However, as with most games, Statecraft rewards engaged play; you’ll enjoy the challenge and the puzzle if all you do is adjust the “yellow track” when you “play” that card.  But, the game will be enjoyed far more if you pay attention to the details, invest and create a narrative for yourself.

 

The Good:

A clever, thought-provoking (and funny) game.

Mechanical and thematic balance.

Massive replayability

Vibrant artwork and colour pallet

 

The Bad:

Event cards can really sting the leader

Take-That actions can be very aggressive

“Unpredictable” gameplay length

Poor box insert