Tag: Board Game

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Call to Adventure

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Product-Call to Adventure

Producer– Brotherwise Games

Price– $30.00 here https://www.amazon.com/Brotherwise-Games-BGM018-Call-Adventure/dp/B07JN6XY6Z/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N3XFUONODGO9&dchild=1&keywords=call+to+adventure+board+game&qid=1593728170&sprefix=call+to+adventure%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 to 45 minutes (2-4 players)

Type- American

Depth-Light

TL; DR-Set Collection Your Own Adventure!  95%

Basics- Who will you be?  Call to Adventure is a character building game of set collection and dice rolling.  Each character at the start of the game will be given three cards: a background, a motivation, and a destiny.  The background and motivation cards have rune symbols representing traits that your character will use to attempt to adventure, as well as powers that your character can use each turn.  Each turn your character must choose either an adventure or trait from the tableau.  Traits are cards you just take, but adventures are events you must choose to encounter.  Each adventure has two traits associated with it.  You see if you have any matching traits on the cards you currently have, you add one of those trait’s runes to your “dice pool” (which is actually a rune pool) for each symbol your character has.  Then you choose on the adventure card if you will attempt the encounter on the bottom or the top section.  Each one has a different story AND different rewards/challenges.  You then take the three basic runes that either give one success, no success, or draw a hero/antihero (one time use card) as well as the runes you gathered before based on your current cards, and you may spend experience to add dark runes to the pool.  These either add one success or two success and make you more evil!  You then cast the runes (instead of rolling dice), and you count your successes.  If you succeed you gain the card and place it under your current one to show the challenge you overcame.  If you fail, you lose the card, but gain an experience.  Play continues until one player has three cards under their background, motivation, and destiny.  All other players get to finish the round and have one additional round to catch up and then you add all victory points from any cards you played and sets of icons you collected, and the player with the most destiny points is the winner!

Mechanics-This game sneaks up on you as you might only have nine turns if you are lucky!  It’s very quick, and it’s easy to forget that you are collecting sets of icons and points.  But, man is it fun!  It’s quick enough to not wear out its welcome, but it’s also deep enough that you will have to think a bit.  Experience is a great way to fix the luck of the dice issue, but dice/runes can absolutely ruin your fun here.  But even then, you will still not have a bad time as it’s not a long game and some traits are won by losing.  Overall, it’s a dice rolling and set collection game.  4.5/5

Theme- This is a solid story game.  When you are done, you will be amazed how well the story of your character emerges.  I FEEL like I am this person playing a year long campaign forging this hero in an RPG.  If you are a story gamer like me, YOU WILL LOVE THIS!  5/5

Instructions–  The rules here are good, but you will end up on BGG.  There are some corner cases where I have to check exactly what the game rules mean.  Even without board game geek, you can figure out enough to settle on house rules to get you playing.  The rules are written well enough that you will get running fast enough to play in about 10 minutes.  These are solid rules, but a few flaws keep them from being the gold standard. 4.5/5

Execution–  This is a fantastically executed game!  Check out all the pieces here: https://youtu.be/n0OI0_nS1e8   YOU CAST RUNES!  It feels like every druid fortune telling scene in a viking movie.  That right there is amazing.  The cards are excellent.  Everytime I teach this game players want to stare at the cards as the details are amazing and tell a story themselves.  The box is amazing.  It has great compartments to keep things organized.  Honestly, more games need to be built like this game!   5/5

Summary–  This is a game you will either LOVE or HATE.  If you want a 12 hour euro game where each move is planned six moves ahead, then this is not the game for you!  If you, like me, played eight games of RPGs at the BGG virtual con AND have two play by post games going at the same time, then I have a board game for you and for you to woo your RPG friends into.  It’s light enough to be a blast to play quickly, but deep enough for you to find a story to dig into with enough mechanics that you can enjoy your choices.  Like all dice games, you can be wrecked by the dice, and I would like a bit more in the rules to elaborate.  But, this game is a blast to play and one that any RPG gamer and board gamer needs in their collection. 95%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time

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Product-Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time

Producer– Fun Forge

Price– $30.00 here https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Game-Studios-Professor-Citadel/dp/B06W56ZL3T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PIIRCWB14ZM3&keywords=professor+evil+and+the+citadel+of+time&qid=1557748520&s=gateway&sprefix=professor+evil+and+the%2Caps%2C153&sr=8-1

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 to 45 minutes (2-4 players)

