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The Networks WBG Score: 8.5/10 Player Count 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Wingspan, 7 Wonders, Roll Player Published by: Formal Ferret Games Designed by: Gill Hova by @stevegodfrey77 I’m not a betting man (which goes a long way to explain why I’m rubbish in Casinos) but I’ll bet that at least once this month you’ve probably been flicking through the T.V. and used the words “All these channels and there’s nothing on!” You’ve probably even decided that you can do a better job than the people in charge of the station. If you have, then The Networks may be the game for you. Wheel of Fish! In the Networks you are the proud new owner of a public access T.V. Station. (If you’ve ever seen the 1989 film U.H.F. Starring Weid Al Yankovic you’ll know what I mean.) It’s your job to compete against the other stations to commission new shows, sign new stars, and end up with the most viewers after five seasons to win the game and the hearts of the viewing public. This means something. This is important. To setup give each player their player board and starting network tokens and cards. Lay the scoring track on the table and place out season one show cards, stars and ads on the table based on the player count, then give each player some money based on the number on the score track and player order. Your turns in the Networks are boiled down to three simple actions. Draft a card from the table, play a card from your green room or drop and budget (the games version of passing). When you take a card you can either take a Star, paying the price on the card. Take an ad and receive the money on the card, take a Network card which will give you a bonus or take a show and put it on the air. When you take a show you have to replace a show in one of your time slots, either 8pm, 9pm or 10pm. Each show has a preferred time slot on it. If you put the show on in its preferred time slot you will gain the higher number of viewers in its first season, if not you’ll gain the lower number. Before you take a show you have a couple of things to bear in mind, first how much the show costs, and second if it has any prerequisites. These prerequisites could require you to attach a star or ad to the show straight away from your green room. If you can’t, then you can’t take the show. The final action lets you place a star or ad from your green room to a show if it allows it. Once a round ends you receive any money owed from ads on shows and pay out any money owed from upkeep from shows and stars on shows. Then you score up your viewers from the current seasons of your show and any shows in re-runs. Then all your shows are aged one season. This means that the amount of viewers you get for that show at the end of the next round is going to change. I’m kind of a big deal, people know me. The Networks is a game that’s going to get players talking from the minute you start setting up, whether it’s from the starting shows you give them or from when you begin placing the Stars and season one shows, because if there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned is that everything is based on parody. The shows are mostly parodies of popular shows and the stars are parodies of celebrity tropes like Grizzled action star, reality TV judge and dashing lead with some of them even resembling some famous faces. If the parodies from season one don’t grab people’s attention then the cards from season two onward certainly will. All of these cards are based on real shows. In fact it provides some of the games best conundrums. There’s a certain joy from sitting round the table watching your fellow players debate with themselves over whether or not they should take their favourite show or take a card that is actually going to benefit them in the long run. For a lot of people it’s an obvious choice but for many of us, having the chance to put our favourite show on the air is often too tempting. I’m not even mad, I’m impressed. The Networks doesn’t just hang everything on its ability to parody though. In fact the parody is just second in the ratings to what is a solid foundation of a game. Each round will keep you thinking and planning for the next show you’re going to be placing on the air. The main mechanic that keeps this going is the aging of each show. At the end of each of the five seasons (twice in the last round) your shows will age, this means that the show will either lose viewers or in some cases even gain them as they progress through the seasons. I love how this mirrors the progress (or not in some cases) of individual shows. Regardless in each case shows will eventually drop down to zero. This means that you constantly have to put new shows on the air, which in turn will require money and new stars and ads which means that keeping your economy going is essential if you want smooth running of your station. Clearly resting on your laurels is not a thing you can get away with in The Networks. Just getting your shows on at the right time is not always the best move however. In fact the game gives you special “genre bonuses”, These bonuses will trigger when you gain either three or five shows of the same genre in your archives and on the air. This means that sacrificing a few viewers to put a show on the wrong time slot to help you become the next Sci-if channel or Comedy Central may be a better move to get you those bonuses which will you give you free stars, ads, and viewers! 60 % of the time, it works every time. There’s a lot to enjoy in The Networks but it’s understandable that it’s not for everyone. Like any game with parody it’s purely subjective and your individual tolerance for the jokes in the game will vary. Whilst I’m not saying everything is laugh out loud funny it does bring a smile to my face every time I see the cards and I’ve played this game a lot. Similarly the art in the game has divided a lot of people, more so than I’ve seen for other games. However if you’re someone where art is a deal-breaker in a game then one look at the front of the box will let you know your tolerance for the art style. Me, personally, I like the art, the tone and the style fit really well for the game. That escalated quickly. One thing that’s evident in the Networks is how well it scales. The Networks is a joy to play from Solo play, which works by cleverly using the Network cards, right up until it’s full five players. One thing that may put people off the two player count slightly is that the game uses a dummy style player which uses a rondel and the network card system from the single player game and it’s a bit fiddly for my liking. I’m in a glass case of emotion. Like any open drafting game there’s a definite tension to be had and The Networks is no exception. There’s nothing more tense than sitting in hope that the show you desperately need is still going to be waiting for you on your next turn, this is even more tense when you realise you may need to hire a star before you can take that card. That’s two turns of lying in wait hoping that you won’t have to curse your fellow players as they unknowingly (or sometimes knowingly) foil your plans. This definitely gives you an interesting puzzle with multiple interesting decisions to make. You Stay Classy. The Networks is a game that will make you smile and keep you thinking throughout its runtime and its sure to leave you with a great series ending rather than a damp squib which will upset the dedicated fan base. If the star of UHF Weird Al Yankovic is the king of musical parodies then The Networks is the Weird Al of board game parodies. Stay classy board game fans, I’m Steve Godfrey?

