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Merchants of Karanor WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count:2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Venice, Explorers of the North Sea, Tales of Arabian Nights. Published by: FunkyHat Games This is a prototype copy provided for free by the publisher. The final game will have some minor changes to the art and components. Merchants of Karanor is live on Kickstarter now. You can find out more information here. At its heart, this is a pick-up-and-deliver game, but the game tries to create a full blooded story around your character and your travels. Let's pick it up and get it to the table to see if this delivers. (Snigger). Set Up Lay out the board and place a resource or local token on each space that shows the same symbol across the four islands. Place the rest to the side of the board. Give each player one city of origin tile, one backstory tile, and three commerce cards, as well as all the playing pieces in their chosen colour. Place your character marker and one building on your starting city as shown on your city of origin tile. Then take any resources, coins, and any coat of arms as described on your backstory tile. Place your income marker on the prescribed place as shown on your backstory, and place your notoriety marker on the zero space on the right hand side of the board. Finally, place one card for each player on the delivery space on the bottom right of the board, and gather the six associate tiles and place them below the board. All players will now pick one of their three commerce cards to keep, giving the other two to the player to their right in a draft system. You will then take one card from the two just passed to you, and discard the final third card. Each player should now be left with two starting cards. Your starting set up will now be complete, but you will be able to add additional coat of arms, associates, artifacts, and develop your income as the game progresses. It is from these variable components that makes each game start in a unique way for each player each game. How to Play On your turn, you can carry out any four actions each time. There are six options you can pick from. Moving. Collect resources. Working. Hire an Associate. Interact with a local. Make a delivery. Build a Villa. Or, build a commerce. Moving simply allows you to take your character pawn and progress your current travel limit on the board. You start with a movement speed of two but can gain additional move points via completing quests and gaining the traveller coat of arms. Collecting resources is done when you are on a space with a resource token. You do not take this token, rather you can take two tokens of that type from the resource pile. Working allows you to gain one coin. A simple way to gain money. Another is via hiring an associate who will initially gain you one resource of the type shown on their tile during each income phase, but if you flip this tile, they will then gain you extra one coin each round instead. Quests are gained by interreacting with a local. Move onto a space with a local token, remove it, and draw the top quest card. Some quests will be part of two connected quest, such as the San Talas Shipwreck card below. When you complete the first part, draw the second card from the second quest pile, and you can now try to fulfil this too. Most quests give you one point in exchange for taking specific goods to a certain place on the map. You can keep what you are doing secret, or read it out loud for all to hear for a more interactive immersive experience. The delivery cards act in a similar way, asking you to take specific items to a certain place but then rewarding you with money as well as points upon completion. They can only be done by one player, when they are completed they are removed from the game. So this adds a bit of a race element to the game, especially as the rewards for these cards is generally quite good. You can also move onto one of the spaces on the map that show the Villa symbol, pay eight coins, and place one of your houses onto this space. This will gain you one point. This action is limited to the five Villa spaces on the board. Finally, the last action available to you is build a commerce. In order to do this, you must be on a city location, with the right resources, an available house token, and an unused commerce card. This will gain you one point and you can advance your income marker one point, making your income each round now more profitable. You can then if you chose, pay the requirement shown in the text in the middle of the card and gain the secondary additional benefit. Each player can take any four of these actions, and as many of each as they like. You could just move four times if you wanted. When your actions are done, you will take your income, drawing money and any items your current engine generates. This will be based on where your income marker is positioned on your player board, and any items shown on any associates you have hired. You can also freely trade anything in the game you want with any other player, as long as they agree to it. This can be done at any point, with anyone, and with anything. This does not use any of your action points. You can also complete quests without taking an action. Generally this happens when you move to a certain space at the cost of a move action, whilst being in possession of the specific items you had previously gathered from a collect resources action. When you move onto the three and six spaces on the notoriety board, you will be instructed to draw a black market card. These cards will give you additional powers and opportunities, quite often to take items or money from other players. Note some cards have a 4 plus symbol on the bottom and are only meant to be used with the specific player counts. This carries on until someone reaches ten points. At which point if this is the last player who just had their turn, the game ends. Otherwise, all players have one more turn until they have had equal turns. In the case of a tie, if more than one player reaches ten notoriety points, then the player with the most coins win. Is it Fun? Pick-up-and-deliver is a limited mechanic. Is restricts a game to a fairly similar pattern of play. Merchants of Karanor develops this as far as the mechanic can go, offering multiple paths of scoring from this one mechanic. Pick up and take something from one place on the board to score points, either via a quest, constructing a commerce building, or making a delivery. It's all pretty much the same thing. Move, collect resource, move again, drop off resource, But it feels more than that. The game has gone the extra mile to bring a story to the game. Either via your own characters back story, or from the quests you undertake during the game. Some p[layers will be able to develop on this story and enhance their own game play experience. You can bring a real narrative sense of adventure to the table if you get into the back stories and quests. For others who don't want to do this, it could become quite abstract, and a simple race to move things around a board. Which side of this fence you fall depends on your own style of play and which games work for you. I enjoyed the sense of adventure this game brings to the table. Karanor is a bright, colourful world, full of exciting (if a little clichéd) stories. I liken it a little to Tales of Arabian Nights in this respect. If you enjoyed that game, then this will feel similar, a little more constructed and formed, but perhaps a little more enjoyable. It doesn't quite have the same crazy plot twists, but it has more structure and certainly more control in terms of game length. In essence, like most pick-up-and-deliver games, this is a race based on efficiency. Who can make the best decisions to collect the most points as quickly as possible through careful planing. There is some strategy too based on the options available. You could win this game without ever building a Villa for example. Conversely, you could win the game having built all of them. It very much depends on which route to victory you wish to employ. I very much enjoyed my time in Karanor. It is a wistful and adventurous place. I enjoyed moving around the board. Using and developing my skills. Becoming more efficient in my actions, and building up my own personal engine. I was conscious of the race element throughout, and this kept the tension high, my focus keen, and my engagement in the game strong. Pick-up-and-deliver certainly is not my favourite mechanic, but I enjoy the race, engine building, and character development in this game. However, my favourite part hands down is the constant sense of satisfaction you get throughout the game from completing lots of little tasks. Which in truth, does come from the pick-up-and-deliver mechanic. Being able to gain lots of small rewards, constantly feels good to me. I always liken this to a game of American Football versus Football. In Football, games are often won or lost by the odd goal. It is a huge moment in the game that the rest of the match builds up to and focuses around. This is seen in some board games where you work towards a big task that pays off with a massive reward. It feels great when you get there but it may not happen more than once per game. Whereas with American Football, there are constant moments of jubilation, not just when your team scores, but also when you defend a third down, or get a first down as the attacking side. Any time you score or course is the biggest cheer, but there are additional smaller moments throughout the encounter that all feel great too. They contribute to your overall sense of enjoyment from the experience. Merchants of Karanor feels like this. You are constantly getting a little buzz of dopamine for delivering a certain group of objects to a certain spot of the board. There is a real sense of satisfaction from this. It is not massive. But you are rewarded with this feeling regularly. I will be interested to see how this game does at kickstarter. I feel the pick-up-and-deliver mechanic and box art may put some people off, but if it does get a chance to shine, and get to your table, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Vengeance Roll & Fight WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Vengeance, 90's computer games, Escape: The Curse of the Temple Published by: Mighty Boards Designed by: Gordon Calleja, Noralie Lubbers, Dávid Turczi Vengeance came out in 2018 and received mixed reviews. It was essentially the board game version of living in a Quentin Tarantino inspired film. Kill Bill the board game! Some people loved it but others criticised the ruleset and said it may suit a roll-and-write style game more. Interestingly, it seems the designer Gordon Calleja may have listened to this because he then teamed up with Noralie Lubbers and Dávid Turczi and created Vengeance Roll & Fight a roll-and-write version of the game. Cleaning up the rules. Simplifying the game play. And adding in what others felt was missing. Let's set it up and see how it plays. Set Up Each player must take a player board and random den board, choosing one side to play on, along with a erasable marker. Then lay out 24, 35, or 46 dice depending on if there are two, three, or four players at the table. Each player will then choose from one of the four hero's to play as, and take the eight ability tiles, four items, the one hero trait card, and hero piece of their chosen character. They will play the hero piece on the start space on their den board, and lay the items on their player board with the ability tiles alongside it. Then shuffle the nine boss cards, and deal one to each player. Each person will then mark the health for their selected boss on their den board. Finally place the three flashback dice onto the flashback tile, and place this in the middle of the table for all to see. Play is ready to begin. How to Play The games works in four phases. The first is the flashback phase. This is where the three flashback dice are rolled and placed onto the flashback board. Players can then take the three flashback dice benefits, as well as adding one final benefit of their choice. This will allow players to either purchase a new ability to replace one of the four on their board. Or, players can increase their training or loot by marking of two or one space on the respective track. Alternatively, you could heal two injuries previously incurred or improve your total health by one. Or finally, 'recon' one ability, meaning you can mark it, to use it in phase three without having to assign dice to activate it in phase two. Increasing your training will allow you to add more advance abilities in later rounds. There are also points available at the end of the game if you reach the later stages of the training track. Purchasing allows you to activate one of your items to use in a later phase three. Looting is all about end game points, and getting as far up the track as possible. When all players have made their choices and upgraded as many abilities as they want to, phase two begins. All players will take four dice from the pool, and when all players are ready, begin rolling them, over and over, in real-time. There is no turn order here, and players can re-roll as many dice, as often as they want. Players are looking to match the symbols on their active abilities, so they can use them in phase three. All players begin with the same basic four abilities, but can upgrade them in phase one as discussed. In order to ready an ability to use in phase three, such as the DASH action, you need to roll two SPRINTS symbols, now in phase two. If you do, you can move those two dice close to your board so show it has been activated, then take two more dice from the pool so you have four again, and then start trying to roll dice to match another ability. Players can keep rolling like this until one of three things happen. Either players will roll all the dice needed for all four of their active abilities. Or the dice pool runs out, and you cannot draft back up to four again. Hence, players wanting to roll as quickly as possible so other players do not take all the dice first. Or, finally, players could roll too many blood symbols. When you roll a blood symbol, that dice cannot be used again. So, you will be down to three dice. However, if you ever roll more than one blood symbol at once, you can place one of them onto your health tracker on your board and get all the other dice back. This will force you to loose one health at the end of this phase, but keeps your rolling options alive to meet the requirement for any abilities that need two or three dice. When you match dice to an ability, you can then also take back any blood dice not placed onto your health tracker. So, this is how you can roll blood but then later try and achieve abilities that need four dice. This also shows how dice can be cycled through quickly and the group pool can run out. So, you better roll quick! When the rolling round is over, players will then use any abilities they activated in phase two, or any abilities they were able to activate in phase one with the RECON ability, now in phase three on the Den Board. Players are looking to move through rooms, clearing out any Minions, completing the Objectives, collecting loot, and finally reaching and defeating the end-of-level boss. Players will be doing this by moving, hitting, shooting, and other upgraded skills they acquire to get through the Den as efficiently as possible. There are multiple rooms and only four rounds to do this in. For