Race leader

There are surprisingly few pure racing board games. Many games use a race mechanism to decide a winner, but it’s abstracted from the theme of the game. Reiner Knizia’s The Quest for El Dorado (review here) is a great example. If you strip it down to the nuts and bolts of the game, it’s a card-driven hand management game, with the goal of being the first to the end. Heat takes the same approach, but puts it in the classic race environment of a road race. Other games do the same, such as Formula D, Rallyman, and the current de-facto recommended racing game, Flamme Rouge.

Heat dons the livery of classic 1960s-style racing cars. I don’t know which car the minis in the game and on the cards are based on, but they look like the Lotus 25 or Eagle Weslake to me*. Engines and wheels with a human strapped to them, and nary a spoiler in sight. Playing Heat is super simple – check which gear you’re in on your player board, play that many cards from your hand, add up the points on those cards, and move along the track that many spaces. I’m not over-simplifying things here, that genuinely is all you need to do to actually play the game. The trick (you knew there was a trick coming) is in which cards you choose to play, and which gear you’re in at any given time.

If you end your movement directly behind or beside another car, you slipstream past them and move in front. Let’s say you’re in a race and two cars are neck-and-neck, side-by-side on the track ahead. If you land directly behind them you’ll go whizzing by, like a moron in a Range Rover using the hard shoulder on the motorway. All while maybe only using two or three points of movement. It’s a pretty glorious feeling, I can tell you. The biggest consideration to make comes in the corners, where entering with too much speed can cause you all manner of grief, and cause you to spin out.

* I have no idea about racing cars from the ’60s. I Googled these to sound knowledgeable.

Cooling off

The game’s name – Heat – is more than clever wordplay to bring about the atmosphere of hot tarmac, or even the heats of a race series. Heat is a crucial component in the game. Certain actions in the game, such as shifting too many gears at a time, or going too fast through a corner, add Heat cards to your deck. Heat cards are useless, you don’t want them. All they do is clog up your deck. In addition to gumming up the works, if you try to do something that would add a Heat card to your deck and – alas – there are none, you spin off the track! You don’t want to spin out, take my word for it.

Heat is mitigated by driving in lower gears. Lower gears result in cooldown, where you can move heat cards out of your hand, and back into your engine, which is a gorgeous thematic touch. Other cards represent the stress of racing, and the chance of a lapse of concentration messing things up. Playing one means drawing a speed card from your deck and playing it immediately, not knowing how far it’s going to send you. It’s just another example of the theme which has been applied like so much motor oil to every moving part of Heat’s engine. It all goes towards giving a wonderful push-and-pull feeling to the game, which once again, just slathers on more theme like dirty, greasy frosting.

The simplistic nature of the gameplay is both its strength and its weakness at the same time. After a few games with the base rules and with the same players, you start to see the meta rise to the surface. If the players know one another well enough, they can predict who will do what when they come to a corner. It can get really cagey, and it’s fitting that the game gets compared to Flamme Rouge (which is about cycling), because those cagey races are like watching a road race, waiting to see who’s the first to try to break the field and move ahead of the pack alone.

If you do tire (no pun intended) of the base game, there’s a feast of extra modules to throw in. Weather and race conditions, and a Garage module are the ones you’ll get the most value from. The Garage module has a round of upgrade drafting before the race starts to give players slightly asymmetric decks and different abilities, which is really cool. Other than that there’s a full campaign-style Championship module, and the Legends module which adds AI-controlled cars to the mix. The AI is extremely simple to run and makes for a great solo experience. It’s also worth adding in a couple of drivers to two- or three-player races, because Heat is at its best with a full complement of racers.

Racing with a flat?

