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In Bullfrogs players take command of their frog forces in a battle for supreme power and control of the pond! Bullfrogs is a tactical area-control game with a constantly changing game surface. So how does one control an army of frog forces and reign over the pond? Glad you asked; let's jump in!
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Vikings seem to be the new pirates. There are TV shows, an upcoming reprint of the great Kiesling game by that name, and now we're seeing a few new games added to the fray. Gone Viking! is a trick-taking game with a pantheon of twists on the genre. Is it a longboat of fun, or should it be sacked? Let's find out.
The Overview
Gone Viking! is a trick-taking game from Francois Valentyne (who designed the first Ticket to Ride Map Collection), for 3-5 players, ages 13+, that plays in 45-60 minutes. You'll be attempting to win tricks (and therefore wealth), which allows you to buy Ships. But if you're too wealthy, the Jarl will visit and expect some of your hard-earned plunder. The winner is the player who earns a certain number of Wealth tokens, depending on the number of players.
We received a prototype review copy, so the final pieces will definitely be better than these. And it's possible some gameplay will be tweaked.
The Components
54 Cards--These include 4 God cards, 48 Plunder cards (in four suits), 1 Jarl card, and 1 Trump Tracker card.
41 Wealth tokens--These include 5 Books, 6 Coins, 7 Hammers, 8 Fists, 10 Trees, and 5 Ships.
The Setup
First, separate the Wealth tokens, and give each player two Tree tokens. Then you'll create the deck by adding and removing cards based on the number of players. Shuffle in the four God cards, and deal out a hand--the number of cards in the hand is also determined by the number of players. Then place the remaining cards into the center as a draw pile. Use the Jarl card to cover the suits that aren't trump; on the first turn trump is set to Books. Select a start player--called the Raid Leader. Now you're ready to play!
The Gameplay
The first thing you can do is swap out cards. In turn order, each person can choose to pay one of your Wealth tokens to swap up to two cards with two new ones. You can do this as often as you want (and can afford).
Now you go raiding--which is the part where you play out the hand and win tricks. The Raid Leader plays one or more cards of the same suit. If you choose to play more than one card, you combine the numbers to determine the number you've played down. So a 7 is the same as someone playing a 5 and a 2. As with many trick-taking games, play goes clockwise, and each player has to follow suit if they're able. If they're not able, they're free to play any card--including trump if the led suit wasn't trump.
Once everyone has played, the person who played the highest card of the led suit wins the trick—unless someone played trump, in which case the highest played trump wins. If there is a tie, then no one wins the trick and the cards are simply discarded. The winner takes a Wealth token of the type used to win the trick—and if none of that type are left, the winner takes a Tree token.
The winner leads the next trick. Continue on this way until everyone is out of cards. Because you can play more than one card on a trick to "boost" it's power, some people might run out of cards earlier than others. If that happens, the person just passes.
There are four God cards, which are the highest numbers in each of the four suits. You can play these in one of two ways. You can play it as a "regular" card, and you simply count the value on the card. If you play it with another card of the God's suit, you can play it as a God card. You play the other card(s) as usual, but place the God facedown. Once the trick is fully resolved, the God card is flipped over. If there was already a God card in play, the new one replaces the old one, which is discarded. A God card can never be played as a God card by itself—it must always be played with another card of the same suit.
Each God card has a Raid Power, and a Home Power. The Raid Power takes effect as soon as the card is flipped over, and the Home Power kicks in for a God card that survives until the end of the round.
Odin (Books)
Raid Power: Immediately choose trump, and no boosting is allowed (only single cards can be played).
Home Power: You gain two additional Wealth tokens from the supply when the round is over.
Freya (Coins)
Raid Power: Choose trump if there is none, and any player who wins a trick also gains one Coin token from the supply.
Home Power: All other players must return one Wealth token of their choice to the supply.
Thor (Hammers)
Raid Power: Removes trump, and players aren't forced to follow suit. The highest value card(s) take the trick.
Home Power: You can return any four Wealth tokens in exchange for a Ship token. (I'll explain that shortly.)
Loki (Fists)
Raid Power: He doesn't affect trump, and the lowest-valued cards win the trick.
Home Power: Gain one Wealth token from the supply or steal one from another player—but you can't steal a Ship).
When the hand is played out, three things happen in this order.
First, you apply the Home Power of the last God card standing.
Second you build a Ship if you can. You can turn in one of each type of Wealth token—or four Tree tokens—in exchange for a Ship token. This can only be done once per turn.
Third, the Jarl visits the player who has the most Wealth. Each Wealth token is worth one point, and each Ship is worth four points. If there's a tie, count up the value of all Fist cards won during that round, and whoever has the most among the tied players breaks the tie and receives the visit. The Jarl will take half of a person's Wealth tokens, rounded up. Ship tokens are safe from the Jarl's visit, however...
Next you'll see if someone has won. With 5 players you need seven or more Wealth tokens; with 4 you need eight or more; and with 3 players you need nine or more—keeping in mind Ships are worth four.
If no one wins, the player targeted by the Jarl becomes the new Raid Leader, gathers up all the cards, and deals out a new hand. The new Raid Leader also gets a free swap of up to four cards, and gets to choose trump.
If there's a tie for winning the game, whoever among the tied is the new Raid Leader wins.
The Verdict
Firestone—I'm a big fan of trick-taking games. I'm not terribly good at them, but I really, really like them. So a new one with some cool twists definitely caught my eye. Gone Viking! doesn't stray too far from the familiar formula, but has enough unique aspects to make it a good addition to the genre.
Jeremiah— I have a specific set of friends who love trick-taking games, and I enjoy them myself. Euchre is—from what I hear—an Ohio phenomenon; while other areas of the country play the game, it's rampant here. I enjoy it, but I don't like how often the fifth trick is a throwaway trick, or that if you have the lead and both bowers and the ace of the trump suit you can basically lay down three cards and be assured at least one point for the hand. Gone Viking adds a greater margin for strategic error, and causes the player to think things through, while adding fun and interesting twists along the way!
Firestone—There are some interesting choices to make here. "Do I play a God card as a high suit, or as the God card for its power?" "I want to take as many tricks as possible, but one fewer trick than some other player, so the Jarl visits him instead of me. How can I accomplish that?" I like when plays aren't obvious, and they don't seem to be here. God cards are cool and powerful, but it's definitely not something where you always want to play one if you can. Some of their powers will guarantee a visit from the Jarl. And the Boosting mechanism is cool, too. You can play extra cards to win a trick, but it will keep you from winning one other trick every time you do it.
Jeremiah— Yes, everything you just said is why I like this game. The mechanisms of the game allow for decision-making rather than funneling you into one base strategy. Using the God cards to alter/reverse/remove trump add a good level of chaos, but also evens the playing field, especially if the front-runner chose trump and happens to have a great hand dealt to them. I really enjoyed the fact that the chaos in the game only served to balance the game—it wasn't simply chaos for chaos' sake. Mind you, I enjoy games with heaps of chaos driving them, but this game doesn't need that type of chaos, so it works well! It should also be noted that Boosting is a great way to ensure you score that one token you need to build a Ship, protecting your wealth from the Jarl; it's another strategic decision to make on how you play your hand.
Firestone—The Jarl mechanism seemed harsh at first—and it is! But it's a good way to reign in the leader and give other people a chance. Plus both the Jarl and the grab-a-Tree-if-the-token-is-gone mechanisms keep people from hoarding.
Jeremiah— Yep, the elements that may seem chaotic or harsh have been well-thought-out and keep the game balanced, but they don't needlessly prolong the game or the inevitable; there's plenty of room for players to catch up, and for the lead to be exchanged between players.
Firestone—The one thing that keeps this from being a great trick-taking game for me is that you're not playing with all of the cards every hand. I like to know exactly what's out there. Sure, I don't know which player has what cards. And I have a crappy memory, so I usually screw up keeping track of what's been played anyway. But I don't want to have to wonder if the card is still in the draw pile. I know the draw pile, and the ability to swap some cards at the beginning, is part of the unique gameplay here, but part of the fun of trick-taking games is playing whatever hand you're dealt as well as you can. That's not really possible when there are a number of unknown cards still in a draw pile. I want control, and I don't have as much as I want here.
Jeremiah— Sheesh! Suffer from megalomania much? I get what you're saying, but from my point of view, the most frustrating thing about trick taking games is getting dealt a terrible hand and sitting there, having to take it while someone else runs roughshod over the rest of the table and having absolutely no power to stop them. It's a wasted hand, and it is terrible! Being able to swap cards alleviates some of this. True, you may still end up with a hand full of poopy cards, and it is costly, but it's a calculated risk; to me it gives the player more control than I'm used to having in a trick-taking game, and I like that, a lot.
Jeremiah's Final Verdict— There is something familiar to most casual/non-gamers about trick-taking games. Most people have played Hearts, Spades, or Euchre. I remember playing my first game of Hearts at a very young age. Gone Viking takes age-old mechanics and weaves them into an interesting, but not overbearing, theme, and adds some nice depth, creating a much less abstract experience—while mitigating some of my major frustrations with the typical trick-taking game. This is a really fun, light-weight game, so I say: Put this game on your table!
