The Gig is a new mixture of genres to me. When it comes to board games, regular readers know I love roll- or flip-and-writes (I refuse to call them verb-and-writes), and while I’ve tried lots of different kinds, I’ve never played one with a real-time element. That kind of lunacy goes hand-in-hand with the Jazz Fusion vibes the  game’s art gives off. Have Braincrack Games got Ron Burgundy’s jazz flute in their hands, or something more like Ross’ keyboard?

More cowbell

The idea of The Gig is novel. Each player is a musician in the same band, but it’s a jazz improv band, and they all want to be the centre of attention. Each player’s instrument board is different, and the aim of the game is to cross out polyomino shapes on it, in order to score the most points. The biggest score at the end, wins. You know the drill.

In most games, the shapes you draw or place would be dictated by a symbol on a card, á la Hadrian’s Wall, or a cardboard tile, like in The Isle of Cats. In The Gig, however, each song (round) is a blank sheet of music. All players roll their dice at once, then the craziness begins. After rolling, you can pick up any number of your dice and plonk them on the row of the song which matches their values. It’s first come, first serve, so you need to be fast.

When all the dice are used, and your friends have stopped cursing each other for claiming the one place they desperately needed, it’s time to get your Bob Ross on, and get drawing. The shapes formed by your dice are the shapes you can draw on your instrument board, following a simple set of rules. Fill in your board, claim the bonuses, and get out under that spotlight as often as possible.

Nice…

The Gig is another departure from the more serious Euro games we’ve seen from Braincrack. Ragusa, Venice, and Florence are all great games, but after the light-hearted Last Resort, I’m really pleased to see them trying something different again. Not only trying, but succeeding. Before I go any further, I want to give a special mention to the artwork through the game. The styling is very cool, and so thematic, I love it.

The first song or two that you play feel a bit chaotic, but once you get the feel of it, and the way the dice interact with your boards, it’s a chaos you can embrace. It’s the difference between listening to freeform jazz and wanting to plug your ears with cheese, and suddenly understanding it and snapping your fingers in nodding appreciation, daddio.

It’s worth noting that there is an alternative, turn-based way to play the game. It’s great for teaching new players the game, and also if you’re playing with anyone who feels too pressured trying to place dice on the song sheet. If you can though, the real-time mode is definitely the way to go, it’s frenzied and hilarious.

Polytempo

One of the things I really like about The Gig is the asymmetry. Each instrument’s board is laid out differently, and each has its own way to score bonuses. It’s a really nice way to do things, as it’s going to take you a long time to figure out how to do each of them well. There’s this wonderful feeling that’s like doing the Hokey Cokey as a kid (or Hokey Pokey as my Transatlantic friends might know it). You all descend on the song on the centre of the table, rushing in to try to claim the spots you want, especially as many of them carry bonuses when claimed.

After that comes the calm, as your focus turns towards your instrument board, and trying to work out the best way to use the shape you created. It means there’s tons of interaction between the players, but there’s never any meanness or spite in it. You’re so focused on what you want to achieve, on your board, that any clashes on the song sheet are the result of both wanting something, rather than trying to deny someone of something. It’s a small, yet important detail, which makes the game a fun experience for everyone around the table.

Final thoughts

I really like The Gig. When Lewis (one of the designers and heads of Braincrack Games) tweeted about a new game that was a real-time roll-and-write, my interest was immediately piqued. When you consider the fact that the game is in no way a reflection of playing music at all, it’s remarkable that it feels so thematic. A lot of that is owed to the presentation and artwork. It screams ‘jazz club cool’, and it’s gorgeous. The songbook pages are really clear and easy to read, and even the box lid looks like an aged LP.

It does a great job of simultaneously feeling like a party game and a clever roll-and-write, which is no mean feat. There’s a stupid amount of variety in the game too, not just because you’re at the mercy of the dice gods, but also through the sheer number of combinations of songs and instruments. There aren’t many games around at the moment that give that same feeling of being a ‘proper’ game – for want of a better word – rather than a filler, and do it in half an hour. But that’s exactly what The Gig does.

