No grout required

In the Footsteps of Darwin is a game about collecting tiles from a central board and putting them on your own board, in order to score points. I know, it sounds thrilling. Be still my beating heart. While that might not sound that exciting a premise, the way it’s wrapped up in its theme is great. You see, you’re junior naturalists on board Charles Darwin’s famous Beagle, and you’ve got to help Chuck study animals and write all about them.

The animals on offer are one of four types (mammals, birds, reptiles, invertebrates) and come from one of four parts of the world (The Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania). As luck would have it, your player boards have 16 spaces for animal tiles on. One for every type from every place. What were the chances of that? On your turn you claim a tile from the row or column of the 3×3 grid that the little wooden Beagle pawn is next to and put it in its space on your player board. For instance the Moose would go on the purple (America) space with the mammal icon. A place for everything and everything in its place.

You’ll be pleased to know that it’s not just a case of trying to pick up the 16 different tiles to fill your board. This isn’t Patchwork, and there’s some strategy involved. Complete a row or column and you write a publication (i.e. take a little book token worth 5 VPs) about that place or that class of animal. However, you can also collect a tile of a type you’ve already taken, and place the new one on top of the existing one. When you do this you can take an additional theory token, which earns you points at the end of the game if you fulfil the things it wants you to.

Survival of the fittest

What seems like a very by-the-numbers set-collecting game soon peels back its friendly facade to reveal a game with a lot of potential for interaction. There are a load of different theory tokens for end-of-game VPs with lots of different criteria, and lots of them have some crossover. One player might be trying to collect tiles for the bottom-right quadrant of their board, while another is collecting reptiles, and a third wants Oceania tiles. The Saltwater Crocodile on the main board satisfies all of those criteria, meaning all three players might want it, so competition can get pretty spicy.

The only way you can keep players away from tiles is to make sure the Beagle pawn is in a different row and column from the one your precious snap-snap is in. The Beagle moves a number of spaces around the 3×3 grid after you take a tile, and that number is the same as the number of spaces away from the beagle your chosen tile was. Take the one next to you, it’s one space, the middle is two spaces, and the furthest is three. So you can dictate where the next player has to take their tile from by deciding how far the Beagle moves. In the spirit of competition though, there’s some mitigation you can do.

Claiming a tile gets you a bonus at the same time. It might be something to aid end-game scoring, or it might be a guide token. Guide tokens are really cool. You can spend a guide to either move the Beagle one step in either direction or to replace the tiles you’re about to pick from and deal out three new ones in their place.

In the Footsteps of Darwin is a game which will have you cursing your fellow players. You’ll catch yourself muttering “I can’t believe you took my wombat!”, and no one will bat an eyelid. Such an utterance is totally normal. In a game where you only get 12 turns and each turn only takes a few seconds, every wombat matters.

And there’s, like, one wombat.

Final thoughts

In the Footsteps of Darwin surprised me. I was surprised at how fast and light the game is. Seriously, you’ll be finished inside half an hour, and it’s rare for me to play a game that’s so brief which I enjoy so much. And it’s not just me, even my family like it. My wife suggested we play it again straight after her first game, and that’s practically unheard of. It’s light enough that anyone can grasp the rules in a minute or so, but still fun enough to try to maximise your scoring when you know what you’re doing. For a game this quick, there’s a surprising amount of strategy mixed in, and I like it a lot.

I was also surprised at how thematic they’ve managed to make such a fun little game. Study all the species in an area of the world, or study lots of the same kind of animal from all around the world and you get to write a book. Makes sense, right? If you research an animal type in a part of the world that you’ve already researched, you develop a greater understanding of its potential evolution and get to take a new theory. Again, it makes sense. When you tie it all together with the appendix book that talks about Darwin’s voyages and describes in his words the animals he encountered, it’s a really neatly presented package.

I think the only way In the Footsteps of Darwin could disappoint you is if you go into the game expecting something that it’s not. It’s not heavy. It doesn’t take long. It doesn’t have tons of pieces. In other words, it’s not Darwin’s Journey, another excellent, but much heavier game based on the same theme. You set it up in a matter of minutes, play a game, and have it all back in the box 30 minutes later, and you have a blast while you play it. What’s not to love?

At the time of writing (June 2024) I’ve no idea what will win the SdJ, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this game does. If it does, it deserves to. It’s a cracking little game which blew my expectations out of the water.

Review copy kindly provided by Hachette Boardgames UK. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

In The Footsteps Of Darwin (2023)

Design: Grégory Grard, Matthieu Verdier
Publisher: Sorry We Are French
Art: Maud Briand, David Sitbon
Players: 2-5
Playing time: 20-30 mins

The post In The Footsteps Of Darwin Review appeared first on Punchboard.

“Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak”

The game takes place around the time of the Irish potato famine. You play as young Irish prisoners, jailed for what was in many cases, trivial crimes, such as stealing food or milk to stay alive. The British warders are the bad guys of the piece, doing their best to detain you while you make your own bids for freedom. I’ll admit to being surprised that the theme was so prescribed. This could have been any fictional prison, from any period of time, but it isn’t. It’s a very specific time and place and is set in a very real prison on Spike Island. While I don’t think it does anything to turn it into a joke or to milk it for some kind of comedic value, the cutesy screen-printed meeples are maybe at odds with the setting.

During the game, you collect rectangular tiles, each with one or two spaces on them. As the game goes on you collectively create the prison you’re trying to escape as you add more and more tiles to the tabletop. The aim of the game is to get six squares away from the center of the prison, where you can lay outer forest tiles, and hopefully escape through too. You do this by collecting tools and contraband, trading contraband for more tools, and manipulating where the warders are at any given time. Keys let you move through locked doors, files through barred windows, and spoons through tunnels which act as teleporters around the map.

It seems like such a simple concept. Like the sort of game you might play with your Carcassonne-loving family. In truth though it’s a much tighter, thinky sort of game. It’s a game that demands careful planning and timing if you don’t want to end up shackled or in solitary confinement.

