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The Night Hunter: Murder Mystery Party WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1- 99 You’ll like this if you like: Unsolved Case Files, Exit Games Published by: University Games Designed by: Jordan Goddard, Mandy Goddard, Ryan Schoon By Steve Godfrey This is a review copy. See our review policy here NO SPOILERS!! It’s October (when this review originally went up) so it’s nearly time for Halloween. The time of year where us parents buy a load of sweets “just in case” we get trick or treaters. Then we don’t get any because we’ve not put up any decorations or indications that we want trick or treaters, so we have to eat all of the sweets for ourselves. I know we could cut out the middleman and buy ourselves sweets, but sometimes it’s just nice to blame someone else for our sugar habit once in a while. At least this year we can gorge ourselves while solving a murder mystery. How to catch a killer. It couldn’t be easier to get playing The Night Hunter. Open the box and take out the field guide, the light and read the first note from the captain. Collect the contents for chapter one then read the next note which has your first objective. You’ll have to successfully solve the first objective before you can open the next envelope with a new objective. Each chapter has a few objectives that you’ll have to solve using the evidence you’re presented with. Each objective will be along the lines of “why did the killer use Frosties to murder their victims?” The answer of course is because they were a cereal killer. Don’t worry, the real ones are actually proper questions. A true detective. The first thing you’ll notice, especially if you’ve played other puzzle games, is that this is presented very much as an investigation more akin to something you’ll see on TV rather than a series of straight up puzzles like an Unlock or an Exit game. Although you will still get one or two of those here. You’re going to be presented with pieces of evidence, crime scene photos, witness statements and a great many things. It’s then your job to sift through these to solve each objective you’re presented with. I’ve played another mystery game in this sort of style before and I’m really enjoying how the format works. It’s just great fun being surrounded by all that evidence and scrutinising every piece like a real (fictional) detective. We’ve all seen those tv shows and I reckon we’ve all fancied ourselves as a bit of a detective at one time or another. I mean how many times have you sat on the sofa and uttered the words “I reckon it was them”? That’s made even better of course if you turn out to be right. Well here you get to flex those muscles properly to prove how good you really are. You get to have those epiphany moments and then have to rifle through everything to find that evidence you read earlier which, at the time, was a bit weird and probably nothing but now it’s a key piece of the puzzle. You get so into it that you’ll want to run to the shops and get yourself a notice board, push pins and a ton of red string. Just make sure you get the notice board though and don’t use the wall, trust me, filling in that many holes in the wall is a lot of work! The puzzles themselves are a good mix of difficulties. Some we got probably too quickly, yet others took a good while to crack. Personally I prefer a good mix like this. There’s nothing worse than being constantly stuck on every puzzle and having to resort to hints. It doesn’t do your confidence much good and takes you out of the experience. On the flip side, make everything too easy and you fly through the whole thing and you don’t feel like you’ve got enough of a challenge out of it and you can feel like you’ve not gotten your money's worth. Speaking of getting your money's worth, the box says that play time is about 4-5 hours which I think is the longest of the puzzle/mystery games I’ve played. I’d say that was about right for us over our three sessions but that’ll vary depending on how quick you are solving and how many players you play with. In case you are worried about the time then the multi chapter format gives you a good place to save your game. It also serves to make the game feel like you’re playing through a true crime Netflix documentary. You’ll be tempted to binge it, but soon realise that it’s late and you should really try and go to bed. The good thing is that the story is engaging enough that you want to keep coming back and does a nice job of ramping up to a tense conclusion. If you feel like the current line up of fictional detectives just aren’t cutting it then why not solve the mystery of The Night Hunter to show them how it’s really done.

By Trywin Games Checks Paper copy of Essen ticket. Check. Paper list of stands to visit, along with interview timetable. Check. Fully charged phone. Check. Small rucksack containing wireless microphone set, bottle of water, power pack, demo copy of my game just in case, and numerous other trinkets to support any unfolding scenario. Check. It’s the 40th anniversary of Spiel Essen. Let’s do this! This is Spiel Number Two for me. The first, last year, was a tourist affair. My personal brief was to experience the event from the fan perspective. To enjoy the fair, but also to analyse it from a designer/publisher perspective to see the different tips and tricks to draw fans to booths and stands. This year the brief was different. In what may become a long running tradition, I was linking up with the gang who went last year to create a bunch of misfits each with our own desires and expectations of Spiel. In addition to the social aspect I had volunteered to grab interviews and sound bites from folks in the gaming world for the Meeple2Meeple podcast. If planning had been a minor consideration last year, it was a big focus this year. Each day was punctuated with specific meeting rooms or places for me to find, along with arranging on-the-fly sound bites with members of the Instagram community and checking out as many of the games from the Meeple2Meeple recommendations list. Between said missions I had a personal desire to explore as much of the event as possible. So what was it like? Travel Travel into and from the event is often missed in summaries of the show but it’s a vital consideration. Notionally there are thirty-five hours available to you, if you are the first in and last out on each public day, Thursday to Sunday. If you want to arrive promptly then travel will be a priority for you. The pre-show grapevine suggested that train schedules would be unpredictable and thus car traffic was likely to be higher and a knock-on effect to local car parks demand. Our accommodation was in Duisburg, a circa twenty-five-minute car drive to Spiel. This journey could also be a rail ride, with estimates between one hour and one hour and a half. Across the weekend a mix of methods was used. But suffice to say, despite using the rail journey (two trams, two trains) four times I never got the one-hour version of the trip. How many people? Thursday is the day for hardcore gamers. The super fans will want to make the dash to their favourite stalls, often with large empty suitcase, to snag the priority games. Aside from the early rush the rest of the day is relatively relaxed, with stallholders looking fresh faced and happy to explain their wares. However, customs delays seemed to be prevalent with many gamers queueing for games to arrive at the show (rather than them already being at the stand as expected). Friday is busier. There is still room to move around but the bigger stands are becoming busy. The smaller booths have now realised that they need to schedule play tests so that their entire event isn’t spent managing would-be players. Saturday. You know that move you do when you need to squeeze through a small gap? Perhaps between a Ford Focus and a Toyota Yaris in the car park. Or maybe through a door, that hasn’t opened all of the way. That shoulder lift, the breathing in, the heightened sense of where your body is, trying not to collide with any of your surroundings. Now add in all of the extras from Ben Hur, and get ready for some penguin shuffling all day. It’s hot, it’s cramped, it smells of coffee, pretzels, body spray and body odour and farts. To answer the question of how many people are at Spiel on Saturday – all of them. Everywhere. Sunday. There is space. The air is fresher. There is a glazed look on the stall holders. Maybe they have slept over the last few days, maybe they haven’t. Maybe they have kept track of time, maybe they haven’t. Time has no meaning at Spiel. Sunday is a nice day to enjoy the event. Games There are so many to check out. Some I played, some I saw, here are my notes. Played: Furnace – already known, but played according to Jim’s rules. Fit and forget. Still makes me shudder. (Editors note: Not my rules, the official variant that makes it better! haha) Ito – great game that reveals more about your fellow players than you might realise. Or want. Nmbr9++ - The expansion to Nmbr9. A fun little puzzle. Gay Sauna – What happened at the sauna, stays at the sauna. Patterns – A two-player area control, tile flipping, point scoring delight. Kavango – A nature lovers dream! Spotted, would like to play: Kelp – two-player asymmetric shark versus octopus Flamme Rouge Grand Tour – campaign version of the classic, coming 2024. Skyteam – two-player dice placement to successfully land a plane. 12 rivers – three-dimensional river valley which looks fantastic and gameplay seems great too. Forest Shuffle – a sell-out at Spiel, nature-based ecosystem builder. Too Many Bones – Intriguing dice roller to defeat big monsters. Nokosu Dice – a recommendation….need to find out more! Galactic Cruise – stunning table presence…need to know more! Celtae – play as Celts, building your clan and fighting the Romans. Western Legends Showdown – two-player wallet game. Looks fun. Liars and Looters – bluffing to claim loot! Master of Rules – multi-player-invoked-rule trick taker. MLEM Space Agency – co-op push your luck in space. And cats. Among Cultists – social deduction game that looks fun. Lowlights No open gaming. For an event of this size and type open gaming would be enormously useful. Not only for resting but to help spread awareness of the games on offer. And to make new friends. Not enough seats. Even without open gaming there are nowhere near enough seats for the amount of people. Around the inside and outside catering areas people can be found in some sort of post-apocalyptic setting hunched up over a paper box of poutine with a wooden fork, sat awkwardly on the tarmac floor. Everyone is spying the couple across from them who are seated on two stacked wooden pallets. Oh to obtain the timber luxury! No water refills. At four euro per bottle, staying hydrated could be expensive. Free water seems inexcusable. Unless there was a spring that I failed to locate. Highlights Fresh air. Between some of the halls were central loading areas that now housed the catering wagons. These areas were great for short term breaks, as well as grabbing food. Never has air felt so fresh than when emerging from the heady halls of Spiel. Evenings. Every evening is an opportunity for some great fun. Thursday provided the ‘never to be forgotten’ comparison of which is more beautiful a Crow or Cheesecake in a game of Ito in the apartment Friday night. Friday was a great big burger meet and eat at Traumkuh. Saturday was a hearty meal at Olga’s. Creepy dolls didn’t detract from the deliciousness. Sunday was a motorway service burger on the way leaving Spiel. Demo of Can’t Go. On each day I carried a copy of my game, just in case the moment arose to play. And on Saturday, in the Europa room as part of the Content Creator’s meeting space (above the foyer at the entrance to Hall 3) I demo’d the game with brodatyboardgames. That was cool. Final thoughts It’s a really tricky thing to culminate the whole Spiel experience into a few words. Describing it as a wonderful, congested, frantic, exuberant, unique and bizarre experience goes a little way towards the feel of the cornucopia of tabletop gaming. The thing that really made it memorable was the fantastic people I got to meet. Thank you to everyone who said hi, or played a game, or shared a meal. You’re awesome.

