According to the Author:
Shake Out! is a fast, fun and easy game of dice rolling and set collecting with just a hint of 'take that' to keep things raucous around the game table. This game is perfect for gamers looking for something fast to play between longer games, families looking for something everyone can play together and anyone looking to get non-gamer friends to the table with you. So if you're looking for a good time, Break Out the Shake Out!
Playability: If you can comprehend what a straight is (several dice of sequential value), what N of a kind would be, and are able to tell that a 6-5-4 straight bumps a 4-3-2 straight, then you've got all the mental horsepower you need to play (if not to win).
Strategy: Being dice based and fast, it is not exactly Advanced Squad Leader with all the expansions. On the other hand, you do have decisions to make every moment of your turns, which come fairly quickly.
You have to look at what you have rolled, what 9 cards are up to be played upon, and decide on how many dice to reroll and whether to change strategy for the 2nd reroll. You also have to decide if you have dice that could go in multiple places, what is the least likely to get bumped and most likely to return you the best point value. So there is some strategy here, although it tends to be short horizon.
Fun: This game is pretty good. Everyone I know so far who has played it has thought it was pretty good. I did get to help playtest and I think I helped tighten up the scoring to make the game even more competitive than it already was. The playtest version had the fun down, but it seemed like it needed to compress the scoring ranges a bit.
Having seen the result, I'd say it worked. The noobs playing it on 'official release night' were loving it! Their game ended with a tense 10% margin of victory and saw one player get 5 of a kind 5s and be dethroned by 5 of a kind 6s on the very next roll! That's almost the most fun you can have with your clothes on! (Almost... but probably is the most fun you can have with a family friendly game!)
Value: It can fit in between other games or be a night-ender or a casual game while people chat at a party. That means it has replayability. I'll also say I've payed much more for games I've only played once then never played again (Civilization with the 384 plastic playing pieces, I'm looking squarely at you!).
If I had any one demerit to attach, it would be that I'm not a fan of the box, but Louis wanted to keep the price reasonable and knew that a deck and dice based game could be put in a small box people might have or even a small bag, so I can't fault him for that. He wanted a smaller box, but you'd be shocked to know what that was worth from Gamecrafters. So, the box is kinda lame, but the consolation is that helped keep the game price down. The dice are okay and the cards are good quality with excellent art and good icon presentation. Easy to read even if you are colour blind, which is a nice touch.
Player Count: The game is a lot of fun for 2, 3 or 4 people. Played by 2, its is a bit more oriented around the set collecting with less bumping. Played with 4, the bumping can get cutthroat and set collecting is a bit harder. It works well for any number though.
Overall: I liked it enough I've picked up some copies for several gaming groups I see occasionally. It'll do well on nights where we don't have enough for Junta, BSG, Struggle of Empires, or something heavy like that. It's a great before dinner game while the food is cooking away and you want something fast that won't delay dinner. I was impressed by Louis' decent mechanics and his good visual presentation. For a first published game, it has more value than a lot of others I've payed more for who were written by supposedly full-time game designers.
Recommendation: Give it a try if you want something light and fun for 2-4. You won't be disappointed.
And for the record, I wouldn't be championing this game if I thought it sucked. I am anxiously looking forward to Richard and Louis getting 'Non-Stop Safari' into publishable shape. I played the demo for it and it played well and the game theme is just hilarious!
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Game Review: Eclipe Phase RPG (minimal review, more later)
Eclipse Phase is a transhuman sci-fi horror RPG set in the far future after the Fall of Earth. It features cyber- and nano-technologies, conspiracy, politics, and horror as well as interesting examinations of what conciousness is, about what identity is, and the meaning of mortality, and about what means anything in a world where you can 're-sleeve' into a new and very different sort of body. It also tackles Existential Risk.
In reading Eclipse Phase http://www.eclipsephase.com/, I did find the themes interesting.
It seems to be a game of the far future, where humanity's factions had a little war with some AIs. I'm not sure anybody won, but it resulted in turning Earth into a wasteland, leaving the remains of humanity scattered beyond.
It is a transhuman game, which is another way of saying the mind is data - it can be hacked, uploaded, memory wiped, etc. Bodies are a matter of money and form is much less limited than you'd think. There are also uplifted species like octopi who play a role in the transhuman society of the future.
Transhumanity, what's left of it, is under threat from various alien, human, and perhaps supernatural threats, as well as the AIs and their nanos. Your characters take the role of agents of Firewall, an agency ostensibly devoted to saving what is left of transhumanity from various threats. Of course, the game has a conspiratorial feel, so maybe you can't even trust Firewall or your team-mates entirely.
One of the interesting aspects of being able to 'resleeve' (have your mind downloaded into a new body) is that the game can have a high mortality rate and still not actually kill a character. This is interesting from a gaming perspective. You might lose experience or memories since the last backup, you might get a different or crappier body, but you are back and ready to roll.
This also goes well with the horror part - many of the ways to die are gruesome or a bit scary conceptually. Another of the game's themes is horror. There are nanos that can disolve a body, there are headhunters bots looking for your cortical stack, and there are things far worse than that out there in the dark or in the messed up remanants of Earth.
The game is based on the Unisystem RPG system. I have not yet had much time to look closely at the mechanics, mostly just theme and atmospherics, but I am told that Unisystem is a bit crunchy and detail oriented.
From a GMing perspective, its interesting to envision a game other than Paranoia where mortality is frequent, but not all that limiting to story advancement or player development. It is a dark world, with dark undertones and overtones. But it could be a lot of fun to play.
For some background on Transhumanism:
An article
Wiki
I think if you like Stephen Barnes, Richard Morgan, or William Gibson, there's something in here for you. A little Lovecraft thrown in for a good measure.
In reading Eclipse Phase http://www.eclipsephase.com/, I did find the themes interesting.
It seems to be a game of the far future, where humanity's factions had a little war with some AIs. I'm not sure anybody won, but it resulted in turning Earth into a wasteland, leaving the remains of humanity scattered beyond.
It is a transhuman game, which is another way of saying the mind is data - it can be hacked, uploaded, memory wiped, etc. Bodies are a matter of money and form is much less limited than you'd think. There are also uplifted species like octopi who play a role in the transhuman society of the future.
