Mr. Jack- Time's short, catch Jack the Ripper if you can!

I was contemplating on which game should I review next and that's when it occurred to me that I could continue my review with the Mystery/Deduction genre of games and hence Mr. Jack!

As mentioned in my previous review Cluedo was a sort of revival of my boardgaming interest. I always enjoyed the mystery themed games (not sure was this after Cluedo though), but one of the problems with the Mystery games that I had before getting Mr. Jack was that they were all 3+ players and above. Both Cluedo and Mystery of the Abbey and it wasn't that I always used to have 3 people that I could play with. Also, I was looking at a shorter game ('cos Cluedo and MoA takes about 60-90 min).

After some reading around, I found the answer in Mr. Jack. Got it through a friend of mine from Singapore. This is a 2-player murder mystery themed game that takes about 5-10 min to learn and takes about 30 min to play.

Mr. Jack by Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc

Both Bruno and Ludovic are French game designers. Bruno has designed one of the most popular Co-operative games Shadows over Camelot (more about it some other day :-)...) and Ludovic has designed another popular game called Cash 'n' Guns a fun game like Bang!

What do you get in the Box?

Well before I go to the content bit, I have to share how I felt after opening the box ;-) As I mentioned before I had read a few reviews about this game and thought that this was a simple enough game for 2 players. I wasn't completely into lot of strategic Euro games and hence wanted the game to be simple (things are different now though).

When I opened the box and saw the rule book, I almost fainted looking at the size of it!!!! It is a 38 page magazine!! and I thought that I had blown up money on this one. But don't fret :D as I realised moments later the rule book comes in 7 different languages and hence so big. In actuality the rule set is just 5 pages :-)


Now to the contents:

• You get a nice big board with lot of hexes
  
• 8 character tokens with suspect on one side (dark color) and innocent on the other side (white background)- Characters come from the popular Sherlock Holmes series like Sherlock, Dr. Watson etc.
  
• 6 hexagonal gas light tiles with 4 of them having numbers1-4 for removal after each of rounds 1-4
• 2 hexagonal manhole tiles
• 2 police cordon tokens
• 1 turn counter token
• 1 card witness/no witness indicator
• 8 cards with green back with the names and pictures of the character along with their special abilities
• 8 alibi cards with red back and picture of a character on each card

The quality of the components are top notch with really thick cards and absolutely brilliant art work! In fact I'm wrong in calling these cards as cards, they are really really thick boards!

How does it play?

First let's look at the set up before we see the game play:

• Set out the board look the the cover page of the rule book to set out the gaslight markers, manhole markers, police cordon tokens and the starting positions of the 8 characters with their bright/darker side up
• Place the turn counter token on the bottom right corner of the board where it says 1
• Choose a player who is going to play lack- he gets the witness card and draws one of the character cards from the red back stack
• Shuffle the 8 green back stack and draw the top 4 cards and keep it open next to the board
• Ensure that the player playing Jack faces the grey side of the board (upside down) and the detective player faces the board upright (gold side)

Now we are all set to play :-) If you noticed I haven't mentioned the objective of this game. Well if you read the above section of set up that gives you the clue to the game. One of the 8 characters is Jack the Ripper i.e. the card the Jack the Ripper player chooses is the culprit. The other player has to find out this guy, and to make matter tense you have just 8 turns in which to do that! Of course did I mention that if Jack is clever he will escape from the city (board) even before you get to the 8 turns!! So buckle up you are in for a roller coaster ride!