In 2021 I was excited about Excavation Earth, Riverside, and Golem. You can read about that here. Some useful tips for the show too if you ever plan to go and want some advice. In 2022 it was all about Walkie Talkie as I fell hard for the designers behind The Red Cathedral. Again, its here if you want it. This year, it was different. I planed going very late. So, I did not book many meetings with publishers which meant I was free to do what I wanted more of the time, with no obligations, and it was lovely. I played what I want, and came home with what I want. It cost a lot more! But was better. I was very keen on getting some games still, I had still done my research, here was my hit list pre-show. I got them all apart from Nokous Dice which sold out every day, Planta Nubo which a friend bought instead and I thought I could play theirs! On The Moon was demo only, Cascadia Landmarks was overpriced in my opinion, Sea Dragons sold out and Redwood was on a stand I sadly did not get too in my two days. The rest are sat next to me right now, plus a few more. Onto the awards! Best game I played Nekojima, Ito, and That's not a Hat all take a three way tie for top spot this year. Three small, party games. "Where are the big euros Jim?!" Best game I bought I still have a lot to play, but Nekojima, Ito, and That's not a Hat will take a lot of beating. I bought all three after playing at the fair, well, ITO I didn't play but knew what it did, and loved them all instantly. I may come back here later and re-address this once all purchased games are played. Nucleum is looking at me right now with a cheeky grin on its face! Best small box game I still have not played it yet but I am confident this will be The White Castle which I am so excited about playing soon! Best Party game Nekojima is more of a dexterity games so I will exclude that. So it is between Ito and That's not a Hat and I will have to go with another tie. But if you really forced me to pick on, I would hide one inside the other, they are tiny, and pretend I had picked one but in truth, they cannot be separated for me. Both great fun! Best Kickstarter coming soon There was so many but the one that really caught my eye was Galactic Cruise coming to Kickstarter next spring from Dranda games. It looks epic! Best Kickstarter out now This has to be Kavango from first time designers Matt and Zara, who are the nicest people and have made an incredible game. Well worth checking out. Best Kickstarter in fulfilment Oh my, I am so excited for Mythwind. I got to meet one of the designers there and this game just seems more and more incredible every time I think about it. Open world gaming, potentially, at its finest. We will see. Best Stand This year I am giving that to Board & Dice. A nice big stand with lots of staff on hand. Loads of tables. A lot of people were dressed up in fancy dress to honour their big release of the show Nucleum, and the whole area looked amazing. I had a fantastic demo of their 2024 release Windmill Valley there too with a great teach. It looks amazing fun. My only disappointment of the show was not being able to do it all! Standard. And not being able to get a few games I wanted as they sold out. I was there 10:20am on day one, 20 minutes after opening, and Nokosu Dice was gone for the day. I could have gone in early with my press pass but I feel that is not fair on everyone else. Exhibitors get to buy early which I am sort of ok with, they cannot do it during the rest of the day as they are working. The next day, a similar thing happened, although I got there a little later. This game was out in 2016. A re-print and some hype after some big names talked about it have given this game it's five minutes and sadly it seems the publisher could not respond in time, and print enough copies. I hope when it comes back to print and is available to buy, people are still keen. I for one will be. But I fear the hype will fade and we will all move onto the new shiny thing. All I have played of this game is one round (of three), but I loved it and I think it deserves the hype. It is so clever with just a few simple twists on the usual trick-taking experience, the game feels so fresh and new. So, what did everyone else think? Let's see as we hear from some of my favourite people in the gaming world who are here to share their experiences with you so you can get a fully rounded opinion of the Spiel. Lee from Gamingoverboard This was my first time at Essen, having only been to a handful of cons before (UKGE twice and Airecon once), so I was basically expecting it to be like UKGE on steroids. Which it both was and wasn’t. The venue is enormous, and packed to the rafters with exhibitors, games, demos, games, dice, games, accessories, and a few more games for good measure. If you have a wish list, this is the place to make all of those wishes come true – I unexpectedly managed to pick up some games, promos and expansions that are either impossible or prohibitively expensive to get in the UK. Of course, Essen is also packed with people, so if you’re not a fan of crowds this is not going to be your vibe (although perhaps the relatively quieter Thursday or Sunday would work better for you). That said, the aisles are very wide and the exhibitors well spaced out so, a few bottlenecks aside, I felt far less crushed than I did at UKGE, and there are a couple of empty halls/outdoor spaces if you need to step out and take a breather. On the downside, there is very little gaming taking place. I was prepared for this in theory, but the significance of its absence didn’t hit home until I was actually there. My favourite bit about cons is sitting down and playing games with friends I don’t usually get to see. Not only is there ZERO open gaming in Essen (hell, you’d be incredibly lucky just to sit down full stop) but it’s also very hard to demo any games. Every exhibitor has a handful of demo tables, but obviously not enough to satisfy the enormous demand. If there’s a hot game or big developer you want to try out, you’re gonna have to loiter for a very long time or get very lucky with timings (every time I went to the Garphill stand it was just as a new teach was starting, and let’s not forget the kind gentlemen who stole the Art Society table we’d been waiting for longer than them). Due to this, my favourite day of the con was the day we didn’t actually go to the con and stayed in the Airbnb gaming all day. Which does beg the question if there’s any point in me going again in the future, when I can get my fix much closer to home instead… Mubeen from mubeen_saddique This year, as I made my way to Essen, I wasn’t sure what to feel. There didn’t appear to be a standout game to look out for, there were predictions of impending chaos due to the new hall plans, and I’d been told I’d be demo’ing one of the most anticipated games of the fair, Galactic Cruise. But as the doors opened, the halls filled and the humdrum of people enjoying their hobby grew into a hubbub, the nausea I was feeling dissipated, and slowly but surely, it was replaced by pure joy. My personal highlight was the chance, once again, to meet with friends I usually only get to see a few times a year, to catch up and have a laugh interspersed with some gaming – double the fun when they come over to watch me demo! I also enjoy seeing people from around the world come to the booth and take a seat ready to get into the demo – I had folks from Australia, America, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK partake in games, and it’s great to see how folks from different cultures react over their love of their shared hobby. As an exhibitor, I was lucky enough to buy games at Essen in the hour before the doors open to the public, but when there are few copies of a game, the public doesn’t stand a chance at getting a copy, as they’ll all sell out. In my opinion, publishers need to reserve some stock exclusively for sale to the public (perhaps a gradual release of stock during the day?). It's also very hard to get a demo of a game if you walk the halls alone. The app this year was superb – perhaps it’s worth adding a “find a person to demo with” feature to team up with others during the convention. I took great pleasure in encouraging individuals or groups of two to join the Galactic Cruise demo, as it was a great way to ensure everybody who was interested could be included, and I hope they appreciated it too. So, another Essen is in the books, and with plenty of new games, now it’s time to nurse my sore throat, eat something healthy again and remedy the sleep deprivation! Erlijne from Mostly Solo There was one thing I knew for sure this year: I needed all the Saasi & Saashi games. It was my second time visiting Spiel and last year Saashi & Saashi did not have a stand. Despite their fantastic artwork and fun games, they're not the most accessible brand in Europe. That meant: spending my first 45 minutes at the fair anxiously awaiting the moment I could ask for a copy of Come Sail Away and Newsboys. Those two games were the start of a very artwork centred haul: Jokkmokk has cool vintage graphics, Islet is as beautiful looking as its predecessor Coral, both Bonsai and The White Castle are right up my aesthetically pleasing Japan obsessed alley, and Portals has amazing box art and great components. And that's just the haul part, because boy did I see pretty games I wanted to try! Satori (cure monk meeples), Galactic Cruise (amazing box art) and of course Evenfall, which has amazing art, even better player boards and — as it turns out — fantastic gameplay. (For those of you wondering: Yes, all of the aforementioned games come with a solo mode.) But maybe the best part? Sitting down with friends after two days of walking the fair, playing games for a whole day and laughing until we cried. Despite all the money I spent on fantastic games, the 9 euro party game I did not buy will forever have the most impact of Spiel 2023. Marie from Burtons Boards This was my third year attending Essen Spiel and I’ve pretty much been looking forward to it since the end of the last one. I know exactly what to expect now and so this year felt more relaxed right from the start. Also turning up late and missing all the queues to get in is my new favourite thing! There was only one game I really cared about buying and after that it felt nice to just leisurely wander the halls, ticking off games I was interested in checking out. I’ve seen a few people complaining about never getting a space to demo games and that may be true for all the big hype games but whenever we decided our legs ached and we wanted to sit, we would find ourselves a table. You just can’t be too picky. It felt a little different this year. Not being so concerned about buying everything on my list meant we moved through the halls at a slower pace and so there was a lot that I didn’t end up seeing but that also meant that the crowds and the queues didn’t bother me. It was a difference that I liked and I look forward to this new, less obsessed me attending again next year! But what was the same was the joy of seeing friends. There are some people that I completely count as friends even though we see each other once a year and talk for 3 minutes. And there are others who are now firmly my Essen family. We will live and game together for 4 days every October from now on. This year we stayed in apartments, rather than hotel rooms, which meant we could game together in the evenings. This more than made up for the lack of open gaming at the convention. We also stayed an extra night so that we could have a full day of playing all our exciting new games together and it was perfect. 2 days of Spiel is always enough for me but I will never have enough of playing games with friends until 2am and laughing so much you can hardly breathe and making memories that make you smile when you think back on them. So tell me, which do you find more beautiful? A crow or cheesecake?

