Games

My gaming experiences.

The Day in Gaming, September 25, 2019: Samurai

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

There are two things I’ve always loved about my main gaming group: 1. Everyone’s willing to play almost any kind of game, from the current hotness to obscure or classic titles. 2. There’s an unspoken rule that we try to play a game from each person who shows up.

Tonight was a perfect example. First, Daryl played his Lost Cities with Jin while I ate my super-late lunch. Next, we played Patrick’s Black Angel, which a bunch of us have been hyped to play. Then, we played my Jetpack Joyride, which I’ll be reviewing soon (spoiler alert: it’s a lot of fun), and Oscar’s Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale. Finally, we finished with Jin’s copy of Samurai, which seemed fitting to end game night with another Reiner Knizia game (Lost Cities being another one of his classics).

Samurai was one of the first games I played at this meetup four years ago when I was just getting into the hobby and even then it was an older game. Tonight proved to me that it remains one of my favorite Knizia titles.

At its heart Samurai is an abstract game in whichyou attempt to conquer ancient Japan using three factions; warriors, peasants, and priests are represented on the board by minis of helmets, rice, and Buddhas. It’s an area control game and the board is made up of hexagons that you place one of your faction tiles on; most tiles are numbered 1-4. It’s also a set collection game since you’re trying to own the majority of the three factions to win.

Like many of Knizia’s other games, Samurai has a relatively simple ruleset with a surprising amount of depth to it. You’re just choosing one of your five random tiles to place on board and when you surround a mini, you and any opponents add the strength value of your factions and the highest takes the mini.

The game ends when all of one mini (helmet, rice, or Buddha) is depleted. The player with the most majorities wins the game, with ties being decided by the number of minis you’ve collected.

I love how this area control game works because you can basically go anywhere with your tiles, but you’re also trying to set yourself up when a battle goes down (that is, when a mini is surrounded on all sides). There are two special tiles that really make the game interesting: first, one tile allows you swap minis. This one is hilarious because usually you can steal a mini from right under an opponent’s nose. The second tile allows you to re-use one of your tiles and this one comes in handy, particularly when you want to take another shot with your 4-value tile.

Samurai is an underrated gem of a game. It’s another one of those easy-to-learn, difficult to master games that I always enjoy and appreciate.

The Day in Gaming, September 24, 2019: Brass: Birmingham

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

Tonight I got to play one of my favorite games, Brass: Birmingham. I’ve previously reviewed it on The Five By, so please click here to hear my thoughts on this heavy Eurogame.

I met my buddy Jake at Congregation Ale House in Pasadena for board games and beers. It was my first time at a Congregation (there are a few locations in different parts of L.A.) and I instantly fell in love with the place. Big game-friendly tables, good beer, and tasty pub food are a combination that I cannot resist.

The church-inspired decor is really cool, giving Congregation a sort of goth feel. The music was generally a mix of old and new rock, and the volume wasn’t obnoxiously loud, which is something I appreciate more with each passing year. It was the perfect setting for board games and beers.

It’d been a while since I played Brass: Birmingham and I forgot how much there is to the game. The basics are easy (take an action, discard a card), but the rules of consuming beer/iron/coal always trip up new and experienced players. Thankfully, Jake knows board games and was able to make sense of what I was trying to explain.

After our game I wanted to play Brass: Lancashire, which is closer to the original Brass game rules (Birmingham being its standalone sequel). Lancashire doesn’t have Birmingham’s funky beer rule, where you’re required to consume beer when selling certain items.

Speaking of consuming beers, Congregation Ale House is an outstanding choice for your next beer-centric outing. I had an excellent Russian River Blind Pig; it was a refreshing, citrusy IPA that reminded me why I still enjoy the occasional beer. It also reminded me that I need to visit Congregation Ale again real soon.

The Day in Gaming, September 23, 2019: Star Trek Panic

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

My dad introduced me to the original Star Trek series when I was a kid and I’d catch reruns whenever they were on Channel 13 in L.A., igniting my love of sci-fi that still exists today. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was watching a series about a better tomorrow; a future full of wonder and hope, with technology being a part of how humanity solved (and caused) its problems.

It’s this glimpse into the future that still appeals to me. You can have your orcs and goblins in those decaying dungeons; gimme light-speed journeys to different worlds and epic space battles any day of the week, plus twice on Sunday.

