Sniper Elite: The Board Game WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: SAS Rogue Regiment , Fury of Dracula , Whitechapel Published by: Rebellion Unplugged Designed by: Roger Tankersley , David Thompson (I) This is the reviewer’s copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey I'm going to kick things off and say straight up front that I've barely played a couple of hours of Sniper Elite and, well, let's just say that I've not quite reached that "elite" level that the game boasts. I'm more on the level of "sniper who uses a Nerf gun because he can't be trusted with a real one." How to snipe defenders One player is going to be the sniper, and the other player(s) are going to take on the role of the defenders. The sniper wins by completing two objectives, and the defenders win if they either wound the sniper twice or start their turn on the 1 space of the turn track before the sniper can complete both of their objectives.  During setup, the sniper draws two objective cards. These will have numbered spaces on them that will be located in different sections of the map. If both cards are in the same section, then discard one and keep drawing objectives until both are in different sections. The sniper plays all of their moves on their own dry erase map of the board, and on their turn, they can, in any combination and as many times as they want, move, play a loadout card, and take an action. When you first enter the board, you must enter in one of the colored areas that doesn't match where your objectives are. The sniper can move 0-1 space with no repercussions, or they can move 2-3 spaces, but they have to alert any defender that they move adjacent to in the process. Shooting will see you drawing a number of tokens from a bag and trying to draw a number of hits equal to or above the range between you and your target. Beware, though, because if you draw two noise tokens, then you have to reveal your position. Also, if you draw 5 non-hit tokens, then you automatically miss. A hit will see the defender removed from the board, potentially moving them out of your way but also adding a hit token into your bag. If you're on an objective space (that you don’t hold), then you can take a new loadout card (but this will give a clue as to your whereabouts). If you're in an objective space that matches one of your cards, then you can play it to complete that objective. This will also reveal your position on the board. When you do this, the defenders will reset their action markers back to the ten space of the track, putting them further away from that particular win condition and giving you some much-needed time. For the defenders' turn, they will be able to take two actions per squad. A squad is made up of two soldiers and a commander. Every time you take an action, you move one of the squad's cubes one space down the track. You can have just one figure in the squad take both actions, but they can’t take the same action twice. As for actions, you can move, sweep by picking two adjacent spaces and the one you're in to look for the sniper, but these have to be the same type (interior or exterior). Spotting means you can search one adjacent space, but it doesn't have to be the same type. Punching in the space you're in will wound the sniper if they're in the same space. You can bring a defender back on the board, or you can dismiss one from the board. Each commander has their own special ability, which you can pick before the game starts, and this can be used twice per game. The last thing is to gather intel. If your commander is in their starting area, you can burn both of that squad's actions to ask the sniper if they’re in that colored area.  What’s going to work? Teamwork As with any hidden movement game, the experience you get will depend on which role you're taking in a given game, and in the hidden movement games I’ve played, this could be a bit of a mixed bag. With Sniper Elite, both roles are a ton of fun. As the defenders, you get to play a tense (I’ll be using this word a lot, so best not start any drinking games on it) game of deduction as you use every tool in your arsenal to try and hunt down your sneaky foe. It can start off feeling like you're looking for a needle in a haystack with literally nothing to go on except someone telling you that there's a needle in that haystack and you have to find it. This is where the ‘gather intel’ action comes into its own early doors as you try to get that first sniff of where the stealthy so-and-so is. Whether it be from an intel action or a slip-up from the sniper, eventually you’ll get a clue, and before you know it, the hunt is very much on. An excitement will wash over you as you pore over what said clue could mean, and it’s here you’ll realize that two actions per squad are frustratingly limiting, but also the perfect amount to keep the game exciting. It means that as you close the gap, each action you choose to take is massively important, and each square you choose to sweep/spot could be the difference between finding your prey and them slipping away by the narrowest of narrow margins. You'll find that a lot of your discussion will involve you debating between two or three possible routes or which specific spots you're going to be sweeping. At first, it would easily seem like a lot of back and forth over a couple of spaces, but when you factor in the above point about that small space between catching them or them getting away, then they actually become important points. Now, at the time, you won’t know exactly how close you were until the end of the game and the sniper reveals their path, and this reveal makes that end game discussion just as much a part of the game as anything else, and seeing just how agonizingly close you were at points will keep that discussion going long after the game's over.  The game really ramps up as those action markers tick down the track and you seemingly come ever closer to winning. That is until you ask yourself the question, are we about to win? ... or are they about to finish an objective and knock those markers back to the start? It's really nerve-wracking and, yes, tense. One is the loneliest number An issue with the hidden movement games that I've played is that being ‘the one’ can sometimes fall a little flat, and you can often find that your turns are over in mere seconds in comparison to the other players' lengthier turns that are full of discussion and some fun back and forth. Sniper Elite does, at times, fall into this trap as well, with some turns being literally as quick as it takes you to draw a line on a board. But that line also represents a lot, as it can hold your entire game in its inky fingers. It represents your entire plan, the clever plays you made, and the risky moves you put into practice. Most of all, it makes for a great post-game roundup as you relay to your friends how close or how far away they were from you at each step. It's this extra part of the game that you don't get in the rulebook but is absolutely part of the experience. Even shooting has its own devious edge to it. When you shoot, you declare how many tokens you're pulling from the bag. It doesn’t have to match the number of spaces to your target. Choosing to pull more comes with greater risk, but if you pull four hit tokens and you're standing next to your victim, it could be a great way to send your opponents running off in the wrong direction. If you thought turns as the defenders were tense, then welcome to life as the sniper. You know when you used to play hide and seek as a kid, and the seeker would walk within a hair's breadth of your hiding spot, and your whole body would freeze in the hope that they wouldn’t find you? Well, that's what you get as the sniper in this game, only you personally are out in the open, and you can't give anything away. It's like hide and seek coupled with poker because anything could give away a clue to the other players. An intake of breath, a twitch as they point to your space, even a small smirk as they fall into your trap. It’s all there for them to see, so you have to keep your cool and try not to let anything slip by. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff as they deliberate on sweeping spaces, one of which you're in, and you just hope they pick the other spot. Every time they point to that space or edge ever closer to where you are, you practically scream inside, but on the outside, you know you have to present an air of calm. I don’t just mean on the defender's turn either; it can sometimes be really hard not to let something slip as you set up a devilishly clever little move that would normally have you rubbing your hands with glee. With two different maps, random setup of the objectives, different loadout cards, and different abilities for the defenders to choose from, there is a ton of replayability in this box, including a solo mode. Here, you’ll take up the role of the sniper against the defenders. I’ve played this a couple of times, and the actual mechanics aren’t too hard to get your head around (roll a die and play out the card). The way the defenders moved didn’t necessarily feel all that intuitive to me, and that could easily have been me misinterpreting it, but on the flip side, there was a definite sense of them closing in at times and me having to change my plans to fit the situation, so there’s definitely enough of a challenge there for those who like to play solo. Sniping is a waiting game As much as I think that being the sniper is still a great role in the grand scheme of hidden movement games, it still has the potential of coming with a bit of downtime. It’s understandable that the defenders' discussions can get quite in-depth at times, although that depends on player count and the players themselves. It can be great to listen to these conversations, but even good things have the potential to go on for a bit too long. If this does become an ongoing issue, then potentially using some kind of timer to keep people in check could be an idea, especially if the deliberations are constantly “it could be this spot, but it could also be this spot” back and forth for a long time. On the flip side, the defender's role has the potential to have empty turns. Getting those clues is wonderful, but it could take a few turns until something presents itself. Gathering intel is great, but a clever sniper will know how to sidestep that for at least the first round, and as the defenders, using it constantly can feel like you're just treading water until you get a clue, at which point the sneaker could already be halfway to an objective, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  As I said earlier, I don't know enough to be able to tell you how fans of the video game are going to feel about this version. But I also think that ultimately it doesn’t matter if you come in from this with a love of the video game or if you didn’t even know that this was a spin-off of something because, I.P. or not, it’s just a really great hidden movement game and a great addition to the genre.  I'm off to clean the walls and floors of my house. I may have gotten a bit carried away and marked lines everywhere depicting every route I took. It's fine on the wooden floors, but the carpet needs a really good scrubbing.

