A short review of Splendor....

I'm always looking for simplicity in games, especially the lighter ones.  Much like the mathematical proofs I studied in the yesteryears of my graduate work, the simplest were always the most elegant and the best.  This to me is what makes quickie games like For Sale and Coloretto so wonderful - rules in under a minute but some definite thought involvement.  Splendor is like that - easy to explain and short enough (with the right players) and it seems like it's got some depth.  And it does if you look for it.  But I would argue one can just as easily play this fun game with nary a plan and still walk away handily with the victory.  And therein lies my disappointment although I do think its enjoyable enough filler if its played very quickly.

If a gamer was asked what an engine-building game is, they might say something like, "it's a game where you get resources to buy things which generate more resources and maybe points."  Using this description, Splendor really is an engine-building game boiled down to its purest, purest essence.  There are gems of 5 types which let you buy cards which then give you permanent gems and eventually, on the more expensive cards, points.  And that's about the gist of the game.  First player to 15 points shouts hurrah and shuffles up for another round.  It's almost that simple.  Okay, there's some bonus tiles which you can claim if you get enough cards of certain colours but there isn't much else to it.  On a player's turn, you can take 1 of the following 4 options: take 3 distinct gems or 2 gems of the same colour (if there's still at least 4 of that colour left) or hold a card for later and take a wild chip or buy a card from the table or their hand.

So you can pick up and hold up to 3 cards for later purchase?  This is key because I think this is where the major problem with the game exists.  In my experience with Splendor (including a 5-game bender a couple Saturday nights ago), the 4th choice of action - to hold a card for later and take a wild chip - is completely sub-optimal and one can win easily without ever doing it.  I honestly wonder why the option is even there if it so useless until perhaps the final turn to clinch the victory.  I've now played a few more games since then, refusing to ever pick up a card and only gathering gems when a table purchase is not possible.  And I've won them, in one case quite handily.  Part of the issue is the cards revealed are always so random that if you keep a spread of colours you're almost always able to buy something.  If not, just wait till the next turn and something will probably come up.  The luck factor is unfortunately quite large in this one.

It's too bad because this really is an enjoyable and speedy (if somewhat generic) little game which seems at first glance to offer lots of decisions.  I will say that I have only played my 10+ games with 4 players so we cycle through the decks very quickly.  This probably allows for many cards to be purchased quite easily.  I imagine in a 2-player game one would have to plan a little further ahead as the cards wouldn't get cycled half as much.

Clearly if I've played more than 10 games of this, it's a nice enough diversion (especially for lunch hours at work).  And I'll probably play it a few more times.  But the "holding" option and gold gems are entirely superfluous and one can very easily win this one by just waiting, hoarding chips, and buying the first cards that come up.

Maybe I just like that clicking those coloured chips together makes such a satisfying sound.....

A love letter to Love Letter.....

I'm starting to believe there is a bit of a renaissance occurring in board game circles, a rejection of the new and shiny and complex.  The complexity of modern games has left a lot of us with a sour taste in our mouths.  What happened to the simple, elegant brilliance of Modern Art or Ticket To Ride or even Power Grid?  Or even short games like the excellent Coloretto or For Sale?

Okay, maybe it's just me.  But still, I gotta think people are looking for more simplicity when gamers keep mentioning Love Letter in every second post and article I read.  If you haven't heard of Love Letter, then you probably don't read too many board game blogs.  So why is a game that costs $7, plays in about 5 minutes, and uses 16 cards and a few red cubes suddenly the darling of the game world?  Well, maybe that's just it.  Simpilcity.  10 seconds of rules explanation which yields, I daresay, a great half hour of fun, albeit very light fun.

So how does Love Letter work and how can it play so well with only 16 cards? (The cubes are really extraneous and serve only as scoring markers.)  The rules are dead simple.  You hold one card and on your turn you pick up a second card.  Then you have to play one of your cards face up and do what it says.  That's pretty much it.  The goal?  Be the last player left in the round or be the player holding the highest card when the draw pile empties.

It's overly simple but what makes the game interesting are the card powers.  Cards are numbered 1-8 and the different values all have different actions.  One lets you look at another player's card, some let you guess an opponent's card and eliminate that player if you're right, one makes you discard your other card of a certain type, and so on.  Each option is simple but the interplay of the actions is what creates such an enjoyable little round.  It's entirely possible to be eliminated on the first turn but when rounds can run under 2 minutes this doesn't really bother anyone.  Shuffle 'em up, deal another one! 

Yes, Love Letter has a hefty dose of luck but I've never seen so much fun packed into such a short, simple package.  Do yourself a favour and pick this lovely little filler up - anyone can learn it and anyone can play it and everyone will love it.  And for 7 bucks, that's a pretty awesome deal.

A brief review of Knizia's Indigo....

