This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art or components may change in the final game. The link to the crowd funding page is here the company website is here and their insta is here . Nice To Know! Animals comes from two new designers Ibrahim Halil Ciftc i and Erdem Ocal and founder Sertan Arig, and their newly formed publishing house HOUF Games . The game looks a little like a government funded game that is used at Schools to try and teach their students in a fun way. But it is good. Don't let the slightly 1980's name and theme fool you! Is this based on an IP already out there? It sounds like some American show that maybe I have not heard of? The game works incredibly simply. On your turn you either gain research credits known in the game as RE. Or you spend previously earned credits to get new cards into your array. That's it. But the magic comes in the cards, how they work together, and ultimately, how they score. Which is a whole different thing! We will come to that shortly. But first, let's take a little look at the cards and how they work. In the game, there are 182 animal cards. They are not all the unique. There are duplicates, but this is a game function. Such as the below Chameleon that comes in a two, this Vulture which is part of four, or this Horses which is one of five. But some come as unique cards, such as this Rabbit. The quantity of each card is shown in pips on the right next to the animal's name so you will always know the rarity of each card. On the card, you will also see the card's end game points in the top right, its diet and endangered level (shown with a sad face such as the Rabbit above) in the top right, the area of residence (do animals reside?) in the top left, and a nice interesting fact at the bottom. The facts are not always relevant, just a bit of fun. But do sometimes help with the Quest cards. Depending on my mood, I have both gorged on these and ignored them completely! They are excellent, but not always necessary. When you take a card, you must first spend the required amount of RE and second, be in the right location. The cards will be laid out in a three-by-three grid during setup. The cards in the top row cost one RE, the middle row will set you back two RE, and the bottom row has a cost of three RE. If you want to gain RE, you will do this by discarding a card from the grid. The top row gains you five RE. The middle gains you three, and the bottom gains you just one. You will want to discard from the top, but as the cards move down the rows during the game, discarding from the top will potentially be getting rid of the better cards you have not had the chance to take yet. It is a delicate but interesting rule that works well. When you gain the cards, simply choose the one you want, pay the appropriate row costs, and take the card. But if you are not in the right continent, you cannot do this. You must first pay nine RE to move continents, which is a lot in this game. Alternatively, if the row from which you want to take the card has a Sponsored flight card, you can take that card along with the Animal card of your choosing and move for free. There are 20 of these in the game, and their appearance will obviously be somewhat random and can cause swings in the game. It's a frustrating and somewhat unnecessary way that the game offers too much luck and not enough strategy. I feel that either the cost to move should be less, or you should be able to move to neighbouring areas for reduced costs. Or the number of Sponsored cards should be more. Because sometimes you will find there are games when you barely have to pay for any flights, whereas there are others when you are constantly out of luck and the Sponsored flights keep getting taken by other players. When you add a card, it will work for you in many ways, perhaps one too many for your first few games. It can be a lot to take in when you come to final scoring. In addition to the points shown on the top right of the card, each card can also be put towards various Quests and scoring categories. The Quests are gained whenever you gain a duplicate card, as well as one being dealt out at random at the start of the game; from a choice of two. The Quests all have two missions; you can only complete one per card, and three cards in total. The Quest points vary from five to ten and are about specific things regarding the animal's location, appearance, behaviour - even poop! If you are unsure which card the Quest is referring to, there is a handy guide you can use. The categories the cards work towards include their diet, endangered status, and location. At the end of the game, the person with the most Carnivorous or Herbivorous cards scores five points each, ten in total. There are three points up for grabs for the player with the most endangered cards, and five points for the player with the most Sponsored Flight cards. Then, you will assign each card in your array to a specific continent. Some cards work for multiple areas, other have a set continent . You will then score five points if you have the most cards in each of the seven continents. Also, for each continent where you have at least two animals, you will score 30 points if you managed to get all seven continents, 20 points if you collected within six of them, and 15 points if you have two cards for at least five continents. Finally, players will score two points for each Invitation certificate they have. These are gained throughout the game in a one of two ways. Whenever a player gains their fifth, tenth, or fifteenth animal card, a separate Invitation phase begins. The player that triggered this phase will gain one Invitation certificate - placed on the main board during setup - from either the fifth, tenth, or fifteenth space on the bottom right of the board; and then they will place Invitation certificates onto each continent on the main board where there are currently no players present. This encourages players to travel around the board more during the game, as well as collecting the cards as quickly as possible. Also, this race element comes to the forefront when considering the end game mechanic, which is triggered when a player gains their fifth endangered animal or, more commonly, their eighteenth non-endangered animal card. As you gather your cards during the game, you need to be thinking about which continent it is in, what quests it could help you fulfil, as well as the pacing the other players currently have against the seven continents and the two types of cards, endangered and non-endangered. It is a lot to take in, and invariably, you will come to the end of your first few games realising you totally forgot about one quest card, or more likely, one or two continents. It is hard to do them all. But as you score, you will realise you have gathered a lot of points, no matter what you neglected. Most games end with most players scoring above 100 points, sometimes well in excess! It is a point salad of a game in this respect, and satisfying to win or lose. However, the real joy comes after multiple plays, and you start to see the matrix, aiming for and acquiring the right cards in the most efficient way, keeping track of the cards the other players are getting, and winning the all-important continental area-control war; whilst still getting at least two for each area yourself. There are huge point swings to be gathered here; up to 65 in total. I found the game to be quite absorbing in this way. As much as it appears incredibly simple, with minimal rules and only two real options on your turn; the strategy of which animals you collect and the huge swing in points this can have does make me want to keep coming back to the table. It is a game I want to master, as I feel you can quickly do this. This may seem like an issue, but what I found was that it actually meant that it led to very competitive and interesting games forming - very quickly. Players learned how to do well in this game within two to three games. Subsequent plays were a lot better as the people around the table were evenly matched, all fully aware of what they were doing, and thinking hard about how to best create the most point-worthy array of animals. There are many games like this that offer this lovely build and experience when all players become "good" at the game. But often, they are a lot more complicated, time consuming, and harder to get multiple players at the same level . As such it is hard to find a group of people all at an expert level to deliver the experience you really want. Nice To Know! Animals however is light, very simple, and relatively quick, around 40-60 minutes. So you can achieve this. The games fly by due to turns being so simple and fast. You can generally plan ahead if you want to, not for specific cards as such, but the type of card you are looking out for. Of course, there are times when an animal you want appears in the grid and is gone by the time it is your turn. However, they will always be replaced by something new, and generally something useful will be there somewhere. Most the time, due to the high RE cost of flying, players are looking for animals you can either fly to for free or are in the same region as you first and foremost, and then ones that suit your quests and geographic requirements on a secondary level. The other way may work better, but you simply wont have the RE. Well, that's how I play anyway, and it generally works out okay. But I do prefer fast play over optimum efficiencies for a game of this weight! And when you get to know the game, fast plays still work well. Essentially, what I am saying is that this is a nice game to get if you want a simple game to master, still play quickly, but get the feeling you are doing something smart! The art on the cards is a little empty, but there is, is good. It just feels a little more formulaic and scientific than beautiful. The player aids are excellent and detail everything you would want to know. I am not a fan of the art on the quest cards. That is very bland, as is the main board. It is functional but somewhat simplistic for my tastes. The star of the show component wise though are the cute little ani-meeples! Overall, I think this is a game well worth looking into if you are searching for a simple-to-play card game that offers some interesting tableau building and scoring opportunities, especially if you enjoy the animal and conservation theme. The Kickstarter has already successfully hit, so if you want this game, you can essentially pre-order now for a September 2025 delivery, estimated, of course!

Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game WBG Score: 6.5 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Star Realms , Hero Realms , Ascension Published by: Fantasy Flight Games Designed by: Caleb Grace By Steve Godfrey In Star Wars the deckbuilding game you’ll be acquiring cards, building a collection, selling things for a benefit and holding on to the rest and hoping that no one gets rid of your precious wares…..wait, are we playing as Jawas? I think they may have missed a trick with the theming of this one! Use the rules Luke! Give each player their ten starting cards, lay out the force track and put the cube all the way to the rebels side. Place the outer rim pilot deck out and then place six cards into the galaxy row (the main card market) any cards with the Empire symbol are placed facing the Empire player and the rebel ones facing the rebel player. Any neutral cards have orientated so both players can see them. Give each player their starting base deck and have them place their starting base face up and place the other four bases to one side. In subsequent games you'll take all ten bases but in your first game you only have the four specific bases stated in the rules book. Then each player draws a five card hand. The Empire player goes first. When you play cards from your hand you can trigger any abilities on the cards. Cards will also have on them any number of three icons. A blaster icon will indicate attack points, a cube will give you credits and the circle will give you force. You gather your accumulated credits into a pool and you can spend these at any time on your turn to buy cards from the row. The twist being is that you can only buy cards loyal to your faction or any neutral cards. Bought cards will go into your discard pile and the cards will be immediately replaced. The force symbol will move the force tracker that many spaces towards you. If you start your turn with the force track all the way on your side you gain a credit. Where the force is on the track will matter for some cards. If the force is with you i.e. on your side of the track then certain cards will give you extra abilities. The aim of the game is to destroy four of your opponents bases (three in the starter game) so attacking is the name of the game. When you attack you can assign your attack to your opponents base. If they have any capital ships in play then they have to be damaged/ destroyed before bases can be hit. You can also use your attack to take out opponents cards in the galaxy row. When you do this, not only will you remove a potentially good card from your opponents options but you will also gain the reward depicted on that card. When you destroy a base it goes into your victory pile. Your opponent doesn’t reveal a new base till the start of their turn. On their turn they can search through their base deck and choose the base they want to reveal next. Aside from the starting base, all bases have their own special ability. Size matters not…..except in deckbuilders. So I want to preface this by saying that I am not the biggest fan of more traditional deck builders like Dominion or Legendary. I prefer to have deck building incorporated into something like in Clank or Undaunted for example. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy them at all, a few have certainly slipped through. Harry Potter deck builder and Hero Realms, both of which I play only with my eldest daughter. I also remember enjoying Shards of infinity when I played it. I’m also aware that this is being compared to Star Realms a lot, but aside from a couple of plays on the app and one play with the cop-op version a few years ago I’ve not really had enough experience with it to do the same. For the most part Star Wars is your standard deck building fare. Gain credits, buy cards, attack your opponent, rinse and repeat. But this one has a few tricks up its Jedi robes. The fact that you have your own factions is a great idea and a great way to keep things feeling thematic. I think as much fun as it would have been to be able to entice Grand Moff Tarkin to the rebels or have Chewbacca turn to the Empire because they told him that they actually liked the holiday special and that his family were a delight, it would have instantly taken you out of the theme. Knowing your opponent can’t take certain cards does, at first appear to mute that “I hope they don’t take that card I really want” tension. However, the addition of the neutral cards takes up that slack. What you do get in its place is a different type of worry in between turns. Now your opponent can attack and take out the cards you really want and they also get an added benefit to boot. So now, not only are you worrying about them taking out your cards, but you're also concerned about the bonus they’ll get from it. It’s a nice touch and adds another way of cycling cards in and out of the row, especially if there’s nothing you want to, or can buy. The force track works as a nice tug of war between players. That one extra credit each turn can make a difference, especially in the early game if you can keep the force all the way on your side for a few turns. If your opponent is playing smart then they won’t let you keep it there. Keeping the force with you can be really important if you want to do just that little bit extra on your turn but also more importantly, stop your opponent from their extra benefits. The U-Wing for example gives three credits, but if the force is with you it also lets you heal three damage to a base, which in this game is huge. Just knowing that cards like that are out makes winning that war for the force just as important as attacking bases. It’s all about that base. Being able to pick your own bases gives you a nice amount of control and allows you to tailor the game to the particular play style you’ve adopted for that game. On the surface it’s easy to think that you should go for the base with the highest defence. But you'll probably get more of a benefit picking a base for a specific power. If for example, you're focusing on building up a powerful deck and keeping it slim, then Kessel will help you exile cards. On the rebels side, if you have a deck that makes your opponents discard cards then Yavin IV deals two damage to a base everytime they discard a card. In a starting game the rules give you four specific bases (other than your starter base) you can pick from. In a regular game you get access to all ten meaning you have a much wider choice and you can really tailor the base you pick to the deck you’ve been building or vice versa. Fear is the path to the dark side. This game is quick. It says thirty minutes on the box and that’s pretty accurate and that’s if you're playing to all four bases. If you're looking for something to break out if you’ve got a bit of spare time then this is not a bad option. Because it’s so quick though I never felt like I was seeing the full potential from the deck I’d spent my time building up. By the time I felt like I had a good deck of cards, it wasn’t long before the game was over and I probably had one really satisfying hand of cards. Now I will say that I’ve never been great at thinning my deck in deck builders so that last part may just be on me, but I also wonder that with a properly curated deck the game could even be over quicker? I personally never felt that there was a lot of synergy in the decks I was building. One of the things I love in deck building is when cards just trigger off of each other and you get those big, satisfying hands of cards. It’s one of the reasons I gravitate towards Hero Realms. I never really felt any of that here. What I think hasn’t helped is that there’s still cards that I haven’t seen turn up in the row, even after quite a few games. I know Jyn Erso and the Millenium Falcon are in there but I’ve barely seen them come through in a game yet. Another casualty of the speed of the game is that you only get through about a quarter of the deck each time. This can become even more of a problem if you’re not getting enough capital ships through the row. These are so important as a means of defence that if they’re not coming out, or they're not your faction/ neutral then your base is merely a sitting Bantha and will surely not last long after a couple of heavy attacks. If the ships aren’t coming out for you then it can feel even worse when your opponent is just throwing damage at you and you know that you’ve not even had the opportunity to defend yourself. My other issue comes from the galaxy row I was praising earlier. Yes it’s a fun idea, but no amount of shuffling stopped us from having a row that had almost all of one faction's cards, and this happened a few times. I know that this is where the idea of attacking other cards in the row comes into play. You can even spend credits to buy off and discard neutral cards in the row with an optional rule, but more often than not I found it was more beneficial to put damage on my opponent's base. If I’ve got say, ten damage to deal (which you can potentially get just from Vader alone) and credits to spend, Surely it’s better that I damage their base than take out a card in the row on the off chance that it might get replaced with a card I can buy? More so if it’s unprotected because that's way over half of the damage done. This rings true even more in the late game when you’ve probably built up a powerful deck already and don't feel like adding to it. As I said earlier, this style of deck builder isn’t necessarily my thing so this had a big job to do to win me over. But even given my love of Star Wars this couldn’t break through for me and the force just wasn’t with it. So it stands to reason that it’s leaving the collection then? Well no because my daughter loves it and as long as she’s enjoying it and wants to play it it’ll stay. It’s by no means a bad game and I'll happily play it with her when she wants to. But for me there’s too many things holding it back for me to want to grab it over something like Hero Realms. I know that a lot of people are really enjoying it so If you’re in the market for a straightforward, quick deck building game and are a Star Wars fan then this may be worth a look. Other than that I’d put this firmly in the try before you buy camp.

Perspectives WBG Score: 6 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Unlock , Exit Published by: Space Cowboys Designed by: Matthew Dunstan , Dave Neale This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey As you can see from the low score Perspectives wasn’t a game for us. I'm going to get into why but considering a lot of people love this one you might say that we have a different…perspective on things. You know, if we did emojis on this site even I would be tempted to put the head in hands one for that. How to see things from a different angle. The first thing you're presented with is instructions on how to use the tutorial. This is basically a puzzle that uses the edges of the bottom of the box. It won’t take long so give it a go to get a flavour of how the next cases will play out. When you're ready for your first case (there are three in the box) take the envelope and pull out the folder for act one. This will give you the start of the story and instructions on how to play the game. This will tell you to deal out the cards (keep them in order) to players until they’ve all been dealt out as evenly as possible. Players will keep their cards secret from each other. You’ll then be presented with a main question. Players then take it in turns to describe what’s on their cards to the other players. You then get to discussing each other's cards and the case and trying to deduce what you all think the answer to the question is. At any time you can all decide to reveal one card from someone’s hand to the table for free. You can reveal more but each one will lose you one point at final scoring. When you think you know the answer, flip over the act folder. There will be other questions once you’ve got the main answer. Once you’ve answered these and got your score, move onto the next act. Keep going until you’ve completed all the acts and add up your final score. Then, onto the next case.  Do you see what I see? If you’ve read any of my reviews then you’ll know that I love a good puzzle game. I  play the bulk of them with my daughter, partly because I need some brains on the team but mainly because we just love cracking open a new puzzle and experiencing everything these games have to offer and having the satisfaction of solving them together. Thankfully there have been more hits than misses. Perspective was unfortunately one of those rare misses for us.  As we played through the first case it became apparent that this just wasn’t for us. We realised that the main hook, the main premise of having hidden information just isn’t how we like to solve these puzzles. We like having the information in front of us so we can interact with what’s been presented to us when we want to. We like the freedom of trying to crack a piece of evidence or a puzzle together, or just grabbing different things and working on some things on our own. We like having those little epiphany moments and grabbing a piece of evidence to try and confirm our theory and the fact that we couldn’t immediately do all of that here felt too restrictive for us. It was like we were working together but also not. Now, obviously that sort of restriction is the whole point of Perspectives. It’s making everyone get involved and for that I can’t fault it. I’ve been in multiplayer puzzle games before and lets just say that more isn’t exactly merrier in some cases.  It did get to a point though where we kept asking “what was on that card again?” Or “was there anything else that we’ve missed?” It got to a point where I felt like I was being annoying asking the same things over and over again, even though we were writing stuff down. There is the option to reveal a card and even more cards for a cost in points at the end and even though we don’t always keep score with the games (we just like the thrill of the solve) it would have felt almost like cheating to me.  I’d be interested in hearing what people's sweet spot for this game was in terms of player count. At two it felt that maybe six cards each was too many and felt a bit laborious to describe and pay attention to everything being described. On the other hand I wonder if at six players two cards is too few? Especially if both of your cards are “solved” pretty quickly. Let me know. A fresh new angle With all of the above being said and how we felt about the game I do want to say that I don’t think Perspectives is a bad game. You only have to look at Board Game Geek and the wealth of positive scores to see that people really love this game. Despite it not being our style I think that the idea of the limited information does give a different and interesting spin on the puzzle game genre. As I said before it does a great job of getting every player involved in some capacity. Even if you feel that you're someone who isn't good at solving the puzzles, the way you get your piece of information across could be incredibly important to solving something and that in itself could be a great confidence boost for someone.  I generally prefer these sorts of games at a lower player count but this is one I’d actually think could benefit more players. It’s designed with group interaction in mind and could even fall into the territory of a party game as you constantly share information and banter across the table, especially if you're a group who know each other and have been playing a lot of co-op games together.  Needless to say, I doubt we’ll be diving back into the perspectives pool anytime soon but, if anything I’ve said about this sounds appealing to you or sounds like something that your group would absolutely love then I would have no problem recommending it.