Undaunted 2200: Callisto WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Any of the Undaunted Series Published by: Osprey Games Designed by: Trevor Benjamin , David Thompson (I) This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy  By Steve Godfrey The Undaunted series has taken us to different theatres of war, has seen us fight tooth and nail across epic battles, and has even taken us to the skies. Now, it takes us to the next logical step in that evolution... the sea... space. Wait, space? Really? Well, in that case, here is my review for Undaunted. In. Spaaaaaacceee. How to Callisto. If you’ve played any of the previous Undaunted games, then, bar a few new changes, you’ll know how to play this game. If you haven’t, then essentially Undaunted is a two-player deck-building strategy war game. Players will make up a basic deck of cards as dictated by the scenario you're playing. At the start of a round, each player will draw four cards, then choose and play one of them for their initiative value. Then, in turn order, each player will play the rest of their three cards. Each card will relate to a unit on the board and have a number of actions on it. You can play one of those actions on each card using that unit to carry them out. There are actions that let you move, control areas, attack, add cards to your deck, and many more. Your objective will change each scenario, but needless to say (although I’m going to say it anyway), whoever completes their objective first wins! “That’s no moon” If you’ve read my other Undaunted reviews, then it’s no secret that I love this series of games. If you have read my previous reviews, then all the praise that goes for those previous games applies here as well. Don’t worry, I’m not getting lazy and making you read previous reviews just so I don’t have to put the work in here. I am going to get to why I love this game. Although, that’s not a bad idea for the future! Speaking of the future, that’s exactly where the designers have decided to place this particular conflict, and this decision alone has done so many things for this series that I personally really appreciate. I know quite a few people who’ve really wanted to try an Undaunted game, but the real-world war theme just isn’t for them, so they’ve avoided the games. The minute this new theme was announced, though, all of them were immediately on board. In fact, I think most of them bought it upon release, and that speaks volumes to me about how popular this system is and the reputation it holds. It suddenly opened up the door for so many people to try this awesome series and get to experience a game that I already love and, in a slightly more selfish vein, it means that there are now so many more people I can potentially play this game with. I’m not sure if this was their intention to bring new players to the game when they had the idea for this new setting or if they just wanted to change things up in general, but regardless, it’s really opened things up. When two become one…….and four What else has opened up is the player count (I am on fire with these segway's) previous iterations were two player only unless you brought the reinforcements box (which I reviewed here ) in which case you had a solo and four player mode for Normandy and North Africa. This is the first game to come with a solo and four-player mode out of the box. The four-player game is pretty much what it was in that reinforcements box. Two teams of two, each player with their own separate squads, and the player with the commander/captain card on each team will draw four cards, and the other players three. The leaders play a card for initiative, with the winner's leader playing their turn, and then turns alternate until everyone has played a turn. Leadership changes hands when the current leader plays the captain card, which then goes in their teammate's discard pile, and then command passes to that player. Since the squads are already split into two in the setup, it’s a simple case of setting up as normal and just handing each player a squad. I still really like the four-player mode. Having someone with you to bounce ideas off of is a really nice change of pace and opens up room for some nice banter in a game that can sometimes be quite “heads down and get on with it.” Not only that, I can now happily take this to a game night/meet-up and get it played, and let’s be honest, any excuse for me to get this game to the table more often is a good one in my book.  Of course, your other option is solo play. Solo play has changed from reinforcements. Rather than being on cards, the solo bots are now in one book, making things a lot more manageable, easier to set up, and taking up far less room on the table (I have mine on a chair beside me). It still takes a little bit to run and still has a good-sized learning curve, so knowing the rules of the regular game is highly recommended before giving solo a go, just to save you from hopping between two rulebooks. The solo runs off a flowchart-style system. For example, it will say, if this situation is true, do this thing. If not, do this other thing, and so on until you can play one out or the bot can’t do anything. They’ve certainly learned from their previous efforts, as it does feel simpler to run than before, but as I said, it will take some getting used to and will require some perseverance before you can run it at a pace that won’t drag the game time. After a few goes, you start getting the hang of it, and you'll find that it’s a solo bot that can actually give you a decent challenge. In terms of theme, I love the little thematic changes they’ve added here. Elevation brings a nice little bit of extra strategy to the game as players fight for Obi-Wan's favorite place, the high ground. Now, units shooting down from the high ground will roll a D12, and units shooting up to the high ground will roll a D8. There’s only a two-number difference between each of the dice, but it really makes a huge tactical difference and is hugely thematic. You can’t help but feel powerful sitting up high and throwing those D12s and feel like you're just taking a random potshot with those D8s. Especially as you have to get closer to be able to make the shot, it adds that extra element of danger.  The part where I gush about the artwork One thing that I’ve only ever really touched on in previous reviews for these games is the art. Roland McDonald’s art for these games is as much of a staple as the game design and wouldn’t feel the same without him. With this game, though, I think he’s outdone himself. The art on the cards really pulls you in, and the small pictures on the cards displaying the characters under the helmets are inspired and keep the personal touch of the previous games. Where he’s really allowed to shine in this one, though, is those boards. Up until now, the modular tiles have had their own restrictions art-wise. Because of the now permanent, unchangeable boards, he’s been given the opportunity to show what he can really do, and he hasn’t disappointed. Every one is its own work of art that could easily distract you from the game as you look at every little detail that he’s been able to flood the board with. It makes the whole experience so much more thematic. Let’s talk about the boards (seriously though, should I get into Segway riding? Is that even a thing?) Callisto veers away from the modular boards of old and now gives us four double-sided map boards. When this was first announced, I was a bit apprehensive about them. Now that I’ve played with them, that apprehension has gone away, for the most part. As mentioned above, the space for beautiful art is a huge bonus; it reduces setup time, and pretty much all of your mission info and starting setup (aside from the deck makeup) is printed on the board, so you shouldn’t need to reference the mission book after initial setup. On the downside, the box now needs to be much bigger than the previous games and is now a lot heavier. You also don’t have the flexibility to create your own maps. This one doesn’t bother me personally, as I never really did that anyway, but it could definitely be a downer if that was something you dabbled in.  The dark side of the moon The next thing I want to touch on may very well be a “me” issue, but I wanted to talk about it because it’s the main reason why the score is lower than I think a lot of people would expect from me at this point.  For some reason, I find the deck setup for this game takes me considerably longer than in the previous games. I don’t know if it’s the sheer number of cards that you use as the missions go on, or if it’s that you’ve got two to three separate units per mech, or just that I’m still getting my head around the different naming conventions of previous games. I’m not sure. The boards have made board population quicker, but the deck setup seems to have nullified that advantage for me. It doesn’t help that some of the letters in the LFA cards are quite similar. The V and the Y, and the font used, make these two look very similar. That similarity also doesn’t help when identifying units on the board, that coupled with the generic naming convention of the enemy and we found ourselves on a few occasions taking back a couple of moves because the wrong counter was moved. The names are of course very thematic to a big corporation and this may well be an overhang from me coming from the previous iterations but I’ve played the game enough that I probably should have acclimatised to it by now. I’d be genuinely interested to see if this is just me or if anyone else feels the same way, especially if you’re a veteran of the previous games.  There are also quite a few typos throughout and these can range from, not over important up to game changing. One is a wrong point objective value on the scenario two board and another puts a wrong unit into your deck setup on another scenario. It’s understandable that games will have the odd typo now and then, but it’s unfortunate that these have been missed and had game changing effects. I’m confident Osprey will have these corrected on the next print run but for now they’ve posted and errata document on board game geek which I’ll link to here   This game still presents all of the simple, fun and strategic game play of its predecessors that make these games close, tense affairs that will have you coming back to them time and time again either to try a different side or a different strategy.  If you already love Undaunted then I see no reason, other than if the theme doesn’t grab you, that you shouldn’t enjoy this new addition. The changes made are minimal in the grand scheme of things so the quick to learn gameplay of previous editions has been kept relatively intact. Right I’m off to try and predict where or when the next Undaunted game is going to be set. Probably not going to put any bets on it though, especially not after last time when I bet my house! That reminds me, I need to let my wife know we're moving!

A Nice Cuppa WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 1 You’ll like this if you like: Light, solo, puzzles. Published by: Button Shy Designed by: Scott Almes This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . A Nice Cuppa is the seventh instalment in the Button Shy Simple Solo series. These games are designed for a single player, feature simple rules, and offer great replayability. It successfully crowdfunded in 2024 and is now available for pre-order on the Button Shy website. The game centres around the theme of relaxing over a cup of tea, whiling away the stresses of life, and focusing in a mindful way on the single action of making and enjoying a cup of tea whilst solving a delicate puzzle It's basically how I live 25% of my life, so I am fully invested. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up A Nice Cuppa Shuffle the seven Tea cards and place them face up on their coloured focus side in a random order, in a line on the table. Now, shuffle the ten Worry cards and deal seven of them at random face down below each card. Discard the other three cards back into the sleeve, you wont be using them this game. You are now ready to play. There are two mini expansions that you can easily add to the game at this stage. The Good Book expansion adds in two new Tea and three new Worry cards. Add these into each deck separately and play the game as usual, but this time lay out nine of each card instead of seven. The Seasonal Stresses mini-expansion adds four new Stress cards. Pick one based on the season that you are currently in, or simply the one you want to use, and place it face up above the row of tea cards. How To Play A Nice Cuppa Flip one of the seven (or nine, if you are playing with the Good Book expansion) Worry cards. It can be any one. The game suggests you start with the card underneath the number one Tea card, though, in your early games. Then, from left to right, activate each Worry card. On your first turn, this will simply be the card you just flipped, but on later turns, you may have more than one Worry card to perform. The cards allow you to move the Tea card order around, mostly in pairs, but also individually. However, all within specific parameters, such as swapping an odd-numbered card with an even one, or changing the position of one pair with one other single card in the row. You are looking to get the cards in sequential order, left to right, but by the end of the game. Not too soon! When you have activated the Worry cards, you will now flip over every Tea card that is now above a face-up Worry card. This could flip it back to its focused side if previously you had flipped it already to its distracted side. Ideally, you want as many on the Focused side by the end of the game. Then remove any face-up Worry card that is now underneath a Tea card that is on its focused side. Then, finally, if you want to, you can swap any two adjacent Tea cards. This is the end of this round. Move onto the next round by flipping over one more face-down Worry card to its face-up side. Then activate all face-up Worry cards just as above. Continue like this until there are no more face-up Worry cards at the end of a round. When this happens, play one final round, skipping the first step where you flip over face-down Worry cards, of course. Then score your final array of Tea cards based on the longest sequence of sequential cards you have starting from the number one onwards. You will score two points for any card in this sequence that is on the focused side and one point for any card in this sequence on the distracted side. If you are using the Seasonal Stresses mini-expansion, be sure to take note of the specific requirement of your chosen additional stress. And then take the shown reward when you meet this requirement. If the stress card remains in play at the end of the game, it removes three points from your final score. The Good Book expansion plays exactly the same as the base game, except you will play one extra round, and the final scoring is a little different, starting from the zero card instead of the one. Also, be sure to check the back of the score sheet to see how your final score stacks up. Is It Fun? A Nice Cuppa Card Game Review This game is obviously aiming for the "cosy" category. The art style. The theme. The wording. Everything about it screams "love me because I am relaxing!" And I am not 100% sure it succeeds there. Not because it is a bad game. Quite the contrary. More that as a solo puzzle, this is actually quite tense. Relatively speaking! The experience is still somewhat cosy, if that is what you are after. You are sitting alone. Doing minimal actions. Flipping the odd card here and there. And setup and game length are all perfect for a nice cup-of-tea break. Playing this in between day-to-day tasks, or whilst you are having a relaxing meditative moment to yourself is a perfect opportunity to take yourself away from your everyday stresses. For that purpose, I can see this game being seen as cosy. But "cosy" is very much an overused word in the hobby right now. And what does it even mean? I interpret it to mean relaxing, solitary, and meditative. Not too taxing on your brain, but enough of a puzzle to take your mind off other things. And again, this game hits all those points with aplomb. As I mentioned above, there can be relatively tense moments as you come to the end of a game that you have done quite well in, and you only have one or two more turns left and you are trying to get the final few tea cards into the right position. If you get good and start winning a lot, this tension obviously will go. But for me, where my full point victories are currently coming in around 50% of the time, I want to get those final cards into position to claim a victory, and I know that fact is far from certain. It makes me a little tense. I am unsure if tense and cosy go together. But that makes this game better, not worse. It is just a little far away from cosy. But in terms of mechanics and enjoyment, this tension that builds perfectly through your turns will make this light and quick experience feel worthwhile. But I do not want to oversell this. This is a very simple and quick game that you will play through in minutes. The two expansions add a little more variety, but not too much. And you will have mostly the same experience each time. But that experience is a delicately and perfectly balanced puzzle that will test you just enough to make the game satisfying when you win, and still enjoyable when you don't score full marks. Because, of course, this is not a win-lose scenario. Getting all the numbers into sequential order will score you full marks, but the game gives you partial credit for still achieving some of the cards in order. It is up to you how that makes you feel when you do that. For me, in my first few games, I was obviously fine with it. It is actually quite a tricky puzzle to solve. But when you have played a few times and got them all in order a couple of times, you will want to do that every time. And that is not easy! And I think this difficulty level is set to the perfect spot. It keeps you coming back for more as you want to win. Winning with full points feels achievable. But you know it won't happen every game. So when it does come good, it feels great. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the idea of having a small, portable, quick, and light game that they can carry around with them to play wherever and whenever, to give themselves a short break from existence, and absorb themselves into this intriguing little puzzle. If you are a fan of tea, this may appeal more. It can become quite abstract, I imagine, but I play mostly with a cup of tea alongside this, and really lean into the theme. It works for me both with the enjoyment of the game from the theme, but also to set my mind at ease and really reward myself with that five-minute break we all need once in a while.

