Game Buzz: A Study in Emerald

I’m not very familiar with the works of Neil Gaiman.  I’ve read a couple of his books - Stardust and Good Omens – and tried to read his Sandman graphic novels.  But I have yet to really get into his stuff.  However, I know he’s a popular author, and Martin Wallace is a popular game designer, so it’s no wonder this project is gaining some buzz:

image by BGG user Frog1

A Study in Emerald is a new game currently on Kickstarter, designed by Martin Wallace and released by his company, Treefrog Games.  It’s based on a short story by Neil Gaiman from 2004 that combines the works of Arthur Conan Doyle with H.P. Lovecraft.  Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu – color me interested.  The game is for 2-5 players and plays in 90 minutes.  It’s Kickstarting for about another week (already funded), but I don’t know if it will ever be available outside of Kickstarter – Treefrog tends to do some pretty limited one-time runs for the games they release.  We’ll see.

In the game, you get a board, 60 game cards, 12 city cards, 6 player identity cards, 50 initial cards, agent counter, double agent counters, sanity counters, hide royalty counters, zombie counters, and player agent counters.  There are also 10 blocking discs, 2 game markers, 100 influence cubes, and 75 control discs.  At the start of the game, each player gets a loyalty card: you’ll either be a Loyalist or a Restorationist.  Players each get 20 influence cubes, 15 control discs, a player agent counter, and 10 initial cards (you begin with a hand of six cards).  Four game cards go in each location of the map, and each player gets two random double agent tokens.

On your turn, you get two actions, then draw back up to six, reshuffling as you need to.  There are 12 different action options:

• Place influence cubes: Play cards with cube symbols on them, and take that many cubes from your available stock and place them on a face-up game card or in a city box.
• Take a game card: If you take this action, it must be the first action you perform.  Take a face-up game card from any space on the board where you have more influence than any other player.  It goes in your discard pile.  In this way, you could get an agent under your control in the location the card came from.
• Take a city card: This also must be a first action if you take it.  If you have more influence in a city box than any other player, take the matching city card (from the deck, or from a player you have just wrested control from).  You place a control disc in the city.  The card goes in your discard pile, and gives you VPs at the end of the game.
• Retrieve influence cubes:  Play cards with cube symbols and take that many cubes from the board.  These can come from a variety of places.
• Buy influence cubes: Play cards with gold symbols.  For every two, you can take a cube from the pool and add it to your available stock.
• Place/remove block disc: Play a card that allows you to place or remove a blocking disc on a face up cards.  As long as it is there, no one can take the card.
• Move agents: Pay a cost printed on the board to move between spaces.
• Move markers: Move the war or revolution tracks a number indicated by the number of arrow symbols on a card.  The Restorationists want revolution, the Loyalists want war.  The higher the counter, the more points your side gets at the end of the game.
• Discard cards: Discard as many cards as you want.
• Reveal your identity: This is a free action, so you don’t have to spend one of your actions to do it.  Adjust your VPs immediately.
• Reveal double agent: This is also a free action, and can even be done during another player’s turn.  This identifies an agent as a double agent, and prevents them from doing whatever activity they are trying to accomplish.
• Pass: Do nothing.

The game ends when the war track marker reaches 15, the revolution track reaches 15, a player reaches a set number of VPs, a Restorationist’s main agent is assassinated, a Restorationist receives three “Mad” sanity counters, or a zombie card is played as a first action with no zombies out on the board.  Add the VPs for each player on a side, and the side with the lowest total is out.  The single player with the highest score on the winning side wins.

I don’t really know what to think about this one yet.  I don’t get much of a sense of the theme from reading the rules, but that’s kind of the way it is with Martin Wallace games.  Also, I haven’t studied the cards, so I don’t know how everything will work together.  The biggest thing that stands out to me is the semi-cooperative nature of the game.  There are hidden identities, so you don’t know who’s on your team.  However, you’re trying to help your team do the best they can, because otherwise you can’t win.  On top of that, there’s a single winner on a team.  It seems to me that this is how semi-cooperative games should work – people working together out of necessity, but not trying to give someone an edge.

I think A Study in Emerald looks…OK.  It’s certainly not something I’m dying to back, but Martin Wallace has a good pedigree, so I’ll play if someone brings it out.  If you’re interested, go pledge – £50 and it’s yours.  Thanks for reading!

LINKS:

• A Study in Emerald at BGG
• Treefrog Games site
• Kickstarter project page

The Eleven: Dice Allocation

This month, The Eleven is focusing on Dice Allocation games.  This is not an official mechanic as defined on BGG, but it’s one that has been gaining in populatity recently.  We’ll define it as rolling dice, then manipulating the results/assigning the dice to various locations/pieces in order to accomplish certain goals in the game.  As always, I’ve tried to only pick games that I’ve played (there is one exception here).  Games are listed in alphabetical order.

imaqge by BGG user binraix

In Alea Iacta Est (which means “the die is cast”), dice are being used in different building to gain certain VP producing items.  The game (2-5 players, 60 minutes) was published in 2009 by alea (Rio Grande in the US), and was designed by Jeffrey D. Allers and Bernd Eisenstein.  The game is played over five rounds, and each round, players take turns rolling all of their dice (you start with eight).  You then put some of them into one of five buildings:

• Templum: The first player to place here puts in one die of any value and take a Fortuna token (worth 1-3 points at the end of the game).  The second player must put in two dice that add up to more than the first die.  They get two Fortuna tokens.  And so on.  At the end of the round, you can keep two Fortuna tokens if you have the most dice there, and one otherwise.
• Senatus: You build a road, or a sequence of dice (2-3-4, for example).  You can’t place a sequence that’s already there.  The player with the best road (longest and with highest values) gets first choice of Senate cards, worth bonus points at the end of the game.
• Castrum: Here, you put dice of the same value.  Again, you can’t put in a set equal to what’s already there.  The player with the best set gets first choice a province.
• Forum Romanum: Here, you put either one die or two dice that add up to five.  The lowest dice go first in line, and push any other dice to the back.  At the end of the round, players (in order of the line) choose a patrician, which can be matched with provinces for points.
• Latrina: Any leftover dice go to the Latrina.  Each die here gains a reroll token.

