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: Mysterium

Game Name:	Mysterium	Published Year:	2015
Game Publisher:	Libellud	Player Scale:	2 – 7
Game Designer:	Oleksandr Nevskiy & Oleg Sidorenko	Run Time:	60 mins

A wealthy individual has recently purchased a fabulous mansion, but they never looked into why their new, luxurious home was far, far cheaper than it had any reason to be.  Until that is; they spent their first night under that roof, where they came face to face with the ghost of the previous owner.  Who was, of course, murdered.  Not wanting to lose out on the bargain real estate, psychics, mediums and all manner of communicators-to-the-other-side are hired to help the ghost find peace and leave.  That’s where you come in, except one of you, no, one of you will be playing as the ghost in this asymmetric co-op game of abstract deduction.

 

[caption id="attachment_1496" align="alignnone" width="3159"] The core game and the first expansion Hidden Signs - for extra spookiness[/caption]

 

The ghost player will not be able to talk for the duration of the game, it is their task to try and lead the other players; the psychics, to identifying the murderer, the murder location and, of course, the murder weapon.

So far this is spooky-Cluedo, right?  Wrong!  Oh, so very wrong; for a start, this is a good game.  No: this is a great game.

Being murdered has left the ghost with a memory like Swiss cheese (Oh, boy), which means the ghost has a number of suspects it could be, - the true killer will be identified in the final stage of the game.  Each suspect, location and weapon series is assigned to one of the playing psychics which the ghost keeps track of from behind their specifically designed screen.  Essentially, each player is following their own mini-mystery as part of a greater narrative.

 

[caption id="attachment_1501" align="alignnone" width="4032"] The brilliant player shield for the ghost, for them to keep track of all the stories they are telling.[/caption]

 



The game will last seven turns (that you keep track of on a brilliantly fractured clock) in each these the psychics will receive visions/dreams from the ghost that will in some way or other denote or indicate what they are truly looking for and this is where the Gigimeter will go nuts with spectral activity.

The dream cards, oh the glorious – slightly disturbing - dream cards.  You’ll get at least one of these from the ghost each turn, and from it, you must uncover the clue.  These are very surreal images depicting…well, dreams, they range from ostriches walking out of a picture frame to a lamp post with a cold!  The ghost could be hoping you’ll go with all the colours and so you’ll choose the Baker with her decorated cakes, or perhaps the black and white feathers are representative of the typical dusting brush the Maid would use.  If that wasn’t difficult enough, you only have until the sand timer runs out to place your pawn on the suspect AND you should really try and help your fellow psychics out.  You can even piggyback on the successes and failures of the other psychics by adding your voting chit to their choice, if they are right and you think so too, you’ll improve your score on the Clairvoyance Track (more on this later).

 

[caption id="attachment_1498" align="alignnone" width="4032"] Some of these Dream cards wouldn't look out of place hanging on a wall[/caption]

 

When your time is up, you all hold hands (optional), and begin humming and chanting (optional) to summon the ghost, to whom you will ask a question along the lines of: “Am I right?” to this the still mute ghost will dramatically knock on the table (one for ‘no’, and two for ‘yes’) and you’ll either rejoice feeling smug that you are on the same page as the ghost player or you’ll be utterly confused and will marvel at how anyone could see any different connection.

This is a very easy game to get into and play, suitable for a very wide range of ages and skill levels – when I play I tend to not use the sand timer, opting for more discussion and fuller cooperative gameplay, which makes playing with younger children especially entertaining (that being said if you if you want to hear a funny boardgame story, ask me about the time I got my sisters to play Mysterium).  This game does draw you in, each player is crafting a story, albeit the ghost’s story, but they are creating it piece by piece in their own way.  The asymmetry in Mysterium is brilliant, and very unusual for a co-op, as the ghost you are playing a completely different way, facing your own choices and frustrations.

[gallery ids="1503,1499,1500" type="rectangular"]

Each choice in this game feels important, as every incorrect “deduction” is an hour of in-game time lost, and for the ghost, this means that every too cryptic or too tenuous dream card that is given, stalls the other player’s progress.  Social interaction is something this game does incredibly well, psychics will discuss their reasoning and understandings with each other, debating over this location or that, all of which is needed for the ghost to understand just how the players are reading the cards.  Discussion and debate are very actively encouraged in Mysterium, and at the same time, the game deals with the common “problem” that arises in co-op games of quarterbacking.  This is managed by the voting chits system – these allow players to show their support or disagreement with a player’s choice with a simple tick or cross.  When you agree a player has made the right choice and it is revealed that they have you are rewarded with Clairvoyance points (the measure of how good a psychic you are), if that player was wrong and you thought they were, again, you are rewarded.  Yet, at no point do you ever lose these Clairvoyance points – every agreement/disagreement discussion and conversation leads the group closer to a great goal.



