Quacks

 QUACKS
Company: CMYK; Type: Eurostyle; Players: 2-4; Time: 45 minutes; Genre: Push Your Luck; Rating: 💥💥 💥 💥 

I like it!

We have a Game Day monthly at the Library, where I run D&D in the morning and then host board games in the afternoon. This is a game that mon ami Max has brought on a number of occasions that we've played that I like.

It is a game about brewing potions. You score your points according to how many ingredients you manage to put into it. The more the better. But too much and your potion explodes!

Each player has their own game board in the form of a cauldron with a spiraling track on which they place their ingredients on the track as they pull them blindly from a cloth bag. Your choice on each draw is whether to continue or not. The catch is that you start with 11 points worth of white tokens "bloomberries." Your potion explodes if you draw and have to place more than 7 points worth of them in your cauldron. When everyone has finished, everyone then scores their victory points and purchase additional ingredients. If your potion explodes, you must either choose to score your victory points or to purchase additional ingredients. You also earn 1 Ruby if your last token is found next to a Ruby symbol on your track. 

Orange "Pumpkins": No effect, except to enable red "toadstools" to move further up the track.

Blue "Skulls": Draw additional tokens from your bag, choose whether to play one.

Red "Toadstools": Advance your token additional spaces if you have already drawn and placed orange "pumpkins" in your cauldron.

Yellow "Mandrakes": If you draw and place one right after a white "bloomberry" token, you may remove the white token and put it bck into your bag.

Black "Moths": Compare how many of these tokens have been played. If you are tied, you get to permanently advance your start token in your cauldron. if you have more, you get to both advance your token and earn 1 Ruby.

Green "Spiders": Earn 1=2 Rubies if at least one of your last two tokens in your cauldron is green.

Purple "Ghosts":

You can advance your start token permanently in your cauldron if you can spend 2 Rubies. There is also a catch-up mechanic in the game whereby each turn players who are behind get to start the turn out with a temporary head start on their potion based on how many rat tails there are on the master score board between them and the current point leader. 

And that's mostly it! (One thing I've learned from playing the game is that it is OK and perhaps smart to push your luck early on and explode your potions. It can be rather disadvantageous to start the game out consistently ahead -- see rat tails above for why!)

Enjoy! 👍

Alhambra Dice

 

Alhambra Dice
Company: Queen Games; Type: Eurostyle; Players: 2-5; Time: 60 minutes; Genre: Push Your Luck; Rating: 💥💥 💥 💥 I like it!

This is the dice version of the classic tiled game (which I have only played once and for which it didn't really leave much of an impression on me -- make of that what you will.)

The gameplay is simple. Your goal on your turn is to score as many points on your dice of a given color with the fewest number of dice rolls. On your turn, you roll eight white dice. You score by counting the number of matching results for the color track you have chosen to play for on your turn. You can make up to three such rolls, saving your successful results from each roll.

The wrinkle is how tied results get broken on a given color track. The first die roll is worth more in breaking a tie than the second, the second is better than the third. If you score on a space that is already occupied, you must take the next lowest spot available on that track.

The color tracks are arranged on ascending rows of three for each possible score:

    8 wins: 1st - 2nd - 3rd

    7 wins: 1st - 2nd - 3rd

    6 wins: 1st - 2nd - 3rd

    and so on . . .

Say, you roll a result of four wins on your dice on your first toss. You can roll again to try to add more wins to your total -- at the risk of not achieving any. Or you can stop and maintain your rank within the results for that total.

For instance, if I roll again and fail. I am at 2nd place for 4 wins. Before I could only be beat with a result of five or higher. Now, I can be beat by 4 wins at 1st or still by five wins or better. Note: If your result places you on a result that has already been taken, you must place your token on the next lowest unoccupied rank.)

At the end of the round, each color track is scored in turn. Each turn, the winner for a given color gets to choose between scoring two points OR one point and taking a bonus chip. Second place gets whichever result is left.

The first, third and fifth (final) rounds are scoring rounds in which victory points are also scored for your relative rank for that color. In the first scoring round, only the top player scores. On the second scoring round, the top two score. And on the final round, the top three score.

Back in the day, when we played it, my late father turned out to be the shrewdest as to determining when to push his luck or not. (My mom always took all three rolls on each of her turns,) My dad would often win, my mom turned out almost always to be in last place as a result.

Quick yahtzee-like push-your-luck game always with some interesting choices to be made on each turn and round. Enjoy!

Deify

 

Deify

Company: Dover Publications; Type: RPG; Players: solo; Time: 1+ hours; Genre: Journal; Rating: 💥💥💥💥💥 I love it!

This game is unusual in a few respects. First, it is published by Dover Publications, better known for its reprints of classic, public domain works. Second, more noteworthy than unusual, it is a relatively new game, only published in February of this year. Finally, it is part of a growing number of games that make use of Tarot cards for event / action resolution.

