Top 10 Board Games in 2017

I’ve played a few 2017 release games, not many but enough for me to rank up the top 10 games. Though it’s not really justified because of the log plays and other stuffs but it’s my top 10 (from my opinion). Feel free to disagree and discuss. Here are my top 10 list in countdown order

#10. EX LIBRIS
Lets start with Ex Libris, the board game for librarians (or anyone). It is a worker placement game in the setting of arranging books in alphabetical order. The theme is unique (though not that really attractive for gamers and to be honest I also didn’t have this game on my radar at first. But once I realized that the game has different unique workers (with special abilities and unique shapes), I started to find out more. Upon research I found one unique worker that made me just “wow”! It was gelatinous cube (which unlike other wooden meeples, it is a cube made from plastic resin in a transparent green color). That made me want to get the game. I bought it though it was quite expensive for what it’s worth. Played it and turned out it’s a simple game. The goal is to build / arrange your own library of books. In order to do that you need to get the books by assigning three of your assistants to different locations. You need to arrange them based on alphabetical order, the stability of your shelf and your collection of prominent, focus and banner books. I found the game to be somewhat a race to collect books but rather multiple solitaire in form and without tense or climax. I do have some grimes about the game, though those are still acceptable.

#09. DICE FORGE
This game is very innovative. It’s not the first that uses dice customization mechanic, it applies the same concept from older game called Rattlebones, which players can swap sides from the dice to get different effects. The dice in Rattlebones seemed like a side mechanic not the core of the game, but here they made that as the core of the game. Players will constantly roll and modify their dice. It has a very beautiful box cover (oh yes I have to mention it). The game is simple and plays rather quick (30-60 mins). On a player’s turn, all players roll dice and get resources. The active player either buy a card or buy die faces. The game ends after a number of rounds and the final scoring takes place. The dice use innovative system and have great quality materials. There are some strategies to go for in the round, most of the cards are useful and important if you can get them all compatible with your strategy. The game is very suitable for casual players, newbies and gamers alike. It would be better if they gave a small lever to remove the dice’s face, because without it, I sometimes find it difficult or hurting my fingers.

#08. LONDON (2nd Edition)
I haven’t try the first edition but it was already on my wishlist / radar for quite a long time because of the designer alone (Martin Wallace). I like Brass and some of his games, so this one is also interesting to try. Luckily I had not get the first edition when this one was released. In my opinion, the second edition has a very artistic cover artwork, if not the illustrations on the cards are already beautiful. I like the game very much, it’s a tableau building game with a twist. When I tried it for the first time, I felt a classic Euro game within this game and it’s a very good thing. It’s been quite a while to get that classic feeling from Euro games nowadays if you know what I mean. It’s simple, has easy rules and simplified components, but the game offers depth decision making and strategies. Of course the replay values seems low due to the nature of the cards (all of them are used in a single game). I wonder if the game has randomizer system like deck building games, where not all cards are used in a game. This one definitely a keeper.

#07. NEAR AND FAR
After Above and Below, Near and Far was one of my two anticipated games from Red Raven Games (another one is Empires of The Void II). It claims to offer more depth to the strategy and exploration aspects of the game instead the storytelling in Above and Below. I felt intrigued, Above and Below is great, it gives immersion to the game play with the storytelling aspect but that is it, it’s a bit too simple for my gamer’s soul. So having another game with the same spirit but offers more complexities and depths with different variants of game play, my expectation was high. For this game’s sake, I bought the game a bit pricey and to be honest I was a bit disappointed. Don’t take me wrong, the game is good, it’s interesting and I would still enjoy to play it in future to come. But I expected more from this one, the campaign system doesn’t really rewarding from play to play, aside from the story, players in the end just compare / tally points from all maps. Not sure there’s a connecting story from one map to another and character / player progression, though there’s a skill / talent that can be purchased, but I think it’s not that much big of a deal from scenario to another. And there’s a character progress variant, haven’t try this one, but I don’t think it offers enough to significantly increase the game play experience. But of course I like this one better than Above and Below, still offers deeper and more complex game. I like how Ryan considers the adventurers’ compatibility to be played with Above and Below.

#06. RAJAS OF THE GANGES
For me Village was good, just good. But it didn’t leave me such impression that I should own the game. So the designers then released Rajas of The Ganges, which also gave similar visual appearance with this one, classic Euro games. At first I wasn’t really hooked on the game, but I decided to give it a try. My biggest concern was the racing mechanic. Yup, of of my most undesired mechanics in a board game, racing game. This game though it looks like the usual Euros, this one hides that racing scoundrel in those two point trackers (fame and money). Though it seems that players collecting points throughout the game, the reality is that these points are just progress. Yes the ugly truth, you try to get your two markers on the tracks meet or overlap each other in order to win. This will trigger the game end, although there’s a possibility for other players to catch up that would lead to tie breaking to determine the winner. But when finished my first play, I was hooked, not very hooked, just ok hooked. I like it, interestingly engaging and feels like Euro engine building, maybe because of the tile laying, dice rolling, worker placement and set collection aspects that overshadowing the racing element, who knows. The important thing is I feel rewarded when playing this the game, that’s what makes me to like the game. This game feels very similarly like The Voyages of Marco Polo, though it’s quite different.

#05. PULSAR 2849
I had to include this into this list and kicked out Flatline to eleventh place. Just managed to play this game in early January and I was very surprised on how good this game is. It has very simple and common mechanic that can be find in other games, but the combination and formula make it a perfect and interesting game. The dice drafting and initiative order are brilliant, with interesting ‘exploration’ aspect in the game where you place stations throughout the the star system and claim pulsars. How the designer balanced the dice selection is so damn amazing. In general you will want high value dice, but to gain them you need to pay with energy / initiative markers. These two aspects are important and giving away loosely for higher value dice would really hurt you in turn order and energy bonus aspects. More of it, deciding which die not to take also affecting players in during action phase because players can copy the leftover die using a bonus die. Played the game back to back and even I was lost to my wife, I was so furious and couldn’t figure out how to win it, I want to play it again and again. Try with different number of players and different strategies. There are so many actions in this game, even how bad your dice are, you can always take actions. Gyrodynes are important, it’s the soul of engine building from the game. Though other things could also help you. The tech tree and goals would determine game’s objectives. The game is played in 8 rounds, with each round players will choose 2 dice per player. This means basically each player gets minimum 16 actions plus potential 8 actions from the bonus die. The implementation of the bonus die is kinda unique, since there’s a limitation that a player can only use at max a single bonus die in each round, but the source to get it and actions to use it are so many. And looking back, this game was designed by Vladimir Suchy, the man behind Shipyard (Last Will if it matters), one of our favorite games (me and my wife). For this we expected at least this could match Shipyard, and turns out, it is way better than Shipyard for me.

