Isla Board Game Preview - This is a prototype version and does not represent the final quality or ruleset of the game. Isla is from the team behind 2020 release Salvage Hidden Treasures. Ocean City Games Ltd are back again, this time with a roll-and-write themed around exploring a mysterious island. The game is coming to Kickstarter in 2024. You can get more information about the game and crowd funding campaign here. The game works very simply by all players taking a player sheet, pen, and setting up their items in a random fashion on each marked space. Each player will place their character in the start space on the bottom left of the sheet and the five dice tiles on the matching coloured and shaped space on the bottom left of the sheet. One player will then shuffle and set up the threat deck, placing it face down in the central area, along with the five dice. Finally, take the Exploration deck, shuffle that and deal the first four cards face up. Give one player the first player card and you are ready to go. Players will now take it in turns to be the lead player. Players will either be exploring which means moving through the island, researching which means exchanging tokens you have found for the research cards, or resting, to get a dice back. When exploring, you will choose the number on one of the rolled dice and move the shown number of spaces. If you move over a token you can take it for your collection. When exploring, you must move the token for the dice you chose to cover that dice symbol on your player sheet. This shows that you cannot use this dice again. If you move over a symbol on the map that shows a dice colour and shape, you can refresh that dice. When researching, you do not move, but instead hand in previously attained tokens to claim a research card. These will give you end game points. When resting, you simply refresh the left most used dice. You can only rest once per game, but one token that you can collect as you explore does gives you a second rest if you move through it. Whenever you roll a one you must draw a threat card. The old rules said you had to take one threat card for each one rolled. This made the game pretty tough and highly unpredictable. I think they made the right decision to update this rule. Most of the threat cards are bad you see. They restrict your movement, make you exhaust dice, or even give other players the power to act on your behalf. Some though do give you end game points if you can cover entire areas on the board. Something that is quite hard to do in your early games. One you have chosen if you are exploring, researching or resting, the first player rolls the dice and the players all carry out their actions. Multiple players can use the same dice, but players must take it in turn order if more than one player is researching. Once a card has been researched it is replaced by another. Each round one card is replaced too. So these are constantly being refreshed. The game ends when all players reach the exit in the top right of the map. Points are awarded to the first player who made it out, how far out of the map you managed to escape, how many dice you have unused at the end of the game, and for all of your completed research cards. Then, minus points are awarded, -1 for each unexplored space on the map! This creates in interesting balance between racing to get out first, whilst covering all spaces. Another change to the rules sees the player coming out second also receiving some points, three points versus five for the first space. I think this again is a good change to avoid the race for the finish being as important. In multiplayer mode, the desire to effectively move through as many spaces as possible whilst managing the quickly depleting resource of usable dice is negatively affected by the race element. I feel players need to have more reasons to cover the island in full other than negative points, which I hate in games. Secret challengers known only to them perhaps, that force them to visit certain spots on the map, or cover certain areas in full so slow people down. In solo mode however, this is very different. The set up for solo mode is very similar. Take out the threat deck. Also remove the first player token, and replace them with one of the four Keeper. There are four to chose from, each with a different degree of difficulty. Each one has a starting location as shown on the back, along with a little back story. Place any other non-playing character piece onto the Keeper starting location to represent your enemy. In the solo game you are looking to get as many points as possible, whilst avoiding the Keeper capturing you which happens if its piece ever moves through or onto your spot. The Keeper moves after your action each round. You do this by drawing the top research card. On the bottom left of this card a symbol is shown, not used on the multi-player game. This links to the symbols shown on the Keeper card, and it will move closer to you accordingly. It s a very simple but effective way to add some tension to the solo player game that works for me so much better than the multi-player version. The game becomes so much more than a race to the finish, and more what it should be. A resource management game. The resource in this game big the dice. You will be amazed by how quickly you run out of dice if you do not manage them properly. Will you use the higher valued dice to move further and more efficiently through the island, covering more ground more quickly, but in turn move away from the lower dice refresh spots that are situated at the bottom of the island. Or will you work you way slowly but surely through the island in an organised manner, refreshing dice as you go, starting slowly and building up? The race against another player who perhaps may be playing faster than you and going for that finish bonus is removed. It is replaced with the tension of the slowly advancing Keeper. Which, even with carefully made plans, and on easy mode, offers a significant challenge. It will either not move, or race forward one to three spaces. If you stay still to research, or run out of the higher dice, or force yourself to reply on a specific role, you can be easily caught. This is a wonderful tension that builds on the games suspense and enjoyment for me. Solo is where this game shines. If you are looking for a new roll-and-write game, and enjoy playing these solo, this well could be one for you to check out in 2024 when it comes to Kickstarter. I for one will continue to follow it closely.