Firestone's Final Verdict—Despite my lack-of-control problem, I liked Gone Viking! This would be a great game to bust out with some friends who have played Spades or Euchre and are looking for something new to try. It's not heavy, but it's not too light, either. There are some neat and unique mechanisms that force you to think through choices. I like that.
Thanks so much for reading. Gone Viking! is on Kickstarter right now, and they're already over halfway to their modest goal.
We'd like to thank The Flux Capacity for providing review copies of Gone Viking! This in no way affected our opinions on the game; this was not a paid preview.
You can subscribe to TOG by filling in your email over on the right, we'd also love to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and of course there's more TOG where this came from on our Podcast!
You're at the doctor's office. Or the DMV. (Shudder...) Or in line at at amusement park. Or waiting to buy tickets to a Radiohead concert. You're bored. You don't have a surface to play a game. But you have the sudden urge to battle it out for pirate-like supremacy of the air. What will you do?! I have just the thing...
The Overview
Oddball Aeronauts is a 2-player card game where you're trying to force your opponent to discard all of his or her cards. It's for ages 9 and up (which seems about right), and plays in about 15 minutes.
The Components
Note: We were sent prototype copies of the game. The quality and exact component list may change before publication.
Cards... That's it. No tokens. No nothing. Just cards. The cards are broken into two types:
Faction Cards - There are 2 decks of 24 cards per Faction. These cards have 3 skills listed on them - Sailing, Guns, and Boarding. Each of those skills has a primary "Skill Level" and a "Skill Bonus." We'll tell you a little more about that in a minute. These cards also have Special Abilities that will either affect this turn, or the next turn.
Event Cards - There are a total of six Events in the game, but with rule updates only three of them will come out in the game play. These Events come into play from one player's deck but affect the whole game and both players have to deal with its effect.
The Setup
Give each player a Faction deck, and randomly shuffle three Event cards into one of the decks. Players then hold their deck face-up towards them so they can see what is now the top card's face. The rules say to play Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine the starting player--the starting player is the one who loses. And you're ready to go.
The Gameplay
The game is played in rounds, and each round is essentially a portion of a battle between two rival Factions.
Before we go into how the game actually works, there are some interesting concepts and actual physical mechanics that should be noted and understood. As you probably noticed, the entire deck is being held by each player at this point. The goal of the game is to get the other player to discard all of their cards. It's a war of attrition. When a player discards a card they turn the card face down and puts it at the bottom of the deck. Once one player gets to his or her first face down card, they've exhausted their deck--and lose. Certain abilities and round results will allow players to recover a card, and in this instance players search down in their deck to the first face down card and then turn it face up, thus keeping more cards in the game. Some have an ability to add a bonus in the next round after it's discarded. They've printed this bonus on the back of the card in the top corner, so in this instance the card is discarded and then pushed up to reveal that bonus for use in the current round. There are also some abilities that take effect that round, and use the same mechanism to reveal the ability to your opponent by pushing the card up, without revealing the face to them.
The rounds are broken down into 5 phases:
1. Events -- If the player with the Event cards has an Event in their top three cards, it's brought out and dealt with. Or continues its effect on the round.
2. Announce Skill -- At this point each player will fan out their top 3 cards, and determine which skill they will use--Sailing, Guns, or Boarding. You're allowed to look past your top 3 cards to see what is coming up next, but you can only use up to your top 3 cards. Once both players have decided what skill they will use, they announce it and the next phase commences.
3. Play Cards -- Like we just said, you can choose to play up to 3 of your top cards. By playing more than one card you are supporting the top card in the fight. So you'll be using the top card's "Skill Level"--which is the big number on the top for that skill--but for the cards below it you'll be using their "Skill Bonus" value--which is the smaller number on the bottom of that skill. You also can only use the special ability of the top card. Once both players have decided how many cards they will play, the lead player--the one who lost Rock-Paper-Scissors--will count to three and each player will hold up X number of fingers: X being the number of cards they intend to play.
4. Winner of the Round -- Players reveal the cards they are playing, and show the total of their Skill, by adding up Skill Level, Skill Bonus and any Special Ability Bonuses that may be applied, and the player with the highest level of Skill wins the round. If there should be a draw, then no one wins and the cards are discarded.
5. Win Result --After one player is declared the winner of the round, both players discard any cards they played, and then you resolve the results. If the winning player used Sailing, they recover 2 cards. If they used Guns, the loser discards 2 additional cards. And if they used Boarding, the winner recovers 1 card and the loser discards 1 additional card.
The winning player starts the next round as the Lead player and you do the whole thing over again.
After all of the effects have been resolved, if a player has no more active (face up) cards, they lose; if both players have no more active cards, it's a tie!
The Verdict
Firestone--What a terrific idea! I have no idea if someone's already thought about making a game that needs no surface to play, but who cares? It's great. I'll definitely be grabbing this game on trips and hikes and any travel I have to do.
Jeremiah--Yeah, I'm sure there are a few micro games out there that don't use a playing surface, but this is much more than a micro game, and I love the idea. You could easily play this on a table and lay down the cards you're playing for a round. But I love the thought that went into making it work without a playing surface. I played this with a friend while we were sitting on my couch. That's just cool.
Firestone--Yes, steampunk is all the rage now, so there's a part of me that wants to avoid everything steampunky, just on general principle. But I can't help myself! The artwork is really cool and evocative. The characters are interesting, and I'm kind of a sucker for anthropomorphic animals... Let's make this into a kick-butt cartoon!
Jeremiah--Yeah, I'm okay with the Steampunk movement for now. It's creative and imaginative, and it's just cool to look at; this game is no different. Steampunk is very much the Japanese Animation of this generation. I remember when Akira hit these shores; it was unlike anything anyone had ever seen and it blew up from there. Steampunk is riding that wave; I'm sure it will settle before long, but its carved out its niche and I'm sure it's here to stay. Lucky for us it doesn't involve sparkling vampires or any other lameness...
Firestone--With a box that small I wasn't expecting to be thinking too much, but there are definite, actual decisions to be made. Interesting decisions. You're always having to look at the next few cards and try to figure out the best way to play them, and when to tiptoe, and when to bum-rush.
Jeremiah--I totally agree. With not needing a playing surface, and holding all of your cards, I was really thinking along the lines of a streamlined micro game. But it's really not. Is it a 3-hour Euro? No. But the fact that you can plan ahead, and potentially throw a round so you can maneuver a card into a position to really slam your opponent hard in the next round, is a great mechanism, and adds a ton of strategic decisions to make. None of them are too deep that you get analysis paralysis, but enough to make the game really interesting and fun.
Jeremiah--If there was one thing I would add to this game components-wise, it would be something like three stones/tokens for each player. So instead of counting to three and sticking up your fingers, you would reach into your pocket and pull out a number of stones to reveal how many cards you're playing that round. It seems piratey to reveal stones in your hand, and wouldn't clutter up your non-existent playing area. But the fingers work fine.
Firestone--I've played this with adults, and they all thought it was clever and fun. Not super deep, but who wants to play Tigris & Euphrates at the doctor's office? I also played with my 9-year-old, and he loved it, once we got past the rules, which were a little hard for him to grasp at first. But as he was making his way through his deck, he kept seeing the next picture and saying, "Oh cool!" or "Aww....look at that one, Dad!" And then I'd have to remind him that he probably shouldn't show me his cards...
Jeremiah--I haven't played this one with either of my boys. My oldest could probably grasp it, and it would be good to work his math skills. Thematically and visually though I can't imagine many people that wouldn't think it's cool, including kids. The cards are just really cool to look at--very richly designed!
Firestone--I hope they come out with expansion cards, and maybe a way to customize your deck a little. It doesn't need that, but it would be fun, and give it some legs for the long-haul.
Jeremiah--I kind of don't want to see deck customization in this game; I feel like it could get unbalanced really easily, or just convoluted too much from what it is. It's a quick-playing game that you can throw in your pocket, laptop bag, etc. I'm sure there will be an expansion or two down the line--more events most likely--or maybe even another two decks that bring out more Factions. If there was a way to bring more than 2 players into the game, I'd be all for that, as long as it wouldn't break the game, because I really like it the way it is.
Firestone Final Verdict--oddball Aeronauts is a unique game. The footprint, artwork, and gameplay all combine to make a game I'm happy to play wherever I am. Even the DMV! I would say put this on the table, but it doesn't need a table! That's awesome!
Jeremiah Final Verdict--We totally agree on this one. oddball Aeronauts packs a lot of fun and strategy into about 15 minutes of gameplay. The unique mechanics and card design/layout seamlessly serve the purpose of the game, and don't come off as gimmicky at all. This a great play-it-anywhere game and yes, it doesn't need a table so, just go play it already!
oddball Aeronauts is on Kickstarter right now! They've got a little less than three weeks to go, but they're nearly funded! Yay!
