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One play: Dead of Winter

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Dead of Winter in playIt’s fair to say I believed the hype about Plaid Hat Games’ Dead of Winter. I was a long-time fan of the company’s podcast and had enjoyed the descriptions and design talks about the game leading up to its launch; so much so that I was happy to pre-order it.

I’d been looking for a replacement for old classic Arkham Horror for a while, and this looked like it would fit the bill: a story driven co-op with a horror theme but the bonuses of being shorter, less fiddly and with a tension-building traitor mechanic – as well as the much lauded ‘crossroads’ mechanism (more on that later). It duly arrived, we duly played it, and it has since been duly traded away. So what went wrong?

Theme and components: Check

Out of the box, Dead of Winter is a triumph. While the churlish could point to thin location and player boards – or even complain about old-school standees (in this day and age!) being included rather than minis – overall the production quality is excellent. The artwork is evocative and high quality, the rulebook solid and the tokens, dice etc up to snuff. I don’t care a jot about minis and the like, so I was more than satisfied.

On the downside it’s a bit of a bear to set up, with a multitude of card decks needing to be shuffled and placed, alongside a plethora of tokens – and that’s before you get to choosing a scenario, setting it up, and then dealing each player their choice of starting characters. This is definitely a game you should play at the owner’s house, giving them time to get it ready before you arrive – but once it’s ready to go, I think it looks pretty cool on the table.

It’s also worth pointing out that players that enjoy this kind of game are prepared for a lengthy setup process. Arkham Horror takes just as long to get ready, while players of games such as Descent or Star Wars: Imperial Assault will see nothing to put them off here. With highly thematic games, it seems to go with the territory.

Can you keep a secret?

So far, so what – it’s just another thematic zombie game with nice bits: but the first semi-USP comes with the secret roll cards. Before the game starts, two secret objective cards per player are shuffled in with a betrayal card and one is dealt to each player.

While Dead of Winter is a two-to-five player game you don’t have a betrayer with two, leaving a 45-ish per cent chance of someone being the betrayer with three-to-five players. There is a betrayer variant that swings this wildly in the other direction, giving you an 80-ish per cent chance. But either way, the lot of any betrayer may not really be in their hands – and sadly the same goes for everyone else.

Because here lies Dead of Winter’s first real flaw: unbalanced objectives. Some of them are just plain easy, while others take a real effort and may not be possible despite your best efforts. The aim of this seems to be to create tension: to force people into situations where others may think they’re showing betrayer tendencies. But unless you are dedicated role-players, it is a very real possibility this tension will fail to emerge – especially as after one play you know those super tough objectives are out there.

Attack of the randoms

While not fatal on their own, you are trying to complete your unbalanced secret objectives while competing with the oldest and lamest of all board game mechanism – the ‘one in x chance’ of something terrible happening. And you thought we’d moved on right?

Some caveats here. First, I love me some random – and second I know Ameritrash games are the beating heart of random. I get that. But there are ways to do random right, or cleverly, or with a bit of imagination. Instead here we seem to have incredibly naivety.

Every time you move to a location, or fight a zombie (unless you have particular equipment cards or special powers), you need to roll a 12-sided dice – on one side of which is a tooth. If you roll this, that character is dead. This in itself isn’t a big deal – you’ve probably got more characters (you start with two each and often pick more up) and if not you just grab a new one out of the box. The bigger problem is ‘morale’.

Morale is the game’s timer – the ticking clock of doom which, if it reaches zero, will mean the players lose. In anything but the easiest scenario this should be causing the tension, which is ramped up by the fact every character death causes a one-point loss in morale. Which brings us to the ‘one play’ which put the nail in Dead of Winter’s coffin for me.

Epic fail

This was my fourth game of Dead of Winter and we had a group with some new and some experienced players (five in all). After the epic set up/rules explanation we embarked on a short scenario to give everyone a taste of what this game had to offer.

As it was a short scenario we started with just six morale. The base was surrounded by zombies so as a first act my tough guy – who had the ability to kill two zombies with one blow – ploughed into the fray. And promptly rolled the dreaded ‘tooth’.

