Viticulture: Moor Visitors WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: Agricola, Architects of the West Kingdom, Lords of Waterdeep. Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Uwe Rosenberg, Jamey Stegmaier, Alan Stone Viticulture is often cited as one of the best Worker Placement games, and one of the most popular games produced by Stonemaier games. It made a lot of people's top 3 games. I would agree with all of these points. Tuscany is seen as the essential expansion to Viticulture, and for good reason. It is truly excellent. Viticulture World brought in a new cooperative variant, which is great fun. But if you are looking for something more simple to add some variety to the base game, Moor Visitors could be for you. Moor Visitors is just that. More visitors! In this small box expansion are 42 new cards to shuffle in with the main game to add variation and some cool new powers to the game. There are 20 new spring cards, and 20 new winter cards. Plus two corrections. To play with this expansion, simple shuffle them into their respective decks and away you go. The cards all integrate well with the base game, and it is somewhat intriguing to see what someone with the pedigree of Uwe Roseburg has done with a project like this. I mean, it's the guy behind Agricola, Le Havre, and many many more, putting in his two cents worth, or should that be two lira, into this modern classic from Jamey Stegmaier. What a treat! I just wish they had done a little more than just cards. Although, that is what Tuscany is for. So, really I should just sit back and enjoy the ride. There is one minor gripe with the main game of Viticulture, that I do not personally subscribe too. This is that you can win the game without fulfilling wine orders. Which is true. Some say it is better to play this way as it is quicker to build up your points other ways. This I don't totally agree with. But I like the choice of different ways to score and play. So, I am fine with it. This expansion does bring in new cards that offer new point scoring options, which does accentuate this issue. And also, potentially speed up the game. As such, this is one minor issue with this expansion. But if you like playing Viticulture this way, then it will only enhance your experience. It's a bit like Splendor. There are two main ways to play. Build up our engine slowly and then reap the benefits with some powerful moves near the end. Or go for points early to try and end the game before your opponents have had time to get their engine running. Both are solid tactics. Both can work. This expansion helps with one more than the other. Personally., I agree with the sentiment that in a wine making game you should at least make some wine and fulfil some orders. So, we often house rule that at least one order needs to be fulfilled to win the game. It's an easy fix. But there are some cards, such as the Draftsman above, and the Mill Operator below that help with your engine too. Encouraging players to develop more buildings, with discounts, rewards, and even the chance to pass this on to other players. More buildinngs means a more powerful engine, and hopefully, more chances to make wine and fulfil orders! Although, not all the time. My cards are now shuffled into the base game, and I don't see myself ever splitting them out. I would not say this is an essential expansion as it just adds cards. But for the price, any fan of Viticulture would certainly enjoy what the added variation brings. And in terms of an expansion being used every time moving forward, in that regards, this could be considered as being close to essential as I will now never play without them. If you play Viticulture a lot, the added variety is very much welcome. It all fits in the base game box without any issues, and the expansion cards need no extra rules explanation. So, this adds no extra time to the game set-up or teach. And maybe as discussed speeds up the main game with more ways to score points. Overall, I am a big fan of this little expansion. It won't change your opinion of the base game, but if you like Viticulture then this certainly does develop the options, scope, and variety. Viticulture remains one of my favourite worker placement games in a very cluttered market place. It works well in all player counts, and is one of my go to gateway games when bringing new people to the hobby. Moor Visitors will remain shuffled in with the base game cards for the rest of my paying time, and comes highly recommend from WBG.

Ever wanted to play Mario Kart the board game? Well, your wait may be over. Wonky Wheels from first time independent designers, and father and son duo, Colin and Nathan Lee is just that. A family friendly race game, with crazy power ups, speed boosters, wild swings in race position, and multiple race tracks. Intrigued? Read on! Coming to kickstarter soon, Wonky Wheels is a crazy mix between hand management, extreme power ups, and a flat out race. This is an early prototype copy so rules, art, and quality of components are sure to change. This was provided for free for my unbiased early opinion. Set-Up Getting Wonky Wheels to the table is a breeze. Everyone must first chose which character they want to be. Distribute the character piece, cards, tokens, and player mat in each colour to all players. Then choose your race set up. You can do whatever you like, or copy one from the manual. Just make sure it joins up and looks fun. As part of this you can also lay out various power tokens, such as the frisbee and flying carpet. Deal out one Super power up card to each player and shuffle the regular power up cards and split them into two face down decks. That's it. You are now ready to race. How to Play Players will draw the top three cards from their deck then chose one card. They will play this face down and then when all players are ready, flip the card face up in unison. Cards allow you to move forward, turn, and sometimes add a nitro boost. The game is a simple race. First round the track three times wins. If two or more players cross the finish line at the same time then it's the player who travelled the further beyond the finish line that takes the victory. Each time you cross a POW sign you can draw a new power up card. You can play one power up card each turn. You can also player your super power up card whenever you like, but this is a one time use. These cards offer some hilarious and powerful options to help you or hinder others. If players move through each other, they will cause damage to other players. Using your Nitro's will wear down your tires, and various cards will affect your mechanics and engine too. If they get too low on either of these tracks, you will start losing powers to your steering, power, or nitro. The only way to fix this is by driving through the Pits. One of the corner pieces. If you travel through the frisbee or flying carpet you can use its powers. The frisbee is another way to enact damage on other players vehicles. The flying carpet will increase your movement, doubling whatever you have leftover at the point that you reached it. As you play Wonky Wheels, it will very much feel like a Mario Kart port. It has all the chaos, fun, and random power ups of the video game racer, and everything works so well on the table. Some of the power ups are hilarious. I love the art, and how simple they all are to understand and use. There is even a power up card which enacts a side mini-game of rock-paper-scissors. If the attacking player wins it allows them to swap places with the other player. Something very handy if they are significantly in the lead! The only thing that disappointed at this stage of the development of this game, was that there are currently no asymmetric powers. The characters you can choose from are all incredibly varied in terms of their looks. But identical in terms of the deck of cards you have, and the options available. I would like to see some minor asymmetry at work in the final version, or perhaps as a side module, where each character has its own special power linked somehow to its characteristics. The submarine can take a short cut through a water area perhaps? The foot can stomp nearby players to become mini versions? I love the Super power up cards. They add a huge twist and swing to the game. Some are a little less powerful that others though, and as they can be so influential in the game, I feel that perhaps you should be dealt two or three, and then can chose one, and discard the others. Some games I have not even used my super power up card as it just did not work out. Other times I felt I won because of it. I think you need more options at set-up with these. The frisbee and flying carpet tokens are a nice addition to the game. For variety, perhaps a few more tokens could be developed that bring in new affects and powers. There is already quite a lot of variety here with the Super power up cards, various track lays outs, and the random nature of how players interact with each other. But I would like to make the tracks look and feel different each race with these variations in tokens too. Overall, I was left very excited to see how this game develops. It is great fun right out the box as it is. But can see huge potential with just a few minor amends. There are some great race games out there. But a lot of them take themselves a little too seriously. I like how Wonky Wheels brings a more arcade style sense of fun to the table. Games are quick, incredibly hard to predict, and offer all players the sense of victory at all points with the various power up cards on offer. I will follow the progress of this game very closely. You can do the same too here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wonkywheels/wonky-wheels And here - https://icklefamgames.uk/