With a very large deck of dream cards, and many, many possible combinations of who/where/how cards there is plenty of replayability in this game.  The only thing that really hampers this otherwise very high scoring area of the game, is the players.  As the game is based upon deduction and communication players that know each other very very may “get too good at this game”, and certain dream cards and become indicative of specific things between a group of people.

Mysterium is a brilliant modern gateway game, it is a fantastic social game and wouldn’t be out of place as an after dinner party game yet it equally works well when played by people who have only recently met.  The game creates a powerful and driving narrative to spur players on, and in the final in-game hour's things can and do get pretty tense, but overall this really is a very supportive, cooperative game arguably more so than other co-op games such as Pandemic or Sub Terra.  And, on top of all of that, it looks and feels glorious.

Even more so when you turn out the lights and play by candle light



The Good

Second-to-none player interaction

Quick and easy to pick-up and play rules

Glorious art and components

Engrossing player interaction

Wonderful asymmetric cooperative gameplay

 

The Bad

Colour blind and visually impaired players are likely to struggle

Although the art is gorgeous, it is all very dark and shaded

Ghosts, murder and death may not be appropriate themes for all players

Spending the whole game in silence (the ghost player) might not be for everyone

 

Not convinced that this a great game, well you don’t just take my word for it: Andy Lewis from Polyhedron Collider gives his thoughts here, and Michael Heron from Meeple Like Us gives his views here

Over at Meeple Like Us Mysterium score like this in the (also check out the full accessibility tear down which is well worth a read

Colour Blindness	D-
Visual Impairment	E
Emotiveness	C
Fluid Intelligence	D
Memory	D+
Physical	B-
Socioeconomic	A-
Communication	C

Brain teasers - Insidezecube review

Today I bring you an article a little bit different than usual. Since I was a kid I've always loved solving riddles and puzzles, it is probably why I enjoy playing games so much nowadays. I've always been a fan of logic riddles. But today I'm going to talk about a different kind of riddles, ones you need other abilities than a quick mind for.

At the UK Games Expo '17, there was a small booth that drew my attention. It was full of very colorful cubes with some kind of inscription on them. They let me try one sample and I was immediately hooked. I purchased one of them and after toying around I got in contact with them to know more about these. I'm talking about the people from insidezecube!



The idea behind these cubes is very simple. You are the ball, and you need to escape the labyrinth in the dark, with just your map. Every labyrinth has several layers and you have a map of each layer where it shows the entries and exits. The exit is on the other side of the cube. You'll move the ball by moving the cube and making it roll, and you'll guide yourself by the sound and hits against the walls.



Simple right? Well, prepare to get lost.  A lot! These things are addictive and in the higher levels, it will take you some time to get to the exit successfully. Yes, they have differents difficulties too.

They've got 6 different levels. Blue is the easiest, with just one way down. Green and orange are the next, which introduces 3-dimensional movement, you're going back and forward between levels. The red and brown they add traps (dead ends) and with the brown, you can't open the cube! And last but not least, for the more intrepid adventurers, you've got the black cube. No map.  No cube opening.  Just you and your senses.

 

[caption id="attachment_1594" align="alignleft" width="300"] The mean family[/caption]

 

They also have 3 different series. The novice series are 5 level labyrinths. The Series 0, which is the original one, has 7 levels. And the 3rd, called the Phantom Series, has an extra ball that is enclosed somewhere in the labyrinth that will mess with your senses. As you can see there is a cube for everyone here.

 



With the exception of the black and brown cubes, you can always open the cube to gain access to the different levels, in case you get lost and want to restart. The assembly is very easy, shaped so the levels can only be introduced one way, and each has an identifier number.

But wait, there is more, one of the questions that I had after toying around with the cube and opening to see how the inside looked, was how about switching the levels to get different labyrinths? Insidezecube had already thought about that. They redirected me to a small webapp with a couple of tools that you're going to love. They have a small questionnaire to help you find the ball if you get lost and don't want to give up and they have one that lets you print different maps.



But the best one of them all is the one that you put the levels you own and it gives you all the possible combinations that have an actual exit. So you're buying the cube but in fact, you have hundreds of combinations with your levels. And if you have two different cubes you can mix and match, just amazing!