your first few games, you will wonder how this is possible! But after learning the mechanics of this game, you will see how to become more organised and methodical with your actions. It comes together quickly. After all players have used all available actions, then the final Resolution phase begins. Here players will remove any Recon abilities they circled, and collect any Loot from new rooms they visited this round. When you enter a new room you will mark off that room on the board, and if that room has a white star in it, you can mark that off now, and also one loot on your player board for each star marked on your den board. Or, you can choose to take a loot flashback action, the available options in the first flashback phase. Any henchmen or boss still alive in the room you are in, or any gunman in an adjacent room will force you to loose one health at this point. If you fill your health track, you can clear all your wounds, but you will now be forced to use one less dice in the next rolling phase. Do this again and you will be dead. It is rare that this will happen, but there are only four rounds to get through. So, if it does, you won't have too long to wait. After the forth round, all players will score for how far they were able to advance in their loot and training tracks. They will score for all health taken from the boss, with a further five bonus points available if you were able to fully defeat the boss. Each completed room objective will score you additional points as shown on the Den board. Finally, players will loose one point for every enemy still alive in any room they visited. Work out your score, and the highest points total wins. Is it Fun? Vengeance Roll & Fight is a beautifully crafted game. The phases and rounds move incredibly smoothly and you will fly through each game in no time at all. We found that after a few games, after we were used to the rules and mechanics, we were taking between 20 and 25 minutes for each game. This felt perfect for a game like this because it feels so akin to a a video game, both in looks but also gameplay. You want a game like this to be fast, frantic, and full of fun. Vengeance Roll & Fight certainly delivers on all of that. The different Dens do not feel that diverse, but offer some variety game to game. Each of the four playable characters has a nice little twist to their weaknesses though. This is where the main replayability, other than you own desire to get better comes in. This game is less about positive variable player powers and more about asymmetric negatives. Each hero character has a unique trait that makes fighting with them harder. As much as I like gaining benefits in games, having a negative characteristic in this way works well. Everyone has flaws right? Why not in games! it is a clever way to make playing as each character a unique puzzle to work out. Each phase gives it's own individual sense of excitement to the game. Phase one is all about strategy and forward planning. It's nice to forward plan through all four rounds of the game. Thinking about how you best want to score this game. Phase two is all about thinking fast, getting lucky, and rolling quickly! Can you fulfil all four of your actions before the dice pool runs out, or you roll too many blood symbols. Phase three is all about careful planning of your route, whilst thinking about how you can maximise your points. There are a lot more rooms than you can initially get through, so you need to decide which rooms will score the most for you with your available actions. Each phase plays very different. But feel very connected. As you move from your main board to your player board, it's a little bit like moving from the save screen and sorting your items and character set up to the main action screen in a video game. So, as much as the two boards are separated, they do not feel disconnected. What does feel a little disconnected though is your own game with the other players around the table. The only time you interreact with the other players is during the rolling phase, where it may be that they take dice that were initially available to you away from your grasp. I suppose it wouldn't work being on the same Den as players would take enemies and items away from other players, but a larger Den board, with more items and bad guys to fight, in a co-op seems like a very cool idea. However, there is an option there... Having now played this game, I am very intrigued to try the original Vengeance but also, very keen to see how the recent kickstarter for Fateforge Chronicles of Kaan plays. Fateforge utilises some similar game mechanics to Vengeance Roll and Fight in a story-driven, co-operative, scenario based RPG, where all players are playing together on the same board. I would also like to get the second season, a stand-alone game, which adds more characters, items, bosses, dens, abilities and the opportunity to play this game in an eight! I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys roll-and-write games, was a fan of 90's and noughties side scrolling video fighting games, but enjoys the process of absorbing themselves into the game, without relying too much on other players and interaction with other people around the table to enjoy their game time. I very much enjoy the process of playing this game. It is very satisfying to develop my skills, and improve my score. Which is something that I have seen happen to most people who have played this. A few people will get this right away. But most will improve their skills and understanding of the mechanics over time, and will see a steady progression in their points game after game. Vengeance Roll & Fight is one of my favourite roll-and-write games. I love the theme, and the integration between the gameplay, mechanics, and setting is seamless. I very much enjoy developing my understanding of this game, and scoring well is wildly satisfying. Every game ends with me wanting to play again, and in fact, that's exactly what I am going to do now!

Gardeners WBG Score: 8 Player Count:1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Magic Maze, Galaxy Trucker, Pakal. Published by: Sit Down! Designed by: Kasper Lapp This is a prototype copy provided for free by the publisher. The final game will have extra cards, and potentially some minor changes to the art. Back in 2017 Kasper Lapp decided to bring a world of fun/stress to everyone's lives, with potentially the most passive-aggressive game component ever made, the "DO SOMETHING!" pawn in Magic Maze. Even the name split opinion. I was a big fan, but a lot of people did understandably find it very stressful, overly tense, and essentially the cardboard conduit to family arguments. But the game did offer something interesting. A cooperative, real-time, campaign game with limited communication with a wonderful learning curve. This fascinated me and I have followed designer Kasper Lapp with great interest ever since. Lapp's latest release, Gardeners brings back more real-time, limited communication, in a campaign (of sorts). This time with a pattern recognition mechanic, and garden theme. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. Set Up There are three training modules, as well as a beginner and normal mode. Depending on which one you are doing, the instructions will show you which cards and tiles to take. Separate the tiles into equal piles and place them face up in front of each player. If you are using it, (depending on which module or game version you are playing) place the sand timer into a central space, determine who will be the first player and flip over the timer to start the game. How to Play You will now have 15 minutes to complete the cards in the game you are playing. In the main normal or beginner game, this is all of the cards. In the training modules, this will be the specific cards to that module. The game asks you to play through the three modules and then the beginner mode before you play the full game. I did this on my first go, and it was fun. A good way to learn the game and a nice little 'campaign.' But in later plays with other players, I did go straight to the normal mode and it was fine. Perhaps this wouldn't be ideal for two new players though. But if one person knows the game, I don't think it's necessary to go through all the modules unless you want too. At the start of the game, all tiles will be in front of each player in piles. Players can add them into a central play area, forming a 4x4, 5x5, or 6x6 grid. Depending on which module you are playing. The normal game plays with a 6x6. You can play as many tiles as you like, as often as you like, when ever you like. This game is in real-time. There are no turns. You can place your tiles wherever you like as long as they touch another tile orthogonally. (On the sides, top or bottom). Obviously the first tile can go anywhere. At the start, players will simply be trying to get their tiles down as quickly as possible, meeting the criteria of the one single card that has thus far been drawn. When all the tiles are down, if the card requirements have been satisfied then the person who drew that card, declares a group success, and the next person round the table will draw the next card. Players will then try to rework the grid of tiles to satisfy the new card, whilst maintaining the first cards requirements as well. To do this, you can take tiles out from the grid and pass them to other players for them to put back into another location. You cannot take tiles out and replace them yourself. The grid will be re-worked like this until it meets both cards requirements. At which point the person who draw that second card will declare success, and a third card will be drawn by the next player, or the first player again in the case of a two-player game. When this is done, the next player will draw a forth card, but the first card will now be "scored". It is removed from the game, and it no longer needs to be considered. So, you will only ever have three cards maximum to work to. Play will continue like this until the 15 minute timer runs out, or all the cards are completed. At which point you will score points based on how many 'scored' cards you managed to work through. In the other versions of the training modules you will just need to work through the five or six cards. But in the main game, you keep going until the timer runs out. There are way more cards than there is time to do them. So, it is about your score, not time. Here's the Twist(s)! Sounds simple right. And it would be if this was it. But just like Magic Maze, in Gardeners you cannot talk to other players during the game. When you are taking tiles out and placing it in front of other players for them to replace into a new location, they may have no idea where to put that tile. Or know why you took it out. Because... wait for it, there is another twist. When a player draws a card, only they can look at it. The other players can only see the reverse of the card which will give limited information as to what that card requires, but not the full and exact details. Only the player that draws it will know this, and they cannot tell the other players what is specifically needed. The cards are mainly about building patterns. A line of flowers. Greens must be in at least groups of two. Paths must be at least two tiles long. But there are also cards that are a little different. No pinks on the outside edge. A bench must face another bench. All reds must be on the outer rows. On the reverse of the card, all players will know what type it is. But the exact card, colour or specific tile will not be revealed to all players, just the one person who draws it. For example, this card tells the other players it requires a bench to face some thing specific. They just won't know exactly what that is. Is it Fun Enjoying Gardeners will be reliant upon two major factors. How much you enjoy the pressure of working against a timer in real-time. And doing so collaboratively, relying on another player to understand your intentions, when you are unable to talk to them. I appreciate how this will not be for everyone. But for those of you who do enjoy this sort of game, Gardeners does this very well. I think the success of a game like this comes from the risk/reward scale. How much risk is there of you or your fellow team mates getting frustrated by the game or each other. How much reward will come if this go well. This is why games like The Mind polarise so much. Some people find huge satisfaction to doing well in that game. And the euphoria from winning, or even just doing ok, is enough to cover the frustration when you don't so well. Whether Gardeners has enough reward to make up for the intentional frustrations born from the limited communication and real-time nature of the game will be up to you. But I will try and distill it now for you so you can make an educated decision prior to playing the game. First up, let's talk about the rewards. Under pressure, with limited communication, when you get this right cooperatively, it feels good. Really good. And let's face it, the things that feel better in life are generally the things we have had to work harder for. And this certainly does take a bit of work. And in games, I think most people are ok with a bit of work. People don't mind games being hard if they are workable. Hard is different to broken. But I would argue this is not even hard. It just takes a moment to get into the groove. Again, like The Mind, in Gardeners you do need to sync with your fellow players. Getting into a similar head space. Which brings me onto the risk. If you are not in the same head space as the other player(s), but think you are, then other player(s) will start doing things that to you seem silly. Whereas that other player would obviously not be playing badly on purpose, and they may think that what you are doing is wrong. Or maybe they or you, or both of you are just confused. Either way, this will lead to frustration for all players. I have found that in this situation, you need to just pause. Reset your mind, and go again. But in Gardeners, you cannot do this. When you flip the timer, you won't ever pause the game. You do not stop until the game ends. There is no rest. No opportunity to pause and collect your thoughts. And this non-stop pressure can get to some people. For me, I really enjoy this sort of game and the pressure it creates if I am in the right headspace. But then, what game does not work better when you are in the right head space. So, that may not be a fair criticism, or even comment. But I would say that this game does rely a little more on players being mentally prepared for it more than most other games. But when they are in the right place, and things click, this game feels like such a joy. You feel in sync with the other players. Working collectively, in silence, towards a common goal. And the satisfaction that comes from this quiet efficiency is wonderful. I get a real sense of achievement from playing this game. It binds me to the other players I am playing with. I take a lot of satisfaction from beating previous scores and seeing if I can improve with my teammate(s). This is just a preview, but I have given it a score as the game feels complete to me. However, there will be additional cards that add more to the gameplay which I am very excited about trying in the final retail copy. I would highly recommend this game to anyway that enjoy real-time coop games with limited communication, and is looking to add something unique to their collection that rewards good team work, and concertation. I await the final game with great anticipation!