Macaron WBG Score: 6.5/10 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: The Crew, Skull King, The Fox in the Forest Published by: Sunrise Tornado Game Studio Designed by: Ta-Te Wu If you like trick-taking games and Macaron's, you're in for a treat! Macaron from Sunrise Tornado Game Studio is a deliciously delectable card game which pits one to five players against each other in a battle to become the number one pâtissier in France! Your aim in the game is to prepare the mot amount of boxes of Macaron's each round. Boxes are made by winning tricks. Tricks are won in the traditional trick-taking way. Each player will lay a card. the highest card from the leading suit will win. In Macaron, the suits are based on the different flavours of Macaron's. Almond, Strawberry, Blueberry and many other waist busting varieties. As with all trick-taking games, there is a way to select a 'trump' suit. In this case, the Royal flavour. In a solo game, the royal suit is chosen by the most popular suit in the automa's hand. In a two or three player game, the royal flavour is chosen by the player to the left of the starting player. In a four and five player game, voting tokens are used so each player can have a say in this important choice. As well as the royal suit, in Macaron there is also one suit which is set as the 'Allergen.' The 'Allergen' is a suit which can still be played and win a hand in the usual way, but when any 'Allergen' card has been included, the trick wont win anyone any points. This is a clever addition I have not seen in a trick-taking game before and brings some interesting choices to the game. Another interesting twist, similar to contract whist, is where players need to make a "bet" to guess the correct amount of boxes they will win each round. If they guess correctly, they will gain a bonus point. If they get their bet wrong, they will loose a point. The bet does not have to be exact, players just need to guess the level on the score track that they will finish that round. So there is a margin of error here. But it adds an interesting dynamic where on occasions you will be looking to lose hands in order to get your bet right, and gain your bonus point. The bet idea works brilliantly with the Allergen rule. The Allergens are a great way to spoil another players attempts to make their bet or to aid your own goal. If you win with an Allergen card, you get to lead the next hand, despite not getting any points. It adds a lot of control to the game. There are some great trick-taking games on the market. Some have brought in co-operative trick-taking. Some with some clever story-driven games. But the core mechanic has stayed true to the age-old rule of play a card, highest card wins. Ultimately, if you want a trick-taking game, it seems the only decisions you need to make it theme, art, and player count. Sunrise Tornado Game Studio seem to make great games in this way. They pick a core mechanic and make a game that stays true to that mechanic. Here with trick-taking, and seen also with Boba Mahjong, a card game coming to kickstarter based on sets and runs. I like games like this. No frills. Just solid, well built game play. However with trick-taking I do feel there are a number of games that do this well already. Perhaps there is no more that can be done with the mechanic. It may be that this is all people want with trick-taking card games. However I do feel there is room for some development here. And the betting and Allergen rule here is a nice addition. However, whilst theme and art remain the key driver within this mechanic, Macaron gets my vote! It looks good enough to eat! The bright, vibrant art stands out and suits the theme here beautifully. Set-up on a table, on a mid-Sunday afternoon with a selection of real Macaron's to nibble as you play, I am unsure of a better way to while away the hours.

Kingdomino Origins WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Queendomino, Carcassonne, The Castles of Burgundy Published by: Blue Orange Games Designed by: Bruno Cathala This is not an easy game to review for one simple reason. I love Kingdomino and Queendomino, and trilogies are always tough! In truth, the trilogy was already complete with the roll-and-write two-player game, Kingdomino Duel that came out in 2019. But this feels like the more natural third game, where Duel was more of a spin off. However, where Queen advanced significantly on King, delivering a lot more complexity and options on top of the solid gameplay, Origins seems to be more of a re-skin of Queen. As such, I feel this review needs to cover two main points. Should you buy this game if you own King or Queen? How does this game stack up against King and Queen? Let's cover the first bit first as its quite easy. If you own King but not Queen, and love it, get this. It's brilliant and takes it on quite a few steps. If you own Queen then you probably don't need this too unless the theme really grabs you or you are a huge fan of this series of games. Origins is better, but it doesn't offer that much more than Queen. But you could always buy this and re-gift your copy of Queen to someone else? That’s my plan! Anyone want Queendomino? Great, let's get into the second part. It's way more juicy. When compared to Kingdomino, Kingdomino Origins brings the game on leaps and bounds. However, when compared with Queendomino, this is more of a re-skin. There are a few original elements, a few parts of simplified, but not enough for a new game in my opinion. I own Kingdomino Origins and Queendomino, and I think I will probably never play Queendomino again. Origins for me is the better game. But I don't want games to make other games obsolete. I want new ones to offer new things. New strategies. New options. Although, have you seen the volcanoes!? With the origins story out of the way, let's get to Origins proper. This is a great game. As a stand alone game, without considering what came before, this is a very good family game, perfect for a light filler experience, or quick mid-week game session. I love the theme, the components are fantastic, and find this a perfect game to bring to the table with new or younger players. If you have played either of the first two games before, you will know how this works. Players will take it in turns to draft one or two (based on player counts) of four available domino tiles to add to their play area. You are looking to build the most point worthy 5x5 or 7x7 region as possible. (Again, depending on player count!) Points are awarded for each different type of land, with the size of the area multiplied by the amount of fire symbols they have