Draco Magi--A Double-Take Preview

"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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Relic Expedition—A Double-Take Review

September 13, 1997--I brought the machete down again and again today--cutting a swath through the dense jungle. It's been days since we've seen anything besides this oppressive jungle and more bugs than I thought existed in the entirety of the world. As the son was setting, we did run across a pair of giant paw-prints. I pray we don't meet their owner... It's been a few years since an exploration game broke any new ground. But newcomers Foxtrot Games are hoping to change that with their first game: Relic Expedition. So how is it? Let's see...

The Overview

You're an explorer, making your way through a jungle in search of treasure. But there are dangers lurking around every corner. Well...jungles don't have corners, but you get the idea. The first player to collect four matching Relics, move to a helicopter clearing, and use three Action Points, wins the game.

The Components

• 4 Wood backpack racks
• 4 Explorers
• 3 dice
• 4 large tile boards (Basecamp, Mountain, Cave, River)
• 16 Wood animal figures
• 36 Triangle curse markers
• 50 Draw supply tiles
• 1 Cloth bag
• 20 Board supply tiles
• 36 Relic tiles
• 16 Starting jungle tiles
• 96 Regular jungle tiles

The Setup

• Place the starting tile in the center, and then each player puts his explorer on one of the camp spaces and grabs the Backpack rack in his color.
• Randomly place one of the starting Jungle tiles onto any empty space adjacent to an Explorer. Any unused starting tiles are removed from the game.
• Place the regular Jungle tiles, Animal figures, Board Supplies (with the green faces), Curse marker, and feature tiles next to the board.
• Place the Draw Supplies into the bag.
• Place Relics facedown onto the Relic Table spaces on the feature boards--the Mountain has 4, the River 6, and the Cave 6. Place the remaining Relics facedown in a pile next to the board.

The Gameplay

On your turn, you'll roll the two dice--the animal one and the number one. If an animal is rolled, and one of those animals is on the board, it moves. Starting with the person who rolled, he will choose one of those animals and move it one or two spaces. If there are any other of that type of animal, then the next player clockwise will choose one of those unmoved animals and move it. This continues until each animal has moved. There are some specific rules on where and how an animal can be moved, but those aren't important for the review.

If an animal moves to a space with an explorer, an encounter happens. What that looks like will depend on the animal. Snakes will cause that explorer to lose a turn, but a player can trash a first aid kit supply token to avoid it. Boars cause you to lose a turn and become "knocked unconscious"--which means all of the things in your backpack are placed on the space, and can be stolen by other players until you pick them up on your next turn. This can be avoided by playing a trap or tranquilizer supply token. Panthers wreck you even worse, and cause you to lose your stuff and be MedEvacced out.  You can enter on a helicopter clearing of your choice, and hopefully make your way back to where your stuff is. Again, tranqs and traps can help with this. Monkeys will take a random item from your bag; hopefully it's not a Relic. They can be bribed with bananas.

The number die will give you a result of either 2, 3, or 4, and that's the number of actions you can take. As you move through the jungle you'll reveal new tiles, and sometimes animals or Relics or new features will be revealed. There are rules that govern what can and can't be traversed, and how many action points it costs, but, again, it's not important for the review. Just know you'll be moving around, trying to avoid animals and trying to get Relics. There are three special features that have loads of relics on them. The Mountain, Cave, and River features are all triggered when you find certain tiles. The feature is now moved to the board, and the Relics on them are open season. But each feature also takes a special supply token to traverse. So a Raft to get on the river, and a Headlamp for the cave. It's evocative and interesting.

The Relics have six different insignias and six different colors. Someone has to have four matching Relics--either the same color or the same insignia, make it to one of the boards helicopter landing spots, and spend three action points. Each backpack only holds eight items, so this makes for some interesting decisions, as the closer you get to winning, the fewer handy tools you can carry in your backpack. So you might be winning, but you're also vulnerable.

The winner flies off into the sunset, leaving the others as Panther Chow...

The Verdict

Firestone--I really did like this game, but the fact that your actions each turn are determined by a die roll just kills this for any kind of serious play. That simply means it's a family game, and that's okay.

