Once bitten…

When I first heard that there was going to be a cardboard version of Anno 1800, I was equal parts excited and skeptical. I’ve see far too many terrible adaptations from one form of media to another to not assume the worst. Having Martin Wallace’s name on the box helped ease that worry though, as he’s responsible for some of the greatest games ever made (Brass: Birmingham, London, A Few Acres of Snow among others). Some of the things you do in the Anno games seem like a natural fit for a board game, like generating resources, and building. The exploration and expansion, not so much.

Despite my misgivings, I went out and bought it as soon as it was released. Don’t judge me, I’m weak. The first thing I should tell you is that it really does feel like an Anno game. Not only that, but it feels like Anno 1800, which is a game I’ve played a lot of on the PC. The game could easily have been called ‘Here’s a massive box of tiles’, because that’s what it is. There are a lot of tiles in the game, but more on that in a bit. The core of the game revolves around a concept of creating resources on your player board, and using them to upgrade and build new buildings (tiles) on that same board.

By the time you’ve played a few games, you could probably get a job in logistics somewhere. Supply chain management is what we’re dealing with here, it’s what all the cool kids are into. What starts off as a game of generating a few basic goods, slowly snowballs into an intricate machine, fine-tuned to produce those all-important victory points. These VPs come from a few different sources, including exploring the Old and New world, and enticing new citizens to your blossoming township.

Sandboxes

Plenty of games claim to offer a ‘sandbox’ experience, but very few truly deliver it. Having set victory conditions and round structure in a game will always mean it’s on-rails to some extent. This creates a problem when trying to recreate a sandbox-style game – a game just like the Anno series. Martin Wallace has done a great job in being able to capture the open-ended feel of Anno 1800, and creating a board game which feels familiar.

There are no rounds or phases during the game. The only game-ending condition is when a player plays the last card from their hand. That might sound like a definite line in the sand, but it isn’t, as you’re constantly drawing and playing cards. Far from being an easily observable event on the horizon, triggering the end of the game takes some deliberate planning. The fact that the end of the game is player-driven led to some concerns from the community, me included. If playing cards is how to score points, and playing your final card ends the game, why wouldn’t you just keep drawing and playing to amass a crazy number of points?

In some ways, it’s a valid concern. You can play that way if you want to, but the reality of it is that this doesn’t really happen. Sure, I’ve seen some games dragged-out longer than necessary, but the worry about it turning into a never-ending slog doesn’t materialise. There comes a point where you are happy with what you’ve created, and if that doesn’t happen for you, it will for someone else, and the game ends anyway.

Discovery

Anno 1800 is a game of discovery, and I’m not just talking about the way you can explore the Old and New World to add new lands to your player area. I’m talking about the way the systems click into place, and questions you’re asking yourself get answered as you play and experiment. For example, printed on your player board is a tile which produces bricks if you use red worker cubes. There’s another brick tile you can buy and add to your board which uses a different colour worker cube, and I remember thinking “Why would I ever want that one?”. Later in the game, due to the industries I’d built, I found myself really wanting that new tile.

That moment, when something clicks in your brain, is delightful. You can see the things you want on the table in front of you, like a tempting cardboard buffet, but you’re not sure how to get them. When you finally get the infrastructure right on your board, it’s like the pins in a tumbler lock lining up. Everything falls into place, and it’s so satisfying. There is so much to build and make that you can play it over and over, and approach it differently each time. The basic necessities underpinning everything are the same each time, but the different options open to you feel like a proper tech tree from a computer game.

How many…?

I want to talk about the components for a moment. I love the jigsaw-style main board, and the tiles that represent all of the buildings, boats, etc. are really well-made. But there are so many of them. The main board is a market to buy tiles from, and there are spots for 48 different kinds. That’s 48 individual piles of tiles on the board. FORTY-EIGHT. That’s in addition to the four decks of cards, the exploration tiles, the worker cubes, and the money tokens.

This shouldn’t be a problem, I’m reviewing the game after all, not the setup. It’s a genuine consideration though. Every time you set the game up, or pack it away afterwards, the tiles need sorting. Then you’re left with the choice of throwing them all in a big bag, like the world’s most bland pick-n-mix, or finding a ton of little baggies to sort them into. It became so annoying and time-consuming that I 3D-printed a box insert that doubles as a tile-holder.

Final thoughts

I’m very happy to be able to tell you that Anno 1800 is an excellent game. I love the Anno PC games, and really admire Martin Wallace’s games, so I worried I’d be disappointed. These franchise tie-ins seldom deliver something great, but Anno 1800 does that rarest of things, and delivers on its implied promises. Not only is it a great game, it also manages to feel like Anno 1800. It’s a heck of an achievement.

The number of tiles in the box bothers me, as you might have noticed. When you consider that the game on its own is going to take you a good couple of hours to play, the fiddliness of trying to place nearly 50 stacks of tiles on a board without much space between them is a pain. Definitely set this one up before people arrive for game night.