These guys from neighbouring France have a great idea in their hands, they started it with a crowd funding and have created a small community around these cubes. They have challenges, people interchanging their cubes and an excellent website full of resources to keep you coming back. I know I'll be waiting first in line for their next evolution in the series. If you're interested in giving it a go, you won't be disappointed. If your local shop doesn't supply on these cubes you can always purchase directly from them with very reasonable prices.

 

[caption id="attachment_1596" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Mortal phantom series 0 (before I got irremediably lost)[/caption]

 

For the moment I'll try to find my way back in the phantom mortal cube again before I go completely insane in that labyrinth... Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

I hope you enjoyed the article. I love this kind of puzzles, and they also deserve a mention in the game's world. They are excellent to bring along on a trip or as a gift.  There are hundreds of great ideas out there. If you like the labyrinth cubes, you might also like these ones too.

 

[caption id="attachment_1597" align="alignleft" width="300"] Kepler's Planetary Puzzle[/caption]

 

I love to get them when I visit the Science Museum in London, a great souvenir if you ask me. The latest one I got was the Kepler's Planetary puzzle from the Great Minds series (I love to challenge my colleagues to solve this under a timer).

 

 



You also have reimplementations of classics like the mix of a Sudoku with a Rubik's cube! (only for the faint of heart and looking for a brain burning experience!) from the people at Vcube.

Thanks for reading and take a look at the innovative great ideas from insedezecube!

Who Goes There? - Certifiable Studios

Certifiable Studios is made up of four of the most…interesting individuals in board game design (one of their number habitually never wears trousers…I’m not sure why).  Last year they put out one of the finest, most hilarious, most enjoyable Kickstarter campaigns I have ever seen or been a part of with Endangered Orphans of Condyle Cove (EO).  It smashed through their humble goal of $4,097, made a laughing stock of each and every one of their Stretch Goals and then they even went on to invent Anti-Stretch Goals (personally I’m most looking forward to my Mississippi Air).  So, while Endangered Orphans makes its way across the ocean to my eagerly awaiting hands Team Certifiable have brought us Who Goes There? to coax our bank/credit cards from our wallets.



Who Goes There? (WGT) Is a co-op game for 3 to 6 players based upon the Retro Hugo Awarding winning novella of the same name by John Campbell (you may be more familiar John Carpenter’s The Thing which is also based on the novella).  In this game, players must survive the arctic winter to escape on the helicopters at the end of the game, but, by the end of the game not everyone will be who they started out as, paranoia will run rampant through this game as you trade items and food to better prepare yourselves for another arctic night, but you never know when you might pick up an infection from the Thing.

Jesse, from the team, was kind enough to spare me some time to answer some questions about the game and campaign.

From EO to Who Goes There? You have moved from an original concept to an IP, so I guess the first question is, what was so appealing about Campbell’s work that inspired that move?

Simply put, I loved it!  It’s interesting, though, because I loved the movie first (all three of them, actually). When Carpenter was asked to make The Thing, his response was how much he loved the original movie (1951) when he was younger. It wasn't until he later found out it was first a book. Although he was planning on doing a remake of the original movie, he enjoyed the book so much that he wanted to create that. After hearing this, I figured the book must be something special, and I fell in love with it as well. 

What new challenges did you face bringing this thing to life?

After reading "Who Goes There?" a few times, it seemed like the obvious next step was making a game with the same feel. But I just knew there would be a tonne of obstacles before we could even think about doing a WGT? titled tabletop game because of licensing and rights issues.

 

[caption id="attachment_1538" align="alignnone" width="640"] The Thing[/caption]

 

Rick said we won’t know until we try, so he went after it. Next thing I know, we’re all shooting up high-fives! Boy, that Rick, he sure can surprise us by sometimes getting something right.

What were the key features you simply knew you had to have in this game?

I think some of the most identifiable factors we just had to utilise first and foremost was the shapeshifter factor. Without that, we really wouldn’t relate to the book at all. 
Then there is the tension with the all-male crew. No privacy, no women, no escape and no trust...that's just asking for trouble. And of course, you can’t have WGT? without McReady. This is another hats off moment to Carpenter. He REALLY captured his character by casting Kurt Russell. Nailed it!


