Review

Ticket To Ride

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Published Games, Ticket to ride , , , , , , , ,

Number of Players: 2-5

Year of Publication: 2004

Creators: Alan R Moon (designer), Cyrille Daujean (artist) and Julien Delval (artist)

She’s Got A Ticket To Ri-iiide, She’s Got A Ticket To Ri-i-iiide, She’s Got A Ticket To RIDE, And She Don’t Care!!

Ticket To Ride is a straightforward route-building game featuring a lovely map of North America with major cities marked on them as route destinations, all the way from Miami, down in the South-East, to Vancouver, up in the North-West, and many in between. The objective is simple: score as many points as possible before the game ends. You play as an industrial railroad builder, who is trying to forge routes across North America, each hoping to build the most lucrative routes before their rivals.

“On a blustery autumn evening five old friends met in the backroom of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance – from all corners of the world – to meet on this very specific day… October 2, 1900 – 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days.

When the story of Fogg’s triumphant journey filled all the newspapers of the day, the five attended University together. Inspired by his impetuous gamble, and a few pints from the local pub, the group commemorated his circumnavigation with a more modest excursion and wager – a bottle of good claret to the first to make it to Le Procope in Paris.

Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) with a new wager (always more expensive) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century it was time of a new impossible journey. The stakes $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America – in just 7 days. The journey would begin immediately…” – excerpt from the Rulebook

What’s In The Box:

  1. Game Board
  2. 110 Train Car Cards
  3. 30 Destination Ticket Cards
  4. 1 Longest Continuous Path Bonus Card
  5. 1 Summary Card
  6. 5 Wooden Scoring Markers
  7. 225 Coloured Train Cars (45 of each colour)
  8. 1 Rules Booklet
  9. 15 Replacement Train Cars (3 of each colour)

Setting Up The Game:

To begin place the board in the middle of a decently large table. A largish table is necessary as the board itself is pretty big and you need space for all your train cars, as well as the Train Car and Destination Ticket Cards. Each player should choose a colour and take all the appropriate Train Cars, as well as the Wooden Scoring Marker that matches. The Scoring Marker should be placed on the 100 on the scoring track, which goes around the edge of the board. The 100 also doubles as 0 for the start of the game. The Train Car Cards are shuffled, and a starting hand of four cards is dealt to each player. The remaining cards are then placed, face-down, on one of the long edges of the board and the top five are turned face up, and laid out down the edge of the board, for all players to see. Place the Longest Path Card next to the board as well. Now shuffle the Destination Ticket Cards and deal three to each player. The players may now look at them, and decide which they want to keep. All three may be kept if a player wishes, or a maximum of one can be discarded. Discarded Destination Ticket cards are placed on the bottom of the pile, which is then put at the side of the board, once each player has finished deciding. You are now ready to begin and the most experienced traveller plays first, with play continuing clockwise after they have taken their turn.

Playing The Game:

On each players turn, they may perform one of the following three actions:

  • Draw Train Cards – a player may draw two cards; one either from the face-up cards lying on the table, or one from the top of the face-down pile of Train Car Cards. If they draw from the face-up cards a new card is immediately taken from the top of the face-down pile to replace it. There should always be five Train Car Cards face-up on the table. Once the first card has been drawn the player can then decide where they want to draw their second card from, as before. *See below for special rules applying to Locomotive Train Car Cards
    There is no limit on hand size in this game; a player may hold as many cards as they wish and continue to draw new cards. Only if the draw deck runs out will they be forced into one of the other two permitted actions.
  • Claim A Route – various routes are indicated across the board by small coloured rectangles connecting two cities. In order for a player to claim one they must lay down the appropriate number of cards for the route they wish to claim. Additionally, the rectangles are coloured, indicating which type of Train Car Card must be used to claim that particular route. A route can only be claimed if a player has the required number of cards all in the correct colour. If a route is comprised of grey rectangles then any colour of Train Car Cards may be used, as long as they are all the same. Once a route has been successfully claimed the player lays their Train Cars onto the route, discards the cards they used to claim it, and moves their Scoring Marker up the scoring track the appropriate number of spaces. How much each route is worth is indicated both on the board itself and on the small Summary Card. Special note regarding routes: on some sections of the board there are routes that show a double line of rectangles. This means that that route may be claimed twice during play. HOWEVER, in a two-player game, each double route may only be claimed once, in order to increase the challenge of the game a little, as there is less overall competition for routes. *Special Locomotive rules apply here too
Here you can see a selection of short, double-grey routes. In a game with more than two players both sets of grey would be useable all the way from Duluth to Houston, however, as this was a two player game, once red had claimed most of them, they became inaccessible for blue.
  • Draw Destination Tickets – the player draws three new Destination Tickets from the top of the deck, looks at them, and decides which they want to keep. A minimum of one must be kept, but the player may keep two or all three if they so wish. Any discarded Destination Tickets are returned to the bottom of the deck.
This card indicates how many points a player gains when claiming new routes. As you can see, a long route can be quite lucrative, if you have the right cards to claim one!