#04. THE 7TH CONTINENT
Okay I had a very high hope for this one, backed the Kickstarter project of the first edition instantly. I was hooked with the storytelling concept of the game. The game is likely similar or adapt the same concept like T.I.M.E Stories, where players must figure out the case / or you might call it as scenario / puzzle to be able to finish the game (successfully). There’s an element of surprise in the game which is no longer a surprise once you finally able to experience it. Unlike T.I.M.E Stories, this game lies heavily in cards as main components while T.I.M.E Stories also involves dice roll for success check. Card laying exploration game that form the map and action cards that come into the game with hand management mechanic. There’s a push your luck element too as the success parameters for actions, which is very simple and traditional but looks quite interesting. Though once you finish / complete a curse the replay value just almost gone, the thing is that to complete one curse you need to play it several times. You will figure out where to go and what to do after consecutive plays, this gives you play logs for just one curse. And my biggest admiration to the game is the amount of story related element that was poured into the game itself. It perfectly grabs the feel of the game and how it can feel different in each play because of the ever-changing environment. Of course there are fixed things, like the map. That place will always be there forever, not gonna change from play to play. But the event or situation will be different, maybe yesterday you met a grizzly bear, today you find what’s left of that bear is only it’s corpse. I find this element to be very interesting. You wouldn’t know what lies ahead. Of course it’s not perfect, I found some flaws in the game, but it still a very good game.

#03. LISBOA
Here is another Vital Lacerda’s games that worth to be praised. The Gallerist was the first game of this scale that made me want to collect His series, like Vinhos. Now I own three of them. Not a fan of the publisher (Eagle Gryphon Games) with their KS projects, but hey I still admire their production quality and standards and also Vital’s amazing games. Though I struggled to like Vinhos (maybe it’s because of the theme), turns out I like Lisboa. It’s not tied with The Gallerist in my opinion, but of course the number one is still Kanban. Unfortunately it’s not in the same series as Lisboa and the likes. There are so many things going on in this game. I had troubles with my first play, dissecting the rules from that rulebook. I must say that it’s not the best rulebook I ever encountered. But finally it paid my efforts full. Love the synergy of the game, the visual presentation is stunning, though it might be overwhelming to some point. This is by far the most beautiful Lacerda’s games aesthetically in my opinion. But I think it’s not really thematic. In this game, players will try to be the best influential noble who contributes efforts to rebuild the desolate city of Lisboa from the triple disasters back in the day. The game is long as usual, around 3 hours play with 4 players. It’s broken down into 2 ages where players will need to rebuild stores and public building, trade routes, relationship with prominent figures and also the church / cardinal as well as producing goods. Unlike The Gallerist, Lisboa is more focus on card plays, the tableau building by building your portfolio is really essential. There’s no worker placement mechanic as it is found in The Gallerist, though by looking at the game components, there are workers / meeples. Just like most Vital Lacerda’s games (I think all of them) the game consists of simple actions. During your turn, choose to play a card. That card can be played differently, either play the card into your portfolio or to into the Royal court. If you choose to play it into your Portfolio (tableau) you resolve the effect first and then get to choose one of the two available action, trade with the nobles or sell goods. If you choose to play it into the Royal Court, you can visit a noble’s office or sponsor an event. When visiting the noble office, your opponents may follow the action. Each action may provide certain benefits for you to gain prestige points in the bigger picture or longer run instead of short term or immediately. Player interactions are tied in the building site and ships where they will compete or look for opportunity to score and claim the best choice.
The components are definitely top notch as expected from Eagle Gryphon Games, thick card board material as a standard, nice linen finish cards and amazing-working plastic trays that hold the components inside the box, one issue thing usually occurs is that some complaint their player boards are bowed, must have something to do with the dual layer finishing.

#02. ANACHRONY
Oh man, I love everything about this game. I own the Leader Box from KS and it’s huge as well as heavy. It’s definitely a big game, fully loaded with many great components inside. Lets just say that it is a box of delight. I was one of the backers that immediately jumped to back this KS. Mainly because it’s from Mindclash Games. I was very satisfied with their work in Trickerion. After took some research on the game I was immediately on board. I love the theme, it’s deep heavy Euro game with strong theme. Totally epic. There aren’t many games with this theme. It fulls of cool stuff like exosuit miniatures, variable player powers, interesting time travel mechanic, the use of multi-layered workers and etc.
When I unboxed the game, the box was full of good stuffs, after punched the tiles out, the card board wastes didn’t help to loosen up the contents inside the box. It’s still fully packed and heavy. I like how fierce the worker placement can be during the game, fight over resource management while need to execute your plan in timely manner in order to complete super projects and other things. There are several different strategies you can after to get most points. Some modules give more variation and different feels, such you can modify your exosuits and go explore the outer world, while more details and challenge on the timeline and having neutral exosuits that can be bought each round with different abilities. There are so many things.

#01. GLOOMHAVEN
The one and only, Gloomhaven. I was so excited when this game launched in Kickstarter several years back, 2015 if I am not mistaken. The game is epic and full of great things. It’s weighed almost 10 kgs (9.7 kgs precisely). I fell in love with the game instantly. The main reasons are because it’s a very thematic theme, with original contents and a breakthrough of the common RPG background. You won’t find any elves or orcs or trolls here. All the characters are new and made just for this game from the scratch. The designer, Isaac Childress poured his dream, efforts, ambitions and total dedication into this game. He is practically one-man-army behind Cephalofair games. He made a new universe and it also used for another game after this one, Founders of Gloomhaven (a very different game but still within the same universe). I backed this game more like a gamble because though I really love this kind of game at heart, my wife doesn’t. She had a very skeptical opinion on the subject and constantly states her dislike but didn’t deny the opportunity to try. So with half of her feet out of the door, I pessimistically but hopeful, asked her willingness to try the game. When the game arrived (after it was delayed in post office), I was so excited, the box was huuuge, my biggest game in my collection no doubt about it. Sadly it arrived in bad condition (the box had tears all around the edges). I punched the game together with my wife and my arms felt so tired. There are so many components inside the game.

I immediately jumped into the rulebook, learnt the game and played a campaign with my wife. I was blown away with how awesome it is. There are so many brilliant things in the game, how the combats resolved and the cards played are amazing. At first there are only a handful of characters that can be played, but as you progress through the campaign, you would unlock more new characters, not only with different abilities, but also different play styles. Though it has the same genre with other games of the same category, the game is dice-less, meaning it uses no dice in any part of the game, which commonly used by other games in the genre for combat / battle resolutions, skill checks, etc. It uses interesting deck building (sort of) for the modifier cards as the character progresses. There are lots of things going on within the game and you can say the rules are fiddly, which I think any game couldn’t evade this kind of issue while maintaining interesting and engaging game play. When players choose a scenario within a campaign they will embark to the location from the city of Gloomhaven, which there will be Road event (this could be good or bad) that in a way affecting players condition before the scenario, so there’s the element of surprise.
After that, within the scenario, players and monsters will take turns based on the initiative order decided by the cards they play. Players choose 2 cards for the round to use the top part and bottom part and decide which initiative they use to determine their character activation. Despite the game is a cooperative game, there are secret information within players, this is one of the many reasons why the game is interesting. Players cannot reveal the initiative value they choose to another, only just a hint whether it’s high or small to keep decisions more interesting and have impactful consequences. Without the full information, players’ actions are not entirely effective because the situation changes based on the turn order. Monsters also have initiative that shown as part of its Ai system. When revealing initiative, a card will be drawn from specific deck for each type of monster, this will determine the initiative value of that monster and the action that they will do on their turn. I find the monster Ai to be very clever, every type of monster has different deck, this shows how different they are based on each type characteristic. These situations come into the game more like a puzzle that players must face and solve to complete the scenario.