Mars Expedition: Sol 43 WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 1-2 You’ll like this if you like: Solving increasingly difficult logic puzzles Published by: Queensell This is a free review copy of the game. See our review policy here . This game looks just like any other game. And it has components just like any other game, but it plays very differently. This, as it says on the box, is a logic game. And if you think that is a small subtle difference to a usual board or card game, then fair enough. But I would say it sets it apart in a significant way. And I would go as far as to say that if you like logic puzzles, then you will love this. Adore it even. But if you are not a fan of logic puzzles, this will not be for you. The game will draw you in with its theme and components, but the gameplay may frustrate or even disappoint. But for fans of logic puzzles, this may well become one of your favourite games. I for one am addicted. So, with that said, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Mars Expedition: Sol 43 Logic Game There are 43 unique missions in this game. For your first experience, it is strongly recommended to start with Sol 1 and work your way up from there. It will not only teach you the game in manageable bites, but it will also ramp up the difficulty in a way that you will become a master at this game, rather than become frustrated at the harder levels without having the necessary experience to solve them. That said, if you have played this game a lot, feel free to take aby level to start with or play as a one-off mission. Place your chosen Sol card face up in front of you next to the main game board. The card will show the components used in this mission, and the positioning for them on the main board. You can decipher this simply by looking at the symbols on the left and top of the main board. For example, in the below mission, Sol 4, you have a Base, Drone, and eight rocks. The Base is positioned on the row showing the Triangle, in the column with the shape half filled on the left hand side. Make sense? Let's do one more. The Drone starts on the second to bottom row on the second to last column, again, matching the symbol shown on the Sol 4 card. once you get a hang of this, set up for each level is very simple, and they all work like this. There will just be extra components in the later rounds. Mountains, Tornados, Gravitational Anomalies, Minerlas. All sorts. Place all the necessary pieces out on the board and add either one or two Drones to the starting location depending on if you are playing single or two player. In solo, you are now ready to play. In a two-player game, you now must now shuffle the deck of cards and deal five to each player. Place the remaining cards face down in a pile next to the wind dice. You are now ready to play. How To Play Mars Expedition: Sol 43 Logic Game The game mostly works the same in solo or two-player mode, except that in a solo game, you are racing against the clock in terms of how many turns you can have. On the back of the setup card for the solo game you are playing, it will show the mission and how many turns you must achieve this mission in. In a two-player game, you still need to complete this mission, but turn numbers are not irrelevant; it is simply a race between the two players to see who can complete it first and gain the most points in doing so. Missions range from simply getting back to base, as seen in the early Sols, to collecting minerals and substances, photographing specific locations, and navigating various weather and gravitational phenomena. Players will take turns, with the white drone always moving first, to move their drone in order to complete the missions. In solo mode, simply move the drone until you either complete the mission or run out of turns. The drone always moves in the same S shape: one forward, one to the right or left, and one forward again. You can do this in any way you like, moving in any direction, but it must always be done in the S shape. As the missions advance, you will encounter new rules, components, and factors that affect your movement and goals. I do not want to spoil it here as I think a big part of this game is experiencing that for yourself. But I will go as far as to say that certain things will move your drone for you as you advance the levels, and you need to really think carefully about how and where you move to complete the mission in the best way. This is a logic puzzle after all. In a two-player game, the first player back to base scores one point. There are also points for collecting various artefacts, taking pictures, and taking the shortest flight during the game. You can track this by keeping a logbook, monitoring your moves. This is not essential, but key if you want to score like this in a two-player game and cannot keep count in your head. You can play a single mission or a series, the complete set. As you get to the later levels, separate secondary boards are used to show close-up details of specific areas where your movement has new rules. All simply explained when you get there; again, I do not want to spoil that here. Is It Fun? Mars Expedition: Sol 43 Logic Game This is incredibly easy to review. If you like logic games, buy this. I think you will adore it. The theme is great fun and is used in a very clever and scientific way. The components all look great, and the development of the levels is perfect. They ramp up in difficulty in the perfect way, adding new things at the right time to keep things interesting and moving at the right pace. I adore the single-player mode that works just so well, and find the two-player game to be completely different, with obviously a lot more player interaction as you mess around with each other's plans. It makes for a very different experience. One that I personally do not like as much, as I want to focus on the most logical way through each level, and being messed around with is just frustrating! But it is fun, you just need to go into it with the right attitude. If you do not like logic puzzles, this may come across as too similar level after level, and not inspiring enough to keep you coming back for more. But if that is the case, why did you buy a game with logic puzzle written on the front? But joking aside, I can see why this game would appeal to those of you who do not like games like this, the cover art is fantastic and it has a very intriguing theme. But do not look past the simple fact that this is a logic puzzle first and foremost. I have very much enjoyed going through the SOL's one by one in single player. I have played only ten levels in two-player mode. In two-player, I would give this a 6. It is just too frustrating a game to play with people making you skip turns or moving their own Drone in a way you did not expect. It is very clever and works very well. It is just not for me. But I can see others enjoying that a lot. In solo mode, I adore this and have found great peace and solitude in working my way through the levels one by one. It is incredibly satisfying to get right and noodle your way through. I feel engaged as I play and smart and gratified when I complete a mission. Failing is fine. Set up and go again. And setup is a breeze once you get the hang of reading the symbols, which takes maybe one or two quick games. It is very intuitive. As such, this is a simple recommendation. If you like logic puzzles and this theme interests you, buy this. If you don't, maybe this is not for you. I, for one, adore it.

