Loaded dice

I’m not too proud to admit that as soon as I opened the box I wanted to play with the action dice. They’re black cubes with no faces on. Just open holes, promises of dice that could have been. It’s so sad. Luckily we’ve also got a bag full of dice faces! During the game, you get the chance to grab some of those faces and clip them to the blank sides, and it’s ridiculously satisfying. The publisher has also thrown in a couple of little tools to lever the faces off when you swap them out, which is another unnecessarily enjoyable process.

Why open a review with something as glib as this? Because the toy factor is one of the things guaranteed to get kids on board, and that’s important because Kapow! is absolutely aimed at kids as much as it is at adults. The removable faces are colour- and symbol-coordinated with the other (trait) dice in the game, and to play the game you need plenty of dice, and you need dice which are going to land on the correct faces for what you want to do.

Gameplay is pretty easy. Put your player screen up for secrecy and then roll all of your dice. Your player boards list a load of different actions, and each action shows which dice faces they need in order to be activated. You take the rolled dice and place them on the various action spots on your boards, before removing the screens and resolving the dice. This is the crux of the game and it’s reassuringly simple. Add up the values of your attacks and compare them to your opponent’s defence. If you clobber them with more than they defend with, they take the difference in lost hit points on their health dials.

As well as giving you attack and defence, as well as some other actions, some of the action spaces give you rewards, and these rewards usually come in the form of extra trait dice, action dice, or faces for action dice. Let’s say you’ve decided to go full Hulk on the person sitting opposite you. You know you want lots of the first and bicep symbols, so you stock up on those faces to adorn your action dice. BLAMMO! You’ve suddenly got a die with six red fists on it. It’s clobberin’ time! Yeah, I know, I’m mixing up The Thing and The Incredible Hulk, but you’re just going to have to deal with it.

Jean Grey

Kapow! is relatively simple, as you might have guessed by now. It doesn’t take long before you realise that the real game comes from trying to read the mind of your opponent. Are they going to attack hard this round? Should I stack up my defence to mitigate it, or just take my lumps and use my dice on the Power Up section of my board to gain more dice and faces? Seems like a good option, except that they might instead decide to assign dice to the After Power Up section, causing me damage for every die and face I gain this round… So maybe I should just attack instead?

You’ll find yourself caught in these decision loops constantly, and it really fuels the table talk. You start to get sneaky and devious, trying to bluff or double-bluff the other person. I even caught my son gesturing toward and looking at the area of the board where you can place dice to defend, only to find out he’d stacked everything on his attacks. The kid’s a supervillain in the making.

What I’ve talked about so far is the way you’ll play the game the first time, but once you’ve got the hang of it (in fact, from your first game onwards if you’ve experience with games) you can add asymmetric super hero and villain boards to your area. Each comes with their own abilities, starting health, and starting dice. and it breathes a welcome bit of life into a game which would otherwise get stale quite quickly. It’s not to say that Kapow! isn’t a fun game, because it is, but it’s lightweight and can get samey pretty quickly.

Superman from Wish.com

If you’re like me, and like your games with plenty of meat on their bones, you might find Kapow! a little lacking. Despite the player boards appearing to have tons of spaces to place dice, the reality is that the attack and defend columns are a little dull. It’s a cool concept, for sure. You assign dice to an attack, then you can add more dice to a Kicker (adds more damage), and finally assign some to a multiplier to really boost it. Defending works in the same way. The attacks all have suitably comic-bookish names like Biff, Zap, and Pow, but it doesn’t feel much like you’re using any superpowers, and surely the point of having superheroes is to be using cool powers?

The various character boards introduce some new powers as such, they’re just not very dramatic. Locking in abilities to use them in every round is pretty cool, for example, but it’s still maybe just having a ‘Pow’ every round for free, not like using laser eyes, invisibility, or something equally extravagant. I feel no small amount of hypocrisy writing this. I love beige, mechanical Euros where the theme can be nothing more than a gossamer-thin veneer, so why grumble about a lack of it here? In my opinion, a game about superhuman boys and girls knocking lumps out of each other should feel dramatic and explosive, and you should feel like you have some truly awesome powers. I just don’t get that from it.

I should caveat this review by mentioning that my experience of it has been with 1v1 battles only. There’s a 2v2 mode which allows for cooperation and teamwork, and you can add in the characters from the Volume 2 version of the game too. Just something to bear in mind if you’re looking to regularly play with four people.

Final thoughts

Kapow! is a mixed bag. On one hand, you’ve got this duelling game which is a load of fun. Gaining and customising your dice is super cool, and I love the plotting behind your screens before the big reveal. Planning and plotting to try for a monumental attack is extra satisfying when it comes off. It’s just tempered somewhat by the lack of ‘super’ stuff you can do. The characters aren’t licensed from any comic universe, and in a way that’s a good thing. Imagine a game where you were Spider-man but couldn’t do any web-slinging, or The Flash but had no way to move super fast.

