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4 September 2023 08 AT A GLANCE The Latest from Gen Con and Beyond 10 TEN OF THE BEST Disney Games 12 CARDBOARD MANIFESTO Are CCGs becoming Overdrawn? 14 HAVE YOU PLAYED? The train-laying classic Ticket To Ride: Europe 16 AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PLAYS Egypt: The past and future of tabletop gaming 18 THE SOLOIST I meditate over single-player deck building SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE UP TO 10%. PLUS RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS See page 3 for more details 20 WHAT’S IN YOUR ATTIC We go on a 90s Power-trip 23 ASK BEN When Less is More 24 ENCAPSULATE 2019: Unabashedly Unforgettable 26 WHAT’S IN A GAME? The Game of Life 28 MY FAVOURITE GAME Spiel Des Jahres Juror Martina Fuchs shares their most beloved game 30 RAGECON Our report on the biggest gaming convention in Reno 32 SPIEL DES JAHRES We reflect on why this prestigious award still matters 36 THE GATEWAY Get cosy with the perfect two-player intro game Patchwork 52 MYCELIA Our preview of a new mushroom-themed marvel 65 ON THE CARDS The latest in CCG sets and releases 66 CALLING: BIRMINGHAM We cover the UK’s biggest ever Flesh and Blood tournament 78 CONNECT 4 We recommend four new systems for D&D fans to try In this issue ON THE COVER!
5 81 ROLE CALL Five new titles to tempt you on an adventure 82 READ IT PLAYED It’s a hard life in the world of MÖRK BORG 92 WORMS PREVIEW We cover Mantic Games’ latest videogame adaptation 94 #SHELFIE Ben Maddox invites us to look upon his veritable trove of tabletop treasures 96 SHOP SPOTLIGHT We travel to the new Five Realms Gaming Lounge 98 TABLETOP TIME MACHINE Discover over three hundred years of Hanafuda P LAYE D OUR REVIEWS OF THE LATEST GAMES FAMILY & PARTY GAMES Looking for fun for everyone? Here’s where to start… 38 RECTO VERSO 39 ROLLER COASTER RUSH 40 DICE SPLICE 41 PHOTOGHASTS 41 CHAMPIONS! 42 INDIANA JONES: SANDS OF ADVENTURE 43 LORD OF THE RINGS: ADVENTURE TO MOUNT DOOM 44 MY ISLAND 46 CRANIUM: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 47 NO CONTEXT 48 SAVERNAKE FOREST 49 CATAN: SOCCER FEVER 50 CASTING SHADOWS 51 MONSTER INN STRATEGY Looking for games that offer depth and challenge? Form a plan from here 56 UNDAUNTED: BATTLE FOR BRITAIN 57 CITY OF THE GREAT MACHINE 58 MAZESCAPE 59 IERUSALEM ANNO DOMINI 60 MOTHER OF FRANKENSTEIN 61 MARVEL D.A.G.G.E.R. 62 THE WITCHER: OLD WORLD 63 ARCHEOS SOCIETY CARD Be drawn to the latest card games for your consideration 74 LORCANA 76 LOST EMPIRES 77 THE BINDING OF ISAAC: FOUR SOULS ROLEPLAYING Want to walk in someone else’s shoes? Beware, there may be dragons… 84 SHIVER: GOTHIC: SECRETS OF SPIREHOLM 86 ACTION POTENTIAL 87 COWBOY BEBOP: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME 88 ORK BORG 89 HYPERBOREA 3RD EDITION 91 VIKING DEATH SQUAD 91 WET GRANDPA tabletopgaming.co.uk 62 49 84 74
Matthew Vernall Editor What did you do on your summer holidays? I managed to sneak away from the office for a few days to catch some… well, rain, but also see the lovely vistas in the south of England. It was by sheer chance that I also got to swing by the home of UK-based card game Achroma and complete my mission to fill in the missing gaps of my collection straight from the flagship store. I’ve been lucky to chat to a lot of great people this month: designers, judges and even a couple of champions. Getting to see our hobby through so many different viewpoints, chatting to people who each see tabletop gaming in a slightly varied way… it’s been wonderful, the sort of refreshing experience that makes you realise how lucky it is to be part of this hobby. I hope you too have had plenty of happy gaming memories this summer and that you’re ready to read up on another (if I may be so humble) fantastic issue of Tabletop Gaming magazine! tabletop_gaming_magazine tabletopgamingmag tabletopgamingmagazine tabletopmag tabletopgaming.co.uk Get in touch NOW PLAYING... AmunRe: 20th Anniversary Edition I felt so grateful to have had so much support from my friends and family it’s a beautiful job that teaches you so much about games I want my games to be as simple as possible, but still bring beauty tabletopgaming.co.uk Q U I C K S TA R T The First UK Flesh and Blood Calling Champion, pg 71 Martina Fuchs, on being a Spiel Des Jahres juror, pg 34 EDITORIAL EDITOR Matthew Vernall 01778 392 400 [email protected] ONLINE EDITOR Charlie Pettit 01778 395 018 [email protected] CONTRIBUTORS Adam Richards, Anna Blackwell, Ben Maddox, Chad Wilkinson, Charlie Theel, Chris Lowry, Christopher John Eggett, Dan Jolin, David Parlett, George Barker, Jenny Cox, Kim Wellens, Richard JansenParkes, Richard Simpson, Rob Burman, Ross Gilbert, Roz Leahy and Tim Clare DESIGN Mike Carr SUBSCRIBER COVER IMAGE Prism, Awakener of Sol courtsey of Legend Story Studios ADVERTISING TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL COMMERCIAL MANAGER 01778 391 179 [email protected] PRODUCTION MANAGER Nicola Glossop 01778 392 420 [email protected] MARKETING MARKETING MANAGER Sophie Thornton 01778 391 185 [email protected] MARKETING EXECUTIVE Charlotte Bamford 01778 395 081 [email protected] PUBLISHED BY PUBLISHER Claire Ingram [email protected] Warners Group Publications PLC The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH 01778 391 000 warnersgroup.co.uk NEWSTRADE DISTRIBUTION Warners Group Publications PLC 01778 391 150 PRINTING The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publishers. Every care is taken to ensure that the content of this magazine is accurate, but we assume no responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions. While every care is taken with unsolicited material submitted for publication, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage. While every care is taken when accepting advertisements, we are not responsible for the quality and/or the performance of goods and/or services advertised in this magazine. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate the content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222 © Warners Group Publications Plc, 2021 7 Jack Neville, on designing Mycelia, pg 53
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS AT A GLANCE First Place Prize for the first ever UK Flesh and Blood Calling Champion Number of confirmed attendees at Gen Con 2023, setting a new $2 70,000attendance record 2 5 $983 0 $5000 Currently the highest amount paid for a single Lorcana card: an Enchanted rarity Elsa Million paid for the one-of-a-kind One Ring Magic: The Gathering card, bought by the rapper Post Malone Median estimate for the number of different games a single Spiel Des Jahres juror will play in a year to determine which will win the award Gen Con, one of the biggest board game conventions in USA, had a jam-packed four-day event, filling the halls of Indiana Convention Center to bursting. The most anticipated game release announced prior to the convention was the Disney CCG Lorcana, where it was available to the buy for the first time ever. Some eager fans were desperately waiting in queues for over sixteen hours, having started queuing on the Wednesday before the con had opened. It was during the weekend that we also learned the secret of the sixth and final card rarity. These ‘Enchanted’ printings are beautiful foil full-art versions of cards found in the set, with a total of twelve different cards in The First Chapter. Lucky fans who opened one of these cards were invited to a special release party on the Sunday, where they got to meet the designers and receive some exclusive goodies. Other highlights of the show included Sky Team, a hotly anticipated two-player co-op game where you work together to safely land your airliner in different airports; Horror of the Orient Express, a macabre mystery game set in the Call of Cthulhu universe where you must hunt down cultists aboard the train before they can complete their terrible ritual; and Star Wars: Unlimited, Fantasy Flight’s first ever trading card game that offers a fresh take on the conflict in a galaxy far, far away. NO LEADS ON CULPRITS OF OVER $300,000 TRADING CARD HEIST It wasn’t just eager Disney fans making off with a fortune of trading card product at Gen Con. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department are still looking for any information on the identities or whereabouts of two men who made off with a pallet load of what’s believed to be Magic: The Gathering product valued at over $300,000. The robbery took place on the Wednesday prior to the convention’s start. With numerous vendors hurriedly setting up their stands in preparation for the event, it’s believed that the thieves brought in a pallet jack that let them lift the entire stack of product, blending in with the rest of the people moving about the convention floor. When the news first broke many were worried that this product included the limited stock of Lorcana, but it has since been stated that the products stolen were instead from the recently released Magic set Commander Masters, where single booster packs could go for up to £60 each and most sealed boxes of boosters being priced over £300. BIG BOARD GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS AT GEN CON
For the latest news from the world of gaming visit tabletopgaming.co.uk/news We asked... As we make the most of the last days of sizzling sunshine, we found out what board game memories you’d made this summer. You said... CROWDFUNDING SUCCESS FOR VAMPIRES, GHOSTS AND OTHER MONSTERS The Summer has been good to many monster-related crowdfunding projects. We previously reported on the complete version of Greek mythology strategy game Cyclades: Ultimate Edition, which closed out its Kickstarter campaign accruing a whopping €1.1 million thanks to the support over 10,000 backers. The team at Open Sesame Games were overjoyed to see such a massive funding milestone reached. In a message celebrating the kickstarter’s completion, the team thanked “each and every one of [the backers] for making it possible for this game to reach such high levels of funding. Your support and confidence in our project are a powerful source of motivation and a real driving force for us.” From Greece to Italy, as innovative interactive board game designers Teburu have smashed past their crowdfunding target for Vampires: The Masquerade – Milan Uprising. Set in the World of Darkness, this narrative driven co-operative game makes use of a digital board that tracks your positions and control the new developments for your team of the bloodsuckers to best. The campaign reached its goal in less than hour, with over 1100 confirmed backers buying both the game and Teburu system. The system will also be used in an as-yet unannounced partnership with games giant Hasbro, as the company looks to explore the potential in digitally enhanced board games. Whilst our last highlight isn’t in reference to spooky spirits, Call of Duty: The Board Game by Arcane Wonders has hit over double its fundraising goal. This competitive miniatures tactics games for two or more players have adapted the frantic, highenergy action of the first-person shooter franchise into a secret action planning game of simultaneous player turns and explosive combat. The game will launch at retail with two different boxed editions for two players, including popular heroes and villains from the franchise such as Price, Makarov, Shepherd and Ghost. Expect to see this game hitting store shelves next year. I got to play Battlestar Galactica for the first time, turns out I make a real good toaster! -Katie B-F Me and my partner really got into playing Splendor as a 1v1 game. It became our go-to destress game when work got busy. -Tiff Had a great time at my local Star Wars: Legion tournament. Thought Darth Maul would be the king of my force, but I was wrong. All hail Space Trucks! @Angharrad12 Introducing my friends to Men at Work on a rainy day and seeing the chaos that ensued was hilarious. @GeekyCraftz Playing Ark Nova at our rental after a 12-hour day of gaming at Gen Con. @klenk1re Playing The King’s Dilemma with some D&D friends. Also Unfathomable! @whitniverse This year we took a pile of board games with us on holiday and it was fantastic to once again play games by the pool. @BoxedMeeples FROM FALLOUT TO FINAL FANTASY: MAGIC’S UNIVERSE EXPANDS FURTHER Not to let Ravensburger have all of the limelight, Wizards of the Coast provided a cavalcade of announcements for Magic, previewing further into the game’s future than they had ever before. The announced sets divided into two main categories: sets within the world of Magic that would form the backbone to the next major story arc following the defeat of the Phyrexians, and sets with characters from other media properties in the biggest announcement of upcoming Universes Beyond franchises yet. Along with previews of the Doctor Who set coming later this year, Wizards announced releases set in the Post-Apocalyptic Fallout universe, Jurassic Park cards releasing alongside the dinosaur-laden land of Ixalan, a new kind of booster pack covering the eleven games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise and an entire set featuring elements from over 35 Years of Final Fantasy. It seems that the recent success of the Lord of the Rings set Tales of Middle Earth has encouraged Wizards to continue widening the scope of properties you can play in your decks. I’m personally keeping my fingers crossed for a Wallace and Gromit announcement any day now… Get in touch tabletopmag tabletopgamingmagazine tabletop_gaming_magazine tabletopgamingmag
With Lorcana releasing this month, we thought we’d check out 10 other great games inspired by 100 years of Disney magic 1 2 O F T H E B E S T Words by Matthew Vernall GAMES 10 September 2023 3 4 SMASH UP: DISNEY EDITION Apparently, card games and Disney are like hot chocolate and marshmallows, as there’s always another perfect pairing for your next game night to keep things sweet. Whilst in isolation it sounds like something a parent who’s listened to ‘Let it Go’ one too many times might wish to themselves, Smash Up Disney sees players combining two beloved films into the ultimate tag-team, as you attempt to claim various locations like ‘Agrabah Bazaar’ and ‘Gaston’s Tavern’ to achieve Disney dominion. As the set features original decks and locations, you combine it with other Smash Up sets for endless crossover possibilities. Anyone wanna see the Beauty and the Beast team up with aliens to fend off Lion King zombies? Be our guest. DISNEY ANIMATED So many of these games focus on the varied fairy tales and original stories that Disney became famous through, which is why Disney Animated is so refreshing by putting your playgroup in the role of the animators behind those memorable movies. Each player is working hard to complete their own Disney film, but must share out a sliding action board similar to the action system found in Ark Nova. Success comes from making sure to focus on your own challenges whilst being mindful to help others out where you can, two great skills to teach kids whilst playing a beautiful looking game. Keep an eye out next month for our full review of this charming co-operative game. VILLAINOUS An inevitable inclusion to the list, but still a fantastic game to play. Take on the role of your favourite Disney villain (and there’s enough expansions out now that they’re likely to be available somewhere) as you try to complete your diabolical plans before anyone else. Each villain has its own way of using a unique deck of cards to achieve victory, whilst also being able to hamper your opponents by forcing them to face heroes who will scupper their plot. A great game of ‘take that’ and combo creation, where you’ll be accusing everyone of being close to winning as you sneak ahead turn-by-turn. DISNEY’S SORCERER ARENA Skirmish miniatures games don’t seem like an obvious fix for the family-friendly Disney/ Pixar characters, but it works remarkably well in this tabletop adaptation of the mobile game. Players take turns activating their roster to knock out opponents and score victory points, with a flexible upgrade system allowing players to really get stuck in with developing their preferred playstyle. Whilst there are multiple expansions for players who really want to plunge the game’s strategic depths, the core set comes with a lot of replayability for casual fans looking to play more strategic-minded games, including eight characters from your big names like Maleficent to more niche fan favourites like Demona from Gargoyles. Speaking of Gargoyles…
tabletopgaming.co.uk 11 7 5 6 9 8 10DIXIT: DISNEY EDITION This one is a little cheeky to include as the game currently isn’t out yet, but for families wanting to tear their kids away from endless reruns of Bluey, we would recommend keeping an eye out for this Disney rebranding of 2010 Spiel Des Jahres winner Dixit. Players will have a hand of cards drawn from a deck of 84 illustrations made specifically for this game, each depicting a different Disney animated classic. They’ll then have to play a card face-down and give a short phrase or sound relating to it. Everyone will also submit a card they feel matches this phrase, with the goal being to trick others into selecting your card whilst deciding which one was the original prompt. This game will likely be a feast for the eyes and a treasured addition to any Disney fans collection, but still well worth playing if you’ve never tried the original. CODENAMES: DISNEY – FAMILY EDITION Bringing word association to a younger audience, Codenames: Disney offers a shorter, less threatening version of the deduction classic, using a medley of pictures and text descriptions with the same core of having to guide your teammates into selecting your sides cards without giving too much to your opponents. It’s fun to play back-to-back, each taking turns as the code master for your team as you alternate between your head in your hands and silently cheering, depending on how well your team interprets your cryptic clues. It’s funny how despite slightly shrinking the area size and removing the instant-lose assassin, the game still holds up as a party game that’s great fun for small and big kids alike. DISNEY GARGOYLES: AWAKENING This title likely slipped the net for many, but much like the nineties nostalgic show of monsters protecting New York, it offers niche appeal with fantastic production values for those looking for a great co-operative game. Players control the titular heroes as the fight and fly across the wonderfully dinky 3-D buildings setup for each of the four replayable missions. The dice rolling and action point systems are nothing new, but presentation goes a long way and if you’re looking for an accessible miniatures game before moving onto heavier dungeon crawlers like Descent, Gargoyles is a great way to get younger players into that genre. COLOUR BRAIN: DISNEY EDITION Big Potato don’t often pair up with intellectual properties, but every time they have its led to a fantastic game which captures the best parts of the IP without sacrificing any of elements that make it great. Colour Brain is a trivia game with a bright twist; you need to remember which colours out of eleven different option an object/person is. This version naturally asks you to name the colours of things like ‘Rabbit’s fur’ or ‘Cruella De Ville’s gloves,’ giving you the same brain scratching challenge of convincing yourself and teammates ‘no wait I’m sure that Mickey’s hat was Blue with Yellow Stars in Fantasia’ (actually they were white stars, bad luck.) A trivia challenge for all ages to enjoy. MUNCHKIN: DISNEY Whilst not usually a title I would associate with heart-warming tales of working together, there is something unmistakably charming about seeing a cutthroat game that put the ‘take’ in ‘take that’ festooned with the smiling faces and paraphernalia of Disney. At its heart, this is the same game of min-max adventuring, with players racing to be the first to reach level 10 through amassing the most magical powers and items to overcome any villain. You’ll struggle to accomplish anything alone, but if I’ve learned anything from family gaming, it’s always the youngest ones who’ll betray you first, giggling whilst they do it. For a fast-paced card game which will devolve into backstabbing, this version takes the edge off through not being able to outright murder one another. LABYRINTH: DISNEY VILLAINS It’s clear that the tabletop community has taken a particular interest in the more wicked members of Disney’s catalogue of characters, probably because we all wish to be as diabolical whilst also being able to sing that good. Labyrinth is a series used to reskinning throughout its life but it cannot be denied that the haunting ever-shifting walls are a perfect fit for anyone to enjoy this gently mind-bending game of collecting conspirators as you pace the pathways of this magical maze. Of course, there are other versions of Labyrinth themed around the good guys of Disney, but where’s the fun in that?
