Bohnanza- To Bean or Not to Bean!

After that short little tip on photographing fireworks, I;m back again with a game review. This time an introduction into negotiation based games.

Bean planting might be the most boring/blandest theme a game could have right? Well not true, really this game is a very light negotiation game, that can generate a lot of noise!

I saw this game on the shelves of Brew Ha ha couple of years ago and thought that I should give this a try. My brother was in Singapore later that year and I asked him to get this game as this wasn't that expensive to get.

This game again is a lot of fun with a mid-sized group, say between 5-7, even though 2-7 players can play. This is a light game and is a very good game to get people into negotiation based games like Modern Art, Traders of Genoa, Ra etc.

Being a light game, everyone in the family can join in and have fun!

Bohnanza by- Uwe Rosenberg


Now this guy is another prolific game designer, some sort of a genius! He is a German game designer. He became known mainly through his card game Bohnanza, which is successful both in Germany as internationally.

He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the #1 game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg first began to occupy himself with the development and mechanisms of games during his school years. During that time, he published a number of play-by-mail games, some of which are now available at www.omido.de. When he was a student, Amigo published his best-known game, Bohnanza. Since finishing his statistics studies in Dortmund (the subject of his thesis was "Probability distributions in Memory"), his main occupation is the development of games. (Wikipedia)

What do you get in the Box?

Cards, Cards and Cards. You get 161 cards!

• 154 Bean Cards (the box comes with 11 different bean varieties in differing quantities)
• Seven 3rd Bean field cards

The art works looks nice and the version I have is from Rio Grande and hence quality impeccable!

How does this play?

Well, I haven't mentioned much about the game play throughout as I wanted to keep that completely in this section. Perhaps this is very different to other games that I have reviewed.

• Each player gets a hand of 5 cards- but the most important aspect of this game and in fact the factor that makes this game different is that players should not change the order of the cards that they have received or receive in the future!
• Each card has a number on the left hand side that tells players how many cards of that variety exists and at the lower part of the card a conversion table for harvest is given. i.e. if you harvest 3 bean cards of a particular variety, you get 1 gold coin.
  
• While I told you that this game has just bean cards, all the cards have a gold coin symbol on the back side and hence very neatly manufactured components
• Players try to plant bean cards (2 varieties if they don't have the 3rd bean field card, which costs 3 Gold), harvest it and make profit! That's it!

On their turn the following things happen:

• Players must plant bean cards (one or 2) from the top of their hand
• Draw 2 more cards from the pile, plant, donate or negotiate a deal (this my friends ROCKS)
• All players plant the traded/donated cards
• Finally the player draws 3 more cards from the pile and puts it at the back of the hand of cards again to maintain the order. However when you are negotiating, you can bring out the cards from your hand (but remember, you can't put it up the table, you can just call it out for negotiations and finally when someone trades, you them the cards) This is an interesting tactic that can change the order of cards to suit your convenience.
  

Well the entire fun part of the game is in the negotiation phase, where things really hot up, voices reaching the top of your roof, people screaming to close a deal and this is fun!

How long does this play?

Well typically the game suggests that you play 3 rounds (one round is when draw pile empties). After each round the size of the pile reduces as the gold that you make is the bean card turned over. So a full game should take you about an hour. But I play just one round and stop it (have reasons for this), which takes about 20-30 min.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well, here is where I have some reservations about this game. Yes, the negotiation part is fun, chaos, but becomes repetitive and soon people get into a rut to close deals faster that takes the charm out of this game. After the 1st few rounds the group more or less tends to close deals rather than extend the negotiation long and hard. Hence I play just the one round and would suggest all of you out there to try out a few rounds or a game or two and then decide to buy this. This game of course comes with tons of expansions so may have replayability. As I haven't played any, I wouldn't be able to judge that aspect.

Any Downsides?

I've actually mentioned the downside above and this to me is the greatest downside. Uwe created this game when he was at school, so lot of young people may find it very good, but if you are a serious gamer, I will surely not recommend this.

Final Thoughts!

As I mentioned before, this is a very good family entertainer, meaning parents with children can have a lot of fun. Or non-gamers/occasional gamers can play it during a party to get some excitement going. If you are a serious gamer, I would say stay away from it as Uwe has master pieces like Agricola, Le Havre that you will enjoy.

BANG! - I Shot the Sheriff!!