Special Locomotive Train Car Rules!

Locomotive Train Car Cards are easy to spot as they are multi-coloured. They act as a wild card and can be used in place of one regular Train Car Card of any colour when claiming a route. When drawing cards, if a Locomotive is one of the face-up cards on the table you may take it, HOWEVER if you do, you may NOT draw a second card. Additionally, if you draw a regular Train Car Card from the face-up five and the replacement card is a Locomotive, you MAY NOT take that card. If, however, a Locomotive is drawn blind as the first card taken from the draw deck, the player is lucky, and may still draw a second card either from the deck, or from the face-up cards.

IMPORTANT NOTE: IF AT ANY TIME THREE OF THE FIVE FACE-UP TRAIN CAR CARDS ON THE TABLE ARE LOCOMOTIVES ALL FIVE CARDS MUST IMMEDIATELY BE DISCARDED AND NEW ONES DRAWN TO REPLACE THEM.

An important thing to know regarding Destination Tickets is that they each have a point value. If the route indicated is completed by the player holding the card before the game ends, those points are added to their final score when the game has ended. If the route HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED the player loses those points at the end instead. Destination Tickets are kept secret until the end of the game and the points from them are added only once play has finished, no matter when a player completed the route. As with hand size, there is no limit to the number of Destination Tickets a player may hold.

Ending The Game:

The game ends when one players supply of trains is either 0,1 or 2 at the end of their turn. After this each player, including the player who triggered the end of the game, may take one more turn before final scoring is done.

This was how our two-player game ended. Below you can see the routes that Blue (me) had claimed, plus the 10 point bonus for the Trans America Express. Total I had 107 points this time round. Above you can see the routes that Red (my husband) has claimed. Although he had more routes than me, he was unable to catch up points-wise, as they each (bar the Portland-Nashville route) only gave him a small number of points, and they did not connect well to form a long route. This is the first time I’ve ever beaten my husband at this game, and I am rather smug.

Strategy:

There is a limited amount of strategy that can be employed in a game as simple (relatively speaking) as this. We have found that completing routes, and often going for the Longest Continuous Path Bonus makes a large difference in final scoring. No matter how many individual routes a player has claimed they will most likely always be bested by someone who has one or two Destination Ticket routes completed. Especially as a few of these are rather high-scoring. It’s also worthwhile to claim routes as soon as you have the cards rather than waiting to hoard up more cards, as whilst you’re collecting cards there’s always a chance another player will steal away the route you had your eye on. If you’re approaching the end of the game and you’ve completed all your Destination Ticket routes and aren’t feeling brave enough to draw new ones, it’s worth it to try and extend your existing routes in order to claim the Longest Continuous Path Bonus, which gives you 10 extra points at final scoring. It is likewise worthwhile to lay claim to long routes, even if they do not connect you to anything particular, as these give you a good point-boost too.

To Conclude:

This is a lovely game. It’s good for a wide range of ages, so appropriate for families, and straightforward enough for both beginner and advanced board-gamers. The limited amount of reading required is very handy if younger children wish to play, though if you want to keep to the rules extremely strictly then children under the age of 6 probably cannot play alone, as they won’t be able to read the city names on their Destination Tickets. When we play with children we usually play open hand with all Destination Tickets face up on the table, in order to be able to help them plan their routes. It’s also a very nice choice if you want a relatively quick round of something, as each players’ turn doesn’t usually take more than a minute or two, and the game naturally progresses and ends quite speedily.

I personally like this game for several reasons:

  • Aesthetics – the board map is really nice to look at. City names are easy to read and the colours are bright, but not garish. The design is good. Playing pieces are also sturdy and simple, therefore unlikely to break.
  • Simplicity – the rulebook is a mere four sides, with plenty of pictures to explain, making it extremely easy to understand, and leaving little room for ambiguity or misunderstandings during gameplay.
  • Speed – my children often like to play board games, but their current ages mean that committing to a game can be a big deal, due to short attention spans. This game is fast enough that we can usually get through a round before anarchy descends.

I have rated this only a 3.5 though because, although the game is well thought-out, attractive and easy, I like a bit more challenge to my games. However, we have a later version of the game, Ticket To Ride: Europe too, and that version expands beautifully on the originally, introducing some new rules and one new game piece, which will likely, when we come to reviewing it, bump up the rating to a 4 or 5.

Saboteur – back with a quick card game!

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Quick Games, Saboteur , , , ,

Number of Players: 3-10

Year of Publication: 2004

Creators: Frederic Moyersoen, (designer), Andrea Boekhoff, Alexander Jung, Frederic Moyersoen (artists)

Are you a dedicated miner, searching for the gold with your crew? Or a sneaky saboteur, trying to bring down the tunnels on the heads of your compatriots!?

Saboteur is a silly, easy, quick-to-play (average play time for one round is only 30 minutes, but can easily be less with experienced players) card game where each player randomly draws either a regular Dwarf card, or a Saboteur Dwarf card at the start of the game. These cards provide you with your goal. The objective is simple; Dwarves are mining, and, as you might expect, are searching for the gold; Saboteurs are trying to thwart their comrades, and prevent them from striking gold!