Order here - Tales Of Tails WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Cute animal themed push-your-luck games Published by:   Hobby World Designed by:   Denis Saidashev This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . When I look at the box art for this game, I get a real sense of the brilliant 80s children's cartoon, Dungeons & Dragons . And I loved that show! So, I was keen to try this game, simply from the box art. I knew it would have nothing to do with the show, but nostalgia is a powerful tool. Tales Of Tails is less about 80's cartoons though, and more about Dogs finding gold in a spiralling maze! Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Tales Of Tails Each player takes one of the Doggo player boards along with seven matching Paw tokens and places it in front of them. Each character has its own unique skill, so be sure to check that as you make your choice. Five tokens are placed on the board directly, whereas two are left off to the side. You may be able to get these later in the game. Next, shuffle the Quest cards and deal two to each player, placing the remaining cards back into the box. Each player will choose one of these Quest cards to keep as their own personal Quest, placing this face down in their play area. Keep that a secret! The second card is placed face up in the middle for all to see and is now a common Quests, open to all players. Now, find the starting heart-shaped room card—set to the appropriate player count—and place it in the centre of the play area. You can use the two-player side for higher player counts if you want a more challenging game. Next, stack three round tokens onto this card with round three on the bottom and round one on the top. Shuffle the remaining room tiles and form a face-down deck. Shuffle all Potion cards into a separate face-down deck, dealing each player one card from the top. Players will place this Potion card next to their player board face up for all to see. Give the first player token to the last player to pet a dog, and you are now ready to begin. How To Play Tales Of Tails Players will now take turns to do one of three actions across the three rounds. The first action is to explore the dungeon. Here, you will simply draw the top card and place it onto any open space in the dungeon you choose. The only rule is you must connect at least one path from this new tile. You can rotate it however you see fit and place it next to any other previously placed tile. The second option is to escape the dungeon. Here, you simply need to plot a route from the starting point to any exit. An exit is a way out of any tile that has no other tile next to it. You can move through as many tiles as you wish, but if you encounter a trap or monster, you need to be able to defeat or survive this encounter. This is done by having the correct symbols on your player board or any previously attained cards that match the amount needed as shown on the card you are currently encountering. If you do not have the necessary symbols, you can still get through traps and monsters, you just cannot take the card after the round to gain the benefit from the monster cards, and will take a forfeit from any traps that were not disarmed. Any card you activate, be that a defeated monster, a trap you have not disarmed, a room with a coin, potion, or artefact you want to collect, a treasure chest you can collect (with a key collected previously), a portal you use, or a Stray Raccoon you want to recruit, simply place one of your paw prints onto this room. Trace your route to an available exit, and that is the end of you turns this round. The final option available to players is to take a nap. This is what you will do if there is no available route of the dungeon for you, be that because the monsters are all too strong and you cannot defeat them, or survive an encounter with them, or you would simply prefer to gain an extra paw print. Taking a nap ends your action this round; you will not gain any benefits from any rooms, but you will move one of the two paw prints you placed next to your player mat during setup onto your mat, so you have an extra one for any subsequent rounds. When the first player escapes the dungeon, the remaining players will then take four, eight, or twelve cards from the top of the deck, depending on if there are one, two, or three other players remaining in the dungeon. These players will then only be able to draw from the reduced deck to explore the dungeon for the rest of this round. They need to plan and find a route to escape before this deck runs out, or otherwise, take a nap. At the end of the round, all players will take the cards with their paw prints on and gather them up. They will score any rooms with coins on at the end of the game, subtracting any traps that were not disarmed, and gaining any defeated monsters and recruiting raccoons, slipping them under the left side of their player board so the symbols showing the additional fighting power are only now visible. You will do the same with any keys gathered, slipping them under the right side of your board. You will now be strong to fight your way through the dungeon in any subsequent rounds. Take off the top round tracker from the central tile and start again with another round. Do this three times and then at the end of the game, players will total their coins, and the player with the most gold collected wins the game. Ties are broken by the number of monsters defeated. Remember to total any coins gathered from completed quests, be that your own personal quest, or any shared common one. Is It Fun? Tales Of Tails Card Game Review This game comes very close to excellent. As it is, it is good, but there are a two main things that hold it back a little. Let's go through them to see if this is for you or not. First, the number of tiles you will put down in the first round that you cannot really encounter can be frustrating. There will be monsters that are too powerful, treasure chests that need keys you do not have, doors you cannot get through, and traps you cannot disarm. It can be annoying to see all this opportunity that is unavailable to you. As such, you will find you take a fairly simple route through the dungeon, as long as there is one, and will not build your engine much at all. This then means the next round could well be the same. You really do need to try and defeat a monster or two as quickly as possible in order to level up so you can take on more monsters and harder foes later on to gain the bigger rewards. In three rounds, this is tough to do. I do wonder if this should have been five rounds instead. The game over the rounds is lovely and quick, finished within 15-30 minutes depending on player count; so I think another couple of rounds would have been fine. And it would allow you to build up your powers so you can have that big meaty round you really need in this game to make the rest of it worth it. There can be a lot of tile placement and dungeon exploring without the payoff in some games. Second, this is very much a push-your-luck game along with tile placement and dungeon crawling. Often, a perfect route will be available to you, but if another player escapes the dungeon first, this route is now blocked to you. You cannot pass through a room that has another player's paw print on it. If the other direction has a Dragon you simply cannot take on, or a trap you cannot disarm, this can be frustrating. And it leads to players jumping ship quickly and taking the sometimes only suitable route very early. This, compounded with the above point, makes the game quicker, engine building even harder, and the chance to develop interesting routes out of the dungeon even more difficult. Outside of that, this game is a lot of fun. As mentioned, it plays very quickly. Turns are rapid: draw a tile, place it somewhere. The sense of trepidation as you build routes that may or may not be for you, and waiting to see if other players take them before you have the chance to do so yourself, is genuinely exhilarating. But also, as mentioned above, it's frustrating when it does not pay off for you. There is a fine line in push-your-luck games like this, when the thing you are pushing your luck against is other players, and not the game itself. It is fine to lose out on something to the game, but to lose out to other players can be annoying, and does create runaway leaders sometimes in this game. If one player takes the only available route that gains them coins and power-ups, and other players have to take either weaker routes or perhaps even take a nap, this then means in later rounds, that first player really does have a big advantage to simply further their lead. I like the idea that when someone is out, the game then has a clock attached to it, with a limited amount of cards available to the remaining players to explore. This stops the game dragging and the player who escaped sitting there for ages waiting. But it does also mean the dungeon size is controlled largely by one player, the first one to leave. And the others have to go along with basically whatever is left. I think it would have made more sense to remove this rule, let other players build as they like so that the first player to go is less likely to do so as quickly as they know the other players then have an advantage to build for as long as they wish. There is still the advantage to go first by having first choice of route, but then it does not cause all the other issues mentioned. Perhaps there could be a bonus to the first player out, so there is still some incentive to get out, and not just take it in turn to build a huge dungeon. Limiting the number of cards to the other players when the first player leaves is a real issue for me. That said, this game is still fun. It is very light and quick, and will appeal to younger players from the art, theme, and simple gameplay. But I find for myself, playing with my children, it can be frustrating, as I see a game that could well be an 8 or even higher, limited by a few issues that just don't make sense to me. I still enjoy playing and look forward to playing the game more. It is so quick to set up and play, and teaching new players is a breeze. It does have a lot of appeal. The rule book is not the clearest, though, so I hope the basic rules add some clarity for some. But again, this layout, perhaps delivered from a language translation, does cause some issues for me, along with the above points, about exactly who this game is aimed at. It is a little too hard for a proper family game, but the art, theme, simplicity, and game length suggest it is more aimed at a younger audience. It is perhaps simply a filler for gamers who want a quick dungeon crawl game with elements of engine building, push-your-luck, and tile placement. And you either need to go into it with the above understanding or one or two house rules to overcome this.

Dream Catcher WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Dixit, but you want a change. Published by: Magellan Designed by:   Mihail Rozanov This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Dream Catcher is an intriguing game. The concept is essentially Dixit , but with a touch element. As such, it is hard to review fairly. If Dixit did not exist, this could well be a 9 or 10 out of 10 game. But Dixit does exist. And this is just a variation of it, and we must take that into consideration. That said, the game itself still offers something quite unique. It is just based upon something that already exists. I will try to take all of this into account within this review. So, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Dream Catcher Place the nine cloud tokens onto the table face down with the dark side facing up. Next to this, place the four circular choice tokens, and the large Dream Catcher token. Now, shuffle both decks and place the Dream cards face down next to the Touching cards in a separate deck. Deal four Dream cards to the first player (known as the Lead player) and five Touching cards. You are now ready to play. The lead player will study their cards and choose one Dream card to pick. They are looking for a Dream card that somehow links to at least one, but preferably more, of their Touching cards. Now, the lead player will randomly place their four Dream cards face up on the table for all to see. They will take the four Choice tokens and place them under the cards, being sure to place them face down, and the token with the star on underneath the chosen card. They will now hand over their chosen Touch cards to the other players. They must choose at least two, but can use all five if they wish. The lead player decides which players get which Touch cards. Each player who received a Touch card now studies their Touch card, without looking. Running their finger over the raised lines on the reverse of the card, to try and identify in their mind's eye what is on the Touch card. They all show simple objects or symbols. As hard as it feels to begin with, they are all achievable. Players can discuss out loud with their fellow teammates what they are feeling. They must be sure they do not look at the card themselves, or show it to any of the other players. The Lead player must remain silent at this point. As players start to think they have deciphered what is on their Touch cards, they then need to try and link that image to one of the four Dream cards. Which Dream card was the Lead player trying to make them think of with the Touch cards they chose? The Dream cards show a complex image with mixture of people, objects, and places. Similar to cards as seen in Dixit. When the group has made a decision, they will place the Dream catcher token on the chosen card. The Lead player then flips the Card choice tokens over to reveal which card had the star underneath. If the players chose correctly, you can flip over one of the nine cloud tokens to reveal a star. One point for the end of the game. If they chose incorrectly, remove one of the nine cloud tokens. The player sitting clockwise next to the Lead player now becomes the new Lead player, and they begin the next round. The game continues until all cloud tokens are either flipped or removed. The players then score as a team based on their stars on the cloud tokens. Seven or above is the top score. One to three is the lowest. Four to six is the middle ranking. The rulebook offers some flavour text for each grade. Is It Fun? Dream Catcher Party Game Review If you have not played Dixit or similar games, this will feel revolutionary. If you have played those games, then this will be a little gimmicky; clever - but potentially limited in terms of its replayability. This is down to the number of Touch cards. There are 83 in total. And after five games, we have started to see a fair few of these cards repeat themselves. Players are now able to guess what they are, based not just on what they touch, but what they remember from other games. Meta knowledge plays a huge part in how easy this game can become, which is a bad thing. The satisfaction in those early games of deciphering an octopus shape and then seeing something similar in a card after five minutes of blind panic and confusion is wildly satisfying, though. I just worry that this revolutionary feeling is limited to the number of cards in the game. Like Dixit, which has benefited from numerous expansions, this game would be considerably improved by more Touch cards. Or, being able to create your own would be even better. Some mechanic where you can draw your own shape, not too complex that it cannot be worked out, but specific enough to find the correct card. Perhaps in a time limit. I am unsure how this would work. How could you create a component that lets you make your own 3D touch cards? I have no idea. But that would make this game a lot better. A unique and new Touch card each time would make this game amazing. That said, as is, even with the limited Touch cards, and the strong leaning on the giant that is Dixit, this game is still a lot of fun. I own Dixit and will keep this game in my collection as it offers something different and unique, and I could see it coming out after games of Dixit to offer my friends that next surprise. If Dixit has landed, I can see myself saying as I place this down, "OK, now try it with just touch rather than words!" That appeals to me greatly. There are also chunkier shapes such as the ones below. Unlike the more simple line drawings, which are all a lot easier to decipher, these thicker shapes, with chunkier parts, are more complex and take longer to work out. Although, sadly, they are also the easier ones to remember on repeat plays. As such, I would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Dixit but wants something a little different. If you do not enjoy games like Dixit, this will probably just frustrate you even more. But fans of those games will find something that is trying to push the boundaries of this style of party game, and on this occasion, I think it has landed very much on the side of fun!