A round ends when one player has placed all their dice.  After five rounds, the player with the most points wins.

As a dice allocation game, Alea Iacta Est is interesting in that people are competing for various point-scoring areas.  There’s a little bit of a bidding aspect as you’re trying to get the best combination in each area, and each area awards you points accordingly.  You’re rerolling your dice every turn, so you’re not just stuck with one result.  One rule I missed the first couple of times I played was that the round ends once one player has placed all of their dice.  This means you have to gauge what others are doing so you’re not left with extra dice at the end.  It’s a very interesting game, one I recommend.

image by BGG user CleverMojo

I’ve talked about Alien Frontiers a few times on this blog.  It’s the 2010 game from Clever Mojo and designer Tory Neimann that Kickstarted the Kicstarter trend.  However, it’s also a good entry into the dice allocation genre.  The game is for 2-4 players (up to five with the expansion), and is set in a kind of classic science fiction universe.  You’re trying to colonize an alien planet (with regions named after classic sci-fi authors) by collecting resources and trying to prevent others from doing what they need to do.

On a turn, you roll your dice, and then allocate them to different spaces orbiting the planet.  You then get certain benefits based on the dice placed:

• The solar converter turns a single die into fuel – 1-2 gets 1, 3-4 gets 2, 5-6 gets 3.  Up to eight dice can go here.
• The orbital market allows you to trade fuel for ore at a rate determined by a pair of dice you place.  So a pair of 2s means you can trade 2 fueld for 1 ore, while a pair of 6s makes the rate 6:1.  Two pairs of dice can go here.
• The alien artifact allows you to a new alien technology, as long as the dice you place add up to more than 7.  Anything less than 7, and you can sweep the available options for a new set of three.  There can be four dice here.
• The raider’s outpost allows you to steal a combination of four resources from your opponent, or a single tech card from an opponent.  The dice you place must be in sequence (e.g. 2-3-4).  There is only space for 3 dice here, but a better sequence can replace a lesser one.
• The lunar mine allows you to place one die for one ore.  However, the die you place must be equal to or larger than any other die already there.  There are spaces for five dice.
• The colony constructor allows you to place three of a kind and spend three ore to place a colony on the planet.  These give you one point for the colony, plus a point for controlling a region.  If you control a region, you also get that region’s benefit.  There can be two sets of three here.
• The colonist hub allows you to place up to three dice to advance a colony marker along a seven space track.  When it reaches the end, you can pay a fuel and an ore to place the colony on the planet.  There are four tracks, and three dice can go on each track.
• The shipyard is where you get new dice.  You need a pair, and you have to spend 1-3 fuel and 1-3 ore to get a new die, which then is placed in maintenance to be used next turn.  You start the game with three dice, and can go up to six.  Up to three pairs can go here.
• The terraforming station allows you to place a six, pay a fuel and an ore, and place a colony immediately.  You lose the die you used, so you’ll have to build it again later.  There is only room for one die here.

The game ends when someone places their last colony, and the player with the most points wins.

Alien Frontiers is a good game because there are lots of different options for dice placement.  It also can get fairly combative as people compete over various areas – the lunar mine, in particular, can get clogged with 6s quickly since dice aren’t removed until your next turn.  The raider’s outpost is pretty mean, and the alien technologies have lots of ways to bend the rules.  You can bog down with AP, particularly late in the game, but it’s a fun experience.

image by BGG user Hagrid

I might be stretching a little with this one, but I wanted to mention Backgammon as a very early form of dice allocation.  Created in around 3000 BC, it’s one of the oldest games for two players that we know of.  It’s an abstract game where you’re simply trying to move all of your pieces off the board.  On your turn, you roll two dice and choose which pieces to move.  If you roll a 3 and a 4, for example, you can move one piece three spaces and one piece four, or you can move one piece three, and the same piece four, or vice versa.  You cannot enter a space where there are more than one of your opponent’s pieces.  If you land on one of your opponent’s pieces, they are removed to the bar in the center, and must roll certain numbers to get off.  The player who gets all of his pieces off first wins.

Obviously, that’s a very brief glossed over description of the game.  It’s not complicated, but there are a lot of strategy elements that go along with the game.  On the surface, Backgammon looks like a roll and move game, but I put it more in the dice allocation category because you can choose which pieces to move based on the numbers rolled.  You have to be clever about what to move because an experienced or lucky player can really make you pay.  It’s a great game that has definitely stood the test of time.

image by BGG user W Eric Martin

Can’t Stop is a 1980 game designed by the great Sid Sackson.  Its most recent edition was published in 2011 by Gryphon Games.  It’s a basic push-your-luc style game where you roll dice and apply them to pieces on the board in order to claim tracks.  Each player has a set of 11 cones in their color, and there are 3 neutral cones.  The board is in a stop sign shape with tracks number 2-12.  The 2 and 12 columns are the shortest, while 7 is the longest.  On your turn, you roll four dice, then split them into two groups of two.  The sum of each pair of dice indicates a neutral cone that can be moved up its track.  With only three cones, you can only be working on three tracks at once.  Once you have moved cones for the turn, you decide whether to roll again, or to stop.  If you stop, you replace the neutral cones with cones of your color – this is your starting point the next time you roll a pair for that track.  If you roll again, then the process repeats itself.  If you ever roll and cannot move or place a neutral cone, all three are removed from the board and your turn is over.  Once a cone reaches the top of a track, that track is claimed and no cones can be moved on it again.  When a player claims three tracks, they win.