On each turn the following happens:

• The turn order token tells you the order of play. Eg: Grey-Gold-Gold-Grey (for turns 2-4-6-8) or Gold-Grey-Grey-Gold (for turns 1-3-5-7)
  
• Players choose one of the open character cards depending on who they are representing (see above of grey and gold description)
• Players move the character tokens on the board as per the movement points for each character and use the character's special ability. E.g. Sherlock can move upto 3 places and draw a card from the red back pile etc.
• After a turn is over i.e. 4 cards the Jack player uses the witness card to indicate whether the culprit is visible or invisible.
• Once this is done, depending on whether the culprit is visible or invisible the tokens are turned around to indicate their innocence. Meaning- if the culprit is visible then all the invisible characters are innocent and vice verse
• The turn counter moves to the next number and one of the gas light is removes from the board (numbers 1-4 for each round)- i.e. your city is going get increasingly darker and becomes difficult for the detective to catch Jack ;-) so hurry up

Note on Visibility:

• Any character adjacent to another character is visible
• Any Character adjacent to a gaslight is visible
• Any character in the line of sight of Dr. Watson's gaslight is visible
• All other characters are invisible
• Jack can escape the city only when he is invisible and through one of the exits that does not have the police cordon marker!
  

Now for the fun element- Well it is extremely important for players to use the gas lights to their advantage and also the manholes. Using manholes can absolutely turn things around for players. There is no luck element in using the manholes, but there is surely a surprise element! Add to this the special abilities of the characters are really important and if used wisely can enrich the gaming experience immensely.

How long does this play?

Typically each game should last somewhere between 20-30 min, yes it is that short though my review makes the game appear long. In very rare circumstances I've seen games stretching upto 45 min (i.e. when I play this game with some serious chess players :-)

Who would you recommend it to?

I would categorise this game as a light-medium game and hence this can fit into most game collections with ease. Serious gamers can use this as an ice breaker before they want to get into something really serious and casual gamers can play this for hours before getting bored :-) I would say this is a great game for get away- so couples might find it very attractive, but if you are a person who plays games with larger groups and seldom play 2 player games, then you may not want it because this is a 2-player game :-)

Any Downsides?

Well I had to think long and hard before writing this section. Downside of such a nice game, well can it really have one? The answer to me was yes, and I say this as I have played this extensively for over 2 yrs now- One serious downside is games tend to become repetitive after you have played many times. There are actually 2-3 different strategies and once you crack them in your initial games the surprise element might die down. Playing with different players will give you different experiences as the style of play will be different, but you can nail down the trends after a point in time.

For beginners learning the movement abilities and special abilities might take a game or two, and if they play against experienced gamers there is a huge disadvantage. This game is also fairly unforgiving in that if anyone commits a simple error early in the game, you can be sure that your game is going to be short- specially true with errors made by players playing Jack.

Personally I feel that this game is not very well balanced- what I mean by this is, it is very difficult for Jack to escape and not get caught. After some games you know that Jack will get caught (experienced gamers) and the challenge is how long can Jack keep running away. For this I do play certain variants like playing it for 6 turns instead of 8, removing 2 lamps instead of 1 etc. but still the detective has a lot of advantage unless he plays really stupid.

Final Thoughts!

Well don't get carried away reading my downside section and dismiss this game as a flash in the pan. This is a very very good game and can keep you engaged for hours, days, years. Though I don't play it very often, I do see this game hitting my table every other month at least for a couple of games. Yes there are some drawbacks, but I guess there are very few games that are perfect. If you ask me this game is perfect to satisfy your mystery/deduction itch without brain burn within a short time! With an expansion and a full blown game released I can only imagine this game getting more and more popular! As I said before catch this Jack before he escapes from the market stands.

Fearsome Floors!- Escape or get Eaten!

Let me start of November with a game that rocks! Perhaps one of my 1st games that is really a big box i.e. bigger than any of my previous games and one that can be learnt in 5 min, but can give you hours of laughter :D for 2-7 players

Well what is this fun game all about?

You and your friend/friends are in a dungeon/palace or whatever you want to call it and trying to escape from that place without getting eaten by the monster that roams the corridors. What awaits you is a trail of death, blood and horror!!

Well the last part should read- What awaits you is a fast paced, exhilarating fun game that will make you come back many times!

This was a game I had no idea about. My brother was in Singapore and called me from the game shop telling me that a particular game that I wanted was not available and put me onto the shop owner. He strongly recommended me this game and I was very hesitant till I played it. But boy was this a good buy!