There are about 1,200 games on the BGG release list for this year's spiel. From this extensive list, there are a lot of duplicates to be fair. Games being released in different languages. A lot of expansions and games only available for demo. But that still leaves about 700 games actually being released, for sale at the spiel. Out of all of these? Which is the best? I have no idea. Do you think I have played them all? Give me a chance. Most have very little information out about them yet. But, I have trolled the list of games, researched as best I could and come up with a nice simple list for you. My top 5 games I am most excited to try and maybe buy. In no particular order. But starting with my favourite! The White Castle - This is designed by two of my favourite designers in the board game industry. Isra C. and Shei S. form Llama Dice and have so far made one of my favourite small box games, The Red Cathedral and one of my favourite little cards game from last years Essen Walkie Talkie. Now they return with another small box full of juicy euro goodness that looks so crunchy, so tight, and yet so accessible. A proper Euro you can play in under an hour that is full of great decisions. It has had mixed reviews so far but I think this will be right up my street and I cannot wait to play it for myself. Nokosu Dice - I love trick-taking games but with the way the market is now-a-days, you gotta have a twist, right? Well, relax! This game introduces dice, yes dice to a card based trick-taker. In each trick, each player plays either a card or dice. And that's about all I know about this one. But that's enough for me. Plus it has a cool box. But I did find this on the BGG description. "There is also a chance to win bonus points at the end of each round if the number of the tricks won in the round matches the last dice left OR if a player declares they would not win any trick for the round and actually won no trick." Which sounds wicked to me. I am in. Picture courtesy of BGG user - Eric Planta Nubo - This is a tile laying worker placement game where players are trying to grow energy rich flowers and plants in cloud based gardens. What you grow is then delivered to biomass converters to be transformed into green energy. Sounds right up my street, and that is just the start. But in short, this is crunchy steam punk farming. Early signs are that this game could be quite weighty. It currently ranks as a 4/5 on BGG for weight, but its very early days. That may well come down. But colour me intrigued. Here is the back of the box in German. Helpful? Portals - This is an abstract pattern building game in which players are collecting magic keys to open portals to other worlds, I think, to try and find someone called Dominick Dey’s? There is an open draft in which players draft Elemental stones to complete various shapes on Key cards. When done, you can activate them to gain points. It looks gorgeous (from what I can see) and sounds wonderful. ito This is a cooperative game where each player is given a secret number between 1 and 100 that then have to be placed in order with the other players number based on some vague clues you can give each other based on various themes. It sounds a little like Wavelength which I love, so I am intrigued how this builds on this idea. I am also very excited for the Furnace: Interbellum, Cascadia: Landmarks, and Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Salt expansions which all look incredible, and Apiary, which would have made this list, other than I know I am going to be getting that after the show, so I don't need to play it here. Honourable mentions: (Other games I want I can find even less info about) From the Moon - I demo'd this last year and it looked ace. Love a space theme and mini Rovers look wicked! Nekojima - This is dexterity game, and it looks like this. Do you really need to know anymore?! Papertown - This is an abstract strategy city building game that looks like it has multiple ways to score points. It seems quick and fun, and I want it! Redwood - I demo'd this last year as well and it looked incredible. Beautiful components, original gameplay, and a slick ruleset. I am in. Sail This is a pirate themed cooperative trick-taker. The world needs more of those right? But it seems to have a cool twist in that players can not always communicate based on the noise of the Kraken and each player will have a unique character skills that can sometimes use to help benefit the group. Sea Dragons - This is an area control abstract strategy game that looks stunning and i want to touch these pieces immediately. Check it out. Picture courtesy of BGG user Jose Manuel Alvarez Right, I am off to pack my bags. See you there!

Malum Hortus is the new ambitious project from Atikin Games. The people behind a number of charming small box games and projects. You can find out more about them here. But now, in what is their first big box game, Malum Hortus takes players into a mysterious and enchanting garden, as dangerous as it is beautiful. In this preview we will run through the basic gameplay and give you our thoughts. You can find more about this game here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atikingames/malum-hortus?ref=discovery Malum Hortus Board Game Preview - This is a prototype version with only some final art and components, and it does not represent the final quality or look of the game. Malum Hortus is set within a strange and dangerous garden. But don't be fooled by the word garden. You are playing as a small Nymph, and this garden is more of a spiralling jungle to you. Your job is the help save as many critters as you can, whilst avoiding the plants attacking you as you try to make your way to the fringes of the garden and escape. This is a cooperate game where you will all win and lose as a team. To set the game up, place the board as below with critter tokens on each critter space. Place the flowers onto their marked spaces onto he tracks, two per path. And set each standee onto the starting spaces in the centre of the board. Give each player a character board, health tracker and power token along with three rune stone cards. Shuffle the rest of these cards and place in a face down deck with three cards facing up forming the rockery. Shuffle the animal cards and place them into a face down deck in the central player area along with the three dice and Root board, which shows the flowers in play for this game and their turn order. Place the Corruption token into the middle location. This is given to any player who loses all their health to remind the players it has happened. Finally, set up the night deck, placing as many cards as you want based on your desired difficulty. You are now ready to play. Players will now take it in turns to play one card from their hand in an attempt to escape the garden before they become trapped within its grasps. Each card has two uses. The main action shown on the top left, which will be to either take damage, gain magic, heal, move another player, move one of the flowers, or gain an additional night card. Players will take this action, then move the number of spaces as shown on the bottom right of the card. Movement can be forwards or backwards, and sometimes there will be no movement at all. Generally when the card has a stronger power. Players will then carry out the action of the space they landed on which will be to either take a damage, gain magic, heal, or attempt to save a critter. To save a critter, players must discard five magic tokens and then draw a critter card. Some reward you with a bonus, whilst others may punish you in ways you did not expect. Once players have played their card they will redraw one card from one of the three face up rockery cards to get back to a hand of three. Other options available to you are to discard your cards and redraw three cards, or to discard the current three face up rockery cards and redraw these. Players also have one passive and active power. The passive powers are in play at all times and helps players gain extra magic, take less damage, heal, or save critters with less magic. The active powers come in to play when players chose so at a cost of two magic, and allow players to move their character extra spaces, move the flowers out of their way, heal, or stun a flower making it inactive that night. When all players have taken their action, the night phase begins. All flowers will become uprooted which means they will move and attack. One player will need to roll the D6 to determine each flowers movement which is done in order according to the Root board. If any plants move onto a space occupied by a players standee then you need to roll the D4 to determine damage. Some powers, cards or effects will increase or decrease this so be sure to check. When all flowers have been uprooted, draw the top night card read it aloud and carry out its actions. Some cards will help your progress, others may hinder your way. They continue the story in a beautiful way. The writing is wonderfully ethereal and engaging. When a player reaches the end of their track, they have escaped. They are still in the game and play cards as usual, but will now focus their attention on helping the other players. If the final night card is drawn and last least one player is still in the garden then all players will lose. If more than one player loses all their health then all players lose. The only way to win is for all players to reach the final spaces of their tracks before either of these conditions are met. There are multiple ways to set the game up to create the right level of difficulty and tension for your current desire. This is crucial to the success of the game. The balance needs to be right for a good game. And when it is right, this is wonderfully tense. The best way to describe this the feeling I have when I play this game is a poetic wistfulness. It has a delightful narrative running underneath the clever card play and cooperative movement of the players that keeps you hooked. It will be interesting to see what the final artwork looks like. A lot is just holding copy for now, so it is hard to get a true feel for the game, especially as it relies so much on the theme to help with the story. But, the mechanics are solid, and the tension created from the gameplay is a very enjoyable. A good co-op game for me needs to be winnable but challenging. Suspenseful but achievable. This game delivers here. You need to set the game up right for you to achieve this though. You need to decide how many Night cards are used in the night deck and reducing the amount of lucky critter cards in the critter deck to suit your groups experience with the game. The game ends in a slightly strange way currently but I think this will be ironed out in the final version. You will score based on how many critters you saved, how much health, magic and unused night cards you had left, and then lose points if any player had their health reduced to zero or not. But this score feels arbitrary. You either won or lost. What good does a score do? But perhaps some tiers of scoring based on the difficulty level could be used to present different endings. Currently there is a brief piece of text to read based on how the game ended. Perhaos there could be different ones for each score? This would hold the thematic ties to the game a little more. There is a delightful introduction to this game. The story within the game from the night and critter cards shines through. It needs and deserves an ending of a similar nature. I like the small asymmetry with the characters and perhaps would like to see this developed with the eight different flowers, which currently all operate in the same way. A small change in each flowers behaviour would be interesting to me. And perhaps a way to make the game path a little less linear. Maybe some of the unused spaces on the paths now could be portals where characters can jump from one path to another. I will follow this campaign with great interest and am keen to see how the game develops both in terms of look and rules. But in its current form I would say this is a sure fire hit, and a game I would happily play again and again. I found myself wrapped up in its beauty and whimsical charm. I found the theme intriguing, original, and captivating and the balance of the game play perfectly poised.