Klink WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 3-5 You’ll like this if you like: No thanks, 6 Nimmt , Cockroach Poker Published by: Rebel Studio Designed by: Darrell Cannon This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey Because I was having trouble coming up with my usual “hilarious” introductions for this game I decided to find out what Klink actually meant. So, instead of laughs, you get semantics. In Dutch it means a catch of wood or metal to fasten a door. In German (and Dutch) it means a maker of door fittings or a customs or border officer and it’s also slang for prison cell. Which is ironic because this game has no barrier to entry, is not somewhere to get locked up in nor is the box fastened with anything……it’s also not a Pokémon……there’s a Pokémon called Klink. How to Klink To set up, simply shuffle the number cards into a face down deck. Then shuffle the special ability cards and place three out face up and you're ready to go. On your turn take two cards from the deck and place them face down, unseen in front of you. Then look at one of the cards, at which point you have a decision to make. Either keep the cards, flipping them face up and adding them to your tableau or pass them to another player round the table. If you pass them on, that player then gets to look at one of those cards (it doesn’t matter which one) and then makes the same decision, although they can only pass the cards to a player that hasn't already had them this turn. When a player decides to keep the cards and flips them over they check for two effects. If you have two cards of the same number they flip face down. If you get a run of three numbers then you get to use one of the special ability cards which then gets discarded and replaced with a new one. Whoever keeps the cards then draws the top two cards and starts again. A round will end when one player has ten cards in front of them. The players will score what’s in front of them. Face down cards will score nothing and the player who has the most cards in front of them will minus ten points from their score. That sounds quite punishing until you realise that the person with the lowest score at the end of the game will win. If, at the end of a round a player has scored 77 points the game will end.  It’s good to Klink It’d be all too easy to look at this unassuming deck of number cards and wonder just how much strategy can you get from them. Well, it’s actually a decent amount. Rounds will start simply enough. You see a high value card, well, maybe you pass it on but with no real priority on who it goes to. Maybe the person opposite you because you’ve found out that they’ve been stealing one of each of your pairs of socks. As the game goes on and people start to get cards in front of them you can start playing more tactically. If you flip a card and you don’t want to take them it’s easy to see who you should and shouldn’t pass them to. The last thing you want is to give someone cards only for them to be able to flip cards or complete a run and use an ability card. There’s even times when it can get a bit semi co-operative as you pass cards to another player just hoping they look at the same card as you and realise why you passed to them rather than someone else. It’s this fun little back and forth of trying to get one over on your opponents by pushing those big cards onto them but at the same time it could all too easily backfire because you’ve only got half the information to go on. Sure you could be passing them a high card, but also that second card could be just the card they needed. It’s that fun little twist and element of partial push your luck and the unknown that brings the game to life.  Is there a barrier? The biggest sin in this game for me is the way it looks. It’s a deck of cards with numbers on and another with some special abilities on and no theme. Now that in itself isn’t a problem because there are many a great game that are just theme-less decks of numbered cards. Unfortunately the almost plain white box and the non descript name  doesn’t exactly draw people to it on the shelf. I’d brought this to a few game nights before we finally started playing it and people's attention were certainly turned to other more vibrant looking games. Unfortunately in board games you’re damned if you do and you're damned if you don’t. If you throw a theme onto a game that is essentially abstract you’ll find people complaining that it makes no sense and was pointless to put it on there. However, go in the opposite direction and you're sure to have people saying that it should have been made more appealing. I’m aware that I’m kinda doing the latter here but I’ll admit that this one has been in my review pile for longer than I usually like. I was taking it to game nights and people weren’t picking it out among the other boxes that were on offer. It was getting lost in the mix which was a shame because people enjoyed it when we did start getting it to the table. It’s all a fine balance to walk and I don’t envy anyone having to make that decision as to the best way to go to present these games.  Whilst personally I think the more luck based aspect of not knowing exactly what you're passing to people gives the game a bit of flair, I can see how this may be the thing that puts people off. On the subject of luck, unless one player gets consistently unlucky with some high scoring cards, the 77 point end game trigger can take a while to get to which means that games can have the potential to out stay their welcome. If you're worried about this then I’d set the bar at a lower number and see how people are feeling and if they want to carry on. Klink is going to be taking up residence in my rotation of small box card games that I take with me on travels. It fits nicely into that category of quick, easy to teach games to pull out at the start or the end of a game night.

SAS Rogue Regiment  WBG Score: 9 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Sniper Elite Published by: Word Forge Games Designed by: Robert Butler , James Churchill This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey Since this is a game all about stealth and keeping quiet, I figured the review should also follow suit. So from here on out the entire review is going to be written in whispers. Unfortunately, since I can’t really convey whispers in a written format I’ll need to ask everyone to please read this review in hushed tones. Thank you for your cooperation. Now ON TO THE REVIEW!, sorry, sorry, too loud.  How to sneak. First, pick your mission and your operators. Each operator has two different sets of weapons and tools so pick whichever is best for the particular mission or just go with whichever sounds more fun. Set out the sentry’s on their spots and the relevant patrolmen on their paths on one of the starting arrows and facing in that direction. Each one has two different starting spots so feel free to pick the one that’s advantageous to you. Set up the event deck with any extra cards, should the mission call for it, place the alarm marker on your desired difficulty and away you go.  The game has two distinct phases. A stealth phase and a battle phase and starting with the stealth phase which goes on until the alarm track gets to zero and triggers the battle phase. Both phases play out in similar ways but have very different feels. On your turn you get 4 Action points and a plethora of different actions to use them on. Moving is one but you can also spend two AP (action points) to sprint three spaces. You can crouch, attack, place mines, traps, do combined actions like pop up and shoot or move and attack. You can aim at a target for an advantage when you attack them or you could mark them meaning you can take an attack action on them during the enemy phase if/when they move into a better position. You can even use a free action to pick up an object on your spot. There’s a few things that you’ll want to pick up like traps you’ve placed down, fuel barrels so you can set them up to help you explode things in the future or, probably more important, picking up a body or dropping one off in a nearby bush all in the name of stealth. There’s really no point taking you time to cleverly take out an enemy only to leave a mess behind you. It’s the in game equivalent of taking a cookie from the jar and leaving a trail of crumbs. Many things you do can potentially alert an enemy to your presence. So if you fire a loud weapon, any enemy within its earshot range will become alert and turn to face the direction of the shot. They’ll also alert any other enemies within four spaces of them. They'll also alert if they see the body of a fallen comrade or see you moving within their line of sight. If you are seen then you become spotted. Once players have taken all their actions the enemies will go. If you’ve been spotted,  they’ll try and move into a position to attack you. Then you'll flip over an event card and check the left side of the card. This will either advance the alarm tracker or rotate the sentries or the patrolmen round in a specific direction. The direction matters because if you (or a body) fall into their line of sight as they turn they'll become alert. Then the patrolmen will move four spaces on their track with the colours alternating. Black lines on the first round, white on the second etc. Any enemies that moved, or are alert and have line of sight on you will attack. Once the alarm track hits zero, which will usually be by combination of using loud weapons, having alert enemies at the end of a round,  the event deck or from the use of explosives (which instantly drops it to zero) the game will head to battle mode. This plays out in pretty much the same as stealth mode except now all enemies are alert and will head for the nearest spotted operator. If you’ve not been spotted then you can still be sneaky but if, when the alarm goes off there are no spotted operators then you have to pick someone to be spotted, just so the enemies have someone to head towards. Spawned units will enter the board and now the event deck will spawn more enemies. The game will end when either all the operators have been taken out or they’ve escaped or a combination of both. You’ll then count up your mission points and see how you did. Missions will award you points for completing objectives and for getting operators back safely and will give you point targets for a minor and a major victory.  It’s oh so quiet If you’d have told me that someone was going to make a board game that was essentially a stealth simulator that tries to mimic those great stealth video games, but had the potential to have you sitting around not doing anything for a few turns. Well I probably would have steered clear because dead turns in a board game is one of my pet peeves and yes, in Rogue Regiment you can have moments of doing nothing on your turn. But somehow this game makes them really interesting and tension filled and almost essential if you want to play efficiently. It captures the very essence of those stealth video games perfectly as you lie in wait just hoping an enemy will move so you can either make a run for it, run up and stick a cheeky knife in their back or throw down a bear trap for them to walk into. It gives you that little buzz of excitement and makes you want to pat yourself on the back (quietly) for a plan well executed. What makes this whole thing even more tension-filled is that event deck. The partly programmed enemy movement means that you can spend your time making a plan so good that it would make the whole Oceans Eleven gang immediately retire, only to flip an event card that rotates an enemy and before you know it you’re awkwardly standing, knife in hand, staring face to face with the person you were just about to expertly off. It’s moments like that though that really make this game shine. As much as it stands to ruin some well thought out plan, you’ll find it hard not to laugh at the situation. It makes for some awesome in-game stories that you’re sure to be talking about from game to game.  That unpredictability of the game means that there are very few truly safe spaces on the board, so you find yourself holding up on a space that should be safe, just so long as that one sentry doesn’t turn around. At that point all you can do is hold your breath as that next card gets flipped over in what feels like slow motion. Not only that, but it ups the ante when in terms of replayability. You could play the games the same way each time and every card flip will shape the game into a wholly different experience. It elevates this game from what could have been a solvable puzzle to being a tension filled pot of sneaky joy. The two phases of the game both bring their own challenges and puzzles while also bringing their own distinct vibes. The stealth phase is all about doing your best Elmer Fudd impressions and trying to be vewy, vewy quiet. It’s all about being meticulous in your planning and trying your best to do as much of the mission as possible before all hell breaks loose in the battle phase. It’s this phase (I’d imagine from all of my plays) that will make up the bulk of your games. You can’t help but feel inventive and a little bit clever as you sneakily plant traps or hide in bushes and mark an enemy so you can get them as they walk past you. It has a real sandbox feel to the game as you and the other players come up with a myriad of different ways to play out your missions. For me it really captures everything I’d want in a stealth game but still has plenty of room for more potential things down the line. In fact some of the Kickstarter extras included an operator that can use a disguise and someone that can throw rocks for distractions. Two small things in terms of what they can do but huge in terms of how you can approach the game. It just goes to show how much they could do with some small changes in the future. We’re in the Endgame now The battle phase, like Thanos or taxes, is inevitable, either from the game ticking the clock down or from your own choosing by using explosives for example. It's at this point the game goes from players taking a precision approach, to being a wrecking crew in a game that resembles an all out action movie. There’s still some room to be a bit sneaky because as long as you’ve not been spotted you can still pull this off without the attention, but now it’s all about the hustle because the longer you leave it, the more units are going to flood the board and the harder the final dash to victory is going to be. Once you do get spotted though you’d better hope that you’ve done enough of the mission that you can just run towards the exit because the game is going to ramp up. Actually, after all that stealthy tension in the previous phase it can be quite a nice release to break out the big guns (literally) and have no restrictions. That’s not to say that the tension drops though. It’s just been swapped out for a different type.  I spoke about replayability and the sandbox nature of the game and I love how this game gives you so many options in how you can approach each mission. One time you could hitch a rowboat across the river, the next time you could attempt to get across the bridge or send an operator over the river in scuba gear to take out some enemies before you make an advance. You could go full stealth and choose not to use loud weapons or you could just go all hell for leather and storm in firing and throwing grenades.  I love the customisation this gives you. Not only from a “how to play out a mission” standpoint, but from how you can change up the maps. The first mission for example seems like a solo only affair and acts as a tutorial in some respects. But if you want to play with more players then just add a few more tiles to open out the map. Similarly, if you think a mission is too big or could take too long then just remove a couple of tiles. Burned through the missions in the book? Don’t worry, just make up your own. This is definitely a game that gives you all the tools and encouragement to be as creative as you want. The missions are just there to get you started or for people who just want to set up and play. The whole thing is built to be played how you want but there’s room to add so much cool stuff down the line as evidenced by the recent trailer for their new Kickstarter which has got me really excited for what’s coming.  Talking of setup. The majority of my plays of this have been solo and generally if a game is too big or fiddly to set up it tends to me off of playing it a lot solo. I wouldn’t say Rogue Regiment is a quick setup, nor is it a “I’ll get to the club early to set up” job. But it’s the type that would generally put me off soloing other games. This game has broken the mould because regardless of the setup I still keep wanting to pull this out and run through another mission and experiment with it.  Go big or go rogue  I hope you’ve got a big table because this game can be a table hog as the missions get bigger. Each double sided tile is about 28cm by 28cm and at minimum you’ll be using four and at most all nine with one side taking up the entire width of my table! That’s without having to add the operator boards and any spawn tiles on it. As I mentioned earlier there are ways to make missions smaller or bigger which is a great touch for people with smaller tables, but it’s worth being aware of if you want to play the missions by the book.  If I’ve got any other niggles it’s that it can be difficult to tell the difference between the normal riflemen and the SMG riflemen so it’s worth keeping them in separate compartments if you can. I also don’t love that the alarm track is printed in the mission book. The game can already take up a decent amount of space so having to have a book out on the table, doesn’t make that any better. I kinda wish the alarm tracker from the Kickstarter (a cardboard wheel in the shape of a watch) was included in the retail version. I’ve taken to printing out my own separate tracker for it just to help with table economy. Something else that may just be a me thing (let me know) is that the measuring tool you’re given measures 8 spaces (which is the how far the enemy can see) but it’s only accurate for diagonal measuring. I mention this because all my games up to and including half of my first multiplayer game I'd been using to measure straight and not counting the 8 spaces and it counts way more spaces that way. It actually made the game harder than it should have been. It was no less fun, but it definitely made my head spin more trying to get myself out of some situations. I don’t back Kickstarters for many reasons, but sometimes a game like this turns up and makes me want to reconsider that decision. Because now it’s here and I’ve played it, I want everything. I've just got the retail box and I’ve seen unboxings of people with their all in black boxes full of all the expansions, event cards, the extra operators and with all the missions and I want all of them and honestly, it’s not often that I fall this hard this quickly. Thankfully some of those you can get at retail and unfortunately some you can’t, but I’m certainly going to try and pick up what I can. On the subject of Kickstarter, I want to applaud everyone involved for not falling down the miniatures rabbit hole. This could so easily have been a box……sorry boxes! filled with minis and potentially sold double but I think the tokens are all that’s needed here. They’re good quality, practical and don’t require people to have painting skills to make them pop.  SAS Rogue Regiment gives me everything I want in a stealth game whilst giving me enough freedom to tell my own stories, play the game however I want and let me tailor it to my own needs. Even though this is largely a game about keeping quiet I think we need to be making enough noise about it to get this in front of as many people as possible.  Right, I’m off to sneak around my house and hope that my wife doesn’t spot me. Not for any nefarious reasons, but because I’ve come home later than I should have and I think I’m going to be in trouble. Wish me luck!