The cars in Heat don’t have spoilers, but in spite of this, there are a couple of things that can really spoil the experience. If you spin off the track it can be really difficult to catch up with the pack. There is a catch-up mechanism called Adrenaline that gives the last racer (or two in a 5+ player game) an extra movement each turn and increases your cooldown. Despite these, it can still be pretty difficult to catch up. When you’re up among the other cars it’s relatively easy to stay in touch, and you only need one or two slipstreams to stay at the front. If you get dropped, however, and end up with more than one corner between you and the others, it’s really difficult to catch the front runners, and it can be a pretty miserable experience. That extra speed given by Adrenaline is often offset by the slipstreaming happening in the pack.

I played a four-player game of Heat where someone spun out on a corner, and had to push so hard to catch up that they spun out again soon after. One player won, and I came in second. The player in third knew there was no way they could be caught, so both he and the player in fourth just stopped playing. It was a really anti-climactic ending which took the wind out of everyone’s sails. I’m sure that with another play with the same people, things will be better, but it’s fair to say that Heat is definitely a game that benefits from a little shepherding if you’re playing with a mix of new and experienced players.

The other main bit of grit in Heat’s gears is the rulebook. On the whole, it’s good, but there are some ambiguous or misleading bits in there. For instance, when you play a Stress card or take a boost, you turn over cards from your deck to find a speed card. However, it’s easy to miss the fact that the value 0 and 5 cards you start with don’t count as speed cards. only the 1-4 cards. In almost all ways these cards all look the same. There is a symbol on the cards to denote it is a speed card, but it’s far from obvious. These little obfuscations are causing enough confusion that there’s a complete unofficial FAQ over on BGG (link to FAQ) and the promise of an updated rulebook from the designers.

Final thoughts

I don’t have many racing games. Looking at my shelves, I see Cubitos (review here), Jamaica, Long Shot: The Dice Game (review here), and The Quest for El Dorado (review here). Heat is certainly the only car racing game I have, and it’s a game that’s going to stay in my collection for a long time. It’s such a simple concept, but so well executed. Sure, it has its snags, as I mentioned above, but what game doesn’t? I’m really pleased to see that there are four tracks included in the game on two double-sided boards. Days of Wonder haven’t skimped on anything in the production of Heat.

The little plastic cars are a little piece of genius in my opinion. They help Heat straddle the line between game and toy, and they also get players doing those things in games which you haven’t done since you were a kid. You’ll go ‘brrrrrmmmm’, make screeching noises as you turn your car into a corner, and pick up your car and tap it along each space, counting your movement. You never need to – the distance to each corner is printed on the board – but you’ll do it like you were playing Snakes and Ladders as a five-year-old.

I’m not sure I’d choose to buy Heat if I knew I’d only ever play with two or three players. You can throw in the Legends module for some AI rivals, but it’s at its best with five and six players. Racing games are personal. It’s about beating the other players around the table. Yes, it’s satisfying getting a great piece of movement done, but it pales next to leaving someone eating your dust as you take the chequered flag. I fully expect to see Heat being played all over the place at conventions for the next couple of years, when people get the chance to play it with a full grid. Deceptively easy to learn, tons of fun, and plenty of scope for expansions and more tracks in the future, Heat is here to stay, and it’s great.

Review copy kindly provided by my retail partner kienda.co.uk. Thoughts and opinions are my own. Register for an account by visiting kienda.co.uk/punchboard today for 5% off your first £60+ order.

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Heat: Pedal to the Metal (2022)

Designers: Asger Harding Granerud, Daniel Skjold Pedersen
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Art: Vincent Dutrait
Players: 1-6
Playing time: 30-60 mins

The post Heat: Pedal To The Metal Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Hit and miss

Cubitos makes heavy use of one of my favourite things in a board game: push-your-luck. I still don’t know why I like it so much, especially when I enjoy heavy Euro games which eschew luck in favour of planning. To move around the track in Cubitos, you throw handfuls of dice. Each die has a mixture of faces with something good on (a hit), and blanks (misses). Any hits you roll are moved to the Active Zone of your area, and then you choose whether to keep rolling with the remainder of your dice, or pass, and get ready to run.

