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Excavation Earth: It Belongs In A Museum WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Brass: Birmingham, Power Grid, Bonfire. Published by: Mighty Boards Designed by: Dávid Turczi This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Excavation Earth is a fantastic game. You can check out my review for it here. In 2021, the first expansion, Second Wave, was released. Although I haven't played it myself, it introduced two new playable races, new achievements to pursue, wildcards offering new powers for your race, and the Observation Barge, which provides new ways to manipulate the market demand for artefacts and score points. It sounds great to me! Then, in 2022, the second expansion, It Belongs in a Museum was released. Fortunately, for the purposes of this review, I have played it. Let's bring it to the table and see how it plays. What's New? The It Belongs in a Museum expansion introduces two new modules and two new alien races, all of which are compatible with the first expansion. Here are the details: New Races: Seekers and Commanders - The expansion adds two new alien races for players to choose from. The Seekers race is particularly interesting as it allows you to send artefacts directly to the museum without needing to sample them first. This ability will make more sense when we discuss the museum addition below. On the other hand, the Commanders race enables you to resolve an excavate action when you take a command action, using the same card. It's exciting to have these new races available, as they provide unique gameplay options and strategies for players to explore. Mysterious Artefacts - Set Up: To incorporate the Mysterious Artefacts module expansion into the game, follow these steps: Place the five map overlay cards onto the main board, aligning them with the indicated locations in the rule book. Add the 12 Mysterious Artefacts, as shown below, into their corresponding coloured piles. If you draw a Mysterious Artefact during the set-up phase for the black market, place it on the map instead. No replacement card needs to be drawn. Additionally, there are four new command cards that should be added to the command deck. Place these cards among the existing command cards. Also, include the 21 Reverse Engineering cards in a face-down deck next to the command centre. Mysterious Artefacts - How To Play: During the excavate phase in the game, mysterious artefacts cannot be sampled. However, you must assign a crew cube to the tile as a "custodian" to protect other players from the potential dangers of the new artefacts. If you don't have an available cube to assign as a custodian, you cannot excavate the artefact. The new artefacts cannot be sold, but they can be moved from your cargo hold to the mothership when you place an envoy during the command phase. When you do this, the custodian is returned to your crew pool. Additionally, you must draw the top two reverse engineering cards, choose one, and place it face-up next to your player board as a new active power. The other card is placed at the bottom of the deck. At the end of the game, you will score points equal to the value shown on all of these reverse engineering cards. If you offload a mysterious artefact during the smuggle phase, you will gain six credits for each analysed mysterious artefact on the mothership. The offloaded artefact is then removed from the game along with its custodian. During the survey action, mysterious artefacts must be placed on the corresponding dig site on the map, and a replacement card is drawn. Shuffling it back or purchasing it is not allowed. Galactic Museum - Set Up: Shuffle the new command cards and reverse engineering cards featuring the museum symbol into their respective decks. Add the museum board to the table next to the mothership board and randomly place exhibition tiles on each space based on the player count, as shown in the manual. Next, take a buyer pawn from the supply based on the colour indicated on the top card in the buyer deck discard pile, and place it on the top space of the board. Then, draw the next card from the buyer deck and place the corresponding buyer pawn onto the middle space. These pawns represent the curators. Galactic Museum - How To Play: There is now a new action available during the main phase of the game, as depicted on the new player aids. It's called "Exhibit." To perform this action, you need to discard a card from your hand. Then, you have the option to send an artefact from your cargo hold to the museum board, regardless of whether it matches the card you discarded or not, or even both. Additionally, flip the top card of the buyer deck and place a new curator from the supply at the back of the museum queue. Move the remaining curators one space forward as indicated on the main board. In case you draw a wild card, you can select any other coloured buyer, but you cannot add the wild buyers to these spaces. For each artefact tile you move, you will place it into an empty exhibition tile that matches the icon and either matches or exceeds the value on the tile. If the artefact matches the colour of the tour guide on the corresponding row, you will gain the bonus of the column where you placed it. Additionally, whenever you move an artefact to the museum, you must assign one of your crew members as a tour guide for that artefact. If you place an artefact on the last empty tile of any column, each player with a tour guide in that column receives the benefit shown at the bottom of that column. Each tour guide present provides one benefit. At the end of the game, players will earn credits for their tour guides in the museum. Pop-Up Market: The pop-up markets are placed on the board after every sell action and during the preparation phases of rounds two and three, where one market is added. When you place a pop-up market on the board next to the dig site shown on the card, it is considered part of that dig site. This means you can now perform actions on these sites in addition to the usual ones. These market cards allow players to either buy artefacts at a discounted price or sell artefacts to gain special rewards, such as engineering cards. Excavation Earth: It Belongs in a Museum Expansion Board Game Review: Is It Fun? I am torn on this expansion. It is very good, and what it adds is simple and fun. However, in my opinion, the base game is already excellent. It doesn't have any real issues that need "fixing" through an expansion. Moreover, the base game can be quite complex to teach and play for the first time. Therefore, this expansion is only suitable for those who have played the base game extensively and are looking for something new. For those individuals, I would say, go ahead and get this expansion. You won't be disappointed. However, I'm not sure if Excavation Earth is the type of game that people play 25 times in a year. If you are returning to the game every couple of months or so, adding this expansion might be challenging without a rule refresher each time. That being said, if you are familiar with the base game and want to add more, this expansion will deliver for you. I particularly love the new factions and the museum board, which offers bonuses that add an element to the game different enough to make the expansion a success. I believe most people will find it to be a rewarding addition. The reverse engineering cards are also an excellent addition, providing exciting new options. I appreciate how the new modules encourage players to consider all the available options on their turn, more so than in the base game where players may have become accustomed to focusing on just a few turn options. This expansion encourages exploration of less commonly used options, such as the command option when playing with the Commander race. Overall, I would say this is an excellent expansion for an already excellent game that will not disappoint. However, you need to decide if you are comfortable with the added complexity to the base game. I would personally advise against purchasing this expansion until you have played the base game at least ten times. But if you have done so, it's likely that you enjoyed it a lot, and this expansion will bring you joy.

POP! Puzzles WBG Score: 7.5 Published by: Funko Games This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Ok, this is a jigsaw on a board game review site, but the last time I featured Jigsaws I got a lot of good feedback, so I thought I would look and see what other fun jigsaws were out there. I found these three beauties from Funko Games based on some pretty huge IP's Funko happen to be blessed with the rights for. So, lets check them out and see how they go. There are a number of different puzzles in this line including fan favourites such as Encanto and the awesome Ted Lasso (which you must watch if you haven't already). I have been sent Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic Park. I have been working my way through them but not quite finished them all yet. They are surprisingly hard! But rather than wait for my slow paced jigsaw skills to finish all of these puzzles, I wanted to share these with you now. They could be the perfect thing to get for those rainy summer days! The reason anyone would choose one puzzle over another is the art. I cannot really see any other reason to choose one over another. Can you? I suppose some like this one, previously reviewed, stand up from the parapet with some extra elements added such as hidden puzzles included within the art, which I love. But the main act is still about forming the puzzle and staring at the pieces for a few hours. So, you best like what you are staring at! Funko have sown up pretty much every major film and TV licence you can imagine within their Funko range, and this allows them to offer some pretty attractive puzzles. Blockbuster classics such as Jurassic park is going to span the generations, and Guardians has spawned many peoples favourite marvel characters from the recent movies. I am sure these are going to appeal to a lot of people. Avatar The last Airbender may not appear as natural a partner for these puzzles as you might originally think, but the 2010 movie made a tidy box office profit, there are a number of graphic novels out there; and although the sequels were all cancelled, there is a new series coming to Netflix next year. So, back to the puzzles. How hard are they? Well, at first, they look pretty easy. Nice big chunky pieces and some big elements to look for to form a base from such as these faces in the Guardians one. And, yes, they were relatively simple to do. It's the bits in the middle that are tricky! The first issue is there is no full easy image to copy. The box has the image on but covered by some logos in key places and that's it. The second issue is there are some very small detailed pieces with similar colours that make this quite tricky. And don't just take my word for it. My mother in law and mother who are both expert seasoned jigsaw puzzlers found this one very tricky. They got a lot more done than I did, and in a much quicker time, but found the smaller detailed sections as tricky as I did. This will not be a quick jigsaw by any means. But, stick with it and you will be rewarded with a bright, vibrant, and absorbing picture. Picture from Puzzles Galore. Each jigsaw is 18" x 24" and made up of 500 pieces. You can find them in the links above in the title of this review or from all good online stores. Enjoy!