within it. The only real difference compared to the first two games is the fire, which has replaced the previously used crowns. Oh, and the fire can move! In Kingdomino, when you started to build a large area of one particular territory but it didn't have any crowns in it yet, there was always the threat that you could end up with a large pointless part of your game. Queendomino offered some different options here, and Origins does the same. When you place a tile with a volcano, you can then take a fire token to add to your tiles. Depending on the number of craters in the volcano, depends on the type of fire token you can take. There are single flames that can move three spaces away from the volcano tile. Double flames which can move two spaces. And triple flames that can only move one. This gives you the option to create a higher scoring area, without necessarily having the right tile. I like this addition. Thematically it makes sense. Volcanic eruptions happen right? And the strategic option to place your multiplying fire tokens where you like, rather than where the tiles are going; which are often limited, brings more choice to the game. When played in Discovery mode, the movable flames are the only real difference to Kingdomino. But like Queendomino, Origins has a few different ways to play the game. In Totem mode, each tile now comes with an bonus item. The grass lands will encourage Woolly Mammoths to come and graze. Fish appear in the water. Mushrooms in the woods and flint in the quarries. When you draft tiles, these items will come with them and stay on the tiles until the end of the game. Well, unless fire comes to burn them away. If you have the majority of any particular item, you can take the totem tile for that component. At the end of the game, the player who holds the majority will score the points on the totem. Three for the Mammoth. Four for the fish. Five for the mushroom and six for the flint. You also score one point for each component itself. This simple addition adds a new scoring opportunity to the game and makes the choices for tiles a lot more fun. It evens out the options, making everything an attractive option. I love the look and feel of the wooden components and the back and forth with the totems is a fun and very tangible way to track your progress during the game. It is not dissimilar to the Queen component in Queendomino. The final mode is the tribe mode. This removes the totems, but keeps the flint, mushroom, mammoth, and fish now as currency. Neanderthal characters are now available to be recruited for various costs. They will score you bonus points based on a variety of options. Generally by what surrounds them when placed, such as nearby components, people, or fire. This is my favourite addition. It is similar to the buildings in Queendomino. Although in Queendomino you would gain a resource when you bought most buildings as well as gain point scoring options at the end. In origins you just get the point scoring options. But I like the multiple scoring options this provides. If this was a brand new game, the first to come out of this series, I would probably score it a lot higher. For a light tile-laying point salad, there are not many better options. But this is not the case. There have been other games prior to this, and this version of the game, despite being my favorite of the three so far, does disappoint a little by not offering anything new. They have tightened up the mechanics. I am glad it was made and will keep this in my collection. But making Queendomino obsolete is a shame. It would have been fun to find a way to make them work together, either at once with different mechanics or in sequence in a campaign mode perhaps. However, to judge this game on its own merits. This is a fantastic game. It plays so smoothly. It feels like the third game in its tightness. The scoring is fun. It looks great, and is very easily teachable to all ages and abilities. I for one am glad they took this game in this direction. But would hope any further versions bring something new to the domino laying world.

Whirling Witchcraft WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Century: Spice Road, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Race for the Galaxy. Published by: Alderac Entertainment Group Designed by: Erik Andersson Sundén I have spoken a lot recently about judging a book by its cover, or not as the case may be. Whirling Witchcraft is a great example of this. When I first looked at the box art for this game, I thought this was going to be young-adult fantasy game. The art is quite striking! The game is actually a rather light take-that game suitable for all ages and a lot of fun. It offers some very interesting mechanisms and incorporates the take-that mechanic in a really innovative way. Let’s get brewing! OK, before we do that. We probably need to talk about the Quacks sized elephant in the room. It does feel a little like this game is AEG’s answer to the hugely popular push-your-luck game of potion brewing, The Quacks of Quedlinburg. Thematically there is some similarity and I understand the comparison. But Whirling Witchcraft is completely different mechanically. There is no push-your-luck in Whirling Witchcraft, but there sure are a lot of magical mixtures being concocted. It certainly seems appropriate to me to try and make a good game like Whirling Witchcraft, to be as universally attractive and deliver as high a profit return as possible. If this means using a successful theme from another game, really what is the issue? But really, what theme could you use now-a-days that wouldn't lead to someone accusing you of taking it from somewhere else? With that done, let’s talk about the game! In Whirling Witchcraft, each player is given player board, cauldron, personality card, and four recipe cards. When the game begins, players are looking to add as many of their recipe cards as possible to their tableau of completed recipes. The recipe cards allow you to take ingredients from your player board and add ingredients to your cauldron. You want to do this for a very interesting reason! All ingredients added to your cauldron are given to the player to your right, your nemesis. They must add them to their own player board. If there are any ingredients that cannot be placed on their board due to their capacity being reached then they must be handed back to you to place in a separate area on your player board, your Witches Circle. The first player to get five ingredients in this space wins the game. It takes a few turns to get your head round this mechanic. You are trying to get ingredients into