Shifting Stones WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Cascadia, Azul, Coatl Published by: Gamewright Designed by: J. Evan Raitt There are some games that pass you by because they have a generic name, or unappealing cover. We can't all play every game (as much as I try!) so this is fine. We have to filter out some games, some how! But there are a few games that go unnoticed for these reasons when they deserve so much more. At risk of spoilers, (not that you haven't already looked at the score out of ten) Shifting Stones is one of these games. It looks somewhat generic, but offers a brilliant game experience. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. Set Up Setting up Shifting Stones can be done in under a minute. Simply lay out the nine tiles in a random order in a three-by-three grid like the below. They are all double sided so it doesn't matter which way they lie. Then shuffle the cards and deal each player four cards and give each player a reference guide card. The darker card goes to the starting player. You are now ready to begin. How it Plays Learning and teaching the game is just as simple. Players will now take it in turns to play as many cards from their hand as they wish. Cards can be use for one of three things. You can either discard a card to flip two adjacent tiles position with each other, or to flip over a tile to show the reverse side. Or you can meet one of the cards placement criteria to score points. Each card has a number showing how many points the mission is worth, and a few tiles laid out showing what you need to match on the grid to achieve this mission. You can play as many cards as you like. All four, or none if you prefer. If you choose none, you can draw two extra cards to have six available to you on your next turn. You cannot take this option twice in a row. After playing cards, draw back up to four cards and then play moves to the next player. In a two player game, when one player completes their tenth mission the game ends on that round. For a three player game it's nine. Eight missions for a four player and seven for a five player. Players will total their points from completed missions, with the player who completed the most missions with a value of one being given a bonus of three points. The player with the most points wins. The missions vary from having certain coloured tiles in a specific orientation and position on the grid. Sometimes next to other tiles. Other times in certain positions next to any other tile. When a gray tile is shown, this means this can be any tile. Remember, any card can be used to move tiles, or flip them over. So if there is a mission that looks too tricky based on the current configuration of the board, use it to complete other missions instead. The trick of the game is decided which cards to use as missions, and which to use to manipulate the board. There is a solo variant where you sort out 16 cards made up of eight one pint card, four two pointers, three lots of three pointers, and one five point card. On your turn, if you fail to complete a card you gain one strike. The game ends if you collect four strikes. You win if you can score all 16 cards. it works very well and only takes ten minutes in total. Is it Fun Shifting Stones is so simple to set-up, learn and play, and looks fairly generic, but this game is fantastic. It is so satisfying to play. Constantly completing little missions throughout games is a feature I always enjoy. You are regularly rewarded throughout the game and feel good for the entirety of the game. Win or loose. The game is a race game. First to required completed missions ends the game. But this won't mean you will win if you get there first, or loose if you don't have the required missions. As each mission is worth a different amount of points, you could win the game with less missions if you chose harder cards with a higher point value. There are a lot of ways to try and win this game. But don't forget the single point missions reward the player with a bonus of three additional points for the person who completes the most of them. And as the single point mission are the easiest and quickest to complete, you could race through these a lot quicker. If you notice one player is doing this, I have found that often other players will follow suit to avoid not falling too far behind. And if they don't it will be tricky to beat them. But ideally, you want a balance of high and low scoring cards to be most effective. If you want to try and complete some more complicated missions for the higher rewards you need to bear in mind that the board will change significantly between the end of one turn and the start of another. Other players will be moving and flipping tiles too, and changing the layout to suit them. Not just you. You cannot make changes and expect them to still be there on your next turn. However, this can of course work in your favour if you get lucky. You will always have four potential missions in your hand, and in most games, I have found there is at least one occasion when the board develops into a mission I was not planning on going for from the movement of other players. To do well in this game I think you need to adapt and react to the board you are presented and complete the missions best suited to the board in front of you. Each tile is double sided, and it can take a few games to get your head round the configuration of each one. Thankfully the game comes with these handy reference guides showing you what is on either side of each tile. You will be referring to this a lot in your first few games! But it is no chore, and very easy to read. They also show the entirety of the rules on the other side! I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a new abstract strategy game that can be played quickly, but delivers a high sense of satisfaction. This is a perfect filler game in that it can be played in a short space of time, set-up and taught quickly, but still brings a feeling that you have played a proper game. It will test you mind. And leave you feeling like you have enjoyed the process of battling against your friends. All in under 20 minutes. It is hard to describe how satisfying it is to play this game because there is so little to it. Which is a terrible thing to say in a review! But it certainly feels like Shifting Stones brings a lot to the table, without any complicated rules or components. Simple beauty. Simple efficiency. A beautiful puzzle to try and solve, game after game.

Skate Summer WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Clank! Tony Hawks video games. Skateboarding! Published by: Pandasaurus Games Designed by: Randy Reiman Were you into Tony Hawks when you were younger? Yeah! me too. I was obsessed. I still have my signed PS2 copy. So many hours of my life went into that game. Sadly, when I tried to get on a board in real life I was never quite as good! But I tried. For a few weeks at least. Thankfully, in my 40's, Pandasaurus has spared us all more scrapped knees and sore wrists by making a board game all about skate boarding. Sounds cool? Well, let's get it to the table to see how it plays. Set Up Lay out the main board into the centre of the table and then place one large and then one small goal token face down onto each circular space. Place the endgame marker on either 50, 70, or 90 points depending on what game length you want. Shuffle the trick deck and special trick deck and place them face down by the board along with the flame and manual tokens and dice. Then, each player will choose one player to play as, and will take their coloured board, skateboard mini, player landing marker, and score marker. Each player will set their board up with each upgrade space covered with the appropriate marker. Place the balance token into the centre of the balance track, and give each player five trick cards, one manual move token, and a skill cube of each colour which they place into the bottom space of their skill tracks. Finally, place your skater meeple into the central space of the board. You are now ready to play. How it Plays The object of the game is to collect as many points by doing trick combos with your cards, that score you skill points. But also allow you to move around the main board, and collect items, upgrade your board, and visit each of the "S", "K", "A", "T", "E", and "R" locations. The game works in three main phases as well as a final clear up phase. The first of these is where players will simultaneously try and play as many of their tricks cards onto the board as possible. This is a brilliantly tense push-your-luck phase of the game where each card you play increases your points in phase two, and your movement options in phase three. But also increases the risk of bailing. As you play each card, you need to move your balance accordingly. Tricks will give you flame or goal tokens, and the more you get, the more your balance is upset. Once the card is played you must then roll one dice per card played, plus the direction dice, telling you which way your balance could be upset further by the balance dice. So, the more cards you play, the more dice you must roll. And the riskier it will become that you will loose your balance and bail. If you do, you must remove the final card you just played and half of your flame tokens. If you don't bail you can then either carry on, or land your trick. If you land your trick without bailing you can then advance one of your skill cubes. It's quite a big difference between success and failure. But you can control your luck to some extent. As you play the cards, you can choose which way you move your balance token. You can try to re-balance each trick. And there is the opportunity to improve your balance on both the right and left side by visiting the upgrade slots on the main board. As the game progresses you become a better skater and will be able to play more cards with less risk. If you managed to get any cards into the space on your board under the diamond shaped special trick token, you can take the top card of the special trick deck. These can be used now as extra cards to play on your board, or saved for the third phase. As soon as players bail or land you must then place your landing token onto the landing track on the left side of the main board. This will determine the movement order in the third phase and reward each player with a certain benefit. Once each player has either landed or bailed, you will then move to the second phase and score each card played that is still on your board, based on your current position on the skill track. Big points are awarded for big tricks. It feels great! At this stage, you can use the flame tokens you have earnt to upgrade your skill track to earn more points, or save them for the third phase. In the third phase, you are now moving around the main board. Any card you played in the first phase can be used to help you move. Each hex on the main board has a coloured ramp or rail. You must play the matching coloured card to move onto this space. You can also use any free movement manual tokens, or special trick cards as wild cards to move onto any space. If you move onto a space with a token on, you can pick it up in exchange for one flame token. These will get you various bonuses such as points, extra movement, as well as the goal icons which score with an area majority rule at the end of the game. The player with the most of each icons gets eight points. Four points for the player in second. Players are looking to move around to each of the upgrade spaces, whilst collecting points. If you visit all six of the upgrades spots you will gain a bonus of ten points at the end of the game. There are a few short cut spaces on the board including revert ramps and the central big air space, which allow you to jump forward a number of spaces. The big air space is controlled by the big air dice. When you move to this space you can roll this dice and move forward up to four spaces in any one direction. When every one has played all the movement cards and manual tokens they want, the clean up phase occurs. If anyone has reached the end goal points total then this will be the last round. If not, each player will retrieve their landing marker, reset their balance, deal back up to their hand limit, and pass the first player marker. A next round will then begin. Is it Fun Skate Summer is so much fun. Each phase feels very different, but also quite connected. I love multi-use cards, and in this game the cards use feels quite unique. As it is not that you can choose to use them for different things, it's more that you are always using them for different things. In phase one you are using them for tricks, trying to pick the card that will best keep your balance, but also score you as many points as possible in phase two. But you also need to pay close attention to what coloured cards you will need for movement in phase three, whilst concentrating on the benefits the cards will give you immediately in phase one. It's such a great thought process. Each card will be used three times. Each round. For multiple purposes. Choose wisely! I love the push-your-luck element in phase one. It feels so tense to play additional cards beyond the first two or three. The way the number of dice you have to rolls ramps up, but the higher rewards for each card played balances this off is so good. As you can use each card three times for re-balancing and getting special trick cards, points, and movement, there is always the temptation to push your luck. Despite the punishment for bailing being quite high. I don't mind push-your-luck punishing you when the rewards are high. This is what makes a good push-your-luck game. High risk. But also, high reward. Skate Summer does this brilliantly. The points on offer in phase two really ramp up. As you get the ability to play more cards by increasing your hand limit and improving your balance skills, you will advance from stopping at three or four cards, to five, six or even beyond, within a few rounds. Then, when you move into phase three, the game changes quite a lot. It goes from a push-your-luck card management game, into a point-to-point grid movement bonus collection game. Both feel very different from each other, but beautifully connected within the same game. As you make this switch from the different phases and parts of the game multiple times across the many rounds you play, it feels seamless. Switching just the once would feel jarring. But moving backwards an forwards between the two makes it work well. I see it as going from up a close up, insular look at my skater mind. Planning my tricks and looking closely at my board. Then, moving to performing those tricks with a more top down look at my skater from a third person perspective. In my mind, I am just switching the viewing angle on the screen. Everything in this game works brilliantly with the theme. The art, names of the tricks, use of different tokens and the meeples. It feels to me like the designers of this game have really done their research to create a skater game for the masses, but that real skaters would respect too. It all just works so seamlessly. Looks so great. And has a real sense of development as you play, advance your skaters abilities, and start scoring bog points. I always enjoy games where there are different ways to score, and Skate Summer delivers this. At first, it will feel like the main way to score if in phase two. Scoring for the cards you played in phase one. But as the game develops you will become more aware of the other ways to improve your score. The area majority scoring with the three goal tokens is a very interesting addition in this game. I love every part of it other than the three random icons they chose. I guess we are collecting spray cans to paint some street art, or tag our name somewhere? And perhaps the crates are to help build some ramps and do some tricks on? Or is this because the very first skate boards were made from old crates? But what is the school bell for? Are we setting or the alarm? Or excited school is over? Or breaking in? The characters in the game feel a little old for this, and I am not sure all skaters are criminals?! Just feels odd to me. Anyway! The idea is fun. And I like how all the tokens you can pick up on the main board have these symbols on, so you can chose which ones to go for in order to try and win the area control part on each of these three icons. But they also have a secondary benefit hidden underneath as well. I like the art of the different characters in the game. They look great and the names are a good example of how fans of the game can come together and vote on suggested names to create a better theme and game. It is just a shame there are no unique powers for each skater. It would seem like a very obvious and easy additional to have a small amount of asymmetric powers in the game where each skater has a special signature trick only they can do. Or a power where they can do extra combos, get bigger air when jumping, or score more points for certain tricks. It would make choosing which character to play as a little more interesting. Playing Skate Summer for the first time, I fell in love with it instantly. I love the theme and feel they have delivered on this perfectly. The various phasing in the game work so well and integrate together perfectly to form a seamless experience that feels as close to performing tricks and riding around a city as sitting down at a table and playing a game could. The colours and art style nod perfectly to the culture without being too touristy, whilst the names, icons, and rules do not alienate people who are not skaters. I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a board game this is bright, colourful, fun, and offers a theme that is original and unique, and one that might appeal to a younger audience. But still a game that still delivers some crunchy, fun decisions, that will make you feel like you have played a proper game at the end of it. it is hard to see what came first in this game. The mechanics or the theme. I assume theme. But the mechanics work brilliantly with this world and have been built into the skating world in a very cleverly crafted way. Anyone who is moderately interested in skating and board games will be in heaven with this game. That is an obvious target audience. But I also think people like me who were never out on a board much but are fans of the skating video games will absolutely adore this. Kudos to Panadsaurus for taking on this ambitious theme and delivering it in such a good way. The only real downside I can see is that it has made me itchy to get my old board out and try again. And I think we all know that this will only end in one way!