So you and your friends are throwing handfuls of these little dice, banking the good stuff, and then deciding whether to keep going or not. If you roll no hits, you bust! It lends itself to simultaneous rolling, so there’s precious little downtime, but there’s one aspect of the way Cubitos handles it that I really like. There’s nothing in the rules to say you can’t just sit and watch other people rolling, and wait to see if they pass or bust. If you notice someone doing this, you can also stop and wait. In fact, the whole table can, and then it comes down to who has the most available dice, and they must roll first.

I love how it tickles that part of our brains that love to take a chance, to have a little gamble. Whether you find yourself praying to the dice gods, giving your dice a lucky blow, or telling fate that baby needs a new dice tray, I can’t get enough of watching my friends agonise over deciding on one more roll or not. If it sounds like The Quacks of Quedlinberg so far, you’re on the right track. In the same way Quacks has its rat tails catch-up mechanism, Cubitos has a Fan track to advance along, should you bust. It has some great bonuses along it, so it’s never too disheartening if Lady Luck swipes left on you.

Playing the markets

Cubitos also shows its ‘separated at birth’ similarities to Quacks when it comes to improving your pool. In every game, you’ll be buying from the same selection of brightly-coloured dice, but what each of them does is dependent on outside forces. If you’re familiar with Quacks, you’ll remember that each colour’s abilities were decided by which of the spellbooks you use. Cubitos does something similar and gives each of its eight dice stores a choice of seven different ability cards. I’m no Carol Vorderman, but even I know that that adds up to a buttload of different combinations. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

I wouldn’t recommend just drawing cards randomly, however, as you need to strike a balance between cheap and expensive dice, and some just don’t really work with others. It’s a bit like making a sandwich; sure, you could try jam, raw onions and tuna, but there’s no guaranteeing it’ll work. Stick to the recommended setups in the rulebook for your first few games, and enjoy tasty dice sarnies.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about Cubitos so far is that there don’t seem to be any obviously-dominant strategies. In Dominion, the Big Money tactic was famously overpowered for a long time, and it still works even now. Cubitos seems more balanced. The same is true of the different tracks that come in the box. They offer plenty of variety, and just like The Quest for El Dorado which I recently reviewed, you’ll find yourself torn between the shortest route, and the longer, bonus-filled outside lines. I love that no two games ever feel the same. It really does help the game feel fresh for a long time.

The flimsy cardboard elephant in the room

Cubitos comes with a really clever storage solution. Each of the different sets of dice has a storage box included, each of which doubles as a holder/marketplace during the game. Unfortunately, there are two big issues with boxes, both of which wind me up.

Firstly you have to fold and assemble the boxes yourself. This wouldn’t be such a bugbear for me, if it weren’t for the fact that they’ve got some irritating folds. Folds to make some sides recessed – for example. It means you can’t really just punch and sort the game as quickly as you’d want. I’m all for publishers including storage and organisation solutions in their games, even moreso when they forgo plastic in favour of card, so kudos to AEG for that. Just make them simpler, or pre-assembled. It’s really easy to not get straight, crisp folds on your boxes, and they end up looking a bit wonky.

The second gripe I have is using the boxes as the marketplaces, as suggested in the rulebook. It’s a great idea, but the boxes are so top-heavy when using the recesses as trays, that it all feels a bit flimsy. It can be unnecessarily awkward to take dice from the trays when they’re full, especially when you’ve got big, fat sausage fingers like mine.

It’s probably worth noting that I wouldn’t normally complain about a game’s components unless I was really upset about them, and my issue with the boxes doesn’t affect the gameplay at all. The issue is that Cubitos is such a physical, tangible game. Playing with the little dice, rolling them, clacking them together – it’s all a part of the experience. When you regularly have to interact with something which subconsciously detracts from that experience, however little, it’s the sort of thing I have to bring up.

