Search Results

WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 2–4 You’ll like this if you like: Photosynthesis, Medina, Bunny Kingdom Published by Floodgate Games Designed by Daryl Andrews, Erica Bouyouris By Tom Harrod Resplendent trees follow a formulaic yet fantastic journey across all four seasons. New shoots emerge in spring, basking proud in the summer warmth. Leaves tumble and cascade in autumn, carpeting the woodland floor come winter. It’s a story of two halves: of growth, followed by their preparation for winter dormancy. What if we switched out the roots, trunks and foliage, and replaced it with 3D cardboard? Swapped brittle, browning leaves for bright, laser-cut wooden tokens? And what if we chucked a cheeky squirrel in for good measure? What you’re now imagining, my gaming friends, is Bosk, by Floodgate Games. This design comes with a tagline: “a game of majestic trees and falling leaves.” The definition of the word ‘Bosk’, in case you’re wondering, means a wood comprising of small trees. (If you win a future pub quiz thanks to this answer, feel free to transfer me 10% of the prize.) Bosk is an abstract-strategy/area-majority game by Daryl Andrews and Erica Bouyouris. Andrews co-designed the colourful Sagrada, also by Floodgate Games. That’s where the similarities end, though. Let’s take a closer look… Bosk In A Nutshell There’s four rounds to Bosk, each being a separate season. In spring, everyone ‘plants’ (places) their trees on the board – a national park. In summer, everyone scores their trees, according to their locations. In autumn, everyone’s trees start to drop their leaves. These scatter and tumble due to the ever-changing wind. Last of all in winter, everyone scores their leaves, according to where they fell. Four phases then, but two of them comprise of scoring, alone. The meat of the game occurs in ‘spring’ and ‘autumn’. This is where all your planning and calculating come into their own. Summer and winter take less than five minutes to add up the respective scores. A Spring In Your Step Each player has eight 3D trees in their own colour. Each has a number (1 – 4, twice). The board is a grid of squares that overlay the national park’s terrains. The first player places any one of their eight trees on a vacant intersection on the board. (As in, the point where two grid lines meet to form a +, so it can’t be on the board’s outer edge). Players take turns, clockwise, placing one tree at time onto the board. You can place them in any numerical order. In a three-player game, for example, 24 trees end up on the board. But why place a tree in one spot over another? And why do your trees have numbers 1 – 4 on them? Scores Out For Summer Once the last player’s placed their final tree, summer scoring begins. You look at each row and each column of the board one at a time. The player with the highest value(s) of trees present ‘wins’ the row/column. For example, if red has two trees (of value 1 and 2) in the same row, their total is 3. Purple has one value 4 tree in the same row. Orange has two value 3 trees in this row (so a total of 6). Orange wins this row, with purple being the runner-up. Red gets nothing for coming third. A scoring table explains tie-breaks for joint-first, or joint-second. If you’re the solitary tree type in this row/column, you earn extra points. But if this were a football match, it’s half time. Don’t fret if you’re in last place. The second half is a whole different ball game… No Fooling Around In Fall The last player gets to place the all-important Wind Board. This sits along one of the four edges of the main board. Deciding where to place it can be game-changing. It dictates the direction the wind begins to blow. Eight arrows run along on the Wind Board, left-to-right. Each arrow rotates a further 90° clockwise from its predecessor. The first four arrows are numbered 1 – 4, while the latter four are mere asterisks. There’s eight rounds in autumn, like there were eight in spring. (You’ve guessed it – one for each tree.) The active player triggers one of their trees that matches the number stated on the Wind Board. You have two trees of each number, remember? In round one, leaves fall from one of your ‘1’ trees, then, in the direction stated by the Wind Board. Each player has eight big Leaf Tiles numbered 2-8, plus one with a squirrel on it. A bit of hand-management enters the fray. You’ll select one of these, and take that many wooden leaf tokens from your supply. You place one of these leaves in a square beneath your tree. Then, you place the rest of the leaves leading away from this first leaf, in the wind’s direction. The next leaf sits in one of the three squares – either parallel, or diagonal – away from the previous. Will you drop them in a straight line, a total diagonal, zig-zag, or a blend of all three? If you reach the edge of the grid and you have leaf tokens remaining, return them to your supply. But that’s a waste! The aim of autumn is to cover the board full of your colour leaves, if viewing the park from above. The board’s separated into eight different-coloured terrains. Each of them score in an area-majority manner in winter. Once you’ve placed all your quota of leaves for the turn, you remove the origin tree off the board. Then it’s the next player’s turn, clockwise. They pick a Leaf Tile of their choice, and drop that number of leaves leading away from one of their ‘1’ trees. Then they remove their tree. Then it’s the next player’s turn, and so on. Don’t Trust The Squeeple! Over the eight rounds you have to use all eight of your big Leaf Tiles. Each player has, in total, 35 wooden leaf tokens. Deciding when and where to use the larger (and smaller) quantities of leaves is a marvellous decision. The squirrel is a little different. This lets you use your squirrel meeple, instead of any leaves this turn. The little animeeple still obeys the wind direction (according to the round in which you use it). You can place it up to three spaces away from the tree. Squirrels can sit on top of any stack of leaves. And we’ve all seen David Attenborough documentaries: nothing sits on top of a squirrel! Opting when to use it is a major question of timing. Smart placement could be the difference between winning or losing an terrain. This Park Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us Now, like any good western, you’ll soon realise that this national park ain’t big enough for the both of us. In a three player game, for example, between you all you have 105 leaves (108, including squirrels). The grid for a three-player game consists of 100 squares. There comes a time in autumn where Bosk starts to become a tad cutthroat. Because if you like, you can opt to overlay your leaves on top of others. If a rival’s leaf sits in your path, no problem; you can cover it with one of your own. At the end of the game, remember: it’s only the leaves that are visible from above that score. The leaves on top of a pile are all that matter. But hold on there, buster. Yes, it’s in your best interests to cover up your opponents’ leaves. But it comes at a price… Smother The Park With Your Leafy Blanket To overlay, you need to ‘throw away’ a leaf in hand for every leaf in the grid square you want to cover. Let’s say you’re red, but you want to place a leaf into a spot where yellow has a leaf. You have to return one leaf to the supply. Then place another of your leaves on top of yellow’s. On a later turn, the purple player might want to place one of their own leaves here. In that case, they’d have to throw away two of their leaves in hand, to position one of their own on top. This can prove expensive, but it’s a vital consideration, strategy-wise. The more often you overlay, yes, you’re undoing the previous work of your opponents. But it means you’re placing fewer of your 35 leaves onto the board. You’re not spreading out as much. And the aim of autumn is to dominate as many terrains as possible, because you’ll score them in winter. And winning a terrain scores you a lot more points in winter, compared to winning a row/column in summer. On occasions, your own previous-placed leaves might block your path. You don’t have to throw excess leaves away to overlay on your own. You place one on top as if the square were empty. Of course, this feels like a waste, because you’re not investing it on the board, elsewhere. But one silver lining is that it acts as a further deterrent for opponents overlaying there later. They’d have to throw away more of their own leaves to overlay there. Ultimately, you can’t feel bitter about leaf overlaying. You know that each player (including yourself) has 35 leaves to spend. It’s all about how many of those 35 end up on the actual board, and how many of them are sacrificial. Go After The Big Dog? Or Settle For Second? Bosk presents layers of intrigue. Like any area majority game, it can become a bit of a constant state of one-upmanship if you’re not careful. You need to pick and choose your battles. Some terrains are smaller than others. Are these easier to dominate, then? Fewer leaves needed? Or are they appealing to everyone, so it becomes one big fight for them? One of the sneaky things to remember is that dominating a terrain is all fine and dandy. But you get points if you finish a clear-second in a terrain, too. Sometime it takes less effort to tiptoe in and pip a rival for second place, compared to challenging the big dog for first… One thing you cannot afford to happen is to allow one player to have their leaves present alone in a terrain. That’s worth a whopping eight points. This makes the final few rounds so important; trust me, the tide can – and will – turn. If you can ensure you have a single leaf in their monopolised terrain by winter, then that one leaf scores you three points. (For coming second.) Plus, it drops their eight points down to five. (If they win the terrain, but a second leaf type sits present there, too.) That’s a major swing. I tended to keep my squirrel until late in the game as insurance for this exact move. Does that make me a bad person?! Errr… How Many Points For Joint-First, Again? The scoring tables are not easy to memorise, I’ll admit. You need to keep the back page of the rulebook to hand to check this. There’s four different scenarios for scoring. (First and second; joint-first and second; first and joint-second; and first, alone.) It’s accessible enough via the table, at least. Talking of scoring, summer and winter feel like two polarised battles. There’s a lot more scope to nick points, it feels, in summer. There’s more rows and columns up for grabs, you see. Meanwhile, there’s only eight terrains in winter. This evens itself out by winter’s points being worth more. With smart placement in spring, you can reap the rewards come autumn. This is the kind of thing you’ll learn after your first game. To begin with, in spring, you’re presented with a blank canvas, of sorts. You can place your trees anywhere! But the board soon becomes cramped, if you want to steal those scoring opportunities in summer. Or, you’ll see the board cramped in a different light, if you’re thinking ahead to autumn leaf-placement in mind. It’s a dangerous game to put all your eggs in one basket in spring. Yes, you want to try and out-muscle your rivals for the rows and columns. And elbowing in with your ‘3’ and ‘4’ trees can prove overwhelming in this respect. But you need to remember: you have two of each tree number. And in autumn, you’re going to have to activate one of each of them for the first four rounds on the Wind Board. Remember the asterisks? For the fifth-through-eighth rounds of autumn, you still have to obey the wind direction. But you can pick any number tree to drop leaves. The peril is if you place, say, both of your ‘3’ trees in the same row. This goes double if it’s a row near or on the outer edge. Because then you limit the flexibility of that tree, with regards to its leaf-drop. It isn’t going to be able to drift its leaves far in one direction, if it’s too close to the board’s edge. Spring Strategy Blown Out The Window Trying to split my trees apart in spring gave me a decent opportunity to adapt my tactics in autumn. It meant I could go with the flow according to north, south, east or west winds. Which leads me to a potential negative in some peoples’ eyes – Bosk is a game about reacting. You can plan and strategise to an extent, because you know the order of all eight wind directions. But you can’t plan too far ahead, because the state of the board changes between turns. You need to keep your fingers in lots of pies. Like any kind of game that has an abstract nature to it, this can bring out analysis paralysis. You might get some players who agonise over tree placement. They’re trying to play both spring and autumn both at once. This is tough to achieve, though. One thing you can do is manipulate turn order in your favour. This can change each time the wind moves direction. Whomever used the lowest Leaf Tile number in the previous round becomes the new first player. This adds yet another layer of strategy into the mix. Do you want to go first, so you have more of an empty board to place more of your leaves? Or do you want to go later? Yes, you might have to overlay, but you can cancel out an earlier player’s hard work. Hindsight’s on your side. Table Presence Hits All The High Notes Bosk commands table presence aplenty. It boasts wonderful art from Kwanchai Moriya (Dinosaur Island, In The Hall of the Mountain King, Prêt-à-Porter, among others). I’m so impressed by Floodgate Games’ products for their component quality. Sagrada packs a real punch. Cosmic Colonies is a hidden gem with awesome plastic resources. Bosk hits the same high notes and it doesn’t miss a beat. The main board itself is abstract in its purest form. There’s eight different terrains, individual by stark colour contracts. Mind you, the black terrain is a little too similar to the water terrain, if playing under ‘mood lighting’. There’s subtle details on the board, but not the sort you’d necessarily look at, or go out of your way to look for. They’re the kind of details that you’d soon notice if they were vacant, though. Sporadic trees, single rock formations, grass billowing in the breeze. You don’t want a board like this to look too busy. You want the terrains to stand out, and (for the most part), they accomplish this. The trees are the pièce de résistance. Two punched pieces slot together to form a 3D standee. They do require some assembling; it’s not a job you can rush. I had to use a small knife to prise out some of the more delicate pieces. But so long as you’re patient, the finished article looks stunning. The big Leaf Tiles are of chunky card stock. The wooden leaf tokens are dainty yet divine in their silhouettes. They have no problem at all standing out against the backdrop of the board during autumn and winter. There is one potential issue with the trees, though. There’s no denying their photogenic quality at the start of autumn. 32 trees standing proud on the board, in all their glory. But for the first few turns, you’ll see players trying to place their leaves down in a haphazard manner. If you have big hands, it’s tricky (see also: nigh-impossible) to fit your hand between trees to place leaves. You might (see also: you will) knock some trees over, by accident. This is awkward, because you’ll have to remember where said tree(s) stood on the board! Bosk comes with four insert boxes, one in each player colour. They’ve got a delightful origami vibe. These are the perfect size to fit each of the players’ components. It means set-up takes ten seconds – a simple case of passing out four boxes to the players! A big nod of approval for me, here. Final Thoughts On… Bosk I’ve fallen head over heels for Bosk. The way the wind changes each round in autumn is a thing of genius. It’s such a delight to see the theme mirror mechanisms in such a seamless fashion. It’s the kind of feature that gives me genuine jealousy, because it’s that clever. It’s the kind of feature that makes me think: “You know what, I wish I’d thought of that…” I approached Bosk like any kind of area control game. That means sometimes taking on ever-changing tactics, rather than a singular strategy. Your opponents’ leaf placement can cause havoc with your plans. This goes double if you limit yourself with poor options. (Both with the hand management of your Leaf Tiles, and the placement of your trees). But I love the fact that the final four rounds have those asterisks. You can trigger any tree you like of your final four remaining. You can evolve your tactics as everyone’s master plans unfold. Can you second-guess how your opponents will evolve theirs? You can, after all, see their remaining trees, and their remaining big Leaf Tiles… There’s a tendency to want to want to compare Bosk to Photosynthesis (by Blue Orange Games). They both have alluring, 3D trees. But that’s where their parallels end. They’re separate games; you can justify owning both. I prefer Bosk, due to the four-season format – the ‘game of two halves’ angle. In Photosynthesis a bad start can hamper you. In Bosk, it felt like you could always adapt your tactics and recover. Bosk is a 45-minute game, and one I love sinking my teeth into. It’s not complex, nor complicated to grasp, but it has marvellous layers. Like I mentioned above, the mechanisms match the theme in a true, logical way. Players nod when you explain the rules to them because they just… make… sense. Yes, it helps that the pieces are wonderful and tactile. And boy howdy, does it take a pretty picture. But mark my words; there’s more to Bosk than beauty. It’s got brains to boot, too.