So he’s dead – no biggy. One morale down. But it gets worse: the next player in the compound has a decision to make. They can just die and stop the infection spreading – or roll and take a big risk of survival vs getting bit, and passing it on again. With so little morale to play with they fell on their sword – so we were down to four morale.

Much like the game Battlestar Galactica (which it borrows quite heavily from), Dead of Winter has an objective players can meet each round – or face the consequences. In our case, if we failed to meet it – which needed quite a lot of fuel – we would lose two morale. So with two already gone, it was all hands to the pump (ho ho).

With our safe bet having tried and failed to get fuel from the petrol station (random card picks FTW), someone less likely tried their luck. En route they too rolled the tooth – and took both themselves and the person already at the petrol station with them. We failed to get our petrol, lost two more morale, and it was over. Worst. Walking Dead episode. Ever.

You traitor!

The highlight (and this is clutching at straws) was that we did actually have a traitor – but they didn’t even have enough time to complete their simple objective because two random dice rolls finished us all off before we got going. Otherwise, he’d have won.

And that’s the second big problem with the morale system: the betrayer rarely needs to show their hand before the final turn, because either the players are going to hell in a hand basket anyway – or morale has gotten them close enough that one really destructive final turn is enough for the betrayer to blow the game, without needing to draw any suspicion before it is too late to do anything about it (they can be exiled, in theory).

While this was a laughably short game, in some ways it was the best of the four I played. Two were tedious processions to victory playing the starter scenario with new players where we didn’t have a traitor, while the other was another defeat – again with no traitor – which threatened to ignite into a really fun experience but never truly shone (despite providing some laughs). It’s possibly the most fragile game system I’ve ever experienced.

Still, you might love it 🙂

Does Dead of Winter have the capacity to give players a fantastic thematic game experience packed with intrigue, tough decisions and a tense endgame? Absolutely. But does it equally have the capacity to provide a shallow and worthless one? As you can see, the answer is yes to that too.

I’m not reviewing Dead of Winter in my usual style because I realise a lot of people LOVE this game and I didn’t want to give it my standard treatment, as that format wouldn’t allow me to get things across the way I wanted. I can see I may not be the right audience and if you search t’interwebs you will find many an honest, glowing review of this very popular title. All I wanted to do was share my experience which was, sadly, a lot less positive.

At the time of writing Dead of Winter is in the top 20 games on Board Game Geek and games rarely get up that high by accident. But equally, just because they’re flying high doesn’t mean they’re for everyone.

The promise of better to come: Crossroads cards

I’ve saved the real jewel in Dead of Winter’s crown until last and that’s its one genuine board game innovation – crossroads cards (and I’m not belittling this – many, many games have on innovation at all and one bit per game is above average!).

At the start of each player’s turn, the player next to them draws the top crossroads card from the deck and reads the intro to themselves: this intro tells them in what situation they need to pause the game and read the card out. This could be very open – perhaps if a player leaves the colony to go to an outside location – or very specific – if a particular character is in play and this player controls them.

This restriction is interesting because it means not all cards are read out, so they do add a unique feeling to the game that’s akin to RPGs – that, “Oh god, will opening this door spring a trap” feeling. Each card has an ethical dilemma of some kind on it, either for the group to vote on or for the player to decide themselves. These can be great for adding theme, a laugh or even give you some character insight.

But sadly in Dead of Winter they don’t quite seem to work. You can have games where very few trigger, while many of those that do are no-brainer decisions. But on the plus side Plaid Hat is already working on another ‘crossroads’ game, this time set in space with an Alien style them – which could be awesome. But this time I’ll keep my powder dry and wait for the reviews before pulling the trigger.

* If you’re a fan of this game, good on you. But please don’t pick holes in my story if I have made small rule errors in the retelling. The facts may be a little off as this was a while ago, but believe me this happened: we played the rules right, we lost in a turn and it was crap. 

BraveRats (AKA ‘R’): A four-sided game review

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BraveRats boxBraveRats* is another two-player ‘microgame’ from Love Letter designer Seiji Kanai, originally released under the title ‘R’ in 2011 but repackaged and re-themed by Blue Orange in 2014.

