Month: December 2017 (Page 6 of 11)

Designers: Wei-Hwa Huang, Thomas Lehmann

Explore the Universe! Colonize planets! Build a trade strategy focusing on cheap plastic crap! Roll for the Galaxy is the dice game inspired by Race for the Galaxy and is, in my opinion, a massive improvement on the formula.

Each turn, players roll dice. They can then choose to allocate those dice in ways that lets them explore, colonize, produce and trade with other players. Players can build projects that let them change the rules, or colonize planets they can exploit for resources.

Interesting Mechanics: Roll Activation. The best mechanic in the game is the best mechanic from Race for the Galaxy – while players may have dice set to fire multiple actions (Colonize, Explore, Trade, etc), each player can only guaruntee that one role will fire – i.e. he will declare that Explore will definitely fire. If he has dice set to one of the other actions (such as Trade) that doesn’t fire, then that die ends up wasted. Savvy players therefore will seek to maximize each turn by trying to guess what roles other players will activate, to maximize their turn efficiency.

Roll for the Galaxy is a great, small game that is easy to teach, quick to learn, and involves rolling a metric fuckton of dice. It still leans towards having too much iconography (which is what tortures it’s big brother Race for the Galaxy) but still packs a lot of fun in a small package.

(Photo Credit: Big Red Barrel)

Designer: Kevin Riley

You play as a Breach Mage, the last line of defense against really big bad monsters eager to destroy the last desperate remnants of Civilization, who hang out in a place called Gravehold which, frankly, does not sound like a great place to party. There you will attempt to make civilization’s last stand against the darkness, armed only with a handful of crystals and a spell called ‘spark’ which is absolutely as ineffectual as it sounds.

Interesting Mechanic: Cooperative Deckbuilding. There are a hoard of deckbuilding games, and there are a hoard of cooperative games, but these streams don’t cross very often. Aeon’s End does so fairly elegantly. Deckbuilding stacks are constant (like Dominion), and each mage has powers to help heal and manipulate the spells of their allies as they race against a rather aggressive clock.

Aeon’s End isn’t an easy game, and the game is paced in such a way that you constantly feel like you are in more trouble than you actually are. However, it does a very good job of creating a sense of cooperative stress and panic that is the hallmark of good cooperative games.

(Photo Credit: Miniature Market)

Designer: Paul Peterson

Guillotine is the most fun you can possibly have chopping off people’s heads, and as a bonus is perfectly in tune with the current political climate!

You and the other players are executioners, killing various noblemen in the wake of a popular revolution. Each turn, you will play one card from your hand, which manipulates the line to the guillotine, and then you’ll behead the guy at the front of the line. The guy who beheads the best collection of pretentious useless societal overhead is declared the winner!

Interesting Mechanic: Silly Art. If you think about it, this is a pretty dark design. I mean, you’re straight up whacking politicians, judges, and occasional misunderstood peasants and piss boys. But thanks to the very cartoony art style, you never feel bad about this, and could easily play this game with parents who normally are made squeamish by blood and gore.

Guillotine is a light, fun game that’s a great time filler between heavier games.

(Photo Credit: Board Game Geek)

Designer: Vital Lacerda

Who wouldn’t want to play a game about being a middle manager at a car factory? OK, so it’s not the glitziest power fantasy, but in Kanban you’ll live the dream! You’ll place your worker in one of several departments, which allows you to create prototypes, produce cards, research new advances, and play office politics.

Kanban is a super-dense point salad of a game, and it can be daunting to track everything, as one placed worker can touch three or four aspects across the board. However, if you have a group that likes heavy Euros, it’s an intricate and rewarding experience with a gorgeous, if somewhat overwhelming, presentation.

Key Mechanic: Boss Lady. Kanban is a worker placement game, where up to two players can take the benefit of a department per turn. The second person to place gets a minorly lesser benefit. However, the interesting twist is that an NPC meeple that represents your Boss moves through that track. She not only blocks placement in certain spaces, but if she visits your department, she will examine your board state (and either reward you for success or punish you for failure, depending on if you play the easy or hard version of the game). Furthermore, she only makes a certain number of trips through the factory, meaning players can tactically place their characters in a way to accelerate the game to the end, if it’s advantageous to them.

(Photo Credit: Board Game Geek)

Designer: Mac Gerdts

War never changes. Young boys are sent to die, for the sins and umbrages of men, while filthy war profiteers callously laugh all the way to the bank. You are one of those war profiteers.

Interesting Mechanic: Investment Equals Control. Each country takes their turn in order. However, control of a country is determined by the players who have invested the most in each country. One player may have two turns in a row, setting two countries on a collision course, while another player may have no country and just be letting his investments work for him, and the third may be looting a country as fast as possible before its inevitable economic collapse.

The actual turns involve moving around a roundel. Doing so lets them choose to produce more troops, earn revenue via taxes and move to take over more countries. Meanwhile, players are playing a seperate game entirely, trying to figure out to ride the wave.

Imperial 2030 is a game that looks like a wargame, but isn’t. It’s more of an economic game, albeit one with tanks and troops. The power of a country determines the values of a player’s investments. Imperial 2030 is an unusual game, and one that is somewhat hard for player’s to wrap their heads around. But it is deeply interesting, and I’d argue has something important to say about the confluence of money and warfare as well.

(Photo Source: Board Game Cafe)

Designer: Antoine Bauza

Tokaido is a story of a magical journey, where travelers walk a lonely road and occasionally hop in a hot springs with a monkey.

