Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Lucky for us then nobody is wearing the crown at the moment, as the previous king has apparently popped his clogs. Shuffled off this mortal coil. He is an ex-king. Each of you plays one of his heirs, hungry for power, climbing over one another to be the next monarch. In my head I’m picturing the Trial by Stone from The Dark Crystal, but with fewer Skeksis.

Land grab

The main board represents the regions of the kingdom. Having control of one or more regions at the end of an Autumn phase (rounds are broken into Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter) grants you bonuses which help you get towards your ultimate goal, which is having 15 (20 in a two-player game) Influence Points, thereby claiming the crown.

The majority of what happens in the game is dictated by the cards the players use. A card has a strength value which is used during clash resolution (i.e. who wins control of a region), and typically a power or ability too. Already you might be able to see some similarities between this and other games. The first things that sprang to mind for me were thoughts like “Oh, so it’s a bit like Love Letter / Citadels / Vaalbara”, and those comparisons hold some weight, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface in The Old King’s Crown.

Turn order really matters. The first player has to commit to which Location they’re sending their Herald (the big wooden piece) as a statement of intent. It’s up to the other players to decide if they want to go toe-to-toe in the same location or try their luck elsewhere. It’s a small action, but it feels like there’s so much riding on it. Winning a region where your herald is can net you an influence point in addition to whatever the location gives you. If you contest a region where two or more heralds share a location, the winner gets to steal an influence point from the losers.

In a game where you might only need 15 points to win, a well-placed herald can result in a three-point swing, and that’s before you even take the location’s bonuses into consideration. So right away you’ve got these intriguing mind games. Is that herald there because they’ve got cards you’re never going to beat, or are they just full of bluster, hoping to scare you into contesting somewhere else instead?

Being last in turn order actually has a really good benefit, which is just another string to The Old King’s Crown’s bow. The last player chooses the order in which the three region’s clashes are resolved. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but some of the cards you play can have effects which bolster the strength of cards in adjacent regions. Those cards aren’t much use if the cards in those adjacent regions are revealed before your bolstering card, such is the power of choosing resolution order. There is no such thing as a dead action. Everything you do matters.

Follow your own path

Each of the factions in The Old King’s Crown has its own unique player board and despite sharing some common cards and abilities, is asymmetric. Not to the extent of something like Root (review here) or a COIN game like Cuba Libre (review here), but still with differences. Each has its own set of action tiles at the bottom of its boards, and each has its own site of power at the top of the main board, with new action cards to invest in as the game progresses.

It strikes a nice balance here. I know people who won’t play COIN games because understanding how each of four factions operates and wins is daunting. I find teaching those games difficult for precisely that reason. The Old King’s Crown dials those divergences down to a point where everybody has the same win conditions, and everybody knows how the clashes will be fought, but there are enough differences there to keep things interesting.

It’s funny because as a die-hard Euro game fan, wargames are where I’ll usually stray into confrontational, interactive games. This game feels and looks more like a Euro with its deck construction and player boards, yet it’s unashamedly in-your-face. The mind games are fantastic, and even in our first learning game my group found ourselves goading one another, daring rivals not to add their companies (wooden pieces that add to your strength in a region) to a region to ‘see what happens if you don’t’.

I haven’t even mentioned the Great Road kingdom cards yet, which you can claim and add to your player boards for new actions and abilities. You can claim them from the middle of the table, but if one of your opponents has one that you want, or one you simply want to deny them of because it’s such a pain in the ass to play against, you can outright steal it from them. This isn’t a game you can play head-down. You need to know what’s going on with everybody, all of the time.

No man is an island

It’d be remiss of me to not draw attention to the solo mode in The Old King’s Crown. I was dubious of how well it would work at first, knowing how cutthroat and confrontational the game is. Replicating that feeling in an AI deck of any kind is no small feat. However, with the help of solo specialist Ricky Royal, the solitaire mode is very good.

