It's a Small World After All

Greetings!

Happy Thursday to all who read this and I hope that today passes with ease for each and everyone of you because Friday is tomorrow and heaven knows I am ready for it. With that out of the way, let's talk reviews.

I have decided to review Small World today. This is a game I feel that everyone should have as it makes a great "gateway" game or, in non-geek parlance, it is a wonderful game to introduce a non-board gamer to the concepts and play style of board games. Bust this out at the family's Holiday party and watch the heads roll, in a purely cardboard sense of course.

It's a world of Slaughter, and a world of fears.

The Buildup

Do you remember when you were a kid and you heard the "Small World" by Disney for the first time? Remember how catchy it was and how we sang it all day because it was just so AWESOME? Remember when we drove our parents mad by singing this song over and over? Now, if you take that parental anger, distill it into complete rage, tack some simple game mechanics on it, layer over a nice fluffy theme of humor using caricature artwork and set it loose into the world of cardboard chits, what do you get? That's right, a complete and total SLAUGHTER the likes of which had never been seen before in the sweet, innocent land of cardboard. What you get is Small World by Days of Wonder.

The Game

And how, one might ask, does this free for all death parade roll on by? Very smoothly and enjoyably is the answer.

To begin the game, the board is setup according to the number of people playing. There are 2, 3, 4 and 5 player boards. On each board are several different terrain types. There are plains, hills, marshes, mountains, forests and lake / oceans. On some of the places is a special looking cross-hair mark, this is where the Lost Tribes (read as people to mercilessly slaughter on your road to world domination) reside. Each mark gets a single Tribe Token. Each mountain gets a mountain token to help remind people that they are mountains as that affects how easily your troops can swarm over them.

Next, each player is given 5 coins, or victory points and the race and special power cards are shuffled. Randomly select 5 race and 5 special power cards placing them face-up on the table as you do so. The rounded ends of the special power cards should fit snugly into the concave end of the race cards. Then you should place the stack of race and powers at the top of the five other combos, combining them in the same way, giving you six race / power combos to choose from. The beginning should look something like the below.

From the rule book

The person with the pointiest ears is the first person to play. The First turn for all players is as follows:

1. Pick race / power combo
2. Conquer some regions / kill some stuff
3. Score some points.

On Subsequent turns you make a choice to either continue expansion through more conquests or put your current race into decline. To go into decline you remove all but 1 of your race tokens from the board and flip the remaining ones over. Then you score points. On your next turn you are allowed to choose a new race. While your in decline race is still on the board, you continue to gain victory coins for each territory they own.

The decline mechanic is the crux of the game. As you continue to conquer, you will becomes spread out and it will be easy for a fledgling race to conquer your territories so knowing when to go into decline with your active race and choosing good race / power combos is essential to victory. If you would like more in depth info on the rules, you may go here: Slaughterin' Rulez

The Review

Rules - 15 / 15 

I found myself trying to explain the rules to the game above and everything I said made the game sound uber complex, which is not the case. I finally decided to just post a link to the rule book as I think it is probably one of the best written rule books out there. There are plenty of excellent pictures, everything is broken into readable chunks and there is good use of font type, size and style to help accentuate different parts. I can even excuse the lack of an index and table of contents as the rules aren't that long to begin with. Hands down, best rule book I have reviewed so far.

In addition to the rule book each player is given a hand out that covers all of the games phases as well as all of the racial and special power abilities so that you should never even need to reference the rule book.

Game play - 10 / 15

The game play for Small World is good. The rules are simple to understand and everything has its place on the board. Turns move smoothly and any issues can be resolved quite quickly. It is also lots of fun to see what kind of random race / power combos come up during the game. Mounted Wizards? Flying Giants? It could happen. That being said, I wouldn't call the game play gripping. It is well done but lacks a kind of spark that really makes the game come to life. This, incidentally, may be one of the reasons it is such a good "gateway" game. It is easy to understand and play but lacks significant depth.

Components - 14 / 15

The double sided boards are absolutely fantastic as is all of the cardboard chits. They are printed on very thick cardboard and are easy to punch out. The artwork is also absolutely gorgeous especially the race caricatures. See below for examples.

Race tokens.

My one complaint with the components is that there are a lot of cardboard chits....A LOT OF THEM. While they give you good storage space so that they don't get mixed together, getting the chits out of this storage tray can be a bit of a bear especially if you have sausage fingers like me. I know I know...super nit picky but it is what it is.

Re-Play Ability - 13 / 15

Small World has a load of re-pay ability inherently built in to it so you should be able to get hours and hours of fun out of this game. I know that I played it regularly for about a year or so and never really got tired of it. Eventually though you will have seen all of the combos possible or the simplicity of the mechanics will begin to wear on you as the game loses its novelty. While this game isn't a King of re-play ability it certainly ages better than most titles.

Theme - 12 / 15

The theme of this game is well done. It is a humor filled rage fest where no one is safe from anyone. Your race will rise in power only to be smote to the ground on the next player's turn. Slaughter can be found in abundance as the colorful, cartoon like races destroy one another with impunity. This alone will keep you playing long after the play mechanics begin to wear thin.

That being said, I don't ever feel like I am engrossed in the game. I don't ever feel lost in it like with some games. This is why there is a less than perfect score. The theme is good but it fails to fully envelope me.

Fun - 20 / 25

Small World is fun. Hands down fun. New board gamers will love it and old ones will more than likely like it. It isn't the most fun I have ever had playing a game but it certainly isn't the worst either.