Get busy living, or get busy dying

In each of your turns, you get to add a tile to the prison, matching one of the spaces on the tile with an existing one, and making sure the doors and windows match up. After that, you get to use the tiles for other things. You can use them for their tools, shown on opposite corners of the tiles, to move from space to space. If you’re in the right spaces, you can also add tiles to your inventory as contraband, which you can later trade for tools to do something useful with. Being in the right spaces, however, is tricky. Each different piece of contraband can only be collected from a particular type of space, so you need to make sure you’re in that space and have the tiles in your hand that you want to stash for later. This is all while you’re trying to escape from prison.

You can also discard tiles with whistles on to move the warders from room to room, typically towards your opponents. If a warder ends up in a space with a prisoner, and that space isn’t the type expected by the warder (there’s a track to one side that shows where you need to be), you can end up shackled and thrown back in your bunk. It gives the game this desperate, almost panicked feeling which is something I don’t feel too often in games. In a game where end-of-game scoring awards you one VP for a piece of contraband in your possession, and two for a tool, the five VPs on offer for making it over the wall to freedom are huge.

Managing all of this is tricky. Planning where and what you’re going to build is one thing, but at the same time, you’re keeping track of how close to freedom the other players appear to be, as well as keeping an eye on the warders, making sure you’re in the right type of spaces to collect contraband, and having the right tools to move from tile to tile, and having the necessary tools in your inventory for the final escape. It’s not like it’s impossible, far from it, it’s just a step up from laying tiles in something like Kingdomino, for instance.

Final thoughts

After the size and scale of Mark’s previous game, Feudum, my first thought on hearing about Fled was one of “Is this his filler game before the next big one?”. The truth, however, is a game whose depth exceeds the small size of the box. I didn’t want to go with the age-old axiom of ‘It’s a big game in a small box’ (too late), but it is. By the time you get toward the end of the game, the labyrinthine jail you’ve created is equal parts impressive and challenging. Navigating it needs planning, thought, and consideration.

It might not be for you if you’re after the weight and experience of Feudum, or if you want something chock-full of Euro game mechanisms, because it’s neither of those things. Instead, it’s a solid, medium-weight tile layer with plenty to think about. I found the rules tricky to pick up at first, but once you understand the core concepts and placement rules, it’s a very smooth experience. I found the icons on the corners of the tiles hard to read at times, but it’s worth remembering that I played with a prototype copy of Fled. A very polished prototype, but a prototype all the same.

I want to give a special mention to the artwork while I’ve got your attention. Klemens Franz is an artist whose name slips by the radar for most people, but you’ve all seen it, and you’ve all enjoyed games with his brushstrokes on, from Agricola through to Grand Austria Hotel, his style is unique and really lends itself to the game.

I found I enjoyed Fled more each time I played it. Once the concepts become second nature and the mechanisms become transparent, it’s a crafty, enjoyable puzzle that plays quickly, doesn’t take up much space, and looks gorgeous. If Fled sounds like your sort of game you can check it out or get notified of its release on Kickstarter by clicking this link.

Preview copy kindly provided by Odd Bird Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Fled (2024)

Designer: Mark Swanson
Publisher: Odd Bird Games
Art: Klemens Franz
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 45-80 mins

The post Fled Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

Hideous Abomination is back with a disgusting refresh for 2023. I looked at the original a while ago, and this new 2nd edition takes everything that made it fun and adds to it. There are some great quality-of-life improvements, such as drawing more cards and forcing a small hand limit to create three discard piles. A new Dig action lets players take a discard pile and search through it to find body parts in it, and this is great because it creates more churn, and means you’ll see more parts cards more often. There’s a full list of the changes and improvements right here.

The way bolts and stealing work is changed and feels a lot cleaner, and there’s a new side of the die which sees more of the Award cards churned out, and they’re not secret. This is great because now your monster with five heads, one hand, and eleven feet might be worth more points at the end of the game. Speaking of the die, the physical die itself is new and looks like a vertebra! I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

When the new campaign goes live in the summer, it’ll be your chance to get the best version of Hideous Abomination. For families looking for something quick and easy to play and have a really good laugh with, Hideous Abomination is great. Don’t believe me? Just ask my ten-year-old son, who was extremely annoyed to find out that I had to send my preview copy on to the next reviewer. For less than 20 quid, backing it is an easy recommendation for me.

Original Review

Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a Doctor Frankenstein? Did you spend your childhood drawing weird and wonderful creatures and monsters? If so, I think Hideous Abomination might be the game for you. It’s a lightweight card game in a cool, cube-shaped box from Tettix Games. Gameplay is simple, but with plenty of scope for strategy, with a bit of take-that fun thrown in the mix.

Making monsters is cool. That’s not just my opinion, that’s a fact (probably). I’m sure many of you played that game when you were kids, where you draw a part of a creature and fold the paper down, then pass it to your neighbour for them to add a part on, and so on. Afterwards, you unfold the paper and roll around in hysterics at the bonkers beasts you’ve made. In writing this review I found out something I never knew before, that that game is called ‘Exquisite Corpse‘, and now you know it too. Well, Hideous Abomination is like a deluxe version of that game, but with proper rules, scoring and no artistic skill needed.

The game is really easy to learn. You start with a torso card – pick the one you think is cutest or most disgusting, whatever floats your board – and then roll a die. That die will let you do things like take a body part card from the market on the table and add it to your monster, steal a part from someone else’s monster, or maybe even bolt parts onto your monster so no-one else can take them. You just have to follow the rule that says that loose ends (connecting edges) have to meet, and you can’t leave an unfinished arm/leg/tentacle/what-the-heck-is-that-bit-coming-out-of-its-neck?.

Monster mash

While you’re picking what parts to add to your own abomination, you can check the award cards in play. These show you which body parts will score at the end of the game. For example, the cards might show that you want as many teeth, horns, and legs on your creature as possible at the end, as those are what give you bonuses. That means competition for those parts is really high, and you’ll find yourself praying for bolts sometimes to secure those really good bits you’ve stitched onto your creation.

As well as these scoring cards though, you’re also competing to finish your monster first, and to have lots of body parts in the same colour, as these things score too. It’s daft, hysterical fun the whole way through, and if you’re playing with kids, the chances are a lot of the time they completely ignore the scoring cards. And that’s okay, it’s meant to be fun.

