Figmant, Fives, Fruit Fight, Duos WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Classic card games with a twist! Published by: CMYK , Designed by: Fruit Fight Reiner Knizia , Duos Johannes Schmidauer-König Fives 新澤 大樹 (Taiki Shinzawa) , Figmant Wolfgang Warsch This is a review copy. See our review policy here This is an interesting one. Publisher CMYK, the people behind Wavelength , Daybreak , Monikers , and many, many more are on a mission to bring the fun. Classic card game fun from four older games with a new look, a new take, and a few new surprises. "The idea behind Magenta is simple: to bring people together through the world’s best card games," says Alex Hague, founder of CMYK. "To do that, we’ve created a line of games that are both fun to play and beautifully designed." Fruit Fight was previously known as No Mercy Fives was previously known as The Green Fivura Duos was previously known as Team Play Figment was previously known as Illusion But now they sit in a new range, looking spectacular, and all very collectable. You cant just get one now can you! But are they fun? Do you need them all? Well, let's get them to the table and find out. Four reviews in one. Here we go! How To Set Up Fruit Fight Shuffle the deck and give the full deck to one player who will act as the dealer. That's it, you are ready to play! How To Play Fruit Fight The dealer will now place one card face up in front of the first player. They will now stick or twist, either stopping and ending their current turn, or asking for another card. The cards are a series of fruit valued one to ten. If you ever get two cards of the same value, you are bust and lose all your cards. However, you cannot bust until you have more than three cards, so your first few turns are pretty safe. If you do not go bust and stick, then your cards stay face up in front of you until your next turn; they are not quite yours yet! During the next player's turn, if they draw a card that matches any of the previous player's face-up cards that haven't been banked, they can collect all matching face-up cards from every player. This action does not contribute to going bust. Going bust only occurs when drawing from the dealer, not when taking cards from other players. When the play eventually gets back to you, any face-up cards you have in front of you that have not been stolen by the other players are now safely banked, flipped upside down, and put aside into your scoring pile. You now go again. Play continues like this until the deck is exhausted. All players then count their cards based on the points value. Most points win. How To Set Up Fives This is very similar to Hearts and Spades. In a four player game, give each player a five point chip and deal the cards evenly to too players. For three players, removes the 10-13 cards first. You are now ready to play! How To Play Fives The player who was dealt the Magenta zero will start. They can play any card from their hand. The aim of the game is to score as clos to 25 points each rounds. WO, first, look at your hand of cards and make a plan which cards you want to try and win hands with in order to best achieve this total. The leading player will play a card from their hand. Each other player, in turn, will now play a card from their hand. You have to follow suit if you can. There are four suits. If a player does not have the same colour in their hand, they can play any card they wish. The highest played card of the lead suit wins that hand. However, if someone plays a Silver card, Silver cards are trumps, and this means the Silver card will win. If two Silver cards are played, the highest Silver card wins the trick. After a trick is won, the player who played the winning card draws up all cards played in that trick, piles them into one pile, and places the card they played that won the trick on the top. This card will then score them that many points at the end of the round. The round ends when all players have played all cards in their hand. The twist in this game is that every card is double-sided, and on the back of every card is a Magenta 5. So at any point, you can play a Magenta 5 if you wish. This does not mean you always have to follow Magenta if the lead player plays a Magenta card. You have to follow if you have a regular Magenta card in your hand, but the Magenta 5's will not count towards this. The Magenta 5's help you play other cards, perhaps higher value ones, that you don't want to win a trick with. You may want to avoid winning a trick because the scoring is based on all the winning cards you won tricks with and their total. The player who scores closest to 25 without going over 25 with this total will gain a three-point scoring chip. Two points in a three player game. If anyone scores exactly 25, they gain an additional one-point chip. The second closest player gets two points, one in a two player. The third closest gets one point, and nothing for a three player. If you exceed 25 points, you score nothing and are forced to give a single point chip to the lead player that round. If their is a tie for a lead player in a round when someone goes over 25, the point chip from the bust player goes into the middle of the table and carries over for the next round. Four rounds are played in total. The most points wins! How To Set Up Duos The game works best, I feel, in a four, with two teams of two. But you can play with two teams of three as well. Players will sit opposite their teammate, with a player from the other team on either side of them. Separate the two decks, and deal the first player one card, the next two, and the players after that get three cards each. Then place three face-up cards in the middle of the table and place the rest of the deck next to these in a face-down pile. Then take the goal deck, and deal each player one card face up, placing a final face-up challenge card into the middle of the table for all to see. How To Play Duos Players will take turns drawing two cards either from the top of the deck or from one of the three face-up cards. Players will try to complete the challenges in front of them, their teammate, and the one in the middle of the table. Challenges are completed by playing cards from your hand face-up for all to see that match the challenge's requirements. The played cards are discarded, and the completed challenge is turned face down and moved into a collective team pile of completed challenges. At the end of a player's turn, when they have drawn two cards and completed as many challenges as they want to or can, they can then, if they want, pass one or two cards to their teammate. You must then discard down to six cards if you have more in your hand, and play moves to the next player around the table. The game continues until one team completes eight goal cards. Play continues until all players have had the same number of turns, and then the teams will count their completed challenges. Each challenge is worth a different amount of points, so it may not be the team that completed the most challenges or indeed, that completed the eight first to trigger the end game that wins. Most points wins. How To Set Up Figment This is a cooperative game where all players play together. Separate the two decks and shuffle the arrow cards and place them face down next to the main deck along with the five number tokens. Flip the top arrow card to reveal the coloured arrow. You are now ready to play. How To Play Figment Now draw the first card and place it face up in front of all players. Look at the first arrow card to see which colour it shows. Your goal is to organise five cards in order, from lowest to highest, based on the amount of one of the four colours, as chosen by the arrow card shown that round. So, if the arrow this time is silver, you need to organize the five cards in order of least to most amount of silver in percentage terms on each card. After you have the first card, take the second and place it either to the left or right of the first card based on how much of the chosen colour you think it has in comparison to the first card. Do the same with the third, fourth, and fifth card, reordering the cards as you go as best you can. Then, when you have placed the fifth card, choose one of the five tokens based on how confident you are about your choices. If you think you have them all right, take the five token. If you are less confident, take a lower token. You can only use each token once; they mark the five rounds in the game. Them choose a side, left or right. The side where you are most confident you have placed the cards in the right order, and flip over the leftmost or rightmost card. On the back, it will show the percentages for each colour on that card. Now reveal the card next to the one you just flipped to see if it has more or less of the chosen colour. If you are right, keep going. If you are wrong, stop there. Keep flipping until you either get one wrong or flip them all. Then place the cards you got right into one pile to score at the end, and put any cards you got wrong into a separate discard pile. If you got all five cards right, then add the token you used that round to the score pile. This will now add to your end-of-game score. Play five rounds, then total your points. You want to aim for more than 25 for a bronze score, 30 or more for silver, and 35 or more for gold. If you score gold a few times, you can then make the game a little harder and place six cards instead of five. You now need to get 30 points for Bronze, 35 for Silver, and 40 for Gold. A pretty tricky task! Are They Fun? Figment, Fives, Fruit Fight, and Duos : The 'Magenta' Range Cards Games Review OK, phew! We got through it. Four separate card games. Some team-based, others cooperative, others competitive. They work from solo experiences up to six officially, but I have played a few of them with nine! But essentially, what I am saying here is that there is a lot of variety and potentially something for everyone. But which one is best for you? Out of all of the games, Duo is my personal favourite. It has the most strategy, I feel. Although Fives is not far behind. But I think I have the most fun with Fruit Fight! And I love the originality and simplicity of Figment. So, in summary, I love them all. For clarity, here are my scores for each game. Highest to lowest. Duo - 9 Fives - 8.5 Fruit Fight - 8 Figment - 7.5 Duo has a lovely feeling about it. Like all these games, but particularly with Duo and Fives, this feels like a classic card game. The sort you played with your nan when you were a kid, but with a fresh take. They look modern. The cards are all gorgeous both in terms of the card stock, size, and art. The colours are obviously very vibrant. And all the games have one or two tweaks to make them fit in with the modern era of gaming we are living in. The challenges in Duo are all quite interesting. I find the process of trying to work out which ones my partner(s) are going for based on the cards they are drawing, and then, of course, the ones they give to me, quite intriguing. But there are some challenges that are quite similar. And you can sometimes misinterpret their moves. It's a great team experience and one I can se becoming a firm favourite added to most game nights where I have an even four or six players. Fives feels the most like a classic trick-taker. The Magenta 5 twist is enough to make this game stand on its own, though. It is a fascinating process to first analyse the hand you have been dealt and work out from those 11 or 13 cards (depending on player count) which ones you will try and win with to get as close to 25 as possible. Then you need to work out the cards you will lose with, and there may be some high cards you need to switch to a Magenta 5 to do this. But you will, of course, never know quite what your opponents' plans will be. It is a brilliant little game. Full of strategy, and quick, fast, but interesting choices. Like any classic trick-taker, the game moves fast. And the end-of-round scoring is an interesting way to order the relative success for each player in the game. You can win all the tricks and lose. You can lose most of the tricks and win. This takes away the luck of the deal. Players now don't just win as they get the best hand dealt to them. Players need to work strategically with what they have been dealt and make a genuine plan for each card in their hand. Fruit Fight is a fast-paced game that you can get to the table in a few seconds. Shuffle the deck and start playing. It feels a little like Flip 7, another recent modern take on Pontoon, but this time, even simpler. Gone are the power cards, and now you simply have ten different fruits worth a different amount of points. But the choice to take cards from other players when you draw a matching card to other players' face-up cards is enough to make this game not just about pure luck. Although this is a pure push-your-luck experience, that one choice gives each player enough agency to feel in some control of their destiny. You don't ever have to bust if you don't want to. You could always stop on three cards. But then, will that be enough to win? I have gotten this out on so many occasions recently. Done at the pub with complete non-gamers. In a quick three-player game pre-bed. With a large group after dinner. It works for everyone, in every situation. And if you don't enjoy it, don't worry, it will be over in a few minutes. And if you do? Well, shuffle them up and go again! I have found a common occurrence in this game is that one set of fruit starts to build up into a huge point scorer. One player will draw and keep a banana, say. And then the next player will steal that. Now, we have a pile of two bananas. Maybe the next player gets a banana of their own, and now this is a pile of three. If this starts to happen for one of the higher point scorers, you can have sets worth over 50 points flying around the table. It is a hilarious experience that I simply adore. Figment feels less of a game, and more of a quick bit of fun. The fact that it is coop, and that you are simply ordering five or six cards, left to right, does take away somewhat from the overall "game" feeling. But it does not make it any less fun. It is just incredibly simple. This is another game here that I have played a lot already. Figment gets a fair few outings due to its simplicity, but often just for a few quick games. In total, I would say it averages under ten minutes at the table. That would be two or three games on average, but they are so quick, it flies by. And ultimately, as fun as it is to get the cards all in order, it also does not feel like it matters that much. Sure, there is a points target to aim for, but do you care? It's coop, it won't all be on you anyway. And some cards are so close, it can be very hard to tell. It is an interesting experience and fun to play. But it just does not feel as much of a game to me as the others. That said, for the novelty factor, and as discussed, since it is just so simple and quick to play, it will stay in my collection and rack up hundreds of plays very quickly. It's just that in total, it will still be a relatively low amount of actual time with this game, which has to bring the score down a little, I feel. But I still have fun with it. We got through it! Four amazing little card games. All looking great. All offering something a little different. Which one is the most appealing to you? I would recommend Duo to any group that likes to play card games, is in a regular group, and often that group is an even four or six. This could be perfect for you. I would suggest Fives to a similar group but one that plays more in a three or four. These two games feel like classic card game experiences, but with a modern look and feel. If you are looking for that type of thing and play in these group sizes, look no further. Fruit Fight I would recommend to anyone. It is such a simple game, and perfect for so many environments. I don't like the box size for this game. I get why they did them as they are. And they all look great on the shelf next to each other. But Fruit Fight is a game I want to take with me to the pub, or to a restaurant. And this box is too big for that. I have placed mine in a baggy, and that's fine. But this is a small frustration. Figment is a hard one to recommend as it is less of a game and more of an experience. But I would still recommend it to anyone as it feels unique, looks gorgeous, and plays so simply. Just temper your expectations for the experience. But overall, we have four gorgeous new card games here, all of which will sit on my shelf and get played a lot. I feel these could all end up being some of my most played games of all time.