Arlukkachase WBG Score: 6.5 Player Count 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Exploding Kittens, Unstable Unicorns, Monopoly Deal. Published by: Arlukkachase Destroy your opponents. Be the last person standing! Win the game! In Arlukkachase, you are looking to find the Key card. This will be placed into the deck face up at the very bottom. You know where it is and when it will arrive, but can you get it? Beware, as you are working your way through the deck to get to the key, one player will play as the Darkarlukka. They will be looking to infect all the other players before this happens. This is a take-that, race game, with all sorts of fun cards to play. Let's get to it! Set-Up and rules To start a game of Arlukkachase, you first must decide who will play as the Darkarlukka. This player will then be given eight regular cards from the deck. Each other play is dealt five regular cards (or seven in a two-player game) and one Arlukkashield card. Then place the marked cards in a separate pile and place three Arlukkashield cards, three Darkarlukka cards, and four cursed cards into the deck and shuffle it. Then insert the Arlukkey card face up at the bottom of the deck. The person playing as the Darkarlukka goes first and can decide which direction to play in. On your turn, you can play as many cards as you like from your hand however you see fit. To end your turn, you must either draw one card from the top of the draw deck or insert one card from your hand into any place in the draw deck. This could be top of the deck, one down, or anywhere you like. Drawing one card or inserting one cards ends your turn immediately unless the card you draw is a cursed card, in which case you must curry out what it says before you end your turn. The way you win in this game is by collecting and holding the Arlukkey for one complete round. As it is placed face up in the deck, when someone takes this, everyone else knows they have it. All eyes and attack cards will then be on them for the next round. But will other players have the right cards to do anything? The Darkarlukka can win in the same way, but also wins if they manage to infect all players before the key is held by anyone else. The way they infect other players is by giving them Darkarlukka cards, or simply by the other players drawing these cards themselves. If they do ever get one of these cards they must declare it. The other players can defend themselves from infection if they have an Arukkasheild card and play it immediately upon receiving the Darkarlukka card. Both cards are then placed at the bottom of the deck. But if they cannot do this, they then join the Darkarlukka's side, taking on their roles and win condition. As everyone starts the game with a shield card, this does make this tricky early in the game, but there are plenty of Dark cards and the Darkarlukka can used the cursed cards to get more of these Dark cards into the deck. Playing cards on your turn will allow you to take cards from other players, look at cards in the deck, shuffle deck, and many other things you will be familiar with from other similar games. There is also a reflect card and Naah card, similar to the infamous Nope card in Exploding Kittens, that will allow you to either reject a card played on you or deflect back to the other player. You can also do this by playing the same card played on you if you have it. This will not only send the power back to your opponent, but double the affect! This can be a great way to deplete another players hand. Playing Arlukkachase is a fast, fun, and frantic affair. It doesn't at first appear to do anything highly original, but the idea of the one v many on top of the usual card play is very interesting. As is the opportunity for the one v many to become the many v one, or even the all winning as a collective dark force! I like how some turns can be as simple as picking up a turn, players building up their hand, ready for later battles. Whereas other turns can last a lot longer, as people play multiple attack cards from their hand. All players know who the Darkarlukka is, and all players know when the Arlukkey is present and in someone hands. There is limited hidden information here. So, this is less about guess work and mystery, and more about clever card play and of course, like anything with a randomly shuffled draw pile, a bit of luck. If you like games like Exploding Kittens, Unstable Unicorns, and Monopoly Deal, then I think you will enjoy this a lot too. The art looks dark and adult, I thought even a little occult to start with! But it isn't that at all. And you will quickly become familiar with the terminology and meaning of each power. Although I would highly recommend checking out the FAQ in the website to clarify the rules, which are a little vague. Oh, and it is worth noting that the box this comes in is glorious!

High Score WBG Score: 7 Player Count 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: Yahtzee, Roll for Adventure, Reiner Knizia’s Decathlon Published by: KOSMOS Designed by: Reiner Knizia Back in 2003, a game came out called Reiner Knizia's Decathlon which caught peoples attention due to the name attached to it, and the simplistic but addictive game play. You can try it yourself at home here. Reiner Knizia has made over 600 games and doesn't usually attach his name to a dud. His background in mathematics has led to some very interesting and clever games being developed. Decathlon is no exception! But for nearly 20 years it has been crying out for a proper printed version. Thankfully, the good people at Kosmos obliged and you can now get your dice chucking hands on High Score, a new version, very similar to Decathlon, with all the polish you would expect from a fully published game, the sporting theme removed, but all the Yahtzee style dice throwing fun still there. Let's take a look and see how it plays. Now you can either read on or watch this fantastic short video from the 'King of the Reels', Tom from @buryboardgames. To set up the game, place coloured cubes, one for each player, inside the scoring ring. Then draw seven cards from the shuffled deck and place them face down. And you are done! That was easy! There are seven cards, one for each round. Each round, the card will dictate what the sixth 'vortex' face of the dice represents, how many re-rolls you can have, and how you score points. At the beginning of each round, the first player will flip the card and get rolling! After they have finished rolling, they will record their score with their coloured cube on the score tracker. Once each player has rolled, the person with the highest score will collect the three point chip, the second placed player gets a two pint chip, and the third placed player gets a single point. The scores on the tracker are they re-set and the second round commences. The scores on the track do not contribute toward your final score, they simply dictate which end game scoring chip you will get that round. After seven rounds, the player with the most points from the scoring chips wins the game. There are 21 challenge cards in the box, so plenty of variation from game to game. They are all quite self-explanatory, and the rule book has a clear explanation for each symbol. From the above examples, you can see on the top left, the vortex side of the dice, which replaces where the six face would usually be, can be wild in this round. Sometimes they are zero, or six as you can see, or other things. The re-rolls are on the top right of the card and you can either re-roll all the dice or just the ones you want. Sometimes you have to keep at least one dice for each re-roll such as the one on the top right card above. Here is an example of a card in action. The vortex value is six. You can have up to four re-rolls but you must roll all the dice if you chose to do this. And the way you score with this card is thorugh pairs. Any dice that are the same will score you their face value. Roll two vortex's and get 12 points for example. So, the below roll would get you... well, go figure it out. See if you have got this? (bit like school isn't it!) That's right 18! / No, sorry, the third four isn't in a pair so that doesn't count. (Delete and read as appropriate) If the above was your roll on the first try, you would be tempted to go again, but you may never beet this score. Do you lock down a score early no matter what it is, or risk throwing it all away for fame and glory! Of course, if you are the last player you will know exactly what it takes to get a winning score this round. If you are first up, you may be tempted to take more risks and try and lay down a more formidable score. I have played may heavy games, with intense strategy and significant thought process required. But rolling dice in games like High Score never fails to bring the cheers, laughter, and sorrow that only comes from the sort of tension this luck based mechanism brings. You often have very little control of your destiny with dice based games, obviously the re-rolls and how far you push your luck adds some way to bring a strategy, but ultimately you could be lucky or not. Playing High Score is a lot of fun. If you enjoy chucking dice, pushing your luck, and simple games that create high tension, this could be for you. If you don't, and find the luck from dice just annoying or devoid of strategy, then this will not help you change your mind! But I love games like this. I couldn't play them all the time. But I also couldn't play three hour euros non-stop either. It is nice to have a balance in games as it is in life, and thanks to the good Doctor Knizia, here is one big slice of luck-based happiness I will enjoy for many years to come!

