Monthly Archives: February 2016

Board game guide: A-Z glossary added for beginners

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This is a public service announcement: I’ve added an A-Z glossary of common board game jargon beneath my ‘Board and card game beginner’s guide’ linked at the top of each page of the blog.

I’m sure I’ve missed loads of words and phrases, so if you think of any - or come across any - that you think should be added, please post them in the comments section below. I will keep it as up to date as possible, so please do contribute.

I haven’t added much to the beginner’s guide recently but do try and keep the various sections up to date, so here are some reminders of some other posts I’ve written aimed at those who are a little newer to the hobby:

Again, if you have any ideas for new beginner’s guide sections I’m all ears: it’s hard to think like a new player when you’ve been around the industry for quite a while, so there’s no one better than a new gamer (or budding game designer) to tell me what I should be writing about.

I guess I should also mention my board and card game reviews here (although you’d have done well to miss them if you come here at all). I’ve reviewed more than 70 games and expansions to date, most of which are currently available to buy (and most of which are great). They’re listed alphabetically, but if you’re new to the hobby and looking for some more specific advice (rather than a specific title) don’t hesitate to get in touch either via the comments section here, through Board Game Geek or on Twitter. Cheers!

My Village: A four-sided game review

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My Village* is a dice-driven action selection game for two to four players, designed by Inka and Markus Brand as a follow-up to their award winning 2011 design Village.

While many dice follow-ups of popular games are simplified versions of the originals, the same cannot be said here: if anything, this is a little more thinky and complex. But it certainly shares some traits with Village.

Fans of that game will recognise the graveyard and your dying citizens; the church, the traveller, the market and more. But the difference, as the title suggests, is that each player is building their own village rather than all living in the same one.

You should be able to find a copy of My Village for around £25, which is solid value for what you get in the box. You get five small village boards (one central and one for each player), 108 square cards, 100+ wooden bits and cardboard chits, plus 12 dice. As well as the rulebook you’ll also find a scoring notepad - always welcome in a euro game with lots of ways to score points (yes, it’s one of those).

Teaching

While this may not be the toughest of euro games to get your head around, My Village is certainly a step up from your average family/gateway game in terms of complexity.

Each round a certain amount of dice will be rolled by the start player, depending on the number of players. In turn order, players will take two of these dice and use them to get one, or several, actions. So the later in turn order you are, the less choice you’ll ultimately get each turn.

All the available actions you can take are marked with a banner, which is either black or white. Some are on your player board, but most are on the various buildings you can take from the central stock and add to your own village. Each banner has a number (or two) on it, showing the dice combination you need to be able to choose that action. If you go black, you can only do one action: if you go white, you can activate every white banner in your village that boasts the corresponding number.

Many actions have a time cost. Your village starts with five residents, but each time you’ve spent enough time to pass the grim reaper on your board one of them dies. They go to a central graveyard on the main board and after a certain amount of villagers die (between all players) the game ends. Other actions will have a cost in gold or resources, which can be collected from your fields, council and craft tiles as you add them.

These concepts are pretty easy to understand, and the theme carries pretty well throughout, but what makes the game a challenge to both play and teach is the sheer number of choices available from the get-go. A rough count suggests that the start player, if rolling a reasonable spread of dice, has close to 20 choices to pick their one action from: pretty daunting, even for experienced players. This does decrease once you start to decide on a strategy, of course.

And then there are the subtleties. Many of your victory points go to a holding area which you need to spend an action on to bank - with the ever present threat of a plague taking half of them away.

You also need to consider schooling new citizens to replace your dying ones, as you can’t use areas effectively that don’t have a worker. And don’t forget the white banner combos you can create by taking the right village tiles.

None of these actions or choices are complex, but they are many and varied. So, while My Village is not a ‘hard’ game to teach per se, it’s a hard game to take in all at once and probably needs a good few turns of your first game to truly get a grip of.

The four sides

These are me, plus three fictitious players drawn from observing my friends and their respective quirks and play styles.

