Tag: Board Game

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Guildhall  

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Game-Guildhall
Producer-AEG
Price– $50 here http://www.amazon.com/Alderac-Entertainment-Group-AEG5601-Guildhall/dp/B00AQJ5Y92/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410285314&sr=8-2&keywords=guildhall
Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 40 minutes
TL; DR-An awesome, quick card game. 88%

Basics– Rise up through commerce!  In Guildhall, you play someone who starts a guildhall in the middle ages vying for power through the economy.  You do this by creating the most powerful guild in town.  You start with a hand of six cards.  These cards each show a profession and a color.  Each turn you choose two actions: play a card, discard and draw up to six, or buy victory points.  When you play a card, you place it directly in front of you and get a benefit based on the number of other cards of that profession you already have in your guildhall.  The current card does not count for this. That is really important! As an example let’s look at the weaver.  If you have no weavers in your guild hall, when you play a weaver from your hand, you get to place one card in your guild hall.  If you have two weavers in your guildhall already, you get to place two cards directly in your guildhall, but you have to take one card back to hand.  If you have four weavers in your guildhall, you can place as many cards as you want from hand into your guildhall, but you must pick up two cards from your guildhall.  There are five colors to each profession.  You can only play cards that you do not all ready have.  As an example, you can’t play a red farmer if you have a red farmer, but playing a blue farmer is ok with a red farmer in your guildhall.  When you have five different color cards of one profession in your guildhall, that stack is turned over and can be used with the second action to buy points.  As another action, you can spend one or two stacks of cards by placing those cards in the discard area to buy a victory card.  Some of these cards are just a ton of points while other cards give some points and extra actions or free cards.  The last action that you can take is to discard as many cards as you want and draw up to six cards.  After your two actions, you move all your played cards into your guild hall, and the next player goes.  The game continues until someone scores 20 points and is the winner.

Mechanics-I love this game. The mechanics are tight and card combos come out really quickly.  Nothing is too broken since any card you have a chance to get could always show up in your opponents hand too.  It moves quickly, teaches easily, and is a great game even in a short timeframe. 5/5

Theme-This is not a theme heavy game.  The art is all nice and the characters look like their concepts, but beyond that it’s just playing cards.  Some of the actions the cards do is related to the role on the card, but it’s not as strong as I would hope for some cards.  The game is really fun, but the mechanics and theme are just too separated. 2.5/5

Instructions-AEG does an excellent job on these rules.  It’s even written in two languages-English and German.  The rules have text, but columns and boxes to break up the text making this a quick easy read.  It’s read quickly and teaches the rules really well. 5/5

Execution-This game is executed really well.  The box is way too big for the cards in it, but the box also comes with some really cool plastic dividers to help make the size less of a problem.  The cards are nice quality and don’t tear easily.  The coins are nice and chunky.  And the iconography teaches the rules in a way that requires no language, just concept pictures.  Well done! 5/5

Summary-I love this game.  It’s a quick game to get out either between longer games as a filler or as a few games over a night.  It’s less than an hour even for four players.  I wish the theme was a bit stronger, but that’s my only problem.  This is a game I keep in my car when I’m out and about.  You never know when you might want or have the opportunity to get a good game in, and this one is easy to teach, quick to master, and a blast to play. 88%

Daily Punch 9-3-14 Player Adjustment for Shadowrun:Crossfire and dual roles

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

I like Shadowrun:Crossfire.  I’ve reviewed it, but its still a kick in the teeth with its difficulty.  What makes it even harder is playing the game with less then four players.  Here are my suggestions to fix it.

 

1-Dual roles-A few people have given this advice, but here is the general suggestion.  When you get two role cards, you don’t take four basic cards for that color and one off the others, but you take two cards of one color, three cards of the second color, and one card of the other two.  Now the player who has two roles might be targeted by two obstacles, but will be equally ready to fight back.

 

2-Extra hit points-few players means more crossfire events, more obstacles targeting the same player, and less turns to deal with any major obstacles in front of a player.  I suggest giving all players one extra hit point per player missing.  This will power up the players a least enough to help the players get a foothold in the game.