Dávid Turczi has once again got his mitts on a game to make a good solo variant. While the solo mode is decent enough, and a good way to practice, the multiplayer mode is how to get the most out of it. So much of the fun and laughter comes from the madcap scramble to roll and re-roll your dice, over and over again, willing them to land the way you want. The Gig isn’t going to melt your brain, and I’m sure the theme might not land with everyone, but grab some friends and some smooth tunes, and you’re going to have a great time.

The Gig launches soon on Kickstarter. Register here to be notified when.

The Gig (2022)

Designers: Jamie Gray, Dann May, Robb Smigielski, Lewis Shaw
Publisher: Braincrack Games
Art: Dann May, Robb Smigielski, Lewis Shaw
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 20-30 mins

The post The Gig Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

Ragusa is set in the 15th Century, and pits any number from one to five players in action against one another. You’d be forgiven for looking at the box, the photographs, and even the description, and thinking it’s a city-builder game. Indeed, this is the blurb from Braincrack Games’ website:

The game tasks players with building the city, its walls, and making use of its growing economy to find their fortunes!

Make no mistake though, this is a worker-placement game. It’s just wearing a big fake glasses, nose and moustache disguise, and pretending to be a city-builder. But hey, I’m a Euro game fan through-and-through, so this is par for the course. I just want you to understand from the outset what Ragusa is, and isn’t.

Hex appeal

The game board is divided up into a series of hexes. The hexes in the middle of the board have six building spaces – one on each corner, and those around the outside of the board have three spaces. Every building spot touches three hexes, and a player’s turn is as simple as picking up one of their 12 buildings and placing it on an unoccupied spot, then generating the resources and taking the actions depicted on those touching hexes. Congratulations, you now know how to play Ragusa!

That was simple, right? Not on your nelly, mate, decision making in Ragusa is tough.

For a start, you need the resources to be able to build in a spot. Instead of collecting and spending units of the main resources in the game, in Ragusa you increase your production rate. The rates are tracked on little cards that get turned and flipped on your player board to keep track of how many you can use per turn. Some of the resources can be converted into goods to be traded, and you keep track of these with some cool little glass discs on that same player board.

The really tricky part when it comes to choosing where to place your little wooden buildings, is knowing that if you activate a hex, every other player with a building around that hex gets to take that same action after you. Add to that the fact that you get to do those actions once per building you own around that hex, and you can see there’s the potential to benefit everyone else more than yourself by taking your action. As you might imagine, this can lead to a lot agonising over decisions.

Choose your own adventure

Ragusa is another of the current crop of Euro games that offers a lot of different ways to win. When all’s said and done, the player with the most VPs wins, but there’s a lot of ways to get those VPs. It’s not my idea of a point salad, where scoring is all over the shop, but there are choices to make.

The Wharf and Market actions let you influence market prices and trade goods for luxury goods and VPs. It’s a really interesting little economy game that a lot of worker placements don’t do. If commerce doesn’t float your boat, you can choose to build towers and the city walls, to protect the city (which is now Dubrovnik, geography fans).

Players get their own secret bonus cards to score, based on what they’ve accomplished during the game. I really like these bonus cards, as they give players some direction, and it means even if you get squeezed out of a certain action’s area, there are still plenty of ways to win.

The astute among you might have noticed that I said at the top of the review that a turn is placing a building, and that each player has 12 buildings. You don’t have to be Carol Vorderman to realise that means you get 12 turns each. This means there are no unexpected endings, and every player knows exactly when the game will end. I love the drama of revealing your bonus cards at the end and watching hearts get broken as you overtake people who thought they had it in the bag.