Final thoughts

Look, I know I spend a whole section grumbling about the boxes. Unfortunately, as a dad in his mid-forties, it’s just something I have to do. I’m contractually obligated to be a bit grumpy. Don’t let that make you think Cubitos is anything other than mad fun, because that’s exactly what it is. I love pushing luck in games, I love bag/deck/pool building, and I love social racing games. Cubitos delivers in all three areas, in spades. It’s a brilliant game, and if you like The Quacks of Quedlinburg, you’ll like this too.

The little dice are unbearably cute and tactile. You might be wondering why I’ve mentioned their smaller size a few times in this review, and it’s because size matters – despite what you might have been told. In a game where you’re going to roll at least nine dice (nine!) at the start of your turn, if they were regular-sized dice, you’d need hands like Shaq to hold them all. Not to mention the table space you’d need with four of you all doing it at the same time.

You can play with anything from two to four players, but as with most other racing games, the more the merrier. If you asked me to play a two-player game, I would, but I’d be eyeing your collection to see what else we could play. With four though, I’d bite your hand off. It’s silly, colourful fun, full of groans and cheers, and just like he did with Space Base, John D Clair has come up with a winner. Ignore my curmudgeonly cardboard grumbles, and find out why it was so hard to get hold of for most of last year.

Review copy kindly provided by Alderac Entertainment Group. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Cubitos is available from our sponsor – Kienda. Sign-up using this link to get 5% off your first order over £60.

Cubitos (2021)

Designer: John D. Clair
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Art: Jacqui Davis, Philip Glofcheskie, Ryan Iler
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 30-60 mins

The post Cubitos Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Jungle is massive

The Quest for El Dorado drops you into the roles of expedition leaders. Each is trying to negotiate their way through the jungles, deserts, and lakes, searching for the golden treasure. That landscape is a collection of big, hex tiles, joined at the edges. There are several layouts shown in the rulebook, but there’s nothing to stop you from creating something which fits on your table better. Despite the hexes not being too big, by the time they’re linked, and the card market is on the table, it takes up quite a lot of space.

The best way to describe the game is a mixture of deck-building and racing. Some deck-builders can feel like a race. Dominion, for example, is basically a race to amass points before the last Province card is taken. The Quest for El Dorado, however, is a traditional race. Our intrepid explorers have to play cards that allow them to cut their way through the jungle, aiming to be the first to make it to the gold – and with it, glory. Something like that, anyway.

If we’re honest, the most satisfying bit of a deck-builder is crafting your deck. As in Moonrakers, Aeon’s End, and just about every other deck-building game ever, there’s a card market to visit. In an attempt to keep things thematic, your trips to card-Tesco in El Dorado result in you hiring more people to come on your trip. You might be hiring a Scout to lead your group, but in reality, all you need to know is that he’s a green card with a power of two. You might look at the card art and think about what each card represents, but that’s quickly replaced with a need to just glance at colour and value. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing necessarily, it’s just how deck-builders work.

Lean, mean, exploring machine

There are two distinct phases to most peoples’ introduction to deck-building. Phase one is when you buy all the cards, and revel in your glorious collection, like some kind of card magnate. Phase two is when you try to play with all the cards, and realise they don’t work together. It’s this natural turning point that leads inquisitive minds to think “What if I take cards out of my deck, so the cards I want come out more often…?”.

Trimming the fat. Separating the wheat from the chaff. Skimming off the cream. It doesn’t matter which analogy you choose, the result is the same. In El Dorado you’ll inevitably find some value in thinning your deck, and there’s a mechanism for doing exactly that. Visiting a base camp on the map lets you bin some of your cards permanently, but in typical Knizia fashion, it’s a calculated risk. Getting to a base camp means straying off the beaten path. In other words, your deck gets more useful, but it means you’ll often have to travel further.

Decisions, decisions.