Nothing makes the heart of a dwarf race quite like a nice shiny gold nugget. As one of these intrepid folk, you naturally want to collect as much of the yellow stuff as you can. But are you a gold digger… or a saboteur? – excerpt from the game rulebook

What’s In The Box:

  1. 44 Path Cards
  2. 27 Action Cards
  3. 28 Gold Nugget Cards
  4. 7 Gold Miners
  5. 4 Saboteurs
  6. 1 Game Instructions sheet

Setting Up The Game:
Before the game begins there is a very small amount of setup required. You’ll need a reasonable sized table in order to lay out the cards that form the “mine map”. Cards must be separated into the above shown decks to begin, though regular Dwarf and Saboteur cards can remain in one pile. The number of Dwarfs and Saboteurs required for a round depends on the number of players, and is indicated clearly in the rulebook. The needed number are separated, and any unneeded player cards are returned to the box before the pile is shuffled. Each player then randomly receives a card which they should look at without showing the other players. Now you know if you’re a miner, or a saboteur. There will always be one Dwarf or Saboteur card leftover once all have been dealt; this is placed, face-down, to the side until the end of the round.

Next, you need to locate the Start Card, which is the only Path Card with a ladder on it, and the three Goal Cards, easy to spot, as one has a large gold nugget on it, and the other two a lump of coal each.

As shown here!

The three Goal Cards are then shuffled and placed face-down upon the table with one cards-length of space between the bottom of the top card and the next, making the width of the defined playing space five cards high. You then need to measure seven cards width across before placing the Start Card on the same row as the middle Goal Card. This represents the “edges” of the mine map. In total your map area will be nine playing cards wide, and five high, like this:

Now you’re ready to start the game, all that’s left to do is to shuffle together the remaining 40 Path Cards with the Action Cards, and deal a starting hand to each player. The number of cards each player receives is determined in the rulebook by the number of players present. Once each player has their hand the youngest player begins the round.

Playing The Game:

A players turn is very straightforward; you use the cards in your hand to further your goals. Each player must play a card on their turn. This means one of three things:

  1. add a Path Card to the maze,
  2. place an Action Card in front of yourself or another player,
  3. pass your turn by putting a card face down on the discard pile (this means the discard pile will have cards both face up and face down in it, this is completely okay)

When playing a Path Card you must connect it to the Start Card in a logical way, meaning, the tunnels shown must connect, and, if connecting to more than one card (either above, below or on either side) must connect properly to all adjoining tunnels. Like this:

NOT LIKE THIS:

Path Cards must also be played long side to long side or short side to short side. It is not permitted to connect the long side of one tunnel card to the short side of another.

Playing An Action Card:

There are four types of Action Cards; Broken Tools, Fix Tools, Rockfall and Map

Broken Tools are useful cards both for Saboteurs and Miners; you can play them on another player by placing them in front of that player, and a player with Broken Tools is unable to build tunnels until they, or a different player, have been able to play the appropriate Fix Tools card.

Broken Tools do not completely hinder a player though, as Rockfall and Map can still be used until such time as your tools can be repaired. Rockfall is an excellent tool for a Saboteur, as it allows a player to remove one section of tunnel, effectively setting the Miners back one turn. As some Path Cards allow Saboteurs to build dead ends into the map the Rockfall can be a useful tool for the Miners too, as it will enable them to remove problem sections of the map created by nefarious Saboteurs and build functional tunnels. Map allows a player to chose one of the Goal Cards and look at it, without showing the other players, giving them an edge on potentially knowing where the chunk of gold is.

Ending A Round:

If a route is completed to a Goal Card, one of two things happens. Firstly the Goal Card is flipped over; if it’s revealed that the Goal Card reached was only a lump of coal, then the round continues as before. If, however, the Miners have struck gold, the round ends. At this point all Miner/Saboteur cards are flipped, revealing who was who all along.

If the draw pile is exhausted the round continues with each player continuing to play or discard cards as necessary until either a route to a Goal Card is achieved or no player remains able to play a card. At this point, if no route has been completed to gold, the Saboteurs win! At the end of a round, no matter who won, gold must be divided up between the victors.

When the Miners win the round the player who laid the last card to complete the path draws Gold Nugget cards equal in number to the number of Miners, looks at them secretly, chooses one to keep (not all Gold Nugget cards have the same value), then passes the remaining cards to the next player, going anti-clockwise, until all Miners have a Gold Nugget card to keep.

When the Saboteurs win the gold is divided up slightly differently. If only one Saboteur was playing they take Gold Nugget cards from the deck equaling four Gold Nuggets, if two or three are playing they each get three Gold Nuggets, and if four are playing each receives two Gold Nuggets.

Note: It is possible for a round to be played (in a game with only three or four players) in which no one is a Saboteur. If this happens and the gold is not reached before the round ends due to lack of cards, none of the Dwarfs receive any gold.