It's interesting to be playing and enjoying Reiner Knizia's Indigo a week after reviewing You Are The Maniac.  They are very different games but both very reminiscent of earlier titles, Maniac being basically a re-skin of the earlier Guillotine and Indigo being strikingly similar to Tsuro and Cable Car before it.  But whereas Maniac offers nothing new (or at least interesting) to the gameplay of its predecessor, Knizia tweaks Tsuro's formula just enough to make it a fun, nasty, and surprisingly engaging little game.  And he's definitely done this before with lighter titles like when he re-mixed Blokus to make Callisto (which I have to admit I prefer), when he expanded on Peter Burley's classic Take It Easy! with Take it Higher!, or even when he turned Tetris into the clever F.I.T.S.

The gameplay of Indigo, as always with Knizia, is deceptively simple.  Players add tiles in turn to expand the routes on the board and gems travel those routes until they land at the outside of the board, rewarding the players whose control markers are there.  A few little wrinkles, though:  certain gems are worth more points than others and players share the spaces on the outside of the board.  So if you connect a gem to your wall, you'll often be awarding another player with the same points as you.  Of course, if you must you can just crash the gems into each other so no one gets the points, which will cause many groans and objections from the other players.

Because the points remain hidden till the end and players often share the points, the game causes quite a bit of haggling and harassment considering how short it is (~20 minutes).  It's not deep by any stretch but the games I've played have been quick and nasty and interactive.  And of course, since it's a Ravensburger game, it's lovely to look at as the routes on the board expand.  Definitely recommended if you're looking for a fun, nasty filler and thought Tsuro could have been just a little bit smarter.

A short review of 'YOU Are The Maniac!'

They say that imitation is the sincerest from of flattery.  In that case, I'd like to think the publishers of Guillotine, a quick and humorous little card game that has been out for over a decade, should be very flattered.  I've only played Guillotine once a couple months ago but I only needed to read the rules for YOU Are The Maniac to realize that it's pretty near the same game.  Oh, the theme is different and Maniac adds a few new twists (plot twists, final girls, etc.) but the inherent gameplay is pretty much the same.

Basically a line-up of victim cards is made (horror movie victims in Maniac, French aristocrats in Guillotine) and each turn a player may play an action card then takes (kills) the first victim card in the line-up.  The actions do things like re-arrange the order of the victims, force opponents to discard cards, switch hands, etc.  Now certain cards give more points for certain victims, some cards combine to provide bonuses, etc but in general that's the game.  And in both cases it's featherweight-light and very short.  If either of these games lasted more than 20 minutes, I would cry tears of sheer boredom. 

Where Maniac diverges is by adding more chaos to the formula.  At certain points, plot cards will need to be drawn, and the final victim on the wall is always worth a hefty ton of points.  And if you're into the theme of horror movies, it actually is quite amusing.  In our game the Final Girl was killed in Part 1 but then escaped and showed up in Part 2 (the second round) and I immediately pictured Jamie Lee Curtis making to Halloween 2.  But these chaotic elements definitely remove what miniscule control one has over anything in the game.  Again, short game, thank god.

I guess your enjoyment of the game will hinge on a few things - theme, originality, and lightness of play.  The horror theme actually is a bit amusing and the characters add some amusement.  But if you own Guillotine, I dare say you don't need theis game.  It's pretty much the exact same game re-skinned but confused by some extra rules.  They are so similar that even The Count and Countess cards in Guillotine are renamed as Prom Queen and Prom King and score exactly the same in Maniac.  Yikes.  As well, as I said, it's very chaotic and random so this will aggravate anyone who doesn't like that sort of thing.

But if you're looking for a card game with a horror theme, I'd say this is dripping with it. It's being launched on Kickstarter here for 7 more days so you can contribute and have a copy sent to you (it's already reached its goal).  I dare say you should grab a copy before the Guillotine people find out....

A review of Morels...

One of the highlights of the Origins game convention this year was picking up my signed copy of Morels directly from the designer himself. I'd read it compared to Jaipur and Lost Cities, two of the most enjoyable 2-player card games I know, so I placed a pre-order a few weeks before the con. Unfortunately for me, I've only been able to get in a few games just in recent weeks which is too bad as it's actually quite a lovely, beautifully-produced indy game that deserves a much wider audience.

The rules of the game are relatively straightforward, much like most of the Kosmos 2-player line that inspired it, although there are few quirks that may take a practice game to wrap one's head around. In the abstract sense, this is a game of set collection a bit like Rummy but where the cards actually have a short window for you to grab them. In practice, though, the game is quite a thematic little ride of grabbing mushrooms before they rot and then cooking them for points or selling them to further one's opportunities.