The way Reiner has balanced The Quest for El Dorado is fantastic. I love the way you can plan your route long in advance, and then try to craft your deck along the way. If you’ve played the more-recent Cubitos, you’ll be familiar with the agony of choice you’re given, between the most direct route and the best bonuses. It’s a light game, in terms of complexity, but I’d still probably point newcomers towards Dominion first. Learning how to build a deck while planning a route can prove tricky for younger players. Any mistakes made during crafting your deck feel amplified by your lack of progress in the race.

Final thoughts

I’m a sucker for jungley, adventurey, Indiana-Jonesy themes in games. I loved Escape: The Curse of the Temple, and The Quest for El Dorado conjures up the same feelings for me. On a mechanical level it’s just about growing a stronger deck of cards to cope with more difficult movement requirements. As you’d expect from a Reiner Knizia game, the mathematics behind all of this feel very nicely balanced. As long as you follow the official map layouts or use the principles in the rulebook (or these awesome fan-made maps), you’ll be able to create some unique and varied jungles.

This is a real keeper of a game. It’s not one of those that sits on your shelves for months between plays (I’m sorry, On Mars. I still love you). You could easily play it several evenings in a week and not get tired of it, thanks to the variable setup. I keep harking back to Dominion, I know, but El Dorado offers the same simplicity in rules and mechanical overhead as its forebear. Once you know how to play it, each time it lands on the table it becomes a game of figuring out what you want to do, not how to play, and that’s what all good games should do.

If you’re all about the heavy, brain-burning games, The Quest for El Dorado probably isn’t for you. As a svelte, accessible mix of racing and deck-building though, it’s fantastic. Even though Knizia has created hundreds of games, there aren’t many that I’d consider must-haves. El Dorado, along with Tigris and Euphrates, is a game that I think everyone should have in their collection. Dominion is still on my shelf after 13 years, and I expect The Quest for El Dorado to still be there in another 13. It’s brilliant.

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

The Quest for El Dorado (2017)

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: Ravensburger
Art: Vincent Dutrait, Franz Vohwinkel
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 30-60 mins

The post The Quest for El Dorado Review appeared first on Punchboard.

The original Long Shot had plastic horse minis, which for some reason, I found a bit freaky. It also had cards. Lots of cards. Long Shot: The Dice Game does away with the cards and goes dry-wipe crazy, with horse ownership cards and player boards you can write on. If you’ve played Just One before, you already know just how satisfying it is to use those little eraser things on the end of the pens. Teeny tiny bouts of satisfaction, every time.

And they’re off

The aim of the game is simple: have the most money at the end. You and your fellow gamblers choose which horses to bet on, and whether to throw all your money at one, or spread it over lots of nags. Long Shot is a roll-and-write game. In each round you roll a couple of dice; one of them shows you which of the eight horses is going to move, and the other tells you how many spaces around the track. Sounds like the dullest roll-and-move ever when it’s described like that, but it isn’t.

The super-clever, super-interesting twist comes in the form of horse cards. Each horse in the race has its own card, and each card serves two purposes. Firstly, they’re up for sale. That’s right, you too can become the proud owner of a race horse! Owning a horse is a good thing, as they have abilities which are activated whenever that horse is chosen by the dice of destiny. The other upside to horse ownership is a payday if your nag is in the top three places at the end of the race.

Each horse card also has a series of checkboxes at the bottom of the card, some of which come pre-filled. This is the really juicy, fun bit. If a horse moves because its number comes up, any of the horses with a filled checkbox at the bottom of that horse’s card get dragged along with it. It’s almost like that horse is super encouraging, turning around and going “Come on you lot, you can do it!”

Bingo!

As well as moving the horses around the track, the coloured D8 also lets you do the fun bit, the strategic bit where you write on your player boards. You can spend your dollarbucks on bets for the selected horse, invest in them to be able to bet on them after they pass the ‘no more bets’ line on the track, or do the bingo board. The game calls them ‘Concessions’, but I call it the bingo board.

