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Mythwind WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Stardew Valley, a hot cup of Coco with a blanket by the fire. Published by: Open Owl Studios Designed by: Nathan Lige, Brendan McCaskell This is the reviewer's copy after I backed the Kickstarter but the publisher sent me a play mat and Sprite miniatures upgrade for free. See our review policy here. I have played the game with all four available characters, but there is a fifth expansion character I don't have. I have played in solo mostly, but also two-player. Mythwind is a fascinating game. You cannot win this game, and you can't really ever finish it, although it can run out of new content. It is set in the mystical fantasy realm of Mythwind, a lush, peaceful valley inhabited by mysterious Sprites. Your job is to take control of one of four characters and, well... do a few odd jobs. General town improvements and minor goal completion are the aim, along with some narrative-driven storytelling. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How to Set Up Mythwind The main board is comprised of three parts that slot together nicely, left to right. Place these down on the main table along with the main town tray. In this, you need to sort the dice, event card 1, weather cards (do not shuffle), goal cards 1-7, Adventure cards 1-10, goal tokens, and money tokens. Then onto the top left of the main board at the spring tile, place the starting resource tokens into the one slot on the bottom left. Then add in the forest cards into their matching number, leaving space 7 free for the Longhouse building, drawn from the building deck. Place the town action tiles onto the designated spaces on the board. Then finally roll one blue sprite die and one orange villager die and place them onto the horizontal space below the Longhouse. If you roll a blank, roll again until you get a different result. Each player now needs to choose a character. You can change characters each season, which takes around 30-45 minutes, so don't worry too much now. You won't be locked in. There is no real benefit to choosing one over the other, although I would say the Farmer is the easiest to learn for your first game. Take your character's miniature, tray, and all designated components. I won't go into full details for that here; it's best just to follow the instructions in each character's mini-manual. How to Play Mythwind Games of Mythwind take place over various seasons. Each season will cycle through the weather deck one time. There are ten starting weather cards. After these ten cards have been drawn, a new season will begin. Players can rotate characters in and out between each season, and you can easily change player count during this point too. All players will be working together on the development of the same town board, but characters can be worked on however, whenever, by whomever you like. Each day starts with the flip of the top weather card. You are now in the DAWN phase. During this period, you will check any weather effects as shown on the cards, which mainly allow you to draw the next Event card or allow you to advance any buildings that currently sit in the construction queue. Each new weather card is placed onto the top of the next one, showing the top part of the previous card so you can see the weather patterns over the days. Once you get to day three, you will now need to check that current season tile to see if you match any of the three different weather patterns there with the last three days of weather you have experienced. If so, carry out the action shown, generally giving you resources, sometimes taking them away. Some characters will now have their own unique action to carry out in the Dawn phase. For example, the Farmer will be able to Plant, Tend, Harvest, or Clear, depending on the day's weather matched to the current Season—essentially, a bonus action in their fields. The Ranger will decide if they plan to spend the current day in Town or go on an Adventure. If they are already out on an adventure, this part is obviously skipped. The Crafter has no effect, but the Merchant carries out a few steps. Depending on the season and current weather, a specific good will either increase or decrease its market value by 1. Unless it's cloudy, where there is no shift. The Merchant's customer or their rival will then perform an action depending on the weather card's effect. This effect will be for a customer to buy, sell, or manufacture goods. Players then enter the DAY phase. Here, all characters will move their miniature onto a space on the main board and carry out one Town action, unless they are playing as the Ranger and are currently out on an adventure. Players take turns to do this and can discuss between them the best course of action. In solo, simply do your own single town action. Town actions allow you to gain coins, clear land for a cost, buy resources for a cost, construct or demolish buildings for a cost, hire workers for a cost, go on a short single-day adventure, or use any other previously constructed buildings. Place your worker, carry out the action, and then all players move to the simultaneous character actions. When going on an adventure this way, simply draw the top card from the adventure deck, read it out loud, then choose an option of how to proceed. On the reverse of the card will be your reward/result based on your choice. Each action you take in Town will relate to either the Sprite or Workers alignment. Whichever action you do here will affect your choices in the character action phase. Each character has their character action phase, and I won't go into it in full here. But here is a brief summary. The Farmer will grow, tend, and harvest crops for money. Crops change in their cost each day, and there will always be one crop available for free. You can also acquire Cows and machinery for additional efficiencies and profits. The Ranger will go out on missions. You can choose the difficulty and decide which items to take with you to help. Each day you will flip a card showing you a choice from various encounters on that day. Each encounter will require a different tool to help you achieve it. If you have that required tool, you will be rewarded with various bonuses. When in town, you can gain new items and workers to help with later quests, upgrade your Rangers' skills, and prepare for bigger, longer, but more rewarding adventures. The Crafter will Gather and Refine materials, to then fulfil requests for new items from the other townsfolk. Selling them for large profits and enhancing their own reputation as a maker of fine goods, the Crafter can quickly help your Town develop through their successful trade. The Merchant is the most complex character. Their role is to buy and sell goods for profit. Rival merchants will come up against you as customers look at their various options to make their purchases. Once all players have concluded their character actions, players can then use any workers they have hired which allow them to carry out bonus actions. Workers become slowly exhausted each time they carry out an action, and when they do, they are re-rolled and placed back onto the main board to be purchased for hire again. Players then move to the DUSK phase where all workers used that turn are placed back into their characters' tray, players bring their miniature back from the town, unless it's the Ranger out in the wild, and then carry out their own unique character action. The Farmer replenishes any purchased crop in the market and The Crafter will fulfil any requests they have completed. The Ranger and Merchant have no extra actions. If there are more weather cards left in the Town tray, flip the next one over and carry out the following day. If there are none left, your season is over. Players carry out the end of season effects and then move to the next season. End of season effects are simple. You will resolve any end of season actions on any buildings you may have built, check to see if you met your current season goal, and if so, gain the shown reward. Then set the next goal for the following season. Change the season tile to the next one, gather all the weather cards and shuffle them up ready for the next season, and finally, decide if you want to carry on with the same character or change to a new one. Packing up characters is straightforward thanks to the trays they come with. I have been changing every three seasons or so with ease. Setting up the game mid-season is also a breeze. Simply gather the three town boards, pile them into one, and then gather on top of the town board with the tray lids on top. Place them back in the box and you are all set. It takes a minute, tops. Setting back up for your next play is also straightforward. Players can carry on this way until they want to stop, feel they have done all they can with the current character, or simply want a break. The game will develop in each character's progression as they gain new skills, become more efficient in their actions, and discover new things. The Town will develop new buildings, and mysteries will be revealed. Inside the box are a few secret envelopes that you will open when certain events tell you to do so. This introduces all sorts of new things I won't spoil here. There are 80 adventure cards, and I would imagine you would see 1-6 each season, depending on player count. There are 154 event cards, and you will generally see four each season. There are 28 goals, one used each season, and 42 building cards. And of course the four secret envelopes to open. There is a lot of game to explore here. But is this fun? Mythwind Board Game Review: Is It Fun? I want to love this. And I think I do. The game feels unique compared to most other games I have played; it is hard to compare it to other experiences. It shares elements of other games with the choose-your-own-adventure missions, character development, and town building. But to me, it feels more like a video game such as Animal Crossing than any board game I have played. The vibe is very chill. There is no real sense of urgency in the game, and the choices in the Events and Adventures, although they of course, affect your town stats and character development, won't ever feel imperative to the game's success. This is because there is no real judge of that. No real endpoint. No real win/lose condition. Each season you will develop your town a little and move your character on in terms of their skills and current income. But other than that, it won't ever feel like you are making huge strides. You will develop the story with the Event cards and Adventures but at a very relaxed pace and never with game-changing consequences it seems. It will depend on your own tastes if this is enough for you. I think most people would enjoy this game for a season or two for each character, learning how they all work and implementing a strategy to get the most efficiencies from each one is highly rewarding. I would say that takes a good three to five seasons per character to do. The game's longevity beyond this period though will be dependent on your feelings around the overall vibe. Personally, I think I love it. I wanted to love it, and I think it all looks gorgeous. So this must be having an effect on my opinion. I also adore the people behind this. Following them on social media and meeting Brendan at Spiel in 2023, I have to say I am a fan-boy of the entire team and project. Trying to put this bias aside, how do I feel when I play this? Well, other than the obvious words that come up a lot with this game... Relaxed. Chill. Calm. I also feel satisfied and intrigued. I am enjoying the progression and pace of the overall narrative of the game. There are enough twists and turns for the story to interest me, and I am keen to see where it goes next. I find each character to be interesting enough so that I am equally happy to play with them all. But I like the variety they bring. Changing them in and out is very simple, as I said, and I like the mixed feeling this brings to the game as I change my characters. Generally, for each play, I will bring a new character in. And I play for one to three seasons each play, time permitting. The Farmer initially felt a little simplistic to me, but as I started to bring in the Equipment, I started to really enjoy this little tile-laying puzzle. The Crafter was at first a chore. But I then started to really enjoy the process of Gathering, Refining, then selling items. It has a lovely simple linear progression to it, with a lot of little achievements. The Merchant took me the longest to get my head round, but I was still easily up and running within one season. The Ranger is my favourite to use. I like the sense of adventure and the planning nature of this character strangely reminds me of Raiders of the North Sea (Take that with a pinch of salt). I will 'finish' this game. My completist personality has risen to the forefront, and I am eager to see every card and develop every character to their fullest. I will back the next Kickstarter to get the next expansion, and I am keen to upgrade my components with the metal coins and extra characters. I love the ambition of this game and think it executes it brilliantly. There is a 'but' though. I am giving this game an 8/10, and I presume reading up to now you would think this sounds like a 9 or 10? So, why an 8? Well, it feels like a 1.0 version of this type of game. There is a lot of ambition in this project. But not as much as I feel there could be. If you have played The 7th Continent, it feels like the progression from that game to The 7th Citadel. Both are great games, but the second game developed the ideas and mechanics into a much richer game with bigger budgets and broader ambitions. Mythwind feels a little like this to me. They had an idea for a game and how it could work but were restricted, as any business would be, by time and budget to make it profitable, enjoyable, accessible, and out before the Kickstarter Trolls attacked. Now they have done this and seen some success, I do wonder how this game could develop. It is billed as a persistent-world over open-world, but my mind races at the thought of this being opened up to a bigger stage, and maybe more open-world. Now we have the basis of the game and the mechanics are down, could the developers bring in hundreds, no thousands of new Event and Adventure cards along with a few more characters and buildings to really take this game to the next level? Playing the game is fun. But I never feel like I am making decisions that massively impact anything. It doesn't scratch that usual board game itch of strategy and decision making. There is a lot of other things here instead. I just feel this is the beginning of a new style of game. Rather than the finished product. I certainly hope that is the case anyway. I much prefer this experience in solo play. At two players, it works fine, and you do feel like you are making more progress in your town and with your character development. However, each character has very different tasks during their own character actions, so this part feels much like multiplayer solo, and I felt a little like I was missing out as a character I was not controlling was developing without me. Each character takes a very different amount of time to carry out their actions, and waiting between phases of the Day and Dusk phase in multiplayer is frustrating when you just want to get on with the next day. I enjoy every minute with Mythwind, but I think I want more. Other reviewers have said it feels a bit "rinse and repeat," which is true to an extent. But overlaid with the mainly repetitive nature of each character's core mechanics is the overarching story, sense of adventure, and town-building aspect of the game that really interests me. I want more of this. After multiple games with each character, I am nowhere near finished with this game and eager to play more. I think expectations for a project of this ambition and scale are often higher than more regular releases. We should not judge this game on what it doesn't do but on what it brings and could do in the future, and for that, I am all in.

