It is that time of year again where I awaken this blog from its extended hibernation, and this time I am coming at you with a little something different, something brand new that’s never been featured on this blog before.
About midway through 2017 I really got into board games. Not your typical Monopoly or Sorry, mind you, but real tabletop games. I wish I would have been exposed to these types of games much earlier, but I am so thankful for all of the fun I have had since I have started playing them. These games can really suck you in and make you oblivious to how much time has passed. One day, for example, my friend and I played board games for six or seven hours straight.
For this post I am going to cover the board games I played in 2017 and give a short review of each one. I would consider almost all of the games I am going to talk about here gateway games, meaning it does not take too much time or effort to understand and enjoy them, so do yourself a favor, grab some friends, and see what you have been missing in the world of tabletop games.
#20: BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia
As a big fan of Ken Levine’s BioShock video games, I had to try out the board game inspired by BioShock Infinite. In BioShock Infinite, the player controls Booker DeWitt as he is sent to the city in the clouds, Columbia, where he rescues a young woman named Elizabeth from captivity. Though Columbia appears to be a floating utopia at first glance, further exploration by the player reveals its dark reality. Two factions are at war over control of Columbia. The elite Founders rule through a policy of nativism to ensure that White Americans keep their privileged place in the hierarchy of the society. Meanwhile, the Vox Populi seek to overthrow the Founders in a bloody rebellion for the sake of Columbia’s underclass. The board game lets players take control of either faction as they fight to win control of the different districts of Columbia. Because there are only two factions, the game can be played by two players in a head-to-head format, or by four players paired off in two teams. In my opinion, the game plays best with two players. The first faction to 10 victory points wins.
Each turn of the game is divided into three phases. During the World Event Phase, players cast votes on an effect that may or may not come into play depending on the outcome of the vote. The Player Turns Phase comes next. This phase has four steps. In the first step, the player produces cards in his or her hand to collect currency. With the following step, the player recruits new units, builds new structures, or purchases upgrades. After this step, the player is able to move any four units he or she controls to another location. The player can choose to slowly traverse Columbia by traveling to locations that are adjacent to each other, or the player can take the riskier but faster mode of transportation called the Sky-Line. When using the Sky-Line, the player must roll the three Sky-Line dice to see if his or her unit makes it through the Sky-Line safely. As long as the player rolls one thumbs up die, his or her unit survives. If a thumbs up is not rolled, the player must discard losses cards or units. For the final step of the Player Turns Phase, the player resolves combat. Combat can take place with Booker, an opponent, or an undiscovered territory. Each undiscovered location has a random token on it. When a player tries to claim an undiscovered location, that token is flipped over, and the player must exceed the number listed on the token to claim the location. The final phase of the round is known as the Refresh Phase. At this time, the players replenish the cards in their hands and draw a victory point card. Victory points are earned by controlling all of the locations in a territory or by fulfilling the criteria set forth by a victory point card and claiming it. The game ends with the first player to collect ten victory points. The game can also end if there are no more world event cards to draw. If this occurs, Booker and Elizabeth have escaped from Columbia, and the player with the most victory points wins.
BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia assumes that players are fans of the source material. Players who have not heard of the video game may not understand the theme and may assume it is some sort of odd sci-fi Americana mashup. However, players who are familiar with BioShock Infinite will appreciate the detail that went into the artwork and models and will feel a great sense of immersion into the world of Columbia.
The game employs a great mechanic that aids the underdog throughout the course of the game. During the World Event Phase, Booker will vote on the side of the player with the fewest victory points. This helps to balance the game and keep things competitive. Speaking of Booker, he and Elizabeth can really wreak havoc on the game, easily causing the momentum to shift from one player to another. Because of this, players’ strategies can change instantly.
While the game certainly earns points for capturing the expansive feel of the world of Columbia, its expansiveness can also be a detriment. Players can spend a lot of time cross-referencing their player card, the board, and the rules. It can also be a little intimidating to keep track of so many units, upgrades, and cards. With so many pieces, organization can come at the expense of time. New players might feel overwhelmed with all of the phases and steps involved in their turn, so it definitely helps to have an experienced player for a first-time playthrough. The game time can also be a turn off with the shortest game players can finish probably going just above the hour mark.
Fans who love the BioShock franchise and board games will be pleased with BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia. If someone is new to tabletop gaming, they should stay away from this board game and seek a more traditional gateway game that is far less complex in nature.
#19: Betrayal at House on the Hill
Have you ever wanted to craft your own haunted house adventure? Betrayal at House on the Hill lets you do just that! Tile by tile, players expand the size of the house by discovering new rooms, each with its own spooky omen or frightening spirit.
Designed for three to six players, Betrayal at House on the Hill essentially has two main parts to it. The game starts off as a cooperative exploration as the players work together to uncover the secrets of the haunted house. At a certain point in the game, one of the players is forced by a mechanic of the game known as the Haunt to betray the rest of his or her party, and the other players must continue to work together to take down this traitor and escape the house.
Players can choose between six different characters, each with different starting levels of attributes. Players manage their character’s attributes throughout the game. Might and speed encompass their character’s physical attributes, and sanity and knowledge make up their character’s mental attributes. Players use their respective character plate cards to track these attributes. The meter for each attribute does not follow a sequential order. For example, a character’s might meter may read 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1. If one of character’s attributes ever reaches the skull on that attribute’s meter, the character dies and that player is out of the game. Because the attribute meters are not in a strict sequential order, the actual value of that attribute may not change, but the player is one level closer to losing.
During a player’s turn, he or she can move through a number of rooms according to their current level of speed. In the course of the player’s exploration, he or she will probably have to draw an event, item, or omen card. Event cards usually make the player roll based on one of his or her attributes to avoid damage or gain a benefit. Item cards, of course, give the player some form of equipment that can be used or traded with other players. The most dreaded of the three card types, omen cards dictate something to the player and then forces that player to roll six dice. If the player’s roll totals less than the number of omen cards that have already been drawn, the Haunt phase starts and the dynamics of the game change. If, on the other hand, the player’s roll is greater than or equal to the number of omen cards that have been drawn, the game continues as normal without going into the Haunt phase.
