When We Last Left Our Heroes!

It's been another fabulous week here at TOG, filled with game reviews, and some juicy news about one of our favorite games! I know, I know, we've been banging the "The Resistance" drum pretty hard lately; truth is we're hoping to get lots of entries in our contest to give away a free copy of it! That and we really do enjoy the game! Anyway, once again we've compiled our week's posts all into one easy-to-use clickable list for your viewing convenience. Enjoy! Go Go Godzilla! Here's our Review of King of Tokyo!

Petals to the Metal: A Review of Flower Fall

Battlestar Galactica - By your command!

An Expansion to The Resistance Is On Its Way!

Your LAST Chance to WIN!

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Battlestar Galactica - By your command!

A friend of mine recently referred to Battlestar Galactica as the "big brother" to "The Resistance." And in a way there is something to that statement. The intrigue and skulduggery of "The Resistance" is a key component of both games. However BSG adds a few twists and turns, and a little more housekeeping to the mix. Players begin the game by selecting a character, and then they are dealt a loyalty card. This will tell them whether they are a Cylon, a sympathizer or none of the above. (By the way, I'm writing today as if you have already seen and love the Syfy series by the same name; if you haven't, expect some potential spoilers and please come out from under that rock.) At this point as the game begins everyone is playing as if it were a co-op game, there IS a Cylon among you, but you don't know if that individual is a "sleeper" and doesn't know they are yet, or if they are just acting as if they don't know yet. Yes, you will give your friends many sideways glances.

The game is won by the humans, if the Galactica jumps 8 units of distance, and then performs one last jump. The game is won by the Cylons by several means, most common is depleting any one of the Galactica's resources (food, fuel, population or morale), but they can also destroy the Galactica or successfully board it with centurions.

The basic turn structure, allows you to make strategic moves to help the Galactica prep for a jump to light speed. While handling crises as they come at you, on every turn. All while trying to figure out if you have a Cylon saboteur among you. A crisis is overcome by players submitting skill cards to the crisis. Each crisis card will require a certain amount of  certain skills to pass it, and there is a positive and negative reaction for passing or failing the crisis. Players secretly submit their skill cards (Which they receive each turn, based on their characters abilities) to a crisis, along with a few random cards from the "Destiny deck", and add up the skill points. This is where the Cylons have their fun. Each skill card that is from a skill that is NOT required by the crisis counts as negative points towards passing the skill check, and Cylons can always claim that the destiny deck chipped in those random "off suit" cards. Typically the fail reaction results in the loss of a resource point, or the launching of Cylon Raiders.

After a set amount of rounds their is a "Sleeper Round" in which more loyalty cards are dealt out,  insuring at this point any Cylons in the game know who they are! Because of this mechanic, simply choosing a character that is a Cylon in the tv series, does not necessarily mean that you will end up being a Cylon during the game. Once the Cylons are outed they are tossed into the brig, or sent to a Cylon location where they can really wreak some havoc!

I have watched the tv series in its entirety more than once; it is probably one of the best science fiction series to hit television...ever. (I know I just made every Star Trek fan hit the ceiling.) That being said, there are a few elements in the show that rubbed me the wrong way. One being the over sexually charged nature of a number of episodes. The other being the strong use of religion and God as a plot device. They often blurred the lines of right and wrong using religion to do so. I didn't have too big of an issue with this—after all, it is science fiction, but if you've seen the last episodes of the series the lines are blurred once again, this time between fiction and commentary.

The good news in all of this, is that the game is filtered pretty well from these aspects of the series, so rest at ease if you choose Starbuck as your character you won't be asked to simulate some lewd act with one of her multiple partners from the series. And the only hint of the religion element appears on Laura Roslyn's character sheet. She has the special ability of "Religious Visions." It makes sense and is in line with the character and her "abilities"—she also has the character trait of "Terminal Illness," so there ya go.

My chief complaint about the game—which may seem petty—is that the skill cards are printed on those tiny little cards that are too small for your hands, and really hard to keep organized! We hates them!

The game box tells you that the game will take about 2-3 hours, and they weren't kidding! This is a game that will be your game night, not just a part of it. I've played with folks who don't know the show, and it is just as enjoyable to them, the twists and turns and pointing fingers and accusations seem to pull players in and it often doesn't feel like it's been a 2-hour+ game.