The mushrooms and other cards that players draw each turn are lined up in the forest from left to right with the two right-most cards being free and the increasing in cost the longer they'll be in the forest (or the farther left they are). On most turns, a player will just take the simplest action which is to grab a single card from the forest. At the end of every turn, they then toss the right-most card into the decay and shift all the others in the forest down, adding one or two at the left. Players also have the option of drawing all the cards in the decay pile (possibly up to 4) but always need to adhere to the strict hand limit. And it's this hand limit that makes things a bit trickier. You need to save up at least 3 of the same kind of mushroom to cook them all at once but eventually after a drawing cards each turn, you'll hit the maximum and need to burn some cards. One option to help with this is to "sell" 2 or more of the same type for foraging sticks instead of cooking them for points. Now the sticks are what you can turn in to grab cards further into the forest instead of just from the two rightmost cards. And this leads to one of the many interesting decisions this game presents. Should I sell for sticks and more options later or should I wait and cook for the points that will win me the game? Simple but effective.

That is mainly how the game plays although there are some special cards which keep things quite interesting. Butter and apple cider cards add bonus points to sets of mushrooms at the moment you cook them, pans are required for each set of mushrooms you cook, and baskets raise your hand limit allowing to you grab the decay pile more often, a BIG advantage. And of course there are the moon cards and the night deck, a very clever touch that adds opportunity with some risk. If a player grabs a moon card they immediately grab the top card of the night deck. The night deck includes one of almost every type of mushroom in the game but each night mushroom counts as two cards of that type. So one takes a chance with the mushroom they receive but are guaranteed to at least be able to sell it for sticks if nothing else.

One final card, a poisonous mushroom called the Destroying Angel, can show up and hinder one's plays for a few turns.  The main effect is that your hand limit drops to 4 (plus basket modifications) for a certain number of turns that are dependent on how many sets you've cooked so far.  It can actually be a positive card if played right allowing one to discard some unwanted cards that you wouldn't have been able to toss otherwise.  Unfortunately, the rules surrounding the Destroying Angel are a little hard to follow in the rulebook and we struggled a bit our first round.  Also, the rules state that a player who is unlucky enough to be dealt a Destroying Angel at the beginning is basically stuck with a dead card until they pick up another Destroying Angel so they can discard it.  This was a bit hard to explain to the first person I played the game with and seemed a bit unfair.  In following games, we just chose to shuffle the DA's into the deck after both players had received their starting hands and this worked just fine.


Plastic frying pans and wooden foraging sticks

But setting minor rules quibbles aside, the game really does offer some interesting strategic decisions.  Since the cards fly by so fast, a player must try to commit to certain sets of mushrooms.  As in many great games, if you try to do too much, you really will succeed in very little.  For example, should you try to collect 3 of the 4 rare Morels for a huge score or just get a bunch of Tree Ears and cook them in butter to increase the score?  Even more interesting decisions involve when to grab foraging sticks instead of points and of course certain mushrooms offer many more foraging sticks.  I've found myself in at least a couple games grabbing foraging sticks early in the hopes that I can scoop the rare Morels and Chanterelles before my opponent can reach them or they rot in the decay.  The game is full of these meaningful but relaxed decisions and definitely benefits from multiple plays.

If one could lodge any complaints, I would say that you will find yourself shifting cards down in the forest over and over and over.  As well, the rules surrounding certain cards feel a tad involved for the lightness of the game, either that or they just aren't as clearly explained as I'd hope them to be.  The game does feel a bit heavier than the elegantly simple Jaipur but all of the different cards do really add to the depth and theme without bogging it down.  It's clear that this game was very well play-tested - from the touch of randomness and risk which I love in the Night deck and the Moon cards to the values of points versus sticks on the different mushrooms - everything seems to add choice and play value.  And the wonderfully illustrated cards and the handmade foraging sticks really do make this little game come alive.

My signed copy.  Awesome.  Just awesome.

If you've had any interest in the Kosmos' 2-player line over the past years or are even just looking for a good couples games, I'd highly recommend Morels.  It takes a game to get the hang of the different cards and how they work, but it is relaxing and fun and rewards multiple plays without ever feeling too heavy.  And to top it off, it's a lovely, high-quality production from an independent designer who rightly deserves more recognition.  And he's also a really nice guy who'll probably sign your copy, too, if you ask him nicely.

You can check out Morels and even order it here. Highly recommended.

Aloha from Hawaii....

No, no, I'm not in Hawaii.  Man, I wish.  But I've sure been playing a lot of it!  And I had originally thought I'd write a full review but the Opinionated Gamers have done such a good job, I think I can just direct you there for a full description.

Fact is, I'd heard of Hawaii last year but it wasn't even on my radar until I'd read the OG reviews a couple weeks ago.  Interestingly, they mention and I had already seen Tom Vasel's scathing (attempted) takedown of the game on BGG.  I like Tom Vasel's contributions but I gotta say I pretty often think he's got it all wrong (Railroad Tycoon, anyone?).  And on this game he was VERY wrong.  Feel free to disregard his review completely.  :)

This a brilliant, tricky, extraordinarily well-designed game that is quickly entering my top 10.  There are lots of pieces and setup and the rules are a bit of a chore, but once you get going the players catch on quick and the hour will fly by.  I've played with 2, 3, and 4 players, and every game has been wonderful.  The more players the better as the battle for tokens gets fierce but it seems to work well with any group.