Kites WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Captain Sonar, Magic Maze, Escape: Curse of the Last Emperor. Published by: Floodgate Games Designed by: Kevin Hamano Rule book here Just look at this box. So serene. So calm. Doesn't it just make you want to go and fly a kite? And sing that song! Ahhhhh. Lovely. Ok, well remove all those relaxed thoughts from your mind, as things are about to get tense! Kites is a real-time cooperative team game that brings elements of Magic Maze and The Mind to the table. With all the stress of those games, but also, all the joy of victory. Making it so addictive and fun to play. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. Set Up Place all the sand timers into the centre of the table on their sides. Space them out a bit so people can grab them from all sides. We quite like to order them in time order, so it is easier to play the game. As each timer has a different length, I would certainly suggest doing this for your first few frantic games! The red is the quickest at 30 seconds. The orange runs for 45 seconds, the yellow and white are a minute, blue is 75 seconds, and the purple is the longest at a minute and a half. Then separate the expansion cards, unless you are trying to strike down upon your friends great vengeance and furious anger. With the remaining cards, shuffle the deck and deal three, four, or five cards each depending on player count. Each card has either one or two coloured symbols on. The colours represents the kites/timers, and when played, you must flip the associated sand timer over. There is no white colour on any of the cards, but this timer can be flipped with any single colour card. When everyone is ready, the game is started by the white timer being flipped. How to Play Players will now take it in turns to play one card, re-drawing from the communal deck to their full hand size each time. As cards are played, timers will be flipped. The idea is that all players will be trying to keep all the kites in the air, by not letting the timers run out. Players are working together in this process. There are no communication limits. So, you can calmly point out to your friends which timers may be coming close to running out. Or, your choice, scream wildly "red, red, someone flip the red!" If any of the timers run out, that is game over for all the players. You can check your score based on how many cards are left in your hands, but let's face it, you lost, Move on and try again. But if you manage to keep them all up and play all the cards, you win the game! When the deck runs out and players can no longer re-draw, the white timer can now no longer be flipped, so the intensity increases as players rush to play all the cards in their hand, still in turn, before the white timer runs out. Flipping the white timer over just before the deck runs out is a key part to your success. Is it Fun? Kites is frantic fun. If you don't like real-time games, or playing under a time pressure, you will not enjoy this game. But if you enjoy the communal satisfaction, of working towards a team task, under a time pressure, this could well become one of your favourite little card games ever made. I absolutely adore this game. I find huge satisfaction from winning this game with my friends. And when we loose, which is far more common, I just want to play again and again until we win. But I have not found this to be the case with all of the people I have played this with. So, my score for this game must be taken with a pinch of salt. You need to make your own mind up based on how much you enjoy this sort of game. As the game moves so fast you don't really get the opportunity to enjoy the art on the cards. But here, whilst we are not playing, take a moment to appreciate the work of Beth Sobel. It's gorgeous. Beth is the genius behind Wingspan, Cascadia, and Arboretum, to name just a few. Quite a resume. The three mini expansions are a nice add on. If you get to a point with your group where you are winning all the time, they are a nice add in. I personally just like the purity of the base game and don't feel the need to make the game harder. But they are a nice, simple addition. Just add them into the deck before you shuffle and deal some cards out. The Storm card is my favourite. When you draw this card, you must say out loud "A storm is coming" to warn all the other players what is about to happen. On your next turn you must play this card and immediately flip all of the timers. When you draw the Crossed Lines card, you have to keep this secret. Like the Storm card, when you draw the Crossed lines card you must play it on your next turn and announce "Crossed lines." All players must then swap one card from their hands with the player to the left, and with the player to their right. The final mini expansion is the Airplane card. Like the Crossed line card must be kept secret when drawn, and like both other expansions must be played immediately on your next turn. This time, saying "Airplane." The noise from the plane means that no players can talk until the airplane is covered up by another card on the person that played this card's next next turn. This creates a huge amount of pointing, humming and grunting! Frustrating fun! I would recommend this game to anyone who got to the end of the Mind, and each time enjoyed the process win or loose. People who like the challenge of a cooperative game, that can be frantic, that can be loud, that can result in more loses than wins. But that delivers a huge sense of satisfaction when do you come together as a group, play well, and win. Kites is an acquired taste, that is for sure. I have seen all sorts of people try this one, and it certainly isn't for everyone. But I love it. I love the feeling of working together in this way. Yes, it is hectic and sometimes stressful, but with that pressure comes a greater sense of achievement when it all comes together. I am not really a "high-five" kind of guy, But when I win this game, high fives are flying around all over the gaff! Some games build up over time, helping you to feel satisfied by a well developed, smart strategy. Kites comes out of the blue, jumps right into your face, screams at you for two minutes, and then rewards you with juicy Dopamine in large doses. And I'm all for that!

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years From Home WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Explorers of the North Sea, Jaws, Horrified. Published by: Prospero Hall Designed by: Funko Games E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years From Home is recent board game version of the hugely popular Steven Spielberg movie from 1982. The film is famous for its touching, family-friendly moments of magic, sci-fi, and comedy. Can the board game version recreate these feelings? Let's get it to the table and find out. Set Up First place the main board down into the centre of the table. Shuffle the E.T. powers cards and place three face up by the board with the rest in a face down deck. Then take all the item tiles, mix them up, and place one in each space on the board, avoiding the clearing in the top left of the board, and the three areas with a coloured dice symbols in. Place the mothership on its starting space half way up the right hand side of the board. Then, each player will choose who they want to play as and will take their mini, player board, and matching agent of their chosen colour. Place the mini on the bottom right space on the board and the agent near the top left on the agent marker space. Add the agency named Keys to this space too. This agent will be chasing E.T. Add the cop cars to spaces A, B, and C. And place the E.T. figure next to the spaces where the kids start. Place E.T.s health tracker next to the board with his health set to six. Take three candy tokens and place these next to a reference sheet, putting the other candy tokens next to the dice to form a pool. You are now ready to start. How to Play Starting with the last person to ride a bike, players will now take it in turns to try and save E.T. You will do this buy building three device dice out of items you find lying around the neighbourhood, attracting E.T.s mothership to Earth, and getting E.T. to the rendezvous point, whilst avoiding the agents out to get you. On your turn, you can take up to three basic actions and as many free actions as you choose. Basic actions include moving your mini up to two spaces, including along the diagonal shortcuts only accessible to the kids. You can pick up a Candy which can be used for a free action later to move E.T. to tempt him along one space. Or, you can pick up an item in a space near you. The free actions include dropping an item or Device dice you are holding, picking up or dropping E.T. in the space you are in, using an E.T. power if you currently have E.T. in your basket, teaming up with a kid on your space to use their power and/or move them with you, and finally moving E.T with Candy as we mentioned above. After using your three actions, if you have built a device and taken it to the cleaning, you can now roll any dice there. Any phone symbols rolled will bring the mothership one space closer to the clearing. If you can get the mothership to the clearing when E.T. is in one of the four spaces surrounding this then all players win the game. After you have had your three actions and rolled the device dice, you must then roll the two black dice, and the red danger dice if you have finished your move on the same space as another kid or E.T. These dice will move the cop cars closer to the clearing along their pre-designated paths, or move the agents closer to you and E.T. If all three cop cars make it to the clearing, all players loose. If an agent or cop car ever ends on your or E.T.'s space then you are caught. E.T. looses a health, you drop all your items into a nearby space, and you must move back to the starting space. If E.T.'s health drops to zero, all players loose. The way you build the device dice is buy bringing three, four, or five items (depending on which difficulty you want to play) of the same colour to each dice spot on the board, and then bringing or moving E.T. to that space to covert the items to the dice. One player must then pick up the dice and drop it off into the clearing so it can be rolled after each player's turn. You can win the game without making all three devices, but of course the more you make, the quicker you can get the mothership to the clearing. And the whole time you are doing this, the agent's will be after you, so you need to act as quickly as possible. As the agents move, you can partly choose which direction they go, but it must always be the quickest route to their assigned kid. But you can use this knowledge to try and out-manoeuvre them, to avoid detection. When you take a dangerous action, you need to roll the danger dice an extra time. Dangerous action include moving by or past an enemy, or picking up an item near an enemy. However, some of the kids have unique player powers that help them avoid this. This game is all about cooperation and getting each player to utilise their abilities so that your group works as efficiently as possible. "Teaming Up" so that you can move other players on your turn, to make their turn when it comes around more effective is a key action. But remember, if you end on the same space as another kid you will have to roll the danger die. Discussing with your group the best way to enact your turn will be key. Is it Fun? Playing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years From Home Game is a great experience. If you are a fan of the film (and if you're not, then you must be dead inside, a lot younger than me, or perhaps a victim of alien abduction) then you will love this. The art is straight from the movie. Not in terms of stills, but the style and wistfulness. It's beautiful and takes me straight back to my parents ugly polyester coach from the 80's when I first watched this movie and fell in love with a tiny, wrinkly, little alien. I love cooperative games like this. Games where you can pause, strategise, and decide as a group the best course of action. There is a real sense of jeopardy throughout this game. The agents are often only a few spaces from you, but you can with clever play, avoid their grasp, and keep E.T. safe. You can of course take more risks, but this again is your choice. It's fun to plan out a risky move, only to be told by another player that they can do this risk free with their special skill, and you then realise you can do something else, more effective, and less risky. But sometimes, you just have to throw the dice, and hope that luck is on your side. Utilising the power cards is crucial. In my first few games, I was too sparing with these. And I lost. But each time you use one from the three that are face up, the one you used is immediately replaced from the deck. And if you run out of the deck, you can shuffle up the discard pile and go again. As such, you may as well use them whenever they are useful. But as you can only us them when you are carrying E.T. I found our games quickly became like a game of catch with this poor little alien. We were passing him about like a ball, keeping him away from agent Keys, bringing him to the spots where he could make the devices, and using him for his power cards. I would love to see a GPS tracker of E.T.s movement around the town after a game of this! Each game of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years From Home Game feels tense. Every time I have won it has been very close in terms of E.T.s health. Each time I have lost, I have felt like I was very close to winning. It is so easy to adjust the difficulty by changing the amount of items you need to make the devices, this game is perfect for any age or time period you have to play. As changing the required items not only makes the game easier or harder, it adjust the game length to suit your group too. I love this option and wish more games offered this. It feels like a real adventure playing this game. It is simple enough for all my family to play, but offers a strong enough reward that keeps us all wanting to come back. Game after game. All to save that little alien! I would recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the original film. It will take you right back to the hazy 80's when hair was big, your fizzy drinks were full of sugar, and the summer evenings seemed to never end. This is a time capsule of a game, and has been produced to a very high spec. I will treasure this game as much as I will enjoy playing it, and can see this coming out over the festive holidays, just after we have all enjoyed watching the movie, and with me sat at the table, a broad smile on my face, and my family around me.