Petals to the Metal: A Review of Flowerfall

One of the sleeper hits of Origins was a game that didn’t even exist just a few shorts weeks before the event. Carl Chudyk is the man behind the very good game Glory To Rome, and the good-but-ridiculous-ending game Innovation. And just before Origins he had an idea for a game about dropping cards with flowers on them onto a table. So they printed up 100 copies on simple card stock, and one of my friends was able to score one.

There are five different colors of cards, and each person gets an identical set of cards with their color of flowers on them. Some cards have only one flower on them, while others have five or six.

The object of the game is to create “gardens” by dropping your cards onto the table, and having the majority of your flowers at the end of the game. Of course, the other players are trying to do the same thing.

You drop the cards from shoulder height onto the table, so it’s pretty hard to drop them with any amount of skill. Every game feels like a little bit of skill mixed with a whole lot of luck.

Despite that, the game is pretty unique and fun. It’s a good filler for the beginning or end of a night—or when you’re waiting for other people to wrap up a game. And it’s really portable. And it’s about flowers, so the likelihood of my wife playing this over…say…a game about the Lord of the Rings is huge.

If you weren’t fortunate to be one of the 100 people who scored a copy of the 1^st printing, there’s good news: There’s a Kickstarter campaign for a proper edition. You can find it here, but be aware it ends Friday at midnight. It’s overfunded, so it will be produced, and you can get a copy for a mere $15.

Go Go Godzilla!—A King of Tokyo Review

Richard Garfield is one of the most influential game designers out there—despite the fact that he’s not very prolific. He'd be influential even if he’d only designed the one game he's best known for: Magic The Gathering.

He recently came out with a new design that’s a fast, fun filler that you can play with kids, adults, and everyone in between. Also old people. But probably not babies.

Components

• Six monster boards , cutouts, and stands. They’re fun creatures, such as a kraken, a giant cyborg gorilla, and a huge mechanical bunny. The differences are cosmetic; there are no special powers for each monster.
• One square game board that shows Tokyo; it’s not really necessary but it’s nice to have.
• One deck of cards, that provide cool mutant powers you can add to your monsters.
• Some counters that show status effects, such as smoke or poison.
• A bunch of energy cubes used to pay for the special powers on the cards.
• Some big, beefy dice with various symbols on them; they’re the heart of the game.

Gameplay

The idea for the game is that you’re a giant monster trying to destroy Tokyo, but you’re also trying to destroy your opponents and keep them from destroying Tokyo. Each monster starts with zero victory points (VPs) and 10 health. Your health will (generally) go down, and your VPs will (hopefully) go up. If you get down to zero health you’re out of the game—and if you’re the last monster standing, you win! The other way to win is to be the first monster to get to 20 VPs.

On your turn, you roll the dice, and then decide what to do with them. You can reroll any dice up to two times, and when you’re done rolling them all you’ll “play them out.” Three of the sides have a 1, 2, or a 3 on them. If you roll three of one of those numbers, you score those VPs. One side has a heart on it, and if you use that you find true love, get married, and raise little monsters. That’s not true; you just heal a health point for each heart you roll.

One side has a claw on it, which allows you to attack other people. One of three things can happen then.

1. If no one is in Tokyo or Tokyo Bay—the two spaces on the game board—you can move in there. The benefit of being in one of those spots is that you earn 1 VP when you move in, and if you’re still in there when your turn rolls around, you earn 2 VPs. The downside is that you can’t heal…
2. If you are in Tokyo or Tokyo Bay, you attack each monster that’s not in one of those places—one point of attack for each claw rolled.
3. If you aren’t in Tokyo or Tokyo Bay, you attack each monster that is. A monster inside one of those places can decide to yield the city; the monster that attacked you now moves into the vacated spot.

The last spot has a lightning bolt on it, and you get an energy cube for each one. At the end of your turn you can purchase one of the three face-up power cards. They add various powers to your monster, such as adding 1 to each attack, or keeping you from taking 1 damage.