  • The writer: While My Village borrows a lot from its predecessor, it is a very different game. The dice choosing mechanism is simple yet ingenious, forcing you to choose between several poor choices in order to mitigate their randomness - or to risk it and embrace it. Spending an action to become first player can feel like a wasted turn, but so can having to spend gold or resources to mitigate a weak choice; but leaving your fate in the hands of chance in a euro game is only for the very, very brave.
  • The thinker: For me the game has two stages; deciding/executing your strategy, then deciding when you need the game to end to win. There are always two black dice on offer and many white ones; and taking black ones means having to progress time, making it another interesting decision. Players often fear the black dice and more time-heavy actions early on, usually in error; for it is at the end of the game they become a crucial way to hasten, or slow, the end game to your advantage.
  • The trasher: Oh god, I HATE that damned tree! Many victory points you get during the game are placed on the ‘story tree’ on your board during the game. To make them safe you need to do a very boring ‘bank’ action (which can at least be done with any dice combo) - but this itself can only be done after you’ve done an even more boring ‘take 1 coin’ action on a previous turn. But hey, while it might be one of the dullest pairs of actions on the planet the plague itself rocks - and seeing someone lose five or six victory points through it makes up for the boring actions!
  • The dabbler: My Village is a really lovely euro game, both mechanically and thematically, which also plays well within its suggested two hours and is good across all player numbers. But I worry that some newer or younger players will be put off by what can by a very tough first experience. I definitely think it’s worth saying that it’s a tough one at the start of the game, and helping less experienced players as you go through the game (or letting them take moves back) - even at your own expense. It’s so easy to forget some rules - for example, what happens if you don’t have a worker in a particular area.

Key observations

My Village certainly won’t be for everyone: it is a thinky, sandbox, engine-building euro and that concept will send some gamers running to the hills. If that’s not your bag, you probably won’t have your mind changed here.

At the other end of the scale, some won’t like the lack of direct interaction. Personally I think the choice of dice (you can hate draft sometimes) and rushing/slowing the end game add enough quirks to keep everyone paying attention, but they’re hardly fisticuffs inducing.

There are also questions over possible replay value, as there a limited number of strategies and little to stop you choosing the one you want to go for. But this is similar in games such as Russian Railroads and Lewis & Clarke, both of which continue to find an audience; and My Village has a similarly fluid game length. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the possible overpowered nature of a pure market strategy alluded to by some, but having seen this well beaten on several occasions I’m reserving judgement.

And finally - the Grim Reaper standees are simply awful. It’s only in the box as fluff and would’ve been a bit of fun if it actually stood up to even the lightest of breezes but oh my - terrible. I’m sure it’s just a production error and hopefully it will be fixed in later editions, but how did it not get picked up in the preproduction process? Sloppy.

Conclusion

I’ve very much enjoyed my plays of My Village and hope to play more in future - but it won’t be staying in my collection. So how does that work?

Quite simply, I’ve got shelves packed with great euro games and I couldn’t think of one I’d rather get rid of to let this take its place on the shelf. I know some who will disagree, but you can only have so many games - even if they’re all great. And I’m selling it to a friend, so hopefully I’ll get occasional visitation rights.

I would probably rank it, in terms of quality, above some other keepers too: it’s simply down to game time versus collection size and whether I’d play this before Terra Mystica, Caverna, Tzolk’in, Caylus or many other favourites. For me the answer is no, but My Village is still a fantastic euro game that will not be out of place in any game collection. I just can’t wait to retire so I can get more games played…

* I would like to thank Pegasus/Eggertspiele for providing a copy of the game for review.

The King is Dead: A four-sided game review

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The King is Dead* is an abstract strategy game for two to four players designed by Peer Sylvester, which essentially reimplements his classic 2007 design ‘King of Siam’.

The game has beautiful style, quality and art throughout, from the bookshelf-style box to the map and cards (although the bog-standard wooden cubes are a let down, largely because of how nice everything else is).

You get 40 plastic finish cards, 63 wooden cubes, 32 cardboard tokens, a board and the rule book. The box is hugely oversized for what you get in it, but the £20 price tag is fair.

Set in Britain at the time of King Arthur, this is an area majority game where players are the power behind the throne. To claim victory you will need to back the winner, influencing the outcome of eight key regional battle fought over the game’s eight turns. It plays in well under an hour and is for two to four players, though feelings vary on the preferred player count (see ‘observations’ below).

