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Kingdomino - Joe Packham
Kingdomino has a special place in my cold tabletop gaming heart! One of my first hobby game purchases, it’s stayed in my collection ever since. As the Kingdomino family has grown I’ve tried them all. Age of Giants expansion, Queendomino, Kingdomino Duel and recently Dragomino. So when the latest Iteration hit shops obviously I nabbed a copy quicksmart.
Kingdomino Origins changes the setting of the franchise from tongue in cheek low fantasy medieval, to an equally tongue in cheek prehistoric backdrop. Bye bye dragons and knights, hello cavemen and Mammoths.
The game is instantly recognisable as a Kingdomino spin off. The basic mechanic of tile-matching is the same tried and tested classic. But what makes Origins unique is it’s 3 modular gameplay variants. The modules are what makes it, prepare for a bold statement… my new favourite Kingdomino! The first module, Discovery is very similar to the original game. Instead of crowns acting as territory multipliers, we have fire symbols doing that job. Some of these are printed in the tiles but also when you lay a volcano tile it will shoot a fire token up to a set amount of spaces away. This simple addition lets you optimise your territory scoring. Fun!
The second module is Totems. On top of volcanos, this adds resources to your territories. Each gorgeously shaped and painted resource is worth a vp at games end but whoever has a majority of a resource will receive its totem tile too meaning more points. This adds another factor into tile drafting and is a nice step up in complexity. The final module is Tribe mode. This allows you to use those resources to attract cavepeople to your kingdom, cavepeople who score in various interesting and strategic ways. These 3 ways to play seem to fit every occasion, age group and mood making this, I think, the best Kingdomino yet. Also it looks top-notch!
It's A Wonderful World - Hannah Blacknell
This month was my birthday month so I was spoiled with a few new games this month. There was one that has really stood out for me though which is It’s a Wonderful World. This is a drafting engine-building joy box that everyone I have introduced it to has loved. During this game, you are rafting cards to either construct them using your produced resources later, or to recycle to gain a one time recycling bonus.
The cards that you construct will either help you build your engine and improve your ability to produce certain resources or will give you end game scoring options. The most expensive cards will often allow you to do both. The whole game is played in just four rounds, and there are no turns. Which I love. There is no downtime at all as everyone plays at the same time. You are focused on your own engine and your own game plan throughout. However, there is significant player interaction in that the person who produces the most of a resource each time gains a bonus token, each worth one point. So you will not be wanting to let one player run off with all of them. These tokens can also be worth more if you construct additional scoring options, so these are precious.
The game is a simple to grasp and tough to master drafting game that works well at all player counts and the large deck of cards in the game offers infinite replayability in my humble opinion. The theme is that you are building an empire and specialising in science research or power production etc. Honestly though you are just having a great time creating different coloured resource cubes to build cards for points. It is a blast and well worth a try if you haven’t already!
Patchwork Halloween - FavouriteFoe
October aka the spookiest, kookiest of months! And we were definitely in the spirit of things with Patchwork Halloween edition!
If you haven’t played it, Patchwork is a stellar two player tile laying strategy game by the legendary Uwe Rosenberg. It looks cute and cozy (making quilts has to be the epitome of hygginess!), but it is a tight, tense strategy game with a serious economic slant. And there are quite a few colourful editions now; original, Christmas, Halloween (as well as other versions – Express, Doodle etc.)
Mainly seasonal re-wraps of the original game, if you can or have played Patchwork in its initial form, then you’ll know how to play the Halloween Edition. I won’t go into the rules in detail now (you can find them in my review by clicking here), but rest assured that nothing has changed rules wise.
That is not to say that it is exactly the same gaming experience, however. Thanks to work on the digital implementation, there have been a few subtle tweaks to the polyomino patches. Some now cost more (and are therefore worth more at the end of the game), whereas others cover more (or less!) space on your player board for the same price. The change is small, but the rebalance has so far made for a closer call on the final scores in our games this month.
The seasonal wrapping is super, and trading eyeballs for tiles covered in pumpkins and witches’ hats is pure, freaky fun! Having a double-sided board with a different scoring track also means that we can switch it up when we fancy treading a different route to quilting victory!
For us, Patchwork Halloween is an ideal game to play after dark when the witches and are come out to play. And although we could play the original, having this seasonal version on the table in front of us somehow feels just that little bit more spook-tacular!
Spirit Island - Matt Thomasson
October was a very busy month outside of gaming with lots of things pulling me away from getting games played. However, one game has dominated my table more than others and that is a cooperative game from 2017, Spirit Island.
I have always been put off by Spirit Island because of its complexity. I recently borrowed a friend's copy and went about learning the rules and playing. Also, I was pleasantly surprised that the rules are not as complicated as I thought. Admittedly, it does have a learning curve but the complexity comes from how best to play and win and not the rules set themselves.
In Spirit Island you play as a spirit defending an island from an invading, conquering force of a nation. Your job is to repel and defend your island, spreading your presence and instilling Fear into the invaders. Each round the invaders will ravage (deal damage), build and conquer different parts of the island. The interesting thing about this is that it is predetermined to some extent so you know where and what they are going to do next round. If they conquered in the forests this round they will build in the forests next round and ravage the forests the round after that.
As the spirit you have a hand of cards and will spend energy to play these cards to do various actions. Spirit Island is a very challenging game with varied spirits and several ways to mix up the difficulty. What I really love about the game is trying to figure out how best to manipulate the board state to your advantage depending on the abilities and powers of your spirit. The game has very high replayability (especially with the expansions), great components and a wonderful arc to it. You start off feeling not so powerful but as you grow, gain more cards, unlock the ability to play more cards and gain more energy you feel more powerful. After a few plays the flow of the game becomes smooth and easy to follow.
All the Spirits play differently and I love sitting down and trying to puzzle out what to do with my cards and the powers I have available. It is a wonderful feeling when it all comes together. Playing one spirit solo, two spirits solo or multiplayer I have had a fantastic time with Spirit Island and have subsequently picked up my own copy.
Red Cathedral - Tom Harrod
The Red Cathedral, by Devir Games, might be the poster child for ‘a big game in a small box’. It’s easy to fall into a psychological trap of assuming ‘games need a certain box-size to provide a certain amount of strategical depth’. The Red Cathedral blows that (unfair) theory out of the water. My goodness, there’s so much awesomeness in here.
Players compete to build St. Basil’s Cathedral, of Moscow’s Red Square fame. To do this, you stake claim to various cards that make up the cathedral. There’s a bunch of ground floor bases, mid-tower sections, and rooftop domes. Each demand payment of specific goods, which you earn using a dice-movement on a rondel. This rondel itself is an amazing puzzle – you move one (of five) die according to its pip value. Plus, you can invest permanent bonuses attributed to each die. You earn these for moving it, adding strong incentives for combos and mega-moves. You need razor-sharp goods management skills, here. Also, you house your limited goods in a similar fashion to Concordia’s player boards.
Ultimate aim: complete your cathedral and you earn points. Complete higher cathedral sections before those building below you? Sounds like a structural health and safety nightmare, right? And rightly so: those below lose points if they’re behind on their labour.
But this is also like a giant area control game. You want to contribute the most to each tower to score end-game points. Once you’ve completed a card, those end-game points get locked in. But better still: others can still decorate that card once it’s flipped. You’ve each got a door, two windows and a rooftop ornamentation. These (with jewels) are worth big bucks mid-game, and helps towards area control, too!
It’s a real game of cat and mouse – all about the timing. I’m so impressed with The Red Cathedral; it was an easy pick for my Game of the Month.
Beyond The Sun - Kyle Gormley
Space. The final frontier. A place where corporations fight for dominance across the galaxy and technology shapes the way all decisions are made. Also, it turns out, quite a good setting for a board game.
I’ve been excited to play Beyond The Sun for almost a year now. Every reviewer I trust has heaped praise upon this game, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy. And, with a few games now under my belt, I can definitely see what all the fuss was about.
Beyond The Sun is a Euro game for 2 - 4 players and each game is split into two distinct halves. On one board, you will be exploring space and colonising planets. On the other, you’ll be researching tech and literally shaping the way the game can be played.
This tech tree mechanic is the real draw here. There are 4 levels of tech and, though the first level is always the same, the rest of the tree evolves naturally as players choose what to research. Do you want to increase production and open up options for cheaper research in the future? Or do you want to go the military route and take over every planet in the galaxy?
This freedom is a real breath of fresh air. It can be very daunting at first, knowing that you will be altering the way everyone else plays. But once you lean into that idea and realise it’s very easy to change your strategy on the fly, the possibilities are endless.
It’s also relatively quick - my first few games with new players only took about 90 minutes each.
Quite simply - this game was worth the wait and I already can’t wait for the expansion. Now, where’s my red shirt…