White Hat WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Trick taking games with a twist Published by: Dragon Dawn Productions Designed by: Thomas Klausner , Ren Multamäki This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . White Hat refers to hacking, but the good kind. Apparently, there are people who try to hack into websites and accounts to test vulnerabilities to protect the business from real attacks. Who knew? Well, this game is based - loosely - on that. (and the previous game, Black Hat, which was largely the same, but with no one player variant). The theme doesn't really come through, but it's a trick-taker, what did you expect? But what does come through is a game that is very well thought out and this hits you very quickly. In game one I would wager most playing this game would be slapped in the face with a big fat "ooh, this is interesting" vibe. It does two interesting things, both slimming down the usual trick-taking rules while adding a board. So, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up White Hat Place the board onto the table. One is for the standard game, the other for more experienced players with a few more rules. Likewise, there are additional tiles you can add to the board for more variation. I would suggest you stick with the main board for game one. The extra tiles add a few new rules that may be a bit much for game one, but we will get to later and you can make your own mind up. Then each player chooses a colour and places their round score marker onto space zero, and their two hats onto the Internet Café and Public Server starting spaces. This is the only time you can have more than one hat on the same space. Next, shuffle the cards together and draw the top one. Then pick one of the three White Hat cards to play with, the differences are purely aesthetic. Give the White Hat card to the player who is sat the same number of spaces, clockwise to the dealer, as the card just drawn from the top of the main pile. Then deal cards out to each player so everyone has ten cards. So, nine to the player with the White Hat, ten to the rest. You are now ready to play. How To Play White Hat The player sitting to the right of the one with the White Hat is the lead. They must now play a card or cards. You can play as many as you like, and any card you like, there are no suits; so long as the cards all have the same rank (number). The following players must now play card(s) in turn order, following if they want, the same number of cards played. So, if the lead player played two fours, then all other players can either play two of anything, or a single card if they choose not to play a double, or cannot. If you do not follow the same quantity of cards played then you cannot win the trick. The person who played the highest value card that followed the lead quantity wins. All cards played in the trick are then discarded, and the player who won can move one of their two hats on the main board. They must move following the arrows on the board. you can only move one space, but if another hat is in front of you, you must jump that other hat to move forward an extra space until you land on the next free unoccupied space. They can also chose to move forward another players hat if anyone else currently resides on one of the negative one spaces. If this is not possible, to move any hat, then the winner draws an extra card to their hand from the draw pile. That is very rare though. There are joker cards in the deck which alone are worth fourteen, but with any other card, they replicate that card's rank. The White hat does the same, acting as a Joker. The only differences are that it is double-sided, so everyone knows who holds the White Hat, and also, when the White hat is played, the rules switch to the lowest cards win. Also, the winning player must draw the White hat card back into their hand and also pick up all other cards played, or the same number as were led that round, apart from jokers. If you want to play the White Hat, and you did not lead this round, you must match the lead quantity of cards. you cannot play it alone for example, if the lead was two cards. The White hat is also worth the most points, five. And in this game, points are bad! The round ends when one player is out of cards. All players then score based on the cards in their hand and the position of their two hats on the main board. The points are tallied up, and the score markers are moved accordingly. The White Hat and new cards are distributed just as before, and a new round begins. The game ends when one player moves their hat to the final space on the board, or no hats can move. Finish that final round, then score the last round and declare the winner based on the player with the fewest points. There are a few special spaces on the board with actions, more so when you flip the board, or add tiles during set up. In the main game, only the Honey pot exist, and the tracer, if you chose to include it. The Tracer is a space on the board indicated by the FBI Server. When a hat reaches it, that hat is stuck there for the rest of the game. Take the Tracer card (there are two of these cards for variable speed) and place the ring onto the first space. Then, when the player with the hat on this FBI Server wins a trick in later rounds, the ring on the Tracer card moves forward one space. When it reaches the final space, move it to the Public Server on the main board. It can then move to any adjacent space, even occupied ones. It does not have to follow arrows like the hats. It cannot get blocked like the hats, and when it lands on a space with another hat, that hat is moved to Tracer jail where you will score five points at the end of the game. The ring moves every time the player in control wins a trick, as well as their hat. When a ring is in front of a hat on the board, the player behind can choose to jump it, just like a hat, but of course, this is risky. The honey pot works similar to this, in that a hat gets stuck in this space. But that is it. There are no following rules or events. The Critical Asset space is the final space on the board, and when a hat enters this space, the game ends. There are six variants for the final Critical Asset tiles that you can add at the start of the game. Place it face down with the question mark showing. Then when a player lands on this space, flip it over to reveal the new rule. This could force the player landing there to now exchange their hand with any other player, reduce the penalty in the Tracer jail from five to one, force you to give one of your cards to another player, or other such interesting end game twists. A must-have addition for me. The Exploit space lets the player entering it increase or reduce the value of any other space by one. There are additional exploit markers that you can use to show this. The randomizer space allows the player entering it to draw a random game board tile and add it to the board, changing the face of the board set up mid-game! Any hats in the spaces that change are placed onto the new corresponding space, and any effects on their new space immediately come into effect. The Denial of Service space allows players who enter it to move any other player back to the Internet Café or Public Server starting space. This spot also locks any player that enters it. The Backflip spaces let the player entering it move another player's hat backwards one legal space. There is also an interesting variant where you can change the aim of the game for each player. Shuffle the Celebrity status cards and deal one out during setup. This card has values from 18 to 42 and shows each player their own target score. At the end of the game, the player who is closest to their target score wins. It's a very clever variant that makes the setup for each trick completely different. Sometimes players want to lose. Sometimes, they want to gain points. It is a very interesting way to play the game. Is It Fun? White Hat Card Game Review I love Trick-Taking games, but like most genres, it has been somewhat played out over the last few years with the saturation of the market. So, new games in this area, just like any other, need to add something more. A twist. This game does that so well. You think at the start of the game the twist is that this trick-taker has a board. And as much as that is a nice little addition, it really is just a nice visual way to move along some tracks that have a lot of easy ways to vary the setup. But the real twist here comes in other forms. Such as, no suits. No suits mean no trumps. And this opens up the card play in a whole new way. Players follow the quantity, not suit. And you win simply with the highest card. Unless The White Hat comes out, which reverses this. This has been seen in other trick-taking games, but the implementation of this reversal in a game where the card that instigates it is recycled back into that round is genius. Let's say we are near the end of a round. All players have around one to four cards left. Because, of course, a lovely wrinkle in this game's fabric is that players do not always hold the same quantity of cards as you can play more than one card when you have matching ranks, and not all players will be able to choose to do this. Anyway, when only a few cards are left, you will think the round is close to ending. And it is, but you never know exactly how many rounds that will be. Say someone plays The White Hat alone to lead. This is now a 14 and cannot win that trick. Now, say another player with only one card in their hand plays their final card, and it is a three and the lowest card played that round. They will now win that track, and be forced to pick up the White Hat card plus one other. They now have gone from one card, hoping to go to zero and end the round, to two and another round at least left. Maybe two. The White Hat is a handy card to have in the early stages of the game. It gives you a lot of control to get more cards into your hand, potentially build the number of matching cards in your hand, increase your chances of winning tricks, and move your hats. However, winning it near the end can be bad as you do not have the time left to get rid of it, and it gives you five points you probably do not want. There is a lot of opportunity for very clever card play in this game, coupled with some interesting options with the main board. Especially when you add all the variants in. I suggest you do not start with them all; instead, let players get used to the card play for a game or two. But then, when you add them in, this game feels rich and layered in ways other trick-takers simply do not. But it still comes in a small box, with simple rules, minimal set up, and quick gameplay. Games typically last around 30-40 minutes, and the game is very easily explained to anyone familiar with trick-taking as a concept. However, at first, they may find the concept of no suits confusing, especially as the cards are coloured differently. This is just to show more clearly their trace points. But it does throw you off a little, in a similar way to Hanabi, as players are so accustomed to seeing cards in a specific way. However, you will quickly get used to this and find the game to be highly rewarding for minimal effort. The only thing I do not love is the theme and art style. Others I have played with really liked it, so this is obviously subjective, but it just felt a bit 90's and harsh to me. It is hard to make a theme really come through in a trick-taking game, or any card game for that matter. The board here helps, but ultimately I find themes in card games to be very much secondary, so why not pick something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing? The art in this game is all low-bit numbers, computer hardware, and creepy-looking IT people. Not for me. But the game is excellent. I love playing this game, and have found the variations to be a wonderful addition to what is already a very solid experience. Especially the six end game variants that do not reveal themselves until the very end. I would like for this to be a little more game-breaking, but I understand that for balance and fairness, this is not the case. But in a game where sometimes you want to win, other times you want to lose, sometimes it's the highest card, other times it is the lowest, why not have one or two crazy end game twists as well? I felt that would have been a really fun way to play when you so choose. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys trick-takers, is looking for something that feels a little different, but still offers a very smooth and sympathetic entry into games. This would be easily taught to anyone not familiar with modern games but has played a few classic trick-taking games like Whist, for example, and I would wager they would quickly get the hang of the overall game and perhaps get hooked on the modern board game world. This publisher has made a fair few game in this genre, and I plan to cover some more soon, so stay tuned!