Verdict

The only thing I’d change about the game is to add some variety by having each of the different monsters have one unique power. That would add some variety, and make it more fun to play the giant mechanical bunny—besides the fun already inherent in that, of course. Other than that, it’s a ridiculously fun filler—the kind of game you can play at the start or end of the session, or between games. The first edition sold out quickly, but a second edition has just been released. Check it out!

When We Last Left Our Heroes... July 13

Hopefully you enjoyed the news and reviews from the past week. Just in case you missed anything, here's a handy recap... We talk about the announcement of this year's Spiel des Jahres winner, Kingdom Builder.

We review the Spiel des Jahres winner, Kingdom Builder.

Mayfair announces a version of Catan based on the classic show Star Trek.

Kingdom Builder already has an expansion out. Here's our review.

Beardarangs and puking turtles: It's a Kickstarter campaign for Pixel Lincoln!

Days of Wonder is reprinting its classic game Mystery of the Abbey.

We'll see you next week, when we'll review the semi-cooperative game Battlestar Galactica, and the fun, family monster-mayhem game King of Tokyo.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Expanding Kingdom Builder - A Review of Nomads

Well, we figured since we're on the subject, why not talk a little more about the 2012  Spiel des Jahres award winner, Kingdom Builder.

Nomads, the first expansion of the game, adds a few new layers to the game, but mostly just adds more variance to the title, which in turn adds to the replayability. Here's a quick rundown of some of the new features Nomads brings to the table—and yes, I'll insert my opinions as well.

4 New Sector Boards—Which brings the total for the set up to 12! The randomness in which you pull them, as well as how you place them, consistently shakes things up. There's even less chance for the board to look and play the same twice!

5th Player Settlements—Now that 5th wheel can join in the fun! I personally LOVE the addition of a 5th player; keep in mind you're still setting up only four sectors to create the game board, so territory becomes more and more valuable as the game progresses—as do ability tokens! The competition is fierce, and cut-throat; I love it when a plan comes together.

Nomads—The title element of this expansion consists of 15 unique Nomad tokens; they look a lot like the special ability tokens but behave slightly differently. Each of the four new sector boards have a Nomad hex (or two) on them; if any of the new boards are selected for the game, one Nomad token is selected randomly and placed on the Nomad hex. The player who claims that token can only use it on their next turn, and then it's removed from the game (whether it's been used or not). The abilities are generally a little more beefed up than your run-of-the-mill extra actions, but only being able to use them once, (and on your next turn) definitely requires a little forethought before just grabbing them up—at least, if you want to get the most out of them.

Stone Walls—One of the new abilities you can claim from one of the four new boards is the Quarry token. This will allow you to place up to two gray circular disks on the board each turn. These disks represent stone walls; they cannot be built on top of, and they break continuity between settlements. They come in handy if you want to cut off your opponents, or build somewhere else on the board but your settlements are adjacent to EVERYTHING.

3 New Kingdom Builder Cards—There are three new ways to score gold in Nomads, but now there's a possibility of scoring gold during the game instead of tallying up only at the end. I would have found this annoying, but I really enjoy the new scoring scenarios, so I don't mind so much keeping score during the game.

All in All, the expansion doesn't completely overhaul the game, or add so much to it that the overall feel and flow of the game is completely thrown out of whack. But it does help the title grow, adds variability,  and let's you bring in a 5th player, which becomes a lot of fun!

Capitol—It's also worth mentioning that there was a promo released last year called Capitol. This consists of 2 Capitol tokens that covered one of the two Castle hexes on the Oracle and Harbor boards. The capitol scores players one gold for each settlement built within two hexes of the Capitol. Personally, I'm not a fan of this small expansion; the Castles seem to do the job, and this pumps up their abilities, while diminishing from the other scoring options.

Thanks for reading; we hope you're enjoying yourself here at Theology of Games. We'd love to hear your thoughts about the blog and the games we talk about! Leave 'em in the comments below!

Nomads and Capitol are both on Amazon!

Kingdom Builder - The Settlers of Dominion

A game designer isn't really a huge cultural icon, but every now and then one comes along and puts his or her unique stamp in the gaming world. Enter Donald X. Vaccarino. Donald X. turned card games on their ear with his 2009 award-winning deck builder "Dominion"—the game (when coupled with an expansion or two) that's almost never the same twice.