Microgames do exactly what they say on the (in this case quite literal) tin – here, for less than £10, you get a short rulebook and 17 cards, making it an incredibly portable little game.

Another common microgame trait is a quick playing time, and BraveRats is no different. Game time is listed as five minutes in the rulebook and that’s pretty accurate, but of course you can simply pick it up and play again – especially as the time to set up the game weighs in at about five seconds.

In terms of theme, well, forget it – this is two nations, each represented by eight cards, going toe-to-toe for the win. Thee is nothing ratty, or indeed bravey, here. But what you do get is a clever little battle of wits which boils down to a fun combination of luck, reading your opponent and weighing up the odds.

Teaching

BraveRats cardsBraveRats is listed as playing from ages 10 and up, but I expect you could go quite a bit lower – and also teach it to grandma (not that she might be too keen on a game supposedly about battling Scottish Highland rat clans…).

To set up, each player takes their set of eight cards (numbered 0-7) into their hand and, erm, that’s it. Both players choose a card, then flip them face up simultaneously – the highest number wins a point, and the first player to four points wins. Got all that?

While in essence this is ‘rock, paper, scissors’ with bells on, the clever bit comes from the card powers. Each player’s deck has the same eight cards, each of which has its own ability. High cards tend to be about winning through strength, lower ones by cunning – so the Prince (7) and General (6) will beat the Wizard (5) and Ambassador (4) – but the Assassin (3) flips the tables on the General, saying lowest card wins; while the Princess (1) simply beats the Prince – and wins you the game.

Each card played is either left face up or face down on the table – face up for winning cards, to show the progression of your points. Draws are also handled simply – if you draw the same number, or a card power means the round is a tie in another way, these cards are set aside and the winner of the next round will claim an extra point. so in this way, if you draw the first three rounds, it comes down to the first player to win a round wins the game (as they’ll also collect those first three drawn points too).

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 BraveRats may initially seem superficial, there’s more tactical space here than immediately meets the eye. The real game is in considering what your opponent has left to play and as your choices whither, power plays start to surface. And also, after a round or so, you may see patterns forming in your opponent’s play that you can take advantage of. Of course there’s still a massive amount of luck involved, but don’t think this isn’t a game that can have it’s, “Mwahhaha, you fell into my trap” moments.
  • The thinker: Unfortunately for me, not enough of the game falls between ‘too random’ or ‘too obvious’ to make it a keeper. The game is a very clever construct, or exercise if you will, in game design – and I would hope it will inform more complex and satisfying games in future. Personally I would much rather reach for ‘Romans Go Home’ from Eric Vogel, which adds just enough to this concept (programmed movement and locations to win) to make it sing in the same ‘light filler’ category.
  • The trasher: Love it! BraveRats is a great way to kill a few minutes if you’re waiting on another game to end, or a few late people to show up. Sure, that may be a small window of gaming opportunities to fill – but when you can buy it for just over a fiver and it will slip into any other game box, why not bring it along to games night? While the rat theme is a little odd, they’re Scottish rats – leaving plenty of room to get your best Highlander impression on too – what’s not to like?
  • The dabbler: This is a fun and sometimes tense little game, simple to pick up and teach, and with pretty nice cutesy/comical artwork. It’s also great for travelling, or going on holiday – and can create those funny moments when you play that one card that turns the game on its head. It does what a filler should do, but the limit of two players is restricting and I’d rather have a game that plays to a bigger crowd. Would I play? Sure! Would I rather play Love Letter? Absolutely.

Key observations

BraveRats contentsThe first concern you run up against here is value – which may seem strange for a sub-£10 game. Some see it as a massive bargain, while others see a very thin game you can print on two sheets of A4 paper.

The tin packaging here seems a strange choice. In a way this adds value (you’re getting a tin!), but by the same token when you open it up it just helps highlight that there’s nothing really in it. To make things worse, this is a game many will want to sleeve as the cards get a lot of use – but to sleeve it, you won’t be able to use the nice velvety insert. Personally I’ve dumped that and thrown Love Letter into the tin with it, which works for me.