We'd like to thank Maverick:Muse for providing preview copies of oddball Aeronauts. This in no way affected our opinions, and this was not a paid preview.
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"A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys. One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more, and Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar."
- Peter, Paul & Mary
Over the past several weeks, we've seen an influx of 2-player games come our way, and today's review is yet another one. Draco Magi is a 2-player battle as the Gold and Green factions seek to claim the recently vacated throne, and become the Dragon King... errr... that is, Draco Magi. Let's take a look!
We should state that the images we've included, and the copies we're reviewing, are prototypes and may not be indicative of the final product that is released.
The Components
Cards, cards, everywhere! Here's the breakdown of the cards that come with the game:
Battlefield Cards--16 double-sided cards that serve as the battlefields where your dragons will duke it out, and feature a location name, some modifiers that affect the dragons you send there, and a colored jewel. Each side of the card is different, which gives you twice as much bang for your buck, and extra replayability.
Dragon Cards--There are two identical decks of 26 Dragon Cards, one Gold and one Green. There are 5 attributes to take note of on the Dragon Cards: Defense value, Ranged Attack value, Melee Attack value, Special abilities, and finally the Dragon's Type, which is anything from its color, to its "metallic" type.
Battle Cards--Two decks of 20 Battle Cards. Again, each player has an identical deck. These cards are broken into two sections: The top section is the Ranged Attack section, with a Defense value and an Attack value, and the bottom section is the Melee Attack/Defense section.
Advanced Battle Cards - This is a single deck of 18 that players add to their individual Battle decks as the game progresses.
First Player Token--We didn't get one in our prototype, so we just grabbed whatever and imagined it was something dragony or kingy or dragon kingy. But the game will come with one.
The Setup
Setup is fairly easy and quick. Each player takes their Dragon and Battle Cards and sets them in different piles. Then shuffle the Advanced Battle Cards and draft them: Each player is dealt three, they keep one, give one to their opponent, and the third is shuffled back into the Advanced Deck. The cards the players drafted are shuffled into their respective Battle Decks. The Battlefield Cards are shuffled, and three are dealt out from the bottom of the deck. Each time a new Battlefield Card id dealt out, it's from the bottom of the deck so the next location(s) are hidden from both players. The Gold Dragon faction gets the First Player token, and each player draws 8 Dragon Cards and the game begins.
The Gameplay
The game is played in 5 rounds.
Set Battlefield Phase--Which you already did during the setup, but in subsequent rounds you'll deal out enough cards to have 3 battlefields in play.
Draw Phase--Which, again, you've already done in Setup. But as the game moves along, players will draw back up to 8 dragon cards to their hand.
Placement Phase--This is where the game starts to get interesting. Players will--in turn and starting with the first player--place one Dragon Card on a battlefield. There can be no more than 3 of a player's Dragon Cards on a battlefield, and each dragon played is placed on top of a player's previously played dragon. If a player places a Dragon Card with a Ranged Attack value and there is an opponent's dragon on that battlefield, then the Ranged Attack is resolved. Ranged attacks are resolved by looking at the number next to the placed dragon's flame icon, and the defending player's top dragon's Shield/Defense value. Players then draw and flip over the respective number of Battle Cards from their own Battle Deck. The attacking player counts up the number of successes (starburst symbols) in the Ranged Attack section of the cards drawn, and the defending player does the same for the Defense section of their cards. If the attacker has more bursts than the defender, the defender loses his or her top dragon. If the defender has at least the same or more bursts, they defend and their dragon stays in play. This placement phase continues, and players place and resolve Ranged Attacks until players are either out of cards in their hand, or there are 3 dragons on each player's side of the battlefield.
Melee Phase--The First Player gets the party started by picking a battlefield, and the battle begins. Here's how melee battles work. Each player adds up their Melee Attack value for that Battlefield by adding together the numbers listed on all of their dragons' claw icons, and then draws that number of Battle Cards from their Battle Deck--remembering to check for Battlefield or dragon special abilities that can affect that number! Once cards are drawn, again beginning with the first player, attacks are made, this time using the melee section of the battle cards. So the attacking player makes an attack with a Claw or Bite card, and then the defending player must defend those attacks with the same type of card. Each of these cards have a "combo" icon that allows you to attack with multiple cards as long as the icons on the cards match. For each attack card that can't be defended, a dragon on that battlefield is defeated and discarded.
Then the player who just defended gets to attack, and this goes back and forth until only one person has dragons left on the Battlefield--or both players run out of battle cards. The player with more dragons wins the Battlefield, and its all-important gem. If the players run out of battle cards and there are an equal number of dragons on both sides, it's a tie and all of those dragons stay there, along with the Battlefield, until the next round. Once a Battlefield is resolved, the second player chooses the next Battlefield and it's Game On once again.
Draw Phase--After all three Battlefields have been resolved, each player draws one Advanced Battle card, and shuffles it and all of their Battle cards in the draw pile, discard pile, and any left in hand to re-form their battle deck. You can choose to discard or keep any Dragon cards that may be left in your hand, and then draw back up to 8 Dragon cards and return to the Set Battlefields phase.
Game End--The game ends immediately when one player wins enough battlefields to collect 3 gems of the same color, 3 gems of different colors, or 4 gems of any combination.
The Verdict
Jeremiah--Finally! A game that's clever, but not too clever for its own good! I can't really remark on component quality at this time, since we have prototypes, and the quality, art, graphic design, etc., will vary once the retail version hits the shelves. Robert Burke has been in contact with us, and some of the concerns I did have about iconography and fonts and such are being resolved, which is great news. The overall look and artwork, though, is amazing! The dragons look super awesome, the Battlefield artwork is really spiffy too! I can't wait to see the cards in their full splendor!
Firestone--Yeah, the art on those dragons is just terrific. They're colorful and evocative, and each one is unique. It probably wasn't cheap, but that was money well spent!
Jeremiah--I was really impressed with the way this game brings two unique and completely different styles of battle to the table, using the same set of cards. The battles interlock well enough to not make it feel completely disjointed from the game, but are still unique and have their own strategies. The dragons' abilities play well into the battle systems, also. Some are better at Melee while others better at Ranged attacks. It's slick and streamlined. I'm a fan of both battle systems.
Firestone--Really what this all reminded me of was Blue Moon. You're both competing for the same "thing," and playing cards to jockey for position to win that thing. It works really well.
Jeremiah--My first thoughts on resolving battles--especially Ranged--were, "Oh, no. It's down to a card pull, or luck of the draw." But this game is super balanced. There were plenty of battles where I thought I was going to blow away my opponent, and barely squeaked out a victory--or even lost--and vice versa. Every game I've played has come down to some pretty epic battles that decided the game one way or the other. I haven't seen a game that was completely lopsided.
Firestone--There's definitely some luck in the cards, though. For one battle, both of my Flight cards were drawn out during the Ranged attack. Well, that made it really hard to win that Battlefield--and, indeed, I lost it. I'm okay with the luck here, though. It feels about right for the weight of the game, and rarely feels punishing.
Jeremiah--I liked the function of the Advanced Battle cards. As the game moves along, there's a little more variation given to each player. So while you know the majority of your opponent's Battle Deck, there are still a few surprises along the way. Again, nothing that really throws the balance of the game, but enough to make the choices you make during melee battles just a little more precarious.
Firestone--One of the best things about the game was the "small" decision to let people add one Advanced Battle card to their decks at the end of a round. (There are a couple of other ways to get the cards, too.) That inserts some "fun stuff" into the game, but it also pushes it toward the End Game. Adding those cards makes it so most games of Draco Magi are going to go three or four rounds, which keeps it from overstaying its welcome.
Jeremiah's Final Verdict--I really had a lot of fun with this game. It plays right around 30 minutes, and packs a lot of punch for a relatively small number of cards and components. Every card played in the game requires a strategic decision, and these decisions then ripple through the upcoming phases. This is a really fun game, and I suggest you Put This on Your Table!
Firestone Final Verdict--There's a good amount of game in this set of cards. It's fun, and clever, and cheap, and plays quickly. And that art! I also really like their Kickstarter strategy, which is just: "Give us $15 and you get this game." No exclusives. No convoluted tiers. Just the game, and some stretch goals that everyone gets. Bravo. You should go back this game, and then Put It on Your Table!
We'd like to thank Robert Burke Games for supplying us with prototype review copies of Draco Magi. This in no way affected our opinions.
Draco Magi is on Kickstarter! It's only $15 for a copy shipped to your US door! And you can find all sorts of updates on their Facebook Page - Right here!
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The higher Nilus swells,The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes the harvest.
Antony and Cleopatra Act II. Sc. 7.
There definitely aren't many games that tackle Egyptian culture or lore. This little card game from Minion Games is a self-proclaimed game of "ancient agriculture," set in ancient Egypt, where apparently it floods... all the time... seriously, like on every turn!
