Archive for jdegregorio

Weird Game of the Day: The Backbone

A rare and abstract game published in 1983 by Nike and Cooper (NAC), “The Backbone” is a mystery. The box features a man playing a game by himself painted on the back of a woman. In case you didn’t already suspect the lonely, suited man was also the creator of the game, his head is conveniently floating off to the side for no discernible reason. Please take note that this game is “just only for intelligent people.” I can only assume by this statement that the creator has yet to play the game.

pic373146 backbone-board

Weird Game of the Day: Uncle Wiggily

Today I present Uncle Wiggily, originally published by Milton Bradley back in 1916. Intended to be a children’s game, I personally find this to be the stuff of nightmares. Some rhino thing wants to club you. A fancy-looking fox wants to eat you. An alligator with an ascot has sinister intentions. Also, my parents forbade me from going anywhere near my Uncle Wiggily’s house unsupervised, so really this whole thing is a nonstarter.

uncle-wiggily-box2uncle_wiggily_game

We’re showcasing at the Boston Festival of Indie Games!

We couldn’t be more excited. “Cats & Caverns,” our Dungeons & Dragons inspired, cooperative, lighthearted card game will be featured at the Boston Festival of Indie Games on Saturday, September 10th, 2016. We hope to see you there! http://bostonfig.com/

#BFIG

Review by Josh: Article 27

Article 27 Board Game box

Article 27: Because everyone should have the power to veto.

Article 27 was recently introduced into my regular gaming group and has since become a favorite. Let’s have a look as to why.

Overview:

In Article 27, each player will take the role of a UN Security Council member (U.S., England, Russia, France, etc.) and whose goal will be to have the most Influence Points by game end. Influence Points are gained (and spent as bribes) throughout the game during each negotiation phase.

Setup:

Each player starts with 12 Influence Points, a player mat with screen, their appropriate Face Tokens (used to place atop bribes and distinguish them from others), an “Approve” and “Reject” token, and each player will draw a Hidden Agenda token (kept secret from others of course)

The player who last made a public speech will begin the game as Secretary General and will be given the gavel and the 5-minute timer.

Depending on number of players in the game, face-down color-coded tokens will be placed on the main game board. Each of these will have a symbol on the front that may or may not help a player gain bonus Influence Points at the end of the game, if they have a matching Hidden Agenda token.

How a Round Works:

Every round, players will draw 5 tokens from a bag, starting with the Secretary General of the round. These tokens are privately placed behind player screens, and chronologically in the order they are drawn atop the 5 placeholders on each player mat. Each placeholder has a point value associated with it, where, if that particular color token is incorporated into a Proposal for the round, that player receives or loses the corresponding value of Influence Points. The values are as follows from left-to-right: +5, +3, +1, -2, -4. The tokens drawn can be one of 5 colors: red, blue, green, yellow, and black. A face-down token from each color on the main game board will now be revealed to show its symbol. If a symbol matches that of a player’s Hidden Agenda token, it may influence whether they want that color token to be incorporated into the round’s Proposal or not—regardless of whether it appears on their 5 drawn color tokens behind their screen.

Once all players have drawn their 5 tokens, the Secretary General begins the round of negotiation by banging the gavel and flipping the timer. They have five minutes to deliberate on a proposal before voting must happen. The Secretary General is particularly invested in having the round’s Proposal pass because there are 5 extra Influence Points on the line for them if it passes—none if it fails or is vetoed by another player.

In the following five minutes, players can beg, threaten vetoes (which cost 5 points to kill the Proposal), and bribe other players into accepting or rejecting or bribe the Secretary General himself into including or omitting certain color tokens from the Proposal. Bribes are placed on the appropriate player’s mat in the corresponding section, with the bribing player’s face token atop the bribe (as multiple bribes can be placed, it is important to know who placed what). Bribes MUST be honored if the appropriate action is taken by a bribed player (such as voting to pass a bill, abstaining, rejecting, etc.) But, while bribes may be placed onto a player’s mat to influence their decisions, they DO NOT amount to an acceptance. If a player is bribed 3 points to vote YES on a Proposal but they vote NO instead, the 3 Points are returned to the bribing player.