Cantaloop: Book 1 - Breaking into Prison WBG Score: 9.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Coded chronicles games, Unlock games, Chronicles of Crime Published by: Lookout Games Designed by: Friedemann Findeisen, Grzegorz Kobiela By Steve Godfrey NO SPOILERS!! The pictures are from the tutorial and the very first location you see in the game. Question! Do you like the old style point and click games like Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle etc? Well then you don’t need to read this review. Just go out and buy Cantaloop because believe me, you won’t be disappointed!……What?, you still need more convincing? Well then read on. The secret of Cantaloop Island. To set up. Open the book. Done. The book is going to take you through the tutorial so I’ll just go through a brief overview just for some context. Throughout the game you’ll be visiting different locations in the town of Cantaloop. At each location you’ll find a page of location art with some four digit alphanumeric codes and some columns with 2 digit codes on them. On the other page will be a page of text with some alpha numeric codes next to them. All of this is only readable when you use the red decoder strip. The basic idea is that you will combine items on cards with the two digit columns to create a four digit code, you then read the corresponding text using the decoding strip. You can even combine items together to make other exciting items using the inventory which is similarly coded. So combining a badger and a towel will get you a badger wearing a toga. Of course how you’re going to carry the badger and why you want it in a toga is a puzzle in itself. Wherever you read it you will either get some flavour text, some clues or may even get you to take a numbered card from the deck. It could even lead you to read conversations between characters. However some of the text will only be available to read if you’ve hit certain triggers. I’ll get to how that works later. Hook and Fly hit the road I’ve had a lot of great experiences throughout my time gaming. They’ve ranged from individual plays of a game, to entire campaigns. Some of these are based on things that I love that I’ve grown up with. From Scooby Doo to Star Wars. Whilst all of these evoke some good memories none of these have managed to throw me right back into my childhood and managed to capture the feelings and experiences and memories I had at the time as much as Cantaloop has! From the moment you start to read the tutorial you can tell that this is an absolute labour of love from everyone involved and that they probably spent just as many hours playing through as many games of this genre as I did. Well not quite as many I would wager. I’m a self confessed idiot when it comes to those sorts of games and as much as I loved them I spent a lot of my gameplay hours wandering aimlessly trying to combine every item with every other item. Seriously I’m shocked the game never just switched itself off and told me I wasn’t allowed to play it again. Tangent aside, every mechanism and nuance in this game has been designed to feel as close to those old games as possible and for me they’ve completely succeeded. In a couple of cases I think this analog version actually works better! There are so many of these awesome things that I want to tell you about because I think they brilliantly capture the feel of the old games, but I can’t because they could be potential spoilers. The humour is a touch more adult in Cantaloop. It tends to stick to the old school style of humour but now and again there are things in there that would push it above child friendly. The age on the back says 16+ and I’d say you could possibly go one or two years lower but maybe go through a bit and see what you think. At the very least you can use your foresight to look clever in front of the family! If you do play through with them! The day of the puzzle adventure book Up until now I’ll admit that it would appear that my love for this game comes purely from nostalgia. Admittedly a large part of it may well do. It’s hard to deny that if you love the old point and click adventure games then you will get more out of it than if you haven’t. So what would happen if we strip out all that nostalgia? Well you’ve still got a brilliant game on your hands. There is one system that I will talk about which for me is a stand out. That’s the Trigger system. No it’s not based on a well loved Only Fools and Horses character. It's something that I guess was always there in the old games but not visible since it’s essentially code. You’ll be given a grid of alphanumerics (A5, B9 etc) and at certain points you will be asked to mark them off. So for example after talking to a certain character you may be instructed to cross off E3 on that grid. Then when reading something else later on it could go one of two ways depending on what you have and haven’t crossed off. So for example it may be something along the lines of, “if you have crossed off E3 read this section, if not then carry on reading” This system alone is so clever. It stops you accidentally skipping ahead and potentially discovering something you shouldn’t too early. Usually you won’t get the code you need crossed off until you’ve picked up an item or combined something. Knowing that makes you even more eager to retrace your steps or try new combos of things. Also knowing that there is a code you need to find for a specific section may give you a nudge in the right direction. Yes it can be frustrating if you find yourself stuck and knowing that to advance the story you need to find code L5 (not a real code). You may even find yourself taking a leaf out of my book of aimless wandering (available in all good and evil book shops. Just wander around till you find it.) When you do solve it though that feeling is awesome and you get that excitement as you feel new avenues opening up to discover what’s next. This system is also put to good use as the marker for the hint system at the back of the book. You'll find no Monkeying around here! The puzzles themselves are fun. There are a couple of escape room style puzzles but for the most part they match the style of puzzles from the original games with some puzzles requiring out of the box thinking, or should that be out of the book? If you find yourself stuck you may end up finding yourself trying to combine things that you probably wouldn’t do in a normal puzzle game, like the Badger and the towel, but again, that’s the logic that the original games had. That could be something that may be frustrating to some but once you get into that mindset that any idea, regardless of how strange it may seem, could work then I think you’ll find yourself letting go and having fun with it. Because there’s no penalty system in the game you never feel like you can’t do something because it will lose you time or points. If anything you’ll do something just because you can and because it’s silly. The very worst that will happen is that you’ll get a sarcastic comment and maybe, just maybe something else. Sometimes your creativity, no matter how bizarre, is rewarded. Ever so slightly sad fandango. If there’s any negatives then it’s the fact that I can’t discuss this in more detail. Maybe when a few people have played it through we could make a Cantaloop book club and discuss spoilers! There were also a couple of puzzles that maybe needed a bigger leap in logic that needed hints but there were only a couple like that. The last thing is the age restrictions. I’m glad they didn’t have to hold back because it made for some fun puzzles, but at the same time it is a game I would have liked to experience with my kids. That’s not to say it’s leaving the collection, far from it. As soon as I think they’re old enough this will be hitting the table again. Cantaloop, mighty puzzler. One thing I’ve found myself loving in the recent puzzle games is the story. I love that there are more of these that are driven by a long form story. The shorter games like Unlock have stories but at around an hour you can’t always get too invested. With the likes of the 50 clues games, Coded Chronicles and now Cantaloop you get a fun story driven game that has a puzzle element. Now for me personally this story, puzzle combo is a format I prefer so much more than just the quick one hour games. There’s more to get invested in to make you want to come back for more or make you want to keep playing. Of all my four sessions of Cantaloop I had to force myself to stop playing. When you're stuck on a puzzle you want to keep going until you’ve solved it, but then when you do you want to keep going to see what’s next. This game is touted as lasting anywhere between 5-8 hours (don’t worry you can save it) and there are two others that continue the story each at about the same run time. That’s a lot of game, a lot of story and a lot of puzzles and mostly a lot of fun. For me Cantaloop is just as much about the story it’s telling, as it is the puzzles involved and it strikes a beautiful balance between them as well as capturing the nostalgia, mechanisms and quirks that made those original PC point and click adventures as loved as they were and still are. Whether you're steeped in that nostalgia or not I think Cantaloop offers a great game experience either way. It’s now February as I’m writing this and I’m calling it now that this and the other two books end up being my game/s of the year…….and I’ve only played book one!

Winterhaven Woods WBG Score: 8 Player Count 1-6 You’ll like this if you like: 7 Wonders Duel, Its a Wonderful World, Everdell Published by: Featherstone Games Designed by: Joel Bodkin Before I start this review, I need to declare something for full transparency. I absolutely adore Joel Bodkin, the designer of this game. He has a gentle, generous, and kind heart that endears him to me, and as such, I am conscious this review may be somewhat biased! However, I would argue that after playing any of Joel's games, (he also made Open Ocean) then you will fall in love with the guy too! And as such, any bias I have towards his games, you will also have after you play. Anyway, with that out the way, lets look at this stunning game, and I can start gushing even more! Winterhaven Woods is a drafting game, that incorporates set-collection, some minor take-that (if you desire) and some interesting scoring options. The minimalist art is echoed in the simple rules and set up, but certainly does not transfer to the strategy or enjoyment you will feel as you play this game. The game works best in a two to six player game, but also plays well in solo with some minor rule changes. Set-up. Collect all the required cards (clearly marked with an icon on the bottom right based on player count or top left based on type) and shuffle into a main draw deck. Deal out seven cards to each player. Give each player a 'Heart of the Woods' card, which they will place in front of them. You are now ready to play. I told you it was simple! Basic Rules. Each game of Winterhaven Woods lasts for three rounds, unless you play the longer two-player variant. In each round, players will carry out four phases. The game starts with a draft phase where you will pick your cards. This is then followed by a plant and populate phase where you will use your chosen cards with the tree symbol in the top left, followed by a steal phase which uses the cards with a star icon. The final part is a hunt phase which uses all cards with the paw symbol. After three rounds, players will tally their points, and the winner is declared. Points can be scored in a numbers of ways. The numbers of hedgehops in your meadow, a point for each creature in your woods. One point for each animal successfully hunted and any predator still alive (resting) that remains in your play area. And finally, from four bonuses that reward the size of your woods, the variety of things your predators hunted, the amount of deer in your play area, and the birds present in your trees. You will loose points based on the amount of steel cards you used, and in a solo game, rate your score against that of the predators. This will all make sense within a few minutes of playing the game, or reading on! Draft Phase. In the draft phase, players will look at their cards and choose one to keep and place face down in front of them. They will then pass all remaining cards on to the player to their left. This continues until all cards are drafted. Each player will begin the game with a 'Heart of the Woods' card which allows you to start populating your forest from the off, but you will want to build larger and extra places to safely house your critters as this will soon fill up. A forest cannot be populated until it has at least three trees, and then you can only place one animal per tree into each forest. You can also only have one type of animal in each forest, apart from the Rabbit, which can cohabitate with any other animal, as long as it is the only Rabbit. I presume to avoid over population and keeping this a family game! (Although you wait for the hunt phase... poor Deer!) Plant and Populate Phase. Once all cards are drafted, players can then simultaneously begin to plant more trees, and populate their woods with the cards they have kept. All cards with the tree symbol in the top left can be used at this point. The Deer need to be in pairs in order to be placed into a wood, and of course, only then if there are at least three trees to begin with, and one spare tree per animal you want to place. The Squirrels can populate in larger numbers of up to five. But remember to never place a Grey with a Red or visa-versa. We sadly all know what happens next here if this does occur. If you have any animals at this point that you cannot legally place into your woods, they must be placed into the area in the middle of the table known as the 'Meadow.' Each player has their own Meadow area, and this is an place where animals congregate when there is no home for them. Animals left here are vulnerable to predators, but this is a key way to score in the game. As cute as Bambi may me, them Bears gotta eat! The only animal that can avoid being hunted in the 'Meadow' is the Hedgehog. This animal can use its defenses to stay in this area all game, no matter who comes for their lunch, and will score you one point at the end of the game. Steal Phase. After all players have finished planting and populating, the Steal round begins. This employs all cards with a star in the top left of the card, and gives players the chance to take critters and trees from their opponents, but at a cost. Didn't our Mom teach you that stealing was bad? The Owl will swoop in and can take any critter from any woods. The stolen card can then be placed into the woods or meadow owned by the player who played the Owl card. The Fox can take an animal from any meadow and then rehouse into the players woods or own meadow. The Beaver is a useful card that allows players to steal a tree card from any woods and then place that card into their own woods. These cards are played in star number order, shown in the symbol on the top left. Lowest number first. The steal power is a useful one that can swing the games fortunes in your favour. However, beware! All steal cards played, are kept until final scoring, and will deduct points from your total based on the number played. If players do not want to play a steal card, they can simply discard the card and avoid any penalty. It's always your choice! You can of course choose to play without this round entirely simply by removing all steal cards from the game, but I would not recommend this. There is also a variant in the rules that states that when a player uses a steal card, the steal card they played is then given to the player from whom they stole from, who in turn score positive points for each steal card in their possession at the end of the game. I like this variant, and how it rewards the person who lost a card rather than punishes the player that played a card. It can feel annoying to loose a card. This variant changes that, whilst also removing the punishment for playing a steal card yourself. It's a simple switch that changes the feel of the game a lot, if that is your preference. Hunt Phase. The final stage of each round brings the Wolves and Bears to the table. The hunting round is an interesting way for players to score a lot more points in the game, but does bring more take-that elements to the table. However, if you play with the rule variant mentioned about, this affects the hunt phase too. Instead of hunting your opponents