Dedalo's Board Game Preview Daedalus, father of Icarus, and inventor of non-heat proof wings, was also the chap who was made responsible, as the Greek mythology goes, to build the labyrinth of Crete to entrap the Minotaur. A creature that was created from a fairly twisted and rather unsavoury trick from the Gods. Read about it, it's crazy! Anyway... The story has spurned many tails since, and now is the inspiration for this new tile laying dungeon crawler, Dedalo's. The game is live on Kickstarter as of October 2023. You can find more about the game here. In this Preview we will talk you through the basics of the game and our thoughts. Dedalo's is an incredibly simple game to set-up, learn and play. Punch all the tiles and separate the entrance and exit's. Place all the other tiles into the cloth bag. Then place the entrance into the centre of the play area, placing the appropriate number of exists based on player count six spaces away in either direction. Two for a three player game, three for a four player, and four for a five of six player game. Use other tiles to measure this out. Each player chooses a Tribute to play as and places it onto the centre entrance tile. Place the Minotaur figure by the main player area and then every player will then draw three tiles to start with and the game can commence. The tiles are made up of various corners, junctions and straights. There are also four way intersections that show the Minotaur symbol, this is because they act as a portal/tunnel for the Minotaur to move between when it enters the dungeons. There are also Minotaur tiles, white and red, which when drawn must be used to activate the Minotaur. And finally collapsed tiled that can be used to close exists. Any other differences are purely cosmetic to add some flavour to the game. On each players turn they can take three actions. There are three options and you must choose at least two of these. You can do any actions twice, but not three times. The three options are to either play a tile down on the board, connecting and continuing at least one path one space. Move your self one space to any open adjacent square. Or, push another player on the same space as you to any adjacent tile. The players are looking to make their way to one of the exit tiles. If they do, they will win. However, the other players will be trying to slow you down, back you into corners, and hunt you down with the Minotaur. When any player pulls a Minotaur tile from they bag they must play it on their next turn. This will bring the Minotaur miniature into play. Place it onto the central entrance tile and then move it one space. You can move it in any direction, ideally hunting down the closest rival player to you. Keep the Minotaur tile you played face up in the game area. This is because when another Minotaur tile is played it will be placed next to this and now the Minotaur will move two spaces. A third tile means three movement and so on. When the Minotaur catches any other players, they will remove their playing piece from the board, discard all tiles they have and then take the Minotaur from the board. All red Minotaur tiles are placed back into the bag whilst he white ones are discarded. On the captured players next turn, they will return their playing piece to the entrance, draft three new tiles and then end their turn no no further actions. From their next turn, they will go back to normal. Certain tiles have stars on, one, two, or three. These can be placed on any other tile so long at the top tile has more stars the the below tile. This is very handy in blocking the path for other players, or opening up. Such as the above example where green was one space away from victory. Blue blocked them, closing the path to the exit. However using a higher stared tile they could do the below to then escape and win. As such, the tunnels and paths are constantly changing and evolving. You could even find yourself trapped with no moves to make. If this is ever the case then the tile that caused this cannot be placed. You must always have at least two valid movement options. However, I have found times when I have two or more movement options, but was blocked by three stared tiles that I could not place other tiles over. This is very rare, but can be frustrating. If the Minotaur is ever trapped then it will simply be removed from the tunnels. Over time, you can find the layers of the labyrinth become increasing built up as players trap other players, who in turn try to build their escape paths. This can cause a very interesting back-and-forth. You must at all times find the balance between finding your own way out, whilst not neglecting to watch all other players, lest they have a simple route to victory. Games can sometimes very very quick and simple. If you don't get the right tiles to block other players, or you forget to focus on that, then it can be over very quickly. Such as the below game which ended after five minutes. Other times if can become a bit of s stalemate as players block and entrap other players, but in so doing, obstruct their own path as well. There is of course a lot of luck in what tiles you get, and you will need to be comfortable with blocking other players to enjoy and do well at this game. There can be a lot of strategy in a longer game, using the star tiles to evolve the labyrinth to your advantage. And each game feels very different because of this. Short, long, easy, hard. It very much depends on the opening exchanges based on what tiles each player gets and what their opening strategy is. Make a quick dash for the exit, or try to stop the other players. If you enjoy tile laying games, and are looking for something with a Greek mythology theme that plays quickly, this could well be for you. I would imagine that this description works for a lot of people. As such, I am somewhat confused as to why the Kickstarter has not been more of a success. The goal has been set to zero, so this game will be made no matter what. The designers are not pulling it and will make this game for whoever backs it. They are willing to cover the costs themselves if needs be. It's funny how some games take off and others don't. Perhaps the cover was a little too generic, or the gameplay too light. I have also heard that early version of the game had low quality tiles but the ones in this version are good quality and fairly thick and sturdy. The bag that holds them is also large, a good quality, and very easy to get your entire hand in and out of. A problem often found with tile bags! I have enjoyed playing this game and will continue to do so. I hope the Kickstarter has a strong finish and the costs are covered. I think this game deserves to find a little more love.

3 Ring Circus WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Tribes of the Wind,The Red Cathedral, Great Western Trail. Published by: Devir Designed by: Remo Conzadori, Fabio Lopiano This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. 3 Ring Circus Board Game Review There are surprisingly very few games with a circus theme. Circus Flohcati comes to mind. A classic circus themed (in an abstract way) card game, that is hard to get hold of, but fun to play. As such, when I heard about 3 Ring Circus, I was instantly keen to play. Added to the the seemingly rare theme, we have the astonishingly high recent pedigree of Devir and their smaller boxed euro games. The Red Cathedral and Bamboo to name just two were both excellent. Packing a lot of game into a tiny box seems to be Devir's thing of late. Pulling out component after component, like Clowns emerging from a tiny car. Not a bad thing to be into in the current climate. Saying that, 3 Ring circus comes in a slightly larger box, more square in design, but still small for the weight of game inside. But does it deliver on all this promise? Well, roll up, roll up! Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up 3 Ring Circus The main board is single sided and needs to be modified based on your player count. The normal board looks like this and is fine for a four player game. You need to block off one space for a three player game, and two spaces for a two player game. There are choices to be made here as from the five areas, you can block off Boston, Indianapolis, or Chicago. You just cannot leave anything unconnected. A linked road must always be present between all open areas. There are boards that you can place on top of these areas to block them off. They slide about a bit which is a bit annoying during gameplay, but otherwise work fine enough. Here is the board shown with the two western areas blocked. And here is it with both the far west Chicago and eastern Boston areas blocked and the three central areas open for play. Once this is done, now it it time to set up the rest of the board. Give each person playing their own player mat and the pieces in their chosen colour. Each player will place their scoring marker on the zero space of the score track on the main board, then place the Barnum carriage onto the city shown furthest east, either Boston or New York. Then, shuffle each separate deck of cards for the End game scoring deck, Ticket deck, and Money deck. Place them onto their spaces on the board, revealing the top five cards of the Ticket deck onto the spaces shown. Each player takes one End game scoring card, one Ticket card and four Money cards. Next, shuffle the city tokens and place one, either side, onto the medium sized cities in play. Do the same with the cards for the large cities. This will randomly determine what each city requires for a high scoring show each game. In a two player game take some neutral circus tokens and place them onto the six spaces shown in the rule book. Finally, decide who will be the first player and give the Barnum card to the player sat to their right. Take your seats please, you are now ready to start the show! How To Play 3 Ring Circus The rule book makes it seem a little more complicated than it actually is. Hopefully the below makes it sound a little more simple. On your turn, players will simply do one of two actions. Either Engage with an Artist, or Perform a show. You take one action then the next player does the same. Let's go through the two actions in detail. Engaging with an artist simply means to place one card from your hand onto your player board. You have three rows, each one representing one of your three rings in your own circus performance. You are looking to place cards that increase your current powers, end game scoring opportunities, and cards that work with each other to maximise points. The cards all show the cost on the top left, end game points or category on the top right, and power on the bottom. The colour on the top left also dictates their set, which is important when it comes to the powers, such as the purple card in the middle top below. This will offer two end game points for every orange card placed to its left. The