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy- Bob Marley

Guess most of us have heard this song, well even if you haven't don't worry. The reason I put that line up is because this game is all about shooting people down!! Well not in the real sense, but using cards! And my word is this game fun!! I have not seen a simple pack of cards pack this much punch.

The game is like:

Sheriff: I'll kill all these outlaws and restore peace!!
Outlaws: Let's kill the sheriff whoz in our way!
Deputy Sheriff: Oh no! I can't let the outlaws harm my boss!!
Renegade: Ah haa!! Here's is my best opportunity to eliminate everyone and become the new sheriff!!

Well this is the game in a nutshell. This game is truly multi-player in nature in that it can accommodate 4-7 players. So finally I've come to multi-player games! This my friends is an absolute no brainer, so even before you read the review, just pick this one up..period.

I played this for the first time with a group of strangers at Brew haha (my friend's board game cafe') and fell in love with this and ordered it immediately.Ever since whereever I've been in mid-sized groups this has been a smash hit. So much so that I had to refrain from playing as they became addicted to this game!

This is a fighting, bluffing, little bit of mystery, classic western, role playing (some of my RPG friends may take offense to this being called a Role Playing Game, but it is in a very simple sense though)!

BANG! - By Emiliano Sciarra

He has been fascinated by games from when he was 12 years old, and he wrote simple board games and word games for his schoolmates and relatives. In the same time he also showed interest in computers (years later he earned a degree in Computer Science at Sapienza University of Rome).

In 1988 he published his first game: a shoot 'em up videogame for the Commodore 64 called Ciuffy (Systems Editoriale), created using the software SEUCK by Sensible Software.

Starting from 1999 he wrote several reviews, games and articles for the magazine PowerKaos and the fanzine Un'Altra Cosa, along with a brief "Little Informal Dictionary of Computer Science" (Piccolo Dizionario Informale di Informatica). His topics included logic puzzles, original games and theoretic discussions about the meaning of the game and its role in the human society.

In 2002 he published with daVinci Editrice, which was born shortly before, the card game Bang!, created two years earlier. Sciarra decided to submit the game after the members of the local Chess Club (founded by Sciarra himself in 1998) were so addicted to the game that they preferred to play Bang! instead of Chess!!

Bang! hit the shelves in July 2002: without any marketing by daVinci, the game entirely sold the first run (2400 copies) in less than three months, instead of the three years estimated by the company. According to official figures by daVinci, the game sold more than 500,000 copies and is distributed in 14 countries over the world!! (Wikipedia)

The version that I have is from Mayfair games- a publisher of board and roleplaying games in the United States and United Kingdom. They also license German-style board games and publish them in English, most notably the The Settlers of Catan series licensed from Kosmos. (Wikipedia)

What do you get in the box?

As I mentioned before this is just a small box of cards. Exactly the same sized box as any playing card deck:

• 7 role cards. The roles are- 1 Sheriff, 2 Deputies, 3 Outlaws and 1 Renegade
• 16 character cards. Each player chooses one for the game
• 80 Cards to play

Please don't get fooled by the components. I know some of you might wonder how come Madhu is harping about this game and this game comes just with some cards! You'll see that in the next section.

How does it play?

I'm not going to go through the entire rule set, but goving to give you all an overview of howthis game flows:

• Each player get a role card viz. Sheriff, Outlaw etc. and the Sheriff reveals himself/herself. Of course the number outlawsetc. change with the number of people
• Each one is then given a character card that talks about the special ability of the character and also the number of lifepoints indicated by the number of bullet. Now this character card plays the role given to you. E.g. Bart Cassidy one of the characters might play the outlaw, Willy the Red might play the Sheriff.
• Each one gets another character card, but this one he keeps it face down with the bullet seide up and coveres it using his previous charecter card to indicate the number of life points. Note: The sheriff has one extra life point as he discloses himself!
  
• Each player gets 4 cards as a starting hand.

This is the game set up and now the shooting can begin!

• The sheriff starts the play
• During any players turn, they draw 2 cards from the draw pile
• Play as many cards as they want or not play any as well! (which btw is very rare)
  
• In case they have more cards than their current life points they discard down to match the current life status

With such simple rules, you might wonder where is the fin element?