Type- American

Depth-Light

TL; DR-Let’s steal the Declaration of Independence -FOR JUSTICE!  97%

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Basics- Saving relics in the knick of time!  In Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time, players take the rolls of victorian themed heroes attempting to rescue items stolen across time by the evil PROFESSOR EVIL!  This game isn’t subtle, but it is fun! This is a completely cooperative game, so each turn has a phase where the players help the team and a phase where the players hurt the team.  During the phase where you help, you can are given three actions and a card action. The basic actions are move from room to room, deactivate traps, unlock doors, and rescue treasure.  You can do any action you want multiple times. Also during this phase you draw two card from a deck specific for your character and you can use these special abilities to really help the team as a separate action!  These powerful, specific cards vary a lot from having the ability to move the evil professor to turning off all the traps of one kind! The goal of this phase is to have all the traps off of all the types for a given treasure, be in the room with the item to save, and have an action left to save it.  However, after you take your turn, you roll three dice to hurt your team. These dice advance the professor around his house kicking heroes out of his house, locking doors, resetting traps, or move time forward on the different treasures or all of them at once! Once a good hasn’t been rescued before its time is up, the good it put in the safe room where no player may go!  However, all is not lost. As the game progresses, players unlock different global and personal abilities making it a much fairer fight! The goal of the game is to save four goods and return them to their own times before the dastardly professor can put four goods deep into his safe room.

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Mechanics-This is a simple game, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.  The basic turn of do good/do bad is a quick, easy, and fun way to do cooperative games and isn’t going away anytime soon.  Those three actions and a card action get nearly surgical when you have to get to a treasure in time ramping up the tension and thought process in a fun way!  I love this game, but the dice based nature of the bad action is very random, as dice should be. But, this makes it a bit harder to plan. Not a bad, but a different, and you can get absolutely wrecked on a bad day.  Keep that bit in mind, and you will have a great time dealing with all your plans falling to pieces because the professor teleported into the room you NEEDED to be in the get that last treasure! 4.8/5

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Theme- This game delivers its theme very much in the show don’t tell way.  The characters and items all look like they belong to the same world, and the victorian/steampunk setting looks fun.  I would like a bit more background as I’m very much a story driven gamer. That said, you do feel like a gentleman/gentlewoman sneaking around the manor of a madman hiding and stealing his ill gotten gains from across time.  4.5/5

Instructions– The instructions are six pages, full of pictures, and well written.  When I cracked this box, I was playing in five minutes. That’s a great “opening box to playing” timeline!  I also didn’t have to consult Board Game Geek to figure out any obscure rules. It’s a simple game with efficient, well written rules.  5/5

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Execution-Quality components, quality box, quality art, and FULL CARDS make this a fun game.  I like good quality cardboard, and this game delivers! This game is simply put together well.  5/5

Summary-Good co-op is a hard balance to find.  Good, simple co-op is a much harder balance to find, and this game delivers in droves!  It has good, simple mechanics, great art, quick to read rules, and great components. All these combine to make a fantastic gaming experience.  The only word of caution is if you expect a 10 hour brain burning eurogame experience, keep walking. This is a fun, fast game in the tradition of Pandemic, but using dice, which have their own punishing randomness at times.  If you’re looking for a great way to spend an hour with up to three buds, you can’t go wrong with this game. 97%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Custom Heroes

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Product-Custom Heroes

Producer– AEG

Price– $25.00 here https://www.amazon.com/Alderac-Entertainment-Group-Custom-Heroes/dp/B07117V56Q

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 to 45 minutes (3-6 players)

Type- Euro

Depth-Light

TL; DR-Build a hero!  89%

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Basics- Cards!  Assemble!  Custom heroes is another in the card crafting games lineup from AEG.  This game is a trick taking game where one player will play any number of cards of one number, and every player after them will play cards of the same number or higher numbers until no one can play any more cards, and the last player wins the round.  Then, the player who went last starts again. An example would be starting with three 4s, and then play continues to 3 10s. You can also skip other players by playing the exact same cards as the previous player, so even if that player has an awesome play, they might not get a chance get it out there!  Players continue until they have no more cards in hand earning various rewards. The first player out in a round then earns victor points, power chips, and inserts, while the last player left in a round loses a point, but gains many more chips and inserts.