Jeremiah--Yeah, that die roll is a head scratcher for me too, but definitely not a killer. Our family and my gaming friends enjoyed it. If the die is that big of a killer I think playing with a house rule of a set amount if actions is a suitable option.

Firestone--The exploration aspect of this was great. In a game such as Tikal, the jungle is still constrained by the board, so the "exploration" aspect is mostly muted. I think one of the reasons Carcassonne works so well is that it can go anywhere and everywhere, so you're never sure what the board will look like. Similarly, the jungle we revealed in Relic Expedition was different every game. And the special features like the cave and the river add even more interesting exploration options. It just works.

Jeremiah--Couldn't agree more, the feature pieces are a nice variation from just placing hexes. But the art design and the way the jungle is revealed as you explore it is awesome! Every time we play the jungle looks unique and picturesque!

Jeremiah--MEEPLES, MEEPLES, MEEPLES! Monkeys, snakes, jaguars, boars, Indiana Jones-looking adventure meeples! They're all awesome. Everything about this game's bit and boards is super well done!

Firestone--Yeah, that's all top-notch. Those animeeples are great, and way better than just using tokens. The board tiles are all nice and thick, and the artwork is great. And I really like the art and aesthetic of the supply tiles; those just grabbed me for some reason.

Jeremiah--My only complaint is the rule book; it's a small book, designed to look like a pocket field guide. I get it: The form is awesome, but the function isn't so much. The learning curve isn't that strong on this one, so you don't have to grab the rule book too often after your first play or so, but the rule book made it a little tough for quick-referencing certain scenarios. Again the form is awesome and it fits the theme perfectly. But the function leaves a little to be desired.

Firestone-- Making it a Field Guide was clever and evocative--and I didn't even mind that it was small. It has color pictures, and line drawings of the animals, like you would find in an old scientific journal. That's cool! If it had been organized better, and had everything I needed, I wouldn't have complained at all.

As it is, there are a few times where the Field Guide says, "See the Quick Start Guide for details." Well...no. A quick-start guide should never have the details. It's a quick-start guide. The rules should have everything, and the quick-start guide should be for starting...quickly. It should gloss over rules. That, and the fact that rules weren't found where you expected them to be made it a little slow to get started. It's not overly complicated, and after a couple of games you probably won't need the rules at all, but for the first couple, it's kinda rough.

Jeremiah--While I agree that the dice roll to determine the number of actions a player gets each turn is maybe a little to far down the random trail, using the die to determine which animals--if any--move/attack that turn is spot on and the way it plays out is seamless and balanced.

Jeremiah Final Verdict--We've certainly seen our share of Kickstarter games that have come to market with questionable gameplay, component quality, and everything from minor to major design flaws. But Relic Expedition is one of the best Kickstarter games we've seen! The game is fun to play, has massive replay value, is gorgeous to look at, and appeals to everyone from kids, to families, to casual players, and maaaybe even some serious gamers. We didn't do a list of top Kickstarter game's but if we did, Relic Expedition would be a top 5 game on that list, no doubt. So with that I say, emphatically, put this game on your table!

Firestone Final Verdict--I've been thoroughly impressed with Foxtrot's first game. They stumbled a bit on the rules, and I can't get on board with the action die, but this is a great, great family game. It can be hard to truly capture the feeling of exploration, but Relic does that really well. As the board opens up, you realize how well done the game is, and how thought-out the decisions are. Combine that with cool animeeples, great artwork, and a little luck, and you've got a game that deserves to be on your table.

We'd like to thank Foxtrot Games for providing review copies of Relic Expedition. This in no way affected our opinions on the game. 

Thanks for reading!

Zeppeldrome—A Double-Take Preview

Yes, they're chaotic, and unpredictable, and sometimes full of take-that mechanics, but race games are also pretty stinking fun. 12SP Entertainment has just launched a new racing contender on Kickstarter—Zeppeldrome: A Humorous, Hazardous, Dirigible Relay. So is it worth your money to back this project? Or will it crash and burn, Hindenberg-style? Let's find out.

