We Review Plato 3000

By Firestone I like being surprised by a game—well...pleasantly surprised, anyway. I opened up my recently arrived, Kickstarted copy of Glory To Rome and found a small card game that I’d completely forgotten was a stretch goal. It’s called Plato 3000, and it’s basically rummy with special powers.

The game comes with a 54-card deck of illustrated cards. The artwork is pretty cool; it’s kind of an apocalyptic steampunky series of machines in different kinds and colors. There’s also a rules reminder card—it would have been nice if there’d been more than one, though.

You shuffle the cards, deal 10 to each player, and then place the remaining cards on a Draw deck. There are two discards on either side of the Draw pile—a Scrap discard and a Research discard. A turn consists of drawing a card—either blindly off the top of the Draw deck, or off the top of either discard pile. If you draw off the Draw pile, you draw two and keep one—discarding the other to the top of the Research discard. Then you can play one Theory card (which all have special things they let you do), lay down one meld of three or more Job cards, and/or lay off on melds your opponent has down. Then you discard a card to the Scrap pile.

The various colors have special powers once they’re down in front of you as a meld. The Priest lets you lay down a meld when you have only two of a color. The Farmer lets you keep both cards when you draw off the top at the beginning of the turn. And the Soldier lets you attack your opponent’s melds and remove cards from them.

Just as in Rummy, once someone discards his or her last card, the hand is over. Cards in front are positive points, and cards in your hand are negative points. There are a few other scoring cases, but that’s basically it: rummy with special powers. You continue playing until someone reaches 100 points, which seems to be four or five hands. There are rules for team play, but I haven't tried that yet.

It’s a fun little game! Easy to teach, portable, based on a well-known game, and nongamer-friendly.

I guess the best endorsement I can give is this: I got my copy for free, but even if I hadn’t, I would still buy a copy.

Check back soon for our review of Glory To Rome, and thanks for reading!

Don't Fear the Ripper--A Review of Letters From Whitechapel

By Firestone I’m not sure what the fascination is with Jack the Ripper. Is it because the murders were so gruesome? Probably. Is it because he was never captured? Almost certainly. All I do know is he’s been the genesis of some good books, stories, and board games. Letters From Whitechapel is the latter.

One person plays Jack, while the other players are detectives trying to track Jack down. The board is a map of London that has nearly 200 individual circle spaces that Jack uses—along with at least as many black squares that act as intersections the detectives use. At the beginning of the game, Jack secretly picks a space as his hideout. His goal is to commit a murder each night for four nights, and then make his way to his hideout. The detectives are trying to ferret out his hideout and make an arrest.

While a simple game, it would take a long time to explain exactly how a turn functions. Basically, Jack has a few turns to delay murdering a woman, but he eventually has to. Once he does, he has ~15 turns to make it back to his hideout. We weren’t quite sure why Jack would want to delay, unless he really needed the extra time to make it back. On nights one and two he kills one victim (it’s completely abstracted). On night three, he kills two, so you’re not sure which one he’s starting his Run from. And on the final night, he’s back to one murder. Jack has a couple of unique movement options that help hide his trail a bit.

Each turn, the detectives each move, and then they either make an arrest on an adjacent spot, or they look for clues on a spot. If Jack has been on that spot during that night, he has to say so. That’s how the detectives are able to slowly tighten the net around Jack.

There were some clever and interesting decisions to be made as the detectives. There’s lots of trying to figure out where he could be and where he couldn’t. There was a narrative feel, as toward the end we knew we were in the right area, but we just couldn’t be quite sure where his hideout was. There’s just a lot of tension. (I never played Jack, so I can’t comment on how “fun” that was.)

I’m not thrilled about the length. The box says it plays in 60 minutes. THE BOX LIES. With good players, I could see this going at least two-and-a-half hours—probably more. There are also times when one or more detectives will end up WAY away from where the action is. One great house rule I’ve read about gives detectives the option to move three spaces (rather than two), if they’re not going to look for clues. That just seems clearly better.

Gameplay aside, it’s hard to ignore the subject matter. Someone will be Jack, and that someone will be “killing” someone. It’s abstracted completely, but it’s still there and it’s still morbid. I can’t really say this is a great family or youth group game. It simply has a darker feel than other Jack the Ripper games, such as, say…Mr. Jack.