Overall - 84 / 100

Final Thoughts

Small World will forever hold a special place in my heart because it is one of the first "modern" board games that I ever purchased. It is a well written, playable piece of art that can be revisited time and time again. Like all things though, it eventually begins to wear a bit thin due to the thing I loved in the beginning, the simplicity. Get this game and love it like no other game. It will reward you with several days of excellent play time and a place of nostalgia on your board game rack afterwards.

Lord of the Rings LCG Session Report

Greetings!

Last night I played a game of Lord of the Rings LCG core set using the tactics deck because I love dwarves. Since then, I have found that this is a very poor idea due to the low questing skill of the 3 heroes in this deck. This can lead to a buildup of locations in the staging area, effectively negating any questing score you could muster while still forcing a failed quest due to their threat overrun. Needless to say, many inexperienced players new to the game have fallen into this trap. I am now one of them.

A quick note on the photos, some of them have some pretty bad glare as I was using my camera phone and it was very late last night that I played this. Also, I will do my best to remember what exactly happened when but I will be relying on the pictures to tell the majority of the story I believe.

I setup the game per the first location in the Passage Through Mirkwood quest deck. A Forest Spider and Old Forest Road were added to the staging area and my heroes placed at the fore, ready to  kill things. 

Starting Setup. 29 Threat.

My starting hand was excellent with several events, a dwarven axe and two dwarf allies. I proceeded to play one of my allies and I quested with a total value of three being Thalin and Gimli. The encounter deck produced a location, one of the many to follow so I failed to quest and gained 1 threat. Then I traveled to the Old Forest Road and Readied Gimli for the encounter phase. Gimli defended against the Forest Spider taking one damage. Unfortunately, the card revealed on the Spider's attack was Eyes of the Forest I believe so I was foced to discard all of my events. That was 4 cards. I then attacked back with both my Dwarven Ally and Legolas dealing the foe three damage in total leaving him with 1 hitpoint.

End of the Refresh Phase, Turn 1. 31 Threat.

Ouch. 4 Event cards gone in turn one.

At this point I was still feeling relatively confident knowing that I would be able to kill the Spider with Legolas and gain some Progress Tokens. I began turn 2 with this plan in mind. I played another Dwarven Ally to the table during the planning phase as well as a dwarven axe. I then quested with Gimli and Thalin. I revealed another location card from the encounter deck with a 2 threat. This combined with the current location card to cancel my combined willpower of 3 leading me to a tie. Then the combats began. I blocked with one of my Dwarven Allies and the shadow card was nothing. The Ally took 1 damage and then I slayed the beast with Legolas, earning 2 progress tokens...the only 2 I would get for the game.

End of Refresh Phase, Turn 2. 32 Threat.

This is where I began to get a bit worried as the current threat total in the staging area was already at 3. The total willpower of all 3 of my heroes was only 4 so I knew I would need to quest with all of them and trust my allies to take any monsters that might appear. I played nothing during the planning phase and quested with all 3 heroes. I drew Hummerhorns, when he engages you, a hero loses 5 life. Awesome. Though Thalin did do 1 damage to him, so that was good. That put the threat total up to 4 in the staging area leading to a tie again. I did not engage the monster and he did not engage me as I still had some room until I hit 40.

End of Refresh Phase, Turn 3. 33 Threat.

I fell into a bit of luck here and managed to draw the Citadel Plate. I played this on Gimli preparing him to take the engage hit from the Hummerhorns. I quested with all 3 heroes and drew the treachery card Caught in a Web. I placed it on Legolas since he had 1 resource token and only 1 willpower. During the combat phase I engaged the Hummerhorns, dealing 5 damage to Gimli, defended with a Dwarven Ally and attacked with the other Dwarven Ally, eliminating it and gaining 4 victory points. I was in trouble.

End of Refresh Phase, Turn 4. 34 threat.

On to turn 5. I played nothing during the planning phase but did remove Legolas from the web. I quested with Gimli and Thalin. I revealed Enchanted Stream raising the threat in the staging area to 5. I failed by 2, raising my threat as much.

End of Refresh Phase, Turn 5. 37 threat.

This would be the last turn, though I didn't know it at the time. With Enchanted Stream in play I could not draw any cards and did not already have Gandalf in my hand. So, I trudged along and quested with all 3 heroes. I revealed Necromancer's Reach so all received a damage. I failed the quest by 1 point and added another point at the end. I was now at 39 (the picture says 40 but what can I say, I was tired) and still had not completed the first Old Forest Road card. That being said, I resigned out of some frustration and exhaustion.

End of Refresh Phase, Turn 6. 40 threat, though it should only be 39.

All in all it was still relatively fun but without monsters for Legolas to kill, thus supplying progress tokens through his ability, it is easy for the base Tactics deck to get overwhelmed with numerous locations looming large in the staging area. 

I suppose Gimli had it right when he said the following: "I'm wasted on cross-country! We Dwarves are natural sprinters, very dangerous over short distances."

Thanks!

Monday Morning Crowd Funding Episode 3

Greetings!

Happy Monday to all and I hope that you all had a great weekend! Mine was excellent despite the sudden blast of cold air and precipitation we received on Sunday. I got a lot of walking in, which is always excellent, and also got to play my first solo game of the Lord of the Rings LCG. I will be discussing this in my session report this week so stay tuned. For now though, let's talk crowd funding games. I have a few more that I have found interesting, one that I am going to plug for personal reasons, and updates on those that have come before. So, as always, let's get to it!