Transhumanity, what's left of it, is under threat from various alien, human, and perhaps supernatural threats, as well as the AIs and their nanos. Your characters take the role of agents of Firewall, an agency ostensibly devoted to saving what is left of transhumanity from various threats. Of course, the game has a conspiratorial feel, so maybe you can't even trust Firewall or your team-mates entirely.
One of the interesting aspects of being able to 'resleeve' (have your mind downloaded into a new body) is that the game can have a high mortality rate and still not actually kill a character. This is interesting from a gaming perspective. You might lose experience or memories since the last backup, you might get a different or crappier body, but you are back and ready to roll.
This also goes well with the horror part - many of the ways to die are gruesome or a bit scary conceptually. Another of the game's themes is horror. There are nanos that can disolve a body, there are headhunters bots looking for your cortical stack, and there are things far worse than that out there in the dark or in the messed up remanants of Earth.
The game is based on the Unisystem RPG system. I have not yet had much time to look closely at the mechanics, mostly just theme and atmospherics, but I am told that Unisystem is a bit crunchy and detail oriented.
From a GMing perspective, its interesting to envision a game other than Paranoia where mortality is frequent, but not all that limiting to story advancement or player development. It is a dark world, with dark undertones and overtones. But it could be a lot of fun to play.
For some background on Transhumanism:
An article
Wiki
I think if you like Stephen Barnes, Richard Morgan, or William Gibson, there's something in here for you. A little Lovecraft thrown in for a good measure.
Session Report: Jambo and Factory Manager
Had a chance to play Jambo Monday night. It's a two player card game involving buying and selling wares for $. There are also a variety of cards that help you build and engine to get and sell the wares you need to make a profit - some allow spelunking the deck for demand cards, others cycle cards, others trade cards for wares or vice versa, some trade wares for wares of another type, some trade money for wares, and so on. Your objective is to have the most money.
You need to play a game to see the cards to get a feel for what is possible. The game ends when someone has $60, but the other guy gets a turn and may snatch victory from the person ending the game. I got to $52, then had a bit of very bad luck with a card auction (I drew three cards, the package of which would constitute a possible net gain of about $41 minus purchase price to my foe and which did virtually nothing for me.... but once they were out there, it was necessary to bid high to prevent him getting them).
So, some cards can be pretty swingy under the right/wrong circumstances, but if I hadn't played the offending card and drawn demand cards my opponent was most ready to fill, I think I'd have won, even with a smaller market stand (he drew most of the auxilliary market add-on cards).
Worth another play anyway. More depth than Lost Cities, longer to play, maybe more fun or maybe not.
Then we played Factory Manager, from the Power Grid folks. This is a game about growing your factory's capabilities (more units of output, more and better automation, energy and manpower management) through purchases of better robots, better machines, power management systems, control rooms, and additional warehouse space. Meanwhile, the prices of energy rise and your turn-by-turn income will tend to as well (as you increase warehouse and industrial output).
It is interesting because the energy rate of increase is a bit hard to predict, some of the most expensive systems you can buy late in the game may not pay themselves off (Lorry actually had a final turn where the best action for him was to operate as-is with no further changes), and your income is determined by the lesser of your warehousing and your industrial output (so managing this balance is key).
You also have manpower management, to install new machines, to remove old ones, to operate machines (but not robots, power systems, or control rooms), and the available labour pool (unallocated) controls the number of new machines/systems that come available in the progressing market turn-to-turn.
So you have to manage in such a way as to coordinate your output, your power requirements, your manpower usage, the need to keep men free for equipment buying/installing, and do all of this with an eye to profit optimization.
I managed to handily beat the daylights out of my foe as he tried to snatch up all the cheap warehousing. That did mean I had to buy the expensive warehousing, but it has high capacity and doesn't eat up much of your factory space. In the end, the fact he had inefficient systems he needed to demolish (consuming actions) was the death of him.
I do not believe this is a game (in two player, 5 player has a different dynamic) where running the market on a particular type of system ends up being wise. This game is all about dynamic balance and building your own best engine. Don't worry much about the other guy, except for keeping an eye on the systems he puts into the market for purchase.
The other dimension is initiative is bid upon with available labour from the pool. First initiative buys first from the market. Later initiatives may get cost discounts when shopping. So figuring out where you want to go (especially in multi-player) is an interesting dilemna.
It seems to be a well thought out game capable of being played in about 90 minutes (the 60 minutes they claim is optimistic). It probably takes 15 minutes to setup though.
You need to play a game to see the cards to get a feel for what is possible. The game ends when someone has $60, but the other guy gets a turn and may snatch victory from the person ending the game. I got to $52, then had a bit of very bad luck with a card auction (I drew three cards, the package of which would constitute a possible net gain of about $41 minus purchase price to my foe and which did virtually nothing for me.... but once they were out there, it was necessary to bid high to prevent him getting them).
So, some cards can be pretty swingy under the right/wrong circumstances, but if I hadn't played the offending card and drawn demand cards my opponent was most ready to fill, I think I'd have won, even with a smaller market stand (he drew most of the auxilliary market add-on cards).
Worth another play anyway. More depth than Lost Cities, longer to play, maybe more fun or maybe not.
Then we played Factory Manager, from the Power Grid folks. This is a game about growing your factory's capabilities (more units of output, more and better automation, energy and manpower management) through purchases of better robots, better machines, power management systems, control rooms, and additional warehouse space. Meanwhile, the prices of energy rise and your turn-by-turn income will tend to as well (as you increase warehouse and industrial output).
It is interesting because the energy rate of increase is a bit hard to predict, some of the most expensive systems you can buy late in the game may not pay themselves off (Lorry actually had a final turn where the best action for him was to operate as-is with no further changes), and your income is determined by the lesser of your warehousing and your industrial output (so managing this balance is key).
You also have manpower management, to install new machines, to remove old ones, to operate machines (but not robots, power systems, or control rooms), and the available labour pool (unallocated) controls the number of new machines/systems that come available in the progressing market turn-to-turn.
So you have to manage in such a way as to coordinate your output, your power requirements, your manpower usage, the need to keep men free for equipment buying/installing, and do all of this with an eye to profit optimization.
I managed to handily beat the daylights out of my foe as he tried to snatch up all the cheap warehousing. That did mean I had to buy the expensive warehousing, but it has high capacity and doesn't eat up much of your factory space. In the end, the fact he had inefficient systems he needed to demolish (consuming actions) was the death of him.