• The playing card deck comes with a variety of cards, but the most important ones are the Bang and Missed cards. Use the Bang card to shoot someone and missed card to avoid the hit!
• Apart fromthis there arespecial blue cordered cards that give you additional powers like increasing your range of shooting(each person starts with a range of one, meaning they can shoot players who are next to them, either side)
• They can put others in Jail (not the most pleasant thing to do)
• Indians attach so shoot them down
• There is a machine gun attack so avoid or get hit!
• Someone can take away your powers!
• Someone uses a dynamite!
• Oh my God! I'm hit! I'm hit! drink beer and save yourself!!

Many many more fun options to play it. There is never a dull moment in the game and it is high voltage action all along. But for the Sheriff none of the other players reveal their roles, so it is going to be a game of cat and mouse trying to guess who is on whose side!

• If the sheriff and his deputy kill all the outlaws and Renegade they win
• If the outlaws kill the sheriff they win!
• If the Renegade manages to be the only one alive- he wins (this btw is the most difficult role and fun role to play)

You don't know who's on whose side, but you keep guessing and shooting at people. There is going to be chaos, pandamonium and lots and lots of laughter.

There is limited amount of strategy, but this game was not supposed t be a strategy brain burner, but just a game of unadultrated fun and laughter for the family and friends alike.

I've seen people seeking revenge the next time around when they play completely disregarding the roles!!!!!! Absolutely hilarious this ine I say!! I have heard stories where people have almost got into fist fights!!

Enough of what I've said, just try this and I can assure you you'll find this very hard to put down.

How long does it play?

A typical game should go on for about 30 min. I would say it lasts somewhere between 30-40 min. So there you go, such a small duration and so much fun. Just that it might take a little longer in the initial games till you get used to the different cards, but once you are through, the fun really kicks in :-)

Who would you recommend it to?

You cannot not have this one..period!! Go get it everyone immediately!
Any Downsides?

Well really there are not too many things that I can complain about this game, but for some small things like the cards are not of the greatest quality and because you tend to play this so many times, may to wear out fast. There is little but of learning curve, but nothing to worry.

The only thing I would say about this game is- the more the merrier. Though you can play with 4 people, I would say 6-7 is the sweet spot. Now you may not have this number all the time, but when you have it don't miss it!

Final Thoughts!

I have played this game more than any other game with a lot of different groups- age group ranging from10-50 yrs and everyone has enjoyed htis a lot.NO EXCEPTION! I have never stopped this game at just one round, people always ask me to get it out as their first game on any game nights! I have had to tell some that my Bang copy is with someone so that I could play something else; that is how addictive this game is :-)

Though there is limited strategy/tactics purely based on the fun element this ranks as one of my top rated games!

Recently a friend of mine who did not know what board games were got this through his brother in the US!

I have no hesitation in ASKING you all to go get a copy of this game!!

For more reviews goto http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/3955

Jambo- How Good are you at Trading?

Well now that the weight of letting you all know to get your games is off my shoulder, I can get back to writing my reviews :-)

This game is by far the most advanced Kosmos- Rio Grande, 2 player game that I have played till date. The reason I say it is complex is not because the game mechanic is difficult. In fact the mechanic is very simple, but the sheer variety of cards that exist makes the learning curve really really steep for players! More about the cards etc a little later.

I just stumbled upon this game on the Internet, when I was looking for a lighter option to Caylus (really complex strategy game). The reason I was looking at a lighter game is because my wife was in tears after the 1st game play of Caylus. It took us nearly 4 hrs! An absolute marathon!!

More about that game later. But I read up a few reviews and finally decided to get my hand on it and got it through a colleague of mine who was traveling to the US. After having played this some 10-15 times I can say that this game offers enough strategic depth as any other big box games. Yes, it may not be as deep as a Puerto Rico or Caylus or Princes of Florence, but hey! Make no mistake this one's a winner!

Jambo by-Rüdiger Dorn

Rüdiger Dorn (born 1969) is a game designer of popular Eurogames. He was nominated for the 2005 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Jambo, which also placed 8th for the Deutscher Spiele Preis award. He was also nominated for the 2007 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Die Baumeister von Arkadia. (from wikipedia). He has designed many popular Euro games like Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa, Arkadia, Goa etc.

Euro styled games are strategy board games where luck plays almost no part in the outcome. You have all the details in front of you to take decisions and plan your game play. A tactical board-game on the contrary is one where things are very dynamic and changes every move. You really can't plan ahead of your game play in a tactical game. Eg. Balloon Cup, Lost Cities

I'm writing about these as Jambo falls somewhere in between the two. It has enough depth and strategy to keep players engaged and at the same time tactical to keep players engaged. Sometimes strategy games tend to become isolated and people may spend loooooooonnnnng periods before they make a move and that for certain people can kill the fun.

Now back to Jambo- At the heart of it is a trading game- you buy low sell high and in doing so gain gold coins. Anyone who wins 60 coins is the winner. This game comes with some amazing artwork! In fact you can spend quite a bit of time just looking and admiring the cards! By far the best artwork I've seen from Kosmos-Rio Grande.

The game comes with so many special cards that it takes 4-7 games just to get used to the variety and understand how they work in turn! More about all these in the following sections.

What Do you get in the box?


This game comes with some really nice and neat pieces:

• 2 large market stand cards- one for each player
• 5 small market stands
• 40 Ware cards
• 22 Utility cards
• 29 Person cards
• 14 Animal cards
• Gold coins in 1's and 5's
• 6 different ware chips (6 of each variety)
• 5 action markers

The artwork on all of them is top notch.

How does it play?

This game takes about 5-7 minutes to set this game up. Just that you need to separate all the bits out and place it in groups. Then you deal 5 cards to each individual, take 20 gold coins and a large market stand (that can accommodate 6 resources) and then you start the game.

• Each player gets 5 actions that he can perform on his/her turn (counted using the action marker)
• There are 2 things basically that a person can do and both of them are optional- Draw Phase and Play
• Both these phases are optional
• In the draw phase you can continue drawing a card until you decide to keep one; and once you do so you go onto the play phase where you play cards for the remaining actions
• Because they are optional, you can directly go onto the play phase and play as well

Now with the game play being so simple, you might start to wonder where on earth is the complexity? Well that is precisely what I'm going to answer in the following paragraph.

• This game comes with 8 different animal cards (14 cards overall)- these cards can cause harm to your opponent and give you a distinct advantage
  
• 10 different utility (22 overall) which gives players lot of advantages during every turn! These cards stay in front of the player (upto a max of 3) and can be used once every turn!!
  
• 13 different person cards (29 overall) that gives lot of advantage to players at different points in the game!

I'm not going to go very deep into each cards because I'll be writing out a thesis then and not a review :-)

The objective is to use these special cards along the ware cards to buy wares at a lower price and sell it at a higher price to reach 60. But there are some interesting aspects with these wares itself. A card with 3 different wares is worth more than card with the same ware! Also when you buy your 6th ware and you don't have a small market, you have to pay 2 gold extra for keeping them! If you are the 1st person to buy a small market then you need to pay 6 gold opposed to the 2nd player who pays just 3....phew so much isn't it. Well not really. Just get used to it and it is lots of fun! Trust me on that.

How long does it play?

A good game should go on anywhere between 40-45 min. Very rarely when the game gets real close I've seen it go on for an hour. But you really won;t figure out how time flew by! It is very fast, interactive with both players going at each other and loads and loads of tactics and some strategy.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well, if you have got bugged with playing some basic card games like Lost Cities, Balloon Cup etc. But fret the idea of getting into a Caylus or an Agricola, then this one's for you! Even for hard core gamers, this is a great game, because it is light compared to lot of other big box Euro Strategy Games. This game is also great for people who like to tingle their gray cells! But definitely not a brain burner. This is an enjoyable nail biting experience fo 2 players.

Any Downsides?

Well as I said before the variety is something that this game provides in plenty! But this is a double edged sword. As you can see the number of different cards can become overwhelming for some. The learning curve is really steep. As the rule set recommends you have to play the 1st few games just to get used to the cards. Most of the cards come with lot of text on them and hence can slow down the game till you get familiar with them. The inter-relation between various cards is something that you'll pick as you keep playing more and more games. As you have to draw cards from a face down pile this is definitely not a 'no luck' game. Because of this element the game has a tilt towards tactics more than strategy- though there is definitley a plan you can go with once you get to know all the cards.

Final Thoughts!

I would say Jambo is an experience (well though I don't classify it in the same league of other Euro Strategy Games). This is definitely a great 2 player small game. Don't get misled by the fact that I've laid out so many rules. The rule set in fact is smaller than my review hahahah!! This game is definitely easy to learn and play!

It is neither too long nor too short, nethier a brain burner nor a dumb game, nether is this too easy nor is this too difficult. This makes it a very attractive propositon and wants me to play more and more with casual gamers. If you are one that likes some strategy with luck, this is definitely one for your collection. But play other simpler games before you get to this; then you'll appreciate this game a whole lot better. Very elegantly desiged, this award winning game will leave you surprised at the amount of depth it offers in such a small box!