Battle are amazing, aside from the ability cards that show the base value of the action, players and monster also have a modifier deck specifically designed for that character (monsters use a single modifier deck) which can be modified as the character progressed based on the character sheet. So there’s no way characters have the same deck composition. This is truly amazing because it reflects their behaviors or attack styles. In addition, each character also have personal goal, given from the beginning, that will determine their involvement within the campaign. Once that character complete that goal, that character is retired and unlocks something (events and new characters). Players must stop using that character and choose another character to continue playing. There’s an interesting approach towards the game progression in overall. Players are forced to make changes so that the game is dynamic, not only in term of general campaign but also how each scenario plays out. Characters also advance their levels by spending XP gain from scenarios. Advancing levels does mainly to increase HP and unlocking new ability cards that players can choose to keep. Higher level cards have more powerful abilities but each character has a hand size of ability cards that they can carry on a scenario. So even if they managed to unlock lots of cards, they need to choose which ones work best in a given scenario, which I think it’s very amazing! The hand size also works as timer, since in most scenarios, players will race against time, which are  their hand size. Once their hand runs out of cards, they will be exhausted and out of the scenario. Luckily in this game, you can still complete the scenario even there’s one or more player eliminated (dying or exhausted) as long as one character still remain to complete.

I must admit, there are many amazing things about the game and the easiest way to do that is to sit down with me and let me walk you through all of it by playing the game. But the game also has its own downsides. I own the first edition and though the game is so freaking amazing, I am kinda disappointed by the weaknesses or errors happened during the first edition. The box is too thin to handle the component weigh, but I do plan to get a custom box made for this game, still waiting for possible expansions. Also the actual HP and XP trackers failed to work, so I need to get Dial tracker add-ons for it. You need to commit time and space and gaming partner to finish the whole campaign. The time it takes to set up and tear down the game is equal to play a session of medium Euro game (lol). And to end this, it beats Eclipse as my number one game of all time.

Notable games:
FLATLINE
We start with Flatline from Renegade Games Studio. It’s a real-time cooperative dice rolling game with the same setting of FUSE, the sequel from the same game designer, Kane Klenko. It still involves the same dice rolling mechanic as FUSE, but different implementation. In FUSE, players constantly roll their dice until they found the side they’re looking for, but in Flatline, players only roll their dice one time in each round and then allocate them to different places. At first I wasn’t really interested on the game, mainly due to its cooperative genre. But of course when I checked upon the game components, the first thing that caught my attention were the dice. No doubt the dice looked very attractive, colorful custom dice and they’re plenty. I love it, always a sucker for dice fest (especially customized). So I decided to get it and my first play was a blast (even it’s only a 2-player game). I was pessimist with the tension of the game play regarding players assign dice to many different places within a certain time limit. Before playing the game I thought it’s not a big deal and we can deal with it pretty easily, oh boy I was wrong. Okay player count does matter, with more players the game feels more chaotic because the communication between players just clash into each other. It’s fun, full of tension, lots of shouting, frustrations and totally freeze your brain from thinking straight.

Advertisements

 

2017 in Words – My Monthly Loot Recap

Hi, it’s me at the end of 2017 and back again with a short (hopefully) summary of my 2017 gaming life. It’s been a fun ride, lots of interesting things (games) and I honestly guilty with all those whole year acquisitions. 2017 is my first year (if not 2016) of married life and it really changed the table for me. I tried to maintain my gaming sessions though it’s been significantly decreased from before. It just had to happen, none could say otherwise and I could live with that. But lets just say that I keep on clinging with at least the true nature of myself, a board gamer (fan, player, collector and enthusiast). So I’ve been recently busy with my VLOG, reviews and other things. Now the end of year will mark my next (new) step on this board game industry, hopefully things will be smooth and rewarding.
So let’s keep on talking about 2017 cause it’s still hot from the oven. I’ve been tracking my monthly loot for over 2 years or so and it’s awesome (no matter how you may see it). My collection is keep on growing (not gonna spill the bean here, let’s say I am proud and shame at the same time). But in this post I will mention exclusively for the ones in 2017.

January
Starting off 2017, January was not really that special. I only got Round House and Legends of The American Frontier which admittedly I did not enough table time for these two. Round House has nice looking mechanic of rondel action selection though it seemed lack of solid balance on the actions. While Legends of the American Frontier was a journey game where players can feel or create or play as the life of an American living on the Frontier, not an easy one I guess back then (I just recently watched A Million Ways to Die In The West). It really puts the game in the push your luck element with character building into a simple enjoy-the-game-experience rather than the game mechanic and point rewards. I could play this with my afternoon tea (if there’s such thing).

February
Now this was one of the best of 2017, due to my birthday and other things. I snatched a good deal of games in this month. My Anachrony Kickstarter arrived and it couldn’t get any better. My best birthday gift after The Name of The Rose and Ladies of Troyes (these two were from my wife, so both trumped any game). I like Mindclash Games, had a very pleasant and satisfying experience with Trickerion and they did the same great thing with Anachrony. The Name of The Rose had been a long overdue game from Stefan Feld that I need to have, so it was a very great thing to finally own it. It’s not like His recent games, it’s definitely unique and we all like it. My next birthday gift was Troyes expansion, which I didn’t see it coming. I am always a fan of Troyes and having the expansion is surely a great deal for me, my wife is the best! I also got Dream Home from a friend which she insisted to give me instead. Thanks to Her, she’s always the best. I also found Oceanos to be interesting but sadly it’s too simple for me. Not that I say that I didn’t have fun playing it, since any game if fun if you play it with the perfect group.

March
Adrenaline. Yup just one. It’s a good one. It’s an Euro but feels very different, fresh and fun. It’s an Euro disguising as Ameritrash. In the game players vie controls / majorities over the dominion of each other. Who beats the hardest to someone and else. Though it does not offer variable player powers but this offers variable weapon powers instead. Surely gonna keep this.

April
Gloomhaven! Yes this big bad-ass epic game finally arrived! (damn you postal office, it’s longer than it should). My long wait Kickstarter game that I backed 2 years ago finally arrived. I shared some love of my life in this game and it didn’t disappoint. It was good and I must admit that it beats Eclipse as my number one game of all time. But, hopefully Eclipse could beat it in the next 2018 with it’s second dawn edition (yes, time to burn some money for it). And what better is, my wife turned out to like the game (to my surprise). I am looking forward to finish the game (or complete) with her, enjoyed our sessions together and currently waiting for removable stickers to arrive.

May
We had some good games from South Korean trip. Those were Abraca…What! and H.I.D.E. I was quite surprise with HIDE, it was so damn good. Plays fast, simple and hilariously fun! Okay, it might be a silly game for some but this one rocks my boat so hard. Abraca…What is cute, simple and fun, but not spectacular. I also got Cottage Garden from a friend when she visited Europe. That time wasn’t easy to get this game here. It’s a multi player Patchwork, they said. Surely it’s way more simple, but not better. I kinda disappointed with the lack of challenge on this one, hoping Barenpark would do the job. Indian Summer also released in 2017 Essen Spiel, but I think I had enough of Uwe’s refurbish games.

June
This month was probably the biggest loot of the year. Sadly not my proudest loot, how can you beat April’s Gloomhaven? ”
There was Vinhos (also a belated birthday present from a friend, she’s the best!) though it’s not a Kickstarter version. I wasn’t into wine and things so hadn’t fully wrap my head into the game just yet. Oink Games invaded, I had Insiders, Fake Artist, Pyramid’s Deadline and Startups to fill the lineup. Also Strawberry trios arrived from Kickstarter, these were some of my KS disappointment, simple and filler games surely but they just didn’t click with me. I also got a great deal with CV which I had an eye for quite a long time thanks to Minions and Co. And last but not least, I managed to get my hands onto three of Hisashi Hayashi’s games, Rolling America, Emperor’s Choice and Junglila (so fulfilling).