card, with this rule change, you can only hunt from animals in your own meadow. This is a nice amendment that I use most games. Not just to remove the feel of take-that, but also to increase the strategy needed in the game. Hunting animals in your opponents meadow relies on a little more on luck than your own. You can never be sure what will be left for you when this phase comes around. Whereas the planning to ensure you have the necessary amount of quarry required in your own meadow is somewhat more calculated. Any Deer not in a pair and safely hidden in the woods at this stage will be susceptible to attack. But perhaps you chose not to pair some for this very reason. Just remember you have to look the Deer in the eyes if you do this! The Bears hunt on their own and can take any animal in the the meadow they like, apart from the Hedgehog of course, way to prickly! At the end of the game, the Bears will score a point for each animal successfully eaten, plus a point for being alive themselves. There is also an additional three bonus points available if they ate at least three different types of critter. This can include Wolves too, if they also ate one of those cards. The Wolves hunt in packs. You can only hunt of they are in a group of at three cards, no more, no less. When in a pack, they become safe from the Bears attacks. You can form more than one pack if you wish and have the necessary cards. The Wolves hunt before the Bears thanks to their increased speed and based on the turn order shown on the top left of the card. As they get to go first,forming a new pack and hunting an opponents potential prey for their Bear can be a lot of fun! Leaving a Bear to go hungry may be dangerous in the wild, but actively encouraged in this game. Once the animals have successfully hunted, you must turn the card to the side to show they have been active this round and are now 'resting.' At the end of the round, before the drafting for the next round begins, you then must decide if that animal remains rested, or is hungry for more. If you decide to push-your-luck and keep hunting, you may be able to score a lot more points. But if no prey is available in later rounds, the risk is that this card is then lost, and all previously hunted critters become worthless. Hunting cards must have at least one successful hunt and be resting in order to score at the end of the game. Rule Variants. Winterhaven Woods has a few variants in the rule book. One suited to a more passive game as already discussed. There is also a longer version that has five rounds instead of three, possible only for a two-player game due to the amount of cards needed. I often use this variant as I find the game ends prematurely and I want to score more points. I like to have more chances to do this that the longer game brings. You can also randomise the end game bonus if you have the expansion pack, in a simple variant. At set-up, deal (or chose if you prefer,) three of the bonus cards from the expansion deck, and place them face up in the middle of the table. These then replace the usual bonus scoring options. This forms one of three changes offered in the expansion. I will cover the other two shortly. All the art on the expansion looks just as gorgeous, and the deck of cards it comes in fits nicely into the main box. The game also comes with some excellent player aids that help with set-up and simple rule clarifications. These echo the games simplistic art, functional design, and beautiful look. I use them most games despite not really needing them anymore, just because I like the way they look. The solo player aid works equally well and helps clarify the flow of the game. The solo game brings in one new card, the Cardinal. This card when drafted and populated, adds protection to other critters in this woods from the AI's Owls. The game works very similarly to the multi-player game, other than you have eight cards in the draft, and are looking to beat the AI's score. This score is based on the number of cards that are hunted or complete a successful hunt by the end of the game. It's essentially the hunters against you, the critters. I always like a score pad to be included with a game. Not only does it simplify the process. It adds some drama to the occasion. Going through each line, step by step, player by player. This brings some serious tension and laughter to the conclusion of the game. When I previewed the prototype for this game, I said that it felt like a peaceful walk in the woods. I stand by that statement dozens of plays later. Everything about this game, from the production and art to the rules and game play, feels intoxicating and relaxingSummer. Just check out the inside of the box. Completely unnecessary, probably added to the overall cost, but it adds some calm and joy where otherwise there would just be empty space. Expansion. The expansion brings in three elements. As well as the end game bonuses, there are Mother Nature and Winterhaven Legends cards that can be added very simply to the base game. The Legends cards, seen below, are dealt into the main deck at the start of the game. Only three can be added per game, I presume to stop the game becoming to complicated and random. But I think a variant with them all should have been included! When a Legends card is seen in a players hand during the draft phase, they must place it down in the middle of the table and immediately replace it with another card from the top of the deck. The Legend card is now active and applicable to all players. Each offers a small rule tweak that can affect the scoring and other animals abilities for the rest of the game. I particularly like the Jackalope, largely at Joel made a version called the Jimalope, which was ginger like me, and adorable! The Mother Nature cards are also very easy to incorporate into the game. At set-up, remove the Rabbits from the game and replace with two sets (five each) of Mother Nature cards. Or, for a more random experience, you could deal any 10. When these cards are drafted, they can be played into a players Meadow. They can then be utilised in later rounds to help you protect cards, score more points, attack another player, or manipulate your hand to your advantage. They look stunning and work well with the overall feel of the game. I see no reason why I will not integrate both of these parts of the expansion in every game. Summery. I adore this game. I love everything about the way it looks and plays. I enjoy the scoring options, and how each game feels fresh, no matter how much I play it. I enjoy the stages of the game and how it evolves your woods over time. The order of the steal and hunt round is very clever, as is the order of each card that is played that phase. It makes the draft round more exciting, knowing that not all Wolf and Bear card is created equally. This game works perfectly in a two. Like all take-that games, it takes away the sense of being picked on. You obviously cannot do this if there is only one choice. But the more gentle variant works well in a three and four if players do not enjoy take-that. The solo works well too, and I like the switch to the battle against the predators. But the sweet spot, like many drafting games, is with more players. Not only so more cards are seen and used, but the dynamic of more players, more woods, more critters, and more hunting works really well. Overall, the thing I like most about the game is the mood it puts me in. People often ask about which games relax me the most, and my mind is often taken to games like Azul or Everdell. But Winterhaven Woods is the one at the top of that list. In Winter, it makes me enjoy the crispy, cold mornings more. In summer, it makes me long for the snow to fall again. This game immerses you into its world with nothing more than a few cards. Made with a lot of love, talent, and care, Winterhaven Woods is one of my favorite set-collection card games in my possession, and one I will cherish forever.

Cuphead: A fast rolling dice game WBG Score: 6.5 Player Count: 1-4 You’ll like this if you like: Fuse, Pandemic Rapid Response, Flatline Published by: The Op Designed by: Patrick Marino By Steve Godfrey Games can be fun, tense, tactile, strategic, funny and thinky. But panic inducing? Well apparently that's what the makers of Cuphead felt the board game world needed more of! A Cup of Rules Cuphead is a real time dice game based on the popular Cuphead video game. To set up each player takes a character board, the dice of their colour and three HP tokens, trust me you’re going to need these!. Place the boss board in the middle of the table with the HP dial and then pick your boss deck from the 8 included in the game. You’ll want to start with one and work your way up. Take the cards out of the box but don’t shuffle them! Place the boss card on the table and set their health dial depending on player count. Take the cards until you see a card that says stop and now you can shuffle the ones you’ve just taken to form a draw deck. Now you just have to decide your time limit for either 10, 15 or 20 seconds! On a round draw three cards from the boss deck and play them face up. If you draw a wallop card then draw a forth card. Each card has either one or two symbols that the boss will attack with that turn unless you block them with the dice. When you're ready, start the timer and roll the dice as many times as you need to gather the symbols you need to block that attack and hopefully do some damage. As you frantically roll the dice to get these symbols there’s a few things to remember. You must complete a card before moving onto the next one. You can skip a card but you won’t be allowed to go back and complete any that you skipped. If a card has a single symbol on it you can (if you roll one) assign a shoot symbol in the second slot for that card to deal damage. If you do this with your black EX dice then you can deal two damage. After your sweat filled time is up you resolve the cards. One at a time seeing who blocked, who did damage and who took damage. If a player loses all their health then the game is over unless another player uses a parry token to revive them. You keep going like this until you have defeated all the bosses in the pack at which point you gain coins and can buy upgraded gear to take with you into the next boss deck. Simple?!! A big old mug of chaos I’ve not played the video game that this is based on but its reputation very much precedes it as being notoriously hard and fast paced. Since playing Cuphead: A fast rolling dice game I watched a couple of playthroughs and I can definitively say that this game absolutely captures that about the video game. Cuphead is chaotic fun at its most chaotic. Before each round starts there’s a literal calm before the storm, people limber up their rolling hands, take some deep breaths and even try and decide if they can utilise any training techniques from Mr Miyagi. Wax on, wax off can be best applied in this game, only sped up to eleven!. As you press start on the timer app the music kicks in and you become aware of about four different things going on around you. First your focus is on your dice and the outcome of each roll, what you can place on the board (if anything ) and if you can afford to spend a dice to shoot with or if you need all the dice you can for the next card. Next your brain is trying to interpret the symbols on the die faces. Some bosses in later decks have you substituting some symbols for others. Third you become aware of your team mates shouting “double feet, come on double feet, yes!!! right now jump and shoot, jump and shoot!” Lastly you hear the timer music getting ever faster as the time ticks down, aaaand stop! Now breathe a sigh of relief as you take stock of the last crazy 20 seconds and then see what the damage is amongst your team. We’ve had a lot of fun with this game and the more players the better in our opinion. The higher player count may give more chances of losing as people start to lose HP but it’s also just more of a laugh as you see people panicking to get that last roll in before the end. The elation of getting that last symbol on the last roll is awesome and if it doesn’t go your way then you can’t help but laugh. No matter how much it may go against your gamer instincts, Cuphead isn’t a game that I think should be taken too seriously when it comes to winning or losing purely because you may find yourself losing a lot! It’s easy to dismiss Cuphead as a game of pure luck……although it is largely. Getting a good first couple or rolls is always satisfying but not getting any of the symbols you want can be just as disheartening. Having unlimited re rolls is great and does mitigate the luck to a point and it’s then just down to how quick you can roll and assess your dice. Getting a wallop card helps as well, as do some of the special weapons and powers that you can acquire for completing the various decks. There is some strategy in the game, the ability to skip cards, whilst damaging may be your best bet if you find yourself rolling a lot of one symbol. Sometimes choosing to suffer one hit rather than risking taking more is the better option. Choosing to use a shoot die early to be guaranteed to do damage and limiting your die pool for the next cards or wait and hope for the best at the end is always an interesting choice. Whatever you choose you’d better make it quick because time is short……very short. If you’ve ever screamed at a quiz show because a contestant can’t do something in 30 seconds then try this game. After 20 seconds of this under pressure you’ll have all the sympathy for them. A Chalice of caveats The next few points I’m going to make may seem like I’m trying to dissuade from checking this game out. That’s not necessarily the intent behind them, I’m just trying to make sure that this game is the best fit for people. While it can be said that most games are not for everyone. Cuphead has a lot more things that may not be the right fit for everyone. Cuphead can be a difficult game and if you're the type of person who doesn’t like games that start on hard mode then Cuphead may not be the game for you. This can be especially true if your luck isn’t going your way on a particular night. I’d advise to watch some playthroughs on youtube and if you think it would have you packing it away after failing an early boss deck, never to play it again I would suggest that this isn’t the game for you. My advice would be to not take this too seriously, forget the grading system and just play to laugh and see how you get on. If you're not a fan of real time games then this definitely is not for you. If you played Pandemic Rapid Response and thought that was too much then this game is probably not for you. I’d imagine if you don’t like real time games then you probably stopped reading sometime during the rules summary. If you did stick around then, thanks for sticking around! If you're someone who doesn’t have the most dexterous hands then this could be a struggle. It’s not to say you can’t play it, you absolutely can but if you get some bad rolls then being able to reroll the dice quickly is a sure fire advantage and I worry that if you’re not able to do that then the game could feel frustrating. Lastly, whilst this is not a one and done style game there is a possibility that by the time you’ve finished all the boxes you’ve had your fill. That’s not really a knock on the game itself because it’s fully replayable and it may be fun now and then to pull out a random box and see how you go, but I know that once some people “finish” the game they may feel that they’re done with it. Cupehead does have a solo mode and that does feel easier. I’m not sure why that is, possibly because it’s easier to heal back up but it doesn’t feel as hard as the multiplayer so maybe playing solo may help with the sense of achievement and help you feel like you’re making progress though the decks. There’s also a fun timer app you can use, it’s not necessary, but it does make getting your grade a lot simpler (if you wish to play that way) and the music does add to the feel and the tension. For us we like to play this when we’ve got half an hour to spare at the end of the night. We pull out the next boss deck we’re on and play through it. For us that’s the perfect way to play the game. Cuphead is some crazy fun that we can pull out at the end of a night, especially after a heavy game and just have a laugh with and not take it too seriously. It’s frantic, quick to set up, quick to play and weirdly enough it’s something to wind down at the end of the night.