Anno 1800 is a pretty heavy game, and without the friendly easing-in that the video game gives by way of tutorials, it’s one which might be just too much for some people. Understanding how the various tiles and cards work together takes a little time, but it’s worth the investment. I’ve got other engine/tableau building games, but none feel quite like this. If you’ve got the three hours you’ll likely need to setup, play, and put the game away, Anno 1800 is very, very good. Another potential Martin Wallace classic, and a must for fans of the franchise.

Anno 1800 (2021)

Designer: Martin Wallace
Publisher: Kosmos Games
Art: Fiore GmbH
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 120 mins

The post Anno 1800 (Board Game) Review appeared first on Punchboard.

The Mazescape games, from publishers Devir and Kosmos Games, are a series of small box games. They’re designed to be played solo, and use a novel game system. Each level of the game is a piece of paper, folded up like a map. Your aim in each level is to navigate the ever-changing maze, visiting as many of the collectibles as possible, before finally heading to the impossible triangle at the end of the maze.

Stick to it

How you navigate the maze is what makes this game different to any I’ve played before. The map/maze starts folded up, and you press the end of the included stick on the starting point. From there, you just trace a path along any white path, following any tunnels or stairs, but never taking the stick off the paper.

This doesn’t get you very far before you hit a dead end, or the edge of the paper, so what then? When that happens you unfold or refold a part of the paper and retrace your steps onto a new part of the crazy maze. Mazescape’s maps will see you folding horizontally and vertically, inside and out, but never lifting your stick off the path. If you’ve ever played the mobile game Monument Valley, you’ll know how these paths works.

If you want to see how it works for yourself, there’s an online version you can play right now, by clicking here.

What a tangled web we weave

There’s really not much more to Mazescape Labyrinthos. Pick a map, get going, and see how quickly and thoroughly you can solve it. The mazes start fairly easy, but by the time you get to the seventh – and final – sheet, you’re in for a stiff challenge, especially if you want to tick off all the collectibles on the included checklists. If you don’t like mazes, this probably isn’t a game for you, but if you enjoy exercising your little grey cells, you’ll find these puzzles really engaging.

It’s not a massively deep, or long-lasting game, but it’s not competing for that space on your shelf. It’s the sort of thing you could take to the pub, or your parents’ house, and spend an hour exercising your brain. You’ll find yourself telling yourself little stories – “I need to get here, and to get there I need to go here first, but how do I get there?” – and trying to reverse-engineer the parts of the maze you want to get to. By the time you finish one of the more difficult mazes, you’ll feel mentally drained, but very pleased with yourself.

Mazescape Labyrinthos is a really unique little game. I’ve never played anything else even remotely like it, and when I did some detective work online, the closest thing I could find was Friedemann Friese’s Folders. Amazingly, the two games were developed concurrently on opposite sides of the world. Mazescape’s designers in Chile, however, created a much more involved, and polished game.

Final thoughts

I think there’s a wide range of people that Mazescape will appeal to, and that group of people includes gamers and non-gamers alike. It would make an excellent backpack game for a weekend’s camping, or a gift for someone who likes puzzles. I really like the fact that there’s no setup and tear-down time, and that I can easily play a maze or two inside half an hour. You’ll glimpse the end of the maze and things you need to find as you’re folding the pages back and forth, teasing you, compelling you to complete it.

The graphic design is great, and the concept and execution is very clever. The satisfaction you’ll take from finishing each maze is a great feeling. Just remember that these are quick-fix games, designed to be played casually and quickly, by yourself. If you’re looking for a game you’re going to get hours and hours of involved play from, get yourself something else from Devir’s catalogue, like the excellent The Red Cathedral.

If you want something a bit different however, something to fill a special niche, or if you’re looking for a gift for the gamer who (probably) has everything, Mazescape Labyrinthos is a great choice. Especially when you consider it’s only going to set you back just over £10. What a clever, unique little game. Top stuff.

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

Mazescape Labyrinthos (2021)

Designers: Pablo Céspedes, Víctor Hugo Cisternas
Publisher: Devir Games
Art: Ivana Gahona
Players: 1
Playing time: 5-90 mins

The post Mazescape Labyrinthos Review appeared first on Punchboard.

The idea of Targi is pretty simple really. A desert tableau of cards is placed on the table, and players take turns to place their meeples on the border cards. Doing this blocks players on the same row or column, and then the resources each player gathers for the cards they claim can be spent on tribal cards, which give victory points.

It’s maybe not the most exciting theme to spring to mind for many people, and it doesn’t even have a board. So it must be doing something right to be sat just outside the top 100 on BGG. Maybe it’s the components?

What’s In The Box?

Hmm, well, the components are nothing to write home about. Inside this small box – which is that standard small box size now, like 7 Wonders: Duel – are:

• Two sets of player pieces – three Targi markers and two tribal markers each
• One grey ‘robber’ meeple
• A load of resource tiles – dates, salt, pepper, gold coins and silver cross victory point markers
• 16 ‘Edge cards’, which mark the boundary of the game
• 45 Tribal cards
• 19 Goods cards
• A rule book
• A nice little first player silver tile.

That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with the box contents. In fact, I really like the fact it’s so simple. In the days where setting up something like Anachrony feels like a task in itself, being able to tip a little box onto a table and be up and running in five minutes is a really nice feeling.