It was odd because when working on WGT?, I felt compelled to bring in elements from the movie because I think if it weren't for that, a lot of us wouldn't  know about the book. But at the same time, you must honour the book, because without that...we wouldn't have the movie 


We believe there are 3 things that make this game fun and a bit unique.
Our favourite one is that when you start out, EVERYONE is human. There are no traitors among the team, no secret missions, and no objective that make you want to beat your teammate at achieving. It’s a true co-op game.  As the game goes on, players must start taking risks out in the cold. They do this to gain bonuses that they ABSOLUTELY NEED at the end of the game. The problem is this is where the highest risk of exposure and becoming infected is. Then there is the factor of becoming the Thing. Unlike a lot of other spy/paranoia games, once infected, your objective does not change. Your number one goal is blending in (like the movie and book). This is actually harder than it sounds, especially when you have a few Vulnerable cards in front of you.


And finally, another fun and unique element is that if you suspect someone of being the Thing...keep it to yourself!!! Most games, everyone starts spouting off to each other, "I think it's him!!! I’m TELLING YOU IT’S HIM!!!"  But in this game, you want to keep quiet and act as though everything is fine. If the Thing pretends to be human, you pretend to believe he’s human. If the Thing thinks he’s safe, there is no need for him to attack. Let the rounds wind down...then BAM, kill him or leave him behind! I’ve seen many games end in pure chaos. Humans killing humans, Things killing Things (to cover his tracks), the innocent getting left behind...it’s one big lovable party!

Cute and cuddly mixed with dangerous and cunning

 

[caption id="attachment_1535" align="alignnone" width="800"] The Boogeyman from Endanger Orphans[/caption]

 

From the Bogeyman to the Thing, your games have this dark, horror theme/setting and a wonderful juxtaposition with Jesse’s incredible art – is this an intentional motif that we can expect from Certifiable Studios in the future?

Anthony (one of the other creators at Certifiable) and myself have always been fans of that juxtaposition. Cute and cuddly mixed with dangerous and cunning just felt right.

So, after creating a game where helpless orphans get picked off by their bogeyman, the natural next step was clearly freezing, burning, mauling, shooting, stabbing and infecting a group of scientists, right?

There is a certain fun to these things when wrapped in the right artwork. If you make the art too serious, you lose a lot of the theme. Things become too one-sided and not as much fun. So, we try to keep the darker themes in a light-hearted atmosphere. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Do you have plans/designs/inclinations regarding miniatures for the game – it’s been mentioned a few times in the comments section…?

hmmm, have people mentioned minis? That's weird I don't remember seeing anyone say minis...EVERY FIVE SECONDS!

Yes, we do plan on having minis. They are actually pretty spot on to the art. Anthony has started designing them and if you like the art, you will love the minis.

 

[caption id="attachment_1537" align="alignnone" width="640"] McReady himself[/caption]

 

I think that most backers/gamers will enjoy moving a McReady character out in the cold WAY more than a cardboard punchout head. So that's what we are all really shooting for!

Please tell me you have some Anti-Stretch Goals (or Goats, or Goads) lined up and a finale, end of campaign song?

If Rick gets his way (which he rarely does...just ask him) there might be a goat or two (maybe even a Sugar Pony) somewhere in our future!

Lord, help us!

Who Goes There? Is live now on Kickstarter and will end on August 8^th at 11 pm (BST), every copy of the game will also come with an e-book copy of the novella.  It’s over 200% funded at the time of writing and I have little doubt that this game will make a great addition to anyone’s collection, so I thoroughly recommend you check it out, and make sure you watch the brilliant video at the top of the campaign page.

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.

 

[gallery ids="1460,1461,1462" type="rectangular" orderby="rand"]

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

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

 

Summoner's Isle Review

There is only one way, and there is only one place, where you can go to become a true Summoner; you must prove your mettle, your cunning and your skill on Summoner’s Isle.  Only those who are able to balance their energies, and wise enough to harness the powers of the land can ever hope of becoming a Summoner.

Game: Summoner's Isle

Designer: Robbie Munn

Publisher: Peculiarity

Artist: Simon Holland

Player Count: 2 - 4

Run Time: 40 - 60 mins

Summoner’s Isle is an area control game, pitching equally matches forces against one another across a small, interconnected map.  Energy is the only commodity in this game, used to determine the winner and also used for Summoning magical creatures, and as the game title suggests, you’ll be doing this quite a bit.  In this game you’ll be looking to completely and exclusively control Territories, doing so will grant you a little Energy bonus as your Summoner is more directly connect to that area of the Isle.  You’ll also want to make sure you have a few Sprites in each Territory, as these little magical creatures also buoy up your power.  Ensuring you always reap more than your sow is key to success.  It's very difficult too.