Abstract Academy WBG Score: 7.5/10 Player Count 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Azul, The Isle of Cats, Calico. Published by: Crafty Games Designed by: Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich I love abstract games. The puzzle they create. The beauty they often have. The quiet satisfaction when you do well at them. Some abstract games try and manufacture a needless theme around the mechanics. Others proudly run devoid of any theme. From the designers of Dollars to Donuts, Point Salad, and Verdant, Abstract Academy sits somewhere in the middle, but how does it play? Set-up Set-up for Abstract Academy is simple. Each player is dealt three canvas cards and given one challenge inspiration card. For the first round, one red, blue, and yellow assignment card is then flipped over to reveal the ways to score points for this phase. And that's it. You are ready to go! Players will then take it in turns to place one of their three canvas cards into the central shared playing area, before drawing back up to three cards. As more canvas cards are placed a grid will start to form, with the maximum height and width being four cards. Once a 4x4 grid is created, the round is over and each player will assess their performance against their own private inspiration card and the public assignment cards. Players are looking to place their canvas cards down to form groups of colours based on the scoring options available for that particular round. Players will only score for the two rows closest to them. As more canvas cards are placed, the rows can build out in any direction until a four sided row or column is formed. So, it might be that you place a card down with the expectation that it will end in your half and score for you, but as later canvas cards are placed behind, this could mean that this is not the case. Players are never allowed to place cards in the row furthest from them, once this has been formed, unless it is their only remaining option. The evolution of the grid forming in front of the two players is a unique and interesting part of the puzzle. Your choice is not just about what to place and where to place, but also about how you can manipulate the board to end up being set up as you wish come the end of the round. Do you place bad cards at the start to try and then build back from that point so that these end up in your opponents scoring zone? Or do you react to the other players plans and try and disrupt what they are doing and build from it to suit you? There are many ways to play this. In the second round, professor cards are used instead of the assignment cards. And then in the third and final round a mixture of the two are brought in. The assignment cards are all focused around the particular colour deck they are from. Largest red area. fewest blues etc. The professor cards offer slightly more complex challenges such as trying to have the fewest amount of colour areas on your side. As in, you need to group the colours together as best you can. Your private inspiration card will challenge you to create a Tetris style polyomino shape. You will get a new inspiration card each round which offers a nice supplementary mini private quest for you to focus on. Sometimes, you can complete these tasks naturally without much thought. Other times when they contradict the other professor or colour assignment cards for that round, they can be a little more tricky or even an avoidable nuisance. All the professor and assignment cards are scored with an all or nothing mechanic. One player will take the points if they have the most, fewest or longest of that colour, the other player will get nothing. You are rarely fully in control of winning these cards and getting the available points. Whereas you can guarantee the points from the inspiration cards if you want to focus on them. Playing Abstract Academy feels light but challenging. Laying a card, picking up another card. Choosing from one of three. The rules are simple and rounds and games can fly by. But there are so many nuances to every move. Games can quickly slip away from you if you are not careful. But the overall play time can be as low as 15 minutes with two players who are used to the game so you can always shuffle up and go again. As the scoring cards are win or loose, if you miss out on a few cards by a small margin, it can look like a big loss when the points are tallied up when in fact the game was very close, but hopefully it wont take long to get your revenge! Abstract Academy is a beautiful looking game. The art is very simple on the canvas cards but it looks stunning. And when the grid is finished, I defy you not to stare at your combined creation, at least for a moment, and see what you made. I always see British farm fields from the perspective of a plane, high above. With rivers and ponds scattered about. What do you see? I would recommend Abstract Academy to anyone looking for a quick two-player duel card laying game, who enjoys abstract games that relay on a visual puzzle. This game is certainly not going to suit everyone's playing tastes, but those of us who like these sorts of games I think are going to love it! You can find out more here and grab a copy of the game with a free promo if you order direct from the publisher.

Mountains out of Molehills WBG Score: 7.5 Player Count 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Colt Express, Tiny Epic Mechs, Bunny Kingdom. Published by: The Op Designed by: Jim DiCamillo, Patrick Marino With special guest contribution by Ameristrashtalk at the end. Mountains out of Molehills is an intriguing game. On looks alone, this game screamed out to me. Begging to be played. It certainly does have a unique table presence and I am sure that it bring in the crowds when set up. But how does it play? The Mechanisms. Mountains out of Molehills is an area control game at it's core. But the game is driven by a programmed movement mechanic which I love. If you have played Colt Express or Tiny Epic Mechs you will be familiar with this idea. Players will chose a group of cards to play in a specific order, making a plan for how they will move around the board. In isolation, this is a very easy process. Move forward one, turn right, before moving forward another two spaces. A perfect turn! However, it very rarely turns out like this because this does not work in isolation, there are other moles at the table! Players will flip cards in turn, one card at a time. After your first turn, perhaps you have moved forward, your opponent may have then placed a rock to your right, so then after you turn, your path is now blocked. This is what I love about programmable movement. You need to try and guess what your opponent will do, and how you think they may try and interfere with your actions. And of course, players often inadvertently block or affect the other players actions too. There is some luck involved here, some turns can be a little frustrating. But if you can embrace the chaos and enjoy the outcomes, be they in your favour or not, this game could be for you. Set-Up. To set up the game, the first job is to make the board. I love games that make use of the box, and this game certainly does that! Inside the four corners of the box, you need to place the four pillars. They slot in nicely. You can watch a video of this simple process here. Once this is done, each player will place their Mole into one of the four corners of the bottom board and a molehill in the space directly above this. The boards are double sided to suit different player counts, providing more space for more players to avoid too much carnage, whilst keeping it tight in a two or three player game. How to play. When this is done, lay out cards face up on the table ready for the draft phase. Players will then take a card in turns until all players have four in their hand. Each player will then order their four cards in the hope they can run through the action phase in a smooth manner. Once this is done, each player will place their cards on the table face down and put their order token on top to show they are ready to play. Then, depending on the turn order, players will reveal each card they selected one by one, taking the appropriate action. You are generally moving forward, turning to the right tor left, taking a u-turn, moving the rock, or popping up to the surface for a look above ground causing a 'topple'. All the cards are self explanatory, and like everything in this game, it all feels very intuitive. When ever a mole moves, a molehill must be placed directly above them in the new space they have moved to. If they move more than one space multiple molehills are placed and a trail is created. As more and more molehills are left behind, towers are formed. Each round, the maximum height of these towers is increased. It starts at two and rises to five in the later rounds. If ever a molehill is created that is higher than that rounds maximum, the tower will topple over. Each molehill piece will fall in the same direction away from the original spot, one piece at a time, moving one space further away for each molehill piece that fell. The direction they fall is up to you. This creates a chaotic board that is hard to predict, and this is crucial to the way you score in this game. At the end of each action round in the game, the scoring phase takes place. Each player will score points for each molehill they control. A player controls a molehill if the bottom piece is their colour. As players move through the board and add extra pieces to existing molehills, their piece will become the new bottom space. The molehill builds from the bottom up. Your goal in the action phase is to create more molehills, and take control of any existing ones that are not yours. Players score one point for each piece in every tower they control. Each round, all molehills remain in place, so the amount of molehills and the height of each one gets increasingly bigger. In turn, the amount of points available each round significantly increases. I like games that employ this scoring mechanic. It is the perfect natural catch-up mechanism. If a player takes an early lead in the first few rounds, the amount of points available in the later rounds means it is easy to catch up. And as ownership of each molehill is so fragile and constantly changing, there is often a swing in leadership throughout the six rounds. Another clever catch up mechanic in this game is that at the end of each round, the player with the most amount of pieces on the top of each molehill, as in the player who probably just scored the least amount of points, gets to chose the turn order first for the next round. Taking the first player token means you can take the first pick of the cards available in the next draft and importantly, will have the initiative in the movement and action phase. Taking the best card available, especially when there are only a few turn cards for example, can be a big advantage. And of course, in a programmable movement game, taking the first action offers considerable assistance. Being able to do something before anyone else does gives you a much higher percentage chance of actually being able to do what you want to do! Control or Chaos? Playing Mountains out of Molehills brings a mixture of emotions. I constantly feel somewhere on either end of the control/chaos spectrum. Often moving from one extreme to the other within a matter of minutes. I like this. I enjoy the random elements of programmable movements, because when things go well and according to your plans, it feels great. When things don't quite play out in reality as they did in your head, it can be frustrating. But If you can accept this will happen, and understand that each time it happens to you it will most probably happen to the other players too, you will experience a lot of laughter in this game. On one occasion, due to a constantly moving rock, I was bouncing around off the corner of the board over and over for two full rounds. I was unable to lay any new molehills, and my scoring was terrible for those rounds. I was unable to catch up and lost this game by a long way. But the entire process created huge laughter all round the table. If this sounds like it would make your friends and family giggle too, this game could be for you. If it sounds like it may frustrate you due to the lack of control, then perhaps you need to think about how you have felt playing programmable movement games before. If you have not played any, then maybe try this one just to see how it works for you. If you didn't enjoy the ones you have tried, I guarantee you will at least enjoy the set up of this! Building the board is fun enough for anyone. But don't just take my word for it, check out what May from Ameritrashtalk has to say about this great game. Mountains Out of Molehills is a delightful take on an abstract game. First, it has a wonderful production that provides a satisfying tactile experience from the acrylic mole standees to the little molehills themselves. In addition, the use of programming your movements and revealing at the same time as the other players adds some fun chaos to the game. Foiling the perfect plan, with a well placed rock, is such a treat and gives you laugh out loud moments. The game feels fresh with its two layer board; and the idea of toppling. The perfect strategic topple to score max points is amazing and gives the players a sense of accomplishment. I personally had so much fun with this game. My only concern would be the wear and tear on the board as you press the molehills down, however, I think with good care that may not be an issue at all. This was such a pleasant surprise, and quite a unique game in our collection.