Nidavellir WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Furnace Published by: GRRRE Games Designed by: Serge Laget This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey Some of you are probably wondering how to pronounce the title (you're definitely not alone in this). Some of you may be here because you recognise the name from Avengers Infinity War as the place with the giant dwarf that Thor got Stormbreaker from. Sadly anyone hoping to stare at cards with Chris Hemsworth on them will be disappointed, although there is a card that looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr so that's something. It is about dwarves though, just not giant ones, and even though it’s not the most thematic, it’s well worth your time checking it out. How to recruit a dwarf. First thing you’ll need to do is build the coin holder. It’s not that difficult and will easily fit into the box assembled. It’s not the sturdiest though, so my recommendation would be to grab a bit of PVA and glue it together. Give everyone a player board and their five starting coins. Shuffle the gems and give one to each player. Add or remove cards from each of the age decks according to player count. Place out the three taverns and place a number of age one cards under each one, one per player. Simultaneously each player will now secretly place one of their coins on each tavern space on their board face down. The two unused ones will go at the bottom face down. Once everyone has picked, everyone will flip over the first coin. The player who bid the higher value coin will get first pick of the dwarves at that tavern. They’ll take the card and put it in front of them and so on in bidding order until everyone has a card. You’ll do the same for the remaining two taverns, then set up and go again. If there is ever a tie for a tavern then the player with the highest gem will break the tie. Then the tied players will swap their gems. There’s protocol in the rule book for when multiple people tie and how the gem swap happens. There are five types of dwarves each with different coloured “ranks” (these are the coloured arrows on the card. I’ll go though how each type scores at the end. If you play a dwarf down and it completes a set (one of each dwarf) then you get to choose a hero to add to your army. These come in all different flavours, too many to go through here, but they add a lot of different ways to score. Every time you complete a new set you can pick another hero, even if playing a hero makes you complete another set. If a player/s bid their zero coin then, in turn order, that player flips over the two coins they didn’t bid, totals up their value and takes a coin of that value from the coin holder, then discards the higher of the two leftover coins. If the coin of the value you gained isn’t available then you simply take one of the next highest available. Some cards will also let you upgrade a coin by a certain value, usually 3 or 5. Once all the age one cards are gone you’ll have a “troop evaluation” phase where the player with the most ranks of each dwarf will take a special bonus. After that, age two will play out the same as age one. When that’s done, score up. Score for the total values of all your coins, then your dwarves, including your heroes. Green (Hunters) and Purple (blacksmiths) will score based on the handy chart on your board depending on how many you have. Blue (explorers) and red (warriors) will score the points on them, however, whoever has the most red will score their highest value coin again. The orange (miners) will score for the total values on times the number of ranks. Nobody outbids a dwarf! Nidavellir solves a problem for me that I have with some auction/bidding games, which is, If you can’t win what you want, then it’s easy to find yourself constantly on the back foot and it can get increasingly hard to claw your way back. Nidavellir doesn’t have that. Regardless of where you end up after each bid you’ll end up getting something that will net you points. Every card is useful in one way or another. Granted it may not be part of your well thought out plan and won’t be worth the max amount of points you were hoping for, but I’d take something over nothing anyday. It’s a strange attitude to have, I know, no one likes to “just settle”. We’d all rather have that card that scores us the big points. But somewhere down the road, that card that we “settled for” may just help us complete a set of dwarves. Even better, having that bit extra may set off a chain that will help us nab two heroes in one turn, which in turn may rack up more points than that 11 card ever could have gotten us. Don’t get me wrong being lumbered with a zero orange card a few times can still feel disheartening. But all it takes is a two orange card to wind up in your army and before you know it those seemingly dud cards are worth a lot of points! What’s fun is seeing that tableau of dwarves building up in front of you. But the real question is, how do you build it up? How does it look? Because it may not seem like it but this game has multiple paths to victory, and that’s just in your choice of regular dwarves alone! Going heavy on one or two types, with a smattering of others isn’t necessarily a bad option, neither is trying to get an equal balance to try and get as many heroes as you can. Whichever of the routes you decide to go for though, be prepared for your opponents to try and stop you. Since everything scores it may not be as much of a hindrance to nab cards you wouldn’t normally have gone for as it would be in other games. The heroes bring their own brand of chaos to the party. Each one will give their own way of scoring and could quite easily change up how you play the rest of your game, or enhance the plans you’ve already got in place. There are a lot of them though, which brings a huge amount of replayability as each game you can try out different combinations. The downside to this is that, whilst a lot of them are fairly self explanatory, be prepared to be doing a lot of rule book diving everytime someone gains a hero. The rule book does a great job of explaining them in their own section. But generally new players will end up going for the easier to explain ones rather than listen to what each one does…..or maybe they’re just sick of the sound of my voice! You have my axe……and my upgradeable coin. Although the bidding mechanism isn’t one I’m always drawn to, the game's bidding system, along with the coin upgrades is what really makes it shine. Everytime you lay a coin down is a gamble. Now normally that's because you don’t want to use your best coin only to find out that no one else really cared about that tavern and went low, so you could’ve used it elsewhere. In Nidavellir though, realising you used a high coin like that meant that you missed a potential opportunity to upgrade it for a better coin. Just knowing that you could have used your zero coin there causes that “argh” moment that is oh so prevalent in games but is weirdly something I love. But the bidding and drafting element creates all of this game's tension and moments of relief. Relief as you realise the card you want is still available, even though you didn’t go first. But tension as you watch people’s hands hover near the cards you want in what can only be described as a slow motion that Zac Snyder would be proud of (don’t worry, it won’t drag the game out to four hours) The system offers at least half, potentially even more of the game's strategy. There’s always a temptation to bid as high as possible to try and get as best a card as you can, but you also don’t want to neglect upgrading your coins. Not only because you can keep as competitive as possible in the later stages of bidding, but because those points are just as important as the ones you claim from everything else in the game. Nidavellir takes a mechanic that I try to avoid and turns it into a game that’s quick, has a ton of replayability and is one that I want to play again as soon as it’s over.