The Basics

You're a dirigible captain, competing against other dirigible captains in a race. You'll have to fight your way through numerous hazards to claim the prize—all while messing with your opponents' plans, just as they mess with yours...

The Components

Please note that the copy we reviewed was a prototype. The final components will be better, and some may have changed.

● 10 Double-Sided Playing Board Sections ● 4 Dirigible tokens ● 4 Flight Plan covers in corresponding colors ● 4 Movement cubes in corresponding colors ● 70 Flight Plan Cards ● 8 Ballast Tokens ● 1 Chunk-Chunk Token ● 4 Old Folks Tokens ● 7 Lemming Tokens ● 20 Vector Chits

The Setup

First you're going to pick which four hazard boards you'll be using. The boards are divided into A, B, C, and D sections, which indicates which order they'll go in. If you want a shorter game, you can choose to use fewer sections. Then you'll randomly choose the order players will start the race, and put each player piece on the starting spaces. Each player grabs a color, and its associated pieces. Then shuffle the Flight Plan cards and deal each player four of them, and place the rest as a draw pile.

Two things before we move one. First, you determine who is in the lead(or sequence) by looking at the dirigible closest to the finish line. If multiple dirigibles are in the same column, then it's the one that's closest to the top that is in the lead.

Second, each Flight Plan card has a top section and bottom one. The top one shows a flight plan, and the bottom shows an action. You'll be using each card for only one of those things, so whenever you get a card you'll be looking at each card and determining which section is best for you right now.

The Gameplay

On your turn you'll have four cards in hand. Each player will pick a card to play for the Flight Plan portion. That will constitute the "base" that you'll be flying. Everyone picks one, and then you simultaneously reveal them. Each player has a little card, that matches his or her player color, that you can use to cover up the bottom portion so everyone can quickly see your color, and what you'll be doing that turn.

It may be that none of the cards have a flight plan y0u want to follow. In this case you'll just leave the card facedown on the "reveal." Each card has a single-movement-in-any-direction icon on it, and you'll be doing just that for your flight plan.

Now, in sequence order each player has the option to play one of the three remaining cards in his or her hand for its action. Some of the actions hurt, and some help—and some do a little of both. As such, you can choose to play the action on yourself or on another player.

Most cards will affect a dirigible's movement during the regular movement step. The game comes with extra chits with directions on them that you can grab and add either before or after your Flight Plan, depending on the action played.

Some action card effects happen immediately. If that happens, move the dirigible immediately, and this might affect the sequence for the next round of cad play. Once each player has had a chance to play one action card, or passed, you'll start a new round. Because things on the board have likely changed, players who passed previously can jump right back in and play a card this round. These rounds of card play continue until every player has passed.

Now the movement phase begins with the person in the lead. Movement is the only "tricky" part of the game, but because of the mechanisms it has to be. First, you take a cube and move it onto the farthest left vector of your Flight Plan—which might now have extra vectors attached to it, thanks to action cards. Once you've done that, then you'll attempt to move your dirigible piece on the board. If your dirigible runs into a hazard, or another player, it simply bounces back to the space it came from. But the cube remains on the vector, because you've attempted that move. Some Flight Plans have alternate routes, designated by an open arrow (rather than the solid one you'll usually see). In order to take that route, you'll need to discard a card from your hand.

Once each player has moved—or attempted to move—on the first vector, then you go to the next one. But player order may have changed now, and you use the new player order. This might change after every single vector, but that's just part of the game.

People will start running out of vectors on their Flight Plan, and as they do, they're just done. Others continue moving until they run out of vectors, too.

Once everyone has moved, each player can discard any unwanted cards, and then draw up to four cards.

Once someone crosses the finish line, he or she is declared THE WINNER!!!

The Hazard Boards

We'll just highlight a few of the hazard boards. Again, some of these might change, or become promos, or whatever. This is just to give you idea of what sort of things are on the boards.

A Bit of Ballast—On this board are a number of tokens depicting anvils connected to balloons. If you stop on a space with one of these tokens, you can pick one up and keep it with you. You immediately move one space down. At any time you can drop one of these ballast tokens to immediately raise up one space. You can have (and drop) multiple tokens at the same time.