The opponent – dubbed Simulacrum – plays with a special deck and a ruleset that introduces very little overhead into the game. Regular readers will know there’s a dividing line for me, when running the artificial opponent for a game takes more time and brainpower than taking my own actions, and this one happily sits on the correct side of that fence.

Remarkably, the designers have managed to create a solo opponent which not only leaves you free to play in the same way as you would for the multiplayer game, but also seems to have its own personalities. It’s not like the cards are imbued with the souls of players, but it captures the idea of playing against someone who’s got their own intentions, not just randomly pulling cards and plonking things where fate decides. The Simulacrum’s cards have behavioural traits such as plotting and warmongering, and cards played in different phases combine (or not) in a way which feels natural.

Would I buy The Old King’s Crown just to play solo? For me, maybe not. The table talk and tension built by human beings is what makes the game truly outstanding for me. That said, the solo mode is excellent, and if you’d told me it had come from Morten and his Automa Factory, I’d have believed you in a heartbeat.

Final thoughts

I’m so pleased to see The Old King’s Crown get this far. I’ve been bumping into the guys from Eerie Idol games for years now, and the artwork has always caught my attention. The aesthetics and watercolour shades are absolutely gorgeous. We’re really spoiled here in the UK with indie studios at the moment, and the incredible design and art they’re bringing to games. I expect to hear lots of “This is their first game? Really??” once boxes start landing on tables.

Ultimately it’s a glorified bluffing game, but putting it in simple terms like that just highlights how much heavy lifting the word ‘glorified’ is doing. Strategising, adapting, and improvising all play a part. Customising your faction with the Great Road cards. Choosing if and when to invest in your site of power cards. Trying to remember if your rival across the table has already played that low-value card that assassinates your high-value one. Heck, some cards even let you claim other factions’ dead cards from the communal Lost pile and use them against their previous owners.

I had a hard time getting my head around some of the nuances and terms in the rulebook, but as with any preview I write, there’s a caveat that nothing is final, and things like the rulebook won’t be finalised for a while yet. While I don’t know exactly what Patrick and crew over at Leder Games did to help with development, knowing that a) they’ve been involved, and b) Pablo and the Eerie Idol team were sensible enough to involve them, is an indicator of the level of polish and quality you can expect.

With an easy-to-follow ruleset that leaves the majority of your brain free to plot and scheme, The Old King’s Crown is just wonderful. It’s the kind of game that you’d imagine would lead to some ‘kill the king’ when someone races ahead, and to some extent that’s true, but for every ally with a hand on your shoulder, you’d better believe they’re holding a stiletto tip at your ribs too. The Kickstarter goes live on October 24th 2023, and you can sign up to be notified of the launch right here. I suggest you do, I think this game is going to be deservingly huge.

Preview copy provided by Eerie Idol Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Old King’s Crown (2023)

Design: Pablo Clark
Publisher: Eerie Idol Games
Art: Pablo Clark
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 60-90 mins

The post The Old King’s Crown Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

That’s where you come in, player.

Pontoon!

I was one of those people who grew up knowing Blackjack by another name – Pontoon. The pontoons in Pearladora have nothing to do with the famous game of 21. Instead, players place them on the board in an effort to box in groups of pearls and divers.

On your turn you’ll either place a diver into the waters face-down, or put a pontoon on an edge between two of the squares that make up the game board. Now, face-down makes sense for a diver from a thematic point of view, for sure. You’re not going to find many pearls if you’re looking up to the surface. In the game’s case, however, it’s because each of your divers has a number on its underside, denoting its strength. Most are ones, with a smattering of twos, and if you’re lucky, the all-powerful four-strength diver.

At the end of the game, each sectioned area of the board is scored, and the player with the highest combined diver value in an area wins the pearls from any farms inside that area. You’re probably already seeing where this is going.

Choices, choices

There aren’t many rules in Pearladora. The whole game is about your strategy, and how you try to employ it. When it’s your turn, you either place a diver or place two pontoons, and those are your only options. You can place that diver in between those farms chock-full of pearls, sure. but what if someone sections one off with pontoons on their turn?