The New

Baseball Sim Game - FUNDED! - 17 Days to Go

I am a HUGE baseball fan. I still remember the first baseball game I ever went to. It was the St. Louis Cardinals versus the Los Angeles Dodgers sometime in the early 90s at the old Busch Stadium. My dad and I went and I was only about 11 or 12. I was in absolute awe when I walked in the stadium. It was huge and there were people everywhere and I felt like I was a part of something so much bigger than myself. It was at that point that I truly fell in love with the game. We ended up winning the game but not before Darryl Strawberry had blasted a home run off of one of our relievers. I saw that later on the TV as a highlight.

That concept, the baseball highlight is where this game picks up. Set in the not too distant future when baseball has allowed the introductions of cybernetic arms and robots that can hit, this game itches not only the baseball itch but the sci-fi as well. Each player faces off against one another and plays a series of mini-games, exchanges of about 5 or 6 cards which represent the "highlight reel" of the entire game. Who ever wins these mini-games, wins the game. Then, the players draft new players and play again. This repeats typically 4 times I believe and then who ever has the best record wins. I highly recommend that everyone check this one out. Baseball Highlights 2045

Fantasy Resort Management - 19, 267 of 20,000 dollars - 20 Days To Go

In Epic Resort: Enjoy Your Slaycation, you take the part of the ever entrepreneurial vacation resort owner. You are responsible for raising money, managing your reputation and attracting heroes to the confines of your lovely island paradise. They are needed because your resort is occasionally attacked by various monsters and there are only 3 outcomes to this; you send the heroes to handle it, you let the monsters eat your normal guests or you thrown the monster a lazy peon. Part humor and part builder, the game certainly looks interesting enough to take a peak at. Epic Resort: Enjoy Your Slaycation

Kingdom Bots

Robot on Robot Warfare - 9,569 of 60,000 Canadian Dollars - 17 Days to Go

This is a game that was mentioned in one of the articles that I posted about a week or so ago. I have finally had a chance to take a look and I have to admit, it looks entertaining. In a world where humans have been defeated by Robots, they have nothing left to ally against, so they turn on one another. Robot wars are sparked across all of the lands and you are one of the Robot Clan's leaders. It is your job to lea your robots to victory by conquering the lands on a very Risk-esque board using your deck of cards, dice rolling skills and excellent economy management skills. The art work looks fantastic on this game and the idea of Robot on Robot combat should make most sci-fi folks take a quick peak. Kingdom Bots

The Personal

Combat card based RPG - FUNDED! 1,991 dollars - 27 Days to Go

Crone is a role game where the player characters each play the part of a witch of immense power. Normal foes are not a challenge for them so their stories tend to revolve around eliminating giants, dragons and various other large and nasty things from folklore. The bigger the challenge, the better it will fit into the Crone Universe. 

The game uses a card based combat system instead of your traditional dice roll fest. By managing your cards you are capable of delivering crushing blows to your foes with ease allowing you to spend more time describing the cinematic nature of your attack. Also, the cards allow each player to create combos with one another. Need an ability to work in a pinch but failure will lead to party wipe? A different Crone may have an ability that allows yours to automatically succeed allowing you to deliver your desired affect. The card system seems streamlined and innovative allowing combat to flow much easier than many, more traditional dice based combat systems.

The personal note on this one is that I have been selected to write a piece of lore for the game itself. The way that the lore and extra modules will enter the Kickstarter is through various stretch goals. So, if you want to see a piece of lore written by yours truly in the game above, the Kickstarter has to hit the 11,500 mark in order for my work to be eligible. That being said, I would greatly appreciate if you simply took a look at the game and, if you like it, send some money over to the team at Crone. If it isn't your cup of tea, that's cool too. Crone: Card Based RPG

The Old

Here are updates on previous games mentioned in this series. Info on these can be found at one of the following two locations: Episode 1 Episode 2

Greed - FUNDED! - Kickstarter closed. This will fall off of the list next week. Those that backed, congrats!

London 1888 - 6,520 of 20,000 - 15 Days to Go

Totally Medieval - 675 of 5,500 - 47 Days to Go

Game Devloperz - FUNDED! - 18 Days to Go

Counterblast - FUNDED! - 4 Days to Go

Guild Ball - FUNDED! - 5 Days to Go

Dulega - 4,627 of 10,000 - 11 days to Go

Cave Escape - FUNDED! - 12 Days to Go

King's Favor - 3,803 of 40,000 - 12 Days to Go

The End

Next week I'll have more games from the world of the Crowdsource as well as updates on these and all previous titles. Be sure to check out the games above and back if you like them. Also, be sure to check out the poll on the right hand side of the page where we will ponder if Croudsource games are helping or hurting the gaming community with simple yes or no answers. Also feel free to sound off in an expanded form in the comments section below.

Thanks!

Dominion or The Purchasing of Royal Estates, Duchies and Provinces

Greetings!

For the review this week I have chosen a game that I am sure many of you are already familiar with as it is one of the first deck building games to come out that was not a collectible game like Magic The Gathering. Dominion has been around since 2008 and has several expansions for it with each adding new cards and endless replay possibilities. The pictures below will include some cards from the Hinterlands expansion as an FYI. Now, on to the review!

Cover Art

The Buildup

Being a freshly crowned noble after the unfortunate deaths of your parents, you have been burdened with the management of your meager kingdom. However, you are undaunted at the prospect and, in fact, you are thrilled to begin because you have ideas. BIG ideas. You are planning on taking your small kingdom and expanding it into something that the histories will sing praises to long after you are dead. You are going to expand the reach of your grasp shoving aside neighbors with underhanded tactics and superior strategies and conquer distant lands. You are going to claim Dominion over all of the land.