At the end of a round each player keeps their Gold Nuggets. The Miner and Saboteur cards are returned to one pile, including the one that was put aside at the beginning of the round, they are then shuffled and redealt, for the start of the new round. All Path and Action Cards are returned to the deck, and everything is shuffled together, for new hands to be drawn. Likewise the Goal Cards are shuffled and laid on the table again. The next round is played the same as the first.

At the end of three rounds the game is over and each player counts their Gold Nuggets. The player with the most wins! In the event of a tie, the players share the win.

Strategy:

This is not really a game in which a whole lot of strategy is required. Obviously you’re on the lookout for who might be Saboteur, and aiming to hinder them if you’re one of the Miners. Likewise, as a Saboteur you’re aiming to hinder the Miners without being immediately obvious, and also hoping not to accidentally hinder other Saboteurs if there are any playing. Other than that you mostly have to go with which cards are in your hand, available to play.

To Conclude:

I like this game a lot. It’s quick, easy to learn, easy to set up/put away and all-around good fun. It’s also good for kids, as there’s not any reading required, once the rules have been looked through, and the high player limit make it an excellent choice for a family game. The only slightly irritating thing is that the game is not playable with only two people, however, Saboteur 2, which we also have, and will be reviewing, expands on the base game, and gives new depth with teams added and new roles introduced.

This game is a solid 4.5 on our rating, as it’s interesting enough in structure to be fun, easy enough to learn quickly, and a good game for casual gamers, who might not be invested in the kind of games that require 1-2 hours of set up and rule reading before you even get to gameplay. The last .5 that would bring it to a 5 rating is that we wish it would be playable with just two people.

Discworldathon – Ankh-Morpork

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So! It’s the end of January, which is In The Beginning for the Discworldathon! Discussions and the reading of Wyrd Sisters have been going on all month on Bex’s blog anarmchairbythesea and the proclaimed Discworld game for this month is Ankh-Morpork. This game was chosen for this month because the city of Ankh-Morpork features in nearly all of the Discworld novel, and it usually still manages to sneak a mention in those it’s not featured in.

For anyone new to Discworld, here’s a little introduction to the city of Ankh-Morpork in two quotes:

“Ankh-Morpork! Pearl of cities! This is not a completely accurate description, of course — it was not round and shiny — but even its worst enemies would agree that if you had to liken Ankh-Morpork to anything, then it might as well be a piece of rubbish covered with the diseased secretions of a dying mollusc.”
– The Light Fantastic

“Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it’s the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it’s just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let’s just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.”
– Mort

So that’s the proud city of Ankh-Morpork. A full review of the game has already been published on this blog, and can be read here. But to sum it up, the game is a power struggled between Lord Selachii, Lord Rust, Lord de Worde, Commander Vimes, Dragon King of Arms, Chrysoprase and Lord Vetinari. All players draw a personality secretly at the beginning of the game and then have to meet the objectives stated on the card to win.

The game is brilliant in many ways, but mostly because for those who are familiar with the city and it’s inhabitants it is so well constructed. Every card that you play can be identified as a character from one of the books, with the uses of the card being dependent on the personality of that character.

In the books Havelock Vetinari always comes out on top. Even if no one knew that he was in the running. And the game reflects that by stating that the state of the city has been induced by the disappearance of Lord Vetinari. The game itself is those in a position of power in the city attempting to seize control whilst the opportunity is there. Commonly the character of Commander Vimes wins the game, as all he has to do is balance the board, preventing other characters from gaining too much control or money, or making too much trouble, until the cards run out. As Lord Vetinari is one of the personalities available to the game players it’s clear that he has vanished entirely on his own terms and has some kind of long-term plan. Or maybe he just wanted a holiday, who knows?

Sir Terry Pratchett, the amazing creator of the Discworld series (among other things) has the same fail-safe clause for the end of several of his games. It’s partly what makes the games so brilliant. In every Terry Pratchett game it’s possible for any of the game players to win, but in Ankh-Morpork, Guards! Guards!, and Witches if certain conditions are met, then the game ends and nobody wins. Which is fantastic, because it almost adds a cooperative edge to game play as everyone wants to win individually, but definitely none of you want to lose to the game!

I will admit that I’m slightly at a loss as for what to write now. I’ve summed up the game and a bit about the books, and to be honest, I really think that the city of Ankh-Morpork is too big of a feature in the series of the Discworld to be really described or talked about without me insisting that anyone reading this post goes away immediately to read every Discworld book so as to fully understand the enormity of detail in which the city has been described and personified and used a backdrop for all sorts of events.