Every time you complete a row or column on the 4×4 bingo board, you can claim one of the one-time bonuses from the chart below it. Free bets and extra money are up for grabs, but also a few uber-powerful abilities that let you move horses forwards – and backwards – around the track. After a game or two you’ll notice people saving these movement bonuses up until the end of the game, and it makes the last third of the game fantastic.

People will cheer, and others will curse, as that horse that was one space from winning gets shunted back three spaces. It’s incredibly satisfying to see the horse you bet on coming through strong, after it spent most of the game just ambling around the track at its own pace. When the first three horses cross the line, you cash in your bets using the multipliers on the player boards, and add any bonuses. The gambler with the most money is crowned KING OF THE HORSES! Probably.

Final thoughts

Long Shot: The Dice Game, despite having a really annoying name to type, is great. It got a load of buzz earlier in the year when Shut Up & Sit Down featured it, and with good reason. In truth, I bought into the hype too, and I’m glad I did. The wooden horse markers are really chunky and satisfying, and so much less creepy than the plastic ones from the original game.

It does what all good something-and-write games do, which is to make it really satisfying to fill in space on your board. Those mini dopamine hits from comboing things together isn’t as prevalent as in something like Hadrian’s Wall, but it’s still very satisfying. The game feels pretty chaotic most of the time, and for some people that’s a deal breaker. This isn’t a game of deep strategy. It’s a game of laughs among a group of friends.

Speaking of groups, having a few players is where the game does best. The full player count of eight would drag I think, but four or five players is awesome. The game moves along fast enough to not outstay its welcome, and there’s plenty of banter and competition for horses. There are different sets of horse cards to keep things from getting stale, and there’s a really decent solo mode too, seeing you face-off against the AI called Roland Wright (…). When it’s in stock, it’ll set you back less than £30, and if you regularly play with a group who enjoy the lighter stuff too, I’d really recommend picking up a copy of Perplext’s game.

Long Shot: The Dice Game (2022)

Designer: Chris Handy
Publisher: Perplext
Art: Clau Souza
Players: 1-8
Playing time: 30 mins

The post Long Shot: The Dice Game Review appeared first on Punchboard.

My God, it’s full of stars

The first thing players of the original Gravwell will notice is the new artwork. One of my favourite board game artists, Kwanchai Moriya, was brought in to spruce things up, and it looks gorgeous. It keeps a similar aesthetic, but the cards which drive the gameplay look clearer, and I prefer the look of the game board.

If you’ve never played Gravwell before, it’s a cross between a race game and a tug of war. Each player chooses a card from their hand and plays it face-down. The cards are flipped, then resolved in alphabetical order (each represents an element). The majority of the cards pull you towards the nearest object – be that another ship, or a piece of space junk – while a few push you away.

This is where the game gets interesting. The card you played may have moved you towards the next ship, just a couple of spaces ahead, and slingshotted you off towards victory. However, if that next ship played a card with a symbol that gets resolved before yours, they might have moved away from you, leaving the nearest object as a piece of junk floating behind you. Gravity doesn’t care which way it pulls, so off you go backwards, careening through space, back towards the start. Imagine the frustration, and smug satisfaction in your opponents face.

Form an orderly queue

The guts of Gravwell: 2nd Edition are built around one of my favourite mechanisms – action queuing. You’ve probably experienced it in at least one game, from Gloomhaven and Dungeon Lords through to Colt Express and 6 Nimmt!. In an action queue, players play their cards face-down, then when they’re flipped, some value on them gives them an order to be resolved in. Trying to guess what the other players are going to do, and then choosing your own counter-move, is as frustrating as it is exciting.

There’s a small amount of magic that happens when everyone’s played their chosen cards. When the cards are flipped, everyone’s eyes scour them so fast it looks like people watching a table tennis match. I love the sounds of delight and despair when everyone figures out what’s going to happen next, it’s real tabletop chemistry.