The Game

Dominion is a deck-building game where your goal is to have the most land i.e. green cards in your deck by the time all of the Provinces are purchased or the 3 of the 10 cards selected for the game are bought out.

This review has cards from the Base game, on the left, and the Hinterlands expansion, on the right.

The game begins by separating the treasures and lands from the rest of the cards and setting them off to the sides. Then you gather the blue bordered example cards and fan them, face down, on the floor. From these you choose 10. These will be the cards that you will use in your deck to build your wealth and lands.

 

Preparing to choose our fate

Once the cards are chosen, each player is given a hand of 7 copper and 3 estates. These represent your starting treasury and lands. These are suffled together and 5 cards are drawn.

Starting Deck

Our Game

The game itself is divided into three phases. The first thing is an action phase. This is the point where you can play any action cards in your hand. Most of the cards in the game beyond the initial deck are actions. These modify your turn in a certain way. For instance the Festival above gives you 2 additional actions, 1 additional Buy and +2 coins. If you were to play this during your action phase you would get 2 more actions, 2 Buys and 2 coins in addition to the coins in your hand to buy things with.

Once you are out of actions, then you move to your buy phase. This is where you use the treasure in your hand, or represented on your action cards, to purchase additional actions, treasure or lands based on the number of buys you have. This is base 1 modified by your action cards played. Each card has a coin cost in the lower left hand corner. In order to purchase, or gain, that card the cost must be paid. 

Example Buy

Once your buy phase is done, all cards gained and used as well as any cards left in your hand get discarded and you draw a fresh hand of five cards. Play then progresses to the next player. This continues until the game end conditions are met, being the last Provence is bought or 3 of the 10 card sets chosen for the game are bought out. 

The winner is the person who has the most victory points. These are acquired by purchasing lands and other victory point cards such as Farms, Gardens etc based on what comes in the other expansions. Each land card is given a certain VP total with Provinces having the most in the base game at 6.

You will notice that land cards have no other effects besides helping you win the game so when you draw them, they are dead cards. It is important to create a balance between your action cards, treasure cards and victory cards in order to achieve the optimum deck build even as you continue to expand it.

Sample Deck Build. I lost this game by 2 points.

This is the deck that beat me. The Farm above was the deciding card.

The Review

Rules - 12 / 15 

The rules for Dominion are pretty straightforward without any real wrinkles. These come from the combinations of the cards that are present. Since the rules are clean, the rulebook is clean as well. It is simple to read, easy to teach and relatively easy to reference. The additional rules and card descriptions for the base game could have the same kind of heading style used in the actual rules though.

Gameplay - 12 / 15

A pared down and streamlined rules set will let to streamlined game play. Once the players understand how the game works, turns will move quickly as each begins to jockey for the cards that they think will give them the best combo to win. You almost always feel like you have a chance to win unless you have an ineffective combo or your cards aren't in the right proportion. That being said, if you do not choose wisely in your initial buys, it could come back to haunt you in the mid to late game if playing against a skilled opponent.

Components - 8 / 15

The cards are made of good quality materials and will show little wear. They are also quite resistant to bending. Overall the art work is sufficient while not being eye popping. The pictures get the job done but many of them seem to be missing that spark that really adds to the theme of the game. Most of the time the pictures disappear on the card as you are focused on the card's abilities.

Re-Play Ability - 15 / 15

This game is one of the kings of re-play ability. With so many different cards to choose the 10 cards for the game, the possibilities are endless. Not to mention how each set of 10 cards will usually require a completely different strategy and combination in order to win. On top of this you can add all of the expansions as well leading you down the rabbit hole of Dominion from which you may never return.

Theme - 7 / 15

Most folks don't talk about the theme of this game. Usually talk revolves around the fast game play, the ease of teaching, the card combinations and the endless replays that are possible. There is a reason for this. The back story of the game seems plausible enough but the cards themselves don't really sell the theme to you in my opinion. Some of the card abilities make sense in accordance with their titles but the game doesn't really revolve around the need to acquire a chapel or a cellar for thematic reasons. These are usually purchase for mechanical reasons, to throw out negative cards or discard dead cards in hopes of getting better ones.

Fun - 20 / 25

I am a huge fan of Dominion and am almost always willing to play this if it is offered. The diversity of card selection and mechanic interactions makes this game rife with strategy. Pitting each player against the other also adds a nice sense of urgency to the whole game as you really do feel like you are struggling to conquer the lands beyond your borders at times. Then there are times where it all becomes an intellectual game when the only thing that matters is the card combos. There isn't anything wrong with this as it is certainly designed to be that way but it does tend to break what little thematic immersion there is.

Overall - 74 / 100

Final Thoughts

Dominion is an excellent game and an exemplar of the deck building genre. It is easy to teach and is well worth the investment. The expansions will add even more variety to a game that is already loaded with it right out of the box. Occasionally though the game can become a bit stale as the theme is lost in the intellectual scrambling for the best combo available.

Thanks for reading!

The Crowd Source Mania Continues

Greetings!

Here we are back at Monday after what I hope was a relaxing weekend for all. Now that we are back to the grind, let's see what we can do to alleviate that gaming itch while we are all at our 9-5. What follows is another sampling of some games that look interesting on Kickstarter. I will also pass along updates each week on the campaigns mentioned in previous weeks. So, without further adieu, the Kickstarter campaigns for this week.