Picky Eaters Player Count: 2 - 6 Published by: Le Fou Designed by: Tanya Basu, Avi Setton Artist: Alex Hoskins This is a prototype copy sent to us for preview. Since this is a prototype please bear in mind that some elements of art, design or rules may change. See our preview policy here Check out the kickstarter page here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pickyeaters/picky-eaters?ref=discovery By Steve Godfrey It’s probably fair to say that picky eaters aren’t necessarily the most popular people to have at a dinner party. As you spend your time lovingly preparing a beautiful meal, only to then have to find space in the oven for some chicken nuggets and chips. I’d also go so far to say that the person on the opposite end of the scale, the one who eats everything can be just as bad as the aforementioned meal is then mixed together with all of the side dishes to form a concoction that even the giants from the BFG would turn their noses up at. I live with both types…….send help! How to be a picky eater. Place the guest cards and the food deck in the middle of the table. Give the first player token to the person who last went grocery shopping and you're basically set up. At the start of each round reveal the top card of the guest deck and fill up the market with twice the number of cards as players. In a two player game place out six. Give everyone five cards from the food deck or six in a two or three player game. If anyone has more than ten cards in their hand at this point then they discard down to ten. On your turn you can take one of the following actions. You can take a card from the market into your hand. This market doesn’t get refilled when you take a card. You can prepare a recipe in your hand by paying the ingredient cards on it and playing it in front of you. Once per recipe you can substitute one ingredient by spending three cards in its place. You can have a maximum of five recipes in front of you but you can always replace a recipe with a different one regardless of how many you have in front of you. Play an item card by following the rules on the card. Some will be played on yourself and others can be played on other players. You can discard two cards to draw one from the deck or you can pass. The round will end once all players have passed. After five rounds count up everyone’s points. Every recipe in front of you is worth two points. Then take into account any modifiers from item cards on the recipes. Some will add points and some will subtract points. Each guest has a list of recipes on them that are broken down into, favourites, likes, dislikes and restrictions. You’ll get 4 extra points if a recipe you’ve made is a guest’s favourite, 2 for a like, -1 for a dislike and -3 for a restriction. Total everything up and most points wins. Can I have some ketchup with that? Each round of Picky Eaters will potentially throw the food equivalent of a spanner in the works of your best laid plans (I’m thinking a carrot would work as a good spanner replacement?) Each round you’ll be taking cards from the market or the deck all in the hope that you can play down the perfect recipe for the array of guests that are already out in front of you, and once it’s down you can’t help but feel that you’ve got this all under control. It’s a nice feeling knowing you’ve got a high scoring recipe in front of you. The problem is that the next guest could be anyone with all manner of food requirements. It’s like Schrödingers patron. They could either have likes that suit your recipes perfectly, or despise everything you’ve played so far. It’s because of this constant change that you can’t rest on your laurels. Luckily the game lets you change out an existing recipe with another (when you complete it and play it down of course). It’s a great way to stop yourself from getting caught out by bad luck. Take That…..and eat your vegetables. Just because you’ve been lucky enough with the recipes, it doesn’t mean that your opponents have to take it lying down. FYI don’t lay down during a dinner party, it’s rude and you’ll get food in your hair. The game incorporates a few “take that” cards into the mix. Cards like Extra Seasoning (which over seasons a recipe) and Hot Plate (which stops you from replacing a recipe) are there just to mess with your opponents, but equally there are some item cards that are used to enhance your recipes and even swap out guests. Use that last one with caution though, it could end up being more useful for others than yourself. I know that “take that” style cards aren’t always to everyone’s taste, but replacing that recipe will get rid of any cards that are placed on it and you never know, this may actually end up being an advantage depending on the guests that come out. The only one that will truly mess with you is the hot plate. Picky eater or picky chef? Making recipes is the name of the game here and ideally you want to try and make at least one per round to feel like you're being productive, or, at the very least have a couple ready to go as a reaction to a future guest. However the market is limited so you have to hope that the deck is your friend. Discarding two cards from your hand to draw from the deck can be a blessing or a curse, just like any blind draw. However, being able to discard three cards in place of one ingredient has been the difference between me playing a recipe or not on many occasions. A little behind the scenes here, the three card rule was added after I received my copy due to feedback from others who had received prototypes and got them played before I got a chance to. It’s nice to hear that the designers are listening to feedback and willing to create and implement changes so quickly if they feel it’s needed. About the chefs. I really like the amount of diverse foods included. That alongside Alex Hoskins' great art has made me go and look up a few that I’ve not heard of in the hope of giving them a try in the future. The guests included are just as diverse, I mean you can’t get more diverse than a sentient robot vacuum with its own tastes. At this point I’m not sure if it should be classed as being picky or just a huge step forward in vacuum based AI. It’s also nice to have little food facts on the bottom of the cards. If Picky Eaters sounds like it could be a game for you be sure to check out their Kickstarter page here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pickyeaters/picky-eaters?ref=discovery and sign up to be notified when they launch on the 11th July 2023.

You Can't Say Umm WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 4-10 You’ll like this if you like: Articulate, Sounds Fishy, Wits & Wagers. Published by: Big Potato Games This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Made for the TikTok generation, "You Can't Say Umm" is the perfect game to buy for any outgoing gaming group or young teenage family member, providing them with the materials to create great content! It seems to be part of a slight shift from the type of games Big Potato Games is currently producing – games that are more contemporary and aimed at a younger audience. However, they remain approachable, easy to learn, and fun! I believe these are the main goals for any Big Potato Game production. Let's bring it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up You Can't Say Umm Split into two teams and sit together in groups, ideally. If you have an odd number of players, one player can act as the referee, which can still be a fun role, especially for someone who enjoys punishing their friends! One team will take the pink scoring marker, while the other team takes the black one. Place these markers on the score board in the starting position. Deal six rule cards to each team. As a group, decide which three rule cards you want to give to the other team and discard the remaining three. Then, without looking at the new cards, each team will pass their chosen three cards to the opposing team. Place these cards face down in front of your team. Lay out the cards labeled stack A and stack B face down, and have the first player from the starting team draw one card from each pile. The other team will take the egg timer and dinger. Flip the timer, and the game begins. How To Play You Can't Say Umm The player going first is the describer. They must look at the two words on the cards they drew and describe them to their team in any way possible without using the words on the cards. If they pause, stutter, or say "um" or "err" at any point, the other team can ding the bell, and they will score a point. If the describer can get their team to correctly guess the two words together in the right order, they will score a point. The describer can go through as many of the two-card words as possible within the 45 seconds. Then play passes to the other team. When describing, there is no passing on any cards, although I would suggest allowing this if playing with younger players. As you move up the score tracker, you will reach yellow spaces. When you do, you must flip the corresponding rule card, previously placed in front of your team, face down. For the rest of the game, the players on this team must obey this new rule. It could be a new word you cannot say or a letter that your team can no longer use at the beginning of any words. Any time this new rule is broken, the bell is rung, and a point is scored by the opposing team. The final stages of the scoring track display exclamation marks, indicating the danger zone. When your score marker is in the danger zone, no member of your team can say "umm" or "err," even when guessing. This serves as a great catch-up mechanic that allows a team that is far behind to quickly and easily catch up to the leading team. The first team to reach the end of the scoring track wins. Is It Fun? You Can't Say Umm Board Game Review This game guarantees laughter! Everyone tends to say "umm" and "err," especially under time pressure. In this game, points are awarded to the opposing team when someone makes these slips, and it happens frequently. The result is nothing short of hysterics from all involved. I have yet to play a game where the entire group hasn't been brought to tears of laughter multiple times. If you're looking for a party game that generates laughter, this is the one to get! Now, it won't be for everyone. Those who dislike being put under time pressure in front of others may find this game challenging. However, they can always take on the role of the referee and still feel involved. For younger players, you might want to allow passing and give them a little more time. Other than that, I found that this game works well for ages 10 and up. Although, I should warn you that younger children may struggle with being in the spotlight if they feel they have failed or let their team down. However, with a group of adults who enjoy this type of game, I can't think of much else I'd rather play at a party. It's like a modern-day version of Articulate with some silly twists added. And it's those twists that will keep you coming back for more, game after game. There are a lot of cards in this game, and since you only use six each time, it will take you a long time to see all these rules. They are simple but add enough change to make each session feel different and create a sense of progression in each game. I love how the game gets harder as you progress up the points tracker, leading to a close and tense finish every time. It's difficult for a runaway leader to maintain a significant lead in this game, especially as the game becomes more challenging. The giggles usually take over for most players, making it harder to think straight or even utter a few coherent words within the 45-second time limit. I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a party game that works well with four players and up, and who enjoys having noisy fun with their group. It's the perfect game to play at parties as it includes everyone, both players and spectators. It provides a hilarious spectator experience and allows for quick gameplay, enabling multiple games so that everyone gets a chance to play. While it suggests up to eight players, you can easily play with larger groups. Everyone will enjoy being a guesser, and even if not everyone gets a turn as the describer, it's still enjoyable for everyone regardless of the role they play.