It’s a clever and unique game that might be the best deduction game I’ve ever played.

Thanks for reading!

Tooth & Nail: Factions

By Firestone A while back I wrote about my Love/Hate relationship with Kickstarter, and in that article I mentioned a project I was going to back on faith. Well Tooth & Nail: Factions is that game. Was it worth my backing dollars?

Well you’ll just have to read and find out…

The game is put out by Small Box Games, so it comes in a…small box. I like the size a lot, but there’s not a lot of room for expansions—if they make any. (Though it should be noted my copy is sleeved.) It plays 2-4 players, but based on the different rules for 3 and 4 players, it seems like it would just be way better with only 2—and I've only played 2-player so far...

So the game comes with ~200 glossy cards. They’re decent quality, though I would suggest sleeving them. The game is all cards, so you’re moving, turning, playing, holding, and shuffling them a lot. It’s not a deck-builder, so you won’t be handling them as much as you would in, say, Dominion, but still…

Those cards are divided into six Factions, each of which is designed to feel and play differently than the others, and Action Cards. Each Faction has five copies of six different troops. The game also comes with six oversized Faction cards that spell out each Faction’s unique in-game ability. My Kickstarted copy also came with six alternate Faction cards for more variety, and a Dogs of War variant that I have yet to try out.

I really like the artwork on the cards. It’s not super sharp, like some of the CCGs Fantasy Flight puts out (which I also like, btw). But this feels more raw and organic and earthy.

You’re trying to cause your opponent to run through his or her deck before you do: First person out of cards in their draw pile loses. So cards are life points, but they’re also your weapons to defeat your enemy.

The play area is divided into the War Zone and the Command Zone; when you play a troop card, you’ll play it down to one of those sections. The War Zone allows you to directly attack your opponent’s deck (but you ignore the special text on the troop card), or the Command Zone, where you don’t directly attack, but you will end up using the special text to affect things. The other important thing about the Command Zone is that at the beginning of your turn you’re able to draw one card for each card you have in your Command Zone.

You can either draw directly from your stack of cards, or you can draw an Action Card—a set of cards that are available to each player on his or her turn. You’ll need to use Action Cards to play cards down to the table, and to initiate an attack from the War Zone. One of my favorite aspects of the game is that the beginning of each turn forces you to make a tough decision about which type of cards you draw for that turn.

You don’t have to play an Action Card to activate a card in your Command Zone, but you have to discard the card after activation unless you have a copy of that exact card in your hand that you can discard. Sometimes losing that card is still a good choice; sometimes it isn’t… More tough choices.

The games last 15-30 minutes, and because of the variety of Factions (and 30 possible combinations of matchups), it’s easy to say, “Let’s play another quick game.”

Yes, there’s some luck of the draw, but I think each turn is more an exercise in playing what you have in the best way, rather than hoping you draw that one awesome card that’s in your deck. <cough-Magic-cough>

The Factions don’t feel completely different, but there’s definitely a different feel to each. The Enrodentia (rats) are weak, but have swarmish abilities. The Red Claws (dinosaurs) can take a beating (by pulling cards from their discard pile back into their draw deck). The Ostra Vultura (steampunk vultures!) mess with their opponent’s hand by forcing them to ditch cards, or by pulling cards from the opponent into the Vultura’s draw pile.

My one complaint is that sometimes the matchups seem to favor one side a bit. In one game my Pride Faction’s ability forced my opponent to remove his discards from the game, but he was playing the Vultura, and they don’t generally resurrect cards from their discard pile, so it didn’t really affect him. Meanwhile, his ability forced me to randomly discard a card from my hand. THAT WAS MUCH MORE USEFUL. But it could be that more experience will force me to be creative about what strengths I do have. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker at this point; it’s just something to be mindful of.

Overall, I’m liking Tooth and Nail: Factions quite a bit. And there are a few variations and expansions that I haven’t even touched yet, but I’m excited to give them a whirl!

This Kickstarter experience was great; I regret nothing. Thanks for reading!