Sagrada WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Roll Player, Azul Published by: Floodgate Games Designed by: Adrian Adamescu, Daryl Andrews By Steve Godfrey Ok everyone be honest. You’re all here because you’ve seen the box cover and you’ve heard about the 90 pretty, colourful dice right? Yeah of course you are. I’m not sure my pictures will quite do it justice but whilst you're here would you like to hear about the brilliant game that goes along with this swath of dice and colour? Yeah of course you do. Are you Familia with the Rules? Set up by giving each player window frame board and two random double sided window pattern cards. They’ll then choose a side of one card and slot it into their frame. Give each player a number of favour tokens based on the number of pips on the bottom of the card they just picked. These pips also indicate how difficult the window is to complete. Give each player a secret objective and then place out three tool cards and three public objective cards. The first player each round will draw a number of dice out of the bag and roll them. Dice will be drawn equal to the number of players times two plus one. So for a three player game you’ll have seven dice. The first player then drafts a die and places it in their window. This will carry on until you get to the last player who will then draft two dice. At this point the draft will go back the other way and eventually end with the first player. The last die leftover will go on the round tracker as a round marker. When you place a die in your window you will have some restrictions. The first die you place must be placed on one the edges which makes sense. Many windows have been broken from people trying to float pieces of glass in mid air. From then on any die you place must be adjacent to another one, diagonally adjacent counts. You can’t place dice of the same colours or the same numbers next to each other (diagonal is fine). Some spaces in your window will have coloured spaces in them meaning you must place a die of that colour in that space, likewise some will have numbers in them and these must be filled with dice of that number. On their turn players may also use the tool cards. These have special abilities like, letting you swap dice on your board, change a drafted dice or letting you pick one from the round tracker instead. To use these you must pay for it using your favour tokens. The first time each tool is used only costs one token. Every time it’s used after that will cost two tokens. After 10 rounds players will score for their private objectives in which you’ll score the sum total of the pips of the coloured dice that’s shown on your card. Then score the public objectives, one point for each favour token you’ve not used and lose one point for each empty space on their window. Are you familiar with Sagrada Familia? There seems to be an increasing amount of games these days that look beautiful on the table and give off a nice chilled out relaxing vibe to them, you’d even be tempted to play them in front of the fireplace for the ultimate relaxing experience. In actuality they’ll have you reaching for the paracetamol and needing to go for a little lay down the minute you’ve finished playing them. Sagrada is definitely in that family and at one point I would say was the head of the household. That’s not to say that better games have come to challenge it, they’ve just upped the cuteness to brain burn factor. It's that exact brain burn and brilliant puzzle that keeps bringing me back to Sagrada time and time again. Regardless of if you pick an easy or a more difficult window, you're going to be presented with a challenge that will keep you engaged for the entire game. I’m going to stop here and give you some advice, it’s weird advice but it may be of use. Make sure you’ve got warm hands! Why? you ask. Because you’re going to be spending so much time with your head in your hands fretting over your player board that the last thing you’re going to want is cold hands to put your head in. This is going to be a common site around the table as you play sagrada. The beauty and the tension. I realise I’m presenting this game as something only top Mensa members will be able to figure out. It’s not that at all. If you were to strip it back and were just given a window and all the dice you’d be able to fill it up in a couple of minutes. In fact, Sagrada is a game that I’ll happily introduce to newer gamers. The challenge comes when you introduce dice, randomness, scoring objectives and other people. I know those first two words will send any Eurogamers running for the hills. Normally too much randomness in a game isn’t something that’s always praised in games and most games try their best to mitigate that as much as they can. In Sagrada though it’s the thing that gives this puzzle its bite. Which colours come out of the bag, what numbers are rolled and which of those you get to choose from all pull together to give this game a fantastic amount of tension. At the beginning of the game every dice has potential to slot neatly into your board, opening up avenues to fulfil those objectives. But as the game goes on those decisions get tighter and tighter as eventually only certain dice of certain colours will do. It’s at these moments as the game ramps up that you start looking towards those tool cards and start muttering to yourself as you try and work out how you can possibly shuffle things around to try and eek out a few extra points here and there and, more importantly, not have to leave a (what feels like) a gaping hole in your window. The one thing that you’ll notice about Sagrada is that the puzzle itself is relatively easy but being able to get what you need to complete that puzzle is something else entirely. Every round you’ll see those dice drawn from the bag and you’ll spot the colour you need, brilliant you think to yourself, now if they could just roll a two on it, and they do! Your perfect die is sat there, just waiting for you to fill in that spot. It’s then you realise that your last to go, you now have to wait, agonising while three other people take their pick of the dice. The first two reach straight for other dice, phew, no problem. But the player right before you is undecided, they pour over their choices, even going so far as to touch the die you want which makes your heart skip a beat. If they take another die and you finally get the one you wanted and you’ll get that great feeling of slotting that die into its perfect home. If they take it from you then you start to strongly reconsider attending their wedding, even though it’s your wedding too…….but only very briefly. The wonderful thing about Sagrada is that you end up with very little in the way of hate drafting. It’s still completely possible but every die you take is going to be so important for your window that it wouldn’t do you any good to take something just for the sake of getting in the way of another player. Not only that but you're so invested into figuring out what you're doing that even the mere idea of trying to work out another player's boards will see you wanting that little lie down even sooner. The window to the soul. I’d be lying if I said that 50% of the my reason for buying this wasn’t for the absolute ton for colourful dice you get with it and the production as a whole……okay maybe about 65% The game and indeed the theme is brought out by a fantastic production. There’s going to an audible Oooooh from new players (and even some seasoned players) as you get them to slide their pattern card into their window. It’s this board that keeps the theme of making a stained glass window fresh in the mind, doubly so when the light catches the dice in the right way. Speaking of light, you only need to google pictures of the Sagrada Familia windows (and I suggest you do) and you’ll see that they’ve captured the theme and the look of these amazing windows perfectly. Everything from the tool cards to the window boards is designed to give this game just enough theme to save it from true abstract status. Those fantastic boards also give you the satisfaction of slotting dice into those spaces and knowing that a little nudge isn’t going to derail your entire game. Breaking a dice window is seven years bad luck (in gaming) Sagrada is a puzzle game AND a drafting game so it stands to reason that you’re going to be experiencing some downtime. That doesn’t necessarily come at the fault of the players, that’s just the nature of this type of game. Although you can see what’s out there when the dice are rolled you can’t do any real in-depth planning until it comes to your turn and you can see what dice you have access to and if you’ll need to use a tool card. This does become more apparent later in the game as your board fills up and your decisions may become more involved and require more puzzling out. It means that Sagrada has the potential to go on a bit longer than the stated time on the box at four players but it’s never gone grossly over that and it’s never outstayed its welcome. I can kinda forgive a bit of downtime in this kind of game, especially if I know it’s coming. On the plus side, knowing that other players need to take their time on a turn means that I don’t feel so bad when I have to take time on mine. I feels nice to know that you’re all going to be on an equal footing. Slotting in the last dice. For all the mentions I’ve made of this being a thinky puzzle, it’s also a game that I think I could introduce to most people. The rules themselves are pretty straightforward and you could easily give new players the easier windows and experienced players the more difficult ones to balance things out. The amount of replayability you get out of this box, the beautiful components and the fantastic gameplay all come together to make a game that I would happily recommend for a vast majority of gamers and is a staple in our collection.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Night of Frights Game WBG Score: 6.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Explorers of the North Sea, Five Nights at Freddy's, Horrified. Published by: Funko Games Designed by: Prospero Hall Five Nights at Freddy's started as a survival horror video game back in 2014. It was a cult classic due to it's "jump scare" moments and creepy animatronic characters. Obviously, like anything with a hint of success, this has now become a board game! There are a few out there. Two listed on BGG, and then this one, currently not listed strangely. But very much in existence, look, there's the box... And a pretty cool box too! It has a pizza box style and opening, and the fake tear so you can see the minis within. Very tempting on the shelf! Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. Set Up Place the main board and circular scare tracker board into the centre of the table. Each player will choose one of the four characters, placing their mini into the main dinning room, along with the camera standee, and their character token face down into the zero space onto the circular board. Shuffle the Action cards and deal each player three cards, four to Freddy if he is playing. Then place all the item tokens face down on the table and flip five at random, placing them into their corresponding numbered rooms. Then, place all the miss tokens into the bag along with one guard token, and place this by the board. Shuffle the event cards and place them face down on the table, then decide who the starting player will be and give them four of the action tokens. You are now ready to begin. How to Play Starting with the first player, players will now take it in turn to run through two steps. First, you will draw two items and place them into the specific room shown on the token. Then, you can take up to four actions. These are to move, pick up items in a room you are in, play one of your action cards, or make an attempt to capture the guard and win the game if you meet the requirements. When you collect enough items as a free action you can spend these in the required room to increase your characters position on the scare tracker. Each room has it's own requirement, such as two pizzas, three different items, or one of each. If you discard the right items in the right room you can move up the scare ck. This also allows you to flip over the marker to the scary side, meaning you can now attempt to capture the guard. The further up the scare track you are, the better the chance of success you will have. There are only so many times you can attempt this in the game, and if you run out of tries, the guard will win, and all players will loose. So, it is best to get your self up the scare track before you attempt this. When you are ready to make an attempt at capturing the guard you need to make your way to either room one or two. When there, you can flip the top event card and carry out its actions. This could be a chance to remove some miss tokens or to add a second guard token from the bag you are about to pull from to increase your chances, or you could be given an extra action. These cards also work as the game timer. When there are no more event cards left, if the guard is still free, all players loose. If there are more event cards left you can then take the bag and pull out as many tokens as your current position on the scare tracker. If you pull out the guard token, you win. If you pull only miss tokens then you must flip over your character token on the scare tracker, re-draw your actions cards up to your hand limit (this is the only way to get them back) and play continues. Is it Fun? Playing as one of these scary animatronic characters is a wild ride. If you are a fan of this franchise then I think you will enjoy all the little nods to the videos games. If you are new to this world, and a seasoned board game player, this could be a little simple for you. But if you have not played that many modern board games, you may find the pick-up-and-deliver mechanic, and the build process of developing your scare level a lot of fun. Pulling the tokens from the bag when someones attempts to capture the guard is a tense and fun affair. Knowing the game could be over right there and then makes everyone focus on the pulls. They become a main part of every game. Obviously this is very much luck based, but you can increase your chances by giving yourself more pulls. I have found that on average, the bag pulls will be attempted three to four times before a game ends. But with the people I have played with, we have all built up our scare level to at least five or six before we made our first attempt. So, this very much depends on the tactics of each player. The art style in this game is lifted directly from the video games. If you are a fan of that then I think this will be right up your street. When playing with people who had played the video game, they were thrilled by the art. People who had not played the video game understood what was happening, and the reasons for the style. But this is very much geared up for fans of the games. The four minis included are bright, well made, and look great. They are a little on the small side, but fit the board perfectly. As little collectables for fans of the games, I am sure they will delight many fans. Each character has its own unique power too. This small amount of asymmetry is a nice addition to the game. It's fun to try the game out with each character and to see how their powers can help you. I enjoy playing this game on its own merits. I am not a huge fan of the franchise, having only played the VR version a few times, and being genuinely terrified by it! Although my friends did seem to enjoy watching, and filming me play!! But the board-game version is a fun, simple, family friendly game that plays quickly, usually in around 20 minutes, but offers some real tension. Especially with those bag pulls. Turns move smoothly, and everyone will be involved throughout. Moving, collecting, and upgrading their position on the scare track. Building up to an attempt to capture the guard. The bag you pull the tokens from is a long paper bag. It's perfect for this mechanic. When your hand and forearm is in it, you cannot see what is in there as your hand will take up all the room. So there is no way to cheat, really! Although, we do give the bag a good shake each time, as per the rule suggestions. I would recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the video games, and wants to see how this works in board game format. I can see this being a highly sort after collectable game for the hard-core fans, but one that I hope they have a lot of fun with as well. It could be a great gateway game to bring more video game fans over to board games. Funko Games are doing some great things with various IP's right now. I am excited to see what they come up with next. One thing you can certainly say is true for all these film and video game conversion, is that Funko always stay true to the source material. And with Five Nights at Freddy's: Night of Frights Game they have certainly done that.