Get The Ick WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-8 You’ll like this if you like: Herd Mentality, Sounds Fishy, Wits & Wagers. Published by: Big Potato Games This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Big Potato Games sure do know how to create fun! And they have done it again with this small box party game that can be learnt in seconds. The game is based on guessing what sort of things your friends and family either really like, or find really icky! It's a simple "know your friends" style game but with some very modern themes. This all comes from a TikTok trend that two members of the Big Potato social media team, Nat and Lily, thought would make a good game. How cool is that? Good you you Nat and Lily! Let's get it to the table to see how it plays. How To Set Up Get The Ick Open the box and give each player one of the small square emoji faces. One side will show a heart eyes emoji face, the other showing the "eek" face, which for this game represents the "ick"! One player who starts as the chooser will take the four larger circular single sided pieces. Shuffle the cards and deal three face up. All players will now read the cards and you are ready to play. How To Play Get The Ick The player with the four large tokens is in the hot seat. They will now place three tokens from these four available face down, one each next to the three cards. Two of the tokens show a blank face, one has a love face and the final one has an eek/ick face. The player in the hot seat does not have to use both of the emoji faces, but must use the ick token. Either two blanks and one ick emoji face will be placed face down, or one blank and two emoji's. The other players now need to guess what this player has chosen, placing their one small coloured token down to one of the three cards, either love eyes face up or eek/ick face up. They have one token so can only pick one thing for one card. When all players have placed their token, the hot seat player will now flip their tokens to reveal what they love or hate. Players will score one point for a correctly guessed ick, three for correctly guessed love (both for the player in the hot seat and anyone who chose it), and zero for an incorrect guess. If half or more of the players guess the ick correctly the choosing player scores a point. If the choosing player in the hot seat used the love token and no one guesses this correctly, they loose one point. Play them moves round one space, and the next player is in the hot seat choosing with three new cards. You can play for fun, a timed game, or to a certain points target. It's up to you. The rules suggests you play for as long as it takes for each player to have a turn in the hot seat choosing, but I found this to be way too short! You will want the fun to lost way longer than that. Get The Ick Party Game Review - Is It Fun? Will you enjoy this game? Well, ask yourself this. Do you enjoy spirited conversations with your friends and family? That's all this is. Inside this small box you will find all you need to create a great conversation. Of course, this is a gamified conversation where you are trying to guess what things your fellow players like and dislike. But ultimately, this is about enjoying time with fellow humans. Sat round a table, or relaxed on a coach, Get The Ick gives you the tools to discuss, debate, argue, cheer, and become thunderstruck by your friends choices. "You don't hate it when...?" "You like that?!" You will hear a lot of cries of surprise such as this when you play. As players realise that not everyone shares the same beliefs as them. And what a joy that is. There will also be the satisfaction as you guess your friends likes and dislikes correctly. But it always seems to be the wrong guesses that evoke the biggest reactions. And what fun that is! The cards are brilliant. Contemporary. Relevant. Universally accessible. Thought provoking. But most importantly, funny. The odd card did not work for my younger child (seven) but it is very easy to discard, flip or replace. Knowing that your family knows you find certain things amusing or not is strangely satisfying. Finding out your friends think you are way nicer than you actually are is also quite amusing. Although, perhaps potentially damaging! The game is light-hearted, good intentioned, and full of cheer. Approach the game with the same mentality and you will have a blast. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys games with friends or family that spark debate and discussion and enjoys a laugh as they play.

Honeycombs WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 1-8 You’ll like this if you like: Bananagrams, Tri-ominos, Rummikub. Published by: Gibsons Designed by: Dave Clarke This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. I'm always on the look out for new games that work in any environment. Games I can play outside or by the pool. In a pub or restaurant waiting for food. Wind, rain, or shine. Honeycombs is a delightful game that ticks a lot of these boxes, although it does require a decent amount of table space, so not ALL pubs! The lovely, weighty acrylic pieces that make up 100% of this game bar the canvas bag are robust, waterproof, and weighty. They would work anywhere. So, let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Honeycombs There are three main game modes. For the first variant, in a two plyer game each player takes 26 tiles. For a three player, take 17. For four player's, each person takes13 tiles. Stack your tiles into three face up piles in front of you. When all players are ready, spread all your tiles face up in front of you. You are now ready to play. For the second game mode, place one tile in the middle of the table and then each player draws three tiles to their hand. Keep the rest in the bag for now. For the third mode, simply place all tiles face up on the table. How To Play Honeycombs For game mode one, players will now race to piece all their tiles together. The rules are simple. All pieces that touch must do so with matching symbols. You can only have one piece that only touches one side of another piece. The rest must touch at least two sides. When one player has connected all their pieces, they shout HONEYCOMBS and then each player must stop, and check the person to their right to see if they have made any mistakes with misconnections. If they have, then the mismatched piece must be removed. All players then score all correct connections, one point for each match plus a bonus five points if any tiles correctly matched all six sides with other tiles. All unused tiles will lose you one point. The player with the most points after three rounds wins. For the second game mode, players take it in turns to connect one of their three tiles in hand to the central shared honeycomb. After you have played one tile, draw back up to three tiles. As you place tiles, you will score one point for each match, and a bonus five if you are ever able to connect all six sides of one tile. Once all 52 tiles are placed, the game ends and the player with the most points wins. Note, there are three special symbols on some tiles that come into effect in this game mode. The x2 offers double points on anything earnt that turn. The robber symbol allows players to shout STEAL when it is not their turn, and play a steal tile, collecting points as usual, and forcing another player to miss their turn. The game then continues with the next scheduled player. The arrow lets you take an additional turn after playing a tile with this symbol. And finally, the Bee allows the player who played this tile to chose one symbol on this tile to become wild. The third game mode works simply with all players working together to try and form one giant honeycomb. You can score as you place tiles if you wish, or just try and make all the tiles connect. Your choice. We like to see how many we can do in a time limit. 10 minutes generally works. Although we rarely do them all! There is always a couple left! But it seems to be the right length for some tension, but not too much to make it stressful! Is It Fun? Honeycombs Board Game Review The quality of these tiles is wonderful. They feel great in your hands. But not every version of this game is the same. I would urge caution when buying this game to check the tiles and what they are made of. This Gibson's version is the one to try I would recommend. This seems to be the one that most retailers stock, but there are some others out there with lower quality tiles. There are also some versions with slightly different rules such as being allowed two single tile connections instead of the one here. Playing Honeycomb feels very different based on the version you are playing. It can go from a relaxing jigsaw puzzle style cooperative experience, to a more race style challenge not dissimilar to the feeling of playing Bananagrams. If you do not like one style, try another. This game can suit most moods. I like the variations based on your mood and the opportunity to play this as a solo experience, one I find very relaxing. I would recommend this game to any family. The game is so versatile and robust, it will work with most people, situations, or moods. I am delighted to have this in my collection and can see this get many plays in the future. It's lucky the tiles are so durable!