Teaching

The King is Dead is a very simple game to teach, as every player has the same set of eight action cards available to them for each game. The majority of these cards simply allow you to place or move influence cubes on the board, so it literally takes a few minutes to get up and running.

The board, a map of Britain, is broken up into eight areas - each of which is seeded with a couple of cubes during setup. These represent the competing armies of England, Scotland and Wales, each of which has a set stronghold (Wales, Scotland and London) which is always seeded with their colour. The other areas are seeded randomly.

Each region also has a card. These are shuffled and laid out randomly at the start of the game to show the order in which conflicts in these regions will be resolved. Along with the random army setup, this ensures every game will be a different challenge despite the seemingly small number of moving parts.

The real genius of the game lies in one clever mechanism. Once the board has been seeded with armies, each player takes two random cubes from those remaining: their starting influence. When the eight regions have been decided, you want to have the most total influence of the army that won most battles - and consequently crowns the new king.

This sounds simple enough, as each time time you play one of your action cards you also get to take an influence cube of your choice into your personal stock of influence. However, the cube you take has to come from the board - meaning you are weakening the country you want to back in terms of board position. This works fantastically well and can lead to some agonising, and really clever, extra levels of tactics and strategy.

Another interesting aspect of play is that their are eight rounds to the game and each player has eight action cards - but the two numbers don’t correlate: you’re under no obligation to play one action per round.

You will of course want to play all eight cards, as each will give you a precious influence cube. But a round only ends when all players pass, rather than play an action, and you can find yourself wanting to go all-in to win a territory - but if you go too big too early, how will you influence the late game?

One final thing you need to get across when teaching are the various end game scenarios that may crop up. In a game with three countries vying for just eight areas, and with players only getting a maximum of 10 influence points across those countries, there is plenty of room for draws - and therefore tie-breakers.

For example, if two players draw on influence for the winning country it goes to the next most influential and so in. While if two or three countries tie for the highest number of regions conquered the country which most recently won one will be the winning nation. And that’s before we even mention the possibility of a Saxon Invasion…

The four sides

These are me, plus three fictitious players drawn from observing my friends and their respective quirks and play styles.

  • The writer: An extra added wrinkle is the possibility of a Saxon invasion. If two or more nations draw an area, none of them take it and you instead put one of four Saxon tokens on the region. If the Saxons win four regions, the game ends immediately. Instead of winning by backing the right country, you instead form the resistance - so win by having the most sets of cubes (so equal numbers of the thee countries here is key). While this sounds interesting, I’m yet to see anyone win with the tactic and can’t help thinking it will only really be possible if two players go for it.
  • The thinker: This is a magnificent game, with a lovely blend of tactics and strategy within its short play time. One of my favourite strategic aspects are ‘partial actions’; where you get to play a card, but due to board position you cannot do the whole action - but do still get to keep a cube. This can be particularly powerful late in the game, when you may be holding a card that will add two influence to a region you do not back - but that country has control of no areas you can legally place next to, meaning you don’t have to put the influence on the board. This kind of subtlety keeps on emerging from the game the more you play it.
  • The trasher: The King is Dead is tight, smart and fast, but I find it very difficult to balance the use of actions through the game. If you’re a tactical player its hard not to get set on a region and become determined to win it - wasting cards in the process. It’s particularly tough if two of you get entrenched in a three-player game, leaving your other opponent with loads more cards than the pair of you; making it much easier to control the board (although in a three-player game the player who has the last action card in-hand can only play it if it can actually win them the game). A good game, but one I find extremely frustrating.
  • The dabbler: Really clever, and beautiful, but too dry and abstracted for me. It’s the kind of game that kills conversation rather than creating it, as everyone sinks deep into thought. That said, it is possible to win by kicking back and seeing what happens for the first half of the game and then going with the flow, never having a single strategic thought! But for me I’d rather put the kettle on, top up the wine or grab another bag of nibbles and wait for something a bit more fun to come along!

Key observations

If you’ve skipped here because you’re familiar with King of Siam and are wondering if there are significant differences, fear not - the games are very close. I feel The King is Dead loses nothing in translation; the publisher worked closely with the original designer on the new map, ensuring the same level of interaction.