Greed 

Gang Themed Card Drafting Game - 22,938 of 5,000 dollars - 4 days to go



Greed is a card drafting game set during the late 1960's in the height of the counter culture movement. In it your role is that of a mob boss looking to take over the entire city. The other players are rival mob bosses. You must look to invest in legal businesses to make additional money but can't be afraid to unleash your thugs on those that would try to thwart you. During play you draft actions such as theft etc, thugs which are assets that generate regular income and can be used as muscle and holdings which are legitimate business holdings that also generate regular income. However other players can attack your holdings in an attempt to take them over. The winner is the one with the most money at the end of the game. If you like the theme, jump on this one quick as it only has a few days left.

London 1888

Historical Turn Based Horror Game - 5,774 of 20,000 pounds - 22 days to go

This is a game that was originally printed in French and became a best seller in France in 2005. This Kickstarter is aiming to produce an English translated version of the game with updated rules and additional components. In it, you play a character that is investigating the murders that occurred in 1888 London. This is the time that Jack the Ripper that ran rampant and Scotland Yard was baffled. It seems as though this game is something like Clue on steroids mixed with Fury of Dracula. Needless to say, loving both of these games and being a history nut, this one appeals to me quite a bit.

Totally Medieval

Fantasy Themed Card Game for Kids - 600 of 5,500 dollars - 54 days to go

I put this game on here because of the story. So Ethan, this 5 year old kid, loves Knights and Dragons and math. So, his father, being the excellent dad that he sounds like, began making him a game based on these principals. You have Knights and Dragons of various strengths and it seems like the Dragons are not revealed at the beginning of the game. When they fight, the winner is the one with the most strength i.e.  the highest number. Also, there is mention of Clerics, Wizards etc so there may be some basic addition as you add up the strength of your adventuring party. Either way, this game would be awesome for the kiddos and has an excellent theme about it.

Game Developerz

Games Industry Card Game - 16,277 of 8,000 pounds - 25 days to go

In this game you take on the role of a video game studio CEO. The company that you choose to work for will provide you a special ability and a base source of income. From there, you hire your team of crack programmers, artists, marketing folks and game designers in a quest to create the greatest video game ever! Along the way you will need to play business development cards which seem like actions suited to messing up the other players and determine which features your game will have giving you the goals you will need in programming, art, marketing and game design. Random event cards will occur and can pose a serious threat to all of your careful planning forcing you to be on your toes as the game progresses. Special events will lend prestige to your project and the company who scores the most Beta Points, through completed features, spectacular reviews etc, will be declared the best Game Developer!

Previous Mentions

Counterblast - Science Fiction Medieval Wargame - FUNDED! - 11 Days to Go

Guildball - Medieval Football Game - FUNDED! - 12 Days to Go

Duelga - Martial Arts Themed Dueling Card Game - 3.750 of 10,000 dollars - 19 Days to Go

Cave Escape - Push Your Luck Dice Game - FUNDED! - 19 Days to Go

King's Favor - Card Based Intrigue Game - 3,691 of 40,000 - 19 Days to Go

Elder Sign? Elder as in old or superior?

Greetings!

The definition of Elder in the title of this game review will sum up the dichotomous feelings that people experience when playing it. Some feel that the definition is surely of the "old" variety in that the game is "old hat." It's a Lovecraft themed Yahtzee they say. Others take the approach that Elder is meant to mean superior as in superior to other games in this genre, mainly Arkham Horror or other co-op games.

Granted, when people play the game they are not pondering what the word Elder should mean in the title but it is interesting that people have come to align their views of this game with one of the two definitions of Elder. But which definition holds true when the game is played out? Which one defines Elder Sign?

The Buildup

"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places." - The Picture in the House, 1921 - H.P. Lovecraft

The year is 1926, the height of the "Roaring Twenties." Everywhere tensions are easing as the after math of the Great War resolves and economic prosperity increases exponentially. Jazz rules the music scene as automobiles, moving pictures and radios proliferate into the populace announcing the arrival of "Modernity," forcing traditions to the side and causing a general feeling of discontinuity. All things seemed possible with the arrival of such marvelous technology.

Behind all this glitz and glam though some can hear the ringing of false notes. Some can feel what is coming and are actively trying to combat it. They are called insane or strange but what they know is the Truth. The Ancient Ones are stirring, aching to enter into our realm and reduce all of our glam to cinders.

Several of these Investigators have arrived at a local museum in a town that is on the edge of bursting with madness. They have discovered that on this very night an Ancient One will use the strange artifacts and occult items within the museum to rip aside the fabric of reality and enter into the world in it's full and terrifying glory.

As one of these investigators it is your job to enter into the dark and terrifying museum to uncover the clues and weapons necessary to collect the vital Elder Signs and use them to prevent the portal to the Ancient One from opening. If you should win, the world will go on and none will know the difference. If you should fail, the world will burn in ash and all will be consumed.

The Game

At the beginning of Elder Sign the Ancient One is chosen, either randomly or intentionally, from one of the 8 Ancient One cards. This will have a significant affect on the way the game is played. Some Ancient Ones will require several Doom Tokens, tokens that are placed usually at the stroke of Midnight, to awaken while others won't, meaning that they will awaken faster. Also present on the cards are the number of Elder Signs required to seal the gateway and prevent them from entering the world, an ability that affects the entire game such as Yig's Anger below. They also have rules for how to successfully attack them and what they do to the Investigators when they attack. 