First impressions count

Initially, Ragusa was an odd one for me. I pride myself on being able to understand a game pretty easily from the rule book, but I read and re-read the rules, and I tried a two-handed learning game, but I just could not get my head around it. I’m not sure why exactly, but I think some of it is around the lack of visual delineation on the game board. Using the standard side of the board, I found it very difficult to tell what was a country space, and what was a city space. The same goes for the line where the wall gets created, it’s just tricky to see at a glance. Luckily, if you flip the board over, all of these spaces are highlighted better.

I’d strongly advise learning to play the game on the higher-contrast side for the first couple of games, then using the more aesthetically pleasing side when you’re happy.

The other trick is to get all thoughts of city-building out of your head. It’s a worker-placement game, with permanent placement. If you go into Ragusa with this in mind, it makes it all make more sense. Resource spaces are around the outside, actions spaces are in the middle. This ‘permanent placement with cumulative activation effects’ style of play will be immediately familiar with anyone who’s played Fabio’s more recent game, Merv.

The Patrician

Solo players will be pleased to know there’s a very fleshed-out solo game mode. It treats it as a three-player game, with you versus the powerful Patrician. He’s recently married into more money, and is using his in-laws’ cash and influence in addition to his own. That’s why you have two additional colours and player boards to operate, according to the rule book. If the thought of running two bots on top of your own turn is giving you headaches and palpitations, don’t worry. Bot turns are as simple as turning a card and seeing which spot to add a building to, then giving it its resources and actions as if it were a person.

The solo mode reserves a load of building spaces during the setup, so you know where they’ll be building, which is a little different to a normal game. In a way it’s pretty good though, as you can see where is available, and try to build a strategy around it. The bots are extremely well balanced. I played two full solo games just before sitting down to write this review, and my last game saw me win with 118, second place with 114, and third place with 110. Yeah, get me, solo flexing.

Final Thoughts

Let me start this summary by saying, I really like Ragusa. I think it’s a very good game, with great indirect interaction and lots of tricky decisions to make. With that out of the way, I can say that this was almost going to be a very different review for me. My first couple of plays just didn’t click for me. I found it complicated and unrewarding. BUT, it’s a game that gets better and better with subsequent plays.

My initial worries were around the lack of variance in the setup. If I make the comparison with Merv again, in which every time the game is setup, the resource tile placements are completely random. In Ragusa, the action and resource spots are always in the same places. I didn’t like that at first, because it felt like every game had a set pattern. Your first placement always has to be a forest space, to get the wood you need to place that building, then you’ll get stone and try to claim an early city space, and so on. The more I play though, the more I realise that the permanent spots are a strength, not a weakness.

It doesn’t matter that the Silversmith (for example) is always in the same place, because there are six places around it to choose, and each of those will give you the benefit of two other hexes too. With random placement the grapes may have all ended up next to the winery, making those things very powerful and something to fight over. The way the game is designed though, this is impossible, and I really appreciate it now.

Personal space

The city feels very crowded at times. There are buildings, wall segments, and those cool little towers that straddle buildings, and they’re crammed in around the edge of the city. And then there are the names of the spaces, the iconography, and all of the illustrated buildings. There are a couple of building spaces where you almost can’t see the arrow which shows whether actions get triggered for everyone or not. It’s not a big deal when you’re used to it, but it can add to the difficulty when you first learn the game. You’ll find yourself peering under the towers to see what colour building is underneath to make sure everyone gets all the actions they’re entitled to.

I recommend getting a learning play or two in, and maybe even showing new players a couple of example placements before you start the game proper. Even for me with a lot of experience with worker-placement, it still took me a few turns to get my head around. Once you understand it though, the game opens up and becomes a lot of fun. I’ve played games in the past where doing something might provide a benefit to someone as a side-effect, but never to this degree. It makes some of the choices you have to make really tricky, but it’s a fantastic mental tussle. Every time I’ve played it so far, I’ve enjoyed it a bit more than the previous time, and even just writing this paragraph now makes me want to open the box and set it up for another game. I think if you have a regular group Ragusa could get very competitive.

