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Horizon Zero Dawn WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Dark Souls, Horizon Zero Dawn The Video Game, Kingdom Death: Monster Published by: Steamforged Games Ltd. Designed by: Sherwin Matthews Fans of the video games series will already familiar with this story. For those of you that haven't played that, let me quickly catch you up. It's the distant future. The world has gone to pot. Robot machines terrorise the land. Your job its to clear the area of these monsters, and get a job with the hunters guild. All caught up? Great, let's get to it. Before I start, I want to declare that Steamforged sent me these game for free for a free review. No money changed hands. The fact that I got the game for free does not in any way affect my opinion. There has been a lot of chat about this game online recently and I wont to cover four main points that have come up from this. Is there enough in the base game for a good experience? How easy is it to learn? Does the semi-cooperative game work? Is it any good? I will cover these in more depth but the short answers are, not really, no, very, and yes. Learning The Game Let's start with the rule book. It's a monster. Lots of pages. Lots of rules. Seemingly difficult. But two key points here. It reads really well, and once I read it, I found the game very easy to play. I am left somewhat baffled by the reaction to the rule book and rule set online for this game. It really isn't that difficult and the rule book is mainly pictures! Let me talk you through the basics. Basic Rules You are hunting monster robots. There will be a choice of three maps to hunt on. Pick one and discard the other two, then set up the boards accordingly. Another player will choose one event card from three options. On your turn, you will be able to take two actions which includes options of moving two spaces which could alert a near by enemy, moving one space which would sneak by anything, distracting a nearby enemy and making it move one space of your choosing, crafting to get three discarded cards back, or attacking. When you attack you can attack from range using a ranged weapon and ammo, or from close by using your melee weapon. When you attack, you roll the dice shown on the weapon and ammo card and deal the rolled damaged, minus the enemies armour if it was alert prior to the attack. Any attack will make it alert afterwards if not destroyed. Any successful attack rewards the hunter that strikes the final blow with salvage cards and glory points. Once all players have used both actions, the enemies have their turn. Non alert enemies will patrol through pre-set paths. If they move off the board they are lost and cannot be attacked. Any alert enemies will attack following their own attack cards, generally targeting the nearest hunter. You can roll to avoid damage using your armour. Any damage you take means you must discard one card. If you run out of cards, you faint. If your hunting party ever collectively faints more than half the number of players, you all lose. If you can defeat enough enemies for each missions points target, you can move on to the next map. That all seems relatively simple to me. And there really isn't that much more in the rules. Just some specifics about how attacks work, mainly line of sight etc. And what you do between fights, which is where the fun really begins! The idea of this game is that you will move through various hunting grounds, taking down the quarry in each, before resting at the camp fire. Here, you have the opportunity to upgrade your character both with your own personal skill tree and via acquiring new items from the merchant. There are three levels of map to hunt on. Completing each level means you can advance one skill. You have a choice to make not only on which skill you wish to acquire, but also which path to take as not all skills lead to the next. Moving up the skill tree will also increase your total deck size, and therefore your durability. Once you have made this decision and taken any appropriate cards into your deck, you will then be able to spend any salvage cards you acquired from fighting in the previous rounds to buy new items from the merchant. There are three levels based on what map you just hunted on. Choosing suitable items for your character is crucial as each of the four main hunters has their own speciality, focus and fighting style. This brings more than just variety of game play, but also avoids players fighting over the same items at the merchant stage. Adding the right cards into your hand to increase your chances in the later battles is important. This is a deck and character building game after all, and what you add to your deck each round will come back to help you in later fights. The variation of the four main characters, the skill trees you can choose from, and the cards you acquire from the merchant, all create a very exciting and enjoyable diverging experience. Each hunter feels unique, and exploring each ones own strengths and specific fighting styles was a lot of fun for me. I like how each character finishes a game with its own distinct characteristics based on your own choices through the game. Once you have fought your way through four different battlefields, the hunters call will sound and you will face up against the mighty Sawtooth. This foe has a more varied attack, with four behaviour cards instead of just one, and a much larger total hit point value. Taking Sawtooth down will end the game for all hunters. Each successful hunt will reward the hunter who made the final blow with glory points. At the end of each battle, the hunter with the most glory points will be rewarded with sun tokens. If the hunters make it through all battles then all players win. But the hunter with the most sun tokens at the very end wins the game overall. With all that said, I think I can now answer two of the four main questions. Is there enough in the base game for a good experience? Yes, there is. But the final battle does feel a little anti-climactic. You will find it relatively easy after all your upgrades. The Sawtooth is tough, but you will be tougher by this point. 2. How easy is it to learn? Pretty simple. There are 51 pages in the rule book, but the basic rules are simple, and the flow of play is easy enough to to grasp and very repetitive, so you will master it quickly. This leaves the final two questions, which need more thought. 3. Does the semi-cooperative game work? 4. Is it any good? Semi-cooperative games are quite rare. This I think, is because they are hard to make work. I am unsure why this game chose to be semi co-operative instead of being fully co-operative. Only rewarding glory points to the hunter who strikes the final kill creates a weird stand off. It is rare that any attack would destroy an enemy fully. Usually you are destroying a component or taking damage from the enemies total hit points. If you damage an enemy only to leave it vulnerable for a final killing blow by one of your fellow hunters, they will take all the glory. You get nothing. In a cooperative game, this is fine. But in a game where total glory points matters, this can lead to players not wanting to attack until they think they can strike the killing blow, or avoiding attacks entirely, waiting for the other hunters to soften up the quarry first. Or, more commonly, trying to strike the final blow, getting unlucky with the dice rolls, and leaving the enemy ripe for an easy kill for another player. So, in short, the cooperative game doesn't really work. Solo, its fine, and I played with my son who is nine and I was very happy for him to get the glory points, so that was also fine. But if you want to have a game where you are really going for the win, I can see this being frustrating and I would recommend the full cooperative version in the rule book instead. As such, I am left wondering why the semi-cooperative version was included like this? Which leads me to the final question. Is it any good? Well, yes. It is. It's very good in fact. But it has it's flaws as you have seen. But if you think you can overcome those, then you may well be onto something special here. The sense of adventure as you play your way through the various missions is high, and the feeling of satisfaction as you upgrade and advance your hunter and successfully take own each monster is strong. There is one other frustration I have not covered yet though and that is the randomness of the salvage cards. With any game using dice, there will always be some randomness, but you can accept that. It's dice. With the salvage cards, its a bit much. After defatting a beast, you must draw salvage cards, and most of the time, it gives you just that. Salvage. But sometimes you draw other cards which tell you that the enemy you just fought is still alive and must be put back onto the board, or that it is dead, but you don't get any glory for that particular kill. If it was fully cooperative, I think it would be ok, as the teams would take the wins and loses together. But in semi-coop mode, when you defeat a mighty beast only to be told that either it is not dead or you get zero glory for this, well, that's just annoying. There are some positive salvage cards too, but again, this just increases the randomness which is semi-cooperative mode, just doesn't work. And the whole game does all miss a punchline. One final big battle. And this is where the expansions come in. Check out this "mini"! Thunderjaw, meat the readers. Readers, say hello to Thunderjaw. Just look at it. Its massive! In the Thunderjaw expansion you get the chance to add this mighty foe to the end of your battle. Fight your way through the previous challenges as usual, and then face off against Thunderjaw on its own battle map, in one epic finale. Thunderjaw takes up four spaces and its size really does add to the spectacle. It has 50 hit points and four amazing components to take down, including two disc launchers. Which once destroyed, can be added to your own arsenal to continue the battle. Which is awesome! Taking Thunderjaws weapons for your own feels truly epic. It feels great fighting Thunderjaw. It brings a suitable conclusion to the battle. A proper way to end this game. Victory or defeat, this is the way the game should end. It's not just the size, but the difficulty and complexity of the AI. You feel like you earnt your victory after this. The Stormbird expansion does exactly the same thing with a second epic finale to add to the game. Or you could combine them all and have one huge battle, which we did, and I loved it The Stormbird offers a unique characteristic in that is flies. So, as you work your way through its behavioural cards, some will show it as airborne, and others as landed. Its attacks will vary based on each card and position. It feels very different and truly challenging. In fact, this was the only enemy that caused us to faint across five different games. Bringing me to the final point. Horizon Zero Dawn is too easy. Yes, you can very simply modify the game to be harder. But in he initial game you play you wont do this. You wont know if it is too easy for you or not, so will follow the rules. And you will win. Quite easily. And the lack of a real challenge will take away from the experience. In later games, you can add more enemies, or reduce your card count to modify this very simply. But that first experience will be forever tainted. If the game had difficulty settings so you could set your difficulty using the rule book from game one, and the game was fully cooperative, or at least the semi-coop mode gave rewards for all damage rather tan just kills (which is such a simple fix!) I think this game could be a 9. If the base game included more variety and a tougher boss, it could even be a 10 for me. But the requirement of the expansions which are not cheap, and the previous issues mean this scores an 8. Which is still very high. This is a good game. It wont be for everyone. But if you like miniature skirmish games and have got this far in the review then I would wager you may well agree with me and find this game very rewarded. Let's hunt!