Next the players choose their starting Investigators, either randomly or intentionally. Each investigator gets a number of Stamina and Sanity tokens equal to the number next to the heart and brain respectively. They also get their starting items with the book being a spell, the gun a common item, the dagger a unique item, the footprint a clue token, and the man with his hand up an ally. These are drawn from their respective card decks. They also have an ability that can help them deal with the horrors which they are about to be subjected to.

Once these are setup, the clock is set to midnight and the first mythos card is drawn. The clock moves forward three hours after each Investigator's turn. Once it strikes midnight, a new mythos card is drawn. Mythos cards have both immediate effects, like add a Doom Token to the doom track, and lingering effects, like the next time the clock rings midnight each Investigator must lose 2 sanity. These add tension and a hint of the unexpected each turn helping to keep the game fresh.

At this point, the Investigators start in the entrances room.

Six adventures have been laid out from the adventure deck representing the areas within the museum that the Investigators know for certain there are clues to the Ancient One awakening. Each in their turn, the Investigators go to an adventure card and attempt to complete the assigned tasks on the cards by matching symbols on the custom dice to the symbols on the task. The tasks can be completed in any order unless there is an arrow on the left hand side of them pointing down. If that is the case the tasks must be completed in order.

The current player rolls the six green dice attempting to match the symbols. If they achieve all of the symbols necessary to complete one task, they "assign" these dice to the adventure and roll the remainder in an attempt to complete the remaining tasks. If they Investigator fails, then a single die is removed from the dice pool and one my be "focused" meaning that if you rolled a symbol that you needed but didn't roll everything to complete a task, you can place one of these dice on your Investigator chit to use when you want. You can also use this mechanic if another player is on the same adventure card by allowing them to "assist" you.

This continues until either the adventure card is completed or the Investigator runs out of dice. If the adventure is completed then the Investigator receives the rewards on the adventure code, in the white area at the bottom, and can use the number of trophies, the black number on the front of the card, at the entrance. The Investigator also returns to the entrance and draws a fresh adventure card so that there are always six on the table. If the adventure is failed, the Investigator suffers the consequences listed in the red area on the bottom left of the adventure card and stays on the adventure card.

When an adventure is completed you may acquire the awards which can be common items, unique items, spells, allies and clue tokens. You may also have to place a monster or some other negative thing as a reward for certain adventures. Monsters are placed on the spider web looking parts of adventure cards and generally make them harder to defeat. They may also lock a die causing it to be unusable until the monster is defeated.

As a result of completing and adventure card you may also be awarded an Elder Sign. These are stacked on top of the Ancient One's card and once the required number of Elder Signs have been accumulated, the Investigators are victorious.

If the Investigators fail to accumulate the required number of Elder Signs before the Ancient One's doom track fills up, then he awakens and the Investigators must attempt to defeat him in combat. If they fail, they are all consumed. They win if they defeat the Ancient One in battle.

If at any time an Investigator's health or sanity drops to 0, they are devoured. Their card is discarded along with all items and monsters are returned to the monster pool. A doom token is added to the doom track and the player draws a new Investigator.

The Review

Rules - 8 / 15 

The rules for this game are very simple, in concept. You roll dice attempting to defeat adventures to gain Elder Signs to trap the Big Bad in his own dimension and save the world. The rule book, however, is atrocious. There is no table of contents, no index, and very little heading work within the actual text making it extremely difficult to find something during game play and generally leaving you wondering if you were doing things right. There are several relatively useful pictures though displaying how to go about assigning dice and what all of the pictures mean. Overall I believe this to be a sub-par showing by Fantasy Flight. Good news is that they seem to have released a revised edition of the rules for this game which resolves most of these issues with the original rules set. This can be found here:  Revised Rules

Gameplay - 10 / 15

This is what has caused all of the commotion surrounding this game. People who love Arkham Horror call this game Yahtzee due to the constant rolling of dice and those who hate Arkham Horror believe this to be better due to its simplicity by comparison. Old hat versus Superior. The definitions of "Elder." 

I have covered the majority of the game play above but some details have been left out. Overall, the game flows fairly smoothly once everyone knows how to play. There are meaningful decisions to be made regarding what adventures to pursue based on your Investigator as well as how to spend trophies, when to use items and spells and where to place monsters. It is easier to learn and play than Arkham Horror.

However, I think the reason that people compare it to Yahtzee is that despite all of the strategy and choices you have available, you are at the mercy of the dice. If you are rolling poorly, your sense of agency and belief that you can change the game environment wanes and you cease to enjoy it. I personally like to play this game but when I am rolling poorly, it is a difficult game to play. This is also compounded by the reward system being based on defeating adventures. If you can't beat an adventure, you can't re-arm or get trophies to heal leading to a slow and suffocating demise as you are drained of life while trying to get the dice to cooperate.

Components - 13 / 15

Fantasy Flight is generally the king of components in my experience and you can usually buy with confidence when it comes to this aspect of their games. Elder Sign is no different. The artwork is wonderful and the large cards and chits are made of quality stuff. The big concern on this part is the smaller cards as they feel a little thin and may wear faster than one may like. Also, the flavor text on some of the adventure cards is a little too vague. I know that H.P. Lovecraft had a tendency to be vague with his descriptions of things and the goal was to carry this style over into the game but it seems to me they went a bit too far and described nothing on some cards.

Re-Play Ability - 12 / 15

With several different Investigators, each with their own special ability, eight Ancient Ones, and dozens of adventure cards this game lends itself well to being played again and again. It will take several plays before the game itself, not the mechanics, begins to feel a bit stale and even then, you will probably continue to play if you have played it that many times. 