I do not believe this is a game (in two player, 5 player has a different dynamic) where running the market on a particular type of system ends up being wise. This game is all about dynamic balance and building your own best engine. Don't worry much about the other guy, except for keeping an eye on the systems he puts into the market for purchase.
The other dimension is initiative is bid upon with available labour from the pool. First initiative buys first from the market. Later initiatives may get cost discounts when shopping. So figuring out where you want to go (especially in multi-player) is an interesting dilemna.
It seems to be a well thought out game capable of being played in about 90 minutes (the 60 minutes they claim is optimistic). It probably takes 15 minutes to setup though.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Game Reviews: Space Beans, New England, Monty Python Fluxx and Wettstreit der Baumeister
Wettstreit der Baumeister (Contest of the Master Builders)
This german (and I mean including the rules and game aids, but translations are available on the net) boardgame accomodates 3-4 players.
In this game, you auction for tiles (visible or sight unseen) and build up a hand of them (to a minimum 3), then lay them down to build your city.
The objective is to build a complete, tower-bookended city with good high value tiles, a symetry (by tile count on either side) around the city center, and a church on either side of the city center. There is also a bonus for having both your book-end towers with the same valuation (both 2s for instance).
Scoring is based on the sum of your tile values plus bonuses if you qualify. The church distribution bonus is 5 points and the symetry bonus is 10 points. Individual tiles vary in worth from 1 to I think 9, but common values seem to be in the 3-6 range. I'm not sure what the tower match bonus was as I never qualified when we played it (and I blew symetry because apparently I can't count).
Some of the tiles have coin icons on them (1 or 2). That increases your income each turn. The normal income is 2-5 per turn from a D6 with a 'kapow' result. The 'kapow' is interesting as it yields no money, but does give you one use of 'The Saboteur'.
In place of your per-turn build action, you may use a Saboteur to attempt to destroy an enemy tile in his city (or pilage one from his hand if the hand is too thick). If you destroy his tile, you can (if done at the right time) doom his symetry bonuses and create an unfinished city, which also somehow affects your score (forget how). In the variant we played, you could bribe the Saboteur to leave you alone.
Your success with the Saboteur depended somewhat on your die rolling ('kapow' is always successful, 2-5 values have to beat the number of shield icons in your city, which are provided at a ration of 1 or 2 per tower segment).
The game ends when either the unknown tile or known tile stack runs out.
Having played this once, we didn't know the tilesets. There was a lot of 'unknown' tile bidding, but if it makes it around once to the auctioneer (who may bid), he has to then disclose the type of tile. This means you have to risk bidding at least once before seeing the tile and try to guess whether his pricing is exploitive or if he's trying to get something critical (or just something cheaply). The Saboteurs didn't come up that much, although we did see one used and bribed away. Another appeared, but late in the game your builds might be more important than nuking another guy's tile (maybe).
It was generally fun and we all agreed we'd like to see it again.
Fun: 3.5 of 5
Strategy: 3 of 5 (I think there was more than we saw, so I'm giving it a 3)
Speed of Play: 4 of 5 (other than auctions, which are as fast or slow as your players, it played quickly enough)
New England
You have 4 families of new world colonists vying for having the best developed system of farms and settlements. Initially, each player places their three double-width tiles (a farm, a settlement, and a field). There is track that is a mixture of resource tiles and development cards (the mix varies at the whim of first player each round). There is a track where bid tokens are selected (which determine initiative but inversely the cost of the tiles and cards you'll buy).
You can buy 0-2 tiles/cards per round, they must generally be put down immediately, and resources must be deployed by similar coloured double-width tile (sheep with the green one, corn and tomatos with the black one, bricks with the brown one).
Development cards allow you to develop these resources which start face down if you match a geometry of layout that conforms to the development card. This is the major source of VPs.
Extra VPs are collected for those that have the most barns (function of barn is to hold a dev card unplayed for later) or most settlers (a dev card can contain a settler instead of a geometry for development and these are worth 1 VP and 1 cash unit/turn).
There are also some ships you can get and having the most of them (or being tied) lets you add to the purchase track when your turn in the initiative rolls around. That can be handy if you've got the low cost, late acting initiative as the selection can be rather picked over by then.
Note that there is an asymetry of development cards - brown has some really high value ones (6 and 10 value, 3 and 4 tile geometries) whereas black and green are 3 and 6 values with 2 and 3 tile geometries. If you did like I did and wait for the 4 tile green for 10 points, you'll find IT IS NOT THERE. Not that I'm bitter.... :)
We enjoyed this game. Post-facto understanding of the increased value of brown geometries would probably shape a different strategy as to which enemy tiles you tried to impede growth of (and which of your tiles you tried to defend more). Brown is important to impede and cashing quickly (with 2 geometries) in black and green isn't a bad plan.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 4 of 5 (lots of elements to manipulate - board control, resource control, turn order)
Speed of Play: 3 of 5 (might get faster once you become more familiar with it)
Monty Python Fluxx
Fluxx is a fast card collecting game. In essence, you try to collect a set of 'keeper' cards that match a victory condition to win. That sounds simple, but then we get to the fun part - the rules are pretty dynamic, including the victory conditions.
You start with (I think) 5 cards and a rule in play that is draw 1 play 1. As people are forced to play, draw 1 play 1 may get replaced or augmented by other cards that impose higher draw counts, higher play counts, hand limits, and so on. I've actually played original Fluxx and seen draw 7, play all, hand limit 0.
There are keepers (which you mostly want as you tend to have to match particular sets to win), creepers (in this Monty Python variant, which you don't want and often block winning), and rules and goal (victory condition) cards. Most of the time you have to collect a combination of goal cards (some victory conditions can be 'empty hand, no keepers' for instance). I saw one come out in our game of this Monty Python variant that required you to have the unladen swallow and the coconuts keeper cards so that you could have cocunut-laden swallows (the victory condition).
The fun is that when you work towards a particular condition in play, somebody is likely to yank the rug out from under you. It's fun to make others throw away half their huge hand when you have a small one, for instance.
The Monty Python version has a lot of really, really silly cards that are hilarious if you've seen Holy Grail or the Life of Brian. One we all enjoyed was 'set aside your cards, draw 5, recite 0 to 5 lines of contiguous script dialogue from the Holy Grail involving at least two characters, play a number of cards equal to the number of lines you can play'. Another was 'the number of the counting shall be 3'. All 5s were, of course, right out and any 5 on any other card was treated as a 3.