July-August
Nothing! Yep, really nothing. It’s a hiatus for me, preoccupied with Gloomhaven at that moment and satisfied with it. I guess it’s a good thing (thankfully / sadly it’s just a temporary).

September
Back on track in September. Heavy hitter games were arriving such as Lisboa (Kickstarter edition) The 7th Continent, Dice Forge and Tales of The Arabian Nights. I bought Stronghold on impulse which up until now haven’t hit the table (guilty). The 7th Continent was a roller coaster, I enjoyed hours of it though there still hundreds of hours of it. Haven’t clear the first curse yet after 3 plays and I am ashamed of that. Lisboa doesn’t disappoint, I like it so far. Tales of The Arabian Nights offered something different in the storytelling genre and I shattered the game’s bad image from my wife’s, which is a good thing. Dice Forge is solid, clever and nice looking dice customization game and it also plays fast.

October
Finally I completed my Eclipse expansion with Shadow of The Rift. It’s a life achievement. Now my next life achievement is to get this game played on the table (and also get the second dawn edition and trade this edition away). I got a mixed feeling with this and whatever I feel about it, I need to get that second dawn edition, absolutely and definitely.

November
Essen 2017 was on the air and I was lucky a friend brought me back Rajas of The Ganges (not my first pick of Essen 2017 releases but it still good). InBetween is Stranger Things The Board Game and I satisfied with it. Not the best but it’s good enough, not for everyone but good for me. I also got Near and Far which aside from being quite expensive I could snatch it with the help of my friend on Monopolis Game Store. They’re awesome and you should check them out. Dogs Kickstarter arrived and it’s lovely. It has many flaws but we still love it, cause we love dogs (apparently). Flatline was a joyride, it was fun and chaotic, but firstly I got it because of those colorful custom dice.

December
Not the best of months since I really expecting another game to arrive. But I had to be content with these, Otys, Ex Libris and Gloomhaven 2nd printing KS fulfillement. Ex Libris was good, I like it and keeping it on my collection. Though I couldn’t justify the expensive price with it’s components, of course it has custom wooden meeples but a million for it (its surely against my logic). Gloomhaven 2nd printing fulfillment just consists of reprint rules and scenario book. I also got the solo scenarios but that’s just for the sake of completion. I also had Isaribi when a friend of mine decided to release it. It’s another addition of Hisashi Hayashi’s games into my collection. But luckily in the last minutes before the month and year ends, a good game joins into the fray, Pulsar 2849 is mine. Though I wasn’t really keen on the game due to its space exploration theme, the game designer’s was the one that redirected me back to get my hands on it. He’s the designer of Shipyard which is one of my wife’s favorite games of all time. So I jumped on board to get this one for her (its a strong alibi) even though she’s not really fond with its theme.

It’s been a good year. Hopefully 2018 will be the same or better. There are some Kickstarter games that I am currently waiting to arrive on 2018 (Brass from Roxley, Cerebria, Roll Player and Hand of Fate: Ordeals), including the one that was late for 2017 (I am waiting for you). And what other games that I will be getting, that list is surely interesting as hell, such as Agra, Flipships, Meeple Circus, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Santa Maria, and many more. So many games to get, so little time to play them all and limited cash to spend. What an irony!

 

Essen 2017 Highlight Preview Part 5

Next, our journey post-Essen continued with this 5th part of this highlight preview. I’ve tried Dogs in the past day, not sure it’s a valid Essen game, but it’s a Kickstarter game and just recently fulfilled by the publisher. It’s a simple game, yet we played it totally incorrect, shamefully in my defense that’s not entirely my fault. Okay let’s not ponder on it, move on to these games instead.

DEADLINE
Deadline is a cooperative game with a setting where players are 80’s detectives who try to solve crime cases. The game comes with 12 cases to work with, with different range of difficulty, from easy, normal and hard. It also has several characters with different abilities. The game works similar like The Grizzled in term placing cards to complete objective or play cards to table that usually not good for the group. The game play works very simple, players try to complete the available clue cards by placing required symbols. Each completed clue card gives a certain amount of information about the case and what are the next clue cards available. The round ends when all players have passed or when they managed to complete all the symbols on the chosen clue. The game ends when players managed to clear all the clues or when they failed the third time to complete clue cards. This will lead to the question phase where they need to answer questions related to the case. Their answers will then cross-checked with the solution book to determine how well the players worked the case. I find the game to be a mini puzzle game that rewards players with information that relate to the case, it’s not directly related and thematically tied with the case. Thus some people do find it quite abstract.  Though the stories / cases are written well and provide interesting narrative in overall game experience. The game however has a very low replay value since when you’ve played and know the answers, there’s nothing can draw you back to replay the case aside from the mini puzzle experience or trying to improve your performance.

PANIC MANSION
Now this is a game with a very unique approach from the dexterity genre. In Panic Mansion, players will try to escape from the mansion (or to be in one specific spot rather than out). In order to do this, they have to try to create the situation required in the objective. Each player will get a mansion board that consists of several rooms with partitions and all the meeples needed in each objective.
The fun part is that players need to direct their marker (and/or other markers needed) to complete the objective. To do this they will shake, slide or tilt their mansion board in order the markers to move from room to room until the objective is met. It’s surely a fun, new and bizarre experience in board game design and this can be a hit or miss game for sure. At first the objective level would be very simple and easy to do, but as the game progresses, the difficulty will increase and they will have to juggle more meeples in the same time. It’s a fun family game where you can laugh and move the parts of your body around, it’s like you shake a tray in search of gold (you know what I mean?). I for one, would love to try this game, though not sure if this will find a good place in my collection or not. Quality-wise, it has good and attractive components.

LONDON (2nd Edition)
Though this is the second edition of a classic game with the same title, it’s published under different publisher and got a complete overhaul in the visual aspect of the game. Osprey games did a very fantastic job on this one, it’s surely a work of art. I fall in love immediately with the box cover, which gives a deluxe / collector edition feel into the game. I for one, had been waiting this (kind of) game for quite a while. Never played it, but always eager to try and own Martin Wallace’s games. I know that not all of His games are proven great but some of them are legendary games such as Brass, A Study in Emerald (first edition) and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork. So head good reviews about it and luckily haven’t own the first edition, I jumped the wagon to own this one. I must admit that it is without disappointment. I guess no such thing is perfect. It has issues on the card quality, from the linen finish and the color consistency. I found the game to be brilliant, it plays fast, has very simple rules and very quick setup. You can setup and explain the game within 10 minutes. I personally like the game, the first time I tried the game, there was this feeling of a classic Euro game. Like it’s been quite a while playing games of this genre. I found it to be satisfying, it has a very simple ruleset but offers a rich possibilities on how you play the game. I must admit, there’s a small variability in the game due to the nature of the card variations within the game. It would be great if there are more card sets come with the game but there’s a randomizer to what sets used in the game. I think it would changed the game a lot. The game is more like a card game rather than a board game. In player’s turn they will draw a card and then take an action (either play a card, buy a borough, run your city or draw 3 more cards). Also there’s a twist on how players collecting poverty cubes involuntarily, which in the same time they need to remove it for it would gives penalty in the final scoring. Also the way of card drawing is affecting the length of the game into some extent. For me this is easily a keeper mostly because of the art and Wallace’s game, the good gameplay is a plus though.