your Witches Circle, by completing as many recipes as possible. In order to complete your recipes, you need available ingredients from your player board. But you cannot have too many ingredients there as you may explode when you are given extra ingredients. But you also cannot have too few as you will then not be able to complete as many recipe cards. It is a delicate balance. But this is not about pushing your luck. You don’t get to control how many ingredients you have. You are always trying to cut them down as much as possible by completing as many recipe cards as you can. There is no point in the game where you are thinking about weather you will complete one more recipe card or not. If you can, you generally always will. This is more about the efficient use of recipe cards. At the start of each new round you will be given the unused recipe cards from the player to your right. Each player will then draw back up to four recipe cards. You will then need to see how many of the recipe cards you can do this round, and most importantly, in which order you will do this. The order is important as the ingredients you have available on your player board may not allow you to complete all the cards. But in one set order, you will most probably have more opportunities than others. The recipe cards have a top and bottom section. The top section shows you the ingredients you need to add to the card in order to fulfill it. The bottom half shows what the card will produce when completed. The produced ingredients are taken from the main supply, you don’t need them, you are producing them. Anything left on the bottom half of your recipe cards at the end of this round will be added to your cauldron. As such, you want as much put on the bottom sections as possible. If you don't have the required ingredients on your player board, you can take the ingredients from the bottom section of a completed recipe card. Hence the order you activate the cards being important. You may also want to do this as you can see the player to your right to whom you are passing your cauldron to, is closer to exploding on one particular ingredient than another. You may be able to use one ingredient you have produced on one recipe card that they are doing well on, to help you produce another ingredient on a second recipe card in which they are close to maximum capacity on. You need to pay attention to how your opponents are doing throughout the game. Equally, in regards to the player to your left who is passing you their cauldron, you need to see what you think they may be passing to you come the end of the round. And in turn, try and make sure you have enough room for what they may be passing you. This juggling act is highly enjoyable when you are in the midst of it! What I have explained so far alone would make for a decent game. There is a nice race element, mixed with the development of your recipe cards to keep most players interested. This is a short game. Most experiences I have had were completed in around 20 minutes. But there are two other elements that add a nice layer to the game without any more length. The personality cards and the arcana powers. For the personality cards; the game encourages you to only add them in once you are more familiar with the overall rules, and use generic personality cards for your first game. The arcana is included in the base rules, but something I feel would be better suited as a modular expansion instead. The game still works perfectly well without it, but becomes more accessible to younger players with this removed. With the arcana included, each player is given a arcana card and three arcana tokens. On top of some of the recipe cards there are arcana symbols printed, showing you when you can activate that particular arcana power. The arcana card shows two rows of numbers going from one to six, with the odd on the left side and the even on the right. When ever you play a recipe card with an arcana symbol on, you can move the arcana token one position forward. Whenever it is on one of the even spaces you can activate its power. The Cauldron allows you to add one ingredient from the general supply directly to your cauldron. The Crow allows you to remove up to two ingredients from your player board. The Spell Book allows you to take a specific type of ingredient from the general supply to use in your recipes as many times as they need it that round. This is a little vaguely explained in the rules so caused some debates in our household! When used well these powers can significantly increase the amount of recipe cards you can fulfill, and in turn, the amount of ingredients you are passing to your neighbour. It is great addition once you have played the game once or twice, but I found it useful to remove from the game for new players, despite this not being suggested in the rule book. The card you track your magic on is a little disappointing, the tokens tend to slide about a lot and it can become tricky to keep an accurate track of your available arcana if you knock it. But the actual idea is a lot of fun. The personality cards are a nice added element to add to the game. It gives each player a slightly different set-up and some minor asymmetry to their player powers. The change from these being added does not feel as significant as the arcana, so I find it interesting these are an additional add in and the arcana isn’t. Playing Whirling Witchcraft is an enjoyable experience. My children enjoy the slightly removed take-that mechanisms deployed within this game. You are constantly trying to get your opponent’s player board to explode so you can get the necessary ingredients in your witch’s circle. But as all players are always doing this to each other in a circle around the table, it does not feel cruel. It’s not like when you play a card in a typical take-that game, and have a choice who to play it against. In Whirling Witchcraft, you can only ever do this to the player to your right. And all players are always doing it. It’s not a choice of action, nor is it a choice of whom you do it to. You still get the fun that comes from take-that, but none of the meanness or sense of having to pick on someone. For this interesting use of take-that, I feel this game must be highly rated. It offers something unique for me, whilst delivering an engaging and enjoyable experience suitable for all ages. I would like to see some pimped-up components for the ingredients over the standard coloured cubes, and perhaps a duel layered board to sit the cubes in. But the fact I am thinking about upgrading this game already does suggest it will get a lot of plays from me!