Along with Language Creation, Mythopoesis is one of my ongoing fascinations. This game enables you to create a starting deity, and then through gameplay to evolve their nature, their myths, and their religious practices through the practice of drawing Tarot cards and responding to the associated prompts for whatever the current state of play is.

Every deity has a number of starting Attributes: Domain(s), Epithet(s), Practice(s), and a Champion (one only at a time). 

They also have certain Characteristics: Sacred Places, Symbols, Appearance, and Associated Deities. The difference in their nomenclature is only important in terms of individual prompts.

Over the course of the game, with each draw of major or minor arcana, the player will be prompted to add or subtract attributes or characteristics as a result of the events associated with the card. In many cases, the card will prompt the player to describe the specific circumstances that led to the indicated changes.

Play proceeds by drawing one Major Arcana, then three Minor Arcana, and working through their prompts. There are four major phases to the game, that represent the mythic life cycle of the god: Birth (Fool), Prime (Chariot), Decline (Tower), and the End (World). You start by playing the Fool, and then proceed accordingly from there. You can shape the gameplay to your liking by including Chariot, Tower and World cards in the Major Arcana deck at your discretion.

And voilà! That's the game. Enjoy!

Tsuro

 

Tsuro

Company: WizKids; Type: Eurostyle; Players: 2-8; Time: 15-20 minutes; Genre: Elimination; Rating: 💥💥💥 Meh!

This game is simple and quick to play. An ideal type of game for pick-up play between more serious games.

Each player places a token on the central starting tile. The object of the game is to be the last token left on the board by the end of the game.

Each player is dealt a hand of tiles. Each tile is a braid of possible paths, designed in such a way that they can be played on other tiles in various orientations to create new paths for tokens to follow. If your path leads you to the edge or you collide with another player's token, you are eliminated.

That simple. Ideal for spatially-oriented players, but not for me. And I also feel that gameplay gets stereotyped pretty quickly. But YMMV.

Design Philosophy: SIMPLEXITY

Simplexity is a principle I like to invoke in game design to describe many of my most favorite games and how they play.

It is simply this:

1. Simple Rules: Easily learned, easily explained.

2. Lead to Complexity: The individual rules create significant decisions for the player to make through how they interact.

3. Different Outcomes: Games are repeatable in that there is considerable variability in outcomes for how the game is played and its results.

Most simple games lack the nuance of simplex games, and, consequently are often stereotyped in their play. Complex games are often too complicated and detailed for repeated play and mastery. Simplex games occupy a middle space in the complexity continuum, and they literally occupy that "sweet spot" in design space.

Junta

Junta
Company:  West End Games; Type: Ameristyle; Players: 2-7; Time: 4 hours; Genre: Treachery; Rating: 💥💥 Don't like it!

We used to play a lot of Junta back in the day. I enjoyed it a lot, mainly because of who and how we played the game. Players play in a "banana republic" -style country, where the goal is to secretly amass the most money in their bank account until the game ends. I have fond memories of Neil, as el presidente announcing each turn that "it's been a bad-f***ing year again. And then some of the in-game squabbling that resulted.

But actual gameplay was rather stereotypical and often just rather tedious. The president distributes the foreign aid budget to the interested parties. They then choose a location to go to -- from which we determine whether anyone is able to bank their money, whether they get assassinated or are able to participate in a coup. Since the president is el presidente for life, the only way to change who is president is to coup, after which the conspirators if successful choose one of their own to become the new president. Rinse and repeat.

Coups happen a lot! And this is what can make the game very tedious. A coup is a tactical war game in the middle of a game about political intrigue. The game can be anywhere from 2-4 hours in length. It all depends on how many coups there are in the game. There's not a ton of strategy to it either. We recognized this fact back in the day, and we tried to solve it by somehow simulating the coup without actually playing it out. (Didn't work so well.)

While your mileage may vary, I can't currently say that I would recommend playing it. OK in its time, but not so much now.

Tokaido

 

Tokaido

Company:  Stonemaier Games; Type: Eurostyle; Players: 1-5; Time: 30 minutes; Genre: Worker Placement; Rating: 💥💥💥💥 I like it!

Not all Eurostyle games achieve a true synthesis of theme to mechanics. Tokaido is one of those games that truly does. The theme of the game is holiday travel from Edo to Kyoto -- or the other way round, I can never remember which. Each player takes on a special role. As they travel on the road they each stop at various attractions and collect mementos. At the end of their journey, they then score their memento collections. Whoever has the most points wins.

As with any worker placement game, the core mechanic is choosing a point to place your meeple to gain a reward and incidentally to block other players from doing the same. One of the interesting quirks of the game is its "catch-up" mechanic: at any time, the player who is furthest behind on their journey goes next. So, while you may be blocked from achieving a goal at a given spot, if you take small enough steps in your journey, you can potentially get many more moves than the leader. Like any good simplex game, its a strategic trade-off that you must manage.

Simple and elegant rules with great nuance. And mwah! for the theme. Solid game.