When the Haunt phase is triggered by an omen roll, players use the game’s rulebook to determine which Haunt they are going to play based on which room and omen started the Haunt. Once the Haunt is revealed, the traitor player goes to another room with the traitor book and the other players remain and go over their own rulebook. Haunt scenarios vary from zombies, werewolves, cannibals, vampires, and pretty much every horror monster in between. The game ends when the traitor or the players have met the goal the game has set forth for them.
The designers did an excellent job with the theme of Betrayal at House on the Hill. It successfully gives off a suspenseful atmosphere, and each turn feels like it has weight to it. The setup of the game allows for randomization of the layout of the house each time the game is played, and with fifty haunt scenarios in total, the story will likely be different too.
While I like how the different attribute levels of the characters affects gameplay, I do not like that if a character reaches the lowest level on the attribute meter, that player is out of the game. Since the playtime for this game exceeds the hour mark in most cases, that could mean a lot of boring waiting around and watching other people have fun. The losing player could remedy this by jumping in and advising the remaining players on what they should do, but this could easily result in a tabletop quarterback, which nobody likes in a cooperative game.
While the attribute meters on the character plate cards are easy to follow, they are not easy to mark thanks to the plastic tab that the game uses. In my experience, this tab can easily slide and lose its spot on the meter from an accidental bump or the slightest shaking of the table.
I also had my issues with the Haunt phase of the game. When I played Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time, I ended up being the traitor, and I had no idea what to do. Sure, the game provides the traitor with his or her own rulebook to follow, but a lot of these haunt scenarios have multiple layers to them and lots of stipulations that are easily overwhelming. While I think the two separate rulebooks for the Haunt phase are a great idea, the game devolves into a chore of constantly checking back to the rulebook to make sure everything is being done correctly. Quite frankly, I did not enjoy that the game practically halted for a reading session to understand the new rules that were coming into play with the Haunt.
Betrayal at House on the Hill excels with its horror theme, and players really do feel like a part of this story they are uncovering. However, the game changes with the Haunt phase, and some people may not like that. Again, I recommend that first time players for this game bring along someone with a fair amount of experience; perhaps that person may be able to streamline the Haunt phase and cut down on the reading time required to understand how the Haunt works.
#18: Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game
Boss Monster pits two to four players against one another to see who can build the best side-scrolling dungeon that no hero will be able to make it out of alive. A player wins by being the first to collect the souls of ten defeated heroes, or, conversely, a player can lose by being the first to take five wounds from heroes who make it through his or her dungeon alive.
Boss Monster challenges players to balance two competing goals. Players need to lure heroes to their dungeon at a faster rate than their opponents, but they also need to make sure their dungeon is strong enough to defeat those heroes. As a catch, dungeon rooms with a higher treasure value that are more likely to attract heroes usually deal less damage, so dungeon management is key to success. Each turn players can build one room for their dungeon, or they can upgrade one of the active rooms in their dungeon. Players may also be able to use a spell during their turn to gain an advantage or affect an opponent.
Styled after early 16-bit video game designs, the artwork of Boss Monster looks like something straight out of a Nintendo sidescroller. Even the box looks like a video game cartridge! The symbols on the cards are pretty self-explanatory, so players won’t have to constantly refer back to the rulebook, thankfully. Play moves at a steady pace, and games seem to last between twenty to thirty minutes.
I really like how the game forces players to tackle two competing priorities. The first time I played the game, I was so concerned about protecting myself from collecting wounds from heroes that survived my dungeon that I lost sight of the fact that you need dungeon rooms high in treasure value to attract heroes to your dungeon in the first place.
In the few times that I have played Boss Monster, I do not recall seeing many of the same cards, so that tells me that the deck is a good size. Several expansions are available to keep the replayability factor high. Boss Monster won’t be the entrée of your game night, but it can certainly be a solid appetizer course.
Spy Alley is a two to six player game in which each player assumes the identity of a secret agent working for the spy agency of one of six countries — France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, the United States of America, or Russia. Player nationalities are shuffled and distributed randomly at the beginning of the game; players do not reveal their nationality to each other. Players take turns moving around the board as they work towards their goal of reaching their country’s embassy after collecting the password, disguise, key, and code book for their country. In the meantime, other players will be trying to guess everyone’s identity. When a player’s identity is exposed, that player is out of the game and must forfeit any money he or she has collected as well as his or her identity, which the player who guessed correctly may assume. If a player guesses an identity incorrectly, that player is out and must forfeit everything. Spy Alley uses deception as a key element, so players bluff each other by buying items of nationalities that they do not need to win to keep others off their scent.
Surprisingly, there is a good deal of strategy involved in Spy Alley. Do you try to collect all of the items for your country in a speedy manner, or do you distribute items across nationalities to deceive other players? Similar to when someone tries to solve the murder in the classic board game Clue, players’ heart rates will increase a bit thanks to the intensity of the decision to guess a spy’s nationality. Players really do have to go all in when they make a guess. Perhaps my favorite thing about Spy Alley is the ability to change identities and throw everyone off. Did you change to the new identity of a player that just lost, or did you keep your same identity? Hopefully for you, they will never know before it is too late!
Spy Alley has a lot going for it for such a simple game. After quickly glancing through the rulebook once, players will probably never have to pick it up again. Games last no longer than forty-five minutes and can be super short if one player is really lucky with their guesses. With a deduction game like this, it is best to play with as many players as possible. If you enjoy games like Clue and are a fan of the spy theme, you are going to have a good time with this game.
#16: Once Upon a Time: The Storytelling Card Game
Once upon a time there was a game, and in this game players used the cards they were dealt to create memorable stories of kings and queens, giants and trolls, dragons and fairies, witches and wizards, goblins and unicorns, and everything imaginable in the realm. The possibilities are quite endless!