 

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Machina Arcana

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Game– Machina Arcana

Producer- Machina Arcana

Price– $80 here http://machinaarcana.com/store/

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45 min per player (1-4 players)

TL; DR– Style over substance. 65%

 

Basics– Can you stop the end?  Machina Arcana takes place in the Cthulhu mythos/steam punk world as brave heroes battle the forces of darkness.  Each turn, each player gets a number of stamina points to spend on different actions that range from one point for moving to three points to activate places on the map.  Players can act in any order each turn.  Then, each player rolls to see if monsters spawn on the map with each player who doesn’t spawn a monster making it easier for monsters to spawn.  Then, one player rolls a horror check.  If the party doesn’t have a horror event, then it becomes easier for a horror check to happen next round.  If the party does have a horror event, then another track that monitors how difficult the monsters are moves forward and a bad event occurs.  Finally, the monsters move around the map attacking players if able.  Play continues like this until players activate map points advancing the plot.  Players continue moving about the map, activating different map points for items/events/plot until the final plot card is resolved and the players win or the last available hero is killed and the players lose (and the world ends).

 

Theme-This game has a lot of theme, but it’s pretty random.  The game makes some great strides in telling a cool story as the different scenarios all have different plots.  I liked to move through the cards and read aloud the story as well as the horror cards, events, and even the characters backgrounds.  What takes away from all that is the randomness of the game.  The best comparison for this game is Arkham Horror, Decent 2nd ed., and Castle Ravenloft.  The monsters that spawn are all random in both Arkham Horror and Castle Ravenloft, with Decent only having on theme monsters for each scenario.  But, those games fix the story problem in several ways with Arkham Horror stating that more than just the big bad guy is moving around, doing stuff and Castle Ravenloft has all the monsters on theme to begin with.  This game has random monsters spawn from all over the Cthulhu rogues gallery, but the theme is off as some of these monsters really wouldn’t work together.  Some even have eaten one another in the mythos!  The boards are random too, but again this is fixed in comparison games as well.  Arkham horror has gates to different lands with random mythos encounters in the gates, Castle Ravenloft stacking the tile deck to make sure a desired tile occurs, and Decent custom building each map.  All of the problems in this game don’t completely make it jarringly difficult to get into the world, but it’s a noticeable problem.  As for a steam punk, the theme of that comes across only on the art.  Again, not bad, but I was expecting more.  3/5

 

Mechanics– Again I’m going to compare to Castle Ravenloft, Decent, and Arkham Horror.  The basics thoughts of all those games combine decently in this game.  You get the exploration of Ravenloft, the movement and attack of Decent, and the mythos/story/events of Arkham Horror.  What I got here was fairly well done.  What are new about this one are the items.  Some items have marks on the sides and bottom.  If you combine these items with other cards with the same marks on the opposite side or top, you can upgrade your equipment.  That’s pretty cool!  The only real big problem is the monsters mechanics.  Monsters all follow some basics rules.  Castle Ravenloft has much better mechanics for giving the monsters autonomy when they attack, move, or do anything else.   4.5/5

 

Instructions-These instructions are not well done.  Arkham Horror, Decent, and Castle Ravenloft all have better instructions in them to get the same points across.  This game attempts to do a semi-quick start, but the quick start doesn’t end quickly and will leave you fairly confused.  There is way too much going on on any page.  The rules are convoluted, and you will end up rereading a passage several times as you try to understand the game.  I barely made it through because I bought the game and I wanted to see how it worked. 2.5/5

 

Execution– Here is another problem area.  Lots of the boards came warped.  My box was dented on the inside.  That’s a pretty petty complaint, but I paid $60 via kickstarter, I expect more.  The art is somewhat detracting as it interferes with readability.  The cardboard is also strange as its thick but too malleable.  The monsters come as cardboard tokens with standees, but to get them in the standees, you have to force them, and they more often than not bend too much and warp.  I now have a wappiejaw Mi-Go and shoggoth standing at strange, sadly Euclidian angles! 3/5

 

Summary-This isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a good game either.  If you want a well-done co-op Cthulhu mythos game, play Arkham Horror or Eldritch Horror.  If you want a well-done co-op dungeon crawl, then play Decent or Castle Ravenloft.  If you have to have both of those together, then this game will do.  It does have steam punk, but it’s not the main push.  Its got faults, but it’s not unplayable by any means.  But odds are, I won’t be playing this one any time soon. 65%

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Run, Fight, or Die

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Product– Run, Fight, or Die

Producer-Grey Fox Games

Price– ~$35 here http://boardgamegeek.com/geekads/click/361282?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coolstuffinc.com%2Fp%2F205940

Set-Up/Play/Clean-Up– 10 min per player 1-6 players

TL; DR-Zombies!!! without the annoying length/Yahtzee with Zombies! 90%

 