Lightweight, fast, and hilariously good at bringing back memories of the movies and evoking a sense of the silliness and humour the movies brought. Most of us would gladly play this again.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 2 of 5
Speed of Play: 5 of 5
Space Beans
Space Beans is a 'bean' game (Bohnanza and others are from this line). It has space themed cards (caricature Aliens, Star Wars, and Babylon 5 art is seen on cards), but it essentially has the same mechanics as the other bean games.
The cards have the space art, a colour (I recall seeing yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple and grey cards), and a number from 1 to 9. Value distribution is not even with there being more 4-6s than 1-3s or 7-9s.
You have two collections - one public, one private. You will be handed some cards by the player after you when he's done his turn. There are initially 3 hands of cards if there are 4 players, for instance (in this instance, the first player has cards and passes off when he is done). The card hand you could be handed could be anywhere from a handful of cards to zero.
If you play against my friend Jean-Pierre, you can pretty much bank on either zero or several of the same colour that are useless to you.
You may augment this hand of zero or more cards on your turn by drawing 0 or 2 cards. Not 1.
Then, you play a card into one of your two collections (must play a card, may be able to do so). Assuming you can, you're okay and pass remaining cards on to the player who precedes you in turn order. The game takes some getting used to in this aspect as you are passing cards one way while the turn order goes the other.
If you can't play a card, you have to 'cash in' a collection (you can do this of your own accord or when forced to). When you cash in a collection, the value of the collection is the highest card value which matches the number of cards in the collection you are laying down. So, if you have 3, 4, 7 down, the value is 3 because you have 3 cards. If you had 3, 4, 7, 8, 1 down, you have 5 cards and no 5 value card, so the collection is worth ZERO. You keep the card matching the collection value (if it wasn't zero value) and this removes it from th game and adds it to your score pile.
You can play as many cards as you are able in a turn, but you are restricted to ONLY contributing to a single collection in a round.
When you cash, you have to cash your public collection. That then makes your private collection public (flip over cards face up). You can cash it too. As far as I know, there is no limit to the number of collections you could cash in a turn, but you can only ever contribute to one so a maximum of 3 cashings seems unavoidable (and the third collection won't be worth more than 1).
The trick to the game is passing as little useful stuff to the person you pass to as humanly possible. Forcing them to cash in collections before they get big, when they will either be worth little or nothing, is intensely satisfying to you and frustrating to them. Passing them zero cards is funny. I know because JP did this to me about every second round while laughing. The rest of the time, he handed me two or more cards of the same colour and not one I'm collecting - the other strategy issue here is trying to figure out from what you hand the other player and what he plays what his private collection colour is. Then using that knowledge to their detriment!
The objective is to form long, valuable collections and then cash them. It sometimes works out that way. The other approach is to cash many short collections, which might be more practical.
Great fun, allows you to mess with your friend's minds, good value for the money I think.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 2.5 of 5
Speed of Play: 5 of 5
This german (and I mean including the rules and game aids, but translations are available on the net) boardgame accomodates 3-4 players.
In this game, you auction for tiles (visible or sight unseen) and build up a hand of them (to a minimum 3), then lay them down to build your city.
The objective is to build a complete, tower-bookended city with good high value tiles, a symetry (by tile count on either side) around the city center, and a church on either side of the city center. There is also a bonus for having both your book-end towers with the same valuation (both 2s for instance).
Scoring is based on the sum of your tile values plus bonuses if you qualify. The church distribution bonus is 5 points and the symetry bonus is 10 points. Individual tiles vary in worth from 1 to I think 9, but common values seem to be in the 3-6 range. I'm not sure what the tower match bonus was as I never qualified when we played it (and I blew symetry because apparently I can't count).
Some of the tiles have coin icons on them (1 or 2). That increases your income each turn. The normal income is 2-5 per turn from a D6 with a 'kapow' result. The 'kapow' is interesting as it yields no money, but does give you one use of 'The Saboteur'.
In place of your per-turn build action, you may use a Saboteur to attempt to destroy an enemy tile in his city (or pilage one from his hand if the hand is too thick). If you destroy his tile, you can (if done at the right time) doom his symetry bonuses and create an unfinished city, which also somehow affects your score (forget how). In the variant we played, you could bribe the Saboteur to leave you alone.
Your success with the Saboteur depended somewhat on your die rolling ('kapow' is always successful, 2-5 values have to beat the number of shield icons in your city, which are provided at a ration of 1 or 2 per tower segment).
The game ends when either the unknown tile or known tile stack runs out.
Having played this once, we didn't know the tilesets. There was a lot of 'unknown' tile bidding, but if it makes it around once to the auctioneer (who may bid), he has to then disclose the type of tile. This means you have to risk bidding at least once before seeing the tile and try to guess whether his pricing is exploitive or if he's trying to get something critical (or just something cheaply). The Saboteurs didn't come up that much, although we did see one used and bribed away. Another appeared, but late in the game your builds might be more important than nuking another guy's tile (maybe).
It was generally fun and we all agreed we'd like to see it again.
Fun: 3.5 of 5
Strategy: 3 of 5 (I think there was more than we saw, so I'm giving it a 3)
Speed of Play: 4 of 5 (other than auctions, which are as fast or slow as your players, it played quickly enough)
New England
You have 4 families of new world colonists vying for having the best developed system of farms and settlements. Initially, each player places their three double-width tiles (a farm, a settlement, and a field). There is track that is a mixture of resource tiles and development cards (the mix varies at the whim of first player each round). There is a track where bid tokens are selected (which determine initiative but inversely the cost of the tiles and cards you'll buy).
You can buy 0-2 tiles/cards per round, they must generally be put down immediately, and resources must be deployed by similar coloured double-width tile (sheep with the green one, corn and tomatos with the black one, bricks with the brown one).
Development cards allow you to develop these resources which start face down if you match a geometry of layout that conforms to the development card. This is the major source of VPs.
Extra VPs are collected for those that have the most barns (function of barn is to hold a dev card unplayed for later) or most settlers (a dev card can contain a settler instead of a geometry for development and these are worth 1 VP and 1 cash unit/turn).
There are also some ships you can get and having the most of them (or being tied) lets you add to the purchase track when your turn in the initiative rolls around. That can be handy if you've got the low cost, late acting initiative as the selection can be rather picked over by then.