Juicy Fruits WBG Score: 8.5/10 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Viticulture, Takenoko, Bohnanza. Published by: Deep Print Games, 999 Games, Capstone Games Designed by: Christian Stöhr I'm going to cut to the chase. Juicy Fruits is a fantastic game. In this review, I would like to explain why I think so highly of this game. I would also like to explore why I think they chose such a light, fun theme. Oh, and have you seen the size of those chunky fruit components?! Appearances can be misleading. At first, this game looks like a simple family game. The bright art. The childish name. The fruity theme! One would be forgiven for dismissing this game as a light game only suitable for your children. But once set up, you may quickly change your mind and go too far and think this now looks too complicated for your kids to play! Just look at all this stuff set up for a two-player game! And it's not even all in shot. But get beyond all the 'bits,' and the mechanics and turn structure of the game really are very simple. Move your fruit picking tile. Then do something with your collected fruit. This could either be fulfill an order from one of the ships on your board, or buy a tile from the main board. Lets look into these options in a little more detail. On your board at the start of the game, you will be presented with an island surrounded by 12 ships. Each ship has a specific requirement to send it packing, and in turn, collect the available points from this vessel. You will also have five different fruit collecting tokens. One for each of the fruits in this game. On your turn, you can first move one of these fruit tokens to collect that specific fruit. For every space you move the token, you can take one fruit. At the start, you will only be able to move each token one space, but this quickly changes as you clear ships from your board creating more space. As you take turns moving these tokens and collecting fruit, you will slowly increase your stores of collected fruit, and instead of completing a ship order, you can look to go to the market. On the main board there will be a variety of business tokens available for purchase. These range from advanced fruit collecting tokens that allow you to collect multiple fruits with one tile at increased efficiencies, to ice cream carts, and buildings that offer bonus points. Each building has a cost based on the row it sits on, which is randomly determined at the start of the game. But also delivers instant points, again based on the row, and the added benefit each token brings. Some offer just points, or fruit picking upgrades, but the spit colored tiles offer an interesting choice. There are a lot of points up for grabs with these, 12, 15, and 18 per token depending on which ones are in the game. But they require a large 4x4 tile to be placed permanently on your board, blocking movement for your fruit picking for the remainder of the game. The Ice Cream cart tokens allow you start fulfilling ice cream orders. Once bought and added to your island, when you move the ice cream cart (instead of one of your fruit picking tokens) you can exchange previously acquired fruits for different ice cream orders. At the bottom of the main point, ice cream order tokens will be available ranging from eight points up to 16. This is a great way to increase your overall point total, but also control the end of the game. On the far right of the main board, a time track will countdown the end of the game. Each time a pile of ice cream orders is exhausted or a building is bought, the time token moves down one spot. When this reaches the end, that signals the final round. Players could happily all work towards their ship orders without any danger of the game ending. But as soon as someone starts buying from the business board, not only is the end-game timer started, so too does your considering need to be switched as the good business tokens will start disappearing. Playing Juicy Fruits is so much fun. There is constant progression being made. You are constantly feeling like you are making progress, advancing your own score and developing your fruit picking powers. Turns are quick, and will move round the table fast, even in a four-player game. The game does not feel frantic, but it certainly keeps your interest throughout. Players are all farming on their own boards, but the business board is open to all. It could be that a specific business token you are working towards goes to another player before you get a chance to acquire it yourself, especially in a three and four player game. But there are always good options available. The only thing you really don't want to miss out on is an Ice Cream cart if there are less of them than players. Although it is possible to score well and win without an ice cream truck, it is rare from what I have experienced. On the reverse of the score track is an advanced variant. It adds a third step to each players turn. Once you have collected fruits and either served a ship order or bought a business token, players will then turn their attention to the Juice Factory. Each player will have two of their colored discs at the starting position, and on their turn, can advance one or both discs one arrow space each. Some moments are free, others require fruit payments. There are multiple points to be awarded as you move along. Any spots occupied by a disc are blocked off to all other players, so this adds a bit of a race game as the final two spots offering eight and four points, will be blocked by by the first two discs that reach there. The Juice Factory is a nice addition to add to the game after a few plays for some variation and a small increase in strategy. It does not add much more to the game in terms of length or complexity. Just choices. You will find you will fulfill a few less ship orders, and perhaps buy a few less business token as you use your fruit elsewhere. But I enjoy the small added element of strategic thinking required. Juicy Fruits is a light game. There is no doubt of that. But it moves fast enough, and has enough choices that anyone can have some fun with this game. You cannot take it too seriously or expect this be anything it isn't. Those with whom I have played this with have all come into the game thinking it is a very light game. But they all come out saying it felt like it actually had some decent choices and strategy. I am conscious I don't do the opposite here and pitch Juicy Fruits as being a medium weight game. It is not that! I would like to encourage you to pitch it to your friends and family as a light game so they can find their own little strategies in it themselves! I think this is why the game chose this theme, name, and box art. They want this game to be seen as a light game. And then surprise and delight those who scratch below the surface. The headline with this game has to be these brightly colored, chunky fruit components. Each fruit is uniquely shaped so those who suffer with colour blindness will be able to determine them all apart. They feel great in your hands, and will reward you with an aesthetically educed rush of adrenaline every time you get one! Juicy Fruits is a firm family favorite in my house hold. It plays quickly, my children (6 and 8) love it, and both my wife and I will get something from playing too. I love the look and feel to the entire production, and will enjoy this for many years to come.