I’ve got to give a special mention to the artwork and graphic design in Kapow! The illustrations are superb, and everything looks like it’s been lifted straight from a classic comic. The art combined with the bright, bold dice makes for a game which looks great on the table and is instantly appealing to everyone, non-gamers included. This level of appeal is a very important point and isn’t to be sniffed at. This is a fantastic game to bring families together around a table and introduce non-gamers to modern games. If you’re part of a game group and have games to introduce new members with, Kapow! would be a fantastic addition to the collection.

Ultimately Kapow! is a glorified Rock, Paper, Scissors with an element of bag- and engine-building. Stack your dice in one particular area and see whether your opponent countered it, met it head-on, or tried to reap some benefit as a result of your choices. Trying to do a little bit of everything each turn isn’t really viable if you want to win. As I mentioned before if you’re looking for something complex it’s not going to knock your socks off, but if your tastes lie with something lighter end of the board game buffet, Kapow! is a great option. If you’re looking for a game that does something similar with dice but with a bit more going on, check out Dice Throne. If you’re looking for generic superhero action with more emphasis on what the heroes are doing, you’d be hard-pressed to beat 2011’s Sentinels of the Multiverse. Kapow! fills a gap somewhere between the two, and is a great option to get kids and newbies into chucking dice.

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

KAPOW! Volume 1 (2023)

Design: Larry Bogucki, Robert Dougherty, Douglas Hettrick, Carl Van Ostrand
Publisher: Wise Wizard Games
Art: Randy Delven, Cody Jones, Kalissa Fitzgerald
Players: 1-4
Playing time: 20-45 mins

The post KAPOW! Volume 1 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.

Cogito Ergo Meeple are the brains behind the Philosophia titles Dare To Be Wise and Floating World, and the upcoming Sci-fi epic, Solar 175. I had the chance to grab some time with them to ask a few questions about the team, their games, and their taste in biscuits.

Interview

Let’s start at the beginning, would you like to introduce yourself, tell us what you do, and let us know a bit more about Cogito Ergo Meeple?

We’re Maddie and Joe, co-owners of tabletop game publishing company Cogito Ergo Meeple. We’ve published two games so far, both of which are big box board games that incorporate sandbox style play. When designing our games, player experience is the highest priority so we work very hard to ensure high quality gameplay through extensive playtesting. We have a new euro style legacy game called Solar 175 which is coming to Kickstarter on the 1st March!

You mentioned your first two games. Those two, the Philosophia titles Dare To Be Wise and Floating World, had classical, historical settings. What was the inspiration behind them?

We are both teachers and the first game started as a fun way to teach our students about ancient Greek Philosophy, hence the ancient Greek setting. For the second game we were inspired by the amazing ukiyo-e artwork of Japan. We have been living and working in Tokyo for the last 6 years and so this city and its rich history was a huge influence on the game.

Morality and ethics are clearly at the heart of what you do, challenging players to think and feel. Is it something you always had in mind for your games?

Yes, engaging with difficult and interesting ideas has always been a key part of what we want our games to be. We love the medium of tabletop games as a method to get people together to interact with complex and difficult ideas in a fun and engaging way. First and foremost our games are designed to be fun but if players also leave the table with a little more knowledge or an improved skill that can only be a good thing!

So looking forward now, to Solar 175. The first thing that strikes me is that it’s a dramatic change in setting. What made you go from designs set in the past, to something based in space?

We’ve always been interested in the concept of exploration within a game and we have been working on the worldbuilding of Solar 175 for many years so we felt this was the next game we had to make! There are actually quite a few similarities between our past games and Solar 175, even though they may sound very different at first glance. Solar 175 could really be seen as a spiritual successor to our last game, Philosophia: Floating World. Both are fast paced games with a deckbuilding/bagbuilding element and a high level of player interaction. Actually the biggest city in the Solar 175 universe is Yurushi which is located where Tokyo is today so many of the same themes come through in both games despite seeming so different at first glance. 

It’s more about the theme of exploration then, rather than any particular setting? That’s really interesting. With Solar 175, how long has it taken you to go from initial concept to what’s about to be launched on Kickstarter? Were there any major changes to the game you can share with us?

Many years! We started off by developing the world and, as time has gone on, the Solar 175 universe has slowly become more vivid in our minds. It has been a long process but it has meant that the gameplay development has been great fun as we had this vast rich universe to create and playtest our game within. The legacy elements came in early in order to allow players to explore the universe we had created and to feel its huge scope and scale. Once the world had developed to a point where we were happy with it, we spent the last 2 years perfecting the gameplay to make sure the player experience was as fun and engaging as we had envisioned. 