Caesar & Cleopatra- Indulge Yourself in Ancient Politics!

Didn't take long for me to get back to Kosmos- Rio Grande combination....did I?

Continuing the series of 2-player light games (dare I call this one a filler game, though some of them do), here I'm with Caesar & Cleopatra, perhaps a highly debated game- Do I like or Not?

If you have read my previous reviews say Lost Cities, Balloon Cup etc. This game is definitely deeper than those, however why is it that it is not highly ranked by people and lot of people want to trade it? Answers lie below!

I saw this game for the 1st time durng my visit to the game store 'Games People Play'- Harvard Square. I got interested, but did not venture out to buy this one. However after almost an year and having played Lost Cities and Balloon Cup to death decided to read about this game on the Boardgame geek and then asked a friend of mine to get it for me from the States :-)

After having played this game for more than 60 times, I started asking myself- Do I really like this game as much as I used to when I got it? The frank answer to that was a "No", but I still play it occasionally. I don't play it as often as I used to play just because I go games that are better than this. However let me take you through this interesting game and leave the final verdict to you guys :-)

Caesar & Cleopatra- by Wolfgang Lüdtke


Lüdtke is a banker by training and profession and started collecting and reviewing games and moved on to creating games now (something that I aspire to do- the creating part).

The game says this is a game of influence and politics. In this game a player can either choose to take Cleopatra or Caesar. Each one comes with a set of cards, though the nomenclature is different both sets are the same with same functionalities. Like with any other Rio Grande games the quality of cards are excellent, though the size seems very odd and makes it a little hard to shuffle. The art work is neat and very thematic with the Caesar and Cleopatra age. However this in itself is its downside as the game fizzles out on the theme. Though we are talking about politicians, winning them on your side to gain a majority, all that transaltes to having a larger sum on your side compared to your opponent(smaller sum in case of a 'Philosoper' card).

The objective of the game is to win as many Roman particians on your side using your cards, tact and skill so that the winner gets to keep Egypt!

There is definite tactical depth and variety, but the randomness seems to take away a large portion of the tactics (More about this in the next section). This game will appeal to a lot of people who would want to try out a slightly more complicated game than say Lost Cities and seek more variety. It by no means is a game that is bad or somthing that you'll absolutely detest owning (though few people have that opinion ;-)..) Not me though!

What do you get in the Box?


Cards, cards and cards. This game is all about bunch of cards:

• You get 37 influence cards for each player (Caesar & Cleopatra)
• 13 Action cards for each player- don't worry about the names, they are all the same
• 6 influence bonus cards
• 8 vote of confidence cards
• 21 patrician divided into 5 groups (3 groups of 5 cards and 2 groups of 3 cards)

A very interesting aspect is the nomenclature- they have use Latin names for charecters, which of course the moment you look at it, you'll realize are very ficticious and bad in humor. E.g. Justitianus ANUS, etc. Most names are similar, very artificial I felt!

How does it Play?

There are a few things that you do right at the beginning:

• Each person takes the influence cards for his charecter i.e. Caesar or Cleopatra and seperates out 2 sets of cards numbered 1-5. One set he places face down in front of the partcians and the other in his hand
• Each person arranges the 13 action cards in an order that he wants to use them throughout the game (this btw is a very good mechanic and gives players some tactical advantage)
• Each player also takes one influence bonus card, which tells him which group he needs to win a majority to score the bonus
• He then shuffles the vote of confidence cards and keeps them in a different stack and shuffles the rest of his influence cards

Once this is all don, you start the game play:

• On your turn, you can choose to be either active or passive (though I've not seen many being passive)
• If you are active then you can play 2 cards face up in front of any of the patrician groups or play a single card face down
  
• He may with the influence cards play an action card anytime during his turn
• If there are a total of 8 cards both sides put together, you count the toal and the higest total gains a patrician card from that particualr group (remember that you can have only a maximum of 5 cards on your side- if that is the case your opponent can have only 3!)
• There is a special influnce card called the philosopher card which reveres this rule and give a patrician card to the player with the lowest total.
• Once you place your cards on your turn, irrespective of the number of cards you draw one of the vote of confidence cards and see which group needs to be scored (this btw is a spoiler and wI'll tell you why in just a bit)

The game finishes when all the patricians are won and the score is calculated:

• 1 point for each patrician
• 1 extra point if you have a majority in a group (3 cards for a 5 member group and 2 cards for a 3 member group)
• 1 extra point if you have won all the cards in a particular group
• 2 extra points for winning a majority in a group that matches your infuence bonus card

Some unique mechanics, with 13 action cards, the philosopher card makes C&C a very entertaining game, but if your are seeking a no luck game, this definitely is not one. The vote of confidence cards can absolutely annoy you. All your plans can go for a toss if you turn up a 'no vote orgy today' card. This element takes away a lot of sheen from this game.