To tie in with what the re-readathoners have been discussing over on Goodreads, the city of Ankh-Morpork features shortly in Wyrd Sisters, the novel that’s been the subject of this month. Anyone who’s read the book will know that Wyrd Sisters is a very entertaining, silly, and just all-round highly enjoyable version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Featuring a Duke who murders his cousin, the King, so that he can be king and then goes mad. There are some differences, obviously, between Shakespeare’s tragedy and Terry Pratchett’s hilarious novel. But the story can be seen there nonetheless. Ankh-Morpork features in the novel as the place where the rightful heir to the throne is living with the acting troupe he was adopted by as a baby. This troupe is hired by the court Fool to perform a play for the Duke portraying him favorably, and the witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick badly so that the witches will lose their power and the people will like him.
The brief featuring of Ankh-Morpork is funny in this novel as the Fool is robbed when he enters the city. The thief performing the robbery expected him only to be carrying a few dollars, but instead he was carrying a vast amount of money given to him by the Duke to employ the acting troupe. The thief then freaks out because according to Guild law he’s not allowed to rob more than a certain amount off of one person. Tomjon, heir to the throne, steps in and resolves the situation. Although it’s a very brief appearance made it holds true to the way the city is, Ankh-Morpork, the city where there is a Guild for everything.

That about wraps us up for this game and this month! I intend to have next month’s post Guards! Guards! up by the middle of the month, rather than the second-last day!

I hope this post has been informative, and you’re now burning with the desire to read Discworld novels for the rest of the year.

The Seafarers of Catan

manaiaclemim Published Games, The Settlers of Catan , , , , , , ,

5 - 5

Year of Publication: 1997

In The Beginning…

Was the island of Catan, and on that island small groups of people settled and expanded, becoming farmers, miners, shepherds and lumberjacks. However, the island proved to be too small to sustain multiple civilizations, so some of the people took to the seas to find new places to settle, and they became known as the Seafarers of Catan!

Okay, these Catan posts are going to be a little different to the normal reviews; as I’ve already done a full review post on the original Settlers of Catan I’m not going to do the “What’s In The Box” photos for any of the expansions or extensions, but instead only for the spin-off editions, like Starfarers of Catan or Star Trek Catan as those games are very different to the original. Instead all I’m going to do in these posts is to say which pieces are added to the base game to play the expansion and then review the differences in game play and give my opinion. All clear? Excellent! Without further ado:

What’s New?

Seafarers is obviously set over multiple islands, so each colour player is provided with 15 ships of their colour, which can be built by spending one sheep and one wood resource cards on your turn, and can then be used to travel to new places.

In addition to those the expansion also includes a large number of sea hexes and extra sea edge pieces to make the board bigger. Because several islands are involved in playing this game there are extra Catan Chits, with numbers on them to produce resources. There is also the new resource of gold, which allows a player who has a settlement built on one to claim one resource of their choice every time its number is rolled.

In original Catan each settlement gains a player one victory point, and a city is worth two. In Seafarers you get a bonus victory point for the first settlement you build that’s not on your original island, which is quite exciting. There are a few additional tiles that you put underneath such settlements so you don’t forget those points.

Lastly, in addition to the robber who lives in the desert, there is now also a pirate ship, which, obviously, lives in the sea.

Playing The Game:

As you can see from the above pictures, the way players begin the game is exactly the same as in the original Catan game, each player starts with 2 settlements, each with a road attached, and takes resources from one of those settlements to begin the game.

A players turn is exactly the same as in the original game; you roll the dice to claim resources (being wary of 7, which I’ll explain the differences of in a minute), then you build roads/settlements/cities/ships or development cards or trade for resources with other players and play development cards, and then you pass the dice to the next player, ending your turn.

Rolling Seven!

Rolling seven is the same as in the original Catan in that the player who rolls seven gets to move the robber, and can take a resource from any player effected by where they move it to. Additionally any player with seven or more cards in their hand still has to discard half of them (the lesser half in the case of an odd number, i.e. if I have 9 cards with a seven is rolled I must discard 4).

BUT!

In the Seafarers version of Catan the player who rolls the seven has the choice of moving either the robber, or the pirate ship. The pirate ship works slightly differently to the robber – the robber prevents resources from being harvested in the hex it’s on, but doesn’t do anything else. The pirate ship however has to stay in the sea, and so, instead of preventing resource production, it prevents a player from building new ships that would sit on any of the sides of the hex it’s on.

dsc_0319

As you can see, in this picture the pirate ship has been moved onto a hex that the orange player (me) is currently trying to sail through. However, until the the pirate ship was moved I could not build any more ships there.

Game play proceeds in the normal way; each player tries to build settlements, roads, cities and development cards in order to collect the required number of Victory Points – in this edition 13 – to win the game.

dsc_0322
Blue wins the game!

The winning player is the first to reach 13 Victory Points and the game ends immediately when that happens.

Strategy:

I would say that getting to the coast is key in this game; with the addition of ships the possibility to extend your road is literally doubled and the extra Victory Points gained both from having the longest road, and from building settlements on new islands are valuable. The winning player when we played had a combination of luck (good dice rolls gaining him lots of resources), settlements upgraded to cities, the longest road, development card Victory Points and settlements on a new island – so literally every possibility in the game!

Also, if one player is in a much better position to win than the others, feel free to make an agreement with the other players to not trade any resources with them, there’s no shame in sabotaging someone else’s chances to further your own cause!