Kavango WBG Score: 9/10 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Card games with interesting layers and scoring. Published by: Mazaza Games Designed by:   Matt Brown , Zara Reid This is a free review copy of the Delux version. See our review policy here . I previously previewed this game here . But I wanted to write a full review as well because this game is good. It is very good. But I saw a very strange review on The Dice Tower where it was rated a 4, 5, and 7 out of 10 from the three reviewers there. Which to me was very interesting. I simply do not agree with their criticism. But I felt I perhaps may be a little biased. I met the designers a few times at various conventions over the years and thought they were delightful people. They gave me a copy of the preview version of the game to test, and have since sent me a full final version. I was concerned I was defending them from this criticism simply because I liked the designers. Usually, I like to get my reviews out as quickly as possible. I don't like to create a backlog of reviews. That stresses me out. And as I typically play new games five or more times over one week, I feel I can get a good feel for them within a short period of time and my reviews out within the first month of receiving them. But for Kavango, despite thinking like this, I wanted to pause. Give myself a few months. And see if, after time, I still felt how I originally did. My first score for this game on BGG was a nine. Would I still feel the same way after months of play and many different games of this in many different scenarios. I have tried all play counts. With gamers and with non-gamers. With people who love heavier games like Ark Nova, and with those who prefer lighter experiences and were initially intimidated by this. I feel that now, after time, I can review this game as fairly as possible. I am sure I still have some bias, but the games I don't like that come from the designers I do, I simply just don't really talk about. I send them back with reasons for why they don't work for me. This game however, has seen may repeat plays. There is a reason for that. So, with that said, let's get this to the table and see what we can gain from the Dice Tower review. But first, how does it play? How To Set Up Kavango Each player takes a landscape board and places it in front of them along with the matching Protection board, which you can place above this board to the right side. You will need space on the left for cards. Then place the main board into the play area so that all players can reach it. Place the bank of coloured cubes and card trays alongside this. Now, all players take the matching animeeple and completion tokens matching their colour and add their animeeple to the zero space on the score tracker, and their tokens next to their player board. Then, each player takes one, two, or three cubes from the bank matching their colour, depending on if players want to start with an easy, intermediate, or expert difficulty rating for the game. I recommend taking three for your first few games. It's a lot more fun to be able to do things! Next, shuffle the goal cards and deal one to each player. You can remove these for a simpler game, but I think they add minimal complexity and give some nice direction for each player. Give each player one Conservation expert card as well; this will give each player a unique power to help them in the game. Explanations for all cards can be found in the rule book, but they are mostly self-explanatory. Next, deal out two C cards for each player, and draft one at a time until all players have two cards. These are added to each player's Sanctuary on their player board on the right-hand side. These cards can be added to each player's main board later if they meet the requirements for these cards. Like the goal cards, they simply give each player some direction in the early game. Now, set up the cards for round one. The process for this is shown on the player aids and card tray itself. Deal out three Action cards, two for a three to five player game, and six A cards and six B Cards. Five of each in a three to five player game. These 12 or 15 cards are dealt to each player. Finally, deal four research cards into the central board, face up so all players can see them. You are now ready to play. How To Play Kavango Play now proceeds through three rounds, starting with a draft phase. All players will look at the cards and pick one to play immediately. If the card they chose was an Animal, this will be placed directly into any space on their player board. This is the main way to score points in the game. But you can only add animals if you meet their criteria. This is broken down into two main areas. Each animal will have a minimum protection level required in order to be safely housed in your sanctuary, along with specific food requirements. There are three protection criteria, Habitat and Poaching, as shown on your own Protection board that each player controls for themselves; and Climate, which is a shared level seen on the main board. During the next phase, players can add cubes they have to either one of these three trackers, filling them in from left to right. There are four levels for each, and you need to fill the complete section for each one in order to meet that levels requirements. The Climate protection is a shared tracker that all players can contribute too. Players are encouraged to all work together on this tracker with a reward of 10 points at the end of the game if they added at least eight cubes to it. Climate is everyone's problem after all! Each animal also has specific food requirements, shown by various symbols. You will need to have the same or more of these symbols in your sanctuary already, either on other animal cards previously placed, or in your tucked producer cards (more on that soon) in order to add new animal cards into your sanctuary. For example, this Honey Badger requires level two or higher Poaching, and at least one Bee, one Small Mammal, and two Invertebrates. If you have a Water Snake and one other Invertebrate, this Pygmy Mouse, and one Bee for example in your play area already, you could add the Honey Badger from your hand to your player board in any position for free. If the card you add from your hand is a Producer, you will add this into the appropriate column, tucked under your player board in the top right. Producers are seen in the A cards only, and are identified by the Producer symbols on the top left of the card, instead of showing a points amount, and the simpler art without the text. Producer cards do not get you points like animals, but they allow you to build up your engine so you have the right things needed by other Animals cards that you will be able to successfully place later. There are a limited amount of each Producer type, and gaining the right ones in round one will be crucial to your success. The third thing you can do with cards is to simply discard them. This can be done with previously played cards in your Sanctuary as well, although this should be a last resort! Each discarded card will gain you one cube. Each cube is worth one million. Cubes can be used to advance levels in the three protection levels or by purchasing rewilding cards. Rewilding cards cost $4m can be bought on the next phase, and can act as any of the Producer cards. Critical if you do not gain the Producers you need in round one. The final thing you can do with cards is play them as action cards. There are only a few in each round, and any action cards must be played immediately before being discarded. Action cards give you various powers, such as the below cards which allow you to swap an animal in your sanctuary with one from another player's board, gain $2m from the bank to spend on climate protection and gain a point, or gain a rewilding card for free. Pretty valuable when you consider they are usually worth $4m! When all players have chosen and played their cards, they can then decide if they want to complete any of the four research cards drawn for that round. There are three different levels for each research card, and the further up the levels you go, the more money and points you can claim. You can only claim each research card once though. So, you must decide if you want to do it early in order to gain much-needed money to help you advance further in that round with other goals, or do you wait until you have reached a higher level to be rewarded with higher riches later on? Place a completion token on any research card you want to complete now, and then take your money and points as shown by that level on that card. With any money you have, this is the phase of the game where you can now advance your various protection levels and/or buy rewilding cards. When all players have done this, players pass all remaining cards clockwise to the next player. The round continues with players taking one card from this new set of cards, playing that card, and then deciding if they want to complete any research cards and invest in any protection levels once more. Continue like this until all players have played ten turns. Any remaining cards are simply discarded. After the round ends, players will complete any additional research cards they have left that they can now complete, and then four new research cards will be added for the next round. The next round's cards will be dealt to each player, with round two seeing the number of A and B cards reduced to three cards each, and six C cards added for one to two players, and five added for three to five. In round three, you simply have 12 or ten C cards (based on player count) along with the usual three or two Action cards (again based on player count). At the end of the game, players will score points for all animals in their play area, plus ten points for meeting the criteria of three different conservation awards. The first is for adding eight or more cubes to the shared Climate protection. The second is for having at least one of the eleven different types of species in your play area, and the third is for reaching level four on both your own personal Poaching and Habitat protection levels. Players will also score points based on their own private goal cards, and any final research cards from round three. The most points wins. Is It Fun? Kavango Board Game Review I adore this game. I find the simplicity in rules and mechanics incredibly refreshing. The game looks like it will plays like something far more complex and it gives you the satisfaction and personal reward of playing a much heavier game, but it does so in a light and relaxing experience. The card play is so rewarding. Choosing which Producers to go for, to match with the Animal cards you want to get is highly satisfying and an interesting process to go through. But this all happens within a drafting game, where of course, you will not always get all the cards you want. If you see more than one card you "must" have in your first hand, it is obviously unlikely you will get the second, so which one do you go for? Choices like this are fascinating to me. But there are always ways to recover from any card losses, with the rewilding cards being a huge blessing when needed. And if you miss out on something juicy in one hand, there are always more coming your way in the others. I think the game looks and feels incredible too. The production levels are fantastic, and the art is simply stunning. Everything about this game screams quality to me, and I simply adore it. Everyone I have played it with has enjoyed the experience too. Some have said it was a lot lighter than they thought, but this was a good thing. And of course, thinking a game is heavier than it is based on the number of components and size of the box but then finding out it is a lot simpler for me is a good thing. But players do need to have their expectations managed. And it must be said, the size and weight of this box, and number of components, do create a feeling this is a medium to heavyweight game, when it is in fact rated a 2.28 on BGG, and I would say even that is a little high. This is very much a medium to lightweight game at most. So, set your expectations accordingly. But, it still gives you a wonderful feeling of playing a game full of meaningful decisions, interesting card play, rewarding scoring, and challenging interactions with other players. So, what about those Dice Tower criticisms? Well, let's get to them all, one by one. For the record, this was reviewed by Wendy, Camila and Zee. I tend to agree with Wendy and Zee on most things. Camila, I have often found I disagree with a lot of her opinions. We obviously have different tastes. First, they talked about the focus being too much on the goals. For me, the main area to concentrate on is the animal cards. You will want to do well in the goals, but you do that by finding the right animal cards. The goals add a level of focus for each round, with the opportunity to gain money throughout or big points at the end. This choice is a wonderful addition to the game to keep your money coming in if you need it, or a big points reward at the end if you can get to the final goal. Second, they talked about turn order issues. The only time turn order comes into affect in any kind of significant way is when you play an Action card at the same time as another player, and even this has minimal impact on the game. There is an element of importance to turn order in terms of which card you take from your hand, as you always get first choice from the hand you are dealt, but so does every other player with every other hand. But they also suggest issues around the shared Climate goal, that I will come to shortly. They talk about liking the passion behind the project, and they say this can be clearly seen. I agree. But they say they think the game is too long for the simplicity of it. I would agree for game one. But play this again and you will fly through it. There are only three rounds, and each round you draft one card and play it. I have played three-player games of this in 40 minutes. This criticism screams of a reviewer who has played the game once or twice. The game is very light but can take a while to play for your first game. But after that first learning game I believe the weight to length is on point. They also say the player boards are too big, and you can simply stack the cards instead. This is true. Stacking would be a disappointing way to play the game, it would take away a lot of the theme and delight from the artwork. But the boards are too big; this is a table hog, and they perhaps could be designed better. They talk about the theme not coming through, and how it simply disappears when you play and that you are just matching symbols. I could not disagree with this more. Of course, that is what you are doing, but I struggle to see how most people would not name each card based on what it is, and at least glance at the artwork, and think about what each card needs based on what it is, rather than simply the icons on the left of the card. I suppose this is down to your own play style. But it does seem unlikely to affect most players in this manner. But then the reviewers on the Dice Tower do go on to say the irrelevance around the placement of the animals on their board affects this lack of theme. I agree here, the lack of relevance to where you place the cards is disappointing. I would like for additional scoring to be made available based on specific groupings or placements on the board. But you can place cards anywhere on your board and this does not affect anything. I disagree this makes the game theme-less, but it does remove some additional scoring layers that could have made the game more interesting. The main criticism though seem to be around the simultaneous nature of the game, where players draft and play cards all at once. This links back to the earlier turn-order issue. They say players can all contribute money to the shared climate protection level in different orders which is a problem. They say if it is simultaneous, it all should be played this way, or not at all. I am unsure quite what they are saying here, as players all play at once in the choose card and play card phase, then in the complete research and invest phase, you can decide here if you want to place money into the shared climate goal or not. They say players will simply wait to see if other players do this first. Sure, you can do this. But there are ten points up for grabs if you add at least eight, and other players may not have cards that need higher Climate levels. If you do, then you need to add cubes there. If it helps other players, then so be it, but you will get ten points for doing so if you place enough, and you can now place your cards that require this level. There is no way you can reach the higher levels alone, so you need to assess if other players are looking at cards with higher Climate levels or not, perhaps even talk it through if you want. Or look at the C cards they were given during set up. It is all part of the strategy. It is the only area of the game where there is some cooperation, so it does stick out, but in a good way. I don't think games have to be 100% one thing. I like a mix of cooperation within what is otherwise a competitive game. It also develops the theme that all players have their own poaching and habitat levels to worry about, as would any landowner or country looking to protect their animals. But climate is a shared concern for all humans. This is very thematic, and I think they completely missed the point here. Feeling like you don't want to do something that you need to do to place a card you want to place, just in case it may help someone else, is incredibly petty in what is a light, quick, fun card game. Personally, I like helping people in real life and in board games too. Positive player interaction is a good thing in my opinion. It never bothers me. They talk about the player powers in the Conservation cards not being balanced, and this is true. Some are way more powerful than others. I have added a small house rule to address this by sorting the cards into categories and each player taking a card from one category per game, rather than simply being handed any at random. So they are right about this point, as I should not have had to do this. I tend to avoid house rules. But this is necessary in the game to add more balance. If you want a heavy or a light game that either plays over two hours or under 30 minutes, you will be disappointed. But if you are looking for a clever card game that hits the light to medium weight sweet spot in the middle of this, playing under an hour (quicker with more experienced players) that offers interesting choices and clever scoring, this could well be for you. In my preview, I suggested this is Ark Nova lite. That may be a bit of a stretch in retrospect, but I stand by the sentiment. It is perhaps though more Ark Nova very lite!