But BraveRats’ biggest problem is the general consensus that it simply isn’t as good, or as appealing, as Love Letter. While some may call it ‘two-player Love Letter’, Love Letter is still as much fun as this with two players – and can take up to four, making it so much more versatile. For me though, BraveRats works as an enjoyable companion piece to its more illustrious sibling.

Conclusion

BraveRats card setWhile BraveRats will never shine as brightly as ‘that other Seiji Kanai game’ it is still a fine game design accomplishment.

Kanai’s genius is in distilling a game concept down to the barest of bones while retaining the fun element and for me he has succeeded again here.

As with Love Letter, BraveRats’ usefulness as a gateway game also shouldn’t be overlooked. From a royal court to a clan of chirpy rodents, these little card games are a great way of showing non-gamers that it’s not all about forcing yourself to play Uno with the kids, or playing bridge with your grandparents – there are light little games you can enjoy after the olds and the news have gone to bed too.

For me, every household should stretch to a £10 budget to buy a really clever little card game for the shelves – and if that’s what you have, I’d suggest going to get Love Letter. But if you can stretch that budget to £15, grab yourself a clan of BraveRats too.

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

Tash-Kalar – Arena of Legends: A four-sided game review

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Tash-Kalar boxTash-Kalar: Arena of Legends* is an abstract strategy game set in a fantasy themed arena, but it’s much more than a simple fist fight. The box says ’30 minutes’ but I’m yet to have a game take less than hour, and then some – but we’ve never been accused of being a fast-playing group.

(Please note: To date I have only played with two and three players. There are four-player rules – more on this below under ‘Play types’.)

The main thrust of the game is pattern building. The arena is a grid of squares onto which players place pieces, but alone the pieces do very little. They come to life, briefly, when they form a pattern required to play a card from your hand – at which point you unleash that card’s power.

What makes Tash-Kalar stand out is the rules allow for both ‘death match’ and ‘high form’ play, meaning the focus of a game very much changes depending on its goals. While the first mode centres purely on defeating your opponents’ pieces, the other can see you rewarded for simply having your pieces on particular squares in the arena. But whether simply scrapping or going for points, this is a very thinky game.

In terms of components you get a double sided arena board, four player boards, more than 100 cards (most with individual art) and 80 cardboard playing pieces – which I feel makes it very reasonable value for its sub £30 price tag. And if you’re on the fence about reading on, bare in mind it was designed by Vlaada Chvátil – one of the most respected designers working in the hobby games industry right now.

Teaching

IMG_20150516_135853333In the best tradition of abstract games, Tash Kalar is incredibly simple to teach but also satisfyingly tough to master (I’m guessing here!).

On a standard turn you simply get two actions, which will nearly always be placing a piece onto the board or playing a card (so you could place two pieces, play two cards, or do one of each in either order). There is a discard action, but this will rarely be used and is as straightforward as it sounds. Finally, you draw back up to the standard number of cards.

Your pieces come in three levels – common, heroic and legendary. If you place a piece as an action it is always placed as a common: the use of your cards will later allow you to upgrade them. If your pieces create the pattern on one of your cards, you can then play it – which in turn will give you one-off immediate effects that usually let you upgrade or move your pieces, destroy those of others, or take extra actions.

The game’s complexity comes in successfully creating these patterns. It seems a relatively simple task – but those pesky opponents keep killing off your pieces and replacing them with their own. And note there isn’t a ‘move’ action – you only get to move your pieces if a card allows you to. Which means making a pattern in the first place…

What this means in terms of teaching is that the players will have to learn the game as they play, and in my experience so far this is something players absolutely relish. And there is a real sense of achievement if you pull off a great multiple card combo – which will tend to be rewarded with congratulations from your opponents, making it even sweeter. Of course with time this will end, but it shows the sense of wonder players can have early on.

In terms of the rulebook I wasn’t a big fan, as I thought the flavour text got in the way and I missed a few details on my first play. But to make up for that it has a fantastic two-sided summary sheet that literally has all the rules to all forms of the game in an easy to follow format – underlining the fact the game is far from heavy on rules.