Playable by up to six people, Once Upon a Time balances the cooperative with the competitive. Each player starts with a certain amount of story cards in his or her hand and one Happy Ever After card. The story cards are divided into five different categories to help players along with their stories: character, event, aspect, thing, and place. There are also interrupt cards that allow players to assume the role of the active storyteller. A player wins when he or she has played all of his or her cards, including the Happy Ever After card to end the story. However, winning is only half the fun in this game, and this is where the cooperative aspect kicks in. While winning may be the end goal, the main point of the game is to craft an entertaining story with your fellow players. You can follow conventional fairy tale storylines, or you can concoct something that is completely out there, as long as your cards are the driving force of your story.
The artwork for Once Upon a Time is a feast for the eyes. Hearkening back to classic fairy tale illustrations, the artwork on the cards makes you feel like you are laying out your own illustrated storybook. The box also catches the eye, and I like that it has a flap that opens up to reveal what the game looks like and how it is played. That sort of visual really helps someone who is browsing in a game store get a taste of the product. At the very least, they are able to examine the theme and see if it is their cup of tea.
Once Upon a Time is not for everyone. People who are very competitive are not fun to play with in this game. In my experience, they are looking to empty their hand and play their Happy Ever After card as soon as they can to win, even if it comes at the expense of the quality of the story. You can also encounter players who are not very creative or do not want to put that much effort into coming up with or adding to the story. I can see this game being an excellent tool to use with kids to teach them writing skills. It also makes for a fun exercise in a creative writing class. The playtime all depends upon the length of the story the players are creating, which is a nice feature. If players want to add an additional challenge to this game, one idea might be to add a time limit. Once Upon a Time is fun to replay, and you will probably find yourself wanting to create a brand new world full of brand new characters as soon as you finish your first playthrough. There are quite a few expansions out there if you ever find yourself wanting to add in new story elements to mix things up. You can also easily create your own storytelling cards to make the game uniquely your own.
Your enjoyment of Once Upon a Time is completely dependent upon the people you play with, so grab a group of enthusiastic and imaginative friends and get to work on creating the next classic fairy tale of our time.
Do things in Once Upon a Time end a bit too, well, happily ever after for your liking? If that is the case, Gloom has got you covered. While continuing along with the same fairy tale theme, Gloom has pretty much the exact opposite goal of Once Upon a Time. In Gloom, each player controls a family of classic fairy tale characters like Pinocchio or the Stepmother, and the player who made their family members the most miserable before killing them wins. That is right; there is no happily ever after in Gloom.
Like Once Upon a Time, Gloom only consists of cards. Gloom’s cards stand out from the rest of the pack though because they are transparent plastic. This feature allows multiple cards to be played on top of one another. Players alter a family member’s disposition by placing modifier cards on top of that character’s card. Players want to pile on all the tragedies in the world upon their family members, but they might also want to sabotage their opponents by cheering up their family members with several happy occasions. For example, one player might make one of their family members miserable by having them “disgraced at a dance” and then have them “put into prison” before topping it off by having that character suffer an untimely death after being “burnt by a mob.” That player could also cheer up an opponent’s family member by letting him or her enjoy “a picnic in a park” and then have that character be “married magnificently.” Since the cards are transparent, values from previous modifier cards continue to show through or are covered when another modifier card is placed on top of a character. This makes it very easy to see the worth of each family member at all times.
Gloom is full of charming dark humor, and the flavor text on the cards always earns some nice chuckles. The text on the aforementioned “was burnt by a mob” untimely death card, for example, says, “Fifty people with torches and pitchforks can’t be wrong.” Isn’t that just lovely?
While it is indeed simple to keep track of your family’s worth, some modifier cards come with an effect explained near the bottom of the card. These effects kick in at different times; some of them are immediate, while others are continuous until another card is placed on top of it. I found it a bit hard at times to keep up with all of the different effects on each of my family members, and I know for a fact I forgot to use some of the beneficial effects to my advantage on a few of my turns. Similar to Once Upon a Time, the people you play Gloom with will determine how much fun you have. Gloom does not require players to tell a story, but the game turns out to be a lot more fun when players can weave a full narrative into their family’s misery. As far as the replay value is concerned, I am not sure players will be chomping at the bit to play another round of Gloom in the same session. In my experience, it is a game you enjoy once that night and then you have had your fill and are ready to move on to the next game. Keep in mind there are expansions to Gloom out there that add new cards and rules to change things up in the base game.
Able to last a solid forty-five minutes to an hour if played correctly, everyone will be happy to see Gloom at your next game night as they bring doom and gloom to the characters in their family!
Lost Cities earns the distinction of being the only strictly two-player game on my list. In this card game, players work towards the goal of mounting the most profitable archaeological expeditions. In addition to the cards, the game comes with a board that shows the five different expedition areas and holds discarded cards and keeps them organized. The cards come in five different colors representing the five different expedition areas. Cards of each color go from 2-10 and include three special handshake cards. Handshake cards are basically an investment in an expedition that serve as a score multiplier and are considered below 2 in the numerical order.
Players must play one card each turn, either by discarding a card to the appropriate discard pile or by using a card for an expedition. After playing a card, players draw one card from the top of the deck or from the top of one of the five discard piles. The game continues in this fashion until there are no more cards left in the deck. At that point, the game ends, players discard whatever cards they have left in their hand, and they score their expeditions.
Players start an expedition when they play one card for that area. Players must play their cards for an expedition in ascending order, but the cards do not have to be in consecutive order. For example, if a players plays a 3, he or she can no longer play a 2 or a handshake card for that expedition. Each card is worth the value it depicts when it comes to scoring an expedition. Keep in mind that expeditions start at a value of -20 so you must play at least twenty points of cards into an expedition in order to make a profit. A twenty point bonus is awarded to every expedition with at least eight cards played into it. If the scoring still does not make sense, a couple of concrete examples might help.
An expedition has a 3,5,7,8, and 10 for a total of 33. This expedition is worth 13 total points: 33 minus the initial -20.
An expedition has one handshake, a 2,6, and 7 for a total of 15. This expedition is worth -10 total points: 15 minus the initial 20, ×2 for the multiplier.