Judson Cowan is the man behind the monsters, and he hand-drew every single one of the 190(!) body parts. This game was never a quick “make a monster game to make some cash” affair, it was a personal project with a lot of care and attention to detail lavished at every step. The cards themselves are hard-wearing and feel nice to shuffle and play with. We’ve played it inside, outside on a picnic table, on the carpet with the dog, and just about anywhere else you can think of, and the cards still look brand new.

I have fun playing it whenever it’s brought out, which is often. The random scoring tiles mean there’s plenty of scope for someone who considers themselves a hobby gamer to enjoy strategy and planning, the die adds a nice random touch, and there’s a 33% chance of being able to bolt-on a good bit every time you roll. That’s important, as it means you’re as likely to secure parts as you are to steal them. There are simpler variants included on the rules sheet, and it’s a game ripe for house rules. If you have young children who’d get upset at you stealing their parts (and that’s really tempting at times, my inner Competitive Dad is strong), treat the stealing rule as a re-roll, or an extra choice from the market – something like that.

Final thoughts

Hideous Abomination is what it is – a quick, funny, easy-to-play game. The illustrations on the cards are fantastic, and full of character. Disgusting enough to be monsters, but not graphic, so kids can happily play this too. It plays a lot like Castles of Caladale, a tile-placement game from Renegade Game Studios which flew under the radar for a lot of people. But instead of building castles without bits ending in empty space, it’s creepy creatures instead.

Hideous Abomination is an absolute hit with my eight-year-old son. Ever since our first play, I’ve not had the game on my shelves for a second. If we’re not playing the game, he’s making elaborate monsters on the table. There are some blank body-part tiles in the game, and those were pilfered and drawn on in the first day. Any time he sees family members, the game goes with him and they get taught, whether they like it or not. I’ve no idea how many games he’s clocked-up now with various people (and pets), but it’s safe to say it’s his favourite game in my collection.

It’s a great game, and one of those that truly transcends age and generational boundaries. Anyone can play it, and everyone will enjoy it. If you’ve got a family and want to take a step up from those very basic games, and want something with a lot of character from someone who really deserves the recognition, I have no hesitation in recommending Hideous Abomination. It’s monstrously good fun, and you’ll be supporting another indie studio.

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

Hideous Abomination (2020)

Designer: Judson Cowan
Publisher: Tettix Games
Art: Judson Cowan
Players: 2-5
Playing time: 15-30 minutes

The post Hideous Abomination 2nd Edition Review appeared first on Punchboard.

At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking that Cartolan – Trade Winds is another tile-laying game, aping others like Isle of Skye or the granddaddy, Carcassonne. While it’s true that you draw tiles and place them, matching edges, it’s there that the similarities end. Cartolan has ideas of its own, and if this preview copy is anything to go by, fans of tile games have something new to tempt them.

Throw caution to the wind

Cartolan puts you in the roles of adventurers, seeking to explore the unknown world and open lucrative trade routes with the various ports and cities obscured by the fog of ignorance. Much of this world is water, naked to the wind, and these trade winds play an important part in the game. As you turn over tiles and expand the map, you’ll notice that each of the tiles has an arrow in the corner, showing which way the wind blows.

The wind is employed as a unique mechanism. After your standard turn of moving one of your adventurers twice, you can hop into your hypothetical boat and drift with the wind for another two tiles, as long as it’s over the watery edges of the tiles. Another mechanism lets you add an inn to a tile for a paltry single piece of treasure. When you visit an inn for the first time on your turn it lets you rest and take a full turn of movement again.

I try not to delve into the inner workings of a game, but in Cartolan’s case I wanted to point out this exploration, because it really sets it apart from other tile-layers, like the ones I mentioned above. The world doesn’t get revealed one tile at a time. In a four-player game of Cartolan you can easily expand the initial map of five tiles to more than 20 after just one turn each. You also start to notice that due to the rules about the direction of the wind on newly-added tiles, trade winds start to create large clockwise or anti-clockwise loops, which is nicely thematic.

Fill the coffers

Winning a game of Cartolan means collecting lots and lots of silk – the game’s currency – and there’s loads of it thrown at you. Exploring the world and filling-in gaps is encouraged, because any time a tile gets added, you pocket three silk for each existing edge you touch with it. Bam, that’s nine silk right there. You get more for discovering ports, piracy (see below), and finding the mythical city that’s rumoured* to be in the stacks of tiles.

(*spoiler alert: it’s definitely in there, I’ve seen it).

Cartolan is a very competitive game, and while it doesn’t outright demand that you resort to piracy, it’s definitely encouraged. Landing in the same space as another adventurer lets you turn the way of the Jolly Roger and attack them, potentially stealing all the silk they were carrying. I say potentially because success is based on a game of rock-paper-scissors between the attacker and defender. I really like that the competition is based above the table, but personally, I prefer a decider that can’t be tied. We found it slightly more thematic to get the defender to put a silk token in one hand and see if the attacker can guess which. Winner gets the reward. This is still a preview though, so take that with a pinch of salt.

Piracy is a double-edged cutlass. Pirates cannot place inns or trade, so they need to get back to a city and bank their ill-gotten gains before someone else lands on the same tile as them, and claims a silken reward for arresting them. It’s a refreshing change to see a game in this style have this much interaction. You’re not forced to attack one another if it’s not your bag, but personally, I really enjoy balancing the risk and reward of exploration and getting back to the bank.

Not all plain sailing

Despite wearing the silken finery of a simple tile game, Cartolan as it stands is quite fussy. You’ll find yourself constantly taking and making change with the silk tokens. It’s entirely possible to place four tiles on a turn, and when you consider that you can be claiming silk every time you place a tile, there’s a lot of picking up tokens. The tokens go on your character card before they’re banked, which is the same place as your carried tiles go (you can carry and place some, as well as drawing blind from the stacks), and the text which explains each character’s bonus abilities. The tokens start to fill the cards quickly, and you can’t let it spill over, as each character’s haul is its own. Later in the game you can have up to four adventurers on the go, each with their own tiles, character card, and silk piles, and it can get messy and chaotic.

I hope it doesn’t cause offence for me to guess that the designer, Tom, is a bit of a nerd, like me. Maybe? This is the first preview I’ve been given which comes with a custom online implementation, and a github repo full of the source code (in Python, yummy) for simulating the game. I applaud this approach because it’s clearly been used to balance the game, and it’s a step that’s not usually done to this level by many new designers. My hope is that the same level of care and introspection will get applied to the physical game and the rulebook, both of which could do with some improvement.