Play types

IMG_20150516_135554146I’m adding a one-off extra section here, as Tash-Kalar includes three ways to play the game which may appeal to different players:

  • Deathmatch Duel (2 players): This is the simplest form of the game, where you simply go head to head and score points when you defeat the other player’s pieces. This is certainly a good way to learn the game and still has a high level of tactical play.
  • High Form (2 players): Players score points for completing the requirements of ‘tasks’. There are always three available (shared by all players) and each player can complete one on their turn. These tasks can be to do with destroying another players pieces, but are more often to do with board position.
  • Deathmatch Melee (3 players): Again you score points for destroying your opponents’ pieces – but your final score is based on the least amount of points you’ve taken against different opponents. So if you’ve only scored one point against one opponent and ten against the other two, your final score is only one.

You can play Tash-Kalar with four players – either in teams in ‘Duel’ and ‘High Form’ modes, or in a free-for-all ‘Melee’. Having played Melee with three, playing with four is in no way appealing: in a game where you’re trying to set yourself up for future turns, having three other players taking turns before you – and probably taking out your pieces – sounds like an exercise in frustration and futility.

As for team play, it adds yet another level of complexity in the form of being able to hand over control of your turn to your team mate at any time. This sounds as if it could add a rich extra level of tactical play, but I see it as pretty daunting for an early play and am yet to suggest it to those I’ve played with. Once I’ve tried it, I’ll revisit this review.

The four sides

IMG_20150516_135515854These are me, plus three fictitious players drawn from observing my friends and their respective quirks and play styles.

  • The writer: I wasn’t drawn to this on release, but how wrong I was. The fantasy veneer may be thin, but Tash-Kalar is a game rich in personality that tells a great story with every play. Games really ebb and flow, helped by ‘flare’ cards that can give players with a poor board position a big boost – at the expense of giving an opponent a point. But it can be totally worth it – and not only for the losing player.
  • The thinker: This is a thinker’s game, with many depths to explore. Yes there is luck of the draw, but players will have a chance to play almost all of their cards in each game and it simply means every turn is rich in thought. There is a possible king-making problem with three (a player can ‘give’ points to opponents when using flares even when out of it, which in some situations could swing a result), while it also ramps up the chaos. But while I prefer it with two, its good enough that I’ll play with three. Constant board changes may put off a purely strategic mind, but war gamers for example will see nothing here they can’t cope with.
  • The trasher: While it looked good, Tash-Kalar wasn’t for me. While it looks like being about combat, with some OK card art, different decks and ‘deathmatches’, the reality is very different. It is very frustrating: you spend more time setting up moves than achieving anything with them. And yes, pulling off a nasty combo and kicking ass is really satisfying – but is it worth the turns it took to set it up, especially as opponents often scupper your plans by accident rather than design? not for me.
  • The dabbler: While this may surprise everyone, I really enjoy this challenge. While patterns can be hard to make its such a buzz when you complete one and then do some cool moves. And I love that the rules actually say you can take back your whole turn if you realise you’ve made a mistake half way through. I’m normally about table chat, but here I love the experience of experiments being rewarded – both by the game and fellow players high-fiving good combo moves.

Key observations

IMG_20150516_135420248I think the most important thing to note is that those players who simply do not like abstract games should not be drawn in by the fantasy theme here – no amount of imagination can make this anything other than a deeply abstracted game.

But Tash-Kalar also has elements you might not be used to as a fan of abstract games: it can play very long and be very chaotic, especially with more than two players. And even with two, you can see any strategic plan blown out of the water by your opponent in a single move. But as a fan I see these as positives, shaking up the genre and most definitely bringing lots of interesting new ideas to the party.

My one big fear is that the promised variety of three different game modes doesn’t really come to fruition as each mode is very dependent on player count. There is only one mode for three players, while the team game really does not appeal. I’m willing to look past this now as I have had a lot of fun with both two and three players, but I am a little concerned about longevity (I shall come back and change my thoughts here if it becomes a problem).

And finally, for an asymmetrical game, putting just three different card decks in the box seems a little tight (there are four sets of cards, but two are identical in everything but colour). It means if you do want a four-player game you cannot have a fully asymmetric experience straight out of the box – although the publisher has addressed this with the game’s first expansion; a new faction which brings with it some interesting new rules, but also something close to a £10 price tag (I’ll review this soon and link it here).