So what did we think about it?
The Overview
Nile DeLuxor is a game about farming, but don't worry, it's not a heavy duty gamer game about farming, like Agricola; it's a lightweight set-collecting card game about farming, and floods, and ancient mythical gods and such.
The Components
Cards—They're broken into suits of seven different crops/colors: Papyrus, Wheat, Lettuce, Castor (presumably harvested for its oil), Flax, Grapes, and Onions. There's also a set of cards called Speculation cards which have two of the seven suits on them.
Nile Deluxor also comes with an in-the-box expansion that features stone and monument cards; these can be included or excluded from the game at your whim.
There are two unique cards included as well: the Flood card, and the Plague of Locusts card.
The Setup
You will play with a number of suits/crops in the game determined by the amount of players. 2-4 players will pull out 2 suits/crops, 5 players just one, and for 6 players you'll use them all. You'll also have to remove the corresponding Speculation cards.
After you've selected the cards you'll be using, set the Flood card in the middle of the table, set aside the Plague of Locusts card, shuffle the deck and deal each player five cards. Then shuffle in the Plague of Locusts card.
The Gameplay
Players take turns in order, and a player's turn consists of five steps or phases.
Flood—See! We told you it floods on every turn! To complete the flood step the player simply turns over the top card of the deck and places it on the Flood card. Floods determine which speculations were correct (and by speculations we mean guesses you made with Speculation cards) and which fields will be harvested. How do you harvest? Keep your pants on!!!
Harvest—Any player who has a field with crops matching the Flood card will harvest the top card of that stack, and place it face down into their Storage Pile. It's important not to let people see what's in your Storage Pile, so keep it face down!
Trade—Trading is a fun way to manipulate the game and is completely optional. There are two ways to trade:
The cool thing about trading is you can do either or both of these types of trading in any order, and as much as you want, during your turn—provided you have the cards to do it.
Plant or Speculate—This is where the game can get a touch fiddly. One major rule about planting and speculating is that you cannot plant or speculate a with a card that is showing a crop that is currently the Flood card.
Okay, first let's talk about speculating.
If you choose to speculate, you simply play one or two Speculate card from your hand. If the next card that floods has one of the crops you speculated, then you get to draw three cards into your hand for each correct guess.
Planting—Planting is essentially playing cards from your hand to stacks or "fields" in front of you, with some special rules involved. If someone already has a field of a certain type planted you can't plant another one, unless you have more cards to play than they do on the table—and if this happens, they lose the field. So if you're playing with six crop types, then there will always be a maximum of six fields planted at any point in the game. To plant you have to have at least two cards of one crop type, or two cards of two different types. These can start two new fields, or one of them can be added to a new field. Or you can just add as many cards as you like to the fields that are in front of you already. See...a little tweeky, but not terrible.
Draw —After you've done everything else, you draw two cards, ending your turn, and the next player starts the cycle by turning over another Flood card.
If you draw the Plague of Locusts card—from either the Flood or Draw phase—resolve it immediately by letting them devour the largest field on the table and tossing those cards into the Flood pile. Then draw another card.
After all the cards have been used, reshuffle and keep going; you'll go through the deck as many times as there are players in the game, and then the game ends and scores are tallied.
The scoring is the same brilliant one used by Reiner Knizia in his classic game Tigris & Euphrates: Your score is whatever crop you have the least of. So if your numbers are 4, 4, 4, and 1, your final score is 1.
The Verdict
Firestone—The theme here is unique and interesting. I've done trading and set-collecting in the Mediterranean 100 times, but not very often in Egypt. The artwork is cool and stylized, and the colors are easily distinguishable.
Jeremiah—Yeah, definitely a unique theme and a unique game. Designers and publishers like to foist their Mediterranean and European themes upon us with great gusto, and this one definitely breaks the mold in a refreshing and well-executed manner.
Firestone—I wish the gameplay matched the artwork. I never felt that I had much control in the game. Things were changing, morphing, swinging, and all over the place. The luck of the draw plays a big part in it. I suppose it's okay for a filler, but it's just not a very good filler. That's a broad and crowded category, so you better be awesome if you want to rise to the top. Nile Deluxor isn't awesome. It's merely "fine."
I will say that my only plays were in multi-player games, and I've heard many people say that they enjoy this as a two-player game. I never got a chance to play that way, but I can see how that could cut down on the chaotic feeling I had the whole time.
Jeremiah—The game play does feel a little swingy at times. The fewest I played with was three players, and it definitely seemed to calm things down. The gamers I played with enjoyed it well enough to pull it out every now and then, and it is truly a "quick play" which will get it on the table for us in the right situations.
Firestone—I do like that the game forces you to balance what you're going for. And the Plague Of Locusts card adds some good tension—especially since, as the game goes on, it will come out more frequently. If you do play this, I would suggest playing with the Monuments expansion. They make the game a bit more interesting and add some strategy.
Jeremiah—The Monuments expansion does create some opportunity to break the game play up, so that every turn isn't the exact same as the one before it. It's worth pointing out, due to the nature of the theme this game is set in, that when you use the monuments expansion the monuments you're building are to ancient Egyptian gods. Also, when you choose to trade in cards in order to flip over another flood card, you're making an offering to an Egyptian god. Was I totally tweaked out and felt like I was performing pagan rituals when I played this game? No. Are there folks who might see this differently? Yes. Be aware of it, but I wouldn't write the game off on this merit alone—and the Monument cards are an optional expansion anyway, so they can be left out if you so choose.
Firestone's Final Thoughts—In the end, I just wanted to have some meaningful decisions to make, and more control. I know they're not terribly similar, but if I want to play a set-collecting agriculture game, I'm going to pick Bohnanza every time over this. I say leave this one on the shelf...
Jeremiah's Final Thoughts—With its unique theme and unique scoring system this one stood out a little more than most games in that "here's a filler card game" genre. There is a decent amount of luck of the draw involved, but not enough to kill the game for me. I'll bring it out with casual gamers, or one-on-one with my wife. So I say, in the right situations: put this one on the table!
We'd like to thank Minion Games for providing a review copy of Nile Deluxor. It in no way affected our opinions of the game.
Yes, no, maybe... I don't know. Can you repeat the question?You're not the boss of me now, and you're not so big!
- They Might Be Giants
Last year saw the onset of one of the biggest crazes to hit board games: card games that look like video games from 25 years ago.
Today we're taking a look at one of the most successfully crowd-funded games in this genre—Boss Monster: The Dungeon-Building Game.
Do you have what it takes to build the best, baddest, and most enticing dungeon, in order to destroy the hapless heroes that may wander in looking to loot your treasure? Let's take a look!
The Overview
You are a Boss Monster, and you're building your dungeon room by room. You know those jerky heroes from the town will come for the loot, so you have to build a dungeon that can take them down—or they'll take you down.
The Components
Cards...lots and lots of cards. There are several different types:
The Setup
Setup the Hero Deck by including the proper heroes depending on the number of players (each hero has a number of icons denoting the minimum amount of players in the game for that card to be used in). Each player is then randomly dealt a Boss Card, which will give them an identity, as well as an XP value that will help when determining who goes first. It will also give them a one-time level-up ability. Each player then draws five Room Cards and two Spell Cards, and chooses two among all of those to discard. They then build their first Room by placing a Room of their choice to the left of their Boss Card. Then you're ready to go!
The Gameplay
The game plays in a series of rounds rather than player turns. Here is a brief summary of how this looks:
Beginning Phase—Heroes are revealed from the Hero Deck (one for each player in the game). These Heroes will have a heart symbol with a number in it, indicating how many hit points they can withstand, and a treasure icon, which is the type of treasure they've come looking for.
Build Phase—Each player can build one Room in his or her dungeon (building right to left from their Boss Card). Advanced Rooms can only be built onto an existing standard Room with the same treasure icon.
Bait Phase—Each dungeon will be inspected for the number and type of treasure types and compared with the Heroes in town, and whoever has the most of one type will lure each Hero of the matching type to the entrance of their dungeon. If there is a tie, then no one will lure the Hero, and likewise, if there is no treasure in any of the dungeons, then the Hero stays in town.
Adventure Phase—The Heroes who are brave enough to venture into the dungeon seeking plunder go through each Room from left to right until they are either killed or reach the Boss. Room cards have a black heart icon with a number that indicates the amount of damage it inflicts on the hero. If the hero is killed, it's turned over revealing either one or two gold coins, depending on the level of the Hero (these are the VP's, referred to as souls; Epic Heroes apparently have two souls). If the Hero makes it through without dying, it's placed under the Boss Card leaving the one or two blood spots exposed, which represent a wound to your Boss.
End of Turn—Check to see if someone won. If a player receives 5 wounds, that player is out of the game; if a player at any time gains 10 souls/points, he or she is declared the winner. If not, go to Beginning Phase.