below cards are all Ticket cards. The Money cards also have a cost shown on the top left but can also be used as currency, to pay for other cards to be played. When you do this, simply discard the cards required to cover the cost and place your chosen card into your tableau on the left most space of either of the three rows. You can choose either row. Your choice will be dependant on how the card works with other cards, and which spaces you want to fill. As you place cards you will cover up symbols which reduce certain powers, such as the train symbol which is used for movement when performing a show. More on that later. The Money cards also show a category on the top right instead of end game points. These categories are important when it comes to performing in the middle sized cities. More on that later. The player boards each player has start with multiple symbols visible. Each Train symbol for example grants you one movement when performing a show. So you start with six movement. But as cards are paced over these, the movement is lost. Some cards will grant powers back to you such as movement, but not many. So, in the later stages of the game, when your player board is filling up, movement will be a lot more restricted. But the game has a clever way to help there. We will discuss that later. On the left of the player board you will see three spaces for your end game scoring cards. You start with one in your hand which you can place when you complete your first column, as shown by the three stars on the bottom of the first three columns. You will can gain your second and third end game scoring card when you fill the second space on the second row and the third space on the third row. Doing this early will let you know what you need to aim for during the rest of the game, so it is advisable to do this as soon as possible. You cannot change end game scoring cards and you won't ever see more than the three cards that you acquire this way. You will notice the track to the right of the End game scoring area. This displays your Circus shows current attraction levels. The more Pedestals you have the better your show will be. You start with one shown on the symbol on the bottom left of the End game scoring area, but this is lost when you play a card that covers this. You can gain many more from the card powers you play. Placing cards must always be done in numerical order, ascending lowest to highest. If you place a Five card down, and have already placed a card of lower value down, the five will go to the right and you pay the difference between the two. The cost is reduced by the highest card already payed. For example, if a three was already on the same row, then the five now only costs two additional money to place. If you have already placed a higher value card, such as a seven, the five is now free, but must be placed to the left of the seven, which now shift ones space over to the right. You can never play a card of equal value. So, a few rules. But a simple action. Engaging with an artist simply means placing a card from your hand, onto your player board. Pay the cost, take the reward if there is an immediate one. And reduce any affected powers. Make sense? Great. Lets perform a show! The audience is getting restless. The second action you can take on your turn is to Perform a show. If you choose to do this, first move your playing piece the required spaces. Your playing piece is a carriage in your colour. It starts off the board. But on your first turn you must place it onto any available large city. You cannot share this space with anyone else or any other piece such as the Barnum circus carriage. You will move your piece the number of spaces you choose, up to your current movement potential. Then, wherever you land, you will perform a show. There are small, medium, and large cities. Each one has a different way to perform a show. We will go through them all now. Small City - There is no requirement for performing a show in a small city other than it being available. Meaning no one else has performed there yet. When you move here, simply take one Money card and then one further Money card for any adjacent small city that is also available. Take an extra Money card for each Money symbol currently shown on your board. You start with one. Then, place one of your Circus tokens onto this space to show it is no longer available for you or another player to perform here. Then finally, move the Barnum piece one space clockwise. Herein begins the game clock. Medium City - These cities have a requirement for maximum crowd enjoyment, and points. This is determined by the tokens you placed at the start of the game. As you can see below, they split the top and bottom middle city in each area, and offer two extra Pedestals for each card in your tableau with a specific symbol. Use this and your current Pedestal level to work out which space to place your Circus token onto the board. Placing your Circus token will block up one space and will grant you the rewards shown of either new Ticket cards or points. You will also take one Money card and move the Barnum token one space. Large City - The large cities use the cards placed during set up, such as the two shown above. You simply score points based on how well you meet the criteria. For example, the top left card requires an orange card to the value of 11 to have been placed in one if your three lines to score six points. If you have it placed with a purple card to its left a further four points are added, and a turquoise to its right, a further five. For a total of 16. You will also score an additional three points if you are the first to perform here, and one for the second performance. Again, you will also take one Money card and move the Barnum token one space. And this is how you play the game. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. On your turn, you are only ever adding one card to your tableau or placing a Circus token onto the board to get additional cards or points. There is a small additional element of area majority when whenever the Barnum piece moves onto one of the main city spaces, at the end of the players turn that triggered this, the player with the most Circus tokens in this area will score ten extra points. The player in second gets six, and the third takes three. But other than that, this is the entire game. You are building up your circus and performing shows. The game ends when Barnum gets back to its starting spot, players will score one final area majority and then add all points from the ecards on their board. Most points wins. Is It Fun? 3 Ring Circus Board Game Review 3 Ring Circus is a fascinating game. As I have tried to make clear above, it is very simple to play. But the intricacies in strategy are immense. Let's look at just one area. Card play. What card you want to play and where you want to place it. So that you can start to see how well interconnected this game is. When you place a card from your hand onto your board you are going to be thinking about a lot of things. What your end game scoring conditions are and how you can best manipulate that in your favour. What each main city needs to score maximum points. Which colour, which number, which location. How the card helps you now. What powers will it give you. How the card hurts you now. What symbols will it block. How the card will work with future cards played, and how it will work with current cards already in your tableau. How the card will help you score at the end of the game. How you will pay for it. Which cards will you discard to gain this one. It is not a simple choice. And your brain will be in overdrive for a moment as you process the structure of your turn, thinking a number of moves ahead, and try to puzzle this out. It's delicious. By the end, this already cluttered board begins to look quite busy. But it will all make sense to you, and is easy to read. The busyness also works in a clever way to help your movement. As you move around the board, you will start to have more specific requirements as to where you want to be as the game draws to the end. You will have certain things you will want to fulfil that can only be done in certain places. But as we discussed, your power to move longer distances will also reduce. However the rules state that you skip any space with another player, Circus token, or Barnum figure. So, you can end up moving vast distances across America with only a few movement actions, jumping over occupied towns and cities. But of course, where you can now end up will be very restricted because you cannot stop where other players have already performed or are currently located. It's an ingenious tightening, then loosening, and then one final big squeeze of the games freedom and strategy as you play. Oh, I love it. The interplay of cards is wonderfully satisfying as well. It is hard to make cards work together as well as you would like. They often have a requirement for another type of card, that will not match with the others in your current row or hand. You need to make choices about which card to play and where and be flexible with how they may work with some other cards but not always all of them. There will rarely be a perfect choice. Choices won't ever be bad. Always good. But never obvious and rarely perfect. It will take some noodling each time, which is a wonderful thing for a game that moves otherwise, with a brisk pace. With one action from only two choices, turns are quick, so a brief respite when someone considers their options is a welcome thing for all players around the table. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys classic Euro gaming, but wants something with just a few smidges of extra accessibility. This game dials the complexity of rules, game length, and intimidation factor right down to a three I would say. But keeps the strategy and satisfaction right up there when compared to some other big box Euros. If you enjoy this style of games but wish you could have one that could be played more often as you don't always have two hours, or those specific friends in your group who don't mind complex games, this could be the one for you. The Red Cathedral is probably better, but this game is less fiddley, and has a more interesting theme to me. I like the sprawling board and point-to-point movement around it. Working out where I can go, and where I want to go, along with the powers currently available to me from my player board is a delightful puzzle to work out. The Red Cathedral offers a little more in terms of strategy, but this offers more drama, and a much lighter and more attractive theme, to me at least. Add a decent insert, a better rule book, and perhaps one more tiny amount of complexity with an expansion and this could well become one of my favourite games to play. I look forward to many more games of this and seeing how it develops with what I hope will be inevitable expansions.