Cantaloop: A Hack of a Plan & Cantaloop: Against all Odds WBG Score: 7 & 9 Player Count: 1- 4 You’ll like this if you like: Cantaloop Book 1, any of the old point and click adventure games, Unlock Games Published by: Lookout Games Designed by: Friedemann Findeisen, Grzegorz Kobiela By Steve Godfrey This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here Way back in the early months of 2022 I reviewed the excellent point and click adventure throwback game book, Cantaloop: Breaking into Prison. Since then two follow up books “A Hack of a Plan” and “Against all Odds” (not the Phil Collins song) have been released to finish out the trilogy. I did toy with reviewing both books on their own but since they shared much of the same mechanics as the first game I figured a double bill was in order. If you want to see how this system works and my thoughts on the first book then feel free to check out my review here As is the way of things there will be No spoilers! Cantaloop Book 2: A hack of a plan Right from the off the book drops you right back into familiar territory with a full “previously on” style conversation between the three leads to help catch you up on the story. The dialogue captures the same tone as before and, if you’re playing these back to back it’s going to be a seamless transition. If however this is your first foray into this series and this style of game then A) what sort of person starts at part two? Seriously, it’s the equivalent of someone starting their saga with part four! B) don’t worry because this will give you a full run through of the rules. The puzzle structure plays out the same as the previous game and being that that was one of the stand out things from the first games I’m so glad that that didn’t change…... .well, for the most part. As the name suggests, hacking makes up a fair chunk of this instalment and because of this they’ve introduced a new type of puzzle to try and capture it. Unfortunately it’s the weakest part of the game, and it makes up a fair chunk of it, I’d say about 30%. Obviously I don’t want to spoil anything so all I will say is it’s a logic puzzle with a bit of programming involved. Each one turns up intermittently throughout the game. The first one starts off pretty simple and adds more elements and twists with each one. My issue is that as they get harder, they take longer to solve and, if these aren’t the sort of puzzles you enjoy or are good at then they’ll only become more frustrating and you’ll start to dread their appearance. Mostly because they’re taking you away from the fun puzzles and dialogue that’s so great about these games. However if these are your sort of puzzles then feel free to ignore everything I’ve just said because you may well have just as much fun with these as the other puzzles and you could easily rate this game up there with the rest of them. For me though, they weren’t something I enjoyed, I found them an increasingly unwelcome distraction that took me out of the story. I’ll admit that I found myself searching for the answers after the first couple of puzzles and then outright skipping them towards the last few. I know it doesn’t sound like I’m being a good gamer but honestly, doing that meant that I enjoyed the game more. I love the idea of them but they just weren’t for me. The rest of the book houses the same mechanisms, the same trigger system and the same hint system as the first. This is definitely the “Temple of Doom'' of the trilogy. There’s a lot of fun to be had out of it and you won’t want to skip it (mainly because you’ll be missing out on a whole third of the story) but don’t let that 30% that you might find unappealing put you off of playing this or carrying on to the third one. Speaking of which…….. Cantaloop Book 3: Against All Odds Just like book two you’ll get a full rundown of the rules, however, rather than a “previously on” style intro, this will literally throw you into the story as if you’ve just closed book two and immediately opened this one. It just assumes that you’ve done the previous two which, let’s be honest, is the sensible thing to do. If you’re starting on part three and you’re confused, then I can only assume that you’ll be going back and playing part one and two as some kind of prequels? If the hacking puzzles from book two put you off then don’t worry because those are absent here. This one goes back to its roots and sticks largely with the formula from the first book. That’s not to say that this is a copy and paste of course. They’ve still tried to throw a few new things our way to spice things up and I have to say, they’re pretty fun. One such puzzle type reminds me a bit of the old choose your own adventure games. Pick an option, follow a path and if you’re wrong then start again. Although this is designed that way so don’t feel like you're cheating when you back track. It may sound frustrating (and I can see how it could be) but these are meant to be more informed choices. The clues will be laid through the book as you get to them, it's just your job to pick them out. It adds a more investigatory element to the game, but not one that’ll overwhelm you if it’s not your thing. For that reason I’d definitely recommend having a pen and paper to hand to make (and I’ll quote my old school teachers in this) copious notes. Needless to say I didn’t do that back then and I didn’t do it here. That meant that solving these particular puzzles felt like I had to assume a lot of things when in fact the answers were right there, I just hadn’t taken that information in. This book certainly feels like it’s asking you to focus on a lot more details than previous books. It’s more akin to a mystery in that respect. I will say that there are some puzzles that, upon reading the solution, had me thinking “well I would have never thought of that” maybe I was having an unimaginative moment, I don’t know. One particular puzzle was a little bit convoluted, it had a lot of working parts and required you to keep track of a few things without visual clues, i.e. you did something to an object but didn’t get a card to remind you you’ve done it. It’s understandable, you can’t have a card for everything, but it definitely drives home the need to write some things down. It does highlight one of the drawbacks of this system compared to its video game counterpart. In a video game you could have easily labelled that thing. It’s not quite as easy here without adding cost to the game. I think this the Raiders of the Lost Ark of the trilogy, which is confusing because it’s book three but Last Crusade is my favourite of the movies and the first book is my favourite of the books sooo…… Visit costal Cantaloop Island. If you loved the first book then these are a must buy. The hacking in the second book notwithstanding (try the first few out and just skip them if you’re not enjoying them) you'll have a fun time with these books. They still give you all the nostalgia and the good stuff as the first and the story is really fun and I found myself genuinely invested in what happened to everyone. They ramped up really nicely and gave the books some great tension. Three books of such lethal cunning I’ve had a ton of fun with all three of these books and they’ve quickly become my favourite system for puzzle games. I can’t wait to see if/ how the designers and Lookout Games are going to progress this genre of game and how they can twist the system to fit different world’s, characters and genres. I’d love to see more from these characters but I’d also love to see some different worlds and characters….I just want more, I’m not greedy.