Moonlight Castle WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Dragons Breath, Honga, Valley of the Vikings. Published by: HABA Designed by: Marie Fort, Wilfried Fort Moonlight Castle looks amazing! There is a 3D castle stood around a moat, with brightly coloured flowers and shrubbery surrounding it. When I first set this up my children were instantly amazed! I then showed them the characters they could choose from and I was greeted with cries of "how cute!" and "I want this one! No, wait. That one!" So far, so good. And then, I introduced them to the sliding mechanic whereby you fill the castle with gems tiles, and then push them into play, one-by-one, using a sliding mechanism; and well... their tiny little minds were blown away! You can see below how the clear tool on the right is used to push forward a stack of tiles that are hidden inside the castle at set-up, to slide the jewels out into the castle pathway. In truth, this can be a little fiddley. It doesn't always quite work as it should due to the cardboard nature of the set up allowing for slight variations in the movement of the castle. But a few wriggles here, and jiggles there and you will be away. In terms of table presence for children's game, I have not seen many better. How To Play The game itself, like many Haba games in this range, is very simple. Your goal is to collect as many jewels as possible. You will do this by placing your character onto one of the various flower spaces and paying the cost of that space. One green pebble for a green space, one red pebble for a red etc. You will then draw as many pebbles as shown on that spaces from the blue circles, either zero, one, two, three, or four. And then if you are next to a path space, you can claim that jewel if you can pay the cost. Again, matching the colour pebbles to the coloured jewels. One pebble per jewel shown. This jewel then goes into your collection for end game points. One point per jewel. But before your turn is over, you must flip the jewel tile to reveal a potential bonus action. Either you will be asked to bring more jewels out from the castle or have another turn. There will be times when you don't have the right pebbles to take an effective turn, on these occasions you can go to the white flower spaces that don't cost anything, and give you extra pebbles to plan for later turns. The game ends when a certain marked jewel appears out of the castle. You can randomly shuffle this to to appear anywhere at set-up, or place into a specific position to determine the game length. But using all the jewels will only mean a 10-15 minute game, there is no real reason to shorten this game. At the end of the game, the player with the most jewels wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most remaining pebbles wins. The game itself is perhaps a little too simple, although of course this game is aimed at younger gamers. I just always feel younger gamers are talked down too. I have been playing Scythe with my son since he was six. Now, I understand not every child wants a complex game, nor does every adult for that matter. But I do think you could add variations to games like this to add extra levels of strategy. Variations The extra levels in this game add different places to place your character with four ritual fountains included in the game and one added to each game per player. But they are double sided and have various options depending on what type of game you want. Either they offer the chance to draw free pebbles at no cost of placing your character there. Or on the advanced side, they force players after drawing four pebbles to either select one colour to keep and discard all other colours, or to keep one of each colour drawn and discard any duplicates. This does not really make the game any more fun, just frustrating. Things that take away in games like this always confuse me. Life does that enough, why have it in games? The other variation is to remove the player screen. Usually, players would place any pebbles they have behind their player screen. This stops the other players from knowing how many pebbles they have and what colour they currently possess. Without the screens, players can play a little more tactically and block their opponents based on what positions they place their own characters. But again, this just makes the game less fun. It brings more take-that to the game, and makes it a little more vindictive. Due to the simplicity of the game and disappointing variants, I have only scored this a seven. That has been driven up by the table presence and wow factor for kids. I feel this game has focused on that more than the game mechanics itself. Now, this is a common issue for me with family games aimed at young children, so not a comment directly targeted at Haba or the designers of this game. But with a few changes, I think this game could easily be an 8 for younger gamers. A few more variations of what is on the back of the jewels would help. Some variations where some spaces on the board cost a lot more to place your character there but offer higher rewards. Perhaps some mission cards so add temporary effects during the game? Or, individual player powers that allow each character unique opportunities to try different things in the game. Moving forward, I would implore Haba and all designers of family games to think about things that add more fun to the game, rather than take away opportunities to do fun things in games. Moonlight Castle looks stunning and it plays fast and fun, but I feel it missed a trick to become a real modern day family favourite. Overall, I have enjoyed playing it and think it will come to the table many times as it just looks so appealing. And as it plays so fast, people wont be left too disappointed by the simple mechanics and unnecessary take-that.

Brian Boru: High King of Ireland WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 3-5 You’ll like this if you like: Inis, Blood Rage, The King is Dead Published by: Osprey Games Designed by: Peer Sylvester By Steve Godfrey Whenever I think of the title of this game I always end up singing it to the tune of Metal Guru by T-Rex. It’s got nothing to do with the game or the review but I figured that I’d share that particular ear worm with everyone else, enjoy the review! Rules of the High King Once the game is set up, deal each player a number of cards depending on player count. Then each player will draft two then pass them round, this will go on until all the cards have been drafted. Flip over the top card of the Viking deck and place that many Viking tokens out. Flip over the first marriage card then start the round. The player with the control ring places it on a town on the map. The colour of this town will be the trump suit for the next phase. The first player then plays a card from their hand matching that town's colour. In turn order, the other players will play a card from their hand of any colour. Players will then resolve their cards in number order from lowest to highest. The player who played the highest number card of the same colour as the trump suit (or a white wild card) will win the trick and they will perform the top action on the card on their turn. All the other players will have a choice to play one of the two bottom actions on their cards. The top actions on the cards mainly give that player control of the chosen town,and the town marker for the next turn. Sometimes this will also give you a bonus and sometimes will cost you coins. Bottom actions come in a combination of things. Money is a regular feature of the cards and is self explanatory. Axe symbols will let you take Viking tokens from the ones that were placed at the start of the round. Crosses let you place discs onto the church area and envelopes will move your disc up the marriage track. In any of these cases you can pay two coins to gain extra. Some cards will give you the option to pay five coins to place a disc on a town connected to one you already control. Rounds will continue until everyone has played all bar one of their cards. At the end of the round the marriage, viking and church areas will trigger in that order, I’ll get to these later on. Finally you will check for region control. Each region has a threshold and when that many towns have discs on them the player with control of the most will gain the token for that region. This will be worth points at the end of the game but these can be taken from you if other players gain more control in that region. Area control, Vikings and trick taking? All games are a mishmash of different mechanics and most of them just seem like natural bedfellows when described as part of a pitch or on the games BGG page. But area control and trick taking is one I’d never seen before, and even now, when I’ve played the game a few times it still sounds odd. But it works really well and regardless of how it sounds, it plays out in a really smooth and natural way and opens up a whole new way of strategizing in an area control game. You can teach an old dog to win tricks. In most trick taking games the aim is to win the trick and similarly here winning the trick is also something you want to be doing since this will help you spread across the different regions. Placing discs in connecting towns will only get you so far around the map since most connecting towns won’t venture out of a region and often won’t offer more than two towns connecting together. This means that winning tricks in different regions is vital for expansion and expansion is needed if you want to be involved in the race for those region control points. So winning tricks is great, but it’s not always the best strategy because ignoring those other areas of the board could be a costly mistake and that’s where those bottom actions become all important. Winning a trick may give you some benefits in those other areas but they’re not always great. If you want to make any real advancements then you need to use those bottom actions. I love how the game makes what would normally be considered a consolation prize, just as important and in some situations more important than winning the trick itself. The drafting phase acts to alleviate as much of the luck factor in the card draw as possible and add to the strategy Drafting two cards per player gives you a bit more control for the cards you want (aside from the one or two your left with after the draft) and serves to maybe cut down on how long that drafting phase will take. So far in all of our games the drafting has gone pretty quickly but that’s not to say that it’s going to be the case every time. The many areas of area control. At first glance you may wonder what Vikings, marriages and churches have to do with area control but thematically and more importantly historically you realise, not only how well they tie in, but also how much of an effect they can have on the board. The marriage track will net you either renown tokens, a chance to claim another town or precious, precious money. Trust me money is tight in this one, you won’t see players doing their best Scrooge Mcduck impression in Brian Boru. But most of all, the person higher on the track at the end of each round will give you a political marriage which gets you points and lets you claim a town in the named region before the region step resolves, potentially swaying it in your favour. The Viking tokens can get players renown tokens, points and also, probably more importantly tactically, is the player with the most tokens at the end of the round will let them place a Viking token on another player's controlled town essentially losing them control of it. The last is the church. Here the player with the most discs will put a monastery ring around one of their controlled towns which now makes it now count as two control in a region. Any player with 4 discs in there can also place a ring out in the same manor. All of this matters because of the region claim step. Once regions start to get claimed, what follows is a brilliant game of tug of war, not only on the map but in those other areas as players try to win advantages to snatch control of different regions away from their opponents. Another touch I love is that the “winner” of each area will remove their discs/tokens but all other players will retain all or some of theirs which acts as a nice little catch up mechanic and stops any one player becoming running away in any of those areas. The quadrilogy of quick control. If you’ve read my previous reviews of A War of Whispers and The Court of Miracles and even the King is Dead (another brilliant game from this games designer Peer Sylvester) you’ll know that I’ve had a bit of an obsession with quick area control games and I think Brian Boru sits pretty well in that camp. This is potentially going to be the longest of the four, the box says 60-90 minutes, but the main reason for that would be the drafting. Like most drafting games this would be all down to how long players take, the rest of the action turns are generally fairly snappy purely because of how simple they are. I could happily host a games night and fit all these games in and have a great night. One thing I did find a bit fiddly was the upkeep phases where you're resolving the Viking and the church areas. I’ve played this a few times and I still find myself reaching for the rulebook to clarify things. It’s slowly sinking in though. There are guides on the board to let you know how those phases work. Personally I find these are useful only once you’ve got a good idea of how these phases work in the first place. I’m prepared to admit though that this could be a “me” issue and it’s just not something that’s sunk in properly for some reason. In no way is it something that’s going to take away from the game and, let’s be honest, chances are one of the players is going to be hugging the rulebook for a quick reference anyway. I’ve only played Peer Sylvesters The King is Dead but my understanding is that this is one of, if not his biggest game. Just because it’s big though it doesn’t mean it’s complex. It's still a fairly straightforward area control game but still retains a lot of the strategy you’d expect from this style of game. If this is the sort of thing we can expect from his bigger games then consider me already in the queue for the next one.