Thematically, Star Trek Panic hits on all of the right notes for me. It’s a re-theme of Castle Panic (an early favorite of mine when I got into the hobby) and based on the original Star Trek, which is what I grew up with. And while the game is more space battle than anything the TV show ever got into, it’s still nice to see all of the call-backs to that original series.

Since Star Trek Panic is a cooperative game, it’s easy to solo. But it’s not an easy game, unlike the original Castle Panic. I reviewed it for Geek & Sundry so check out that link for more detailed info. I loved how they ratcheted up the difficulty in this version of the game. Here, you’ll have to complete missions in addition to clearing the bag full of baddies. It’s all tied wonderfully into the original series, with missions like The Trouble With Tribbles and Space Seed.

Tonight I solo-ed a game playing Sulu and Kirk. My only complaint about the game is that for this weight (gateway/gateway plus), the game is about 30 minutes too long (a full game usually takes 90 minutes). So I decided to see if I could beat two random missions, which I did in about 45 minutes.

Or maybe I didn’t. It’d been awhile since I’d played and I realized I missed a few rules while I was playing. I was already halfway into the game and didn’t want to start over so I decided to just put an asterisk if I managed to win. I failed my first mission, but recovered to complete the next two, as Sulu’s move-twice-per-turn ability came in handy and worked well with Kirk’s play-a-mission-card-and-draw-two-more ability.

The Enterprise took a lot of damage (as it always does in this game) and I won* tonight, despite (thanks to?) a few rules mistakes. Until my next game I’ll enjoy the win*, live long, and prosper.

The Day in Gaming, September 22, 2019: Jetpack Joyride

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

I’m not much of a video gamer these days so I miss out on all of the hotness, console gaming and otherwise. I do play the occasional video game app even though I prefer board game adaptations. Jetpack Joyride is my type of no-brainer video game app: it has a throwback feel to it, with its side-scrolling ’80s game play and the simple Flappy Bird-ish mechanism where you guide your jetpacker by tapping on the screen.

Seeing Jetpack Joyride translated into board game form immediately had me curious. How do you capture that sensation of floating through the labs while capturing coins for points and gadgets for special abilities while avoiding hazards?

Lucky Duck Games took the basic premise of Jetpack Joyride and turned it into an engaging puzzle with real-time action. Note: I’m saving my full review until I’ve played the multi-player game a few times so here’s a quick look at the solo game, which I had a blast playing today.

You draw four random lab cards, with each featuring several icons: coins for points and zappers, missiles, and lasers that cost you points during the score phase. There are five different polyomino tiles (think Tetris) that you’ll use to guide your little dude through the lab. The tiles are translucent so you’ll see what you’ve covered up. Cover a coin and it’s a point, but cover one of the hazards and you lose three points.

Like the multi-player game, the solo mode is played over three rounds where you try to escape the lab using your tiles by placing them one at a time orthogonally adjacent to the previous one. It sounds easy and it would be if that were the only goal. But there are three random mission cards drawn each round to give you extra points. So, you might get extra points for collecting all the coins in one sector, by not covering up any one of the scientists, etc.

At the end of each round you’re given a choice of gadgets that help you in the later rounds. For example, you can use Coin Magnet to collect coins that you missed, as long as they’re orthogonally adjacent to your tile.

I like that there are over a dozen gadgets to choose from, along with over a dozen missions to guide you and a stack of double-sided lab cards to keep things fresh over several plays.

So far the solo game is a hit with me. Instead of the tension created by the real-time Space Trucker-like tile grab, the solo game gives you a limited amount of tiles to work with. Once you’ve completed a round, the tiles are out of the game, unlike the multi-player rules. I am looking forward to playing in multi-player, though, since the real-time puzzle-solving sounds fun and intense.

The Day in Gaming, September 21, 2019: For Sale

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

According to my BGG logged plays, I’m coming up on my fourth anniversary of first playing For Sale. I had just started going to a weekly game night at my local comic book store and I was eager to play anything and everything.

On an October night of 2015 I played For Sale. The other guys in the group had played it before and recommended it as a filler game before other players arrived. I immediately took to the game’s straightforward structure with its bidding rounds followed by the buying rounds. Although I’m not one for bidding games, For Sale is the one exception to the rule (okay, also Ra, so make it two exceptions to the rule).