Donald X. is at it again with, Kingdom Builder, a board game with many random elements that ensure re-playability and freshness for many, many game nights to come. Throw in the "Nomads" expansion, and you have a .03% chance of playing the same game twice, according to Queen Games rep, who demoed the game for me at Origins Game Fair in June of 2012. Not only that, but it was just announced that Kingdom Builder has won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award for Game of the Year--giving Donald X. his second such honor.

The Setup - The game setup is fairly simple. Choose 4 game boards randomly, and place them together in a rectangle; then deal 3 of the 10 included Kingdom Builder cards (these tell you how you score points), and place a few special ability tokens in the predetermined hexes. Then choose which color of little houses you want (except the orange ones; you can't have them...they're MINE!) and you're ready to go.

The Game Play - The game play is quick and the mechanics are simple: Build 3 settlements on your turn. Where you play them is determined by the terrain card you are dealt that turn, and any special abilities (there will be 4 out of a possible 8 in each game) you may have that can help you tweak your strategy and possibly build an extra settlement or two as the game unfolds. Your strategy is determined by the Kingdom Builder cards that are in play for the game; they determine how points are scored for your settlements based on location, groupings, spacing, etc. The only other way to score points is to place a settlement adjacent to a Castle hex (there are always 4 of them); this will get you 3 gold at the end.

End Game - The goal is to score the most gold, and the game ends when a player plays all 40 of their settlements—each player then receives their final turn. Your score is then tallied (again, according to the scoring criteria on the Kingdom Builder cards), and whoever comes out with the most gold wins.

I'm not over simplifying the mechanics of the game; they are very simple and easy to learn. The strategic side of the game is where things really shape up. Because the way you score points is different in each game, adjusting your strategy each time you sit down to play it is vital!

The Bottom Line - While the special abilities are reminiscent of Dominion, and the building of settlements hints to Catan, the truth is, the mechanics and strategies involved create a unique and engaging game play experience that will make you want to set up another game as soon as the first game is over. The pictograms used to explain some of the special abilities are at times cryptic but nothing insurmountable. This is a fun, lightweight, quick-playing game.

Spies Like Us: Reviewing The Resistance

I have a regular gaming group, and we’ve been getting together every week for eight years or so. Every once in a while a game comes along that completely captivates us, and it’s all we want to play. Loopin’ Louie did that. Crokinole did that. Dominion did that. And our latest obsession is a game called The Resistance.

This terrific little card game takes everything that's good about games like Battlestar Galactica, Werewolf, and Mafia and boils them down to a 20-minute gem.

Your team is part of the Resistance—a force that opposes the ruling government. If it’s easier, you can think of it as the Rebel Alliance fighting against the Empire. The problem is that the Empire has planted spies among your rebel forces. The spies know who each other are, but the Rebels have no idea who the spies are—just that they’re among the group.

The game is very abstracted. You’re going on five missions—they might be sabotaging facilities or infiltrating a base. It doesn’t matter and the game doesn’t specify. The point is that the Rebels want the missions to succeed, and the spies want the missions to fail. The first side to have three missions go their way wins.

At the start of the game you randomly choose someone to be Leader. That person will suggest a team to go on the first mission. People will convince and cajole, trying to get the Leader to put people they trust on the mission. But you don’t know if the Leader is a spy and seeding the team with a fellow spy!

Eventually the Leader proposes a team and everyone gets to vote on whether that team goes on the mission. If a majority of the players vote yes, the mission goes on. If a majority vote no—or the vote is tied—that’s a vote of No Confidence in the Leader. The leadership passes to the next player and he or she proposes a new team for the mission. It can happen that it takes a few times to finally land on a team that gets voted through. But the Rebels have to beware; if the vote fails five times on any one mission, the Spies automatically win because the Rebels aren’t organized enough to be effective.

So if the team passes, they go on the mission. This consists of handing out a set of cards to each person going on the mission. One card is a Pass, and the other is a Fail. Players secretly choose one and put it in the middle. Then the Leader shuffles all of the cards so no one knows who played what card, and they’re revealed.