Some King of Siam players have expressed concern about the random pick of starting cubes for players (in the original game, you have set followers for each player). I personally like the varied starting setup, but it would be simple to emulate the starting setup of the original game if desired. And lets face it - this version is gorgeous and has generally been very well received - a real win for a publisher just joining the family board game market.

An addition to this release is the ‘Mordred Variant’, intended for seasoned players to add an extra level of difficulty. I’m yet to try it, as I feel the base game is (spoiler alert…) close to perfect - but at the same time, it’s nice to know its there!

In terms of player numbers, the game plays very differently at all counts (two is a straightforward knife fight, three more subtle and with four you play in teams) - and there is divided opinion on which works best. Some will go as far to say they love it at one count and won’t play it at the others, for example. Personally I’m keen on the three-player game, but will play with any number.

Conclusion

The King is Dead manages to pack a huge amount of depth into a small package while being beautifully designed and presented. Personally I think its a mechanical masterpiece and, along with Ingenious and Rosenkonig (being reprinted this year in English as The Rose King - hurrah!), is one of my very favourite abstract games.

However it bares repeating that this is as abstract as abstract games get which - combined with the low scoring count, big brain burning moments and myriad tie-breakers - means it certainly isn’t going to be everyone. On the plus side, if you want to try it out, the original King of Siam is available to play for free online at Yucata.

* I would like to thank Osprey Games for providing a copy of the game for review.

UK Games Expo 2016: Bigger, better and a few months away

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the UK Games Expo - Britain’s biggest annual celebration of all things board gamey.

Expo has been growing even faster than the hobby, which is itself in rude health. The first Expo had 800 attendees; in 2016 they’re hoping for 10,000 over the weekend.

The gaming parts of the event, taking place from June 3-5, are staying in the Birmingham NEC Hilton Hotel while the trade vendors are expanding into Hall 1 of the NEC itself. This is a significant development, giving the event another level of credibility and helping attract more retailers and manufacturers. Many publishers I’ve spoken to are now seeing UK Games Expo as a genuine event on the world board gaming con calendar for the first time.

Although it’s not just about trying out and buying board games. Both role playing games and war games will be well represented, along with cosplayers covering everything from Star Wars to superheroes. And you can guarantee some great talks and high profile guests, alongside the odd darlek and storm trooper.

But for me, of course, it’s all about the games. Publishers in attendance this year will include Mayfair, Fantasy Flight, Queen Games, Czech Games Edition, Artipia, Mage Company, Osprey, Modiphius, Coiledspring, Surprised Stare and Grublin; while the biggest UK retailers will all be attendance.

But the real beauty of UK Games Expo is how inclusive it is. Both the organisers and attendees are dedicated to expanding the hobby. There are always people around to teach and explain both the games and the hobbies themselves. If you can spare a day and can get to Birmingham, you should come along and get a taste of what you’re missing. The family zone, for example, was massive last year and is only going to get bigger as the event expands.

Prices are pretty good too. A family ticket is only £30 for the day or £45 for the weekend, with adult/child tickets starting as cheaply as £15/£7 for a one-off trip (just remember you’ll have to also pay a bit extra for parking).

I’ll be there for the weekend and, with the exception of the odd shift in the play-testing area and hopefully a couple of publisher meetings, I’ll be there to game. There’s always a copy of Empire Engine in my pocket if you want to learn, so feel free to come and beat me at my own game! Although you may have to buy me a consolation pint afterwards…

Keyflower - The Merchants: expansion review

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Keyflower* is popular euro game of bidding, engine building and point scoring that was first released in 2012 (and reviewed by me in 2015).

It has risen into the Top 25 games as listed at Board Game Geek and this is the game’s second big box expansion, after 2013’s The Farmers.

Played over four seasons (rounds), Keyflower is a cut-throat bidding and worker placement game wrapped is some lovely, whimsical artwork. Each turn sees you bidding to add tiles to your village, or using those tiles for their action - but you can place your workers on any tile in anyone’s village, so just because you buy a tile through bidding doesn’t mean you’ll get to use it when you need to.