Of Dice and Cars - A review of Dicey Curves

-by JeremiahMatt Worden of Matt Worden Games was kind enough to send me a review copy of his racin' and rollin' dice game Dicey Curves. I finally had the chance to pull it out and give it a test drive. Want to know what I thought? Good, keep reading... The Basics - The player’s turn breaks down pretty simply for this party game of up to 8 players: Roll Dice, Move Cars, and Gain Control Chips (if possible). Each player rolls at least 5 d6 (Six sided dice) on their turn, and for every 6 you roll, you get to add an extra d6 and re-roll both the 6 and the extra die. You then group them up in pairs, triples, doubles, etc. (pairs consist of either of matching numbers or sequential numbers). Having a triple allows you to move a race car along the track 3 "spots", a quad 4 spots, etc. You can play a single, but it will mark the end of the movement of that car for that turn (players can -and should- control multiple cars in a game, if there are less than 8 players).

Control chips - allow you to do some nifty maneuvers depending on the phase of your turn. If you're rolling dice you can add a d6 set to any number 1-5, or re-roll any amount of dice already in play. If you're moving cars already they give you the ability to continue playing dice after you've played a single; juke, which switches spots with a car next to yours; or take control of another player’s car. I mostly found that using them to continue playing dice after a single allowed for optimal use of your dice in a turn and didn't use them for much else while moving cars. You gain control chips by turning in unused dice at the end of your turn.

The Race Track - is made of cards revealed at random from a shuffled deck. There is no set length to the race, you simply tuck the finish line somewhere in the deck and fire up your engines. The track consists of three elements, Spots, Paths, and Gates. Spots determine how far you can go depending on the dice groups you roll, Paths determine how you move between spots, and Gates are essentially roadblocks that require a specific group to be played before allowing the racer to pass. The Gates simulate the degree of difficulty for certain turns or areas of the track, requiring racers to throttle down to navigate. There is also a suggested variant for setting up the track first in a circle around the table, but I found the uncertainty of not knowing what was coming around the next bend more exciting!

My Final Thoughts -I definitely recommend playing the game with as many cars on the table as possible. We found that with only 4 cars in the race it was very easy for a player to pull out to a lead and never look back. It's also important that the deck gets shuffled well!! I can't stress that enough, as a section of our first walk through yielded a Straight Away or Wide Open card 7 out of 8 pulls which added no challenge to the game. I wasn't a huge fan of the artwork either, but the components were overall what you'd expect from an indie publisher and the game itself holds up well.

What I took away from Dicey Curves was a quick moving, fun party game, the control chips were well thought out, and remove a good chunk of randomness from the game and inject a healthy shot of strategy into a game that would otherwise be completely left to the luck of a roll. The Dicey Curves expansion Danger! Was just released, I'll be reviewing that soon, so stay tuned! You can grab a copy of Dicey Curves right here!

Mage Knight - These Aren't Your Big Brother's Clix!

by Jeremiah

In the year 2000, Wizkids hit the market with their debut to the "Clix" system with a miniatures game called Mage Knight; it was a hit. Spawning Mech Warrior and the still-popular Heroclix titles for the company. Several years and multiple expansions later, Wizkids decided to release Mage Knight 2.0 and deem every figure previously created null and void in tournament play. Exit Mage Knight as we know it, and the eventual demise of Wizkids.

Wizkids is back up and running, and really hitting some home runs as they slowly but surely reboot titles that were gaming staples for much of the first decade of the 21st century. Which brings me to this week's review: Mage Knight the board game.

The overview—Think 40K, D&D, MTG, and any LCG all mixed up together. It sounds schizophrenic, but it works. The base set comes with 4 characters that players choose from; you then embark on a scenario (1 of 11 included, or if you're daring you can create your own or scale up or down your own) and into a land that is revealed as you explore. Along the way you encounter baddies, keeps, monasteries, dungeons...well, you get the idea. Killing a monster, conquering a keep, exploring (adding a new tile to the board) etc, will earn you "fame' (Experience Points, the ultimate goal in most scenarios is to have the most fame) which allows you to level up, which gives you stronger stats, allows you to gain new skills, control more allies...sound familiar?