As long as they’re all Passes, the mission succeeds, but if there’s even one Fail, the mission fails. (During the fourth of the five missions it takes two Fails for the mission to fail, but that’s the lone exception.)

Whether the mission fails or succeeds, you now have a bit more information. Those three people went on a mission that failed, so at least one of them must be a Spy. But who? That’s the vanilla game, and in the vanilla game the Spies win A LOT. SO the fine people at Indie Boards and Cards included some Plot Cards, which are meant to even things out a bit. Some of the plot cards force people to show another player their Role card (which reveals whether they’re a Spy or not). This creates great tension. Is the person a Spy? Did they show their card to another Spy so they wouldn’t be revealed?

The Spies are trying to sew seeds of confusion, throw people off the scent, or even (and this one of my favorite tricks), throw your fellow Spies under the bus after they’re served their purpose, which makes you seem trustworthy. Then you stab the Rebels in the back later. In my opinion, it’s much more fun to play as the Spies.

It’s definitely worth noting that the game involves lying. Keep an eye out for a short article where I discuss the role of lying, and the internal struggle I have with it. This is a fantastic game to play with a youth group, just be aware that you’re kind of encouraging deception.

This is easily my most-played game of all time. I can’t see it ever growing old.

We’re going to be giving away a copy of this great game, so stay tuned to see how you can get your own copy! And thanks for reading!

Carcassonne - We're Not Tiling the Bathroom!

We're certainly not delusional enough to think that we're the first to come along and review Carcassonne, Rio Grande Games' tile-placing, city-building, meeple-playing, game released in 2000. But since this game consistently resides in my personal top 3 list, for a number of reasons I thought we should give it a look here at TOG. The mechanics of the game are simple: Draw a tile, place that tile, and choose whether or not to place a "meeple" or follower on it. Each tile features one or more different features—a portion of a city, a road, a cloister, or farm land. Not every tile has every feature, though. Each feature represents a different way to score, and presents multiple strategies to employ throughout the game.

Who Might Like This Game? If you're a person who likes to plan 4-5 moves in advance, this may not be the game for you...or is it? Most times you'll find yourself thinking about 4-5 moves in the future for 3 different strategies that could come into play, depending on what tile gets pulled and where it gets played. With the randomness of the tile pulls it's best to not put your eggs in a single basket.

There's plenty of discussion going on around the Internet about strategies, and when to place a follower or not, when and how many farmers you should commit, and so forth. Personally, I think the game is won and lost at the farmer scoring, but the tricky part about that is that they don't score until the game is over, so playing too many farmers too soon will leave you with no way to score points during the game.

What Makes This Game Stand Out? The ingenious mechanic that really makes the farm wars (and city wars, for that matter) so competitive is the creative gyrations one must go through in order to overthrow another player and take control of a city or a farm. Once a player has control of a city or a farm, you can't simply place a tile adding on to that city or farm and then add one of your followers. Once it's claimed, it's claimed; the only way to overtake it is to perform a maneuver my friends and I have affectionately termed "cracking in." That means placing a tile nearby with one of your meeples on it and hoping that you pull the right tile to connect your follower into the feature before your opponent pulls one that locks you out!

I know, I'm making this game sound like a thrill a minute, but once you get a few turns in you'll start to see the competition for control of cities and farmland heat up—and witness the painstaking agony of watching someone else pull "that one tile" that you REALLY needed!

Who Can Play This Game? This game is really about as family friendly as it gets; I've played it with my 6-year-old several times (the game is suggested for players ages 8 & up; I like to believe that my kid is a genius). There's no violence, or malevolent nature behind the game; you're taking on the role of builders creating cities, farms, and so forth. You aren't building brothels or dungeons or anything off-kilter; it's just a solid, fun game that will make you think and strategize, a lot!

We'll be taking a closer look at some of the many expansions available for Carcassonne in the upcoming weeks. Make sure you check back—or subscribe using that handy button on the right there...

If you'd like us to review a title please let us know and we'll do what we can to get our stinkin' paws on it, and let you know what we think of it!

Thanks for reading!

You can get the Carcassonne: 10 Year Special Edition on Amazon right here!