Lacuna WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Tak, Hive, Onitama. Published by: CMYK Designed by: Mark Gerrits This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Board games in tubes. You a fan? I am torn. They look awesome. But what if you get too many? How can you store them efficiently? That said, I only have a few and was very happy to add one more to my collection. Lacuna, an abstract strategy game from CMYK is available from July 2023, and markets itself as "a cozy game of mystical geometry." Each word in that blurb pulls me right in! But does this deliver on what it says on the awkwardly packaged tube? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Lacuna Well, it couldn't be easier. Open the tube and take out the material cloth board inside. Lay this out on the table (or floor). Give one person the gold pieces and the other the silver. Then put the inside lid back on the tube and pour out the wooden flower pieces onto the board. If any roll off, and some will, just drop them back on. When done, space out any clusters of flowers that may have formed to create an open and even spacing. You are now ready to play. How To Play Lacuna The first player now takes one flower to add to their collection. This is because the second player will place the final piece which is a significant advantage. The first player then places their first piece. Players are looking to find spaces between matching flowers where they can put one of their metal markers. When they do, they must ensure there are no other flowers in the way. A clear line of sight must be present. When players place their piece's, they can do so anywhere on the imaginary line between the two matching flowers. They will then take those two flowers to add to their collection. Players will take it in turns like this, placing their pieces until all six markers are down for both players. There are seven different colours of flowers and seven flowers in each colour. Players are looking to get a majority of flowers. Four or more flowers of the same colour in four or more different colours wins the game. When you place one of your markers down, there must be space between the two flowers to do this. You cannot jiggle two apart to place your piece down. Once all the metal markers are down, there will still be quite a few flowers on the board. Claiming the flowers by placing your marker is only half of the game. The remaining flowers are claimed by the player with the closest marker to it. For most flowers it can be easily determined which player will take it. But for a few it will be harder to tell just from looking. In this situation, you need to get the ruler (provided) to assess who was closer. If it is tie, then the player with the second closest piece takes the flower. Where you start and end the measurement from is up to you, just make sure you are consistent for both players. It feels like a piece of string would have been better chosen for this purpose. One you could hold onto the flower with one finger and rotate between the two closest markers. I may add a piece to my tube to do this in future. When all the flowers have been claimed, stack them up and see which player wins. It's pretty quick as this is just about majority. If you have four or more, you know you have won that particular flower. If you have three or less, you know you have lost. Lacuna Board Game Review - Is It Fun? Lacuna plays very quickly. So much so, the best way to teach it is to play a game. It will be done in a few minutes and the other player will understand the intricacies of how you can choose, and more importantly, why you would choose certain flowers a lot easier this way. It will also help you realise if you are going to enjoy this game or not. Looking at a piece of cloth with wooden flower pieces on and deciding how best to place six metal markers in order to take/control the most amount of wooden flowers as possible; it won't be for everyone. Not everyone enjoys abstract strategy games like this. I think often because they don't click for most people at first. But many games don't click for me right away. I have to learn the strategy of most games before I get any good at them. And I enjoy them a lot more when i am better at the game. Abstract strategy games like Lacuna are no different. But I often find people's patience for games like this to be a lot less. Perhaps because the inference is that there is less strategy as the rules are simpler? I find that decisions are made a lot quicker, sometimes before they are even played, as to weather people are going to enjoy them or not with games like this. I mention all this because this game is frustrating when you first play it, or at least, before you 'get it'. But, when it clicks, and you start to see the patterns form in your mind, and understand how to control the board more effectively, it becomes a brilliant two-player tactical battle. A game that sets up quickly, plays fast, and is easy to teach, but offers genuine thought provoking moments that feels wildly satisfying when they pay off, well, that is a game for me. Lacuna offers this. But it took me a good ten games or so before I felt like that. I lost most of my first ten games (to a ten year old!) and found the game to be limited and frustrating. But then I started to see how to place my markers in a more effective way and the game blossomed. Initially, I was just thinking about which flowers I wanted and placed my markers between them to get those two flowers. I then started thinking more about the area control game that happens in the second stage. Placing one marker is not just about claiming two flowers. It is about controlling parts of the board. This is why going second is such as advantage as you can swing the game a lot with the final placement. Each time you place a metal piece, you need to see the board being cut in half. Separating the parts you control from the parts your opponent has. The more pieces placed, the more segments of the board. At the end, there will be 12 areas of control. Working with the flowers already taken, you need to ensure you have the right areas in your control. You don't need the most flowers. Nor do you need the most colours. Just four or more in four or more colours. You could win with 16 flowers with the losing player having 33. There are 49 flowers in total but having more won't necessarily win you the game. The designers could easily have created variations where I win with the most pieces, or with the most sets of colours. But the genius is in the tightness created by getting majority in each colour. However, a good variation to house rule with younger players is this. Most flowers wins. But the correct rules creates a fascinating area control battle, which does not need variation as each game is different due to the random set up. On that, some reviewers have complained about the set up due to the flowers rolling off the board as you tip them out of the tube. Really? Sure, one or two probably will roll off, but just pick them up and pop them back on. The set up of this game is a breeze. It takes seconds. That is an odd one to complain about for me. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys abstract strategy two player games who is looking for something to add to their collection that looks great, plays fast, offers a relaxing but competitive game experience, and is willing to learn the intricacies of the choices offered.