And there, friends, is where the simple genius of Pearladora slaps you in the face and calls you stupid. It should be easy. It should be as simple as drawing boxes with wooden pontoons to claim areas of the board, like an analogue version of Qix. But I’ll be damned if nearly every single turn isn’t an agonising choice.

There’s one very important rule in the game which says that any enclosed space must be a minimum of four squares in total. You can use this to manipulate the board and make things trickier for people. For instance, if you make an area of eight squares, someone can come along and split that into two four-square areas. So if you’re smart and manage to box-in seven squares, you know that no one can subdivide that space again, because it would create a three-square area, which is illegal. Then it comes down to a secret fight for dominance with your divers.

Upping the ante

Pearladora is a great family-weight game just played as described so far. If you like just a little more oomph from your games though, there are some advanced rules you can use.

When you start the game, you choose one of the four teams on offer, e.g. children or elders. Each has its own unique ability, which is really interesting and very asymmetric, not to mention a lot of fun. The children can place an extra diver once per game, while the elders get to sneak a peek at the value of a diver. Fishermen can place an extra pontoon, and foragers can pop a flower necklace on an opponent’s diver to reduce their strength by one at the end of the game.

The advanced rules are my favourite way to play, and I suspect it’ll be your favourite way to play, too. It just makes the game that little bit more interesting, and while one point or one extra pontoon might not sound like much, the game is so tight that it can easily be the difference between winning and losing.

Final thoughts

I must be losing my edge as I get older. It used to be the big, heavy Euros that got me excited, but now I can’t wait to tear the shrink off these smaller games. Pearladora is another great example of how to design a simple game, but make it dense with strategy. I can pop this on a table, explain the rules with some examples, and have people playing in the length of time it takes to make a cup of tea.

The components are gorgeous. You’d have to be dead inside to not want to play with the pearls. There’s also a really fun four-player mode where players sat opposite one another team up to get the best combined score they can. They can talk, but not discuss diver values or strategies. It reminds me of Bridge.

One of my favourite things about Pearladora is its brevity. I can play three games of this inside an hour, including setup and packing away. Nearly every time I’ve played it, someone has wanted to immediately play again, so the speed of the game is definitely in its favour. I think it’d get pretty stale without the advanced rules in the box. If you’re playing the base game with the same people lots, you can see patterns of play start to emerge, but the advanced rules – coupled with random faction assignment – really keep it bubbling along.

I’m a big fan of Pearladora, even though I’d never heard of it before Hachette sent me a copy. My wife and son really like it too (and consistently beat me…), so it’s staying in my collection. Another game around £20 that’s easy to recommend.

You can get it now from Kienda, and don’t forget to register for your account by heading to kienda.co.uk/punchboard to potentially save 5%.

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

If you enjoyed this review and would like to read more like this, consider supporting the site by joining my monthly membership at Kofi. It starts from £1 per month, offers member benefits, and lets me know you’re enjoying what I’m doing.

Pearladöra (2022)

Designer: Christwart Conrad
Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu
Art: Mehdi Merrouche
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 20 mins

The post Pearladora Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Calling your bluff

Yup, bluffing. Bluffing is king in Castleshire, in the same way it is in Poker, or Skull. The aim of the game is to use your builder meeples to construct the towers of a castle. Each section of a castle is represented by a space for a card, ranging in value from one to twelve, as they move left-to-right, bottom-to-top. Each player has a hand of cards, again ranging from one to twelve.

On your turn, you’ll place a card on an empty space, whack a builder on it, and proclaim “I, Adam, have constructed section eleven of this mighty edifice. It will see the birth and death of a thousand kings and queens, see nations rise and fall, and through it all, endure. Though time may seek to reduce it to sand, it will stand strong, in perpetuity”.

Except I’m lying, see. I’ve played a three there. I’m a bit of a geezer, a medieval cowboy builder. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be taking my groats, disappointing your daughter, and buggering off to Burgundy, where I understand they’re building some castles.