C A R D B O A R D M A N I F E S T O Sisyphean task for collectors (I haven’t even gotten into ‘varied card arts,’ my sympathies to anyone trying to complete a set.) Do you know what Flesh and Blood, the CCG designed with CCG players in mind, does each year? They release three new sets and maybe one reprint product. That’s it. Every four months a new expansion set will debut, each focusing on a selection of the various class/talent options, along with a I t’s hard to be a casual card game fan. My literal fulltime job is to be immersed in the tabletop industry and I still can barely keep track of one system’s releases. Did you know that Magic: The Gathering has had over two thousand cards printed this year? Some of that does include reprints, but the fact we’ve still got two main sets and a Doctor Who crossover AND special Lord of the Rings holiday sets, means that I can’t be the only one feeling the fatigue. For the vast majority
BUY SINGLE ISSUE COPIES FROM www.ttgami.ng/single-issue SO YOU DON’ T MISS OUT! IN ISSUE 83 ON SALE 22 SEPTEMBER 2023 TABLETOP We get into the spirit of the season with a Spooky Halloween Issue! GAME FRIGHT We look at what mechanics and modern developments can make us truly afraid whilst sitting around the table A DIFFERENT KIND OF ROSSA Find out more about the innovative augmented experience inVampire:The Masquerade – Milan Uprising LIGHTS OUT We explore the many ways thatroleplaying games have used the concept of darkness to heighten the horror
Words by Matthew Vernall 14 September 2023 H AV E Y O U P L AY E D ? Hopefully, the answer is ‘yes.’ Yes, you have played Ticket to Ride in one of its many forms over the last nearly 20 years. But a weird thing I keep finding in gaming communities are people who haven’t played it. ‘I don’t play train games,’ ‘I don’t play beginner games anymore,’ ‘never heard of it.’ That last one in particular really shook me. Never heard of it? The franchise has sold over ten million copies! When a game has sold this well, but still struggles to get mainstream attention, something has fundamentally gone wrong. Maybe ‘trains’ have too burdensome a reputation, or perhaps the antiquated setting gives off an undesirable ‘old school’ vibe. Regardless, I feel it is my responsibility to give this game a greater presence, so to those of you reading this who have never played it (or who have passed this article over to someone to convince them to play) let me tell you why you should consider Ticket to Ride for your next game night. WHAT IS IT? Whilst I will always recommend Ticket to Ride: Europe to showcase this franchise (more on why later), all games in the Ticket to Ride family have the same core mechanics. Players are competing to build train routes and complete destination tickets. Each player starts with at least two tickets which show two destinations that must be connected by their trains before the end of the game, gaining points if successful (with more points awarded for harder to complete routes) or losing that many points if incomplete. On a turn, you can do one of three actions: gain cards, claim a route or draw tickets. Everyone starts with a smattering of cards, comprising of carriages in eight different colours and rainbow locomotives, which can count as any colour. As your action, you can draw up to two carriages from the five face-up cards in the supply and/or draw the top facedown card of the deck. Because locomotives are so powerful, picking one face-up takes TICKET TO RIDE: In preparation for the game’s Western-themed Legacy release later this year, we take a trip with the world’s fastest selling train game
tabletopgaming.co.uk 15 WHY SHOULD YOU PLAY IT? The game is a perfect example of one system working flawlessly. For as long as tabletop gaming has been a hobby, there have been games simulating railways and railroad construction to exhaustive detail. To clarify, I’m not shaming this subsection and am actually envious of your ability to keep engaged in the latest 18xx iteration, but for the purest, most concentrated essence of what makes those games good, you have to look at Ticket to Ride. With limited options in a turn, play is considerably quick and only gets faster as decisions become more concrete and game plans are formulated. You need to be the first person to do everything: whoever draws the best cards first will have the greatest flexibility in completing routes, but whoever first gets theirroutes on the table will get to control the flow of the game and scupperthe player who’s gathered a cardboard hoard of carriages, but also the playerthat snatches up the tastiest tickets can slam down five or six completed routes that catapults them to first place, provided that the cards and routes they need are still available. It’s a game that grows with player experience. When you’re starting out, its compelling enough to watch your little trains spread out across the map, basking in that sense of accomplishment as you submit a suitably significant score. Once you’ve played a few times or have had your share of other route building games, you start to spot chokepoints, more valuable route combinations, notice when a player has left themselves vulnerable to you sliding down a cheeky two-space route, forcing them to expend a precious station. Players will continue to improve and discover new aspects to the game and to tabletop gaming as a whole, helping them to better enjoy other games with similar mechanics and explore the wider world of gaming possibilities. You owe it to yourself to not only play this, but to get others to play it as well. The next family gathering, cosy night in or convention day out, encourage your friends and family to give this a go, if only so they can have one happy memory of tabletop gaming that didn’t involve going to jail or sliding down snakes. * your entire turn, but lucky players who draw one face-down still get another card. Now that you hand is overflowing, it’s time to claim routes. Each route will have a colour and number of spaces, which are the number of cards in that matching colour you need to play to claim the route. The longer the route, the more points earned immediately for completing it, whilst naturally putting you closer to your goal of completing tickets. Some routes will have two parallel options, designed for games with more players, of which you can only claim one route (can’t be too greedy after all) as well as some routes being colourless, letting you use any colour you wish, provided that all cards played are the same colour. As the game merrily chugs along, some players will find themselves already finishing their starting routes or mere moments away from doing so, so why not look for another big point earning play? By choosing to draw tickets, players take the top three tickets cards remaining and must keep at least one of them. Sometimes this will give you a quick point boost, other times you’ll now be faced with three equally challenging tasks as the game rapidly reaches its final stop. Once one player has two or fewer trains left, everyone gets one last turn (including that player) before revealing which routes you have (or haven’t) completed. A final ten points are also awarded to whichever player has managed to create the longest consecutive route, so planning ahead and going for routes that won’t have you doubling back are key to net this crucial bonus. Out of the many variations of this game, I prefer Ticket to Ride: Europe because I believe it’s the version that delivers best on its function as a gateway game. The few tweaks and new mechanics not only encourage players to make better decisions, but can also teach best practices for board games in general, giving them core skills to use in future games. In Europe, players are given the option of one large route at the start, immediately offering up a tantalizing challenge to keep players focused on both finishing their tickets and creating the largest route. Has someone taking that vital route you needed to complete a ticket? Not to worry, you can play one of your three train stations down at a nominal card cost, letting you ‘borrow’ their route for the purposes of completing tickets. Bonus points are given for unused stations and these won’t help you claim longest route, rewarding players who think ahead without absolutely ruining another player’s evening. Routes across bodies of water like the British Channel can only be completed with the inclusion of a locomotive card (representing a ferry, sadly no underwater trains here) whilst treacherous mountain passes across mainland Europe can cost you more than you’d bargained for: whenever you attempt a mountain route, you must reveal the top three cards of the deck, having to spend another card for each revealed card which matches your route’s colour. These moments offer great theatre for the table, with any failed attempts not costing cards, but will waste your action, which is often brutal enough.