Marvel Champions WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Marvel Legendary, Arkham Horror LCG, Lord of the Rings LCG Published by: Fantasy Flight Games Designed by: Michael Boggs, Nate French, Caleb Grace By Steve Godfrey There really is no better feeling in the morning than swooping down, thwarting a bad guys evil schemes, beating them up and their minions and throwing them in jail... errr is what I would say if I was a superhero, which I’m not, I don’t know where you heard that, it’s just a silly rumour. How to put villians in The Raft: A superheroes guide. In Marvel champions players are working together to stop the main villain completing their nefarious schemes. If the villain gains enough threat tokens on the main schemes or if they knock out all the players then they win the game. If the players manage to defeat the villain a set number of times then they win. The number of times you need to do this depends on the difficulty you want it at. On a player's turn they can do as many things as they wish as long as they can afford it or are able to. Once per turn they can flip their hero’s identity card from its alter ego side to its hero side or vice versa. They can also choose to activate their hero. On their alter ego side they can exhaust the hero to heal damage done to them. On the hero side they can either attack the villain or a minion that’s engaged with them or they can thwart. Thwart removes threat tokens from schemes that are in play. Players can play cards from their hand. These can either be event cards which are played and then discarded, or they can be, upgrade, ally, or support cards, all of which are played in front of you and will stay in play either permanently or until any card effect discards them. Allies can either be played for their card abilities if they have any or for their thwart or attack abilities and usually take some sort of consequential damage if they do so use them wisely, because chances are they won’t be around for long. Once all players have been then all cards are unexhausted and everyone will draw back up to their hand size. Now it’s the villains turn. First they add threat tokens to the scheme. Then they will go to each player in turn order and do one of two things depending on their identity at the time. If in alter ego mode the villain ignores the character and schemes using their scheme value. This basically puts more threat to the main scheme. First though a card is drawn from the villains deck and any symbols on the bottom right are added to this amount. This is called boosting. If a player is in hero mode then a similar thing happens but this time the villain will attack instead of scheming. Before the boost card is played the hero can declare that they are defending and will then exhaust their hero card to add their defence value. Which is handy as you’ll take less damage but it means that, unless you have particular cards in play, your hero will begin your next turn exhausted. Of course the other option is to bravely pull an ally in front of you to soak up all the damage as you bravely cower behind them! Once the villain has been round all the players, then any minions engaged with the hero's will either scheme or attack but without the boost. Once they're all done then a card is drawn from the villains encounter deck for each player. These will either be nasty effects, new minions or even new side schemes. Then everything will start again with the players taking their turns. Marvellous I've been back and forth on whether or not I wanted Marvel Champions since it came out. On the one hand, it’s Marvel and it presented with a ton of possibilities to play as your favourite characters and create your own hero decks and even the villains were customizable given you more replayability! What’s not to love? My problem however is that it was compared a lot to Marvel Legendary. A game which I’ve played a quite few times and just can’t get into for a number of reasons. There were other factors, like some reviews that stated that you may want to invest in extra packs straight away to get the best experience out of it and that the story was lacking. So here I am reviewing Marvel Champions and I’ve gotta I’m almost annoyed at myself that I didn’t make the leap sooner……although I’ll always encourage doing your research before investing in most games. Marvel Legendary has taught me that. Much like being a superhero this game is all about making difficult decisions, errr So I’m told, I mean I'm certainly not a superhero. Just because you’ve never seen us in the same room together, doesn’t mean we’re the same person! From the moment you draw your starting hand of cards you’re faced with some interesting and sometimes difficult choices. Working out your priorities for the round is usually the best place to start. Something I didn’t mention in the rules is HOW you play cards from your hand. Each card has a number in the top left corner, this is how much it costs to play that card. In the bottom left of every card is one or two resources that it generates. To play cards you need to spend the resources by discarding cards. This is such a great system, which, when looking at it from the outside you can appreciate it for what it is. When your in the game playing though you can’t help but curse it for making you choose between punching a villain in the face now or playing down a decent long term bonus. It’s a system which will see you constantly looking at you hand of cards and saying “that’s a really good card, ooh so is that one, argh I can’t afford them both”. Sometimes which one you want to play for that turn is a bit of a no brainer. If you need to thwart that turn then you’re going to play that one. But getting rid of that other great card could be a crucial decision later on down the line, especially if you don’t get that back until later on in the game, if at all. Excelsior! I love combos in games, I’ve probably even mentioned it in other reviews. Marvel Champions gives you all the combos you can fit under your cape and they’re great, especially since you have to build up to them. Your starting layout is just your hero which means that your first one or two turns are fairly limited. But, as you play down allies and upgrades your turns become like a dance as you play cards here, exhaust other cards and ready others only to use them again. Seriously, add in some music next time you play a big combo and see what I mean. It’s all the more satisfying when you know that you’ve put all that effort into building it up and then it triggers like a Marvel themed Rube Goldberg machine in card form and it’s awesome. So is it thematic? Do you feel like a superhero taking down a villain? Kind of. If you make the effort to proclaim loudly all of the card names in dramatic fashion then yes, you may well feel that way. It’s even quite fun when you're with your friends, but I’m guessing you won’t be doing as much of that when you're playing solo. At the end of the day though you are playing cards and twisting them horizontally so it really depends on how much you put into as to how much you get out theme wise. However each deck does a great job of bringing out each hero's characteristics and you do feel like you're actually playing as that hero. When you're playing as Iron Man and Spider-Man you can feel the difference in the decks. You feel like you're playing as Spider-Man rather than as a deck of cards with some generic powers with pictures of Spider-Man on them. Black Panther for example has a set of upgrades which can’t be triggered on their own. Once you play the Wakanda forever card they all trigger in a sequence that you determine at the time with attacks and thwarts flying everywhere culminating with the last card you play in the sequence gaining a more powerful version of that card. It gives a real feeling of those big graceful combos with a big finishing move that you could see from Black Panther. Iron Man as a character is fairly weak without his armour, only giving you a hand size of one in hero form. But for every piece of armour you equip your hand size increases, as does your ability to deal more damage. I’ve managed to do ten damage in a turn if you play your cards right. She Hulk is all about damage and her ground stomp card will let you damage all the enemies and just switching from her alter ego to She Hulk will do damage to an enemy. It’s because of thematic touches like these that make you excited to see what they do with other heroes and villains. Origin Story Marvel Champions comes with everything you need for a full four player game. Which apparently isn’t always the case with some of the previous LCGs. Best of all it comes with two pre constructed decks and one fully constructed villain deck. The rule book does a great job of walking you through your first game using these so you can just jump right into your first game. After you’re familiar with how everything works the rule book also provides you with card lists to create a deck for each hero character in this box. Already in this box there’s a ton of replayability, with the many combinations of hero and villain decks you can create and you could honestly just sit with this box for a long time and not even need to buy any of the extra packs or boxes. At the moment I’m looking at getting extra packs but realise that this it’s purely a case of me wanting the characters rather than needing the extra content. Deck building not deck building Building and experimenting with your own custom decks in LCG’s is pretty much an essential part of the game if you want to start defeating those harder villains with a bit more ease or at all. But don’t let it fill you with dread because the mechanics of building decks in Marvel Champions is actually super easy, barely an inconvenience. You simply pick a character and take the fifteen cards associated with them, then make up a 40-50 deck using any of the cards from one of the four aspect decks (leadership, aggression, protection and justice) and possibly some basic cards. There are limits to how many of each type of card you can have but again, this is really easy to follow. I love how simple this system is. It gives you free reign to add pretty much whatever cards you want in your deck, but doesnt bog you down with too many rules on how to do it. It’s actually quite fun and easy to try your hand at doing it yourself. As you get into it you will find that card choices are kind or limited in the aspect decks in this base box but it is a good starting place to get a feel for how it all works. Don’t get me wrong though because you will still have plenty to experiment with here. Eventually if you do decide to venture out of this core set you’ll start to have access to a ton of different cards that will open out your choices and creativity with how you put a deck together. Teamwork doesn’t always make the dreamwork. Building up your own team of board game avengers may sound exciting but sometimes you're best off sticking to that dynamic duo. Marvel Champions is marketed as a 1-4 player game. Personally, three and four players are a bit too long for me so I tend to stick with one or two or two handed solo. The solo mode works well and is great for quickly experimenting with new decks. Not all decks work in true solo mode though, I got roundly trounced when I played as Iron Man using the suggested deck in the rulebook. Be aware though that some of that could have come with bad choices from my part but you quickly find how much you need to balance thwarting, healing and doing damage in this game, something that a single deck doesn’t always give you. However if you play solo with two heroes (whilst scaling the game for two players) then it’s a great way to see how two decks play off against each other and balance each other out. The game scales incredibly well though. You simply increase the villain's health and thwart level per player. So playing this solo takes no more or less effort to set up than a multiplayer game. Whilst we’re on the subject, setup is another thing that makes it so appealing for me to get to the table. The only thing that will really add a lot of time to setup is if you need to create decks before you start. If you’ve got a couple of decks already set up then it’s all the more easy to get in a cheeky game before dinner or before flying off to stop a villain opening another portal to the multiverse. I’ve given Marvel Champions an 8.5 out of ten but I want to make it clear that this is for this base box alone. I’m having a lot of fun with this game and as I pick up new characters and scenarios I can see the score for the game overall going up. This box alone offers a lot of fun and I’m already excited for everything else that’s going to open up for me with it in the future.