Blast from the Past WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Unlock Series, Exit Series. Published by: Homescapehome Designed by: Alexander By Steve Godfrey At the time of writing this a certain show's fourth season is about to drop…or will have already dropped, depending on when this goes out. So what a great time to put out a review of a game which shares a strong theme with it. Was it planned like this or not? Who knows, Stranger Things have happened. We played this game using the physical paper version but there is a digital version available. I’ve not played any of the digital versions so I can’t comment on how they work. To set up, open the folder, scan the QR code which takes you to a form where you can enter your names and what time you start playing. Then just read the first page of story aaaaand that’s it. Seriously, just start looking though the pages and solving puzzles. Let’s turn this up to Eleven I’m going to be honest right out of the gate. Having access to everything all at once, having all of those sheets of paper in front of you, it’s overwhelming and it can be difficult to know where to start since you’re taking in so much information. All of a sudden though something will click. You’ll read a puzzle and say “ah, I know what to do!” and you’ll just fall into it. You’ll start to see where clues crop up for different puzzles and start piecing things together like a detective in every police procedural and before you know it you’ll start to find your flow and it’s a lot of fun! One of the things I like about the puzzles is that they’re all trying to lead you to a similar style of solution which in this case is the name of one of ten locations on the map. Because of that you instantly know when you're solving them, that you're on the right track. There’s sometimes nothing worse than doing a puzzle and not sure if you're looking for a number, an alphanumeric code or if you're trying to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen African or European swallow. Let’s Hopper into some puzzles. The main reason you come to these things is the puzzles right? and the puzzles here are a lot of fun. A lot of them are spread over multiple pages in the folder so you’ll find yourself rifling through the pages trying to find all the linking pieces of a puzzle. If you’ve ever seen those detective shows where people have filled half their living room with pages of evidence then you’ll have the general gist of how this looks on the table. This set is one of the lower difficulty levels and I’d say that’s probably about right. The puzzles are clever and there’s a bit of a mix. Some have that instant “I know how to solve this” which helps with the initial confidence boost, whilst others need a bit more looking over before that final eureka moment. There is one puzzle here which is probably a bit more labour intensive than I personally would have liked. I won’t spoil the puzzle, but it is one of those puzzles that involves a programming element and making a mistake may mean you have to reset certain elements. If you end up having to do that multiple times then I can see that being a frustration for some people, myself included. All that being said, it did keep us engaged throughout our two and a half hour playtime (if I didn’t have my much smarter partner in puzzle solving with me I then I probably would have taken longer) Neither of us felt the urge to call it a night and pick it up another day. We were both keen on seeing how it played out. So obviously this is a one and done. But how one and done is it, do you have to destroy stuff, could you possibly replay it and find different things? First question. Technically, you can draw on stuff and cut out a couple of things. However, the things you cut out are an aid and not a solution so they can easily get put back in the wallet for other players and don’t affect the puzzles. The things you can draw on, just use a pencil and they’re easily erased for someone else. Don’t try that with the digital version though! Pencil, or pen for that matter, is tough to rub off of a computer screen! er, so I’m told. As for the second question. No, this is a linear style of puzzle. One solution and one way of doing things which means that once you're done, you’re done. Not enough room for a Demogorgon. I played this with my eldest daughter and I think that this was probably the perfect player count. At a stretch you could probably go to a three but for me I tend to find that most of these puzzle games work best at the lower player counts. For this one I would say that’s particularly true, let me tell you why. Because different parts of the puzzles are split over several pages, whilst one person is doing one puzzle, the other players don’t have access to those pages (not unless you have everything spread out) so they’d need to find a separate puzzle to work on that doesn’t involve those pages. That’s not to say that that’s necessarily a bad thing. There's something fun about rifling through loads of papers looking for clues and putting things together. There’s also the joy of having your head in a puzzle and then the other player lets out a “YES!!!” Once they’ve solved what they’re working on. I do think that two heads are better than one for these types of games but too many heads could potentially get in the way. Obviously different groups work differently and if your group usually works well with these sorts of games then you’ll get a lot from it. Now we’ve tried this one, and experienced it's fun and strong take on the theme, we’re both interested in seeing what else they have to offer and to see how well they stack up when we’re not quite as invested in the theme as we were with this one. They’re definitely worth looking into if you’re in the market for an interesting puzzle game with some strong thematic ties.

Mandragora WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Tucano, Sushi Go, Point Salad Published by: Studio H Designed by: Bruno Cathala, Florian Sirieix Come with with me to a magical land where all the sorcery boutiques are selling off their magical items half price. It's Black Magic Friday and their are bargains to be had! The bad news... you are not the only one eyeing up some new Mandrakes. The good news... you can use your new magical items to cast spells on your rival shoppers to slow them down and become the most powerful sorcerer in the land. Or at least your table, for that game, amongst those that played. How to Set Up Lay out the ten shop tokens into a circle in any order. Note the three shops with a darker background and the one with the dimpled edge. Then lay one card face up by each shop, and face down for the three shops with the darker colour. Place the remaining cards into a face down stack in the middle of the shops. Next to the shop with the dimple, place the assistant standee. Then lay out the spell cards into their separate piles, numbered one to five. Place the Curse and Countdown marker nearby and you are ready to go. How to Play On each players turn you have the choice to do one of two things. You can either move the assistant one, two or three spaces clockwise, taking the cards in the space the assistant finishes in and then placing another card from the draw pile into each space the assistant passed through. Or use cards in your hand to cast a spell. This is done using one spell card and one to five ingredients cards. It is up to you how many ingredients you use, but they must all be the same colour and match the colour of the spell card. If you use one ingredient then you can take the top card from the number one spell pile. This will get you one point at the end of the game, plus the points on the spell card (which varies from zero to three). And of course the power of the spell itself. The powers allow you to get rid of bad cards, take extra turns, move the assistant an extra space if required when you are moving this, or get rid of cards at the end of the game. Getting rid of cards is important as each different colour of spell or ingredient card left in your hand at the end of the game will cause you to loose one point per colour. The person with the most curse cards at the end of the game will lose two points from their overall score. Using the spell cards to get rid of unwanted curse cards could be the difference between winning and loosing. However, this does introduce a bit of take-that into the game. A game that is largely targeted at children. Younger players tend to react poorly to this mechanic, so I am always left unsure why it is included in games that are marketed at kids. But you can always take these cards out I suppose. The art on the cards is bright and vibrant. It's nice how the art is not just repeated on each card too. There is a nice variety of the ingredients you can get. This does not affect the game at all, but adds a nice layer of polish to the game. The colours are all easily distinguishable too, with different icons in the top corner for anyone who has colour blindness. A simple but effective touch. The game plays very quickly. Turns take a matter of seconds. Moving on the assistant and taking the cards, or laying cards to claim a new spell. A total game can be played in under ten minutes quite easily. There are only 106 cards and once the deck is extinguished, the game has three final rounds before it ends. If players are regularly moving the assistant longer distances then you will find you will get through the deck a lot quicker than you think. This does mean it is hard to implement any meaningful strategy into this game though. But the main thing you will want to decide is if you plan to try and complete lots of little spells, or fewer more powerful spells. There are only a few level four spells and just the one level five spell. So, if you are building up for these, you need to move fast to avoid disappointment. But if you don't get the cards you need, there is not much you can do. However, the white Mandrake cards are wild, and can be used either as any ingredient, or any spell card. Overall. Mandragora is a fast, fun, family friendly game, that plays very quickly and offers some fun moments. My family has really enjoyed it and I can see this coming out a lot, not just because it is fun, but because it is so accessible. Teaching this game is a cinch. Setting up and playing it is so quick. But it still delivers a level of satisfaction seen from higher weight games. It is a lot of fun to cast spells in such a simple way. Collect colour sets, play those sets, get the power. There is a constant sense of satisfaction from completing lots of mini tasks. No real high, no massive build to a huge task being completed. But lots of little buzzes, and I think that is the perfect vibe to go for with a game like this.