When five minutes are up, or the Secretary General calls for a vote to close earlier by banging the gavel, it is time for players to accept, reject, abstain, or veto a proposal. Vetoes cost 5 Influence Points. All players will take their voting tokens in their hands, secretly select one, and hold it inward with a closed fist. Once everyone has done so, fists are opened, and votes are counted. A MAJORITY is needed to pass a Proposal. Ties are considered failure.

If a Proposal passes, the colored tokens that were included in the Proposal by the Secretary General, are placed face-up in the scoring area of the board. Tokens not included are placed face-down in the scoring area. This area makes things easy for players to count any tokens matching their Hidden Agenda at the end of the game.

The gavel and Secretary responsibilites passes to the player on their left once everyone has scored their appropriate points, and placed their 5 drawn tokens bag into the bag. Play continues until everyone has had a turn being the Secretary General, or in the case of a 3-player game, everyone will be the gavel-wielder twice.

PROs:

  • It is nice to have a game with so much player interaction. It is truly a negotiation game, with little else to distract.
  • Game length is roughly 45 minutes. It accommodates 3-6 players.
  • Learning curve is not bad. Stronghold also did a great job with their rulebook and it was not necessary to consult very often upon learning.
  • Excellent components, quality, and a very thorough rulebook is concise, colorful, and clear.
  • Great replayability. Lots of different token combinations each round will ensure that none is like the one before it.

CONs:

  • I have found it rare (only 1 instance in 5 games played) that a Proposal was voted down. Typically, the players I have played with have found it more beneficial to simply spend 5 points on a veto to swindle others out of many more points for the round if the Proposal is not going their way. Not only does it seem not worthwhile to vote to reject instead of veto, but I have yet to see somebody abstain. These seem like under-utilized features to me.
  • The yellow-colored Agenda-related tokens are EXTREMELY hard to see. I am normally not bothered by things like this, but it is truly difficult to see the symbol on the yellow tokens. As such, I have drawn over them with permanent black marker. The only component mis-step in the game that I can think of.
  • I have found no personal problem with the 5 values displayed on each player mat (the numbers +5 thru -4) but others have argued that the current values allow for everyone to gain 3 points per round if every color is included, so why not do it each time? I find that a silly question. It’s not a co-op game. Why would you want to have everyone win? lol. I would never pass a Proposal with all 5 tokens involved.

Article 27 Rating: 8.5 out of 10 (Highly Enjoyable)

I really enjoy this game and imagine it will be a staple in our gaming group. Everyone I played with liked this game. Nobody hates this game. It was pleasantly surprising to have everyone embrace a negotiation political game that typically my group finds dull. Stronghold has done an excellent job with Article 27 and I encourage you to try it out, if not own it.

An Art Preview of Fantasy Turf Wars

Cray Cray Games presents an unofficial art preview of Fantasy Turf Wars—our latest strategy board game creation. The initial prototypes have been made and will be played at upcoming game conventions like TotalCon and Connecticon.

We sincerely hope to see you at one of these conventions—sign up for a play-time slot! If not, catch us on our upcoming Kickstarter campaign in the coming months.

We welcome your comments and questions anytime!

Review by Josh: Isla Dorada

Nachos and booze not included.

Isla Dorada is a game that flew past me unnoticed. Surprising, as it is another top-quality production from Fantasy Flight. Here is a quick overview of the game with my personal take on it.

Overview:

The premise of the game is that each player is an explorer on an island who is seeking out the greatest number of treasures and goodies. The player with the highest point total accrued from treasures and the like, wins. The catch is that explorers must travel together. You can’t go off on your own. A totem pole pawn will be placed at a base camp site on the middle of a pretty board, and this will represent everyone’s movement from place to place.

Each player will be dealt a combination of cards:

Destiny Cards: These will have secret objectives on them that you will want to achieve. They range from, say, “Explore X number of areas” to “Explore these specific areas” to “Get this many treasure cards” or “Make sure nobody travels by sea” They are varied and very interesting cards—all with various point values associated with the successful completion of each. Players will initially be dealt 2 of these, keep one, discard the other.

Curse Cards: The reverse of Destiny Cards really. Each player will be given one of these. Instead of awarding you points for an objective, they are deterrents. They will instantly give you negative points of you travel to “X” location.

Treasure Cards: These are cards with various pretties on them along with a point value and location. If you can sway the explorer totem to land on said location, you get to place the treasure card infront of you and are awarded the point value. You will be given 3 of these to start, of which you choose 2 to keep and discard the remaining one.

Adventure Cards: These are the meat and potatoes of the game. Primarily they serve as the “currency” with which you influence the movement of the exploration party. There are also some treasure cards mixed in and some event cards that range from giving curses to other players to drawing more treasure or destiny cards. Players start with 6 Adventure cards.

Players also start with 10 gold coins…but contrary to intuition, these are not really the main currency. They are a fueling mechanism for certain Adventure cards that require you to pay for their usage. They aren’t used for any other purpose and players will never have more than the 10 gold they start with, and they don’t even need to use any gold throughout the game. If you don’t use gold to fuel adventure cards, you get 1 point at the end of the game for each gold unspent.

Now, onto the game!

It consists of 16 turns, which are indicated by a turn track on the board. Everytime the explorer totem moves, a disc from the turn tracker is removed and placed on the traveled-to location.

On each of these 16 turns, there will be several phases:

1. Bidding phase: Bidding is how you earn the right to move the explorer totem. Bidding is done entirely through the use of Adventure Cards. Most Adventure cards will have a symbol on the top-left indicating a terrain type (desert, mountain, water, jungle). For each symbol of a type, you may bid “1” to move the totem along a path of that corresponding terrain type. If you have 3 yaks, you can bid 3 to move along an adjacent mountain path. There are other cards that allow for long range travel with the use of gold coins. There are also cards that alter terrain type on cards. Those special cards aside, this is essentially a bidding war of “who wants to go in what direction the baddest?” If you are adjacent to a location where your Curse Card will initiate and cause you to lose 6 points, then you are really motivated to bid in the opposite direction. Conversely this is true for people with Treasure Cards or Destiny Cards that will want to go that direction. The tug of war bidding goes clockwise from the leadership token (possessed by the youngest player to start, and later by the winner of the previous bid) and goes until nobody can outbid the highest bid, or simply passes.

2. Movement Phase: Now you simply move the explorer totem to the bid-upon spot. Place a disc from the turn track marker on this spot to indicate it has been traveled to. Anyone with Treasure or Curse Cards relevant to the current location should now immediately place those Cards infront of them face-up. These will now officially count towards point totals at the end (whereas if they remain in your hand, they do nothing).

3. News Flash Phase: This will only become relevant on turns 4 and 9 (as indicated by red discs instead of beige). On these turns, players will get to draw additional Adventure Cards and choose one or more to keep.

4. Adventure Card Phase: Regardless if you spent money in the Bidding Phase or not, all explorers starting with the holder of the Leadership Token will get to draw 1 Adventure Card. This can either be from the top of the deck, or from the 4 Adventure Cards currently showing in the face-up pool. If one of these cards is chosen, another is immediately flipped to replace it.

Rinse. Repeat these phases until the end of turn 16. Count up your points, including the reveling of any points achieved from Destiny Cards. A winner is declared. Woot!

PROs:

  • It is nice to have a game with so much player interaction. Not just with bidding, but also with bluffing and speculation of where others are trying to go.
  • Game length is anywhere from 45 minutes to 75 minutes. It accommodates 3-6 players.
  • Learning curve is not too bad. Fantasy Flight did a great job in making little “cheat sheets” to remind people what every possible Adventure Card is, as well as all Destiny Cards.
  • Excellent components, quality, and a very thorough rulebook is concise, colorful, and clear.
  • I imagine this to have pretty good replayability. Lots of different card combinations at the beginning and throughout will make sure no game is the same.