Mysterium Park WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Mysterium, Psychobabble, Dixit Published by: Libellud Designed by: Oleksandr Nevskiy, Oleg Sidorenko By Steve Godfrey Since playing the original Mysterium I’ve steered away from going to big mansion houses. Constantly solving murders was getting exhausting. Just as I was getting into my new pastime of going to fairgrounds, the visions started again. Ah well looks like I’m going to have to stick with hanging out with the Mystery Inc gang, I can’t see them getting into any shenanigans with ghosts and monsters! The rules of the park. To setup shuffle the suspect cards and place nine of them on the board. Give the ghost player the vision cards and then they draw three plot cards and place one at random in their card holder. Each player takes a player colour and an innocence token. That’s it! In Mysterium players are trying to solve the mystery of who killed the director of Mysterium Park, a funfair which settled in Derry. I'm sure that at this point the very mention of that name will make Stephen Kings ears perk up. The plot card in front of the ghost will show a layout of the board with the different player colours. These are the suspects that the ghost wants that particular player to eliminate as a suspect. The ghost does this by handing out vision cards to the players. Each player then has to interpret which suspect the ghost is leading them towards with the card. This could be a colour scheme, common objects between the two or anything else the ghost may see that links the cards. Once all players have guessed their cards the ghost determines if they are right or not. If you're correct then you remove that character card and place your Innocence token in that space. If you're not then simply take back your pawn and keep your vision cards. This will continue until (hopefully) all the suspects of the colours in play have been guessed. The three characters that didn’t occupy a coloured space on the plot card are set aside for later and the board is filled with location cards and the ghost puts a second plot card in their holder. Play continues in the same way until all players have guessed the locations as well. If by the end of round six all the players have successfully guessed their suspect and location then they move onto the third and final round. If not, they and the ghost lose the game. For the third round the ghost lays out the set aside characters and locations and uses the third plot card to determine which column houses the killer and the location. They must then give out two final vision cards to the players. One in relation to the killer and one to the location but the ghost cannot indicate which is which. Players then discuss which is the correct column and when they’ve come to a decision inform the ghost. The ghost must then indicate if the players are right, at which point they win the game, or if they’re wrong and they lose the game. Welcome, to Mysterium Park. There’s a lot to love about both Mysterium games. As the investigators it's a lot of fun to have those discussions about each vision card and trying to figure out exactly what it is you're being pointed to. What is the ghost pointing to?, are they focusing on colours, shapes or is it the blatantly obvious sharp pointy object that’s trying to lead us towards the sword swallower! Of course everyone has their own opinions, and own interpretations of cards so these conversations can veer wildly in all directions. It’s not uncommon for you to look at a card and have a pretty good idea of where you think you’ll be placing your token. However, by the time you spoke to your teammates you could have had a better chance of guessing BEFORE you got given the card. There’s also a tension as you make your final decision and you wait to see if you’ve successfully got inside the head of the ghost and your guesses are correct. If you get it right it’s cause for celebrations and if you get it wrong it’s usually met with looks of confusion and replies of “I’m sure they were leading me to the strong woman” In the original game you were either right or wrong. In this one you have the addition of the witness space. If a player guesses here then the card is removed, the witness token is placed in that spot and the player gets to place their token on another card. I like the addition of the witness space in Mysterium Park. So often do you find yourself wrestling with two possibilities. So if you happen to be on the witness space at the end of a round you can easily go to your second guess. It kind of reminds me of the tv show catchphrase, it’s a “it’s good but it’s not right” space, but with a bit of a do-over. Ghostly goings on In the past I’ve compared the ghost in these games as being like the drummer in a band. You're there at the back orchestrating this entire show trying to keep everyone in time and as long as you’re doing your job as best you can then it’s not your fault if the guitarist goes off and does their own thing. Ooh, idea for a Mysterium game. Mysterium Spinal Tap where you play the ghost of one of the drummers! Copyright, me, Libellud, let’s talk I would imagine that there are some people who won’t like the pressure of being the ghost and I understand that. There’s a lot to juggle here, you have to work with your hand of cards to give the best clues you can while also playing to your audience but also hoping that they’re not trying to get into your way of thinking as you’re getting into theirs. For some they don’t want to be the one to derail the game by giving bad clues. This is a game about interpretation and as far as I’m concerned, no one is to blame if the group loses. Except that one person who couldn’t match the sword in the card with the sword swallower…..I’m not bitter about that at all! The real downside of playing as the ghost of course is that it’s easy to get lost in that gorgeous art on the vision cards. I’d be lying if I said my turns didn’t take longer because I got distracted by a card and forgot I was supposed to be givin them out! Part of the fun of this game is that discussion afterwards of, “what did you mean with this card” and “why did you think that was the ticket booth” and I love when games give you cause to have that post game analysis. It’s safe to say that we love Mysterium in our house and aside from the odd occasions when I take it to a game night, it only gets played as a three player game. It works ok at that count and games are usually quick enough that both of the kids can have a go at being the ghost. Even though we mostly get two games in a session, setup can still be a pain and trying to do it two games in a row, doubly so. So much that it kinda puts me off wanting to play it at that low a count, even though me and the kids do have fun. Well now we have Mysterium Park and it’s not a spoiler to say that this is pretty much going to be our go to version of Mysterium. Setup is lightning quick and if everyone knows what they’re doing you can be up and dealing out the first vision cards in under five minutes. It’s such a great feeling, not least because I now don’t have to find an excuse not to get out and set up the regular Mysterium. I love how they’ve managed to streamline everything, the use of the codenames style grid is, for my money, a little slice of genius. It’s clear what/who each person is going to be guessing and just that deck of plot cards gives a lot of variety and that’s before you remember that you can flip them. There have been a few things removed from the original game either for size, time length or just pure fiddliness and I approve of…… most of them, I’ll get to that and my reasons why later. The things they've removed are the things that I dreaded teaching in the original game. Gone is the clairvoyance system where, for those who don’t know, is where you basically rated peoples guesses to try and get to see more cards in the final round. Also gone is that system of who sees what cards in the final round. The final round in this is simply lay everything out and everyone sees two cards and then they have to guess. For me this whole box is so much easier to teach to new players and a great stepping stone if they ever want to play the original at any point. Mysterious misgivings. It’s not all juggling and trapezes in the Park. A lot of the locations are quite similar in look which is understandable given the setting, but that does mean that there's not always a lot that differentiates them and therefore it’s easy to be led down the wrong path. Granted that may make the game more of a challenge, but I personally think that the locations in the original had more unique space and still managed to keep the dark colour palate. The next thing kinda ties in with the one thing that I miss from the original game and it may surprise you. It’s the player screen. I know, I know, I’ve just been praising this game for how small and streamlined it is but hear me out. One of the things I love about the original is being able to hide behind that screen and grimace as the others veer wildly off the path that I’ve so expertly led them down. Without that screen there you really have to keep your emotions in check. The slightest little smile or contortion of your face could give away a lot to the other players. The other advantage of the screen is being able to look at the cards closely, and the right way up. With Mysterium Park you now have to find a ways to look at the cards you need on the table, upside down, but without looking too hard at them so you give away which ones you're looking at. The absence of the screen doesn’t ruin this game, and for the sake of what they’re doing with this version it's an obvious sacrifice. It does mean you have to work that little bit harder as the ghost to not give too many visual clues……apart from the vision cards of course. Mysterium Park is definitely going to be the go to Mysterium game in our family. It’s small, quick to set up and play and is just as much fun as the original. I’m still keeping both in the collection. The big one for when we have more players and we want the game to be more of a game night event and this one for a quick Mysterium fix and one we can throw in a bag and take away with us.