The Verdict
Jeremiah—The thing I keep coming back to on this game is that it's very unique. And I mean that as a compliment. Boss Monster is exactly what it says it is: it's a game about building a dungeon, and being the best bad guy at the table. The components are simple: It's cards. But the graphic design is genius; it strikes that sentimental/nostalgic/novelty button just right.
Firestone—I agree. The theme is unique and fun and completely integrated. There are a couple of other games that are similar (Dungeon Lords, for instance), but this is of filler weight and length, so doesn't feel at all like it's ripping off. I really do like the pixelly, retro art. It's nostalgic, but man, there are a LOT of games out now that are putting all of their gameplay eggs into the nostalgic, 8-bit basket.
Jeremiah—Yeah, it's a "thing" right now. Just like after Dominion was a huge success we saw a ton of deck-builders, now that a few Kickstarters have gone bonkers with the retro look, many others are following suit.
Back to my statement about this game being unique: Unlike so many games that are hitting the market, it's really hard to slot this into any genre, in terms of gameplay mechanics. It's not deck-building, or set-collection, or resource-management. It's dungeon-building and killing heroes with some hand management; it's also fun.
Firestone—I completely disagree on the fun. But then...I hate fun, right? ;) This is the sort of game that's truly "dripping with theme," but unfortunately they spent all of their effort on theme, and little on the gameplay. I found it boring and repetitive, and I never felt that I had much control or meaningful decisions to make.
I built my dungeon, but whether it was enticing to a Hero was entirely dependent on which Heroes came out from that random deck of cards. If you built a Magic-heavy dungeon and a Magic Hero came out, good for you! If a Thief came out...tough noogies. Sure you could spread out the type of treasure, but that just meant that anyone who specialized even a little would beat you. And since you can only have five rooms in your dungeon, you have to commit and then hope for the best. Blech.
Jeremiah—Well if I'm recalling properly, I'm pretty sure there is an even number of the different types of Heroes in the deck—with the exception of the fool and a couple other specials—which means as you go through the deck if you are specializing, each dungeon is going to have a shot at enticing the same amount if Heroes into it. Sure you're going to have to decide whether to compete with your opponents or try to diversify and snag one or two of each type. And sometimes you just have to play the cards you're dealt... That's why it's a card game. ;)
Firestone—Look, I know 8-bit games, and practically every boss monster I ever fought...FOUGHT BACK! But if a Hero gets to my Boss Monster he just rolls over and takes a hit? Wha?! Most of this game is thematically rich, but that just detracts from the theme. Why even have different Boss Monsters if all they really are is a card to track hits? Oh, right...one-time-use level-up powers. Zzzz... And don't get me started on the different XP for the Bosses. "Wait...XP breaks ties, and we're randomly dealt these Boss Cards?"
Jeremiah—Well, yeah, the Boss takes ONE hit, and then devours or beats to a bloody pulp or whatevers the Hero; it takes 5 heroes to take down the boss; I'm totally okay with that.
It's a short game and the level-ups being a once-a-game bonus is sometimes just enough to get you back in the thick of it! XP breaks ties, and higher XP means a little weaker power for your level-up ability; it seems to balance out pretty well to me. If you get a higher XP Boss then you get an initial advantage, but it evens out when you level up. I was totally fine with that.
Firestone—I understand that the enjoyment of these sort of games is highly dependent on the group. But most of the people I game with don't like "experience" games, or theme-only games (which is why I LIKE gaming with them), and this game went over like a lead balloon.
My oldest liked the theme, and thought the gameplay was kinda fun. But after the second game even he was acting visibly bored.
I know the guys at Brotherwise made a TON of money on this Kickstarter campaign, so good for them. Honestly. But for me, this is just thematically rich, and gameplay poor.
Jeremiah—The only reason I would hesitate to play this with anyone and everyone is that there are a few cards that are just a shade past family friendly because of their title/concept, such as the Succubus Spa, and the Vampire Bordello. There's nothing gratuitous on them, unless extremely pixelated babes are your thing... Thematically they make sense, but I would suggest pulling those cards out before playing with the kiddos.
Firestone—I don't begrudge them adding these cards, since they fit thematically. But yeah...I certainly pulled them out when I was playing with my 9-year-old...
Jeremiah Final Thoughts—I have yet to play this game just once—it plays fast, and it leaves you wanting another go 'round. Boss Monster is fun, thematic, and unique; I recommend you put this one on the table!
Firestone Final Thoughts—It works for kids. It might work as an occasional filler. And there are certain gaming groups that will eat this up. But as for me and my game group, we'll be keeping this one off the table.
Theology Of Games would like to thank Brotherwise Games for providing review copies of Boss Monster. This in no way affected our opinion of the game.
Thanks for reading! Have you played Boss Monster? Which one of us do you agree with? Let us know in the comments!
The poor, misunderstood emu. Large. Flightless. Tiny little wings. They've been overshadowed by the ostrich, and out-cuted by the kiwi. But you—YOU—see the emu for what it really is: $!
The Overview
You're an emu rancher, and your neighbor just decided to get into the business, too. Why didn't he choose to raise ostriches or kiwis? I don't know; you'll have to ask him. So each of the two players in the game is trying to create the most profitable emu ranch.
Emu Rancher is for two players, ages 8 and up, and it takes about 20 minutes to play.
The Components
For the Basic Game you have:
For the Advanced Game you also have:
The Setup
First you'll choose a number of rounds to play—the game suggests an even number is best. Then, depending on whether you're playing the Basic or Advanced Game, shuffle all of the appropriate cards together and deal six cards to each player. Put the rest of the cards aside as a draw pile. Randomly choose a starting player, which will alternate for each round you play.
The Gameplay
On your turn you will do two things.
1) Play a card.
2) Draw a card.
When you play a card you have a few choices.
You can start a new emu pen. You can start with an Egg card—in which case you'll be adding higher number to the pen. Or you can start with a Feather card—in which case you'll be adding lower numbers to the pen. Each Egg and Feather card is one color, so if you start a pen with those colors, that's the color of the pen. If you start it with an Emu card, you will eventually choose the color of the pen. That's because each Emu card has two colors on it. The number's always the same, but it might be a green 2 on the top, and a blue 2 on the bottom. The colors don't match, either, so the green 9 has yellow on the other side. And the green 5 has purple on the other side. At any rate, if you start with an Emu card, you don't have to "pick" the color until you play your second card, which will be one of the two colors on the first card, and will necessarily choose the color of the pen.
You have to follow the preceding numbers in the pen—going either higher or lower, depending on which card you used to start it. You can skip numbers—and, indeed, will probably need to since the other player might play the number you need into his pen!
You can play to an existing pen. That's just what it sounds like: play a card to a pen you've already started.
You can discard. Maybe you don't have anything you want to play. Or you're stalling. Whatever the reason, you can always choose to discard a card to the top of the discard pile, rather than play one to a pen.
At the end of your turn, you'll draw one card, either from the top of the draw pile or the top of the discard pile.
Once all of the cards have been drawn from the draw pile, each player plays out the rest of his or her hand to already existing pens—you can't start a new pen. Then you score.
Each pen costs 18 points right off the top—emu pens are expensive! So you immediately remove any Wild or Emu cards adding up to at least 18 points—and you can't make change! Any cards above the 18 are profit! Egg and Feather cards can't be used to pay for the pen, but they do each add 5 points to the score of the pen. If your pen was not profitable, then you subtract 5 points for each Egg and Feather card...
If you're playing with the Buyout card (Firestone says don't, and Jeremiah is fine with it), then the lucky recipient can eliminate one unprofitable pen.
Then you just add up all of the pen scores and record the score for the round. Once you've played the predetermined number of rounds, the person with the highest score is the most awesome at giant, flightless bird ranching!
The Verdict
Firestone—If this game sounds a lot like Lost Cities, that's because it is. Now that's not to say this game is a rip-off; I don't believe it is. The fact that there are two colors on the emu cards actually makes this game more challenging than Lost Cities, IMO. There's only one of each color, and it's on the other side of another color, so it's more restrictive.
This is mitigated somewhat by the Wild cards of the Advanced Game. I will always choose to play with those, as they give me just a little bit of breathing room—otherwise the game is too claustrophobic.
Jeremiah—I myself haven't played a lot of Lost Cities. Regardless, I thought the game play and learning curve of Emu Ranchers was just right for a shared-deck game. Having dual colors on the cards did make for some interesting strategic decision-making, as well as a couple double-checks as to what your opponent is up to before discarding a card to try and get something better.
The "advanced" mode to me seemed like a no-brainer; I don't ever see myself removing cards from the game, not even the Buyout card. I like the press-your-luck aspect it brought to the game. I felt empowered to go ahead and start that next pen, knowing full well I didn't yet have enough cards to make a profit on it, and that the Buyout card could already be in my opponent's hand. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained... It didn't always work out for me, but it was fun trying.
Firestone—I really dislike the Buyout card. There's only one in the deck, so one person is automatically going to have an advantage over the other, and it's just the luck of the draw. That's just awful. But it's easy to take out, so YOU SHOULD DO THAT.