And here is where the game really takes off!  Each insert will give you a new base number, add, subtract, or provide a new power.  When the round comes to you, you can insert as many inserts as you want into a card, as long as they don’t cover ones already there, and then play these new custom heroes.  The game starts with base cards numbering 1 to 10, but I have seen three 18s played on a turn! Powers have to be activated with power chips, but if you don’t use the power, you gain back a chip.  While you modified that heroe, they are part of a common deck, so you might watch as the hero you made one turn is played by a different player a turn later

The game continues until a player has 10 victory points and wins.  So you might be over the 10 victory point top, but unless you are the first one out with that many, play keeps going.  Three way battles between players with 14 or more victory points make for some tense games!

Mechanics-I have a lot of trick taking games, but the custom nature of this one is really fun.  You get a bit more choice in the game. Lots of games like this just screw you on the flop, but now you get the ability to build your own numbers should the ones you are dealt suck.  But, what’s really fun is how much this little game will make you think. You really do send your time thinking about the different math combinations you can pull to make your next play.  This is a simple game that hides a much deeper one! 5/5

Theme- Here is where this game gets screwed by my love of theme.  Hearts is a fun game, but it has absolutely no theme. This game has some good art and the nature of how the inserts customize what the heroes are doing is fun, but there really isn’t a story.  It feels like some anime world, but beyond that, there isn’t much here. This game has a fun, but not deep, theme. It tries! There are descriptions of things in the book, but again, this is like asking for a custom, story based, version of poker that doesn’t change the cards in any fundamental way.  3/5

Instructions–  Did you see the instructions up above?  That’s the rules! The book says it nicer, shows pictures, and reads quick.  This game isn’t hard to get into, and the rules make that transition quick. 5/5

Execution-Overall, i really like this game!  The art is cool with a nice anime vibe.  The inserts are great quality, as they build awesome heroes.  The one things I don’t like are the card sleeves. AEG has to walk a hard line here.  The card sleeves are the game, so they have to be rough and tumble enough to be used over and over.  BUT, they are a bit too tough. They stick to each other way too much! Often when I’m about to hand out the 10th card for the round, I have everybody count to see if I have given them 10 already because the cards are stuck together.  It’s not game ending, but it’s a slight annoyance that will drive you a bit mad. You can see our unboxing of the games here: https://youtu.be/3TAXTdlFGWA   4.75/5

Summary-Custom Heroes is just fun.  It’s a small box game that teaches quick, plays fast, and isn’t bogged down in being too much.  The art is great, the rules read easy, and the inserts are a fun addition to a simple game concept.  I’d like to see more of this. I wish there was a story that we could build upon here to make more theme, but this is a simple game that any card player knows what to do next.  Overall, it’s a blast that you will want to replay as soon as you finish your last game. 89%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Duhr: the Lesser Houses

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Product-Duhr: the Lesser Houses

Producer– Devious Weasel Games

Price– $25.00 here https://www.miniaturemarket.com/dwe4000.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=1o1&scid=scplpDWE4000&sc_intid=DWE4000&gclid=CjwKCAjwkYDbBRB6EiwAR0T_-hBpzyMP4YvWog65j9suM5TGfDH83ZBpJP8u00fsGxLE0pZEMCN1UBoCfUoQAvD_BwE

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45 minutes to 1.5 hours (3-6 players)

Type- American

Depth-Medium

TL; DR-I don’t have to win for you to lose!  91%

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Basics- Why waste knives when words will do.  In Duhr: the Lesser houses, each player plays a minor, lesser house vying for power as the king will advance one, and only one, house to a major house, so it’s time to get dirty!  During set-up each player is dealt a secret goal that targets one or two players. Then, players take turns doing one or two actions. Houses that are favored (their house card upright) can take up to two actions, and disfavored or vilified houses can take only one.  The actions favored and disfavored houses can do are to put a card matching a house’s color onto the house face down, play a scandal face down on any house, discard a card of your color to use your house ability, play an event card, or discard two matching cards to do a masterstroke.  Masterstrokes are how you win the game. These reveal a card on any house, remove a scandal from any house, put scandals from the center on a favored house, or negate ANYTHING! This leads into house standing. When a house gets cards in front of it, it begins to lose reputation as unsavory things about the house come to light.  If a house has five cards in front of it it becomes disfavored. And when a disfavored house has three of the five card in front of it turned face up, it becomes vilified. Disfavored houses can only do one action per turn, have to shuffle their hands, draw two for the turn, and hope those cards let them do something good! After a disfavored house takes its one action, it draws cards, shuffles them with its other cards, draws two of that pile, and plays its next turn with two cards.  You now have less options but some effects can not target you. Vilified houses are hated by all, but they gain some awesome powers. A vilified house flips its house card over to a black and white side so everyone sees your status. Vilified houses no longer have a hand of cards. Villivied houses can just change a card in front of a house to a scandal, flip face up a card on a house, or play a scandal card face down on any favored house.