Ark Nova: Marine Worlds Expansion WBG Score: 10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Ark Nova Published by: Feuerland Spiele, Capstone Games Designed by: Mathias Wigge By Steve Godfrey This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here You know those times when you’ve eaten a big meal? The last thing you want to do is cram anymore, right? That is until you spy the dessert menu and it looks so good that you just can’t say no. Well the original deck of Ark Nova cards is your full stomach and the new marine worlds expansion is the dessert menu asking you to cram in just one more wafer thin mint. Is it worth eating the marine world's mint? Will that deck of cards explode if you do? I’ll let you know. As an aside I’ve REALLY got to stop talking about food in these reviews because it always makes me hungry. Just like most of the expansions I review I’ll break down everything in sections and talk about each aspect separately (where possible) so feel free to skip to a section if you’re wanting to know about something in particular. New Tokens Let’s start with the least impactful gameplay wise. Marine Worlds comes with some upgraded score markers for each colour now in the shape of a ticket for the appeal track, a mortar board for the reputation track and a shield icon for the conservation track. You’ll also get four sets of animal tokens for your player board to replace the cubes. A penguin, a fish, a wolf (I think) and a monkey. Are these necessary? No, do they have any impact on the game? Of course not. Was I stupidly excited to get my hands on these things? Yes….yes I was. Obviously it’s your choice if you choose to use them and maybe you’ve already gotten yourself some nice upgraded bits already. For me though they just made the game feel that bit more special. Now if we can just upgrade the money? New association board and universities So there is a new association board included that now includes space to house a new, fourth university type…....which they obviously give you. This board is hands down gonna be a permanent addition to the game for me (get used to that phrase because I feel like I’m gonna be saying it a lot with this expansion.) When you take the new university it lets you choose one of the six new universities that have  a research icon and one of the six animal types on it. These are great because not only are you getting an extra animal tag in your zoo, which helps massively if that particular type is not showing its face (much like a real zoo), but it also lets you reveal cards from the deck until you find one of that animal type. This is great! Being able to have two animal tags to go towards a conservation card (presuming you can play the card at some point) in one turn can be the difference between you scoring low for that card or giving you that push you to score higher. Get in quick though because although the new university refreshes each round with the others there is only one of each animal type so once someone’s nabbed it, it’s gone. You can still only have three universities and only one of the new ones, but I love that it adds a bit more choice when taking one. I used to find that taking that third university to score the conservation points (depending on the board you’re playing) felt like an arbitrary decision. If, for example, research icons weren’t part of your game plan then it could almost feel like wasting a turn to do it. But with this new one that little bit of extra choice makes all the difference. Action cards The new action cards are one of the two big things that I think most people are excited for in this box. First off there are new replacement Action cards for the base game. These are the same cards and work the same but they’ve changed some of the text to icons to make room for additional text with the new cards. You also get new action cards with a twist. After choosing your zoos, give each player three random action cards then draft one then pass them to your left, then again until you’ve got three cards again and then pick two of the three to keep. They must be two different action types, so you can’t choose two build cards for example, then set them up as per usual. Each of these will have their own special ability on them. For example, one animal card gives you a 2 money discount on the first animal you play on a turn. One upgraded build card lets you cover rock or water spaces and gives you 2 money for doing so. I love that Ark Nova is slowly drip feeding us this starting asymmetry. It obviously started with the alternate maps in the main box and then the additional map pack/s and now these new cards. Personally you could tell me I’m only allowed to play with the starting map from now on and I’d still happily play this game over and over without it feeling stale. But these new additions give it so much variety that I’d have to play this game every day for a long time before It starts to feel samey. The new cards are great and add so much to the game but without ever feeling too overwhelming. They’re also a nice way to change how you play. If you’re someone who’s played a lot of Ark Nova maybe you’ve got a way of doing things, maybe you upgrade cards in a specific order. Well now this may just make you change things up a bit since each new combo of cards can take your game in different directions. If you took the combo above for example you’ll most likely shift your focus more towards filling your zoo map. Ark Nova has always been a game of shifting strategies for me, mainly because of the randomness of the cards. That’s still not going to change with these cards but having cards that may shift your focus is a welcome boost to up the replayability. Marine Cards “Fish are friends, not food” and in the case of the new marine cards that’s particularly true. Let's address the elephant seal in the room. Ark Novas card deck is too big. It makes the game very random and you'll be lucky if you get near three quarters through it in a four player game. If anyone has problems with the game then you can almost guarantee that this is one of them. So adding another stack of cards is only going to inflate the problem like a particularly puffy puffer fish. Luckily they’ve thought of that. On all the new marine cards they’ve added a wave symbol. When you draw this and place it on the display you discard the first card in the display, slide everything up (just as you would normally) and draw a card for the end of the display. If you draw another wave symbol then do the same again. If you're still doing this after about three or four cards then you should probably start questioning the person who shuffled the deck. I love that one symbol addresses two problems in the game. One was that in some games and player counts the display would barely get refreshed and this provides a good way of cycling it round. It also means that you can't guarantee a card is going to be there for you next turn and it ups that tension when it comes to choosing if you should take a card or not. The other issue is making an already unwieldy deck of cards even more so. With this symbol you’ll be (potentially) cycling through the deck a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t suddenly find yourself reshuffling the deck every game. You’ll probably see about the same amount of cards as you normally would but it’s nice to know that they care enough to put things in place to try and help. You now have two new aquarium enclosures (two different sizes) which you can build  from the start of the game and most of the sea life will need to be housed exclusively in that type of enclosure. You can only build one of each size and they act like the reptile house in that you place cubes in them depending on the size of the animal. Reef dwellers are the coolest part of the new animals and if you love a combos like me then this’ll be right down your E.A.C dude (east Australian current for those who haven’t watched Finding Nemo) These animals have a coral reef symbol on the right of their card and a bonus on them. It could be money, a trade, a conservation point etc. Everytime you play one of these cards you trigger the coral reef ability of  ALL the reef dweller cards you’ve got in your zoo. It’s so satisfying as you start building these up and trigger more of them each time you play one. Given the fact that you're limited by the number of aquariums you can have and the amount of space you have you obviously won’t have a never ending stream of them. It’s also not wise to base a strategy on them either given the randomness of the deck, but if you do manage to get a few in play they are a lot of fun. Other stuff You’ll get a few replacement cards included. Some are different purely to change the iconography to include the new sea animals. The icons have been changed in such a way that you can leave these new cards in the deck even if you decide not to play with the expansion animals. Other cards like some of the bonus, conservation and sponsor cards have been changed to be a bit more balanced and in some cases easier to obtain higher scores. Should you explore under the sea? Do you need this expansion? Despite my 10/10 rating for it, no you don’t. There are very few expansions (in my experience anyway) that you “need.” If you’re still enjoying exploring Ark Nova in its base form and feel that that’s enough then there’s no real reason to add to the expansion just yet. However, if you love Ark Nova and are excited by the new stuff then you should absolutely get it (as long as you can afford to that is.) In fact if you love Ark Nova that much then you’ve probably already got this. This is one of those expansions that I never want to play the game without. It’s weird because it doesn’t do anything that will change your mind about the game if you didn’t like it. But if you’re already a fan then everything here is just gonna take that enjoyment up by a giraffe's neck. I’d potentially leave out the new action cards and possibly the sea animals if teaching to new players. More for the fact that I get bored of the sound of my own voice when teaching this game and you can see people’s eyes glaze over as you throw more and more things at them and I think the extra additions may be a touch too much on a game that can already be a bit or a teach as it is. Marine worlds is a fantastic addition to one of my favourite games. It’s a more stuff expansion that makes just enough changes to keep the game fresh for those who need it, but not change things drastically enough that it impacts on the things that people love about the base game.

After Us WBG Score: 6 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: It’s a Wonderful World, Lost Cities, Ecosystem Published by: Catch Up Games Designed by: Florian Sirieix By Steve Godfrey This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here A game about humans dying out and apes taking over the planet? Andy Serkis has got to be playing one of the apes in this game right?! I’ll tell you what. Read the review, check out the pictures and if you can spot him let me know. How to control the planet of the apes. Give everyone their player board, tokens and starting deck of cards in their colour. Shuffle the bonus tiles and pick three at random and place them face up. The majority of the game is going to be played simultaneously so if I reference a “turn” then assume that everyone is going to be playing at the same time. On a turn players will draw four cards from their deck and then place them in a line in front of them. You can then rearrange the cards into any order as long as they form a line. The only rule is that you can’t offset the cards. Each card is going to consist of a combination of three rows of icons in either full frames or half frames and as you rearrange the cards you’ll start to complete some of those frames. When you’re satisfied with the order of your cards you’ll then start to trigger your cards. You’ll go from top row to bottom row from left to right and you’ll only be able to use the effects of complete frames. The top row will generally consist of resources to gather and the bottom two rows will give you ways to convert them to either batteries, rage or victory points etc When everyone’s done you’ll each choose one of your four ape tokens and place them face down. You’ll reveal them and immediately take the bonus on the token. Either, taking two batteries, two VPs, two rage or reactivating one of your frames. You can then choose to take a new card of the ape type matching the token you chose, paying the specific resource type. A level one card will cost three resources and a level two will cost six. The card you take will go on the top of your deck so you'll definitely be using it next turn. At this point you can choose to copy the ability of one of your neighbours tokens by paying two resources. You won’t get to take another card though. As long as no one has got to 80 points by the end of the round then discard your cards and go for another round. A couple of other things. There will be three bonus cards out each game and you can spend an amount of batteries to trigger these. The card will tell you in which phase they can be played and they each do different things. Like, for example, letting you draw five cards instead of four, letting you put cards back on the top of your deck or even gaining straight up victory points. Lastly is rage. You can spend four rage to discard a card out of the game completely and help you thin your deck. When you do this the card will give you a resource or points as depicted in the rage box on the top of the card. If at the end of the round someone has got to 80 or more points they win. If more than one person has then the one with the most points wins. Apes. Together. Strong. I first heard of this game as stories emerged that people were running to get copies of this game at the 2023 UKGE and that the Hachette booth was selling out of copies in 20 minutes. It was like the After Us alpha male had beat its chest and the rest of its gamer tribe had come running to join its cardboard leader. That much hype tends to put me off trying a game rather than get me excited. Usually because these things rarely live up to the amount that’s been built up. So, naturally I put off trying the game for a good while, at least until everything had died down. Well that and the fact that nobody I knew near me had the game so that tends to put a hold on getting a game played. So here we are then, February 2024 and the hype train is slowing down. So, is it any good? Yes! To a point. The central puzzle of how you go about building your deck to try and maximise your resources and get more points is a lot of fun. Trying to order your cards to make the best possible combination for you and your game is certainly going to be your biggest source of brain burn and also frustration (but not in a bad way.) I guarantee that every time you set your cards up you’ll look down the rows and see some satisfying frames completed and you know you can get a load of resources and/or some really efficient conversions. However, you’ll also look down and see all those frames you can’t complete…..or you can complete them, but not without sacrificing something else in its stead. It’s that puzzle that will see players constantly reordering cards and muttering “yes!