around the world in 80 plays T his month we’re off to Egypt; a country famed for its ancient curiosities - games included. Indeed, current evidence suggests that the ancient Egyptians are responsible for the very first games to exist. Thanks to archaeological discoveries – as well as ancient Egyptians’ conveniently documenting various facets of their lives through text and imagery - Senet reigns supreme as the most ancient of tabletop pastimes, dating back over five-thousand years. It may not have had the longevity of Backgammon, but its prevalence for around two and a half thousand years is nothing to be sneered at. Over time, our understanding of the game has changed from being a simple twoplayer duel to what is now interpreted as something with a more spiritual connection. Around seven-hundred years after its inception, tomb art started to depict the game occurring between the living and the dead, with boards from this period also demonstrating design changes in the form of bird and water hieroglyphs; images representative of the soul and its watery journey through the realm of the dead. After Senet, other games began to appear: Dating to around 2700BC, Mehen is a very early example of a multiplayer game, with its coiled-snake board supporting up to six players. In comparison, the grid-based battle game Seega is surprisingly modern, with evidence pointing toward a 17th Century inception in Egypt and a gradual spread of the game two-hundred years later. Upon their discovery,rules have been suggested forthese ancient games, but definitive gameplay remains an alluring mystery.In 2018, a team ofresearchers led by Cameron Browne created the Digital Ludeme Project, to unpick the mysteries of traditional games with the help of AI. Acknowledging the potential biases ofrules put forward by historians, Browne is hoping that a more mathematical analyses could produce a better understanding. Whilst focusing on the games of early civilisations certainly sparks the imagination, the contemporary Egyptian tabletop scene is worthy of attention. Thanks to retailers such as Crocodile and New Game, Egyptian gamers have access to a healthy catalogue of fully translated, internationally popular games, but more interesting are the locally produced titles. By looking at the output from various Egyptian publishers, it’s clear that Egyptian hobbyists gravitate toward smaller card games and the social interaction they afford. In an interview with news outlet Egyptian Streets, Sarah Abouelkhair, designer of Egypt’s most popular new card game 2ool AMeme, notes how “people want social games”. She further adds how games formerly popular in the country (Monopoly etc.) aren’t tailored to Egyptian culture, but that this is changing thanks to the “emergence of so many Egyptian-bred social games.” Her company, grown out of the need to fund grad school during the pandemic, led to the creation of 2ool AMeme; a party game of matching culturally recognisable memes with captions. The company now publishes several locally designed and produced games, alongside working with global brands such as Dell and Nestlé to customise games for marketing purposes. In the wake of 2ool AMeme’s success, publishers like Cue Games, Casino Al3ab and Jokey Joy released similarly social games such as El hassa el sabaa, Casino Aflam, and Couples, whilst Makouk focused on slightly larger but distinctly Egyptian games like Baladna. Baladna is a trivia game played out across a cloth map-board of Egypt. Aside from providing a social and interactive experience through “drawing, acting, and silly dares,” the publisher also hopes to educate players on “the Egypt you never knew of!” It’s hard to do justice to Egypt’s undeniably important tabletop history in such a brief overview, but hopefully readers can perhaps revel in imagining a link between their own gaming experiences and a culture with literally thousands of years of gaming history. * 16 September 2023 Words by Chad Wilkinson
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18 September 2023 Words by Matthew Vernall We take a moment to explore the meditative powers of space warfare in Star Realms SPACE SOLITAIRE of deck builders; you gather more cards from the centre to modify your deck, creating combos based on what you buy. Each of the four factions has its own personality and core mechanic: the blue Trade Federation will restore your Authority and revolve around buying and instantly using cards; the yellow Star Empire forces your opponents to discard to give you hand advantage; the red Machine Cult let you remove cards from your deck to improve your draws; and the green Blob are about sheer destructive power, with big Combat cards and ways to destroy bases. Said bases are slightly different from normal ship cards, as they stay out on the battlefield giving you passive effects each turn and also offering ways to shield you from enemy attacks. Many cards have additional effects if played alongside another ship of the same faction, so having bases can better guarantee you capacity to trigger these bonuses. But as many of you might be wondering, how can it be possible to play such a conflictheavy deck building game solo? That’s where the Challenge Cards come in. A NEW CHALLENGER I was lucky enough to review the box set edition of Star Realms for the magazine when it released a few years ago. It’s stayed in my collection despite being considerably more cumbersome than its svelte deck-box sized original edition (which itself has been given to a friend, who now always has it stowed away in their gaming backpack.) In addition to the simple luxuries of having a tidy storage solution and additional starting decks, allowing up to four players to play needing to own multiple copies of the core game, the box set included two Challenge Cards, bosses that could be tackled as a group or by yourself to give you another way to test your card-play prowess. To operate each boss, you discard the centre card furthest away from the trade deck, which would then determine the boss’ action. Each boss had its order of operations, so they would prioritise eliminating bases where possible, but otherwise focus their attacks on directly damaging you. The ‘Pirates of the Dark Star’ were the smaller and swifter of the two challenges, only having half the starting Authority of the player but capable of massively impactful hits. Depending on the cost and faction of the card removed, they could unleash a barrage of Combat and other punitive effects, such as forcing you to discard cards or recovering their own Authority. The ‘Nemesis Beast’ was considerably different, I think all of us have probably had the same first solo game experience. We’ve all been stuck inside on a rainy day or cooped up on a long lonely journey, where you’ve reached for your trusty standard 52-card deck for that quick game of card stacking called Solitaire. It’s been a favourite of bored office workers for decades and continues to be the most played videogame on PC, with millions of games thought to be started every hour around the world. There’s something relaxing about it, bringing order to chaos and creating patterned lines only to sort them into piles of matching suits, keeping yourself concentrating just enough to be engaged without being too taxing. It was whilst I was commanding my fleet of cardboard space ships in Star Realms that I was reminded of the way solo games don’t need to be taxing to entertain, but can be therapeutic through literally letting us go through the motions, diversion by means of mixing challenging gameplay with relaxing, repetitive movements. A REALM RETOLD Most players familiar with Star Realms will know it as a sci-fi deckbuilding game for two or more players. Each player begins the game with a small fleet of scouts and vipers, tiny ships capable of providing one Trade or one Combat resource respectively. In the centre of the board are five ships, randomly dealt out from a deck of 83 cards featuring ships from four different factions. The object of the competitive game is to eliminate all of your opponents, depleting their authority until you stand alone in the void of space. The game follows the typical conventions
tabletopgaming.co.uk 19 in a longer, more controlling strategy, or if I needed to strike hard and fast to race them down as quickly as possible. I appreciated that despite their similarities, each Challenge not only felt noticeably different to face, but could let me choose how long I wanted to play. Having scalable difficulties too meant I could pick how demanding I wanted the game to be, as I after a few crushing losses on the harder difficulties through unfortunate sudden draws, I realised why I kept reshuffling to face them again and again. THE JOY OF MOVEMENT Many fans of solo board games will say how it’s the tactility of tabletop play which makes them prefer it over a videogame. Deck builders are notorious for their never-ending necessity of shuffling decks over and over, but here, there’s something pleasantly calming about that repeated movement, the sensory comfort of moving cards in your hands, either through shuffling up a deck, drawing out cards or reorganizing your play possibilities. Taking a moment for my mind to think about the puzzle whilst my body almost autonomously organized my cards reminded me of how doing familiar movements like driving a car, weeding a garden or even folding laundry can help you to reflect and destress, although I can personally say that I’ve never found any of those activities to be particularly relaxing tasks. But here? With the solitude of space in both a thematic and physical sense, it was nice to take a moment to calmly consider my options, sometimes finding the path to success but even when I repeatedly failed (after five attempts against the Nemesis on ‘Veteran’ I threw in the towel) the game never felt frustrating. There’s something to be said about taking the time to go through the motions, the ritual of play as much as the joy of playing. Give it a go yourself sometime and see if the act of shuffling and laying out cards can help you switch off. * more of a marathon than a sprint. It starts the game with the same amount of Authority as you and each time it discards, not only did it force a particularly mean ability, but slowly increased its Combat output, getting more and more powerful for each turn it takes to overcome it. The Solo Challenge forced me to reconsider how I would normally play the game, as I now had to consider what I would be leaving the boss to discard each turn. Whenever you buy a card, a new one replaces it in the same spot, but in this challenge, the furthest card would be removed by the boss and force everything else to slide downwards. Was it better to let them take a card I could have bought, because it wasn’t worth the risk of replacing it with something more damaging? Likewise, I would know ahead of time what their upcoming abilities could be, letting me strategize on whether I would have time to invest
20 September 2023 Each month we explore our readers’ attics to find long forgotten gaming gems Brought to you by Words and Interview by Matthew Vernall T here are many games in our past that tried to build upon a much beloved design. Last month we got a glimpse of would-be Monopoly murderer Hotel, whereas this time we have a glimpse of an even less friendly attempt of making a rapid version of Diplomacy, a legendary wargame known for causing more upsets than an out-of-date tin of sardines. Diplomacy is probably most remembered for its simultaneous action mechanic: every troop and naval unit in the game is given an order to move, reinforce or defend, with all actions then happening at once. It’s a game of handshake agreements followed by immediate backstabbing, as you promise to support someone with their attack, only to launch an invasion on their lands the moment their forces have departed. Power attempted to reduce the bitterness of this betrayal by implementing an egg-timer (which meant you couldn’t spend ages negotiating an inevitable lie) and a fitting power-scale system for units, where troops and tanks could be ‘levelled up’ to become an unstoppable force that sweeps the battlefield. Whilst this overcomplication and failure to capture the aspects that has ensured Diplomacy has stood the test of time (namely that those moments of talking, promising and lying are the most fun part), there’s still a lot of late eighties/ early nineties charm in this game, which was clearly the casualty of wargaming being considered too old school as fresher ideas and mechanics were starting to appear in the tabletop scene. Nevertheless, there’s lots we can learn from the past as Jessie and Amy Kirk demonstrate to us with their exploration of modern mobilized wargaming. We actually found a video taken from a VHS tutorial on Youtube (search “Power The Board Game VCR Board Games”) which was such a blast from the past, it gave me a massive wave of nostalgia, reminding me of playing the classic VHS game Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s basically Capture the Flag meets Diplomacy. Each turn, players write down an order for where their pieces will move. You start the game with a little bit of everything, but troops, tanks, planes and ships all move at different speeds. You can only write five orders each turn and are supposed to use an egg timer to time how long you have to move, but we never bothered with it. All movement is done simultaneously, letting you move through an opponent’s units to different areas, which has always felt confusing. Regardless, what matters is the place they finally end up on. If two or more players have pieces on the same space, they battle it out with the strongest group capturing all other pieces. You can swap these captured pieces with anything in your reserve, letting you give back their soldiers in exchange for having more of your own units. Hello! Can you introduce yourself to our readers? Hi, I’m Jessie Kirk, me and my wife Amy love to collect geek memorabilia. I usually prefer wargames (I have a massive library of Warhammer game books), she enjoys Japanese pop culture and we both have a deep love of eighties fantasy and horror (like The Last Crystal, Nightmare on Elm Street etc.) What game have you found in your attic? We have here Power, a simultaneous action wargame originally released in 1981. This particular edition came out in the nineties, which is pretty obvious from all the plastic miniatures and Hackers-esque art style (it looks slightly more modern than the Broderick classic Wargames.) Whose was it? Who bought it for you? I’m pretty sure it’s a game we bought ourselves from a charity shop, we’ve moved relatively recently and a lot of our collections are in storage. I know for certain that we bought it purely based on the 90s strategy game vibe; it looks like stills taken from something like Command and Conquer: Red Alert. Can you remember how it work and how it plays? We haven’t dusted off this bad boy in years and it’s kind of an involved experience. We had to spend a great deal of time flicking through a rather bellicose rulebook to get going, as there’s a lot to consider from the very first turn.
Release date: 1996 Publisher: Spear’s Games Still Available New?: No Second hand: Online resellers Price: £15-£25 You can also combine three units of the same type for a bigger single unit, as well as gaining power points (yep, they’re actually called that!) if you have units on an enemy island. You keep playing until one player is left standing, though we’ve most commonly played this as a two-player game, so the game is over once one flag has been captured. Tell us about any specific memories you might have of playing with it? Weirdly enough, what we remember most was seeing it for the first time. We were sold instantly on the look, the potential it was advertising, which made it such a shame when the gameplay ended up just being disappointing. What do you think of it now? It’s… okay. Playing it with more than two players might make things a little more fun, but we’d probably want to write some house rules before we dust it off to play again. We found it extremely easy for one player to snowball when their opponent made a single miscalculation, which definitely would put a dampener on the experience. Are you keeping it, trying to sell it, or dumping it at the charity shop? We’re going to keep it! One day we’ll get round to a full two-hour, four-player game that might make it power up, plus the box design looks rad on the shelf! What do you wish you’d found in your attic instead? When I was younger, there were two games I loved the most: Loopin’ Louie and Weapons & Warriors. They’re so typically nineties in their design, full of moving parts and silly plastic tabletopgaming.co.uk 21
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WHEN LESS IS MORE Have you ever opened a box and felt like you were drowning in components? Ben Maddox is here to offer a lifesaverin the form of compact yet compelling games Words by Ben Maddox Seeking guidance? Have you got a gaming problem? Want Ben to dish out some ludological wisdom in your direction? Get in touch. Contact with Ben on Twitter @5games4doomsday or email the editor at [email protected]. We’ll publish (and answer) the most amusing problems. tabletopgaming.co.uk 23 Q. Dear Ben, I used to be in the prime of life. Strong and determined with an iron cast will. My beard, a flaming red, drew gasps of admiration and jealousy when I would pass people in the streets. It feels so long ago now, but it was only at the beginning of this evening. Before I unboxed my copy of the new version of Kanban. Now, I have chipped fingernails, repetitive strain disorder, punch board thumb and a thousand-yard stare. Looking in the mirror just now, I swear I can see some grey coming into my beard. Why, you ask? Well, if you need to ask that question you have clearly never unboxed one of these monstrosities, let alone set it up! I was filled with pleasant tummy rumbles of anticipation when I pulled the clingy plastic off the box and breathed in that new game smell. Then I opened the thing. Pandora would have been positively beaming when she opened her box compared to my visage, as I lifted the lid and saw piles of punch board, mounds of components and more cards than a wit convention. Then I had to set it up! Oh lord! I opened the rule book and was smacked around the chops by page after page of print telling me where to lay out boards and put wooden doo-dads. My name is Ian O’Toole, look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair! Except there is little chance that the desert sands will grind this paean to the power of out-ofcontrol purchasing power into dust. Please Ben, you board game Barabbas, give me something simple that I may temper my blood. Yours, Overwhelmed A. Dear Overwhelmed, From my woodland home I see nothing but the simple workings of nature. There is none of the overwrought and self-indulgent in the travails of the badger. I have no time for the clutter of the modern world and so am amply placed to lead you down the path of simplicity. There is only one option for you that I can see and that is the joy that is the little card game. These decks of densely packed ludological exuberance needn’t be simple; they can be deep and rewarding. Follow me and I will show you… No Thanks is the greatest of card games. A deck of cards, a few chips and a decision: Do I take this card? From this simplest of rule blooms a thousand dilemmas. Should I take this to get the chips on it? Should I take this to annoy the other players? Should I leave it for one more round? This is a game you can learn in a minute and play all night. If you like your card games vicious, you have to enter the world of Arboretum. That so much can be packed into those few cards is a miracle of modern engineering. The images on the cards are beautiful and the game play is knavish. If you have a sensitive disposition, I would tread the tree lined avenues of Arboretum carefully, but there is no doubt that this is one of the best card games around. Finally, you need Skull King, the apotheosis of trick-taking games. There is no greater joy in making your wager or seeing your opponent’s fail to make theirs. This one will never fail you. If you play these three disciples to simplicity, you will wash yourself clean of detritus and no longer be as overburdened. Remember that not all great things come in big boxes. With all my ludological love, Ben LEFT: Credit to Rafael Figueroa (star2pilot on BGG) for displaying the sheer abundance of components in Kanban EV.