Starship Captains WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Explorers of the North Sea, Star Trek films or shows, 51st State. Published by: Czech Games Edition Designed by: Peter B. Hoffgaard Starship Captains was one of the most popular games at Essen Spiel 2022. It ranked 8th on the 'hot-list' on BGG's preview. I was very keen to get this one to the table for myself to see what all the hype was about. The cover art intrigued me. This is not a children's game, as much as the cover may suggest otherwise. It instantly drew me into the lore of the game with the obvious science-fiction nods. But what kind of game is this? Let's beam it to the table and see how it plays. Set-Up I won't go through everything here, it's best to just follow the rule book which is excellent and very clear. The main part is to lay out all the components, give each player a ship mini and board, and two of each workers, called ensign's, plus one cadet. Place one of each worker into the ready room on your ship board and the others into the waiting line. Then give each player one medal, seven damage tokens, a tech board, and five promotion rings. Then place one triangle token on each space on the main board, then replace each triangle with the appropriate card. Either a mission card, station tile, or leave as a numbered tile. More of that later. Placing the triangle in this way allows for a variable set-up each game. Next, place one cadet and medal per player and the home station triangle into the subsequent rounds set up spaces at the top of the board, ready for mid round set-up. Then, finally, each player places their ship mini into the central starting home base and the game can begin. Initial set-up can take a while as you need to make the ship minis, and fold down and stick together the double sided ship boards. But it's all very simple and won't take long, and then it is done for ever. And who doesn't like a bit of arts and crafts in space? How to Play Playing Starship Captains is very simple. On your turn, you can do one of two things. Either, activate a room in your ship. Or complete a mission on the planet your ship is currently at. On your ship you have access to four rooms. Each one is coloured and can only be activated by the matching ensign. (Which means flag by the way. One flown on a ship to symbolise the vessels nationality. I had to google it too). So, for example, if you want to fly your ship one or two spaces on the board, you simply move one of your red ensigns out of your ready room on your ship, tap the red sign for the room you are activating, move the ensign to the back of the crew path leading back into the ready room, and move your ship. That's your turn done. It all just takes a brief moment. The other three options when using rooms and crew are to fight a pirate with a yellow ensign, research a new technology with a blue ensign, or repair some damage on your ship with either of your ensigns or a cadet. Fighting a pirate can only be done if you are on a planet next to a pirate token. These are placed on the board during set up, but many more come during the game. You take one damage every time you fight one, but then instantly gain the benefit on the pirate token. This will either br to gain one android which acts as a wild ensign, or to collect one random artifact and one medal. The medals are used to either promote your ensigns to Commanders, which doubles their efficiency. To train a cadet to become any ensign. Or, finally to exchange any ensign with any other ensign. The artefacts can be used in matching pairs to have extra turns. They all come showing two mains room colours. If you get a matching pair you can discard those two artifacts to enact that colours room, just as an ensign would. The pirate token you defeated is then flipped and placed into your cargo hold for end game points. There are some tech cards which can increase the value of the defeated Pirates. The third main room allows you to research new technologies. This gives you the chance to pick one of the eight tech cards laid out during start up to add to your tech board. These cards will give you end-game scoring options, benefits that can be used during the game, or additional rooms that can be used with the matching ensign just like the main starting rooms. When placed on the tech board, if you match icons that are on the edges of the card with a card already there, like the wrench and medal symbols below, or on the board itself, you will also gain additional benefits. Such as additional movement for your ship, one medal, or the opportunity to remove one damage token. This begins the main part of why this game is fun, the combo's! More on that soon. The final option available to you when you activate a room is to repair one damage from your ship. Although you have now learned how additional rooms can be added to your ship as you play the game. So, that's rooms. What about missions? Well, if you are on a planet with a mission card, instead of activating a room, you can complete this mission. You do this by moving the card from the board, and placing it into the slot beside your transporter on your ship board. You must then move one, two, or three ensigns, cadets, or androids to your transporter bay, depending on how many lines on the mission card there are. If the crew member matches the colour of the line, you will gain that benefit. If it doesn't you can still complete the mission but you cannot get the reward. Sometimes, this works in your advantage, as not all of the benefits are good. For example, you may get damage from completing them. But you'll still get the points if you fulfill the crew requirements, even if the colour doesn't match. The crew will then go to the back of your queue, they are exhausted for this round, and you will flip over the card and keep it by your board. They will be used for end game scoring, based on the number on the bottom right. This is the main way to score big in this game, but it uses a lot of crew. There are some planets with space stations orbiting them, which allow the first player there each round to gain a benefit. Such as gaining a new android, or an artefact and one repair action. When done, the token is moved to the top of the board to be replaced at the start of the new round. When you run out of crew, or if you ever decide you want to, you can pass. When all players have passed, the round ends. You will slide all your exhausted crew forward back into your bay leaving just three behind. This is how you get new crew for the next round, but also is the most satisfying part of the game. Check it out. I often do this over and over, just for fun. You will too! You will then distribute the 'new stuff' you set out for each round to all players. In round two you will get one extra medal, and before round three and four, one extra cadet. At this point, you will also refresh any space stations that were used by moving the token back down to that statsions card. Then move the first player token to the next player and begin the next round. The game runs for four rounds, and the player with the most points at the end is the winner. There is a line of text at the back of the book for each score from one to 75, that describes your score in a more story driven way. They are hilarious and well worth enjoying as a group at the end. As you fight the pirates, the opportunity to do this again will diminish. You only start with a few on the board, and you can only fight them once. However, as you complete missions, there is a very clever mechanic whereby the new missions are added to the board, and the countdown to the pirate uprising develops. Let me talk you through it. When you complete a mission, you take that mission card from the board. You will then take the highest number triangle token that is still face up and move that to the place you took the mission card from and flip it over. You will then add a new mission card onto the place you took this triangle token from. This does two very clever things. First, it shows all players where the next mission card will appear. They will always be placed onto the space of the current highest face up triangle token. Secondly, you all know when new pirates will come. The count down is there for all to see. As when you flip the final 'one' triangle, this is when the pirate uprising begins, and more pirate tokens appear. You must flip all the triangles back to being face up and place a pirate token on each one. Then move the pirate out onto its corresponding space, (matching the colour of the pirates exhaust and the trails from that planet) so long as there isn't already a pirate there. Is it Fun? Playing Starship Captains is a lot of fun. For me, it is all about the combos. Maximising the efficiency of your turns by getting extra crew, actions, or bonuses. The combos, when you get them, are so satisfying. This is how you will start to score well in the game. I went from scoring 20's and 30's in my first three games, to getting 40's, then 50's and 60's in later games. I was doing the same thing, just being more efficient. Getting tech cards early helped, and choosing the right ones so that they worked with my engine as well as possible. But will you enjoy this? Well, there are three main things to consider if you are thinking about buying this game. 1. The potential down time for any player after passing if other players have multiple turns left. 2. The simplicity of gameplay as perceived from the box art. 3. Your thoughts on the sci-fi world this game is set within and how this works for a board game. Well, don't just take my word for it, let's hear from designer Peter B. Hoffgaard himself. It is for sure inspired by Star Trek. I grew up watching TNG in the 90s and loved the bright outlook on the future of humankind. It could have worked as licensed game, but I always wanted the freedom to make references to other sci-fi shows and movies, and the freedom to control how much humour we want to add in the game. Also I wanted to have fun doing some fun and silly world building. I know the cover of the box might not scream medium weight euro game. But I really want to challenge that all euros should look beige and brown, and not all sci-fi games have to be dark, black and filled with horror. I wanted an art style that's fun and visually appealing even to non-gamers. Also I would personally love it if more games would look like that. If you [complete] a lot of missions in a round where [other] players do very few. First off, the core way you can get points is by doing missions, so yes this is something you need to do if you want to win the game. What I think makes it interesting is that the same crew you need to do missions is the same you need to move your ship, battle pirates and get tech. So it's all about though choices. If you only do missions and ignore tech and pirates I would argue you would loose to a player that knows the game. About the wait time. There can be some wait time if you're very aggressive with missions, or if some player is very good at extending their turn with bonus actions and androids (and none of the other players do that). But I actually don't mind it seeing what other players do, and if you play with players of equal level this wait time will be very minimal. It's normally just a matter of a few extra actions for one player. Well, there you have it! Thanks Peter, well put, and I would agree with all of that. Starship Captains is definitely a game that grows with repeat plays. It's not that you have to play it over and over to understand it, or enjoy it. But you will, like any game, get better with repeat plays. And getting better in this game means you can utilise more combinations. And combinations are fun! Incredibly satisfying, and generally mean you will score better. You may get this from play one, but I would wager it would take a couple of plays at least. It took me five, but I do play most games quite quickly. Maybe I just need to pause and think more! I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a mid-weight game to play with their friends of family, in under an hour, that offers a brighter and more colourful art style than the usual euro game. Starship Captains is very simple and my son (9) instantly took to this, beating me on the first two games by a long way! He enjoyed the options available to him, despite the simple ruleset. I think this is the perfect game to sit down with your children with, if you are looking to take them to their next step of gaming. It could be the perfect gateway game too for friends new to the hobby. And, of course, it goes outwith saying, this is perfect for any fan of Star Trek. I want to keep getting better and better at this game. I've taken great satisfaction from developing my understanding of the best strategies. And after multiple plays, I'm left with a strong desire to keep playing, to try and improve my scores, and to trial out new strategies. All in the search of those juciy combos! Starship Captains is a simple but addictive game that will be a firm favourite in our house for many years to come.