INBETWEEN
This game is a 2-players asymmetrical game with a horror sci-fi setting which can be relate with Stranger Things TV series. It’s a small box game that can be played in 30 minutes. In the game, players will take the role of human and the creature from different dimension. The goal is to achieve one of the winning conditions, whether to raise awareness to level 6 or influence a number of characters within the game or when there is only 5 characters left in the game. It’s a very unique tug of war, where players will try to pull the characters to a side of their own. Each player will have their own deck of cards with different effects and uses. In each turn, they can choose to take one out of the 2 available actions, play a card or recharge energy. Character cards also have abilities that can be triggered and have two sides showing the two different dimensions to determine which they’re currently in. The characters can be in 2 different dimensions, shown by 2 sides of the card (human or creature dimension). When players try to influence the character, they use cards from their hands (the symbols shown on the cards) to shift the safety marker on that specific character. This process feels like a tug of war where players pulling the character back and forth to their sides. It’s a tedious process for sure and it needs high amount of patience. Though somewhat the game can move back and forth without significant progress there are some aspects that players can consider and these will affect player decisions throughout the game. They need to cleverly analyze the characters’ abilities and how they are spread out in the game. Cleverly set priority which character need to be secured first will surely gives high advantage in future turns. Observe your opponents also important to react wisely before or after their moves. The game may have slow pace, I feel this as a creeping death and slowly grow paranoia and tension, thematically fit with the theme. It’s not a game for everyone though, since the gameplay requires certain understanding, slow paced and has different feel and tone compared with other games. For me, this game fits the bill for Stranger Things card game (if not a board game) and does justice to it.

BATTLEFOLD
This game reimplements a game called Fold It! and adds fantasy theme to give more attractive appeal. The game uses the combination of dexterity and speed element as it core mechanic. In this game players play as characters with different class and try to win the game by achieving one of two conditions, be the last living character or be the first to resurrect their ghost character. Each player will get a piece of cloth with a 4×4 grid icons, a player board and a marker. Each round players will try to fold their cloth to follow the pattern shown on the card. This is a speed game, the first player to match the pattern may take a turn order marker in the action phase. Basically the symbols on the pattern will determine the actions for the players in the current round. The actions are move, attack, potion, shield, item and trap.
When a player health is drop to zero, he died and becomes a ghost (flip the player board). However, he’s not out of the game, he can still move around (though cannot use any other action beside move and attack). Attack also have different effects. Attack action does not give damage to the attacked players, but instead give spirit points to players for resurrect purpose. Once resurrected, the player wins the game (unless another player has won before that). The game is simple but has additional depth to the folding action in the previous game Fold It! It also has interesting plays with the characters have different abilities. It is full of pattern recognition, puzzle and speed hand coordination (maybe).

Another 5 titles are done. Now onto the next fives.

 

 

What Your Dream House Looks Like?

Dream Home Review
Dream Home is a game published by Portal Games and designed by a Polish designer (I think he’s new to game design and this is his first game), Klemens Kalicki and illustrated by Bartlomiej Kordowski. Right from the start of its inception, this game has already gained a spotlight with the cute, bright-colored and beautiful art, thanks to the artist. It’s like a children’s game which I must admit that it is partly if not whole, a children’s game. It can be played with 2-4 players from 20-30 minutes (you can play this under than the time mentioned, trust me, or you are that worse). The game was published last year in 2016 which I just managed to get early in 2017.

The Theme and Artworks
In Dream Home, players are trying to build their dream home by choosing cards from the available options and place it on their boards. The cards are rooms in the home and can be placed in various spots depends on players’ taste and also basic physics. A good home should have its necessary rooms such as bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, the rest are complementary.
For the artworks, I must give a salute for Bartlomiej Kordowski. His works are superb and really succesfully give the game a very appealing soul to convey the purpose of the game. It really clicks and you know it does.

The Components
The game is basically a card game, with a central board and some tiles. It has medium square box and of course cute and beautiful art cover. Inside there’s a plastic insert to hold all the components, and it works well, but the cards and tokens are easily scrambled when transported in many positions, so you need a small foam to cover this issue. The cards are small sized, maybe mini Euro size, placed well in the tray even when sleeved. There also a special first player marker, an over-sized orange house-shaped wooden token. There are 4 player boards and a central board, thick and good enough.

The Game Play
In the game, players get their own board as a foundation of their home. The board consists of a drawn image of a home with spaces to place cards. These spaces are drawn with 3 stories, 5 columns except there’s only 2 columns in the bottom story. So in total there are 12 rounds in the game. After 12 rounds the game ends and players sum up their scores. There are mainly two type of cards in the game, room cards and resource cards. During the game, each round players will take a room card and a resource card or the first player marker.

The fun thing about it (or not) is that players will have to choose the cards they need to get for their home from the available ones that drawn on the central display. The problem is there’s the turn order, yaaay… yeah, the one who pick the first cake always get the best and bigger ones. So each round the cards are drawn and displayed on the board, which there are 5 columns and 2 rows but the the first column only draw 1 room card, where the top row is placed the first marker token, you remember the orange house-shaped token? The first row is for resource cards, while the second row is for room cards. Room cards are obviously placed in the player board to occupy the spaces, while resource cards are more, how to say it? Complicated. The resource cards have different types such as experts, roofs, tools and decorations. These types work differently to help players make their dream homes.

Now let’s take a look into the player board, players have a player board to hold all the room cards they already chose during each round. This player board represent a home with 3 stories (a basement, a level 1 and two stories). The basement only consists of 2 columns, which can accommodate 2 rooms (basement rooms only). Each room must be placed in legal / valid ways, it must have a foundation (a room below it, whether in any type or empty room, not an empty space). So in the first story, at first player can only build three rooms since the 2 right most spaces need basement rooms to be the foundations. Where the second story rooms need foundations from the rooms placed in the first story. Each type or room gives players a certain amount of points that will be scored at the end of the game. Some rooms can be expanded (more than 1 card which expand the room) to get better points. While a fully expanded room cannot be expanded again, so placing the same type of room next to fully expanded / finished room is not valid, hence that room card must be placed in another place or else the room card must be placed face down to show an empty room. Empty rooms will not be scored at the end of the game.

Resource cards give players flexibility or better points. For example specialist / expert cards, can help you to manipulate one or more elements in the game, whether they can give you better options or additional points. Tool cards work similar like Specialists but the only different is that they have one-time effect, play-and-discard kind of cards. There are also Decors on the resource cards, this kind of resource give you additional points that can be placed on a specific type of room (not always), when placed, the room is considered finished even though it still can be expanded later. So placing a room expansion later is not a valid move and it must be placed face down as an empty room next to it. The fourth type is roof, where players need to collect at least four roof cards during the game to score at the end of the game. There are four colors in the game, brown, purple, red and orange and some roofs have windows on them that gives an additional point to the roof scoring.
At the end of the game, players tally up their points from the room cards, 3 pts from at least 4 roof cards (if they have at least 4 cards of the same color, they gain additional 5 points) and 1 point per window, Specialists that give them points and also additional points for the home functionality, 3 points if they have at least 1 Bathroom in each story and another 3 points if they have at least a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom in their home.

The Replay Value
Honestly, this game lacks replay value. The game is simple, easy to understand, straight-forward and have a decent light decision making that is interesting for casual players or children. But the replay value just on vacation in this game, it never came back and you will have to live with it. So after several plays, the game is beginning to feel samey over and over again (okay honestly, after 2-3 plays). There are no card variations, different setups or random encounters in each play. So there will always be the same cards in one play to another the only difference is just when the cards will come out. So with this as a crucial factor, the game does get fixed after one play and the rest are just obvious choices.