Buy Here - Wingspan WBG Score: 8 Player Count:1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Everdell , Lost Ruins of Arnak , Furnace . Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Elizabeth Hargrave This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . I cannot imagine there are many people within the hobby who have not heard of Wingspan by now. Card Game of the Year 2020. Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner in 2019. Swiss Gamers Award Winner in 2019. Wingspan certainly is one of the big hitters of the modern era. But, if you are new to the hobby, somehow missed this one, or are just interested in how WBG sees this mighty game, then read on. I hope to have a fresh take for you. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Wingspan Board Game I won't go into the full set up in this review. There is a great video here if you want the full 'Rodney' details. Suffice it to say, the game comes with a lot of components that make setting up this game a lot easier, such as the card tray, which holds everything neatly when in the box and then displays three cards beautifully when set up. The trays the food tokens come in are equally useful for both storage and setup. Place all these out now around the table. In the box, there is also a bird feeder dice tower. This looks stunning, is easily assembled for your first play, and fits back into the box fully made, so you won't have to dismantle and remake it each time. Place this out now with the dice in it and give each player a board and cubes of their chosen color. How To Play Wingspan Board Game Again, I won't go into the full rules here. The video above will do a better job of that. But I will cover the basics to give you a flavour. On your turn, you will be able to do one of four actions. You will do this by placing one of your coloured cubes on your board. This will also show you how many turns you have left. The first option you can choose is to play a bird card from your hand onto your board, paying the appropriate food and egg cost shown on the card you are placing and the column you are placing it into. Then lay the card into the best-suited environment on your board. If the bird has an immediate effect, you can use this now. The second option is to gain food, gaining the symbols on the leftmost uncovered slot in the top woodland area on your board. Generally, here you can choose the food shown on one of the dice. The food is used to feed the birds when you place them in the above first option. The bird cards, when placed, will make later turns in each row more powerful. The order you do everything is crucial. Sometimes this game literally is chicken and egg. The third option is to gain eggs. The fourth is to draw new bird cards. Again, you will spend a cube and take the amount of eggs or cards as shown on the leftmost available space on your player board. The more birds placed on your board, the more powerful your subsequent turns become. When placing birds, you can also activate any birds in that row that have relevant brown "when activated" powers. So, the order in which you place the birds is also important. Each round has its own specific bonus to aim for, such as a certain number of eggs or birds in a specific habitat. You can either score this based on who scored the most each round, or in a more friendly way where all players can score the maximum bonus if they achieve five of the specific task. A player will mark this using one of their action cubes. Once this is done, all players will take back all their other remaining cubes from the board, replenish all face-up bird cards on the display, and start the next round. The game runs like this for four rounds. As such, each round you will have access to one less cube to use as an action. So, as the game develops, your actions will have to be carefully considered. The later rounds will fly by! Players will often want one or two more turns to complete certain scoring options in their early games. It has that delightful frustration of always wanting to do a little bit more. After the final round, players will score points for all bird cards on their board. Each player will score points as per their own bonus score card given to them at the start of the game and any subsequent bonus cards they may have gained during the game. Then each player will add the points scored from the mid round goals, and one point for every egg, cached food token, and tucked card on their player board. The highest score wins! Is it Fun Wingspan Board Game Review (Bear with me, we will get there...) Wingspan has a huge fan base. I think this is down to three main things: First, Wingspan is a gorgeous-looking game. The art on the cards is stunning. Each one of the 170 cards is unique and shows a beautiful, accurate picture of a real bird. People like this. It feels educational but not boring. It is interesting, true to life, and visually pleasing. The box art is also wonderful—clean and instantly striking. On a shelf, people would be intrigued to find out more. Second, Wingspan plays well, incorporating some solid mechanisms in a highly accessible way. Mix the visual appeal with solid gameplay, and you have the scale to win fan-voted awards. Winning awards gains more sales, and a positive cycle of new games being sold and new fans coming to the game begins. Finally, I think Wingspan grew to have such a huge following because it is good. But there are a lot of people out there who love it, and some who really don't. When anything gets this big, it will inevitably polarise opinion. Often, the extremes are more emotionally led, and I find a mean average can help. But those extremes sure do create a lot of hype. And that brings more sales too. So, the art draws attention. The attention draws fans. The fans draw awards. The awards draw more fans. And the whole time, it turns out the game is good too. Hmmm... Let's take a quick look at those extremes for a moment, though. The people that absolutely love Wingspan may come from a few groups. One such group may be those who have been introduced to modern gaming through Wingspan but haven't played many others, and so find it incredible compared to other older "classic" games. This is a wonderful thing. Well done to Wingspan for bringing so many more fans to this great hobby of ours. But this may explain why some views are so high in comparison. They have nothing better to compare it to. I would also wager there is a large group of fans of Wingspan who become such passionate supporters of the game due to the theme: twitchers, birders, and ornithologists, drawn to the game by the setting alone. Prior to Wingspan, there really were not that many mass-market games about birds, believe it or not! Their opinions would be positively biased by their love for a previously neglected topic within games. In the way that a mean average works, I would suggest we can discount these hardcore fans' opinions to get a more balanced review for the masses. I am not discounting their genuine and absolutely sound love for this game. I am just using a mean average for the purposes of a review, and a rather labored point. So, for balance, let's look at the other side of the fence. There seem to be two main groups of people who really do not like Wingspan. The first is those who find anything that gets this big hard to love. People who will avoid popular bands, films, and books simply because they get huge press or mass market attention. Wingspan won a lot of awards, and with that, put a lot of people off. Not just because some people avoid the popular or obvious, but also because these awards were a popularity contest rather than an objective result of mass game testing. It was frustrating to some that Wingspan won best card game, for example. It sure does use a lot of cards, and they are fundamental to the core mechanics of the game. But many would argue that Wingspan is not a card game per se. Catch me at my most pedantic, and I may be inclined to agree with that! So, this can turn some away. The second group, who seem quite passionate about this game's inability to tickle their own personal gaming itch, are those perhaps more familiar with the hobby prior to Wingspan coming out. Perhaps they enjoy more mid or heavyweight games, and they find Wingspan to be too light. Frustrated by such a simple game's popularity, they become irritated by so many people thinking that "this is what modern board games are about." They want people to experience a deeper game, to try something with more weight, and feel Wingspan stops people from trying what they may see as a more true reflection of modern board games. I don't necessarily subscribe to all these points, but I certainly can see merit in all these arguments. I raise them purely to work towards a mean average. However, let's look at the stats. On BoardGameGeek there are 176 ratings of 1 currently recorded as per the day of writing. There are 138 scores of two and 307 scores of three. Now, let's compare that to the scores of 10, which currently stand at 9,600! There are 15,000 scores of nine and 25,000 scores of eight; the mean average starts to climb up a bit. And the low scores and arguments start to get somewhat drowned out! I wonder how many people reading this would be shocked by the above. I thought, personally, that there would be far more lower scores, the vitriol for this game being so loud in the industry. But I suppose that is because, like all things in life, sadly the negative reviews and lower scores can often be shouted with a much louder voice. I would wager, although I have nothing to back this up, that there are many more people from the positive categories I mentioned above who have not scored Wingspan at all on websites like this, as they are not on BoardGameGeek. Even more people who are new to the hobby would add their own 8s, 9s, and 10s but are not doing so, simply because they are new to the hobby and not on BGG yet. Whereas the active gamers who dislike Wingspan due to their many years in the hobby almost certainly would be present on scoring sites like this, in much higher numbers. So, you could argue there are many more unscored "Tens" out there than there are unscored "Ones." Maybe Wingspan isn't as polarising as we have been led to believe. The numbers certainly don't back it up. Maybe it's just good? Well, that was all very interesting, if a little subjective! But it didn't really answer the question, Is this fun? To save this argument between myself from continuing, I will answer that now. Yes, Wingspan is fun. I felt it needed some context, considering this review is coming three years after its release. A lot has been said about this game, both in the VERY positive and also in the VERY negative. I wanted to find a balance in trying to understand why the extremes exist, while looking for the facts to see if those extremes are as balanced as I had been led to believe. But what I am left with, after the dust has settled, is just a solid game. One that looks great and is produced to very high standards (that admittedly perhaps increases the cost a little too far, another irritant for some), but that delivers a stunning table presence that has brought many new people to tabletop gaming. For that alone, Wingspan deserves a lot of credit. But let's take away all the hype, awards, history, and criticism and just look at the game. Wingspan is a good, low to mid-weight game that incorporates some interesting card play and clever engine building, coupled with an interesting depleting action selection mechanic and multiple ways to score. As a game on its own, it is solid. If you like birds, you will love it. If you are new to the hobby and want something accessible that takes you to the next step, this could be a firm favorite for you. If you enjoy hand management and simple tableau building, this may be the one for you. My advice: ignore the hype and give it a try. One of your friends probably already has a copy. It sold loads, don't you know?

Order here - Countdown To Chaos WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Feeling smart about yourself! Published by:   Joe Mills (I) , Tristan Rogers , Dan Wiseman Designed by:   The Detective Society This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . This will be a SPOILER FREE review Countdown to Chaos is a new, short, escape room-style puzzle that acts as a prelude to the larger, more complete experience, Murder on the Moon, which we will be reviewing on the site shortly. This is a single one-hour experience that tees up the story you will experience in Murder on the Moon. It is fully replayable; nothing will be destroyed or messed about with. However, once you know the answers, it has limited replayability for the same player or group as the challenge is somewhat gone at that point. But for a one hour puzzle, this sure does seem like it could be fun? But is it? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Countdown To Chaos Get a piece of paper and pen to take notes, and make sure you have a device that can get online to hand. A phone, tablet or laptop will all work just fine. Open the envelope and take out all the components. Find the letter with the QR code and read this. You are now ready to start. In fact, in reading this letter, you have already begun! How To Play Countdown To Chaos The idea of the game is to solve a mystery that will unravel itself as you play the game. The opening letter will give you all you need to make your start, along with prompting you to head to an online portal where you can "talk" with someone involved in the story. On this platform, you can also ask for help and get clues if you ever get stuck, which is handy if you do stall. But within this hour-long experience, you will find there are around five main set pieces, mixing online and physical clues together, that you will need to piece together to find your ultimate answer. Answers will be entered into the online portal, which will then tell you where to look next for the next part of the puzzle. The story, as explained in the opening letter, so this is not a spoiler, tells a tale of a private company looking to launch a new Moon mission. But "rumours of espionage are rife!" And it is your job to find out who is behind this sabotage, what they are trying to do, and stop them before it is too late. But don't worry. It won't ever be too late. You do not play in real time. There are no ways for wrong answers penalised you when entering anything incorrectly into the portal. It will simply nudge you in another direction. There is no end game score or final grading. You will simply get to the end and be told "Congratulations" and then be encouraged to check out the next game, Murder On The Moon, with a very cool little set piece I will not spoil here. But it certainly made me glad I had a copy of the next game. Is It Fun? Countdown To Chaos Escape Room Game Review If you are buying this as a one off, I could suggest you will need to seriously consider the price of the next game too. You will feel incomplete if you do not play that as well. You absolutely can just play this one game. It will be fine and is a complete experience. But the story will end abruptly on a bit of a cliff hanger, teeing up the next game - so take note of that. But it can absolutely be played as a one off if you want. And the one hour or so you will spend playing this will feel enjoyable to anyone who likes to solve puzzles. There is a nice variety of styles and ways the puzzles are presented to you. The difficulty was just perfect for me. The game says it has a difficulty rating of 2.5 out of 5, which I would say is about my level! Nothing was too taxing, but the payoff when you find the answer was enough to make me feel happy about my time spent with this game. I needed one clue from the portal, and the way this presented itself was very good. I entered the wrong answer for an early clue, where one of three answers is needed, and they are all very similar. I had not noticed that and entered one answer thinking it was close enough. The portal then simply said to me it thought I might be wrong and suggested I look again. It was a satisfying way to get something wrong and did not make me feel like I got too much help to eventually solve the puzzle correctly next time. There is a small amount of cutting out needed with the above clue, but you don't need to be accurate. Just cut the two circles out so you can move them independently on top of one another. I tend not to like too much "arts and crafts" in games, mainly as I am not good at that part of it. But here, it was minimal, and you really do not need to be careful. I was a little unsure of the art. It looks a little AI-generated to me. No artist is listed, and I have not asked anyone for confirmation on this. It is just my assumption. But if you look closely at these people, there are a few anomalies usually associated with AI. But it is fine, and fits the purpose perfectly. I am just not personally a fan of AI art in games. That said, this may not be AI art. It's just an assumption. If you are a fan of puzzle games like this, then I would heartily recommend this game. But really, only if you are willing to spend the extra money on the follow-up, Murder On The Moon. This game is just under £12, and Murder On The Moon is a penny under £70. So, it does feel a little like those magazines where the first week it's only £1, but there are then 25 more weeks at £9 a pop! I would much rather this simply be one game at £82. But I understand the world doesn't work like that, and it certainly is not this publisher's fault this is how consumerism or marketing works. I am just personally not a fan of it. But with the marketing and cost aside, this is an excellent little one-hour experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to anyone who enjoys puzzle-style games such as this. There certainly is a lot that goes into the story, writing, and web design for these games, so personally, I think the cost is quite fair. And the experience and enjoyment I get out of them certainly merits the cost.

Order here - Post Office Card Game WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Quick, simple, card placement games. Published by:   Hobby World Designed by:   Evgeny Petrov This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Post Office is a 2023 polyomino tile laying game from Hobby World, where players are looking to bring some order to the chaotic nature of a Post Office run by animals! The game was illustrated by Natalya Kondratyuk , a comic book artist, who also worked on the comic, Post . A graphic novel that won a prestigious Russian comic book award, the Kommissia . The game has now been turned into a simple card game version, that offers a similar feel, but in a much more condensed experience. But is it still fun? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Post Office Card Game The game comes with 36 cards, either marked with a single dice pip or two dice pips. For a four-player game, use all the cards. With three players, remove any nine cards. For one or two players, remove either set of 18 cards, keeping the other set. For a single-player game, shuffle these 18 cards, then remove nine at random. You can mix these up, but for a more balanced game, it is recommended to use the sets. Shuffle whatever you are left with and deal one card to each player as your starting card. Place this face up in front of you. Place the remaining deck face down in front of the players. How To Play Post Office Card Game Players will now draw two cards from the top of the deck. In multiplayer, players will keep one card and pass the other to their left. Taking one new card themselves from their right. In solo mode, you simply keep both cards. Now, all players place both their cards into their play area. When you place a card, you must cover at least one space of one existing card. You can never go under previously placed cards, and you can cover as many slots as you like on previously placed cards, as long as the number of uncovered slots increases by at least one after the placement of this new card. On each card, you will find a mixture of images, either mice or different types of packages. The idea of the game is you are looking to create rows and columns with three or four different packages. A row or column with three different types will score you three points at the end of the game. Four unique packages will score you six points. If you have any packages repeated in any column or row, you will score nothing. Any uncovered mice will score you negative one. Most points wins. In the solo game, there is a simple score tracker to show how well you did, ranging from under six points to over 25. Is It Fun? Post Office Card Game This is an incredibly simple game to learn, teach, and play. Games typically last for me around five to ten minutes. I like to do a best of three to get a more complete game experience. The cards are all very cluttered. On each card, in the six spaces, you will see two Mince, two unique packages, and two blank spaces. The makeup of this is obviously different on each card, but the setup remains constant. Your goal is to find the best way to lay out and orient cards so that you can build up rows and columns for three or four unique packages. This is easier said than done! You may find you are adding a unique package to a row, but in doing so, are inadvertently adding a duplicate package to a different column. In a game where you create a simple and small tableau, adding only two cards each turn, it is surprisingly easy to miss things like this! But as you play more, you will find there are ways to manipulate your array to maximize your points efficiency. And like many games, your enjoyment will come not just from aiming for a better score than your opponents, but bettering your own scores, game after game. I enjoy the simple, relaxing nature of games like this. They are simple and fun to play, and you can fit them into any part of your day, considering the small impact they have both in terms of time and space. The game comes in a tiny box and takes up minimal play space when you play, so it can be taken with you and played in most environments. The cards are perfectly square, though, with no rounded edges. They are actually quite sharp, so watch out. And the card stock, though thick and high gloss, has no linen finish, so perhaps could be a candidate for being sleeved. If you enjoy simple card-laying games, with pattern building and simple but interesting scoring, this could be one to check out. It has a tiny footprint both in terms of cost and size, so it fits easily into any collection, handbag, or pocket. Well worth checking out if you are looking for a new portable game.