The Cat Mitt Game WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Pretending to be a cat! Published by: McMiLLER Designed by: David McGranaghan , Julian Miller This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Have you ever wanted to pretend to be a cat? Yes! Okay, perfect, then read on. If you answered "no" to the above question, then I am surprised you got this far! But maybe you are curious? In which case, are you sure it was a "no"? Either way, The Cat Mitt party game is a hilariously fun game for children and adults, where you need to try to knock a ball about to get dice cubes out to match certain puzzles. That is pretty much it, but I seem to be addicted. Shall we see how it plays? Great, but first, I would like to mention the publisher, McMiLLER . They are a new independent owned group of wonderful people who just care. Serious. Check out their site. It's wonderful. Inclusive. Sustainable. Open. Honest. Fun. I love these guys. Check them out. How To Set Up The Cat Mitt Game Take out the two mitts and ball, and place all the dice inside the ball. It is easiest to do this one at a time and with a little bit of care, rather than trying to stuff them in too fast! Then, shuffle the order cards and draw one card for all to see and give each player playing a Kitty card of their chosen colour. Place the two Meow dice into a central playing area and get ready to play. How To Plat The Cat Mitt Game The oldest player will now put on the mitts over their hands and will begin to roll the ball from paw to paw. They are trying to get one of the dice to fall out. If one does, then you need to try and pick it up and roll it so that it matches one of the dice faces shown on the current order card being used for that round. When it does, pick it up and place it into your Kitty card into the correct space, as shown on the order card. Keep doing this until you match the entire sequence. However, as this is going on, the player to your right will be rolling the two Meow dice. When they roll two "Meow's" then they must shout MEOW! And then they can take the mitts off your hand, and they will now start trying to knock a dice out, while the player to their right takes the dice. This continues until one player completes the sequence as shown on the order card that round. They must shout MEOW MEOW MEOW and the round ends. At this point, all players score one point for each correct dice placed into their play area, and the player who completed the sequence gains the bonus as shown on the top right of the order card. The game plays for three rounds, most points wins! There are two extra dice you can add for more chaotic fun: a pure red and a pure green dice. When these come out, all players must pay attention and make the appropriate sounds and gestures. For the green dice, you must cry "PURR PURR PURR" while scratching the table. The first to do this can take a treat (dice) from another player's player mat and add it to their own area. When the red cube comes out, all players must HISS and hold their hands up like a scared/angry Cat. The last player to do this takes the red cube and will score minus three at the end of that round. Is It Fun? The Cat Mitt Game If you are looking for a silly, fun party game to enjoy with all ages, then this could be for you. You cannot take this too seriously, but trust me, some of the players playing with you will! Maybe even you. It is strangely absorbing how much you want to get those dice out of the ball, and when someone rolls a double MEOW quickly, giving you less time, it can be very frustrating! But you need to remember what it is you are doing and keep the game in context! Because this game is very much about just having fun. There is some skill and technique as to how you can best get the dice out of the ball, but the speed at which the other players get the dice is obviously pure luck. You may end up spending a lot more time trying to get the dice out than the other players, perhaps with far less time. That part is totally random, and you need to embrace this. And when you do embrace the chaos, this can be a lot of fun. My family loved it from game one, and wanted to play over and over. I plan to get this out in the evening over the festive holidays, and I am certain this will be a hit. How much replayability it gets, I am unsure. Games are short, and typically we play at least two games each time. Generally, as the losing child insists on one more go! But I do think there is certainly enough fun - if not strategy and replayability - in this box to warrant your consideration if you are after a silly fun party game. Especially if you are a Cat person!

Fire In The Hole WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Pretending to be a pirate! Published by: McMiLLER Designed by: David McGranaghan , Julian Miller This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Before we get into this glorious game, can I take a second to praise the publisher, please? Thanks. McMiLLER is a new group of independent individuals who are truly caring folks. Seriously, visit their website. It's fantastic, welcoming, sustainable, transparent, and so much fun. I really admire them. Take a look for yourself. Fire In the Hole is a game where players wear pirate eye patches, throw wool cannonballs at a pop-up 3D pirate ship. If you really need to know more, then fine. I guess I will just have to write this entire review. But surely that is enough? It certainly was enough for me when I saw the pictures of this game. I wanted to play the moment I saw it, and I sense you may be the same? So, here, take a look at this. Not enough. Ok, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Fire In The Hole Fold out the game board to reveal the awesome 3D pirate ship. Be sure to open the two side parts as well; I missed that to start with. Then shuffle the cards, deal four to each player, and place the rest in a face-down pile onto the space provided on the board. Give each player six wool cannonballs in the colour of their choosing, as well as an eye patch. The black cannonball, along with the X marks the spot, along with the dice, and place them into a central area; you are now ready to play. How To Play Fire In The Hole Players will now take turns to draw one card and play one card. The cards offer various ways to throw cannonballs at the ship, as well as rotate the ship into a more favourable direction for you, and remove other players' cannonballs. The aim of the game is to get four of your coloured cannonballs onto the ship in an orthogonal group (touching, but not diagonally!). The first to do this wins. When you throw the balls, you must do so with your elbow on the table, and any cannonballs that do not land in a square can be rethrown until they do. When you throw, you will be instructed by the card you are using to roll the dice first. This will determine if this is a throw just for you - a solo throw, or a throw for all players - All Fire. In which case, everyone must follow the card's instructions and throw as it dictates. Be that with the eye patch on, eyes closed, two balls in hand, or however it says. You can go all together or one at a time if you want to watch the other players. Is It Fun? Fire In The Hole This game is hilariously fun. It looks fantastic, and it just cheers me up when I open it up and look at the ship. The game itself is very easy. It is just a simple dexterity game where you throw woollen balls into holes. But it is incredibly satisfying when you do it, and I cannot play a game without cheering my successes like I have done something meaningful! The variety in the cards is just enough to keep the game interesting, without it being taken too much away from the core game of simply throwing balls into a boat! Other than firing with your eye patch, the red cards that let you mother players cannon balls, or swap you colours with other players. The purple cards let you get more cards, fire two balls at once, or use the black cannon ball to destroy other cannonballs already in the ship! The green cards force you to fire with your non-dominant hand, let you spin the ship around, block a space with the X, or steal a card from another player. The chaotic fun of this game creates a highly entertaining experience that works for all ages. There is some skill involved, but not much. I would suggest that anyone over six could play this game and feel at ease with any adult, if not at an advantage! For a few minutes, anyone can pretend to be a pirate. Make pirate noises, wear a pirate eye patch, and throw cannonballs at a pop-up boat. What's not to like!