One major change to the game along the design process was the core mechanics. We settled on an interaction of bag building, area control and worker placement mechanics, all of which we feel match the theme really well and provide engaging and interesting gameplay experiences. However, early on we set our sights on the card drafting mechanic but it just didn’t hit the mark. It worked well for the first few games but it just didn’t have the level of replayability we were looking for. 

Thanks for the insight, I find it fascinating to know what ends up on the Cutting Room floor. Solar 175 has the addition of a legacy-style campaign. It sounds like a legacy game with a difference to many though, as nothing is destroyed, only improved. Can you give us an example of how that might happen in the game?

Yes, great question! This is our key design philosophy behind using the legacy mechanic. We found that many players see their board games as permanent collectable items and that the destructive nature of legacy campaigns can end up making these games feel cheap and disposable. Our aim is to keep the excitement and permanence of the genre but remove the disposability. The solar system of Solar 175 will continue to expand and evolve endlessly. Throughout the campaign you will be unlocking material and building the story of the world and this will not stop. An example of this is shown in the miniatures we have used. Like all our previous games we have put a big focus on creating a high quality production so players feel that they are gaining new permanent items rather than feeling like they are replacing disposable ones.

I’m positive that feeling of the game not being disposable is one which will resonate with readers, me included! I saw you mention that both Orleans and El Grandé are inspirations for Solar 175. Are there other classics – new or old – which you’d like to draw inspiration from for future games?

We try to learn something from every game we play, tabletop is so full of new and innovative ideas right now that there is no shortage of places to go. Although the medium is literally ancient it seems like there has been a seismic shift of possibilities in the last 20 years and we are still only scratching the surface of that! In terms of specifics I’m not sure as we tend to look for the mechanics that fit best with the game rather than starting the other way around but there are many classic games which have influenced us!

Given those influences, what sort of person do you think will enjoy playing Solar 175?

Solar 175 is a big heavy game with a rich theme. Gameplay wise it is a bag builder so if you enjoy deck building games you will find the core feel of this familiar. If you enjoy the rich narrative of games like Gloomhaven you will also find a lot to like in Solar 175. It is for players who would enjoy the deep strategy of a complex euro game mixed in with a rich narrative and quality components. It is certainly aimed at people who are heavily into this hobby as it is not a light gateway game!

Finally, and maybe most importantly, what’s your favourite biscuit?

Chocolate digestives for sure, you just can’t beat them! 

Thanks for your time folks, and a fine choice of biscuit.

Now head to Page Two to read the preview of Solar 175.

The post Interview with Cogito Ergo Meeple & Solar 175 Preview appeared first on Punchboard.

Quacks, from designer Wolfgang Warsch, is a mixture of two well-matched game mechanisms: bag-building and push-your-luck. You’re trying to pull as many ingredients from your bag in each round, and place them on your cauldron board without making the value of any white tokens exceed 7. At the end of the round, you’re rewarded with victory points and money to spend, based on how much stuff you managed to throw into your potion. Go over 7 though, and boom! The cauldron explodes, and you’re forced to choose either VPs or money, not both.

Playing the odds

Quacks is a game of chance. You start the game with a number of tokens – including the dreaded white ones – in your slinky bag, and as you pull more of them out, there’s a quick bit of mental arithmetic and odds calculation. For example – you might already have white ingredients in your cauldron with a total value of 5. You know you’ve got another in your bag that’s worth 2, and one that’s worth 3. Remember, 8 or more = kaboom! You remember you’ve also got another four safe colour tokens in there. So now you know there’s a 1-in-3 chance of grabbing a white one, and a 1-in-6 chance that you’ll end up with potion on your face. So, the question is, do you feel lucky, punk? Do ya?

That example might not make for the most stimulating reading, granted, but it’s the kind of internal dilemmas you’ll be facing every single round.

That’s where the whole game of Quacks lives, in those risky decisions, and it’s what makes it so much fun. Hearing the laments of your opponents as they pull white after white from their bag, while your rooty brew hasn’t had even one so far. The gasp of relief when someone goes for one more token that they know damn well they shouldn’t go for, and survives. It’s a real social experience, and one that’s a lot of fun. It’s one of those games that works just as well with your family as it does with a group of friends.

The best game I can think to compare Quacks to, is Blackjack, or Pontoon depending on where you grew up. The game where you’re trying to draw cards to get close to – but not over – 21. Obviously there’s a lot more going on in Quacks, but the feeling is remarkably similar. Quacks is wonderfully balanced, and there’s a great catch-up mechanism which relies on rats’ tails on the VP track to give temporary boosts to the losing players

Keeping things fresh

When you earn money at the end of a round, you spend it on new ingredients for your bag. The mathematicians among you will already have figured out that the more tokens you add, the lower the probability of pulling out a white one each time. The more you spend, then generally the more a token is worth, and the further it moves you around your cauldron’s spiral, increasing the rewards. Each colour of token has an opportunity of bonus scoring too, based on the ingredient books you’ve chosen for the game. Those ingredient books are great, they really change the game up and stop it getting stale too quickly.