It was an insta-buy for me after the first game. After that first play I asked the group to play it again since it was so quick and they agreed, thus confirming that I must get my own copy so I could share it with my family and friends.

I also stumbled upon a BGG solo variant which is aptly named For $olitaire. It’s a simple AI named Jessica that works surprisingly well. Tonight I solo-ed the game and lost, 89-77.

Yes, a rematch has been called. Unless I can find some human players to play For Sale soon.

The Day in Gaming, September 20, 2019: Friday

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

It’s Friday so that means it’s time for a game of Friday. This was the first solo-only game I picked up a few years ago and I still enjoy it, despite the fact that I never play it anymore. Actually, I never play the physical game anymore. I play a lot of the app version.

Friday is a solo deck-builder in which you’re Friday, good ol’ Robinson Crusoe’s sidekick. Crusoe doesn’t know what he’s doing on the island so it’s up to you to teach him how to hunt, gather, and make weapons since he’ll have to eventually fight off some pirates.

Your starting deck represents Crusoe: weak and not very smart. There are hazard cards that you’ll have to defeat and this is where the beauty of the game lies. Every hazard card is multi-use, with two halves; one half is the hazard and the other half represents Crusoe learning and improving his survival skills. If you defeat a hazard, you turn the card around and it goes into your deck as a helpful card. It’s a welcome change from the standard center row/open market of cards to add to your deck.

Like other deck builders, you’ll want to trash the weaker cards to steadily improve and streamline your deck. I love the two pirate cards at the end, which are randomly chosen from about a dozen or so. These effectively serve as boss monsters, ready to test your deck-building skills.

One thing about Friday: it’s not easy. I could never imagine scoring over 100 points when I first got the game, but tonight I scored 131. All of the games I’ve played on the app definitely helped me improve my game, since I now know the cards better and I can strategize more effectively.

For my fellow solo and deck-building fans I’d highly recommend Friday, whether it’s the analog or digital version.

The Day in Gaming, September 19, 2019: Tiny Epic Galaxies

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

Tiny Epic Galaxies was the first Tiny Epic game I played and it’s still my favorite of the series. I used to flip flop between this and Tiny Epic Quest, but Galaxies ultimately won out due to its smoother game play. And I’ll always choose a sci-fi over fantasy theme.

Galaxies was also one of the first games I played when I got into the hobby four years ago. I remember that game like yesterday. I was amazed that this small, er, tiny, game had so much going on. When I first saw it on the table I thought it looked cool, but didn’t expect much.

I had no idea what I was doing during that first game: I kept missing opportunities to follow others’ actions, I didn’t really understand how I could set myself up to get more dice or resources, and I was just generally lost while playing.

But everything about it was fun, even as I struggled to learn how to play well. I loved chucking the dice and figuring out how to use each symbol. I loved that I could use the energy resource to re-roll dice that I didn’t like.

The other day I was talking about dice and luck with a buddy of mine. He’s real big on mitigating dice rolls in games. While there are plenty of ways to mitigate bad rolls in nearly all modern board games, including Tiny Epic Galaxies, I think most gamers complain about bad luck too much.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that there are ways to change dice or other options when things don’t go your way. But I also like the challenge of having to deal with less-than-ideal situations in a game. The recent roll-and-write On Tour is a great example. I like that you can’t re-roll the dice at any point. What you roll is what you get and you have to write down the result somewhere on your map; it’s what drives the game’s action.

Thankfully, Tiny Epic Galaxies has plenty of dice mitigation. You get your first re-roll for free, then you can spend an energy resource to re-roll any of your dice. You can also convert two dice into one side of your choice and certain cards give you free actions if you land on them or colonize them.

It’s one of my favorite solo games, too, since I can knock out a game in under 20 minutes. There are different solo difficulty levels and I still haven’t beaten the Epic level yet. Tonight was my first solo game in a while so I played the medium level and easily won, thanks to some bad rolls on the AI’s part. Too bad it doesn’t have any way to mitigate those pesky dice.

The Day in Gaming, September 18, 2019: Tal der Wikinger

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

Thanks to the good people at HABA, I received a copy of Tal der Wikinger recently. I’d seen T. Caires preview it in a video a few months ago and it looked like something my gaming group would get a kick out of.