The Court of Miracles WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-5 You’ll like this if you like: A War of Whispers, Blood Rage, Root. Published by: Lucky Duck Games Designed by: Vincent Brugeas, Guilhem Gautrand By Steve Godfrey Courts aren’t the nicest of places to be in and having looked into the real court of miracles that seemed like no exception. This game from Lucky Duck however IS the exception and is probably the most fun court you will ever find yourself in. The court of rules. Give everyone a plot card, some money, their three starting Rogue tokens, a guild and their 6 renown tokens. When giving out the guilds always hand me the Narquois guild (the one with the dog tokens). It's not in the rule book but I have sent a letter to lucky duck to get that added. On your turn you add one of your rogue tokens into one of the three spaces on one of the neighbourhoods on the board. There's only three different actions and they repeat in all the neighbourhoods but sometimes in different quantities. Their actions are either, collect coins, take cards or move the penniless king. This is a token that moves round the board and may trigger standoffs. When you place your rogue token you take the action of that space. You may then take the action of the neighbourhood that space is in. These actions are either collect coins, collect cards, swap one of your rogue tokens with a blind draw from the bag, or move one of your rogue tokens to a different spot on the board. The last one is to pay the toll and put one of your renown tokens in the Renown square. Renown tokens placed here are there permanently. The game will end in one of two ways. When a player places their last renown token on the board or when the penniless king makes it to the final space, in which case the person with the most renown tokens on the board wins. Aside from the renown square you can put renown tokens on the board from standoffs. A standoff will start when either all three spaces of a neighbourhood are full or if the penniless king token gets to certain spaces on the board. When they resolve each player with a rogue token there reveals the strength number on the underside and the player with the most strength wins and takes control of the neighbourhood with one of their tokens. The court of time management I was going over my top ten games not long ago and realised there were five games in it that used area control, so it seems to be a popular mechanism for me. But they’re not always that easy to get to the table. For the most part they’re not exactly quick games and so they often need to be the main event of the night. That was the case until I played A War of Whispers which is an area control game that plays in about an hour and can easily be played before or after the big game of the night. Well it turns out the folks over at Lucky Duck had heard about this, rolled up their feathers and said you think that’s a quackers (sorry) playtime? Well we have one that plays in 40 minutes, so obviously, I had to check it out. Just because this plays in such a quick time though it doesn’t mean that it’s lacking in any decision space. If anything the decisions are even more tense and tight because of how quick it plays out. In a longer area control game, having control of an area taken from you is annoying but you usually have the luxury of time to regroup and plot your devious revenge. In the court of miracles you need to have plans to retake control in place by your next turn. It’s not necessary of course, you could easily turn your attention to somewhere else, but since you only need six tokens down to win, It makes every renown token that you lose all the more important. The flip side of this is that your opponent could now be one clever turn away from winning the game. All you can do at that point is to hope that you can get another turn to hopefully knock them from the board, or, as much as you don’t want it to happen, have an opponent do it for you. You soon come to realise that a seemingly simple action as putting down a rogue token and where you put it isn’t necessarily about you getting your own renown token down. It's just as likely you're putting it in a certain spot just to get a certain player kicked out of it just because they’re close to the win. To some that may sound a bit counterproductive but honestly this is where some of the fun puzzles and interaction kicks in. There’s been a few turns during my plays where I’ve kicked off a standoff in a neighbourhood just so another player could take control and stop the current owner from winning the game. The court of miracles is essentially a tug of war game. This is true of all area control games of course but you can definitely feel the push and pull of this one more due to the playtime and how quickly control can be won or lost. Things get even tighter as the game goes on. As players start to place down permanent renown tokens in the square, the amount of neighbourhoods someone needs to control to win gets smaller and smaller, so the game becomes just as much about keeping your opponents under control than it is about you going straight for the win. As the game goes on the tug of war gets even more tight and even more tense. You may be on the cusp of winning, but then so may your opponents and you’re just sitting there hoping that no one sees your path to victory and that you can just get one more turn to take the game. The court of swift justice. Something else that I find this game does because it’s so quick, is soften the blow of that sometimes disliked take that mechanic. You see, on one player's turn you could lose control of a neighbourhood. But a cleverly planned turn and you can have control of it, or a different one by the end of yours. Renown markers and turns are flying about so quickly that you don’t seem to have time to feel bad that you’ve just been put back a step. Throw into the mix the new rogue tokens you can get, some with their own special abilities and the plot cards and you can create some fun clever combos on your turn. Being able to go from having a token taken off the board, to making a brilliantly clever turn where it’s possible to put down more than one renown token is such a great feeling and definitely makes up for the bad feeling you might get from the take that element in the game. The court of components. I love the components in this game. The slightly hollowed out rogue tokens to put your guild tokens in are awesome and really tactile. You'll be guaranteed to hear everyone clacking them together during the game, much like the poker chips in Splendor. It’s the board that is going to be the main draw here though. I’m a bit of a sucker for a differently shaped board and this one is no exception. I don’t know if it’s just me though but I do get some Millennium Falcon vibes from it, apologies if you can’t unsee that now. Because of the way the board is though with the sticky outy bits, it can be prone to a few knocks and dents, especially if the box gets thrown about in the car or if you store it vertically. It doesn’t bother me so much personally and I will say that this will never affect the game play, but I know that this is something that could bother some people. I hope that this doesn’t put many people off because this game is really worth your time. The Court of Summaries I really think that The Court of Miracles is one of those hidden gems of a game and certainly needs more love. It gives players a brilliantly thematic and thinky area control game in a relatively short time frame and it’s so quick and simple to grasp at that.

Western Legends WBG Score:8.5 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Xia: Legends of a drift system, Firefly The Game, Merchants and Marauders. Published by: Kolossal Games Designed by: Hervé Lemaître By Steve Godfrey I like sandboxes, in fact, aside from some moody teenager called Anakin, who doesn’t like them? they’re a lot of fun and unless you leave the lid off them overnight and let the rain and the neighbours cat get at them then they can provide countless hours of fun and options. Unfortunately my kids wouldn’t let me play in theirs when they were younger but thankfully Herve Lemaitre has created a sandbox that us adults can play in, and it’s arguably more fun! So you wanna be a cowboy? In Western Legends players will be competing to be the most legendary player. Whether or not that title extends to real life rather than just the game is entirely down to you. Players will pick a character and a mini to represent their player and take their starting items. All other unused minis will be used as the sheriff and the bandits. On a player's turn they have three actions to perform and it’s here that I’m going to give the vaguest of vague rules summaries just because there’s so much to do here. First you have a choice of taking two poker cards, $20 or a combination of one card and $10. Then you can take your three actions. You have a choice of moving three spaces, taking a work action which will net you $10, playing a card with an action on it or performing an action on one of the action spaces. Just on the action spaces alone you have a load of options which I’ll just list. Mining, buying goods at a trading post that include new mounts, weapons and provisions, playing poker, healing at the doctors, entertaining yourself at the Cabaret, wrangling or rustling cattle and depositing gold nuggets at the bank or even robbing it. Throw in the fact that you can, duel, rob or even arrest opposing players gives you a ranch full of options. Just in case you think there’s not enough choices you then have one more choice. Do you become a Marshall or an Outlaw? Certain actions will give you a marshall or a wanted point and you will move you up on the respective track. But you can only move up on one of these. The wanted track will only give you rewards on every other space but will give you victory points at the end of your turn, the number being dependent on where you are on the track. The Marshall track will give you rewards on every space, even victory points but it will also give you VPs at the end of the game depending on where you are on the track. Don’t fret too much about which track to climb up as it’s possible to switch tracks. To switch from the Marshall to the wanted track just do something naughty. To switch the other way you first need to get yourself arrested, you lose a lot of your stuff but it does take that target off your back. I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride! I want to start with the big question. The question that everyone always asks at the start of this game, whether you're new to the game or you’ve got loads of plays under your gun belt. “What do I do first?” Western Legends gives you so many choices that picking a starting path is just as daunting as learning the game itself. There are two ways to answer that question. One, throw in the goals variant. They are easy to add in and give players a little bit of a direction to start for. Second, choose your track. Half the fun of this game is deciding if you want to be a goody two shoes Marshall or if you want to be an outlaw. Both have their pros and cons which I’ll get to but they both also give you some guidance on how you maybe want to play the game. If you decide to be a Marshall for example then robbing the bank probably isn’t the best move (although it is arguably the most fun) The answer you’ll most likely get from the game though is “what do YOU want to do? Even though it’s a big decision, once you do get into the flow and carve out a path for yourself it’s fantastic and I find the idea that a game can give you that many paths to victory and that freedom is fascinating. One of my favourite things in games is multi use cards and all the tough and interesting choices they give you. Western Legends has this in spades….and hearts, clubs and diamonds as well. I’m pretty sure Western Legends has the most multi use cards that I’ve seen in a game and they are all encompassed in a standard 52 card deck. You can use them in fights (high card wins), as regular cards for poker, for the actions, and for their reactions. Deciding whether or not to keep your high cards for its action or if it’s going to be more beneficial in a fight or poker is always a tricky decision. Especially when you realise that everyone else will see you play that Ace and now they know that you’re probably easier pickings in a fight. It’s such a simple way to get so much gameplay out of what, by modern gaming standards anyway, can be a small deck of cards. If that isn’t enough then there’s always the chance to get that Uber turn. Some of the cards give you extra actions and movement. If you manage to get a few of these in hand then you can string them together to create a big turn and that feels great. Ride cowboy ride Where this game shines though is how well that entire sandbox of options knits together so well with the theme. It manages to incorporate most of the things you associate with the Wild West and pour them all into one game, much like sand in a sandbox. None of it ever feels forced or too overblown though (unlike the previous metaphor) The theme runs through everything you do, just look at the list of things you can do to see proof of that. But it’s the extra touches. The story cards that players can complete each have their own unique flavour text on them that just screams to be read out with a cowboy drawl (points should be deducted if you don’t). Each of the characters are based on real people and their special abilities are themed towards each of them. Even with the vast amount of choices in the game you don’t need to do all of it to win. Don’t fancy mining for gold? then don’t do it. Do you like the idea of hanging around town playing poker and going shopping? Then fill your cowboy boots. Unlike a lot of games, not doing the things you don’t like won’t lose you the game. Equally, doing more of the things you love will still keep you in the running. Western Legends let’s you make your own fun but never to the detriment of being competitive. Let’s talk about tracks. I mentioned the theme earlier and one of the things that helps bring that theme to life is the Marshall and the Wanted tracks. I’ve already said why I think these are a great way to help decide a path but they’re also a great way to bring some character to the game. The minute you start up on one of those tracks you can’t help but take on an air of a character. No doubt outlaws will turn to any Marshall’s and start taunting them to come and arrest them. In fact one of my favourite things to do as an outlaw is mine for gold nuggets, deposit them into the bank then immediately rob it. There's nothing like robbing a bank whilst waving at the sheriff in the office nearby whilst you're doing it. Being as though the bank is right near the sheriffs office though you’d best be prepared to make a run for it. If you want to get into character then Western Legends gives you everything you need. Going out in a blaze of glory I really like how this game scales. I’ve not played it at two but at the other player counts it works well. However the game can change depending on that count. At the lower counts there tends to be less interaction on the board and unless anyone starts rocketing you the wanted track, people tend to leave each other to their own devices. As the player count creeps up then the beautiful chaos ensues. There can be more of a mix of people on the separate tracks and with all the more people on the board you may find yourself next to a Marshall/Outlaw a lot more frequently and because you don’t have to go out of your way and upset your plans to chase a player down, there tends to me more attempts at arrests and it injects more tension into the game, specially if your an outlaw trying to avoid the marshalls. With those higher player counts though it can bring with it a touch of down time. If the players before you get into some fights or some poker games that you're not able to be a part of then you can find yourself twiddling your six shooter. Luckily it’s not every round that happens but like with most games, more players can come with more down time. Another thing with the larger player counts is that anyone on the wanted track will have a massive target painted on their back and I usually find it best to let new players know this just as a friendly warning. If they still choose that path then they’re fair game for any posse. Yoohoo, I'll make you famous! Now I know that this open world style of game won’t appeal to everyone. For some there may be just too much choice, but if this sounds like something that appeals to you, then Western Legends will give you such a fun thematic experience, a ton of interaction with your friends, some brilliant decisions and will make you want to saddle up your horse and ditch your car for the ride home. Western Legends. Best played to any cowboy based Bon Jovi song.