Again, take this whole section with the caveat that I’m playing a prototype copy. A very nicely made prototype, but a prototype all the same.

Final thoughts

Cartolan – Trade Winds caught me by surprise. I was expecting another tile-laying game in the same mould as those that came before it, but it’s a fresh, interesting game. It actually plays like a race. The score track is in rows of 15, and if one player manages to get a full row ahead at the front of the pack, they win. You can win by getting to 100 first, or having the most when the tiles run out, but the threat of someone running away and winning early keeps everyone focused on the game state, and you can end up with some unspoken ‘kill the king’ agreements.

There’s a funny kind of duality at the core of Cartolan which I enjoy. The frenetic racing to explore the world and earn the big bucks is in stark contrast to the chill aesthetic and the notion of letting the breeze carry your sailboat over the horizon. There’s a feeling of trying to go about your own business, all the while with one eye on the person ahead of you, their chest laden with goodies, and the other eye on the person behind you with a dagger between their teeth.

It’s a natural next game for those of you who enjoy Carcassonne and Isle of Skye. I’m not saying there’s a direct connection to the way they play, but their exploration and expansion of the tile map are certainly reminiscent of them. I know Tom is actively taking on board the feedback he’s getting from the community at the moment. Between this and the rigorous playtesting and attention to detail, if they get the price point right, I think Cartolan – Trade Winds can, and should do really well.

Preview copy provided by the publisher. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

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The post Cartolan – Trade Winds Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

Pointing and painting

If you’ve been into board games for a while, there’s a chance you’ve heard of Basilica before. When it was originally released in 2010 it was warmly received, but failed to make a big splash. For this revised version Portal have given the game a little bit of a spruce up, but the core mechanisms are the same. Even the tile artwork remains unchanged.

The idea of the game is to help build a cathedral between the two of you, taking actions, placing builders, and trying to make the most of the colourful ceilings. You do it by placing a succession of square tiles into one of the five columns on offer, trying to create areas of contiguous colours. If you’ve got more builders in a coloured area than your opponent, you control it, and you get the points when scoring is triggered.

There are two rows of three tiles in the market area. If you take one from the top row you carry out the action on it e.g. place a builder, upgrade one, move a builder. If you take a coloured one from the bottom row you add it to the other tiles, making the cathedral bigger. Any time a coloured tile is taken, the action tile above it flips over, taking its place. If it sounds simple, it’s because it is. Turns are fast and fluid, and there’s nothing obfuscated or overly complicated. It’s perfect for a two-player-only game, where mind games are meant to take centre stage.

Cowboy builder

Let’s get the niggles out of the way first. First is the theme, which is as thin as a partition wall. There’s no feeling of constructing a cathedral at all. This is an abstract game at heart, and any number of themes could have been applied just as easily. Adding flowers to a garden, building a disco floor, or making stained glass windows would have worked just as well. It doesn’t really matter when you get down to brass tacks – it’s just an abstract game that didn’t want to be naked.

The other thing I find frustrating is a practical problem more than a setting or aesthetic one. The two rows of tiles sit in gaps on either side of a centre cardboard bar. The problem is that the gaps only just fit three tiles side-by-side, and when you either take one, flip one to the bottom row, or add a fresh one to the top row, it’s almost impossible to not mess the display up. The original version of Basilica had both rows sat on top of a board, which – although prone to tiles moving – is still preferable to having the whole display and the tiles moving.

Fortunately, those are the only negatives I have with Basilica, and the game itself more than makes up for those shortcomings.

Master mason

The competition over control of areas in Basilica is great. It’s like someone played Carcassonne, loved the Farmer scoring mechanism from it, and decided to make a whole game from it. There are times when you’re sitting pretty, your builders commanding a sea of tiles, and it feels like you’ve got the game in the bag, only for the other player to bring your glorious vaulted ceilings crashing down around you.

There are actions which let you slide builders from one tile to an adjacent one, which can completely swing the board state. The Confuse action lets you take one of your builders back off the tiles, into your supply, while moving an opposing builder to another tile, whereas Disaster actions let you completely remove a tile. The way things swing back and forth is a lot of fun, and it never devolves into complete chaos.

There’s a really clever feature which gives each player a coin to begin with. Most of the actions available have an optional paid action that the inactive player can do, either benefitting from the same action or mitigating the ill effects of others. To take one of these paid actions, that player has to give the other person their coin, giving that person twice the spending power they had before. It’s a really clever idea, and I love the bitter taste of money not going to the supply, but instead to the last person in the world you want to have it.

The two-colour tiles are another little piece of genius that blow the whole game open. There are times when you’ll drop one on the table, linking two previously unconnected areas, and dominating them with builders who otherwise would have had no influence. Again, none of these situations is unforeseeable. Everything is right there, on the table, in plain sight, so when something goes wrong for you, you’ve no one to blame but yourself and your own magnificent ineptitude.

Final thoughts

Basilica finds itself in a pigeonhole I happen to be a big fan of: tactical, rules-light, two-player games full of interaction. I’ve reviewed Targi and Watergate here before, and both have permanent places in my collection. Basilica is another example of how to make a two-player game well. The tile holder/board thing does annoy me, but it’s far from a show-stopper. I just don’t play with it at all now.

Elbowing one another out of the way, actions full of spite, and glorious gloating might not actually sound like a recipe for friendship. In fact, now that I write it, it really isn’t, is it? But between friends, or even better, partners, it’s great. There’s something therapeutic about having an hour put aside to engage in something so competitive with someone you know. Games where you can directly screw someone over, don’t make for good icebreakers with people you don’t know.

There’s a small expansion included which adds a new type of tile, and it offers enough variety to spice things up a bit, without making it any more complicated. Honestly, after playing the base game once or twice, I’d suggest adding the expansion every time you play. My wife isn’t the biggest gamer in the world, but even she was saying how much she was enjoying it during our first play, which makes it a winner in my book. Basilica is a great choice if two-player games are your thing, and you’re looking for something to add to the likes of 7 Wonders: Duel in your collection. I just hope it doesn’t get lost in the Essen noise.

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

Basilica (2022)

Designer: Łukasz M. Pogoda
Publisher: Portal Games
Art: Juan Pablo Fuentes Ruiz
Players: 2
Playing time: 45 mins

The post Basilica Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Show them what you’re made of

I want to start with praise for the components for Kombo Klash. It comes in a nice, small, square box, and the thick cardboard tiles for the animals will take plenty of play, which is good, because they’ll get played, shuffled, bashed and flipped a lot! The board too, is great, because it’s not cardboard. It’s a printed cloth play mat which feels tough and is really bright and attractive. That’s an important thing when you’re trying to get kids to engage with a game.

The whole match three mechanism has been done in countless video games, and board games for that matter. Anything from the classic Puyo Puyo games, through to the plethora of mobile games available now, ready to milk your credit card dry for more turns or power-ups. Creating a tabletop game with the same mechanism feels like a clear grab for the same part of the market, and it does so really well.

C-c-c-c-c-combo breaker!

What sets Kombo Klash apart from a ton of other simple games, is the different abilities that each animal has when played. For instance – Kangaroos let you ‘kick’ an adjacent tile to another space, Ravens let you draw more tiles, Alligators let you flip tiles back over, and Chameleons, predictably, act as any other creature. The 5×5 grid slowly fills, and every time you claim a kombo, you flip those tiles face-down and score the points on the track.

What makes the game interesting is the way you can manipulate the tiles already in-play to set up combinations. When the board is filled, all of the face-down tiles are removed and discarded, offering a near-empty board for you to play into. If you’re clever, you can set up some nice kombos by setting some tiles up, only to clear the board and link them up.

Little square eyes

What I really like about Kombo Klash is the way it captures the feel of a casual app game. It’s a really important thing in my house, as it’s the sort of thing that instantly appeals to my son. As soon as I opened the box and laid things out, he was drawn in by the colours and artwork. He picked the rules up in a minute, and even in the first game was really excited when he came up with a plan for what to do next.

That sort of engagement is fantastic. In a world where screens are constantly trying to grab kids’ attention, being able to get them to step away and interact with their family, while still having fun with a game, is precious. Kombo Klash – despite saying 10 years and upwards on the box – hits a really sweet spot with kids between 7 and 13 years-old. It’s not a ‘little kids game’, but it’s not a dry theme, or complex adult game either.

Final thoughts

Kombo Klash is a big hit in my house. It’s small and really quick to get set-up and playing, and it’s always fun to play. The level of strategy isn’t heavy at all, but there’s enough there to keep someone like me engaged. Far from a negative, this is a positive as far as I’m concerned, because this isn’t a game aimed for that target audience. This is a fun, fast, engaging, family game.

With younger kids you might need to guide them through their first couple of plays, just so they understand how the actions work, and how they would benefit from them. I love this part, because when you see them ‘get it’ and their eyes light up, it’s a wonderful feeling. The hardest part is probably remembering what’s under a flipped tile to make use of it, but as someone who’s firmly in his 40s now, I think that’s a bigger problem for me!

When I think of some of the terrible franchise tie-in kids’ games I’ve played that have cost more, Kombo Klash is a really easy recommendation for me to make. You can buy Kombo Klash for £15 direct from the Hub Games website, and if you’ve got kids around that 7-13 age bracket – or have a group that likes a lighter game – then go for it.

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

Kombo Klash (2021)

Designer: Ondrej Sova
Publisher: Hub Games
Art: Jake Parker
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 15-30 mins

The post Kombo Klash Review appeared first on Punchboard.

I reviewed the original Kickstarter version of Blood of the Northmen, which came with all-grey miniatures. In the current Kickstarter for the Test of Faith expansion, Czacha Games have stated “In the box of the “Test of Faith” expansion, you will also find a set of plastic stands for miniatures from the base game in 5 colors. These stands are dedicated to backers who backed the base game KS campaign. The second print of “Blood of the Northmen” base game will have all the miniatures in 5 colors inside the box.“

Please bear this in mind when reading my comments regarding the minis.

Review

Innovation (2010) was one of my favourite games when I first started this hobby. It always surprised me that its designer – Carl Chudyk – didn’t have more hit games to his name. In fact, he didn’t have many more games at all credited to him. Imagine my surprise then, when in the first half of 2021 I answered the call to find reviewers for his latest game – Blood of the Northmen. Tile-laying, asymmetric powers, and a cool Norse theme, all wrapped up in Carl’s design? I jumped at the chance.

Set in the time of the Vikings, you need to gather your warbands, and move them around the ever-growing map. The aim of the game is to either grow your clan large enough to form the nation of Bjarmia (I googled it, it was a real thing), or kick enough ass to win through sheer dominance. As you might have guessed by now, there’s quite a bit of player interaction.

Hex flex

Laying down hexagonal tiles is nothing new. It’s been done in a thousand games from 1830 through to Terraforming Mars. Blood of the Northmen takes the principle, but adds a few little tweaks to the formula. Firstly, each player has a hand of tiles, much like you would with cards in other games. Choosing where and when you play each one is really important, as they not only define the map you’re fighting over, but also what you can do.

Each tile’s edge has a landscape feature, like mountains, lakes and forests. Edges have to touch matching edges (with a couple of exceptions), but after the tile is placed, you get to take actions corresponding to the matching landscape types around the edges. These actions see you recruiting more warriors from your player board, moving them around the map, and getting into Viking fisticuffs. It’s a really unique way of doing things, and I really like it. There’s so much to consider each time you place a tile. You’re not just shaping the map, but also determining what you can do.

The third and final thing tiles are used for is combat. When your dudes start a fight, you can play tiles for each of your units in the ruckus, and mountain edges equal one unit of strength. The strongest wins, the rest have to lick their wounds by sending their warriors back to their player boards.

Smooth sailing

A lot of games that have units moving around a board, trying to control areas and engaging in combat, can be pretty chunky when it comes to rules and gameplay. Blood of the Northmen has somehow made the experience really quick and easy. By turning it into a ‘Carcassonne-meets-Blood-Rage’ type of game, turns flow really quickly. When I say quickly, I mean quickly. I’ve played games that have only taken half an hour. It’s not often you can say that about anything other than a filler game. This pace might turn some people off the game, but it’s important to understand this isn’t a grand strategy game, it’s a different beast.

This isn’t to say that it’s a fast, random game, not at all. There is plenty of strategy on offer, it’s just done in a quick, streamlined way. I particularly like the movement mechanism that lets you move off of a road on the edge of the map, then bounce around the edges until you find another road to move onto, like some kind of cardboard Tempest. The stronghold buildings mix things up too, and let you place tiles with non-matching edges, just to really throw the cat among the pigeons. This, all combined with the different clan abilities, mean that each game has a very different feel, and plenty of things to consider.

The elephant in the room

Elephants are grey, and so is the biggest problem with this game: the minis. Normally I try not to focus on the components in a game, unless they’re especially good or bad, but I’ve got to call out whoever made the decision to make all of the minis grey in Blood of the Northmen. I can understand not wanting hot pink or bright yellow Vikings stomping around the land, and trying to keep the gritty aesthetic, but there aren’t even coloured stands for the minis. What makes this worse, is that the minis are just that – miniature. They’re really beautifully made, but because they’re only 2 cm tall, when there’s a crowd of them on the map, they’re really hard to distinguish.

This can lead to some problems when you’re playing the game. Combat is dependent on how many units you have on a contested hex. Even with 20/20 vision, it can be hard to tell how many of each players’ pieces are going to join the fray. The last thing you want to be doing is saying “Hey folks, sorry, just let me move this one, and that one, and count one..two..three.., okay, thanks”. It makes it pretty obvious which tile you’re thinking of kicking-off on. I’m just amazed that the game got all the way to production copies, and nobody either picked-up the issue, or did something about it.

It’s not to say the game is ruined by it, not at all, it’s just a really frustrating thing to sour what is in fact, a really good game. Especially when the rule book examples use colours for players the whole way through.

Final thoughts

Let me start this part by saying Blood of the Northmen is a good game. I’ve seen some complaints online saying that it’s too hard to claw your way back if you lose units early, but in my experience, there’s almost always a way to get back into the game. I really like the short game time and quick turns, and I’m not sure I’d have nearly as much fun if the game dragged out to two or three hours. Because the map starts at three tiles, and you can be engaging in combat in your first turn, it keeps the game tight and focused, instead of sprawling. There’s no safe haven to retreat to and build your army.

The grey minis really bother me. At two players it’s not so bad, but a four player game isn’t something I want to experience again unless I either paint them, or replace them with coloured meeples. It’s a shame really, because without this problem, I’d be really excited about the game. It has this really nice feeling of Carcassonne with teeth, with the up-front conflict between players. None of this “Oh my goodness, you joined your road up to mine and we share the points”, it’s a good, old-fashioned dust-up. On the subject of player count, with two players it’s quite good fun, but with three or four it’s at its best. There is a solo mode, which is okay, but this kind of game thrives on the interactions between the players.

Despite the fact this looks and can play like a medium-weight game, it feels like playing a gateway game at times, again, like Carcassonne. It’s simple enough to pick up the basics and get playing within a couple of turns, but employing a strategy takes practice. If you can live with the grey minis, or don’t mind just giving them a really quick one-colour coat (or wait for the second printing), I have no hesitation in recommending the game for the tile-laying gamer in your life who’s looking for a bit more interaction.

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

Blood of the Northmen (2021)

Designer: Carl Chudyk
Publisher: Czacha Games
Art: Radosław Jaszczuk
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 20-60 mins

The post Blood of the Northmen Review appeared first on Punchboard.

A couple of years ago the publisher, Alea, and Stefan got their heads together and decided to revamp the game. They gave it a fresh lick of paint, bundled in the seven mini-expansions that got released after the original’s release, threw in another one, and that’s what I’m looking at here, the Anniversary Edition.

Why am I covering it now?

Expectations these days are high. When people tear the shrink off of a new game, they’re expecting high-quality components, deep, interwoven mechanics, custom meeples, legacy envelopes, and all that jazz. So if you’re new to the hobby and you open Castles and see a few dice, a small board, thin player mats, and vast supply of tiny cardboard hexes, you could be forgiven for feeling underwhelmed. If a game is good though, it doesn’t matter, right? That begs the question: is The Castles of Burgundy still good?

Have the games that have come since improved and refined the core mechanics and made something similar, but better? Should I still buy this game in 2021?

Yes. Yes you should

The Castles of Burgundy is a classic for a reason. And yes, it is a classic, it must be, it says so in the rule book.

Admittedly, it does look dated on the table now, even with the colourful redesign, but the game is still so good, and so much fun to play. I’ve taught this to non-gamers and fans of heavy games alike, and everyone has picked it up quickly, been able to employ some kind of strategy, and had a good time filling their little board with tiles.

I’ve heard some people saying that they don’t like the redesign, they don’t like the abundance of colour. I think it’s mostly purists who like the muted colours of the older Stefan Feld games like the original, or Notre Dame, so don’t let that put you off.

What makes it so special?

At its core, Castles of Burgundy is very simple. You roll a couple of dice, then either pick up a hex tile from the area matching one of the numbers rolled, or lay a previously claimed one onto your board, into a space with a matching number. The bigger the area you manage to fill, the more points you score. For the first half of the game you’ll find yourself concentrating on your own little kingdom, planning out what you’re going to build, and where.

As the game gets going though, and score markers start advancing around the board, you start to get aware of what the other players are doing on their boards. In part, because they’re taking tiles you had your heart set on, but also because you can start to play more tactically. Maybe taking that pasture full of cows denies them that amazing giant pasture that would have scored them 20 points, or maybe claiming a boat you can’t possibly use, just to make sure you stay ahead in turn order. Choices, choices.

In my opinion, nothing has nailed the medium-weight tile placement Euro game better than Castles of Burgundy, even now. The combination of simple turns (rolling two dice and taking two actions), and the strategic gameplay that emerges more with every play, make it a fantastic gateway game. I can teach this to new players and watch them enjoy building their board, while I work at more involved strategies, and the scores still don’t look like there’s a runaway winner. It works at all levels of experience.

The Negatives

My only criticisms really are the same as in the original version. The iconography on some of the tiles is a) tiny, and b) hard to decipher. Sure, once you’ve played it a few times, there’s no problem, and they’ve made a huge improvement by adding player aids which explain them better. For those first few games though, keep the rule book to one side to refer to it.