Here's where the game takes on a different spin, and becomes very intriguing. You control all of your actions through your "Deed" deck. You have 5 cards in your hand (you get a higher hand limit as you level up), and these cards dictate what you can do on your turn. There is no intricate time-based system to keep track of; there is no Dungeon Master telling you what you can or cannot do. There is a board that consists of tiles that are revealed as you explore, and your own deck of cards. You also cannot die—taking wounds doesn't take away hit points, it only fills your deck with wound cards that clutter up your hand and inhibit you from taking more actions on your turn. Play continues in turns and rounds. A day round followed by a night round and so on. Day and night rounds have different effects on traveling across certain terrain and your ability to see what a certain baddy is before you jump into battle with it.

The Mechanisms—They're actually fairly clean and easy to learn—on the other hand, the multitude of combat rules and special abilities for your foes can be a little much to swallow when you first jump in. Playing cards to do anything and everything is a unique twist on a game like this, and you can really come up with some great combos to accomplish a lot on your turn, but it takes some good base knowledge of the gaming system and the cards in your deck.

I really enjoyed this game, but be warned: If games such as Battlestar Galactica are a marathon to you, Mage Knight is an Iron Man race! The longest scenario included is estimated to be about 8+ hours! It's definitely geared for a multiple-sitting experience.

Beware—As with most games of this nature that take place in some sort of "fantasy realm" the use of darker magic and spell casting is highly prevalent. But there's no flavor text on the cards, so as the game is played it feels pretty innocuous. About two rounds into the game I was informed that my character was a "Blood Cultist." It didn't really have any effect on the game play or the cards in my hand; all the players have the same cards—only different amounts of certain ones. I happened to have a few more cards that were more aggressive in nature, but as I leveled up I could easily select skills and cards that were geared more for healing and being a nice guy. But if casting spells and fighting wizards in towers and such gives you pause, it's best to steer clear of this one.

All in all, it's a deep gaming experience, with nicely tuned mechanisms to help take out some of the randomness of most card-based systems. I'm hoping for expansions to come soon that will offer more characters that are of a less evil persuasion.

Thanks for reading!

A Review of Smash Up!

by Firestone You know what the world needs more of right now? Card games! Okay, Smash Up isn’t a deckbuilder, so I’ll give it a pass. What it is is a fast filler that has lots of room for expansion.

The game comes with eight different “factions”—a set of cards with a theme. There are pirates, ninjas, dinosaurs, aliens, zombies, wizards, tricksters, and robots. Each faction is very thematic and plays very differently. The ninjas can swoop in and exert influence at the last second, while the zombies can take things out of their discard pile. Basic stuff.

But where Smash Up is different is that you mix two of the factions, shuffle them up, and have a different combo each game. So you could have zombie pirates, or trickster dinosaurs, or alien robots. You get the best of each faction! Each faction has Action cards (that let you do cool stuff), and Minion cards (that exert influence and also do cool stuff).

The point of the game is to get to 15 victory points (VPs), and the way you (mostly) do that is by scoring Bases. The game comes with a slew of Bases, each with a unique name and special ability. So on one Base, each Minion there exerts +1 influence, or if you place a Minion on this base you can add another Minion to another base. Each Base has a different trigger number, and once the influence of all Minions there adds up to that trigger number, you score the Base. Generally, 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place at a Base score, and the amount depends on the Base.

It's a pretty fun game, and a fast...ish filler with some neat combos. And I see that there’s lots of potential for expansions--and it’s put out by AEG, so YOU BETTER BELIEVE THERE WILL BE EXPANSIONS.

My biggest problem is that there's special text on the bases and all of the cards. So you spend a lot of time reading your own cards, reading your played cards out loud to the rest of the table, and reading other people's cards (and the base cards) already on the table. So what should have been a fast filler can be just a bit too long for what it is.

Also, some VP chits would have been nice.

Still, this is a fun game, and light enough that I could play it with my kids, or a youth group, or some nongamers. Check it out!

Thanks for reading!

Bang! You're Dead

Review by Jeremiah

Today we're taking a look at the spaghetti western card game, Bang! Released in 2002, it's been augmented by several expansions, and now a third edition release has kept the franchise thriving. Some expansions can only be found in the "Bang the Bullet," which features the base set and all of the game's expansions in a nifty bullet shaped tin.