This is a new one. There is no board game review here. Just my thoughts on WALLZAP. A Magnetic display kit , so that you can place your board games on the wall to display them. Not quite sure what I am on about? Well, read on! WALLZAP is a company that makes magnetic wall display kits for board games, and all sorts of other things, actually. They reached out to me a few weeks back and offered me a free kit to see what my thoughts were. So, fair warning, this was not something I purchased with my own money. But I will endeavour to give you my honest opinion, as always, about this product. First up, how easy is it to put these things up? Well, I am useless with DIY and it took me less than 30 minutes. I did not find the instructions to be overly clear, and it is the new QR code, scan here for a digital copy, which annoys me. I like a physical copy. But I managed to grasp the concept fairly simply enough. The process is actually very easy. It is just the instructions make it look less so. Here is how I did it. First, find the spot where you want to display your game. Place the round magnet in this spot, do some measurements, or just wing it like me. Then mark scratches in the holes so you know where to drill. Second, drill holes in the spaces you just marked. I used raw plugs to secure it. These were not provided, but I felt it best considering the weight of the games. Next, place the magnet back over the holes, after a quick vacuum and dusting! Then screw in the two screws into the holes. Make sure it is tight and without any movement when done. Now, choose your game to display. You will stick something into the box, so you need to be fairly sure of your choice. But I do think you could just change the box lid (placing any lid over this chosen box) if you pick a uniform box size. Hence my choice of Wingspan. So, pick your game wisely, and unpack the whole thing. In your kit, you will find four clear plastic edges. Open them up like an envelope and slide them over the corner of this square magnet. The other side of the plastic edge is sticky, so watch your fingers. Now, carefully place this into the centre of the empty box base. Press down firmly for 30 seconds, or until you get bored. Now, repack the game, and place these little magnets on the sides of both the inside of the box lid and the inside of the box itself. The instructions talk about all sorts of overly complex measurements to get this just right, but I simply popped them into place and placed the lid over the top. You can see they are a bit wonky, but you wont see these, and they work just fine like this. The lid now snaps shut and cannot slide off when vertical. Now, simply place the game onto the round magnet you screwed into the wall. It pops into place and holds firm. The magnets are very strong and there is a weight limit 2KG with this basic kit. The deluxe kit holds 3kg. For reference, Wingspan, fully boxed up (no expansion content inside), including the magnets now weighs 2.8KG but it seems to be holding fine! (I hope) When up, it looks like this. Cool huh! I am a little disappointed this product is not more transferable to other products. The base is now stuck pretty firmly to the bottom of Wingspan. Like I said, I could simply change the box lid from any other game with the same box size, and I will probably do that from time to time. But it would be nice if this was more transferable. For the price, the product is very good and sturdy, and seems to be working fine, despite my slap-dash approach to the install and from me ignoring the weight restrictions. So, that part is all good. But for the price, I would like more flexibility. You can get this if you want, but it is a second product, and again, it is not cheap. You can check that out here . But if you want to display your games on the wall like this, I see no better product out there. This is easy to install, holds firm, and with the inside magnets, keeps the lid nice and secure. I think it looks great, and one more game on the wall means one more on the shelf, right?

Everstone: Discovering Ingris WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Euros with combos. Lots of combos! Published by:  McDavitt Publishing Designed by: Sam McDavitt This is a review copy. See our review policy here Sam McDavitt is a guy just like me or you. He loves board games, plays a lot of board games, and thought to himself, "Hey, I could make one of these!" The difference between him and most of the rest of us is he followed through on that thought and actually made the game. The good news for all of us is that the game is wonderful! It successfully funded on Kickstarter, and there is now another game being developed too. But, let's stick with this one for now. Why is it good? And is it for you? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Everstone: Discovering Ignis First, place the main board in the centre of the table with the dice and resources next to the board. You can separate the resource colours if you prefer, but this is not crucial. Now take all the relic cards and find the ones with the starter "S" marked on them. Shuffle these and deal three to each player. Place the rest into the main Relic deck, shuffle them, and deal four face up below the bottom of the board with the rest in a face-down pile to the left. Next, separate the villager tiles into the A and B piles, then based on player count, take three of each (for a solo or two-player game), three A's and four B's (for a three-player game), or four of each (for a four-player game). The chosen tiles will now be placed on the Explore spaces on the main board, with the final two placed on the Outer Limit spaces on the bottom right of the board. Now shuffle the Caravan upgrade cards, Miner Relic cards, Personal Quest cards, and Reserve Extension cards and place them beside the board. Next, each player will take a Reserve and Workshop mat and place them in front of them along with the Caravan token, 20 Influence tokens, and player pawn of their chosen colour. Take one starting Quest and Personal Quest card and place them face down in front of you. Each player will place one Influence token at the bottom of each of the three Influence tracks on the left side of the main board. If this is a two-player game, cover the three blank spaces on the Influence track with three non-playing Influence tokens. Now each player places another Influence token on the right-hand side Reputation track, noting the starting space based on your player count as shown next to this track. Place the remaining Influence tokens in stacks of three on your reserve mat on the five spaces for them. This will leave one leftover token; we will get to that shortly. Now, place your Caravan token on the Ignis space on the main board and your player pawn on the Barter section on the left-hand side of your Workshop mat. Next, each player looks at their three starting Relic cards they were just dealt. One needs to be discarded in exchange for your starting resources, as shown by that card's resource cost on the left-hand side of the card. One will be kept and tucked under any of the four spaces on your Workshop mat to boost one action's power. The third and final card will be stored in one of the four spaces in the middle of your Workshop mat. You will be able to build or discard this later. Now, for that final Influence token. Look at the Explore spaces on the main board, and look at the Location bonus as shown on the bottom of the space. Place your final Influence token on your chosen space, and gain that Location bonus. Randomly pick a starting player and you are now ready to begin. How To Play Everstone: Discovering Ignis The game will now move around the table, with each player taking their turn until one player gains ten Reputation points. Continue until all players have had equal turns, and then the game ends immediately. On a players turn they must move their Player Pawn on their Workshop. It cannot stay in its previously position, meaning for everyone's first turn they can do whatever they like other than Barter, where the Player pawns all start. You can chose to either Explore, Harvest, or Repair. And then on your next turn, the other two you did not pick this time, and now also to Barter. More on those four actions in a bit. Then, you can perform a Caravan upgrade if you have previously gained one and tucked it above the space you just picked, before performing the main action of the four actions you just chose: Explore, Harvest, Repair, or Barter. Then, if the Workshop space for the section you just chose does not have a Relic card on it, you will be able to perform an additional optional Workshop action if you wish, as well as any optional Repaired Relic actions for tucked cards in this section. You will have one at the beginning of the game added for free, so it is worth considering during setup which action you think you may do first, to try and make your first turn as efficient as possible. Finally, when all this is done, if you have fulfilled the request of any quests or global achievements (more on them soon), then you must reveal that now and score the appropriate number of Reputation points. You cannot store these to reveal multiple ones in one turn. Play then moves to the next player. So, what about those actions? Barter - This is how you will gain extra Relic cards. You will move your Caravan token to Ignis, if it is not there already, then you can buy one of the four face-up Relic cards as shown under the main board. The card on the far right is free; the others have a cost of one or two resources as shown on the icon above the card. Take the card you want, pay any required cost, and then add the chosen Relic card to any open space on your Workshop board. This will cover a Workshop action, so note that as you place the card. Which actions do you want to keep open to yourself? Which one can you afford to temporarily lose? Once you have done this, as shown on the Ignis space on the main board, you can now choose to either gain one resource of your choosing from the three types, as well as discard any card previously placed in your Workshop to gain the Discard benefit as shown on the left side of the Relic card; or pay a resource to move up one space of the corresponding Influence track on the left of the board. When you move up this track, you will jump any spaces covered by other players' markers and instantly gain the shown benefit here. If your Workshop space is free on your own Workshop, you can do both of these actions instead of choosing one. Explore - Here, you will move your Caravan tiles to your chosen Explore space on the board and you will carry out the action there. If an opponent's Caravan is already there, you can still move there, but you must pay that person the location's bonus and move their Caravan to Ignis. All players with Influence tokens at this location can now also carry out the location bonus. If players have multiple Influence tokens here, they can gain the location bonus more than once. Once all this is done, you can now carry out the Location action. The A spaces mainly give you resources, the chance to move up the Influence track, Miner Relic cards, or the chance to gain a Reserve Extension so you can hold more resources. The B spaces offer more complex actions to gain Influence points in exchange for resources, moving down the Influence track, or discarding Relic cards, Caravan upgrade cards, additional Relic cards, or to gain a Relic discard bonus in exchange for two red resources. The tile in the Explore space you just visited is now moved to the very bottom of the Outer limits. The tile there moves up one space, and the tile this displaces moves up to the location you are currently in. This way, the Explore actions regularly change. You may now complete the Workshop bonus action if a Relic card is not covering it, which for Explore is the chance to spend a yellow resource to add an Influence token to your current location. This way, the next time another player visits this space, you will gain the location bonus. Harvest - First you must roll the three Harvest dice. Now, check your roll against the back of the Relic card in the face down deck at the bottom of the board. The back of the cards are all different, and the back of the current card shows the current cost to gain a Relic card via the Harvest action. It will also show one free way you can manipulate the roll of the three dice you just rolled to try and get the required roll. Your Workshop action, if available, also allows you to spend resources to manipulate the dice roll. If you can manage to manipulate the dice to show the three dice on the back of the current Relic card then you can discover this Relic, meaning you can either sell it to gain the sell reward as shown on the right of the main side of the card, or keep it, and tuck it under any space on your Workshop, increasing that actions power the next time you do it. If you do not manage to manipulate the dice to discover the relic, then you can add any two of the dice together and move up one of the three Influence tracks, as decided by the total of the two dice. Two to five, and you will move up the left track. A total of six to eight, and you move up the middle track. Anything over nine, and you move up the right track. You will then gain the benefit of the space you moved up to, and the number of resources based on the pip value on the third die. Blue resource for the left track, yellow for the middle, and red for the right. Quite a fruitful way to gain extra stuff. And don't you just love stuff! Repair - This is the final action, and how you will use the cards added to your Workshop earlier in the game. Simply, pay the resource cost as shown on the left of the Relic card, and then you can either keep the Relic, tucking it below either space on your Workshop board; or sell it to gain the sales reward on that card. Workshop space is open you can now move any previously placed Relic cards into a new space, or move a previously tucked card to a new space, simply for the cost of one blue resource. There are a few other rules around the Minor Relics, which add additional resources in tucked spaces on the Workshop; the Caravan upgrades which have various powers and choices on each card; and the Quests you need to achieve. The main ones are the shared common objectives on the top of the board, which are all pretty self-explanatory, but can only be completed by one player. When this happens, that player marks this space with an Influence token of their colour and takes the shown Reputation. Otherwise, this should give you a good idea of how to play. Is It Fun? Everstone: Discovering Ignis Board Game Review If you enjoy combo turns, oh my! You are in luck. I love games with combo turns, and I thought I had played games with pretty combo-tastic turns before. And then I played this. It ramps it up to eleven! There were some turns where I did something, which let me do something else, which triggered another thing, which in turn meant I could move here, and gain this, and move there, and gain that... you get the point. It's wonderful! It can get a bit much if there are divergent paths, though. Doing action A could mean you get benefit 1, which then means you get to do action B, which gets you benefit 2. It may be that from action A, after getting benefit 1, you also get benefit 2, or action A.1, if you get my drift! So, I found sometimes I was mid-turn, getting confused about what I had left to do. Had I done it all? And what was the plan again? But it is not a bad thing. It just sometimes a little overwhelming. But again, in a good way. I love getting stuff in games. Who doesn't like getting stuff ?! And in Everstone, you sure do get a lot of stuff ! There are times when resources will be low. And like any good euro, you will be left thinking, how do I get stuff again? But then you will remember, take an action, and suddenly be laden with loads more stuff . Then you will want to spend that stuff . Perhaps you repair, sell, and tuck a load of previously stored Relic cards from your warehouse. Opening up the warehouse actions again, gaining loads more resources from the sales, and increasing the power of your actions for later turns with the tucked cards. Perhaps the sale benefit move you up the Reputation tracks a few spots. Maybe that gains you some extra cards and resources. Maybe now you can even look to sell another card. The knock on effects are just so deliciously powerful. Seemingly endless. And make each turn feel powerful, full or opportunity, and put simply, fun to do. This is a fun experience. Stuff is great. I love stuff ! It doesn't hurt that the entire game looks and feels gorgeous too. The art and iconography are all very good and clear. The board and Workshop side board, though busy, are clearly laid out, and all comes into place in your mind after a few turns. Picking Everstone up for subsequent games days or weeks later is a breeze. The rule book hopefully will be a thing of the past, bar the handy icon reference on the back after game one or two. The Relic cards, also busy, quickly pull into focus; and you will find that everything sits where you expect it to. This is a game made by someone who loves games, and it seems to me, has used a lot of meta knowledge to make things just seem right as you play. I sense he said to himself as he designed this: Variable set-up works well in other games. Cool, I will add to my own one. It's nice to have a few things to make the game a little asymmetric, isn't it? Ok, cool, I will add those too. But we want clear icons, done. With a nice icon reference on the back page, obviously! And a rules book that references itself. Sure. And I think that went on and on! It helps when the designer is a board game enthusiast too, doesn't it! So, what are the bad bits? Well, the games can end quite abruptly. The first phase of the game can be slow, where no player gains any Reputation. Then in the middle phase, all players should start picking up a few Reputation points. One or two players will always pull ahead, of course, that's how games work, but no one should feel out of it. But in the third phase of the game, one player can suddenly pull off a mega move, complete multiple Quests, shared goals, and various actions all in the space of one or two turns, score multiple Reputation points, and end the game with other players desperately wanting two or three more turns to catch up. I have found that when at least one person is knowledgeable about the game or simply good at games like this, this happens more often than it doesn't. And if any of the other players are a beat off, they will be somewhat caught up in a whirlwind finale they were not expecting. This is fine. Being good at a game means typically you win against those who are not as good. But it is not as common for a game to end this fast, and with this much of a gap between players, and for the last phase to happen in just one turn, when the other phases of the game take much longer. Overall, I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good Eruo where you need X to do Y, and that can then lead to all sorts of other knock on benefits, combo turns, and additional options on your go. If that is your kind of think, this could well become your jam! What an incredible debut into the board game design world from Sam McDavitt . I am very excited to see what comes next. Oh, wait, I already know. Check it out!

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components may change in the final game. You can follow the game here and check out the crowdfunding page here . Companion Quest comes from first time designer Mark McIntyre who seems to be living the dream from seeing his first game design come to life. I sense a real passion and joy from this project. And the results are pretty good too. If you enjoy dice placement games, this could be an interesting one to follow when it comes to crowdfunding soon. The art is gorgeous, the production quality is right up there, and the rules simple. But the process you go through as you place the dice, complete the card challenges, and slowly make your way to victory is incredibly addictive. Let's talk about why. Well, in short, because this game is pretty tricky! It took me five games to win or easy mode! But each loss just made me want to come back for more and more. It's the sort of game you don't mind losing. The process is still fun, but you really do want to find a way to tweak your strategy and beat the game. This is an addictive game. The setup is simple, and you can also adjust the difficulty with minimal changes. Take12 challenge cards, including one, two, or more monsters to fight along the way, depending on how hard you want to make the game. One was enough for me to start! Set these up in three groups of four at the bottom of the board, along with your chosen four quests at the top, one of each level. Each player will choose one of the six Gnomes to play as, along with their associated companion. You can now take two snack tokens for an easier game, one for a harder one. On the main board you will place your Gnome meeple on the first space and the cheeky little Gu'Gu one space ahead. Players will now take turns to choose dice from the six different types, roll them, and then place them on the challenges or quests. When you choose your dice, the three types on the left cost one energy point each, and the three on the right cost two each. You have three energy points to spend in the first phase of the game. However, one of the level one quests will reset all dice, both on the left and right, to all cost one energy point. You will choose dice based on the current quests and challenges. They will need certain dice based on both colour and pip value. Once you have spent your dice, you will then be forced to move forward the pesky Gu'Gu. If Gu'Gu moves four spaces to the final portal, it's game over. But if you complete a challenge, then Gu'Gu does not move this round. And if you can complete two challenges on the same turn, you can move him back one space. To win the game, you need to have your Gnome meeple on the same space as Gu'Gu. You can move your Gnome meeple forward only when you complete the quest cards, which is easier said than done. So, you will need to decide what you prioritise. The quests, to move your Gnome meeple forward, or the challenges to stop Gu'Gu from racing too far ahead, or maybe even pulling him back a space or two. Finding the right balance between these two challenges is the way to win the game, and it certainly took me a few tries to figure this out. The process of trying to understanding this is very challenging. But getting it right feels great! The challenges vary, offering a mix of requirements from laying four dice in ascending order, or specific dice being placed in specific spaces, even two dice of a certain colour being next to each other, but the first being a low pip value then the next. If you do not finish a challenge, then the dice already added on any unfinished cards are left for the next player to add to, in order to try and complete the challenge. Setting up multiple challenges to be completed on the same later turn is crucial to finding success in this game. But of course, you cannot neglect the quests. The quest cards also need specific coloured dice with certain pip counts, and you can move the Gnome hat meeple along the spaces on the quest path for each dice you fulfil. When you reach the final space, you can move your Gnome meeple one space closer to Gu'Gu, and if you catch him, win the game. If not, flip over the quest you just completed and gain the shown benefits on the back based on your player count. Extra snacks, new companion cards (more on them soon), and most importantly, an increased amount of energy to spend on dice each time. Now, in phase two, four energy. Enough for four dice from the left, or two from the right, or any combination of the two. Getting more dice is crucial to your progression in the game. You will find you are chasing the game and your own tale if you don't get more dice to start making quicker progress with the Quests and Challenges. I found that you will need to get to Quest three at the very least to win the game. The extra energy for dice is very important, but so too are those Companion cards we mentioned before. Remember during setup the Companion card you added to your chosen Gnome; well, each one has a special power. And you can buy more cards using your Snacks. There are always four Companions available for purchase; they cost one Snack each, and you will gain more Snacks for each Quest you complete. Building an army of Companions is the only way you will win this game. Finding the right combination of powers to manipulate the dice in the right way is the only chance you have at victory. Each Companion card offers a different power. Increasing or decreasing dice. Re-rolling. Flipping dice upside down. You get the drift. The problem is each time you use a Companion you must exhaust them. But then, later, when you use a specific coloured dice, you can refresh them again. Finding the right combo of dice and Companion to constantly use, refresh, and use again your Companion will mean you will start to really fly through the game. And this engine building part of the game is a hidden gem within the mechanics you may not first spot in the rules, but as the game goes on, and you get better at it, quickly becomes the most satisfying part. The game is a cooperative experience, and the discussion between players as each turn is taken can be a lot of fun. There is obviously an opportunity for one player to take over, but each player has final say on their own turn. But of course, you are always working together for the collective good. Working as a team is important to winning. In fact, if you do not want to, or cannot use a specific dice on your turn, instead of wasting it, you can give one dice to the next player each turn. This gives them the chance to roll an extra dice, and perhaps make some important progress of completing extra Challenges of Quests. As you start to get the hang of the strategy for this game and winning becomes a little more common, you can very easily ramp up the difficulty as we talked about in the setup. I am currently still trying to find a victory on medium mode, and as yet, have fallen short each time. My desire to win at this level is still high, and a number of games in, it hasn't quite happened yet, but I am very keen to try and make it happen. This desire to win is what is making me come back to the game time and time again. I say all this, as that is not always the case with me. First, generally, games are not as hard as this to win, especially family-friendly lighter co-ops. But second, I tend to not care this much about winning. I think because the losses are always close, and you feel fully in control of your own destiny. So the losses are down to your own bad choices, and you want to get better so you make better ones next time! If that sounds your kind of thing, then check out the Kickstarter page and watch out for when this one goes live soon.