Distant Suns WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Castle Party, Cartographers, Welcome To. Published by: IELLO Designed by: Yeon-Min Jung, Gary Kim As I look at the box art for Distant Suns my mind is taken back to the retro sci-fi I passionately devoured as a child. The sense of adventure and mystery I found in space travel that the films, comics, and novels from the 1900's through to the 1960's captivated me. Inside the box, this does not really continue, with the game art being a little more modern and formulaic. But the game does not disappoint. It may not be filled with nostalgic sci-fi adventures as the box teases, but it sure does come packed with fun decisions, interesting scoring options, and a slick gameplay. Distant Suns has been a real winner for me. Let's get it to the table. Set-Up Place the two game boards into the centre of the table, joining them up to make one board. Then take the ten exploration tiles, shuffle them up, and randomly choose five. Place these into the large slots at random on the board. Then separate the two sets of mission tiles, and place five from one group at random into the slots at the top of the board. Then place five other matching symbols into the slots at the bottom from the other set, matching the same symbol from the top. This is just so players from either side of the table can see the symbols clearly. Then sort the five modules tiles into order, with five on the bottom and one of the top. Give each payer a sheet and pencil and you are ready to begin. How to Play The game plays across three rounds. Each round will have either four or five turns, depending on how the exploration modules are placed. You could place them such that all five fit, or place two so that only two others could now join the party. The game plays over two phases, Assign and Draw. In the assign phase, the active player will take the top module and place it down next to the action they want to take. The board gives you six options. The five from the tiles you placed during set-up, and the Black Hole that is always present on the far left of the board. The active player will take the action that the blue side of the module is pointing at. But this is not the only decision you are making as you place the module. The yellow side will point to the action that all other players will take. So, as you make your decision, you are not only thinking about what you want to do, but also, what option you will give up to the other players, and take away from you as a possible later turn as this one is now blocked. This means that all players are playing at the same time. Regardless of if you are the active player or not during the Assign phase, all players will be “active” during the Draw phase. This is where all players will draw onto their player board the shape that has been selected either for them, or by them. The first shape you add must be placed in the bottom left of your map. After this, all shapes must connect to one other shape on your board. As you add your shape onto your board, you are then supposed to draw in the symbol for that shape, only if it meets the score criteria. This makes final scoring easier. However, I cannot resit drawing them all in each time, just to add to the fun and theme! The reason you are not supposed to this is so that you can easily spot which shapes are in a scoring location once the board is full. This is based on where the tiles have been placed at random during set-up, but in the example above, my flying Saucers only score for the one on the bottom right, the one just above that, and the one placed at the top left. The one placed at the beginning on the bottom right does not score as it was not placed next to a yellow treasure hex as per this shapes criteria for this game. For each correct shape that is next to a treasure space on your map, you will score one point per treasure space. You can place this shape (in this case), the flying saucer anywhere you like, and you can place other shapes next to the treasure spaces, but only the specific shape chosen for that game at set-up will score points when next to the treasure hex. The Alien hexes on the board all score you one negative point at the start of the game. During the rounds you need to try and cover them up to avoid scoring these negative numbers remaining active in your score. For every shape that blocks the alien that comes from the specific shape for this game linked to Alien hexes (in this case, the shooting star), you will score an additional point. The blue shapes on the board represent your upgrade slots. When covered up, these allow you to remove one hex from any future shape you add to the board, if this helps you. Again, any shape can cover the upgrade hexes, but if you cover it with the specific shape to your set-up you will score an additional point. In this game, it was the lightning bolt shape. The forth tile in this example (although again, they are different each game based on your own set-up) shows how you can score points for each specific shape that outlines any black hole. The black hole takes up a lot of space, and any subsequent shape that touches it that comes from the right module will score you a point. You can also score points for reaching the top left, top right, and bottom right of the board. The first player to do this will score 10 or 15 points depending on which corner, and then any subsequent player who makes it to the outer reaches of the board will score five or eight points. So, there is an element of a race to this game. But this depends on what strategy you want to take. Will you try and make it to these far sections of the board first? Using any shape to get there, forgetting the other ways to score. Just focusing on distance and speed. Or will you focus more on placing the right shape into the right place, and maximising your end game scoring via the specific shape/hex scoring. The game comes with the above polyominoes to help you draw the right shape onto your board. You can flip the shapes into any orientation. As doing so in your mind can sometimes be a little tricky to visualise these shapes neutralise that and make it very easy to place them anywhere, in anyway. This is a nice addition clearly brought to the game from the designers frustrations from other games that don’t do this. Other than the five exploration zone tiles shown on the board at the top of this review, above are the other five tiles included. You choose five from these ten at random during service-up. They don't change the game drastically, but add a small variety game by game. Overall, Distant Suns works well. As all players play at the same time, but you take it in turns to be the active player, everyone feels constantly involved, but with an equal share in the decision making process. The game moves at a fast pace because of this, each round being a simple task of assigning the shape for the active and inactive players and then drawing the shape. With just four to five turns per round and only three rounds total, the game can be over quickly. Sometimes in just 15 minutes. The variety coming from the different amount of turns that each round can have. Playing Distant Suns is a lot of fun. There is a nice puzzle to work through in your own sheet that you make very quick progress with. There is an instant sense of satisfaction from meeting goals, scoring points, achieving certain tasks right from the start. There are many different ways to score and paths to choose. This always adds to the enjoyment for me. I like to be able to mix up my strategies and try different ways to score each round and game. In a world where paper-and-pencil games have become so successful and ubiquitous, in part due to the surge in roll-and-writes, it’s hard for the new kids on the block to stand out. But Distant Suns is worthy of your consideration if you are looking for a new low to mid weight game that plays quickly, and offers some interesting in-game choices and scoring options. Unlike many other games of its type, Distant Suns is limited to a maximum player count of four. That is worth considering when choosing this game. It doesn’t scale like some other games in this genre which play to unlimited player counts. But that is because of one crucial factor. There is a choice in this blank-and-write. It’s not a dice roll that decides everyone's fate. It’s not down to the flip of a card. You, the player, determine the destiny of the players around the table. This is a choose-and-write. And that choice brings a whole new strategy to the paper and pencil genre, and one I am in favour for.

Dodo WBG Score: 7 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Rhino Hero, Ice Cool, Memory. Published by: KOSMOS Designed by: Frank Bebenroth, Marco Teubner Dodo is a very striking game. First up, there is the huge 3D mountain on the table. And second... second, there is the egg! Have you ever seen a ball roll so slowly?! Seriously, check it out! A slow moving egg is not exactly at the top of everyone's mechanics list when it comes to making a good game. But it sure does seem to be high up when it comes to making people want to play it! Whenever I get this out, people are intrigued. I could have anything else set up on the other table, but it will be Dodo, and the crazy slow rolling ball that will grip them. But is it any good? Well, let's get it to the table and find out. Set-Up The initial set-up of this game is a little fiddley. You need to build the mountain and attach all the bridge supports before you can play. It will look complicated, but as a test, I left my kids (six and nine) to it, and using the below instructions, which are brilliantly laid out, they manged to do this within a few minutes quite easily on their own. Spurred on, I think, by the excitement of seeing the game in action! Once this is done, you can leave the mountain fully made and have it on display, it looks pretty cool I think. Or, it quickly disassembles, ready to be packed away if you wish. But when made, simply place the tokens face down on the table, give them a shuffle, place the dice somewhere close by, and set the egg at the top with the Dodo bird trapping it in place. When you are ready to start, release the egg! How to Play Playing Dodo is just as easy. In turn, players will roll the dice, and then will need to try and find the matching symbol on one of the circular tiles. If you do, you can place it onto the space on the bridge you are currently making. All the while, the egg will be slowly making its way down the mountain. If you don't flip the right token you need to roll the dice again and try one more time. Of course, each time you do this, you need to try and remember what tokens you have flipped but not used next. You need to try and fill the circles with the required building materials and place the next mountain road ramp piece before the egg makes it way to the end of the current path. If you do, you will carry on to the next piece. If you don't, sadly that's game over. Try again. And you will! Over and over. It's very addictive. When you find a token that is correct, you place it onto the space on the bridge you are making until all spaces are full, and at that point you can attach the bridge onto the mountain. All used tokens need to be then posted into the coin slot style whole at the top of the mountain, simply so they cannot be used again that game. There are six bridges to make in total, getting steadily more difficult as you go, with more spaces to fill. And then you need to call in the boat by filling in the spaces reserved for it at the port, located at the bottom of the ramp. If you manage to get the boat in place in time, it will catch the egg and you will be victorious. You can ignore the spaces with the skull symbol for a simpler game, or fill them all for a more tense affair. It feels right to have people sat around the table in different positions so that you can have eyes on all parts of the mountain at all times. So you can keep track on the eggs progress. It doesn't help you of course, but the screaming of players saying "quick, its nearly at the edge" sure does make it more fun! As you are playing cooperatively, if you remember the location of a specific resource that someone has rolled, you can help the other players by pointing them in the direction of the tile you think they need. You are all playing together and any help will be much appreciated, if you remembered correctly. Quite often players will scream for others to chose a certain token only for it to be wrong. Playing Dodo is a very tense affair. You will be in a constant race against the ever moving egg. The movement of the egg is incredible really. Sometimes, it wriggles and higgles onwards at a merry pace, and other times it slows down almost to a stand still. It is hard to judge it. But you will need to make constant progress, and when playing the hard mode with all the skull circles thrown in, you cannot afford too many slips ups if you want to win. Some players will love this. It makes winning feel good. Like you have achieved something. But others may find the tension to create a panic that doesn't sit well with them. Trying to complete a simple task under a time pressure when other players success rests on your shoulders is not something everyone enjoys. I would seriously consider that, especially if you are thinking about getting this to play with your children. When you place the bridge pieces on, it is all very well labeled as to where they should go. They slip in nicely, and feel secure when in place. I would advise letting younger children practice putting them in a few times before you start a game, so they feel comfortable with the process before they need to do it under time pressure. At the end, if you manage to get the egg into the boat, there is a sense of satisfaction from completing the job, and winning of course. But it does feel a little anti-climactic. I think because of the boat itself being the thing you catch the egg in. It feels like you should then do something with the boat. But as you don't, I am left a little underwhelmed at the end. The art and icons in the game are all fantastic. They look bright and vibrant. It's easy for children of all ages to understand what they are looking for when they roll the dice and flip the tokens. The shape, colour, and style of all the resources are all so clear. The Villages act as wild and can be used in place for any other resource. Playing Dodo is a lot of fun. Games run quickly, under ten minutes. And you can be re-set and ready to go again in a matter of seconds. As such, I tend to play this game in batches of two or three. My children all really enjoy the game, and the satisfaction from saving the egg. But I fear the novelty could wear of quickly as each game really is just the same experience time after time. But if that does happen, I think I would have got a lot of plays out of it, and will at that stage, still want to keep the game as it has such a high fun factor, I will always enjoy sharing it with other people when they come round to play games. But if I ever do get rid of this, I would love to find what is inside that ball!