ENCAPSULATE 2019 24 September 2023 UNMATCHED SYSTEM If you prefer to collect miniatures over cards, then 2019 also had one of the bestlooking miniatures games in recent history release its first ever set. Unmatched is a competitive card-driven miniatures game, with players taking on the roles of different popular culture characters in a last man/ woman/monster standing contest. Each turn players will either play a card or move and draw. Cards include immediate actions that will let you perform special manoeuvres or abilities and attack cards, which are played face down to let your opponent respond with a defence card. The defence value is deducted from the attack power to resolve how much damage is dealt. Play is fast and vibrant with a lot of the variety coming from each character’s unique deck and abilities. The first set used public domain characters, having Alice in Wonderland battle against King Arthur. This bizarre match-up helped sell the game’s mechanics and it wasn’t long before more modern properties were getting involved. Fancy seeing how Buffy the Vampire Slayer would handle Dracula? Curious if Doctor Strange could stand up to a literal T-Rex? This stream of fun match ups have helped grow Unmatched into a compelling and competitive miniatures game series that is likely to be around for many more years to come. Unabashedly Unforgettable Words by Matthew Vernall Did you know that several news outlets (including the New York Times) declared 2019 as ‘The best year ever?” Whilst we did see the disaster of female empowerment known as Ms Monopoly (it is as ironically patronising as you’d imagine), we also got to enjoy such moments as the finale of the Infinity Saga, Avengers: Endgame, Greta Thunberg giving her first powerful speech addressing the U.N.’s Climate Action summit and seeing the first ever pictures of a black hole thanks to Katie Bouman’s work on the Event Horizon telescope. We also got to experience many fantastic games, find out what as we look at gaming in 2019! WINGSPAN Starting things off with our most beautiful looking game of 2019 and the debut design of Elizabeth Hargrave, Wingspan. This game has held the number 1 family spot for a significant time now on BGG and for good reason. Each player is tasked with creating the ideal conditions to bring beautiful birds into their wildlife preserves, gathering food and ordering their bird discoveries to create an avian-powered apparatus of point production. The game’s gorgeous visuals and immediately evocative theme helped win over players who might have otherwise been reluctant to play such a heavy engine building game, but who could resist such tiny pastel eggs and the glorious bird feeder dice tower, clearly the best form of dice tower to possibly ever exist in tabletop gaming. A lot of love went into creating this modern masterpiece and just as much love and praised was showered onto it by the gaming community. Kennerspiel 2019 winner, multi-Golden Geek winner and with over 1.4 million copies sold, the game has become a beloved part of many collections worldwide, made all the more appealing with the multiple expansions depicting birds from other continents, letting you play the game with birds local to you.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 25 MARVEL CHAMPIONS Another card game that has considerably grown both in popularity and content over the years, Fantasy Flight Games continued to prove why they’re the best in the business for co-operative card games with the comic book themed Marvel Champions. Each player chooses a superhero and combines their unique deck with a selection of neutral cards of their choice, giving each playertheir own role when tackling the villain. Said villain has its own deck of challenges to thwart, seeing them sling out minions, furthertheir diabolical plans and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves. One of the cool aspects of the game is the alter-ego feature; each player can transform their superhero into their secret identity, letting Spiderman take a break as Peter Parkerfor a spell to help recoverfrom theirlatest beating.It’s a double-edged sword though, as whilst in their alter-ego form, the villain will more rapidly reach their ultimate goal, so balancing when to take the hit and when to regroup is crucial. Whilst the core set contained enough content for up to four players to battle against a trio of villains (starting with stopping a bank heist by Rhino to defeating Ultron before he destroys the world)the game has had continued support overthe last few years, with five campaign boxes, five scenario packs and twenty-eight hero packs, if you start collecting Marvel Champions you’ll have plenty of ways to expand yourroster and challenges for many evenings of heroic action. THE CREW Looking back, you wouldn’t have necessarily thought of The Crew as a soon-to-be trendsetter. The idea of making a co-operative trick-taking game that combined aspects of Hanabi with Hearts isn’t exactly the easiest pitch to a publisher, but with its charming design and thoughtprovoking gameplay, The Crew proved to be a real winner. The game is spread out over a words, but the challenge of the game is finding ways to talk without talking, creating an inspired co-operative puzzle that’s quick to play and replay, as your group manages to mind-meld into a single card capturing entity. With a game with such a universal theme (no pun intended) and accessible mechanics, it was inevitable that it would go on to win Spiel Des Jahres, as well as inspire a whole host of other trick-taking games of both cooperative and competitive variety in addition to its own sequel The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, which offered even more perplexing challenges and a deck of varied secret goals to keep things fresh. UNDAUNTED: NORMANDY Finally we have one of the biggest revitalisations of the well-trodden muddy fields of World War II, with Osprey Games’ duelling series debut Undaunted: Normandy. Wargaming has covered pretty much every theatre and engagement between 1939- much agonising heartbreak as Undaunted managed to evoke. Players take turns activating units to accomplish a series of objectives through a 12-scenario campaign, using a deck of cards representing the various members of each unit. When a unit is hit, a member of that unit is permanently removed from the game, either discarded from a player’s hand or removed from their deck/discard pile. Losing your machine gunner through a fluke hit or struggling to reposition your scouts because you simply can’t draw one of their cards brilliantly captures the chaos of WW2 conflict, as either side is constantly required to push ahead without knowing when they’ll be able to control that advancing unit again, let alone keep them alive. The ease of play and variety of content wowed audiences on its release, with the game receiving multiple sequels charting the conflicts in North Africa, Stalingrad and most recently The Battle of Britain. If you want a wargame that offers difficult choices and dramatic conclusions, Undaunted is undeniably the game for you. 2020 was most certainly a year that stands out amongst others. We look back to highlight the ways tabletop gaming made it better
W H AT ’ S I N A GA M E ? T H E GA M E O F L I F EThis month our professional pontificator of tabletop Tim Claire posits how gaming can help us come to terms with our existence Words by Tim Clare 26 September 2023 L ast year I interviewed some players of Utagaruta, a Japanese poetry-based card game that plays like a cross between Snap and Sumo. When, after a long and relatively lighthearted chat, I asked what the game meant to them, several broke into tears. It had changed their sense of self, they told me – of who they are and what they can achieve. ‘It’s a life,’ said one. ‘I think… yes, it is a life.’ When you start pondering the purpose of games, very soon (and quite unintentionally) you run into the question’s titanic big brother, simultaneously the most interesting and most boring question in all philosophy: What is the purpose of life? What is a life well-lived? What should we do with it? After all, we can only really judge if playing games is worthwhile if we have a set of values to compare the activity against. If not games, then what? What should we be doing instead? A bit of seemingly innocent idle musing – hmm, I wonder why I like playing games so much? – is just a couple of jumps from deep – maybe impossible – questions. What are we supposed to be doing? It’s not a ridiculous thing to wonder, it’s just not a question we’re encouraged to ask. I’m not about to suggest that games provide an answer to everything. But I do think they can offer, if this makes sense, a break from the burden of having to supply an answer. The space in which a game takes place hands us new roles and goals which we assume for the duration. Here’s who you are. Here is your purpose. Here are the rules. Every religion and system of moral philosophy must supply some way of engaging with these three pillars. Identity. Meaning. Laws. Games hand these to us in play form. Okay, tonight we’re corrupt politicians trying to wring every last dollar out of 19th Century New York and we’ll do that by winning elections, so you’re going to have to stuff wards with your supporters to snatch votes. You’re knights serving King Arthur heading out on important quests, only some of you are actually secretly working for Mordred and you want every quest to fail. You’re placing stones on grid intersections because you want to control a bigger area than your opponent by the end of the game. Every game provides, in a kind of dramatized, ritualised form, several core human needs. We know, for the duration of the game, what’s expected of us. We have clear objectives we can focus our efforts towards achieving. Sometimes a game will thematically provide us with identities. I’m a duelling wizard. I’m a Scandinavian coastguard. I’m the head of a massive corporation (or perhaps a lineage of successive CEOs) looking to expand across the solar system. But more than that – and this might sound odd – a game needs us. An unspoken rule you agree to when you sit down to a game with friends is that you’re going to see it through to its conclusion. Without you, there is no game. You’re its animating force. You are piloting the Empire’s starships as they hunt for the Rebel base. You’re moving your dispatcher and collating research data as you struggle with your colleagues to find a cure for a global pandemic. You’re manoeuvring your queen to hem in your opponent’s king. These roles don’t happen without you. The game isn’t possible without the fairy dust of your decisions, without your will driving them. Several studies found that a sense of purpose in life predicts not only greater happiness, but also a lower risk of various chronic health conditions – partly, it seems, because of a higher likelihood of maintaining constructive habits, but also due to better emotional wellbeing overall, reducing the prevalence of issues like insomnia, for instance. Other studies have found relationships between a strong sense of identity and wellbeing within a community that shares or accepts that identity, a link between identity and what are called ‘prosocial behaviours’ – that is, acting for the good of the community and those around you. Clearly several notes of caution are worth raising at this point (you may already be mentally bellowing your objections – don’t worry, I’m getting to them.)
tabletopgaming.co.uk 27 I suggest that games offer us something quite different… the opportunity to problematise, expand and reconsider our sense of self and mission. For a start, the purpose and identity provided within the temporary fiction of a game are not comparable to those we acquire in reality, such as becoming parents, joining a political or religious organisation, doing work within our local communities or joining the armed forces. At best, they’re a temporary substitute, a placebo purpose and identity, if you will. If you play Star Wars: Rebellion and start viewing yourself as the Emperor beyond the table, with the core purpose of crushing the Rebels, that’s not a strong sign of stable mental health. I suggest that games offer us something quite different, perhaps unique, in this department – namely, the opportunity to problematise, expand and reconsider our sense of self and mission. Recently, while teaching at a creative writing retreat, I had the chance to introduce some young secondary-age kids to social deduction games. It was a hugely enjoyable experience, not least because I got to see some ostensibly shy, conscientious characters roleplay flawlessly as conniving backstabbers. Why would this ever be a thing you’d want to encourage? Well, in participating in play spaces where the normal rules of social conduct are temporarily suspended, or the normal expectations of our perceived social identity and role are changed, we subtly test the inevitability of the behaviours and social masks we’ve adopted. For some people who think of themselves as introverts, this may involve the discovery that, on occasion, there are some aspects of being loud and assertive they enjoy. Competitive types can discover, through co-operative games, an unexpected joy in triumphing as a team or lifting up other people. And some of us who feel our role is being the good child, a star pupil, a kind, helpful people-pleaser, may realise that part of us revels in – under the right circumstances – becoming an impish trickster, a teaser, maybe doing something for own pleasure. This isn’t to say that one identity or purpose is superior to another, but that games are a small, nonthreatening means of challenging ontological absolutism – that is, of helping us to step into imaginary situations and modes of being we wouldn’t ordinarily, letting us safely explore how they feel. Sometimes – as when playing cutthroat profiteers in Hegemony – the result is an entertaining nausea as you realise how gross you feel making (imaginary) people’s lives worse in the pursuit of profit. Sometimes, playing games can help you discover whole new rooms in the mansion of yourself. To play – to be a player – and to share happiness and enjoyment with others, are in themselves an identity and a purpose. When I play games, I’m a gamer. When I talk about them, I’m a games writer or enthusiast. My purpose is to be happy and to help others around me feel a little bit happier. This is, I hope you’ll agree, a great identity and purpose to add to the range we might pursue over our time on this Earth. Sure, they’re just games. They’re also, I think, a life. *
28 September 2023 my favourite game T his is a tricky question, because there are three games that make up my favourites. The game I’ve played the most, the one that you could wake me up to play it, is Gloomhaven, which I’ve logged around 260 hours of playtime. The game I love, but struggle to get to the table the most (as it requires six players and many free hours to play) is Virgin Queen, which I’ve probably been playing for around eight or nine years now and always try to arrange at least one time a year to meet up with friends and play. But my crowdfunding darling, the one I’ve bought so much of that I love to explore and follow, even though I rarely get the time to completely enjoy it, is Kingdom Death: Monster. From these three options, if I was forced to pick one to take away on an isolated mission in space or sent to a desert island with only one form of entertainment, it would have to be Kingdom Death: Monster, no hesitation. I’ve owned the game since the second Kickstarter (1.5 edition) but managed to play it before this Kickstarter went live. I have never put so much into a single crowdfunding project than I did for this game! I bought the Satan’s Lantern Pledge (which contained the core game and every released or planned expansion at the time, costing $1666) after playing the original core game with my friend’s copy, which is the first and only time I’ve ever done this for a big-box campaign game. All the way through my first experience with my friend’s copy, I was saying how much I loved its elegantly dark setting and wanted to own it, then they started the new Kickstarter and I was doomed! What I love most about the game is that it’s open world: the harsh setting for Kingdom Death rotates between deadly battles against unknowable monsters and managing your settlement to survive and prepare for the next hunt. Each campaign you play is different, as you make different choices and face new challenges. With Gloomhaven, you will always play against the same (but still impressive!) campaign and sequence of missions, but Kingdom Death always has some new horror to face or event to encounter. Each monster has its own battle, wound and loot cards, the latter of which makes the settlement phase so interesting, as you consider how to develop your settlement, using every scrap of loot and resource you’ve fought for to advance your story. It’s the stories you make along the way that are my favourite memories of playing the game. I remember when my friend Björn fell into a hole, had to leave all of his clothes behind and face the next hunt standing in the grass with nothing but throwing darts. He threw dart after dart at the lion and kept missing, until finally one of them hit, whereupon the lion turned and immediately killed his character in a single swipe. Some games deliver on a few of these aspects, but having everything contained in one experience is why I keep coming back to Kingdom Death: the dark fantasy world, the careful planning of settlement building and the tense moments of dice rolling in hunts. I always love when a game forces me to make the best possible move with what I have, be it the cards I’ve been dealt or the dice I just rolled. It’s exciting and unforgettable in all the ways that made me fall in love with this hobby. * I always love when a game forces me to make the best possible move with what I have We discover the heavy hardcore title that Spiel Des Jahres judge Martina Fuchs loves to play in-between family friendly game playtests MARTINA FUCHS
30 September 2023 RAGECON I t’s not often you get invited to a free trip to the States, especially if you’re as objectionable as me, but the organisers of RageCon, the Reno Area Gaming Expo Convention (please forgive the rampant tautology), thought it expedient to buy me a plane ticket and give me a hotel room in exchange for me allowing some Americans to see a British person in the wild. I think it was the proximity to July the 4th, so they could see that they really didn’t make a mistake having that little fracas 200 odd years ago. RageCon is held in the Nugget Casino in the town of Sparks, a conurbation to the east of Reno. We get our stuff out of the car, head across the skybridge to the casino and the first person I see is an elderly gentleman wearing a t-shirt that sports the legend: Zombies Eat Brains (Democrats are Safe) This is exactly what I’ve come to the West for and I couldn’t be happier. RageCon happens in the ballroom of the casino, a floor above the most depressing line of slot machines, blackjack tables and the most disaffected gamblers I’ve ever seen in my life. The walls are brown, the carpets are brown but, at midday on Friday, the first day of the con, the gaming area at the con is buzzing, full of gamers punching tokens, flipping cards and arguing over the rules minutae. As soon as I enter, the acid buzz washes over me. I am no longer in an alien nation, fighting off fatigue. I’m home. About 1500 people walked through the doors of The Nugget this year with the expressed purpose of playing games that won’t cause you to lose your house (unless it’s an Awaken Realms Kickstarter, of course.) There is a small vendor hall of locals selling OSR core books and tchotchkes they 3D printed at home. None of them feel like they’re really here to make millions, they just want you to love their thing as much as they do. I buy a journaling RPG that looks like it’s been printed on folded A4 printer paper. I love it. We hitch a ride to the biggest little city in the world as Ben Maddox shows us what’s all Written by Ben Maddox
the rage at RageCon in Reno One end of the convention that’s packed all weekend is devoted to RPGs and miniatures. The majority of the gaming space though is given over to board games. What strikes me about the people I play with is that they truly stride age demographics. I play with Silicone Valley types up for the weekend and local grandmothers from just down the road. Everyone seems to be having the best time. As recompense for my flight and hotel room, I am tasked with the role of host, demoing and playing games. We play Libertalia and the sweetest granny sits next to me. Within five minutes she is slaughtering people with reckless abandon and giggling to herself. We are all laughing like drains. This is the same with every game I demo (the laughing, not the slaughtering) as no matter our respective ages, personal politics or other demographic fortuities, we laugh and immerse ourselves in the brilliance that is modern analogue gaming. And this is what RageCon feels like: A community event. There are no aspirations here to make this the next Gen Con or Essen. They want to share their love of gaming with the local area and open the door to this weird little hobby, which they’ve achieved in such an admirable way. It is a convention that makes you feel welcome. So welcome in fact, that they’ve invited me back next year. And with food portions this big, I’d be a fool to say no. * tabletopgaming.co.uk 31 GAME PREVIEWS The protospiel area at RageCon was packed all weekend with designers eager to playtest their new games. GARAGE BAND One of the most arresting prototypes was the absolutely glorious Garage Band by first time designer, Nate Heater. Heater is a musician who, disappointed at the lack of music games out there, thought he would turn his hand to design and Garage Band was the result. Garage Band is a worker placement game of warring local bands all trying to earn an elusive record deal. The componentry (all made by Nate) is simply remarkable, with mini cassettes, mixer sliders to track your stats and your enormous treehouse/ rehearsal space/dice tower dominating the centre of the board. Nate contacted Reno designer Jonny Pac on the off-chance he would have a look at his prototype. Jonny was so impressed that he put Nate in touch with Reno publisher CardLords, who promptly picked up the game. You can expect it on Kickstarter at the end of this year. COLOMA: NEW PROSPECTS Jonny Pac is at the centre of the Nevada/Arizona gaming world. The mind behind the developement of Endless Winter and Unconscious Mind, his name adorns the covers of many board game boxes. His most regarded game, Coloma, recently has its first expansion New Prospects put on Gamefound and he was showcasing it at RageCon. The table was full the whole time and there’s little wonder why; New Prospects completely changes the game. The biggest change is a revamp of the bust mechanism. Rather than leave you without an action, if you bust you are sent off on a quest through the mountains, picking up bonuses on the way. This changes things so dramatically that players now seek to bust for the advantages it can give them. Seeing Jonny, a veteran designer at a table next to Nate Heater, a first-time game maker, highlighted the community feel of RageCon and how, no matter at what step we’re on in our career path, designing games looks very much the same.