Switch & Signal WBG Score: 8 Player Count 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, The Crew. Published by: KOSMOS Designed by: David Thompson This game has a lot of very interesting debating points. Switch & Signal is a re-print of a web-published game from designer David Thompson back in 2014. It's about trains, which always catches a lot of peoples eye! But it uses the polarizing mechanism of pick-up-and-deliver with a dice powered roll-and-move. It's a little like a cooperative Ticket to Ride fused a reverse Pandemic. Let's look at how it plays. Switch & Signal is a co-operative game that includes trains. For some, that will be enough! It i is pitched at the family/gateway level, offering an attractive, simple, but rewarding game experience for any type of board game enthusiast. The game plays in under an hour, offers a lot of tension and fun choices. There really is a lot going for this game. But there are some who seem turned off, simply by the use of dice controlling movement. A lot of people really do not enjoy this mechanic. Comments like this are common, "I like the idea of a co-op train game. But roll-to-move? I think I'll pass." Check some more out yourself here. But if you can move past this issue, then what lies within this box, could surprise and delight you in ways you had originally hoped when you first cast your eyes on the box art and before you saw one mechanism. There is a train careering around the bend, sparks are flying off the rails, smoke is bellowing from the engine. Can you control the train and win the game? Well, great news! There are nine trains, not just one! You will be controlling them with more than just dice. And the strategy in this game is actually quite deep. OK. I don't disagree with people who are put off by dice rolling pick-up-and-deliver games. It can be somewhat mundane, luck based, and lacking in strategy. I get that totally. I think the "roll-to-move" mechanic was destroyed for a lot of us by a number of lazy games in the 1980's that employed this mechanism, and not a lot more. But there are a few fundamental reasons why this is not a problem for Switch & Signal. First up, you are not rolling to move yourself. And second, you are not doing this on a board with a start and finish. When both these factors are present in a game, the strategy can be somewhat lacking and dry. It's a race, with no real control for you. Roll mroe sixes and win. But this is far from the case with Switch & Signal. The trains you are moving are not owned by you. This is a co-op game after all. Each moment, like all choices throughout the game, are discussed and decided by all players. And the movement is not about racing from the start to the finish, more trying to move cargo from various cities to the harbor spaces, with a lot of twists and turns. Lets get into the set-up and rules, it will all make sense soon I promise! Set-Up. First, you need to choose which side of the board you want to play on. Don;t you just love a double sided board?! The rules suggest that you use the European side for your first game, but after you have learnt that, there is the option to play on the USA side too. The main difference is on the USA side, there are two Harbors, one on the east side, the other on the west side. whereas Europe has just the one in the south. There are also different "helper" powers in American when compared to Europe. We will cover this later. Once you have made your choice, set up the green signal discs and black switch discs as per the rule book. In later games you can place these however you like. You can even change the amount you use to affect the difficulty of the game. The only rule you have to follow when placing them is that you must have one switch on a three-way junction, two switches on a four-way junction, and at least one signal disc must be present on each city. Other than that, go crazy! In an organised and tidy way though, please. Once this is done, place the time tokens on the clock, again these can be adjusted based on the difficulty of the game. Then place the nine trains in the depot spaces on the board, lay the dice close to the board, and finally place the three cover tokens next to the helper spaces (the three images of people on the top left of Europe and top right for USA). They are used when the helpers powers have been enacted so that you don't mistakenly use them again. Finally, shuffle the departure cards, remove two at random and place the rest on the clock card space. Then shuffle the action deck, deal five cards to each player and lay the rest on the wheel card space on the board. You are now ready to play. All aboard! How To Play. On your turn, you will first reveal the top departure card and carry out all the instructions, then play as many action cards as you like, before finally drawing five new action cards. As this is a cooperative game, all players are involved for all turns. But if there is any disagreement, then the active player can make the final decision. Or, just let the bossiest person take charge for the whole game, which allows the other players to make passive aggressive comments about their failings if you don;t win the game. Fun either way! The departure cards will tell you to either add a new train to the board, or move all trains of a certain colour. When you add a train, you must roll the two regular dice to determine the trains starting place on the board. This introduces the first, somewhat misunderstood issue for this game. Like Catan, people suggest that in this game, due to the nature of rolling two dice, the most common outcomes are the middle numbers, and this increases the chances of the trains being placed in certain spots over others, which ruins the game. The probability of rolling a seven with two six sided dice is higher than any other outcome. So the facts are there, and this bothers some people with its use in this game. The game has a clever variant you can use if this is a problem for you using the eleven location tokens. These are numbered tokens you can use to decide where the trains appear instead of the printed numbers on the board. The rules say to place them randomly on each location space to determine the number for each city when the dice are rolled. This of course changes the affects, game to game, of trains more commonly being placed on the six, seven, and eight spots. Or, you can leave the dice in the box and each time a new train is set to be placed on the board, simply take one of the face down tokens. Once a token is used, that's it, it is out of the game. So no spot will ever be used twice. Although, after the locations tokens are used for the first three trains, they are flipped back over and shuffled up again, so you could place on the three used here again. When you use this method, ,this of course means that each number has the same opportunity of showing up, and other than for the first three trains, that no number can be used twice. Once the trains have been placed on the board, if you ever need to place another train onto the same spot, if the first train has not moved yet, then you will lose two time tokens. This obviously does not happen with the second variant where each location token is only used once. As long as you move your first three trains, you won't ever be punished for this. I do see the issue with two dice being used for something like this, but the higher probability of the middle numbers showing up adds to the game. It is not a problem that this could happen. It is part of the strategy. If you roll a seven and place a Train on the seven spot then you know you need to get that train moving as soon as possible. Where as a train on position two has, at least statistically speaking, potentially more time before its a problem. The board has also placed the six, seven, and eight spots in locations that work for more common use. The other action shown on the departure cards is moving the trains. Depending on the colour shown on the card, you will roll the appropriate dice and move the train the required amount of spaces, counting one track symbol for each space. If the card shows a multicolored train symbol, you can decide which colour to pick. Each train has its own coloured dice. The black train has one two, two threes, two fours, and one five face on it and as such is the fastest moving train in the game. The brown runs one to four with two twos and two threes. The grey moves the slowest, with options of one to three with three ones. When choosing which train to place and move, you will often favor the black train over anything else, but there are only three trains of each colour. If you ever need to place a train of a specific colour and don't have that train available in the depot then you lose time tokens. A balance of each train being used efficiently needs to be found. The Games Goal. The time tokens serve as your punishment throughout the game. If you ever cannot do something you need to such as place a train of a specific colour, or use all your movement points, or when a train crashes into another, or moves back into a starting city location, the time tokens are taken away. If you run out of time tokens you will lose one of your departure cards. The departure cards act as the games timer. When these cards are used up, the game is over. You will need as much time as possible to complete the goal of the game which is to pick up the cargo from the various cities across the board and deliver them to the harbor spaces. If you manage this before the departure cards run out, you will win the game. Once you have carried out all the actions on the departure card, you will then be able to carry out as many actions as you you have cards in your hand. You start with five and draw five at the end of each round, but players do not have to use any cards if they wish. You can never have more then ten cards in your hand, but storing up cards for more effective later turns is an effective way to increase your chances of winning this game. Every turn is crucial and wasting turns just for the sake of it will not help. You need to be prudent and use your action cards wisely based on the situation in the game and the cards in your hands. There are three different types of cards, but five different actions. One card allows you to move one green signal token from anywhere on the board to anywhere else. You must always have at least one remaining signal token in every city. Moving these signals allows you to create clear routes for your trains to move. In the picture below you can see a grey train that is only one space from the harbor, it has a red signal ahead and therefore, cannot currently move. Another card action is to move a train. Once the card is played, you can roll the appropriate dice and move the train the number shown on the die face. You have to use all your movement, and lose time tokens if you can't, so you need to prepare your route first. The only time you don't have to use all your movement is when you are moving into a city of harbor. The last card action allows you to move the black points tokens around at a junction. They cannot be moved from one station space of the board to another, but they can be shifted around the spaces they are located at, creating head on movement where there was once a turn, or an east to west path where there was once a north to south, or visa-versa. Cards can also be discarded to pick up cargo at a city, or any two cards can be discarded to carry out any of the three main actions. This is a prime example or how sometimes it may be better to hold onto cards than to play them. Sometimes if it crucial to do something immediately, and discarding two cards to do that thing may be your only choice. In a race game against the clock, you cannot afford to waste turns too often, and using two cards to do something your team mate could do next with one card should be avoided. Discussion and forward planning is key. A Tense Strategy. Playing Switch & Signal is a tense affair. Like many cooperative games that run on a timed mechanic like this, you will feel under pressure throughout the entire game to make the most efficient decisions. After three games, I had come close each time, but still not won. I learnt that every decision matters, and there are some inefficiencies you will fall for if you become distracted in your main goal. It wasn't until game eight that I felt a little more comfortable in the decision making process and started to win more often than not on the basic settings. But even then, I am of course, never making these decisions alone, and other player(s) would regularly have different and often better ideas that I had. I learnt that moving the trains as often as possible and not using two cards as a wild too often is key. Wasting cards on inefficient or unnecessary switch or signal changes is obviously damaging. So the key is to forward plan. Avoid losing time tokens, by never leaving a train on a starting space, or without their maximum potential movement points free ahead of them is obviously important. Losing too many tokens and then subsequently a departure card can be game changing. As I progressed in my understanding of this games required strategy, I started adjust the games' set-up more and more. This can be done very easily. Adding or removing signals, switches, time tokens and departure cards is incredibly simple, has zero impact on the rules, minimal impact on the game length, but directly affects the difficulty. You can tailor it perfectly to the players around the table and their experience with this game. One area I have failed to master yet is the helpers. This is what they look like in central Europe. Each one offers a one-time-use power that can be crucial for winning the game. But timing is everything, and this is hard! The first character on the left offers you a re-roll. One single re-roll in the entire game, with no way to get more. If you have one one of something, you have to use this at a significant time. What I have found to be most damaging, which is contrary to my early thinking, is that is more helpful to use a re-roll that avoids me having to take another turn to complete something, rather than a re-roll that avoids me losing a time token. Rolling a one when I am two spaces from a harbor for example instead of when I need to move a train more than I can. Not only do you have to waste another action to complete this trains route, which is more important to avoid that time tokens being lost. But also, if you roll one short of a harbor, but it could be that now you don't have any trains of that type in the depot. Once a train has delivered to a harbor is it returned to the depot, and not having a train there when required not only means you lose time tokens, but you will have less trains on the map in an active location. Pulling up one short of a harbor is the perfect time to use a re-roll, but interestingly, this may not happen to you at all in the game, or indeed until the later stages when the re-roll may not be as helpful. Or, on the re-roll, you may still roll a one and pull up short. This chance part of the game can turn some off. And I understand that. It can be frustrating, but luck based games can be fun, and this game certainly is fun! The second helper will allow you to move through a city without stopping if the signals are clear. Helpful in some situations but does require a lot of planing and a long roll. The third helper allows you to keep a train in its current position when otherwise it would have been required to move due to the departure cards. This power I have found to be a little less helpful and important in terms of when you use it. But has helped reduce the amount of time tokens I got, sometimes at crucial times. It's just that the time tokens running out has become less critical for me as I found other ways to increase my efficiencies. I worry less now about losing them, and think more now about how I can sometimes 'spend' them when required. The helpers in the US allow you to ignore a departure card and place it to the bottom of the pile, chose the starting location of a train yourself, or keep a train in its current position when otherwise it would have moved. I am unsure why these differences are unique to each side of the board. It would have made more sense to me if these were six cards you shuffle and then draw three from each game, irrespective of the board you are using. Overall, I have really enjoyed playing this game. I love the tension it creates. Wining feels truly special. But losing just lays out a challenge to try and get better, as frustrating as a close loss can be. The game is rewarding win or lose in the excitement and satisfaction it brings to the table. And I, like many, will always enjoy chugging little trains along a board. The double sided board brings some nice variety, and although you are moving to either one or two harbors, the game feels very similar on both sides. It's nice to have the choice, and I hate it when a board isn't used this way. Why print just black on it. It cannot save that much money? But this is a nice to have, rather than a great addition. I wouldn't jump at the chance for any new maps via an expansion. However this game does scream out for a few other expansion that I hope do get developed with different types of trains, perhaps different types of cargo which require different things to be done to them. And maybe even event cards. But with or without expansion, I will have a lot more fun with this game. It has become my new number choice for a cooperative gateway game when looking to introduce people to this wonderful hobby of ours. And despite being advertised as a 2-4, it plays very well in a solo too. Choo-choo!