Get On Board: London & New York WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Unmatched, Funkoverse, Smash Up Published by: IELLO Designed by: Saashi Get on Board was designed by Saashi and is a reimplementation his cult success Let's Make a Bus Route, which was a hugely popular game (within certain circles) in 2018. Saashi's games have a unique style, beautiful functionality, and are adored by most of those that play them. Get on Board delivers on all these levels too, lets get it to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Get On Board: London & New York First, you need to decide which board to use based on player count. If you have 2-3 players, then use the New York side. If you have 4-5 players, then use the larger, London side of the board. Then, give each player all the route markers of their colour, a departure board, sheet, and pencil. Shuffle the six common objective cards and place two face up on the board. Next shuffle the five personal objective cards specific to the side of the board you are playing and deal one to each player. Then shuffle all bus tickets cards when using the London side of the board, or just card one to six for the New York side. Deal two to each player face down. Players must chose one and place their departure pawn onto the traffic light at the intersection whose number is shown on the ticket they chose. Then take all 12 bus tickets back, shuffle them up again, and place them face down on the board. Give the oldest player the Inspector pawn, which acts as the first player marker, and you are ready to go. How to Play Get On Board: London & New York There are 12 rounds to a game of Get on Board and each round has four phases. The first is New Bus Ticket. At this point, the Inspector will flip the top bus ticket and place it face up for all to see. Each player will now have to mark off one of the 12 coloured boxes on the top of their player sheet, matching the colour and number of the ticket just flipped. Players will then move to the second phase where they will Plot their routes. This is the main part of the game and is split into two parts. Placing your route markers down, then getting on the bus. When placing your route markers down, you must follow a few simple rules. You must follow the shape of the route required by the ticket chosen this round, either a straight line, one turn, or two turns. You can only place one marker per road. Your route must begin where your previous route ended, or for the first round, where your departure pawn is. You can only place the number of markers shown on your sheet. You can never double back on yourself. If you cross a road with another players markers on you must mark a space on the bottom left of your sheet showing a traffic jam. When playing on New York, the black roads act as a traffic jam to make up for the reduced player count. If you end on a space with a green light, you can add one more marker in any direction. If you reach an interaction you have already been at, your turns immediately ends, and, get this, you are eliminated from the game! I know, harsh right. But don't worry, it is easily avoidable. If you want to add or reduce the amount of turns to optimise your turn, you can do so by marking of a space in your turn zone, the top right red section on your sheet. This will add flexibility to your turn, but add negative points to your end game scoring. And can only be done a maximum of five times. Once this is done, it is time to move onto the Board Bus phase. This is where all the people and places you have moved though in the previous phase, come on board your bus or are marked off your route. For each of the four symbols of passengers your bus moved through this round, mark of one space of the matching image on your player sheet. You picked them up, they are now on your bus. For the blue and purple spaces, if you have reached the specific building that matches that colour, you will drop off those passengers. Score points depending on how many of those passengers were on your bus at that point. Based on the number shown on the sheet below the furthest right passenger you had marked off. Scratch off any remaining passengers you didn't pick up on the row, that bus is now at its destination and parked, and will score that amount. You will now start another bus for that colour. The purple area also provides bonus passengers, shown on the sheet. In addition to the points you gain when a bus is parked, you can also mark off one additional passengers as shown elsewhere on your sheet. Finally, on each map, there are four sightseeing spots, one of each type and colour. They are marked on the board with stars and a coloured background. When you reach one of these spaces write the number of passengers of the matching colour that you currently have on your sheet into this space. You will score the highest number at the end of the game. The third phase reminds players to check to see if they have competed any common objectives. You get a maximum of ten points for these if you are the first player to complete them. Then in the forth phase, pass the Inspector token one space, and move onto the next round. After the 12th round, add all your negative points from any crossed off spaces in your Turn Zone in the top right of your board. Then add any crossed off spaces from the orange column on the left of your sheet. Then multiply the number of crossed off student icons in the yellow area of your sheet by the number of crossed off University building spaces. Add these to any points gained from the yellow sightseeing spot. For the blue sightseeing spots, you will gain points equal to the higher of the two values you have here. Add any points from the purple parked buses area, and half the points from any rows without points in the rightmost space (as you didn't finish them). Add all these points to any you gained from the common objectives, and your personal objective, and remove any negative points from Traffic Jams, and that will be your final score. This sounds a lot, but after you have played it once, it will all make perfect sense. Is this Fun? - Get On Board: London & New York Board Game Review Playing Get on Board is so simple, but it feels full of strategy. Flip a card, move the appropriate amount of spaces and turns. Mark off the buildings you went by and the people you picked up. That's it. A turn can take just a few moments. It sounds like a lot above I am sure, but when you play, it really isn't, and a game can fly by in a few minutes. BGG suggests 30 minutes, I would say half that once you get used to the game and are playing with others who understand it too. And this is a joy. Quick games, with multiple ways to score, and a decent amount of strategy, that are fun to play, are not always forthcoming it seems. One of those areas usually has to be sacrificed. But Get on Board delivers for all four in a huge way. With games like this, I want to feel I am making tough choices. I want to agonise between this way or that. Picking up that passenger to move on that track, or aim for that building to push on this one. Get on Board brings these decision to the table almost every turn. It is hard to score well in every area. The objective cards will push you in one direction (literally) whereas your own strategy may make you lean another way. This is what makes games like this great for me. It's fun to make these decisions and have your success of failure rest on them. Moving over the letter spaces on your personal objective will score you 10 points. It may be that this route helps you out in other scoring areas too. But you can see how much they pull you around most of the board. I have found that players tend to go for this objective about 50% of the time. When it suits the rest of their strategy it can be a good way to score big points. But when it doesn't, it can be too much of a detour or distraction. The shared objectives work towards picking up multiple numbers of a certain passenger. Again, this may suit your overall strategy or not. It can depend on the order of the bus tickets, in that if you head towards a few of a certain type early on, this may then encourage you to focus on that as a mid/late game goal. But you need to be flexible and adaptable in your strategy for this game. There are so many ways to score. If another player gets in your way, you could stay focused on your primary goal and score negative points for causing a traffic jam; or turn down another road, avoid those minus points and try for a different scoring route. Overall, I would say that Get on Board is a very good game. Sure, it joins a very busy area of the hobby. There are so many good flip-and-write or roll-and-write games out there, you could easily pick 10 or 20 as being essential. Or you could also avoid many of these, just buy pone or two and be done. It could come down to theme. Do you want to study Dinosaurs? Would you rather fight of invading Picts? Or does a journey to the stars suit you more? Or perhaps planning a bus route is the perfect theme for you. Or, like me, you just love these games so much you want them all! I can find a place for all of these, and many (many) more in my collection. Sure, the mechanics are similar, but they all feel very different to me. The experiences are all unique. They are all good. And they will all get played a lot in my household.