Don't miss this one - the design is elegant and tight, the gameplay lasts the perfect amount of time, and it scales brilliantly for any number of players.   All that and it looks just freaking gorgeous.  Just an awesome medium to heavy weight game that you'll want to play again and again. Click on the pictures to look at huge images of all the beautifully produced components...

The board all set up pretty

The various place tokens

Currency!

Round tiles

Building villages tile by tile

T. G. I. F. - a micro-review of Friday....

In Canada, we have a long weekend in May to celebrate Victoria Day and this past one I spent out on the shores of Lake Huron at my wonderful in-law's cottage, drinking some delicious micro-brews from Toronto's great Mill St. Brewery and learning a new juggling trick, the 2-Hand Weave (which you can see me doing here).  When I wasn't outdoors, I was inside glued to the kitchen table playing solitaire.  Yes, solitaire.  But not any kind of solitaire - I was playing Friedemann Friese's brilliant and challenging Friday.  Over and over and over and over.....

Final two pirates to battle

Now I feel like I could thoroughly describe the mechanics of this fun little 1-player deck-building card game but I think it would sound rather confusing.  The game isn't complicated but it does take a few rounds to get the hang of the rules and then a few more rounds to actually learn how to not die almost immediately. 

Hazards which flip to fighting cards

At a high-level, you are fighting a bunch of hazards of ever increasing difficulty and every time you defeat one, you add the defeated card to your deck.  However, when you lose to a hazard you lose life points but you also get the opportunity to remove cards from your deck.  And you start with a lot of bad cards.  And unfortunately, every time you reshuffle your deck you add another REALLY bad card.  So basically you're struggling to prune your deck and build it up at the same time, all the while not losing all your life, only to face two monster pirate battles right at the end.  If you survive till then.

Hazard battle in action

I've won the game only once in the near 20 times I've played it on the easiest possible level (yes, you can amp up the difficulty to insane levels) but I've seen a continuous improvement in my skill.  I've gotten a feel for the cards and the hazards and started planning ahead I'm now choosy about which battles to fight to balance my deck as certain cards give you very distinct skills.  In short, I've gotten smarter and more strategic and I feel like I have control over whether I win or lose the game.  And I almost always lose.  Yet I keep playing. 

I think that's the sign of a great addicting little card game.

The final pirate battle in the only game I've won!

A review of Lords of Waterdeep....

It seems like at least 5-10 worker placement games get released every year now.  And rarely do they interest me.  I own the ORIGINAL worker-placement game Caylus and I still believe it to be the best.  Now, I have played a few like Stone Age which I enjoy due to the clever die-rolling and Agricola which pushes the tension through the roof but most just seem like rehashes of what has already been done (as an aside, I haven't played my copy of Kingdom of Solomon yet but I do plan to give it the old college try very soon). 

So when someone comes along and tells me that Wizards of The Coast has created a fairly simple "Dungeons & Dragons"-themed worker placement game that steals the owner bonuses and buildings from Caylus and the escalating points on unchosen buildings kinda like Small World or Puerto Rico, I get annoyed.  And then they try to tell me it's really good.  Right.  So I took a look at the rules and confirmed that, yes, there really is nothing all that original in this game.  It's just a hackneyed mix of modern mechanics, most of them from Caylus, all wrapped up in a completely extraneous D&D package.



The awesome storage tray!!!

And yet against my better judgment, I decided to see what the fuss was about and give it a try.  3 weeks and 8 games later, I am happy to say that all the fuss is well-deserved.  WOTC has released one of the simplest and most enjoyable worker-placement games yet:  fast-paced, highly interactive, and just about the perfect amount of tension.   And it's also one of the nicest productions I've seen in awhile considering how utterly abstract the gameplay really is.  This game really feels like Caylus' younger brother in that it's hugely simplified, more tactical than strategic, and allows and even encourages players to back-stab to their heart's content.

The game itself is a breeze to pick up, even if you've never played any other W-P games.  It takes place over 8 rounds with players having 2 workers (agents) to place each round in the 4 and 5 player games.  In the last 4 rounds, players will get another worker to place and they can also possibly hire an extra worker by completing one of the quests.  Initially the board starts with 10 buildings which do various things - take one or two of the four different types of cubes, draw Intrigue or Quest cards, get the start player marker, earn some money, etc.  There is also a building, Waterdeep Harbour, which allows up to 3 workers and lets you to play an Intrigue card (note that this is also the ONLY way to play an Intrigue card).  This building, much like the Gate in Caylus, allows you to play the workers on it to other buildings at the end of the round, making these spots prime real estate.