In Conclusion:

This expansion is, in my opinion, worth buying, as gives that little bit extra to the basic game, making it more interesting. This game also has many different scenarios, some of which I may write short reviews of over the coming year, which gives it more diversity than the original version, which can be altered, but not drastically.

I recommend this game as an excellent family game, and good for both board game nerds and board game likers who aren’t ready for anything more intense.

dsc_0325
The smug face of the winning player.

 

 

Update! And Happy New Year!

manaiaclemim Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Published Games, The Settlers of Catan, Updates , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alright everyone!

It’s January and the Twelve Games of Christmas are now finished until December. Hopefully they’ve been an entertaining interlude over the holiday, but now it’s time to get back to business!

As promised I am now going to unveil all the plans and things that we’ve been preparing for this year.

The Plans:

Aesthetic Blog Changes:

First though, for anyone who’s been on the blog regularly, they might have noticed that we’ve had a bit of a makeover. Dave took an editorial walk around the blog and we decided that it was probably time for a change. So,  there’s a new banner, which is tied into part of my plan for the year, plus there are some updates on the About page, making our About info somewhat more up-to-date.

We now have a Contact page, which is quite exciting. Our official blog email is there and that’s checked at least three times a week by me. We’d like to invite anyone reading this to contact us if there’s a game you think we should review, or if you’re developing a game and would like us to play it for you, and help promote it!

Whilst Dave was wandering around editing stuff he thought that the blog looked somewhat like it was run by a pair of goths, hence the new, slightly less gray, colour scheme.
Okay, that’s all the aesthetic changes that have been made since November, now, onto the plans for the year!

The Games and Posts-Related Plans:

As you’re all aware from my November and December Updates there are interesting things happening this year.

The first of which is the already mentioned Discworldathon, which is happening on three blogs run by my family, and a fair few others run by people I don’t really know. Over the rest of this year there will be Discworld game posts going up, approximately every other month starting this month. These will be much shorter than our previous in-depth game reviews, and more tied to the books and films. These are a side-branch of what we normally do, as we thought a little cross-genre blog interaction could be a really good and interesting thing, definitely something with potential for the future. Discworld fans, keep an eye out for those posts!

The second plan for this year is to begin research into old games, from different countries around the world. To research the cultural history of those countries, and the developments of the games that they traditionally played. To be totally honest I don’t have any idea how that’s going to pan out, or even if it’s going to work. At the moment I don’t really know how much information is available to me and I don’t have tons of time to trawl through every resource or book or whatever. So, we’ll see how that goes. My intention is to try and post one research-based post per month, focusing on one country at a time. If there’s lots of information to be had I may extend it to two months focused on the same country.

The third plan is for a series of short posts, similar in nature to those about the Games We Made making suggestions for games you can make at home if you’re bored, or if you don’t have lots of storage space for boxes and such. My idea is make a collection of paper games that can be stored flat in one big folder, or something similar. Those posts will be a little sporadic, as they’re taking the back burner to all the other stuff at the moment, but I think they’ve got potential to go on for a decent amount of time.

Lastly, Games We’re Reviewing This Year!

I hereby proclaim this to be a Settlers of Catan year! I intend to find and play every expansion and spin-off of this game series over the next twelve months. Although there are a lot, there aren’t actually enough to post a different expansion or spin-off every week for twelve months, so the Catan posts will be mixed in with other Catan-ish games that I can find over the rest of the year.

Very very lastly: I can’t promise one post every week at the moment, as I’m in the throes of moving into a new flat, which doesn’t have any wifi yet, and might not have for quite a while. So I’m going to have to borrow wifi from other people for a while, or write all the posts on my phone (which isn’t an appealing idea to me). My new years blogolutions are:

  1. To try and post as regularly as I can, even if it means sitting in Starbucks for five hours writing posts.
  2. To follow through on all my plans for the year at least long enough to see if they’re worth making a permanent feature.

That’s everything! Hopefully this wasn’t long enough to bore you, and you’re still going to come back and read our first real post of the year, whenever I get it done!

 

On The Third Day Of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me…

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Christmas, Tempo, Kleine Schnecke, Twelve Games of Christmas - 2016 , , , , , , , ,

Tempo, Kleine Schneke (or Snail’s Pace Race)!

The Rules:

All six racing snails are placed on their colour on the board and players place bets on which two snails they think will come first and last in the race, respectively. Players then take it in turns to roll the dice and move the snail of the colour shown one space forward on the board. Generally two snails will be moved, as the dice will show different colours, however one snail will be moved forward two spaces if the dice show the same colour when they’re rolled. This continues until all snails have finished the race.The winner is the player who guessed most accurately the winning and losing snails.

For Christmas?

Yes! This game is great for everyone because there is no strategy or tactic to it; it’s not about skill, it’s about guessing and getting lucky with the dice rolls! Plus it would be funny to see Aunt Jean get frustrated over the apparent lack of any kind of method to the game, the very existence of it will upset her delicate world-view, which will add entertainment value to the overall experience of the game. Because every player has to guess which snails will win and lose you could make it interesting (if there are no kids playing) by placing bets on your snails to add a little edge to the game. After all, it’s Christmas, and there should be plenty of sweets around that could be used as chips.