Elios WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Azul, Mandala Published by: Helvetiq Designed by: Philippe Proux Distributed in the UK by: Coiledspring Games This is a review copy. See our review policy here Philippe Proux likes making games with lovely bits of wood. I like playing games made of lovely pieces of wood. Seems like a pair made in heaven! There is something so satisfying about the tactile experience of holding a well fashioned piece of wood in your hands. But is this game any more than that? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Elios Place two yellow discs into the central playing area, leaving the others to the side, and place one beam of each colour around them. The beams can be placed in any order but a nice grading of colour may be more satisfying to your eye. Then give each player one white Joker piece each (two in a two player game) and depending on player count, either 16, ten, or eight other randomly drawn pieces from the bag, for a two, three, or four player game respectively. Each player will then place the beams they draw in front of them in groups of one to three. A group can never contain two beams of the same colour. The last player to finish this process starts. You are now ready to begin. How To Play Elios Players are looking to get rid of all of their pieces in front of them, placing them onto matching colours in the central playing area. You can never place a piece on a level higher than the central sun, and when needed, you can use your white pieces as jokers. On your turn, players will carry out one of three actions. Place all pieces in a group. If you can, players can place up to three pieces at a time onto matching pieces on the middle. Making sure to not place higher than the current central yellow discs. All beams must be placed onto the same level. Place one central yellow disc from the reserve onto the yellow discs in the middle to raise the level. Split one of your groups. You can turn a group of three into two separate groups of one and two. Or a group of two into two single pieces. The Jokers can be placed on any colour, and any colour can be placed on the Jokers. The first player to place their final piece is the winner. In a four-player game, players play in teams of two, working together alternatively to try and place all of their pieces. Is It Fun? Elios Board Game Review Elios is a thing of beauty. Both to the touch and to the eyes, the game just oozes class, feels wonderful, and looks bright and cheerful. To play, the game is incredibly simple, but wonderfully satisfying. Games are fast, and often played for us in sets of three of four. One game is never enough. Especially if you lose quickly! It can be frustrating to be forced into placing another central yellow disc when you are out of options elsewhere, and simply helping the other players. It has happened on occasions where a player has placed a yellow disc on their turn, only then for the next two players to take full advantage of this and leave the player who played the yellow disc no other options on their next turn that to place yet another disc! You can always split your groups instead of doing this, but if you groups are fully split, it may be your only legal option. Looking to your opposing players available colours you will see that you will be setting them up for a very good turn. This can be annoying. However, this is uncommon; and if you plan ahead, mostly avoidable. And the satisfaction gained from looking ahead, predicting your opponents moves correctly, and slowly placing all your beams is very satisfying. The beams do feel wonderful in your hands too, and everything just looks and feels so joyful. There is a tactile pleasure and satisfaction to this game that certainly elevates its score for me. I enjoy playing with pieces like this and find it does increase my own sense of enjoyment. I would recommend this game to any family who enjoy quick, fun, simple games that can be played with minimal fuss or preparation. I can imagine this be problematic for those with colour blindness though, there are no symbols or shapes here. Just solid blocks with different colours. Elios has captured my heart with it's pure and honest pleasures. It offers a solid and robust production, clear and simple rule set, and hours of fun and satisfaction.