Interesting Mechanic: In each turn, the player who is furthest back on the road goes first. The goal of the game is really to stop as many places as possible, but you’re also competing with other players to hit those locations and complete sets of cards, so players will need to pick locations well without getting too far ahead of the rest of the travellers.  Players can jump far ahead of their competitors to get something they think is very important, but that means followers can pick up things they skipped at their leisure.

He can choose which stops to stop at – acquiring meals, stopping in hot springs, giving alms at temples, making friends, or viewing beautiful panoramas.

Want to capture that feeling of going on vacation and not having time to do everything you want to do? Then this game is for you. Seriously, this is a seriously beautiful, almost zen-like game, that is simple to learn and to play.

(Photo Credit: Dude, I Want That)

Designers: Richard Launius, Kevin Wilson

Bad things are afoot at the museum. Bad, many tentacled things. You and your buddies need to deal with these problems before losing your lives – or your sanity.

Elder Sign is a cooperative game that centers on going to locations, and trying to solve crises, which will give you the resources you need in order to gather the resources you need to close portals to another world. The art is pulled straight from Arkham Horror, which means its superb.

Interesting Mechanic: Cooperative Diceroller. The bane of most cooperative games is that they frequently can be shanghaied by one strongwilled player. Other games have solved this by adding traitor mechanics (Battlestar Galactica) or hidden objectives (Dead of Winter). This game takes another approach – it makes the game so random that its hard for other players to direct the whole game.

The dice-based nature of the game does mean that things CAN go very wrong very unexpectedly, but if you like coop games, the Lovecraftian theme and rolling lots of dice, this is a good, fast one.

(Photo Credit: Geek Dad)

Designer: Jason C Hill

Fortune and Glory is a big, bombastic game experience. It also happens to be dumb and silly, but still manages to be frivolous fun (I tend to over-index on shit that makes people laugh). Players are explorers in the vein of Indiana Jones, travelling the world to seek out (and compete to chase) rare artifacts. Along the way, they’ll be ambushed in cities, collect sidekicks and equipment, and compete against other players to get the best rewards. Don’t forget to download the accompanying music to add to the feel of the experience.

Fortune and Glory has one major flaw which is almost a killer, and that is that it has die rolls for movement. It’s no fun being the player who can’t seem to get out of North America while everyone else is raiding their second tomb. The other problem is, frankly, the box is a tombstone. It’ll eat the shelf space of four smaller games. But man, who doesn’t want a nazi zeppelin figurine?

Key Mechanics: Cliffhangers. When you face a challenge, you have to make some stat rolls based on your character’s attributes. If you fail – your turn ends instantly – it’s a ‘cliffhanger’, and you’ll pick up on defeating that challenge again on the start of the next turn. It’s a little clunky, but contributes awesomely to the feel of the experience.

Designers: Richard Amann, Viktor Peter, Dávid Turczi

Anachrony runs the unique distinction of being the first Time Travel board game that I haven’t thought was pretty dumb. And that’s pretty good.

In Anachrony, you are part of a post-apocalyptic society heading towards its final destruction. You are part of a colony of survivors, using the limits of time travel in order to prepare the resources you need to flee the planet. Or something. Honestly, I got confused.

Interesting Mechanic: Mech Meeples. You have four kinds of survivors. To place them, you will need to send them out in the wild in big mechs (slotting them into little slots in the mechs).  DIfferent survivors are better at different actions – getting bonuses to resources, for example, or being able to perform an action without resting. The idea that some meeples are better at certain actions than others is a very rich design space, and one I expect to see a lot more of in the future.

Bonus Interesting Mechanic: Borrowing From Yourself. Missing resources you need to get what you want to do done? Why, just give your future self a phone call, and ask if you can borrow those resources! But if you do, don’t forget to get in your time machine later and repay yourself, or the resulting paradoxes may wreck your base.

Anachrony is a relatively heavy game and somewhat tough to wrap your head around. But if you like dense Eurogames, this is the one that finally manages to turn time travel into an interesting and believable mechanic.

(Photo Source: Punching Cardboard)

Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek

Start with nothing, and forge a mighty empire, mostly by upgrading moldy ruins into fancy buildings, such as pyramids, casinos and circus tents.

Imperial Settlers is a tableau building game. Players will draw several cards per turn, and play them. Doing so will build buildings that adds to the capability of your kingdom – some generate resources every turn, others add effects that trigger when game events occur, and others give the players triggerable effects.

Interesting Mechanic: 3 Ways to play a card. Buildings you draw can be placed if you have the correct resources. However, these cards can also be ‘razed’ (thrown away) for a quick jolt of resources, or turned into trade routes (which allows players to pursue a steady resource stream). This mechanic helps ensure that almost every card you draw has some sort of utility, no matter when in the game you draw it.

Bonus Interesting Mechanic: Factions. In many ways, Imperial Settlers is a reworking of 51st State, a work by the same designer set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape that narrowly missed this list. Imperial Settlers has one cool feature that makes this game a strong improvement – faction decks. Each player effectively has a unique set of cards that he draws from, and the decks are strongly assymetric, and lean on entirely different mechanics. This not only adds replay value to the formula, it also makes the game have much stronger and more ludicrous combos that fire off far more frequently.

Despite the above, many gamers still prefer 51st State for a few reasons – one that is frequently cited is the cutesy art style of Imperial Settlers. Still, if you like a relatively quick game that focuses on building an economic engine, either of these two games are great, but I’d have to give Imperial Settlers the nod.

(Photo Credit: Geek Dad)