Each round introduces a new fortune teller card too, which might change the rules just enough to make you re-think your strategy this time around. I say ‘strategy’, but most of the time strategy goes right out the window. Pure gut feeling tells you that this next token in your hand, this is the one, this is the one that gets you victory, this is the one that gives you loads of money, and – crap! It’s another white one.

There’s plenty to keep the game fresh. There are four sets of ingredient books which define the bonuses for each colour, and they’re double-sided and can be mixed and matched. The player boards too, can be flipped to reveal an advanced side, which adds in some more constraints. If, after that, you still want to add more to the game, there are a couple of expansions you can buy. First came The Herb Witches, but today I’m going to take a look at the latest one – The Alchemists.

Expansion – The Alchemists

In The Alchemists you’re tasked with trying to cure patients with some very unusual complaints. Everything from forgetfulness to having an actual carrot for a nose. The Alchemists adds an extra add-on player board for each person (including the 5th player if you have the Herb Witches expansion). The new boards have a flask, a series of vials, and a new tracking token. There’s also a new ingredient to add to your concoctions – locoweed.

The idea of the expansion is to reward having a good mix of ingredients in your bag and cauldron. In the base game you might choose to just concentrate on one colour, to try to maximise the bonuses from it. In The Alchemists however, after the end of the preparation phase, when everyone has finished mixing their brews, you move your new marker up the new track based on the number of different colours in your potion. You also get rewarded if your neighbours push their luck too far and explode their potions. It means pushing your luck too far is even riskier now, as you could end up directly benefitting your rivals

Final Thoughts – Quacks of Quedlinburg

I love push-your-luck games. Can’t Stop is my most-played game on boardgamearena. Quacks appeals to that part of our brains that gets stimulated by gambling. If you know the odds say you’re going to pull out another white token which blows your potion to smithereens, but you do it anyway and get away with it.. that’s a feeling that’s as amazing for you as it is infuriating for the other players. The mixture of luck and strategy is really enjoyable to me. I know which ingredients are in my bag, I know how well I can score if I pull them out, and I know the probability of pulling them out. That doesn’t mean I will however, and it’s that random chance which makes the game so much fun.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg is really simple to teach. Anyone can pick up the basics inside the first round they play. That’s great, because it means it’s a big-box game that I can pull off the shelf and know my son will be able to play with me, and more importantly, he wants to play it with me. For a game where your focus is so insular, it’s surprising how vocal and social the game becomes. You don’t care what’s happening in the other players’ cauldrons, as there’s no way for them to block you or influence your turn, but mark my words, you’ll be keeping an eye on what’s going on.

The shouts of disbelief when someone survives a risky extra pull, and the cursing of your chosen deity when you pull out white, after white, after white. It’s such a fun experience, and it’s one of those special games that lives on after the game. You’ll be talking to your friends about games long after you played them. “Hey, remember that time when you blew up your pot in the last round, even though you had a bag full of amazing tokens? Or what about the time I managed to get away with that one last ingredient which won the game?”. It’s moments like that which make board games special, and Quacks is packed with them.

If pure strategy is your thing and you hate luck, this might not be for you, but for the rest of us The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a brilliant game, and one I think belongs in everyone’s collection.

Final Thoughts – The Alchemists

I’m a bit of an oddity, as I’ve gone straight to The Alchemists without having played the Herb Witches expansion. But taken on its own merits, The Alchemists is an excellent addition to the base game. My usual turn-off with expansions is when they add a whole new layer of complexity on top of a game I’ve already taught. The Alchemists doesn’t do this, you don’t have to change the way you play the game at all. All of the additions happen after the normal preparation phase of the game, which is unchanged.

I really like what it does, and the way it does it. You could safely add The Alchemists after just a couple of plays without frightening anyone off, and if anyone doesn’t feel confident in engaging with the expansion, they can just play along while pretty much ignoring the new board, and still get rewards from it. Plus, the table looks gorgeous with the extra glassware and colour. It’s cheap, and it adds a lot to the longevity of the game without complicating it. It’s a very easy recommendation from me, if you enjoy the base game of Quacks.

A review copy of The Alchemists was kindly provided by Coiledspring Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg (2018)

Designer: Wolfgang Warsch
Publisher: Schmidt Spiele
Art: Dennis Lohausen, Wolfgang Warsch
Players: 2-4
Playing time: 45 mins

The Alchemists – (2020)

Designer: Wolfgang Warsch
Publisher: Schmidt Spiele
Art: Oliver Schlemmer
Players: 2-5
Playing time: 45 mins

The post The Quacks of Quedlinburg + The Alchemists Review appeared first on Punchboard.