Lost Cities is a fun, quick game, usually lasting no more than fifteen minutes. Players should definitely employ some strategy when planning their expeditions. Should you wait to see if you can build up that ascending order? Is it worth the risk to start with a handshake multiplier? What about using multiple handshakes for one expedition? By the way, a fun Easter egg to discover is that all of the cards of one color illustrate a cool little scene at that expedition area when laid out in ascending order. It adds a nice little touch to the game.
Exploding Kittens is marketed as “a highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.” Need you know any more than that?
Perhaps the simplest game on my list, Exploding Kittens plays like a cousin to Uno. The catch is that the player who draws an exploding kitten loses the game. Defuse cards allow players to save themselves from the exploding kittens, but they are very sparse in number. The deck is also made up of cards that let players see the future to know which cards are going to be drawn next, alter the future to change the order of the next few cards that are going to be drawn, shuffle, pick the card at the bottom of the deck instead of the top, nope cards that stop an action, etc.
There is not much more to say about this game, other than that it is fast-paced, a ton of fun, and downright suspenseful when the deck starts to get smaller and no one is able to avoid the next exploding kitten because everyone has already used their defuse card.
Exploding Kittens also has an expansion that adds an imploding kitten to the mix. When drawn, the imploding kitten is placed face up back into the deck and shuffled. Unlike exploding kittens, the imploding kitten cannot be defused, so the game becomes a rope-a-dope battle when the imploding kitten is about to be drawn again. Exploding Kittens also has a NSFW version, but I would pass on that because the artwork is too crass and limits the groups you can play the game with.
Have you always been fascinated by the world of D&D but did not want to get bogged down in all of the role-playing aspects? If so, you will want to get your hands on Munchkin. Munchkin satirizes the clichés of D&D with its own version of the dungeon crawling experience. You will still get the classic races, classes, weapons, and magic items you will find in D&D, but they will have a silly twist to them. Think the Boots of Butt-Kicking, the Staff of Napalm, the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment, the Bow with Ribbons, or the Kneepads of Allure. And don’t forget the monsters! You will encounter everything from the seemingly harmless Potted Plant to the ferocious Plutonium Dragon. Can you use your magical items to make it past these terrifying beasts, collect the treasure, and reach level ten before everyone else?
Each player begins the game at level one. Munchkin has two types of cards—treasure cards and encounter cards. During his or her turn, a player kicks down the door and reveal an encounter card. Most of the time, this encounter card is a monster that the player must face. All of the monsters in the game have their own level. For example, the Potted Plant is level one, while the Plutonium Dragon is level twenty. A player defeats a monster by being a higher level than that monster. Weapons, magical items, and special powers contribute to the player’s actual level. If a player beats a monster, he or she usually collects treasure and levels up. If a player cannot best a monster, he or she can choose to run away by rolling a die. A successful die roll means the player escapes from the monster unscathed. The downsides to running away are not leveling up and not collecting any treasure. When a monster defeats a player, “bad stuff” happens, as explained on that monster’s card. This usually results in the loss of levels and treasure.
Players are not isolated during their turn. During an encounter with a monster, other players can choose to help or hinder the player fighting the monster by adding another monster to the fight or by using special powers. This can often go both ways though because the player fighting the monster can use a magical item or power to force other players to join him or her in the fight. All of this makes every monster encounter in the game exciting since a level one Potted Plant can jump up several levels and become quite formidable and a level 20 Plutonium Dragon can become seemingly unbeatable without help.
Munchkin is very popular in the gaming world. You can almost certainly find a copy of the game in any store that sells board games. It is so far reaching, in fact, that it now has countless expansions, from Super Munchkin to The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin. Munchkin’s artwork is so iconic and recognizable and sure to get a few laughs and really helps the game stand out on the shelf.
While D&D is notorious for how long its campaigns can last, Munchkin can have its own playtime woes. One time I played with five other players, and our game was going on three hours before we decided to quit and call it a night. Players will find it is actually not uncommon to go through games like that. With all of the backstabbing and changing of levels, players can understandably feel like they are taking one step forward and two steps back for a lot of the game.
For those interested in Munchkin, I highly recommend the Deluxe version. It comes with a board, pawns, and colored cards to keep track of your character’s sex. The standard version only includes normal cards and a die. The deluxe version makes it much less of a headache to keep track of everyone’s level, and it also makes the game have much more of a board game feel rather than just being a deck of cards.
Abraca...what? No, I did not forget the most famous magical spell. That is the name of the game!
Abraca...what? is a cute, whimsical game of spellcasting and deduction for two to five players (best with three to four). On your turn, you try to successfully cast one of the spells in front of you. What is the catch, you ask? You cannot see which spells you have! Only your opponents are able to see you arsenal of spells, which are encased in great tactile stones. This mechanic fits perfectly in line with the theme of the game as you assume the role of a forgetful witch or wizard unable to remember spell names.
When casting a spell, you can choose between eight different spells, each with their own unique effects. One spell takes a life point away from the player to your right, and another spell restores one of your life points. Each of the different spells is numbered from one to eight, and the quantity of that spell matches its number. For instance, there are eight stones of the spell marked with the number eight, but there is only one of the stones for the spell marked with the number one. When casting a spell, you can only cast in ascending order. If you start with spell number seven, you cannot cast spell number two in that same turn. You always have to keep an eye on what spells other players have available and what spells have already been cast on the board to help you make your decision on which spell you are going to attempt to cast next. During your turn, you can cast as many or as few spells as you want. You may want to cast just one or two spells in a turn to make sure you do not run out of life points if you say the name of a spell you do not have. On the other hand, you may want to go all in and see if you can cast all of your spells in one turn. A round ends when a player has cast all of his or her spells or when a player has lost all of his or her life points. The game ends with the first player to reach eight points.
One of the, dare I say, magical things about Abraca...what? is player elimination is not permanent. If a player losses all of his or her life points, the round simply ends, players add onto their score, everything is reset, and the next round begins. I also appreciate that the game supplies each player with a spellbook, if you will, that serves as a reference sheet detailing the effects of each spell.