…….oh wait, no, maybe if I do this?” It immediately makes you answer the question, “what are your priorities?” It makes you choose what path you want to follow this time and the game lets you do that by giving you the tools you need. You’ve just got to figure out how to best make them work with the cards you’ve got each round. How you’re going to utilise those resources that you’ve just cleverly arranged is your next choice. The cards will often tease you with ways to spend those hard earned resources on some shiny points (literally, the VP symbol is a light bulb), much in the same way you’d use Fay Wray to tease King Kong (more on the big boy later.) After all, this game is a race, it’s all about the points so why wouldn’t you get the things that you need to win the game? But just as a famous chaos mathematician once said “just because you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.” Points are good, but saving resources for more cards could be even better. That is to say that After Us is also part deck builder and if you’ve ever played a deck builder before then you’ll know that you can’t rest on the laurels of your starter deck if you want to do well. Especially if your opponents are improving their decks with better cards and thinning their deck with the game's rage system, which provides a really effective way to thin your deck. Take this from someone who constantly struggles to do this in deck builders. You’ll start off feeling proud of the amount of points you're getting but if you don’t improve your deck you’ll be left behind slipping on banana skins….or just really far behind on points Each type of ape you add to your deck will bring something different to the party. We at WhatBoardGame don’t recommend partying with apes, they end up hanging around for way too long... Anyway, for those still with me, Gorillas are rage focused which will help you shed cards from your deck. Mandrills are all about victory points, Orangutans have the power and will give you batteries and Chimps are the mimics and will let you reactive frames. Which route you take to victory is entirely up to you, whether or not you go for more of one type or try to get an even balance will depend entirely on your preferred play style and how your opponents are choosing to play and how / if you decide to try and counteract that. After us is, after all, a race and you want to make sure that your opponents aren’t too far ahead. The game’s called After Us, not After You! The game does a decent job of ramping up in the same vein as most deck builders. As your deck builds the points and the resources start to flow with ease and what initially felt like your points marker barely moving soon turns into giant leaps down the track. Building a good deck can be the difference between trailing behind to get hit with the banana skin to managing to catch up and hit your opponents with the green shell….no, sorry, that’s Mario Kart Get your hands off me! After Us is a largely solo affair with almost no interaction between players. I could also see arguments to be made that there’s no interaction at all. Apart from the points track. For a lot of people this will be a major drawback and in this instance it’s a big drawback for me as well. It’s similar in that respect to something like Welcome To…… or most roll and writes for that matter and it’s odd because in those games the multiplayer solitaire aspect doesn’t bother me, but in this I really feel it. I think the reason it bothers me in After Us is that this game, to me, feels like it’s crying out to have some more interaction. It's essentially a race game and to have that race component to it and not have some sort of back and forth  and interaction between players feels off somehow. Even the deck building, where normally you’d get to show off to your friends this awesome deck you’ve built by playing all your flashy combos, here you keep all that to yourself other than when someone says “how did you get all those points?” and you have to walk them through it. Not because they don’t trust you, but you just want an excuse to look clever…..at least that’s why I do it anyway. Strangely, the chaos of everyone grabbing resources, moving markers up tracks and generally getting in each other's way makes the solitary nature of the game more pronounced for me. It makes me more aware of others around the table and the fact that you are actually playing a game with other people, but you're just not talking to them and I feel like I should be. Whereas, say in a roll and write you just get lost in your own thing and acknowledge people after the game when you're comparing scores. Speaking of scores, having those bigger point swings towards the end of the game means that it’s not easy to predict when the games are gonna end. You could easily argue that that adds some tension towards the end. But I’ve found that games often just end really abruptly. You’ll think you’ve got at least a couple of rounds before the end and then whilst you’re playing your cards you’ll look up and realise that someone’s just shot past 80 and that it, end of the game and chances are you may not be able to get near them with the cards you got and that’s it. You play out the rest of the round and it just falls flat without any of the tension. The King of Apes So considering the solo nature of the game I should probably talk about the solo mode. On the King's turn (which is the name of the solo AI) give him three of each resource and two batteries and then draw four cards and take certain points or resources depending on what you draw. You then take your turn which plays out the same except you take the resources from the King's supply first. The king will then take a card depending on the largest resource type he has. He will also discard cards using any rage he gets and and will spend batteries to trigger the computer bonus card if he can afford it (for this card you spend 5 batteries to score 5 points). The solo game is pretty easy to run but man is it difficult to beat. Points for theme here because it feels like going up against King Kong, except King Kong would probably finish me off quicker than this solo mode which lulls me into a false sense of security that I’m doing well, before it absolutely decimates me. Better players than me (which is most people I’d imagine) will more than likely beat this but I think that it’s varied enough that it can present a decent challenge every time. What I like about the solo mode is that it gives you that extra crunch as you're not only trying to gather resources for your own benefit, but also to make sure that the King can’t afford a card this turn or won’t have the batteries to get those five points. I honestly don’t know how much more replay I’ll get from After Us. The last game I played I got about half way through and I started to become aware of how I was just mechanically going through the same motions that I had done on all the previous rounds and on all the previous games and I was starting to lose interest. Which is a shame because there are some good elements to it and I know a lot of people really love it, but for me it doesn’t hit nearly as well. I’ll say as well that if any of this game sounds appealing to you then it could be well worth checking out. I’ll happily sit down and play if a group wants to play it but for me though I’d rather play it turn based on Board Game Arena, where it seems to suit this game better or maybe pull it out as a solo game, if it's still in the collection. Before you go! Did you spot Andy Serkis? Oh really, you didn’t? Weird, I swear I saw him, go though and have another look, or maybe go and check out some other reviews on the site In case he’s snuck in there.

This is a prototype version of the game and does not represent the final quality or look of the game. The game is coming to Kickstarter soon. You can find more details of that here. Bad Trevor is the brainchild of first-time designer Mark Hurdle, who, despite a background in video production, teamed up with his long-time friend Steve Penfold, a professional comic book artist. The result is the prototype version that currently sits before me, and I must say, I've had a blast with it. The game operates on a remarkably simple premise. Players are dealt cards evenly, and whoever receives Kamikaze Kevin must declare it, place the card in the centre of the playing area, and become the first player. Any pairs of Civilian cards in players hands can be discarded now, or held onto to use in the game. Turns then unfold as players select three cards from their hand and lay them face down in front of the player to their left. The recipient must then choose one of these three cards to pick up. If it's a villain or hero card, they read the actions and execute them before discarding. A Civilian card is added to their hand. If it's Bad Trevor, they must pick up the remaining two cards and add all three to their hand. If a player accumulates pairs of civilian cards, they can play them in front of them and either continue as usual, reverse the order of play, or request a specific civilian card from another player. These powers are why you may want to hold onto some during the opening phase. You do not get to use these powers if you discard them before the first turn. If you are successful in obtaining the requested card in this way, you are allowed to play a second match and make another choice or continue with your turn as normal by playing three attack cards against the next player. Failure to receive the requested card results in forfeiting their turn. Certain cards offer assistance, while others pose challenges. The game progresses until only one player has cards in hand, inevitably holding Bad Trevor, the one card that cannot be discarded. That player loses, and the remaining players emerge victorious. An additional card in the game, Kamikaze Kevin, adds an interesting dynamic. When a player passes Bad Trevor to another, everyone knows if the next player picks it up, they'll have to pick up the other two cards as well. Only Bad Trevor possesses this power, making its location generally known. However, when a player suspects Bad Trevor is placed in front of them, they have a choice: take one of the cards, risking picking up Bad Trevor, or use Kamikaze Kevin to detonate Bad Trevor. The Kamikaze Kevin play involves slapping the card down on the suspected Bad Trevor and shouting "Take that, Bad Trevor!" If correct, the player gives all their cards to the one who placed Bad Trevor, who also reclaims the placed cards. The Kamikaze Kevin player is now out of the game. If wrong, the player who had Kamikaze Kevin played on them gives their cards to the Kamikaze Kevin player, and they exit the game. Kamikaze Kevin can be used by anyone at any point, but only once per game, adding a significant risk factor. Once it has been used, it is out of the game for all players. As the game progresses, players find ways to mitigate this risk of playing the card incorrectly, increasing their odds but you will never be certain. You can never play Kamikaze Kevin on just one attack card. It's a thrilling gamble that keeps players on their toes throughout the game. Some of the Villain and Hero cards offer some very interesting powers, forcing players to play reduced hands, mitigate affects of hero cards, miss their turn, or even be forced to take Bad Trevor from whomever currently holds him. Outbursts of much hilarity is a regular friend in this game. The hero cards in the game add a dynamic twist, allowing players to influence others either negatively or positively. For instance, these cards empower you to pass on Bad Trevor to another player, provided you currently hold him. One personal favourite of mine allows you to force the next player to only lay two cards on their following turn, effectively making the odds of a successful Kamikaze Kevin victory 50/50. If they choose to play Bad Trevor of course. The game's ongoing bluff and double bluff elements consistently bring laughter to the table, enhancing the overall enjoyment of the experience. The rule book is a thing of joy. It looks great. Is easy to read, and learning and teaching this game is a breeze. Game sonly take a few minutes too. For me, games often fall into clusters. One is never enough. It is so simple, but so fun, and if you lose, you just want to play again to try and change your fortune. There is a wonderful how to play video you can see here, and I must commend the card art. It is stunning I hope you would agree. I really hope this game finds a welcoming audience during the funding. It deserves a lot of love. I am a big fan, as our my children.