Jeremiah—I know the designers/developers took great care in completing the graphic design and artwork of the game. They gave each emu a unique personality and expression to make all of the cards interesting and thematically fun, which in turn makes it a great family/kids game as well. That was a nice touch for a game that mechanically could have been easily abstracted to numbers and suits/colors.
Firestone—Totally agree. A great deal of this game's charm comes simply from the engaging artwork. My son wasn't sure he wanted to try a game about emu ranching, but once I showed him the artwork, he was sold.
Firestone's Final Verdict—This was a good little card game that I've played a number of times with my 9-year-old. It has interesting decisions. It's affordable. It's portable. And the cute artwork adds to the charm. Put it on the table!
Jeremiah's Final Verdict—I agree, it's a fun game that is about as portable as you can get, but still packs a lot of fun gameplay into a small package. Young kids will enjoy this one, and with its varying game length it makes a nice and interesting fun quick filler for gamers at a game night. You should totally...Put this on your table!
The game is currently on Kickstarter, and you can get your own copy for a mere $15, shipped. We'd like to thank AppSauce for providing review copies of the game. This in no way affected our opinions of the game.
Thanks for reading!
By Firestone
I've never been a big Mafia/Werewolf fan. It can be an incredibly fun time, but the player elimination means some people are always sitting on the sidelines waiting. And the bigger the game, the longer you're waiting... So when The Resistance came out—and there was no player elimination—I jumped at it. And it's now my favorite game.
Ted Alspach and Bezier Games recently released Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition, which promises some of the hidden roles and gameplay of Werewolf, with no player elimination. I'm intrigued. Will it knock The Resistance off the throne? Let's see...
The Overview
Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition is part of the line of Ultimate Werewolf games that are coming out under Ted Alspach's Bezier Games. It plays 3-12 players, and is for ages 8 and up. It takes 30-60 minutes to play. One "side" will win—either the werewolves, or the good guys.
The Components
1 Rulebook
12 Inquisitor cards, with either a Werewolf or a Villager on them.
19 Hut cards, which are the "houses" that belong to the Residents in the game. Each one imparts some special action.
19 Resident cards, which match up with the Huts—there's one person card for every Hut card.
1 Grand Inquisitor meeple
50 wooden voting cubes
There's a distinction between Residents and Villagers. All Villagers are Residents, but not all Residents are Villagers—some are Werewolves...
The Setup
First you'll hand out Inquisitor cards; this will vary depending on the number of players. A 3-player game has 1 Werewolf and 2 Villagers, up to a 12-player game, which has 5 Werewolves and 7 Villagers.
Then you decide which set of Resident/Hut cards you'll use. There's a whole section in the rulebook that recommends sets based on number of players, or if this one of your first games. The Resident cards also have positive or negative numbers on them, which allow you to try and find a good balance of cards (in which case the numbers will add up close to zero), or to skew things one way or the other if you find one side winning too often—higher numbers to help Villagers and lower numbers to help the Werewolves.
You'll set up two areas of your chosen sets. One grid of four across and three down with the Huts—faceup so the Huts and their powers are visible. Then you shuffle the Resident cards and create another four across and three down grid—facedown, so you have no idea which Resident is under that card. The important thing here is that there is one Resident for every Hut card, but their orientation in the grids is NOT identical.
Choose a random player to get the Grand Inquisitor meeple, and then give each player two voting cubes to start the game.
The Gameplay
On the First Night, whoever the Grand Inquisitor tells everyone to close their eyes, and has the Werewolves open their eyes so they know who the other Werewolves are—this is skipped in a 3- or 4-player game since there's only one Werewolf.
For the Day Phase, each player, starting with the Grand Inquisitor, chooses a hut and either does the action on the hut, or takes two voting cubes. Either way, that hut is no longer available to choose that turn. As the game progresses there will be fewer and fewer huts, thanks to people being killed, so if there are no huts available, you just take two voting cubes. After everyone has chosen a hut, everyone gets a chance to vote on which Resident to kill. Starting with the Grand inquisitor, everyone who has a voting cube has to place one on a Resident; if you don't have a cube, you don't vote. Whichever Resident has the most votes is killed—remove the Resident and the associated Hut from the game. If there's a tie on votes, the Grand Inquisitor breaks ties.
If two columns have a single Resident left in them, they're combined without changing their orientation. (Some actions on Huts will change the orientation from vertical to horizontal.)
Now come the Night Phase. The Grand Inquisitor chooses a column that has two or more cards in it, and removes any votes on them. He picks them up and puts them in a stack keeping them in a strict order—we always have them stack the top card of the column on the one below it, and then those on the one below that (if there are three). This is important because now everyone closes their eyes and passes this stack around the circle. The person to the left of the Grand Inquisitor starts with the stack. If she's a Villager, she keeps her eyes closed and just makes some shuffling noises with the cards but doesn't change the order in any way. If she's a Werewolf, she can open her eyes and change the order of the cards. Each person will say the name of the person they're passing to—or just say "Passing," or whatever—and for a brief moment those two can open their eyes just to make the exchange, but then Villagers have to close their eyes, lest they see a Werewolf turn the cards over and start rearranging. The cards will eventually make their way back to the Grand Inquisitor, who will shuffle or rearrange or not, and then everyone opens their eyes. The Inquisitor then places them back facedown in the column in the same order they were taken: bottom card on the bottom of the column, then the next above that, and the next at the top.
All of this keeping-things-in-order stuff is important because whatever Resident is at the bottom of that column is killed. The Werewolves set it up.
The actions here are admittedly very clunky. This phase shouldn't be a way for Villagers to figure out who the Werewolves are, which is why everyone makes noises and shuffles the cards around as though they were rearranging them. In essence, everyone should "act" like a Werewolf so that no one is outed as a Werewolf because they made noises or took longer than anyone else or whatever. Clunky.
If a Werewolf is killed in this phase, remove votes from all vertical Residents and shuffle them together and deal out a new grid. This is because if a Werewolf is killed at Night, then it's because that column had nothing but Werewolves and they had no choice but to kill one of their own. So the shuffling evens things out again.
A new day starts with the Grand Inquisitor getting passed to the left, and columns with only one Resident getting combined. The game ends when either all of the Werewolves are dead (the Villlagers win), or of there are more Werewolves in the village at any time than there are Villagers—in which case the Werewolves win.
The Huts
I'll go over the Huts and their special abilities. The number in parentheses is the number you use when you're trying to balance (or not unbalance) your choice of Residents in the game—high numbers help Villagers, and low ones help the Werewolves.
Villager/Werewolf (+0)—Take two voting cubes from the supply, and place one of them on any Resident.
Seer (+8)—Look at any vertically oriented Resident, and place it back in the same spot, but oriented horizontally. Neither the Seer (in subsequent turns) nor the Apprentice Seer may look at this card until something changes its orientation back to vertical.
Apprentice Seer (+5)—Pay one voting cube to look at any vertically oriented Resident, and place it back in the same spot, but oriented horizontally. Neither the Apprentice Seer (in subsequent turns) nor the Seer may look at this card until something changes its orientation back to vertical.
Bodyguard (+2)—Protect one Resident by removing all voting cubes from it, and placing the Bodyguard Hut on that Resident. No more votes can be placed on it this round. Remove the Bodyguard at the start of the Night Phase before a column is chosen to pass around.
Hunter (+1)—Take three votes from the supply and place them on one Resident.
Mason (+3—Pay two voting cubes to look at the Inquisitor card of another player. You can't show the card, but you can say whatever you want about it. (This role shouldn't be used in games with fewer than 5 players.)
Minion (+3)—Take two votes from the supply and place both of them on a Resident card that already has at least one vote on it.
Mayor (+1)—Immediately give the Grand Inquisitor to any player (including yourself). This changes who will start voting, and who picks a column of cards to pass around. The Inquisitor gets passed to the left at the end of the turn, as usual.
Prince (+3)—Take four votes from the supply.
Sorcerer (+5)—Look at any horizontally oriented Resident, place it back in the same orientation, take two votes from the supply, and place them on the card you just looked at.
Witch (+1)—Move all votes from Resident card to any other Resident card.
Cursed (-1)—Take four votes from the supply. If someone uses the Cursed Hut during the day, and that Resident is killed that night, it becomes a Werewolf. That column's cards (and the Cursed) are shuffled and placed back in the column. The Cursed acts as a Werewolf from that point forward—including determining numbers of Werewolves for victory.
Troublemaker (-5)—Pay one vote to shuffle a row or column of Resident cards. First, set aside votes on those cards, but keep them near the spot they were on. Shuffle the cards, place them back vertically, and then place the votes back onto the card that is now in the spot.
Wolf Cub (-2)—Take three votes from the supply. If the Wolf Cub is lynched on the day someone uses the Hut, the Werewolves get to kill two Residents that night. You do one round of picking a column, passing it, and killing the bottom Resident. And then you do that all over again. The Wolf Cub is not considered a Werewolf.