Fearsome Floors by Friedemann Friese

Friedemann Friese is a German board game designer who is known for pairing interesting gameplay with quirky themes. He is notorious for liking the color green, to the point which he includes the color on the cover of all of his designs, and has dyed his hair green. He also likes to begin every word in his titles with the letter 'F,' though this trait is sometimes lost in the English versions of his titles. He designs exclusively for his own game publishing company, 2F-Spiele. (From Boardgamegeek website)

He is known for a lot of good games, you can see the list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedemann_Friese

However the best game from this designer has to be Power Grid or Funkunschlag(in German) (currently ranked # 3 on the BGG site). I will be writing about that game sometime in the future, but this game is a must have just for the fun element!

What do you get in the box?

Well you get some really nice stuff inside the box:

• 1 Big game board
• 17 floor tiles (stones, turning tiles, teleporters, blood pools!! oooo, etc. etc.)
• 8 Monster movement tiles
• 1 Starting Player marker
• 25 playing figures in 7 colors (4 each in 4 colors and 3 each in 3 colors) representing characters from Adams Family!
  
• 1 DIY (Do it Yourself) Monster kit (This is fun, believe me)- fix the head, shoes, hands and create about 3-4 different monsters
• 

I have the Rio Grande published version and the quality of components is top notch!

How Does it Play?

1st the game mechanic:

• On your turn you move 1 or more of your markers as per the number indicated on the figure and then turn the disc around to show the other side- each marker is a round disc with a number on each side of the disc totaling upto 7 (so you have characters with number combinations like 5-2, 6-1, 4-3 etc. you can differentiate the sides by the black and colored backgrounds)
• Once all players move their characters they draw a monster movement tile and move the monster as per the number printed on the tile
• The game plays for 15 rounds (monster tiles are exhausted after 8 turns and the last 7 reshuffled to form the next draw pile)
• Player who manages to get most of his characters out is the winner!

Simple enough right :-) Here's what makes this game fun:

• On your turn you move a character and turn it around- so if you had the 4 side up, you can move your playing figure upto 4 spaces (any direction except diagonal) and turn it around with its 3 side up- so the next time it can move only 3 steps
• Monster moves in a straight line and can see in all directions except back side ;-)
• Monster moves till it sees a playing figure, upon which it changes its direction and moves towards the figure
• If 2 playing figures are equidistant, the monster continues in a straight line so make a smart move and trap your friend!
  
• Monster can't see characters behind stones so go behind stones, or move using stones as a shield, but be careful the monsters can crush you if you don't get out of their way as they can push the stones with ease :D
  
• You can slide over blood pools and maximize movement
• Monster goes through walls! This mechanic is just the killer for which you should get this game- i.e. the board is marked with letters and the monster goes through one side of the wall say A and comes through A from another side, so all characters who felt were safe once are now in grave danger of getting eaten!
  
• In the 1st phase i.e. drawing the monster movement cards from the 1st 8 times you get a chance to come back even if you get eaten, but the next 7 rounds, you get eaten and you are one character short
• The whole game is about meticulously placing your pieces so that you don't get eaten, but at the same time are progressing towards the exit!
• Monsters don't stop till the number of movement points are moved, so they can really surprise you when they start to move. You might be thinking that you are safe, but a smart player can expose you and make you look like a fool :D
• There is another mechanic that makes this game beautiful i.e. the one and 2 hits. Whenever this comes up, monsters move upto 20 spaces till they find a victim, so be sure you are not one of the victims ;-)
  

All this augers for an exciting game that you can play which ever way you want- either light or heavy i.e. if you want to plan your moves meticulously like in chess, you can do that and play this really deep or just move around and have fun!!

How long does it play?

It depends on how many players you are playing with. With 2-3 players you should be able to get a game inside 40 minutes, but with 4+ players you can have a full game lasting 60-75min! I would say more the people more the fun. Just don;t get too deep and try to play it like chess, this might take away some of the fun element out of the game!