32 September 2023 SPIEL DES JAHRES Alow estimate of tabletop releases in any recent year is around five hundred titles. Try to imagine containing that many games in one place, then only being able to pick one, a single game to be forever remembered. In a hobby where cataloguing and archiving is so highly regarded (here I will remind you that BoardGameGeek is older than Wikipedia, showing that the geeks of the millennium knew which to prioritise when it came to creating digital records) there is a fascination with the superlative. It’s not good enough to be simply ‘good,’ we need to remember the best, the biggest, the most successful. One award in the gaming community particular stands out amongst the rest. It isn’t the oldest (that would be the Origins Award starting in 1975) or even my personal favourite (*cough* Tabletop Gaming Awards *cough*) but the announcement of its winners is reported across the world even by news outlets outside of our industry; Das Spiel Des Jahres, which quite literally translates from German as ‘The Game of the Year.’ OPENING SPIEL The first ever Spiel Des Jahres was awarded in 1979, designed as a way of celebrating analogue games released in German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc.) It’s important to remember that this is a very different Germany than what we have today: the Cold War still loomed large, as superpowers squabbled over a country going through rapid socio-economic change. The rest of the world could marvel over arcade machines or games consoles from America or Japan, but such systems were slow to adopt in either East or West Germany. Remember that Origins Awards I mentioned earlier? Its inaugural winner was Third Reich. Gee, I wonder why the board game community in Germany was looking elsewhere for their entertainment? If you had money for only a few games to occupy your evenings and weekends, how would you know what to buy outside of the most popularised titles like Monopoly or Cluedo? It was the role of Spiel Des Jahres to help guide people, to celebrate games that otherwise weren’t receiving the attention they deserved and that were made with Germanspeaking people in mind. This has always been an award run by fans of gaming, not by the gaming industry. The neutrality of its jurors continues today, as you cannot be involved in the decision process if even a family member works as a designer or publisher. Each game is judged on its own merit and value, which have given the award a natural sense of prestige: each winner is hard earned and decided by people who love the hobby enough to dedicate their spare time to help others embrace it as well. As the award became more prevalent through the eighties, it became a tradition in many German households to receive that year’s winner as a present. Stores cottoned on to the award quickly and saw the benefit of having a locallysourced game with a mark of prestige in their displays. What better way to avoid expensive import costs orinvesting in games that might not sell, than to simply stock the game hobbyists declared the bestrelease that year? This further expanded with the Kinderspiel in 1989. Now families with kids of all ages had two games to consider each year, fostering the best aspects of the tabletop hobby; having fun with the people you cared about whilst developing skills to help you better appreciate the world you lived in. THE CROWNING OF CATAN It was 1995 when the hexagonal game that changed everything, Catan, won the award and knowledge of Spiel Des Jahres became more prevalent. The gaming world in UK and USA had been locked in the embrace of wargames or whatever Waddingtons wished to push for so many years. It was now able to embrace new designs and experiences, opening a wealth of possibilities to players who, like a child discovering the taste of ice cream for the first time, eagerly wanted more. History repeated itself as English publishers, unsure of what was and wasn’t worth reprinting from nearly twenty years of German designs, decided to pursue the Spiel DesJahres winners for sake of simplicity. After all, these were awardwinning, surely that meant they were good? This mentality carried on into the 21st century, as the advent of the internet meant more gaming knowledge was being shared. Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, games that still serve as the core to many people’s first experiences with the hobby and would become the foundation for so many collections, were all winners that achieved an almost self-fulfilling prophecy: by winning Spiel Des Jahres, your game would be popular, so stores would stock the game more, making it readily available for people to buy and in turn, more popular. THE AWARD TODAY The hobby has come a very long way in the last couple of decades. With globalised printing WHY SPIEL MATTERS Why it’s important to remember that relevancy of Spiel Des Jahres today ABOVE: The inaugural winner of the award Hare and Tortoise, designed by TTG’s own tabletop historian, David Parlett. RIGHT: It certainly hasn’t stood the test of time, but Gute Freunde offered a simple game of jumping frogs to entertain the next generation.
options, round the clock coverage and a plethora of publications to peruse, it has never been easier to get into playing games, nor has the competition ever been so fierce. The children who grew up playing Spiel Des Jahres titles are the hobbyist adults of today, who are constantly looking for the next challenging game. Indeed, as far back as 1990 the Deutscher Spiele Preis (German Game Prize) has been awarded by German magazine Die Pöppel-Revue, an award that celebrates games designed for the hobby. With past winners including Wingspan, Terraforming Mars and Agricola, this award is seen by some German gamers as the ‘true’ award for tabletop game of the year, more-so even than the Kennerspiel, which is awarded alongside Spiel Des Jahres and designed specifically to showcase the ‘hobbyist’ game of the year. They’re not alone in sharing this sentiment. Many critics have been outspoken on the practicality of Spiel Des Jahres as a means of recording the history of tabletop gaming. Is it fair that an award will overshadow multimillion-selling games like Gloomhaven because such a game would struggle to survive in the typical family household? Is it right that games which genuinely impacted the hobby were missed and now those keystone releases risk being forgotten by history for newer, more casual orientated versions of the same mechanics? In a word? YES! If you take anything from this article, please rememberthe one unifying sentiment that should forever be the heart of our hobby: gaming is for everyone. When games were hard to come by and people didn’t know how to decide, Spiel DesJahres was there. When the gaming world expanded and went through a Golden Age, Spiel DesJahres helped players on finding their first experiences. And today, in a market so heavily saturated that it’s intimidating for new people to get into the hobby, Spiel DesJahres provides a shining light out on the sea ofreleases, guiding you to a safe starting point. I remain thankful for Spiel Des Jahres continuing to showcase games that can foster the next generation of players, designers and publishers. Yes, it doesn’t speak for our hobby entirely, but without it striving for over forty years to find recommendations for players old and new, our vast library of classics would be considerably diminished. * ...please remember the one unifying sentiment that should forever be the heart of our hobby: gaming is for everyone. ABOVE: Here the designers of 2023 winner Dorfromantik celebrate their success in earning one of gaming’s biggest awards. tabletopgaming.co.uk 33
34 September 2023 SPIEL DES JAHRES T he first thing I noticed as our video call began is the massive collection of games Martina has amassed in her years in the hobby. Twilight Imperium, every expansion of 7th Continent and Root, it’s a wonderful wave of wargames and heavy euros. “I’m on a short break from playing possible Spiel games,” says Martina. “so we’ve just started our campaign of Frosthaven. I love talking about these games as due to Spiel Des Jahres, I rarely get the chance!” We spoke about how Martina became involved in Spiel Des Jahres. “Before I was in the jury, I spent my time playing the huge dungeon crawlers and massive wargames. I created a podcast called “Fux & Bär” with my friend Björn to talk about these games, which I still do alongside my main job in education and volunteer role as juror.” Yes, this is a volunteer position. Juror members are not paid for their time, but thankfully are provided complimentary review copies of the games. “For German people, it’s very hard to work full-time in board games, so for me and many other jurors, this is something we do out of love for the hobby. “I had never planned to be a member of the jury, especially when my game coverage was always focused on games that would never win the award. I was called by Harald [Schrapers, chairman of the Spiel Des Jahres jury] who asked if I would consider it. They had been following my work for a while and appreciated that I wasn’t only a good critic, but that I played games with a wide variety of different groups, including at school with students as well as with my wargaming friends. “You’re given one year to see if this is something that works for you, as well as if the jury members feel that you work well with the team. It was in that year that I realised how much I really loved doing this. It’s a beautiful job that teaches you such much about games. “In any given year I will have anywhere between two hundred and three hundred games to play. I arrange four or five evenings a week to meet up with different groups to play a variety of games. We start around 6pm, take a break for food and play until late. I would say I have around forty regular people I meet with.” As someone who struggles to get a couple of weekly meet-ups to play games, I can only be wowed by Martina’s dedication. Martina was kind enough to share through her process of deciding what makes a great Spiel Des Jahres contender. “When I’m looking at a game, it needs to be immediately accessible. From opening the box, it shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes to start playing. It’s also important that you don’t need to keep referring to the rulebook during play: if a game isn’t explained well, it’s going to be a struggle for people who have never played board games. When players actively request to play it again, I always favour those games when considering my nominations. “We have to make sure we find players who are new to tabletop gaming every year. For my playtests of Dorfromantik,I had two copies of the game: one that we got to enjoy the full campaign and anotherthat was permanently set-up to its first scenario, so I could see the game played by new players as much as possible. “This does become a problem: as I’m introducing so many people to the hobby, once they start become involved themselves, I can’t play with them as often! I have to turn down so many friends who invite me to play games, because I’m too busy playing games!” Any game thatreleases in Germany between 1st April and 31st March of the following year can be considered forthat year’s award.The jury will meet in May (to give those last few releases a fair chance) and discuss the nominations over a long weekend. “We each have a list of around ten games that we put forward, to create a list of usually 30-40 different games. Each game is given an equal chance of nomination, with any jurors who put it forward (even if it was only one) still provided the opportunity to say why they feel it’s important. We then take a vote and if at least half the jurors agree, it is kept in consideration. “We have recalls and revotes, slowly shrinking down the list to those three nominations for each category. This discussion really feels like work, as we run from 9 until 5 (with a lunch break in-between), then meet again the next day from 9 until usually 4 (when we’ve come to a decision.) What makes it easier is that we all share that love of games; getting to discuss with fellow critics is an interesting and enjoyable experience. It’s still hard when the game you love doesn’t get enough votes to qualify, which happens every year for each of us at least once!” Once the nominations have been announced, the jurors each heavily play these nine nominated titles,ready forthe final vote that takes place on the day of the announcement. “Because the award has gotten so big in popularity, we hold our own awards ceremony in Berlin. We invite all the developers and publishers forthe nominated games to the event, which is now also shown online as a livestream. “We meet privately beforehand to do a secret ballot. Unlike the nominations, this vote often takes five minutes and there’s no discussion beforehand. An independent person will check the votes and see if there is a majority winner. If there isn’t a clear winner, we will then have a short discussion on what we feel should win, before another secret vote until there is an overall winner. Members of FOR THE LOVE OFDAS SPIEL We interview Spiel Des Jahres juror Martina Fuchs about the extreme lengths she goes to every year to help decide which game from hundreds of possibilities will win the award Interviewed by Matthew Vernall
tabletopgaming.co.uk 35 the jury don’t know which game has won until they’re announced: we’re just as excited to find out who won alongside the designers!” Once the awards are announced, the cycle begins again. I asked Martina why it is she continues to do this year after year. “We wouldn’t be here without the great games in history. So many know titles like Catan, even people who wouldn’t consider themselves into gaming. When people say to me “oh, this game is so easy, why is it considered the best game?” We’re not trying to pick the ‘best game’ each year: We’re looking for the games that everyone can enjoy. “Everyone who is into board games will start and end with Spiel Des Jahres games: either when they first get into this hobby or when they’re finding time to share their hobby with loved ones. These are special games that show what made us love this hobby so much.” * I realised how much I really loved doing this. It’s a beautiful job that teaches you so much about games. ABOVE: This is just one wall of Martina Fuch’s phenomenal collection of games, proving how much experience you need to be considered a Spiel Des Jahres Juror. BELOW RIGHT: Martina started in games journalism by creating the Fux & Bär Podcast, though my German skills aren’t strong enough to be able to enjoy listening to it!