The 7 Seas is a new game from Critical Hut, a Franco-Belgian studio. The game is coming to Gamefound in March. You can find details of that here. This is a prototype version of the game and does not represent the final quality or look of the game. Let me introduce to you The 7 Seas. An interesting new exploration game that offers players the chance to dive into a rich Pirate themed game. There are two modes to play, one a lot simpler to help you learn the basics. Another a little deeper with a few more elements to get the full (current) experience of the game. More on that later. The game works by players taking it in turns to place one of their two workers down into the central area, to chose to carry out two actions. The locations in which you can place your workers are next to a number of different actions. The actions next to your worker dictate which actions are available to you. These actions can be to move, upgrade, or repair your ship; interact with an island, port, another non-playing ship, sea monster, sea creature, or sea hazard; or start a fight with another player. You know? Pirate stuff! The interactions are dictated by cards that placed round seven areas, representing the seven seas. Each sea area has one of each players coloured sea gems there during set-up. The cards come from seven different decks, linked to the seas in which they are placed. The cards offer players the chance to trade, fight, and attempt various missions. If players are successful then you will take the card and your sea gem and add it to your player mat. If this is the second card of the same type, then players in the advanced mode can also take the sea bonus (if it is still there) which allows players special one off powers. Although, you can recharge these powers and use them again if you get a third card of the same type. As you place your worker, in the basic game, it doesn't matter which one you use. But in the full game, there are rankings. One worker acts as a Captain, the other as the Officer. If you place a worker with another of equal or higher ranking you can only carry out a reduced action this turn. Players are looking to interact with as many cards as they can during the course of a maximum of seven rounds to score points for their collected gams, completed mission cards, state of their ship at the end of the game, and any resource, coins, treasure, sea bonuses and parrot tokens (stolen in battle) in their possession. As the game progresses, you will be looking to maximise your efficiency. Balancing movement and actions. You need to place your worker in the right spot to carry out the right actions, depending on what cards are available, and in what seas you wish to complete a mission. But you may not always be able to get to where you want to be, or use the specific actions you want, based on what the other players have done. Sometimes, other players can block you, the cards you want me be out of reach. Or on occasions, there are no actions available to you which are currently achievable. on those occasions you may want to take the time to spend your acquired resources to upgrade your ships movement and/or firepower. Or maybe set yourself up for a later turn. There have been a few occasions in the later parts of some games where I cannot carry out any actions, but this is rare. But when it does happen, you can always Fish at sea, meaning you can take one food cube or money token, which are always useful! When the game flows it can be a lot of fun. Players are only ever carrying out two actions at once, and most actions are fairly quick. Downtime is fairly small because of this. However, there are times when you are simply watching another player. You cannot always plan out your action whilst you wait as the cards and situation can change based on what other players do. But you can sometimes get involved in the roll of some dice, acting for ships the other player may be attacking. I much prefer the advanced mode, where the type of worker matters. Players can also interreact more with trading and fighting each other. Although in four games, not one single trade has happened! Perhaps this is more prevalent in higher player counts. I have only played this in two player. The theme comes across nicely. The art of the cards is excellent. And I like the overall table presence this game brings. Set up and tear down is all very simple. And the rules are very easy to teach. Although the rule book is not the easiest to learn from due to the order, but again, this may change in the final game. It would be interesting to see some changes to the player boards, with some small asymmetry perhaps being introduced to each player mat. And I think the game could benefit from a few more actions away from the cards to avoid dead turns. But other than that, this is a well executed, beauty looking mid-weight family game that I think a lot of people would have a lot of fun with. The player boards are very good. The clearly show you where everything goes. What scores you get for each item. And how areas can be upgraded. They are double sided, this shows the advanced mode side. Engaging in battles is straightforward yet enjoyable. Players roll dice corresponding to their current ship firepower level. Additional dice can be obtained by trading green Rum cubes. The objective is to roll enough cannonballs to surpass the enemy's defense, indicated by wooden planks. In this scenario, the goal is to match or exceed two planks. Successful rolls result in winning the encounter, acquiring the card and revealed rewards. If the cannonball count falls short, players transition to the boarding phase. In a tie, the attacking player loses, as seen in this example where both players rolled two swords. However, the defending card possesses two extra dice. If either of these extra dice displays a third sword symbol, the defending card emerges victorious. The battle system is fast-paced and enjoyable. The developers of the game have told me that the game I have represents 50% of the full game when played in advance mode. The rest will come with Captain cards, bringing the above suggested asymmetry. There will be an ancient legends module, a Pirates & Corsairs and New Governors expansions, as well as two things called Endless Adventures and Season of Mists, whatever that means! But obviously it means what I am playing with, is far from the finished article. If the final game can be twice as good then there certainly is something very special here. Oh, and I know I mentioned the card art already, but...

Tapestry is a wonderful game. You can find my review for the base game here. And then the Arts & Architecture expansion here, the Plans & Ploys expansion here, and finally the Fantasies & Futures here. They are all wonderful, I am a big fan. There has been significant discussion surrounding the balance of this game, a project spearheaded by designer James Stegmaier with considerable ambition. The game boasts 16 civilizations, each providing unique scoring mechanisms. While playtesting occurred before the game's release, the true litmus test lies in releasing the game to the public for widespread playtesting. James Stegmaier has meticulously gathered data through players logging their scores on the Stonemaier website. This data includes information about the civilization they played with and against. This extensive dataset has enabled Jamey to make adjustments to each civilization, addressing concerns about game balance. Personally, I appreciate some level of asymmetry in a game, viewing it as an inherent part of the gaming experience. However, I recognise that not everyone shares this perspective, and I commend Jamey for earnestly addressing and attempting to rectify this issue. The result of all this is this small release, offering all 31 final revised Civilization mats from the core game and all the expansions along with two revised capital city mats from the base game. Its available to buy now for $20, but do you need it? First, lets talk about what comes in this little box. 31 Revised Civilization Mats 2 Revised Capital City Mats 1 Civilization Complexity Chart The revised mats are a big deal I would say. The changes on them are sometimes quite significant. Take a look for yourself. The revised version is displayed on the left, featuring the updated logo in the bottom left corner. For comparison, the original version is positioned on the right. Not only have adjustments been made to how the Mats function and their overall balance, but there's also enhanced clarity in their functionality. Acquiring all the Civilization Mats through this set is a compelling option, especially if you haven't purchased the expansions yet. I would recommend it solely for that reason. However, it's not just about achieving a balance; it represents a comprehensive refresh. The process involved extensive research, leveraging thousands of data points from both BGG and the Stonemaier website. It is impressive to me what has been done here. Some changes are more nuanced, like those involving the Militants. However, I notice a significant improvement in the clarity of the wording. Previously, there seemed to be some ambiguity regarding the first income turn and why there were limitations on gaining anything when all the outposts were still active without having had the chance to deactivate them. I particularly appreciate the adjustments made to the Traders. The previous version's effectiveness relied on opponents placing territory tiles, which could easily be circumvented if others were aware of your Traders mat. The new rules provide the player with this mat more agency, allowing them to exert a greater influence on their own destiny. This revamp elevates the Traders mat, aligning it more closely with some of the more popular Civilization mats. Additionally, the box includes two revised Capital City mats. While I'm less certain about the necessity for these changes, I encourage you to examine them yourself. The updated versions are positioned at the bottom for your reference. I speculate that the changes to the Capital City mats aimed to mitigate the creation of numerous small, challenging-to-fill single areas, potentially complicating the use of larger Landmark buildings. While it appears to be a minor adjustment, I surmise that these alterations might not have occurred without the imperative for Civilization mat upgrades. Nonetheless, the changes are inconsequential, and they introduce a more open design to these mats. The box also contains a complexity chart and a comprehensive list of all the Landmark tiles, detailing their functionalities (which extends to the reverse side of the card). This guide proves to be a valuable resource, aiding in the decision-making process when selecting Civilization mats. It serves as a quick reference to identify the expansion from which a particular Civilization mat originates, distinguishing between those from the base game and various expansions. In summary, I consider this accessory to be quite useful, particularly for avid Tapestry fans. It is a must-have for those who regularly engage with the game. However, if you play more sporadically and haven't been significantly impacted by the asymmetry, you have the option to acquire only the necessary adjustments or continue playing as per the original game design. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f2tekc23yvb27w3/AADWdwC3POTS09LOrPk0en1Qa/Tapestry?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

Mille Fiori WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Get on Board, Ganz Schon Clever. Published by: Schmidt Spiele, 999 Games, Devir, Coiledspring Games Designed by: Reiner Knizia By Steve Godfrey This is a review copy. See our review policy here When you visit a glassware shop as a parent you come to realise the great circle of life. When I was younger I’d always hear my parents telling me not to touch anything. I’d then shoot a look back with a disgusted expression of “I’m not gonna break anything”, I mean, do they really not trust me? Of course now as a parent I find myself doing the same with my kids because yeah, I absolutely don’t trust them. At the same time I still don’t trust myself so i still shuffle around them with my hands firmly in my pockets. Anyway, we should probably talk about this game about the cycle of glass! (You’re all singing the song from the Lion King now right?) How to blow glass During setup each player will be given diamonds in their chosen colour and have everyone set three of them aside, you may need these later. Then deal five cards from the deck to everyone. FYI they aren’t really diamonds unfortunately, I guess they’re saving those for the Swarovski edition. Place a number of cards face up next to the board depending on player count then pick a first player. A turn will see players simultaneously choosing a card from their hand and placing it face down in front of them. In turn order players will reveal their card and place one of their diamonds in the area matching the card on the board and scoring some points. Once everyone has played, pass your remaining hand of cards to the player on your left and go again until all but one card has been played. The leftover cards are placed next to the board face up with the others. New cards will be dealt out, the first player marker rotates and everything goes again. The game will end when either all the cards have run out or a player places their last diamond token. In this instance that player finish their turn using the diamonds they set aside earlier if necessary, then any player with a face down card plays their turn then the game ends. There are five areas on the board. Each one has its own way of scoring points and for the most part are easy enough to pick up. The harbour is probably the trickiest to get your head round of the five. I won’t go into how each one works but they all have a couple of things in common. Each one has an objective to complete which will net you an end game scoring bonus, which I’ll admit now, we always score during the game. For example, in one