Halfway through the game....

So on a player's turn, if they have a worker to play, they must place it on an empty building space and take advantage of said building immediately.  If that building happened to be built during the game by another player, then the owner also receives a small bonus (just like Caylus...)  After that, the current player always has the option to complete one of their face-up quests, returning the required cubes and/or money to the pool and taking the reward on the card.  In almost all cases the reward will include points which are marked off immediately and usually some cubes or money as well.  In the case of Plot Quests, the player may also receive an ongoing effect for the rest of the game, such as something as slight as an extra orange cube every time they draw orange to a game changer like an extra worker to place for the rest of the game.   Rinse and repeat and then at the end reveal everyone's secret bonuses, where in all but one case bonus points are awarded for completing 2 of the 5 types of quests.

Moon dollars!!!!!

And that's really most of it.  Because you take advantage of the space you land on immediately, this doesn't require the same level of thinkiness as Caylus.  As well, if you have a few Intrigue cards the Harbour is almost always a good play as the card will usually benefit mostly you and there will always be extra spaces to move the marker later.  In terms of strategy, this is a very tactical game.  It is hard to plan too many turns ahead as you don't know what quests you'll be working towards or what buildings may available to be built.  However, one still feels a delightful sense of progression from the ongoing effects of completed Plot Quests and the rewards that they receive when others use the buildings they built.

Buildings available for purchase

But the key element that really makes this game shine (besides that it was extremely well play-tested) are the effects of the Intrigue cards.  They do many minor and major things like allowing the stealing of resources from other players, the use of unbuilt buildings, double actions, and the trading of resources for points.  But the nastiest subset of the Intrigue cards are the Mandatory Quest cards which you assign directly to other players.  They must finish the Mandatory Quest before they are allowed to finish any of their other quests.  And since you can only complete one quest per turn, a Mandatory Quest played during the last round can lay waste to someone's long held plans, maybe causing them to miss that big 25-pointer they finally got all the cubes for.  Brutal.

Quest cards up for grab

What starts out feeling like a simple Euro-game of cube pushing and worker placement ends up turning into a nasty, thoroughly engaging American-style slugger.  I've won this game by lying about my intentions and then attacking someone in the last round and I've lost it by two points due to someone's final play that benefitted the both us (her just a little bit more).  Our plays of this game have sometimes felt as rowdy as a good game of Risk or Tichu which says a lot.  Yet the game is short enough that the hard feelings don't last and everyone wants to play another round.  It's also quite different each game as the order that the buildings come out can severely affect the scarcity resources and money, making certain quests much more appealing (and usually less than half the buildings ever get built in any one game). 

I'll tell you now, this isn't the deepest game you'll ever play.  The buildings can come up in many different ways and the Intrigue cards can throw chaos and frustration into even the best planning.  But what it lacks in depth is made up for in simplicity and speed of play and huge level of interaction that is lacking in many other worker-placement games.  Although it may be one of the most unoriginal games I've ever played, it is still brilliantly designed and obviously has been thoroughly playtested.  I've played it 8 times now in the last three weeks and that's more plays than most of my games ever get.  Wizards of The Coast has scored a total coup with gorgeously produced game and I daresay it's our favourite so far this year.

A review of Kingdom Builder....

Following up Dominion has got to be one helluva tough task. The original "deck-building" card game has spawned a dynamic, exciting, and very different way to play hobby games. Whether or not you like Dominion, it's clear that its impact over the past 4 years has been a monumental game-changer (excuse the pun) unlike anything since Magic: The Gathering. So when that's your debut, expectations are pretty high for the sophomore effort. Cue 4 years later and we get Kingdom Builder from Queen Games, a beautifully produced abstract board game that I argue is clearly inspired by the modularity of Dominion but really lacks that game's originality, depth, and most of its excitement.

Now some will argue that comparing Kingdom Builder to Dominion isn't really fair as the gameplay is so different, one being an abstract network-building Euro and the other a deck-building card game. I would say, however, that the comparison is quite apt not only because they have the same designer but also because the only really original part of KB is clearly inspired by the random Kingdom card setup of Dominion. And sadly for me, this seems to be the only really interesting part of the game as well.


3 random scoring goals and the bonus castle goal

So what do you do in Kingdom Builder? Well, that really depends on the 3 scoring cards you draw at the beginning of the game out of a possible 10. One card, for example, gives points for large contiguous groups of connected settlements and another awards first and second place to players with majorities in quadrants of the board. Some scoring cards encourage spreading out while others invite you to surround certain spaces on the board. The one scoring condition that holds true every game, and hence does not require a card, is that you receive 3 points for every castle you connect to. In each game, there are between 4 and 6 castles so this is nothing to scoff at when high score sometimes can be as low as 40. So in essence this is really a connection game, much like Ticket To Ride or Through The Desert.