36 September 2023 P Make s A ome w T arm m C emor H ies toge W ther with th O is tile-la R ying tr K eat Words by Matthew Vernall A PERFECT TWO- PLAYER INTRO GAME A COSY THEME THAT’S VERY ACCESSIBLE A PERFECT PUZZLE GAME FOR JIGSAW FANS PIECE IT TOGETHER Patchwork is a game about competitive quilt making. Whilst I wish it was based on an actual sport, this is at heart a game of racing to complete an interpretive jigsaw. You each have an empty 9x9 square and a circle of 33 patches. Whenever you add a patch to your quilt, you’ll move your counter forward on the central time board, bringing the game closer to finishing and you closer to winning. Each patch is an unhelpful mess of squares, making it a challenge to complete you quilt. However, the more complicated and harder to position patches will come with blue buttons; your precious currency and victory points required to win. BUY OR BRING FORWARD Each player starts with five buttons. To add patches to your quilt, you must choose from the three potential patches decided by the current position of the wooden marker, which starts in the circle just after the smallest patch. Each patch has a cost in buttons, with the bigger patches costing more. When you buy a patch, the wooden token is moved to where it was, giving your opponent new potential patches to purchase. If you don’t have enough buttons to buy any of the patches available, you can instead choose to move your piece to one step ahead of your opponents on the time board, giving you one button for each space travelled. It’s a literal catch-up mechanic that lets you trade a bit of progress on your quilt for the buttons needed to get you back in the game. A STITCH IN TIME The game is as straightforward as that. On the time board there are several spots between two spaces that have a special symbol. Whenever you cross over a blue button on the board, you gain buttons equal to however many are showing on your quilt at that moment, increasing your revenue as well as your final total. If you’re the first player to reach one of the special single square patches, you get to snatch it up and immediately place on your quilt, letting you fill in those tricky gaps. This balance between racing along the track whilst filling out your quilt as much as possible is crucial if you want to be crowned the champion crafter at the end. Sometimes, it can be easier to get one friend to sit down for a board game than two or three. Maybe you’re looking for a quiet night in with a loved one, or someone who knows about your interest in gaming has asked if you can show them something simple. Whilst it’s tempting to reach for the checkerboard a play a classic game of Draughts or Chess, both games can come with baggage: past experiences of overly competitive relatives, maybe there’s even an anxiety from not knowing all the rules but still being coerced into playing a game that they’d just lose at. Patchwork presents an opportunity to meet on equal ground. Like any good board game, it’s still possible to learn its many quirks and strategies, but the starting point is still significantly more welcoming than most. It helps that Patchwork is a comforting theme, which immediately looks intriguing when setup that also speeds up as you play, ensuring the endgame doesn’t become a drawnout stalemate. So please get comfortable, maybe grab a blanket and a hot drink, as you get ready to piece together some great gaming memories with Patchwork.
Plan out your patches: This is a game of spatial awareness. You need to be able to see the possibilities of each piece to fill out your quilt as effectively as possible. Try to keep your pieces together when you can to help you plan ahead and create that perfect jigsaw slot for a patch that’s coming up soon. You may find it easier to start by filling the outside frame of your quilt, working your way slowly inwards by outlining your design and avoiding impossible to fill spaces. There’s a benefit to grabbing the bigger patches early, as the larger time boost provided will ensure you’re the first to reach those special patch places to cover up an early mistake, where one square was left impossible to otherwise complete. Build up on Buttons: The more buttons you have on your quilt and the earlier you have them, the better. Because you gain buttons every time you pass over them on the time board, prioritising patches with buttons on will be more rewarding in the long run. If you don’t splash out on them until later in the game, you’re not going to get as many buttons back for your hard work. Don’t be afraid of passing a turn when you feel that there aren’t any good patch options currently either; don’t forget that each space you travel as you move to overtake your opponent will give you another button, which can sometimes be just as beneficial if there’s a particularly powerful patch coming up. Plan Ahead: Patchwork is a game of perfect information. Whilst you will always randomly assemble your quilting circle at the start of each game, the positions won’t change after that initial placement, ensuring you’ll always be aware of what potential pieces are coming up. If you think one of the three current patch options would be particularly useful to your opponent, but can’t place it yourself, see if you can use a piece following it; this will deny them the chance to add that patch to their quilt right now and force them to slowly work around the entire circle before their chance to grab it comes again, at which point their pattern might have dramatically changed. Always be looking three or four places ahead, as being prepared can help you pick out a perfect pattern amongst the array of colourful squares. * tabletopgaming.co.uk 37 15-30m 2 8+ £23 WINNING Once both players have reached the final space of the time board, it’s time to tally up button totals, paying two buttons for each remaining empty space on their quilt. Whoever then has the most buttons is the quilting champion, with draws settled by whoever got to the final space first. DID YOU KNOW? This game was part of trio of titles Uwe Rosenberg designed whilst working on the finishing touches of A Feast For Odin. TRY IT IF YOU LIKE… Tetris: Whilst I doubt you’ve played any of the surprisingly many tabletop adaptations, it’s likely if you’ve played one puzzle videogame in yourlife, it was this tetromino twisting brainteaser. Patchwork is a great way to transition from the commonly single-player videogame to a puzzle that’s fun to share.
38 September 2023 P L AY E D New kid on the blocks RECTO VERSO Designer: Inka and Markus Brand | Publisher: Super Meeple and Tiki Editions WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗Game board ◗100 Victory Point tokens ◗30 small hexagonal Partner tokens ◗6 large hexagonal Player tokens ◗11 wooden construction pieces ◗64 Building cards (normal and hard) 30m 2-6 8+ £27.99 Each round is played against the clock. Depending upon how quickly you complete the challenge, you score more points. The timed element means that each round is frantic and there’s a true sense of satisfaction when you complete a card in a matter of seconds. The timed element helps to keep downtime to a minimum - however, with six players and the random player selection, you can end up with a situation where someone is waiting longer than others to have their turn. As a result, we found it much better with four players. There’s also a two-player version that’s entirely co-operative. In this mode, you and a partner attempt to complete seven cards against the clock. Starting at 90 seconds, each time you successfully finish a build, you reduce the time until you end up with only 15 seconds. Completing a challenge in just 15 seconds is actually quite the rush, because it’s so difficult and you’ll have a wonderful sense of smug satisfaction if you complete all seven challenges… even if it’s only you and your partner there to witness your epic achievement. Thanks to the normal and hard cards, plus the addition of a two-player mode, there’s certainly plenty ofreplayability in Recto Verso and it’s become a regular addition to ourfamily game nights - particularly as set-up is almost nonexistent. Younger players love the tactile element of the big wooden blocks, while the harder challenges ensure fun for adults looking for a light-weight filler. Don’t let the colourful presentation and toy-like wooden blocks fool you: Recto Verso is capable of packing quite a punch - particularly if you want to complete the hard challenges in 15 seconds. ROB BURMAN “I can’t see the grey block! I can see two yellows. Two yellows. TWO! We’ve only got 10 seconds. Where’s the white? The white! Can you see a white? I can’t see a white. Hide the white. I SAID TWO YELLOWS! Yes. Yes! It goes there. THERE! Done!” And that, folks, is a very typical exchange in Recto Verso - a tactile, block-building game that requires you and a partner to work together to arrange up to 11 chunky wooden blocks in a particular pattern while racing against the clock. The issue is that each of you can only see one side of the completed pattern, so you must communicate and (hopefully) explain where certain blocks have to be placed. In the competitive version of Recto Verso, you select sets of player colour tokens, then randomly mix them together. The tokens are then randomly selected to give you a potentially different partner each turn, which is a nice touch to ensure two particularly skilful builders don’t dominate. With the players chosen, you draw a building card from the two difficulty options: normal and hard. The normal cards only use 10 blocks, while the hard cards use all 11 blocks, including the mighty red brick. The card is then placed between the players on the game board, which is actually the game box. On each side of the card a player will see a 2D pattern of blocks that they must then replicate on their side. The issue is, of course, that each pattern is subtly different, depending upon which side you’re looking at. As a result, you have to work together (normally by shouting, to be honest) to place all the available blocks in the correct patterns. Sometimes blocks will be completely hidden within the structure too, so you have to fathom where they’re placed so neither player can see them. TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED KITTIN Although Recto Verso loses the insanely cute polyomino-shaped kittens, it still features the same fast-paced, block-building action. ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S If you like fast-paced, tactile board games then Recto Verso definitely ticks that box.
F A MIL Y G A M E S S T R A T E G Y G A M E S C A R D G A M E S R O L E P L A YIN G G A M E S MINIA T U R E S G A M E S tabletopgaming.co.uk 39 vacuum-moulded plastic pieces, already showing tell-tale signs of warping whilst nestled inside the box. After taking them out and applying stickers, my concerns grew as the pieces refused to sit together cleanly, with some piece sticking up right or refusing to stay slotted together. In play, it was even worse. I played this game with actual physicists and they were confounded at the pieces refusal to obey the laws of momentum. This is game where you can’t intuit the correct sequence of pieces because you don’t know what imperfection is going to grind the marble to a halt. Once you’ve constructed your first prototype, you cannot complete reconfigure the design at any point and are only permitted to add or remove pieces. Did you put a curve right underneath your drop? Congratulations, your entire design will not function and you now need to peddle off your components as quickly as possible. Even the bidding mechanics seem ill-fitting for the game’s tone. Players start the game with twenty coins and can only earn more when test your rollercoaster, getting one coin per track piece cleared. In that example above, you might have a rollercoaster that can only earn one coin per test, despite having possibly paid half of your starting money to protect it from vultures. In early games when it’s unclear what a piece’s inherent value is, if you bid too much too early on, you’ve lost before the game is even halfway. It becomes less of a strategic consideration and reward for good design and more ‘who can get the biggest curve first because it will likely carry you through at least one corner.’ The rollercoasters that win are the most boring designs possible; two drops of depreciating size followed by a zig-zag, all the immediate thrills then forgotten in a languid ending because it’s the most points efficient. Sadly, there isn’t a lot that can be done to fix this design. The included Showstopper cards variant make it easier to earn flags, but still rely heavily on the core components which literally do not function as they needed to. Making injection moulded or even wooden components would be ludicrously expensive, but without the reliability of solid track you can’t deliver on the game’s premise. My heart goes out to the players who crowdfunded this, as the game tries hard but ultimately fails in what it set out to deliver. MATTHEW VERNALL Not to give away the recommendation too early, but this might by the most I’ve ever been disappointed by a game. The premise is phenomenal: you are designing the next thrilling rollercoasterto be built at the biggest theme park around, competing to have your prototype be the next E-ticket attraction. You’ll start with a motley selection of drops, corners and curves to build your preliminary design, then compete in a series of auctions to either retain the pieces you have or snatch away components from opponents. Whenever you win an auction (or one of your pieces is taken away) you’ll then have the option to test your attraction later on, earning additional funding for each piece of yourtrack the coaster/ marble can clear.That’s right, this is a physical game, with actual pieces assembled togetherthat you’ll hopefully rocket yourlittle marble through as it whizzes down the track. So, with an evocative theme, physical components and tense closed-fist auctions to determine the shrewdest designer around the table, how could this game go wrong? Simple. It doesn’t work. I was a little concerned when taking the game out of the packaging for the first time at the thin, Less Thrills, More Spills ROLLER COASTER RUSH Designer: Scott Almes | Publisher: Pandasaurus Games WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗4x Marbles ◗23x Plastic Track Pieces ◗32x Game Cards ◗Active Player Token ◗50x Cardboard Coins 30m 2-4 8+ £52.49 TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: MEN AT WORK Whilst it lacks the marble run amusement, Men At Work does provide a dexterity game where you get to marvel at your successes and failures in construction. ❚ PLAY IT? N O A great premise that fails through not being a functional product.