Happy Families Exploring Ireland WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Go Fish, Happy Families. Published by: Happy Clan Designed by: Moya Sands This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Happy Families Exploring Ireland Card Game Review Happy Families, or Go Fish, has been around for over 100 years. I have many fond memories of playing with my family as a child. Trying to complete the various sets of what was then, a very English version. With families of Bakers, Butchers, and other high street shop workers to collect. But I strangely don't have a copy now, and when I had the chance to play and review this version from Happy Clan, I jumped at the chance. So, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Happy Families Exploring Ireland Shuffle the deck and deal six cards to each player. Leave the rest of the deck as a face down draw pile in the centre of the table. Choose a first player and you are now ready to play! How To Play Happy Families Exploring Ireland The cards are all made up of a number of different sets in groups of six cards. Each card shows what other cards match its set on the card itself as seen below. The first player will ask any other player if they have any card from any set that they currently own as least one from. You cannot ask about a card if you don't already own at least one card from that set. But if you do, ask away. If the person you ask has that card they must then give it to you. The asking player will then have another turn. Again, asking any other player about any other card. If you ask for a card that a person does not have, they will say "Dig" and you must now draw the top card from the deck, whilst it lasts. If you ever draw a card from the Dig pile that was the exact card you just asked for you must show it but can then take another turn. If a player ever completes a set of all six cards from any one group, you must then declare that and place them face up on the table for all to see. This will now count as one point at the end of the game. Once all sets have been completed this way the game ends, and the person who collected the most complete sets is declared the winner. Is It Fun? Happy Families Exploring Ireland Card Game Review. The joy in this game comes from one very simple mechanic. Memory. Picture this. Player one, lets call them Mya, asks player two, lets call them Jacob, for Limerick. Jacob does not have Limerick but that question alone tells them, and all other players around the table that Mya has at least one City card. On later turns, anyone else with one City card can now try and target Mya by asking her for City cards, trying to guess which one she may have. Let's say on a later turn player three, Fran, asks Mya for Cork and gets it. She then asks for Dublin and also gets that. Finally, she pushes her luck one more time and asks Mya for Derry but Mya does not have it. Everyone else now knows that Fran has Cork, Dublin and one other card in the City group. The one she started with. The game moves back to Jacob who holds Derry and Galway, and knows where at least three other cards are and can easily get two of them, Cork and Dublin by simply asking Fran for them. But can he guess where the last one is? Does he have it himself? Or does perhaps Mya hold it? Or is it still in the Dig pile? Let's say it is in the Dig pile, so a complete set cannot be collected. But on a few turns later Mya picks up the final City card. Can she now all this time later remember who had what from the previous exchanges and claim them all back to complete the set she started all those turns ago? If this all sounds like fun to you, then this game could well be a hit for you. However, there is of course an element of take-that here. Players can take advantage of other players misfortune and take cards from them that they only just collected. Claiming cards from others is all well and good, but each time you do it, you give vital information to other players about your own hand. Asking for cards becomes a much more interesting choice after a few games when you realise you may only want to ask for cards you can complete the sets for, and when you are certain you know where they are. Otherwise you are just giving vital information away to the other players. So in the lead up to being ready to ask for specific cards you need, perhaps you create some misdirection and ask for cards you don't need, or maybe even have already. This may be taking what is essentially a very light family game a little too far, and even pushing the rules a little. But it does mean the game has a little more to it that you first think. And perhaps now, as an adult, can be played in ways you never considered as a child. I would recommend this game to any group who plays with their family. My children (ten and eight) have adored this. It has caused a few grumpy faces when cards have been taken away from them, but that has been far outweighed by the laughter and cheers when certain much sought after sets are completed, and specific hard to find cards are eventually found. Happy Families/Go Fish is a classic and perhaps the sort of simple card game you could argue everyone should own. The only question is which version do you get. I am very happy with this one for my collection. The art is stunning and evokes a mystery, simply beauty, and accurate representation all at the same time. The theming is delightful and has been genuinely educational for my family and I. The rule book includes the back story for each card, and it has been fun to learn more about Ireland. A country I have only visited on two occasions. This version was created by Moya Sands. As a mother of two small kids, Moya wanted to combine her cultural and educational background with a yearning to teach her family about Ireland in an amusing and entertaining way. I would certainly say this has been successfully achieved, and the personal nostalgia for her Irish roots can be felt with every card in this beautiful set.

Heroes of Xhandar is on Kickstarter. You can find details of it here. Heroes of Xhandar Board Game Preview - This is a prototype version with only some parts of the game and it does not represent the final quality of the game. This is a trick taking game, set in a fantasy world, with amazing art, slick gameplay, and Lego-style brick characters to build and fight with! That's right. Lego-style brick minis to build and use in the game. Check them out! How cool is this?! There are a couple of different ways to play, but I wont go into that fully here. The rules are still being worked on. You can check them out on the link on the Kickstarter page. Again, you can find details of it here. But in short, here is how you play one version of the two player game. Each player will be dealt three of the Hero cards. Each player can choose one of these three Heroes to play as, discarding the other two back into the box. They will place their hero card face down in front of them, hiding who they are from the other players. Their Hero card will grant them two different powers. One that is offered to the player once when they choose to reveal who they are. Something they can do whenever they wish. Adding a fun reveal to the game. The other which can be used at any time after they are revealed. Their hero card will also show them their own special win condition, usually a specific Diamond points target. Check out a few here. Each player is then dealt ten cards from the main deck. They will then draw the top card from the deck to see which number they got. The player who draws the highest number will start. The drawn cards are placed into a face up discard pile. The first player will now look at their hand of ten cards and choose one to play. They are looking to win a trick in order to claim the cards from that trick and place then into their Pocket. Once all cards have been played and tricks won, each player can then move two cards from their Pocket into their Stash. From here, in the stash, players can then gain the Diamonds shown on their chosen cards. If a player ever reaches the target points from cards in their Stash then the game is over and they win. If neither player has achieved their goal yet, ten more cards are dealt out and another round begins. The tricks are won simply by the highest card played. The first player will play one card, then the next player will play one card. Then back to the first player again who plays their second card. Then the second player plays their second and final card. You don't have to follow suit, and suits don't determine the winning card. It is simply the highest card played. From these four cards, the highest card wins, and the player that payed that card takes all four cards and places them into their Pocket. Sounds simple enough right? Well, the lower cards below eight have powers on them as well as a value. This is where the colours come in. Some cards stop cards of certain colours being played. On some it states that certain coloured cards cannot win that time. Others state that for this trick it is the lowest card that wins. Something that really annoys the other player if they lead with a particular high card! Others let you take cards back from your Pocket, replace some from the deck, or make other cards that you play have a higher power. It makes each hand different, unpredictable, and highly entertaining. Their is a Seer card that lets you see other players hands though, so you can strategies to an extent. And once you learn the deck and the cards powers you can begin to really build some clever strategies. But what about those Lego-style minis? Well, there is another way to play with battle tracks and your minis, where players run through a similar style trick taking battle but with face up Hero cards, and each time you win a trick you can move your hero one space on their track, giving you extra powers as you play. It's a simple addition that adds a lot of drama, theatre and table presence to an otherwise fairly simple card game. I love it. I won't go into too much more detail with the rules for this version or the other ways to play with these cards because, well.. in truth, I didn't quite understand the rule book! It's early stages and I am sure it will get sorted. But I had to ask a fair few questions of Kay from Kay Plays Games to understand the above as I did, so thanks to her! I believe she figured it out from talking with the designer. This game has wonderful art. That is the stand out feature for me. The card play is fun, and offers a surprising level of depth once you start to understand how the powers all interlink and can be used with and against each other. But the art captivates me each turn, each play, each game. The designer of the game, Florian Fiedler, is also the artist, and it must be said, this is a truly wonderful looking game that deserves a lot of praise. I was captivated after seeing the card art myself and desperate to play. I am very glad I have now done that and hope the campaign is a huge success, if only to sort the rule book! But also because I think within these stunning cards is a brilliant and very clever trick-taking game that I believe a lot of people can have a lot of fun with. Go check out the Kickstarter page now for more details. You can find details of it here.

Moon: Valkyrie WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Streets, Villagers, 7 Wonders. Published by: Sinister Fish Games Designed by: Haakon Gaarder This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Moon: Valkyrie Board Game Expansion Review - Buy the game here - Sponsored link To read my review and how to play guide for Moon, the base game, head to here. For my thoughts on the expansion, read on! I very much enjoy expansions that add more choices with minimal rule changes. More so when it is for a game I already like and feel it does not need any significant changes or additions made to it. It's nice to see an expansion bring something new. A surprise. Rather than fix a glaring error. Valkyrie and Moon offers exactly this. Having played Moon a few times, I was left wanting more. More time with the game that is. I was very happy to keep playing without adding the expansion The game is great and I see no issues with it that need fixing. However, for purposes of the review, I added the expansion from game five onwards. And, well, its pretty good! I will now use it in every game. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Moon: Valkyrie Board Game As well as the set up for the main game that you can read about in my main review here, simply add in the new Valkyrie launch board above the Flag reward board and give each player one Valkyrie (the ship tokens). Place any remaining Valkyries by the launch board. Then place the Valkyrie Structure cards on the table. There are two identical decks included with this expansion, use either one. The only difference is one has a shiny foil finish, so obviously pick that. At the start of the Construction phase, place one Valkyrie Structure card from the current Era above the Launch board, one card per player. Like the main game, for a two player game, use three cards for a two player game. How To Play Moon: Valkyrie Board Game During the Construction phase, place any unowned Valkyries onto the launch spots on the Launch board. Use the numbers shown on the top left of the first Valkyrie Structure card to chose which launch spots to use. As you are only placing the unowned Valkyries, in a five player game, this step is missed, they are all owned. Players now have the additional optional action on their turn to launch a Valkyrie. Place the Valkyrie you own onto the left most available location on the Launch board. You can then take the depicted reward shown on that space. If you have to place your ship onto the first space you will not get a bonus action but you will get first pick at the new Valkyrie Structure cards. The other spaces grant you an extra Rover, Resource, Flag to be used this turn, or two Resources. The later benefits are more powerful, but you will then be getting last pick on the Structure cards. This is because if you meet the Flag requirements and have the resources needed, you can then as well as this, build one of the Valkyrie Structure cards. This would be on top of your normal Build or Assimilate action. Turns can be quite a lot more powerful with this expansion! But of course, as you can only do this when you launch a Valkyrie, which counts as one of your optional actions, this means you have to have all the resources you need to do this yourself. You cannot relay on using the other players Flags or resources by using the Rover action to do this. The rule book suggests to teach this by saying you can use one vehicle per turn. Either the Rover or the Valkyrie. At the end of the Construction phase, all Valkyries are returned to their owners, just one per player, and any unowned ships are removed from the Launch board. All unowned Valkyrie Structure cards are placed back into their deck. Moon: Valkyrie Board Game Expansion Review Valkyrie is the perfect expansion. Two new simple things to add in. Minimal additional rules. The Ships that let you gain a bonus benefit and build another Structure are a simple additional to the game but add a lot. It makes one turn each round a lot more more powerful, but it only happens once per round as you need a ship to do this. So timing is everything. This expansion scales brilliantly as any unowned ships block spaces on the launch board each round, meaning there is still a sense of urgency to use your ship with less players, as there are only a few spaces available, and therefore less choice. And of course, with more players, when there are all five launch spots to pick from, you will still want to beat the other players to these spots to have the first choices as to which Structure card you can build. Maybe there is only one you can build? Maybe there is one that is perfect for your current engine? The new cards look awesome too. I like how you have options of both the normal or foil finish. I suppose some people hate these foil cards, or find them hard to read. It's good to have both options. But for me, I love the Foil cards. They add a sense of wonder and a premium luxury to an already well produced game. The powers they offer are great too. They are strong. But you can only do one per round remember, but that turn feels wonderful! But they are not over powered. It does not affect the delicate balance of the game. If you have the base game without this, then get it. Although it shipped with all Kickstarter versions I believe. So, you probably do already. And sadly, it is currently not available as an add on with the retail version. So, you may not be able to get your hands on it for a while. But when it does become available, I will add links here. It all fits, just, into the main box, although you may need some minor skills in packing to do get the lid flat!