The dice allocation here is fairly intuitive as there will only ever be three combinations of the dice.  Say you roll a 2-3-4-6.  You can move the 5 and 10, the 6 and 9, or the 7 and 8.  The question you have to ask is which ones you want to go for.  Generally, 6-7-8 are rolled more often than anything else, therefore the tracks are the longest.  On the other hand, 2 and 12 only have one way to be rolled (1-1 or 6-6), so the tracks are the shortest.  You may want to go for them because, given a hot streak, you can fill the tracks quickly.  You may also not want to waste time on a track someone is already high on.  There may also be combinations you can’t use at all because the track has been used.  There are a lot of factors that go into how you want to split your dice, and I think that fits it well into the category.

image by BGG user DrMayhem

Dungeon Roll is the only game on this list that I haven’t played in one form or another…yet.  It does have the honor of being the first and only game I’ve ever Kickstarted.  Designed by Chris Darden, this game is being published by Tasty Minstrel.  Playable by 1-4 players, it’s a dungeon crawl where you roll dice, then assign them to different monsters.  On your turn, you roll the seven party dice, which could include Champions, Clerics, Mages, Thieves, Fighters, and Scrolls.  Another player will then roll some dungeon dice (3-7, depending on the level you’re currently on).  This could be Goblins, Skeletons, Ooze, Dragons, Chests, or Potions.  If there are monsters, you’ll have to decide which heroes you want to use to defeat them.  Each hero has a different specialty:

• Fighters can defeat any number of Goblins, or one Ooze or Skeleton.
• Clerics can defeat any number of Skeletons, or one Ooze or Goblin.
• Mages can defeat any number of Oozes, or one Skeleton or Goblin.
• Thieves can defeat one of anything.
• Champions can defeat all of anything.
• Scrolls allow you to reroll dice.

Once a die is used, it is moved to the graveyard.  Dragons are a different type of monster – they are not attacked until three have been rolled.  You then must spend three different heroes to defeat the Dragon.  If you ever can’t defeat a monster, you’re out.  If you defeat all monsters, you increase your level.  You can use a Thief or a Champion to open a Chest that has been rolled (gaining you treasure), and you can use Potions to return dice from the graveyard (reroll the dice as they return).  This goes until you stop, either by choice or by defeat.  If you stop by choice, you gain experience equal to the current dungeon level.  After three rounds, the game ends, and the player with the most experience wins.

This is another push-your-luck style game, and I think the aspects of allocating your dice to defeat different monsters will be very fun.  At least, I hope it will since I backed it.  Its place on this list is based on the way you have to determine the best way to use your dice, looking ahead to future levels (particularly the dragon) or just trying to survive for another floor.  It’s light, but I think it will provide some good times.

image by BGG user W Eric Martin

Elder Sign is a 2011 game from Fantasy Flight Games and designers Kevin Wilson and Richard Launius.  It was based in the Lovecraftian universe, and is a dice game follow-up the FFG’s 2005 reprint of Arkham Horror.  In the game, 1-8 players (though PLEASE don’t play with more than 4) attempt to secure the Elder Signs that will defeat an Ancient One by entering various rooms of a museum and rolling dice.  Each room has its own challenges, and different rewards are given out for defeating the room.

Each player has an investigator, and on your turn, you choose a room.  You then will roll 6 dice (possibly less with bad effects, possibly more with the right spells) and attempt to fulfill the conditions of the room.  Each room has several spots where you’ll need to have magnifying glass symbols, terror symbols, peril symbols, or scrolls to defeat.  If you defeat one of the spaces, the dice used are set aside and can’t be used for anything else (you can only defeat one per roll).  If you fail to defeat a space, you must discard a die and are rolling fewer on your next turn.  If you fail completely in the room, bad things will happen to you.  If you clear the room, good things will happen (and sometimes bad things will also happen).  Every four turns, the clock strikes midnight, and something else bad happens.  If you gain a requisite number of Elder Signs before the Doom Track reaches a certain point, you win.  If not, the Ancient One awakens and you have to fight or be devoured.

Elder Sign is all about giving yourself the best chance to succeed.  The dice can be fickle, and if you’re rolling poorly, you’ll lose.  The allocation here has less strategy, probably, than any other game on this list.  There are certain spells you can use to enhance your luck, but really, it is almost 90% luck.  Still, you are allocating your rolls to different places, and you sometimes have a difficult choice where you’ve rolled enough to unlock two, but you can only unlock one.

image by BGG user chaddyboy_2000

Escape: The Curse of the Temple is the big hit of Essen Spiel 2012.  Designed by Kristian Amundsen Østby, this Queen Games release is a fast, real-time dice rolling game where players are trying to, well, escape a temple.  Basically, you have 10 minutes to get to the exit and get out.  This task is complicated by a few different factors – you have to get rid of gems in various locks placed around the temple; you have to avoid cursed mask symbols; and you have to go back to the start tile twice during the game or risk losing a die.

Everything in this game is simultaneous.  From the initial “ESCAPE” intoned by the soundtrack, you have to start rolling dice.  You are trying to get certain symbols to move from one room to another – certain combinations are given on each tile as the requirement for entering it.  Unlike a lot of games, you don’t have limited rerolls – you can roll as much as you want to get what you need, and set things aside.  However, every once in a while, you’ll get a black mask.  These cannot be rerolled until you roll a gold mask.  Other players can give you a gold mask if they’re in the same room.  Every so often, a gong will sound.  You have to make it back to the entrance space before the sound of a door slamming, or lose a die for the rest of the game.  This can be very painful.  If you’re in a room with a lock, you’re given a certain number of symbols needed to put gems in the lock.  The more, the better, because if you make it to the exit, you’ll need to roll as many keys as there are gems left in the gem storage space.  If everyone makes it out of the temple, you all win.  If anyone does not, you all lose.

The allocation here is strange because it is so fast.  Really, you have to make snap decisions about what to do with your dice.  Sometimes, it boils down to going left or right, and sometimes it comes down to how many gems you can get.  You can also help people out, but you have to be in the same room with them.  If you get stuck away from everyone and have nothing but cursed symbols, you could be in trouble.  It’s a very fast game, and that ten minutes does NOT feel like enough time.

image by BGG user tanis

Kingsburg is probably the quintessential dice allocation game.  Released in 2007, this Andrea Chiarvesio/Luca Iennaco design (oublished in the US by Fantasy Flight) really set the standard for using dice as a way to spread influence and produce resources.  It also kind of led the charge for the current crop of hybrid games – games with a lot of Euro-style mechanics attached to a American-style theme.