Stay Cool WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 2-7 You’ll like this if you like: Blockbuster, Anomia, Escape: The Curse of the Temple. Published by: Le Scorpion Masqué Designed by: Julien Sentis From the very moment I heard about Stay Cool, I was intrigued. I wanted to experience this game to see how it made me feel. This is not a common reaction for me. Many games excite me and make me want to play it. Many trigger that certain part of our brain that won’t be satisfied until we peel away the wrapper and learn the game. But Stay Cool was different. I wanted to know how I would feel playing this. Would I enjoy this experience? Would I be good at this game? Could I stay cool? Stay Cool is a challenge of multitasking, answering basic trivia questions, some minor hand-eye dexterity, and ultimately, a test in how well you can stay cool! There are two different sets of questions. The first are on a small red card with five questions on. Each answer is three of four letters long. There are some questions that require an action over an answer such as touching your left knee with your right index finger for example. But most are simply three or four letter words. They are all fairly simple trivia based questions. The trick here being you cannot answer them out loud. You must answer them by spelling out the correct answer using the lettered dice. The two white dice have the vowels and the letter ‘Y.’ The other dice show the consonants. There will be the odd occasions where you won’t be able to find the letter you need as it only exits on a dice you may have already placed for another letter. In which case you will need to change the first dice around. But most of the time this is a fairly simple task of arranging the dice. However, the moment the person to your left asks you this first question that you must spell out, your time starts, and the person to your right will ask you another entirely different question. The second blue question card will have ten questions on, again, fairly simple trivia-based things. But now your brain is trying to spell out the answer to the question from the red card whilst it is also thinking of the correct answer on the blue. The clever thing with many of the questions, is that they are simple enough, but require some concentration. Such as counting the number of vowels in a long word or arranging a sentence into alphabetical order. They are all things you could easily do under normal circumstances. But add the time pressure and second simultaneous task and it becomes somewhat more of a challenge. In round one. You will continue answering questions from the two cards for two minutes. You will then multiple the number next to the question you last answered on the red card by the number by the last question correctly answered on the blue card. Each other player around the table will take a turn and then all players move onto round two. In round two, the same thing will happen, except now the person answering the questions will now be in charge of their own time. The two-minute time is counted by the turn of a 30 second sand timer three times. In round one this is done for you. In round two, you must say the word “timer” when you want to have the timer turned. If you loose focus and let the timer run out, then your turn that round is over. Adding this simple visual task into what is already a very difficult multi-tasking game, can be too much for some! So, feel free to leave this out for certain players if you like, but I found this to be a highly entertaining rule to bring in. I don’t tell people to expect this change at the start of the game. I like to surprise people with it when the time comes. Once every player has had a turn in round two saying “timer” at the appropriate time, in round three they must do the same, but this time, with the box lid blocking their view of the timer. This may sound very difficult. But having played a couple of rounds already, and watched other players do the same, you will have a good idea for what 30 second feels like at this stage. But of course, the challenge will feel difficult no matter how many times you have practiced when run at the same time as answering the two questions. The moment the player answering gets a question correct, either by spelling out the right answer with the dice, or simply saying it out loud for the blue card, the question master will ask the next question. You could run through three or four questions from one card whilst still thinking off the answer on the other. This is fine. The people asking the questions must work hard not to speak at the same time as each other And if you ever answer a question incorrectly, they must re-read the entire question. And that is the entire game. See who scores the most points over the three rounds, and they are the winner. So, is this fun? Did I enjoy it and did I stay cool? Well, I played this with several people across different ages, demographics, and backgrounds. I was very keen to see how different people reacted to this particular experience. Overall, I would say that most people I played this with were not sure. They didn’t like the pressure it put them under. They enjoyed the game if it was played in a light-hearted and jovial way. Perhaps even not scoring and just seeing how they reacted, and how it felt. But if it was taken too seriously with some players, they did not enjoy the pressure it put them under. However, as you can probably tell from my score at the very top of this review, I absolutely loved this. Now, don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean I was good at it. Far from it in fact. I often got very confused with simple things due to the time pressure and left right brain thinking required. One question that asked me to explain the two meanings of the word “Oversees” really through me. I simply could not think of a second meaning outside of someone who travels to other country over a sea. The amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex, which humans use to calm ourselves down during stressful situations was clearly not functioning here! (Yes, I googled that) and the fact that this word can also mean to take charge of a situation was lost to me. I got stuck on that question and it ruined that round for me, which did frustrate and in truth, embarrass me a little. As such, I want to make it clear that my high score in this review has nothing to do with the fact that I was good at this. This game isn’t just for people who would be good at this type of challenge. For me it is more about the enjoyment than the success! It is more to do with the fact that I loved playing it that I scored this as I did. I loved the experience. Even though I was not always able to stay cool, I enjoyed the challenge of trying. And I think this is the key part. Do not ask yourself if you want this game as you may be good at it, I would consider more this. Do you want this game as you would enjoy the experience of trying to be good at it? Regardless of your relative success, will you enjoy trying? Now, another huge factor is who you will play with. You ideally need at least two others to play with but it can work in a two, but not quite as smoothly. Are there at least two others in your gaming world who would enjoy this experience with you? As from what I have found, there is a real divide between those who I play with who will want to play this time and time again, and those who would be quite happy if they never saw this at the table one more time! The stress this game puts some people under is very real, and it is obviously not for everyone. But what I was able to do with some who didn’t enjoy game one or two, was encourage them to try again and view it as an experiment to see if they could improve. And most did. This improvement did then encourage them to try again as most humans enjoy seeing progression in their lives, be that work, home or board games! But I still saw stress etched in their face as they tried perhaps too hard to play the game. But for me, despite the fact I was clearly not able to stay cool, I loved the experience and would enjoy playing this for many years to come. I would highly recommend this game to anyone who think they would enjoy the challenge and had the right group to play with.

Gigamons WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Just One, Dixit, Wavelength. Published by: Hachette Board Games UK Designed by: Karim Aouidad, Johann Roussel If you are looking for a new family game for your young children with cute art then check out this box art... Sold? Great. You can find links on how to buy the game here. If you need a bit more, I understand that. I suppose?! Rules, mechanics, and game play do matter a bit. How To Play To set up Gigamons, lay the tiles in a three-by-three grid as below. Pile the rest of the tiles in stacks near by. That's it! you're ready to play! Players then take it in turns to flip two tiles, showing all players what they flip, looking for pairs. If you find two matching tiles, you can take them and place them into your own personal pile. If you don't find a match then you must flip them back to their blank side and let the next player take their turn. The classic game of pairs. If you ever get three of the same type of tile then you can convert those tiles into the corresponding Gigamon standee. The first player to get three Gigamons or the player with the most Gigamon's when the tiles run out wins the game. Children will love the art in this game. My two certainly do! The Gigamon characters are brightly coloured with mainly open and friendly faces. They are essentially glorified ways of scoring points, but for children, what do you think most would prefer? A hypothetical point?Moving a score token one space on a board? Or a large colourful Gigamon standee to hug? There is a small variant that you can add into the game once your children become familiar with the main mechanic. Each tile has a small symbol on the bottom left. When ever you find a match you can enact this power instantly. They are all self explanatory, but there is simple guide in the rule book if any ever escape you. The plus one means that as well as the two tiles you take that have you matched, you can also take the top tile from the stack. Other powers include being able to to look at four of nine tiles in secret, place stone tiles on top of the main tiles so other players cannot take these on their turn, switch a tile you have with a tile someone else has, or destroy another players tile. I will let you see if you figure out which one is which below. See. Easy right. There is also a wild symbol that makes the character on the bottom right above act as a any tile. Flip this little character with any other tile and you have found a pair! There is one final piece who strangely doesn't look at happy, (maybe he has a headache?) but gives the player who finds this pair a second turn. Overall, Gigamons is a highly polished, simple family game, that works perfectly for younger gamers. The art is gorgeous, the components are all well made and sturdy, suitable for little hands; and the rule set is simple but rewarding. I can see this becoming very popular in my household as it's so quick and easy to set up and play. You will be opening the box and packing away within 15 minutes most times, if you play just the once! But this is the perfect "just one more" game to have when your kids are not quite ready to call it a night yet, and you are happy to say yes if it only takes 15 minutes!