Inspiration Point—If you end your move on this board, you can draw up to five cards instead of four.

Slalom 1—There are four gates on this board, each in one of the player colors. You HAVE to move through your color of gate in order to proceed to the next board.

Slalom 2—This is just like Slalom 1, except there are gates at the start and the end of the board. And the colors aren't lined up...

Headwinds—Dirigibles cannot move straight forward on this board. All other movement directions are okay, but any straight forward move results in a bounce.

Four Old Folks Looking for the Farmer's Market—These are four balloon tokens that start on the board in predesignated spaces. After action cards have been played, but before movement, the player in last place gets to move each on of the tokens to any adjacent open space. They block movement just like any other obstacle, and dirigibles will bounce.

There are others, but you get the idea...

The Verdict

Firestone—Two turns into this, my 9-year-old said, "This is a really fun game!" And that pretty much sums up my thoughts, too. This was fun. While I'm generally not a fan of take-that, and mess-with-your-opponent games, it fits the theme here. It reminds me of the old Hanna-Barbera "Wacky Races" cartoon—except everyone is Dick Dastardly and Muttley, trying to jockey for position by sabotaging opponents.

Jeremiah—Yeah, this is a fun take-that game with some great puzzle-solving strategery involved. The art and theme constantly reminded me of a Monty Python-esque universe in the animation style of Terry Gilliam. Pretty outrageous, and absurd all at the same time. It made for a lot of fun. I will say that my 5-year old did have a tough time getting through this on;, it seems like it's a game he would hang in there with, but I had to give more than a moderate amount of advice to him each turn.

Firestone—The hazard boards are a great way to introduce variability, replayability, and humor into the game. I generally like racing games, but the only real variability in games such as Mississippi Queen and Snow Tails is that sometimes the track will go this way, and sometimes it will go that way. That's good, because static tracks get boring quickly, but these hazard boards make every game really feel different. And it's ripe for expansions—either from 12SP themselves, or fan-made boards people post on Boardgamegeek. That's going to give Zeppeldrome legs...

Jeremiah— I totally agree: The board and card concepts make this game exponentially expandable, and multitudenally (that's not a word) re-playable. I also enjoy the fact that you can create a custom length to the game by adding or subtracting game boards, without completely breaking down the game and how it plays.

Firestone—The programming can be a little complex, as you're trying to figure out where your zeppelin might end up, and when that might happen. You also have to look at what other people's programs look like, because someone moving to a spot before you will cause you to bounce back to where you were, and that will affect your programming. That puts it on the upper end of the Nongamer Complexity Spectrum (tm) for me. Not a dealbreaker at all; just be aware.

Jeremiah—Yeah, like you said, whereas most race games are very non-gamer friendly, this one can lead to tons of analysis paralysis, and many, many threats of the cutting off of hands, or other forms of bodily harm in order to get the game moving again. I think the general rule of thumb is either play every action card on yourself, or every action card on someone else to try and mess them up. Splitting your strategy seems to be a bit confounding.

Firestone—I like how you can strategically fail a move, just to allow you to do what you want. You're limited by what the cards in your hand will allow you to do, but there are ways to manipulate it in your favor. That adds a lot for me. There's still chaos, mind you, but also some strategy.

Firestone—The only word of caution here is one of the cards: It's called "Captain Ernst's Cheapass Engine." This is a nod to James Ernst, who founded the game company Cheapass Games, which has small, cheap games that simply provide you with a set of rules, and you cobble together the needed pieces from other games. There are two of those cards in the game, and I simply took a pen and drew over the word "ass." It was a simple fix, though I wish I hadn't had to make it—especially since everything else about the game is so perfect for playing with your family!

Jeremiah's Final Verdict— Go back this game! Zeppeldrome is a fun family game that will get you some great replay value; it's a fun theme that will engage both gamer folks and non-gamers alike! There's plenty of fun, decision-making, an,d of course, a touch of chaotic take-that, which leads me to say, put this game on your table!

Firestone's Final Verdict—Zeppeldrome is a fast, fun race game. The programmed movement works well. The variable boards mean most games with be different. And the ability to mess with your opponents feels right in this sort of racing game. My family has had great fun with this one, and you should definitely put this game on the table! (After you back it on Kickstarter, of course!)