Happy Third Day of Christmas! I hope you’re still trying to eat your way through the Christmas dinner leftovers and haven’t even thought about cooking anything fresh for the last few days!

On The Second Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me…

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Christmas, Old Maid, Twelve Games of Christmas - 2016 , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scwarzer Peter (Black Peter/Old Maid) and a book about German robbers and thieves.

The Rules!

The whole deck of cards is shuffled and then dealt out between all the players. Each player then looks through their cards and removes any pairs they already have in their hand and lays them on the table in front of them. Once this is done players take it in turns to draw one card at random from one other player and see if it makes a pair. Once all pairs have been laid down the player left with the Black Peter card is the loser.

For Christmas?

Yes! It’d be a good way of keeping the kids calm and in one place whilst you get dinner going, or out of the oven. Aunt Jean could even be enlisted to help play as it’s simple enough that she can’t get confused. This game would be a good stocking-filler for the kids as it’s pocket-sized. It can also be played with up to 6 players (when playing with one deck of cards) so it’s good for those times when there’s a group of people together!

Happy Second Day of Christmas! Keep playing games, keep eating sweets, keep opening presents and keep reading about our Christmas games!

On The First Day Of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me…

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Christmas, Published Games, Teddy Memory, Twelve Games of Christmas - 2016 , , , , , , , , , ,

Teddy Memory – and suggested that I work on my memory before buying him another present…

The Rules:

This game is just Pairs, but under a cuter name. Very simple and straightforward. You shuffle all the cards and lay them face-down on the table/floor/whatever surface you’re playing on. Then the first player picks two cards and turns them face up. If they’re the same that player gets to keep them and takes another turn. If they’re different they have to be turned over again and play passes to the next player on the left. The winner is the person with the most pairs when all the cards have been picked up.

For Christmas?

Well, why not? It’s a nice easy game that can be played by any number of people (provided you have enough cards and a big enough table or floor). It’s also fantastic for all ages because it forces you to exercise your memory muscles! Brain-active games have been shown to help prevent Alzheimer’s, so get all the oldies playing with the kids and then everyone can have healthier brains! It’s definitely a social game too, so Aunt Jean (see Twelve Games of Christmas – 2013) won’t be able to complain that no one wants to spend any time with her! (Unless of course she doesn’t want to play the game and then, well, what can you do?)

Anyone who was reading this blog as far back as 2013 will already have a feel for how these posts go. The only difference really is that this year they’re all kids/family games rather than just any game we really liked during the year.

Merry Christmas everyone! Play many games and bring joy and game-related arguments to all your family and friends!

Lotti Karotti or Funny Bunny!

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Lotti Karotti, Published Games, Quick Games , , , , , ,

5 - 5

Number of Players: 2-4

Year of Publication: 1999

Creator: Ian Steven (artist)

Go back to whichever hole you jumped out of and leave us alone!

What do you call a happy rabbit? A hop-timist! (Not the place for bad rabbit jokes? Okay…)

Lotti Karotti (the German name for the game, the English is Funny Bunny) is a simple and fun game in which you race against the other players’ rabbits, and hop that little bit faster than everyone else!

What’s In The Box:

dsc_0142

  1. Three-dimensional playing board
  2. Game rules
  3. Deck of action cards
  4. 4 x 4 coloured rabbits

Playing The Game:

Objective: To get one of your rabbits to the big carrot faster than anyone else.

To begin the game the deck of action cards should be shuffled and placed face-down at the side of the board and the carrot should be twisted until there are no holes showing in the board. Next each player should choose a colour of rabbit to be from the four available. As it doesn’t say in the rules who plays first we just did Rock, Paper, Scissors for it. Once a first player has been determined they draw the first card from the deck and turn it face up on the table. They then perform the action on the card which will be either, hop 1, 2 or 3 spaces, or twist the carrot.

Normally players will place a rabbit onto the first, second or third spot on the board on their first turn. This normally creates a que of rabbits, like this:

dsc_0188
Here two rabbits are adjacent to each other.

If this happens and the player in the middle or the back turns over a card that tells them to hop they are allowed to jump over any number of rabbits that are adjacent to them to get to the next empty space. Like this:

dsc_0189
The second yellow rabbit has hopped over the first yellow rabbit and the purple one to reach the third space on the board.

When the carrot is turned it causes holes to open up at different points on the board. If one of your rabbits is on a hole when it is opened by another player (or yourself) it falls underneath the board and is immediately out of the game. Likewise if a hole is opened next to where one of your rabbits is and you turn up a card saying to hop one space you also have to hop into the hole, you cannot hop over it.

Winning The Game:

The first player to get a rabbit to the top of the carrot is the winner.

Strategy:

It’s not really possible to have a strategy for this game. This time round that we played it all my rabbits ended up in underneath the board and there was absolutely nothing I could have done about it. I would say just try and get your first rabbit as far along the board as possible. But otherwise don’t think it through too much, because it’s a game of chance with the cards really.