How long does this play?

As it is printed on the box, thi takes about 30-40 minutes. The game plays fast and keeps you occupied with very little downtime. With 13 actioncards that you can arrange it the way you want allows for a fair bit of tactics and variety. However this game is definitely not deep enough for keeping you engaged for long periods of time. This is no brain burner, but at the same time not a dud that you play it blindfolded. I would say this game is liht-medium in its weight and lies somewhere betwen a filler and a full fledged game. Requires a little bit of learning to get used to the ction cards and how to stack them.

Who would I recommend it to?


Definitely not to everyone. This is a game that people who do not want very heavy games like. It can be entertaining and exercising your grey cells a little bit. I would say this game is suitable for people to play it once in a hile, if they don;t want to play very light games. You play this and then perhaps move onto something more serious (just to se the mood right hahahaha). This game can be a good get away game as it is just a set of cards and hence good to carry along- though you have to like it first.

People who play a lot of 2 player games may find this a nice change and addition to their collection as simpler to 'Hera and Zeus" (Don't quote on me as this is what people say, I don't have Herta and Zeus so can't take a stab at that one)

Any Downsides?

Apart from the odd sized cards and funny names, the game has some serious shortcomings:

• The vote of confidence can absolutely annoy you as it is completely random and can screw up your plans (mind you for people liking randomness this is great). The great idea of having action cards that adds so much variety is in a way lost out due to the vote of confidence cards
  
• There is no theme and you end up using just the numbers, so the entire artwork goes waste
• Requires some learning as the action needs to be arranged smartly, else you can pay quaite a hefty price as you cannot have more than 5 cards in your hands and having an action inappropriate to the game situation can really hurt you (say having a scout right at the end)

Final Thoughts!

This game is another one which blows hot and cold for me. Up until recently I used to like this game a lot, but after playing Battle Line and some other games that I'll talk about in the coming weeks the interest level has gone down. But I don't see myself getting rid of this game any time in the near future as this keeps hitting the table once every couple of months!

For more detailed reviews please visit http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/132

Odin's Ravens- Are you ready for the Crow Race?

Odin the father of God's sends his 2 ravens to watch over the world! So you choose to play one of these ravens or crows and race one another!! Arrr.......Well Crow race? In any case we are all in a rat race, why a crow race....we I understand any other race, but racing using crows?? Sounds the least bit interesting right!! Well that's what I thought so too, in fact even after playing for the first 2-3 times! But now that's all behind me and I LOVE to RACE THE CROWS!

Being in India though very disadvantageous specially if you are a board game lover has some unique advantages- yes I say unique because you are pushed to do certain things which you would not normally do if things were available easily- for starters research!! Yes Game research!! (Though I'm not saying that people in the western world and other parts where boardgames are available don't research), it is just that I do tons of reading up before deciding to buy a game. Of course you have to when the average price per game is around Rs.1500, you can ill afford to go wrong!!

Anyways, now coming back to the game- This is one game I had read abut and heard it from another boardgame collector in India - Mr. Sanjay Subramaniam- name rings a bell?? Well yes he is the very famous Carnatic singer and I got to know him through Boardgames (only occasional mail contact- he still can't recognize me if I stand in front of him :-)..). After going through some reviews I finally decided to buy this game as it 'sounded' fun. I tend to buy a lot of two player games as I don;t have a huge gang to play games with. I usually end up playing it my wife, cousin, a friend who might visit and you'll see that there are plenty of two player games.

Yes, Odins Ravens is another 2 player game from Kosmos and Rio Grande (I decided to go for this trusting their combi ;-)..and of course the game mechanic).

One of the reasons I'm writing the review now is this is just a little more complicated compared to the other 3 (Others don;t get me wrong, this is purely from an Indian context where we don't have many boardgames in the market- and the complexity levels are completely subjective- I felt it hence writing it).