The game play is pretty simple: shoot everyone else (with "BANG!" cards), gain weapons to increase your range so you can shoot everyone at the table, and try to get a few defensive cards (Missed! cards), or hang onto some cards that will heal damage (we'll talk about those in a minute).

Where the game really thrives is in the intrigue and strategy department. Each player is randomly dealt a character and a role card. The character card gives the players a unique skill or ability that is theirs to use throughout the game.

The role card is kept secret (except for the Sheriff) and determines each player's course of action and goal for winning the game. The lawful (Sheriff and Deputies) win if they accomplish the task of killing all the Outlaws and the Renegade (the unlawful). The outlaws win by killing the sheriff, and the renegade wins by killing everyone. The trick to the Renegade, is that once the sheriff is killed, the game is over. So you have to kill off everyone else and essentially protect the sheriff until it's mano e mano. Since the role cards are kept secret (except the sheriff), there's lots of guessing, and blame-laying going on throughout the game.

Honestly, the Renegade, while most challenging, is probably my favorite role to play; you are the complete and total wild card at the table and if you play it right, you'll have the sheriff killing off deputies mid-game. Lot's of fun!

The game is designed for4-7 players so it's a great game for a larger group, and the play time is about 30 minutes (which in my book qualifies as a "quick play").

The clear and present danger of this game is that, especially with the full 7 players at the table, chances are someone will get killed—and therefore removed from the game—before they've even taken a single turn. This happens, and it's terrible (for the person who is out; everyone else seems to take a measure of twisted pleasure from the occasion). Then the 30 minutes no longer seems like a "quick play" but more like something I like to call "plotting vengeance time..."

Some things to consider when playing this game: Even when playing with my most "pious" of friends, the temptation to play a "BANG!" card, and blurt out some reference to a euphemism in western culture concerning what said player "did" to the other player by playing the "BANG!" card, is virtually irresistible. If you're going to play with teenagers, I suggest being in a mindset of complete self control. Don't even crack that door open with them, cause it will be game over well before the game is, well, over.

I mentioned cards that heal damage early; there are 2 types of cards that heal damage to characters, and one is the "Beer" card. Yep, have a nice cold one and you'll heal one hit point to your character. The other is the saloon—belly up to the saloon and the whole table gets healed one hit point. Some people change this to root beer to avoid promoting drinking. Your call.

The artwork on the cards is very cartoonish; there's nothing gory or distasteful about letting fly with your favorite six-shooter. And in the style of the spaghetti western, they've even gone so far as to put the card text into Italian underneath the English.

All in all, the game can be fun if the players really get into their roles and you're fortunate enough to survive the first time around the table.

As always thanks for reading, and if there are any games you'd like us to review, feel free to leave your requests in the comments!

We Didn't Playtest This at All - Fluxx's Schizophrenic Cousin

By Jeremiah I just recently stumbled upon this plain white boxed card game—the name of which is more of an excuse for what's about to take place than an actual name. It was $8 and I had some credit to burn at my local game shop so I took a shot in the dark.

WDPTAA is probably the fastest playing filler game you'll come across. Each player is dealt 2 cards and someone decides that they are going to go first. The game is practically over at this point. Players can lose one at a time or in large fell swoops; the cards are random, deceptive, and at times downright goofy.

Your turn consists of drawing one card and playing one card, and hoping you didn't just play something that caused you to lose. You can play cards that will direct players to play Rock, Paper, Scissors only to find out after they "shoot" that everyone who chose Rock has lost the game. Or you can put into play a card that allows for "No Pointing"; any player caught pointing at another player or a card or anything at all, loses. (Try to not point at the player who just pointed while telling them they lost!)

The game has whiffs of Fluxx without all the housekeeping and pretentiousness of having categorized cards for "New Rules" or "Goals" etc. Just read the cards and try to get as many other players to lose on your turn as you can. And if someone else wins you might be lucky enough to be holding the "Spite" card which causes you both to lose! Hey if you can't win, no one can, right?