The gameplay itself is fairly simple, almost too simple. In fact, the first time I read through the ruleset, my immediate thoughts were, "Is that it?" and I actually avoided the purchase until I'd been swayed by some fairly positive reviews. In short, each player has 40 houses ("settlements") to place on the board to maximize their points according to the 3 scoring cards picked for that game. Every round a player draws a landscape card which designates on which of the 5 types of empty landscape spaces he MUST play 3 of his houses. In addition, if at all possible these new settlements must be played connected to one of that player's previously played settlements. And that's mostly it. But the thing is, it's these two somewhat artificial constraints that require most of the strategy and yet also provide a lot of the aggravation. Let me explain further.

The different blocks of landscape are all large and connected to each other so when you place 3 settlements in the desert, for example, you could decide whether to place at the edge of the desert next to, say, a patch of forest. This will allow you to continue onto that forest if you draw a forest card later. More often, though, you are trying not to connect to that forest region so that if you draw that forest card later and you are forced to play on a forest, you can start anywhere as hopefully there are no empty forest hexes next to your played settlements. Notice how both of these moves depended mightily on that certain card you drew later. But what happens if you played in the desert and then you drew another desert card and had to stay connected and play more houses in the desert. And you had no choice but to play your houses adjacent to the fields which you don't feel like expanding into. Then the next turn you draw a field card and, well, there goes another turn as you are forced to play into the fields. Yeah, lame. There are some turns in this game that almost completely play themselves and usually not in the way you want them to either. Considering you get at most 14 turns in the game (and that's if you play really poorly), wasting 3 or 4 on bad cards draw does not feel good at all.

No harbour for anyone else.  Sorry!

Not to say there aren't some ways around this. Certain locations on the board when connected to provide an action token which you can use repeatedly to do things like add a settlement to a certain terrain type or move one settlement 2 spaces, the latter being very useful. And like the scoring cards, only 4 of the 8 different action tokens are available every game providing more of that Dominion-style modularity. And sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Clever plays can be made when certain tokens are played before your landscape card allowing you to make a connection your previously couldn't. But this does lead to some major down-time when one player has 5 tokens and a landscape card and is scratching their head trying to optimize their move according to the four different scoring possibilities. Even worse, as in our last game, one player could get a field card then a chasm card on the first couple turns, completely surround the harbour action space, and basically lock everyone else out of the win in the first 5 minutes. Geez, wish we'd drawn either of those cards.....

So why is Dominion such a success whilst Kingdom Builder just falls kind of flat? Both games start with a very simple base game and build upon it using a subset of rules possibilities. Out of that modularity comes the interest in the game. The big difference is that base game of Dominion is unique, exciting, and very different and the cards there tweak that formula in very different ways. Kingdom Builder is not unique and really not that interesting. Flip a card, play houses on that type of space, remain connected if possible. The variety introduced by the actions usually does little more than let you play another house and the scoring opportunities are in general rather dull ("score for majority", "make the biggest connected group", "connect locations together on the board"). All of these goals have been done before many times, and I daresay better in most cases, so randomly combining a few of them doesn't really add that much tension.

In addition, unlike Dominion which is a fairly balanced game (yes, it really is, everyone can buy the exact same cards), KB is totally unbalanced and rather luck-driven by the landscape cards. One only has to go to the BGG threads to see how some players have tried to fix this aspect of the game. When you have a strategy but you have to waste turns ignoring it and just playing what the card tells you to, there is something seriously wrong.

Finally, and I think this is the biggest issue with Kingdom Builder, Dominion provides rewarding moments throughout its play-time. Every time you draw and cleverly chain together enough cards to purchase a Province in Dominion, it's that emotional payoff, that reason to continue. Other much better connection games have these mid-game rewards, too, like Ticket To Ride when you connect two cities to finish a ticket or Through The Desert when you surround a group of point chips and pick them up immediately. The problem with KB is that all of the scoring occurs at the end of the game no matter what scoring cards you're playing with so the most interesting part of the game for me is the last two minutes when we tally it all up. Too bad we played for 45 minutes to an hour just to get there.

I'm surprised that something this light and luck-driven has been released by Queen Games who in the past few years have released some of my favourite games. I kind of feel like they saw the runaway success of Dominion and its and decided to just accept the next thing from him to come along. Not to say that others couldn't enjoy this game, as it's not awful or unplayable. I mean, there is definitely a following online of people have house-ruled this game to shit trying to make it more strategic. But I'm kind of stubborn about house rules as I treat games like I do art, movies, and music. I want to experience a game exactly as the designer and company intended me to experience it, good or bad. And even if one is able to fix the random "you win, you don't" aspect of the landscape card draw, I just don't find the game all that interesting. I think the next time I'm in the mood for a good connection game, I'll just go back to Knizia's classic Through The Desert which is a helluva lot more fun.

