Tag: Board Game

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Micro City

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Product-Micro City

Producer– ThisTroy Games

Price– SOON!

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 30 to 60 minutes (1-2 players)

Type- Euro

Depth-Light

TL; DR-Packs a punch for its size 90%

Basics- If you build it, they will come!  MicroCity is a simple building game that almost has a rondel and worker placement feel to it.  Each round you play a card from your hand.  This card moves your one worker on the map to different locations that give you resources, let you trade resources, or even spend resources to build.  The card also gives you a second action that can let you get more resources or removes investment tokens from the board.  Thus, the cards really shape your play.  Alternatively, you can pick up all your cards and not do a card action and just move one place.  In addition to the cards, each round you roll two dice.  These dice can be spent, if they match the location or the card, to make the action more powerful.  Or if neither is used, you can use them to gain extra money.  At the locations you take your actions then place an investment token.  These tokens block future uses of that location until they are removed.  The goal of the game is to spend different combinations of resources to build different parts of a building within a number of turns (in the cooperative or solo mode) or earn victory points in the competitive mode.  If you run out of turns or can’t place an investment marker, you lose!  If you have the most points or complete the buildings before time is out, you win!

Mechanics-MicroCity is a simple game.  You just read most of the rules above.  It’s pretty simple.  However, it does have some meat on its small bones as the game’s timer can be brutal if you don’t plan ahead.  However, much like my problems with Scythe, you can end up just doing the same action multiple times in a row.  That’s not as much fun.  The game limits this as investments can stop you from just doing the same location actions again and again.  MicroCity isn’t the most complex game I’ve played, but it does have some depth despite it’s small size.  4.25/5

Theme-Did I feel like a builder?  Solid kind of!  The locations in the city where you send your one worker have a feel like you are picking up wood or steel.  The pieces make you feel like an engineer.  Was it the most character driven game I’ve played?  No.  This game can’t be that involved given its small size and small run time.  Overall, this is the most solid building experience I can expect from something the size of a large matchbox. 4.5/5

Instructions-The rules are the weak point to the game.  They work, but the flow is honestly weird.  Parts and their meanings are explained  before the flow of the game so I felt like I was lost until I saw the flow.  There are multiple versions of the game which is amazing, but the way they are separated in the rulebook feels off.  You won’t need YouTube or Board Game Geek to play, but learning all by yourself is a bit hard given the flow of the book. 4/5

Execution– Honestly, for a small game the pieces are nice!  Check out our unboxing here-https://youtu.be/pAvDwAu_lCQ   Art is solid, tokens are good, and the cards are good quality.  There are lots of extra pieces given the different game modes, but there is enough here to make that happen and make you happy to get the kickstarter copy.  Good pieces do come in small packages! 5/5

Summary-This is a fun game that feels like a few other games I own with some good and bad.  I did feel like I was building, but some goals made me feel like I was just doing the same thing over and over again.  The rules are hard to start, but get you through decently at the end.  The game itself is pretty to look at and solid to play with.  If I want a good less than one hour co-op building game, I think this will hit my table again. 89%

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

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 1 Comment

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

items

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%