The game plays fast with snappy turns (an hour is about right with four or less - but it comfortably takes up to six players), is high on interaction and is full of difficult decisions despite being relatively simple in terms of rules overhead. A modern classic.

What does Keyflower: The Merchants bring to the party?

The Merchants introduces a whole bunch of interacting components, but these can be roughly broken into three categories: new boat tiles, contracts and extensions.

You get six new ‘boat tiles’ with the same names as the originals, each with ‘II’ added to the end. Two of the six offer interesting alternatives to the original game - one always giving a green meeple, the other always giving a gold. The rest add components from this expansion to the usual mix of meeples and skill tiles. The idea is to shuffle these with the originals and choose one boat of each name per game as required, but you can of course just pick the ones you fancy.

The 36 ‘contracts’ are small cardboard scrolls that depict a wide range of components - anything from two to six - which can be a mixture of meeples, skill tiles and resources (some colour specific, some neutral). These can be claimed from both new boat and season tiles, with three face-up to choose from at all times (or you can pick one blind). Once received you can either trade them in for one of the items depicted, or fulfil their requirements to score seven points for each contract at the end of the game.

The 18 ‘extensions’ are small wooden squares (you’ll have to sticker them up) in the four meeple colours. The sticker shows the price you must pay to take them; which will also cost you an ‘upgrade’ action. They can only be placed on an already upgraded static scoring tile and immediately lock that tile to the colour of extension you buy (meaning if you already had red meeples on it you could only buy a red extension). On the plus side they double the value of that tile for scoring - which could be a 10-point swing.

Connected to these are 6 wooden cabins (claimed from two of the new boats) which, when collected, are added to your starter tile. Each gives you an extra opportunity to upgrade when you (or someone else…) use your home tile, making it more likely you can place some of those high-scoring extensions.

Finally, six new ‘season tiles’ (one spring, one summer, one autumn and three winter) also feature the new mechanisms. And it’s worth noting that in the rulebook there are plenty of directions on how this expansion can be integrated with the earlier Farmers expansion, letting you mix and match as you see fit. There’s even a handy score chart to follow (covering the base game and both expansions), to ensure you won’t miss any points.

How much does it change the game?

The real stories of The Merchants are the extensions and contracts. While neither impact extensively on the core mechanisms, both add a small amount of complexity, a reasonable amount of extra choice and a potentially massive swing in end-game victory points.

The cheap cost (usually one item) and relative ease of placement make extensions a no-brainer, unless you’re taking a heavy goods-on-tiles strategy - and even then you’ll be considering taking them for denial if nothing else, as you may have upgrades to burn if you’re moving a lot of resources.

Fixing a tile to a certain colour could of course have repercussions, but it doesn’t feel as if it had much of an impact in the games we played; although locking a tile to green in a game low on opportunities to grab green meeples would of course be significant. That said, I did enjoy the extra level of thought attached to the extensions.

Personally, I found contracts a little more interesting. Grabbing them is a nice way to ensure you have a particular item just when you need it - but then scoring seven points at the end of the game is really tempting too, especially if (for example) you’ve got no other way to score meeples, or a certain type of good, because you’re looking likely to miss out on particular winter tiles.

This could certainly be seen as a negative by some: if you’re the kind of player that loves that winter bun fight for the bonus tiles, you may find players instead happy to fill contracts and upgrade to extensions instead. Not for me though. Again, I enjoy the extra level of decision making that they offer up.

Is Keyflower: The Merchants essential?

In a word, depends. As is so often the case, the real answer to this question is going to come down to usage.

If you’ve only just picked up the base game and have a few plays under your belt, ask yourself if you’re still happy playing the original.

If so, you don’t need to invest in an expansion (yet…). The original game has plenty of variety in setup and also plays pretty differently at varying player counts, so is unlikely to get old quickly if you like the game.

However, if you’re a seasoned player looking for a few extra options and a reason to get this classic euro game back to the table, I’d say it’s a solid ‘yes’. While the new options don’t change up the core mechanics they do make you face new decisions, both tactically and strategically.

And as everything is optional, you never quite know how things will turn out - even the innocuous looking new ship with the green meeple can have a big effect on its own, depending on which season tiles come out.