Blank Slate WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 3-8 You’ll like this if you like: Just One, Dixit, Wavelength. Published by: The Op Designed by: Robert A. Kamp Good party games need to work at multiple player counts, be easily explained to any age group in minutes, and create moments of laughter and excitement. It would be an awkward way to start this review if Blank Slate didn't tick all three of these boxes, so I will quickly reassure you all now, Blank Slate has all of this. Blank Slate has to be one of the easiest games to explain in the history of board gaming. It works great in a three player and could legitimately work up to any player count with more paper and pencils being added, and it has brought a lot of laughter to my table, couch, and local pub garden! How To Play (in under a minute!) Ok, start the clock. Set up the game by giving each player a pen and drawing pad and set the score board in the centre of the play area. Place the card stack somewhere convenient. Then draw the top card and place it face up on the table or pass it around for all to see. The card will show either a blank then a word, or a word then a blank. All players will then decide what single word to write on their player board that fits either before or after the word on the card where the blank is. Perhaps the card shows "blank town". Maybe your mind goes to China Town and Ipswich Town. As no one else playing the game is a fan of lower league English football, you decide to go with China, and write that. This is because you will get one point if more than one person writes China as well, but three points if just one single person other than you writes the same. So, you want to pick things other may also pick. And that's the game. Play to a set point score, or time, or number of cards, or until the tea is ready. Why This Game Works Blank Slate works well in any player count and due to the nature of the pieces and mechanics, can be played anywhere. I have enjoyed this game around my table as part of a more 'sit-down' game night. Also on my sofa, just chilling with my family. And I have played in the pub, over a few drinks. It creates the spark for many fun conversations, accusations, and celebrations! When two people write the same thing for something relatively niche that reminds them of a shared experience or funny memory, this is when Blank Slate really shines. Finding joy in common ground is a very human trait. It reminds us of our similarities and makes us feel safe and secure. It bonds us as friends and family members. As fellow homo sapiens. This game is built on this very premise. And it works. It works really well. I have enjoyed this game with people of all ages, from my daughter who is 6, to relatives in their 70's. The moments when people write something you don't expect are almost as fun as when you match answers. You may predict a particular person in the game will write a specific word based on a conversation you've previously shared with them, or a hobby you knew they were into. But when the answers are revealed and they went down a completely different path, it can be hilariously frustrating and enlightening in equal measure. You can play this game 'fast-and-fun' and fly through the cards and answers. Or pause and debate each person's answer, falling down various conversational rabbit holes. The box contains the material to create whatever game experience that suits your group's mood and requirements on any given day. With this, it reminds me a lot of Just One. There is more competition and less solo pressure with Bank Slate than the cooperative Just One, but the experience otherwise has many parallels. Regarding the solo pressure, in Just One, when you are the guesser, there is a lot of expectation on you from the others in the group. No one wants to be the one that freezes or says something really silly and lets the team down. Even in a party game! Some people really don't like this. I really don't like this. I love Just One, and enjoy playing it, but always prefer it when it is not my turn. But I also find it awkward when I see others finding the spotlight difficult. That makes me uncomfortable too. This pressure of being under the spotlight does not exist in Blank Slate. Sure, there are some moments when you may not be able to think of something that suits the blank, but if you write any old gibberish, that's fine. You are not letting the team down. You are not losing a card or point for other people. You just wont get a point yourself that turn. And that's fine. It happens to everyone in this game a lot! And winning or losing really doesn't matter. This game isn't really about the points, or the winning. It's about the moments it creates. It's about the shared memories, and the laughter. It's about the moments of shocks, and surprise. The high fives and hugs. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a versatile party game, that suits all ages, player counts, and game environments. It will deliver on most occasions for most groups and I can see Blank Slate being a firm favourite for many families, coming out on occasions where people are gathered around for a special occasion, and a relaxing, casual, group experience is the order of the day. There are 250 cards in the box, and all cards are double sided, so there is a lot of fun to be had. It will take a lot of plays to see a card again. And by that point, you could be with a different group, and most probably, many weeks or months apart. The cards are numbered, so if you play with the same group regularly, you can take note of where you were up to and then avoid any repetition of recent cards. The game has minimal strategy other than trying to second guess your friends. However, I found that going with the word that first comes to your mind seems to work best. However, there are moments when you guess a friend or families answer based on your knowledge of their interests and it feels great. And it is these moments that will keep this game coming to my table, couch or pub for many years to come.

Viticulture World WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Viticulture, Atlantis Rising, Orléans: Invasion Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Mihir Shah, Francesco Testini There is a lot to go through here, so strap in! A cooperative worker placement game is not something that comes around very often. We will certainly cover that. Viticulture is a hugely popular and successful game that has been around since 2013. How this expansion builds on what is often regarded as one of the best worker placement games, especially when including the brilliant Tuscany expansion, is something we will get into too. This game has launched with some controversy around the use of controversial figures from history, which we will give our thoughts on. But first, lets talk about the actual game. Let's step away from the hype and online chatter and talk about the core mechanics, rules, and flow of this game, which is good. Very good in fact. What's new? Viticulture World brings in several new ideas to the Viticulture world. In this review, I will focus on the Viticulture Essential edition as a comparison, as this is the only one available at retail now and the edition the publisher refers too when the talk about the core game. I will not focus on Tuscany as I appreciate not everyone has that expansion. Although what I would say, is if you are looking for an expansion for Viticulture, and you don't have Tuscany yet, unless you are looking for a cooperative version, then Tuscany is what you want to get first. It's phenomenal. But, if you have Tuscany already, and still want more Viticulture variety in your life, then read on. The main new things brought to the table with Viticulture World are as follows: Cooperative Gameplay Seven Continent modules Seasonal workers Upgradable worker spots New Mamas and Papas cards, with the colours reversed giving the opportunity for two male parents, two female parents, or a mix. Fall benefits Cooperative Gameplay First up, lets cover the cooperative gameplay. It is one of the major changes to the game and seems to have created a lot of online chatter. It's a polarising addition to the game to say the least. Perhaps as there are so few cooperative worker placement games? Perhaps because this is such a beloved game as a competitive experience? Perhaps because some have had bad experiences with cooperative games in the past? By their very nature, worker placement games are often about putting a worker down onto a space that now cannot be used by others. Your worker being there has blocked a space for other players. As you play, you are not only choosing what to do, but thinking how you can affect other players. Creating scarcity in your options and making turn order crucial, this is how many worker placement games work. The Viticulture base game does this very well. Can this translate to a co-op version? Making the game cooperative does on the surface level, seemingly make this redundant. But the reality in the game, is the scarcity is still there. Nothing changes with the rules about how many players can go into each space, (well, not much anyway, we will come onto that). It's just that now, you need to debate with the other players about what you want/need to do, so that you don't inadvertently block another player with a move you don't really need to do. Stopping another player being able to do something crucial to the groups success by doing something you didn't have to do this turn is a new skill you can only master through good communication. The scarcity is still there, it is just now a shared group decision. This difference in the game, the requirement to discuss your moves, is the reason why this game will either work or bomb for you. I love worker placement games it is one of my favourite mechanics. But it does often create a relatively quiet table experience. With just the odd cry of "Ah! I really wanted to go there!" breaking the otherwise silent room. This is fine, and sometimes exactly what I want. I love other worker placement games such as Le Harve, Everdell, Underwater Cities, Architects of the West Kingdom, Raiders of The North Sea, and Tzolk'in to name just a few. But I currently do not own any other cooperative worker placement games. The chance to now have this mechanism and play Viticulture in this way feels great. I enjoy discussing with my family and friends about what we are going to do and plan accordingly across multiple workers, how as a group we can best achieve our goals. It is unique to my collection and works well for me. With so many great worker placement games out there in many of our collections, surely there is a place for a cooperative worker placement game too? The complaints around the announcements for this baffle me I have to say. But, if this doesn't sound for you, then I understand that. Cooperative games are not for everyone. But I don't quite get the vitriol the announcement of this game was met with. Simply down to the fact it was a cooperative variant. "Hard Pass!" Was a common reaction. If you want a competitive game of Viticulture then you have had access to that since 2013! If you want a great expansion for it, then that already exists too. The way you win each game is by all players achieving at least 25 points, and as a group, the influence track reaching the final stage. Which does vary based on each continent you play. One issue with a co-op version of this is that it can be frustrating if you lose as a group, when the final space on the influence track was met and you achieved over 25, but one other player did not quite get to 25 points. But this is the very nature of cooperative games. And perhaps you got to where you are by not playing as a team? If it was because one player just made bad decisions, then this is where the debate and group planning come in? Could you of helped the other players more in your thoughts and actions? But this does lead to a major issue with cooperative games, quarter backing. The main reason many people don't like this mechanic. When one player leads the charge and tries to make decisions for everyone, this can take away the fun for others. If this is a problem with your group, you could always play with closed hands so you are semi-coop. Not knowing other players cards is an option in this game and would reduce another players opportunity to boss you about! Players are still working together, but you don't have to share everything