CONs:

  • People found the 10 Card Hand Limit frustrating—particularly when they couldn’t conceivably win a bid with their cards to get rid of them.
  • Not super complex or strategy-driven. You pretty much know where to go from the beginning of the game once you have locations on your starting cards. In this sense it is very much like the game Ticket To Ride—destinations and routes are obvious, it’s just a matter of getting there.
  • Lack of ways to achieve new objectives. There are very few Adventure Cards that allow for the drawing of additional Treasures, Destinies, or Curses. I think there should be a lot more of this to keep it interesting.

Isle Dorada Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (Enjoyable)

I liked this game. Everyone I played with liked this game. Nobody loved this game. I would consider it a good, quick game to bust out every once in a while to play. It’s likely that everyone will enjoy it and nobody will complain or cringe if its box is pulled from the shelf and placed in front of them. The rules are pretty straight-forward and I find the mechanics interesting. More importantly, it was just an enjoyable, light-hearted game.

Review by Josh: Rex:Final Days of an Empire

Rex: Finals Days of an Empire board game

Rex: Finals Days of an Empire board game

Damn you Fantasy Flight! You make everyone else look bad with your fanciness! The dreadnaught fleet alone makes me want to flip the table in an envious rage. That said, I enjoy Rex a lot. My gaming group has mixed opinions on it though, so it hasn’t won everybody over. Let’s look.

Overview:

I admit I have not played Twilight Imperium, from which this game is a spinoff in theme and characters. Although I understand in terms of gameplay, it is entirely different and is not the epic 4+ hours that Twilight Imperium boasts. So, you will be getting a review from somebody totally unfamiliar with its predecessors.

Rex is a space-themed conquest game in which 3-6 players are assigned an alien/human race/faction and vie for control of a certain number of key space stations (indicated by a little red star on the game board). If you are playing the game with more than 3 people, then you are allowed to form alliances at certain points in the game. If you choose to do this, the number of these key spaces you need to control to win the game increases. The default is 3 when playing alone. 4 with one ally. All 5 with 2 allies. This is a nice mechanic as the amount of help/allies you receive increases the difficulty of winning. Players have 8 rounds in which to achieve their victory. Each round consists of 7 phases:

1. Influence phase: Influence tokens (essentially currency) are dropped onto the board by revealing the top Influence card which will have 2 random locations on it. Influence will only drop onto board spaces with a blue icon. These provide incentive to travel to spaces that may otherwise be undesirable. The need for cash is pretty great in this game.

2. Bidding Phase: And here is where Influence is most needed/used. 4 Strategy cards (battle tactic and other beneficial cards) are pulled from the pile and kept face-down. Players go around the board, taking turns and bidding a number of influence per card. If they are the highest bidder, they receive the card. Maximum hand size is 4 (except for 1 race who can hold 8).

3. Recruitment Phase: Players recruit a set number of troops from a dead pool for free, and may pay influence to recruit additional troops or any dead leaders for their assigned strength value.

4. Maneuvering Phase:Perhaps the longest phase in the game, this phase has 2 parts. A deployment phase where readied troops (troops not in the dead pool but not yet on the board either) can be deployed onto any space on the board—whether you control it or not. This costs influence, and costs twice as much if you deploy into a space that is already occupied. Allies cannot occupy the same space. The second part is actual movement. You may move 1 set of troops on a space to another set of troops on a space. Movement is typically 2 spaces, but can be increased by certain spaces and strategy cards.