Kingsburg takes place over five years.  In each year, you get three productive seasons.  In these seasons, you roll your dice, then take turns allocating them to different people around the board.  These people are numbered 1-18, and you place dice that add up to the number shown.  There are various modifiers that can be used, and no one can use the same person.  Once everyone has placed their dice, you gain the advantage of the person you influenced.  Generally, this is in the form of resources, but you can also get points, die modifiers, or soldiers.  After the season, each player may build, which gives them other benefits.  At the end of the year, some enemy attacks, and if you don’t have enough of a defense system built up, you’ll be in trouble.  After 5 years, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.

That’s a very simplified explanation, but you can see how the dice allocation is really the central mechanism of the game.  You can combine or split your dice in whatever way you want, but you also have to keep an eye on your opponents to make sure they don’t take what you want.  It’s also helpful to build a strategy around buildings, so you need to do things that will get you the resources you need.  And whatever you do, don’t neglect your defense – it’s not terribly difficult in the beginning to win, but by the end, you will be hurting bad if you can’t fight off the enemy.  It’s a great game, and certainly one of the best dice allocation games.

image by BGG user Zaphod

Lords of Vegas is a different kind of entry on this list because you’re using dice of preset values to claim spaces, but then may be rerolling them later to gain more influence.  It’s a 2010 game from Mayfair Games and designers James Ernest and Mike Selinker.  You’re playing a mogul in Las Vegas trying to build the best casinos on the strip.

On your turn, you draw a card, which gives you a new lot.  You then collect money and play your turn.  You can take any number of actions in any order any number of times.  You build by placing a casino tile with a die set to the number printed on the lot.  You sprawl by taking over an adjacent lot (which could be taken over from you).  You can remodel by paying to change the color of tiles in one of your casinos.  You can reorganize by paying to reroll all dice in a casino, hopefully giving yourself more influence but possibly increasing everyone else’s.  You can also gamble in a player’s casino by trying to roll certain numbers.  The game ends when the end of game card is drawn.  The player with the most points wins.

This is a dice allocation game where you’re not rolling the dice initially.  You can roll the dice throughout, but you’re always taking a risk when you do that.  It’s very much an area control game, but one where you can change your fortunes at just about any time.  It’s very interesting how you try to manipulate the dice after they are already in place, and that’s why I’m including it on the list.

image by BGG user Moviebuffs

Shanghaien is a 2008 game from ABACUSSPIELE and designer Michael Schacht.  It’s a two player game where you’re trying to claim cards to gain points.  There’s kind of a weak piratey theme on the game, but it’s mostly about using the dice to get the right cards.  On your turn, you roll two dice and choose one to place next to one of six cards (the Tavern).  You take turns doing this, and once you’ve played at least two dice, you can choose to Shanghai instead of roll.  Calling Shanghai means the round is over, and you claim cards.  To claim a card, you need to have the highest total of dice on your side of the card.  If it’s a tie, you look to see who has the highest total of dice on neighboring cards.  If it’s still a tie, no one gets it.  These cards can be numbered in different colors (sailors) or dirty tricks (which you can use to break the rules).  The game ends after eight rounds, and the player who has the most points wins.

Shanghaien is a very simple game that I’ve only played on Yucata.de.  The decision is between two dice, so it’s not complicated.  However, you have to be careful and try to gain the most points.  The scoring is a little convoluted as you either want a lot in a color, or very little to try to Shanghai your opponent.  You’re trying to place dice to give yourself the best chance of getting cards you need, and you’re trying to try to keep your opponent from getting what they need.  It’s a fun game, one I’d like to play in its physical form sometime.

image by BGG user taiwanite

Finally, Troyes.  Troyes was designed by Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, and Alain Orban.  It was released in 2010 by Pearl Games.  It has a very European theme of recreating four centuries of history in Troyes, France.  Players are trying to gain influence in religion, military, and civil domains while trying to prevent others from doing the same thing.

Over the course of 4-6 rounds, you will be rolling dice based on the number of meeples you have in certain places of the board.  For example, if you have two meeples in the yellow area, one in the red area, and one in the black area, you’ll roll two yellow, one red, and one black die.  These dice are then placed in your area on the board.  You’ll then take turns spreading your influence around by using dice.  The thing is, however, that you don’t necessarily have to use your own dice.  You can pay to use someone else’s dice, thus making it harder for them to do something.  You’ll be activating activity cards, constructing the cathedral, combating events, placing a meeple in a building (pushing another one out), using agriculture, or passing.  All of this serves to gain you prestige points, which is how you win the game.

Troyes is very much a Eurogame, but I find it fairly interesting.  I’ve played it with four and with two, and I much prefer it with four players.  There are a lot of interesting choices to be made, and it’s always a challenge to find just the right spot for your dice to go.  It’s definitely a good example of dice allocation games.

That’s it.  Looking back over this list, I think I could have called it “games that use dice in different ways than your standard roll-and-move or Yahtzee style gmaes”, but I think I’ll stick with Dice Allocation.  Let me know of others you think of.  Thanks for reading!

Game Buzzworthiness: Stack & Attack

Time for another review.  This time, it’s

image by BGG user egragame

Stack & Attack is a new game from Egra Games and designer Jeremy Burnham.  It’s a 3-4 player card game where players are Neanderthals trying to build the biggest tower.  It’s a fairly light game that’s primarily targeted at casual, or even non-gamers.  I should mention that this was sent to me by the designer as a review copy.  So, with that disclaimer out of the way, on with the review.

First, here’s an overview of how the game plays.  Each player begins with a deck of ten rock cards – 3 small flat rocks, 3 small round rocks, 1 medium flat rock, 1 medium round rock, 1 big flat rock, and 1 big round rock.  This deck is shuffled, and you draw a hand of three cards.  On your turn, you have four action points to spend.  These APs can be spent to buy new rocks or special cards, build your tower, or throw rocks at your opponents’ towers.  Small rocks always cost 1 AP, medium rocks always cost 2 AP, and big rocks always cost 3 AP.