Downforce Wild Ride WBG Score: 9/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Camel Up, Long Shot The Dice Game, Flamme Rouge Published by: Restoration Games, 2 Pionki, IELLO Designed by: Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, Justin D. Jacobson Distributed in the UK by: Coiledspring Games This is a review copy. See our review policy here Downforce is one of my favourite racing games of all time. It is so simple to teach and play but has layers that feel so juicy! For my full review of the base game you can check here. There are a few expansions for this game. First came the 2018 expansion Downforce: Danger Circuit which added two new tracks to race on and six new race powers. Then in 2020 Wild Ride was released, again with two new race tracks, and two new racer powers. And on these tracks we now have 3D ramps and animals! Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. The first new track deploys 3D ramps! They are very simply popped out, folded together and placed onto the marked spaces on the map. They add nothing mechanically, you could easily play without them. The pieces are purely for table presence. But I love them and would never now play without them being added. As players approach each ramp, you need to carefully consider which card you are playing as per all the usual parameters; but now also the size of the ramp. Each ramp displays a number, ranging from three to six. If you play a card with a movement score for the particular coloured car approaching the ramp with a number that matches or exceeds the ramp size you can then if you chose, take the jump! The landing space also must be clear and you must have at least one more movement left as you reach the ramps location. Using the ramps in the way, players can cut off a lot of the track and increase their chance of victory with particular cars a great deal. There is one ramp all players must take, but the others are all a choice. The ramps also provide some very interesting ways for players to slow down other vehicles. If you drive deliberately around a ramp, avoiding the start, or use other cars to block either the access to a ramp or the landing space, you can significantly slow other vehicles down by forcing them to take the longer route. Physically lifting your car after racing up to the ramp and making it fly through the air before landing smoothly with a skid in the landing area... well I defy anyone to not be taken back to their childhood and make a whooshing noise as they essentially play with cars again. What a joy! There is some lovley detail in the art for this board. Sharks and Sting rays can be seen swimming through the water as you race around. It adds nothing to the game but looks great. There is one final large jump on the home straight that allows players to miss three spaces. This can add a very exciting twist to the final moments of the game, with cars, previously languishing at the back racing up to the front spaces. A six for the orange or yellow car here changes everything! The second new map introduces three wild animals into the fast paced race! A giant snake, an Elephant, and a herd of Wildebeest are now casually walking around the speeding cars! They add a wonderful catch up mechanic and allow players some very interesting choices as they move each vehicle around the track. The snake is placed on each corner, four times, to force the lead vehicle to take a wider turn, thus using more movement and allowing the other cars behind to catch up. This works because as each animal is passed by the lead car, the animal is moved to its next location, freeing up the track for the other cars. The width of the Elephant taking up two spaces on the track means it creates bottlenecks, where cars can be blocked in quite easily before it moves on. The Wildebeest take up two spaces on the track and when moved are replaced by one space. Cars moving through spaces vacated by the Wildebeest can catch up with the lead cars using these short cuts. I love the design on this board, and how the animal migratory paths are clearly shown. Are these animals really getting in the way of this race track, or has some idiot built a race track over a group of animal migratory paths? You can see how the Elephants can be easily used to block other cars in. Here the green car has been placed behind the Elephant, and now cannot move until another car passes the arrowed lines behind the Elephant which would cause it to move onto the final space. Until that point, the green car has to sit and wait. So we have one track with jumps that allows cars to race on ahead and catch up other cars, and another track with pinch points and animal blockades that allows for a more congested race. Both offer interesting choices and make for a very different feel as you play the game. The game also comes with two new race powers. I am not sure I like Civilised much Personally I do not see why anyone would ever chose this one? Maybe I am missing something? Lucky is a lot of fun though, and one that if you are dealt a lot of low numbered wild cards could be a great addition to your strategy. Obviously there is a bit of luck involved but it creates a fun and quite separated moment from the rest of the game, that I think adds a nice little twist. I would recommend this game to anyone who owns the base game. It does not change the game drastically but certainly adds some variation and small twists that will keep the game fresh and interesting for many more plays.