We'd like to thank 12SP Entertainment for providing prototype copies of the game for us to play. This was NOT a paid preview.

Stay tuned for more on this game—including an interview with co-designer Anthony Gallela next week! Thanks for reading!

Yet Another Podcast! And Yet Another Giveaway...

We told you we had another podcast in the hopper. But you probably thought we were just blowing smoke. Well guess what? There's another podcast up RIGHT NOW!

Come on... It's Saturday. There's no football on today. So you may as well download it and listen to two dorks talk about our Christmas Gift Guide. Which is out-of-date, now, but that doesn't make the list any less helpful. We hope.

We also reviewed Relic Expedition, and announced a contest to give away a copy of it, thanks to the fine folks at Foxtrot Games! All you have to do is subscribe to us SOMEWHERE. And every place you subscribe will give you more chances to win, because we're going to pick one follower from Facebook, and one from Twitter, and one from Instagram, and one from YouTube, and one from the blog-----> And then the winner of each of those will be the finalists for the prize. So following us in each of those categories will give you a better chance of making the finals.

Thanks for listening!

Nile DeLuxor—A Double-Take Review

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:

• Market - You can trade any two cards from your hand and/or Storage Pile for one from the deck.

• Offering to Hapi (pronounced happy or hoppy?). This allows you to discard two cards from your hand and/or Storage Pile to turn over a new Flood card.

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.

The New Podcast is Here!

Yeah, so...we're behind on podcasts. We have good reasons for it, but you don't really care what they are. Just know that we're back in the groove, and a new podcast just dropped.

AND, we have another one in the hopper, so look for that soon! (ish)

You can find the new one here. Or if you've already subscribed, then just go look! Because it's there!

We talked about some of the newsworthy stories coming out of the gaming world. Then we introduced a fun new segment called  Fill In the Blank! (Complete with impromptu theme song.) And we had an interview with Lance Hill about his recently Kickstarted game Kings Of Israel. Plus, we introduced another new segment, called Fire & Eis! And finally, we reviewed Mayfair's recent viking game Asgard's Chosen. That's a bunch!

Thanks for reading and listening!

Boss Monster—A Double-Take Review

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:

• Boss Cards—These indicate which character you will be for the game.
• Hero Cards—There are two types of Hero Cards, the regular type and the epic type (which sport a gold back). These are your enemies, and killing them off is ultimately how you score points to win the game.
• Room Cards—This is the most plentiful type of card, and there are a few different types of Rooms, including trap Rooms, and monster Rooms. And there are basic and advanced Rooms in each type.
• Spell Cards—Spells are a little hard to get into your hand, but they act as a one-time event or interrupt card that can be played during either the Build Phase, or the Adventure Phase, but now we're getting ahead of ourselves.

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!

Suburbia—A Review

By Firestone Confession time: I've never been a big fan of Civ games. Not board games. Not video games. Not any games. They're...boring. So Suburbia comes out, and lots of people call it a SimCity board game. This fills me with dread, and a desire to take a long nap... Could this be the first civ/city-building game I like? Or will I build a Landfill and then put this game into it? Let's find out!

The Overview

You're going to be taking, paying for, and placing tiles into your city. Doing so will affect your income and population. When the game ends, whoever has the most population wins.

The Components

1 Population board

1 Stacks board

1 Supply board

1 Real Estate board

4 Burrough boards in the player colors (black, red, purple, yellow)

144 hexagonal City tiles

20 Goal tiles

4 Player aid cards

1 Start player marker

1 Giant pile of money tokens

4 Reputation markers

4 Population markers

4 Income markers

12 Investment markers

The Setup

The City tiles are divided into four groups: Basic tiles, A, B, and C tiles. Separate the A, B, and C tiles (they have the letter on the back side), and then you'll place a number of them on the Stack board. (This number varies depending on the number of players.) In the C pile you'll also be mixing in the One More Round tile, which will trigger the end of the game.