Basics– Zombies!!! meat Yahtzee!  In Run Fight or Die, you play several different survivors trying to flee the zombie apocalypse while gathering up different survivors in town.  Each turn, you roll the main five dice and an event die.  The event die has random occurrences ranging from a sneak attack from a zombie (lose health) to an all clear night with no more zombies spawning this turn.  After that you have your main dice which can be rerolled two more times after the first roll.  These dice have faces ranging from running, melee attacks, range attacks, finding people, the “book of the dead”, and the zombie symbol which can’t be rerolled normally.  Each player has a board with three ranges on it (close, medium, and far).  Melee kills two close zombies, ranged attacks kill one at any range, and running moves one zombie back one range or off the player’s board.  The “book of the dead” and the finding people sides have different effects ranging from finding locations, healing, killing all zombies in one range, events, or finding gear depending on the number of matching symbols.  The zombie symbol causes one more zombie to spawn on your turn during the end of turn steps.  You can reroll a zombie symbol if you take a fleeing card-these are never good events!  After you attack zombies and get followers/locations/gear, you move all zombies one space closer.  If a zombie moves on to your character (from close range onto you), you lose health.  Then, you spawn three zombies with more for every zombie die side you have at far range, and the next player takes his or her turn.  The game continues until someone dies, someone finds the town line card with enough followers or someone gets the last zombie boss victory point.  Then, its the player with the most points wins!

 

Mechanics– This game is pretty simple and pretty fun.  Make no mistake; this is NOT a brain buster of a game.  It’s a simplified run and gun game.  You run around killing an unlimited hoard of zombies while trying to find people, locations, and gear.  The dice rule this game, and if your dice run cold, you will have a phenomenally bad time.  Each character is enough different from one another because their powers really do separate them from one another.  Each character has a different dice combo that will trigger something amazing if it happens, but it’s usually really hard to pull off, so I’ve never seen it actually happen.  The best description of this game is the old Zombies!!! game mixed with Yahtzee.  You move around town waiting for an end condition card to occur or enough point to happen to end the game.  Most often though, the game will end when someone dies.  It’s not a bad mechanic, but don’t expect any surprises or extreme complexity from this game.  4/5

 

Theme – I like this theme.  It’s zombies, so I know some people think that theme is played out.  But, the way the theme of advancing undead is implemented is a fun one.  The zombies fall down your player board almost like Tetris pieces at an unstoppable pace.  It’s rather tense as you try to stay alive but know that your continued survival is all dependent on the dice rolls.  It’s a very tense game that plays out in less than 30 minutes sometimes.  The different stories from each survivor do make an interesting story for how the world’s ending, and the fact that some followers are detrimental is another interesting way to represent how hard it is to deal with some people under pressure.  This game has a lot of style that really help emerge you in the world. 5/5

 

Instructions-So funny story-When I got my kickstarter copy of the game, it came with the rules, but was missing the middle pages of the rules.  The rules were not on board game geek either.  After emailing the creator, they now posted them there.  With the rules, the game isn’t hard to play.  It’s not horribly organized, but I think it could be better laid out.  Also, some questions like how often I can flee from zombie dice have come up, and the rules don’t specifically answer that question.  The rules are not bad, and the game is playable even with these questions, but a bit more would have helped make this game a bit better. 4.5/5

 

Execution-This game is pretty well set up.  The zombie pieces are well done miniatures, and you get a ton of them.  The cards all look cool.  The different characters have great art, layout, and story.  The player aids and zombie range boards are all done well.  The dice are nice and chunky with easy to read pictures.  The one thing I don’t like is the zombie boss.  It’s a giant zombie, but for most people who buy the game, it’s a cardboard token.  I would have liked to pay a bit more and ensure that everyone gets an awesome zombie boss mini that was part of the kickstarter.  You can buy your own boss mini, but that seems off to me.  I hate paying to make my games a bit better-it feels a bit like pay to win for me.  Like all my other minor problems with the game, the problems I have are not major, but a little bit more would really rocket this one to the top. 4.5/5

 

Summary- This is a fun game.  It’s not the kind of game I’d solely invite people over to play for a weekend, but it’s a great game to bring out late game day as a quicker game to get a bunch of people playing some last minute games.  This game has elements of games like Zombies!!!, but really cuts down on the length of the game.  And, the game has Yahtzee elements as you will try to roll for combinations of different effects to make it to the next turn or find different things.  The game isn’t perfect, but it’s a great way to get your zombie fix without having to spend hours spinning your wheels. 90%