Abraca..what? is a great game to play with family and friends. Decisions are not really hard to make, and the game moves quickly. Most will find it appealing and lighthearted. Will this be the next game to cast a spell on your gaming group?
Take Risk, condense and simplify it, throw in some fantasy races and special powers, and you have basically got Small World. The title of the game perfectly describes what is going on inside the box. Players compete for control of a world that simply cannot hold everyone in it, and it really starts to feel that way as the game progresses.
Choosing from the available combination of fourteen different races and twenty special powers, players work to expand their territory, even if that means wiping out nearby neighbors. The trick is knowing when your race has become stretched so thin that your territories are basically defenseless. When it gets to that point, players can put their race into decline by flipping their tokens over on the board, usually losing that race’s special power and ability to conquer any more territories, and select a brand new combination of race and power from the available choices. Players collect coins at the end of their turn based on how many territories they occupy and any bonuses their race’s special power grants them. At the end of the final round, the players count up their coins, and the one with the most coins wins.
Small World contains many different components. The box itself looks appealing with its artwork and signature style, and it seems sturdy enough to be able to hold all of the components. Since the game can be played by two to five people, I love that the game includes a different board for each quantity of players. I also like that each player receives a reference sheet explaining the different races and powers. Speaking of the races and powers, I appreciate the variety and different combinations that pop up. This makes players form a strategy based on what is available to them, and it helps add to the replayability. One of the races that is available might be the tritons who are paired with the special power of being wealthy. The tritons are able to conquer all coastal regions bordering a sea or lake at one less token than usual, and their special power gives them a one-time benefit of collecting seven bonus coins at the end of their first turn. Players might also see the combination of the ratmen with the special power of flight. Ratmen have no benefit apart from their sheer number, and the territory they conquer does not have to be adjacent to one they already occupy thanks to their special power. The reinforcements mechanic also provides some excitement in the game. On players’ final conquest of their turn, they can roll a die if they are short of the necessary tokens for a territory. If they successful roll the number they need, they take over that territory.
Unfortunately, Small World did leave me with a few negatives. Sometimes, my group and I found the rules and the explanations of the special powers to be too vague. We also struggled with the sheer number of race tokens and coins we had to manage; make sure you have plenty of table space when you play this game. This really becomes a pain when the game is over and you have to organize everything back into the box. The compartments inside the box are not labeled, so a lot of time can be spent just trying to get everything to fit neatly back inside the box. That is not even recounting how long it took to punch all of the cardboard pieces out when I first got the game. While the game initially gives off an enjoyable fantasy world vibe, it can easily turn into a cold, calculating strategy game that saps the fun out of the atmosphere. When it is not their turn, players do not really do anything to participate other than pick up tiles if their territory was conquered. Sure, they can reformulate their strategy based on what the active player is doing, but players should prepare themselves for a lot of sitting around and waiting, especially in a full five player game. I would also argue that there is a small learning curve that players have to contend with to be able to get to a point where they can play the game fluidly. My first time playing the game was practically a bust because we kept stopping to check the rules, but we got a better grasp on it the second time we played.
Even if you do not like war games, Small World is worth a shot. Its varying combination of races and powers randomizes the game, and it easily adapts to the number of players who are playing. You might want to carve out a little time to read through the rules first before you pull it out at game night.
Looking for a great game to start off or cap off your game night or even serve as a nice breather between more heavy games? Tsuro is an excellent choice! Beautifully designed inside and out, Tsuro can be played by up to eight people and only takes about fifteen minutes to complete. Thanks to its simplicity and accessibility, players can jump right into the game and have a terrific time.
In Tsuro, players lay tiles in front of their token. Each token has different paths on it. Players must follow the path of the marker that their token is on to its conclusion. Players lose when their path takes them off the board or when they crash into another player, so the goal is for players to keep their token on the board longer than anyone else. Players will find the game becomes more and more challenging as more tiles fill the six by six grid on the board and fewer empty spaces are available. They will also have to take into account how their opponents nearby tiles will affect their path.
Tsuro is extremely well crafted, and it shows that a lot of care went into the making of this game. The cardboard tiles that the paths are printed on are nice and sturdy, and the different colored tokens are very tactile and good quality. The artwork is pleasing to the eye, and it successfully conveys the Asian spiritual theme. According to the publisher, the paths represent the “many roads that lead to divine wisdom,” and the game as a whole represents “the classical quest for enlightenment.”
Tsuro is a joy to play and will most likely be a hit with any of your gaming groups. You cannot go wrong with this game.
Splendor is an entertaining, fast-paced card development and chip-collecting game for up to four people. Players race to be the first to reach fifteen points in the game by buying cards that have victory points or by having enough cards of a certain type to persuade a noble to visit them and give them points.
The setup of the game is very simple. There are three levels of cards that are laid out in a three by four format. The higher the level of the card, the more it costs to purchase, but the more victory points it rewards. Each card clearly shows how much it costs to purchase in the bottom left corner and what type of gem this card is used as once it is purchased in the top right corner. Noble tiles are also laid out (equal to the number of players plus one). The game receives high marks from me for using high quality poker chips for the different gems that players will need to use to purchase cards. The chips are fun to hold and give players a sense of satisfaction when they cash them in for a card.
Players have a few options on their turn. They can collect gems from the available supply by taking one gem of three different colors or two gems of one color provided that there are at least four gems of that color available. Players must manage their gems because they can have no more than ten at a time. If a player wants to ensure that no one takes a card that he or she wants or wants to prevent an opponent from buying that card, he or she can reserve that card and take a gold chip which acts as a wild and can be used as any color. Players can also spend their turn using the gems they have previously collected to purchase a card from one of the three different levels.
The artwork of Splendor is nothing to write home about, but players will be too focused on their strategy to bother noticing. The game is constantly changing with the different cards that become available to purchase and the requirements of the nobles. Players will discover it is best to choose a strategy at the outset of the game and stick with that strategy. If players try to change strategies midway through the game, they might dig themselves into a hole because there is not a lot of time in the game to turn things around; it really does feel like a competitive race.