Note that there is an asymetry of development cards - brown has some really high value ones (6 and 10 value, 3 and 4 tile geometries) whereas black and green are 3 and 6 values with 2 and 3 tile geometries. If you did like I did and wait for the 4 tile green for 10 points, you'll find IT IS NOT THERE. Not that I'm bitter.... :)
We enjoyed this game. Post-facto understanding of the increased value of brown geometries would probably shape a different strategy as to which enemy tiles you tried to impede growth of (and which of your tiles you tried to defend more). Brown is important to impede and cashing quickly (with 2 geometries) in black and green isn't a bad plan.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 4 of 5 (lots of elements to manipulate - board control, resource control, turn order)
Speed of Play: 3 of 5 (might get faster once you become more familiar with it)
Monty Python Fluxx
Fluxx is a fast card collecting game. In essence, you try to collect a set of 'keeper' cards that match a victory condition to win. That sounds simple, but then we get to the fun part - the rules are pretty dynamic, including the victory conditions.
You start with (I think) 5 cards and a rule in play that is draw 1 play 1. As people are forced to play, draw 1 play 1 may get replaced or augmented by other cards that impose higher draw counts, higher play counts, hand limits, and so on. I've actually played original Fluxx and seen draw 7, play all, hand limit 0.
There are keepers (which you mostly want as you tend to have to match particular sets to win), creepers (in this Monty Python variant, which you don't want and often block winning), and rules and goal (victory condition) cards. Most of the time you have to collect a combination of goal cards (some victory conditions can be 'empty hand, no keepers' for instance). I saw one come out in our game of this Monty Python variant that required you to have the unladen swallow and the coconuts keeper cards so that you could have cocunut-laden swallows (the victory condition).
The fun is that when you work towards a particular condition in play, somebody is likely to yank the rug out from under you. It's fun to make others throw away half their huge hand when you have a small one, for instance.
The Monty Python version has a lot of really, really silly cards that are hilarious if you've seen Holy Grail or the Life of Brian. One we all enjoyed was 'set aside your cards, draw 5, recite 0 to 5 lines of contiguous script dialogue from the Holy Grail involving at least two characters, play a number of cards equal to the number of lines you can play'. Another was 'the number of the counting shall be 3'. All 5s were, of course, right out and any 5 on any other card was treated as a 3.
Lightweight, fast, and hilariously good at bringing back memories of the movies and evoking a sense of the silliness and humour the movies brought. Most of us would gladly play this again.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 2 of 5
Speed of Play: 5 of 5
Space Beans
Space Beans is a 'bean' game (Bohnanza and others are from this line). It has space themed cards (caricature Aliens, Star Wars, and Babylon 5 art is seen on cards), but it essentially has the same mechanics as the other bean games.
The cards have the space art, a colour (I recall seeing yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple and grey cards), and a number from 1 to 9. Value distribution is not even with there being more 4-6s than 1-3s or 7-9s.
You have two collections - one public, one private. You will be handed some cards by the player after you when he's done his turn. There are initially 3 hands of cards if there are 4 players, for instance (in this instance, the first player has cards and passes off when he is done). The card hand you could be handed could be anywhere from a handful of cards to zero.
If you play against my friend Jean-Pierre, you can pretty much bank on either zero or several of the same colour that are useless to you.
You may augment this hand of zero or more cards on your turn by drawing 0 or 2 cards. Not 1.
Then, you play a card into one of your two collections (must play a card, may be able to do so). Assuming you can, you're okay and pass remaining cards on to the player who precedes you in turn order. The game takes some getting used to in this aspect as you are passing cards one way while the turn order goes the other.
If you can't play a card, you have to 'cash in' a collection (you can do this of your own accord or when forced to). When you cash in a collection, the value of the collection is the highest card value which matches the number of cards in the collection you are laying down. So, if you have 3, 4, 7 down, the value is 3 because you have 3 cards. If you had 3, 4, 7, 8, 1 down, you have 5 cards and no 5 value card, so the collection is worth ZERO. You keep the card matching the collection value (if it wasn't zero value) and this removes it from th game and adds it to your score pile.
You can play as many cards as you are able in a turn, but you are restricted to ONLY contributing to a single collection in a round.
When you cash, you have to cash your public collection. That then makes your private collection public (flip over cards face up). You can cash it too. As far as I know, there is no limit to the number of collections you could cash in a turn, but you can only ever contribute to one so a maximum of 3 cashings seems unavoidable (and the third collection won't be worth more than 1).
The trick to the game is passing as little useful stuff to the person you pass to as humanly possible. Forcing them to cash in collections before they get big, when they will either be worth little or nothing, is intensely satisfying to you and frustrating to them. Passing them zero cards is funny. I know because JP did this to me about every second round while laughing. The rest of the time, he handed me two or more cards of the same colour and not one I'm collecting - the other strategy issue here is trying to figure out from what you hand the other player and what he plays what his private collection colour is. Then using that knowledge to their detriment!
The objective is to form long, valuable collections and then cash them. It sometimes works out that way. The other approach is to cash many short collections, which might be more practical.
Great fun, allows you to mess with your friend's minds, good value for the money I think.
Fun: 4 of 5
Strategy: 2.5 of 5
Speed of Play: 5 of 5
Monday, September 14, 2009
Boardgame Review: Descent - Journeys in the Dark
Boardgame Geek Link
This game is a cross between and RPG and a boardgame about dungeon delving. One player takes the GM role and the others are the party adventuring into the dungeon. The GM attempts to thwart the players with his cards and his action tokens and the players attempt to stay coordinated, stay alive, pulverize monsters, and achieve a dungeon-specific scenario (in the one I played, it was kill the giant at the end of the dungeon).
This sort of game would be familiar to anyone who has played dungeon-crawl board games or RPGs. Someone opens a door, someone goes through the door, monsters are seen, fights ensue, treasure is looted from the room, traps go off, more monsters are fought, etc.
There seems to be a variety of monster quality levels and special abilities and that makes for some interesting decisions. The Ogre, for instance, possesses formidable knockback as well as good damage dealing. The hell-hounds had area-effect conic firebreath.
Combat is by means of customized dice. You roll dice, which differ in face values by their colour. On the dice, you can get hearts (wound points), numbers (range for effects), lightning bolts (special power activators), nothing (blank!), and probably some other icons I forget. A typical roll for a character with a sword might be three dice of differing colours and might generate 6 damage points, 1 range, and 1 power activator. The power activators can be used to trigger powers on items your character is carrying (such as +1 damage or the like).