To buy, take a rock or special card from one of the five cards revealed in the quarry.  Special cards can be bought at a cost printed on the card, but don’t cost anything to use.  They can increase your attack or defense strength, give you more AP, get rocks back, or throw rocks higher than usual.

To build, add a rock to your tower.  Each has a different height (1-2-3 arms).  Big rocks can’t be built over height 7, and medium rocks can’t be built at 12.

To throw, take a rock from your hand and pick a target on an opponent’s tower.  Big rocks can’t be thrown over 7, and medium rocks can’t be thrown over 12 (unless you have a catapult).  Your rock has an attack strength, and your opponent’s rock has a defense strength that is boosted by the defense strength of rocks on top of it.  Each player can then choose to reveal 0-2 cards from their deck, and add the respective attack/defense strengths.  If the attack is successful (totals more or equal to the defense), both rocks are destroyed and rocks on top go to the defense discard pile.  If the attack misses, the thrown rock goes into the defensive player’s discard pile (hey look, free rock).

At the end of your turn, you reshuffle your discard pile and hand back into your deck and draw a new hand of three.  You can add a card to your draw when your tower reaches 5.  You also get an extra AP when your tower reaches 9, and you can hold a card in your hand instead of discarding everything if your tower reaches 12.  The game ends when someone reaches a height of 15, or when the quarry deck runs out.

COMPONENTS: This game comes with 80 cards and 4 folding boards.  The boards are there to mark the height of your tower.  The rocks on the cards all have a height of 1-2-3 “arms”, and they fit in perfectly into the lines marked on the board.  The edge of the board is marked with some reminders about the bonuses you get at height 5, 9, and 12, as well as the numbers for each level.  Height restrictions are marked on the board, and this is one of the biggest complaints people I played with had about the game.  When building your tower, the reminders (no big rocks over 7, no medium rocks over 12) get covered up by the cards.  I mentioned this to Jeremy in our correspondence, and he said that they were either going to widen the board or add some symbols to the edge in the second printing.

The cards are nicely illustrated, and the rocks are designed so they fit perfectly into the lines on the board.  The card stock is kind of flimsy, but everything is very clearly laid out.  The cost, attack, and defense value of each card is printed on the bottom so it is visible when you stack them on the tower.  There’s even some flavor text on the cards to add to the entertainment value.  The only other complaint I might have about the components is that there’s no way to track your action points.  However, this is easily fixed – go get some rocks from the garden, and use them to track APs.  It’s thematic!

THEME: It’s a simple theme – stack rocks to build towers, and throw rocks at your friends.  I asked Jeremy if the theme or mechanics came first when designing the game:

“The theme. We had a very short window for designing or game, and our first few ideas were way too complex and cumbersome. During one of our brainstorming sessions we were having a heated debate when one of our team members jokingly said “why don’t we just make a game where people throw rocks at each other?” Amazingly, we all rallied around the idea and ended up making a game about cavemen stacking rocks and trying to knock over each other’s towers.”

The theme works well within the context of the game.  You’re not thinking so much about being a caveman as you are about building your tower of rocks, but it provides a nice framing for the experience.

MECHANICS: I’ve been describing this game as “sort of” a deck-building game.  It shares some ideas with traditional deck-builders – particularly, the act of buying new cards from the quarry – but it differs in that using a card, either in the tower or throwing, removes it from your deck.  Another difference is the act of reshuffling your discards into your deck after every single turn.  Because of the combat mechanism, you may be collecting cards in your discard during other player turns, and because you only reshuffle at the end of your own turn, you may end up with no deck from which to draw during attacks.

The act of reshuffling also creates an interesting dilemma – namely, you never know exactly when the cards you want will come out.  This is true in other DBGs, but you are guaranteed that those cards will come out sometime in those.  Because you’re constantly reshuffling, you may never see a card you want.  This adds some push-your-luck elements to the combat.  It also means that you don’t want too many cards in your deck.  Thinning is a prominent strategy in games like Dominion, but here, you don’t want to thin too much because it’s very easy to find yourself with nothing to defend yourself or attack with.

In addition to the deck-building elements, there’s also a very simple form of action point allowance.  There’s no complicated cheat sheet needed, telling what costs what.  It’s simple – small rocks always cost one, medium rocks always cost two, large rocks always cost three, special cards cost what is printed on the card and only when you buy.  Keeping track of your points can be confusing, particularly when engaging in combat or mixing actions.  Still, it’s a very basic form of the mechanism, and one that can be good to introduce it to non-gamers.  You know, before dumping something like Through the Ages or Tikal into their lap.

I asked Jeremy if there were any specific inspirations for the mechanisms in the game.  His response:

“We wanted a game that was similar in characters – box size, components, complexity, play time – to Bohnanza. I’ve always liked the idea of a deck-building game where you get to “create your own luck”, beyond just the cards played from your hand. When I was young I played the Star Wars CCG and they did a good job of this with “destiny” values. The stacking mechanism ultimately came from our desire to avoid using wooden cubes or other physical pieces in addition to the cards than drive the game. Game like Le Havre have cards that can be stacked while still revealing significant information. Lastly, we stuck with the direct attack/race-to-the-top mechanism, over some type of “score your tower whenever you want” rule because we wanted an experience less like a typical Eurogame and more like the game “Risk”, with players forming unsteady alliances and constantly trying to convince each other how harmless they are. “

In our first correspondence, Jeremy also talked about a possible Kingmaker effect in the game, where you can really take someone out of the running with a well placed throw.  He acknowledged it, but said that it was a good thing because it encouraged people to buy defensively, build defensively, and create some opportunities for epic tower collapses.  After playing, I can see what he means.  At one point in one of our games, every card in the quarry was a big flat rock.  I was the only one who seemed to want to buy them, as everyone else thought they were a little useless since their towers were too tall and they aren’t good for throwing.  I, on the other hand, thought they’d be good as defensive cards for draws (I never got to test that as they didn’t come up when I needed them).  A suggestion I heard was to include some way to wipe the slate clean.  It’s a possible house rule, I guess, though I kind of like that the quarry can get clogged up.

Overall, I think the mechanics are pretty solid for what they are.  It moves pretty quickly (unless you’re constantly being interrupted by a four-year old or are playing with someone that has severe AP…both of which afflicted my first play of the game), and everything makes sense as to why you’re doing it.  The mechanics match the theme, and that’s always a good thing.

STRATEGY LEVEL: Let’s come right out and say it – people looking for a deep strategic experience are not going to find it here.  There’s a little too much luck involved, and if that’s going to be an issue for you, you might want to look elsewhere.  That’s not to say there’s no strategy – you have to decide what to buy, what to stack, what to throw, who to throw at, and most importantly, try to keep the balance of a deck that is not too big and not too small.  It’s this last part that interests me the most – when I play DBGs, I often can’t keep myself from making a big, diversified deck.  That’s not a good thing here.  Nor is a thin deck – as I mentioned earlier, if you don’t have enough cards, you run the risk of not being able to boost your defense.  So, while the cards you get are going to be random, it’s not just mindless rock stacking.

ACCESSIBILITY: Stack and Attack is a game that is aimed at non-gamers/casual gamers.  The rules are simple, the gameplay is fast, and it’s got a pretty fun theme.  At the same time, there are a number of mechanisms that will be unfamiliar to people who haven’t played hobby games, so I’d definitely suggest a patient experienced teacher for the game.  I think lots of people could get the hang of it, and possibly even younger than the 12+ age range.  For gamers, I think it definitely fits into the 30-minute filler category.

REPLAYABILITY: There’s not a whole lot of variety in the game.  You get the same rocks every time, and there are only 5 types of special cards (2 of each).  The replayability comes from the randomness, and the strategy of the players.  I don’t think it’s a game that will get a lot of repeat plays – I doubt I’ll be pulling it out at every game night.  But it is a fun little game, and doesn’t tax your brain, so there’s value there.

SCALABILITY: This game is for 3-4 players only.  I asked Jeremy why not 2:

“We decided fairly early during playtesting that we either needed to make a 2 player game or a 3-4 player game. I’ve seen a lot of games that have a solid ruleset for 3-4 player but try to stretch the rules to accommodate 1-6 players; It is very hard to pull off. We went with 3-4 players because we liked the big ups and downs, and the broader variety of strategies and player interactions, that this format allowed. That being said, we do plan on coming up with a 2 player rule variation in the future.”

I’ve only played with 4, and I felt the length was just fine (well, except for the 4 year old and AP mentioned earlier).  I imagine that 3 players would be a quicker game, though possibly a little more brutal.

IS IT BUZZWORTHY? For what it is, I’d say Stack and Attack is a good game.  It’s not aspiring to deep strategy or an involved game.  It’s attempting to engage people in a casual experience, and I’d say it succeeds at that.  I don’t think it will be a game for everyone (what game is?), but I do think you should give it a look.

Thanks again to Jeremy Burnham and the folks at Egra Games for sending me this review copy, and thanks to you for reading!

Game Buzz: Coup

Well, there’s a whole bunch of Kickstarter games out there  right now that I have my eye on.  So, let’s get started.

image by BGG user T Worthington

Coup is one of the recent trend of minigames being released into the general public.  Originally released at Spiel 2012 by La Mame Games, a new edition is being published in the US by Indie Boards and Cards set in the world of The Resistance.  Coup is a 15 minute game designed by Rikki Tahta, for 2-6 players.  You are a government official trying to discredit all the other officials, and thus gain power yourself.

As far as I can tell, there’s no actual copy of the English rules on the internet.  However, the description at BGG is pretty thorough, and there are reviews that give you the basics.  IB&C says no changes have been made to the rules, so I’m going off secondhand information for this post.  I don’t know if any of the terminology has changed…we’ll see.

The game only comes with 15 cards and some money tokens.  There are three copies of each of five different roles: the Duke, the Assassin, the Contessa, the Captain, and the Ambassador.  At the start of the game, each player gets two coins and two face down character cards.  The characters are considered to be your influence, and you can look at them.

On your turn, you can do one of four things: take a coin from the bank (collect income), take two coins from the bank (collect foreign aid), pay seven coins to launch a coup (forcing one of your opponents to discard one of their influence), or use the special power of a character.  The special powers are as follows:

• Duke: Take three coins from the bank.  Additionally, the Duke can be used to block someone from taking foreign aid.
• Assassin: Pay three coins to assassinate one of another player’s influence cards.
• Contessa: Can block an assassination attempt.
• Captain: Steal two coins from another player.  Can also be used to block someone from stealing coins from you.
• Ambassador: Draw two character cards, exchange one with one of your face down cards (if you want), and return two to the deck.  You can also use the Ambassador to block someone from stealing coins from you.

The twist here is that you don’t actually have to have the character to use its action.  You might have the Duke and Contessa, but say you have the Captain so you can steal coins from another player.  Of course, that player can then say they have the Ambassador to block you.  You can challenge someone on what they’ve claimed, and if you’re right, they have to discard one of their influence.  However, if you’re wrong, you have to discard one of yours.  They then discard the character in question and draw a new one.

Once you lose both influence, you’re out.  The game is over when there’s only one person standing.

This game is garnering some comparisons to Love Letter due to the relative sizes of their decks (16 cards for LL).  The games don’t really have much in common beyond that, other than the act of trying to outthink your opponents.  I’m also reminded of an old game called Hoax, which was brought to you by the same guys who designed Cosmic Encounter and Dune.  I played it once several years ago, and thought it was a little too long, at least for me.  It had the same bluffing elements with secret roles.

Coup, on the other hand, looks like a very fun quick game.  I don’t know how the theme will work with it, but I doubt it matters.  It seems like a very psychological game (clearly, I cannot choose the wine in front of me), and one I don’t think I’d be very good at.  Still, it plays fast and it’s very small and portable, so it fills that filler niche that’s getting so much press lately.  Hopefully, I’ll get to play sometime once it gets released – it’s raised over $100,000 so far with eight days remaining in the Kickstarter campaign, so it should be coming out in October.  If you’re interested, head over to the Kickstarter page to back it – more stretch goals keep getting announced.  Thanks for reading!