Is The Merchants value for money?

At around £20, The Merchants may feel a little expensive when you consider you’re adding it to a £30 base game packed with content. However, when compared to expansions for other games it’s certainly comparable in terms of components/weight etc.

I guess whether you think you’ll get £20 of value from The Merchants then really comes back to the above question about whether it’s essential. It’s going to come down to a case-by-case basis.

… and does it fit in the original Keyflower box?

Yes, and comfortably. You should be able to fit both this and the earlier Farmers expansion in the original box, as well as any of the plethora of mini expansion tiles you’ve picked up along the way.

And finally, a nice bonus was finding a cloth bag in the box that is purely for putting the skill tiles from the original release in - a nice little touch, showing both the designers and publishers are listening to the players.

* Thanks Coiledspring Games for providing a copy Keyflower: The Merchants for review.

Zombie Tower 3D: A four-sided game review

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Zombie Tower 3D* is a co-operative board game for three to four players, being released into the international market in 2016 (it was released in Japan in 2015). The new release is currently crowd-funding via Kickstarter, with the campaign ending on March 16.

The game, which has nice manga-style art throughout, sees you collaboratively trying to escape from a zombie infested tower block. And while the 3D tower may at first look like a gimmick, it genuinely adds to the gameplay.

The Carcassonne-sized box is packed with bits. You get the base board, enough cardboard to build either a three or four-player tower, five character boards and matching cardboard standees, 160 zombie/survivor tokens and more than 100 small-sized (think Ticket to Ride) cards. The rulebook isn’t the best, but does the job - and they’re working on a new version for the crowd-funded edition.

The box states the game is for 10-years plus and takes 45-60 minutes - both of which I’d agree on. While some may worry about the theme it is treated with a very light, cartoony touch - the box is the scariest part of the game. But do see both ‘teaching’ and ‘key observations’ for some possible in-game concerns. As for play time, even including teaching and setup and with four players, the game shouldn’t run beyond 90 minutes.

Teaching

Zombie Tower 3D doesn’t bring anything revolutionary to the party in terms of mechanisms, so experienced gamers will pick it up in no time - even better, non-gamers should also be quickly comfortable with the concepts on show.

The game lasts a maximum of twelve rounds. If at any point a player dies, or if twelve rounds have elapsed and you’re still inside the tower, you lose: if you escape, you win. Escape involves collecting all the items you need to do so - either with flares (via the roof, room 10) or the communication device (ground floor, room 2) - and all being in the correct room at the end of the same round.

But searching and taking cards isn’t straightforward: for every few good items (weapons, healing kits etc) there are dangers such as extra zombies, cave-ins and fires. However you’ll soon start to realise that even these seeming set-backs can be turned to the advantage of a clever player. You also know they’re coming, as the ‘bad’ cards have a different back, letting you plan who takes what type of card and when.

On each turn (you get three actions each per round) players do a ‘one-point’ action, plus unlimited extra ‘free’ actions as and when when required. One-point actions are: move one room, search a room, rest, or use an item; free actions involve interacting with any survivors in your room, or passing on/collecting items. You also have the option to do extra one-point actions on any round, but each will cost you one health - and you’ll only start with three of four health points, depending on your character.

Each player’s section of the tower consists of 12 rooms, with four on each of three floors including a stairwell at the end of each row. A move action sees you move one space, either sideways on your floor or up/down the stairs. If you’re in a zombie-free room you can search (take a card for that floor) or rest (gain a health point). Otherwise you may want to use items you have to deal with those pesky zombies.

Several walls have slots where you can pass items through to your fellow players. They don’t need to be there (they can collect at any time) so it doesn’t take huge co-ordination, but in a four-player game you can only pass to the players on your left and right - and it’s easy for rooms to become too hard to get to.

At the start of each round, every player places one or two new zombies and a survivor into their part of the tower. Each player has their own set of 12 shuffled placement cards representing the rooms in their section of the tower, two of which are drawn each round, so every room gets one lot of either survivors or zombies in each half of the game.

At the end of each round, it’s time for the zombies to do their thing (including the end of the round in which you intend to escape, which can very much hamper your plans). Zombies on a floor with survivors will move one room towards them, turning them into zombies if they reach them. If there are no survivors on a floor, but you’re there, they’ll move one room towards you instead - doing one damage each if they reach you.