with all players, giving you the chance to make your own decisions. I found the cooperative nature of this game has allowed me to get it to the table more. It makes playing it with other people new to the game so much easier. I can just start playing with zero teach and explain to people as we go the options and strategy. Players less familiar with the game are not as daunted or worried about losing to player more familiar with the strategy in cooperative mode, as they are now playing with that person, not against them. And when tired, I find I can encourage my wife to try this more than a competitive game, late in the evening, when working together can assist our sleepy minds! Seven Continent Modules The second major addition to this expansion is the inclusion of different modules. The first of which, Greengully, is set in the land made popular from a previous Stonemaier Game release, Charterstone. The other six are based on real-world continents, and the history within each one is very much real. Each one feels like a separate and new version of the game. It felt to me like being at an Italian restaurant when I opened the box. I knew I wanted pasta, but which type? Each continent brings its own set of unique rules, some new components, and required strategy. I don't want to go into this in full here, as I think there is some element of surprise as you play the game that I don't want to ruin. It would not be a full spoiler as such for me to reveal them, but I certainly enjoyed experiencing them for myself as I played and seeing them here before you play would affect your own enjoyment. So, all I will say here is they all feel very different. There is a real sense of progression as you move through each continent. The difficulty ramps up if you play in the recommended order. And there is a strong sense of satisfaction to be gained from developing your skills, strategy, and understanding of the game as you play through each continent. As you experience the full world of Viticulture in your first play through, it will feel like a campaign game of sorts. I am surprised it is not marketed and scored in this way. Rather they are looked at as individual modules you can pick from to tailor your experience based on which challenge you enjoyed the most or what difficulty of game you are looking for. The opening module is very much a training exercise and may not be used by everyone, but I certainly enjoyed the nods to Charterstone, and easy entry to the game. Especially as it had been a few months since my last game of Viticulture. It was nice to start with an easy win and remind myself of the strategies in the game. Also, the completist in me wanted to try them all, so I wasn't about to miss this first one. Jamey spoke about wanting everyone to start with an easier experience in his design diary. You get some real concessions to the normal rules with this addition, which almost guarantee a victory. This was why this was included. Seasonal Workers In Viticulture, players are given workers to use over the two main seasons of activity, summer and winter. You can decide when to use each worker and could be left without many options in one season if you go big in another. I like this choice. In Viticulture World, players have two workers with a yellow hat that can only work in the Summer, and two workers with blue hats that are restricted to winter work. You will have your grande worker still, that can go anywhere, and there is still the extra temporary worker that you can pick up in the spring that can also be placed in any season. But your four main workers are now limited. The restriction at the start of the game does balance out bad strategy, but also limits some options later in the game which can be frustrating. As such, one of the new options in Winter is to train a seasonal worker, remove their hat, and give them the flexibility to now work anytime. This is a simple addition to the game, that looks cool. The hats are very funky. But I am unsure how much it actually adds to the game. Perhaps the designers felt more limitation would aid in better table talk, and restrict one player from doubling down on one season, so that everyone feels involved throughout the entire game? It feels like something that was added during playtesting to avoid issues created by the cooperative mechanic, by adding more tension to each decision and encouraging more debate. I may be wrong, but this is what it feels like. It doesn't add much to the game other than frustration, and in fairness, the chance for some cool insta' pics! Upgradable Worker Spots Developing your player board in Viticulture feels great. Adding new buildings to your vineyard and planting more vines so that your wine making process becomes more powerful brings a real sense of satisfaction as the game progresses. One of my favourite additions to Viticulture World is the innovation tiles which adds this feeling to the main board too. Each round, in spring you will add four innovation tiles to the available spaces. They are not yours yet, just available to purchase. In Summer, if you have the available Lira, you can purchase one of the tiles to place over another space on the board to improve that spaces efficiencies, and/or reduce its cost. This could be the space you place your worker itself, which also frees up the space so that now as many workers as you like can be placed here; or the action spaces above which increases that spaces power to all players for the rest of the game. This is my favourite addition to the game, but also, my biggest frustration. I love the development on the board these tiles bring and enjoy having increased powers in certain spaces as the game develops. But it does add a huge element of luck as some tiles are obviously used a lot more than others. And of course, some tiles are more important early in the game such as planting, whereas others work harder for you at the end, such as fulfilling an order. As such, the order that the upgrades tiles come out can greatly affect your chances of victory in the game. It makes a lot of sense to upgrade as many tiles as you can early in the game, but less so if they are not ones you will use at the beginning stages. If planting comes out last or not at all, that will obviously hurt your chances. Being able to harvest every field instead of just one is a massive upgrade. If this doesn't come out in round two or three, then your opportunities to get lots of early grapes is significantly reduced. This is variation that was not needed in my experiences. This affects the game so much that I feel the tiles should be ordered to come out in a set way. A variant could be that you mix them up in a random order for advanced players. But the set way should be in a set order prescribed by the publisher to avoid such a heavy swing in luck. Mamas and Papas Cards Colour Reversed The only change is the base colour for each gender is reversed so that all types of parent groups can be created. This is a great example of Stonemaier creating games for all. Being inclusive as a publisher. Listening to feedback from fans. And making positive changes for all. Well done, Stonemaier. Fall Benefits The spring wake up track has a new inner circle that you move into after the summer is over, where each player can then choose to take a card of any colour, two Lira, or age one grape. This is a nice choice to have, whereas with the base game, you are limited to drawing a new visitor card only. This is a nice simple change that brings in more flexibility, and helps you plan for the winter season with more control. How We Can Learn From History In making this expansion, the designer made the choice to research the history of Viticulture around the world and include major events and people from history in the new modules. Each continent module brings a key part of each regions main development within the industry to the forefront. The climate, geology, and assistance from French winemakers in Asia, the political turmoil that affected African winemaking, and the prohibition era in North American are all covered. It seems that a lot of work went into understanding each region, and keeping the game linked to the facts. This is not a historical game, but historical elements certainly add to the game enjoyment for me. I learnt as I played. The issue comes with the South American module where some of the characters chosen to be included in the game were involved in some horrific moments of history. Stonemaier use a cultural consultant in all games now, and these characters inclusion was picked up as a problem, and a disclaimer was included on the cards which states that the people included in the South American module are not being honoured. It's a short disclaimer that does not really say much. Through early review copies, the inclusion of these people, despite the disclaimer was questioned, due to the fact that you had to work with them to gain a benefit. In a game about War, you cannot avoid certain aspects of life, and history. But in a game about wine, I think some hoped they would not need to encounter this part of the past. And certainly not in a way where you are forced to work with these people from history to do well in the game. As such, a new module for South America is being made and sent out to replace these cards. I do not have the new one yet and did not play the old one out of respect of those affected and the publishers request to all reviewers. This is a good lesson for all publishers about how things like this can affect people. And how reliance on a cultural consultant may not always be enough when developing a game. There are real-world consequences to everything we all do. And more needs to be done to understand this. Personally, I think it is good this change happened. If someone is upset by a game, and you can make the change, then make the change. However, I have since read a lot about the people included in the original module and the history, which is something I would not have done had I not seen them in the game or heard about the issue. I educated myself and bettered my own knowledge from their inclusion. As such, my recommendation to publishers in the future would be to think more about the stories you are telling, the histories you are exploring, and the characters you are including. Think about how this may upset or offend people. And make your own decisions as to whether they should be included or not. And if they are included explain the reasons why upfront. Explain their part in history. A small disclaimer is not enough. If there was a need for a disclaimer, then there was a need for proper explanation too. Take some time to say why the disclaimer is there and detail the issues. Give links for further reading and help us all educate ourselves better. I don't think history should be ignored. But I also don't want it to be trivialised or wrongfully glamorised. We should learn from it. Summery Overall, I have loved every game of this expansion. It has made me play the game again multiple times as I travelled around the different modules. That alone has been great for me! I cannot wait to get the new South America module to complete my journey. And when I do, I will go round and do it again. Time and time again. I have already tried a few of the module's multiple times. And not just as we lost some! I enjoy the new twist each one brings. As much as the joy of experiencing each one for the first time can never be replicated, your understanding of the strategy grows each time. There is a joy in becoming a wine making expert in all of the continents, under each modules own unique challenges. This is an excellent expansion for a brilliant game. I don't see this making anyone who doesn't like the base game fall in love with Viticulture. Unless it is someone who just does not enjoy competitive games, and the cooperative nature of this fixes that. But seeing as most people already really enjoy Viticulture, I can see this being a hit with everyone who gives this a try, without the "hard pass" attitude towards the co-op mature. I will continue to play Tuscany without this, and I will also play this expansion without Tuscany. The choice really comes down to whether I want to play Viticulture competitively or cooperatively. It is as simple as that. I expect it will be 50/50 between the two, and it will mean I get to play a game I love, more often. I am delighted I have the choice. And I will treasure this expansion for years to come.

Toy Story WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, Clank, Dominion. Published by: The Op Designed by: Prospero Hall, Kami Mandell VERY MINOR SPOILERS LATER. You will be warned at the right time and can skip on if needed. If you are looking for a family-friendly cooperative game to play with your young children, that is themed to your kids taste, then you are going to struggle to find something that fits the bill more than this! Toy Story: Obstacles & Adventures could well be the gateway game you have been searching for. How To Play The premise of this game, is very simple. You and your family/friends need to battle your way through the main story lines from the Toy Story movies, and save the toys! Build your deck to enhance your powers and save the day before it is too late. Each player will choose from one of four different characters to play as, or from five when you get to story two. This is explained on page one of the rules, so I would say is not really a spoiler! But Jessie's board, the fifth character not available in game one, will be very much viable when you open the box. If you have a young daughter desperate to play as Jessie from game one, you may need to open the box and hide this away before you sit down and play with her!!! Just as an example. Nothing specific... Each character has a starting deck of ten cards. On your turn, you will turn over the top danger card and resolve its effect. This usually forces you loose some health or moves the marker on the adventure track a space or two. The marker represents the toys journey through one of the major story lines in the franchise. If the marker reaches the end of the track before you complete the game, you will loose and will need to try again. Although this is very much avoidable and rarely happens. If you loose all your health, you will loose half your cards and any objects you have, move the tracker forward one space, but then get all your health back at the end of your turn. So, this is not too bad either, and also highly avoidable. Once the danger card is resolved, you will then check the current affects on any face up hazard card. Again, this will mainly affect your health, but can also change your hand size, or other minor inconveniences. You can then play your hand of cards, which will usually be five. Cards mainly allow you to either get imagination pieces which allow you to buy new cards from the face up draw pile to add to your discard pile to be used later, or insight pieces to help you defeat the current face up adventure card. Each adventure card has a required amount of insight pieces needed to defeat it. When this is done, all players will receive a benefit, such as health or imagination pieces, and a new adventure card will be drawn. When you defeat the final adventure card in the deck, you will win that mission. There are a number of missions in the game, and they get progressively more difficult. The final two will require some understanding of the game in order to win, but the rest are very simple and most families will fly through them. Your deck building skills will be crucial to your success. Buying the right cards, getting rid of the weaker ones, and most importantly, not being tempted to buy bad cards when that is all you can afford, will be key as you work your way through the different missions. Adventure Awaits! There are six boxes in the game that you can open as you work your way through each victory. Children will find opening these, and discovering the secrets within to be incredibly exciting! There is something magical about holding back components like this. It makes the moment when you do get them that much more sweet. My family were clamouring to get this game to the table "one more time," not just so they could play, but also so they could see what was inside the next box. This method of introducing new rules, cards, and other surprises as you move through a campaign like this, is a clever way to make the game develop in complexity over time, allowing younger players to become familiar with the core rules, before new elements are introduced. It also keeps the game fresh over multiple plays. And makes people want to come back for more to discover the treats inside! To Infinity. And Beyond! My family loved the familiarity this game brought. The films are such a huge part of many of our lives, and the characters are instantly recognisable. At every turn there is something for fans of the films to spot. Being reminded of various scenes and funny lines is a great part of this, and I would encourage others who enjoy the movies to take their time with these games. Enjoy the art. Discuss what is happening on the scenes depicted within the cards. This brings out the theme in a deeper way, makes the game feel like more of a story, and certainly made our family enjoy the process even more. At the end of each game, the cards you have bought and added to your hand are shuffled back into the main deck, and you start the next game with your starting hand again. This was a frustration for my children as they did not enjoy going back to the start each time and loosing the new cards they had acquired. This is the same in the Harry Potter version of this game, which is in all but theme, identical to this game. It's a shame players cannot keep at least one card game-to-game. I don't really understand why this is the case, as it is a little frustrating to go back to the beginning each time. Some cards you buy at the later stages of game, you won't even get to use. For a family game, that is about fun, you think they would include this, and maybe have the reset rule as a advanced variant. But with that said, each time you start again, you will quickly get into the new game, and the mission in front of you. And your hand will build back up in number and power in now time. Each turn you will usually buy at least one card, and turns happen very quickly. The cooperative nature of this game allows for adults to help younger children with the more tricky rules and strategy. However, I found with my six and nine year old, I could leave them to make their own decisions during most games. The final two as I say are a little more complex, and offer more of a challenge. But when they are all completed, it is nice to have a range of game to then try again, deepening on how hard you want to make the game. You can also easily adjust the starting position of the tracker on the adventure track to adjust the difficulty. And we even house ruled a deck building element to the start up, where everyone could take five cards from the main deck to form their starting personal deck, instead of the basic ten you usually get. In the next picture there will be a very minor spoiler. This will be explained in the following paragraph. If you want to avoid any spoilers then skip on past the next picture and the next few lines. Time To Play The new elements that are brought into the rules, game by game, are all simple enough to be introduced with only a minute or two of explanation each time. But change the game in ways that keep everything fresh and exciting. I don't want to ruin them here, but above is a very minor spoiler that shows how small asymmetric player powers are introduced in one of the later rounds. It's a nice addition to the game that makes the choice of each character at the start of the game become a little bit more than just about which pictures your kids like. But in truth, it does remain mainly as this! Which is fine, as I love Rex. I don't really want to be Woody. Its fine. No really, it is! The following boxes I will leave for you to find out about on your own. All I will say is that after the final box, you may feel the game is done. And it will be left on the shelf for a while. But that will still have brought you at least six games, if you won each one first time. But probably more like eight to ten games. And I would wager, if you have got through all six boxes, it was because you enjoyed the experience. And so playing them again will be something you will want to do. I don't think there is a replayability issue here, other than the complexity. As your children grow up, it may become too simple for them. But this could just be the beginning of your families adventures together. Summery Playing Toy Story with my family has been a very rewarding experience. I played the Harry Potter version with my son, and loved it. However, we have not played the final two games in full together as he has not finished the books and films yet, and I didn't want the game to ruin the story from the book for him. I was also unable to play this with my daughter, who is not a fan of the Harry Potter world as much as my son and I. Whereas with Toy Story, my entire family loves it, and has seen every minute of every film, and I would imagine this is the same with thousands of families around the world. As such, this really is the perfect game for young families to play together if you like us, love Toy Story. Anyone who loves the films will be familiar with everything in this box, and instantly love it. The game will teach your family the concepts of deck-building, which if they enjoy, could lead you on to Clank or other such games. And the campaign nature may encourage you to try something else a little more adventurous with them, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, as they grow up. As such, I would highly recommend this game, not only for the fun you will have with it, and the stories it will remind you of. But also because of the journey it may well start you and your family on.

Undaunted: Reinforcements WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Undaunted: Normandy, Memoir ‘44, Undaunted: North Africa Published by: Osprey Games Designed by: Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson with Solo mode by David Digb, Dávid Turczi By Steve Godfrey When most publishers release expansions for a game they normally do them in chunks. Maybe a few new cards and scenarios here, a solo mode there, possibly even a big box storage solution somewhere down the road. Osprey games however have decided to say “forget that nonsense, we’re releasing this all at once!” So, just for some clarification. Aside from this box I only own a copy of North Africa myself so all solo mode games were only played using that game. The solo system works exactly the same in both games. Similarly all my plays at 4 players were done using Normandy, but again it’s the same principle across both games. Also if you want to see how Undaunted works and see what Jim thought of North Africa you can check out his review here and you get to see his smiling face and who can say no to that! With that out of the way let’s jump in……you could as well, the box is big enough! Just for ease I’m going to break everything down in sections just so you can skip to any part that is of a particular interest. New Units Just like its namesake this box does indeed include reinforcements for each game and for each side. The main addition for Normandy is tanks and believe me they’re not shy with what you get. Three different types and separate units for some types. Tanks for Normandy work differently to the vehicles in North Africa. Rather than having a separate vehicle card where you can place tokens they work pretty much like a normal unit just with a couple of different keywords. So any Normandy players who didn't take to North Africa's vehicles will probably appreciate how these work and how they don’t add any major new rules overhead. Normandy also includes specialists that have new combat actions. The tanks add in their anti tank weapons and the other non vehicle units include new attacks and grenades. Rather than targeting one single unit these actually target an entire tile meaning that not only can you hit multiple enemies at once, but also friendly fire is a thing now. North Africa's main addition is Mines. When you lay a mine it’s placed on the crossover between two tiles on either its anti armour side or its anti personnel side. When an enemy unit of that type crosses those tiles an attack is performed but the defending unit gets no tile or range defence. Something a friend of mine noticed on our first play was that there was a slight colour matching difference on the backs of the new unit cards. This was more noticeable on the Normandy decks than with the North Africa decks. This didn’t pose a problem for our group and it’s not been an issue since. I don't think we paid that close attention to the backs as we were drawing the cards. Even if you do notice them when drawing you still won’t know what unit it is your drawing, just what set it’s coming from. I would say for some people this may not be an issue, or even noticeable. Although there will obviously be a number of people that this will be an issue for, which is completely understandable. Osprey are offering replacement cards which you can find in the forums on board game geek. Nevertheless these units are a great addition to the game. The new keywords don’t add anything too complex to the game and the new simplified tanks for Normandy means that they are easy additions and can easily be taught to new players so you can use these new units and scenarios as soon as you get them. Joint Operations: Four player mode. I love the Undaunted games but sometimes getting certain two player only games like this to the table isn’t easy. Now we have a four player variant to help get these great games played more often. Four player games are actually really simple. Players split into two teams of two and each team chooses one player to be the Platoon Sergeant. Construct all the players decks as per the set up guide for the scenario with each player getting their own deck and personal supply. Both players in a team share a fog of war deck. Players draw cards as per the usual rules but this time the Sergeants draw four and their teammate draws three. Only the leaders cards are used to determine initiative. The turn order will alternate with the Sergeant who won initiative going first, then the opposing leader etc. The game plays out as normal as per the scenario. When each team's Sergeants play their Platoon Sergeant card (or lieutenant if you're using the LRDG) then they will put it in their teammates discard pile and leadership will transfer to them. Team mates can talk and plan out their turns but all chatter has to be open. The four player game is great. It’s a lot of fun to be able to talk strategies with a teammate and plan out your moves together. Both team members will both have different deck make ups so you’ll both have similarities in your decks but also skill sets that only you have in your deck. This makes each player's choices unique to them and makes them equally important to how your strategy plays out. If you’ve already played either game then