I have to say that Splendor is, well, splendid. The rules are streamlined, making the game easy to understand from a player’s very first game. Players get a real sense of achievement when they beat their opponents. I highly recommend adding Splendor to your board game collection. It is a versatile game that fits in with any gaming group.
“Eat brains. Don’t get shotgunned.” That is the mantra of Zombie Dice. Zombie Dice, as the name points out, is a dice rolling game in which players assume the role of a hungry zombie searching for brains. The dice represent the humans the zombie is going after, and they can fight back. Each die has three different symbols on it. There are brains, footprints, and a shotgun blast. Brains are, of course, good for you as a zombie. Footprints mean that the human is trying to run away and can be re-rolled. Shotgun blasts are bad. If players collect three or more shotgun blasts during their turn, they lose whatever brains they have collected during that turn and end their turn. When a player collects thirteen brains, he or she wins.
On their turn, players must always roll a total of three dice. After their initial roll, players can decide to grab more dice and keep rolling or stop and collect their score. The game has three different colored dice indicating the likelihood or rolling a brain. Green dice are the safest bet for rolling a brain. Yellow dice have fewer brains on them, and red dice have more shotgun blasts than brains. Players cannot choose which three dice they want to roll; they must blindly pull them out of the dice cup. A player with bad luck may pull out three red dice, likely making for a very short turn.
Zombie Dice is one of the rare games where you never need to look at the rulebook. It is very easy to explain and usually ends in ten minutes or less. My one complaint about the game is that there is no padding in the dice cup, so it is really loud when players shake the dice around in it. Other than that, it all comes down to how lucky the players are and how risky they want to play things as they go on the hunt for more braaains.
King of Tokyo reminds me of the 1986 video game Rampage, and it is just as much fun. In King of Tokyo, players choose to play as mutant monsters, giant robots, or aliens from outer space. Players win by earning twenty victory points before anyone else or by killing all of the other opponents to become the undisputed King of Tokyo.
On players’ turns, they roll six dice. Each die has a symbol for energy, health, attack, or a one, two, or three. Players have three successive dice rolls to decide which dice they want to keep and which dice they want to re-roll. Players will need to roll for health when enemies attack them, attack when they want to deal damage to other players, numbers when they want victory points, and energy when they want to purchase special cards. These special cards either have a permanent or temporary effect, ranging from things like a shrink ray that limits the number of dice an opponent can roll or one that deals poison damage to an opponent who is attacked. These special cards can really be game changers. The player in last place can turn the tide and even the odds with the right special card. Players may also have to enter Tokyo during their turn. The downside of being in Tokyo is that the player cannot heal; the upside is the player earns extra victory points. It turns into a calculated risk on how long to stay in Tokyo. Can you survive one more round to get those extra victory points, or should you play it safe by getting out and healing up?
In addition to the board, the special cards, and the dice, the game comes with figures depicting each character and a corresponding plate card with a dial for health points and a dial for victory points. The look of these plate cards is very clean, and the dials work perfectly. They hold their positions on the correct numbers and are easy for everyone to see. After reading through the rulebook once, you are sure to have it in the bag. King of Tokyo is an exhilarating brawl with high stakes that will leave players’ hearts pounding as they watch for the outcome of crucial dice rolls in the clash to claim Tokyo as their own.
Board gamers widely credit Pandemic with popularizing cooperative games in which players work together to beat the game. Pandemic rightly deserves all that credit and more and has since spawned several offshoots. In the world of Pandemic, four plagues have broken out across the globe, and players work as a team of disease-fighting specialists based out of the CDC in Atlanta whose mission is to travel the world to treat the plagues while developing a cure for each one.
The board depicts forty-eight major cities across the world. On their turn, players can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, share knowledge with other players, or build a research station. A deck of cards known as the player deck provides the players with these abilities, but epidemic cards are sprinkled throughout this deck, accelerating and intensifying the plagues' activity. A second, separate deck of cards known as the infection deck controls the normal spread of the plagues.
Each player is assigned a special role at random at the beginning of the game, each with its own unique ability. The scientist, for example, only needs four of the same cards to discover a cure for a plague, rather than the normal five. Players need to take advantage of each other’s special ability to aid them in their mission.
Pandemic stands out among board games because it is easy to learn but difficult to win. The only way to win is to find a cure for all four plagues before time runs out, but there are three ways to lose. One of the ways players can lose is if more than seven outbreaks occur. Outbreaks take place when a city has more than three plague cubes on it. Another way players can lose is if they run out of plague cubes when they need to be placed on the board. The final way players can lose is if they cannot draw any more cards from the player deck.
Pandemic is one of the most highly regarded board games for a reason. It will most definitely kick your butt more times than you will beat it, but you will still want to keep coming back for more in your quest to be victorious. The board is expertly designed, the theme is amazing, and the stakes feel real each turn. What are you waiting for? Get out there and save the world!
Described by some as Pandemic-lite, Forbidden Island is another cooperative game designed by Matt Leacock. Playable by up to four players, each person takes on a special role that grants them a unique ability on a team of daring adventurers who have traveled by helicopter to a dangerous island that is constantly flooding and sinking in search of four sacred treasures. The team must collect all four treasures and escape from the island together before it sinks into the watery abyss.
Players are randomly assigned a role on the team at the beginning of the game. There are six possible roles — pilot, diver, messenger, engineer, navigator, and explorer. All of these roles come with their own special ability as indicated on the character cards. In the instance of the pilot, he or she can fly to any tile on the island for one action. These abilities really help the team in trying to beat the game, and they all feel very balanced. Players’ pawns correspond to the color on their character card, and each character has a different starting point on the island.
Twenty-four tiles constitute the island. These tiles showcase some spectacular artwork, and each tile has a cool name. There is the Crimson Forest, the Misty Marsh, the Cliffs of Abandon, the Lost Lagoon, the Dunes of Deception, and the Temple of the Moon, just to name a few. One side of each tile is in full color, and the other side is a shade of blue to show that that tile is flooded and is in danger of sinking. A deck of twenty-four flood cards matches each of the twenty-four island tiles. Another deck contains twenty-eight treasure cards, including five cards of each of the four different treasures, three waters rise cards, three helicopter lift cards, and two sandbag cards. Helicopter lift and sandbag cards can be used at any time and do not count as an action. Sandbag cards allow players to shore up a flooded tile anywhere on the island. Helicopter lift cards can be used to fly players to another tile on the island; keep in mind that one helicopter lift card is needed at the end of the game to fly off the island and win. Waters rise cards cause the water level meter to rise. The water level meter tells the players how many flood cards need to be drawn at the end of each turn.
When it is their turn, players take up to three actions. Actions include moving, shoring up flooded tiles, collecting a treasure, sharing a card with another player on the same island tile (with the exception of the messenger, who can share cards from anywhere on the island), or using a character’s special ability. Normal movement only allows players to move to or shore up tiles that are orthogonally adjacent to the one that they are currently on. Some characters, however, have special abilities that let them modify this rule. The explorer can move and shore up tiles that are diagonal to the one that he or she is on, for example. When collecting a treasure, a player must be on one of the two tiles where that treasure can be found and must turn in four cards with that treasure on it.
Like Pandemic, there is only one way to win but multiple ways to lose. Players lose if Fool’s Landing, the location of the helicopter, sinks. They also lose if the both locations for a treasure has sunk before that treasure has been collected. Yet another way players lose is when the water level meter reaches the skull and crossbones. Finally, players lose if a players drowns when a tile they were on sinks and there are no adjacent tiles that the player can safely swim to. It truly is a team effort. If one player loses, everyone loses and the game ends.
Similar to several cooperative games, Forbidden Island starts out deceivingly calm, but players will notice things rapidly escalating further into the game. Tension certainly builds as the players rush to get back together at Fool’s Landing and escape with the treasures as the island swiftly sinks around them. Players do not need overly thought out strategies, but some short-term planning certainly helps. They need to manage how many treasure cards they discard since a player cannot have more than five cards at a time and be aware of which sets they are trying to collect on this pass through the treasure deck. Most importantly, players must be conscious of the rate at which they are burning through flood cards by letting the island sink. All the seemingly non-vital island tiles are critical buffers helping to prevent the more important island tiles from sinking. If players lose too many of them, they will suddenly find those important tiles endangered increasingly often, sometimes to the point where there is nothing they can do to stop them from sinking.
Forbidden Island is a great game to introduce to new players. Players only need to keep track of a small number of possible actions. The state of the game is easy to asses at any point thanks to the graphic design. The colored side of the tile indicates that that part of the island is dry, the blue side of the tile denotes that area of the island is flood, and sunken tiles are taken out of the game, leaving behind an empty space. Everyone’s hand of treasure cards are left face up throughout the game, allowing your team to see how close everyone is to being able to collect a treasure. New players will also appreciate that the consequences of their actions are apparent almost immediately.
Forbidden Island is a quality game inside and out, literally. The game is packed in a nice, sturdy tin box, and the compartments inside the box make it clear which pieces are stored where. After becoming accustomed to it, players can increase the difficulty of the game by moving up the starting position of the water level meter. Forbidden Island is sure to rise above everyone’s expectations at your next game night.
#3: Sheriff of Nottingham
Prince John is visiting Nottingham, and all of the merchants in town want to impress him with their goods and net a big profit in the market in the process! The only person standing in their way is the sharp-eyed Sheriff of Nottingham. Do you have what it takes to convince the sheriff that you are true to your word and are only looking for an honest day’s wage? Will you forgo the facade and simply try to bribe your way past the sheriff? Just do not let the sheriff catch you with any contraband, or it could really set you back!
Sheriff of Nottingham is a three to five player bluffing and deception game. The game comes with 216 goods cards — 144 legal goods (apple, chicken, bread, and cheese) distinguished by a green border, 60 contraband goods (crossbow, pepper, mead, and silk) distinguished by a red border, and 12 royal goods distinguished by a red border and gold banner. You do not have to play with the 12 royal goods. In fact, it is probably best not to play with them your first couple of times. They make things a bit more complex by raising the stakes and adding an extra layer to the scoring. Coin tokens are used as the game’s currency and are used in the scoring at the end of the game. There are 110 coin tokens divided among four different denominations. There are also five merchant cards, five merchant bags, and one sheriff marker. The merchant cards are a nice, thick cardboard, and players place the goods they have gotten past the sheriff on the designated spaces for those goods around their card. The merchant bags are made of felt and have a plastic snap that close them tightly — maybe too tightly because the snap on one of my bags has already broken off after only three games since players really have to commit to opening the snap. The game makes full use of its storage trays; one serves as a card tray for the draw and discard piles, and the other functions as a bank holding all of the coins. While the artwork on the box and cards fits the game to a T, the actual quality of the box leaves much to be desired. Again, I have only played the game three times so far and am not rough with it when carrying it around, and the box has already torn and had to be super glued to hold it together.