The cards are standard issue, the little wooden player pieces like nice with the white and pale blue contrast, and the card tiles for resources are sturdy enough. It’s not going to blow your mind, but you wouldn’t expect it to for a game that costs less than £20. So why should you, or anyone else, bother with this game over countless other small box offerings?

How Does It Play?

Now we’re getting into the good bit, the meat in this sandwich. Because desert… sand… never mind.

Setup and Gameplay

The edge cards are all numbered, and form the outer border of a 5×5 grid on the table. They always go down in the same order. Then five goods and four tribal cards follow the pattern in the rule book and fill in the space in the middle, to make our 25 card desert. The grey robber meeple goes on card number one, and each round moves onto the next card, blocking it from use.

Players take turns to place their three tribe meeples on the outer border cards, alternately. They can put them anywhere they like, as long as they meet the basic rules:

• You may not place on a corner ‘raid’ card
• You may not place on a card where any other meeple is, including the robber
• You may not place your meeple directly opposite one your opponent’s

That last one, about not playing opposite, that’s where the tactics stem from, Once all the meeples are placed, the players place their tribal markers (little round wooden discs) on the cards that mark the intersections of their meeples, like in the picture below.

Now the first player (the first player marker switches between the players at the start of each round) retrieves their pieces, taking whatever goods or actions are on the cards. For the edge cards, that can be as simple as taking a pepper or salt, or maybe using the trader to sell three identical goods for a gold coin. There are lots of options, I won’t go into all of them here. For the cards in the middle, it depends what kind of cards they’re retrieving.

Building Your Tribes

Goods cards from the middle just give you the resources shown, and then go onto the discard pile. Tribal cards, however, are different. Each has a cost on the top, a number of goods and/or coins. If you can pay those goods, you can place it in front of you. In the lower corner, the victory points are shown.

Your tribal cards can be laid out in a grid of three rows of four cards, always adding from the left. Any effects on those cards are instantly added to the game, so for example you might have one that says any time you add another Oasis card to your display, you pay one less resource. If, at the end of the game, your rows of cards have four matching types (there are Oasis, Well, Targi, Camel Rider and Tent) in, you get an additional four VPs. If all four in a row are all different, you get an extra two VPs instead,

If you can’t pay for the card immediately, you can keep one card in hand. To play it later, you need to have the resources and place a meeple on the Noble edge card. Unless, of course, you’re holding it just because you don’t want the other person to have it. But you wouldn’t be that sneaky, would you?

This is where the competition comes in, and makes the game come alive.

Competition Time!

Everything in the game is public knowledge, so both players can see both players’ tribal tableau and resources. Placing your meeples and blocking rows, columns and intercepts is a fine balancing act between claiming the things you want and stopping the other player from getting what they want. When you consider this is essentially a Eurogame, the level of interaction – if not direct – is really high.

You constantly need to be aware of what tribal cards are up for grabs, what resources the other person has, what powers their cards might grant them to change the cost or effects, what kind of tribal cards they might be after for their tableau. And all the while you’re trying to do the same for yourself. Just to top things off, when the robber gets to a corner card, there’s a raid, and both players have to give up increasing amounts of goods or victory points to the thieving grey git.

The end of the game is triggered by either the robber completing his lap of the edge cards, or one player adding the twelfth card to their display. Players count up the VP tiles they have, the VPs from their tribal cards, any bonuses for rows, and finally any bonuses your tribal cards might give you (e.g. ‘you get one VP for every two well cards in your display). The player with the most, wins.

Final Thoughts

Targi packs a lot of game in a small box. It’s one of those gems that’s really easy to learn, and as soon as those first couple of turns are over, the rules disappear into the background, leaving the players to play the game. That might not make much sense to you, but compare it to a really heavy Eurogame like Paladins of the West Kingdom, or Bonfire, and see how many times you need to plan your moves ahead with the help of the rulebook. With Targi, the (small) rulebook can stay in the box for the entire game.

The gameplay is gloriously simple, but offers so many tactical choices with every single placement. The internal conflict in the late game, trying to decide whether to get something you need or to stop your opponent getting something they really need, leads to some really interesting decisions.

This is a game where you’ll spend a lot of time going ‘Ooooh you $@*&, I wanted that!“, or helpfully suggesting they might need that thing on that card, because you’ve secretly got your eye on something you don’t want them to block.

It’s not a game dripping with theme, after all it’s some cards on a table which are meant to represent a barren desert, so it’s probably not going to appeal to people who like a load of minis marching around slaughtering one another. But once you abstract the game from the theme, it’s a fiercely competitive, closely-fought battle of strategy, misdirection and optimal play.

I’m a massive fan of Targi, and I only wish I’d bought it sooner than this year. One thing’s for certain though, I’ll always have a copy in my collection, and I’ve already got the expansion on my wishlist. If you’ve got a regular ‘player two’ it’s a must-have in my opinion. Andy Steiger, the designer of the game, has also released a solo variant which makes a good alternative if you find yourself on your own and wanting to play. You can download it here.

The post Targi Review appeared first on Punchboard.