Of course, being a dungeon delve, it comes with gear you buy at the start and magical and loot you find along the way (plus money). These items take the form of armour, weapons (ranged or melee) with bonuses to damage, magic items which increase magical attacks, and other special ability items. One example of the later was a magic item that let me spend a fatigue to heal two life for another player.
Characters have some skills which let their characters do extra things or have bonuss. In our run through, one character could spend fatigue points to charge and do more damage. My character had bonuses to defense from parrying and from willpower.
Each character also has variable statistics for fatigue, life points, natural armour/defense, and for what dice they use in melee, ranged combat, or magical combat. They also have special powers - my character was sort of a whirling dervish who could trade fatigue for wounds or wounds for fatigue on my turn.
The characters try not to get killed, try to efficiently kill the monsters and limit the DMs respawn locations by keeping line-of-sight to as much of the explored area as possible. The DM in turn tries to find out of the way spots to spawn in monsters and throws traps to slow down and attrit the party.
The players have control of their tactics, their character's gear distribution, and where they want to go at junctions in the dungeon. The GM has control over which of his cards he plays or discards and whether he spends his action tokens piecemeal to bleed the party along the way or saves up for crushing waves at more distributed intervals.
The game also has a campaign system and this apparently lets you run an entire campaign with the same (barring dying) characters. Even more like an RPG, but on the light side and with very sort of simple dice mechanics and a focus on "open door, whack monster, get loot".
Not sure if the game would sustain my interest over the long haul - different monsters, powers, items would help (and there are a lot of expansions). But it isn't a full fledged RPG and its rather one dimensional play (dungeon crawl, shoot-n-loot) would probably get tiring after a time. Still, as a one off or short campaign, it might make for some excellent fun.
Fun: 3 of 5
Strategy: 2 of 5 (there are tactics, not much strategy)
Speed of Play: 4 of 5 (for games of its ilk)
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Boardgame Review: The Halls of Montezuma
Well, tonight I got a chance to try out GMT's Halls of Montezuma.
BoardGameGeek Link
This is a 2-player, partially card-driven/partially dice driven game with a strategic map, a tactical process for resolving battles, and a variety of victory conditions that mix military and political outcomes. I'd guess a full game might take 4-6 hours to play once you knew what you were doing.
This is no Advanced Squad Leader with all supplements nor is it SFB with full rules from all sources and all options in play. Still, it is fairly meaty. The rules were a tough go. The quick start card helped, but was missing some really key lines. Figuring out what counters went where was a bit of a lag at the start, as was reading some of the stuff on the map.
Neither Lorry nor I knew much about the 1846-1848 period - I knew a bit about the context of the Alamo and why it was so pivotal (mostly by buying time), but that was about it. So, unlike Napoleonic Wars, 1960: Making of A President, or Twilight Struggle, my historical background was weaker on this one. But the other three games turned out to be good, so Lorry bought this one and we thought we should try it out.
There's a good game lurking in there. I'm sure of it. It's heavy, not the easiest to learn, the rules badly need a FAQ or living rules release, the index needs redone, and cross-references need added in quite a few places. Some actual rules fixes or clarifications are also needed. A lot of that stuff can now be pulled off board game geek or ConSimWorld.
But even the turn and a half we did were interesting (we chatted a lot about other stuff which distracted us).
I moved across the Rio Grande on my first action with a smaller force than the US defending Ft. Brown (and they had fieldworks). However, my Zapaderos (sappers) nullified his earthenworks and I managed to score better casualties despite weaker overall firepower (better luck with the dice) and evicted him from Ft. Brown. I then proceeded to try to reinforce, bringing attrited units up to full strength and adding one infantry regiment. I also started converting his fieldworks into a full fortress. That was my good luck this turn.
Lorry, on the other hand, came back at me by sending General Kearney and a small force over to Alte California to capture it for the USA, by way of the Disputed Territories (not currently disputed because my units had all been tied up in the attack at Ft. Brown).
He then got very lucky and rolled high enough to get the USA to declare war at the end of turn one. That's very bad for Mexico - before that, the US fights with one hand behind its back and hte Mexicans have initiative. I'd expect war to normally be declared by player choice or event card by turn 4 on average, but turn 1 was pretty unlucky for Mexico.
The war adds a huge pile of units to the American reinforcement pool and gives both sides bigger hands of strategic cards to work with. More crucially, in the pre-war period, only Mexico can generate reinforcements each turn. Once the war starts, there is an automatic reinforcement every turn plus the US can take a voluntary card based one they were ineligible for beforehand.
We didn't play much further. His reinforcements appeared near Ft. Brown so he had two moderately large forces facing my now-outnumbered single force. My fortification wasn't going as well as hoped - he'd probably get to attack first. Additionally, my baggage train had been left vulnerable in Matamoros and he could have swept around the end and taken it with ease, putting me out of supply before the critical battle for Ft. Brown.
It had the feeling of a very fun, meaty game. We didn't get to explore the taking of states very deeply or the US amphibious options for deep strikes nor what implications the unstable Mexican government had.
The game is interesting because basically it boils down to Mexican political will. If a game end condition arises (dice roll at turn end or perhaps with an event card or a sudden death condition differing for each side is achieved), you look at the political will track for Mexico. If their rating is high enough, they win. If it is a bit lower, a draw ensues. If it is lower than that, they lose. So the US goal is to inflict damage to the Mexican political will. The Mexican goal is to shore it up.
The polticial will is influenced by gaining or losing territories, winning or losing big battles, some events, and the number of Mexican provinces in revolt. Political changes like Santa Anna returning from (and possibly being sent to) exile and change of leaders in Mexico can impact the political will indirectly and influence how the game plays out. Revolts untended tend to spread over the turns but require actions and probably units to quash.
So essentially, the Mexican goal is to keep a stable government, not lose political will quickly, and quash revolts, occasionally kicking the US player for a victory in battle probably helps (and forestalls their adventurism). The US player wants to encourage bellicosity (helps declare war sooner), capture various disputed territories and Mexican holdings, keep the Mexicans out of Texas, not lose battles, and to wait for and/or encourage Mexican state revolts.
You get the feeling even from our short experience that the first game phase involves a few small forces, a few leaders, manouvering and trading back and forth provocations (Crisis phase). When actual war breaks out, the gloves are off on both sides. When the Mexican government collapses (and it may), Mexico is fighting with an extra 100 pound gorilla on its back (similarly a pile of revolts will do that).