The game’s title translates to Valley of the Vikings, but I like to call it what it is: Viking Bowling. This is a hilarious dexterity game where you’re setting up these Donkey-Kong-looking barrels then bowling a Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-style boulder, er, ball at them. Knock them over and you get to move the matching color’s Viking closer to the end of the pier.

Once a Viking goes into the water, you gain coins where your Viking is along the pier, either from the general supply or from one or more of your opponents. The wet Viking gets nothing, but goes back to the end of the line to try again. This is a clever catch-up mechanism and ensures that everyone will eventually fall into the water and allow others to score.

I love the HABA games I’ve played; they’re marketed to kids, but we adults enjoy them just as much, if not more, than the younger gaming crowd.

The Day in Gaming, September 17, 2019: Valley of the Kings

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

I don’t have many deck builders in my game library these days. I traded/sold/donated my copies of Dominion, Ascension, and a bunch of expansions. These are fine — and arguably the best — deck-building titles around, but I find myself gravitating toward games that use deck-building as one, and not the only, mechanism, of a game. Given a choice, I’d much rather a deck-builder with a board. I love the route-building in Trains, the area control of Tyrants of the Underdark, the dungeon crawl and push-your-luck in Clank!, and the baseball simulation in Baseball Highlights: 2045.

Of course, there are exceptions.

I keep my copy of Star Realms for nostalgia’s sake. Although I now prefer Shards of Infinity for quick one-on-one deck-building action, my nephew and I used to battle each other in Star Realms when he’d visit years ago. He’s growing up so fast and I treasure those times when we’d play board games for hours before going out to eat or watching a movie. One day I hope we can play a long-awaited rematch and he’ll let his Uncle Ruel win a game.

Valley of the Kings is a small-box deck-builder with a clever deck-building twist. Normally, you want to strip your deck of certain cards, trashing your weaker cards to leave yourself with a streamlined and powerful deck that’ll earn you those bigger victory point cards.

In Valley of the Kings, however, you’re actually trashing cards (“entombing”) to score points. It’s a cool way to score, since it’s more about timing now: you can score a big-point card right away by entombing it, but it’ll be gone from your deck. Or you can keep it for its powerful ability as you watch your opponent entomb card after card for more points.

I dig how the entombing mechanism works here and wish more games used it. I felt like Valley of the Kings was an underrated deck-builder (sorta like Tyrants of the Underdark is, too) and apparently I wasn’t the only one. AEG recently Kickstarted a big-box deluxe edition of the game.

And, yes, I’m kicking myself for not backing it. Thankfully, I can still play the occasional solo game of Valley of the Kings when I’m in the mood like tonight. Besides, I’ve gotta keep up my deck-building skills for the next time I hang out with my nephew.

The Day in Gaming, September 16, 2019: Tiny Towns

I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

Earlier this year at Dice Tower West there was a buzz around Tiny Towns, from the con lanyard given to attendees to the non-stop demos running at the AEG booth. Unfortunately, I hadn’t scheduled a meeting with AEG and didn’t want to wait for a demo so I decided to pass up the opportunity to play what would become one of my favorite games of this year.

The next month (April) I was asked to be a guest on Geek & Sundry’s Game the Game to play Tiny Towns. I love being on the show — Becca Scott is an amazing, super-talented host, the crew is awesome, and I always have a fun time.

When I dove into the hobby four years ago, there was no way I would’ve believed you if you said that I’d be playing games on G&S. It was surreal the first time I was on the set, learning a game then playing it with Becca and her guests. Now that I’ve been on a few times, I feel a lot more comfortable and relaxed.

The shoot for Tiny Towns was a blast. Becca, Aliza Pearl, and Gina DeVivo were absolutely hilarious during the game and everything went smoothly. Like other episodes I’ve been on, we had to re-shoot a few things for clarity or for technical reasons, but for the most part what you see is what you get.

After we finished the episode I contacted my buddy Richard, who’s a board game retailer and ordered a copy of Tiny Towns. With over 20 plays this year, it’s been well-received by everyone I’ve played with.

Tonight I played a solo game, which generally lasts about 15-20 minutes. I love Tiny Towns’ puzzle-style play and I can’t wait to see what the expansion does to the game. Check out the Game the Game episode below: