USD ($)
EUR (€)
Art Society – Tim Evans:
This month my most played game was Art Society. On top of that, it was my most taught game, if there is such a thing, as my partner and I shared its joy with two different groups. One was very much a gaming group, used to all things modern board gaming has to offer, and the other, not so much. Both times the rules of this game flowed very easily into place in people’s minds and though experience won the day on both occasions (my partner and I splitting one win a piece), it was a lot closer than you might think.
That’s the beauty of this game, aside from the gorgeous paintings (each a spoof on famous artworks from around the world). The game is at it’s heart a combination of an auction game and a tile placement puzzle. The production value then elevates this game, with even the box and insert feeling premium, and designed in a way which makes setup and play a very simple process. Play itself gives everyone a chance to influence the game with which pieces are chosen out of the box for auction, and that having a bearing on fitting the tile on yours and everyone else’s boards, not to mention the scoring of the “unwanted pieces”, which ultimately decides whose collection is worth the most at game end.
So if you’re looking for an auction game for 1-4 players, with an added tile placement and scoring (light) strategy to it, this could be a winner! Check it out and live out your inner art critic dream!
My City - Jacob Dunkley:
Hidden at the back of the games cupboard, I recently unearthed our copy of My City, the Reiner Knizia legacy game which we played through a two player campaign over 3 years ago. In My City, you will be playing through a number of chapters broken into 3 episodes, in a 2-4 player legacy game where you will affix stickers, mark the board and change the way the game plays as you progress. Unlike some legacy games, this contains an eternal mode on the legacy games reverse side meaning you can continue to play even once the campaigns have been finished. My City is a polyomino game (think Tetris pieces) in which you will be following the rules of an episode to try and score more points than your opponents by placing the tiles across the board until you can no longer fit a tile.
The game had sat untouched since we completed our previous campaign but I realised just how easy this was to reset and that given it had the components for up to 4 players to play through the campaign, we decided to play from the beginning again, resetting the envelopes and with two fresh boards. I remembered some of the game, but not how it all built up episode on episode. In the interim we have played through the roll and write version which is excellent but doesn’t quite hit the same peaks as the bigger version. Episodes are short and have that just one more factor to them, meaning you normally go through at least one chapter in a sitting, with each episode taking up to 30 minutes to play.
My City is the perfect entry point for people who want to discover legacy games, and are interested in playing something that evolves over time. It has a low cost, starts off not too complex, (like all the great Knizia games) but unlike most legacy games, the eternal mode means you have the option to keep playing a version of the game even when you’ve finished the campaign as opposed to disposing of the game. 11 plays of the game last month and we are nearly at the halfway point of this excellent game and I can’t wait to see what’s in the next envelope!
Everdell - Pete Bartlam:
Wood You Believe It?
Listen, I know I’m late to the party but I finally acquired Everdell in August and have been playing it with my group of gamer friends since. We were all new to Everdell and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I’ve been waiting a long time to get Everdell. I knew it looked lovely with all the cute animals and had a great table presence with the foot tall, two tier tree in the background but would it play all right? Well, yes it does! I found it a bit worrying in a game of basically only 4 turns that on my first turn, going last out of three players (the humblest goes first hence my position!) that I couldn’t garner enough resources to get even 1 of the cute little animal cards.
There’s A Bustle In Your Hedgerow
I needn’t of worried the pace of the woodland ramps up pretty quickly. All the animals are busy in Spring and Summer and doubly so in Autumn getting ready for Winter. While basically it’s a tableau building, worker placement game it’s so much more than that. Cards can generate resources or make other cards easier to get. In particular each Construction has an associated Critter that you can play in your City for free if you are lucky enough to draw it in your hand.
This last point was also a worry before I played. There are so many Critter & Construction cards, 128, you may not get a matching set. But in the event you go through so many cards that this is not an issue.
As I say the game ramps up nicely. You get extra workers at the end of each season, two in Autumn, and by playing the right cards everything is go. Suffice to say after
Turn 1, I thought the 15 card City limit wasn’t achievabale yet by the end my City was over-populated and bursting at the seams!
If You Go Down To The Woods Today
Play Everdell! I’m very glad I’m now part of the woodland folk lore. My only difficulty now is working out which of the many expansions I should get! I think it might be New Leaf. I like the idea of a station being a railway fan. Toot! Toot!
Mysterium Park - Harold Cataquet:
Libellud is a publisher of some of the most colourful games in the industry. Dixit [1], Mysterium [2], Stella [3], Obscurio [4], Mysterium Kids: Captain Echo’s Treasure [5], and Mysterium Park [6] all contain a pack of beautifully illustrated oversized cards that seem to be telling a story. In fact, you could probably use the cards from any one of these games as an expansion for any of the other games in the list.
In Dixit, one player (the storyteller) secretly chooses a card and makes up a sentence based on that card. This card is then mixed up with additional cards (submitted by the other players), and then the faces of the cards are revealed. Everyone now tries to guess which card the storyteller originally chose. If you’re the storyteller, you only want one person to find your card.
Mysterium expands the concept and gives it a context. The storyteller is now a ghost and they are trying to tell the mediums (the other players) who killed them, where the crime took place, and which weapon was used. Moreover, the game is cooperative – everyone loses if you don’t find all three. In Mysterium Park, you only have to find the who and where. In Mysterium Kids, the whole idea of a murder is eliminated, and you are just trying to find the room where Captain Echo hid his treasure.
The park in Mysterium Park is not a green one – it’s an amusement part (a circus). Moreover while Mysterium and Obscurio are two big box games, Mysterium Park is about the size of an A5 hardback, so it’s a cooperative game that you can quickly stick in your backpack and take with you. It plays in about 30 minutes, and accommodates between 2 and 6 players, but it really works best with 4 players. In any case with 60 plot cards, 20 character cards, and 20 location cards, there is a tremendous amount of replayability.
To begin the game, nine suspected character cards are arranged in a 3x3 grid and the ghost gives each player a vision card. The ghost is trying to get each player to choose a particular spot on the grid (the exact spot is indicated to the ghost by the plot cards - think Codenames [7]), and in so doing those characters are eliminated as suspects. In Round #2, nine location cards are arranged in a 3x3 grid and the ghost repeats the process to get the players to eliminate possible locations. In Round #3, the cards that weren’t selected in the previous rounds (three characters and three locations) are arranged in three columns, and the ghost tries to get the group to pick the correct column by giving them one card that refers to the location and one card that refers to the character.
This is a great little game that relies heavily on a ghost that can stay silent and keep a straight face.
Arcs - Dan Street Phillips:
Since it was announced two years ago, Leder Games’ new board game, Arcs, has been on my mind a lot. A new design by Cole Wehrle, the designer of Oath, one of my all time favourites was surely going to be a hit with me. Well this month it was delivered and my oh my is it delivering. Arcs is a space themed 4x game (Exploit, Explore, Expand and Exterminate) which sees you move your fleet around space while making allegiances with different guilds in order to gain power and in turn, win. But what makes it so interesting is its use of cards and trick taking as an action selection process. On your turn if you are leading, you will play a card, taking one of the actions available on it as many times as your card allows. However if you are not leading you must follow the lead in one of three ways. Either you surpass by playing a higher number of the name suit therefore taking as many actions as your card allows, or you copy or pivot giving you only one action. Having your hand of cards change every round, dictating what actions are available to you is such a frustrating yet fascinating puzzle and when to steal the lead by burning a much needed card is such a powerful decision. And let’s not forget the amazing artwork by Kyle Ferrin that makes this game just gorgeous to look at. And so far I have just explored the base game. There is a campaign expansion that I am desperate to sink my teeth into!