Finspan WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Wingspan , Everdell , Wyrmspan Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: David Gordon (I) , Michael O'Connell (II) This is a review copy. See our review policy here OK, here we go again! Another "Span" game. This time, with fish. Let's simplify things. Wingspan, the review of which can be found here it's a hugely popular game. A lovely medium-weight, card-based, engine-building family game. It sold bucket loads and opened up thousands of new people to the hobby. Well done to all involved. The publisher saw this success and decided to make a slightly more complicated version aimed at gamers, and this was called Wyrmspan, and you can see my review for that here . Now, we have a lighter version, streamlined and simplified for more entry-level gamers. It's about Fish now, and it's based on the same core mechanics, but with a lot of things stripped away. Does that make it better or worse? Well, let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Finspan Take a player mat for each player and unfold it in front of each person playing. Each player then takes the six divers in their chosen colour and places them in front of their play area. Each player will then place two egg tokens and one young token on the marked spaces on their player mat. Each player then takes two random start fish cards, discarding any unused to the box. Each player then adds three random cards from the main deck to their hand, placing their now five cards face up to the left of their player board. Place the remaining main deck face down in a central area along with the remaining young and egg tokens and achievements board to form a general supply. The achievements board has two sides, pick the one you want, adding the necessary tokens if using side B. Pick a random first player and give them the first player token. You are now ready to play. How To Play Finspan Starting with the first player, players will now take turns to perform one action. Actions can be one of two things. Either you will place a diver pawn into the space on the top left of your board and add a fish card to your play mat, being sure to pay the necessary costs and take the shown benefits. Or, you will add a diver pawn to the top space on either one of the three dive sites at the top of each column on your board, and move down, taking the shown benefit at each dive site where you have at least one fish. When all players have played all six actions, you will then check the week one bonus on the achievement board and reward each player accordingly, marking each player's score on the score pad. Each player will then retrieve all disc divers, the first player token moves one space clockwise, and the second week begins. Repeat this into weeks three and four, and then at the end of week four, all players will score points for any end game fish cards they have played, shown by the yellow background. Each player also scores all fish cards played, totalling the score shown on the left of each card. All players also score one point for each consumed fish (a card under another card), one point for each egg and young on their mat, and six points for each school token on their mat. Add these to the three previously scored end of week totals, and the player with the most points wins. And that is the game. If you know Wingspan, the above two paragraphs will be enough to get going. You will just need to use the iconography chart on the back of the rule book to understand the card icons, but that really is it. Everything else from Wingspan and Wyrmspan has been stripped out. But to give you a little more understanding, lets go through each of the two main actions in a little more detail. When you want to play a fish card, you can do so with any of the face-up cards to the left of your board. All cards in your "hand" are kept like this for the entirety of the game, so it is open information. The cards are also easier to see this way, and you can make your choice simply. Pick the fish card you want to play, add a diver to the top left of your board, and place the fish card down on the main player mat. There are three columns and three depths in each column. Some cards will have a coloured bar on the right side of the card. This means they can only be placed in the matching column. All cards have a symbol on the left showing either the top Sun area, the middle sunset area, or the bottom moon area. This represents the depth in the ocean and how much light is received by this part of the water. The fish you place must match its area to the symbol shown on the card. Some fish offer options here. When you place the card, you must pay the shown cost in the top left. The most common cost is discarding another card or more from your hand to your discard pile. Move any cards needed from the left of your board to the right to meet this criterion. Other cards will need eggs of young. Simply remove these from your board and put them back into the general supply. Some cards will need to consume other fish. This is represented by the symbol of a fish surrounded by a red outline and a bite taken out of the bottom left corner such as shown on the Angelshark below. Here, you simply need to place this fish card on top of another previously placed fish, being sure to note that the new fish has a larger size than the previous fish. Sizes are shown in cm on the bottom left of each card. After you have paid the cost, place the fish card in its required location and then check the right side of the card to see if there is a When Played benefit. If so, gain this now. If not, your turn is done. If they don't have a When Played benefit, there will be a Game End score option, or an If Activated benefit. These come into affect when you dive. When you dive, place your diver on the top space on either of the three columns. Look out for the dive site icon as represented by the white fish in the orange background. If you have at least one fish card present in the dive site you will gain the benefit, which will be either a new card from the main deck, an egg taken from the general supply and added to any fish card that does not already have one egg token on it, or it will shown the hatch symbol, which allows you to flip a previously placed egg token to the other side, now showing a young fish icon. When you dive, you will move downwards, stopping at each dive site where you have at least one fish card present in this depth, noting that the pre-printed fish on your board count for this. You will also stop on any card placed in this row with the If Activated symbol, gaining the shown benefit on this card as well. When you get to the bottom, you will place the diver in the final space, gaining the bottom benefit as well. If you have already dived in this location this round, and there is already a diver in the bottom location, you simply place this second diver next to this on the left and do not gain the bottom benefit. At the end of each week, when all players have placed their six divers either to place a new card or dive, all players will score that week's current score bonus as shown on the achievement board. For side A, this is a set of predetermined criteria, such as the number of egg or young tokens on their board, or two points for each horizontal row of fish on their main board. But on side B, you can choose from multiple variable bonuses that offer different end-of-week bonuses, which differ from game to game. For the final week at the end of week four, there will be no end of week bonus, but instead, you will score all end of game fish, as shown by the Game end bonus on any previously played card. Is It Fun? Finspan Board Game Review This game strips out so much of Wingspan but leaves the core of the game. Gone are the food icons and dice tower. Gone are the action cubes that reduce by one each round. Gone are the turns where you simply gain food, cards, or lay eggs. All this is replaced with a simplified and brilliant system where the cards act as their own resource. Your "hand" will often be all you need. Discard two cards from your hand to play one other card, then gain one back right away as the card you just played has an immediate benefit to retrieve one card from your discard pile. And now, instead of simply laying eggs, or gaining food, or drawing cards, you dive. And get the same benefits, but based more on how many other If Activated cards you have placed. It is a very elegant system and works well to give the same feeling at Wingspan, but in a much more condensed and streamline fashion. If Wyrmspan was Wingspan 2.0, this is Wingspan 0.5. So, I think the question is this: Will you enjoy this if you like Wingspan? And, two: Will you enjoy this if you don't like Wingspan? Do you need both, and if not, which one is for you? If you like Wingspan, I think there is a high chance you will like this. It doesn't necessarily offer anything new, but it offers a similar experience to Wingspan, one that is more accessible, streamlined, and simple. Perfect if you like Wingspan but want a version to share with friends less familiar with modern gaming, or just want a fish option yourself! If you don't like Wingspan, this probably will not be for you either. The games are very similar, and as much as this is a simplified version, I cannot imagine many people didn't enjoy Wingspan because it was too complicated. That said, if you do not play modern games at all, I would recommend Finspan over Wingspan, simply because it is a lot easier to learn and teach. But fundamentally, if you did not like Wingspan, this is probably not for you. Unless it was a theme thing, and you really are a fish person over a bird person! Do you need both? Well, that is up to you. I have both, along with Wyrmspan, and I will keep them all. But I am a collector as well as a player, and I like having all the options. I think I will play Finspan more than the others though, simply because it still gives me the same experience and feeling, and it does it a little quicker, a little simpler, and with less setup or hassle. But I would suggest that most people would only need one, and the one you pick would be based on two things. Do you like Fish or Birds more? And do you want a lighter or more medium-weight game? Now don't get me wrong, the difference between the two is not huge. But Finspan is the lighter option. So, what is good about these games anyway? Well, it is all about the card play. Building up your engine so that your later turns become more powerful, in this case with Finspan, having more powerful and effective dives. Running your engine so you start to generate more cards, eggs, or spawns each time you dive is highly rewarding. And building up your array of fish cards will allow you to grow your end-of-week points tally along with your end-game points in a very noticeable and progressive manner. The card art is obviously gorgeous as well. And though initially cluttered, the card's iconography is absolutely world-class. It very quickly falls into place what everything is showing, and each card has seven main elements: the cost to play, the end game points of the card, the size of the fish, the fish name and picture, a brief fact about that fish, and then the benefit of the card (be that immediately, when activated, or end of game). It sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But it all looks so slick. Impressive work. The clear white background helps here. As much as I would like the background to match the colour of the board so the fish blend in a little more, making your array look more visually appealing, it makes sense for clarity that they made this choice. The insert, like Wingspan, is somewhat disappointing. Everything just stuffs into the box. It fits fine, without any issues, and nothing is left rolling around as you have a nice tray for the cards and bags for the tokens. But a few more bags would have been handy, or a nice insert to put everything in. Stonemaier definitely seems to be looking more at cost and environmental issues when it comes to inserts over the last few years. But the final word must go to the cards themselves. There are 152 unique cards in the base game. There will certainly be more in future expansions, but this amount is plenty to give you a real sense of exploration and discovery for a lot of games. The most you can display on your board will be 21 each game. You can obviously place more as fish consume others, but I would say there will be a max of 30 or so per player used each game (more in your discard). It will take some time for you to see all the fish in this deck. Finding the best combination of fish to discover each game will be the main joy in this game. And there is plenty to discover!