area, covering one of each symbol first will get you this bonus. The first to complete it gets twenty points, the second fifteen etc. They all also have ways to get at those extra cards that were placed on the side of the board during setup. For example, if you surround a diamond symbol in the Workshops area. When this happens you get to take one of the cards from the side of the board and essentially have another turn immediately. Everything here stacks as well, so if you claim a bonus card then the action you take could lead to a second bonus card and so on. The Circle of Glass Even though it’s not billed as such, Mille Fiore immediately gave me major flip and write vibes when I first started playing it. The whole board seems to evoke that whole ethos of those types of game, most of all, Ganz Schon Clever with its different sections and combo scoring. Place a token here, get points and if you’ve planned well then you can chain together some bonuses for some really satisfying combos. The big difference here of course is that it’s not a flip and write and you’re not playing a multiplayer solitaire game. Nope, here you’re sharing the board with the whole table, so your best laid plans can easily be scuppered by any of the players before you. It's the equivalent of having someone else lean over and scribble on your paper. The beauty of this shared board is the wonderful amount of interaction you gain. So often you’ll play a card and find an opponent glaring at you with that look of “how dare you” as you realise you’ve snapped up the space that was going to lead to their most epic scoring combo yet. I can easily see that frustrating some people but quite frankly, I love it. Aside from the fun banter it leads to, It also really adds to the tension as you wait, desperately hoping that no one steals that vital space. Although your own plays are important, working out what your opponent's are up to will be just as important, and that’s where the drafting and the strategy really shine through. For example, the residences section is all about chaining numbers together. So someone getting their diamond on a space before you get your turn could be the difference between a ten point space and a one point space. I hope you’ve remembered what cards you passed and what’s been played because that could make or break your decision. Do you play it safe and try something else or do you risk it for a biscuit? It provides a really fun back and forth as you try and second guess what others are doing, all the while they're doing exactly the same as you. Just as an FYI biscuit based bribery will usually work on me. I’m working out the loopholes on this in our review policy as you read this. The great thing in Mille Fiore is that pretty much everything will get you points. It’s a huge point salad, but one that’s made of glass……please don’t eat glass salads, they make your mouth hurt, taste very samey and no amount of salad cream will help. Getting a point or two when you put a tile down is nice, but it’s when you manage to rack up those big points on a turn that you really get that satisfying hit….and you just want more. Which makes those moments when someone takes that away from you feel like someone had let a rhino loose in your glassware shop (I’m sure there’s a better phrase for that somewhere). Walking on broken glass The theme gets pretty much lost when you're actually playing. In fact the rulebook doesn’t even try to give any explanation aside from giving names to the different areas. What wasn’t lost on me though is how pretty this game looks, especially as the game goes on and the board fills out. The coloured “glass” tiles really make the board pop. You’ll find yourself wanting to play this with the full four players just so you can see the board filled up with those wonderful colours. It’s one of those photogenic games that you’ll want to take as many photos of as you can before the sad task of packing it all away. On the subject of packing it all away, this is a pretty easy task, since once you put everything in baggies, it all gets packed away in an unnecessarily big trench in the middle of the box which is way too big for its relatively small footprint. Yes the box needs to be that big to accommodate the board, but I can’t help but wonder if the box needed to be quite so deep. Mille Fiori may not have the initial box cover appeal to draw you in the same way that a lot of recent titles, but it’s a game that you absolutely need to play if you have the opportunity. Even if it’s just to see the pretty colours on the board.

Dog Park WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Parks, Wingspan Published by: Birdwood Games Designed by: Lottie Hazell, Jack Hazell By Steve Godfrey This is a review copy. See our review policy here Finally! After so much begging, pleading and saying how I’ll feed it, walk it and clean up after it, the folks at Birdwood games have finally let us have a Dog themed game. Now I’m off to name it……I’m thinking Roger because I find the concept of dogs with human names hilarious. How to walk your dog. I won’t go into how you set up except to say that if you're playing with two players you’ll need to set up for an “auto walker” to act as a third player. Given the bidding element of this game that’s normally pretty standard. You’ll also need to randomly set up the breed cards down the awards track. The game is played over four rounds, each consisting of four phases. At the start of each round flip over a location card and populate the walk track with the tokens pictured. In phase one players will secretly use their dial to set a bid for one of the face up dogs on the board, spending a maximum of five reputation. In turn order players will place their walker next to the dog they’re bidding on. All players will flip the dials over and the player with the highest bid on each dog will win that dog into their kennel, also paying the reputation they bid. The losing bidders will get to take another dog, in turn order, for the cost of one reputation. More dogs will be flipped and the bidding phase will be done again so each player will get two dogs each round. One crucial thing to note is that you’re bidding with reputation which in this game is your victory points. So spend wisely. In phase two you’ll need to pick up to three dogs in your kennel to go for walkies. In a perfect world that’d be all of them but that doesn’t make a very competitive game and that would be a lot of poo to clean up!. Put the dogs you want to take onto your lead board, pay the cost in resources and place a lead token on them. Dogs are placed one at a time because all dogs have special abilities. So any that say “when placing on the lead” will trigger. Some abilities may get you resources which you might need to help place another dog. The next round is WALKIES! Don’t shout this out loud with your dogs in the room though otherwise this could be a long round! In this round you can move your walker up to four spaces through the park. When you land on a space you immediately take the resources, points pictured or action on it. If another walker is in that space you can still choose to take the benefit but you have to pay one reputation point to do so. This will go on until all but one walker has left the park, at which point the phase will end and the last player left will lose one point. When you're walking your dog you’ll also be triggering any abilities on your dogs on the lead that apply to this phase. Some spaces have actions on them. The swap action lets you swap a dog in your kennel with a dog in the field (display) . This is a great way to get dogs you want without spending reputation in the bidding phase. Swap and walk does the same thing but this time the dog you take has a lead token put on them so you don’t lose points at the end of the round. Finally, scouting lets you look at the top two cards of the deck and replace one of the dogs in the field with one you’ve just drawn. In the last phase you’ll score two points for each dog you took on the lead and lose one for each dog without a lead token in your kennel. After four rounds you’ll score points for each breed on the awards track. Whoever has the most of a certain breed will score the points next to them. Ties are friendly. You'll also score for any end of game goals on any dog cards in your kennel and for your private objectives. How do you park a dog? One of the first things you’ll notice about Dog Park (once you’ve stopped staring at the dogs of course) is how distinct each phase of the game is, more so for the bidding and the walking phase. Games that have very distinct phases that consist of very separate mechanisms can easily be a bit worrying. It could be so easy for any one of these to not integrate well or just not be as fun as other phases and if that happens it could ruin the experience of the game. Happily all the phases of Dog Park work well and more importantly work really well together. The bidding phase offers some really good decisions especially when you throw in the fact that your spending victory points to do it. There’s a lovely amount to consider when choosing your best friend. The special ability, the breed and if you can afford to put it on the lead to avoid losing out on victory points. You may only lose one point per dog, but those points could be vital for the next bidding phase. Let’s face it no one wants to take a dog only to not be able to take it for a walk. Whether you lose points or not you’d just feel guilty. (As an aside I think there needs to be a flip side to each card where each dog has those puss in boots style sad eyes and it stays on that side until you walk it. No dog left behind) Regardless of why you’re initially picking a dog you’ll find choosing how much to bid a genuinely tough choice. Not only because you’re your spending points, but because you’ll usually find that you may not have that many to spend and with two bids each round you really need to pick your battles. When you come to the walking phase you really get the sense that this game loves to put the players in a position of uncertainty and second guessing your opponents and both phases encompass that. In a perfect world during this second phase you’ll want to stop at almost every space to maximise the number of resources you’re getting; but not everyone has those ideals and that’s where the race element comes into it. All this depends on how you’re faring on the resource front. Too few and you’ll want to take as long as possible, but there’s always that one player who’s managed to acquire the whole pet shop full of resources and has merely to skip down the track as fast as they can. It's tense! Other players will see this sprint towards the end and soon need to decide if they want to follow suit just in case everyone else is. You just need to decide if you risk it for a dog biscuit and try to gather as much as you can, or join the mad dash through the park. Dog Park certainly gives you lots to take into account with every decision you make, but there’s nothing that feels overwhelming. In fact I’d say it’s a great game to introduce to newer gamers. I’d say it would work as a good family game, especially if you're a family of dog lovers. You call the dog, then I’ll call the dog….. Ok, let’s talk about the real reason you're all here. The dogs! You get a huge stack of them (163 to be precise), each with individual and fantastic looking artwork with what feels like every dog breed imaginable. The fact that there are already expansions with more breeds kinda disproves that idea but being able to have more dogs is never a bad thing. Dog Park falls into that pantheon of games where you’ll often find yourself torn between picking a dog for its ability…..or because it’s just so darn cute. This is a big stack of cards though and much like other games that also have those big decks (Wingspan, Ark Nova) you’ll find that you won’t get though a fraction of that. It could mean that end of game breed awards could easily be won because one player just happened to get the only dog of that breed that came out. It might also hinder any end game scoring that relies on you getting multiples of a certain breed. There are a couple of actions in the walking phase that will help you cycle through the deck a little bit but it still won’t be enough to make a huge dent in the deck. One thing Dog Park brings with it compared to the games I mentioned (I’ll include Meadow in that list as well) is the personal touch. If you’ve ever owned or known a dog in your life then it's lovely to know that you could potentially have your dog in your kennel. It potentially may not work for you strategy wise, but I’d take the personal aspect of it any day. For a first game it’s an impressive production. The components are great and I think we all appreciate game trayz in our boxes. However I think the colours could have been better matched throughout the game. The lead boards are hard to differentiate the colours on the front. The backs are better but they don’t quite match the meeples and the offer dials. Ultimately, knowing which colour meeple you are is the only thing that matters but it’d still be nice for a little bit of cohesion between everything. The two player game is fine, it employs a dummy player and I personally don’t find these particularly engaging (in general, not just in this game). It's easy enough to run, but It’s also easy to predict where the auto walker is going to go during the bidding phase. So unless you really want a particular card and want to take a chance, it’s easy to avoid sharing the same spot. For me it takes away the unpredictability of the other players which in turn, takes the edge off of the tension that a three plus player game gives. The unpredictability is still present for contesting bids and the walking phase since this is determined by a roll of the dice. Dog Park is a worthy game to celebrate our most loyal furry friends and whether you want to play a game or just stare at pictures of the goodest boys and girls then Dog park is definitely worth a look.