My Thoughts About The Game
I think that game is a sweetheart. Love it, the presentation is so amazingly cute and beautiful. The theme is simple and really targeting children and girls. It’s like when you’re a child and you play houses. You can introduce this game to totally new players and children, it’s very straightforward and simple you can explain the rules in 5 minutes. Players pick a column and take the cards on that column, place the room card on their board and move on. Yes, move on to the next round and do the same thing repeatedly 12 times. Though at first there seems to be a definitive decision making I must admit that it doesn’t really have decision making since most of them are obvious choices. I can picture myself playing this game several times in a row, since it’s very simple and takes about 10 minutes per play, but playing this for 5 times in a row, I could yawn and sleep accidentally. But aside from that, I think this game attracts children to learn good how to make decisions, because of the visual presentation and nature of the game. This one is totally a filler, overpriced one I suppose. After one play I realized that there are two important things in the game, which are the first player and the basement room cards, And others can be sort out later and easily. Getting first pick of the available cards are surely powerful, to be able to sort out the good cards and combinations, and it sucks to be the last player since what you get is basically trash (or not). In my plays I found out that the first player usually got hold by the same person most of the time. And the basement room cards are so damn important that even 9 points living room cards look like shit (pardon my language). But it’s true, the power of basement card is so damn great, because without these two cards on your basement, practically your movement ends halfway of the game. So the first thing to do is get that basement room cards while you can and if you cannot, take the first player marker for next choices. That simple.

Aside from the game play, I think it has nice production quality, good small cards, simple wording on the card effect, thick player board and nice insert. If you have kids (early educational age) this might be a nice choice, or maybe girls, they love beautiful things like this.

 

Back From the Dead in Tabletop Day

Holla, I am back, writing. It’s been what, months since my last post? Dunno for sure but, here I am with another post (not sure there’s someone really anticipating my post or even read it like a big of a deal. So what happened in the past few months? Well many or not many, but one thing for sure I am (and we are) celebrating International Tabletop Day (Sat, 29th April 2017), which is a topic worth my fingers numbing. So how’s your Tabletop day? Playing and celebrating with some friends? Mine wasn’t heavy into gaming, just stay home with my wife and luckily our friends came over from out of town and we did play some games, good ones.

The Name of The Rose to celebrate International Tabletop Day

Lately I’ve been resting with the usual gaming sessions, and instead taking the fast non-stop train of Gloomhaven campaign. Do you know it? It’s on Kickstarter right now for it’s second printing and it’s spectacularly on fire right now by surpassing 3 million dollars pledge level. Congrats Isaac Childres (it’s game designer), keep up the good work. In case some of you want to know more or back, there’s still time, just go ahead to the project page and find out yourself about the awesomeness of the game. Find the link here.

Its just unusual to me to put hold all the gaming sessions and play this game in rows instead, well there’s always the first for everything. I played the campaign with my wife, each of us handle 2 characters. It’s been a joyride, we love it, we cannot wait to find out what scenario we will take and what it has in store for us. Though I might say that the game took hours to play and we consumed our nights just like seconds burned through our delighted and enthusiastic characters. I think it’s safe to say that we are addicted to this game right now, which is completely amazing feat, since my wife is known to be not really a fan of this kind of games, and I also do not have history and experience in such games. But hey, whatever makes us happy is worth our time. And I will be doing another write (review) about this specific game in the next post but I still stand at zero. Hope things can be smooth and I can start writing them to the upcoming post.

Starting the Campaign

So let’s take a loot (oh, I mean “look”) at another general matter. I also starting to introduce heavier meatier game to my gaming group at office, they’re complete noobs and to be honest this is something that kinda risky, but I can always tune it down when I think it’s necessary. From Camel Up to Takenoko, Codenames to La Isla, Parade to Potion Explosions and Grand Slam to 7 Wonders. And they seemed fine with it, a good sign. So let’s just wait how the ordeal goes in the next future. Hope to bring more meat after this. Maybe The Name of The Rose, El Gaucho or even The Castles of Burgundy.

Also I just came back from our seventh gaming camp couple’s week back. It’s fun, though there’s just a few of us, but the spirit still the same, play games and have fun. We started up late and got many friends caught up with something can couldn’t join. It’s definitely our fault not to broadcast it sooner. We played a good deal of quality games, like The Colonists, Adrenaline, Anachrony, Kanban, Food Chain Magnate and such. This year was different because we changed the days, from Saturday to Monday, to avoid the post holiday rush on our way back, so we can actually relax and save time in the trip home. This was very good and everyone agree with the idea, and that surely will be implemented in the subsequent annual camps.

The 7th IBG Gaming Camp, 2017

Here are some event photos you can check out.

Still strong on the gaming camp hype, our team sat down to talk some ambitious project regarding convention, first big convention for our community, to help gamers get to together and play games as well as to keep our community alive well and strong. Though we have some problems and limitations, we did have a good discussion and planned to get something going whatever it is. So all we have to do first is to pull some strings. Let’s hope there’s something good and big come out from it. Crossing fingers.

Apparently Roxley games launched it’s rework of Brass in 17th April and this was something I highly anticipated since a long long time ago. Goodbye EGG version, it’s a good decision not to get that version and waited long enough for such a masterpiece from the legend, Martin Wallace. So, a bit of a note, I dislike EGG business model and I do have personal vendetta against them due to my experience on backing The Gallerist which totally made up my mind not to back any games in KS from them. And the other thing was because the Brass ordeal. You sir, just make up into my shit list.
Okay so how’s the next Brass is going to be? So friggin’ awesome. I opened the KS page, check what they have to offer, read the pledge levels and “click” I backed the bundle pledge. Roxley has overdone it with this one, great revamp on the artworks, omitting the dull tone (though based on the theme, it seems reasonable but not expected) to a high contrast and beautiful art style from Mr. Cuddington, they’re so talented and they’ve made Brass into a work of art. And  not only Roxley revamps the game, they also create another version of Brass, with different game play and rules so in short, they make 2 games in this project, Brass Lancashire (the old and classic one with revamped art and streamlined rules) and Brass Birminghamp (same revamped art but different game play and rules). And guess what, Roxley even offers the bundle package with same cost shipping (USD 19 to Indonesia for both games, so sick cheap). I can’t wait for the games to arrive, though the custom fee for them will hurt my wallet.
Find the KS link here.

Ain’t this beautiful?

Let’s move on to another topic, with Gloomhaven on my play list, I kinda short list my acquisitions lately. Well can’t say lately since I just starting this month. But for what it’s worth, I usually posting my loot monthly, so each month I will take a group photo of my newly acquired games all in the same month, and then post it on my facebook or instagram. And for April, there is none! Yeaaay… isn’t that something? Though I must say that I cannot do the same in the next month, since right at this moment a friend of mine is hand carrying Cottage Garden from Netherlands, weee…. Okay it’s been something that we (my wife and I) have been looking for, cannot find it here. So I hope Gloomhaven will occupy my gaming time in the near future and keep my purchase into a tight belt, there are good and bad sides to that, sadly.

Time to go back into Gloomhaven

Okay, though it’s already 30th April and Tabletop day is passed, but not the spirit, we’re going to play some more and tomorrow I will attend a small event near my place held by my FLGS, Monopolis Wonder. Will demo one or two good heavy Euro games, hopefully things go smooth. In case you interested to join me, check here.
See ya and happy gaming!