Place money on the Supply board, and give each player $15 million. Place the basic City tiles (Suburbs, Community Park, and Heavy Factory) onto their spaces on the Real Estate Market board. Then place the top seven tiles from the A stack out onto the Real Estate Market. These spaces range in price from $10 on the top end, and free on the bottom.

Then shuffle the Goal tiles, and place a number of them out, faceup, depending on the number of players in the game. Then give each player two Goal tiles facedown, and each player chooses one to keep and places the other back in the box with out showing the other players.

Each player takes a Borough Board, places the Income marker on the 0, and the Reputation marker on the 1. Each board is flat across the top and has three "notches" for tiles to fit (see the picture). Each player takes one Suburb, one Community Park, and one Heavy Factory from the basic City tiles, and places them in that order, from top to bottom, in the middle notch of the Borough Board.

Finally, (whew!), each player grabs his or her set of three Investment markers, and places their Population square on the 2 space of the Population board. You're finally ready to play! It seems like a lot of prep, but it's intuitive, and goes fairly quickly.

The Gameplay

Randomly choose a start player. You can do one of two things on your turn: take and place a tile into your Borough, or place an Investment marker.

If you choose a tile from the Real Estate Market, you pay the cost on the tile and the cost of the tile's "position" in the Market. So as tiles are in the Market longer, they become cheaper. But, of course, the tile might be gone by the time it rolls around to your turn. So do you pay more now, or wait and hope it's still there? That's one of the interesting decision-points in the game.

You can also choose to buy one of the basic City tiles, and you just pay the cost on the tile.

Once you have a tile, you place it into your Borough. The only real restriction on placement is that the new tile has to touch at least one side of an already placed tile. Then you'll often have some adjustments to make based on the tile. So it might increase or decrease Income, or Reputation, or just give you some quick cash. You placing a tile might also trigger someone else's tile already in play. So the Homeowner's Association tile, for instance, gives its owner $2 every time any player plays a green Residential tile.

One other option for placing a tile is to make a Lake. You have to pick a tile from the Real Estate Market, and you pay the position cost only. Then you place it in your Borough, and get $2 for each adjacent tile that's not another Lake. It's a way to get some quick cash—and swipe a tile from the Market that you know someone wants.

The other option is to place one of your three Investment Markers. Instead of taking and placing a tile, you pay the tile cost of your chosen tile again, and then place a Marker on it. Now the effects of the tile are doubled for the rest of the game.

At the end of your turn you'll now receive (or pay) money, based on the position of the Income Cylinder. If you can't pay when you need to, you have to move the Population Square down one spot for each dollar you can't pay.

Now you adjust the Population Square up or down based on the position of the Reputation Cube. As your Borough and Population grow, you'll have to pay more to maintain it. There are red lines on the population track, and whenever you cross one, you reduce your Income Cylinder and Reputation Cube down one spot. If you ever end up going back below a red line (due to negative Reputation, for instance), you'll put the Income and Reputation back up one spot.

If you bought a basic City tile, or placed an Investment Marker, you must remove any tile from the Real Estate Market—paying the position cost only. So one tile will be removed from the Market on each player's turn. Now you slide all of the remaining tiles down—making them cheaper—and place a new tile on the leftmost position.

When the "1 More Round" tile comes up, you finish the current round and then play...one more round. Now you look at Goals, and then turn money into Population—you ignore the red lines from this point forward.

First you check the faceup Goal tiles, and award the points to one player. If there's a tie, no one gets any points. Now each player reveals his or her secret Goal, and scores the points if they've achieved the goal themselves. Again, if you've tied, you don't get the points, and only the owner of the secret Goal gets a chance to get those points. Finally, you'll turn money into Population at the rate of 1 point for every $5, rounded down. (Keep any leftover money, as that's the third-level tiebreaker.)

Some of the Goals include "+10 for the most airports," or "+20 for the fewest Residential tiles," or "+20 for the lowest Reputation."

Whichever player has the most Population wins. If there's a tie, it's the person with the highest Reputation, and then the highest Income, and finally most leftover money.

There's also a Solo Version, where you're playing the 2-player version against a "bot" player.