The Verdict—I like this game—probably more than I should, honestly. The game plays any number between 3 and 12; I've played with as few as 4 and as many as 10, and there are upsides and downsides with those extremes. It actually plays surprisingly well with the low number; you can't play Resistance with 3 or 4, but you can play this. With the higher numbers, it's cool because there are more Werewolves, and more interesting Residents, but it also has its own problems. In our game, one player was a player or two to the right of the starting Grand Inquisitor. And then, because of where we'd figured some Werewolves were, we kept taking the Mayor and keeping the Inquisitor in that area. It worked well for the Villagers, but over the course of the game that guy had very little to do on his turn. Early in the game, the only Residents left were the generic Villager/Werewolf Huts, so he was forced to take those. Then as the game progressed and people died, when it would finally get around to him there wouldn't be any Huts left, so he just took two voting cubes. He was pretty dang bored, and it wasn't the group trying to keep him out, it was the game's mechanisms creating that for him. It could have happened to anyone, and it probably won't happen every game, but it happened that game, and his experience was poor.
It's very interesting that—unlike a game such as The Resistance, where getting outed means you're essentially done—getting outed as a Werewolf here (or even outing yourself!) isn't the end of the world. There are times where revealing yourself is necessary to save one of your Werewolf residents. But you're still in the game, and there are still things to do and ways to mess with the Villagers. They can't shut you down, but now they have to adjust their play to keep you away from certain powerful Huts, such as the Mayor. It feels weird that being revealed isn't bad, but I think it's interesting.
I've noticed that every single game seems to come down to the wire, and I think the game sort of forces the game to even out and stay close until the end. I'm not sure how it does it, or even if its intentional, but we haven't had a blowout in any of the half-dozen games we've played. The downside of this is that a couple of times the win has come down to mostly blind luck and guessing. That hasn't always happened, but when it does, it feels a little unsatisfying.
As I said, the Night Phase is clunky. Having to have everyone shuffle the cards around, and spend extra time doing it, and making noise just feels weird, but I have no idea what else they could have done. So while it's not great, it's fine in the end.
I do feel I should make mention of the artwork. Most of it is fine and completely innocuous, but the Witch and Sorcerer look more like two ladies who just went shopping for Halloween and decided to grab the "Sexy Witch" and "Sexy Sorcerer" costumes. The Sorcerer especially looks like Kate Upton in a black wig. They're not terrible, but it's just something to consider, and I felt I needed to point out. It's disappointing to see a publisher going that route on what should be a family friendly game. And if they bother you that much you can always choose not to include those roles in your game.
So who would I play this with? Well, it often goes as long as a game of The Resistance, and I would always choose The Resistance over this. If I only had 3 or 4 players, I could see pulling this out with my game group, but we're big-time Resistance fans, so that wins. I would bring this out with nongamers, though—in a heartbeat. The Resistance is very different, and takes some time to understand what you're doing and how much you should be talking and voting and just so much... But this would be a GREAT game to ease people into that sort of game. There are hidden roles, but it's not a disaster if you play it "wrong" and out yourself. And the gameplay is fairly straightforward. And it's short. All of this means that this is going onto my short-list of games to play with nongamers, newbies, and youth groups.
And if your group really likes to play Werewolf, they'll probably like this! It's maybe not as purely social as traditional Werewolf is, but it has some of the feel, and there's no elimination.
The Final Verdict—Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition isn't perfect, and it will never replace The Resistance for me or my game group. But I like it. I like what it tries to do, and I like what it accomplishes, and I have a fun time while I'm playing it. It's at a perfect level for nongamers, and it will be the game I use to ease my family into this style of game before I eventually spring The Resistance on them... And since there are only 4 of us in the family, we may never get to The Resistance, so this may be it. And that's okay, because it's a solid game.
We'd like to thank Ted Alspach at Bezier Games for providing a review copy of Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition. This in no way affected our opinion of the game.
"Four score and seven years ago, I kicked some serious butt with a sausage link whip...." ~Abraham Lincoln
Deck-builders and retro 8-bit graphics—two big gaming trends that have been smooshed together in Pixel Lincoln. What did we think of it? Keep reading and find out!
The Basics
Pixel Lincoln is a side-scrolling deck-building game designed by Jason Tagmire. It's for 1-4 players, and takes between 30 and 60 minutes to play, depending on the number of players. The goal is to score the most VPs.
4 player tableaus
4 wooden Lincoln meeples
Cards—including Characters, Enemies, Items, and Player cards.
Double-sided player board
A HUGE sturdy box
The Setup
As with most deck-builders, you start with a starting deck of cards—5 Beardarangs, which give you one Power, 5 Jumps, which also give you one Coin. You set the board out to whichever side you'd like (there's no functional difference; it's just different scenes depicted on each side). You also have one Player card and two Life cards that you place on your tableau.
Then you create the two Level Decks. You combine three Enemies, three Items, three Characters, and a Special Item. You shuffle that all up, divide the deck into three small decks, shuffle three Checkpoint cards into each of them, and then stack the three decks on top of each other.
Finally, you set a facedown Mini Boss and Boss card off to the side for each of the two decks.
The Gameplay
On a player's first turn, he or she chooses a Level to engage. So you take your Lincolneeple and put him in front of one of the Levels and start to make your way through it—just like an old-school side-scroller. There's no restriction on how many people can be in one Level—though there are certainly strategic reasons to pick one over the other.
You have five of your initial 10 cards in your hand. Beardarangs (and later weapons you purchase) let you fight the Enemies. If you meet or beat their toughness, you defeat them and you place the card in your scoring pile on the tableau. Unlike many deck-builders, cards you defeat don't go into your hand to clog it up.
Jump cards let you Jump one card in front of you—maybe you can't fight an Enemy, or don't want an Item, so you just pass it. You can also use the Coin on the card to buy the Item in front of you. If you do, it's added to your discard pile, like a normal deck-builder. If you start your turn in front of an Enemy, it 'ambushes" you, so you have to deal with it in some way—either defeating it or Jumping over it.
If you can't defeat or jump over an enemy when it ambushes you, it hits you, and you remove one Life card. You start with two of them, and your Player card is your third one. If you lose all of your lives, you're eliminated, and wait until the game is over, or everyone else dies, to add up VPs. Life cards are worth 5 VPs at the end of the game, so you want to stay healthy!
Most cards in the game have a small symbol in the bottom corner—an X or a Key or a Clock and so on. Character cards task you with collecting certain symbols by the end of the game, and if you do, you'll get VPs. The Character cards also cost you to buy, but they go to your score rather than your discard pile. Speaking of those symbols, if you discard a card with a symbol on it during your turn, you get to either score a card from your hand, look at and rearrange the top cards of the Level Deck, exit the current level and enter the other, or cancel the effect of an Enemy or Item card—either on your turn or on an opponent's turn to keep them from doing something cool.
If your Lincolneeple gets through the current "screen" and makes it to the Level Deck, everything behind him is wiped away, he moves back to the front of the Level, and you draw five new cards—so it's like a side-scroller, in that anything you pass is gone and you can't go back and get it again.
There are three Checkpoint cards in each Level Deck. The first time someone hits the Checkpoint everyone in that level gets to do one special action: either exit the level, draw a card, or put a card from your hand into your scoring pile (basically culling a card). The person who actually reaches the Checkpoint gets to do one of those things twice.
The second time you reach a Checkpoint, you still get to do one of those things, but now you place the Mini Boss card where the Checkpoint card was. Mini Bosses are just that: stronger than regular Enemies, but not as strong as Bosses. They're worth VPs, depending on which Mini Boss it is. They can't be jumped over or bypassed—you have to defeat them to continue in the level. When you reach the third Checkpoint card, you get the bonus, and then replace it with the Boss card. It's tougher, and worth more VPs.
Once both Bosses from both Levels have been defeated, the game is over, and you count up VPs.
The Verdict
Firestone—First of all, I really love the artwork in the game. I vividly remember the Christmas I got my NES—I spent the WHOLE day playing Super Mario Brothers. It was the start something big and influential in my life. The artwork definitely takes me back to that, and is fun.
Jeremiah— Yep! The artwork is amazing; I remember when I saved up a bunch of money and my parents drove me to Gold Circle and I bought an NES, which came with Super Mario Bros. and I bought a copy of Kung Fu. So legit...
Firestone—The theme is fun, and way more interesting than Dominion. Zzzzz... So getting my kids, or teenagers, or whomever to play this will be easier. Probably. Because let's face it: My kids don't care about retro, 8-bit graphics. In fact, to their eyes, they look junky and old. But still, the theme is is unique
Jeremiah— The theme is what drew me into the game. It's wacky and out there, but lots of fun. Dominion is a great game, but you'll never find a mutton-star in your Dominion deck, nor will you have to face down a Puking Turtle.