I probably should have just listened to my gut when I first read the rule-set. Ah well, you live, you learn.

A review of Chaotic Connections....

I must admit I have quite the affinity for network-building games.  Unless this is the first post of mine you've ever read, you'll probably know that I think Ticket To Ride is the cat's pajamas.  In fact, any sort of train game, simple or complicated, in which the goal is to connect various locations, usually sits pretty well with me.  Another quick and simple game of network-building, TransAmerica, has also been very well-received in our group.  So when a copy of Chaotic Connections was offered to me for review, I took a look at the description and thought, sure, why not.  (I tend to be wary of indie games offered for review lately as I have had at least a couple completely unplayable games sent my way - games whose rules were so incomplete, sketchy, or just contradictory that they had to be aborted 5 minutes in.  I just can't review that.) 

But Chaotic Connections, cleary inspired by TransAmerica, seemed like a silly enough mashup of that game and your classic card-based game Sorry.  Now that I've played it, I can say it feels a bit more like the classic but dated game of chaos, Nuclear War.  I must be honest right now and say that this game just isn't for me.  But considering the outstanding success of something as god-awful boring and chaotic as Killer Bunnies (which really is just a bloated rip-off of Nuclear War), I think this game may be enjoyable for many.  It's definitely a lot shorter and simpler than KB, which already makes me think it is a much better game.

Before I discuss the gameplay, though, I really need to mention the main issue I have with the game and the thing that may just hold it back from getting a wider audience:  the production values.  To say this isn't your usual Days of Wonder production would be an understatement.  The graphic design is not only very bland but it also works against the game.  The square player chips don't actually fit on the spaces that well and we found ourselves rearranging them a bit mid-game to try and fit them all on a path between cities.  The cards have no indication on them of where on the board the cities lie (unlike, say, TransAmerica or Ticket To Ride) so we searched a little at the beginning.  Besides this, the cards are very, very cheap stock.  One of our city cards got a little wet in the first 5 minutes started to warp immediately.  No glossy protection for you!  The worst offenders, though, are the standup signs which get placed on the board to mark detours, road closed, and intersections. They come with some generic black stands (which don't fit) to hold them up but unfortunately they are printed only on one side.  So unless you're all playing on one side of the table, half the people can't make out the signage.  This could have so easily been fixed by either printing on both sides of the card stock or maybe offering a fold at the top so it would be folded into a two-sided piece.

Having said all that, once the coloured chips were all punched out (and a few lost forever due to the really crappy cutting job of the card stock) the setup and explanation of the rules was a breeze.  The game itself is quite simple.  Like TransAmerica, all players are given a set of cities to try and connect to using their own and other players markers.  But unlike TA, everyone marks their cities at the beginning so you know exactly what your opponents are going for.  And I actually like that.  What I didn't really like was that the cities are randomly dealt and only one of your goal cities is picked by an opponent.  So basically you pick the 3 of 5 city cards that are the closest on the board and then the player to your right picks the 4th from the two cards they have left (clearly they pick the one farthest from your other cities...) 

Then the game proceeds with players playing 1 of 4 cards from their hands every turn, some of the cards being a forced play if you have them.  Cards allow players to add mileage markers (chips), take away opponent's markers, block routes temporarily or permanently, or even add or remove cities from a players goals.  It's all quite random, and, well, yes, chaotic and players continue adding their chips and removing their opponent's until someone connects all their cities and wins.  The game moves quite quickly and our games averaged 20-30 minutes.

It is fairly clear to me that I am not the target audience for this game.  The choices are very simple - "player A is going to win.  I should remove his markers", "I have add 300 and add 500 miles cards.  I should play the add 500 miles", etc. - but the board play is rather interesting.  Connecting to someone else's network will get you further but also may help them with their goal.  These are some great lessons for kids but a bit simplistic for adults.  As well, the frustration of being randomly handed more cities to connect to while the player beside you gets to remove his is, well, chaotic.  And having all your cities spread across the board while the other players manages to start his within 10 spaces of each other is also, well, chaotic.  And to add 4 mileage markers and then have them removed by others before your next turn, and then add them again, and then have them removed, and then added again.  And then you win!  Well, that is pretty chaotic.  I think you get the idea.

One of the comments from another player is that this game could be house-ruled tons to make for a much better experience.  Other ways to determine cities would make for a much better game, I think.  For example, you pick one of your cities and then the other players pick 3.  That would make for a much better experience and a far more interesting game.  In fact, it's something I think I'd like to try.