Star Trek Away Missions: Captain Kirk & Commander Scotty Expansions Review WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Star Trek: Away Missions , Warhammer Underworlds Published by: Gale Force Nine, LLC Designed by: Andrew Haught , Mike Haught , Phil Yates This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey I heard they originally tried to make some of the Federation miniatures in red plastic and sent them out, but they never got to their destination, weird, I bet no one saw that coming! Just as a note, the minis come in the blue that all the federation characters come in for this game. I got excited to paint them so I primed mine ready, hence the grey colouring of mine. In true miniature painter style, I’ve still not painted them. What you’ll get beamed to you In each box you’ll get a team of four miniatures. In one you’ll get Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Chekhov and in the other you’ll get Commander Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Lt. Leslie. Both come with player boards for each character, a double sided core mission card, a pre-built deck of missions and support cards and then extras of each so you can build decks later and some tokens. These include Beam Away tokens in both and in the Commander Scotty box you’ll also get Tribble tokens, which I’ll say now, they missed a trick by not making them furry. If you want to know how to play Away Missions and my thoughts on it then check out my review here Captain Kirk Expansion The core mission card has a mission called “we come in peace” which focuses on Contact missions to score and, in stark contrast on the other side you’ve got “shoot to kill” which to no one’s surprise focuses on conflict missions. As I said in my review of the main game, I’ve only seen a relatively small portion of all the Star Trek that’s out there. When it comes to the original series however, I don’t think I’ve seen a single full episode. But, there are cards in this set that even I can look at and excitedly say “I understood that reference” and I think that sort of recognition is needed if the games want to keep non Trek fans engaged (pun not intended, yet I’m not sure why). If Gale Force Nine's previous track record is anything to go by I’m sure there will be some more obscure references in there for the bigger fans out there to enjoy but I love the fact that regardless of how big or small of a fan of Star Trek you are, any of these nods wont take away from the experience of the game. There are some fun cards here. You’ve got Mind meld which lets you and another character share specialisations and Kirk’s drop kick which will let you move one space and roll one extra attack die, essentially launching yourself at someone. Don’t The ‘mudd’s women’ mission card makes all characters on a mission board, friendly or hostile, roll a skill check and any who fail are stunned. You score the card if more hostiles fail their skill checks.  The main new mechanic across both boxes is called “Beam Away” when you play a beam away card, place a beam away token in that space and any other characters (depending on the card) and place them on the mission card itself. The active character's turn is now over. Before your next character activates the beam away card triggers and plays out. If a character succeeds they get put back on their token. A character that fails is neutralised. The majority of cards with beam away get you to make different skill tests. However some are combat focused. My favourite from this box is by far “Arena” You and another commander beam away and essentially take attack actions against each other until one character is neutralised. The fact that all the beam away cards could end with someone being neutralised makes them really risky, but that added risk could be worth the punt if maybe, you find yourself trapped in an area or unable to get to certain terminals to score cards. These could be especially useful in the last round.  Commander Scotty The core mission card for this set is “Humanitarian Aid on one side and will score for Aid missions played. The other side is called “Red Shirts” which scores for non neutralised friendly characters at the end. I mean, it had to happen at some point didn’t it. This expansion incorporates the beam away trait just like the Captain Kirk box but it also comes with its own little twist. Tribbles! These balls of fluff will get everywhere and will spawn like rabbits across the board and could be a help or a hindrance depending on the cards you play. They also make you reroll a skill, attack or defence dice (opponents choice and two for Klingons) if your on a board with them at the time. Regardless there will be a lot of the furry blighters across the board and it's great.  If you make them, they will come If you love Star Trek Away missions and the original series then regardless of what I say you’re gonna be getting this. If you’re on the fence for whatever reason I can say that these are another fun addition to the game and the beam away missions and the tribbles make a great new, thematic addition to the mechanisms of the game and those alone make these two expansions worth checking out.

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components may change in the final game. You can follow the game here and check out the crowdfunding here . When I reviewed the base game of An Age Contrived, I described it as being one of my top ten games of 2024. After multiple more plays, I would firmly stand by that. The game is brilliant, and gets better and better with more plays. I am no way near done with the base game yet, but was intrigued to find out what this second main expansion after 2024's Ad Infinitum brings to the table. I would recommend reading my base game review if you have not played that game first to get a better understanding for the base game before reading on. You can reach that here . This new expansion is made up by three main parts. Two new characters, the Folklore Module. And the Pilgrimage Module. First, let's look at the two new characters, Chronari and Valimod. They offer their own unique focus on the game. Chronari has increased powers in time manipulation by moving Transmuter Tiles into position five instead of one after you Advance. They do this by exhausting one energy. This allows you to re-trigger any recently used Conduit tokens to gain their benefit again. A powerful benefit! Valimod focuses their power on the Tile pool. Valimod has the power to Teleport to the Tile pool when any Wild energy is activated, counting their mini itself as two energy. They can then teleport back out to any non-bridge location when this energy is exhausted during a claim action, choosing any direction to face you place your character down. It is always nice to have additional options for which character to use in games like this. I like these two new characters and feel they offer a fresh and unique skillset to the game. Neither feels over powered and both offer something new. The second main addition is the Folklore Module which brings in encounters with mortals for each player. The idea for this part of the expansion is to bring in more thematic ties to the games routes, increased player interaction, and to fix some complaints from the base game, introducing more meaningful movement on the main board with your miniature. This is very easily introduced into the game, simply adding the board extension, cards, artefacts and tracking cube into their player area during set up. The Artefacts and tracking cube are placed into set areas on the board extension. The cards are shuffled and three are chosen at random for each game. It is all pretty seamless and adds less than a few seconds to set up. During the game, when you recharge your Channel Marker, you can now prime an Artefact by moving it to the top central spot on your character board extension. You can only have one primed artefact at any one time. Now, when you move your mini on the main board, if you end your movement on a non-bridge space, you can place a primed Artefact onto this space. Your movement ends, but you can now play one of your three Folklore cards from your hand. If your opponent has an Artefact in this space already, you can perform two actions from your Folklore card. Your opponent with an Artefact here can then do one action of their own. If this is the first Artefact to be placed here, you simply get to perform one action from the card. At the end of the game you will score additional points based on your final position of your tracking cube. This brings in some additional interesting ideas that do indeed make your character's movement on the main board a lot more interesting. The options on the cards are all very well thought out, bring some exciting new options. And I like how they can be triggered both actively on your turn and passively on other people's turns. The third and final part of this expansion introduces a new element called Mortal Pilgrims which bring new strategies and combo opportunities for more experienced players, looking for extra twists and turns in the base game play. There is a thin additional board that is now added to the main board during set up. Place this to the side of the main board along with the metal Shrine frames, eight Shrines, four Blockade Tokens, tracking cube and Pilgrimage mini. Replace the two Neutral Bridge tokens usually used with the new new ones here. When you Recharge your Channel Marker you may now increase your Pilgrimage speed by moving your tracking cube on the board. There is a maximum speed of two. You can also place Energy onto the spaces on this new board just as you would usually with the normal Monuments. When you complete a Shrine on the new board players will not bind their Energy as part of this completion. When you participate in the completion of a Shine you can move their Pilgrimage on the board based on their current speed plus the number of energy they have on the Pilgrim board. When you move to a completed Shrine you will gain the shown benefits. The at the end of the game you will score additional points based on how far you were able to advance your Pilgrim. This is my favourite part of this new expansion, in that I feel it makes the biggest and most obvious change. The Folklore module feels like a tweak. The Pilgrimage module feels like an actual full expansion. Its up to you if you think the game needs that or not. I happen to think it does not need it. It is good enough already. But I do think the game is made better by its presence. And I would always now include it in any game. I like the extra drama this brings, the choices it offers, and the additional points scoring opportunities. There are also revised player aids to be used with or without this expansion, that clear up a few previously commonly misinterpreted rules. Such as how the Monument Tokens work, and what happens when you place energy into a Monument. These help with or without the added components of this expansion. If you are a fan of the base game, I would certainly recommend this expansion. It makes the game a little better and offers a few more choices. If you do not like the base game, I do not think this will change your opinion of things necessarily that much. The expansion seeks to address issues with the base game and proudly talks about being "Guided by feedback," such as the issues around the main map having minimal relevance to your overall game experience, and the newly introduced Folklore module. However, I am unsure if this was a massive issue for me to start with, or if this module really makes it that different. It obviously course corrects somewhat, but the point I am making is this game will not be fixed for you if you did not like it to start with. It will make it a little better, but your issues will remain. Whereas if you liked it to start with, then I expect it will just make you enjoy it even more. I mention this simply as I am torn on this point around responding to feedback. I like it and dislike it in equal measures. It is obviously good that a designer is willing to listen to feedback and make the game better based on this. But I do often worry about scale. If one person moans loudly, but thousands enjoy the game in silence, who is listened to? Especially if that person who moaned was a famous YouTube reviewer! I just think that you need to take into account the numbers when listening to feedback, and see what actually matters and what would actually make a game better or enhanced. Don't get me wrong. This expansion does do that. It does make it better and enhance the experience. The motivation just somewhat concerns me. It is worth noting that this has been advertised as the final expansion for the game, so if you want everything, this is it. There will not be anything else added at a later point. A nice fact to know for any completionists out there.

This is a preview copy sent to us for our opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components will certainly change in the final game. You can follow the game more here . Crimson Keep is from new designer Nick Warren. The game is an ambitious two-stage experience for one or two players that aims to tell a story along with intricate card play and fascinating battles. The game I have is in the final prototype stages but has just undergone a fairly major rule change, along with a significant adaptation to the board. I was provided with the tools needed to play with the new rule, which I have done. But please note things will look a little different in the final copy to reflect this rule change. I have only photographed the regular prototype I was sent, not my botched job at fixing it with the recent change! Of course, other things could change too. The game works in two very distinct stages. The first sees players racing to develop their Keep. Building a three column tower on their side of the board using cards from their deck, that they hope will do one of two things in the second stage. Either serve to foster the development of a monstrous Dragon to destroys the other player tower to win the game. Or, be used to defend against the other player if they summon their Dragon to battle first. The second phase will be the set-piece event where one player will battle their dragon against the other player's keep. The player that successfully destroys the other player's keep or dragon here ultimately wins the game, but there are still a few twists and turns as the final phase plays out. But we are jumping ahead. Lets get back to phase one. Players will start with the main board, empty in the middle of the table, and their own Clan and Summon board in front of them. Their Clan board will house their player deck and three special Summoning cards. The Summon board will show spaces for multiple Rune to be discovered and the explanation for how to do this. During set up you will randomly assign either a "one" or "Two" marker above each of the four columns to show the assigned value of each Rune when found. To start the game, players will draw five cards from the top of their deck, discard two, and start with a hand of three cards. Players will then take turns to take two actions each, in turn, until one player summons a Dragon. Turns are tracked by the Action Track on the main board, and each time you take one of the four main actions, you will move your Dragon marker one space to the right on the track. You can do the same action twice if you want, but you will only move on the Action Track once per turn if you do this. Whereas if you make two separate actions, you can move once across two different lines. When you reach the end of a line, you will be provided with a free action. This is part of the major change in the rules that has recently happened, after the development of this prototype. So, the final version will look different. It essentially changes what the free actions are. The main actions are placing cards from your hand into your keep or onto your own Clan board. Flip previously placed cards from their inactive side to their active side. Use an active card's ability. Or move a previously placed active combat card that is on the main board. Let's look into them each one by one. It will give you a better steer on the game. Placing cards is the main action in the game. Both players have a deck that they will be able to cycle through fairly quickly. You will see all the cards in your deck throughout a game. So, the decision is less about which cards you can play from what you see, and more about the order you play your cards, and where you play them. Cards will be one of three types: either a Cavern card, Battle card, or Keep card. Cavern cards are added to one of the three Cavern spaces on your Clan board. They add additional powers and resources you can call on later in the game, boosting certain attack and defence abilities, as well as adding additional movement options for your battle cards. The Battle cards are added to your Barracks on your Clan board and then later, when activated, can be moved to the main board to be used to attack either the other player's Keep or their Battle card. You can only have one Battle card on the main board at a time, and they all have unique abilities to target different cards in different ways. The final type of card is the Keep cards. This is the main type, and you will use these to add to one of the three columns on the main board that house these cards. When you have built on