After a while though the constant dice rolling can be a bit of a bear despite all of the built in strategic and tactical choices allowing you to modify the dice in your favor. After a couple of games in a row where the dice hate you, you will probably need a break.

Theme - 10 / 15

The theme for Elder Sign greatly depends on the players. The art work is fantastic as is the majority of the flavor text, but in a game centered around cards it can be difficult to get into to a level of complete immersion. Reading what flavor text is available is a must and perhaps narrating your character's moves could be beneficial but without this kind of extra work put in, it isn't so much scary as annoying or frustrating when yet another monster appears within the museum.

Fun - 14 / 25

Elder Sign is a fun game. I like to play it and it always seems to hit the table when a group of us get together to game. It is easy for new people to learn and is a great co-op game. However it is limited in fun value based on the weakness of the theme without the above extra work mentioned and the way that a purely dice based game can batter you with the bad luck stick. I will play this game, and I will enjoy it, perhaps even more so understanding the limitations of the game.

Overall - 67 / 100

Final Thoughts

Dice are an ancient mechanic. We've all thrown dice more than we would like to admit. Almost all games rely on dice to some extent to introduce that random unexpectedness. So why do we keep throwing dice despite being such an old hat idea? Well, I think it is because newer games have found ways to increase our chances of sustained agency in the face of bad dice roll. By allowing re-rolls and giving rewards even if the dice perform poorly we continue to believe that we can have a desired affect in the game. Elder Sign has some of this with the spells storing dice, assists from other players, focusing on ourselves, clue token re-rolls etc. However, when the dice are performing badly despite all of these built in mechanics, you exhaust your ability to manipulate the dice through them as your items, clues, hope are all sapped. Without beating adventures you cannot replenish the core things the game relies on the give you agency. That can lead to a sour playing experience.

Another reason that we continue to throw dice is that when we do so in modern games, we aren't throwing dice to throw them. We are throwing them to achieve a certain kind of success, a success that is built into the theme of the game. The stronger the theme and the clearer it is to perceive how throwing the dice is incorporated into the theme the less we are likely to mind throwing dice to begin with, even if they roll poorly. Elder Sign has a relatively weak theme in relation to other games which has a tendency to leave the dice rolls out in the wind as naked mechanics. It is much like the Wizard of Oz telling us to not pay attention to the man behind the curtain but it is difficult when the curtain is thin or non-existent.

All of this being said, I believe this to still be a great game a lot of fun to play, but also with a lot of room for improvement. It is "superior" to Arkham Horror both in ease of play and time required but certainly falls into the "old hat" category with the dice rolling mechanic allowing the sapping of agency by poor reward placement and weak theme.

Thanks for reading!

Wednesday Morning News Reel

Morning All!

 I have compiled a few articles to kick this Wednesday morning in board gaming off in the right way!

Digital Moves to the Board

 For those that are like me and absolutely loved Mega Man as a child, and perhaps even to this day but have moved on from playing Nintendo or haven't but are looking for something to help freshen up the Mega Man twitch, look no further! Mega Man is being put out as a board game! I thought about kickstarting this when it was doing its initial funding but decided against it due to limited funds at the time. Luckily, the company is now taking pre-orders. So, if you need to itch the Mega Man itch, here is a way to do it.

Mega Man Board Game

In this same category are several other video games that are being transitioned to board games by Cryptozoic. This particular article is the news announcement of the Portal game's board game rendition. It also mentions that Assassin's creed will be made into a board game as well. Both should prove to be interesting but I was a little saddened to hear that a portal gun that defies the laws of physics wouldn't be included.

Cryptozoic Announces Portal Board Game

Restaurants Embrace Less Than Traditional Board Games

Lately there seems to be a growing movement by some businesses, mainly food places, to incorporate board games into the menu. What follows are several locations, one in the US and the rest in Vancouver, where the proprietors are either offering a discount on your food if you bring your games in to play or are providing the patrons with games to play during their meals. I think this is an excellent business idea and hope that some savvy entrepreneur opens one of these up near my home soon.

The Lamp Post Cafe 

Metro Vancouver Bars

Instant Kickstarter Success!

It's not very often that a game on Kickstarter comes out and blows their goal away in an hour or less. It's only happened a hand full of times before Arcadia Quest did it again. I think that Kickstarter makes it easier for indie developers to get their games to the public allowing a greater variety of games to enter the market. Some of them are not so good while others are excellent titles. I will be following this one on Kickstarter not only because of the massive success so far, thus guaranteeing its release, but also because it looks like a genuinely awesome game!

Arcadia Quest Breaks Kickstarter Goal in 1 Hour

Let me know your thoughts on these articles in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading!

Valentine's Day X-Wing Showdown

Greetings!

My fiancee and I had a lovely weekend for Valentine's day filled with the normal kind of love showing; flowers, movie and dinner, nice dinner at home, etc etc. But we also shared our love by shooting the crap out of each other's star fighters in our first ever game of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. I am here to report to my faithful readers my thoughts, concerns and insights about this game manufactured by Fantasy Flight Games.

The Buildup

I wasn't born yet when the original Star Wars movie hit the big screen in a big way back in 1977. I was still pooping in diapers when Star Wars: Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. I was around to ride the tidal wave of merchandising that came after this final movie. I remember being young and thinking that the Ewoks were the coolest things ever and being afraid when Luke sees his own face in Darth Vader's mask after the duel in the swamps of Dagobah.