The event cards teach you a bit about the conflict and the rulebook includes a deeper look at the events that underlie the cards. I drew Indian Raids twice which brought some annoyance to the US player (they can cut supply lines and increase Mexican political will because they weaken the US). There are certain turn-by-turn pre-ordained events and random ones that come up by card, giving the game an interesting feel.
If we can sort out the unresolved/broken/poorly worded parts of the rules, spend some more time playing this to be faster at it, I think there is a really great game lurking underneath.
Even in our short game, I felt like there were interesting event cards, good tactical possibilities for fights, strategic issues of supply and troop dispersion (for revolts and to counter flanking moves), and political considerations all to factor in. That first round attack was to try to generate some positive political gains, which it did (adding more than 10% to my political will total). So the game integrates a lot of interesting aspects.
I look forward to playing this one again.
Speed: 2 out of 5 (imperfect rules, meaty subject matter)
Strategy: 4 out of 5 (provisional, must play through full game, lots of seeming depth)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (fun might be higher if the rules hadn't been challenging)
BoardGameGeek Link
This is a 2-player, partially card-driven/partially dice driven game with a strategic map, a tactical process for resolving battles, and a variety of victory conditions that mix military and political outcomes. I'd guess a full game might take 4-6 hours to play once you knew what you were doing.
This is no Advanced Squad Leader with all supplements nor is it SFB with full rules from all sources and all options in play. Still, it is fairly meaty. The rules were a tough go. The quick start card helped, but was missing some really key lines. Figuring out what counters went where was a bit of a lag at the start, as was reading some of the stuff on the map.
Neither Lorry nor I knew much about the 1846-1848 period - I knew a bit about the context of the Alamo and why it was so pivotal (mostly by buying time), but that was about it. So, unlike Napoleonic Wars, 1960: Making of A President, or Twilight Struggle, my historical background was weaker on this one. But the other three games turned out to be good, so Lorry bought this one and we thought we should try it out.
There's a good game lurking in there. I'm sure of it. It's heavy, not the easiest to learn, the rules badly need a FAQ or living rules release, the index needs redone, and cross-references need added in quite a few places. Some actual rules fixes or clarifications are also needed. A lot of that stuff can now be pulled off board game geek or ConSimWorld.
But even the turn and a half we did were interesting (we chatted a lot about other stuff which distracted us).
I moved across the Rio Grande on my first action with a smaller force than the US defending Ft. Brown (and they had fieldworks). However, my Zapaderos (sappers) nullified his earthenworks and I managed to score better casualties despite weaker overall firepower (better luck with the dice) and evicted him from Ft. Brown. I then proceeded to try to reinforce, bringing attrited units up to full strength and adding one infantry regiment. I also started converting his fieldworks into a full fortress. That was my good luck this turn.
Lorry, on the other hand, came back at me by sending General Kearney and a small force over to Alte California to capture it for the USA, by way of the Disputed Territories (not currently disputed because my units had all been tied up in the attack at Ft. Brown).
He then got very lucky and rolled high enough to get the USA to declare war at the end of turn one. That's very bad for Mexico - before that, the US fights with one hand behind its back and hte Mexicans have initiative. I'd expect war to normally be declared by player choice or event card by turn 4 on average, but turn 1 was pretty unlucky for Mexico.
The war adds a huge pile of units to the American reinforcement pool and gives both sides bigger hands of strategic cards to work with. More crucially, in the pre-war period, only Mexico can generate reinforcements each turn. Once the war starts, there is an automatic reinforcement every turn plus the US can take a voluntary card based one they were ineligible for beforehand.
We didn't play much further. His reinforcements appeared near Ft. Brown so he had two moderately large forces facing my now-outnumbered single force. My fortification wasn't going as well as hoped - he'd probably get to attack first. Additionally, my baggage train had been left vulnerable in Matamoros and he could have swept around the end and taken it with ease, putting me out of supply before the critical battle for Ft. Brown.
It had the feeling of a very fun, meaty game. We didn't get to explore the taking of states very deeply or the US amphibious options for deep strikes nor what implications the unstable Mexican government had.
The game is interesting because basically it boils down to Mexican political will. If a game end condition arises (dice roll at turn end or perhaps with an event card or a sudden death condition differing for each side is achieved), you look at the political will track for Mexico. If their rating is high enough, they win. If it is a bit lower, a draw ensues. If it is lower than that, they lose. So the US goal is to inflict damage to the Mexican political will. The Mexican goal is to shore it up.
The polticial will is influenced by gaining or losing territories, winning or losing big battles, some events, and the number of Mexican provinces in revolt. Political changes like Santa Anna returning from (and possibly being sent to) exile and change of leaders in Mexico can impact the political will indirectly and influence how the game plays out. Revolts untended tend to spread over the turns but require actions and probably units to quash.
So essentially, the Mexican goal is to keep a stable government, not lose political will quickly, and quash revolts, occasionally kicking the US player for a victory in battle probably helps (and forestalls their adventurism). The US player wants to encourage bellicosity (helps declare war sooner), capture various disputed territories and Mexican holdings, keep the Mexicans out of Texas, not lose battles, and to wait for and/or encourage Mexican state revolts.
You get the feeling even from our short experience that the first game phase involves a few small forces, a few leaders, manouvering and trading back and forth provocations (Crisis phase). When actual war breaks out, the gloves are off on both sides. When the Mexican government collapses (and it may), Mexico is fighting with an extra 100 pound gorilla on its back (similarly a pile of revolts will do that).
The event cards teach you a bit about the conflict and the rulebook includes a deeper look at the events that underlie the cards. I drew Indian Raids twice which brought some annoyance to the US player (they can cut supply lines and increase Mexican political will because they weaken the US). There are certain turn-by-turn pre-ordained events and random ones that come up by card, giving the game an interesting feel.
If we can sort out the unresolved/broken/poorly worded parts of the rules, spend some more time playing this to be faster at it, I think there is a really great game lurking underneath.
Even in our short game, I felt like there were interesting event cards, good tactical possibilities for fights, strategic issues of supply and troop dispersion (for revolts and to counter flanking moves), and political considerations all to factor in. That first round attack was to try to generate some positive political gains, which it did (adding more than 10% to my political will total). So the game integrates a lot of interesting aspects.
I look forward to playing this one again.