the ground level, you can then build above this, up to five spaces tall. The Keep cards, like the Battle cards, all offer a wide ranging array of options with different powers, defence and attack abilities, and special skills to help you develop your tower and powers. As you build up your powers and develop your tower, you will also be looking to develop your abilities to summon a powerful dragon. There are three tiers of dragons, and your ability to summon one and their relative strength is determined by the number of runes that you have discovered during the game. Runes are discovered through various means, such as placing certain cards next to each other in your keep, or achieving certain goals such as winning a battle in the game, or having a certain amount of cards on your Clan board. As you gain more runes, your total rune score will increase and your ability to summon a more powerful dragon in turn will increase. Each rune will be worth either one or two points, depending on the random setup, and your total rune score, if over 12, allows you to stop the first phase of the game and summon your dragon. At strength 12, however, you will be relying on fire attacks only. If you score over 18, you will have one Obliterate card to use. And if you score over 24, you can have two of these powerful cards. This part of the game is intriguing. You will see how far your opponent has come in the development of their own Keep. You can work out how well they are doing in their own Rune development. It becomes a bit of a push-your-luck part of the game if you want to summon the Dragon, but want to beef it up a bit first. How many turns will you risk waiting to summon your own Dragon, knowing your opponent may well do the same on their turn at any point? But maybe they don't want to summon their Dragon. Maybe you don't want to? The other tactic is to build a strong Keep that you feel can withstand the Dragon's attacks, and with the odd surprise in store to attack back! When someone does bite the bullet and summon their Dragon though, the other player has one final turn, and then the player that Summoned their Dragon will take their four Dragon cards and add them to the middle of the main board, covering the middle spaces. Play will then move to the second phase, starting with the first Dragon attack! If the player with the Dragon has an Obliterate card, they can use this for their first attack. Here, they will roll all four of their dice and compare the result to the card. Under four and you fail in your attack. Five or more and you start to have some choices. The higher the roll the better, but one entire Column of cards will be destroyed! The defending player then has an opportunity to take one action. Perhaps activate an inactive card to booster up one part of their keep. Or use a previously placed active cards power. Such as the Fire Wraith who can injure one part of the Dragon as part of her action. The Dragon has four cards that make up its presence on the board. Each time one card is flipped it moves one stage closer to death. When all four cards are flipped it will fall. But maybe not as you think! If you run out of Obliterate cards, or have none to start with, you must attack as the Dragon with your Fire Attack. Here, you will roll four dice and compare the results to the strength of the nearest tower of the defending player's keep. This is calculated by the number of cards in the tower, how many are active, and how many are made up of the player's three special Summoning cards. During a fire attack, the defending player can play Keep Defence cards if they have any. These are bought at the midpoint of the game, exchanging defence and attack tokens gathered during the first phase for these powerful cards. You can buy up to three based on your performance in the first phase. These cards allow you to mitigate the effects of the Fire Attack, removing dice or increasing the strength of your defence. If the Fire Attack is successful after all this, the column is lost. If the attack is unsuccessful, the Dragon is injured and must flip one of its cards around. If all four cards become flipped, the Dragon falls. But you have one final chance as the Dragon player to still win. You will roll one single die, and if you roll a six, you can force the Dragon to fall into your opponent's keep, destroying one final tower. If this is the final tower standing, you win the game. But roll a one-to-five, and the Dragon falls into your own keep, destroying everything, giving the victory to the other player. It is a fitting end to an epic game, with a dramatic and eventful finale that keeps all players on their toes until the very final act! As you build your Keep, you will be looking at the cards you play, what they offer, how they can be used, and how they interact with other cards in your play area or those of the other players. The Freelancers, for example, need to be built with defence in mind. They can move or attack enemy cards that come into range based on a diagonal line from their position. Lining a few of these up in a row can be very powerful. But do you build based on attack or defence? Do you want to get the strongest Keep with the cards that can hurt your opponent's Dragon? Or do you want to build your Rune power and get your Dragon out as quickly as possible, attacking your opponent before they have a chance to develop their own defences? Or do you build the strongest Dragon possible, giving your opponent time to build a strong defence, or potentially summon a dragon before you, but with the chance to summon the ultimate fighting beast if they don't, ready to destroy your opponent's Keep, no matter what they do. These options make each game feel fresh and the experience somewhat unique each time. Obviously, the strategy each player uses each time can change. As can the cards they play and how they use them. It makes me want to go back to Crimson Keep over and over, trying new strategies and experiencing different eventualities. I have loved games where I have won and lost. Where I have summoned the dragon or not. Where I have wanted to or not. The race part is exciting and unknown. The only way you can really control things is if you set out to not summon and simply build a powerful defence. But then, if your opponent catches onto this, they will also be in no hurry and can build up a powerful attack and summon the most powerful dragon without any worries. You need to try and keep your intentions close so your opponent cannot plan without fear of attack on their end. And the whole time, you need to be pegging back your opponent as you play. Attacks during the game are just as effective as attacks at the end. Playing Battle cards that can destroy entire towers is possible. And being able to create a complete tower collapse at the right time of an opponent's building plans can be catastrophic for them. Highly satisfying to you! I will watch with close attention to see how this game develops. The recent changes allowed for more control over the type of Dragon you summon which I enjoyed. It will be interesting to see what else changes before this game comes to crowdfunding.

Space Bureau WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Worker placement games and tech trees. Published by: Hobby World Designed by:   Andrey Kolupaev This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . It's a space theme. Any other questions? In truth, I did not know a lot about this game when I saw it. But it was one of those covers that drew me in. It just looks good to me. I then started reading up on the rules and got a little bit excited about the simplicity of play, but complexity of choices. Six tech-trees to build up on your own player board using cute little aliens on a space ship. I was in! But is it any good? Well, lets get it to the table to find out. How To Set Up Space Bureau First, place the four starting hexes (identified by the chequered flag style symbol on the back) in a line of three as below, with the fourth tile at the top, leaving one space between. You add a fair few more tiles around this as the game plays on so be sure to do this in an area of the table you have space to grow around it! Remove at tiles not suitable for your player count, and then mix the remaining ones and place a face down pile next to this. This is your Universe. Next, place the bureau board next to these tiles along with one of the double-sided credit tokens for each player in the game. These are used if you circle the points board once or twice. Now, place the three different sample tokens into three separate piles, sorted by colour. Separate the 12 starting trade agent tiles for player setup as shown by the chequered flag symbol on the front. Give one of each type to each player. Then create a general reserve of the remaining trade agents with 28 random tiles added to the bag for a two-player game; for three players, add 38 tiles; and for four players, add all 50 tiles. Place any extra tiles in the game box. Then put the bag with the tiles you are using next to the bureau board and shuffle the tiles inside. Then take three out at random and add them to the right on this bureau track. Each player assembles their spaceship board by connecting the cabin and board. The cabin's colour indicates the player's colour and determines the colour of their components. You can use the reverse side in later games, but for your first game, the side with the OO on the front at the bottom is recommended. Each player places a fuel marker on the Two space of the fuel track on their spaceship board and two storage limiter tiles over the 10 to 15 spaces. Then each player now places their coloured spaceship figure on the central space hex of the Universe you created with the space ship symbol on the bottom, this is the starting hex. Each player takes and places their five office tokens of their colour in the space for them in the top section of their ship, below the cockpit. Along with the Captain ability just above this, if you want to add some minor asymmetry to the game. This part is optional, but well worth including. Each player also places their credit marker on the starting square at the top of the credit track and their bureau track markers on the Space Bureau’s starting office on the left on the bureau board. Give the starting player (decided either at random, or the last person to read something about Space) the Active player token symbol. You are now ready to play. Players will now take turns placing one of their agents and taking the corresponding action until the bag of agents runs dry. This is done by each player taking one of their three available agents and placing it onto the player ship board. At the end of their turn, when they have carried out their action, they will then take one of the agents on the main board and add it to their player area, taking one agent from the bag to replace the one they just took. This way, all players always have three agents to choose from in their hand and three agents to replenish from on the main board, until they run out. When there are no agents left in the bag, each player has one final turn, and then they move on to final scoring. When you place an agent onto your ship board, you must do so by joining the connectors on the side of the agent tile to either one of the ship connectors, as shown on the board by the white arrows, or an open connector of a previously placed agent. The space (cell) in which you place your agent dictates which action you perform. You can never move agents or go to the same spot again. So each action can only be done once per game. Some spots will have actions you cannot make full use of at the start of the game, and if you cannot do or pay for any part of an action, you simply miss that part. So pick wisely! Here are the main actions of the game. Gain Fuel: Take the shown amount of fuel and add it to your shipboard up to your maximum capacity. Gain Sample: Take a sample of the shown colour and add it to the rightmost available space of your fuel tanks. You must have your player ship on a planet or megamall to do this. Megamalls let you take a sample of any colour. Some action spaces let you take any sample. Others link to the colour of the planet you are on. You can also use samples to gain five fuel, and on some actions, you will need to use samples as payment to perform the action. Increase Storage Capacity: Remove the leftmost storage limiter, increasing your maximum capacity for fuel and samples. Move Bureau Marker: Move your marker the shown number of rooms within the bureau track. If you stop or pass by any bonuses, you may take these. If you enter a room with a level number and have a grey bureau inspector agent on your ship, you can flip that agent over to show more connectors for later turns. Place an Office: If your ship is on a planet and you have a matching office token of the same colour remaining, and that planet does not yet have an office on it from you or another player, you can add one of your matching offices to this planet hex. This will score you instant points based on the value shown on the office. Start A Flight: This allows you to make one flight of your ship on the Universe hexes. You can fly as far as you like, as long as you have the fuel needed. Each space costs one fuel to move. Or you can use two fuel to place a new unexplored hex down adjacent to a hex you are on. This will gain you the bonus shown on the bottom of the new hex and open up new places to explore. When you land on a planet matching the colour of any of the agents on your ship, you can drop them off by flipping over that tile, being sure to keep the orientation of the connectors the same. This gains you two points as shown on the tile. At this point, you will also gain one additional point for each sample you have that matches the colour of the agent and planet you just interacted with. At the end of the game, you will add six points for any set of three different coloured samples remaining in your storage. The player with the most points wins. Most fuel acts as the tie breaker. Is It Fun? Space Bureau Board Game Review This is a fantastic game. It plays a lot quicker and simpler than it looks and you may first think. But it offers a depth and balance that brings a tense, interesting, and exciting game to the table that plays in around 45 minutes, 30 for a two-player game. On your turn, all you are ever doing is placing one of three agents onto a space on the board. Where you place it makes a huge difference, and the orientation is significant too. But it won't take long to decide, and you can think about it during other people's turns. There is some element of things being ruined by what other people do, such as other players placing an office on a planet you wanted to place one of your own offices on, as this can only ever be done once per planet. But most of the time, you can plan ahead without too much fear of having your plans disrupted. And then the actual actions are mostly very quick. Some instant, such as removing a storage blocker, or adding fuel. It's only the take a flight action that takes a little longer, especially when you explore a new tile, but this still is very quick. And then, when you are choosing which of the three agents to pick to add to your supply and then refilling these three from the bag, the next player can start taking their turn if you want. It flows very quickly. And throughout this quick experience, you will feel like you are making meaningful decisions. The points will ramp up quickly as you play the game. Eight points for placing an Office. Five points for dropping off an agent with three matching Samples. It escalates very quickly. And you will feel under a constant pressure to keep up with the other players and score points regularly. But thankfully, this is relatively simple to do. All my games of this have been tight affairs, and most players have scored over the 80 mark, as in, they have circled the score board at least twice. The game does not bring anything new to the table. The mechanics have been seen before. The theme is a very well-explored one. But the production is very slick. The rules are very tight. And the gameplay is incredibly smooth. It certainly does deliver things you have seen before, but in a very appealing way. There are some intricate puzzles around the placement of the agent on your ship, and the orientation of them so you can access later action spaces easier due to the connectors rule. The higher up the position on the ship, the more powerful the action. This is a tech-tree game. You want to climb up the spaces on the ship as quickly as possible to reach the higher, more powerful action spots. But you don't want to waste turns doing things that either you cannot do or cannot fully utilize. So you need to plot a path through the action spaces on your ship, with the right agents, based on the state of the board. So, as much as this is all been-there-done-that in terms of mechanics, how it is presented to you will feel fresh. And full of interesting decisions. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a filler plus style game. A fast but fun game that offers a crunchy and meaningful experience, but one that can be played in well under an hour. It is easy to set up and put away, easy to teach to new players, or pick up after a few weeks away from it. It delivers a game that satisfies your gaming urges for playing something of significance.