History and Interesting Things:

  1. Between 2001 – 2002 this game was recommended for two awards and won 1.
  2. I have absolutely nothing else interesting to write here.

To Conclude:

As kids games go this is pretty great. It doesn’t involve any complicated thinking but also, because of the nature of the ‘carrot’ cards, doesn’t get boring either. It’s a good quick play for children of all ages with a cute theme.

Märchenland! (Fairyland)

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Märchenland, Published Games , , , , , , ,

4.5 - 5

Number of Players: 2-4

Year of Publication: Unknown

Creator: Tom Espen (designer and artist)

Stop spinning fairy stories!

This a favorite to say to children when they’re obviously making something up instead of telling the truth, but this game is all about fairy tales!

What’s In The Box:

dsc_0148

  1. Game Board
  2. Rules
  3. 36 Story Tiles
  4. 4 Player Pawns
  5. 6-Sided Die

Playing The Game:

Objective: To collect all four parts of the as many fairy tales as possible.

This game is pretty simple. You start by shuffling all the story tiles and laying them out, face-down, on the four gridded areas of the board. Each player then chooses a colour and places their token on the start space. In this game the youngest player starts.

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The starting set up of the board. Note: this copy of the game is quite old and is missing one the stories.

The first player then rolls the die and moves that number of spaces forward. Each circle that you can land on has a number in it (with the exception of the magic wand, which I’ll explain after), when you land on a circle you can turn over that number of story tiles and look at them. The first tile you turn over becomes the story that you’re trying to collect; after that when you turn over a tile you have to put it back if it doesn’t match your story. When you turn over a tile you have to show it to all the other players. This means that if you turn over a tile that belongs to a story another player is collecting it’s then easy for them to pick it up if they’ve a good memory. So the first time you land on a space you’re almost definitely going to pick up a tile that becomes your story, unless, weirdly, you manage to pick up a tile from a story that one of your opponents has just collected.

dsc_0178
Here each player has collected their first story tile and are progressing around the board.

Until you pass the gingerbread house players cannot land on the same space as each other. They are allowed to pass each other if they roll a high enough number on the die, but if they roll a number that would allow them to land on the same space as another player they must remain one space behind. After passing the gingerbread house this rule changes and if a player lands on the same space as another player the unlucky other player has to go back to the start.

The only thing really left to explain is the magic wand symbol. This is on one space on the bottom of the board and on one side of the die. If this is rolled or landed on, the player whose turn it is has to swap places with another player. Now, if you’re lagging behind a bit and would really like to be up front where the others are, then you’re lucky if you roll this, however, if you’re doing well and roll this and the only options for places you can swap to are spaces that allow you to turn over 1 tile you’re probably not going to be so happy.

Winning The Game:

To win the game a player must collect all four story tiles from three stories before the other players. This means that players can keep going around the board for as long as is necessary to achieve this goal.

Strategy:

Have a good memory. A big part of the game is remembering where a tile is when another player turns over a tile that you need. This can enable you to win very quickly if you get lucky with the other players turning over tiles you need instead of ones that they need. It’s also good to keep an eye on one other story that no one else is collecting as a potential for your next story, as if you already know where two or three of the next story tiles are when you finish collecting the first one you’re likely to get ahead. Other than that this game is mostly luck of the roll and hoping that your opponents don’t roll magic wands if you’re in a good position.

History and Interesting Things:

  1. This game was inspired by the stories written by the Brothers Grimm.
  2. Märchenland translates to Fairy Land in English, though this isn’t a literal translation.
  3. The Brothers Grimm were academics who were born in the late 18th century and specialized in collecting and publishing folklore during the early-mid 19th century.
  4. Many of their stories are very commonly know still, although they are more commonly known in their romanticized, Disney form than in the form originally written in, which tended to be a little more gory and with slightly less happy endings.
  5. During the 1930’s and 40’s the many of the stories were used as propaganda by the Third Reich.
  6. The way the Gimm’s collected and rewrote stories before publishing them was regarded at the time by many to not be an accurate collection of the stories. However, this method of collecting folklore and legends has since been used throughout Europe.
  7. As a result of the use of the book Kinder – und Hausmärchen Nazi party it was actually banned in Germany for a short time when the country was occupied by the allied forces after the war.
  8. The brothers have been the subjects of two films; The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and The Brothers Grimm.
  9. There is a current TV series called Grimm featuring a descendant of one of the brothers.
  10. The Grimm stories provided the basis for many of Walt Disney’s early films, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). It could be said that the Brothers Grimm provided the basis upon which Walt Disney built his film empire, which is still going strong today.

To Conclude:

I rated this game 4.5 because although I really like it and would definitely recommend it I think there’s not enough to it. If I were going to suggest an improvement to the game I would suggest that the stories that go with each set of tiles has to be told whilst they are being collected, or something similar. That way the game is an opportunity to do some creative storytelling as well as have a bit of fun.