5. Battle Phase: If any 2 players are in the same space (with the exception of the ever-peaceful galactic council) a battle occurs. Battles, at least in my gaming group, are the most contentious part of Rex. Some love it. Some hate it. It is essentially a bidding and bluffing exercise in risk and loss management. 2 players are given little battle cards with a spinning dial on it and mutliple placeholders. The dial indicates how many troops you will be engaging in the battle, and the placeholders are for placing in a command leader. Depending on which placeholder you plop your leader into, this also indicates what strategy cards you will be using, if any. There are weapons and shields that can be deployed. Once both players have set their battle cards, they are revealed simultaneously. Weapons and shields are used first (and determine if a leader is killed) and then leader value + troop value = your battle score. The player with the highest score “wins” the battle and retains control of the space. The other player’s troops are eliminated. No matter what amount of troops you risk on your dial—they are ALWAYS killed. Even if you won the battle. This means if you risked 10 troops against your opponents 4 troops—those 10 troops are killed. Whatever troops you didn’t risk will remain on the space. Some like this. Some hate this.

6. Collection Phase: Any players controlling a space with influence tokens on it will get to pick up those influence tokens (2 tokens per troop). After a bloody battle, you may not be able to pick up the full amount of influence tokens on a space—this needs to be a factor in what you risk in battles.

7. Bombardment Phase: There is a dreadnaught fleet roaming the board (courtesy of the Federation of Sol race). The top bombardment card is revealed and it shows a number of spaces. The player holding the first-turn-token gets to control the dreadnaught fleet for this phase, and will move the fleet that many spaces in a set direction (numbers on space stations must be increasing from 1 – 18). Anything that the fleet passes over is destroyed—influence and troops. The only exception are spaces on the board with shield icons (green symbols)

Rinse and repeat these phases until there is a winner/winning team. In some cases it may not last 8 rounds. In other cases there will not be a clear winner by the end of the 8th round, in which case certain alien races have an instant-win condition in such an event. There is also an optional variant where Betrayal Cards (included in the game) can be distributed at the game’s onset and used to steal a victory from allied players if certain conditions are met.

PROs:

  • It is nice to have a game with so much player interaction. Not just with battles and bidding, but also with alliances that can constantly change.
  • Game length is anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. Perhaps longer if it is somebody’s first time playing through.
  • Learning curve is not too bad. The phases are located on little “cheat sheets” to remind people what is happening, and most of the phases are brief.
  • Alien races are pretty well balanced and interesting. They all afford you some great abilities, and lend themselves to particular strategies and alliances, but each game I’ve played so far has been different.
  • Excellent components, quality, and a very thorough rulebook that even includes a lot of backstory to the game.

CONs:

  • The Maneuvering Phase is the most confusing for players I’ve found. It entails 2 parts and gets people jumbled up—deployment AND movement.
  • The battle mechanic in this game is by far the most polarizing aspect. I enjoy it/don’t mind it while others hotly detest it. I understand both sides of the argument and just caution people to understand the mechanic before playing/purchasing the game if you don’t think your friends will enjoy it. Or, you can always devise your own agreed-upon house rules for how you want combat to go.
  • The other aspect to battle that people have complained about is how 3-way battles go. 3 un-allied races can end up contesting the same space and have to battle it out, but there is no 3-way mechanic. 2 players must fight, and then the winner will fight the 3rd person with whatever troops and leaders they have left-over. This certainly is a difficult feat for the person having to fight 2 back-to-back battles. I agree that a 3rd battle dial would have been nice.

Rex: Final Days of an Empire Rating: 8 out of 10 (Highly Enjoyable)

I like the replayability of this game, as well as the unpredictability and diversity in strategies one can have to win it. The rules are pretty straight-forward and I find the mechanics interesting. Without having played Twilight Imperium, I would say this is a pretty original game. It’s got a bit of Risk-style conquest to it, but without the luck of dice. It’s all about reading your opponent and anticipating what friends and foes will be doing.

Review by Josh: Nuns on the Run

Nuns on the Run board game

Nuns on the Run board game

A big shout-out to Fréderic Moyersoen, the game’s creator, is in order. I think Nuns on the Run is a very unique, ingenius concept in its design. I wish the execution of it had been tidier. Let’s take a look.