40 September 2023 P L AY E D A Powder Keg of Fun DICE SPLICE Designer: Cait Russell and Matt Tweed | Publisher: Sea Griffin Games WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗20x Cardboard Planks ◗81x Custom Wooden Dice ◗Cloth ‘Booty Bag’ 15m 1-6 5+ £19.99 generously donating you more dice to stack on your turn, further increasing your chances of failure. There’s not a lot more to the gameplay loop, but there doesn’t need to be. Anyone who’s played an RPG will be familiar with absent-minded dice stacking (especially when a DM is taking a while to find their notes for the next encounter) and there’s a simple joy in building with dice or laughing as they tumble. The theming is a little sketchy but the presentation is so endearing that it more than makes up for it. The range of plank designs from your simple tetrominoes to horrifying half-cut diagonal bends ensure you cannot ever totally rely on whether something will support your next tower, which becomes even harder to predict with golden dice changing the challenge with every roll. This is going to sound weird (especially for a game aimed at children) but Dice Splice certainly isn’t a game about winning. Rules as written, the winning pirate is the player who last went before whoever causes everything to collapse, which turns the game into a musical chairs situation where you want be sitting next to shaky Susan or clumsy Clive. I recommend this is a filler game to last through the years, something you can introduce to younger children early then watch as they develop greater dexterity skills alongside the game’s growing complexity. It’s also fun for big kids who like to shout out pirate catchphrases as their friends fail to stop shaking with laughter. MATTHEW VERNALL Some games can evoke the simple pleasures in life. There’s a reason why toys of yesteryear like the diabolo have faded from the playrooms of today, but we will forever have our trusty building blocks to foster the next generation of construction workers or demolitionists. Dice Splice may not be the most thought-provoking game out there, but by goodness does it satisfy that part of our brains that likes to see something slowly build up before it comes crashing down. Dice Splice is a quick dexterity game for up to six players. You are pirates trying to stack up your stolen booty aboard ship, but are struggling to avoid causing a ‘Treasurelanche.’ Across the many different game modes, the core mechanic remains the same: each player will draw a handful of dice and roll them. You then add a die to the game area provided there’s a blank space on a plank, a symbol on top matches another die’s face-up symbol, or if the intended die is the same colour. The most basic and kid-friendly variant of the rules basically stops there. It becomes a game of stacking dice with increasingly less options, nothing challenging for anyone with developed dexterity skills but accessible for any pollywog who can resist the urge to eat the components. Where things begin to spice up are through the introduction of planks. Whilst originally these serve as a variable foundation for beginner games, here they can be incorporated into the treasure tower before or after you place, blocking off all spaces beneath. This is where things can get very silly, as you create diagonal shifts and uneven spacing to trip up your opponents, but inevitably end up scuppering your own chances of success. Things get even more frantic with the final addition of three golden dice. Draw one of these from the bag and what you roll will cause problems for either the table or yourself. These range from placing a die on the highest point precariously or everyone TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: JENGA The quintessential tower game of inevitable failure, Dice Splice takes all the rising tension and silliness of making miniature monuments and adds a swashbuckling theme to keep things fresh. ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S It’s variety of game modes and novelty of constructing dice towers makes this an easy recommend for the young at heart.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 41 F A MIL Y G A M E S S T R A T E G Y G A M E S C A R D G A M E S R O L E P L A YIN G G A M E S MINIA T U R E S G A M E S Old photographs are creepy. A fact Photoghasts hinges itself on, as a wannabe spooky card game teamed with an app. After being dealt a hand of character and action cards, players take turns to scan each character card picture, waiting with bated breath to see what horrors await. A ‘shutter hold’ result means you’re safe, as does ‘exposed,’ which also exorcises the ghost. But if you get ‘scare,’ the ghoul is unleashed, killing you and costing points – although you can still play on from beyond the grave. The result you get is disappointingly randomised, although the action cards offer somewhat of a counter, from resurrection to stealing points. It is unlikely you will be scared. Although the grainy photos on the cards set an eerie tone, the app commits the cardinal sin of showing too much of the monsters – something the animations aren’t quite good enough to carry. This is especially true of the main ghoul, the Photoghast himself, who only appears when playing after 9pm. The app would have been better to rely on unnerving audio to build atmosphere with some choice jump-scare animations instead. Leaving it to the imagination is so much more effective, as horror movie directors have learned the hard way. The written description on each character card IS creepy and there are some nasty little ideas that crawl under your skin, such as Xmas Tree Man who kidnaps children, or a murdered prom queen prowling for a date. T.W. Burgess is a horror writer by day and it shows. A non-app game is also thrown in, which is effectively Top Trumps for grown-ups. Unfortunately, the character ratings are either omnipotent or feeble, so you get stuck passing lesser ghouls back and forth. There are flashes of a decent game here but it’s underdeveloped. Perhaps using more audio and less visuals, while revising the luck-based elements, would be good places to start. JENNY COX T his could have been a fun game. If there was some sort of actual player interaction where you were encouraged to discuss, argue or somehow convince the other players why one contestant would beat the other in the “zany” duels this game prides itself on, then it could have been good. As it stands however, it wouldn’t even make it past the qualifiers. Champions! is a voting game in which each player writes down a character and enters them into a tournament consisting of 7 “unusual” duels. These duels tend to be totally wacky things like “likes pineapple on their pizza” or “drools while sleeping.” You then reveal who the two player-made contestants are, which can be anything from Elvis to Elrond, Dracula to your Mum or - if you use the character sheets provided - you can include any number of lesser-known celebrities like David Guetta or Amy Poehler. Once all the characters are revealed, everyone secretly writes who they think will win each round and be crowned champion. Each duel is then a vote and the winner moves on, until eventually someone is crowned champion. Once the first tournament is finished, anyone who correctly predicted the winner earns a whopping 3 extra points! Then, to really ramp up the fun, you have to play through another whole tournament to see who wins the game. And that really is all there is to it. To score, you want to vote with the majority, so the challenge is in guessing who everyone else will vote for. If for some reason you do pick this up, here’s my suggestion to make it less of a boring slog: ignore the prediction mechanic - it adds nothing and locks players into voting a certain way - and have each player vouch for their champion and argue why they think they would win that particular duel. ANNA BLACKWELL PHOTOGHASTS CHAMPIONS! Designer: T.W. Burgess | Publisher: T.W. Burgess Designer: Grégoire Largey, Frank Crittin and Sébastien Pauchon | Publisher: Repos Production 15m 1-4 16+ £25 30m 3-8 10+ £21.99 ❚ PLAY IT? M AY B E ❚ PLAY IT? N O
42 September 2023 P L AY E D Belongs in a Museum INDIANA JONES: SANDS OF ADVENTURE Designer: Prospero Hall | Publisher: Funko Games WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗Large Plastic Sand Timer ◗4x Plastic Figures ◗12x Plastic Gems ◗3x Custom Dice ◗4x Plastic slot bases ◗7x double-sided adventure tiles ◗10x Cardboard Tokens ◗2x Cardboard Game Tiles ◗92x Cards 45m 2-4 8+ £25 a die until a torch shows up, halting gameplay as the timer trickles closer to failure. Should you succeed in eliminating the boss, congrats! Do this twice more to win the game. If you lose, no worries, all that happens is that the next villain starts with gems already in the basket, giving you less time to collate your card collections in consideration for combat. For better or for worse, that is literally the whole game: gather cards, eventually a timer will start and the bad guy better be beaten before it stops. There’s an excitement in the slowly building anticipation, as players try to gently add more gems in the hopes of not kickstarting the timed phase. However, that phase is the most exciting part; as you frantically work together to find the right flurry of moves to play out everything you need. The problem is the downtime between this action. When you’re not throwing cards around like lunatics, it’s a slow-paced gathering of supplies like packing your suitcase for a sleepover. The game needs something for you to do whilst you edge closer to triggering the timer, but what it has isn’t very compelling. What’s worse is you’re basically doing the same thing three times, but only the last attempt matters. Beat the first two bosses cleanly but are one health point away from the final one? You all lose the whole game, bad luck. It needed more than adding upgraded cards to a pile of possibility to be a compelling co-operative game instead of a gimmicky tie-in. Whilst I would recommend playing this if you pass it by, I can’t recommend paying money to bring it home, where it would swiftly become another relic to add to your seemingly infinite warehouse of boxes. MATTHEW VERNALL This is the sort of game designed for cafés and conventions, one which any passers-by can’t help but stop and stare at the giant centrepiece sand timer. Once you tear your eyes away from the striking core prop, you’ll find a co-operative card game where players are trying to sequence a series of strikes against the various villains Indie and the gang faced in his first film, Raiders of the lost Ark. The game is split into three rounds, each divided into two phases. In the encounter phase, players will move from location to location, gathering cards and abilities or playing out said cards for benefits and beatings. Every round has a different villain to overcome, which is done by dishing out enough damage using attack cards. All cards are played into one pile following Uno rules: if the top card is a green spade, you must play a green card or spade card. Most attack cards will only be either a colour or symbol, so you’ll need to use the other action cards to help bridge those games to maintain your attack. Whenever you have finished activating a location, you must roll the printed number of threat dice, which will either have you activate the villain (who’ll block a different location and punish anyone at their new spot) or adding gems to the sand timer. The timer has a little basket in the top; as you add more and more gems the timer will flip, beginning the timed phase. You no longer take gentle turns, instead you’re racing against the sands to finish off the Nazi blighter by slamming down cards as quickly as you can. Once you run out of plays you draw the next card in the action deck, hoping it isn’t a dreaded snake, which forces you to rapidly roll TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: ESCAPE: CURSE OF THE TEMPLE Basically the Indiana Jones board game experience with none of the branding, if you like frantic dice rolling and panicking under a strict timer, both of these titles are lots of fun. ❚ PLAY IT? M AY B E The novelty wears off quick but is fun while it lasts. Ideal for fans who like short, sharp puzzles you can share.
F A MIL Y G A M E S S T R A T E G Y G A M E S C A R D G A M E S R O L E P L A YIN G G A M E S MINIA T U R E S G A M E S tabletopgaming.co.uk 43 No one can accuse the Tolkien estate of failing to exploit the fullrange of licensable content contained within the author’s works. Hot on the heels of War of the Ring: The Card Game (itself a card-based reworking of the War of the Ring board game) and a full Lord of the Ringsthemed set in Magic:The Gathering, comes yet another attempt to wring a few more dregs of Shire ale from the Middle Earth beertowel. This alone is no reason to disparage Adventure to Mount Doom. After all, Star Wars has been mined with even greater vigour over a shorter period and we stillregularly get truly excellent tabletop experiences set within that franchise.I’m a big fan of Tolkien’s work and I absolutely get the appeal, but you can be forgiven for going a bit snow blind from the blizzard of Middle Earth merchandise. In practical terms, any new title is entering a saturated market with stiff competition – not a reason to dismiss it out of hand, but we have plenty of existing options, so the baris set high. Adventure to Mount Doom is a There and back again, again THE LORD OF THE RINGS: ADVENTURE TO MOUNT DOOM Designer: Michael Rieneck | Publisher: Kosmos WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗Gameboard ◗50 x playing cards ◗30 x cardboard standees ◗8 x dice ◗Dice board ◗One Ring token ◗Gandalf token ◗Treebeard token ◗Rulebook 60m 1-4 10+ £39.99 TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED LABYRINTH If you enjoy simple thematic games and want to enjoy Middle Earth without needing to play a rules heavy game, this may be exactly your speed. ❚ PLAY IT? M AY B E It lacks the epic scope and depth of other LOTR games, but also the ginormous faff. If you’re after an accessible experience with a mixed age group this game might be your chance to simply walk into Mordor. cooperative dice-rolling and dicemanagement game of getting Frodo and the Fellowship across Middle Earth to unmake the One Ring in Mount Doom. Each turn you’re going to roll some dice and assign some to moving ally characters and Frodo himself across the board. Simultaneously, you’ll be resolving black dice, which trigger thematic threats such as the Nazgûl, all coming to hunt down your party and reclaim the Ring. Should Frodo become too dispirited and weighed down by his burden, you lose.If you reach Mount Doom before this happens, you win. One key distinction between Adventure to Mount Doom and many otherrecent Lord of the Rings titles is its simplicity.This is a light game, very accessible and easy to teach, with simple roll and move mechanisms at its core.The main limiting factor in terms of age is the ability to read card text and, since it’s a co-operative game, even the burden ofreading and remembering rules can fall upon the most experienced player. The artwork is colourful, distinct from the films, and well-realised – particularly the board itself, which has an inviting storybook feel while still being easy to read at a glance.The game uses cardboard standees ratherthan minis, which feels right for a title of this weight(it also helps with keeping the price at an affordable level) and are easierto distinguish than unpainted lumps of grey plastic. When a game says it’s ‘co-operative,’ sometimes it’s genuinely an exercise in divided information, communication and anticipating one another’s needs, as in The Crew, The Mind or Mysterium. Sometimes, as in games like Dorfromantik, Switch & Signal and this, it’s really just a solo game with a rotating pilot. That’s what to expect here.This is a light dice- and card-driven solo game that you can play with up to three friends. Character cards confer simple powers, such as rerolling a die or ignoring the consequences of an event, orin case of Sauron’s forces,releasing more Uruk-hai or Ringwraiths, as well as being able to send Frodo’s moral plummeting everlower. In this, Adventure to Mount Doom is surprising in that – despite the huge range of heavy Lord of the Rings games on offer – it feels like it offers something different: a light, co-operative family game you can see through in about an hour, ideal for those looking for a gentle trip through Middle Earth instead of an all-day excursion. TIM CLARE
44 September 2023 P L AY E D Desert Island Hexes MY ISLAND Designer: Reiner Knizia | Publisher: Kosmos WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗4 x double-sided gameboards ◗112 x tiles ◗28 x cards ◗4 x scoring tokens ◗8 x envelopes with additional game materials 30m 2-4 10+ £29.99 island. Each turn, you’ll reveal a card and simultaneously place the tile depicted, or discard it if you can’t find a legal – or advantageous – placement. Tiles feature two-to-four connected hexes with fields, houses, paths and the like on them, clearly differentiated with blocks of colour. Each turn you’re going to be placing a hex and trying to maximise your score. If this sounds slightly vague, it’s because over twenty-four games split into eight chapters of three episodes each, players arrive at the island and begin to develop it. Within these chapters emerge new goals, constraints and means of scoring. By legacy game standards these are relatively light, but this is not to say they’re not interesting. They absolutely are and if you find yourself enamoured by the core tile-laying mechanic, each offers (here it comes) exciting twists that refresh and revitalise the central challenge. Although a full story or campaign is twenty-four episodes, I suspect most groups, if they warm to the game, will end up completing it by playing multiple games a session, hence the chapter format giving a slightly more accurate sense of how long you might take to get through it. So is it fun? Yes… if you like contemplate, somewhat abstract puzzles that require planning ahead and accelerate in difficulty as your placement options shrink. Luck is definitely a factor – you have incomplete information and depending on how you lay things out you may find yourself desperate for one specific tile – but the simultaneous play and speed of each game mean that, even if you have a disaster, you quickly get the opportunity to put it behind you. The experience is essentially nerd bingo, which is absolutely my jam. TIM CLARE I ’ve said before that designer Dr Reiner Knizia is constitutionally incapable of making a duff game. This is almost certainly an exaggeration – he is legendarily prolific and nobody has a one hundred percent hit rate – but the somewhat less hyperbolic version of this statement is that he maintains an astonishing consistency across his output. If you pick up one of his games, you can be assured of a certain base rigour in the design and you’re probably in for a fun time. What you won’t know is what the game’s about, because with his prolific output has come a willingness to try all sorts of different mechanisms. There isn’t really a signature Knizia style or feel, except that, at their core, the central mechanism or challenge of each of his games tends to be relatively simple. Most of the time – though not always – you won’t find a buffet of scattered ideas, but a central prime engine driving everything else. So it is with My Island, the sequel to My City, which was a polyomino-laying competitive legacy game about building a city. You can already guess what My Island asks of you: if you’ve played the original, a reasonable analogy is that My Island is to My City what Yellow & Yangtze is to Tigris & Euphrates. That is to say, while many elements will feel familiar – and clearly grew out of the predecessor – there’s a step change in depth and complexity created by the move from tessellating polyominos on a square grid, to tessellating hexes. This being a legacy game, some elements are revealed after a game, so since part of the pleasure is that these are supposed to be surprises, I’ll keep this review spoiler-free – hence some slightly coy, woolly allusions to ‘exciting twists’ that are a necessary evil when reviewing games of this ilk. Each player gets their own game board showing a portion of the TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED DORFROMANTIK Though My Island is competitive rather than cooperative, the overall mood of both is a communal cosy legacy experience, perfect for tea and biscuits and comforting time spent with friends. ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S If a mixture of placement puzzles with a cosy theme as you and your friends poise over your maps sounds appealing, set sail.