At first glance it might look like it’s just a game of chance, but once you figure out how it all works, you soon realise that the game is about the people around the table. It’s pure mind games. From the second round onwards, the new hands of cards are chosen in a drafting system, and if you’ve got a good memory you’ll know four of the six cards that other players have. Trying to remember them definitely helps, but it’s hard to do, which I think lends to the fun of the game. That’s what Gravwell is – a fun game.

Vive la difference

There are a few key differences between the original version of Gravwell, and this second edition. First of all, each ship has four special ability cards. These get charged when certain things happen in the game – ending your movement next to a piece of space junk, for example – and give you one-off special actions and abilities. I like these, they add a small amount of asymmetry to the game, which makes things really interesting, and means you can make tactical plays as well as just racing.

The second and third main changes work together really nicely. The first is a new fuel card type, the multipoint repulsor. These cards push every other object on the board away from you, but they only come into play at higher player counts. Higher player counts is the other big change, as Gravwell: 2nd Edition now supports up to six players! If you’ve played with the chaos of four before, this takes it to a whole new level.

When you play with more than four, you can choose to start from the inside and work outwards, as is the norm, or flip things on their head and work from the outside, inwards. It’s not too different at first, but when you get to the third round or so, and ships start crossing paths, it’s galactic mayhem, and it’s hysterical. You’ll need reminders of who is going in which direction, but that’s okay. Playing Gravwell is meant to be a fun experience. It’s a light-hearted game which gets people talking and laughing, and it’s a great social lubricant (for want of a much better expression).

Final thoughts

Gravwell: 2nd Edition is really good fun. It’s much lighter than games I’d usually go for, but that’s one of its biggest strengths. I could take this to a family gathering, and teach everyone how to play in five minutes. It’s also a great game to start or end a regular games night with. It’s not too taxing, it plays out in about half an hour, and you can chat while playing. I recently took it to a local convention, and universally people enjoyed it.

It’s worth saying that it’s a far better game with three or more players. You can play with two, but it’s a really dilated experience. What makes the game fun is the chaos of ships and objects pulling each other hither and thither, and when there’s only two of you and a couple of pieces of junk, space feels too empty. One silly thing that I really enjoy is the way people count out their spaces when they move. Everyone – and I mean everyone – I’ve played with does that thing we all did with Monopoly or Snakes & Ladders, where you pick your piece up and tap out every step on the board. There’s no need to, because every fifth space has its number printed on it, but it’s a game that makes you feel like a kid again.

I’ve played enough times now for my cards to show the first signs of wear, which goes to show how much I enjoy it. It also shows that I really ought to sleeve the cards. Gravwell: 2nd Edition would make a brilliant addition to a fledgling collection of board games, and the super-cool minis and gorgeous board mean anyone and everyone can find something to enjoy. If you enjoy games like Jamaica, you’ll love Gravwell.

Review copy kindly provided by Renegade Game Studios. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Gravwell: 2nd Edition (2021)

Designer: Corey Young
Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Art: Kwanchai Moriya
Players: 2-6
Playing time: 30-45 mins

The post Gravwell: 2nd Edition Review appeared first on Punchboard.

Office politics

It’s safe to say this is a game with its tongue firmly in its cheek. You could say the whole thing is a caricature of office life, but honestly, in some ways it’s not a million miles from the truth. The aim of the game is to suck up to the three bosses, each of whom has a corner office on the grid board. Once you’ve done that, and collected your certificates of achievement, it’s a race back to the start to be the first one to their performance review, and a juicy promotion.

The problem is, you’re not the only one who wants the promotion, and you can be darn sure the other players will stop at nothing to get there ahead of you. All’s fair in love and office politics, right? In fact, there’s a deck of cards used in the game called ‘Office politics’. You can spend your company influence to play them, doing things like spreading rumours about the others, stealing the credit for someone else’s work, working overtime, or even sucking up to your superiors. Each of these either boost you, or hinder someone else in some way.