Outrun WBG Score: 6/10 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Jungle Speed, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Galaxy Trucker. Published by: Good Looking Richard Designed by: Ian Barrow, Paul Hunter, Szymon Stuglik OK, before we start. Let me clear up what we are talking about. This is not the classic Sega arcade game from the 80s. Many of us have fond memories for this classic retro racer. For me, it was watching my old man flock straight to it every time we headed to the arcades on holiday in South Wales. I am not sure what pulled him in. The chance to drive a red sports car. The kicking 80's soundtrack. Or maybe just the occasional passing identical palm tree made him feel like he was on holiday in a far exotic place other than rainy New Quay. But no, this is not that! This is a new card game. Nothing to do with cars, arcade games, or my dad for that matter. Outrun is a fascinating fast-paced real-time card game that creates a true sense of tension. In what is essentially a dexterity-based race-game, Outrun brings some news ideas to the table, in a delightfully B-Movie style theme. In Outrun, your mission is to literally outrun your monster of choice. Well, not literally, in card form. But there is a race! The game comes with four different monsters to set up against. All offering a completely different, and independent game. Bears, Zombies, Vampires, and Dragons. Although, you aren’t really trying to outrun the monster. That may not be possible. But you certainly should be able to outrun one of your friends! This is a game that seems to be based mostly on the classic joke about not ever needing to out run a bear. Just outrun your slowest friend. To set-up the game, give each player the nine movement cards set for their character and away you go! There are 48 path cards in the game. Each one showing a different route you can take to try and outrun your fellow hero’s. The routes show different symbols, represented on the nine movement cards you have. The idea of the game is that you need to sort through your nine cards, find the right symbols and place them face down in the order of the movement card as quickly as you can. Once you have done this, you must place your ‘finish’ card down in the center of the table. Once each player has done this, one person will check the cards have been placed in the right order buy each player and declare the points for that round. The first person to complete this task correctly will be able to move their character piece the most spaces away from the monster. The number of spaces will be dependent on the monster you are facing and the number of players in this round. Once the path card is turned over, this game becomes a simple race of hand-eye coordination, card sorting, and keeping cool under pressure! The task itself it relatively easy. But doing this at the same time as your friends, when your brain is screaming at you “they are going much faster than you, go faster!” is a stressful situation to be in! The player who can keep their cool best will inevitably win the round! All this may sound pretty simple. The real-time nature of the game play wont appeal to all. But the actual mechanics of the game will come across as a little one dimensional! Well, hold onto your monster running away from hats! In Outrun, the Monsters fight back. Interference cards are used by the monsters to make the job of running away from them that little bit harder! Each player will draw an interference card, and can decide if they want to play it against themselves or another player around the table. The interference cards will have multiple affects, but most make the job of escaping the chasing monsters a lot harder, and a lot more fun. There are cards that will force you to lay the movement cards in reverse order, or simply switch the position of two specific cards if they come up. There are some positive ones that let you play one less interference card this round, or discard one. Hence why you may want to keep them for yourself. But most will be more troublesome. Like one where you must switch the second and third card round. So where everyone else will order their cards (for example) Spaceman, Cheerleader, Firefighter, Vampire. You will need to order them Spaceman, Firefighter, Cheerleader, Vampire. Which under time pressure, when up against a real-time competitive situation, can melt your mind! Each monster will bring its own style and flavour to the table as well. The Bear encourages you to play the interference cards against each other to make other players escape that little bit more difficult. The Vampire makes the interference cards affect all players as the Vampire messes with your mind! The Zombie infects players with a virus, thankfully one that you can recover from. Mr. Romero had it wrong apparently. When one player is infected, they can infect other players and each infected player needs to use the special antidote card to remove the infection. Obviously, this is not true to life. We all know the only solution is a double-tap and to move on with your life. The Dragon is my favorite monster to face. In Outrun, when all players have played their cards and their relative success has been determined, the player who acted correctly the fastest will get to run the furthest away from the monster they are facing. Generally, the player in last place does not get to go as far, but they can discard one of their Interference cards as a catch up mechanism. With the Dragon, the fastest gets to move five spaces as the rest are all caught by the Dragon’s fire breath and only go forward one spot. I like this all or nothing rule. It feels a little more dramatic. More tense. More fun. Games of Outrun are fast. You only need to move nine spaces away from the monster to escape, and in turn, win and end the game. Each monster offers you the chance to move three or five spaces if you win the round. And each round only takes a minute max! An entire game could be over in 10 minutes. As such, we like to face off against all four monsters in a row. Or, as you can see from the comments below from Ian, one of the designers on the game, you can daisy chain the escape boards for a longer experience. For what this game does, it does it very well. It looks great, the art is great, and is certainly suitable for the vibe this game is trying to create. The rules are light, simple, and easily explained. The theme is great fun. This game doesn’t take itself too seriously and there is a lot of joy to be had here. However, the experience can feel a little light, and empty of any strategy or the opportunity for clever play. But if you are looking for something fast, fun, competitive, and suitable for a quick romp you will find Outrun offers a lot of laughs. Outrun Website.