I also wanted to fly an X-Wing as they were, of course, the coolest ship in the world. I had a toy X-Wing as a child that I would pretend was making all kinds of Star Wars like noises that also had the ability to "lock S-Foils in attack position." I outgrew that toy, however, and ever since then I have been looking for a comparable toy that would allow me to experience Star Wars like I had when I was a child.

Enter Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game

Not only does this game have cool little ships that you can fly around, making Star Wars sounds as needed, but it also allows you to experience the thrill and uncertainty of being a pilot in the driver's seat of these iconic craft. Let's get to the review.

Rules - 12 / 15

Rules are an essential part of any game. They are the skeleton that the rest of the game hangs to and if the skeleton isn't formed well, or is incomprehensible, the overall game itself will suffer drastically. Now, my fiancée isn't one for trying new games usually but she did agree to try out this one with me. Her being a Star Wars fanatic certainly had something to do with this. She is also a stickler for well written game rules, something which several games forget is important it seems.


Upon opening the box we found the following:

Not only did the game come with a standard set of rules, but it also came with very well written and well organized quick start rules. Using these, we were playing a less complicated version of the game within 10 minutes! This is something that most games can't boast about.

The actual rule book is also relatively well put together. It is divided into various sections that make logical sense and the index at the end is surely something excellent as well. Unfortunately, there is no table of contents but the complete rules are only 37 pages in length with some interesting info on the production of the models themselves.

Over all the rules set is presented logically and also facilitates the ease of game flow going forward through several options that add flavor and tie into the theme well. This is certainly one sexy skeleton.

Components - 15  / 15

Fantasy Flight is known for not being shy on providing excellent game components and Star Wars: X - Wing doesn't disappoint. From the sturdy cardboard maneuver templates to the quality cards and absolutely stunning pre-fabricated models, they obviously spared no expense on this game. I mean, check out the models alone:

 With this kind of quality coming in every box, the components are certainly some of the finest on the market.

Theme -   12 / 15

Theme is an essential part of most games because without theme, without the meat and skin of theme, all you're doing is playing a game of dice with little chits moving around the table. Tons of well presented theme can enhance a mediocre rules set and improve sub-par game play. On the other side a lack of directed theme can ruin an amazing rules set with excellent game play.

That being said I would say that this game has a good amount of theme. All of the special characters in this starting box are relatively well known to non-Star Wars fans and there are some iconic upgrades as well such as R2-D2 and proton torpedoes. The ships add a ton of theme and even the game play mechanics involving ship movement really make it feel like you are flying these craft around the table.

The only thing that I can dock this category on is that with only buying the base game, you have to play on a table. While my brown wooden table is nice, per the pics above, it does detract some and can really destroy your suspension of disbelief. A folded paper map with the suggested quick start rules of 2'x2' would have been nice to aid with the theme but, there are several nice third party retailers that offer game mats that would certainly enhance the theme even more.

Game Play - 12 / 15

Game play is how well the rules and theme interact during the course of a game. Good rules and theme can lead to good game play but they can also lead to unexpected travesties of fussiness over components or exorbitant play times.

As for how Star Wars: X-Wing miniatures rates, I would say that it does very well. The components all have a logical place and while the tiny tokens for actions and stress may get a little fiddly at times, it is nothing that a normal person wouldn't be able to handle. 

The turn sequence is also very nicely handled with players going through a planning phase by using specialized movement dials unique to each fighter type and choosing a movement and placing it face down next to the model. Then you execute a movement phase with lower skilled pilots moving before the higher skilled pilots. After this is a combat phase where you get to blast your opponents with classic Star Wars weaponry. The higher skilled pilots get to shoot first representing their honed combat instincts.

The only place where game play can start to drag a bit is at the end in some games where each person is submitting movements but is unable to get the other person in their firing arc. This can drag on for several turns until someone makes a mistake, which can be regarded as true to actual dogfights. Unfortunately actual dog fights last seconds and not minutes fiddling with components.

Replay-ability -   7 / 15

This category is one that revolves around variation on a theme. Games that excel at this allow players to replay the same game over and over with it never getting stale or boring. Games that do poorly at this are ones that are basically one and dones.

Replay-ability is really the only category that I can hammer this game on. I understand that it is part of a miniatures line and that you can purchase additional ships to add complexity and deeper strategy. However, this review is only covering the base game. The rule book comes with a few missions that you can play and asteroid placement, acting as in space obstacles for cover, can vary game to game but essentially it will always be two Tie Fighters vs one X-Wing.

Fun -  20 / 25

Fun is the product of all of the above things clicking properly and the game being worth the amount of time required to play a game. 

This game is fun. Straight up unadulterated fun. Not the most fun I have had playing a game but it still flows nicely with the starting matches lasting about 10 to 15 minutes. As more ships hit the table the games will get longer but will also offer more depth so the score should ride as I get more ships. That's right. This game is fun enough that I will be buying additional ships that will hopefully, and logically should, fix the low replay-ability score above.

Overall Score - 78 out of 100

I would certainly recommend this game to those who love star wars, wargames, or tactical dogfighting games. The components are solid and interact nicely with the theme and game play leading to loads of fun while playing. Unfortunately, to really make this game shine you NEED to purchase the additional ship expansions to correct the woeful replay-ability score. 

Questions, comments, cries of anquish, leave 'em below and thanks for reading!

P.S. For those who were wondering, my fiancee and I played two games. I was the rebels with her as the Empire. She dominated me the first game and I returned the favor in our second game. Looking forward to the tie breaker and hopefully I can get this to hit the table again soon.