Conclusion

IMG_20150516_135446777Again I’ll preface this conclusion by saying I’m yet to play Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends with the full compliment of four players – but with two or three I can highly recommend it. For me, it’s a keeper.

This game is abstracted, it will make your brain ache and you will want to ignore your cards before its your turn as the whole board may change before then. For some this will be nothing but frustration – but for me, and everyone I’ve played with so far, it has instead been a delicious challenge perfect for those who love a tactical head-to-head – with a rather brittle layer of strategy placed precariously on top.

And more importantly I do feel that each game tells its own story. You can be down and out but a flare may spring you right back into the game; or a decision by an opponent to remove one of your pieces goes your way and they remove a pointless one, meaning you have just the right pieces left to land that nasty legendary pattern you’ve had since the start of the game. With the right tools, it just goes to show you don’t need dice, hundreds of minis and a half-mile of half-arsed fantasy fiction to tell a fascinating story.

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

The Castles of Burgundy: A four-sided game review

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Castles of Burgundy boxThe Castles of Burgundy is a dice rolling and tile placement/set collection board game from Stefan Feld originally released in 2011. It plays two to four (fine at all player counts, but great with two) and lasts somewhere between one and two hours.

I’d put off reviewing any more Feld games as I’ve done a few recently, but I couldn’t resist because: 1. this is one of my favourite games; and 2. it’s currently available for less than £20 (April 2015) from various sources (including Board Game Guru) – a proper bargain.

In the box you’ll find 250 small cardboard tiles, a game board and player boards and some dice. Alea tend to make perfectly serviceable yet unremarkable components and this is more of the same: no complaints, and while there’s nothing to write home about I do really like the incidental artwork on the tiles.

While Castles of Burgundy is as fiddly as you’d expect from a game with this many cardboard chits, it’s not actually a complicated game to play – or hard/long to set up and play once you get used to it. There are five rounds, each split into five pairs of turns for each player (so everyone will take 50 actions in a game), with scoring done both during and at the end of the game.

The main thrust is ‘buying’ tiles from a central board then matching them in sets on your own board to score points. Each colour of tile has its own special action, seeing clever play lead to strong combinations that can turn the tide of a game – and opening up a number of different strategies. But as only a small number of tiles are available each turn, and these randomly drawn, there is also a large amount of tactical nous required too.

Castles of Burgundy board and player board

Teaching

In terms of mechanism, Castles of Burgundy is a relatively simple game – as borne out by the 12-page rulebook which is really more like four pages of rules and six pages of tile explanations – a bare minimum of which you’ll need to reference after a play or so.

In each round players roll their two dice and use them to either take tiles from the main board to their depot; send them from their depot to their player board; export goods for points, or take tokens that can be used to manipulate the numbers on the dice rolled.

If a placed tile has a special effect, you do that too. Simple. These tend to be standard gaming ideas: manipulating turn order, giving free actions, multiplying points etc. I think anyone with a few gateway games under their belt will be at home with Castles of Burgundy, but that’s not to say there isn’t something here for more seasoned gamers.

As is so often the case with Feld’s games, the simple mechanisms hide a lot of small yet tricky decisions – in most turns you’ll want to do a lot more things than you have actions, so its all about prioritising. You’re taking tiles from a shared stock, remember, so anything you leave after your turn may not be there by the time it is your turn again. So while the game does not have direct interaction, it is alive with the indirect kind.

The four sides

Castles of Burgundy board close upThese are me, plus three fictitious amalgams drawn from observing my friends, and their respective quirks and play styles.