Moon WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Streets, Villagers, 7 Wonders. Published by: Sinister Fish Games Designed by: Haakon Gaarder This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Moon Board Game Review - Buy the game here - Sponsored link Moon is a new standalone game from Sinister Fish, designed by Haakon Gaarder. It completes what has become an unofficial trilogy of successful Kickstarters from this design and publishing pair following Villagers and Streets. All of which come in this funky shaped box. Although, no one is saying this will be the last! Each game works on its own, and has its own lore, design, ruleset, and theme. But they do share one thing. Bundles of card based fun in a small but long box that will hate your current shelf layout. Let's get this one to the table and see how it plays. How To Set-Up Moon Place the Rovers, Water, Biomass and Energy into a central general supply, accessible by all players along with the Flag Reward board. The resources come in some very handy boxes, so this is pretty simple. Add three Hearts face up under the five flag spaces on the Flag Reward board and also three face down Hearts onto the X space. The X in referenced on a number of cards. The current value of X will be represented by however many Hearts are on this space at that time in the game. Then stack the four and five value Hearts next to this board ready for the later rounds. Next, add the three levels of Reputation cards, one card per player of each. For a two player game, set up as you would a three player game with three cards for each level. Next to this, place the three Era Structure cards into three separately shuffled face down decks. Take the top card from the Era 1 stack and place it face up next to the Flag Reward board to start the discard pile. Then take the three Era Expedition decks, shuffle these and place them into three separate face down stacks by the general supply. Now, give each player a Base card, Player Aid, and two Rovers. The Base cards are all a little different adding a small bit of asymmetry to the start up and each game. One player takes the First Player Expedition card. Ensure you use the right one for your current player count, there are two in the box. The game suggests you decide who goes first by seeing who has the loudest voice. Depending on the environment you are in and who is around you, you can decide yourself if this is suitable! You are now, subject to any disturbance just caused and any remaining issues that still need to be resolved from this, ready to play. How To Play Moon Players will battle it out over three rounds known in the game as Era's, to try and make the best Moon City, earning the most popularity as they go. You will start with a Production phase, where players will produce any Resource shown on their Yellow cards. This includes their starting Base card, so they will produce one thing in round one. Each person will produce a different thing based on the base card they were dealt during set up. In subsequent rounds, players will produce a lot more in this phase, as they will have added extra Yellow production cards to their base. Players then move onto the main action phase, the Construction phase. Here, players will be dealt cards from the current Era Structure deck. Eight each for a two player, seven cards for a three of four player, and six cards for a five player game. The first player will add the first player card to their deck, and the other players will add one card from the current Era Expedition deck to their hand. Players will then draft one card from their hand and play that card. Cards can either be played to Build or Assimilate. Build means adding to your Base area by paying the cost shown on the top of the card and taking the shown benefit. You also need to ensure you currently satisfy that cards Flag requirements. As you add cards to your base, you will increase the Flags you have shown on the bottom of the card. You need to develop your control of each of these to add higher power cards to your base and for end of rounds bonuses, more on that later. The cards are mainly made up of four types. Blue cards that produce resources. Grey cards that produce points. Yellow cards that produce Flags. And Pink cards that have a Flip ability that will offer a chance to score additional resources or points. Assimilate means discarding the card. Each card will offer a discard bonus, shown on the bottom left of the card next to a trash symbol. If you Assimilate, you simply take this reward for free. It is a good option if you are low of resources and or flags, but some of the Reputation cards reward this action too. Either before or after you have played your card you can also take one of four bonus actions. The first is to use the action shown on your Expedition card. The first player card always allows players to swap a card from their hand with one from the current Era deck. Other Expedition cards offer more interesting opportunities, such as to increase the value of the Flags. Again, more on that soon. The second option is to Park a Rover This means moving one of your Rovers from your Base to another players base, and placing it on the parking space shown on the bottom of the blue and grey cards. You can then take the action shown next to that space. This will be to gain additional Resources or Flags. The Flag you gain this way can only be used to add to your Flag requirements for this current turn. It is not a permanent Flag for the round. The third option is to claim a Reputation card. The Reputation card dealt during set up show various challenges that need to be met. If you ever fulfil a cards specific requirements, you can then take that card into your play area. It will reward you with end game points, but also an instant or ongoing reward as well. This will be clearly shown on the card. The last option you have is to flip over one of your pink cards to gain that cards flip benefit. This card will stay flipped for the rest of the Era but will comeback to you at the end of the Era. If the card produces Hearts, place them onto the card itself. This is important when it comes to end of round and game scoring. When the first player has played a card and taken the additional action if they chose, the next player in turn will do the same. When all players have done this, players pass the deck clockwise, and now take a card from the next hand passed to them. This continues until only the Expedition cards remains. Players then move all Rovers played on their cards that round into their supply for the next round, you don't get the ones you played back, just the ones played onto your cards. Tidy up the cards discarded that round, shuffling them back into that rounds Era deck, and pass the first player card to the next player. In the Scoring phase, players will now score the five Flag bonuses. Based on the player who has the most of each of the different flags on cards in their base, players will take the Hearts underneath each Flag on the Flag Reward board. Each round this reward grows, and some cards allow players to increase certain Flag rewards if they choose. Any ties are broken by the most amount of Rovers. Any ties after that mean the Hearts carry over for the next round, meaning the battle for supremacy in that particular flag increases. Players will then score for any Hearts on their cards. Do not remove the Hearts from the cards, they stay there all game. Add the equivalent amount into your soring area. This means the Hearts on the cards will score again in the later rounds. Now ready the game area for the next round. Remove one Heart from the X space on the Flag reward board. X is now worth one less Heart. Refill the Hearts on the Flag reward board with either four Hearts for Era two, or the five Heart tokens for the final Era. Once you have completed the third Era players will total all Heart points. Hearts will be scored from those earnt during the game, anything printed on the grey cards in each players base, and the Hearts printed on the Reputation cards acquired. Most Hearts wins. Is It Fun? Moon Board Game Review Moon is by far my favourite game out of the three. Villagers and Streets are good, but Moon offers something a little more. The small engine building, and development of your resources ramps up so quickly. Although, with only three Era's, that is essential! But that makes the game incredibly satisfying and fun to play. You see your development instantly. All players will build something cool in this game. Win or lose, you will have a sense of achievement playing Moon. Everything fits just right too. The boxes are all the right size for the bits, and fit nicely into the box, and come out nicely onto the table. The cards are all high quality and slide nicely into place, shuffle well, and looks great on the table. These are small things, but make set up, tear down, and playing so much smoother. With the expansion in, the box is a little snug, but it does all fit, but more on that here. However, the box shape won't be for everyone. But they do look cool lined up next to each other if you have all three! Probably part of the thinking here. I love the way the game scores. There are multiple ways to build up your Hearts throughout the game, which is similar to 7 Wonders. As is the drafting mechanic of course. And in a way, Moon feels a little bit like 7 Wonders in space. It's a great game, and I like 7 Wonders as well. They feel similar in mechanic, but very different in theme. And perhaps this leaves the main question for anyone who has 7 Wonders already. Do you need Moon as well? I would argue yes. I have both, and am keeping both. But why? Well, I can easily see myself playing both in the same night with the same people. Maybe Moon is the unofficial sequel, set years later in a later era? For this reasons, like the idea of both games hitting my table back to back. And if I can only play one? Well, 7 Wonders is here for when I have larger player counts. Moon is here for when I want a little less admin or have a two player requirement and don't fancy Duel. I would recommend Moon to anyone who enjoyed any of the previous games from the same designer. It has a similar look, feel, weight and style. Although of course, each game is quite unique in theme. If you enjoy space related games, this may appeal, but it does not scream space travel or exploration as you play. It is more of a solid resource management engine builder with a solid draft mechanic. Mechanisms that are universally used because they are fun to play when deployed well, such as the case here with Moon. Villages became Streets, and then we developed Moon travel. What's next? I cannot wait to find out.