Firestone—The components are hit-and-miss for me. If there's one iconic aspect of Abraham Lincoln, it's his stovepipe hat. Unfortunately, the Lincolneeples look like they're wearing Afros, rather than stovepipe hats. The cards are fine, but kind of thin. The tableaus are nice, thick cardboard, with a good finish on them—though I did find it weird that there's no place for your deck or discards. I really like the Level Deck boxes that come with the game. Setup is time-consuming (as with most deck-builders), but you can create the Level Deck ahead of time and put them into these nifty boxes, which look like old school NES boxes.
Jeremiah— I think the one component that fell shortest to me, is the meeples, Lincoln meeples would have been awesome; these are just weird looking meeples. I agree that the player boards are laid out oddly, but for the most part I'm good with all the components. In fact, the level board is great, a friend of mine always says that card games need boards—well, in this game, you've got them!
Editor's Note: Jason emailed us to let us know that the reason he doesn't have a hat is that Booth stole it, which started this whole affair! So we just missed that, and are dorks. Sorry, Jason!
Firestone—The weird thing to me is that when I play a game that calls itself a deck-builder, I expect to...build my deck. You're kinda doing that here, but there's nothing to clog up your deck, so defeating enemies is a no-brainer. And there are few opportunities to cull you deck. You can do it three times if you are in the Level when someone hits the Checkpoint, and if you choose that as your bonus, and if you have something you want to cull in your hand at that time. That's a lot of ifs. You can also discard the cards with the star "suit," but again, that's only if you've picked up that card during the game at some point, and if when you draw it again, you have one in your hand that you want to cull. So it's less a deck-builder and more a deck-adder. Kind of. At any rate, I still felt that I had super-clogged-up hands at the end.
Jeremiah— Yeah, it's more of an 8-bit adventure simulation game, and in my opinion it does that creatively and well; "deck builder" is sort of a misnomer with this one, but I don't mind it at all, because I think the game itself—which has deck building elements to it—is fun and a nice trip down memory lane. I've thought more about the not being able to cull cards as often aspect of it, and it makes a little more sense to me, seeing as how half of the cards in the level don't go into your deck, they get scored, if you could cull cards often you'd not have much of a deck left... Just an observation.
Firestone—This also seems to have a player-number problem. When I played with four, there's so little control that it's easy to find yourself in front of an enemy (or worse, a Mini Boss or Boss) at the start of your turn. Hope you can deal with it. One guy got seven turns during the game: four turns of doing something, two turns where he couldn't do anything—anything, and one turn of being able to do nothing but his hit by a Mini Boss he'd started his turn next to. On those four turns where he did something, he bought two one-coin-cost cards for his deck, and those were the only Item cards he ever had the opportunity to buy. That's a problem.
Jeremiah and I played a 2-player game, and there was much more control, and it just "felt" better.
Jeremiah— When we played with 4 players we didn't run into the issues you described, but I could see the game changing, especially in the later stages of it, as players are burning through cards in the level before your turn gets back. I'm guessing 2-3 might be the sweet spot to keep it balanced.
Firestone Final Thoughts—I'm really not happy about becoming the Grumpy Old Man of the blog, but this game just didn't do it for me—at all. It's thematic and has fun enemies and items, but it's mechanically mediocre. If I didn't already have the DC Comics Deckbuilding Game, I could see using Pixel Lincoln to introduce my kids (or nongamers) to deck-builders. But I do have it, and it's just better, so I'm going to use that. Maybe I'm taking it too seriously. And I'm sure there are groups out there who will LOVE the art and theme and humor, and this game is just perfect for them. But my group and I didn't like it, so for me, Keep This on the Shelf.
Jeremiah Final Thoughts—Yep, I disagree. If you go into this one expecting a deep deck-building experience, you will likely be let down. However that doesn't make the game any less fun; it's just a different type of fun. Let's have some real talk for a second. You're a pixelated version of our 16th president, who is going through levels of a game fighting absurd enemies, using -possibly- even more absurd weaponry to defeat "bosses." I'm pretty sure you might be taking this one too seriously if you take it seriously at all. This is a fun, light-hearted game that will amuse the younger crowd, and delight those old enough to appreciate the nostalgia. Grab your Chicken Cannon, strap on your Beardarang, and Put This on Your Table!
We'd like to thank Game Salute and Island Officials for providing review copies of Pixel Lincoln. This in no way affected our opinions of the game.
Thanks for joining us for the review! And check out the video review down below!!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rXovc3fWc]
"I'm gonna knock you out! Momma said, knock you out!"
-LL Cool J
Today we're taking a look at Top Promoter, a card and dice game that takes place in the world of competitive boxing. The game is designed for 2-5 players, and plays fairly quickly.
Players take to the table as promoters, trying to earn the most money by placing their fighters in bouts that they will hopefully win.
The Components
Cards—There are 5 nearly identical decks of 15 fighters and 5 action cards. We say nearly identical, because while all the boxers have the same name, each one has a different popularity value. This will make sense very shortly.
Dice—The final version will feature 7 dice per player color. We had prototypes that had just a handful of red and white.
Locations—More cards featuring cities/venues for the bouts.
The Gameplay
The game starts by putting locations into play—one fewer than there are players. And the number of locations used in the game is scaled depending on the number of players in the game. (Because once they run out,the game is over.) Players then shuffle their decks and draw five cards.
Players then select a boxer from their hand and place it face down in front of them. Simultaneously they reveal their chosen boxer, and whoever has the most popular boxer chooses a location to place their boxer. Each location can take six boxers (three bouts, consisting of two boxers each: the low card, mid card and main event). You want to get your boxer into the main event because it pays more money. But once a fighter is put into a bout other players must match the weight class of that boxer. And you, of course, cannot pit your own fighters against themselves.
Once a location is filled (whether others are or not) you resolve the bouts at that location, pay out the prize money, discard all the boxers there, as well as the location card, and replace it with a new one from the location deck.
Bouts are resolved by rolling dice. Each boxer has a dice value printed on their card indicating how many dice you roll for them, and if that boxer is capable of a knock out. If they're able to KO a boxer, there are three different rolls that will accomplish that. A boxer with a 3 on his card needs to roll three-of-a-kind, a boxer with a 4 needs to roll a straight, and a 5 requires a full house roll. Players take the appropriate amount of dice and roll them, then compare highest to highest. If one player rolls a 5 as their highest and the other rolls a 3 as their highest, that's it: The fight is over and the player who rolled a 5 wins. If there is a tie you go to the next highest and compare, and so on.
There are action cards that can affect the payouts, or cause a fighter to forfeit, or move a bout into the main event slot, and so forth.
And that is pretty much the game. You choose boxers, try to maneuver them into the best bouts to get the best payouts, and then let them duke it out. Whoever has the most money when the locations run out is the Top Promoter!
The Verdict
Jeremiah—We can't really comment on the components for the game, since we were playing prototypes with tiddly-winks for money, and generic dice. I will say that the artwork in the form that we saw it in was nice, bright and colorful, and I enjoyed the cartoonish nature of it!
Firestone—Yeah, I liked the artwork, too—each fighter was unique and colorful and evocative.
Jeremiah—I really enjoyed half of the game. There are some great decision-making moments and strategic maneuvering to try and get your boxers into the best bout and then ratchet up the payouts with the special action cards to try and make a big score. I found this part of the game enjoyable and fun!
Firestone—Yeah, that was definitely the best part. You really had to think about when to play your special cards, because the moment a location was full, it was "scored," so you had to try and figure out if a location would score and you should play that card now or risk another go-around when you might be able to get yourself in an even better position to utilize a card.
Jeremiah—The bouts are where the whole thing fell apart for me. I don't mind dice AT ALL; I love dice, I own a lot of dice. But the bout mechanic is just too shallow for me. I can't get over the Risk-like feel of it. It doesn't matter what you do or how you jockey for position, you get, one, single, solitary roll to try and roll the highest number. Ugh. Yahtzee even gives you 2 re-rolls.
Firestone—Dice-disliker here... But even so, I like games that do interesting things with dice. THIS DOESN'T DO THAT. All that maneuvering and it comes down to one dice roll?! Aaargh! And there are ways to get more dice for your big rolls, but no way to change them or affect them in any way. So even if I manage to roll six dice to your two, if you roll a 6 and I roll all 5's, I LOSE! I understand that's kinda thematic, as sometimes the underdog does beat the big dog (Buster Douglas!), but...ugh.
Jeremiah Final Thoughts—I'm holding out hope that there will be an expansion that will add cards that allow you to tweak the dice, or alter them in some way that will make the bouts a little less of a flip of the coin. Time will tell. I have to say that until they do come up with some expansion or fix, Keep This On the Shelf.
Firestone Final Thoughts—There was some potential here, but it's been wasted with a terrible, terrible bout-resolution mechanism. I agree with Jeremiah: Keep This On the Shelf.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to watch the video review below. Have a great weekend!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a51_OHjoF6g&w=560&h=315]
Two Geeks, Hundreds of Games, One God. We bring you the best in board game talk, tabletop news and compelling interviews with those in the boardgame industry! Stay tuned for all things gaming, here on Theology of Games!