Without A Doubt WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Any Travia Based Quiz Game. Published by: Shot in the Dark Designed by: Grant Sanderson, Jordanna Sanderson Picture the scene. You are with your family at a big seasonal festive party. You know. JimMas or the such. One person is loving the quiz-based game you are playing. Taking all the cubes, wedges, pizza slices or whatever you call them for themselves and loving all the questions. Even those pesky yellow ones. Who knows about science anyway? I learnt how to turn on the Bunsen Burner without my teacher noticing in my school Physics class. (Although I still just had to google how to spell 'bunsen'). Anyway, you get the picture, right? Most people are not digging the situation. You either know the question or you don’t. And let’s be honest, where is the fun in that? How good is your memory? How good are you at trivia? Is that really a good game for all the family at JimMas? The team at Shot In Dark certainly feel the same. They have a 'smarty pants' dad apparently too, and so decided to create a series of games to combat this. Simply put. A trivia-based game, with answers know one will defiantly know the answer too, but where everyone will have a good time at trying to answer. This started with the seminal Shot in the Dark game from 2019, a Christmas edition (whatever that is) and now, their next major release, Without A Doubt. A trivia-based question game with a very simple addition. Everyone is given a 'Without A Doubt' card to play whenever they are a little more sure about the answer. This will then double their point return if they are right. There are hundreds of questions in this deck of cards. Each one with a clear and simple structure for reading the questions or answers. As such, any player from 8 and up could play this. The questions are accessible enough for anyone to have a guess, and the format of the cards is easy enough for most eight-year-olds to read them out. Let me give you a flavour, if you will excuse the soon to be revealed, terrible pun. What is the best-selling flavour of crips in the UK, Walkers Cheese and Onion or Walkers Ready Salted? No mater your age, your country of residence, or your academic level, everyone can have a guess at that and have as good a chance as any to get the right answer. By the way, if you want to know the answer, you will have to buy the game (or just google it) But the answer may surprise you. Not in the flavour, but the quantity. Its only 1.3 million bags a year, which works out to be 3,561 per day. Which divided by the 60 odd million of us here in the UK, is only 0.00005 bags each a day. Which is clearly nonsense! Right?! (I’m on my third bag of the day so far myself…) Just to show you, this wasn’t a hand selected question to make this game seem different to what it is, I will now draw a random card, and pick a random question to share with you. Here we go… OK, that one was hard, let me try again… What is heavier: an average caravan or an average African elephant? The answer is a 7:1 ratio by the way. Should be easy right? But are you confident enough to play your Without a Doubt card? So, that’s the vibe of this game. With these cards, you can play how you like. In teams. In groups. With points, or without. Perhaps the most point within a time limit? Maybe over dinner, or drinks? Perhaps you would enjoy this over the course of a walk, holiday, or during another game? There is so much scope as to how you can use these cards. And no matter how you do decide to play, I would hope everyone feels involved. Everyone would think they have as good a chance as everyone else playing. There are a lot of multiple choice, 50/50, or just totally random questions, it is hard to swot up for a game of this. Happy JimMas everyone. You can find out more information here.

What is your favorite game of all time? What was your favorite demo game at Essen this year? What exactly have you done to your hair? These are just three questions that are often put to me. I thought now was the right time to address the important one. I want to look like Aragorn, OK?! Right, with that out of the way. The number one demo that I played at Essen was unquestionably The FOG, a delightfully constructed two-phase game for 1-6 players, set on a mysterious island where an unknown fog is mysteriously making the islanders disappear. I sat down and spoke with designer Robert Müller-Reinwarth from XOLLOX Games at the stand to discuss the design, his ideas for the development of the game, and his hopes for the kickstarter next year. It was clear from playing the game that thousands of hours had gone into the mechanics of the game. It felt incredibly balanced and well thought out. The game starts with the board filled with villagers, all looking to race down the beach to the safety of the boats. In the first phase of the game, players will take it in turns to place their colored discs under one villager. When you do so, you are claiming them as being under your control for the second phase of the game. The villagers at the front will score points quicker, and are often claimed first. But each villager has their own special power, and ones from the middle or back could fight their way forward as the game develops. Once this is done, players will then take it in turns, in a snake draft order, to take their actions in the second phase of the game. Each player has a board with an equal set amount of movement actions available to them each turn. Each action costs a different amount of movement points based on its relative strength. Moving forward one space costs less than jumping, squeezing through two other villagers, or pulling others back and taking their place. Each villager can do all available actions, but they will all have one action that they can do for less movement points based on their own abilities. You can move any of your villagers but have hugely restricted movement points. Lots you want to do plus not a lot you are allowed to do, generally equals a lot of fun tension for me. It is very much the case of this here in The Fog. As the villagers escape the island and walk onto the boats, there will be certain seats that will score more points. Where you sit on the boat, which boat you are on, which villager you are embarking, all these factors will contribute towards the total points available. There is a race element strongly present here, where you will want to get certain villagers to certain seats first. It is not always about what the best thing to do, but what you think you may need to do before it's too late! All the while, the fog is ever advancing. All villagers at the back of the beach are at risk of being taken. After a few rounds where you will feel invincible, the fog will move forward. Any villagers still within this row are out of the game. You will score minus points for each one of your villagers still stuck back here. The minus points are big! And after the first time you are caught out, you will work very hard to try and avoid this happening again! During this second phase, there is a delicate balance to be found between moving your villagers forward into the most profitable seats on the boat, whilst not neglecting anyone trailing at the back. With such limited movement points, and so little time before each advance from the fog, there is a brilliant sense of urgency and tension as you try to prioritise and strategise the best way to maximise your points and move your villages forward. Through the entire game, you will feel like every decision is critical. There are no 'down turns'. You are always thinking about what you should do and trying to figure out the puzzle in front of you. Other players can and will affect your turn, but this is not frustrating. The theme oozes out of this game. In a situation of villagers fleeing for their lives, do you really think you will have things your own way all the time? The game starts with various obstacles randomly set-up to block your villagers path. These all do the same thing, the differences are purely aesthetic. But the prototype components are gorgeous and I want them for my dungeons and dragons! I think I would enjoy playing this game over and over. The game won't change that much each time, but the tension and challenge set by The Fog would be enough to make each game fun, and make you come back for more. This is a game that works simply as it is good. No gimmicks. No extended campaign mode. No real narrative. All the things that usually attract me. But the theme is fantastic and well through out. The art is gorgeous.But the star of the show here is the game play. It's just a great game and one I cannot wait to see more of when it comes to kickstarter soon. You can follow the progress here.