  • The writer: Castles of Burgundy is currently my favourite Stefan Feld design, partly because of its broad appeal – it hasn’t made it into the Board Game Geek Top 10 (or my own) by accident. The theme is innocuous but the game looks good on the table; it fits well with both experienced and gateway gamers, and plays in that sweet ‘one-to-two hours’ slot. And while yes it has dice, meaning there will be luck involved, it does feel like good play wins you the game.
  • The thinker: I do tend to enjoy Stefan Feld’s heavier games, and would usually take the likes of Trajan or AquaSphere over this, but I certainly won’t turn down a game. Despite the randomness the game still packs some heft and much of the random can be mitigated by a canny player.The fact it comes with different player boards adds to the strategic choices too, allowing more advanced players to try different ideas from one game to the next. A solid mid-weight game.
  • The trasher: We’re not really in my territory here, but this is definitely a more palatable Feld game. Once you get past the boring theme/box/components there is some rich tactical play – but only with two. Especially in the timing of getting ahead in turn order and taking the right tiles, you have to watch your opponent like a hawk. And I have to admit I’m a sucker for a game that gradually pushes everyone up to scores around 200 but its still often really close, nip and tuck, all the way.
  • The dabbler: There’s a lot to like about Castles of Burgundy. It has dice! But its not blind luck and while they can kick you when you;re down, you never think they were to blame if you don’t win. It has cute animals! The farming tiles are gorgeous and a bit like Carcassonne, the board looks lovely at the end of the game. While it feels competitive, it never feels nasty – the perfect combo for me. And while people can be wary of it as it looks complex, its bark is much worse than its bite.

Key observations

Castles of Burgundy player boards(I first need to caveat that any criticisms need to be couched by the fact Castles of Burgundy is in the top 10 (voted by users) on the world’s most popular board gaming website.)

It’s fiddly. From setup to scoring (which can be easy to forget) to re-setup after every five rounds, this is very much a game of moving little bits of cardboard around. If this is truly off-putting to you, I’d suggest trying it online first: it is available to play at both Yucata and Boite a Jeux. I expect many will find the game play trumps the fiddliness.

Each extra player removes some strategy (as it takes longer to take your next tile, reducing planning potential), while adding downtime and game length – and very little on the positive side, if anything. This is definitely a better two player game and can feel slow with four, especially as interaction is limited to blocking tiles.

There’s also little here for the theme fan and again, interaction is at a minimum – although I’d argue that a two-player game can feel very tactical (hence my ‘thrasher’ above enjoying their plays). If you really don’t like Feld games, this will not convert you – I suggest you run for the hills. When I read the low score reviews for Feld games, it is always the same people moaning – why on earth do they play them?

I think claims the game has no focus or that the best player doesn’t win are groundless. I simply think these players haven’t given the game a chance, or paid enough attention, or played anyone any good – their prerogative, but I feel its in poor form to criticise the game on this point, as they’re in less than 1% minority of players. Ignore them.

Conclusion

Castles of Burgundy boardWhile I’m not sure I’d celebrate Castles of Burgundy as Stefan Feld’s best design, I think it’s his best two-player game  and one of my favourite two player games by anyone.

Turns are short and snappy, there are interesting/agonising decisions to be made on almost all of your goes, and while the game has some tactical and strategic depth it is accessible to both gateway and experienced gamers alike.

If you’re a couple that is starting to explore games, and have enjoyed the likes of Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne, I’d certainly suggest this as a step up the ladder. But if you prefer the interaction of Catan, or the combat of Small Worlds, you may want to look elsewhere.

One play: Time of Soccer

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Time of Soccer end gameHaving had a passion for football since my youth, and lost more days to PC football manager sims than I care to admit, I was excited to hear friends extolling the virtues of Time of Soccer – a football management board game.

I have no idea how they came up with the name – its terrible. I can only presume it was some sort of Google translate faux pas from the Spanish designers. But what’s in a name? I have games called Hamburgum, Banjooli Xeet and CV after all. More importantly it looks great – I had absolutely no complaints about the components. however I can’t comment on the rulebook as the game was taught to me (thanks Rocky!), but I didn’t hear great things. Also, apologies if I get any naming terminology wrong.

Putting the ‘euro’ into European football

In the early part of play, it becomes clear that Time of Soccer is very much built on a strategy game engine. Half of the main board is dedicated to a grid system onto which are placed tiles that represent players, agents, sponsorship deals and coaches.

The themeing here is a little odd, as the board is made to look like a city grid that you drive around trying to sign the deals you want before other players can get to them. This works in essence, representing the fight of agents to sign players etc before their rivals, but the roads/city just doesn’t work thematically. However, if you can get past this the routing, budgeting and risk taking mechanism itself works very well.