Speed: 2 out of 5 (imperfect rules, meaty subject matter)
Strategy: 4 out of 5 (provisional, must play through full game, lots of seeming depth)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (fun might be higher if the rules hadn't been challenging)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Boardgame Reviews: Roll Through The Ages & Race For The Galaxy
Roll Through The Ages
on BGG
1-4 players, 25-45 minutes to play, dice-based VP collecting game. Custom dice generate food, workers, various trade goods, money and disasters. Player choices include when to reroll dice (risking disasters or trying to get what you want on the dice), where to allocate workers (building wonders or producing cities which give you more dice), whether to seek food (feeds cities and avoids penalty points), trade goods (money in another form), or money. Money and trade good help you buy 'developments' - things like leadership, irrigation, religion, empire, etc. each of which affects either how disasters impact you, how you produce extra goods or food, how you can reroll dice, or things of that sort.
Played 3 games. Kinda liked it, but got annihilated by enemy dice rolls that generated negative points. You have to watch carefully for when your enemy is going to suddenly end the game on you (having bought five developments or all wonders being built).
Speed: 4.5 out of 5 (fast playing)
Strategy: 3.75 out of 5 (there is some strategy, but you need the dice to cooperate)
Fun: 3.75 out of 5 (was fun, but sometimes the dice just hate you)
Race For The Galaxy
on the BGG
2-4 Players, 60-90 minutes to play, card based game where you are trying to build synergistic engines of productivity. Players use cards from their hand to pay to lay worlds or developments. Developments are things like 'mining robots' or 'star marines' which give benefits to your military rating or production or consumption, whereas worlds tend to offer places to sell things (cycle cards for more cards or VPs) or production centers to produce goods.
This game involves picking which phase of a turn you might want to execute - explore (cycle cards out of the deck into your hand), develop (build non-world developments), settle (settle worlds), trade + consume (cycle cards and produced resources for more cards and/or VPs), or produce (have your production worlds generate goods).
When you've played 12 cards in front of you into your 'tableau', the game ends. The game also ends if you run out of VP tokens (12 pts of VP per player in initial pool).
The point of the game is to get an engine going whereby you can perhaps produce and then sell to great advantage one of the four resources, or where you can play plenty of military planets and facilities cheaply, or where alien tech becomes 'your thing', etc. Whatever gets you to the most VPs the fastest.
The game seems to be a modified version of the popular San Juan card engine. I think it offers more options for strategy, but is also a fair bit more swingy. If you draw well, you can really get a powerful engine going fast. If not, you can somewhat affect this (one of your explore options lets you cycle deep into the deck but you can only keep one card) but it can be tough straights to be in. If you choose a strategy that's a non-starter (military build up, for instance, and you don't draw military worlds), you can languish in the lands of card starvation and VP starvation.
Played 2 games. Got trounced soundly in both. Part of it was card luck, part of it was choices that (retrospectively) would have been better differently. Jury is still out on whether I could have know at the time to go another way. Have to play it a few more times before deciding I'm not fond of it or the random factor is too big.
Speed: 3.5 out of 5 (Not bad, but later in the game you can have a lot of cards to watch)
Strategy: 3.5 out of 5 (It seems like there is strategy, but your draw cards and strategic plans can not mesh well sometimes leaving you languishing in agony)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (The game is flavourful and expansions add a fifth player and actual invade-and-capture of military planets)
on BGG
1-4 players, 25-45 minutes to play, dice-based VP collecting game. Custom dice generate food, workers, various trade goods, money and disasters. Player choices include when to reroll dice (risking disasters or trying to get what you want on the dice), where to allocate workers (building wonders or producing cities which give you more dice), whether to seek food (feeds cities and avoids penalty points), trade goods (money in another form), or money. Money and trade good help you buy 'developments' - things like leadership, irrigation, religion, empire, etc. each of which affects either how disasters impact you, how you produce extra goods or food, how you can reroll dice, or things of that sort.
Played 3 games. Kinda liked it, but got annihilated by enemy dice rolls that generated negative points. You have to watch carefully for when your enemy is going to suddenly end the game on you (having bought five developments or all wonders being built).
Speed: 4.5 out of 5 (fast playing)
Strategy: 3.75 out of 5 (there is some strategy, but you need the dice to cooperate)
Fun: 3.75 out of 5 (was fun, but sometimes the dice just hate you)
Race For The Galaxy
on the BGG
2-4 Players, 60-90 minutes to play, card based game where you are trying to build synergistic engines of productivity. Players use cards from their hand to pay to lay worlds or developments. Developments are things like 'mining robots' or 'star marines' which give benefits to your military rating or production or consumption, whereas worlds tend to offer places to sell things (cycle cards for more cards or VPs) or production centers to produce goods.
This game involves picking which phase of a turn you might want to execute - explore (cycle cards out of the deck into your hand), develop (build non-world developments), settle (settle worlds), trade + consume (cycle cards and produced resources for more cards and/or VPs), or produce (have your production worlds generate goods).
When you've played 12 cards in front of you into your 'tableau', the game ends. The game also ends if you run out of VP tokens (12 pts of VP per player in initial pool).
The point of the game is to get an engine going whereby you can perhaps produce and then sell to great advantage one of the four resources, or where you can play plenty of military planets and facilities cheaply, or where alien tech becomes 'your thing', etc. Whatever gets you to the most VPs the fastest.
The game seems to be a modified version of the popular San Juan card engine. I think it offers more options for strategy, but is also a fair bit more swingy. If you draw well, you can really get a powerful engine going fast. If not, you can somewhat affect this (one of your explore options lets you cycle deep into the deck but you can only keep one card) but it can be tough straights to be in. If you choose a strategy that's a non-starter (military build up, for instance, and you don't draw military worlds), you can languish in the lands of card starvation and VP starvation.
Played 2 games. Got trounced soundly in both. Part of it was card luck, part of it was choices that (retrospectively) would have been better differently. Jury is still out on whether I could have know at the time to go another way. Have to play it a few more times before deciding I'm not fond of it or the random factor is too big.
Speed: 3.5 out of 5 (Not bad, but later in the game you can have a lot of cards to watch)
Strategy: 3.5 out of 5 (It seems like there is strategy, but your draw cards and strategic plans can not mesh well sometimes leaving you languishing in agony)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (The game is flavourful and expansions add a fifth player and actual invade-and-capture of military planets)
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