Dungeons Of Doria WBG Score: 8.5/10 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Gloomhaven , Resident Evil , Lots of Loot! Published by: Xploding 10 Games Designed by: Viktor Ahrens This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Dungeons Of Doria first came to Kickstarter a few years back and was successfully funded. Backers started to receive their copies at the start of 2024, and the game is now available at retail. I sense backers were attracted to the designer, Viktor Ahrens' passion, and the game's ambition. Early signs from those who backed this are that the game is delivering on the eely promises. Hundreds of loot cards, monsters, and levels to explore in a dungeon crawl for the ages. But is it any fun? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Dungeons Of Doria There are a lot of different ways to play this game. There are campaign-style mission books in the box that will set you up for multiple missions designed to be played across a multiple-game campaign. There is also a huge book full of one-off, one-shot missions that will keep you entertained for years! You can also design your own levels. But they all work off the core basics that I will explain briefly here to give you a feel for the game. To set up, begin by shuffling all Loot Cards (as best you can, there really are a lot!) and dividing them into three stacks of roughly 170 cards each. Bu don't worry too much about this. Just three piles of roughly the same height works. Place these stacks face down, then shuffle the small Monster Deck cards into a single face-down deck, placing the Level 1 Monster Deck nearby (or a higher level if you're playing later in a campaign). Next, set up the Initiative Board in the centre of the table and place the Doom Counter, Round Marker, and XP Marker in their starting positions on the board. Each player chooses a colour for their Initiative Marker and places it alongside the board. Gather the dice and sort out the remaining markers (Dungeon, Damage, and Bonus markers) so they’re ready for easy access. Each player now draws four Loot Cards from any of the loot stacks. With loot in hand, players either choose a character sheet or pick one at random. Set up the starting Room Tile, typically the stairs or tile 'A-1', in the middle of the table. It is worth noting that most scenarios need space for around eight to ten room tiles but keep in mind the layout can change depending on how you explore and open doors. You won't quite know which direction the game will progress too. In short, buy a bigger table! Next, prepare the Room Tile deck according to the scenario instructions and place it as a face-down deck nearby. Finally, select a scenario from the Book of Scenarios or choose from a Campaign Book, then read the story and details aloud to introduce everyone to the adventure ahead. There will be some scenario-specific setup and rules, but I won't go into that here. How To Play Dungeons Of Doria The game plays incredibly smoothly over a series of rounds that you can easily track using the game board. Players will be opening and exploring new rooms, fighting monsters, and trying to complete the specific scenario's goal. Defeat a monster, find an item, make a potion, free a prisoner, destroy an enemy storage room, blow up a bridge, collect loot... and so much more! But first, you need to choose your character. Pick one from the available eight, and assign them their matching equipment. Then draw six loot cards and assign them to your character. You can discard any items you do not want, exchange with the other players, or attach them to your character either in their current possession, belt, or backpack. Each character comes with their own set of base attributes. You can use these or create your own, distributing 50 points between the six attributes. You must set each characteristic above at least one, and at 13 or below. Each player uses one character, or in a two player game, it is recommended players have two each. Or, you can use just one and gain extra loot and each hero on level two as a base. The game will now play out over the below phases: Round Start : First, move up the round marker by one space. Shop Refresh : Next, it’s time to stock up! Refill the shop to keep three cards displayed, one in front of each loot deck. This gives everyone a fresh chance to eye potential treasures or new tools to buy. Roll for Initiative : Every player rolls two dice, adds their character’s Initiative Points (IP), and places their Initiative Marker on the Initiative Board based on this number. Just watch out—if anyone fumbles (two one's) while rolling, the Doom Counter creeps one space down the board. The Doom Counter isn’t just for show; it could mean trouble later on! Action Phase : Now for the heart of the round. Based on your available Action Points, players can perform a mix of actions like moving, searching for treasure, attacking, casting spells, and more. Plus, monsters might decide to join the fray, adding a twist to everyone’s tactics. Poison Check : Got any poisoned party members? Time to see if they hold strong. Roll for a test based on Constitution and Wisdom with two added dice—aim to meet or beat a challenging target number to shake off that venom! Special Actions : This is where things get interesting. Any special actions like Mods, multiplying zombies, traps, or scenario-specific events will activate now based on the room you are in, which monsters are present, and specific scenario rules, so stay alert. Doom Counter : For each room with at least one player in it and each unopened door, the Doom Counter drops another space. The lower it goes, the more the game’s effects kick in, so keeping an eye on this can be key to survival as this may activate more monster actions. Level Up : End-of-round rewards! Here, players can level up their character by collecting Hero Level Bonuses, distribute group XP, regenerate health, and recalculate IP and power points, readying up for the next round. Shop Actions : Finally, if anyone’s eyeing a shop item or needs to clear the space, now’s the time to buy or discard. The action phase is where the majority of the game occurs, so let's talk a little more about that first. The player with the highest initiative will take their first action. Moving costs one AP (Action Point), jumping costs five. You can reveal a new room tile for free by standing by a door. You can search for treasure for one AP, or five if you want to draw two cards. You still only get one card, but you have a choice now. Worth the AP, as not all loot is friendly! After moving, exploring, and looting, the main thing you will do is fight. All items have an AP score. To use a weapon or item, simply spend the shown Action Points on your initiative tracker and carry out the card. Most weapons require a certain dice roll and offer a modifier to that. Whatever you are attacking will have a similar defence based on the item they may or may not be using to try to block the attack. If you roll a ten (these are D10 you are using), you can roll that die again, adding whatever you roll next to the previous ten. If you roll another ten, go again! Fighting works according to usual line of sight rules. If you inflict damage ten points over the defence of your enemy, this is called a critical hit and will add a second hit. Different items will show different levels of damage. Different enemies will have different defence. Defeated monsters drop one loot card which you can immediately pick up for free. When you open a new room, there will be space for new monsters shown on the tiles. There is also an excellent room guide, a separate rule book with detailed information on what every space in every room means. It offers some flavour text and quick, simple explanations. It is the best of its kind for this sort of thing. Monsters are spawned by drawing from the monster deck at random. Whatever you draw, find the associated monster card and standee and add it to the board. If you draw a modifier instead of a monster, draw another card and add this modifier to that monster. This monster now has a special additional skill to battle! When you spend your AP and move your AP counter, you will most probably move it below another player, or even a monster. Always activate whichever character or monster has the highest AP score on the Initiative board. Be sure you spend the AP points for whatever action you do. When you have run out of AP, your round is over. But, if you have just one AP left, you can always do any action you want. When you spend AP, you must spend exactly whatever you need to if you have enough AP, but if you do not have enough, you can still do any final action, or use any item and go into negative initiative. Just move the AP tracker to zero and carry out your final action. The rounds will continue until one players' character dies, or you complete your scenario's objective. If you are in a campaign, you can play multiple scenarios with the same characters, levelling up as you go, gaining new loot and powers. One-off scenarios work in a similar way, but have a more immediate finish and no lasting effects. Is It Fun? Dungeons Of Doria Board Game Review This game offers an immense sense of exploration that keeps players engaged and eager to uncover more. The world feels vast and dynamic, both in its sheer size and the depth of loot it provides. Players have the freedom to approach the game in multiple ways, thanks to a wide range of missions, diverse gameplay styles, and paths they can choose. This freedom adds to the sense of discovery as players can replay the game with different strategies or focus areas, or simply to see more rooms, fight more monsters, and discover more loot! This makes each playthrough feel fresh and unique. The variety of monsters further enriches this experience. Each encounter feels new, challenging, and rewarding because of the different strengths, weaknesses, and behaviours of each creature. This constant adaptation keeps players on their toes, fostering a sense of excitement about what they might encounter next. The loot system also fuels the excitement of exploration; the rewards are as varied as the monsters themselves, meaning each battle holds the potential for new, powerful items or resources. Actually, that is not true. The loot outweighs the monsters by about 100 to 1! And that is not because there are not many monsters. There are loads. 160 monster cards in total. There is just so much loot! Over 500 cards. This element of surprise and potential for reward adds to the thrill, making each journey into new territory feel worthwhile. The huge stacks of loot genuinely make me want to play the game again and again. Never before has a huge stack of cards made me so excited for repeat plays. Except maybe Ark Nova. The game's design supports an exploratory mindset, encouraging players to deviate from the main path to uncover hidden areas, secrets, and treasures. There are a lot of little tricks and twists within the rooms themselves. The game rewards patient curiosity, but can also be played simply by rushing towards the goal. Either play style works and can be fun. This balance of risk and reward creates a compelling loop of exploration, combat, and reward. Overall, the game’s commitment to variety, challenge, and discovery creates an experience where exploration is not only encouraged but constantly rewarded, making it a game that players want to keep coming back to. And with over 60 scenarios, there certainly is a lot to come back to! I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys dungeon crawlers and is looking for a game that offers huge replayability and develops over multiple plays. If you want a one-and-done, this can be for you too. And you will have fun with it. But it is a big box full of great adventure, and it seems a waste to be treated like that. This game wants, yearns, and deserves repeat plays. If you want a game that can envelop you in that way, this could well be for you.

Mysticana: A Foundation Deck WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Solo or group puzzle with clever card play. Published by: Button Shy Designed by:  D ustin Dobson , Jamie Thul This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . In our recent review for Rove Jr we promised we would start covering more games from Button Shy. Why? Well, they release them at great speed. Generally, once a month. And they are mostly fantastic! Mysticana is a fascinating game. It has a Foundation deck that comes, as usual, with 18 cards and rules to play the game in one of three ways. We will talk about each below. Then, there are 11 other ways to play, two of which we will also cover. These come via mini six-card expansions that connect with the foundation deck to create new ways to play. It is an intriguing system. But are they any fun? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up And Play Mysticana For the base game, there are three ways to play, let's go through them all one-by-one. Nine Perils - Solo Game - Base Game Shuffle the main 18 cards and deal nine face down in a row. Flip the centre card face up and then draw one, two, or three cards into your hand, depending on the difficulty you want. The more cards you have, the easier the game will be. Then place the remaining cards face down into a draw pile. Now, flip any one of the eight remaining face-down cards so that it is face up, draw one card from the deck, and then play one card (face up) from your hand below any of the nine cards in a row that are currently face up or face down. The idea of the game is that the card you play below will "beat" the card above. Cards beat other cards if they have a higher number. Cards get a plus one boost if they have a higher element. Fire beats Land. Land beats Water. Water beats Fire. Some cards have a diamond icon instead of a number. These cards are called Avatars and simply win or lose based on rank. If two cards are tied, the way to resolve this is by comparing the two cards two columns to the right. This will also impact the cards directly to the right, regardless of the cards there. If you win all nine cards and avert the perils, you win the game. If not, shuffle them up and play again! The Path Ahead - 2-4 Players - Base Game This is a slightly more advanced version of "Higher or Lower." Shuffle the 18 base cards and place them face down into a deck. Flip the top card face up and place it into a discard pile. Players will now take turns to guess if the next top card of the deck will beat the top card in the discard pile or not. Cards beat other cards if they are either a higher element or a higher number of the same rank. Remember, element-wise, Fire beats Land. Land beats Water. Water beats Fire. The Avatar (Diamond) cards are all worth one in this version of the game. When the active player has made their guess, and it really does start that way, just as a guess, they flip the top card over to see if they were right or not. If they were wrong, they must then take either the card from the deck or the discard pile and add it to their hand. If the deck is empty, you must draw from the discard pile when this happens. After taking a card this way, if they then have two cards of the same rank (number) or three cards of the same element, they can reveal these cards and discard them. When the deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile and form a new draw deck, flipping the top card again into a new discard pile to start the process again. The round ends when any player has three cards at the end of their turn. Every other player has one final turn, then each player adds the ranks (number) of the cards in their hand to the running total. The game ends when any player has scored 20 or more. The player with the lowest score wins the game. Sorcerers' Showdown - 2 Players - Base Game Shuffle the base deck and discard two cards face down. Deal the remaining 16 cards out, eight cards each. Players then play a series of rounds where they first set aside two cards to be used for the next round. The first player then plays a card face up from their hand, and the other player must then play a card on top of this, of the same element if they can. The player who played the stronger card wins the clash. A stronger card is determined much the same as in the other variants: either the higher rank (number) of the same element, or a stronger element. Again, Fire beats Land, Land beats Water, and Water beats Fire. The winning player takes the two cards and places them into a separate face-down pile. If they won using an Avatar (diamond), which counts as ones in this variant, they can also take another clash (previously won set of two cards) from a previous round that they had not won. When players have emptied their hands, the round ends. If one player won all the clashes that round, they win the game. If not, set up for the next round. Each player takes the two cards they reserved previously, then the other 14 cards are shuffled and four cards are discarded if it is round two, and six in round three; if you get that far. Meaning in round two, you deal five cards each into a hand of seven, and four each into a hand of six in round three. Continue increasing the number of discarded cards by two each round like this until a player wins the game by winning all clashes. Cave Of Djinns Expansion - Solo Game This expansion introduces six new Djinn cards. Shuffle them, including the odd flip, as they are double-sided. Then place them down in a triangular formation as shown in the rules. Shuffle the main Mysticana deck and place it face down. Then, play a series of turns where you draw two cards from the deck and place them one at a time above, below, or beside any of the six Djinn cards. The Djinn all set a unique riddle. A specific arrangement of cards that need to be placed above, below, and beside them. When you have achieved this for one Djinn, you will then gain that Djinn's power. This is either to move one Mysticana card previously placed into a new blank position, reclaim one previously played card and place it into the discard pile, or to switch two previously played Mysticana cards' positions. Then, you must cover the completed Djinn, either using a neighbouring card, if it is of a higher Element, or from the top card from the deck. This is to show it has been completed. When you play a card, it will be ideal to suit a neighbouring Djinn's riddle. But it is hard to make it suit both neighbouring Djinns. Most positions are next to two Djinns, and their riddles will not always align. This is why you need to move cards around after you place them, to try and complete one Djinn's riddle, then clear the way to now complete another. The Djinn's riddle requires certain cards to be placed orthogonally next to them, such as from specific elements (suits), ranks (numbers), or to work together and add up to a specific number. You will win the game if you complete all the Djinn's riddles. You lose if all cards are played and at least one Djinn's riddle remains unanswered. You can play a few variants by reducing the required number of completed riddles from six down to either five or four to make it easier, or by removing the top card from the Mysticana deck to make it more difficult. You can also make it a lot harder by filling specific spaces (as shown in the rules) with the top one, two, or three cards from the Mysticana deck, taking away your choice for the first one to three cards. Arcana Artefacts Expansion - 2-6 Players This expansion introduces six new Artefact cards. Shuffle these, randomly flipping some as you go, as they are double-sided. Shuffle the 18 base Mysticana cards separately and deal two cards to each player. Take the top Artefact card and read out the modifier shown on it to all players. These change each round and tend to affect a player's total hand based on various criteria. Each player then has one chance to discard one of their two cards and replace it with a new card. You can decide to keep what you have, or swap one card, and you can only do this once. Based on this, each player then decides if they want to Stay or Resign. Any player who resigns gains one point and is out of the round. If all but one player resigns, the one remaining player receives three points and the round ends. If at least two players remain, the round continues and the top card of the Mysticana deck is revealed. This card shows the number of points available this round, based on that card's rank (number). It also determines the value of any Avatars in each player's hands. If the point card is an Avatar, then the value of Avatars this round, and the points up for grabs is seven. All players still in the round then reveal their two cards and work out who gains the bonus from the modifier that round. Each player then totals their points, based on the rank (number) of their two cards played, plus any additional modifier bonus if they have it, and the player with the higher rank wins. Ties are split by the player who won the Modifier card that round, or highest individual card if that doesn't work. The winning player scores the round's points as shown by the card revealed earlier, and a new round begins, flipping a new Artefact. Play continues like this until one player reaches 30 points, wins the previous round, and has the highest score at the end of that round. You can play a quicker variant by reducing the points target to 20 if you wish. Is It Fun? Mysticana: A Foundation Deck Card Game Review (Including Expansions) Nine Perils Card Game Review People may enjoy this simple card game for its straightforward yet strategic mechanics that blend luck with decision-making. The setup is quick, and choosing how many cards to draw at the start lets players adjust the challenge to suit their preferences, adding a level of personal customisation that appeals to a broad range of skill levels. The game’s clever system adds to its appeal, with players needing to anticipate the face-down cards and carefully position their cards each round accordingly. Choosing which card to play under each flipped card and taking advantage of elemental strengths (Fire, Land, Water) adds a simple but interesting layer of strategy, keeping each game fresh and dynamic. The game is incredibly easy to replay, encouraging players to try again if they don’t beat all nine cards on the first go. The fast setup and straightforward rules mean players can quickly dive back in, turning the game into a rewarding puzzle to solve over multiple attempts. This combination of simplicity, strategic depth, and replayability makes it an engaging experience for casual and strategic gamers alike. The Path Ahead Card Game Review This advanced version of “Higher or Lower” builds on the classic guessing game by adding layers of strategy and interaction that keep players engaged. The element-based rules—Fire beats Land, Land beats Water, and Water beats Fire—create a more dynamic experience than simple number comparison. Players must weigh each guess carefully, anticipating the next card based on both rank and elemental strengths, what has been seen so far, and what may still be to come. There are only 18 cards remember. Another fun twist is the penalty and discard mechanic. When players guess wrong, they must add a card to their hand, creating a playful tension as they try to avoid accumulating cards. However, this isn’t purely a disadvantage—if they manage to collect pairs of matching ranks or sets of three elements, they can discard them, adding an element of resource management to each round. The game’s end condition creates an interesting balance between risk and reward. Players aim for a low score, with rounds continuing until someone reaches 20 points. This unique scoring keeps the stakes high, as players strive to avoid accumulating points and play for the lowest possible score. Altogether, these elements make it a fun, competitive game with both luck and strategy in the mix. Sorcerers' Showdown Card Game Review This game is a fast-paced duel of strategy where players aim to win clashes by playing higher-ranked cards or stronger elements (Fire beats Land, Land beats Water, and Water beats Fire). With each round, players must set aside two cards for the next, which adds a fun layer of planning, as they carefully consider how to build their hands and win each clash. A unique twist is the Avatar cards: when used to win a clash, it lets the player reclaim a previously lost clash from a former round. This power adds strategic depth, making timing of when to play these cards key as players decide when to play each card. The game continues until one player wins all clashes in a round, claiming overall victory. If not, a new round begins with reshuffled cards and a decreasing deck size, which heightens the tension as each clash becomes increasingly more tight. Cave Of Djinns Card Game Review The Djinn expansion offers a strategic puzzle-solving experience, where players arrange Mysticana cards to complete unique Djinn riddles. Each riddle requires careful card placement around the Djinn cards, rewarding players who think ahead and use Djinn powers, like swapping or discarding cards, to resolve tricky patterns. This makes each decision meaningful and dynamic. With powers to shift the dynamic of the ever changing card layout, players face exciting challenges as they balance riddle-solving with tactical card movement, creating a unique mix of strategy and adaptability. Difficulty options, like adjusting the number of riddles or restricting initial moves, add replayability and make the game engaging for various skill levels. There is a lot of replayability here, with the double sided cards. And games can be over in a few minutes. Success hinges on strategic card placement and efficient use of powers, making each playthrough engaging as players aim to complete all Djinn riddles before the deck runs out. Arcana Artefacts  Card Game Review This Artefact expansion is my favourite variant because it feels like more of a game than a puzzle, adding exciting layers of strategy and suspense to each round. The Artefact cards introduce dynamic modifiers that shift each round, impacting everyone’s hand based on unique criteria, which keeps the game fresh and unpredictable. Players then face a quick choice: stick with their two cards or swap one out, adding a fun gamble before anyone reveals their hand. This to me, feels a little like Poker, but in an incredibly simplified form. The “Stay or Resign” mechanic amps up the tension, as players balance the risk of staying for potential high points or opting out to score modestly. Each round’s scoring card, revealed only after players make their choices, keeps everyone guessing. This scoring unpredictability paired with the Artefact modifiers adds layers of strategy, making each round feel distinct and compelling. The game’s end-goal flexibility of 20 or 30 points lets players adapt it to their preferred pace, adjusting the score target for a quicker game if desired. Altogether, this expansion stands out for its blend of strategic depth and player-driven risk, offering a variant that remains engaging and ever-changing. Overall Thoughts This set of card games is impressively versatile, showing how much variety and depth can be achieved with only 18 base cards and 6 expansion cards. Each variant offers its own flavour, from pure puzzle-solving to strategic decision-making, providing something for different player types. Some versions focus on careful placement and pattern-matching, perfect for puzzle enthusiasts who enjoy figuring out the optimal moves. The Arcana Artefacts variant stands out because it feels more like a full game than a puzzle. With strategic choices and round-by-round modifiers that affect each player’s hand, this version creates a more competitive and dynamic experience. This variety across all versions and the modular nature of the expansions make it truly impressive how much depth is achieved with so few cards, offering both replayability and adaptability to suit any mood or player preference. The designers of these games really are very clever indeed! These games prove that good things come in small packages—who knew just 18 cards could deal out so much fun? Each variant brings a new twist to the table, and with the Artefact expansion, there is a genuinely good game here. It’s a deck of cleverness that’s sure to keep you shuffling back for more!