The other thing is organising the tiles. If you don’t add some opaque bags to draw tiles from, you need to create face-down stacks of each colour before the game starts. Not the end of the world, but a small annoyance.

There’s a lot of game in the box. The expansions really are mini-expansions that only change small things in the core game, but they do add new hexes and mechanics. There are also so many double-sided player boards in the box that it’s impossible to create a strategy that would cover all of them. I’ve owned the original since it was released, and I still play it, and I still enjoy every game, regardless of it being two, three or four players.

Speaking of player count…

Before I finish, it’s worth mentioning that there are two (count ’em) new ways to play The Castles of Burgundy now. First up, there’s a Team mode, where two player boards are joined together to make a huge Duchy to fill up. I’ve not had a chance to play that way yet, thanks to our friend Covid, but I can see how it’ll be good fun.

Secondly, and probably more importantly in our lockdown lives at the moment, there’s a solo mode. It’s not an automa-style game versus an AI player. Instead it’s a puzzle, trying to fill the specially-designed boards within the 25 turns you get in the game. It’s a really fun, engaging puzzle, far more entertaining and worth playing that some of the beat-your-own-score variants I’ve played. It’s tough though, I still haven’t completed it.

Final Thoughts

The Castles of Burgundy really is a classic, and it’s excellent. Stefan Feld’s designs are usually brilliant, and this is no exception. It’s one of his lightest games, in terms of complexity, but I think it’s his most fun. I still love it, ten years on, so much so that I’m going to keep this and the original in my collection. This isn’t the view of someone with rose-tinted spectacles who misses the simpler, pre-Kickstarter days of board games. This is the view of someone who enjoys good games, and knows one when he plays one. In my opinion, nobody has taken the core mechanics of this game, and bettered it.

There are a lot of lesser games you could be spending your £40 on, so if you’re after a bona fide classic that’ll keep hitting your table, I highly recommend The Castles of Burgundy.

Designer: Stefan Feld
Publisher: Alea, Ravensburger Games
Art: Antje Stephan, Claus Stephan
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 60-90 minutes

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

The post The Castles Of Burgundy Review appeared first on Punchboard.

[yotuwp type=”videos” id=”gN0CtsF3y98″ ]

Does the idea of gnomes, islands, guardians and bonfires get you excited? No? How about shells, fruit, roots and portals? Getting somewhere yet? Hmmm. Okay, how about a lavish new Stefan Feld game, full of mechanisms, strategy and gorgeous artwork? Ahhh, now I’ve got your attention! Let’s have a look at Bonfire, his big new game for 2020.

Stefan Feld is an important name for fans of Euro games. He’s the designer we have to thank for some of the most important games to have been produced in the last fifteen years. Trajan, Macao, Bruges, and a little game you might have heard of called The Castles of Burgundy. He’s been a busy boy in 2020, announcing a re-theming of several of his classics for the City Collection, a new ‘Castles of’ game, this time in Tuscany, and the one which really piqued my interest, and the one you’re here to read about – Bonfire.

Bonfire’s backstory isn’t the usual Feld fare. It tells of a world were bonfires brought light to a world of perpetual darkness, created and maintained by the guardians. When the inhabitants exploited them however, the guardians retreated, and the world was once again plunged into inky darkness. Now you, and a group of gnomes aim to bright light back by completing tasks to prove your worth to the guardians, and convince them to return from their islands to re-light the bonfires.

What’s In The Box

The more cynical among us would think back to the likes of The Castles of Burgundy or Notre Dame, and think of beige. There wasn’t much in the way of colour in his older games, and the components and boards could be pretty thin, not much to write home about. Bonfire, however, is a different story.

The first thing to notice is the board. It’s covered in rich, detailed artwork, and the back-side of it has a huge version of the illustration of the guardian from the box cover. Instead of cubes for player pieces, there are little gnome meeples, and the resources are custom-cut, brightly painted pieces of wood. Each player has their own player board, and there are a ton of different tokens and tiles in the box; action, fate, task, offering and path tiles. There are wooden guardians and boats, three decks of cards, loads of little portal tiles, and even a 3D bonfire you have to build from three pieces of cardboard.

Considering it’s a smaller box, like the old Alea ones used for the likes of Castles of Burgundy or Macao, there’s a huge amount of stuff in it. The production values are a far cry from those Alea games. Everything feels like it’s going to last a long time. The iconography is really clear throughout, and the rule book is really nicely written. It’s a good thing too, as you’ll need to refer to it quite a lot for the first few games, because there’s a handy appendix at the back telling you exactly what the specialist and elder cards do.

How Does It Play?

Bonfire is a meaty, thinky game, so let’s break it down and explain what’s going on.

The Basics

Players collect and use action tiles, to perform the various actions available. To get action tiles, they take fate tiles from their own area, and place them onto their player boards. In a similar way to the way the games Patchwork and A Feast For Odin work, the fate tiles have to fit onto the players’ boards. You get one action tile for each symbol, but if the fate tile you place has a matching action adjacent, you get two action tiles. Later, if a third matching one touches, you get three.

Spending your action tokens is where the rest of the game is played, but there are a lot of choices available at any one time. You might choose to sail to an island, to trade some of your resources to take a task. The task goes on your player board, and later if you manage to fulfill that task (which ranges from easy to difficult), you can flip it to light a bonfire.

You can rotate the great bonfire and claim two of the three rewards available at each slot. This is often one of the portal tokens, to add to your player board (every type is a different shape, jigsaw-style), and then either a resource or an action tile. Maybe instead you choose to claim one of the cards available: specialists and elders. Specialists usually grant you ongoing bonuses for performing certain actions, and elders are in limited supply, but give you a one-time VP bonus for having numbers of various ‘things’ in your possession.

What Else Can I Do?

I’m glad you asked. You can choose to claim a path tile. Path tiles are added clockwise around your player board, and give the guardians somewhere to move when you choose to trigger a procession. Speaking of which, when you’ve recovered one more guardians from an island, you can trigger a procession. This sees them advance along your path tiles, and either granting bonus resources for the space they stop on, or, if there’s a portal between their path and the board, they can stand next to one of your bonfires, for end game VPs.