Ted Lasso WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Magic Maze, 5-Minute Dungeon, Jungle Speed. Published by: Prospero Hall Designed by: Funko Games If you haven't watched Ted Lasso yet, where have you been?! It's one of the best drama comedies I have seen recently. And it is not just for football fans. It's full of romance, comedy, drama and a whole lot more. Just like this new party game version from Funko Games. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. Set Up Place the game board and location mats into the center of the table. Shuffle the event cards and place four in a face down pile on the circular board. These represent the four rounds of the game. One new event is revealed each round offering a new specific rule just for that round. Shuffle up all the trouble tiles and place them all in the biscuit box, face down if possible. Then, shuffle the character cards and place one face up in each location, drawing a trouble tile for each symbol on the character card for each location. Place Coach Lasso standee on the space in the Coaches office location, and then Coach Beard onto the Training Pitch. Empty the cardboard spacer in the main box, and then place the football dice into this. The box acts as a dice tray in the game. Cool huh! Then shuffle all the Believe cards and deal them out evenly to each player, face down. How to Play Now, set a two minute timer. There is a free app to use, with some thematic sound effects if you prefer. Its pretty cool to use, although quite tense! But I feel that adds quite a bit to the game. Then, flip the top event card and ensure everyone has read and understood each characters power and location effect. Then, start the timer. All players will look at their cards and starting with the dealer, one player chooses one colour. All players then play all their cards of this colour face up in front of them. They can use their biscuits cards if they wish as well. They are wild in the game. Players can then discuss how to use these cards. There are three ways to do that. The main way is to place them into one of the two spaces that currently have either Coach Beard or Coach Lasso in them. Each location has a number of trouble tiles with different coloured faces on them. You need to play a card that matches each coloured face in order to remove the trouble tile. The second way, is how you move the coaches to a new location. Place a card face up into the move a coach space on the main board and them move one coach to a new location. The final way is to place the card face down into the self care area. Then, at the end of the round, any group of five cards here can be used to get rid of one trouble tile at any location. But remember you are up against the clock, and whatever rule the event card displayed that round. Once all cards on the chosen colour are used, the next player will choose another colour and the game will continue. When the timer is up, you must stop playing. If players use all their cards before this, just stop the timer. If anyone has any cards left in their hand when the timer goes off, you loose three moral (points). If any characters have not had any believe cards placed in front of them, then you must add one more trouble token to this location. Then, you can remove as many trouble tiles as you can. Matching the cards you played to the colours on the trouble tokens. If any location is left without any trouble tokens, you can then score this character. They are free of troubles and ready to reward you with juicy morale! Move the point tracker the required number of spaces on the score track located around the top of the box, now dice tray. Or, if it was a footballer that scored, it will show a number of football icons instead. This shows how many times you can roll the dice, scoring points for whatever you roll. Remember, if you have five or more self help card cards you can remove one extra trouble token. Then, replace any removed scored characters with a new character card, flip the next event card up, replace any required trouble tokens into new character locations, and shuffle up and go again. The game has four rounds, and you need to try and reach 45 morale points to win as a group. Anything less, and the group looses. Morale was not high enough, and everyone reaches for the biscuit tin/pub. Is it fun? There is so much humour in this game. On the cards there are some very amusing quotes and jokes from the show. But you won't ever really have time to read this in the game. But try and take some time between rounds to read a few out oud. Especially if you are playing the game with other fans of the show. There are so many nods to the TV programme in this game. From the obvious things such as the characters, sets, quotes, and theme, to more subtle things such as the biscuits and pink box they come in. When I saw that, I genuinely said out loud, "Oh, what a nice touch." And I was alone at the time, setting up! All the characters are themed so well, and the art is direct photography from the episodes. Which is some games, just doesn't work. But here, being from a live action TV show is the right choice. It looks good, comes with clear and simple symbols, and adds to the overall theme. The box that becomes the dice tray is awesome. More games should do this. What a great way to use the box. It's so simple and yet so thematic and pleasing. This is also the score tracker too, which works very well, although the clip is quite stiff, and instead of sliding it, I have to take it off and replace it each time. For fear of ripping the artwork. The dice is pretty cool too. The shape of a football, and with lots of sides, it wobbles and rolls a perfect amount. Not so much you get board waiting, but the perfect amount to make it look like a ball rolling around a football pitch. But you asked a question. It is fun? And I seem to be stalling. So, let me answer this now. Yes, it really is a lot of fun. This game looks a bit cheesy. Or maybe even like a lazy TV spin off money maker from the box alone. But inside is a game much like the show. Full of charm, character, and a lot of laughs. The frantic rounds of trying to pick the right card based on which characters need what, and where the coach minis currently are is challenging, and tense under the time pressure. More so with your friends all shouting at you. But then once a colour is picked, you then need to decide how to best use those cards. How many do you need to put where, and can you place a few before using one to move the coach to help another character out. All under time pressure. It's funny to see how well you have done, when the timer ends you can then calmly go through each location to see if you plans have paid off. Often you will find a random extra card you don't need, or a colour that was never useful here and you will wonder why and how it got there when all players insist they were not the one to place it! But getting it right feels good. Removing the troubles and scoring a character rewards each player with a warm sense of achievement. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a new fun party game to play with a group of friends who have enjoyed the show. Would people have as much fun playing this had they not watched the show? I would say no. And evidence for me of playing with and without fans of the show proves this. But it was still be entertaining for them, but a lot of the charm was lost on them. So, really this is for fans of the show. But most spin off products are, right? I found most of the games of Tad Lasso I won, but as the great Roy Kent once said, "Enjoy your trophies for winning nothing." Winning or loosing, it is great fun. But the game seems well balanced to allow you to mostly achieve success in the final round. But I did have a few occasions where we smashed it and won in round two! But generally speaking, I would say the scoring is well set. And of course, they are your only options. Win, or loose. “If God would have wanted games to end in a tie, she wouldn’t have invented numbers.”