Players start with initial basic agents and deal makers who can be upgraded. Your agent represents the speed you can move around the board, while your deal maker allows you to try and sign a deal you can’t quite reach with your agent’s moves – but its dependent on a dice roll and even then a success will see you paying over the odds. This adds a nice tension, while giving some genuine options as you build your club.

Building the perfect team

Time of Soccer player boardEach team starts with a very poor journeyman team, so as managers you are all scrambling to sign some stars before the season begins. Players have a varying set of stats alongside possible connections with their team mates which give bonuses if you can connect them up with each other.

For example, in the image above you’ll notice the two central defenders have a blue triangle on their right and left sides respectively, facing towards each other. This represents a bond between them and will give them a bonus, while if you add a coach that works well with players with this symbol you’ll get further bonuses. This is a great way of introducing a very euro-style puzzle element to team building, while keeping on-theme.

In addition you’re trying to sign these players while also balancing the books, which can prove very difficult. It felt as if there was constant financial pressure, adding another classic euro trait to Time of Soccer’s mechanism arsenal (sorry, couldn’t help it).

A long hard season

Another thing Time of Soccer gets right is the season structure. It boils things down to a six-team league (so 10 games, home and away) and an eight-team cup, with the winner of the game overall needing to score points for both of these plus the quality of the team they’ve put together.

During each week you will have a league game and occasionally a cup game: each other week day is dedicated to going around town to either buy something or position yourself for the next round of tiles (better players, coaches, deals etc come out as the game goes on). You can also have friendlies, although these are abstracted out to a small cash gain.

I felt this was just about the right amount of games to make it feel like a ‘proper’ competition but also to make it feel as if the decisions you were making in the team had enough time to have an effect. But wow, this game was long. It says two to three hours but with four (three beginners) we went well over that.

A game of two halves

I was in for the long haul, and that in itself wouldn’t have put me off buying Time of Soccer – but there was a much bigger problem. Unfortunately the hard work achieved in the earlier euro mechanisms was – for me – undone by the matches themselves.

In theory it’s a good system. Your team building gives you both an offensive and a defensive stat, which is used to decide how many chances you will both create and defend against in each match. So if you create five chances but your opponent only defends three, you score two goals. The team at ‘home’ in the game attacks second, giving them a slight advantage as they know how many they need to score to win.

The problem lies in the way chances are determined. It is of course with dice – and it wouldn’t feel right without them – but for me they have injected too much randomness. Teams always roll the same amount of standard six-sided dice, with fives and sixes adding to the amount of chances you have either created or thwarted. For example, if my team is at level two and I roll four successes that would be five chances – but at level eight those four successes would be nine chances.

This sounds OK, until you note that zero successes is always zero chances no matter what your team’s level. While this gives very poor sides a chance to win any game, it feels like a massive misstep – you can’t expect euro gamers (and trust me, this is 80% euro) to be happy to lose a game after four hours of play simply because they rolled no fives or sixes. This isn’t a war game after all – and I think it could quite easily be fixed.

A hollow victory

For full disclosure, my team of all-conquering heroes did the league and cup double and I walked away from Time of Soccer as the victor by a pretty comfortable margin. However, the victory felt hollow. At no point during play did I feel as if I was the superior player, nor that I had the superior team. I simply had more luck on the dice.

And to make things worse, despite each of us taking different routes with how we created our teams, in the end we all had almost the same stats – in fact Rocky, who came second, just had the better team on paper. While we’d taken different routes, in the end we had all ended up in the same place – making the whole dice fest feel even more empty.

what the game lacked here was a meaning to the stats and some personality to the players; it didn’t feel as if one player had a long ball team, another a slick passing unit, another a lot of tough tacklers. It became an ameritrash dice game but lacked the personality to pull it off, while letting down its euro heart at the same time. Our teams were, frankly, boring. I wanted red cards, crap refs, diving – something less mechanical.

But despite all this, I had fun. This was helped by good beer, being by the seaside and playing in good company and if we sit down again soon I’d play again – once at least, and as long as a better football management board game hasn’t come along before then. What promised to be a title contended at the start of the evening slowly lost touch and slipped into mid-table, if entertaining, mediocrity – the Swansea of board gaming, I guess.