this is easy to explain and get started. Equally the beauty of this is that it can easily be taught to new players whilst you're teaching the main game. This player mode is actually a good learning tool since you could easily help out a new player on your team rather than sitting across from them and potentially beating them simply due to inexperience. Just remember not to alpha game them!! The fact that this means I can play the game more and it’s easy to introduce to new players immediately appeals to me and a lot of people I would imagine. The only downside I would say is that the four player game can only be played with the included scenarios in this box and there are only four for each game. Now if you add that up and factor in playing both sides and then with the different decks then you could say that technically you could play differently 16 times per game. That’s still a lot of games you can get out of it but if you’re set on always playing a certain side then you may be a bit more limited? The fun scenarios are fun though and they can also be played at two and solo. Enemy Unknown: Solo mode Not content with opening up the player count one way, they’ve also gone and done it in the other direction as well. In solo mode simply pick a game, pick a scenario from either the main book or the book of scenarios in this box, set up the decks for both sides, pick the side you want to play as then take out the corresponding solo cards for your opponents units. Each unit across both games has its own set of double sided solo cards but you’ll only use one of these for each unit per scenario. Rather than being random though every card side is only used in certain scenarios. This means that each one is optimised for the specific scenario you’ll be playing and should mean that a unit will be doing something each turn. This is a lot better than what can happen with some solo games where the A.I. can spend turns standing round on a space looking like they’re in severe need of a sat nav. You’ll draw your four cards as normal and pick an initiative card then flip over the top card of the bot deck. If the bot goes first they use all four cards, if not then only three. They then activate their cards in initiative order (highest to lowest) by using the solo cards for that unit. Each card has a set of commands they could potentially do. If the bot is able to do the first command then they do it, if not they do the second one etc. In the solo book for each scenario you’ll also find a list of “dangerous units” which will act as the bot preferred units for it to attack. I really like the solo mode for these games. The optimised cards for each scenario means that you’re always playing against an interesting and threatening opponent rather than a generalised bot that may suffer in certain situations. Couple this with the fact that there’s solo cards for every scenario over both games and the ones in the reinforcements box and you’re getting a lot of games out of these cards, and that’s if you only play as one side! I will say that this solo mode has a big learning curve. Even the rule book says that you should make sure you’re familiar with the normal rules before jumping into the solo mode and I would definitely agree. I’d played North Africa a couple of times before I sat down for the solo mode but being the rebel that I am I ignored the good advice that the designers had spelled out for me. I realised that my rebellious way was going to be my downfall when I was surrounded by four rule books! Now with more plays of both regular games under my belt things are definitely on the easier side but just be aware that your first few solo games are going to be that bit longer and will have you flipping through the rules trying to get a handle of things. Whether or not you think this learning curve and the slight bit of extra set up is worth your time depends on your interest or solo gaming in general. If you only play solo games out of curiosity now and then, then maybe this is one to best leave in the box. If however solo gaming is your thing or this is a way to help you get the game played then this would definitely be one that’s worth getting your teeth into. Storage Solution The last thing in this box is, well, the box itself. The reinforcements box will fit all the contents of both Normandy and North Africa, as well as the stuff already in this box, obviously. As I said up top, I don’t own Normandy but when I was testing out the four player game round a friends house we did a test fit with both games and everything fits in there just as it should and it works as well as any third party solution would do. As a warning though, Sleeved cards won’t fit into the regular slots provided. They fit width wise but they won’t fit the other way. They will fit in the box but you will have to use one of the other slots. I don’t tend to sleeve a lot of cards so for me this won't really prove an issue if I ever come to own Normandy. It’s a shame though because if you're going to sleeve any type of game then deck builders are at the top of the deck. Final Thought’s Is this a must buy? If everything here sounds like something you would use then I think this is well worth it. The extra games modes give me a lot more opportunity to get these great games to the table. The extra units add some more variety to your games and the storage solution works well (aside from the above mentioned) and means you no longer need to decide which game to take to game night because they’re both going to be in one handy box. If you're only interested in parts of this expansion (I know solo gaming isn’t for everyone) then it would depend on what parts of this you’re interested in and what sort of value you place on those. For me this is a great addition to Undaunted and the fact that it encompasses a lot of different modules and a great storage solution in one expansion make this well worth it. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of this box so far and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

Tranquillity WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: The Mind, Hanabi, Magic Maze Published by: Board Game Hub Designed by: James Emmerson By Steve Godfrey Close your eyes, relax. You're on a boat drifting calmly through the tranquil seas with nothing but the sound of the ocean gently lapping at the side of your boat to disturb your peace. Aaaahhh bliss. Then, out of nowhere a sea monster attacks and you’re startled from your chair rushing to the controls of the boat just as a storm starts tossing the boat from side to side and soaking the deck making the trip to the helm all the more treacherous. The sea monster submerges back into the depths and you breathe a sigh of relief. But what’s that? with the rain still lashing down on the window you can barely make out the shape of JAGGED ROCKS!!! You swerve to narrowly avoid them, the storm suddenly eases off and the seas calm and you're left to go back to your calming trip, if you can. Some nice calming rules To set up tranquility lay out the border cards so they make a six by six grid inside them (so essentially an eight by eight border). Shuffle the five finish cards into the main deck. Then deal the cards out as evenly as you can to all the players. They then shuffle one start card each into their draw pile. Each player then draws a starting hand of five cards. On your turn you can either play a card into the grid or discard two. The aim of tranquility is to complete the grid and have the start and finish cards out as well. Each card has a number on them from 1 to 80 and the numbers will be placed into the grid in ascending order from the start card to the finish. They will need to be placed from left to right on the bottom line then right to left on the second etc etc. When you play a card it can be placed anywhere in the grid. If you place a card next to another one then you have to discard as many cards as the difference between them. So, if you put a three next to a five you’d discard two cards. If you place between two cards then you discard based on the number closest to the card you just placed. You can’t however put cards next to each other that would make you empty your hand. When the first start card is drawn then It must be played on the bottom left of the grid. Players then collectively discard a total of eight cards. When the grid is complete then if someone has a finish card in their hand they can play it to the end of the grid to win the game. Players lose the game if one player can not legally play any cards on their turn. There is of course a little twist here in the fact that players cannot communicate what cards they have in their hand other than when they are discarding cards from the result of a start card being drawn. A game of tranquility? Games of Tranquility tend to start off exactly as the games name suggests, Tranquil. You place cards down in the grid with some degree of thought but knowing that the whole deck is out there in either yours or your teammates hands means you haven’t got that many worries. Sooner or later one of two things will happen that will start to ramp things up. First, someone will draw a start card causing all players to discard eight cards between them. It’s here and only here that you can communicate with your team. Even then you now know that eight potentially useful cards have definitely been discarded and now the game takes its first terrifying step into the unknown. The second thing will come as the grid starts to fill up and you need to start playing cards next to others and discarding others. It’s here that the tension starts to mount and the decisions over which cards to discard becomes increasingly tougher. Its also where the games inbuilt timer starts to tick down at a much faster pace. It’s all well and good discarding those one or two cards that don’t quite fit yet, but you’re also relying on your teammates not to have done exactly the same thing! The most difficult card to discard though is those finish cards! There are only five in the deck and as these get shuffled into the main deck and dealt out, you have no idea where they’re distributed amongst the players. Sure discarding one seems fine at the time, but if you’ve had that thought, then chances are so has everyone else. You wont find out if that’s the case thought until the time comes to play a Finish card at the end of the game. Limited or no communication games are becoming more popular and you either love them or you don’t. If you don’t then I don’t think Tranquility will change you mind but the non-communication rules is what makes this game. First off it stops any alpha gaming and puts the decisions solely in each player's hand, for better or for worse. If you’re someone who likes an alpha gamer because you have someone to blame if you lose then be prepared to take responsibility for your own actions. It’s this simple rule though that brings the tension. Any sort of discussion and this game would just be a simple puzzle of laying cards in a grid and, let’s face it, probably wouldn’t be much of a puzzle. Similar to playing a game like The Mind, whenever you lay a card down you can’t help but look around at the other players with a grimace on your face hoping that you’re not scuppering another player's plan of placing a better card in that gap. You tend to run the gamut of emotions into this game from “argh why did you play that card there, you’re never coming to another game night” all the way to “thank you for playing that card there, I take back everything I said about you” A good placement for another player could be all you need to give you more options of which cards to discard from your hand. As mentioned before, the game is on a timer and the more cards that are played down and the more that are discarded the quicker the timer runs down. There’s nothing more tense in this game than seeing the cards quickly run down only to look up and see a load of empty spaces that still need filling. The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand. The first thing you’re obviously going to notice about the game is the small box. This is literally just a box of square cards and the rules. With more and more discussions about the amount of unnecessary “air” in games boxes, it’s nice to see this perfect sized box being used. I think this is something that everyone involved in this decision should be applauded for. Don’t let the small box fool you though because this can be a bit of a table hog. You’ll essentially be making an eight by eight grid of cards and it tends to take up way more space than you expect. The other thing I will say is that, if you’re playing on a regular table the border does have a tendency to slip and that can throw things off. Even a miscount of the border cards during setup can throw the game off and you may have to reset. Trust me, I know this from experience! It’s strange because as much as I love the portability of this game and I wouldn’t change a thing about this production, I think all of that would be improved with the play mat……which would then defeat the object of having such a portable game. Maybe I’ll pick it up just for home use. (Play mat available here when stock comes in) This is a great puzzle and whether you play it solo or co-op, each brings something different to how it plays out. In solo mode the game is a battle with yourself and the entire deck of cards. It may sound like it’s going to be a bit easier since you're in charge of all of the cards and surely you know which cards you’ve discarded right? Well yes, to a point but that doesn’t mean you won’t discard something early on thinking it won’t matter, only to realise a few turns later that you really could have used that card. More variants than the multiverse. So, you’ve played the game a few times, you’ve got some good strategies and you’ve probably won the game a few times. That’s it, you’re done with it, put it up for sale or trade right? Nope, because Tranquility comes with eight variants that include different board set ups, a competitive game and variable difficulties. That of course is not including the Stormy seas expansion cards which have Jagged rocks, sea monsters and the storm and compass. I don’t know about you but that’s a heck of a lot of game stuffed into one tiny box. Now at this point I’ve only played a few of the variants and each adds their own challenge and the ones I’ve tried have been fun and found a new way to keep the game fresh, not that it was getting stale at all. I haven’t played them all but in the words of the great Rodney Smith “I’ll leave those for you to discover on your own” For such a small box Tranquility offers up such a lot of game both in table space and content and with all the variants gives you so much versatility and all for the small price and a lot of portability.