House powers radically change the game.  These powers range from moving cards between players, flipping cards face down, or even removing cards from in front of players.  This leads to people making friends quickly or you die even faster! Each player has an agent in another house. This person is a secret.  On your turn, you can flip this over, gain a card in front of you and can now play cards of that house’s color to use their power. But, if you ever become disfavored, you instantly reveal your agent, and that house gains a card in front of it.  That feels like it should as webs of secrets come to life and hit EVERYBODY!

Play continues like this until only one house or fewer remains favored, and then players add up points.  Favored houses start with 10, then lose one point for each face up card of their color and two for each face up scandal.  Disfavored houses start at nine and lose points like favored houses. Vilified houses start at 2 points and gain two points for each other vilified house!  Finally, players add points for their secret objective. Player with the most points wins!

Mechanics-I really like the mechanics of this one, but you need to know exactly what you are doing!  This game isn’t very forgiving, as social combat usually is. If you pick the wrong fight and do something stupid, you will lose quick!  The advice most people will give you is you need to play maybe three times to have the rules down. I don’t agree. I honestly think you can learn the rules in about five minutes, but that’s kind of like saying you can learn chess in about five minutes.  Now, you have to develop strategy. That takes time. But, I think that is time you will enjoy putting in. 4.75/5

Theme- This game does feel like noble houses knifing each other in the back.  You get agents in another player’s house, and sometimes getting that hated appointment causes him to flip his agent and screw you in the process.   That is a blast when it happens! I do feel like I am a Lord of a house fighting it out in the dark and in the streets to show that my house has its crap together and keeps our secrets safe.  Half the players in my games walk away exhausted because this game isn’t your standard DnD knife fight, but social combat. The other half want to reshuffle the cards and start up as soon as the winner is declared.  I’m in the reshuffle up and play again group! 5/5

action

Instructions–  The instructions work, but you will need a few passes at it.  One major issue is you really need to pay attention to how cards are played.  Cards are played face down. That took me a few too many passes reading to get.  But, once you get the flow of the rules, you can easily play the game. 4/5

Execution-First things first, I HATE SMALL ¼ CARDS!  This game only has small cards, and I only have fat fingers!  That said, my only other complaint is the action guide cards. They are awesome!  They tell you what you can do what you can do on your turn, explain all the symbols, and are really well put together!  The bad part is they are rare. You get about ½ the player count. It’s not bad, but you often have to share. And, I don’t want to share with people I want want to die!  The other parts are great. I like nice chunky cardboard for the houses and secret agent cards. Even the dreaded ¼ cards are nice. I also like the symbols. There is no confusion on what each symbol is on the cards.  You can see our unboxing of the games here: https://youtu.be/3B7ECFtGU8I  4.5/5

Summary-I don’t own too many games where you play noble houses and knife each other in the back.  But, this game scratches an itch. It’s fun, it’s mean, and it’s quick. But it’s also not too mean.  I don’t have too many feel-bads. If several people vilify your house in a turn, then you just start wrecking other people with abandon!  Most games I’ve played, it’s not the favored house that wins! This game teaches you some fun lessons about politics. It’s not without its faults.  I’d like bigger cards, more pages to the rule book, and some extra explanation cards. But, overall, this is a blast to play, and one that when you finish, you’ll want to start up right away.  And, at its playtime, you can get this one back to the table easily. 91%

 

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Bitten

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Product-Bitten

Producer– Cat Dragon Games

Price– $14.00 here https://www.amazon.com/Redshift-Games-Bitten-Board-Game/dp/B071Y7MVCY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1532962819&sr=8-3&keywords=Bitten+Card+Game

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 minutes to 1 hour (3-6 players)