Don't think this is going to be a brain burner, definitely not; it is still very simple, just that it offers more variety which you need to get a hang off! I will talk about it a little later, but first a couple of lines about the author!

Odin's Ravens by Thorsten Gimmler

Thorsten Gimmler is a game designer and electrical engineer who has been employed as a product manager for Schmidt games since 2005. His game Thief of Baghdad was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres award in 2007. (Straight from Boardgamegeek ;-)

As I mentioned before this is a racing game where each player takes a raven marker and tries to reach the end of landscapes as fast as possible. Players play multiple races until one reaches a score of 12. Players score points on the number of spaces he/she finishes ahead of his/her opponent. Also players score 3 points if they have the maximum number of cards on the magic way cards (will explain each term below).

Fairly easy to learn and play, however requires a little bit of learning curve to get familiar with Odin cards and how everything works together.

What do you get in the box?

Unlike the previous games, this game doesn't have a game board. It is just cards:

• You get one set of flight cards/landscape cards representing different landscapes for each player (in 2 different colors)
• Set of land cards that is laid out for ravens to move on and race
• 8 Odin cards for each player (these are special ability cards that affect the game greatly!)
• Magic Way cards which needs to be drawn for each race to determine the 3 points (will talk about the significance of this later)
• 2 wooden raven markers
• 1 Odin marker
  

Again as with any other Rio Grande game, the quality of the components are very good!

How Does it Play?

Well this is where this game was very different to the previous Kosmos games. For the first few games (2-3 games i.e.) I almost felt this game was very simple and had nothing to interest me until I went back to the forums to find out what was so good about this game. After a little reading up and playing this a few more times, I can tell you the design of this game is very very elegant- meaning it plays very subtly and really interconnected. The game mechanic is simple:

• On your turn you can play upto 3 cards from your hand and upto 3 more cards from your auxiliary stack
• You can play these cards to advance your ravens over the landscapes or play it on the magic way cards
• You can at the end of your turn increase the length of the race by one card!
  

This my friends is the most confusing part, as the rules do not state how each action of yours are interconnected! And here in lies the beauty of Odin's Ravens! There are 4 aspects to this game that makes it very interesting:

• Players draw 5 cards from their shuffled pack and on their turn they can play a card to advance their raven or place it on the magic way card to win the 3 points or start placing it in a face down stack in front of them as their auxiliary stack. This mechanic is very different as you know which cards you are placing on your auxiliary stack and you can play 3 extra cards after you have played the 3 from your hand!! Huge advantage!
• You can play your card on the magic way card to score 3 points- if you think that you are going to loose a particular race or simply maximize the points this is an excellent way- just place it on the magic way cards
• From your draw pile, you get 8 Odin Cards- Special cards that come with different effects to change the game complexion itself- some allows you to change the landscape cards, some allows you to pull your opponents ravens back or move yours ahead by one step, some allows you to keep an Odin marker to block your opponent, some allows you to cut short the length of the race by one card etc. Overall it brings in the surprise element that can completely put your opponent off guard!
  
• Also by careful usage of cards you can stack up similar landscape cards one after the other to move over multiple cards using just one of your landscape card!
  

And this is Odin's Ravens for you in a nutshell (please beware that this is not an exhaustive rule set, for that please visit http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/4396)

What makes this game so fascinating is the interconnectedness of playing cards to advance your ravens, playing it on the magicway cards and playing from the auxiliary stack. It offers very good depth and scope to explore strategies!

How Long does it Play?

I tend to agree with the time put on the box i.e. 30-40 min, though in some cases I've see it go up to about 50 min in case of very close competition. Though this is definitely not a brain burner, it does require some quick thinking from the players to seize opportunities and play real smart!

Who would you recommend it to?

I would say this is a good game for anyone who are tired of playing Monopoly or some other brain dead games(no offense to these games though) or have had enough with filler games (though some might say this too is a filler game). I would also like to mention that people wanting to try serious Euro Strategy games can start off with this and some of the other games to follow- though the strategy element is fairly basic, it does give players a very good flavor and experience.
Any Downsides?

As mentioned before this games requires little bit of learning and understanding how your actions are interconnected and how to balance everything at the same time. There are multiple strategies to victory, but you'll learn them as you go along. I would say this learning might be a little frustrating up until you pick up the cues, but this is very simple once you play it 3-5 times.
Final Thoughts!