Stepping stones

As I mentioned right at the start, Sysifus Corp is, at its heart, a racing game. The difference between this and other racing games, is the lack of a track. You all start in one corner of the board, visit the other three corners, and then head back to the starting space. The problem is, there’s no route between each square. That’s where the project cards come in. These square cards have some light-hearted, corporate-esque flavour text on them, but importantly, they also have sticky notes around some of the sides.

A sticky note is like a Post-It note, but with less copyright infringement.

If two sticky notes are adjacent, you can move from one card to the next. There’s this feeling of trying to lay your project cards ahead of you, like stepping stones, while trying not to open up routes for the other players. There’s no set route, you can go wherever you like, and visit the bosses in any order. But it’s this idea of not helping the other players where the fun really begins in Sysifus Corp.

Have you got a rival who’s got a clear route to the next boss? Let’s just play a card, and turn the next square, so his route is broken. Maybe another player is perilously close to getting to the performance review and winning the game. It’d be a real shame if you played a card and swapped your place with hers, wouldn’t it? If you’ve ever hooted with devilish glee when your blue shell hit your friend in Mario Kart and cost them the race, you’re going to love this game.

Playing with the right group

I’ve had a lot of fun with Sysifus Corp. I’ve played it with my immediate family, my in-laws, and a couple of friends. We all know each other really well, and we all enjoy the banter and competition that comes from a game like this, or the aforementioned Mario Kart. However, I probably wouldn’t take this along to a games club night where there might be people I don’t know well. Plenty of people don’t like confrontation, or screwing other players over, so this game could leave a sour taste in their mouth.

The same goes with playing with family, or younger players. My son loves games, but hates losing. We tried playing a house rules game where we couldn’t play any cards that directly attacked another player, and while it works, it feels like ripping the soul out of the game. Sysifus Corp is a game that’s at its best when players are shouting and laughing, groaning and sniggering. Just bear that in mind before you pull the trigger and buy it.

When it comes to player count, it’s pretty good against one other person, especially if you know them well. The game really comes to life with three or four players, and you need eyes in the back of your head to keep track of what’s going on. There’s a great feeling of trying to hinder the leader without putting yourself in the spotlight. Using the Mario Kart metaphor again, it’s like staying in second place and just waiting for that blue shell to go flying past, leaving you free to claim victory.

Final thoughts

Sysifus Corp doesn’t look all that exciting when you set it up. The player boards are really nicely done, but the main board feels a bit soulless and grey. But when you start playing, you realise that’s just a part of the over-the-top corporate feel, and it actually helps the game. It’s a racing game, and it’s a really good racing game, and it’s a real boon that any decoration just gets out of the way, and lets you concentrate on who is where, and what they’re doing next. In the same way that Chess doesn’t need an illustrated board.

I can’t comment too well on longevity, although I know that some racing games can become routine when the players know all the tricks. What Sysifus Corp has going for it though, is a big selection of office politics cards, only some of which gets used in any one game. Cards can combo-up when played, so using different sets to start with can result in really different feeling games.

I know the theme will leave some people cold, but I’d urge anyone to try it if they can, or at least give it the benefit of the doubt. I really enjoy a race with plenty of needle, plotting and ruining someone else’s day. Sysifus is a well-made, balanced, riot of a race game, and I’ve had loads of fun with it. Wonmin has made a great game, and I love seeing another brilliant design from an independent studio.

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

SPECIAL OFFER!

Pegasus Games have provided me with FIVE discount codes for Sysifus Corp. If you head to https://www.sysifuscorp.com/ and buy the game direct, you can save 20% of the cost. Not too shabby. It brings the cost down from $39.99 USD to a shade under $32 USD. In order to claim a code, comment below and I’ll give the first five people a discount code.

Please don’t ask for a code if you don’t intend to use it.

Sysifus Corp (2021)

Designer: Wonmin Lee
Publisher: Pegasus Games
Art: Wonmin Lee
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 45-60 mins

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