Neodreams WBG Score: 9/10 Player Count: 1-2 You’ll like this if you like: Furnace Published by: Hobby World Designed by: Ivan Lashin This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Neodreams is made by Ivan Lashin. He is the genius mind behind Furnace, one of my favourite games of all time. It is engine building distilled down to its purest form. The game is incredibly slick, and it plays so quickly, but offers so much. The downside of that game is its rather drab industrial theme and beige art. I like it, but it doesn't exactly pop. When I saw Mr. Lashin was putting his mind to a new game, and that game was another engine builder, but this time with added worker placement goodness and a bright, colourful futuristic landscape thrown in, I was all in. But does all this juiciness add up to a good game? Yes, it really does. Spoiler alert, this game is fantastic. Let's find out why, if you really need to know. How To Set Up Neodreams First, set the Oneirosphere board on the table within reach of all players, ensuring the side corresponding to the number of players is facing up. Place the Cycle marker on the appropriate space in the leftmost corner of the Sleep Cycle track at the top of the Oneirosphere board. Divide the Dream cards into three decks based on their back designs. Shuffle each deck separately, draw two cards from the top of each, and place them face up to the right of the Oneirosphere board to form the Market. Then, place all Object and Client tokens in the general reserve near the Oneirosphere board; note, the images on these tokens are just for theming, they do not factor into the rules are are all identical mechanically speaking. Each player sets a Mainframe board in front of them along with a Dream board and places it to the right of their Mainframe board. The Dream boards are double-sided. You can either add some minor asymmetry to the game or play with the same starting powers. They also show two cards that will make up your final total. Each player starts with two cards, not zero. Now, each player places three Oneironaut figures of their chosen colour as set by their Mainframe board in their personal supply. Each player takes three Object tokens and places them near their Mainframe board in their personal supply. Then, each player takes one knowledge, memory, and fantasy Resource marker and places them to the left of their Mainframe board, aligned with the three indicators. Each player draws one Lucid, Neodream, and Recursive Dream Card from the top of the decks and adds them to their hand. The Active Player token is given to the person who woke up latest today. Then, the Last Player token is given to the person to the right of the Active Player token holder. If all players are familiar with the game, the person with the Last Player token may move the Cycle marker to any position of their choice along the Sleep Cycle track. On your first game, this will mean very little, so just skip this step. You are now ready to play. How To Play Neodreams The game plays out over a series of rounds until one player has at least 12 cards in their dreamscape. Players take turns placing one of their Oneironauts onto an available space on the Oneirosphere board. They will then carry out the action of the space onto which they placed their worker. If they have used all their workers, then instead of placing one, you will remove all figures from one of the three columns, also taking the action at the top of that column. Other players can also remove any of their figures in the column too. All players who return a Oneironaut worker in this way can carry out one action matching that row or place one card from their hand. Once a player has either added a worker or removed workers from one column, you will refill any taken cards this round, then it is the other player's turn, checking first to see if anyone has reached 12 cards or more to trigger the end game. When you place a worker, you will be able to do one of seven actions. Let's take a look at them one-by-one. Gain Resources: Take the one, two, three, or four resources of the shown colour, adding them to your player board by moving the appropriate marker up the set number of spaces. You can never have more than a maximum of ten. Draw Card: Take any face up card. With the worker actions, this would be from any three card types. With the worker retrieval action, you will see this is linked to one of the three specifically. Create Card: This is how you can play cards from your hand into your Dreamscape. There is only one space on the Mainframe board to do this, but all worker retrieval actions allow you to do this as well. To play a card, simply pay the resource cost as shown on the top left of the card. Reduce your resources by the shown amount, then add the card to the right of the player board. The red Fantasy resources are wild and can be used to pay for either of the other resource types. When you add your cards, try to do so so they are in groups of the three different types. This will make activating them later a lot easier. Gain Object: Simply take one or two object tokens from the supply and add to your own personal supply. The picture on the token is irrelevant. Place Objects: You can now place as many object tokens as you like onto the cards that require them in your Dreamscape. Cards that require them have a star symbol on the left hand side. Add an object token over this to activate that part of the card. Most cards need more than one object token to fully activate it. This card will now have a stronger power the next time you use it. Link Client: Each Lucid card has a space on the bottom right to add a Client token onto it. Taking this action allows you to take one Client token from the supply and add it to any one Lucid card in your Dreamscape. You can now take the shown affect on that card. These are one time actions but there are ways you can remove a Client token and do this again. Broadcast Neodreams: Oneironauts The Neodream cards that you have added to your Dreamscape all have an action shown on the bottom of the card next to the Neodreams icons. When you take this action you can activate every single Neodreams card you have. When you return workers, this will allow you to move the Cycle marker one space to the right and then take the shown action in the new column. These are to either take resources and objects or to activate your Neodreams cards. When you have done this, you and all players with Workers in this column will remove them back to their supply, and can either carry out the Draw Card action linked to the row that they were in, or take the Create Card action if they have cards in hand and resources to spend. When a player reaches 12 or more cards, the game will continue until the player with the Last Player token finishes their next turn. The game then immediately ends and players will tally up their final score. Scoring works by awarding one point for each unused Object token still in a player's possession, totalling the Dream cards in each player's Dreamscape, and then adding up all unplaced cards, Objects, and unspent resources, and dividing that total by five (rounding down). The player with the most points wins. Is It Fun? Neodreams Card Game Review If you enjoy engine builder games and worker placement, then this could well be one of your new favourite games. Games are fast. 30 minutes for a two player. Under an hour for four players. Turns are quick too. Simply place or retrieve a worker and do the linked action. Refill any taken cards and move on. But the tightness of the worker placement spots, and the delicate nature of the cards building up your own powers is incredibly satisfying. This game is almost perfect to me. I adore everything about this. Setup is a breeze. I can teach the game in about five minutes, and it takes even less time to put away. The art is bright, vibrant, and the card art is wonderfully layered and detailed. The components are good quality, with nice chunky acrylic player pieces, and thick cardboard tokens. The asymmetry is balanced, and easily added or removed during setup. And the rule book is clearly laid out and offers nice thematic touches and examples. And mechanically speaking, this is an absolute home run for me. There are only 12 worker placement spots. This is the same in any player count. The icons in the spots change for three or four players, but the number available remains constant. So, you will find you will be playing and retrieving your workers at great speed. Timing the placement of the workers onto the right columns, so you get them back on other players' turns, rather than your own, is an interesting part of the game. But of course, the player that activates the retrieval does get to take a bonus action as well, gaining valuable resources and object tokens, or running your Neodream card engine. And this is the real genius of the game: the cards. You have three types. The Recursive cards give you various powers that activate at certain points in the game. When played, you need to keep in mind when these activate, as they can be easily missed. This is the only thing about the game I do not like. I find new players to the game often miss one or two of their powers here. It is easily done. The Lucid and Neodream cards, however, are a lot simpler to activate and will never be forgotten! The Lucid cards activate when you take the Link Client action and offer one-time-only powers that can be quite useful, especially when played at the right time. You can reuse these if you use another card's power to remove a previously placed Client token. And herein lies the beauty of the game. Linking relevant cards that work together like this can be very rewarding. Having a Neodream card that lets you remove a Client token and a Lucid card with a powerful client power is a wonderful combo that you could re-enact three or four times, or more, in a game. What other great combos can you build?! The Neodream cards will often be the most commonly collected and played cards. When you run your Neodream cards, which can be done at various points in the game, you will be able to run through and activate every Neodream card you have. This can sometimes be five, six, seven, or even more cards, depending on your strategy. They are not as powerful as the Lucid or Recursive cards, but can be re-used a lot more often. And running them in high numbers like that can massively advance your position in the game, and feels great when you do it. I can do to this, take this, add this, play this, run this... Wonderful! And it all happens fast, so it is not like other players are waiting ages for you to complete this. All the cards offer interesting options, look gorgeous, and often chain very well together. It will be your job to find the right combination of cards to take and play. You will be able to build a big hand of cards fairly simply in this game, and gaining resources is relatively in your control and quick to do. There is some scarcity here in terms of the worker placement spots, but they are freed up almost as quickly as they are taken. So, this game is less about acting fast, or taking things away from your fellow players, and more about building a strategy of cards that work well together. If you like the idea of that wonderfully delicious, rewarding, and oh so satisfying game experience, then this could well be one of your new favourite games. I absolutely adore this game. I would go as far to say that it is better than Furnace, which I am shocked to see myself type. I love Furnace so much and it sits in my top ten of all time. But this game is better. It adds a little bit more, without making the game complex, and looks far better, with a more interesting theme to me. Does that make it top ten of all time as well, or instead? Yes. Yes it does. Welcome to the top ten Neodreams. Long may you reign.