In terms of teaching, one issue is you can’t really help other players as you can’t see their board situation without spoiling this unique aspect of the game. It can be hard to explain your situation, which adds frustration if you’re already exasperated, so sometimes you may need to break that fourth wall and simply take a look at their area. In my experience this hasn’t been much of an issue, but I’d caution against playing with a few people who don’t work well independently, or lose focus easily.

The four sides

These are me, plus three fictitious players drawn from observing my friends and their respective quirks and play styles.

  • The writer: While simple, the zombie and survivor placement mechanic is clever and works perfectly. Planners can really use it to help them see what may be coming, while others will just have fun dealings with problems as they arrive. Similarly, the rules have a list of what items are on which floors and specifically say you can reference it at any time. All the ‘escape’ items, for example, are on floor two so you know you need to go most of the way through that deck - but it still has a big random element that keeps everyone on their toes.
  • The thinker: Zombie Tower 3D has some surprisingly subtle strategic and tactical depth. Picking up survivors scores you points (more on this later), but placing them back into the building to lure zombies away from a critical point can be the difference between success and failure - if a little heartless! Equally, deliberately taking ‘danger’ cards to try and set fires - then luring zombies into them - is a big part of the game and can be far more effective than a shotgun or pistol attack. I went into this with low expectations, but ended up having a surprising amount of fun.
  • The trasher: I love the smell of zombies in the morning! What’s better than luring a 14 zombies into an inferno as you grab a shotgun and head to the next floor to blow a few more away? The game’s theme works well and is normally tense and close at the finish, giving it the kind of movie feel they were clearly going for. Sure, in a way it is multi-player solitaire - but there is so much communication between players as you explain your situation/needs it never feels like it - but even I didn’t think the game needed its ‘true winner’ rules (see key observations).
  • The dabbler: Zombie Tower 3D does a really clever thing in negating the ‘alpha player’ issue common in many other co-operative games. As only you can see your situation you have to rely on each player to do their own thing and fight their own fires (quite literally!), while co-operation comes in the sharing of items and ideas on who should be collecting what. Each player also has an individual player card/standee which adds a bit of personality, as well as a unique special ability that will likely change how you play and helps with replayability. And even better - it plays in about an hour, which feels just about perfect.

Key observations

Zombie Tower 3D’s components are solid, but there is one problem. There is very little depth in the cut where you place the roof, meaning stability is pretty poor - especially when you consider they expect you to put the card stacks on it.

This is made worse by the fact there are no grooves in the base, adding to stability issues. We kept the card stacks on the board, not the roof; and were all sure to be careful when adding zombies, trading cards, moving characters etc. But if you’re playing with younger children who may get a little fidgety, or clumsy adults, it could be a problem.

The game has also felt it necessary to use the concept, made famous by Dead of Winter, of having a ‘true winner’. If players manage to escape, you then show your secret objective cards (basically item collection) and add on points for each survivor you managed to save. I have no idea what they thought this added to the game and it has made the conclusion of each game we played into a damp squib as people needlessly add up points - we survived, who cares who got the most arbitrary points?

I didn’t think it added anything to Dead of Winter, but it’s even more pointless here as you pick up so few items - and the amount of survivors you get (and can consequently afford to keep) is almost entirely down to luck. Thankfully you can simply ignore this and the game loses nothing at all.

A bigger concern is longevity, largely due to the difficulty range available. I’ve player with lots of groups but won every time on ‘normal’ difficulty (the middle of three levels). This is set by how many zombies start the game in each player’s area - three (easy), nine or 18 - but they start in just three different rooms.

Zombies tend to quickly cluster and as players have only 3/4 heath and each zombie does one damage, ramping up from three per room to six makes little difference - that room is still out of bounds. While it makes it harder to clear rooms with weapons, many players won’t use weapons at all - and fire will still clear a room, or a barricade or collapse block it.