It’s there – right there – in those moments of “Is he telling the truth, or full of crap?” that Castleshire springs to life.

How do you annoy Lady Gaga?

Poker face.

Dad jokes aside, a good poker face is vital if you’re one of those players who just loves to bluff constantly in games. One of the things I love in Castleshire, which it shares with poker, is that if nobody challenges you, you never have to reveal the cards you played. You might have played your 1 card in the 12 space and gone unchallenged, so when the castle’s cards are removed and a new castle starts, you could still have a priceless twelve in your hand, and nobody would know.

I can’t tell you just how satisfyingly devious that feeling is, and it’s one of the reasons that Castleshire is a game whose level of fun is disproportionately higher when you play it with friends. With no money on the line, it’s just a case of how well you know your mates, and laughing at the banter from around the table. The basic game is decent enough, but I can see how it could get stale with repeated plays. Lucky for us then, that expansion modules are in the box, ready to go.

Speaking of the box, I’ve got to draw attention to the production of Castleshire. The version I was sent has a cloth playmat, the meeples are really nice, and the player character books are excellent. The star of the show is the box, which is styled like a big book, and has a magnetic closing. It might only be a preview copy of the game, but it’s very impressive. The little fold-out guild books which double as player mats, with cutouts for your workers, are especially awesome.

Planning permission for an extension

The included expansions are great, and I highly recommend including them once your players are familiar with the base game. The Guild Books add variable player abilities, which mix things up nicely, and by the time you add in Ally cards, using the Rest Area, and the various obstacles, it elevates it from a light social game to a gamer’s game.

I feel icky just saying something like “gamer’s game”, so I hope you appreciate it.

The point I’m trying to make is that the modular changes keep enough life fizzing in the game to keep everyone interested, without over-complicating things. It’s important, too, because game prices are going up, and getting value for money matters. There are even elements which introduce luck to the game, which are a great choice. Good bluffers are often gamblers, and pushing your luck to the point you fail is a great leveller for the rest of the table.

By the time you throw in extras to enable up to six players, and kid-friendly variants to make things easier, it’s a complete box.

Final thoughts

I didn’t know what to expect when I first started talking to Sven from Cheap Sheep over a year ago. In my head, it was going to be a Euro. It turns out to be something very different, and it’s a really pleasant surprise. Bluffing games have near-universal appeal, and Castleshire is a fantastic example of how to do it well. The rules take a little explaining, but the design decision of a making base game and including modular expansions was a great idea. It means you can teach just about anyone, and add in other bits and pieces as you see fit.

I was sent a copy of the game which comes with the cloth playmat. The standard version uses cards for the scoretrack and castle layout, which is fine, but I think I’d prefer to be using the mat. The cards don’t move around as much, and it looks really nice on the table. That might sound superficial of me, but one of the key factors in getting non-gamers to play games with you is making the game look appealing.

The Kickstarter campaign is now over, but at the time of writing, you’ll still be able to late pledge here. With options at £24, £37, and £61 (the £37 level is the one which gives you the cloth playmat, I believe), it represents great value for money. In a world of big, expensive games that take an hour to setup, and a day to learn, Castleshire is the perfect antidote. You’ll laugh, you’ll have fun, and you’ll never trust your friends again. That’s what board games are all about.

Preview copy kindly provided by Cheap Sheep Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Castleshire (2023)

Designer: Till Peters
Publisher: Cheap Sheep Games
Art: Rebekah Farr, Janette Ramos, Sam Rodger
Players: 1-6
Playing time: 30-45 mins

The post Castleshire Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

Did I tell you about the porthole defoggers?

After the brain-chewing mathematic co-op efficiency of Rescuing Robin Hood, Guns or Treasure takes the difficulty down a notch or three. It’s a no-nonsense card game of pirate vs pirate vs pirate… you get the idea. In the first part of the game, each of you plays cards from your hand to create ships in front of you. A card can have treasure, guns, or a bomb on it. Pirates like to keep things close to their chest (pun not intended), so as you add cards to a ship, they’re played face-down.