The Guild Of Merchant Explorers WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 1–4 You’ll like this if you like: Blue Lagoon, Cartographers Published by: Alderac Entertainment Group Designed by: Matthew Dunstan, Brett J. Gilbert By Tom Harrod It’s hard to imagine a world without maps. When driving to UKGE in Birmingham, I had a moment of uncertainty when my Sat-Nav got confused. Its system was out of date, and when I had to travel along a new stretch of motorway, I prayed it would re-sync itself. When it did, after a scary five minutes, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could relax for the rest of my journey… But there were once an era when crews relished such a challenge of heading off the edge of the map. Cartographers filling in blank spaces on their maps. Or, sketching them afresh, as the expedition progressed. That’s what you’re doing in The Guild Of Merchant Explorers – venturing out into the far-flung corners of the kingdom of Tigomé. The Queen demands you update the maps of old. Creating new villages, once you’ve ensured the land is safe. Building and reconnecting new trade routes. Discovering mysterious towers, and investigating ancient ruins. Sounds fantastic, right? But how does the game itself flow as an experience? The Elevator Pitch: What’s It All About? The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a 1-4 player game by designers Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert. This isn’t the duo’s first collaboration. They’ve also created the likes of Elysium, Chocolate Factory, and Roll For Adventure. The core mechanism is network-building, as you spread out across the map and link up locations. The aim? Score points for completing various challenges – some of these venturing into set collection. Each player gets an A4-sized player map, with cubes and Village markers in their colour. The map itself represents Tigomé as a kingdom. Terrains range from grassland to desert, mountains to open oceans. Comprised of a hexagonal grid, there’s a large capital city in the centre. This is where your expedition begins: a commissioned venture from the queen of Tigomé, herself! The turns of the game have a ‘bingo’ characteristic to them. Six Explore Cards get shuffled, and drawn one at a time. All players react to the Explore Card drawn, in a simultaneous manner. Five of these six cards show terrains on them, such as 1x desert hex, or 3x ocean hexes, for example. Once flipped over, all players then get to explore that quota of said terrain type. Let’s look at how Exploring works first, and then I’ll explain scoring. Hexploring Tigomé On your first turn of the game, you have to explore adjacent to your capital. Makes sense, right? This represents you setting off on your grand journey. To explore, you place an Explorer (one of your cubes from your supply) onto the corresponding terrain hex. Subsequent Explorers must sit next to either the capital, or fellow Explorers. Think of this like the marvellous ‘journey’ maps in the Indiana Jones movies. (You know, where Indy flew from A to B.) The dotted line – or here, your cubes – represented him travelling. The Explore Cards are so simple, yet compelling in the challenge they present. The Explore 1x Mountain Space card tells you straight away that this is the toughest terrain to traverse and cover. It’s a slower terrain type to fill up and traverse. There’s no direct statement to which era you’re in, you can imagine the technology available in Tigomé at the time. Mountain ranges were, no doubt, dangerous and arduous to travel through. The Explore 2x Grassland Spaces works the same as the Explore 2x Desert Spaces card. You get to place two Explorers, but they don’t have to be adjacent to one another, per se. They do have to obey ‘The Golden Rules of Exploration’, though. Players must always place Explorers (their cubes) adjacent to one of their other Explorers, or their capital, or a Village. (I’ll explain Villages, later.) These two cards allow players to spread out and explore in two different directions. Tigomé is a fictional land, but its terrain ratios match that of our own. There’s more water than there is any other land type. This is why the Explore 3x Sea Spaces card allows you to travel so far. At some point, you’re going to have to set sail to charter those far-flung lands unknown. The catch is that the sea hexes that you explore have to form a straight line. So while you cover more ground with this card, it’s not as flexible as the, say, Explore 2x Desert card. You can always opt to explore up to the three hexes in a line, but efficiency gamers will wince at not taking full advantage! And talking of flexibility: the fifth card grants you options-galore. This one’s called Explore Any 2x Adjacent Spaces. You can explore any two hexes, of any terrain type – even if they’re different from one another. They have to be adjacent to one another, though. The most interesting card of all though, is the Era I, II and III Cards. Era Cards: Modular Bingo In the first round (A.K.A. Era), you shuffle in the Era I Card in among the other Exploration Cards. Once it gets flipped, each player gets given two Investigation Cards, and they get to keep one. These are all powerful, asymmetrical exploration actions, and you get to take this action straight away. It could be something like ‘Explore 3x Mountain Spaces and 1x Sea Space, in any order’. Or, ‘Explore 5x Sea Spaces’! Or ‘Explore 1x Grassland Space, and then Explore up to 5x Spaces adjacent to this Grassland Space’. The choices all seem fantastic, because they let you cover so much more ground! And only YOU can take this particular action. You get to keep this card to use again, later in the game. Because at the end of the first Era, all six of the Explore Cards get shuffled again. Only this time, you add an Era II Card in, too. When the Era I Card gets drawn in later rounds, each player gets to activate their Investigation Card again. And when the Era II Card gets drawn, each player receives another two Investigation Cards; once again, keeping one. There’s an Era III Card for the third round, too. In Era III you’ll get to play your Era I Card and your Era II Card again, plus pick another Investigation Card. In the fourth and final Era, you don’t gain another Investigation Card. Instead, another Explore Card does get added, but it’s a I/II/III Card. When drawn, it allows you to pick which of your three Investigation Cards you want to play. It means in Era IV, you’ll get to play each of your Investigation Cards, and one of them twice! These Investigation Cards are amazing for not only providing mega-boosted turns. They also inject a true modular layer of discoverability for all players. There’s always the potential with simultaneous ‘bingo’-style games that players can copy one another. That goes out the window as soon as players gain unique Investigation Cards. You explore in radical, polarised ways, and that’s crucial for competitive and compelling gameplay. So… How Do I Score? The aim of The Guild of Merchant Explorers is to earn the most coins over four rounds. Some hex spaces provide a stated quota of coins for exploring them. When you cover the space, take the stated number of coins from the supply. The map’s split into a series of regions – a region being a contiguous section of the map consisting of the same terrain type. Once you’ve Explored an entire region within one Era, you place a Village within that region. You remove one of the Explore cubes (on a blank, non-coin hex) and replace it with a Village token. When you do this, you earn coins in accordance to the Era you achieved this. So in Era I, you earn 1 coin for each Village you place. In Era II, you earn 2 coins for placing a Village, and so on. A Little Bit Of Brass At the end of the Era, players return all their Explorer cubes from their map back to their supply. You leave only the Villages. In the next Era, when Explore Cards get revealed, you place Explore cubes on your map, adjacent to either your capital, or a Village. Did designers Dunstan and Gilbert take an inkling of inspiration from Martin Wallace’s Brass with the Villages aspect? (Or even Blue Lagoon?) This reminds me of the lower-level Industry Tiles in Brass getting removed after the Canal Phase. This is a brilliant rule. If you’re not careful, it’s not just points you’re missing out on if you fail to complete a region before the Era’s finished. It’s also a vital launch-pad for exploration for the start of the next Era. You can’t afford to start each Era out of your capital each time! You can re-explore the same hexes in later Eras. (And often, you have to; you can even re-explore coin spaces, earning the coins all over again!) You cannot earn the reward for completing a region a second time, though. In that regard, it’s a waste of Explorers. There’s also four Discovery Spaces on your map, which tend to be in the four corners of Tigomé. They’re considered wild (meaning you can explore them by any terrain action). When you explore them, you place a Tower on the space. You gain coins every time you discover one of these spaces – 6 / 8 / 10 / 14 coins. So if you can Explore all four of them, that’s an impressive 38 coins! Various Ruins sit scattered across the kingdom. Some are shipwrecks, others as spaces within desert or grassland. If you explore a Ruin, you place a Treasure Token underneath it and draw a Treasure Card. These are all beneficial bonuses, ranging from extra coins, or getting to place an extra, wild Explore cube. That’s often key to a good turn! So often you can fall one Explorer short. Other Treasure cards offer end-game scoring, thus incentivising you to Explore in certain areas or manners. You can only get goodies from a Ruin space once – you can’t ransack it a second time! You’ve already nabbed the loot! Last of all, there are various Cities across the map. They’re waiting to gain re-connection with the wider kingdom of Tigomé. If you can link up two City spaces in the same Era, you’ve created a trade route between them. Each City has a value of 2-5. You multiply the two City’s values together and earn that many coins. The you cover up one of the Cities, meaning you can’t use it for another multiplier, later in the game. (But you can still use the other one.) A Flip And Write – Without The Write The scoring methods all feel positive, because often you’re picking up coins every other turn. (If not more often so, especially during the latter Eras.) The way in which you earn points for completing regions feels akin to the scoring involved with completing sections in Castles of Burgundy. One could argue that Stefan Feld is a master of ‘point salad’-style games, and Guild of Merchant Explorers also provides this. However, the simultaneous bingo nature of it and the network building has a strong a flip-and-write vibe. Only there’s no ‘write’ in this game; it’s more like flip-and-place. Because of that, this is very much a heads-down, multiplayer solitaire experience. You are at risk of some players cheating with regards to taking coins, because you’ll never pay attention to their map. (Of course, the best way to tackle cheats is to not play with them again!) It can be tricky to keep on top of your own scoring though, especially when you achieve multiple things in the same turn. There are public goals for players to shoot for, with rewards for completing them first. That’s often a trait seen in other roll-/flip-and-writes, such as Welcome To… and Demeter. For some gamers, they’ll see that as a negative feature. Others will revel in the fact that the solitaire game they’re playing is an enthralling one. They’ll be too busy enjoying solving their own puzzle to care. The puzzle is, of course, trying to complete certain goals in time before the end of each Era. You can – and will – card-count, with regards to the Exploration Cards. You’ll come to know which ones remain to flip; you don’t know which order they’re in, though. So a big part of the conundrum is figuring out how best to cover as much land, given the cards still left to play. This is especially the case for cards such as the Explore Any 2 Adjacent Spaces. The flexibility involved means you can attempt to plan ahead for multiple scenarios. But don’t rely on a shuffled deck of cards coming out in the order you need! Pastel Maps You Want To Explore Art, as always, is subjective. Some folks might take one look at these maps and find them dull. To my mind, there is beauty in artist Gerralt Landman’s pastel tones. The maps have clear boundaries and texture between the terrains. There’s reminders for how regions/Villages and Towers score along the bottom. The drop-down view of the kingdom gave me similar vibes to seeing Dungeons & Dragons maps. This isn’t a Red Raven Games kind of set-up, though. (It’s not like Near & Far or Sleeping Gods, where there’s mini Events waiting at every set of Ruins.) You’re not going to discover what or who lies inside within the Cities, Towers or stretches of terrain. This isn’t about narrative opportunities. Theme-wise, they might have missed a trick here. But you have to assume an expansion is on the horizon, and if Dunstan and Gilbert could inject a series of Events, then wow. This would open up Guild of Merchant Explorers to a whole new audience! As it stands, this has a powerful appeal to those who adore pattern-building games, with weak theme. I’m excited about the potential for how this can grow, though… There’s also four different maps available (they’re all double-sided). They’re a glossy thin cardstock, with each map providing with it tweaks on gameplay. The Kazan map, for example, has volcanic regions which players cannot explore. These act as obstacles, forcing cumbersome movement and therefore smarter in-game decisions. Each map has with it six public goal cards, and you play with three each game. So in that regard, there’s a healthy dose of replayability here. Final Thoughts On… The Guild Of Merchant Explorers The game says to keep coins face-down throughout, and reveal your total at the end. However, I found this a little too fiddly, seeing as most of the time you’re earning 1-4 coins. The coins are all identical on their backs, which I understand is mean to create a Big Reveal at the end. Most of the time I ended up keeping my coins face-up and swapping them for smaller change most turns. Five 1s for a 5, five 10s for a 50. When you’re looking to score over 100 points in coins, you can’t be taking 100 coins over the game; that’s not practical! The Villages and Towers look great when they start to spread out across your map. Their silhouetted presence provides a pleasant view. It’s something of a contrast to the bland Explorer cubes. Standard meeples would be too big for this scale. I also appreciate small components would become too awkward. Cubes, while not exciting, are at least practical. They’re mere pawns in the grander scheme of things. They’re clear to digest at-a-glance. But if you’re used to custom meeples, then you might feel underwhelmed with these. You can also solo this in 30 minutes and marvel in every second of it. The solo mode is an inflate-your-ego goal, where you aim to get a high score. There’s no real AI opponent… But then, that mirrors the multiplayer game, too. It’s a way to learn the game, before you introduce it to others. Due to its short length and gratifying gameplay, it is an addictive experience, though. You’ll want to play it again and again. Overall, there’s plenty of tasty decisions throughout, regardless of which map you play. (Avenia is, without doubt, the easier ‘beginner’ map.) The Guild of Merchant Explorers never feels overwhelming, but boy, is it one heck of a satisfying chin-stroker. You’re exploring to cover the map, rather than discovering what’s there. As it stands, I love the efficiency challenge that Guild… presents. But if it could toss in a narrative to show what we actually uncover when we visit these locations, though? That would be phenomenal.