Those are the basics, and I’ve really boiled them down to the most basic descriptions of each, because there are so many variations on each action, and so many choices to make along the way. Here’s an example of what I mean,

When rotating the great bonfire to claim a portal tile, portals have to be added counter-clockwise to your player board. Each space on your board will only fit one particular portal, which are distributed around the great bonfire at random. So when it comes to rotating the bonfire, you can spend a single purple tile to rotate it one space, two for two spaces, or three for any number. If you don’t have enough purple action tiles, you can spend two of any other kind to compensate for one you’re missing. Or you could recruit a specialist card which allows you to more move spaces per tile, or maybe the specialist who lets you add the portals in any order, depending on which are available. Of course, having those purple tiles depends on how you laid the fate tiles on your board in the first place, as I mentioned above.

How Is The End Of The Game Triggered?

Around your player board, you have seven ‘novice’ gnome meeples in your colour. When you complete a retrieved task – say for example collecting four guardians – you can use an action to trigger lighting a bonfire. This flips the task tile, giving you end-game VPs, and also lets you place one of your gnomes on one of the High Council spaces on the main board. These spaces grant you a one-time bonus of your choosing, dependent on where you place them.

The other way to fill the high council spaces is completing one of the communal common tasks, e.g. having five guardians. When these are fulfilled, the player completing it can take the associated neutral novice and add them to the High Council. Once enough spaces in the High Council are filled, which varies depending on the player count, a countdown begins. The five countdown tiles are passed from player to player as they take their turns, meaning each player has just five turns to squeeze as many points as they can from the game.

At the end of the game, points are scored for lit bonfires, having guardians next to bonfires, having bonfires matching the colour of the path next to it, having portals, and a few other bits. Each of these though is only worth a small number of points, so the game is a real puzzle of maximising benefits and planning ahead. The person with the most points, wins.

Having Trouble Deciding What Kind Of Game This Is?

Me too! It seems to be a mix of set collection, tile placement, and movement with the ships and islands at the top of the board. It’s undoubtedly a Euro, but it really seems to be genre-less, and it makes for a really interesting change to my usual go-to of worker placement or tableau building. I think because it seems to be its own thing, it has the potential to appeal to a lot of different players.

Final Thoughts

Trying to explain how Bonfire works and plays is almost as tricky as playing the game itself. In both instances, it’s not a problem of actions being difficult – they’re actually very easy. You collect some action tiles, you spend them to do those actions. Not brain-bending stuff. But how you use those actions, that’s where the crunch comes.

The Agony Of Choice

If you like working out a plan, this is absolutely the game for you. Indecision is your worst enemy in Bonfire. You need to work backwards, taking an early look at the board, the tasks available, the starting specialists and path tiles, and then try to guess how many of action type you might need.

From there, you can start to look at your fate tiles, and decide how you might want to place them in order to get enough of each action, and even the order you take them. Your fate tiles are laid out in a stack, randomly ordered, and when you claim one you can only choose the top or bottom one.

Even when you’ve formulated your plan, now you need to start looking at the other players’ boards too. If you decide you want to get guardians next to bonfires, you’re going to need portals. These are all around the great bonfire, and the order you need to collect them varies from player to player – the player boards aren’t identical. But the portals are placed counter-clockwise, starting at the last space and working back, whereas the path tiles that the guardians will advance along, to get to your portals, and then the bonfires, are laid in the opposite order! Argh!

But this agony, this brain-melting series of choices, is where this game really shines.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

With so many choices available to you, and so many ways to keep the VPs trickling in, and with the random game board setup for each game, I can guarantee that no two games of Bonfire will ever go the same way. If you try to tell yourself before the game is even setup that ‘this time I’m going to grab as many specialists as I can, and complete those tricky, valuable yellow tasks‘, you’ll likely fail. Understanding how each part of the game connects to, and weaves into the next is important if you want to do well.

It’s a beautiful kaleidoscope of options, and immediately feels very Feld-like to anyone who spent a lot of time playing Castles of Burgundy. Your primary focus is on your own board, your own laying of tiles and collection of resources, but with a shared main source of ‘stuff’, and a necessity to keep one eye on what the others are doing.

If you have a group who suffer with AP (analysis paralysis), and overthinking everything, Bonfire can take a long time to play, and you might even consider setting a house rule time limit per turn. On the whole though, things balance out, as you can be doing your own nefarious scheming while others are playing their turns. It’s also a really heavy game in my opinion, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to get anyone new to the hobby to start here. It’d be enough to put them off for life, and we don’t want that.

Table For One, Sir?

There’s a really well implemented solo mode in the box. Players are pitted against an automa player named Tom (as in auTOMa…), and if you ever play solo games, you’ll be pleased to hear it’s really quick and easy to do the upkeep for. He doesn’t use action tiles, move his ship around, or any of that stuff. Tom has a small deck of cards which describe an action, so you flip the next, and do what it tells you to e.g. take the highest value task from an island with a fruit resource on it, or rotate the great bonfire to the next spot with the next portal he needs, and take it.

Tom is a tough opponent, and the key to beating him is not letting him cycle through his full deck the maximum of four times it’s possible. How you do that, I’ll let you figure out for yourselves.

Should I Buy Bonfire?

In a word, yes. But with a couple of caveats.

If you’re here, reading this, or checking out Bonfire at all, it’s unlikely you stumbled across it while you were looking at Monopoly on Amazon, so I’m going to assume you like a Euro or a Feld game. If that’s the case, and if you like games on the heavier side, I think you’ll love Bonfire. The interplay of actions, the sheer variety of choices available in how to play, the ‘market’ of the great bonfire – it’s standard Euro fare, but implemented really well.

You’ll also really enjoy that crunch when the end of the game is triggered, and you know you only have five turns left. From there you’re performing mental gymnastics to eke out every last point you can. If you really suffer from AP, or you really don’t like that sort of thing, then this probably isn’t the game for you. If, however, that sort of thing really gets you itching to get the shrinkwrap off a new game, then this is a classic example of all the good things from a Stefan Feld game, and I’m sure will be mentioned in years to come in the same breath as Castles of Burgundy and Macao.

The post Bonfire Review appeared first on Punchboard.