Kavango Board Game Preview - This is a prototype version and may not represent the final quality of the game. This porotype also uses the deluxe components rather than the standard ones such as the card trays which will be punchboard in the normal version. Kavango is from new kids on the block Mazaza Games. You can find more about them and the game here . It was made by two first time designers, Matt Brown and Zara Reid which blows my mind considering how tight and well produced this game is. They have been working on it for 3.5 years and clearly have a passion for the subject matter, conservation. Zara is currently working as the Head of Climate and Nature Team & Illegal Wildlife Trade Adviser in Southern Africa. So, it makes sense the game is sound thematically. But mechanically Kavango oozes class too. Kavango is essentially Ark Nova 'lite'. If that is not enough for an instant back, read on. The game is incredibly simple to learn and teach. There are three rounds in which players will draft one card per turn from a deck of 12 or 15 cards, depending on player count. Each round lasts ten turns. So, only ten cards will be drafted per round from these decks with 12 or 15 cards in. This is a simple rule that can be easily overlooked as players continue to draft until the hands are empty. So, try to remember to stop after ten turns! We missed that a few times in our first game. The cards can either be used to increase your habitats overall ability to host new animals, add new animals into your habitat, be discarded for money, or played as an action if it is an action card. Once you have drafted and played your card, you can then if you wish, spend some money to increase your habitats protection level, score any of the four research tasks set each round, or contribute to the overall Climate level for all players. That's it. If it sounds like you are missing something, you are not. This is the classic easy to learn, hard to master game. But where it is low in rules, the game is very high in strategy and most importantly, fun! Let's delve in a bit deeper. To increase your habitats land and food production in order to host higher scoring animal cards on your board, Producer cards need to be played. These cards have zero cost and are simply slipped under one of the four production areas of your landscape board. Each board starts with two unique Producers, Trees, Grasslands, Invertebrates, or Fish. Adding more by tucking Producer cards under the board will build your own personal engine. But there will be Animal cards that require certain things that these four producers cannot provide. They will need things that only other Animal cards can provide. A Lion for example will require four prey animal cards to have been previously played. A Tawney Eagle requires other birds, small mammals, and prey to have been played. You need to develop your landscape to get the right animals into your habitat in order to then later add higher scoring bigger animals that feed of the previously played cards. It's a glorious, interlinked, cascading, connected puzzle that will fill your heart with song every play. There are four research tasks each round and they typically require a certain number of animals of a certain type to have been played onto your board. Animals of a certain size, weight, type, or some focus around the producer cards. Most research tasks have three different scoring tiers based on how many of the required type of card you have. You can only score each research task once, so you need to decide when to complete it, either when you have reached level one to gain the much needed money and points to help you in other areas, or wait, gain nothing now, and try to reach a higher level for bigger rewards later in the round. Gaining money is crucial because most cards have a certain level of protection needed in order for it to be legally placed onto your board. Either focused on the group Climate level, or your own Habitat and Poaching protection level. In order to advance in these four levels, you need to move money cubes gained from Action cards and completing research tasks to these boards, filling up the required spaces for each level in complete groups. If a level needs two cubes to fill it, you have to place two at once, not one at at time over various turns. Reaching the higher levels will allow you to place higher value cards. But there is a secondary reason you would want to do this. There is a shared overall game goal that rewards ten end game points to any player who can reach the final level for each protection category. There is also a shared ten point end game goal for adding at least eight cubes to the shared Climate level. Thus encouraging everyone to help with this, and not leave it to just one or two players to contribute. There will be many times when in order to get a certain Animal into your Landscape, you will need to increase both your production level in a certain area, as well as increasing your protection levels, and also add other cards your target card requires. This all takes time. You can only play one card per round, and you can only spend so much before your financial reserves run dry. In these situations, to avoid missing out on the card you want, you can add it to your Sanctuary. You have space for three cards here, essentially a holding area for cards until you can meet their required criteria. You will start with two cards in your Sanctuary, that's part of the setup process. But some Action cards will let you swap them with other players cards, which can be a key way to help your own game whilst also potentially slowing others down. But generally the cards given to you for free at the start in your Sanctuary will give you a focus for what you need to aim for at the beginning of the game. However, it may be best advised to ignore these cards, and divert your focus instead towards each rounds Research tasks. The research tasks will score you points and gain you money in a far more efficient way. But this all goes to show a good example of how your head will be full of various strategies and multiple-step plans to achieve many different things as you play. It's a fun feeling, if you like that sort of thing! Adding Animals to your Landscape board not only increases your production levels for other Animals, but will score you end game points. The Animal card points range between one and ten. Typically the best strategy each turn will be to play the highest scoring card possible. But you will need to start thinking about which cards will help with other cards in this hand, the other hands you have seen this round, or the cards you have in reserve waiting in your Sanctuary. You need to be constantly building up your production and protection levels, as well as the things you need on your board to assist you with the bigger scoring animals that you have your eyes on. It's one big continued problem that you need to work out, that will have your brain racing once you see the connections. The only part of the game that can be frustrating on occasions is the shared Climate protection levels. Some players may not need to advance in this at the same rate as others, and can focus on other areas for the earlier parts of the game. This can lead to one player being forced to develop this on their own if they want to place certain cards. However, the game does reward players with ten end game points if they have added at least eight cubes here, so this does mitigate this to some point. You can also simply not draft the cards that need a higher Climate level, and swap cards in your Sanctuary with high Climate levels with the players who are not helping, to encourage their assistance in this area! And there are some conservation cards (more on them later) that will encourage more interaction with this too. But I think I would prefer this to be a solo goal like the other two protection levels. There is enough player interaction with the drafting. This did not need to be included for me. But I asked Matt about this and he said that "the game is designed to be as true to real-life as possible. This was semi-coop to show the challenges of climate action." Which is a pretty darn good answer! The game is trying to make a point. It's not preachy. And very fun to play. But it does also have a serious message which this clever mechanic and rule underlines. If at any point during the game you feel you need a quick rule refresher, or between rounds you want to remind yourself of the actions, there is a very clear and handy guide for all these things that you can leave on the table. But the star of the show in this game are the cards themselves. The art is gorgeous. The animals really stand out and pop against the muted backgrounds. The art style makes them all seem so exciting and wonderful. It's nice to have a little bit of information about each one, and the stats help you with your research tasks, as well as educating you as you play. The art for the game was done by Matt, one of the designers. And remember, this is his first game. His first! Let me just let that sink in a bit as you gaze as the cards below. As well as the small part of asymmetry found with the Landscape boards, each player will be dealt a Conservation expert card at the start for the game to add to the variety. These cards will grant you small powers, unique to you, that will add some focus to your play, and assist you through the game. None of the powers are that strong, and I found for some, I simply forgot about them as I played as they did not help that much. They are a nice addition and do add some variety to the game, and will help you if you remember you have them! But this is not game changing asymmetry. More gentle nudges to to help with variety, and keep the game fair and even. The research tasks are somewhat akin to the round goals in Wingspan. They are all very clear and offer a strong focus for each round. Gaining mid-game points helps of course, but the real win here is with the money that can be earnt from completing these. Money that will be very much sort after by all players as you play. The money will be essential to developing your protection levels and gaining the higher scoring Animals. You can also use money to buy production levels in areas you are low on, if the cards available to you in one round happen to be light in one production area. It costs £4m to do this, unless you have the Ecologist card, as seen above, so it is not a cheap thing to do. But sometimes essential to get the cards you want. And a clever addition to the game to avoid that frustration found in other games, when the cards dealt simply do not have many of one type of category you need. Kavango is a remarkable game. Coming from first time designers, the game feels so much more polished and developed than a first time game usually would. Huge credit to Matt and Zara for this. I can see this really taking off when it comes to Kickstarter this month. It offers a similar experience to many other popular card based games on the market, such as Wingspan, Splendor, Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova. It's a fusion of all of these really, with a 7 Wonders style draft system thrown in. But this is very simple to learn and teach. It has10% of the complexity, rules, and game length of a game like Ark Nova, but a fair chunk of the strategy and fun. If you want a quick, easy to play game, that still offers a satisfying and strategic experience, Kavango could well be for you. It’s wonderful to see a game made by experts in their field who clearly understand the subject matter at hand. Both the Animals and conservation matters are handled with authority and authenticity, which brings an added sense of gravity and honesty to the game. Mechanically, it is a fusion of drafting, tableau building, hand management, set collection, and contract fulfilment, with an added element of asymmetry added for fun. But it all comes together in a wonderful package that has swept me up in its simple beauty, and I think it may well do the same for you.