Forever Home WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Reef, Century: Golem Edition Published by: Birdwood Games Designed by: Lottie Hazell, Jack Hazell By Steve Godfrey This is a review copy. See our review policy here Dog Park was all about taking your furry friends for a (whisper it) walk. Birdwood games second offering gives you an even more noble task of finding them a new, loving home. Now if that (combined with the gorgeous art) doesn’t make you want to run out and buy it immediately then let me try and convince you further. How to find your dog a forever home. Give everyone a shelter board and together everyone chooses to play with either the regular side or the advanced side. Take each of the home card types, shuffle them and place out one of each. Place out a number of training cards depending on the player count and do the same with the dog tokens. Place the dog meeples randomly on the commendations board. Give each player two training cards then create a pool of dog tokens equal to two per player. In turn order players will take one dog from the pool and place them on your board with the last player taking two dogs then drafting will go in reverse order. On your turn you can take two actions. You can take a dog from the display and place it into the grid on your shelter board. The display then gets filled immediately. Since you can take the same action twice you can wait until the next dog is revealed before you place it down, just in case you want to take another dog and it might affect where you want to place things. As an action you can also move a dog in your grid one space in any direction as long as the space is empty. Taking a training card works the same way as taking a dog, you take a card, it’s immediately replaced. You can have a max of five cards in hand. Each card shows a pattern on it and if you can complete that pattern on your grid in any orientation then you can complete that card. You can only complete a card on your turn and it will trigger as soon as you fulfil it, even if you’ve only just taken that card into your hand. Cards will have a point value on them and a graduation number on them. When you fulfil a card you move a number of dogs (as dictated by the graduation number) that completed that pattern from your board and place it into one of the four home sections on top of your shelter board. These will contribute to scoring the home cards at the end of the game. The game will end when one player has completed seven training cards. All players will go until they’ve had an equal number of turns. You’ll then score the points on your completed training cards, the home card objectives and for the commendations board. Knick-knack paddywhack give a dog a home Forever Home is a much lighter and smaller affair than Birdwood Games previous game Dog Park, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make your brain itch. In fact I’d say Forever Home is more of a brain burner. It presents a really interesting puzzle as you spend your turns trying to set up patterns for not just one card, but as many as you can. It certainly gives you plenty to think about. You’ll soon find out that the two actions you’re given for a turn is never enough, but that just goes to add to the tough decisions. You’ll want to take dogs so you can build up your grid to complete those all important training cards. But I’ll guarantee there’s gonna be a training card staring lovingly at you (but that just may be the dogs on the card) that you’re so close to completing, it’d be rude not to take it……but you also really need two of those dog tokens but you can’t guarantee that either of them will still be there by the time your next turn comes along. Player count plays a big part of how you approach the game. In a two player game there’s a fairly decent chance that something you want will still be there when your turn comes around. As the player count increases, so do the chances of those same things being taken. It really changes up how you plan. In lower player counts you can easily form a plan and still be in with a good chance that you’ll be able to pull it off. In higher counts you're probably best off waiting until your turn comes around. I know that’s not necessarily what a gamer wants to hear. It brings on nightmares of elongated turns. But I’ve never found that to be the case in the games that I’ve played, turns have always been fairly snappy. The end game scoring is the thing you’re going to be racking your brains over. The training cards offer some points but you’ll find that you'll mostly be concerned with the graduation number and the puzzle of which dogs you’re going to rehome and where. I (and a few of my group) found that we didn’t really pay much attention to the Commendation board scoring for our first game and only worried about it from game two onwards. It felt like maybe one too many things to worry about in the first game but maybe that’s just us. You’ll certainly want to get onto using the advanced board as soon as you can though. This adds spaces on the board that have special actions that you trigger when you place a dog on that space. The arrow will let you move a dog on your grid as many spaces as you want following the arrow’s direction. The card swap lets you swap a card from your hand with one in the display. And the swap a token action is the same as the card action but with a dog token. Each action is really simple but I love how they open up the game and help to expand your options on a turn and may even help you do more than the usual two actions. Some dogs are solo dogs. The multiplayer game is a lot of fun and it’s definitely one I’d recommend. However, it’s the solo mode in this game that really shines for me. The solo mode works much the same as the regular game. Set up the dogs and cards as if you're playing a 2/3 player game. Shuffle and place out the solo deck then put out the solo commendations board but don’t place any of the dog tokens on it. Then take three dogs from the bag, pick two to place on your board. Once you’ve taken a turn as normal, flip over a solo card and remove and replace the cards/dogs pictured on the card and move the round marker. Now the clever part. You’re going to place one of the meeples on the commendation board. You’re going to be doing this every round and eventually you’ll build up your own set of end game scoring parameters for those objectives. This is a brilliant touch. How many times have you played a solo game and been hamstrung by the objectives going against you. Well now you get to build them to your advantage as you go along. So now if you mess up you’ve only yourself to blame. This doesn’t mean it’s going to make winning any easier, it’s still a brilliant challenge and this just serves to mitigate any situations that may put a damper on the experience. The solo game ends after eight rounds…maybe. You can take two extra turns but you lose 4 points if you take one extra turn and a massive eight points if you take two extra. The downside of the solo game? It’s darn (I’m trying to keep this family friendly) addictive. You’ll immediately want to set up again (which is really easy) and go again to try and improve your score. On many occasions I’ve sat down to play A game and found myself crashing out three games in a row and I could’ve easily gone one but had to stop myself. The art here is beautiful and serves to give the training cards that extra pop and, yes, the temptation to take the cards just for the artwork is a problem that the folks over at Birdwood games just love to see us struggle with. Dog Park is a fun family game and not wanting to rest on their laurels, Lottie and Jack Hazell have followed up with this brilliantly fun, light puzzle game that will easily make you want to go out and rehome all the dogs.