LINKS:

• Coup at BGG
• Kickstarter campaign page
• Dice Tower review of first edition
• Trent Hamm’s 10 Things to Like and 5 Things to Dislike review about the first edition
• Hoax at BGG

Game Buzz: Quarantine

Recently, there have been a few games about the emergency professions – Flash Point: Fire Rescue took us into the world of a firefighter, and Police Precint helped us learn what it was like to be a police officer.  Now we journey into a hospital with

image by BGG user W Eric Martin

Quarantine is a new game from designer Mark Klassen and Mercury Games.  It’s for 2-4 players and takes an hour to play.  Each player is the owner of a hospital, trying to provide the best treatment possible while trying to avoid having wards shut down due to disease.  The theme sounds pretty intense, but from the looks of the cover, the game seems to have a more tongue-in-cheek feel to it.  It was one of the most anticipated games for 2013 on a BGG poll, so let’s see how it looks.

The game comes with 96 patient cubes (4 colors, 24 each); 32 gray disease cubes (the Graysies); 28 spcial room tiles; 16 starting treatment room tiles; 8 additional treatment room tiles; 4 lobby tiles; 8 bonus action markers; 4 round action discs, and a cloth draw bag.  Each player gets a starting treatment room of each color, plus a lobby tile.  You’ll arrange these into your hospital layout so that each tile connects to at least one open doorway, and you remain connected to your lobby through a series of doorways (the entrance must always remain open, so the lobby can never be completely surrounded).  Additionally, 8 special rooms are drawn for use, and put all patient and disease cubes into the draw bag.  The start player takes the four action discs, and the player on his/her left gets the draw bag.

At the start of your turn, the player on your left draws four cubes from the bag and holds them secretly in hand.  When you’re ready, you call out “New Patient!” and get a random cube, and then place it into either your wait line or another player’s wait line.  If you get a gray cube, you must Quarantine a tile in any player’s hospital.  If that hospital has no quarantined tiles, you may go after any of them.  If they do have quarantined tiles, you must quarantine an adjacent tile.  In the first round only, you draw until you have four non-gray cubes.

You also get four actions during your turn – these can be taken at any time, including before, during, and after the cube placement.  Each action must finish before moving on to another.  The action discs will help you track how many actions you’ve taken.  Your options:

• Admit Patients: Admit patients from the beginning of the wait line into your hospital.  For this one action, you admit as many as you can until you reach a patient that can not be admitted.
• Cure Patients: Cure all patients of one color (not gray) in treatment rooms or special room tiles.  These go are taken into your own personal supply for use later.
• Open a Tile Contract: Put two cubes from your personal supply on top of the special room tile stack and put the whole stack in front of you.  On your next turn, take the top room and either place it in your hospital or next to your hospital.  The cubes remain on top.
• Buy Room Tile: You can buy a special room (as long as you have an open tile contract) or an additional treatment room.  For both, you’ll have to pay cubes from your personal supply, either the exact cost indicated by the cubes on the special rooms or two of any color for treatment rooms.  These cubes go out of the game.
• Move Patients: Take any patient in your line and move it anywhere else in your line.
• Take Bonus Action Marker: These can be used later to give you more actions during a turn.  There are only eight available bonus action markers, and if there aren’t any left, you can’t take this action.  Additionally, you can only do this twice in a turn.
• Decontaminate: Remove one gray disease cube from any tile in any hospital.
• Renovate: Move, reorient, or remove up to two tiles, following all placement rules.  You can’t move a quarantine tile or a tile containing a patient.  This can only be taken once per turn.

Your turn is over after your four actions and four cube placements.  The game ends when the last tile in the game is purchased, or when the last patient comes out of the game.  The player who triggered the end game finishes their turn, and then everyone else gets one more turn.  You get one point per special room in your hospital, every completed nurses station (formed with the corners of tiles), every two cubes in your personal supply, and if you have no patients in line.

I said at the beginning that this game looked kind of tongue-in-cheek.  After reading the rules, I can see it even more.  You’re running a hospital while committing acts of corporate terrorism, trying to infect your opponents and send cases you don’t want their way.  It seems very confrontational, but it also seems like it could be a lot of fun.  There are a bunch of action choices, and you have to figure out how to use them.  The bonus actions are a good addition, as it helps you carry over actions from turn to turn – if you have nothing left you need to do and an action left, take a bonus action so you can get five next time.  I like how you can organize and reorganize things in your hospital, and it all seems to make a lot of sense.  This looks like a very clean game design, and I look forward to seeing how it all comes out.  Thanks for reading!

LINKS:

• Quarantine at BGG
• Mercury Games site for Quarantine
• Dice Tower review of the game with The Chief

Game Buzz: Salmon Run

image by BGG user W Eric Martin

Salmon Run is a new game from Gryphon Games and designer Jesse Catron.  It was successfully funded on Kickstarter back in October, and has been making its way to backers and should be available in stores soon (if not already).  As you can probably guess from the title and cover, you’re trying to guide your salmon upstream to the spawning area.  It’s a racing style deck-building game, and has a fairly unique theme, so let’s take a look.

The game (for 2-4 players, 45 minutes) comes with 8 two-sided boards, 4 11-card swim decks, 1 standard die, 4 salmon pawns, a 32-card fatigue deck, 6 bear pawns, and a 48-card supplemental deck.  You set up the game by laying out the boards in a river formation, beginning with the start tile and ending with the end tile.  There are six middle tiles and you can use the ones you want.  They’re all rated Easy, Medium, or Hard, so it depends on the kind of game you want.  They’ll be lined up so that the current arrows are pointing towards the start.  The river will be kind of staggered, not a straight line.  Bear pawns are placed at each pawprint on the board, and the Fatigue deck is placed face up next to the board.  You’ll also make face up Bear, Eagle, Wild, Current, Rapids, Double Swim, and Basic Swim piles from the Supplemental deck.  Players all get a salmon and an 11-card Swim deck, drawing 4 cards to make their starting hand.