I feel after playing a game of Odin's Ravens makes me refreshed and I talk about it with the other player- 'Hey you know, I should have done this rather than that move or you screwed it up here or that's a nice strategy' etc. etc. Its that sort of a game, leaves you feeling really nice, but just learn it once and you'll keep coming back to it. Though boardgamegeek does not rank it very high, I see this hiting my table very often with players who have played this before!

Lost Cities- A High Tension Adventure Game

As mentioned in my previous post, I'll take up a game and share some details that might give you an overview of what that particular game is and might help you to buy/play it.

I'm starting with a segment of games called as 'filler' games. Filler games are essentially small games that get over under an hour and you generally play them while you are awaiting more friends to join you for a larger game or you want a quick break from something that you are doing.

The next few posts talk about such filler games- specially 2 player card games.


The 1st one is "Lost Cities" by Reiner Knizia.



1st a little about Knizia- Perhaps the most prolific game designer in the last 12 yrs or so, Knizia has designed more than 500 games. He is a PHd in Mathematics and was teaching for a while before he took up game designing as a full time profession (since 1997). Most of Knizia' games are abstract games, though there is a theme behind every game. Some of the most popular games from Knizia are: Tigris & Euphrates, Through the Desert, Modern Art, Lost Cities, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation and many more.

Today you'll get to know about Lost Cities. A 2 player light game, with little depth but high tactics- very high tension!

Lost Cities is one that I use to get a lot of people introduced board gaming. In fact it is not a boardgame in the truest sense. It is just a card game. A game where you build your deck (set). There is a theme for the game in that it is an exploration game where the players set out to explore ancient cities by building a card deck.

What you get in the box: You get a set of 60 cards, a game board ( well more a discard board than anything else), a rule book
How does it play?

Very simple rules- players have 8 cards each and on their turn play a card (either on their side to build the route or discard) and pick up a card (either from the discard pile of the supply deck). On every turn players do this until the supply deck is exhausted, when the game ends. Pretty simple and basic hmmm....

But the catch here is when you extend the route each card placed by you has to be ascending the previous number (see the illustration). This makes the game really interesting, as you keep asking yourself, should I go ahead and place this card or should I wait for it to come from the supply pile or my opponents hand. It is a constantly changing game where each player tries to outsmart others when it comes to discarding the cards.

The other aspect that makes Lost Cities enjoyable is the hand cards or the betting value. remember you are exploring- in case you are more confident of exploring the route you take greater risk to gain reward. This is what makes the game really interesting. You start your route by plaing a bet on that- a multiplication factor of 2, 3 or 4 times the score you make after the game. But what makes it interesting is not about placing the bet right at the beginning with so much uncertainity but the scoring pattern.

When you go out exploring you do spend resourses and hence you need to subtract 20 points (add up the numbers on the deck you've built) from your total as your expense and then score points. So if you have placed 3 hand cards which will give you a multiplication factor of 4 (hand card+1= multiplication factor) and end up scoring 40 points. You subtract 40-20=20*4= 80, but if you end up at say 12 points. you get 12-20=-8*4=-32. This element makes it really fun. This is where you use all your tactics to increase your points and decrease your opponents' score.

In case you need a more details review on the game mechanics, please visit http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/50

How long does this play?
I would say this takes about 12-15 min/round and you play it for 3 rounds usually (you can play just 1 round as well. You are looking at around 35-45 min for the whole game and trust me, you usually don;t stop at one!

Who might like this game?
I would recommend this one to anyone and everyone. Very simple to learn and lots of fun to play. Even kids can play it and you can compete with them with the smae level of intensity as you would with anyone else!

Of course I would reccommend this to anyone with a spouse as it is extrememly competitive and emotions tend to flair up (personal experience here :-))

Any down sides?
The cards are odd sized and some may find handling them a little hard (in fact this isn't a negative, but anyways). The theme is weak. I didn't like the artwork that much as compared to the others that I have. It is essentially the numbers that matter and there is no element of exploration, but hey, don't worry about the fun bit. You'll thoroughly enjoy it. Element of luck and randomness quite high, that makes it unpredictable (can be both +ve or -ve)

Final Thoughts
For people looking at a deep game, this in not a deep game. It is a very fast moving 2 player, light game (award winning game- 6 awards) with couple of interesting tactics. Gives you an adrenalin rush as you approach the end of the game. A big thumbs up to Lost Cities and Knizia!