Justice WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 3-5 You’ll like this if you like: The fusion of trick taking and Deduction. Published by: Dragon Dawn Productions Designed by: Tony Cotterill , Ren Multamäki This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . Dragon Dawn are a Finish publisher who make a fair few games about Dwarves. And a fair few using trick-taking. This is their latest release, a trick-taking card game set in the same world as a 2021 release Factory 42 , an industrial worker placement game about Dwarves. But this time, it's about Gnomes. No, only joking. It's about Dwarves. Of course it's about Dwarves. Machiavellian Dwarves, none-the-less. It's a deeply thematic trick-taker that incorporates deduction, tableau-building, and variable player powers. Intriguing concept isn't it? Well, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Justice Place the main board in the middle of the table and then gather all the cards. There are seven decks in total: the Crime and Crime Definition deck, the Suspect, Identity, and Liability deck, the Reaction card deck, and finally the main deck of four suits made up of red Evidence cards, blue Testimony cards, pink Rosettes cards, and green Witness cards. For a three-player game, remove the suit and reaction cards with a value of three and below. Then shuffle each deck separately, except for the four suits and reaction cards that you will shuffle together into one deck. Unless you want a simpler game for your first experience, in which case you can leave the reaction cards out. Deal one Liability card into each of the three Suspect slots on the main board. Deal these face down. These cards either say "Guilty" or "Not Guilty." Next, deal face up one Suspect card on top of each of these face-down Liability cards. Remove the remaining Liability and Suspect cards from the game back into the box. Next, deal one Crime and Crime Definition card face up into the slots at the bottom of the board. Or top, depending on where you are seated. Read these cards aloud. The Crime card is just flavour text. The Crime Definition card sets the tone for this round. Finally, give each player two Soulgaze tokens placed on the blank side up along with one Identify card. These cards should be kept secret from the other players and set each player's own unique goals and scoring options for the round. Each player should note their goal for this round. For the first round, the first player is chosen at random. After the first round, the first player is determined by the player with the lowest points, who can choose whomever they wish, including themselves. You are now ready to play. How To Play Justice Deal out twelve cards to each player from the main suit (and Reaction deck, if included). Then, either each player discards two cards to form a hand of ten cards, or players can instead draft their hands. Each player will keep four cards from their initial hand of twelve, then pass the remaining eight to the player to their left. Then choose four more cards from these eight, and pass the remaining four cards. Finally, each player chooses two cards to discard from the final set of four cards, leaving them with ten cards. The starting player will then play one card from their hand. You cannot lead with a Reaction card. Each other player must then take one of two actions. Either they can play a card from their own hand following the same suit as the first card played, if they have one of course. If you cannot, you can play any card you wish, including a card from the Trump suit for that round, as determined during setup. Or, if you choose not to play a card from your hand, you can instead play one of your two Soulgaze tokens if you have any remaining. This means you will have more remaining cards and options for later rounds. But also, you can look at the hidden Liability card behind one of the three Suspects. You can pick either one of the three. You must keep this information secret from the other players. You will also score one point when you play your token in this way. Flip your token to the star side to represent this token is spent, and now worth a point. After a card or Soulgaze token is played, anyone can play one of their Reaction cards, if they are in the game, and if they were dealt or drafted any. Reaction cards can only be played onto another card of the same value. Playing a Reaction card in this way turns the previously played card into a Trump. You cannot play a Reaction card onto a Trump card. Any player can play a Reaction card. You can play one onto the card you played yourself or onto the last card played by another player. This isn't limited to the player sitting next to you. As such, the rules suggest you give a few seconds between playing each card to allow other players to play a Reaction card if they wish. Players would want to do this to either help themselves, or another player win a trick. They would help another player if they felt they could not win themselves, and thought another player had similar aligned goals to them. Although, of course, they can never be sure. The winner of the Trick (hand of cards played) is then determined by seeing who played the highest card of the lead suit, or the highest Trump, if any Trumps were played. The winning player can now choose to place one blue, red, or green card to the left or right of either of the Suspects. If they place it to the right, this will help the Suspect become acquitted. If they place it to the left, this will make it more likely that they receive a Guilty verdict. This is represented on the board with green or red icons. The card they place will show either a red number on the left or green number on the right that will add to the selected Suspect's verdict. Each card you add may bring new symbols too, which bring to the table interesting multipliers I will explain below. If they do not want to do this, they can instead place one pink card above or below one of the Suspects. Each Suspect can hold two cards above and below them this way. Each pink card shows various numbers of stars and symbols which will affect that rounds' scoring as detailed below. Players carry out this process, playing tricks, until a situation arises when one or more players has only Reaction cards in their hand. When this happens, those players call out "Case Closed" one final trick is played by the other players, and the first player to call "Case Closed" gains an Efficiency bonus of one star. This means, one extra point. Stars are points. Each suspect is then assessed for their relative guilt by looking at the cards played next to them during that round. The red cards played to the left are totalled up, and the green cards played to the right are also tallied. There may be multipliers in effect here, shown by the symbols on the cards. If there are any symbols on the cards on the left or right that match symbols on the suspect itself, or the pink cards played above or below the suspect, then the value of the suit that has this symbol is multiplied by the total number of symbols. If the total of the cards on the left equal or exceed the cards on the right then the Suspect is found Guilty. Otherwise, they are Not Guilty, and the Suspect card is turned upside down. You will now be left with three Suspects, either seen as Guilty or not, sat on top of cards saying Guilty or Not Guilty. The verdict you arrived to in the game may not match the verdict on the card below. Not all trials are just after all! Each player will now score based on their own individual scoring bonuses. All players reveal their Identity card and look at the green areas on their circle of justice; they will score each Suspect accordingly. Players will either be looking to get guilty Suspects to receive a Guilty verdict, or vice versa. Or a mismatch of the two, with the Guilty being acquitted, and the not Guilty being found Guilty. It may be that one player wanted both Guilty and Non-Guilty Suspects to be Convicted. Another may want everyone to be sentenced, no matter their Guilt. The Nationalist doesn't care if Suspects are found Guilty or not. They just wanted them to be actually Guilty in the first place! For each suspect that meets your chosen criteria, you will score the points for all symbols shown on that suspect card and any pink cards next to it, based on the totals shown against each symbol on your identity card. You will then score the stars shown on the pink cards that were added to any suspect with whom you scored this round. The cards on top add points based on the stars shown on the cards there. The cards on the bottom remove points. Finally, check the bottom of your own personal Identity card to see if you have any additional bonus awards. Most do, just the Anarchist does not. Calculate your total score and add it to the score sheet for that round. You can score negatively for a round, and a negative score can remove points from a previous round, but you cannot ever go below zero for your overall score. The game continues like this round after round until one player scores 42 points or more. If more than one player exceeds 42 points, then the player with the most points wins. If there is a tie, the player with the highest score in one round wins the game. Is It Fun? Justice Card Game Review Trick-tackers are rife. There are literally thousands of games that use this mechanic. 2,539 in fact. As of October 2024. As such, if you want to make a game that leads with trick-taking as a core mechanic, you need to do something clever with it. Make it co-op like The Crew . Or maybe give each player bonkers game bending powers such as Tournament at Camelot . Well, with Justice, there is an intriguing element of deduction thrown into the game, a deep theme (well, deep for trick-taking card games anyway!), and a fascinating scoring system that changes for each player every round. It means each round feels fresh. Each trick is interesting. And you will be constantly monitoring what each player is doing, why they may be doing it, and be on constant alert. Rather than simply playing your highest lead card and moving on with your life. Justice feels like the fusion between a trick-taking game and a game like Shadows Over Camelot . A brilliant, but sadly out-of-print deduction game where you are constantly analysing why each player has done what they just did, and how that may benefit you. As such, you can never relax. Every move could be crucial to piece together the puzzle of your opponents' hidden agendas. It's a lovely feeling! All this combines to make Justice a fascinating game. If you like deduction and trick-taking, then get this game. End of decision. It delivers fantastically in both these mechanics, and I don't see these two mechanics fused together as well as this very often. If you are unsure about the deduction element, well, you don't actually have to figure out what the other players are doing. You can just play your own game. But understanding what other players are trying to achieve will help you as you won't be able to win every trick, but you may be able to help other players win. And if you help the players with similarly aligned goals, well, your points total will race up. But if you don't like both of these mechanics, you may just find the rounds slip you by and you fall behind. As such, I would exclusively recommend this game to fans of both lead mechanics. There are plenty of great deduction games out there for those who don't like trick-taking, and vice versa. Plenty of great trick-takers exist without the use of deduction. But if you are a fan of both mechanics, then oh my, you are in for a treat!

Hitster WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 2-10 You’ll like this if you like: Pop song trivia! Published by:   Jumbo Designed by: Marcus Carleson This is a free review copy. See our review policy here . I first came across Hitster at Essen. There was a large crowd standing around a table with loud music coming from a speaker. I was intrigued and went over to look. I ended up joining in a game and then played with my friends for ages. I had a great time. Hitster is that kind of game. It pulls you in, draws a crowd, and makes you stick around for a good time. But is it for you? Does it have staying power? Or is this just for conventions? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Hitster Take out the cards and give them a shuffle. Then give each player one card. They will place this face up in front of them to form their starting year. Any card is fine for this. The player doesn't need to know the song they get. They just need a year to build from. Now give each player two Hitster tokens, open (or download - it's free) the Hitster free app and sync it to your Spotify account, if you have one. If not, you do not need to download Spotify, but it would be better if you do and sign into an account there too. But it will work without an account, connecting automatically to the free version. You are now ready to play. How To Play Hitster The first player will now scan the top card of the deck. The back side shows a QR code and when you show your phone with the app open these code, it will instantly start playing the song. Do not flip the card over yet. The player whose turn it is must now place this card to the left or right of their starting card. They do this by identifying the year the song came out. If they think it precedes the year they have face up in front of them, they will place the card to the left of their starting card. If they think it is a newer song, then place it to the right. Now, flip this card to identify the song and year. If they are right, they get to keep the card there. If they are wrong, the card is discarded. Play then moves to the next player. As players get more cards, they need to try to guess where the new card will slot into their row of cards. It can be tricky if you start to get songs that were released very close to each other. Each player must slot the card they are trying to guess into the position they think it should go so there is no ambiguity with their guess, and then flip it over to see if they were right. Before each player flips their card however, other players have the opportunity to play one of their Hitster tokens if they think the initial player has placed the card in the wrong place. If that player was wrong, then the player who played their Hitster token gets to take the card instead. At any point, you can replace three Hitster tokens with a free card from the top of the pile, adding to your row of cards for free. Players can acquire extra Hitster tokens by naming the song's title and the artist's name before you flip the card. If you are correct, you get another token, regardless of whether you placed the card in the right place or not. You can also use the Hitster tokens to replace a card if you don't know the answer, or don't want to risk a guess. The game continues like this, in turns, until one player has ten cards in front of them. Or, just play for fun until you get bored. You can also play cooperatively in two larger teams. Take five Hitster tokens if you are playing like this. Less if you want a more difficult game. You can also adjust the difficulty of the main game by saying that the guesser has to name the artist and song on their turn to keep the card, or for an even trickier experience, you need to name the exact year! The songs are generated via the app connecting to a Spotify account. So, you will need someone who has this app too. And ideally, the premium version. Although it does connect automatically to the free version too. Is It Fun? Hitster Party Game Review If you like music and party games, you will love this. There is not much too it. Listen to a song, try and identify the year. Place the card into the right spot in your row of cards. But the game is more than the game itself. It is the songs too. You can listen to the whole song if you like. And make this party game last all night, simply as part of a play list! I played this at a friend's house once where everyone was given ten cards as they came in, and were then able to scan the card whenever they wanted to hear one of their randomly selected songs. We then all, as a collaborative, had to place the cards into order throughout the night. There is a lot of creativity to be had with these cards. The songs are incredibly varied, and range in genres, styles, and of course, year released. They date back from the 30's all the way up to the modern day, with songs from popular pop, rock, RnB, Hip Hop, Country, and Indie bands and Solo artists, as well as many, many more. There are over 300 cards in the box, so plenty of choice and variation for many hours of fun with this. Could you play this with just a music app? Sure, but it wouldn't be as fun. The app is very slick and seems to have overcome some previous issues of connectivity. It has always worked great for me, but I did hear about issues a few months back. However, it has been perfect for our games. The cards with their large QR codes make the process seamless and offer a "let's get straight to the fun" kind of experience. The second the app looks at the QR code, the song begins immediately. It is a very smooth process. My kind of party game. Set-up and rules can be done in seconds, and the game plays for as long as you want it to. This could well be the perfect party game for music fans around the world.