I really like how the game starts off slowly, and by the end, single placements trigger these avalanches of actions. The first couple of turns are simple, and you might get one or two things, but in those eleventh and twelfth turns you’re triggering so much stuff happening for so many people, and it’s enormously satisfying. I think Ragusa is most fun with three or four players, but I haven’t managed to get a five player game in yet.

If you’re after a worker-placement game that does things a little different, or you’re a fan of Fabio Lopiano’s other work, I think you’ll really enjoy Ragusa. As with Venice before, there’s a Tabletop Simulator mod right here, so you can try the game now.

Review copy kindly provided by Braincrack Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Image credits

¹ Dr Meeple

Ragusa (2019) – Braincrack Games

Designer: Fabio Lopiano
Publisher: Braincrack Games
Art: Bartlomiej Roczniak
Players: 1-5
Playing time: 45-90 minutes

The post Ragusa Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Venice is a gorgeous-looking mix of worker placement and pick-up and deliver mechanisms. Players move their gondolier between their two gondolas, navigating the famous canals, and leaving their apprentices in the various buildings and businesses of the 16th century setting. The trouble is, rival merchants are trying to do the same, increasing their influence in the city. While all this political and mercantile posturing is happening, players have to be careful not to raise too much suspicion, otherwise they might find themselves on the wrong end of the Venetian Inquisition.

Staying afloat

Venice is a really simple game to play, on a mechanical level at least. Move your little plastic gondola along, pay any costs for the distance travelled, resolve any passing of rivals, and pick up or deliver stuff. You can place your assistants in the buildings around the map, but there aren’t enough to place one in every building, so there are some tricky choices to make. The longer an assistant remains in a building, the more powerful and influential they become, and the greater the rewards for coming back. Make money, spend money, buy stuff, complete missions with the stuff – you know the score.

There are a set number of missions available, and when the last mission card is drawn the end of the game is triggered. The same thing happens when someone reaches a preset level on the Major Council track. When that happens, scores are tallied, and to the victor – the spoils. In a really interesting twist for a Euro game though, if a player ends the game with any amount of intrigue on their player board, and has the most among the players, they instantly get arrested and lose! I wasn’t prepared for this, it’s a really unusual thing for a game like this, so make sure all the players are aware of it before the first game starts. Playing a game for an hour then finding out it was all for nothing is a real kick in the teeth, and not something you want your friends and family to experience.

Actually, maybe that’s exactly what you want. Luckily, I’m not here to judge you.

Decisions, decisions

I really like Venice. It does something really clever, because it takes a medium weight game, and makes it feel much heavier. It feels like you have loads of decisions to make, but in reality, most of the time there are only a few valid ones. All of the missions are similar: collect a load of orange, purple and/or grey cubes (ceramics, cloth and silver respectively), go to the correct building, turn in the cubes to complete a mission card. There are only a few moves you can, or would want to make when you move your gondola, because only the first move is free. Every stop afterwards costs money.

What makes this feel deeper is the variance in setup. The locations of the buildings are changed every time you play, and there’s a deck of intrigue cards you can draw from to give you one-off bonuses. It means you can’t go into your next game thinking “I really ought to get my assistants in the church and library this time“, because they’ll probably be in completely different places.

Deep theme

I really like how well the theme has been baked into the gameplay. It’s not something I can always say about a Euro game, but it’s true with Venice. Let me give you a couple of examples.

If your gondola moves past another player’s, you have a choice – give them a scroll (like currency) as a bribe, or word gets around the canals that you’re up to something, and your intrigue level grow. Intrigue is a bad thing. So how do you get rid of intrigue? Easy, head to the library or church and get your assistants working there. After all, who’s not going to trust a man of the cloth or a librarian? At both locations, you can actively reduce your intrigue.

Alternatively, maybe you’ve planted someone in the mint. Sure, they can sneak you some money out when you visit them, but at the cost of suspicion, and raising the intrigue level again. It’s little details like this that make Venice feel like more than a game which has been built around some mechanisms, and then had a theme stickered over the top.