Barrakuda WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Deep Sea Adventure, Into the Blue, Arboretum Published by: Helvetiq Designed by: Isaac Pante Barracudas are not the most enticing thing when it comes to swimming, but they certainly do evoke intrigue. There is something mystical about fish with teeth. Especially the long wriggly ones that look like snakes, they are strangely captivating. Well, thankfully there are no Barracudas here. Only Barrakudas, which are totally different. I promise. Barrakuda is a push-your-luck, bluffing game, with some very clever hand management thrown in for good measure. For such a small box, there sure are a lot of mechanisms here. Let's get it to the table. Set-Up The game comes with six starting cards to build the ship wreck area. There are 12 cards in total to chose from, but the rules recommend to play your first game with the starting ones, clearly marked as such on the back. You can lay them out anyway you desire, so long as they all touch at least one other card with one of their four sides. Each player then choses which colour they want to be and takes the six cards of their colour, plus their two coin holding cards and meeple. Place the coins in a central space alongside the two dice, and each players take two coins to start with. And that't it, you are ready to dive. How to Play All players will then pick one of their six cards to play. Everyone starts with the same cards. A one, two, three, four, five, and Barrakuda card. Which ever card you play determines which space on the board your meeple will visit that round. There are some more obvious choices with higher rewards, or useful powers, depending on the stage of the game. But you don;t want to go there when another player is heading the same way as your actions will be restricted. This is where the bluffing comes in. Everyone plays at the same time, revealing their card on the count of three. Players will then move their meeple to the card they played. The two dice are then rolled and the Barrakuda is moved in the direction of the card rolled on the regular D6, the number of spaces the movement dice shows. Any player who is left on a space on their own, with no other meeple or the Barrakuda, can then take both actions on the card shown on the bottom left and right of the card. Generally this is how you get coins and your cards back that you had previously laid. But there are some other special actions too. Such as being able to store any money you have and forcing another player to lose their Barrakuda card. If you are on the same space at the Barrakuda, then you most give up all of your unsecured money, and drop up to four coins on the space you are on and any more you may be carrying into the reserve. You can then only do the general action on the bottom right of the card. Anyone who is on a space with another meeple needs to identify who has the initiative. This is determined by the player who has played the least amount of cards down on the table at this point. That player can then take both actions on the card they are on. Any other player can only take the general action. As you play cards down, they must stay on the table. Any subsequent cards are played on top. You can only take cards back when you move to a card that allows this, or after you have played all your cards. When someone plays a Barrakuda card they can then move the Barrakuda in any direction they wish. They do not have to roll the direction die, just the distance die to determine how far they can move it. Their aim obviously is to move it towards the nearest other player. As you collect money from the different ship wrecks, you will place all your money onto your cash card. But, when you visit the number one space you can move up to seven coins to your safe, or all of them if you are using the alternative One card. This money is now secure and safe from any Barrakuda attacks. In order to win the game you need to have eight or more money in your vault. You can play to 10 gold if you want a longer game, and there are different ways to set up the board to create a more or less aggressive games. And there is also a team mode where all players share a single vault. Players can discuss which cards they are playing before they select one each round, and players are looking to get 12 gold coins as a collective. Playing Barrakuda is a lot of fun. I enjoy push your luck games where you have some control. I like the feeling where you know you can take calculated risks. That is exactly what happens here. You know where you are on the board. You know where the Barrakuda is. You know if your opponents have played their Barrakuda cards yet or not. You know what options are available for all players and what they may be going for. You know the risks. Of course, sometimes you can get unlucky. But the games are all very quick, and I have never felt frustrated by the luck in this game. When you do have a larger sum of money in your possession, this is when you need to decide how much you are willing to take a risk. When you are packing, it's best to visit the "One" space and bank your money. When you have less to loose, you can afford to worry a little less. But of course, this is all relative to how well the other players are doing. The alternative treasure cards you can use allow you to add some flexibility and variety to the starting set-up. None of them drastically change the game, but that's not really needed. Everything is well balanced and clearly very well play tested. They just allow you to tailor the game to your preferences. I like the opportunity to make small changes to the set-up and to tweak the balance slightly here-and-there. For example, you can see with the replacement “Four” card, you can claim three money instead of the usual two, but there is no general action. So, adding this card in is a good way to increase the push-your-luck element of the game. Bigger rewards, but no back-up plan. People will be tempted to go there, but will be more cautious of doing so when they think other players may do the same. Heading to this card first up is a good way to get a head start. But will every player do this? Or will they think others will, so they go somewhere else instead? Or is that a double bluff? This is similar with the alternative “Two” card which offers the chance to get two cards back instead of one. But again, with no back up action. If ever there is more than one person at these spaces, the chances are you may have a wasted turn. They entice you in, but may not reward you when you come. Bit like Dominos Pizza. Playing Barrakuda is a lot of fun. There is a real sense of risk/reward felt by all players throughout the game. But it is a risk that I feel in control of. I enjoy push-your-luck games but understand how others can find the punishment from failing in these style of games to be off putting. That isn’t really a problem with this game due to the control you have. But also as the punishments never feel overly severe, and the games do run short. If you lose, just set-up and start again. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys quick filler games that offer a low to medium weight game experience, but still with a real sense that a game has been played. It's a bit like Fantasy Realms or Libertalia in that way. You only have a few cards to choose from, but the choice feels big. It feels important. And when it pays off, it feels great.

Invaders From Afar WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-7 You’ll like this if you like: Scythe, Terra Mystica, Root Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Jamey Stegmaier Scythe holds a special place in many peoples hearts within this great community of ours. It was many peoples first "big" modern board game. For a lot of gamers, it was their first or early introduction to Kickstarter. And for me, it is one of my favourite games, from one of my favourite publishers. It is very much worth making this clear from the beginning! However, I would like to think this review has no more bias other than my own passion and enjoyment for board games. That said, I rate Scythe a 9. Whereas this expansion is an 8.5 for me. The reasons for that will become clear as I continue, by for brevity, it is not an essential expansion unless you want to play the game in a seven player. What it brings is good, and I love the variation of the new factions, but there is nothing hugely new with this expansion, but in my opinion, Scythe doesn't need that. But if you want it, you get that in expansions like The Rise of Fenris and The Wind Gambit. This expansion was mainly designed to bring more variety and choice in the factions you can choose to be, and to give the game the chance to stretch from a five player to a seven player, and in true Stonemaier style, it does so with real class. Let's talk through all the added parts this expansion brings. The main addition within this is box are two new factions. This gives you the chance to play the game in a six or seven player when added to the five original factions, or just have more choice at the start. Not many people would encourage you to play Scythe in a seven player game due to the length of time this would take, including designer Jamey Stegmaier himself! But I would argue differently. In a six or seven. Scythe is fantastic. Now, this does come with two conditions. One, that all players know how to play the game well. Two, that no player takes too long with each turn. Otherwise, it can drag a little waiting for your turn. But the board was designed with seven players in mind. These two new factions are not a shock. Their symbols are on the main board in the base game already. The size and layout of this board was always made with the full seven player sat around it. It works great in all player counts, and I really do enjoy Scythe in a two or three myself. But I do feel every fan of Scythe needs to try it at its full player count at least once. And to do that, you need this expansion. Now of course, you can use this expansion without getting six other friends to join you. You could play a two player with this expansion and just use these two new factions if you wanted. So, the factions bring more than just additional player count to the table. They also bring more choice and variety when it comes to choosing who you want to play as at set-up. Lets take a closer look at what each part brings. The first new choice you have are the two new payer mats. I like to have more option here. I have got used to the original mats, and two more to pick from is a nice addition. The second new addition is the two new Faction mats. Let's look at each one in a little more detail. First up we have the mat for the Togawa Shogunate faction show Akiko and Jiro. This is my favourite of the two new factions as it gives you the option to place a trap token on a tile after you have finished your movement. So long as you don't enter combat, you can add one of your four tokens to the board as a trap for another player. The trap token counts as a territory for you, increasing your end game scoring if they are still present at the games conclusion. As such, other players will want to remove them. But when they do, they must flip the token and pay the penalty. This will either be to lose four money, three power, two popularity, or discard two random combat cards. It's a fun risk to have to take when you remove the tokens, and of course as some go, you can get a chance guess what may be left. Their mechs have the ability to move a mech or character across a river or onto lakes, gain two power before combat, and re-arm disarmed traps. The Togawa Shogunate look like a very attack minded faction on face value, with the trap tokens and mech abilities. But I find they are better used in a defensive manner. You will start on the bottom right of the board, which is an area you may not have paid much attention too before, and you will find you have direct access to every resource unlike the other factions, but no speed function in your mechs. I quite like to build up my resources and engine, defending my territory with traps, and leaving the rest of the board and players well alone. The second new faction is the Clan Albian. After ending movement, this faction also has the option to place something down when not in combat, this time a flag. The Clan Albian have four flags at their disposal, and each hex with a flag on it counts as an additional territory at the end of the game as long as you control the tile. The flags cannot be moved once placed like the traps, and are a great way to increase your final game points. The Clan Albian's mechs allow them to cross rivers into or out of tunnels, reduce your opponents power by two when in combat, add two to your own power, or move to any territory that contains at least one of your workers or flags. This faction will not start in a part of the board as unfamiliar as the Togawa Shogunate, but will still start with direct access to all resources. I very much enjoy the variation these two new factions bring to Scythe. The addition of the two very different style of factions is hugely welcome to me. Neither factions start the game being blocked by rivers, so they don't have the speed ability to counter act this. But the rivers are not just about stopping you from moving out, they also stop other factions being able to easily move into your space. The tokens both factions have are ways to encourage players to explore the board with more efficiency, but also travel back to your home base with more speed. So, now to answer the three questions I always ask myself when I play a game with a new expansion. Is the game better with this expansion included? Did it add much complexity to the set-up, rule teach, and game play? Would I want to include the expansion every time I play? 1. Is the game better with this expansion included? I would say yes. I like the new factions and would personally always prefer to play with them over the original five, simply as they are new, and I have used the other ones so much. So, yes for the variation, but not necessarily in a seven! It is not an essential expansion unless you want the higher player count, but it is essential if you want more variety. Which I would say very much depends on how many times you have played Scythe and how often you think you will play it again. 2. Did it add much complexity to the set-up, rule teach, and game play? None at all. Once you explain the new tokens, which takes a minute, anyone who understands Scythe with be able to get to grips with this expansion right away. 3. Would I want to include the expansion every time I play? Yes. As I said above, I will always prefer to use these new factions myself, both to play as and against. I like what they bring and what you have to do when up against them. So, for me, it is essential. Not for the player count. but the variety. But that is only because I love this game so much and play it regularly. All in, I am a big fan of this expansion and would always want to play with it when playing Scythe. It doesn't add anything dramatically new to the game just two new factions and the chance to play up to seven if you want. But as I said, there are other expansions out there for Scythe that bring in other things if you want that. This won't make you like Scythe if you were not already a fan, but if you are, then I would say this is a must have if you are looking to get something new for this game and you think you will continue to play Scythe regularly. It is of course totally essential if you want to try the game in a six or seven player. And very useful if you want more choice when choosing factions. And so, only one thing remains. Who wants to play Scythe with me? I am looking for six other players...

Psychobabble WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 4-11 You’ll like this if you like: The Chameleon, Dixit, Werewolf Published by: Cheatwell Games Designed by: Kedric Winks I was instantly drawn into Psychobabble. It made my top 5 game games from indie publishers from UKGE2022, which you can see here after I was first attracted to their stand by the striking and gorgeous art. Just look at it. And having now played the game multiple times, with various groups, I can safely say I am a fan of the game too. The game will feel very familiar to anyone who has played Dixit and The Chameleon. It feels like a mix of those two games to me. But crucially, it takes the good bits from both, and drops the bad parts. Let's get it to the table. Set-Up Getting Psychobabble to the table is so easy. Simply take the two decks of cards out of the box. there are four different decks of dream cards clearly marked by the colour on the back of the cards. Lay out a four-by-four grid of random face up dream cards using the large deck. Taking four cards from each of the four different decks, using the same four cards from each deck for each row. Then place the small deck into four separate piles, face down, in their corresponding groups or A, B, C, and D piles. The small deck shows all the possible combinations of a two dice roll, linked to a four-by-four grid. Someone decides to be the Psychiatrist, and they will take small cards from one pile, enough for everyone playing minus one, and one card from another. They will then shuffle these cards and hand them out face down to each other player who all act as patients in the game. One player will have a different set of numbers to everyone else, but will not know. They are the insane person. The Psychiatrist must now roll the two dice. Each player must find the roll on their card and then determine which dream card represents their collective dream from last night. For example, if a one and a five was rolled, the dream card on the bottom left is your card if you hold the above small card, so will start to study the card showing four prawn type creatures on the bottom left of the four-by-four grid. You must also look at all the other cards to start to get an idea of one similarities and differences that exist within the 16 cards. This is so you can offer vague clues as to which dream card you have, and guess which dream cards other players have. How to Play. Then in turn, starting with the player sat to the left of the Psychiatrist, the first player will then give a one line description of their dream. They want it to be specific enough so that other players do not think they are the insane person, but not so specific that the Psychiatrist can guess exactly which card they are referring to. It is hard to get this balance right for some people. Especially on the first game. So, I encourage people to just go with their first instincts for game one as they all learn the nuance. But to be as vague as possible. Once each player has given their one line description of their dream card, each player can then ask one question of any other player. They are trying to find out who the insane player is. The insane patient is trying to remain hidden and cast doubt over other players. Although of course, they may not have identified themselves yet. More than one person may think they are the insane person. Or, no one may think this! The Psychiatrist then has the chance to ask each patient one question to try and determine the dream card they were referring too. Patients can lie at any pint when answering questions or giving descriptions. But of course this may encourage other players to assume they are the insane patient. You need to asses how close to guessing the correct dream card the Psychiatrist is, and how close to identifying the insane patient all the other players are. Once this is done, the Psychiatrist must then make a guess as to which card was the common dream card. If they are correct, they win the game. Hence, all the other players needing to make their descriptions vague. If the Psychiatrist is wrong, then all patients cast a vote as to who they believe the insane player to be. All players then reveal their card to reveal who has the odd one, and is the insane patient. That player may have already worked this out for themselves, and has been casting suspicion onto other players to try and divert the attention from themselves. Or, they could be completely unaware of their true roll. If the majority vote chose the insane patient then all those players win the game. If not, then the insane patient wins alone. Playing Psychobabble is a delicate mix. You want to prove to your fellow patients that you are not insane, but you don't want to make it too obvious to the Psychiatrist which card you are referring too. You also don't want to make it too easy for the insane patient to work out which card you are talking about as they then themselves, can also start talking about that card. But if you are too vague, then everyone may start to suspect you! But the great thing with the game is the line of questions that follows the first phase. If you are too vague to begin with and cause other players to doubt you, then you can always claw your way back when asked about something by another player or the Psychiatrist. However, other players asking you questions, doubting your own sanity, are never 100% sure of their own sanity either! I find it is best to assume you are insane in this game. Don't think you are the sane one, rather start the game with your head focused on trying to find out if the other players have any similarities with each other or yourself. Thinking you are the insane one, and being as vague as possible with everything you say. Often, I find that in the first game of Psychobabble, players are too obvious with their descriptions, trying to prove they are not the insane patient, when they don't know if they are or not, before the question round has even begun. This makes it too easy for the Psychiatrist to guess the correct card. But as players learn how to play the game, and how to read each other, something special happens. It's not dissimilar to games like The Mind when you start to get in sync with each other. Players begin to understand each others little clues and tells. The descriptions get more vague, but players playing as the patients start to understand and trust each other more, and the game begins to get a lot harder for the Psychiatrist. This makes for a much better and funnier experience. It is satisfying for the Psychiatrist to get the card right for sure. But not if it is too obvious and easy. They want a challenge. But the games where I have seen the Psychiatrist have no clue at all are often the ones that create the most laughter. All the cards are incredibly detailed and have multiple things going on. You find that despite them all looking very different and quite unique in their detail, common ground can be found between a lot of them. Ships, or modes of transport. Monsters, aliens, or animals or some sort. Describing one in a vague way, could be interpreted for describing many others. And this of course, if the entire point. Many games of this nature require one person to be "it". One person who is randomly selected to be the Werewolf, Chameleon, or whatever the chosen person in that game is. Some people find this pressure to lie to others too much. The genius in this game is that if you are "it" you won't immediately know. And if all patients play the game well, you may never know until you reveal the cards as the end of the game. I have seen games when all players are convinced that one particular player is the insane patient, the suspected person included. But when all patients reveal their cards, another person was the insane patient all along. And even they did not know. You don't lie in this game, you just play the card you were given as vaguely as possible. Now of course, there are some occasions when you can work out quite quickly that you are the insane person. And then, you may have to lie. Or least be very vague or deceptive. But even then, it's not like other games where you are desperately trying to work out what the correct card is, and which dream all the the patients are tlkaing about. Panicking that you will easily outed. The cards are all so random, and have so many similarities, then even if you have no idea which the real dream card is, you can till play the game well, simply by being vague. As such, this game has to come very highly recommended from WBG. It plays as good as it looks. Can be set-up and taught to any group within minutes. It does not cause the usual anxiety games like this can bring to the table. And always delivers a huge amount of fun, laughter, and will be a real favorite of mine for many tears to come I am sure. You can find more about this game at the product page: https://cheatwell.com/products/psychobabble?_pos=1&_sid=dbd290e63&_ss=r And also at the site for the designer here: www.ghastlygames.com And of course on the BGG page here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/360264/psychobabble

Kinoko WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Hanabi, Point Salad, Tucano Published by: Helvetiq Designed by: Tim Rogasch Helvetiq have two types of games it seems. Small fun after dinner games that are simple to play and great fun to enjoy with friends after a meal. Or even smaller games that look unbelievably cute and are even more simple to play, but still offer some clever and enjoyable experiences for families to enjoy. It must be such a joyous brief to work to, and they always deliver. Here are some of my favourite games from Helvetiq as well as my thoughts on some of their other games. But what about this game? Kinoko. The latest in their line of small box games? Let's get it to the table and see. But before we do that, can we all just come together and say well done to artist Polina Ozean for creating the cutest little mushroom we have ever seen? Ok, great, on with the review. Set-Up The first thing to get to grips with in Kinoko is which way to hold the cards. The concept of the game is very simple. Collect three mushroom cards in your colour. But you are doing this without being able to see your cards. Similar to games like Hanabi, you must hold the cards facing outwards, so all other players can see what you have, but not you. You can see other players cards, but not your own. To set-up, collect as many sets of cards as required for your player count, four for a two player, five for a three player, and six for a four player, and shuffle the cards together. The cards will either be a one, two, or three value card, three for each colour of mushroom. Then deal each player in secret one blank colour card. They will look at this, but keep it hidden from all other players. This will be the colour they need to collect in the game. You will then deal one card of each value to each player so that everyone has a one, two, and three value card in their hand. The remaining cards are placed face down in the centre of the table, again in order, one, two, three. How to Play Players then need to try and identify where their three colours are and get them into the same set. On your turn, you will roll the three dice. You can chose one of the three dice and carry out its action. This will either be to exchange one of your cards, either the one, two, or three value card, with any other card of the same value on the table. Or you can chose to enact one of the three special powers. The first allows you to re-roll all the dice. The second allows you to swap all three of your cards with any other set of three on the table or from any other players hands. The final one allows you to sneak a peak at one card anywhere in play. From your hand, or from the table. When you are swapping cards with those held by other players, you obviously are doing so knowing exactly what you are taking. But also, you are going to find out what card you have given away, as the player taking the card from you will immediately flip it and hold it out towards you in their hand. This is a great way to learn about more cards in play as well as putting something you want into your hand. Now, what is crucial in this game, is that the set of three you are trying to build in your colour does not necessarily have to be in your hand. It just has to exist in the game somewhere. It could be on the table, in your hand, or in your opponents hand. This is a tricky concept to get your head round, and can add a fun dynamic if players around the table are trying different ways to win. If you are trying to get a set of three in your hand, but another player is trying to get a set of their three colours also in your hand, there could be a funny back-and-forth, before both players realise what is going on! You will always know which colour of mushroom you are trying to collect somewhere in the game, but won't know for sure which colour your opponents are going for. Although, seeing everyone else's cards gives you an idea as to their plans once everyone starts taking turns. As such, the ability to spoil other players plans becomes quickly apparent as the game develops. As soon as one player thinks they have three colours of their mushroom together somewhere on the table, they can stop the game, announcing their hope/knowledge of their set. Then, all cards are flipped and revealed and if they were correct, they score two points. However, any other player who also has a set of three anywhere in the game at this point will also score two points. This could of course happen with their knowledge of this being the case, or not! But you have to be careful. If you make the announcement and stop the game and you do not have a set of three, you will not score any points. Rather all the other players around the table will score one point each, irrespective of their own status at that point. The game is won when the first player scores four or more points. If two players get to four at the same time, the player who stopped the last round wins. This game is very much a set-collection game, but also a race game. You are looking to achieve your goal of a set of three quicker than anyone else, round-by-round, but also overall getting to four points first in the game. Looking at other players cards feels cheeky! It's a fun way to learn information about the game, but will take some time to get used to. Especially if you haven't played a game with this mechanic before. Each time you pick up your cards, your brain will instinctively do so with them facing you! So, you must check yourself, and restrain your instincts. Swapping cards with other players in order to see what cards you were holding is a fun way to gain information in this game. It also feels like the right thing to do as you are not giving anyone else any new information bar the person you are swapping with. All other players could see both cards you are swapping before hand anyway, they are just now in different locations. Although of course, the person you are swapping with gains information as to the card you took from them, which they can now see in your hand. Although, if you took it, you probably want it more than they did, so it is unlikely they will take it back. Unless of course, you are both trying to get a set into your hand! The game plays very quickly, and as you have seen, can be taught in minutes. It takes up very little room, both in and out of the box, so is the perfect game to take out with you to restaurants or pubs. Everything looks great. The art is bright and vibrant. There are no icons or special rules to master. It's just a bunch of different colours with sets of one to three. Everything is very simple, but also a lot of fun. Playing Kinoko, like all Helvetiq games, is a joyous thing. I love everything about this game and will happily play it anytime. It firmly sits in the filler category, so it wont take up much of your time. Or indeed, much space on your shelf or bag. But it certainly will take up a large space in your heart.

Karak WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: CoraQuest, Tiny Epic Dungeons, Starcadia Quest. Published by: Albi, 2Tomatoes Games, CreativaMente, Geronimo Games, KOSMOS, Outset Media, Reflexshop Designed by: Roman Hladík, Petr Mikša Rule Book A sense of adventure in games is something I often look for. Especially with a game that targets younger children. I know my family will enjoy a game more when there is a story to be told. We all enjoy getting lost in a new world surrounded by monsters, cardboard, and plastic. A lot of games do this, but I don't think there are many that do it well with a simple ruleset that works for kids. Karak nails this. It's very simple to learn and teach. I have loved playing it with my 6-year old who grasped the game within minutes. And crucially, it offers a good dungeon crawl experience without the usual fiddley set-up, components, or rules. Let's get it to the table. Set-Up Getting Karak to the table is so simple. Each player chooses a character from one of the six available and takes their character board (filled with hearts) and standee. Shuffle up and then arrange all the tiles into stacks face down, finding the one tile with the dragon symbol on the back. This is the starting tile. Place this into the middle of the playing area and add each character standee to it. Finally, ensure all the treasure and monster cards are in the draw string bag provided, and place this somewhere convenient on the table. Or not, depending on how irritating you want to be. My kids like to hide it. How to Play Players will then take four actions each in turns, searching for the Dragon. The main action being to move into an undiscovered zone. You will do this by flipping the top tile from either stack, and placing it next to the tile you are in face up. You will then move your standee into the new space. If this is a pathway you can do this again, moving through each tile as you lay it. If the tile has a room in it, then you must pull a token from the bag. This will either be a treasure chest that you can only open when you have the key, or a monster that you have to fight. Fighting a monster is a simple process. Take the two dice and roll-em-up! Each monster will have a face value you have to beat with your roll. If you do, you win. Flip the monster and take whatever is on the back. Either treasure, weapons, or a key. If you roll too low, then you take one damage, and retreat one space, back to wherever you just moved from. The monsters difficulty rating ranges from five to 12, with the final Dragon being 15. As soon as someone kills the dragon the game ends immediately and the person with most points from treasure tiles and the dragon is the winner. Whats in the box? But how could you fight a Dragon who has a strength of 15 when you can only roll two D6 dice? Great question. As you can see above, when you fight and defeat a level 5 Rat, you can then add a level one sword into your armory. Meaning, the next time you fight, you start with a plus one added to any die roll. On your character inventory sheet there is space for two weapon upgrades, the highest being the battle axe won from fighting the Skeleton King. Tool up, then go on a dragon hunt! As you can see, there is also space for the key. Useful for storing when there are no unopened treasure chests on the board. And three slots for spells. Spells come in two forms. Magic Bolts and Portal's of Healing. The Magic Bolts allow the heroes to add a plus one to any fight, but the spell is then used, and the token must be dis-guarded. The Portal of Healing lets you move directly to any Healing Fountain on the map. These are the tiles with a heart icon on them, and when there, your full health is restored. Children will love the simple progress the game allows. Flip a tile, roll some dice. Fight a monster, gain a weapon. Get better. Fight more monsters. Find the dragon, win! The game moves quickly and you will feel you are making progress through the game in no time. It's a nice feeling for children and adults alike. It has a nice pace and game time. And of course, the dragon could be found at any time. Drawing from the bag is random. But you will need a few upgrades before you can defeat him. I love how the boards are double layered so all the additions you make to your character stay in place. Double layered boards are always a winner with most people, and they work so well in this game. For a game designed for younger players, this is a solid addition! Children will also love the choice of characters. They are a little generic and full of the classic tropes you would expect in fantasy games. But I don't have an issue with that. They are used a lot as they are popular. And I find the art to be bold, striking, colourful, and the iconography is simple, and very clear. Each hero comes with two unique special powers. They are all clearly explained in the rule book, but the icons give very good indications as to what they are. For example, Lord Xanros, the Warlock who is the first on the left below has the ability to sacrifice one health point to add a plus one to any attack they make. Check the symbol for this below. Hopefully that all adds up? I particularly like the Stealth power for Aderyn, the Thief. She can creep into a space and if there is a monster there to fight, she can chose to do so, or if it is a little too strong for her right now, she can sneak past without engaging in combat and continue moving to the next tile. As you flip tiles, you will find the board starts to get quite big, very quickly! You wont need to move back and forwards too often. More, a linear path through a weaving dungeon will be created. But sometimes you need to head back to heal, or if one person finds the dragon and you want to rush back to join the fight, you may want to move vast distances quickly. This is not easy in the game with only four actions allowed, but there are portal tiles, represented by blue doors. When these are laid, you can move from one portal on the board to any other portal you chose, once there are two on the table that is! They are very easily identified with their bright coloured glow. Especially against the backdrop of the otherwise very grey tiles. The game comes with a brilliant insert too. For a game priced on the cheaper side, (you can get this for around £20) all the components are great. And the separated insert with different sections clearly marked with pictures of what goes where is a nice and welcome addition. Overall, I think Karak is a steller game, and would come highly recommended from WBG for anyone looking for a game to introduce their children to a dungeon crawler game. It is so simple to learn, but fun to play, kids will very quickly be able to play this one of their own. And if they enjoy the mechanics, perhaps would be more encouraged to try a more complex game in the genre afterwards. The game is perhaps let down from being more highly rated due to its lack of replayability. One game to the next will offer largely the same experience. But the six different heroes are all very different and offer unique abilities. And the game is so simple to get to the table, I can see this getting a lot of plays from it's accessibility alone. If you want to teach your kids how to play a dungeon crawler, look no further. If you want to get a game your kids can enjoy and play on their own, this could be the one. If you want a game you can all enjoy as a family with minimal set-up or rules, Karak is a great addition. There are so many reasons why this game comes recommended from us you may be asking why it is not ranked higher than a 7.5. There is a bit of randomness and luck in this game from the dice rolls, and the order at which you draw the monsters and treasures. And I found a lot of games to be won by someone with somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5 points. It is quite low scoring and children tend to not like that. First from the low, unexciting scores; but secondly from the small margins of loss. You could play the game perfectly, fight the most monsters, and still loose as someone else stumbles upon one more treasure chest than you. It would have made more sense to me to offer more ways to score, and give higher rewards for each monster you defeat. Other than that, Karak comes highly recommended from WBG. For the price point, I would say it is pretty close to being a must have for anyone with younger children. I would say this is perfect from 6 and up.

A Game About Counting Cats' Shapes & Colours that keep getting Trickier WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-8 You’ll like this if you like: Jungle Speed, Spot It/Dobble, Anomia Published by: Stuff By Bez Designed by: Bez Shahriari Bez is a amazing. Let's get that out the way from the start. I absolutely adore everything that Bez has made and find all her games to be made with equal parts joy, fun, and genius. Over the last few years, Bez has been up to all sorts of shenanigans with some crazy fun games being made. All with bonkers names, but each one delivering unparalleled fun. Such as A game about quickly grabbing creatures that are totally different, and watching out for turnips, which you can read about here. One of Bez's latest games is A Game About Counting Cats' Shapes & Colours that keep getting Trickier which is the name, and also, a pretty good start to the rule set. Set-Up Strap in, this could take a full minute! Shuffle the deck and place it face down in the middle of the play area. And that's the set-up! How to Play Playing this game (I won't use the full title again as I do need to keep up my kids from uni in 10 years) is so simple, but also, surprisingly tricky, although I suppose that could be deduced from the title. When everyone is ready, someone will flip the top card of the deck. The newly revealed card back will tell all players what to count on the back of the top card they just flipped. This will be various cat poses. Lying down, sprawled out, or curled up in a ball. Or scribbled colours. Everyone else then needs to count up how many cats of this type are visible on the newly revealed face up card, shout that number and then slap the card. The first to slap the card having said the correct number wins the card. Card backs either look like this... The wining player will then flip the next card and everyone will go again. When you are flipping the card, you cannot compete in the next round. A very simple catch-up mechanic that works very well. But as soon as that round is over they are back in. And here comes the twist! You know, one of those really fun twists you love to teach when introducing people to games like The Mind when you tell people "but you cannot communicate!" Well, in this game, whenever you win a card, not only do you now need to count up all the types of Cats on the back of the top card, but also the Cats in the cards you have won. When you have won just one and two cards, this is not too tricky. But when you have three and four in front of you it gets very tricky! You're starting to get the title now, right? And of course, you wont always be up against other players with the same amount of cards in front of them as you. So, the extra time you are now taking to count them all up won't always be the same as others when they have less cards. Crazy huh! Well, here comes the final twist. If you ever shout an incorrect number everything you have previous won goes back to the bottom of the deck. You are back to square one. ...or this. In order to win the game you need to be the first player to win five cards. This typically takes around 5-10 minutes, at which point every player will be starting to get their eye in for how this game works. And I guarantee, all around the table will all cry in unison, "Can we try that again?" This is a session game. You know, like a low alcohol session beer. Designed for drinking when you are planning on having a few. This game is designed to be played multiple times, game after game. And it is joyful. (Please drink responsibly). Counting Cats There is something special about these games. There is a whimsey, a childish innocence. But they are not novelties. They are good, solid, fun games. Sure, the theme's are funny. The names are different. But the mechanics, ruleset and actual flow of gameplay is always very good. Don't be fooled by the simple deck of cards, plastic bag casing, low price, or long name. This is a very good card game. And I would wager, if made by a larger publisher, would be up for awards and sell bucket loads. Whereas the front of the cards look like this. I enjoy playing this game a lot. There is a real sense of tension when you are going for your forth and fifth card. You want to say the number. You think you have the number right. But you know if you get it wrong, that's it, you are back to square one again! The risk/reward is high. Win the game, or start again. But as you can catch up quickly people do go for it. Winning one or two cards back when you are knocked down to zero is fairly easy when you are up against others with three or four cards. You can obviously count a lot quicker when you have less cards. So, people do take the risks. There is a perfect balance here. Which makes the moments when people win the game great for everyone. You feel genuinely impressed when someone manages to get the number right for that fifth card. not just in their ability to play the game well, but their courage to go for it when you know they were very much plagued by self-doubt! There is a shared moment of joy despite this being a competitive game. For the price and value this game offers, I would suggest it to anyone. What do you have to lose? I can see it not being fun for some people if they struggle with visual puzzles. It can be stressful if you are bad at this sort of thing, and others are finding it easier to match the top cards. But that's me. I am terrible at this sort of thing and very bad at this game. But I still love it. It's just too fun to care that much about winning. I enjoy seeing other people doing well and enjoy the moments this game creates. Highly recommend from WBG.