The Verdict

I love this game. It hits all of the right buttons for me: It's thematic, full of interesting decisions, has an auction with more meaningful decisions, includes Goals you're working toward, and just...yeah!

Let's get this out of the way: There are a couple of things I don't like. First, with so many tile interactions going on each turn, it's easy to feel that someone at the table has missed a bonus somewhere—but that's a small complaint.

The larger issue is the Goal tiles. Those are a lot of points, and it's fairly easy for someone to unintentionally interfere with your Goal. For instance, in a recent 2-player game my opponent had a hidden Goal of "+20 for the most lakes." Unfortunately for him, I seemed to be constantly broke, so I kept buying lakes for some quick cash. So those were 20 points I "stole" from him, and I had no idea I was doing it. Even worse are tiles like "+15 for the fewest played Investor Markers." There is nothing you can do to control whether other players play their Investment Markers, so if even one person chooses not to play one, you're just out those points. It's kind of a big deal, but this is one of those games where the other parts are so good that I overlook this flaw.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's go back to the good stuff.

I've played this with every number of players, and it scales well. I especially like the 2-player game, because as you add players, you increase the chances of someone messing with your hidden Goals—although I do like having more people trying to win the public Goals. Okay, I like every number! I also like that it's on the lighter end of the spectrum, while still creating meaningful and interesting decisions. One reason I dislike Civ games is that there's just so much going on. This isn't a light game, but it also doesn't overwhelm you with minutia. I played with my 9-year-old, and he did just fine. It's a good next-level game for him. And though I have yet to test this, I think this would actually be a pretty good nongamer game.

The theme is really strong here, and it comes through in small touches. For instance, if you build a Landfill, you'll increase your Income, but for every building you build it next to, your Reputation will decrease. And every single tile has these thematic touches that make sense and make the game fun and interesting. And because you're not using every tile in every game—and there are different Goals in every game—no two games will feel the same.

I like laying tiles. This might be because one of my first Euros was Carcassonne, but I just like laying tiles, and deciding where the best place to put a tile is. But it's not just laying tiles, because there's also that wonderful Market. "That's a great tile, but it's expensive. Will it still be there when it gets to my turn again—and when it's cheaper?" "Should I turn that tile into a lake to keep it away from her?" Every turn has these sorts of decisions to make, and I enjoy doing that.

Another good thing? Combos!!

The game plays quickly, even with the full complement of players. And a 2-player game can be played in 30-45 minutes, so it's really a meaty filler. I love that.

The Final Verdict

I know I seem to be gushing over this, but I'm completely taken with it. I LIKE playing this game. There are a lot of great games that I wouldn't personally say are "fun" (Dominion springs to mind), but this one is fun for me. It's hasn't even come close to getting old, and I don't think I'd ever turn down a game. Bezier Games just came out with a expansion, and I can't wait to see what they do to expand this. It's one of my favorite games I played this year. Put this on the table!!

Theology Of Games would like to thank Bezier Games for providing a review copy of Suburbia. This in no way affected our opinion of the game.

Thanks for reading! Have you played Suburbia? Did you agree with my review, or do you think I should build a lake and then jump in it...? Let us know in the comments.

Emu Ranchers—A Double-Take Review

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:

• 24 two-color, numbered Emu cards—numbered 2 to 9
• 6 single-color Egg cards
• 6 single-color Feather cards

For the Advanced Game you also have:

• 4 three-color Wild cards
• 1 Buyout card

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!

Riff Raff—A Review

by Firestone I wipe the sweat from my brow, and extend my hand slowly toward the swaying ship. "It's just a small, light barrel," I tell myself." I've got this." In the blink of an eye it's raining crates, sailors, and rats. My wife and children grin impishly...

I love dexterity games. They're a great diversion from the heavier games I generally play. And, of c0urse, they're usually a great choice for families and nongamers. So I always love trying a new dexterity game—and I LOVE it when one turns out to be great fun, like Riff Raff...

The Overview

Riff Raff is from Zoch Verlag, and is currently only available as an import, so expect to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $50—and that's the online price. It plays between 2 and 4 players, ages 8 and up. It plays in about 20 minutes—maybe less.