Overview:

Nuns on the Run is essentially a game of Hide-And-Seek with a big twist. The twist being that most players will be novices on a mission to scour an abbey at night to find a key that will unlock the door to their “secret wish” and then get back to their bedroom without the 2-woman team of nuns catching them. 1 or 2 people will play the nun guards while all other players will be a novice. Novices are all given a set of identical movement cards ranging from running to standing still. They are also given a Secret Wish card which they must achieve before the end of the 15th round of play. The Nuns are tasked with preventing any novices from achieving their secret wish, or by catching as many novices as there are players in the game.

Novices will begin in their respective bedrooms and each turn they reveal face-up a movement card of their choice. They do not actually move a physical piece around the board however. They write down the corresponding number of the space they land on, onto a secret movement tracker pad provided in the game. After they record their movement for the round, they must roll a die. The higher the die roll, the louder the novice was when moving this turn. If they are within a die roll’s amount of spaces from a guard, they must put down a noise token in the general direction in which the guard heard a noise. Slower movement cards (such as sneaking as opposed to running) will decrease the noise die roll by a given amount. So, players can move slow and steady but risk not attaining their wish, or they can go faster but be at a constantly higher risk of being heard.

In addition to making noises, novices also have to worry about being “seen.” If at anytime a novice is in a guard’s line of sight, they must put their face token down on the board where they were spotted. Guards can “catch” a novice by landing on their face token—thus stealing their secret wish away and sending them back towards their bedrooms. Until a guard sees a novice or hears a novice, they are forced to walk along pre-set paths according to route cards and corresponding color paths on the board. On the guards’ turn, even if novices are out of sight and aren’t heard making noise, the guards still get to make a listen roll—which works the same way as noise-making but without the movement/sound modifiers involved.

PROS:

  • Love the game’s concept and theme. Original, fun and appropriate for many age groups.
  • For between 2-8 players it has a lot of flexibility in group sizes.
  • It’s easy to finish a game within 60-90 minutes and moves quickly.
  • Good replayability as secret wishes, paths, and destinations change between games.
  • “Blessing” cards exist to give each player an opportunity to get out of a jam.
  • Very cool board and components. High quality and colorful

CONS:

  • The rulebook does a very poor job of explaining certain parts of the game. Particularly our group has had problems figuring out when a novice can be heard on the guard’s turn. There’s no explicit direction that says whether movement cards used are in effect for “listen” rolls. Line of sight is also hardly clear at times. A straight line can’t always be drawn from dot-to-dot to determine whether one can be seen. Other vagueries are when one guard spots or hears a novice, and the other guard is nearby—can that guard also “see” or “hear” the novice and give chase? There are a lot of things that need clarifying in this rulebook. House rules can solve a lot of the issues, but expect them to come up repeatedly.
  • The learning curve can be steeper than one would expect because of the vagueness of the rulebook. Expect the first game to take much longer than it should. Subsequent games should be within 60-90 minutes.
  • Depending on which novice you are (which room you start in) and which Secret Wish you are randomly dealt, you could have a very easy time beating everyone else in the game, or a near impossible process. The differences in difficulties can be extreme.

Nuns on the Run Rating: 6.5 out of 10 (Enjoyable in doses)

I would love to give this game a higher score because I love the original concept so much. I think it’s great that 8 people can sit around a board with 2 nuns chasing misbehaving novices around in secret. It’s just so odd and eclectic that I have to smile. And truly—in the right group this can be a very fun game. If you have someone that is good at playing the guards and really giving the novices a run for their money—it gets competitive, tense, and funny.

However, this game suffers from a lot of ambiguity in rules. If you don’t mind sorting a lot of them out for yourself, then I still recommend this game. There are others that will be entirely put off by it and don’t want to expend the effort in sorting out a published game. I can certainly see both sides of the equation.

Review by Josh: Shadow Hunters

Shadow Hunters

I’m a man who values brevity, so here’s the scoop on Shadow Hunters.

Overview:

All players are dealt a character card at the start of the game. There are 3 types of characters: Shadows, Hunters, and Neutrals. Hunters want to kill all Shadows. Shadows want to kill all Hunters or 3 Neutrals. Neutrals have unique, independent win objectives.

Also on every character card is a health point value (how much damage you can take before you’re out of the game) and a character-specific ability. Character cards are kept face-down at the start of the game and are known only to the players controlling them. The number of players in the game determines how many characters of each type are in the game.

Players take their turns clockwise. A turn consists of:

  1. Move your colored character pawn on the board. This is done by rolling the 2 dice together (a 6-sided and a 4-sided), add the numbers, and move to the indicated card space on the board.
  2. Encounter the space you land on. Typically this means you draw a card from a specific pile (although there are others that allow stealing items or healing). There are 3 colored card piles.
    Black = damaging items/weapons.
    White = helpful/healing items.
    Green = Hermit Cards. These are the best way to figure out who other people are. Example: “I bet you are a Shadow. If so, take 2 damage.” If you drew this card, you hand it face-down to anybody else in the game. They read it and must answer either by moving their pawn on the damage tracker up by 2, or say “No effect.” Then they discard the card face-down. Nobody else knows what happened, just the 2 of you.
  3. Attack (optional) If any character pawns are in range of you on the board (adjacent spaces—3 groups of 2 locations) you may attack one of them. Attacks are made by rolling both dice and subtracting the lower dice roll from the higher dice roll. The result is how much damage the defender takes. This can be modified by both weapons and armor. In the case of rolling doubles, the attack misses.

This sequence of events continues until one team completes a win condition. Along the way players can reveal their characters face-up in order to use their special ability. Typically these are a one-shot (once-per-game only) but not always.

PROS:

  • Accommodates a good number of players (4-8) for most gaming groups
  • Takes, on average, 45-60 minutes to play once familiar.
  • Excellent replayability as there are many potential characters to be and no game is the same (your allies and enemies will always be different)
  • Fun and simple to setup and begin. Beginning gamers will understand after a round of play, and advanced gamers will find enough depth to hold their attention.

CONS:

  • Being eliminated early-on in the game can be irksome when you have to wait for everyone else to finish killing each other (although our gaming group allows for the first person eliminated to re-enter the game with a mystery character set aside at the setup).
  • Some Neutral characters have exceptionally difficult win conditions compared to others—making it near impossible for them to win (we remedy this by removing some of these from the game).

SHADOW HUNTERS RATING: 9 OUT OF 10 (Exceptional)

I wasn’t expecting to like Shadow Hunters as much as I do. I’m not typically a fan of “anime style” artwork—which this is—and I wasn’t sure there would be enough complexity or depth to merit playing more than once. However, I was very pleasantly surprised by this game that I’d never heard of until it showed up in the same online category as “BANG!” which is another group favorite of ours. Shadow Hunters is a great example of how a theme in a game can be very minimal to non-existant (basically a group of cray cray random people/monsters running around an enchanted forest killing each other) but because the gameplay, alliances, and element of mystery are so solidly present, the game holds true and nobody questions “why are we doing this again?” We accept that we are a school teacher attacking a werewolf. Or whatever the matchup happens to be.

I think this is a very interesting, unique board/card game mix that will appeal to a lot of gamers out there if they can get past the initial weird/foreignness to the game.

Fantasy Turf Wars: Game Testing In Progress

We are 15+ games played into our first creation—Fantasy Turf Wars. The premise is a command and conquer type board game with fantasy creatures and humans fighting over their home turfs.

There are several ways to win the game, many factions to choose from, and the replayability is excellent. Everyone is enjoying it so far and even after play testing nobody is sick of it yet. With small mechanic changes being ironed out after each play, artwork design has now begun and we are slated for a September kickstarter launch.

We hope to see you there!