 

Kickstarter – Heldentaufe

Hi guys, with this post I want to introduce you about a new game that’s on Kickstarter right now, called Heldentaufe. This game is from a new publisher, Board Game Circus, from Switzerland. You can check the project here.

The Game

You can read the brief description right below:

“Heldentaufe – An adventure board game for the whole family

 

Two worlds – One game: The unique experience of Heldentaufe arises from two distinct but connected realms: The Upper World and the Netherworld. Heroes can travel back and forth to the separate worlds through portals. Events and activities in the Upper World are mostly serene and peaceful. You will harvest natural goods, carry out missions and trade items that you find. Somewhere hidden in the Netherworld lies a bright and shiny treasure – but what underworld would be complete without monsters and traps?

 

Heldentaufe is easy to learn and has all the key ingredients of a true adventure game (discovering treasures, collecting items, completing missions, and battling monsters).”

 

It is an adventure game for the whole family, judging by the visual you can see why. The illustrations are beautiful and you can see the similarity with Dixit in a way. So what makes this game unique? Let’s find out.

The first time I checked about the game, the illustration hooked me instantly, now you know how illustrations or visual presentations really matter. It’s colorful, beautiful, cute and fun in the same time. They are toying with cute chibi children characters and also scenes with vibrant colors.  When I read more about the game, apparently the game offers more than it looks, interesting game play and accessible to wide range of audiences (children to adult, male to female). Of course it’s about dungeon crawling hero adventures and treasure hunting (which is more likely attract males), but of course they made it as friendly as it is so the opposite sex also interested on it.

In the game, players will play as adventurers who will venture to find monster teeth (somehow these teeth are something of great value in the game). Player who collects a certain number of teeth will win the game. Of course in order to do so, they need to explore, find and battle monsters. And maybe they encounter treasures along the way. Those teeth can be collected in some ways, mainly by defeating monsters or maybe by completing missions.

Here’s my thought on the game’s strong points:
A. Two Worlds.
They explicitly stated that in this game they offer the players two world in one game. The Upper world and Netherworld. Upper world is here, our world, in the surface of earth, such as forests and meadows, and of course portals which are the entrances to the Netherworld, an underground world under the Upper world. These two world provides two type of gaming experiences, where the Upper world is a place where players will go venturing around (peaceful and serene), while the Netherworld is where battle takes place, players will battle monsters here.

The Upper World

The Netherworld

B. Great illustrations.
As I already mentioned before, the game has beautiful illustrations all over it, the characters, maps, items and backgrounds. These amazing illustrations are works of Mathieu Leyssenne, the illustrator behind the game Jamaica and The Hare and The Tortoise. He did a great job for this one, it has Dixit feels on it but more 3D-ish.

Beautiful illustrations

C. Wide range access.
Yes, this game attracts not only gamers but also casual gamers alike, and children, or females. The friendly nature of the illustrations really did a good job to make this game accessible to children and female. Even with dungeon crawling aspect, this game offers something interesting. And also the game play is really simple. In each turn players will have some Action Points to spend and with those points they can choose from the available, either reject a mission, move or attack. So children can basically play this game with some guidance.

D. It pleases gamers in some ways.
Okay, what if you’re a gamer? This looks children game and not challenging and not satisfying as your kind of game. Maybe not, but it has characters with different stats. So you can explore play style of each character. It also offers variability on the game setup, like the monsters different stat in each setup.
Like the monsters, if you defeat a monster, you will get some teeth and this affecting that monster stats in the next encounter because each time they’re defeated, they worth more and more but also stronger. It’s like monsters in video games, the more you defeat them, the stronger they are.

5 Different Heroes

E. Immerse into the game.
Yes, this game can be played in a certain way that you feel like it’s a dungeon crawling Dixit. The cards i the game have illustrations that can be relate with each other as free as you want it based on your imagination. Of course it’s not affecting game play, but it can be fun for some people who like this kind of story telling element in the game.

The Game

Sounds neat right? Well, I like the game already, but I’ll be honest, frankly put this game is not perfect, it’s far from it but I also don’t think there’s a game that is perfect in my eyes. This game is beautiful, we all know that, interesting and looks very simple. Not let’s look upon it’s downsides.
A. The shipping.
Okay you all know where this is going right? We’re live in a place where board games are not cheap, aside from the generous price they offer us below the MSRP, board game prices are in general, never be like it is. Yes, we live in Asia, where to get games, we need to import them from European countries or US. The thing is the shipping price is bad (most often) and that hurt us so much. This game has a US $40 price tag and we can live with that, it’s quite normal from what you’re getting, a good game with a good components. But if you add the shipping cost, it’s like getting another game. Unfortunately they charge $40 for this game’s shipping. And we’re like “what the…” and be done with it. I know this, I dismissed my plan to back the game because of this, but do not lose hope, they offer a pnp pledge level and that’s quite affordable. I am looking at the game components and I think it’s fairly feasible to do the print and play. Some cards, boards and tiles. The pledge level is US $12.5, not a cheap one but judging what you will get is fairly modest (with all those great illustrations). I pledged this level by the way, not final yet but it’s a start. Maybe you guys can consider backing this level if the physical shipping is way beyond what you can afford.

B. Character standees.
Okay, another classic issue. I know for some, standee is disgusting and miniature trumps it anytime. I agree to this, but if they use miniatures instead of standees, the price would be higher than it is. I already brought this issue to them and their reason is reasonable. Even with small number of miniatures in the game (5 heroes, 3 monsters and a boss), getting these with miniatures, will make it hard for them to be flexible to add more characters or possible expansion in the future with limited print run.

C. Variability.
Okay I already mentioned this in below as one of the strong points but the truth is, for me as a hardcore gamer, that kind of variability is not really affecting the game in a huge way. It’s just randomization, but practically it’s the same game. The characters have different stat, but that’s it. Okay they have equipment that can be upgraded to higher levels, this should offers something during the game, but I think it will wear off quickly. The random setup of the monsters, I must say it’s very minor just like the random setup of the Netherworld. What I want is branching out story lines, different monsters or bosses that could change how you play the game, objectives that will drive you to constantly adapt from game to game. If they could offer these, it would be amazing. And I almost forget, the battles  in the game use dice, yes dice rolling and high results. That could be a problem for more advance gamers. This luck based battle resolution some times not in our favor. So this is worth to be mentioned, but I understand the necessity of using this system to resolve battles, after all it’s a family game.

I hope you guys can find out more about the game from my observation and if you are interested you can pledge the game or maybe print and play files on Kickstarter. If you want to know about the game, you can check its rule here (not final though). Or check their facebook page.

 

Counting Cows

El Gaucho Review
In 2014 Argentum Verlag published a board game about sheep, err… I mean cows. It’s name is El Gaucho, that sounds like Mexican? Whatever it is the game is about Cattle Barons who manage Gauchos to round up herds from the Pampa (in case you are wondering, Pampa is taken from the word Pampas, a fertile lowland located in South American, covering plains across Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil) and sell it to gain money, I hope they didn’t use that money to buy a revolver, oh wait that’s cowboys. Gauchos are nothing alike cowboys, Gauchos are local residents of the Pampa and they work by herding cattle, they are excellent horsemen, so maybe they use those money to buy horses.
The game can be played from 2 to 4 players in 45-60 minutes. Designed by Arve D. Fuhler and illustrated by Dennis Lohausen who was responsible for those cute-looking cattle in the game. The game is published by Argentum Verlag in 2014.