Godtear WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Unmatched, Funkoverse, Warhammer Underworlds Direchism Published by: Steamforged Games Ltd. Designed by: David Carl, Alex Hall, Steve Margetson Rule Book Godtear: Champion Pack Review Godtear is a wonderful skirmish game with some incredible card play that often delivers great moments. But a huge part of why I enjoy it so much, and why it keeps coming back to the table over and over again is the ever expanding universe of Champions that you can play as. If you want to read about the main game, how it plays, and my thoughts on it, you can check our full review out here. But if you want to read about the different characters you are in the right place. There are many more characters available than covered here. These are just the ones I chose to get. My favourites. You can find out more about the full list of available champions here. But for now, let's dust off our battle axes and take a closer look at the ones I have been fighting with. Let battle commence! First up in this Godtear: Champion Pack Review, let's take a look at my favourite Guardian champions. The Guardians are blue. They get a bonus if their banner is still positioned at the end of each second phase. They tend to be a little more defensive. Helena, Inspiration of Hope & Rallied Peasants Helena is the only champion without a separate banner. She carries her own flag with her at all times. This means scoring with her for her banner is a lot easier. She is harder to defeat than a stand alone banner. Her peasants fight loyally beside her, helping her stay alive by healing her and rallying around her position. She works very well with other champions that can make use of her ultimate skill to recruit. If they can use and sacrifice their followers, she can bring them back to fight another day. Mournblade, The Soulless & Knightshades Mourneblade is easily killed with a health of just one! But his followers lock their enemies in their grip and stop them from moving. Reducing their speed to zero if they are adjacent to them. Mournblade is able to remove all his followers and replace them on the battle field within three hexes. So you could find yourself locked up pretty quickly when fighting him. As such, he is the perfect companion to a powerful fighter who can attack the stranded enemies. Halftusk, Warden of the Stonekin Isle & Froglodytes Halftusk's followers, the Froglodytes, have an interesting ability to be bale to enter objective hexes. Something other followers cannot do. This blocks other players from being able to lay their banners, as they block up the otherwise available spaces. This makes Halftusk a great champion to play with when up against other Guardians. He can heal himself and when fully healed, has a better fighting ability. Maelstrom champions are yellow. They get their bonus for taking out enemy followers. You want to use them when your opponent has a lot of weak followers to pick off. Blackjaw, The Sweeping Flame & Unburnt Reavers Blackjaw gets a bonus action whenever he knocks out an enemy follower, as well as a bonus point. His followers, the Unburnt Reavers, can weaken nearby followers, allowing Blackjaw to come in and take them out. He has great mobility and range for his attacks, meaning he can surprise you with damage when you thought you were too far away. Kailinn, The Fury of the Forest Kailinn has just two followers, but they are tough and work well together, offering their partner the chance to use each others available skills. Kailinn herself is even more resistant, and can use her horn to take out enemy followers, no matter their defence. She is a fast mover, the fastest in the game in fact, with a movement stat of four, and she can help the rest of your champions move about the board too, but she cannot enter objective hexes. So she needs to work with another champion that can take out banners for her. Grimgut, The Vile & Retchlings Grimgut's Retchlings are easily taken out, but reward their victor with zero points, and Grimgut can simply spew them back onto the battle field. As such, Grimgut is best played in an aggressive, front foot style, charging into his opponents, and using his Retchlings to surround his enemies. And when Grimgut is ready to gorge, he can use his ultimate Buffet skill to eat three followers within range delivering six points due to his maelstrom bonus. He may look disgusting, but he has devastating attacks and is a tough opponent to grind down. Slayers are red champions and get a bonus for taking out an enemy champion. Something that is a lot harder to do that most other things in this game, but they all have great attacks to help do this. Maxen, the Artificer & Gearhawks Maxen is a formidable foe with a loyal following of robotic Gearhawks. He can remove an enemy's banner when he takes out a champion, and this is something he can do with aplomb in the clash phase, when his Blunderbuss weapon comes into full effect. He has a range of three with his gun and can roll up to six damage with it. Maxen can also stuff his gun with his mighty Gearhawks and fire them at his adversaries. Taking two damage for each Gearhawks lost this way. Meaning, if he uses all four of his fearsome birds, he can attack with a guaranteed damage of eight! A lot of followers means he is vulnerable to other Maelstroms, so it is best to sacrifice them yourself before they become plunder for other champions. Skullbreaker, The Dragon Slayer Skullbreaker, with his mighty Sword, has the highest potential single target damage in the game. He has only one attack, Jawblade, but it is mighty, delivering seven damage! He is tough, but with a low defence, so he needs to attack before he is taken out. He can help fellow champions followers by arming them with better attacks so works well with other champions with numerous followers who like to attack. Shaper Champions are green, and get a bonus for making a claim action. They offer more control of the board during the game but are not the best fighters and are used more to help other Champions and their followers in their battles. Raith'Marid, The Rising Tsunami & Splashlings This champion is all about disrupting the other enemy champions. Alone, he is quite weak, but in a team of fighters, they can spoil your opponents plans a lot by moving their characters around the board as you please. He can damage opponent's himself, and even his attacks move opponents about with a push effect. But his Spashlings have zero power in their attacks so are more about positioning other players where you want them. Rattlebone, Prophet of the Ascended Past & Hexlings Rattlebone is an interesting character to play as due to her attacks and actions mainly dealing boons and blights over damage. She is great for supporting your other fighters, and weakening your opponents. In the way that Raith'Marid moves the opposition around the board to let you fight them, Rattlebone softens them up for your attacks. Most of her and her Hexlings actions give out positive boons to strengthen your teams, or negative blights to weaken your opponents. She has decent mobility to allow her to place her banner and gain the bonus each round.

Indiana Jones: Cryptic WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: The Goonies: Escape With One-Eyed Willys Rich Stuff, Scooby Doo: Escape From The Haunted Mansion, Cantaloop. Published by: Funko Games Designed by: Prospero Hall This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. This review has zero spoilers. Indiana Jones: Cryptic – A Puzzles and Pathways Adventure. Quite the mouthful isn't it! Well, it is quite an adventure too! If you are a fan of puzzles and the Indiana Jones films, then oh my, you are in for a treat. It's quite hard to show or say too much with a game like this, but I will keep this review 100% spoiler free, as a large part of what makes this game great is the sense of discovery, and I do not want to spoil that for you. So, with that said, let's get this to the table and see how it plays. How To Set Up Indiana Jones: Cryptic Board Game Inside the box you will find just a few components. But the first thing you will be greeted with is the instructions saying STOP. The game doesn't want you to open anything else just yet, for fear of ruining the game. As such, I won't do that either. I will talk you through what you will see from the very beginning and what you need to do to get started in your first adventure. There are three adventures in the box. The game recommends you start with Covenant of Raiders. The stories interlink, and run in sequence in the guide, so I suggest you stick with this order. Open the journal and begin to read the instructions on page one. It will tell you to open the envelope marked Covenant of Raiders, which will contain all you need for your first game. You are now ready to play. How To Play Indiana Jones: Cryptic Board Game During Indiana Jones Cryptic, there are two main types of challenges. Puzzles and Pathways. Starting to see where the name came from? Puzzles can vary as you go through and may use other components and elements. Each will have a number of coins on offer if you solve it. This will be shown in the journal with a number next to a coin symbol. Gather this amount of coins and set them aside. Then read the instructions in the journal, gather any components it shows, and do your best to solve the puzzle. Each puzzle has a one or two word answer. Sometimes this is indicated by a certain number of red boxes, telling you how many letters are in the word, or a selection of words you must pick from. When you think you have solved the puzzle, look up the word you have decided on in the back of the journal in the hints and answers section. It will tell you if you were right and what your next cause of action needs to be if this is the case. If you were correct, take the coins on offer and add them to your kitty. If you get stuck on a puzzle, do not worry. Each one has a hint. Find the hint word associated with the puzzle you are on, and look that word up in the hints and answer section at the back of the journal. This will give you clues as to how you might best go about solving this current puzzle. The hints are pretty good. They do not give anything away in full, and nudge you along just the right amount. Each time you use one you may have to discard one of the available coins up for grabs in this current puzzle though. This will be explained as you read the hint. If you get the answer wrong, you will lose coins and the journal will explain how you move on. Generally, just to the next page of the journal and the next part of the story after losing all the coins on offer in that puzzle. The other thing you will encounter as you play are Pathways. I don't want to spoil how these work so I am just going to show you what the instructions tell you about these. At certain parts of each adventure the story will bring you to a certain point of peril. You will need to navigate difficult terrain just like Indie in the movies. The way the game brings this to life is by showing you the path you are on and where you are in a clear picture like below. You must study this and then place a clear piece of plastic over the top of the image and mark a dot on the starting location. Then remove the plastic and place it at least one markers length away from the image. You must now draw a path using the provided white board pen, trying to avoid the dangers and guide Mr. Jones to safety. You may need to interact with certain things described as GOALS along the way, the journal will make this all very clear. When done, flip over the original image and place your drawing on the clear plastic over this, lining up the start dot. It will now show you if you managed to stay on the right path or not. The journal will explain clearly how you will score your performance, again, rewarding you with coins for your kitty. Some of these pathways will have Action Tools that can be used with them, where you can draw around or alongside different shapes to form your path. This will allow you to jump over certain things and hit certain things with other objects or elements. All will be made clear as you play though. Do not fear. After you have finished each adventure, the guide will explain how well you did based on your coin total. You can try again, play the next chapter, or pack away for another session. The coins do not carry over to the next adventure so you can just throw everything back into the box. Each adventure takes around an hour to play. Indiana Jones: Cryptic Board Game Review Playing this game feels very much like you are on an adventure with Indiana Jones. The theming of the game is excellent. I suggest you put on your best Indie hat and play the theme tune and fully immerse yourself in the game. I played these adventures with my ten year old son. He was able to contribute fully to each puzzle. He would not have been able to play alone, I would say it would work for 12/13 and up in that respect. But you can certainly play with younger children if there is an adult to guide them along. The Pathways work with any age though, and my seven year old daughter enjoyed trying each of those. We generally all tried the pathway ourselves, and scored whoever did the best! The rules say you have one turn, but this was a fun way to keep everyone involved in the game. Plus, playing with the pathways is fun! Everyone wanted a turn, so why not let them. We all very much enjoyed the story in this, and being a fan of the films made this a very special experience for me. For my children who had not seen the films, they still loved the sense of adventure and characters, and now want to watch the films. Another win for me! There is a real sense of exploration and discover in the game, with a lot of hidden treats and unexpected surprises as you play. This game will continue to delight you through the three adventures and when done, you can easily try them all again. Although it will be significantly easier the second time round, and without the initial surprise and delight. But I would imagine after a year you will have forgotten most of it! This is not a one and done. Nothing is destroyed. You could easily reset and go again or play with another group. I would very much recommend this game to anyone who enjoys puzzles and playing cooperative games adventure games with their family. It will create a wonderful experience for you all, and memories to cherish. This game certainly does not belong in a museum!