Man overboard

I think it’s only fair to mention the plastic gondolas that come with the game. Yes, they are incredibly cute, and many a grown man will have no choice but to make motorboat noises as they drive them around the board. Yes, it’s also very cool how they have the perfect space to carry up to five cubes in the front (the most you’re allowed to carry), and a little place for the gondolier to stand at the back. BUT, they also have a little plastic post and lantern on them. It looks really cool, but I find it nearly impossible to get the cubes and gondolier in and out of the boat because of it.

The number of times I’ve caught the post with my hand and accidentally tipped the boat over and spilled everything, or tried to move the gondolier and done the same, isn’t funny. It’s especially annoying when you’ll be moving the gondolier between your gondolas on nearly every turn. It got to the stage where I was just placing him next to the boat each time. I think the problem can be solved by just chopping the post off, which I’ll probably end up doing. Your mileage may vary of course, but I’ve got big hands (strangler’s hands I’ve been told) and it was annoying enough for me to write this.

Otherwise though, the component and art quality is top-notch, and I love what Braincrack do by putting little colour-coded cardboard boxes in the game. Each player can just lift theirs out and have everything they need in it.

One man and his Doge

Anyone who spotted Dávid Turczi‘s name at the top of this review will be pleased to know there’s a solo mode included. Along with Xavi Bordes, he’s added the Doge as an opponent. No… not that doge, meme fans. The Doge was the head of state for Venice back in the day.

It runs really smoothly, and in a change to a lot of automa opponents, you get to choose which card gets used on each turn, from a choice of two. In line with every Turczi solo opponent I’ve played against, there are options in the rule book to make the game easier or more difficult, should you want to do either. The Doge is a tough opponent, and it really reflects the feeling of a multiplayer game.

Venice – a summary

Venice is a great game. I don’t own many games where the distance you can move per turn is a factor. The closest I usually come to that is a rondel. I’ve played pick-up and deliver games in the past, but none felt as mature as Venice. The gondolas are annoying to handle (for me at least), but as I mentioned above, I think I can fix that with a sharp knife. The theme is really well implemented, and a lot of what’s happening makes sense and is logical. Mooring spots get really cramped when more than one boat is there, and there’s a feeling of claustrophobia and narrowness when you’re trying to make your way around the canals.

I think the sweet spot for Venice is three players. Anything more and it feels very busy, and it’s hard to tell from a glance what’s happening. I like the way two-player games are handled, where the game gives each player a smuggler deck and an extra gondola. The smugglers act as dummy players you control. I know some people really dislike dummy players, but these are more active and under your control, and without them the board would feel empty. That said, I’d try to introduce new players with a three-player game, so they lose the overhead of trying to run a smuggler as well as their own turn.

Intrigue

At first the insta-lose condition of having the most intrigue left at the end of the game was jarring for me, but it’s something I really enjoy now. Intrigue is like a bad commodity you can spend during the game, you just have to keep an eye on the board and make sure you clear it before the game ends. You get a two round countdown when the end is triggered, so it’s not quite as harsh as it sounds, and you get an opportunity to reduce it with left-over money and scrolls.

Venice is a smart, easy-to-learn Euro, with a nice level of player interactivity. Each time I play it, it feels fresh, and I love the feeling of a sprint finish with the end-game is triggered. If you’re a Euro game fan and there’s space in your collection for something a bit different, I really recommend giving it a try. There’s an official Tabletop Simulator mod here you can try right now!

Review copy kindly provided by Braincrack Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Image credits

¹ Matt @ BoardgameShot
² Ross @ More Games Please

Venice (2021) – Braincrack Games

Designers: Andrei Novac, Dávid Turczi
Publisher: Braincrack Games
Art: Bartlomiej Roczniak
Players: 1-5
Playing time: 70-100 minutes

The post Venice Review appeared first on Punchboard.