I guess you could house rule this, putting zombies into more rooms instead of adding more per room, but I expect they tried this and found that in reality the game is probably a bit fragile. However even though we’ve keep winning that has usually been on round 11 or 12 so it has largely been tight and exciting. Even after successive wins I still want to play the game more, as a satisfying puzzle isn’t made that much less so by always getting the better of it (just look at the Rubik’s Cube).

Finally, some may baulk at a game that only caters for three to four players. I really don’t think this is a game worth soloing, and it won’t go more than four, but I do think playing two-player is possible with each person playing two characters on the four-player board. I haven’t been able to try this as yet, but if I do I’ll post a comment here (or let me know if you’ve done it).

Conclusion

When Zombie Tower 3D was brought to my attention I couldn’t help but agree to give it a review. Having been brought up on old 3D games such as Mouse Trap and Haunted House, this looked like a fantastic concept.

At the same time I feared it would be a train wreck, as did many people I put it in front of. But in actual fact everyone I’ve played with - most of whom are experienced gamers, and many of a brown euro persuasion - have thoroughly enjoyed it. The game lets the mechanics take a back seat to the puzzley aspects, which results in a co-operative gaming experience that’s a real breath of fresh air.

I should also point out this review is based solely on the version currently available for the Japanese market. I have no idea what will change for the Kickstarter edition.

* I would like to thank Cosaic LLC for providing a copy of the game for review.

Valentines shmalentines: Cheap two-player games for competitive couples!

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It’s just two weeks away - but all right-minded folk know Valentine’s Day is a load of commercial toot.

If you’re putting in even half the effort you should be, you’ll be doing romantic things with your other half all year round - not just on a cold, miserable day in February when every restaurant in town has upped the prices for a terrible ‘romantic’ menu.

So instead of pandering to the gods of advertising, why not cosy up for the evening at home in the warn with a nice bottle of wine and a cut-throat, in-your-face, one-on-one card or board game instead! I know, right? It seems so obvious when you think about it.

So with that sorted out, here are a few top suggestions that won’t break the bank:

Patchwork (£16.49)

If your other half likes knitting (or one of those other hobbies like knitting - there seems to be hundreds…), you can’t go wrong with Patchwork. Each player is trying to make a quilt out of these whimsically drawn Tetris-style pieces, using little buttons as currency. Sounds cute eh? Well it’s not. It’s one of the most cut-throat two-player games I’ve played, when you’re considering how much you can screw your opponent on every move. Show no mercy, quilters!

Jaipur (£16.49)

Look at that jolly, beturbaned chap encouraging you to check out his fantastic wares - perhaps on a romantic holiday in exotic Rajasthan. But you see that chap in the background, with the camel? He’s about to pull the rug right out from under you with a massive jerk move in this two-player set collection card game. You’l be scrapping over every point to try and grab the royal seals - and only one of you can claim victory in this best-of-three bun fight. Review

Brave Rats (£7.49)

The cheapest and shortest game here, this super simple card game uses cute, comically drawn rats to try and hide its war-like intent. Each of you will take control of an identical pack of eight medieval Scottish highland rats in a fight to the death - I’d say you couldn’t make this stuff up, but someone obviously has. It can all be over in 10 minutes, as you simultaneously lay cards to see who wins each individual battle - and try and see which of your cards will work best against what your opponent has left. Review

Famiglia (£8.49)

I don’t think I’ll get any arguments when I say there’s nothing more romantic than a good organised crime gang battle on the streets; up close, brutal and extremely personal. Play various gang members from a selection of clichéd mob families in this simple card game, trying to gain points by laying the most terrifying mobsters in front of you. It’s a fast and fun game which, oddly, has possibly the least interaction of all of those mentioned - but it’s the thought that counts eh?

Blokus To Go (£10.49)

With so many classic abstract games being two-player, it seemed rude not to include one here. Nothing says love like two pairs of eyes meeting across the table… whilst trying to work out each other’s next devious moves and stop it in its tracks. Blokus is another Tetris-pieces game, this time on a small shared board where you’re each trying to get as many pieces down before there’s no space left. It has simple rules, plays fast, but can really get the brain burning.

You’ll find all these on Amazon, but instead of them why not give your friendly local game store some love on Valentine’s Day? Or a top quality independent (and equally friendly) online retailer such as Board Game Guru or Game Quest?