So here it is! The 2021 games of the year. I was going to do a top 10, but I simply could not decide between all these great games, and so you are blessed with 12 beauties this year instead. One for every month! Best Card Game - TEN Best Surprise of the Year - Riverside Best Mid-Weight Game - Furnace Best Solo Game - Rolling Realms Best Party Game - Night of the Ninja Best Roll & Write - Hadrian's Wall Best Heavy Game - Golem Best Adventure Game - The Adventures of Robin Hood Best APP based Game - Destinies Best Family Game - Juicy Fruits Best Euro Game - Tinners' Trail Best Dungeon Crawler - Resident Evil 3 Best Card Game - TEN TEN is a fantastic game. You can read the full review here but if you are looking for a new card game to play with you family then I cannot recommend TEN enough. It is so much fun, plays fast, and can be taught and played with anyone. Best Surprise of the Year - Riverside Riverside was recommended to me by Marie from Burtons Boards when we visited the Essen Spiel this year. I had not heard of it before, and I certainly was not in the market for another roll and write game. But after playing the game at the show with designer Eilif Svensson, I was hooked! The game has a beautiful look, the art on the box is one of my all time favorites! The game itself plays incredibly smoothly and offers some highly satisfying cascading turns, something essential for me in a good roll and write. What makes this game special over other games is the way the game feels like an event. So many roll and writes feel like a mathematical equation to me. Either with a pasted on theme, or no theme at all. In Riverside, I don't feel like I am Captain a ship of tourists, but I do feel immersed in this beautiful snow landscape and fully engrossed in my mission. Best Mid-Weight Game - Furnace Furnace is a stunning game. I love engine builders so that must be said right from the start. But even without my mechanical bias, this is a truly great game. You can read my thoughts here, but I would recommend this game to anyone for any group. Best Solo Game - Rolling Realms Rolling Realms holds a special place in my heart for what designer Jamey Stegmaier did with it during lock down, but even with the sentimentality removed, this game holds up as one of the best solo experiences I have ever had. I enjoy solo games when they are somewhat removed from a big immersive theme. This goes against everything I say about games in a group. But playing solitaire I don't want to have a game do that as it just makes me miss my friends who I would usually share this epic experience with. Alone, I would rather get into the math, strategy and game choices. Rolling Realms does this better than most with a simply stunning solo experience which you can read more about here from the brilliant Mostly Solo, who explains solo games better than most! Best Party Game - Night of the Ninja Night of the Ninja has hit the table for me so many times. As soon as I have a big group I play this game. I don't care if they are gamers or not, this games works with everyone! You can play at home, on the couch, round a table, or in the pub. This game is so versatile and is always brilliant. It looks stunning and just writing about it makes me want to play again. Who is coming round for a game? You can read more about it here in my Brotherwise Games feature. Best Roll & Write - Hadrian's Wall Ok, this is the third roll & write on this list, but they are all just too good to not include, and they all tick slightly different boxes. Hadrian's Wall works well for a solo game just like Rolling Realms, but due to the epic nature of this game, it just feels better to me with others. Where Rolling Realms suits both group or solo play, Hadrian's Wall to me is more about trying to beat other peoples scores, and there are some parts of the game that are affected by other players unlike most roll and writes. As such, Rolling Realms takes the spot for best solo game, and Hadrian's Wall takes the overall top spot for best Roll & Write. But really, they are all fantastic and this was just my way to fit them all onto the top 12. Which lets face it, was supposed to be a top 10 anyway. You can read a little more about this game here at Erlijne's great website. Best Heavy Game - Golem Golem's inclusion in this list may be a little premature as I have only played it a few times, hence it not having a full review here yet. But I just love the game so much from my early plays I feel confident it will stand the test of time and repeat plays. The theme intrigues me. You can watch more about this here. I love the way the board looks. The idea behind some of the mechanics is really interesting, such as the marbles acting as a randomly determined option each turn. The choice of which of the three tracks to work on, and how to best deploy your Golem and Students is a delicately balanced and intriging strategic decision. There are not many turns in this game, but they all feel very important. The game has received some minor criticism for the way it has handled the theme, but personally I think they have done an okay job. They called in a cultural expert and personally I find it intriguing and interesting more than anything else. Maybe my opinion will change on this over time or with more thought. But for now, I am simply left wanting to play again. Best Adventure Game - The Adventures of Robin Hood The story in this game is a lot of fun. The art is simply stunning. The game teaches you how to play it better than any game I have ever experienced before. But what stands out the most is the joy from opening parts of the board up like an advent calendar. There are no two ways about it. That is just a lot of fun! For my full review, head here. Best APP based Game - Destinies I have not reviewed this game yet as I hope to run a feature soon on the use of Apps with games. When that is done I will link that here. I have loved the experience of playing Destinies. It feels so unique in its mechanisms. I have played with my son and solo. Both experiences work very well. This would be my second choice for best solo game and also best adventure game. It feels epic and engaging, but works in a solo for me as the App keeps you focused on the game, not the empty seats around you. The App integration is flawless. It works so well and is integral to the game. You could make this game without it but it would be cumbersome and a lot less exciting. This game shows what can be done with Apps and I think will lead to some very exiting advances in the years to come. Best Family Game - Juicy Fruits Juicy Fruits looks great. It plays great. It is great! I am surprised this game hasn't received more hype. It ticks so many boxes and has some wonderful ways to make it work for different age groups or abilities. It feels incredibly satisfying to play well, and understanding how to do this is a relativity straight forward process. You can read my full review on the game here. Best Euro Game - Tinners' Trail I only backed this on kickstarter because Movin Meeples was so pumped for it! I knew next to nothing about the original or this re-print. But I am so glad I got this. The game scales brilliantly to all player counts, and like any good Euro, makes you heavily invested in moving bits of different coloured wood around and turning them from one type of thing into another. There are a nice amount of mini expansions included with the Kickstarter version to keep the game interesting and I really enjoyed the scoring mechanism. The art on the cards and board is stunning but it did get a little busy near the end of the game. A larger board may have helped here. But overall, this is a brilliant game that I look forward to playing many more times. Best Dungeon Crawler - Resident Evil 3 Resident Evil 3 is a stunning conversion from a video game to a board game. This seems to be happening more and more now-a-days and I for one am delighted about that! This game brings the nostalgic joy of the original PlayStation game to life on the table with such precision and detail. There are so many touches in this game that would make any fan of the original computer game giddy! Whether or not this would work as well for those not familiar with the source material I am not sure. But my son who has never played the PS games loved this! You can read my full thoughts here. Honorable Mentions A game about WEE WHIMSICAL CREATURES and trying to identify them after someone makes noises - This is a fantastic game and has seen so many plays this year! Every person I have played this with has been in hysterics within minutes! Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition - I have only played this game once so I don't feel I can include on my list but I think with more plays it would have made it. A brilliant version of Terraforming Mars that asks the players to make some very interesting decisions. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - I love this game like I love the original, but as my family doesn't and I have not found any friends interested in playing repeated games of this yet, it just hasn't had enough plays to get to my top 12. You can watch my short video on the game here. Excavation Earth - I only played this once at Essen, hence it not making the list. But I loved it and would like to get a copy for myself. The art is stunning and the complexity of the options available are so brilliant dealt with in the game incredibly smooth game play. Maglev Metro - Another one with only one play, this time at UKGE; but with more plays I think this could have made the top 12. The game looks great, the components are fantastic, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to change your upgrades as you progress through the game and your requirements change. Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor - This game should arrive today! I have it refresh on the tracking email so many times already! I have played online and at Essen in 2019 and am certain this will make next years list despite technically being a 2021 game! Happy City - Such a simple game, but it offers a short, sharp, fun experience that suits all my family. It narrowly misses out by just being a little too simple. But for a quick filler, its great. You can read my full review here. Hit The Silk! - I love this game and it pains me to not have it on my top 12 but with only space for one party game I have to be ruthless. Hit The Silk! would be my second choice for party game this year though and offers more of a full-game feeling that Night of the Ninja which is more just playing round after round. I have certainly laughed more playing this game this year than any other! You can read my full review here. Loading - A crazy real-time card laying game played in large groups. It only misses out as it is not available in the UK yet. nd I don't have a copy yet. And I only played it once. But other that that, its great!! What Next? A beautifully made game that narrowly misses out on my number one family game of the year. We have enjoyed this one so much and I look forward to seeing more expansions for this. You can read my full review here. Games I have not played yet that may have made the list. Sleeping Gods - This game looks amazing and I cannot wait to play it. I did not back the kickstarter and have not got a retail copy yet. But I am so exited to play this soon. Ark Nova - I missed this at Essen as it sold out so fast! I am keen to get this soon and am certain this will win a lot of people's game of the year this year! Those that have it anyway!