It’s a really cute mechanism, as the backs of the cards have masts and sails on them. Each time you add a card to a ship, it’s splayed vertically, which makes it look like you’re creating long ships, covered in sails.

Or are you?

You see, there’s a lot of cunning to be employed when you construct your ships. You can either continue adding to a ship you’ve already started, creating a huge galleon, or you could choose to make a tiny little two-card ship, more akin to a pedalo. Why would you? Mind games, swabs. Mind games.

Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!

After your ships are christened with bottles of rum and pushed out of drydock, it’s time for some marauding. In turn, you and your fellow buccaneers choose one of your own ships, and one rival ship, to engage in maritime fisticuffs. Reveal the cards, count the guns, and the most heavily armed wins the treasure from both boats. After the first round of marauding, you can retreat a ship instead, pulling it out of the water and claiming any treasure that was on it.

The thing which elevates these battles to proper mind games, is the inclusion of bombs. If a fight reveals a bomb on either ship, both ships are blown to smithereens, and the treasure belongs to Davy Jones (i.e. it sinks). Without the bombs,. Guns or Treasure would have been okay, but a bit pedestrian. With the bombs though, it’s great. Double-, triple-, quadruple-bluffing are all commonplace.

Picture it: you’re about to engage in naval combat with your significant other. They have a really long ship, and two shorter ones. What’s so special about that long one? They’ve filled it with guns I bet, hoping I’d attack. Or maybe they just want me to think that, and in fact it’s full of treasure, and they’ll retreat it. No, no, no, it’s got a bomb, I know it. She’s still mad at me for not folding the washing. Think you can get one over on me eh? I’ll show you!

“Hah, I can read you like a book! I’m not falling for that. I attack that smaller boat instead, and… oh crap, it’s a bomb”

Final thoughts

As I said at the outset, Guns or Treasure is a quick, light card game. It’s also a lot of fun. If you enjoy the sort of mind games that games like Sheriff of Nottingham conjure up, you’ll get a kick out of this. There are some really nice touches included, such as the optional Captain cards. Leave them out, and you have a nicely balanced game to introduce younger players to. Once you add them in, they bring asymmetric abilities into the game to make things more interesting. This is the way the game should be played. The captains are a diverse bunch too, which is nice to see, but you’ll have to take my Thunderbeard card from my cold, dead hands.

There are some great variants included in the rules, including a clever drafting mechanism, and another which sees captured treasure pass from ship to ship, which is chaos. The cards are gorgeous, with lovely clear iconography. Honestly, I’m struggling to find anything negative to say about it. If you’re anything like me, and pack small games in your bags and pockets anytime you go anywhere – just in case – Guns or Treasure is perfect. It’ll stay in my bag with The Resistance, 6 Nimmt!, and Yogi.

I’m a big proponent of games that don’t cost a fortune, with things the way they are in the world at the moment. 20$ (30$ if you include the expansion, which I haven’t played) is a bargain for a game that packs as much fun in a little box as Guns or Treasure does. I have a special category for games which people with kids under-10 will resonate with: “Games that fit on a small table while you’re waiting for overpriced rubbish food to arrive at chain restaurants and be over by the time it arrives.” Guns or Treasure fits very nicely into this category. Check out the campaign now by clicking here. Another winner here, Bryce & co, well done.

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

Guns or Treasure (2022)

Designer: Bryce Brown
Publisher: Castillo Games
Art: Paul Vermeesch
Players: 2-6
Playing time: 15 mins

The post Guns or Treasure Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

If this style of pulp spy thriller action is your thing, NewSpeak was made for you. It’s a group game in the style of Codenames, Decrypto, and Spyfall. In a dystopian future, what we see and experience is controlled by The Moderators, à la The Matrix. A group of Dissidents (one team) is planning covert actions to hack the servers controlling the population’s view of the world, and need to communicate the target locations to their teammates. The Moderators (the other team) are listening in, however, so cunning clues and codewords are the order of the day.

The art of conversation

The Lead Dissident player is trying to feed the others their target location. They do this by having a good old-fashioned chin-wag, cross-referencing key words against a code card. The Dissident team are trying to get clues to the chosen location by listening to the Lead Dissident. They’re trying to pick up on certain words, then cross-reference those words on their card to figure out the true meaning.

It’s probably easiest to explain by way of an example – the one included in the rulebook. Let’s say my code card has these pairs of words on it, among others:

Big – Liquid
Fact – Glass
Happy – Loud
Life – Party

The conversation might sound like this:

“She seemed down today. Do you think she’s happy with her life?”

“The fact is, we can’t read too much into it without knowing the bigger picture”

If the team picked up on the correct words, they’d now have Loud, Party, Glass, and Party, which in turn should lead them to the Nightclub.

Cracking the code

The Moderators are trying to identify which set of codes the others are using. It’s very difficult in the first round, and as a Moderator you’ll find yourself trying to pick up on the words you think are the code words. It’s often after the first location is revealed that you can start to make connections, and try to piece things together.

I really like how the players start to get inventive once they get the hang of the game. The clues get more vague, and instead of using the words on the cards, synonyms start creeping in, in an attempt to obfuscate the real clues. Saying ‘food’ for example, might turn into “we’re going to have lunch”.

Those of you who have played Spyfall or Decrypto before will be able to see some strong similarities already between NewSpeak and those games, but this game adds another layer of nuance that I really enjoy. It’s a deeper, more-involved game than its counterparts. It’s actually one of the trickier deduction games to explain, and while it’s not actually difficult per sé, it’s a game that really benefits from an example round before you get into the game proper.

Final thoughts

NewSpeak is a great example of this style of game. As I mentioned above, fans of Decrypto, Spyfall and Codenames will probably really enjoy it. From personal experience, it can be quite difficult to get your players to engage in making up the nonsense sentences. I found some people can get quite self-conscious about it for some reason. Once the ice is broken though, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

I found the game to be at its best with four or five players, but your mileage may vary. When you play with your family, or close friends, it’s really tricky trying to hide your intentions from the Moderator. Some people just know you too well. I played this with a close group after a couple of drinks at a regular games night, and we had a hoot with it.

I wouldn’t recommend NewSpeak if you’re likely to be playing with three players, as the game shines best when you’ve got multiple Dissidents trying to guess at the same time, it makes the conversations and interactions much more interesting, and gives the Moderators more to think about. It’s a game best enjoyed with a group around a table – chatting, laughing, and trying to figure out just what the flipping heck is going on.

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

NewSpeak (2021)

Designers: Mark Stockton-Pitt, Fiona Jackson, Anthony Howgego
Publisher: ITB Board Games
Art: Zak Eidsvoog, David Thor Fjalarsson
Players: 3-6
Playing time: 30-60 mins

The post NewSpeak Review appeared first on Punchboard.

So you’re a Viking. And you’re dead. You’re a dead Viking. That’s where Langskip starts off, in this light, small box game from Crab Studios. It holds the unusual honour of being the second Viking-themed race game I’ve played, along with the excellent Odin’s Ravens. In Langskip , as a dead Viking you were hoping to make it to Valhalla, to eat and drink with the gods, but due to some kind of clerical error, you’ve ended up in Helheim.

Luckily for you, and up to three other players, you’ve got a plan! In the middle of the table is a long, thin track, which represents the journey from Helheim back to Asgard, to tell Odin there’s been a mixup and that you really ought to be living it up in Valhalla. To move along that track though, you’ve got to get help from the gods, and cause a little bit of mischief along the way.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

If I had to describe Langskip’s gameplay loop to you in a sentence, it’d have to be “Cockroach Poker meets Love Letter”. That’s a good place to start from if you ask me, as both are brilliant examples of bluffing and player power card games respectively. Card powers range from moving a space, to moving many spaces and getting a look at someone else’s cards. There’s a good mix of powers, and unusually for me, I didn’t find there was a card I dreaded drawing because it’s awful. On your turn you’ll play a card from your hand of two, but you play it face-down and tell the other players what it is. That sounds simple, but because that card is face-down, I suppose you could lie about which card you played. But you wouldn’t do that… would you?

And that’s where the whole game of Langskip takes place, in those moments after you play a card. Everyone has a reference card which explains what each card does, and also the number of copies of that card in the deck. So I can confidently slap a card down and tell you it’s a Valkyrie, which lets me move one spot further along the track. There’s a good chance I might be telling the truth, as there are five Valkyrie cards in the deck. But what if I tell you I played the powerful Thor card? Or better yet, suppose I told you I played Thor, but you’re holding the only Thor card in the deck?

Shenanigans!

Or more accurately, mischief! If you think someone is lying, you can shout out ‘Mischief’. If you’re right, and they’re a sneaky little liar, you get a mischief token, and they don’t get to perform their action. However, if you’re wrong and you’ve just tarnished their reputation with your slanderous accusations, you move back a space on the track. So you’d better be pretty darn sure when you call someone out.

If nobody accuses you of mischief – and this is the bit I really like – you get to take the action of the card you claimed to have played. It might not be that card, you might have put down something nowhere near as powerful, but if no-ones going to call you out on it, well, that’s their loss. This is a great hook, and it really comes into its own when you’re playing with people you’ve known a long time, especially near the end of the game. When there’s only a couple of spaces between someone and victory, making the right judgement call is so important.

Those mischief tokens I mentioned before have an important role to play too. Some of the gods on the cards can use them to increase the benefit of playing them, and this is something I also like. It means you’re encouraged to bluff, and that even the goodest-of-good people are usually forced into telling an untruth or two.

The F-words

My son is eight, and he loves Cockroach Poker. He’s a strong reader too, so I wasn’t worried about the writing on the cards. The names on the cards caused a couple of issues though. There are three gods whose names all begin with an ‘F’: Frigg, Freya and Fenrir. He (and I in fairness) found it hard to remember which was which sometimes. It doesn’t help your poker face when you say ‘Fenrir – no, Frigg!‘. He struggled with ‘Jormungandr’ too, but I also know plenty of adults who would.

That on its own wouldn’t be so bad, but the writing on the reference card is so small that it can give you away at times. If you want to bluff and pretend you’re playing a card you don’t hold, you’ve got two real options. Either learn the card names and powers by heart (which you will do after a good few games), or look at the reference card. But when you’re squinting at the reference card, it’s a real giveaway that you’re fibbing. Hopefully this is just a prototype issue that’ll get resolved for the full release, because it did take a bit of the fun out of the game at times.

Final thoughts

Despite my small moan above, I really like Langskip. I’m a big fan of the games which have obviously influenced it, like Love Letter and Coup, and it does a good job of adding new things into the mix. Choosing whether or not you let someone get away with what you suspect might be a lie is really reminiscent of The Sheriff of Nottingham, which is another game I really like.

As with all socially interactive games, especially ones involving bluffing, you need to make sure you really know the preferences of the group you’re playing with. I know some people who absolutely hate bluffing as a mechanism in a game, and if someone is new to the group, asking them to lie to and accuse their new friends can be a bit much. It’s pretty good with two, but the game properly comes alive with three or four players.

If you play a few games to get really familiar with the cards’ names, and don’t need to rely on the reference card at all, then Langskip is a great game. I could see myself playing this in a beer garden, or at the start or end of a games group night. Games never went longer than about 25 minutes in my experience, which is a good length. Longer than that and some bluffing games start outstaying their welcome, in my opinion.

If you and your family or group like these short, sweet, bluffing games, with a nice little gameplay loop that plays fast, I think you’ll like Langskip. Providing the price is right on the Kickstarter, I’ve got no hesitation in recommending it, it’s a solid game.

Langskip (2021)

Designer: Neil Crabtree
Publisher: Crab Studios
Art: n/a
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 20-30 mins

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