Outrun the Bear WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Exploding Kittens Published by: Around the Stump Games LLC Designed by: Samuel Barmettler By Steve Godfrey This is a review copy. See our review policy here Being from the U.K I’m lucky that having a bear disturb your picnic is never going to be an issue. In fact the only animals we really have to worry about is an ambitious dog or if we’re at the beach, seagulls! But let’s face it, being from the U.K we rarely get the weather for picnics anyway. I’m gonna talk about the game now because I can Bearly contain my excitement (I assure you this will be the only bear pun……maybe, but don’t be grizzly if it isn’t)) How to outrun a bear (FYI, you can’t!) First build the park by setting aside the campsite and parking lot, shuffling the rest of the tiles and choosing three randomly with either side face up. There’s also a first play variant for your first game if you want to follow that. Place the bear standee at the end of the board and each player's chosen characters at the campsite. Give each player the card for their character. If you're using the “park pass” variant, flip the card over to use that runner's ability. Deal each player two cards, give the last player the bear token and you're ready to go. On your turn first trigger the effects of the terrain type you’re on. This could be moving an extra space, moving back to another terrain type or it may even stop you from performing a sprint action. Once resolved you can take one action. Crawling which will move you 2 spaces. You can sprint by discarding four cards from your hand to move 5 spaces. You can also play an action card from your hand which will have a variety of effects on you or other players. Lastly you can play an equipment card which will stay in front of you (unless told otherwise) and give you an ability to use throughout the game. There are also reaction cards which you can play at any time (not just on your turn.) The card will tell you exactly when it triggers. After taking an action you draw 2 cards from the deck. Once all players have gone it’s time for the bear to activate. The player with the bear token counts all the paw prints between the lead runner and the end of the board where the bear is coming from. They then draw that many cards from the bottom of the discard pile. If there’s not enough cards they draw from the top of the deck. They then total up the numbers in the top left side of the card and move the bear that many spaces. If the bear overtakes a runner then that runner is removed from the game. All the cards in the discard pile are placed in the bottom of the runner deck. The bear token is passed to the right and the player on the left will go next. It essentially means that the last player from the previous round will go first in this one. The game will end when there are no runners left either because they’ve made it to the car park or they’ve all been bear food, or if there is one runner left standing. There are also four different variants you can use, including the park pass (as I mentioned earlier, a co-op version, a version where everyone starts with equipment and a last man standing game. You can also set the difficulty. You should stand tall, wave your arms and talk loudly and calmly Before you bring this game to the table you need to ask yourself one question. What type of friends are you playing with? Should you ever be chased from a picnic by Paddington's bigger, angrier cousin, what would those friends sitting across from you do? Would they come back to save you should you stumble or would they quite happily leave you as a distraction for the disgruntled Yogi. The answers will probably determine what version of the game you should probably play. I personally wouldn’t want to play the co-op version with someone who would happily throw me under the furry bus. The main game of Outrun the bear is very much a “sacrifice your friends and get out of the woods” style of game and is, with the right group, a whole load of fun and weirdly, I’d imagine, thematic? With reaction cards getting thrown about and the game state changing fairly quickly it’s the sort of chaos I’d imagine would ensue if a bear appears while you were munching on a pork pie. The most important thing of course is that the game (in its base form) is a lot of fun!. You definitely need to try and keep some strategy in mind. Which terrain you start your turn on is always going to be an important decision and choosing how to use your cards can be a genuinely tough decision depending on what you have in your hand. Ditching four to move five spaces is a tempting proposition, especially if your lagging behind……but on the other hand, keeping hold of those reaction cards for future use could be the difference between being lunch and a narrow escape. But! Be careful what you discard and how you discard it. Having the bear move based on cards you discard is a really clever idea. It’s throws another layer of things to consider when you play a card and it gives you (some) level of control in how the bear moves. Back away slowly and stop moving if it follows you The looming threat of the bear edging ever closer is the thing that for me stands this game above other “take that” style games. It starts off as a mild threat and moves at  almost a snail's pace. So much so that you can see people thinking “well this is going to be easy.” However, as you make your way down the path and those footprints pass you by, the bear pursuit really starts to ramp up and panic ensues. You quickly go from a state of thinking you’ve got loads of time, to, I need to book it and if I have to sacrifice my friends to do so then so be it. Screwing over your friends doesn’t necessarily have to be a result of you playing a card directly on them of course. It could be from playing a card that just affects you. But! Discarding a card with a high value on it can massively affect how far the bear moves and if you plan it well it could be just enough to feed your friend to your ursine pursuer. There’s one card that lets you move 5 spaces but it’s a 3 value card and specifically tells you to place it at the bottom of the discard pile. Of course giving an evil grin to a person on the brink of being bear food as you place this card down would be a bit mean………but you should absolutely do that, oh and also feel free to wave at them as you sprint away. Unless of course it’s attacking then it’s a different story all together Given the “take that” nature of the game which also includes player elimination, it’s not going to be for everyone. If you’ve bounced off these style games in the past then I don’t think the regular game is going to change your mind. Luck of the draw can still determine how your game goes and how or if you can react. Now if none of that bothers you and this sounds like your jam then it’s well worth picking up (I probably wouldn’t have jam near a bear, I’m not totally sure how much they love it but better safe than sorry. Before you ask, yes I did google “do bears like jam” don’t say I don’t do research for the nonsense I spout) The game does have a co-op variant where the goal is to get everyone to safety. I’ve not tried this version since the groups I’ve played this with prefer the regular style. If the game does sound fun to you then this variant could be worth trying out if you can. The cards are all worded in a way that they’re easily applied to a co-op game so there’s no changes to the rules. Whilst we’re on the subject of variants there are a few in the box. You can opt to use the characters special abilities found on their card. These are good to change things up a bit with some being passive or ongoing abilities while some are quite situational which is great, if the situation occurs, if it doesn’t then your ability can easily go rarely used or unused. I’ve had a couple of games where I didn't get to use mine because the situation didn’t arise. We’ve not tried the last man standing game yet but I’m sure that’s going to be on the cards at some point. We’ve tended to play this as a last game of the night so we’ll probably do it when we’ve got a bit more time just in case this version goes on for a bit longer. It does sound like fun though. Essentially you don’t use the car park and keep rotating the tiles until only one person is left. Outrun the Bear takes a quite divisive game mechanism and adds an element of tenseness and agency to it that for me makes it stand above the rest of the games in this genre. It invokes all that fun table talk and laughter that I love about board games. Now if they can just make Outrun the Seagull for a British audience that would be great

Unrest WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Air, Land and Sea, A Battle of Wits Published by: Pandasaurus Games Designed by: Brendan Hansen By Steve Godfrey This is a free review copy. See our review policy here Unrest is many things. It is not, however, a game about the constant state my wife and I found ourselves in after our kids were born. There’s yet to be a game made about that. Unrest, it turns out, is actually about a ruling Empire that has to fight against the constant disturbances and uprising of a rebellious faction or factions who feel that they are being unfairly treated and don’t like the rules. I dunno, maybe this is a game about parenting after all! How to stir unrest. Pick which player is playing the Rebellion and which is the Empire. Place out the five district tiles. The order doesn’t matter unless you’re playing with the Capitol variant, in which case place the Capitol tile in the middle. The rebel player takes five cards from their deck and the empire player takes the four power tokens. These are beautifully weighty poker chips that you’ll want to keep playing with so maybe don’t hand these out until you’ve been over the rules. Take the Revolution mission card and then three other random missions and place them face up. The rebellion player chooses two adjacent districts they want to target this round and places the area of interest token between them. They then choose three cards they want to play and place them one face up and two face down by the token. The cards come in four different “suits” and each suit is numbered from 2-6. There’s also going to be four misdirection cards. Then it’s the Empire's turn. The Empire player will play two of their four tokens. The Surveil token will reveal one of the face down rebel cards. The Destroy token discards one of the three cards keeping it in its current position (face up or down). The Reroute will place a rebel card into any district and the Blockade card will stop the rebel player placing cards in the chosen district for that round. The two played tokens are not available to be used on the next empire turn. It’s only when all four tokens have been played that they all refresh. After this the rebel player will then place the remaining cards into the two districts. They can all go into one or they can be split. They must stay in their current position. What’s the point of all of this? To liberate districts. If the rebel player liberates three then they win. However if the empire player can stop this from happening until the deck runs out then they’ll win. Districts are won by the rebel player satisfying one of missions. There are four missions and you can satisfy any of them in a district to control it. You can use the same mission multiple times. For example, to complete the Revolution mission the numbers on the cards in that district have to total at least 21. For another mission you could have at least one card of each suit. You’ve also got misdirection cards in the deck, these have to be placed face down and, as the card says, are a good misdirection tactic. Rise of the Rebellion. So, you want to bring down a big “evil” empire huh? Well you need a plan and you need to out think your opponents. Well good news because that’s exactly what playing as the Rebellion will entail, and playing as the rebellion is where you’ll find the meatier decisions in the game. Each time you come to choose your cards you’ll have a slew of things to consider. You’ll need to decide which districts you want to play in, which missions are out on the table and more importantly, which cards you want to play and how you’re going to place them. Each of them is going to inform how devious you’re going to be in your attempt to liberate districts. You’ll always be able to see which actions the empire has available to them and It’s a lot of fun plotting how you're going to manipulate the cards you play to try and either use their actions to your advantage, or avoid getting stung too harshly by them. Working out how to bluff and even tease your opponent with your exposed card is a great feeling, especially setting up a cleverly planned out bluff, watching them agonise over it and then fall for it. It’s a thing of malevolent beauty. How easy your victory will be depends a lot on which missions will be out. The ever present Revolution mission while simple, can be a big ask but it’s good to have one that is ever achievable. But I really like the variety you get each game from the different missions. It keeps what could have been a repetitive game, on its toes. A Reactionary Tale If you're playing as the Empire then prepare to be playing a completely reactionary game with potentially limited things you can do. But it’s also about deduction and calling your opponents bluff. I'll admit that’s the start of the game your turns can feel like they have no real direction and you’ll most likely play the same two tokens first every time you play. As the game goes on though and more information starts to drip feed though you start to get a feel for what they're planning and so your turns, while still reactionary, start to get more tactical and more important. It starts to evolve into a nice deductionary puzzle. As the cards build up in different areas, randomly rerouting a card to another district could be a touch of brilliance……or you could be playing right into your opponent's hands and putting that card just where they want it. It makes paying attention to what you know is already out on the table all the more important. I do think it’d be nice to have an alternative win condition for the  Empire though. Just running out the deck feels a little anticlimactic, especially compared to the nail biting finish of the rebellion. Again, maybe that's another thematic touch. Perhaps crushing rebels as a grand Empire doesn’t evoke those whoop whoop moments the way that rebel victories do. Perhaps it is a case of “another rebellion trodden down, now, everyone get back to work.” Don’t get me wrong, I still have fun playing as the Empire and games have certainly come down to the last turn genuinely not knowing if the rebellion will be able to pull off one final push for liberation. But it’s one of those games in which one side (the rebellion) will kinda know if the game  can be won or lost before they play their cards for the last round. In a scenario when they know they can’t win then it can make the game fall a little flat. Unrest is one that we’re going to be adding to our two player “playlist.” It’s simple to jump into, gives you enough of a strategic hit, some nice back and forth and is quick enough to rack up a second time and swap roles. It very much gives me “the battle of wits” in the princess bride vibes and I’m absolutely here for it. Right I’m off to try and get another game in. Let’s hope I don’t fall victim to one of the classic blunders.