Just Wild WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Cascadia, Abstract Academy. Published by: Helvetiq Designed by: Leo Colovini, Marco Franchin Distributed in the UK by: Coiledspring Games This is a review copy. See our review policy here Helvetiq makes small boxes full of joy. With Just Wild they seem to have turned their attention to promoting a very valid wildlife and environmental concern around four threatened species native to mainland Europe. This has come about with a partnership with Salamandre, a non-profit French/Swiss publishing house. The plight of the Lynx, Wolf, Bear, and Ibex are detailed in the rulebook within a production that has been made with the highest environmental standards available. But is the game any good? Let's get it to the table and find out. How To Set Up Just Wild In the box you will fund a deck of 80 cards. 20 each for the four animals in the the game. The Lynx, Bear, Ibex, and Wolf. Each player chooses an animal to play as and takes their respective deck of cards. Each animal also has six tokens. Distribute these to each player based on their chosen animal as well. Each player then shuffles their deck and places their top card into a starting central area. Each card is placed in turn order, one at a time, touching each other adjacently, forming a rectangle. Each player then draws a starting hand of three cards and you are ready to play. How To Play Just Wild On each players turn one card must be played. This typically would be one card chosen from their hand of three cards, placed over the top of two other half cards. However, if a player cannot do this or chooses not to do this, then they must place a card face down on the table from the top of their deck. Players are looking to form the biggest total of their chosen animals cards. At the end of the game, each face up animal for each player scores each player one point. But, each player ends the game at different times based on when their deck runs out. When you place a card over the top of other cards, the card you are placing must be equal too or have a higher value than the cards it is covering. Each face up card has a number for each half, and the total of the two halves you are covering is totalled up, and you must be able to match or beat this in order to cover it over with your card. The cards have value running from one to ten. Whenever you are covering two cards, and one of the halves has a ten, no card will be able to match or beat the total, as it will be above ten, and everyone's highest card is ten. In this situation, players can still cover the cards but must use two cards to do so. One from their hand as usual, and another taken from the top of their deck, placed face down. Face down cards have a value too, and can be covered just like other cards. Typically they have lower values, and of course, do not show any animals artwork, so will not score any player any points. When a player places their last card they will immediately score one point for each face up animal of their chosen type. The other players will then continue as usual until they run out of cards. If any player who has finished has any of the scored cards covered by players in later turns, this will not affect their score. All players have a number of cards in their hands with artwork that shows their animal walking with an infant. Ten from their total deck of 20 in fact. When these are placed, players may choose if they wish to mark this half with a token. This means this half of the card is protected and cannot be covered by any card later in the game. You must choose carefully when to place these, thinking about which cards your opponents may try or want to cover. At the end of the game, when all players have placed all of their cards, the player with the most points is the winner. Is It Fun? Just Wild Card Game Review Before I come to the gameplay, I want to touch on the production. I applaud Helvetiq for creating such a sustainable and environmentally friendly product. It is clear from the slip case with no cellophane, and paper card holders, that everything has been considered with this production when it comes to being green. Well done to them for that. It must be said though that this does affect the quality. The cards are quite thin and the tokens feel quite cardboardy. With such a small box production, I wonder if there could be a balance here. Or if there are other methods than can be employed that deliver the same impact on the environment but with a slightly better finish for the user? But, I do want to be clear, the components are fine. They are not bad. They are just not up to the usual Helvetiq standards. I mention this with caution as I understand what has been attempted here, and it feels that the world and our children's future is the bigger picture over card stock! I mention purely for honesty. The gameplay however, absolutely is up to the usual Helvetiq standards. Like most Helvetiq games, this is incredibly easy to learn and teach, but still a lot of fun to play. I think it works best in a four player game. The two player is fine, and very fast. But does feel a little confrontational and full of take-that moments as you can only ever attack one other player. But in a three or four, where there is more choice and naturally a larger game area, the game opens up to more strategic choices. You don't want to let anyone run away with the lead, and as everyone has the same deck, games tend to be tight affairs, with all players being in with a chance right until the end. Being able to play seems to be the key. If ever you have cards in hand that are not of a high enough value to cover two other half cards, you are forced to play a card face down from your deck, which essentially wastes a card. Being able to prevent this and keep as many of your cards face up on the table is how you do well. Which admittedly has some luck to it. You only ever have three cards in your hand after all. As such, I wander if a better variant of the game would have allowed players to hold five cards instead of three? There is a lot of joy in creating little areas you can call your own though. Many board game designers seem to understand this and offer it within our hobby. Creating something, no matter how small or temporary feels good. Scoring that thing you have created gives your time some worth. Adding an see-saw nature to the control you have in what you can create by adding competitors makes it a game. With Just Wild, the elements of area majority have been distilled to its finest format and the result is an incredibly simple but fun game to play. I wonder if there could be just one or two more wrinkles to the gam though. It feels a little too light. I like the opportunity to add the tokens, but wonder if the artwork could have brought in a few other variants with some of your animals being in packs, or perhaps with other powers that allowed more strategic choices. This is Cascadia light. A very good thing! But maybe just a little too light. There is a delightful environmental message with this game though that must be applauded. Not just the theme and production, but also the preservation of the young animals over the old. Nurturing the next generation of these endangered species and putting more focus on the young. It has allowed for some wonderful conversations with my children that I otherwise might not have had. I would reccomend this game to any young family who have an interest in conseration or the environemt and are looking for a new game to play as a group after tea that brings both fun and conversation to the table.

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.