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46 September 2023 WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗Cranium Capsule ◗24 coloured pegs ◗2 movers ◗200 cards ◗8 bonus coins ◗2 whiteboards ◗2 markers ◗Cranium Clay ◗Sand Timer ◗2 Reference Sheets What does an egg sound like? Designer: Funko Games | Publisher: Funko Games 45m 4+ 12+ £30 The way the activities have evolved from the original really make this upgrade worth it, but on the downside, this edition can only be played with two teams, The gameplay has also been simplified from what was already an accessible and easyto-understand party game. There are no Planet Craniums to begin the game, no hoops to jump through to get your team going, no options to sneak onto an inside track and no game-end rules to follow. The game simply ends when the first team reaches the home space. There is the addition of the Bonus Coins feature, giving your team options to re-roll the die or move forward extra spaces, however this means you can even win by sneakily holding onto one of your Bonus Move Coins and deploying it for a somewhat anticlimactic victory, so it doesn’t have quite the same anticipation of the original, with no inter-play between the teams. All the categories and activities are within the same single deck of cards, so this design choice combined with the sheer number of (albeit brilliant) types of challenges, means that it takes quite a few games before you can ditch the rulebook. But that being said, the activities are worth it. If you’re always angling to get a game out with people who aren’t nearly as interested as you are, then this is sure to get everyone laughing. The upgraded challenges are guaranteed hilarity and they’ve evolved well for this 25th anniversary edition. The inclusion of Cranium Clay for the “sculptorades” round is still a highlight – could you sculpt a recognisable top hat, taco, or toucan out of playdough in 1 minute? Yeah, me neither. KIM WELLENS The ever-popular party game Cranium has expanded in its 25th anniversary edition, with more games, prompts and genuinely hilarious activities to take on.The overall look of the game has changed, with a plastic circular base (orthe Cranium Capsule) to move around ratherthan a classic board.The capsule also contains all the cards and pieces required, including a mini white-board and drywipe marker for each team, so physically it’s a pretty sleek and modern upgrade. Similar to the original, you roll the die to determine which category of challenge your team will undertake, drawing a card to reveal the activity. You could become a team of Creative Cats, Word Worms, Star Performers, or Data Heads – but this edition has added hundreds of new challenges within their whopping 18 mini-games to choose from, all of which guarantee many laughs. Creative Cats draw and sculpt a whole host of random and bizarrelooking objects. A particular highlight being the seismograph game, which sees a pair in your team work together, one holding the marker in mid-air and the other moving the whiteboard, in order to recreate what is on the card. Your final collaborative work of art will undoubtedly score 10/10 for entertainment value, but it’s unlikely to be one for the fridge. Star Performers not only hum, sing and make sound effects, but may even find themselves puppeteering an unsuspecting volunteer’s arms and legs to help guessers identify what the prompt was. This one probably isn’t a round for someone who likes their personal space… Data Heads test their knowledge on the most peculiar and, quite frankly, laughably useless trivia, whilst Word Worms show off their anagramsolving, word-defining and even limerick-writing skills, all in the hopes of progressing around the Cranium Capsule and hurtling towards the win. TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: SCRAWL (FAMILY EDITION) Embracing that under-pressure creativity and making a bit of a fool of yourself, the type of game that’s more fun the worse you are at it! ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S I’d like to combine these upgraded activities and the physical quality with the classic gameplay, but it’s nevertheless a fun-filled improvement!
F A MIL Y G A M E S S T R A T E G Y G A M E S C A R D G A M E S R O L E P L A YIN G G A M E S MINIA T U R E S G A M E S tabletopgaming.co.uk 47 Comic Creation Comedy NO CONTEXT Designer: Banana Chan & Jason Slingerford | Publisher: Skybound Tabletop WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗110 Comic Panel Cards ◗42 Player Voting Cards ◗7 Target Cards ◗Game Board 20-30m 2-6 13+ £25 TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED DIXIT Another “Guess the Picture” game that many consider a classic, consider No Context if you want something a little more ‘mature.’ ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S An extremely colourful picture guessing game ideal for an older crowd. Once everyone has selected three comic panels and all bets are placed, the actual answers are revealed, with players scoring based on whether their guesses were correct but also if they were quick enough to place their bets in the first place. Only the first two players who correctly guess the right answer will score points and you can only bet each target image once, so being confident is crucial if you want to win. No Context gives off very strong Dixit and Mysterium vibes without the grandiose tone. It’s almost like someone stripped away the pretentiousness and delivered a base level guessing game without the roleplaying. While you could easily make a case for not playing No Context around very young children due to some of the imagery on display (some of which really isn’t suitable) it doesn’t approach the crudeness found in other party games and those with teenagers could consider playing it without too many awkward rounds. No Context never takes itself too seriously, with a level of selfawareness that’s appreciated in a sea of tone-deaf titles. Whilst the rules could do with better clarification (I had to re-read the scoring mechanics five times and still aren’t 100% certain) it is bright and colourful on the table and won’t rely on your fellow players learning a pile of new concepts in order to play. Most of all, it gives those moments where after the betting and the results have been announced, where people feel the need to explain themselves as to why they paired a banana peel with someone cannon-balling out of a window, which in itself can be fun, as you hear the tangents people jump through to justify their choices. The artwork never goes out of its way to make you feel even slightly uncomfortable. It isn’t here to be edgy; it just wants everyone to have a good time. If you’re after something different to play with friends and your older kids, then No Context is the game for you, no contest. RICHARD SIMPSON Not a month goes by where we get party game attempting to be the next Obama Llama and Exploding Kittens. Some of them will attempt to gain a level of notoriety by being the next ‘hilarious adult party game,’ that if you play in front of a group of friends at least half of them will get up and leave part way through, taking their chilli hummus dip with them. No Context thankfully isn’t one of those crass attempts at comedy, but is instead a game that revolves around art created by Mr. Lovenstein, requiring you to use a series of completely unconnected pictures to persuade everyone else which to select a particular card. You start by laying out a series of random target cards based on the number of players, each of which are then secretly designed to exactly one person. On your turn you’ll then pick a comic panel card from another row, with a maximum of three allowed in total. You might want to pick a card that doesn’t match what your target card is at all, in order to push them towards a particular way of thinking. It’s easy to express this because the borders on each side of the comic panels are either green or red, with a colourblind friendly tick or cross in the corner to avoid confusion. If you want to tell people the card you’ve selected doesn’t match your target, then you lay it on your card track red side up. As you play through card selection, players at any point can place a bet as to what card they think others have.
48 September 2023 P L AY E D Survival of the Fluffiest SAVERNAKE FOREST Designer: Rodrigo Rego | Publisher: Devir Games WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗64 Forest Cards ◗34 Tokens ◗1st Player pawn ◗Double Sided Board 20m 2-4 10+ £20 and planning, even a touch of light strategy to maximise the end result. The production values are impressive, with decent sized tokens representing the extra storage and points, although I’m not sure how replicas of Stonehenge have anything to do with storing berries. Must be some kind of druid thing, I guess. I also defy anyone who gains the first player rooster token not to let out some hideous impression of an early morning crow when you win that token for the first time, like a cacophonous cheer of triumph. Savernake Forest offers just the right amount of challenge to keep you coming back for more, though it will probably have more visits to the table if the audience you share with are on the younger side. With wonderful colourful components and cards, I’m genuinely surprised and delighted with what this small box offers. RICHARD SIMPSON There’s a saying which goes “Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail.” If you are one of the adorable critters who inhabit Savernake Forest with autumn disappearing and winter approaching, then you’d better have this above your bed, or at the very least on a t-shirt. Savernake Forest is a game about playing card tiles, building paths through the forest and gathering food to prepare for the end of the year. There’s a decent number of components and cards contained within. The palette here is of muted browns and reds and greens, all designed to put you in the gathering mood as you create a square of sixteen cards, trying to maximise your foraging and the points you gain for each animal that is fed with what it favours most. Traditional woodland tales you read as a child would give you the impression that everything is cute, fun and simple in the forest, however Savernake Forest has a surprising amount of depth to dissuade those assumptions. You have to consider every card you select forthe tiny ecosystem that you are creating. You start with an animal card that tells you what food it needs and how much it is able to score from a choice of fruit, worms, nuts and eggs.The card also tells you how much the animal is able to store away forthe winter, so a squirrel can store a lot of food, but the points on offer are miserly, while the badger offers more points, but can store pretty much nothing when first played. You can pick new cards from one of four piles. Depending where you pick the card from will also give you additional benefits, like being able increase the points that a food item scores, increase your storage, or even add another animal to your grid. Pick the rooster and you get to be first player for the next round. The aim is to build paths that only have one animal on, but give you as big a scoring potential as possible. Savernake Forest transforms slowly into a point salad, where you are trying to build up combinations of short paths with maximum potentials. It’s tempting to build long and winding woody treks through dappled sunlight, but you quickly discover that you scare away all the chances of winning. While it gives the impression that this is very much a game for young children, it actually hits on the Kingdomino side of the beaten track, requiring a bit of thought TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED KINGDOMINO Another point scoring tile laying game brilliant for younger players. ❚ PLAY IT? Y E S Its colourful presentation hides a thoughtful game, ideal for those looking for a child-friendly game with some extra concentrated bite.
F A MIL Y G A M E S S T R A T E G Y G A M E S C A R D G A M E S R O L E P L A YIN G G A M E S MINIA T U R E S G A M E S tabletopgaming.co.uk 49 barren places) and replace them with football pitches (yes I know the scenario is called ‘Soccer Fever,’ but gosh darn it I refuse to refer to the game as that!) It is in these FOOTBALL pitches that players will pile up their kick tokens. Each team starts the game with a single token, that will let them have one attempt to win their next match. Want more tokens? Simply build your settlement (or later upgrade it to a city) on a place adjacent to any football pitch hex. You can also retire your knights from part of your potential army to don your team’s shirt and also give you another kick token. Each player will face off against an opponent whenever a settlement or city is built ANYWHERE on the board. These matches see players roll their cardboard footballs onto the pitch, scoring a ‘goal’ if they land with your colour facing upwards. So, is it just more luck to a game already notorious for relying on dice rolls? Well, yes and no. Much like how in the base game success comes from manipulating the odds in your favour, building across a spread of both resources and numbers to ensure you’re getting consistent cards to construct with, having those extra kick tokens will significantly improve your chances of winning or even drawing a match. After every fixture, players move along a track one space if they drew, or three if they won. There are bonuses at set points giving resources or improvement cards, with victory points also awarded based on your league standings (i.e., furthest along the track) which not only improves the game’s pace but can lead to dramatic underdog victories as you snatch those remaining two points through a hat trick of rolls. But as said previously, there is something lacking about each match fundamentally being a series of competitive coin flips. You can build this great looking mini stadium, but for no real game purpose other than it’s fun to flick the balls towards the net. I know why they removed any skill element to this (I can imagine the bickering as two players hotly argue over whether a ball ‘hit’ the net) but I feel like a novelty this silly needed to lean more into the wild dexterity side instead of working hard to keep things ‘fair.’ If your table loves Catan and wants a simple way to revitalise the formula, I can recommend giving this a go for the sheer absurdity. But sadly, there isn’t enough here to justify dusting off your copy of the game and for the price you’re likely to have more fun with a different small-box game. MATTHEW VERNALL Once I saw this existed, I had to play it. Did you know there was a short-lived dexterity expansion for Carcassonne that involved using a tiny ‘catapult’ to fling tokens and meeples about? I had a similarly perplexed look on my face when I saw that everyone’s first modern board gaming experience would also let you sling cardboard footballs into the back of the net to gain sheep. First and probably the most major disappoint out of the way, the game does not actually reward you for any Subbuteo skills you may possess. To play this scenario a standard game of Catan for 3-4 players (sorry 5th and/ or 6th player, you’re benched) is setup with two minor differences: you must remove the desert tile and whichever tile has the number ‘2’ token (which is now placed on the same spot as ’12,’ giving you twice as much chance of getting anything from those often Extra Time CATAN: SOCCER FEVER SCENARIO Designer: Klaus and Benjamin Teuber | Publisher: CATAN Studio WHAT’S IN THE BOX? ◗Fold out pitch ◗League Board ◗34 Cardboard Tokens ◗2x Soccer Pitch Hexes ◗4x Cardboard Footballs ◗Matchday Indicator 60m 3-4 10+ £22 TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: CATAN Should go without saying but this expansion certainly heightens the core game’s experience instead of dramatically changing it, great for breathing life into a near 30-year old classic. ❚ PLAY IT? M AY B E Certainly for Catan Collectors, but not a necessary inclusion for most collections.
50 September 2023 P L AY E D WHAT’S IN THE BOX? Casting Shadows: ◗7 hex tiles ◗4 double-sided player boards ◗76 cards ◗1 hex tile reference sheet ◗13 resource tokens ◗5 resource dice ◗4 meeples ◗1 rulebook Ice Storm Expansion: ◗3 hex tiles ◗2 double-sided player boards ◗34 cards ◗1 hex tile reference sheet ◗10 status tokens ◗2 meeples ◗1 rulebook Lipstick on a Shadow Pig CASTING SHADOWS (AND ICE STORM EXPANSION) Designer: Ramy Badie | Publisher: Unstable Games 30-60m 2-4 12+ £29.99 involvement. Imagine a six-player game where you’re knocked out early and have to sit there for at least another half an hour, while the rest of the players keep going. It’s a huge step backwards for game design. On top of all of that, there’s no story or theme. The rulebook doesn’t have any lore, character information, or world-building. Seriously, there’s not even an attempt to explain who these characters are, where they are, or why they’re trying to tear one another’s heads off. It’s a real shame because it feels like there might be a good game in here somewhere. But to get that that point, it needed a clear story, massive amounts of additional playtesting and a complete rules overhaul. ADAM RICHARDS When I opened Casting Shadows, I had high hopes. The components are really high quality, the artwork is fantastic and the overall concept is cool. Each player takes the role of some kind of creature, duking it out with your opponents until only the winner is left standing. You roll dice to collect resources, then spend your action points moving, collecting and casting spells, hopefully evolving your creature into its Shadow Form to make it even more powerful. Sounds cool, right? How quickly its house of cards comes crashing down. I don’t want to turn this into a cardboard character assassination, but Casting Shadows has a lot of problems. Let’s start at the beginning: The tile your meeple is standing on gives you benefits. That might be extra resources, better defence, whatever. However, there’s nothing printed on the tile to tell you what you get and there’s no mention of it on your reference card. Instead, there’s a single reference sheet of paper all players share and is needed time and time again. It’s unbelievably short-sighted. You roll the dice and might get something really cool. You might roll the three shadow fragments which let you evolve on turn one. Alternatively, you might roll a bunch of cursed crystals which you cannot re-roll, each one costing one of your four actions to negate, lest you take damage from them at the end of a turn. There’s nothing you can do about it, no ‘re-roll if you roll 3 or more cursed crystals,’ you’re just stuck with it. It leads to players racing ahead or falling behind through nothing more than dumb luck. The spell cards have a neat concept where they come in three levels, where you trade in a spell and some resources to level up. However, if you spend your turns moving and collecting spells, you’re not damaging your opponents, so you won’t last long. Each character starts with 18 HP and even level one spells typically do 3 HP damage. With your only guaranteed option to regenerate HP coming from starting your turn on a certain hex tile (even then only gaining 2 HP each time), if the other players target you there’s sod all you can do about it. King-killing is rife, although in my house it’s called ‘Get dad!’ instead. After some disappointing games, I tore open the Ice Storm expansion, hoping to find some balancing or revised rules. No such luck. There are three more tiles, some new status effects which barely play a part (why try to freeze or stun someone when you can just keep beating them around the head?) and two new characters. It also moves the player count up to a possible six. Again, this sounds cool, right? No. This just highlights the problem of having straight-up player elimination. If you die, that’s it, you have no more TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED: DISNEY SORCERER’S ARENA It’s a cutesy, family-friendly, hex-based skirmish game with vastly superior gameplay, a story of sorts, and no player elimination. ❚ PLAY IT? N O The nice production only serves as a distraction from a game you just want to end.