When you are the “current” player (yuk yuk yuk), you play up to three cards from your hand, resolving them in the order played.  These could be cards that allow you to move your salmon (swim), force all salmon to move with the current, jump the waterfall, move the bear, or look at another player’s hand with the eagle.  If you play three swim cards, you gain a fatigue card – this is the useless card for this game.  If you choose to play nothing but fatigue cards, you can return one to the fatigue deck.

Swim cards move you in a certain direction, indicated on the card.  You can’t move onto a rock (obviously), and must jump over waterfalls by playing two swim cards.  There are other cards you gain when you move onto certain spaces, and these cards all do certain things:

• Bear: Playing a bear card allows you to move the bear two hexes.  If a bear is in a space with one or more salmon, those players add a fatigue to its discard pile.
• Eagle: Playing an eagle allows you to look at another player’s hand and discard one.
• Current: These cards make all salmon move with the current.
• Rapids: These cards make everyone discard 0-2 cards.
• Double Swim: These cards allow you to move two hexes with one card.  Note that they still must be used with another card in order to jump.
• Wild: This is a swim card that allows you to move in any direction.

You could also land on a draw +1 space, which allows you to draw a card; or reeds, which allows you to remove a card from your hand, swim deck, or discard pile.

When you’re done with your turn, you discard what you played and draw back up to four.  When a player reaches the spawning pond, play continues until everyone has had the same number of turns.  If only one player has gotten there, that player wins.  If multiple players get there, the player with the least fatigue wins.

I think it’s interesting that we have a deck-building game that is also a racing game.  You gain new cards by landing on specific spaces on the river, rather than purchasing them (as with most DBGs).  It’s a unique theme, and looks like it will work fairly well with the mechanics.  The rulebook currently posted online is kind of a mess, but it was posted back in August, so maybe it’s been cleaned up somewhat since.  As with most games of this type, you probably really need to play to get it.  However, it looks fun enough for now.  I know a couple of members of my game group have it, so I’ll probably get to try it out sometime.  Thanks for reading!

LINKS:

• Salmon Run at BGG
• Gryphon Games site
• Kickstarter campaign
• Video overview from ACD Games Day (as posted on BGG)

Expansion Buzz: 7 Wonders Wonder Pack

image by BGG user Reid666

A quick one today as I look at the new Wonder Pack for 7 Wonders.  This expansion for the 2010 game by Antoine Bauza (published by Repos Productions and Asmodee) contains four new wonders to use in the game – The Great Wall, Abu Simbel, Stonehenge, and Mannekin Pis.

As a refresher, 7 Wonders is a civilization building card game where you draft the cards you play – you choose a card from a hand, pass the rest, choose one from those you were passed, pass the rest, and so on.  Cards you’ll see include resources used to play other cards, money producing cards, points, military, science, and guilds.  The interaction level is fairly low as what you do can affect the player on your left and your right, but no one else (the game plays up to seven).  The game plays over three ages, and you’ll add up all your points to find the winner at the end of the third age.  The first two expansions, Leaders and Cities, added more elements to the basic game.

Throughout the game, you’ll have the opportunity to work on your wonder.  This consists of a number of stages where you must be able to pay virtual resources in order to get the benefit.  Each wonder has an A side and a B side, with the B side more complex.  Wonders are the focus of this expansion, so let’s see what we’ve got.

THE GREAT WALL: Side A has 4 stages.  The first stage gives you 8 coins when complete.  The second stage gives you an extra science symbol of your choice.  The third gives you 2 extra shields when determining military might.  The fourth stage allows you to play a card from the discard pile to put into play for free.

Side B also has 4 stages.  The first stage gives you 8 coins, and gives your adjacent neighbors 2 coins each.  The second stage allows you to copy a science symbol that has been played by one of your neighbors.  The third stage takes you out of the military conflict for the current age, meaning your neighbors fight each other as if you weren’t there.  Also, everyone else in the game has to pay two coins to the bank.  The fourth stage allows you to have the use of a resource you don’t produce.

ABU SIMBEL: This Wonder requires the Leaders expansion to play.  Side A has 3 stages.  The first and second stage give you 3 and 5 points, respectively.  The third stage allows you to choose a Leader you’ve already played and place it facedown, meaning you no longer get the benefit of it.  However, you gain points equal to double its cost at the end of the game.

Side B only has two stages, and each one is the same as stage three of Side A.

STONEHENGE: Side A has three stages.  As with Abu Simbel, stages one and two are worth 3 and 5 points.  Stage three gives you two VPs for each stone present on your brown cards at the end of the game.

Side B has two stages.  The first gives you one coin per stone symbol on your brown cards when built, and gives you 1 VP per stone at the end of the game.  Stage two lets you reveal the card used to build it at the end of the game, giving you one point per card of that color built by your neighbors.

MANNEKIN PIS: This wonder was previously released as a promo, but it’s been revamped for this release.  Side A has three stages.  The first gives you the first stage effect from the wonder to your left, while the second gives you the second stage effect from the wonder to your right.  Stage three goes back to the left.  The original stage three let you choose left or right.

Side B has one stage.  When completed, you get 7 coins, an extra shield for your military, and 7 points.  The original version required the winner of the game you buy you a beer.

So there you go.  The wonders all seem pretty good.  The Great Wall, particularly side A, looks like a mix of several different wonders, while side B looks like it offers some different interactions.  Abu Simbel could be pretty powerful if you manage to get an expensive leader out.  Stonehenge focuses on stone, but I like the secret color from side B, knowing that the card you choose is one your neighbors can’t build to help you out.  Mannekin Pis allows you to piggyback off your neighbors, which could be fun.

Overall, it’s nothing new like Leaders or Cities, but more wonders is a good thing.  Probably something a 7 Wonders aficionado should have.  That’s all for today.  Thanks for reading!

LINKS:

• 7 Wonders Wonder Pack at BGG
• Asmodee site for the Wonder Pack
• Repos Productions site for the Wonder Pack