Type- American

Depth-Light

TL; DR-Three way monster mash! 92%

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Basics- There can only be one!  In Bitten, players take the roles of Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves as they attempt to take over a city by working together and against each other.  Each player is handed a lair card. This is a secret role that indicates if you are a vampire, zombie, or werewolf. From here, players are given five cards, and then in turn order, each player will either choose to play a card from their lair or from their hand.  If they choose a card from their lair, the randomly discard a card from the hand of cards they were given. Then, a player chooses to play that card either to a location or to another player’s lair. This leads to the two ways players can win. Each card has one to three symbols indicating zombie, vampire, werewolf.  Locations have a card number on them as well as a possible power. When the number of cards on a location equals the number written on the location, then you count the number of symbols on each card, and the most symbols wins the location (ties are possible). If at the end of any turn, a player has control of three of the five locations, they win!  For lairs, a player may never look at the cards in their lair unless they spend their turn getting a card from their lair. But, after a player plays a card and they have at least three cards in their lair and they have the most symbols of their type in the lair, they alone win! If no one won the round, then players pass their hand to the left, and players continue to draft cards until they pass one card.  If a player only has one card to draft from, then they draw four more, and play continues until one creature has control of the city and the night!

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Mechanics-Overall, the mechanics of this game are really smooth!  It’s a mix of a hidden roll and drafting game that almost always give you something to do.  Have cards of your symbol? Play to locations! Don’t have cards of your symbol? Screw with players’ lairs, but be careful!  There are also other action cards that remove cards and destroy locations, so that is a good mix for the game as the start locations are not what the game boils down to.  That said, this game slightly suffers from a player balance issue as play is really great at 3 and 6, but 4 and 5 can get a bit lopsided for the person without a partner. Actions cards are maybe a bit overpowered as several turns can be blown away by one action card.  It’s not horrible as this is a lighter game, but something to keep in mind. That said, this is a great game to get to the table, teaches quickly (honestly the quick run down above is 90% of the rules), and is a blast to play. 4.75/5

Theme- I feel like I’m gathering territory in this game!  Do I sent my werewolf agents to take over the dance club or the park?  Should the Vampires fight in the sewers? I do feel like an underworld fight for dominance is emerging.  Zombies are a bit of a tougher sell as I’m wondering how hordes of zombies are not noticed in a city? But, that is me being pedantic.  I do like the three sided nature of this fight. Locations where the undead would be get things that help undead like free symbols, and each race gets a place where two would do well alongside other locations where the race does well by sites.  The lairs all have fun names for the different people using the monster from voodoo master to mad scientist for zombie and others for the other two sides of this midnight beatdown. There is not combat between the monsters, so that takes away a bit as the zombies basically wave at werewolves who move in next door.  But that doesn’t break the game. The art also fills the theme as this feels like Sin City with a black and white noir style that feels like midnight. It’s a grim and dirty monster mash. 4.5/5

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Instructions-The instructions to this game are short and easy to read.  However, the instructions need a few more examples. In my first game, we ended up with a three way tie for our first location.  You can tie, but can you triple tie? The rules did not cover that. We said yes and rolled with it. That said, the rules work. If you have an especially punctilious player, then you may end up going to board game geek to fight over rules clarifications, but honestly for about 90% of the players and games, the rules are fine.  They could use a few more pages to describe things, but as written, you can play this game in about 5 minutes. 4.25/5

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Execution-First things first, I HATE SMALL ¼ CARDS!  This game has them, so that always makes me mad.  But, once I learn to deal with my own, internal, mental issues, the rest of the game is really well put together.  Nice sturdy box that fits the cards. The little cards are there to help players see who controls each area, and I’ll admit, even grudgingly, they work well.  The art on the cards is really well done even for just being two tones. I can tell who is what from far away. The card stock feels great. It’s also a small game that you can play on a bar table with friends, and I think this is the place for it as this might not be a weekend killer.  But, Bitten is a great game that is a fun fill between your four hours games or at the end of the night when you don’t want the fun to end. Finally, this game is less than 15 bucks! You can’t go wrong at this price. 4.9/5

Summary-I usually don’t like hidden role games.  I’ve never gotten into bang, and Battlestar Galactica is still on my shelf in the shrink.  But, this game is fun. You can manipulate the others or you can just get work done. I don’t feel bored by this game.  I always have something to do, the cards feel great, and the art makes me happy. It’s just dark enough even though it’s mostly just black and white.  The mechanics flow well, and the theme fits, even if you dig too deep into this one. I also like the portable nature of this game. This isn’t a perfect game as randomness can absolutely screw you and the hidden roles might not be fair, but if you need a game that goes up to six, plays quick, and is fun, then Bitten is a great game to get to the table.  92%