Death Valley: Highs & Lows WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 1-2 You’ll like this if you like: Quick, light tableau building games. Published by: Button Shy Designed by: Kevin Ellenburg This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Death Valley: Highs & Lows is the second instalment in the Death Valley series. The 18 cards in this game can be enjoyed on their own as a standalone game, or mixed with the previous Death Valley game to form a fresh set of 18 cards each time you play. This is a tableau builder at heart, and works just as well in solo as it does in two player. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Death Valley: Highs & Lows Shuffle the 18 cards and place them face down on the table. Flip the top card face up and place it next to this pile. Decide the first player, if you are playing in a two, and you are now ready to play. The game suggests you do this by finding out which player last drank water! How To Play Death Valley: Highs & Lows Players will now take turns to either Travel or Rest. Travel means to take either the face-up card or a face-down one from the top of the deck, collectively called the Desert, and add it to their own personal array. This is called their Journey. It will be a horizontal line, formed left to right in front of them. Rest means to move one card from your Journey to your Scrapbook. This is a line below your Journey, which again you form left to right. When you do this, you may hide additional cards from your Journey underneath this card. You can also shuffle any number of Journey cards you still have back into the deck if you wish. Hiding simply means to place a card underneath another. This card now does not score at the end of the game, but its Hazards will not count towards busting for you anymore either. Some cards, such as Salt Creek, let you hide one card with the paw print underneath it, or swap another hidden card with the paw print with any other card in your Journey each time it is your go at the start of your turn. Players are doing this to try to form the most point-worthy Journey possible. This is done mainly through the stars on the cards but also some of the card powers, such as the Desolation Canyon, which gives you two points for each card in your discard pile. Hells Gate scores you three points if it is your only card with a Sun hazard symbol. And Amargosa Opera House scores you one point for each star on the cards that are adjacent to it. Players then check that they do not have three of the same Hazard card type in their Journey and Scrapbook. If they do, they bust and must take the rightmost card showing this hazard type, flip it face down, and then place it in their personal discard area to the right of their Journey and Scrapbook. They must then shuffle all remaining Journey cards back into the deck. The Scrapbook cards remain in situ. You will know how many of each type of specific hazard cards there are by the number shown on the top left of the card under the hazard symbol. So, you can hedge your bets when you take each card, knowing how soon its hazard symbol will be. Then, refresh the Desert by flipping over the top card if the previous card had been taken, and then move to the next player's turn. When only one card remains in the Desert, the game is over. All players will score their cards based on the stars shown on them in their Journey, one point for each. Then subtract one point for each Bison's head symbol. I think it is a Bison? Then check any card's unique scoring ability. Most points wins. In solo mode, you must use the Backseat variant, which can be used in two-player too. Here, when you travel, players add cards to their opponent's journey, not their own. In solo, simply do this to an imaginary AI player. When the AI takes their turn, check if the face-up card in the desert would bust you or the AI. If so, add it to your own journey. If it does not match the hazard type in the AI's journey, add it to the AI's journey instead. If it does match, add the top card from the desert instead. You ignore card abilities in solo mode, but not hazard types. You score as usual, but the AI scores one point for each star or skull, as well as scoring points equal to the positive numbers in the scoring abilities of their cards, ignoring any negative points. Each card will have a special unique action as well, that will come into effect at various times. For example, the Manley Beacon lets you swap that card with any other card in another player's Journey whenever any player busts. The Surprise Canyon forces you to add the top card of the deck to your journey after your action. The Ventifact Ridge says you must shuffle that card along with a card from your opponent's Journey back into the deck before you Rest. And the Keane Wonder Mine says that as your action, instead of Resting or Traveling, you can take a hidden card from your Scrapbook and add it into your Journey. Is It Fun? Death Valley: Highs & Lows Card Game Review I cannot comment on how this links with the original or what the original is like, as I have not played it yet. But this game, as a standalone, is a brilliantly subtle puzzle game that works just as well solo as it does with two players. Games are short but full of fun decisions on which cards to take, which ones to use, and which ones to try and get rid of. You will be constantly evolving your journey, moving cards into your scrapbook, or busting, as you move along the desert path. The various ways to score will keep you coming back for more. Each game feels very much the same, but the end-game scoring can be quite different. The art on the cards is a little washed out, with pastel colors and simple design. But it looks gorgeous and adds nicely to the overall theme. The iconography on the cards is also incredibly clear, and you will find you are reading the cards in an instant, helping with your decision as to which card will be right for you. The higher scoring cards will often have an effect that does not help you, and vice versa, such as the Mountain Lion, which offers four points off the bat, but then its power means that it counts as two Paw prints when it comes to busting. That said, there are only two other cards with Paw prints, so it can be worth the risk. Each card comes with a small fact about the location or subject on the bottom right, which is a nice touch. It does not add to the game mechanically, but certainly helps with the theme. Each fact is short enough to read without slowing the game down at all. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a simple solo or two-player game that they can take with them anywhere and play wherever they can lay out cards in a row safely, without fear of wind or spillage! The theme will draw in people who like exploration, the outdoors, or who have been to Death Valley. I drove through it once. In a convertible. I had the top down for one minute before I had to pull over, put the top up, and blast the air conditioning on full power for the rest of the journey. It's a hot place for sure, and so too is this little pocket game.

By Steve Godfrey As 2024 drew itself to a close, an inevitable smorgasbord of top ten of the year lists will have flooded your preferred social media channels, video platforms, and websites to give you their rundown of the year's gaming treats… and here I’m going to be doing the exact same thing. My list is going to be compiled of the usual “new to me” games that I first discovered this year. To be honest, this was a difficult one to rank. I played some really great games this year with at least 18 fighting for a top ten place. In fact, I’ll probably be rethinking this list until I finally press the send button and it’s out of my hands. One thing I will say is that my number one actually surprised me, but I’ll get into that when I talk about it. Even though this is a top ten, it was genuinely difficult to rank these (apart from my number one for the year), so while these are numbered 10 - 1, I really consider these to be “in no particular order” because on any given day these games could rise and fall in the list. So, without further ado, here are some honourable mentions. Grand Austria Hotel Undaunted 2200: Callisto Heat: Pedal to the Metal Forgotten Waters General Orders World War 2 All of these were hovering around the top ten at one point or another, and maybe in a different year with different games or maybe just more plays, then they would have made this list. But they're all worth checking out if you're interested in them.  10. Skyteam I love when a game lives up to the hype, and this one had quite the buzz around it, though hopefully not the buzz of a broken engine. From the first play, it offered the sort of tension that I’d never experienced before while looking into the eyes of another man and deciding which plastic cube I’m going to place down. There’s that underlying feeling of trepidation as you slowly move your dice to a spot and hope beyond all hope that it’s the right decision and your whole game doesn’t come unstuck because of it. It’s also at that point that you're thankful you’re not actually in control of a plane. In a year of “Duel” iterations of games, this one stands out to prove that you don’t need an already popular IP to make a fun two-player game. 9. Feed the Kraken Sometimes you just see a game and hear a basic premise, and you're immediately in. So when I saw Feed the Kraken and it was essentially pitched as Secret Hitler but with pirates and cultists and more, it went straight onto my wish list. If you've played the former and the theme (justifiably) isn't for you, then Feed the Kraken not only takes that simple and fun core mechanism but also adds to it and elevates it into a much better game. The fun twist of there being only one cult leader who can potentially recruit more to their cause as the game progresses, the idea that one player could lose their tongue and not speak for the rest of the game, and just the look of the game (I really want to own this so I can paint that boat) make this one of my new favourite party/deduction games.  8. The White Castle There's something about when a game has a ‘limited number of turns’ as a selling point that almost puts me off. However, if you couple that with combotastic turns, you almost instantly pull me back in. I love a game where you look at the rules, then your board, and all the while think, there’s no way I’m going to get any of these things completed. Then, before you know it, those satisfying combos kick in, and you're getting so much stuff done, but you still can't do everything. That’s exactly what The White Castle does, and for that, I love it. 7. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth I try not to buy into hype in games; too much expectation could lead to much harder disappointment. Plus, after I’d moved on from my copy of 7 Wonders Duel, I wondered if the changes in this would make enough of a difference to rope me back in. Skepticism abounded, and despite the rave reviews, much like Bilbo did with Gollum, I stayed my hand on it. That is, until I played a mate's copy and immediately went and got hold of a copy (that was annoyingly put away as a Christmas present). I like 7WD, but the changes made here just made it feel less fiddly and more tense. The area control board gives the game a more epic presence, the ring track is a fun thematic component, and the simplification of the resource exchange along with the theme just make this a mainstay on the shelf for me.  6. Sniper Elite: The Board Game After being excited for a new edition of Fury of Dracula and then, after a while, selling it, I began to wonder if a hidden movement, one vs. many game would ever end up on my shelf again. That is, until Sniper Elite snuck up on me. It’s everything I want in one of these games; it’s incredibly tense, doesn't take up an entire evening, and whether you're the many or the one, every one of your turns and decisions means something and will have an immediate impact on the game. You don't need to know or have played the video game to get the full experience from Sniper Elite; you just need to know how to be very, very quiet. Full review here 5. Faraway It’s small with great artwork and looks pretty unassuming. That is until you play it, and the scoring melts your brain, but in the best way possible. I’ve said everything in my review, but if you're looking for a small box with a big puzzle inside, then Faraway should be your new go-to game. Full review here 4. SAS Rogue Regiment Yes, another stealth game. It certainly seems like 2024 was the year for sneaking. While Sniper Elite pits you against your fellow players, SAS Rogue Regiment has you cooperating to sneak through enemy lines and complete your missions before you set off too many alarms and have a full army after you. Whereas Sniper Elite is very contained, SAS Rogue Regiment lets you run around and play in your very own sandbox, allowing you to choose how to complete your missions and even build your own. Full review here 3. The Mystery Agency :The Museum Heist With so many fun and beautifully produced puzzle games in their catalogue, it should feel odd that a book is the standout for me, but the puzzles are so good, varied, and immersive that it was literally a page-turner that I reluctantly had to force myself to put down only because boring things like sleep and work were getting in the way. I can’t wait for the time when I’ve forgotten enough of the solutions that I can go for another run through.  Full review he re 2. Anachrony A game about time travel is always going to get my attention, and knowing that this was a well-loved game within the hobby didn't hurt it either. It justified that reputation by being a solid, tight worker placement game that gives you just enough space to get things done but also makes the race for every space really nerve-wracking. It takes the idea of time travel and adds just enough to make it fun without being convoluted enough that you need Basil Exposition to tell you not to worry about it. I’m not going to delve too far into it here, as you can check out my full review here 1. The Gang Told you it was a surprise. I was first introduced to the Gang at a games day hosted by Jim himself, and we got through a load of games that day (including Sky Team), but this one was our last play of the night, and man oh man did this one stick with me. So much so that I picked it up a mere few days later. This is basically cooperative poker crossed with the Mind. In it, you'll be playing hands of poker while trying to indicate to your fellow players how good or bad your hand is by using numbered poker chips. So why this over behemoths like Anachrony or the White Castle? Especially when you consider that this may not make my top ten of all time, where the others could well be up there. They've got the potential to be evergreens in my eyes. But The Gang, even in my short time with it, is the game I've played the most. We've had a great laugh with it, and it's the one game over all the others that I’ve consistently always thrown in my game bag to take to game nights because it's the one I’ve been excited to play, and it's one I can easily teach even when I’m tired and not wanting to teach a big game. It's also the game that I want to show to non-gamer family and friends because it's more universally accessible to them, plus any excuse to play games with different groups of people is a great one in my eyes.