Boba Majong is coming to Kickstarter in 2022. I was able to get an advanced preview copy from the Sunrise Tornado Game Studio stand when I was fortunate enough to meet their charismatic owner Ta-Te Wu. I was very interested in the back catalogue of games from Sunrise Tornado, and my interest was peaked from the cute box art and simplicity of play of Boba Mahjong. I love RummiKub, and all card games where you are creating sets and runs. This harks back to my days playing Canasta with my family as a child. So, I was keen to try this, especially as it was billed as a two player only game, which I always like. Boba Mahjong plays very much like other game where you are creating sets and runs, but with a few interesting twists. In the deck are 48 cards. All beautifully illustrated with different ingredients used within a Boba drink. There are 12 toppings cards with options such as Green Beans, Grass Jelly, and Cheese Foam. And 36 other ingredients cards, set across four different flavours running from Zero to Eight. Butterfly Tea, Matcha Tea, Taro Tea, and Strawberry Tea. To play, each player is dealt five cards. Three cards are placed face up into three separate 'Mixing piles. On your turn, you will draw two new cards or one card from one of the mixing piles. You can then create a set using a minimum of three cards from your hand. A set can either be cards in a sequential order, usually called a run in other games. Or of at least three cards of the name number. You can use the Zero cards as wild for either sets or runs. A set can also be three toppings cards, used as three of a kind. Once the set or run has been made, players will then chose one of the cards in the set or run to keep. All other cards must be placed into one of the three face up mixing piles. The cards you keep are how you score at the end of the game. The round ends when the deck is exhausted or one player has five or more stacks of score cards in their tableau. At this point, each player will choose up to six cards to use for this rounds scoring. You are scoring for freshness, smoothness, complexity, and presentation of your drink. Lets look at each one. Freshness: If you have a pair this will bring you three victory points. Three-of-a-kind gets you six points. If you have four numbers all the same, (but different colours), this will get you ten points. Smoothness: This is how you score your runs. Three sequential numbers gets you two points. Four will get you four points. A run of Five will be eight points, and six cards in a run will be 13 points. Complexity: This is how you score your toppings. Each one will get you two pints each. However, three toppings scores seven points. This is the max you can have. Presentation: Three cards of the same colour will get you three points. Four will be six. Five will be nine and six will be 12. You can also score from having different colours. Any four different colours will get you three points. If you collected all five then this is worth five points. The clever part of the scoring is that you can use cards multiple times to score with. For example. If you had a final hand including a green 1,2, and 3. This would score you two points for the run, your smoothness. But also three points for the colour, you presentation. This is the main difference here with this game to others that use runs and sets. Being able to create multiple uses for each card, and multiply each cards scoring potential is a fun and interesting puzzle to solve as you play the game. Once you have calculated your score, you will round that down to the nearest five and take a victory token for each five points you got. The game ends when a round ends with at least one player with six or more tokens. The player will the most tokens wins. Playing Boba Mahjong is quick, and a lot of fun. If you are a fan of games where you create sets and runs, you will love this. It has enough of a difference to make it stand out. The first being how each card can be used multiple times in the end round scoring. The second being the multi-layered way in which you get the cards. A run or set is needed to get the card, and then that card will be used with others to create more runs or sets. I really enjoyed this process. It made me feel involved thorughout. I was not simply creating sets or runs and moving on. Doing one thing to get something else to then use as a resource to do another. thing. It feels a little Euro in parts! Although this is not a Euro game at all. Don't get me wrong. This is a set-collection card game, distilled into its purist form. But the process you go through is quite interesting and feels a level above the 'norm.' The art and theme are wonderful. I love the design of each card, and the idea that I am making the perfect tea. My children love going to shops that sell these drinks when we go into London. And we are huge fans of RummiKub as a family. So, this theme, mechanic, and well oiled gameplay was a huge winner for us. Anyone looking for a quick, light, but fun two-player card game will be very happy indeed with Boba Mahjong. I look forward to seeing the full and final version at kickstarter. I will add a link to that here when it is live.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is the much anticipated squeal to The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. In this short 1-minute video I will run through the set-up, rules and mechanics of this fantastic cooperative trick-taking game.

Fangs is a new social deduction party game from KOSMOS. In this short 1-minute video I will run through the basic rules and gameplay.

Luna Capital is a fantastic new tile placement tableau building games from Devir. In this short 1-minute video, I will run through the basic rules and mechanics.