Still, the fact is the very similar and much better-produced TransAmerica offers a way more balanced approach to the game set-up and removes the chaos completely by not using cards and giving each player the same number of plays a turn.  A game of TA is usually very close each time and offers much tougher decisions.  But maybe that's not what you're looking for.  Maybe you enjoy the randomness of a classic like Mille Bornes or the nasty take-that of Sorry and you think that would improve a game like Ticket To Ride or TransAmerica.  Then I actually think you may enjoy Chaotic Connections.  Hey, on the website they even advertise that a game could take 5 or 45 minutes.  If that's okay by you, and you've got some young kids to play with, this could actually be a decent one.  For my money, though, I prefer a much more balanced game -  I like to feel like my decisions aren't entirely obvious each turn and that I have some semblance of control over whether I win or lose.

But hey, extremely chaotic games like Killer Bunnies sell tons of copies.  If you like chaos, and you want something to play with the kiddies, you might want to consider this one.  Just don't get the cards wet......

A review of San Francisco Cable Car...

Tile-laying games can be kinda hit-or-miss for me. I've never really enjoyed the very well-received and endlessly expanded-upon game Carcassonne as I found the aggravation of utterly random tile draws totally outweighed the enjoyment of seeing the land take shape.  And yet I've recently fallen back in love with the nastily strategic and abstract Tantrix which could also fairly be accused of being a bit too random.  Maybe the difference in Carc is that you always are looking for that certain one tile to complete your scoring and you just never draw it.  Whereas in a game like Tantrix (or even Ingenious, for that matter) you try and make do with what you have and usually a clever move exists.  San Francisco Cable Car (a reprint of the older Dirk Henn title Metro) is an excellent little board game that seems to fall somewhere right in between.  The choice of what tile you play each turn is quite limited but exactly where you play that tile can make all the difference.

The gameplay of the basic game (which is exactly the same as Metro) is quite simple and, as in most Queen games, very clearly explained.  Each player has the same number of cars in their colour which are placed on designated spaces around the outside of the board.  Players take turns either playing their hidden tile onto the board or draw a random tile and play that one instead.  Tiles must obey a few rules:  all tiles must be oriented in the same direction, they must be connected to the outside of the board or another tile, and if at all possible they must not cause a car to score only a single point.  If after the tile is played any player's car is connected in a continuous line of track to a station, then that player's car scores a point for every tile its track runs through.  If that station happens to be the power station in the centre, then the points are doubled.

So in the basic version, players add tiles trying to extend the tracks of their own cars while running all of their opponent's cars into stations as fast as possible.  It's pretty nasty stuff but a fairly short game so players don't tend to get too upset.  Now, the big difference between Cable Car and its predecessor Metro is the new stock variant which in my mind takes a very light game and makes it much, MUCH more interesting.  It is also, I think, what makes Cable Car so worth the purchase.

In the stock variant none of the coloured cars are owned by the players.  There are now 8 companies with 4 cars each and each player is given a random set of 4 stocks in values of 10, 20, 30, and 40 percent.  In addition to a regular play of a tile, on your turn you can instead exchange one of your stocks with one of equivalent value from the face-up stock or random from the top of the pile.  This stock exchange is available only until one company manages to score 25 or more points and then all players' stocks are locked in till the end of the game.  Once the final tile is played and all the cars have scored, players stocks are valued according to their percentage times the relative rank of the company.  (For example, if the black company placed first out of the 8 companies and I had a 30 percent share, it would be worth 3x8=24 points.)  In addition, there are some small company bonuses for players with majorities.  Once the tally is done, high score wins.

So the stock rules don't add too much complexity to the game but they allow for players to focus on increasing the length of paths for multiple companies.  They also shelter players a bit from being directly attacked although it's almost guaranteed that early on someone will make your 60 percent share company score a 2-point car.  But at the point you just exchange your 40 percent share for one from a different and hopefully better company.  Of course, this can only occur before one company scores big and then everyone's assets are locked in. And this adds a delicious tension and makes the speculation that much tougher as not only can exchanges only be done early on but you must also give up an opportunity to add track to the board.  And since only 60 tiles can ever get played in a game, your options to influence the tracks are already fairly limited.

We played the original version once with everyone being their own colour and have only played the stock version since.  The rules aren't much more complicated and the depth added to the game now feels like it should always be there.  The stock game feels a bit lighter than say Ticket To Ride but plays much quicker and works perfectly well even with the 6 players.  The satisfaction of completing that 20-point track in a company you've got investments in is quite satisfying and watching the board take form is pretty cool.  I'm not surprised at how enjoyable and satisfying this game is considering it was designed by Dirk Henn whose credits include the classic Alhambra and the tense and tricky Atlantic Star.  I was lucky enough to receive this as a Christmas gift (you have to be VERY careful when buying me board games as gifts) and boy am I glad I did as I probably would have overlooked this little gem.  If you want a family strategy game that includes tile-laying, stock options, and a little bit of delicious nastiness, I don't think you could do better than this game.  Easy-to-learn, fun, and very quick.  But you gotta play with the stock variant....