The new 2012 version has a "chaos pack" included with the base set. We immediately set those cards aside because it seemed way overboard for what was already taking place. But they add more conditions to game play for the whole table. They also include a good amount of blank cards so you can feel free to add your own flavor of insanity to the mix as well.

Honestly, this game didn't come off as annoying as I thought it would; we all had some pretty big laughs while playing it and it will come out again to fill up the time in between the longer games. If you don't take it too seriously, it won't disappoint.

When We Last Left Our Heroes...

Well, we tried something new here with a 2-player-focused week. we hope you enjoyed it; we had a lot of fun  making our lists of favorite games. Here's what you might have missed...We reviewed Reiner Knizia's brilliant Battle Line.

Jeremiah continued the Dead CCG series with a piece on Star Trek The Customizable Card Game.

We told you all about one of the great Spouse Games: Lost Cities.

Jeremiah shared his Top 5 games for 2 players.

And finally—because I couldn't decide on only 5—I told you my Top 10 games for 2 players.

We hope you're enjoying the blog, and have a great weekend. Thanks for reading!

Finding Lost Cities

By Firestone Some people have spouses who love to game with them, but for most of us, we’re always on the lookout for a game that might entice our significant other to join us in this hobby.

For many people, designer Reiner Knizia’s Lost Cities is the quintessential Spouse Game: It’s easy to teach, it’s 2-player only, there’s a decent amount of luck, and there are interesting decisions throughout.

If you’ve read our review of Reiner Knizia’s Battle Line, these mechanisms will be very familiar: play a card, and draw a card.

The theme is paper-thin, but every little bit helps when it comes to getting your wife or husband playing. You’re heading up a series of expeditions looking for fabled “lost cities.” The game comes with a small board, and a deck of 60 cards—45 of them run 2 through 10 five colors (or destinations), and then each color also has three Investment cards. You start the game with eight cards.

On your turn you will play a card—either down to one of the five expeditions in front of you, or into the communal discard pile for the color. Then you draw a card, either from the facedown deck or the top card from one of the color discard piles. You’re trying to get as many cards into as many expeditions as possible. The catch is that once you place a card for an expedition, the next card you play has to be higher than the last one played. It doesn’t have to be the next card in sequence; it just has to be higher. But the numbers only go two through 10, so if you start on five, you only have five more cards you can play—and that’s only if you’re able to draw those cards!

Since you’re forced to play a card each turn, sometimes you just want to delay having to start one of your expeditions until you can get some small numbers in that color, so you ditch a card onto a discard pile. You run the risk that’s just the card your opponent needed, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.

Another twist is those Investment cards I mentioned earlier. There are three in each color, and you have to play them at the beginning of an expedition. You can play all three if you’re lucky enough to draw them—and brave enough to play them. That’s because the first one doubles the value of the expedition at the end of the game; the second one triples it; and the third one quadruples it.

Why is that brave, you ask? Well, that’s because each expedition you launch has 20 points subtracted from it at the end of the game. Thematically, you can think of this as the money it costs to launch these endeavors to the ends of the earth. So let’s say on the green expedition you’re only able to play an Investment card, a two, a three, and a five by the time the game ends. You’ve only scored 10 points, but you subtract 20 points from that and you’re now at -10…except that Investment card now doubles it. You’re at a cool -20. Be very careful where you Invest…

One other small rule is that there’s a bonus of 20 points for any expedition that has eight or more cards in it—including Investment cards.

The game ends as soon as the draw deck runs out. You add up the points in each expedition, subtract the 20 points, add the 20 points (if applicable), and multiply (if applicable).

The game suggests playing three rounds, and since the rounds are short, it doesn’t take long at all.

Lost Cities is part of the Kosmos line of 2-player games. If you play a lot of 2-player games, I highly recommend checking these out—especially Jambo, Odin’s Ravens, The Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, and Balloon Cup. The artwork is colorful and evocative. The cards are oversized, and despite the fact that they have black borders, they don’t seem to be showing much wear.

Lost Cities is a very good 2-player game, and if you’re looking for the game to hook your spouse, this might just do the trick. Check back later in the week for our review of Lost Cities: The Board Game, which ramps this game up a notch.

Thanks for reading!