There are five different colors for the cattle, white and black cattle, white cattle, black cattle, brown cattle and golden cattle. During the game players will use dice to catch cattle in the Pampa and keep them in herds. Then they can sell their herds to receive points. They can also use their dice to place their gauchos in buildings which have different uses during the game.

Game in Progress

Cows / Cattle enter the game from Pampa or pastures (there are 4 rows of pastures in the board). During each end of round each pasture is refilled with cattle tiles from the draw pile as long as the sum of the tiles in each pasture is lower than 20 (if a single pasture total is already 20 or more then no more tile will be placed even there are still empty spaces).

At the start of a round, the first player will roll all the dice and then chooses 2 dice to use. These dice can be used for one or two things, either to place gauchos in a specific location or to send gauchos to capture cattle.
There are 6 locations on the game, each location has a value for dice allocation, which the dice must exactly the same as listed. So with 2 dice players can send one or two gauchos, but each location can only hold one gaucho of a player. If a player still has a gaucho in that location, he cannot send another gaucho to that location.

Players can use their dice to capture cows in the pastures. Each cows has a big number range from 1 to 12 and a smaller ones. These numbers determines the value of the cow itself, to buy with dice and to sell as coins. When a player buy a cow with the bigger number, he spend his die/dice according to the value and put one of his gauchos on the cow tile in standing position. But if he get it with the smaller number, he put his gaucho laid down on the tile.
The difference between a laid down gaucho and a standing one is standing gauchos will take the cow to the herd at the end of the round (only if all cattle tiles in it’s row are filled with gauchos, standing or laid down, don’t matter) . While the laid down ones do nothing and can only take cows when they’re stood up. Yes they cannot take the cows back but at least they can keep out and watch the cows from other players who lay eyes on them (not it will protect the cows but at least it gives other players extra effort to take them).

Gauchos Placements

After a player uses up all his dice, next player in clockwise order takes his turn by choosing 2 dice from the dice rodeo (pool) and then uses the dice. The round ends when the last player already takes his turn (there will be only one die left in the dice rodeo after he finishes his turn). The player to the left of the starting player takes the black gaucho meeple as a starting player marker and collects all the dice, he rolls all of them and the next round begins. Aside from the player’s dice allocation, he can also activate a location where he has a gaucho and resolve it’s effect (not all location can be activated during this phase), he can do this before, during or after his dice allocations.
The twist is that at the end of each round, players check each pasture. If all cow tiles in each pasture already have Cowboys on them, resolve them (cows with standing cowboys are taken by the owner). But if there’s at least one empty cow tile in that pasture, it’s not resolved. So with this restriction, players also figuring out the timing and situation to get the tiles. Admittedly we played this rule incorrectly, which by the looks of it, made it easier to plan things.
The game ends as soon as the draw pile is empty of cattle. Finish the current round and players will get one regular round, after that there is one final round which the first player do no roll the dice, they can only use their gauchos on the board (activate buildings). After that all players’ herds are sold. Players with the most points win the game.

There are some restriction to put cows in player’s herd. A herd can only consist of a single type and players can only own one herd of one type, so if he want to put a new cow he must put the cow in a herd with the same kind or he cannot choose to make a new herd if he already has a herd of that type. The herd must be lined up in a specific order, ascending or descending, in which the player decides when he creates that herd for the first time. He must adds the new cow(s) in following order (ascending or descending) from the right, so he cannot put new cows in the middle nor from the left of the line. If this somehow breaks the line, he must sell the herd first (not counting the new ones) and receives points based on the highest number on the herd multiplied by how many tiles on that herd. Then he make a new herd with the new cow tiles that breaks the herd (decides the order if necessary).

The game’s six locations are
1. Sort (Stall) – pip range 1-3
To place a gaucho in this place, players have to use a single die with pip value from 1-3. When a player retrieves his gaucho from this location he can do a Sort action, which can only be taken when collecting cattle. Players can place one cattle he collects anywhere in the herd (within the same type) even at the very beginning.

2. Wish (Hero of the rodeo) – pip range 1-3
To place a gaucho in this place, players have to use a single die with pip value from 1-3. When a player retrieves his gaucho from this location, he adds one virtual die (with any value) to his collection. This virtual die cannot be saved up for future rounds and must be used immediately upon retrieval.

3. Immediate Sale (Estancia) – pip range 1-3
To place a gaucho in this place, players have to use a single die with pip value from 1-3. When a player retrieves his gaucho from this location, he can immediately sell one of his herds with at least 2 cattle in it and received an additional 5 points.

4. Steal Cattle (Cattle Thief) – pip value 4
To place a gaucho in this place, players have to use a single die with pip value of 4. When a player retrieves his gaucho from this location, he steal one cattle tile from one of his opponents and put it into one of his herds or make a new one. If this placement breaks the order he must sell the herd and start a new one with that tile. This cannot be combine with Immediate Sale action since it’s not count as an action of the gaucho in Immediate Sale location. The opponent you stole receives compensation in points as many as the stolen cattle value.

5. Raise / Replace Gauchos (Overseer) – pip value 5
To place a gaucho in this place, players need to use a single die with pip value of 5. When a player retrieves a gaucho from this location he can either raise up to two of his lying gaucho in the pastures or replace one of opponent’s lying gaucho with a standing one of your own. For the later, the opponent will receive a compensation based on the value of the tile his gaucho is in.

6. Secret Cattle (Steppe) – pip value 6
To place a gaucho in this place, players have to use a single die with pip value of 6. When a player retrieves his gaucho from this location he then take 4 cattle tiles from the Steppe location (right most bottom place in the game board) and then secretly look at it. He may choose to take one cattle tile (two if each tile has value of 4 or lower) and put it face up in the empty slot available in the pastures (along with his standing gaucho on each tile). If there is no empty slot available, he cannot take this action. He then draw tile(s) from the draw pile and add it to the left over tiles and put it back on the Steppe face down.

Dice Rodeo – Imagine Gauchos using Dice as horses

Thoughts About The Game
The game is simple and easy to teach. On your turn you only need to choose two dice and use them, either place workers in a cattle tile(s) or in a location(s). Main purpose, getting a long line of herds and cash it in. Points are generated from simple multiplication when selling herds, the locations add interesting game flow and interactions between players. One important note is that the cattle tiles have unique values, hence you can deduct or predict the availability of a specific tiles. Sold tiles are discarded and no longer used. So in time it will become obsolete to go on for a type of cattle if most of it already sold. The basic principle is getting a lot small value tiles with one highest value tile possible from one type and  cash it in, huge profit.
Though it’s a Euro game, there is one thing worth mentioning, the Steal action does make the game feels quite direct tackling other players, though smart plays could lightly mitigate this. Usually in my plays, the Steal actions take place just before the game ends, because players are keeping their trump cards for last scoring. But who knows, getting another player’s tile in a perfect timing could boost your points (timing is important).

If you are into light Euro with worker placement, dice allocation and simple multiplication, this might be good for you or your children. Plus, the cattle are so adorable, I did not mention the poo, did I? The most notable component in the game is the cattle, 60 tiles full of cute-looking cattle are good enough to make your day, but that’s not all, there’s also a little gimmick for the dice rodeo, which is made to look like a cage with card board fences which keep the dice inside when rolled, also adds little spice to the theme. I must say the replay value is not very high, the random factor is only on drawing of tiles during the end of each round.