The game will end in one of two ways: Either one person will place all of his or her Cargo pieces onto the Ship, or the game will go the full 10 rounds, in which case the person with the fewest Cargo pieces left wins.

The Components

40 Cards, numbered 1 through 10, in four player colors.

32 wooden Cargo pieces—4 identical sets of 8 different pieces

1 wooden Ship, consisting of 10 different parts.

The Setup

First you'll need to assemble the Ship. This is no small task, as the Ship is a marvel of engineering. You're building a Ship, with a deck, and three yardarms, and the whole thing is connected to a cool sort of universal joint that allows the Ship to sway and pitch, as though it's really on an ocean. It's seriously cool.

Each player takes one set of Cards, and a set of 8 Cargo pieces. (If you're only playing with two players, each person gets two complete sets of pieces.)

The Gameplay

Randomly choose someone to be Captain. (The rules say the oldest player, but this is where we employ the Firestone Common Sense Rule that arbitrary first-player determinations such as "oldest" or "hairiest" or "the last person to have their ship boarded by pirates" are dumb.)

At the beginning of the round each player secretly chooses on card from his or her hand and places it facedown on the table. Once everyone has picked a card, everyone reveals their chosen card. The player who played the highest card immediately becomes the new Captain, and if there's a tie for highest card, the Captain of the last round determines who is the new Captain. The Captain takes his turn, followed by the person who played the next highest card, and so on. Again, ties are broken by the current Captain.

The sections of the Ship have numbers on them. Starting on the top yardarms with 10 and 9, the next one is 8 and 7, and the lowest yardarm is 6 and 5. Then the Ship's deck has sections 4 through 1.

The number on the card you've chosen is where you now have to place a piece. You have free choice of any of your available pieces. They range from (relatively) heavy to light. You can use one or two hands to load, and the piece can hang off of a section, but can't protrude into any other section. You can move already present pieces with the piece you're placing, but not with your hand.

If you're placing a piece onto a yardarm, and it already has a piece on it from a previous turn, you can choose to place two pieces instead of one. You have to announce this at the beginning of the turn, and you can't later change your mind.

Because of that clever and insidious universal joint I mentioned, the ship is going to move and sway based on which pieces have been placed on which section. If any pieces fall as you're placing your own pieces, then one of two things can happen:

If you catch any of those falling pieces, then they go out of the game.

If any of the pieces hit the table, they go in front of you and become pieces you now have to get rid of—even if they were originally other people's pieces.

We have a house rule where you can't catch the piece you just placed. This keeps people from just poorly placing a piece, knowing it will drop, and then catching it to get it out of the game.

After every player has had a turn, everyone picks a new card, and you repeat the round. The winner is either the first person to get rid of all of his or her pieces, or the person with the fewest pieces left after 10 rounds.

The Verdict

First, the game has huge drive-by appeal. Every time we play this we get a crowd of people watching. The Ship is unique and eye-catching and people just love to watch you play this game.

The cards add some strategic depth to this, as you're trying to figure out where to place pieces, when to place pieces, and which piece to place. You might play a 6, and still end up going last—and the Ship might look VERY different by the time your turn rolls around...

It's fun for families and nongamers. You will marvel as your weaselly children plunk down a piece with complete aplomb—and defy logic and the laws of physics as their piece sticks. Meanwhile, you blink too hard an every piece comes raining down. It's fun and frustrating.

My only concerns with the game are that something will break. The Ship is exceedingly clever, but also feels one tweak away from breaking whenever I put it together or take it apart. I also make sure I'm playing on a surface with a tablecloth, or some kind of covering. If one of those pieces breaks, I can glue it, but...I just don't want anything to break. So I go into Anal Gamer Firestone Freakout mode—the same one I use when someone eats dinner right before playing one of my games. "Hey, would you mind washing your hands before we start...?"

The Final Verdict

One of my friends brought this back from Origins, and we gave it a go one game night. The three other players in the game (myself included) immediately went out and bought the last three copies from TimeWellSpent.org. I can't give this game a better endorsement than that. It might take some searching (and honestly...it's pretty darn expensive), but if you like dexterity games, this is well-worth the search...

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