Creatures are Summoned and perform their actions in a strict order: Wryms –your Energy-draining power houses, Trolls – the stalwart core of you magical little force and Sprites – that are really only very good if you have loads of them.  Each has a different cost to Summon, each has a different amount of actions it can take, and each has its own attack/defence modifiers.  Attacking is obviously pretty good for you, as it stops your opponents controlling too many Territories, and in vanquishing an opponent’s creature you’ll earn a little Energy for your troubles.  This also makes losing each battle fairly costly.

[caption id="attachment_2830" align="alignnone" width="1920"] These are your Wym's and they are very, very hard to kill, except with another Wrym.[/caption]

At the end of each round, each player, in turn, adjusts their Energy, first depending on how much energy they have they’ll gain a little more, or even lose some.  After that their Sprites grant a little bonus before finally, the Island itself grants the dominion bonus.

Managing your Energy expenditure is a very tricky balance to master, and the whole tracker and bonus system works wonderfully to create a very neat economy.  You need to spend it to make it, literally, but if you spend it poorly, or too rashly you’ll end up out of magical-energy-pocket.  Being too conservative is also not going to do you any favours, particularly towards the end of the game.  The game, if not the other players drive you forward, it feeds on the conflict which is exactly what you need to do.

[caption id="attachment_2829" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Trolls make up the backbonme of your force, with 3 actions they can clear away Sprites and even take on a Wyrm if they're lucky[/caption]

For me, a sign of a good game is one where the ‘game’ lingers after the components have been put back in the box, and that is what has happened each and every time I played Summoner’s Isle.  As the tokens are been cleared away people are pointing at Territories saying things like “I should have protected that more.” Or “I should never have let you hold that for so long.”  Tactics were discussed and strategies refined, despite the small box size and the apparent simplicity of the game it has a deceptive strategic depth.

With only three types of creatures, one would feel that it is fairly obvious how each should be used, but that really isn’t the case.  Wyrm’s are built for attacking and Sprites are made for defence, but you need your Sprites to defend on-masse otherwise they are no good at all.  And sure, your Wyrm will charge through pretty everything on the board – but with only two actions you never want to leave your Wyrm open for attack from a host of Trolls or worse yet; another Wrym. This does mean that people who occasionally suffer from Analysis Paralysis are likely to find themselves overwhelmed with choice in this game – as there is always something you can, you will always be able to affect the ebb and flow of the game, how much and how well is all down to you.

[caption id="attachment_2828" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sprites are an utter necessity in any game, without them, you can't hope to get enough energy for future turns, but they present a weak link in your defences[/caption]

At times it can feel like this game can be unforgiving, where errors in placement and unfortunate die rolls can be crushing, costing you creatures and energy bonuses, yet the catch up mechanic never really drops any player out of the game – I’ve seen some pretty monumental comebacks over a just a couple of turns, and I’ve seen “runaway leaders” quickly stumble and fall.

[caption id="attachment_2825" align="alignnone" width="1920"] That domination bonus is so important, sometimes you can't risk attacking[/caption]

On my playthroughs of this game I’ve found that time has been eaten up, for such a small box, Summoner’s Isle eats up the minutes, but in doing so you are rarely left out of the game with little to no downtime.  The staggering of Summoning and Actions having been broken down across the creatures meaning you will never have to wait long for your go, and yet that between your Wyrm’s attack and your Troll’s, the landscape will most likely have changed significantly.  Further to this the combat system, a simple blend of rudimentary deterministic and a single die roll, keeps the pace of action up – with such a small map, and with scores usually very tight and balanced, each player is invested in all combats, even when they are not their own.  I found that there was plenty of whooping and groaning from everyone around the table when the die was cast – in fact I was told to stop bringing “really fun games” to my gaming club as “fun” interferes with all the MtG that other people are trying to concentrate on.  True story.

Summoner’s Isle is a beautiful, dynamic game of area control and hand/troop management with a carefully balanced economy.  The game propels you forward into the conflict which is resolved quickly, deftly and – often – loudly.  The catch-up energy tracker means that getting too far ahead is a really hard fought battle, and falling behind is easy to recover from. Win or lose a game of Summoner’s Isle you’ll want to come back as you’ll be convinced you can play it better, but so will everyone else.

Edit: Summoner's Isle will be coming to Kickstarter sometime in September 2018 - the best way to stay informed is to Like the Summoner's Isle Facebook page here.