The Goonies: Escape With One-Eyed Willys Rich Stuff. WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 1-99 You’ll like this if you like: The Goonies: Never Say Die, Scooby Doo: Escape From The Haunted Mansion, Cantaloop. Published by: The Op Designed by: Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim This review has very MINOR SPOILERS in the words and some very MINOR SPOILERS in the pictures. I will give fair warning when they are about to come. The Op have launched a new game system called Coded Chronicles. WBG has reviewed the Scooby Doo game from this series which is excellent. And now we have the Goonies version to delve into. The coded chronicles system is a clever way to incorporate puzzle solving and storytelling into multiple character games. We will get more to the mechanics in a bit. But for now, inside the box of surprises and delights, there will be multiple booklets, one for each character. You can play this solo and just read all the text yourself, or hand one out to each player. But this game, like the Exit and Unlock games, is just about solving puzzles and can be played in any player count. No one player ever controls one character, this is a cooperative experience where all players control all characters. The booklets introduce a clever way for you as the player to interact with the items and rooms you encounter. Each character has its own unique liabilities. One will be able to USE things, another EXPLORE or EXPLAIN etc. There is a number attributed to each character and ability such as 1 next to the explore function. So, if you want to explore the wrench on the floor which has a code is 101 next to it, place a 1 in front of the 101 to make 1101, then read entry 1101 from the characters booklet that is doing the action. It is all very intuitive, and works seamlessly with all age groups and abilities. This game is highly accessible due to this brilliantly simple and instinctive process. On opening the box and starting the game, you will be told to read the first entry in Mikey's booklet. This will set the scene and give you access to a map and pirate doubloon. This is the opening scene from the movie where Mikey and his friends are searching their parents attic to try and find something to help them keep their home. Fans of the movie will quickly realise how true to the original story every thing is. You are in for a true Goonies adventure, and you are gonna be hit so hard with board game puzzle fun, that when you wake up your clothes will be out of style! https://screenrant.com/behind-the-scenes-facts-about-making-the-goonies/ In the box along with the booklets are sealed envelopes. At certain points in the game you will be instructed to open them. For anyone who has ever opened a secret envelope in a game like this will know the sheer joy this brings. It is hard to explain why? It's just a bag of components! But this bag is sealed. And you cannot see in it. And you are not allowed to open it right away. It is just so tantalising! I don't want to say too much about the gameplay or rules so not to give away the surprises as you play. But to give you a flavour this next paragraph will explain the basics with only some very MINOR SPOIELRS. Scroll on to the next paragraph if you would rather not know. In the game, you will re-enact the main plot points of the movie. You will place map tiles and cards down in a series. Creating a path for your adventuring Goonies to travel through. In each room various objects and "things" will be illustrated with clearly labelled numbers next to them. You can then interact with each part of the room or area in any order or way you like. Looking at, picking up, and exploring each item will unlock new dialogue to read, and sometimes, new rooms, items and mysteries to explore. The entire time, the Fratelli family are chasing after you, just like the movie. If you do something obviously incorrect in the game, or get a puzzle wrong, then you may be at times instructed to move the Fratelli's closer to you. If they ever catch you, that is fine, it just affects your final score. But, I will say no more. There are some tricky puzzles in this game. They are all very much solvable although I would say easier in a group. Nothing should stump you permanently The game has some good tips and hints if you do get stuck, or full answers if you really need them. There are three acts to the game. You can play through the entire thing in around 3-5 hours depending on the size of your group and ability to solve the puzzles. Or you can easily pause or pack up between each act and play this as three part experience. This is the first map tile. I didn't want to show any more, or show how they connect for fear of spoilers, but this one will be introduced obviously pretty quickly, so I felt it was a very minor spoiler. But I suppose, a spoiler none the less. So... SPOILER ALERT! The entire experience is full of joy, surprises, satisfaction, some frustration, but always quickly followed by lots of "oh yeah's!" and "of courses!" Playing in a group is a wonderful experience. I played each three acts in a three and each person was able to contribute to certain parts of the game, finding solutions that benefited the team. Creating moments of utter delight, pride, and accomplishment. It's silly, but solving these puzzles does feel great. I suppose it's a bit like crosswords and sudoku puzzles. There is no real point to them, no one is testing you. You get nothing from doing them. But when you complete them, or get through a particularly tricky bit, it feels great. The brain rewards your body with that great feeling we are all hopefully familiar with. Here's the science behind this if you are interested. A recent study out of Philadelphia’s Drexel University provides some evidence. Thirty students solved anagrams while researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to record their brain activity. Very soon after activity in the right middle frontal gyrus, located near the forehead, indicated a moment of insight, activity then occurred in the orbitofrontal cortex, above the eye, which is responsible for processing rewards. Co-author Yongtaek Oh, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the university’s Creativity Research Lab, says, “Generally, such activity is associated with ‘wanting’ and ‘liking.’ ” https://www.washingtonpost.com I think this goes a long way to explain why these games are so popular. People like to feel good. Solving puzzles makes us feel good. And the way The Op are merging clever modern board game techniques with classic nostalgia such as Scooby Do, The Shining and The Goonies is a sure fire way to create happiness. I loved my time with this game. I would recommend it to anyone, fan of the film or not, and now cannot wait to try The Shining version.