The fun part about Sheriff of Nottingham is that players will not only play as a merchant, but they also get to assume the role of the sheriff. Once each player has been sheriff twice, or three times in the case of a three player game, the game ends and the merchant with the most money after totaling up scores wins. Each player is randomly dealt six goods cards at the beginning of the game; these can be any combination of legal or contraband goods. Two discard piles of five cards each are taken from the deck and left on either side of it. The two discard piles and the deck represent the market. For the first phase of a turn, players can visit the market, starting with the player to the left of the sheriff. Players may set aside up to five cards from their hand to discard after they have collected their goods from the market. They can choose to take cards from either discard pile, drawing from the top down. If they choose to take from the deck, they cannot draw any cards from the discard piles. After each player has had a chance to go to the market, players load their merchant bags with up to five goods and snap it shut. While players can lie to the sheriff about the kinds of goods in their merchant bag, they cannot lie about the number of goods. Once everyone has snapped their merchant bags shut, the declaration phase begins. Players must declare a single type of legal good to the sheriff, even if it does not match what is in their bag. The main event of the game is the inspection phase of each turn. This is the sheriff’s time to shine or, contrarily, fail miserably at his or her job. The sheriff takes each merchant’s bag and decides which ones to inspect. The sheriff may choose to first threaten to inspect a merchant’s bag, which may result in that merchant offering the sheriff a bribe with currency or a favor in the future. If the sheriff accepts a merchant’s bribe, the sheriff must return the merchant’s bag unopened. If the sheriff inspects a merchant’s bag, any goods that were truthfully declared must be returned to the merchant, and the merchant collects payment (the gold number on the card) and places the goods face-up around his or her merchant card. Any other goods, legal or contraband, are confiscated, and the merchant must pay the fine amount (the red number on the card) to the sheriff. The sheriff discards all confiscated goods. If the merchant was telling the truth and the bag contains exactly what was declared, the sheriff must pay the merchant the fine value for all of the goods in the bag. If a merchant sneaks contraband past the sheriff, he or she leaves it face-down at the top of his or her merchant card.
At the end of the game, the merchant with the most of a legal good earns the king’s bonus for that good, as indicated on the players’ merchant cards. The merchant who has the second most of a legal good claims the queen’s bonus for that good. If players tie on the amount of legal goods, the bonus is shared. If players are tied after adding king’s and queen’s bonuses to their scores, the player with the most legal goods wins. Sometimes it pays to be honest and play by the rules!
Sheriff of Nottingham makes for a fun social game that is easy to teach to new players. The bluffing and bribing combine for some great moments, like during one of my games when the sheriff called a merchant “a tricky little minx.” While some strategy is certainly involved, it really comes down to a player’s ability to read everyone else. Is the player declaring five chickens more suspicious than the player declaring only two apples? Is it worth taking merchants’ bribes, or are they shortchanging the sheriff compared to the total value of the goods in their bag? The game really shines when players commit to adding a little something extra by incorporating some role-playing. Things can get quite hilarious when everyone knows a bit about each merchant and the sheriff. Player elimination is nonexistent in Sheriff of Nottingham, so nobody will ever feel left out. Coming in at just about an hour, Sheriff of Nottingham will keep everyone entertained the whole time. Because of its playtime, you will probably not want to play it twice in one day, but it will hold its own on your growing gaming shelf.
Ticket to Ride is the epitome of the gateway tabletop board game. If I had to pick any game to introduce someone to the world of tabletop gaming, it would be this one. Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which two to five players compete to connect different cities by laying claim to railway routes on a map of North America. The game is elegant in its simplicity and pleasing to the eye with its artwork, easy to read map, and custom-molded train pieces. The rules are kept to a minimum and are actually pretty intuitive, and the design of the board makes everything so clear that players never need to dive into the rulebook after their first time playing. The board even keeps track of everyone’s score with a numbered border around the entire board that players move their wooden scoring markers on.
Players earn points in the game by claiming routes, completing destination tickets, and by having the longest continuous route. Each turn, players can draw train cards, which are used to claim routes, draw another destination ticket, or claim a route. Destination tickets instruct players which two cities they need to build routes between. The longer the route, the more points the player earns. The game ends when a player is about to run out of train pieces. If the game ends and a player has not completed one or more of their destination tickets, they must subtract the value of those destination tickets from their final score.
Ticket to Ride is extremely versatile. It works in a family setting as well as with competitive gamers. Alan Moon, the designer of Ticket to Ride, makes a good point about players having to find the sweet spot with their strategy. “The tension comes from being forced to balance greed — adding more cards to your hand, and fear — losing a critical route to a competitor,” Moon said. Easy enough to teach in a few minutes, Ticket to Ride packs plenty of action and tension to keep new and old players alike engaged in the game.
Called “the board game of our time” by The Washington Post, Catan has become synonymous with tabletop gaming. The players in the game take on the role of settlers building colonies on the island of Catan. The board, which represents the island, is made up of randomly placed hexagonal land tiles of different land types; each land type, with the exception of the desert in the middle of the island, yields a different resource players need to purchase development cards or build settlements, cities, and roads. Players with a settlement adjacent to a hex containing the number just rolled receive one card of the corresponding resource; cities produce two cards of the corresponding resource. If a player has one city and two settlements adjacent to a brick hex, for example, that player would take four brick resource cards if the corresponding number was rolled. As a wild card element to the game, the robber token, which begins the game in the desert, must be moved to another hex whenever a seven is rolled, and the hex that the robber is on ceases to produce resources until the robber is moved again. Sometimes adding insult to injury, players with more than seven resource cards in their hand when a seven is rolled must discard their choice of half of their resources, rounded down.
A player wins the game when he or she has ten victory points. When players build a settlement, they receive one victory point. Cities award players with two victory points. Development cards also hold the possibility of conferring victory points. Additionally, the player who builds the longest continuous road receives a victory point bonus.
Trading is a huge part of Catan. Players may have tons of one or two resources but severely lack key components of structures they want to build. To get what they need, players can trade resources with each other. They can also trade off-island with the resource bank at a ratio of four of one resource for one of any other resource. If players are connected to ports, they can trade with the resource bank at three-to-one (three of any single resource type) or two-to-one (two of a specific resource) ratios, depending on the port's specifications.
Catan is a mainstay in my gaming group back home, and we always have to play it at least once when I am there. It is a different game each time we play because the hexes and the probabilities of rolling resources change every time, allowing for endless variety. Everybody is involved and doing something on every turn, so nobody ever gets bored or feels left out. On top of that, Catan does not feature a player elimination mechanic; everyone plays until someone wins. The game involves some strategy on the part of the players, and hand management can be important, especially when it comes to avoiding forfeiting resources because someone rolled a seven. Even with the best strategy, however, the luck of the dice roll balances things out. Catan appeals to new and experienced players alike, has a surprising amount of depth to it, and brings something new to the table each time.