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 crowdfunding here . Golem Run comes from the genius minds behind other such brilliant trick-taking games as White Hat , Tricking with a board; Justice , trick-taking with deduction, and Tolerance , asymmetric trick taking with some very clever post trick card play. This new game comes to Kickstarter in early 2025 and combines trick-taking with a race game. With a Golem theme! The game is set in the dwarven society of Odrixia, the same world as Justice and Factory 42 (I have not played this one yet). In the game players are Golems... no, that isn't right. We are Golem owners... wait, no, it's not that either. What are we then? Oh yes! We are the crowd! We are the crowd watching the race! Not seen that theme before. The game unfolds over multiple hands of tricks, concluding when the first Golem crosses the finish line. Players will be dealt or drafted cards (depending on which version of the game you are playing) and will then use their cards to wager on which Golem will win and to try to anticipate the bets of others. This is done through a simple trick-taking mechanic that has some very clever nuances. Let's get into it. But first, you need to set up your race track. The game comes with four race sections that are double-sided. Place the first one down (the one with the three starting spaces - shown via the cog symbols). Pick the side you want for each piece and slot them together. Each player will choose one piece and a side for that piece in turn order, starting with the Race Marshall (starting player). When placing pieces together, players can do so however they choose, as long as touching pieces have at least four touching hexes. The Race Marshal then shuffles the deck and deals 12 or 14 cards to each player, depending on the way you have chosen to play: Quick or Tactical. For Quick, deal 12 cards, and that is it. For Tactical, deal 14 cards and then start a draft. Here, players pick four cards from the 14 in their hand, passing the remaining ten to their left. They then choose four more cards from these ten, passing the remaining six. Pick four from these six and discard the remaining two cards. You will now have 12 selected cards. Each player now chooses one card from their hand to be their Centre Bet, placing it face down in front of them. The colour of the card indicates the colour of the Golem that player thinks will be in the lead come the end of the round. The number of green Speed Dots on this chosen card indicates the number of spaces this player predicts the Golem will be in the lead by. Then, all players place one card face down on either side of this. The card to the right is their prediction as to what they think the player to their right has just bet as their Centre Bet. The card on the left is their prediction for the player on the left. Players will now play rounds until either a player runs out of cards or one Golem crosses the finish line, starting with the Race Marshal leading the trick. This works by that player playing either one or two cards. If you play two cards, both cards must be the same number. The suit of the chosen card(s) is the suit of this trick. If you play two cards and have two suits, both suits are in play for this trick. Booster cards (plus ones) can be added. This does not count as another card, but rather as a booster to one other played card. Alternatively, the lead player can wait and wager. This means they forfeit the opportunity to play the first card and let the next player choose. Once a card or cards have been played, all other players must follow by playing a card or cards of the same suit. Wilds (black cards) can be played as any suit. If you cannot follow suit and choose not to play a Wild, you can play any card. Following players can add Boosters too. Following two cards, players must match at least one of the suits played, and the two cards must again be the same number. Again, if you cannot play two matching cards, you can use Wilds or play any single card. Following players can also choose to Wait and Wager. When you wait and wager, you will, of course, have more cards for following tricks, increasing your options. When you do this, you can take your three face-down cards into your hand and replace them with any three cards. The winner of the trick is the player who played the highest value card of the lead suit, or the highest value card in a pair with at least one card matching the lead suit. If any identical cards compete, the trick goes to the most recent card played. If all players wait and wager or all cards played are wild, then the trick is considered to be under inquiry. In this situation, all cards bar the current winning cards and play another trick with the same lead player. Determine the winner of the second trick as normal, then the winner of this second trick takes the winning wild from the first trick, adding it to the cards from the second trick. This gives them more options in the next step: moving the golems. The winning player of any trick now uses one or two of the cards played to win the trick to move the Golems on the race track. The Golems move the same number of spaces as shown by the Speed Dots on the card chosen. Golems must always move so that they end their movement closer to the finish line, but this does not have to be in a straight path. They cannot retrace their steps, they must use the full move possible, and they cannot move through other Golems' hexes. However, when a Wild card is used, players do not have to move closer to the finish line, but they also cannot end further away. Boulders block movement. Water can only be waded through if there are no Wilds in the winning trick. And fences can only be jumped if there are Wilds in the winning trick. This will continue until one player runs out of cards or one Golem crosses the finish line. Then all players reveal their three Bet cards. Anyone who guessed the lead Golem correctly gains one point. Ties are friendly. Points are also scored if you guess the lead of the Golem in first place correctly, equal to the distance between them and the second-placed Golem. Players will also score two points for any correctly guessed Suit in their other two Bet cards that match their neighbour, and points equal to the number of Speed Dots for any matching card there. Any player with cards in their hand can then return one of these cards, but they keep the rest for the next round. However, you must then lose points equal to the highest Speed Dot score in your remaining cards. You cannot move below zero at this point, though. The position of Race Marshal moves one space to the left, and a new round is started, dealing players cards up to 12 or 14 (depending on the style of game you are playing), taking note of any cards they may already have in their hand. Golem Run is an incredibly entertaining trick-taker. The cards in the trick being used to move the Golems—on which you have all placed your bets—is an intriguing mechanic. Games move pretty fast, and the Golems' movement will be somewhat unpredictable, making the prediction of the betting round a little chaotic for some. Especially in round one, where you really have very little to go on when predicting your neighbours' intentions. But as the game goes on, you will start to get a feel for which Golem the other players are trying to get to win. Although players can switch their allegiances as the game progresses, and either bluff on one Golem before switching to another, or simply change focus when one Golem moves ahead of the others. It is an interesting addition of bluffing, betting, deduction, and hidden information to a simple trick-taking game. This is more of a bluffing and betting game added to the trick-taking than a race game. A race is happening, of course it is. But you don't win if a specific golem wins; you win if you bet correctly on a specific golem and if you can deduce what the other players are up to in their own mischievous plans. It is a fascinating blend of mechanics, feelings, and tactics. I think this may well be my favourite trick-taker from designer Ren Multamäki yet! I am excited to see this hit Kickstarter in 2025, and would encourage anyone who enjoys clever trick-taking games to check this out. The blend of deduction, bluffing, trick-taking, and racing is a master class in blending mechanics. Trick-taking games are always fun. I particularly like this designer's style of adding in other elements to the trick-taking form. And I feel with Golem Run, there is the perfect combination of a fun theme, good-looking art, simple gameplay, and intriguing mechanics. This could be a real winner on Kickstarter in 2025.

Order here- Sellswords: Olympus WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Card laying games with ever changing game states Published by: Level 99 Games Designed by:   Cliff Kamarga This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Sellswords was first published in 2017, and now Level 99 Games is bringing it back with a fresh new reprint. At the time of writing (15th December 2024), this is currently available for pre-order from the publisher. You can use the link in the game title above. But why are they bringing it back? You presume because it is good, don't you? Well, let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Sellswords: Olympus First, separate the Terrain tiles from the rest of the deck. Then, shuffle the remaining cards and deal seven out onto the table. The cards are double-sided, don't worry about which side you deal. Now pick a first player at random, and then each player will take one card at a time from the seven in the middle until all players have three cards. Note, the power of the card you choose may have powers that affect this, but more on that later. When both players have three cards, discard the final card into a discard pile, and deal out seven more. Repeat the process until both players have six cards, again discarding the final seventh unchosen card. Players must now decide who will be red and who will be blue. The red player must turn all their cards to the red side, and the blue player... well, you get the idea. Now place one of the Terrain tiles at random into the central playing area, setting the unused Terrain tiles to the side. You are ready to begin the game. How To Set Up Sellswords: Olympus Players now in turn order will place one of their six cards from their hand into the central playing area. Players must always place a card orthogonally next to a previously placed card. And can never form a row or column to be longer than five cards. You are building a five-by-five grid. The first card must be next to the Terrain tile then all subsequent cards can be placed next to any card. When you place a tile down, you will do two things. First, you will check the card's abilities. Each card has a written ability shown on the face of the card. This could do one of many things: rotate other cards, move other cards, flip other cards, and many more. Once you have carried out the placed card's ability, you will now battle any adjacent cards next to you that your opponent currently owns. For example, if you are playing blue and you placed a card down next to two red cards as shown below, you would battle both cards. Battling works simply by comparing the adjacent numbers on the two cards. So in this example, the Blue Architect card would defeat both the red Hydra four to three, and the red Cerberus, three to two. This double victory would mean both the red cards are flipped to their blue side, swinging the victory into the blue players favour. Play continues like this until both players have played their six cards. Mid-game scoring then takes place, where both players score one point for any row or column where they have two cards, two points for columns or rows with three cards, four points for four cards, and seven points for any row or column that has five of their coloured cards in. Players will now repeat the steps shown earlier, where seven new cards are placed into the central area, and they take turns picking one. This is done twice, so both players have a second hand of six cards. The second round begins until all cards are laid and a 25-card five-by-five grid is formed. Final scoring then takes place, where cards in rows and columns are scored just the same as the mid-game point. Note, some cards with stars on them, like below, offer end-game scoring options too. And some of the Terrain tiles will do the same. The other types of cards in the game are split into three main groups: cards with mandatory effects, those with optional effects, and cards with ongoing effects. Note the type of card and its specific unique effect when you place it, and how it may interact with other previously placed cards, especially the ongoing effects. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins. Is It Fun? Sellswords: Olympus Card Game Review Sellswords is an ever-changing game where players constantly battle to and fro for ownership of the cards. There are some intriguing and subtle tactics that you can deploy throughout the process, making this fast game deeply strategic. Starting with which cards you draft, taking note of the cards your opponent takes, and then, of course, which order and location you place your own cards in. This is a back-and-forth, tug-of-war between two players, where card ownership will change multiple times throughout the game, and you need to strategically plan ahead to make your specific hand pay off. If you have a card with two strong numbers, ideally you will want to wait for a situation to arise where you can place this card and use both those numbers. Using just one wont be the end of the world, especially if the unused high number in in a open space. It will at least have a good defence ready for other cards placed next to it. But it would be nice to flip two cards with it when you place it, wouldn't it. Likewise, if you have a power that affects more than one card, you will want to wait for a situation to arise where this card can make full use of that benefit. It may be that you can manipulate the game board to develop in this way using your other cards. You need to think ahead, plan accordingly, and be one step ahead of your opponent at all times. Now, of course, this is very difficult. Because all the while you are doing this, your opponent will be doing the same. But both players will know what cards the other player has. They all see them in the initial draft. And they are double-sided, so you cannot really hide them from your opponent during the game anyway. We play with the cards on the table so you can see them all easier. But this does also make it harder for the other player to see them, rather than being held up in each player's hand. Laid flat on the table, the angle does make it hard to read them unless you stand up and really peer over. But either way, if you want to see the other player's cards, you can. But even with this knowledge, can you predict what order they will play them? And where they will use them? All this combines to make for a delightfully strategic game that offers constantly interesting choices, making you feel fully in control of your destiny. All in a package that concludes within 20 minutes. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a quick, fast, fun two-player card game that creates a back-and-forth swing feel, with interesting and satisfying scoring options.