Who would you recommend it to?

I definitely think this is another game apart from Bang! that everyone should have. So simply go and get it. It is light hearted fun that will make you come back and play more everytime you bring it out. It has an advanced version with teleporters and turning stones which makes it a great game for replayability!

Any Downsides?

If you have players who get into the thinking mode like chess, downtime increases and the fun element goes down a bit, so keep pushing players to make quick movements! Apart from this I don't see great downside to this game. You have to be a little careful with the monster bits as they can wear out by constant assembling and dismantling.

Final Thoughts!

This is a very underrated game according to me. If you see the ranking on BGG- it is ranked #359, but I highly recommend this game purely for the fun factor it can deliver. Accepted that there might be limitations on the strategy part, but I feel not all games need to be strategic to give you kicks, it can be pure fun that can leave people saying, wow we had a good laugh for about an hour. I think this game is a must for everyone! It can be a great family entertainer though some may offended by the theme! (which is very rare).

Scales up beautifully across 7 people and light at the same time. You can use this as a great get-away game as well. So simply get it!

10 Days in Asia! - See Asia in 10 Days

Well, not really see Asia, but yes, you can see Asia's map and get familiar and go to possibly 10 different countries in 10 days! Well that's what this game is all about. Traveling! around Asia. I had read about this series i.e. the 10 Days series (it comes in 4 variants- 10 Days in Asia, Europe, Africa and USA) and some of them had mentioned that this was the best among the lot and a good introductory game for people into boardgames.

While I can't comment on how good the rest are, as I haven't played them, I agree to some extent that this can be a good introductory game for children rather than adults.

This is perhaps my 1st of the bigger boxed games (probably you can't make out the size though my photos), but this is bigger than any of the games that I've reviewed so far.

Before I go into the game- if you have kids at home, get the entire series, it can be a good geographical experience for them, they will surely learn to locate countries and can learn about their capital, population and the size :-)

10 Days in Asia by- Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weissblum


Alan Moon is one of the most recognized active game designers and a two-time Spiel des Jahres winner. He is the organizer of the annual Gathering of Friends. Moon is an infrequent contributor to Board Game Geek under the username alanrmoon.

Moon began in the game industry with Avalon Hill as an assistant editor of Avalon Hill's magazine The General in 1979, but due to Avalon Hill's small staff quickly found himself also working as a game developer. Moon himself chronicled this time of his life in the geeklist My Four Years at Avalon Hill. He eventually left Avalon Hill in order to make a more livable wage at Parker Brothers' video division. He stayed at Parker Brothers only briefly, soon leaving to try becoming a professional game designer.

Moon worked as a game designer part-time, while taking consulting jobs and waiting tables to make ends meet. However, Moon was unable to find any success marketing his games to the larger publishers. Eventually, disheartened at the inability to find major publishers interested in his games, he co-founded White Wind in 1990 to publish his own designs. White Wind met with limited success, and Moon eventually left to again pursue design work for other publishers. In 1998, Amigo Spiele asked Moon to simplify Elfenroads, a 1992 White Wind release. Moon's resulting redesign, Elfenland, went on to win the 1998 Spiel des Jahres, establishing Moon as a premier game designer. He has since worked with many major publishers, and has enjoyed great success. Some of his reations include- Diamant, Ticket to Ride (btw this is a legend), 10 Days series etc. (from Boardgame geek website)

Aaron Weissblum is a game designer who frequently designs games with Alan R. Moon including popular games such as San Marco, the 10 Days in series, Capitol, Oasis, and New England. He is also one of the co-founders and puzzle creators for Tanga.com and has designed Puzzle Hunt contests for BGG.CON. (from Boardgame geek website)

What do you get in the Box?

For a light game, the box is very heavy! You'll see why :-)

• 78 tiles (57 Country tiles and 21 transportation tiles)
• 4 sets of wooden tile holders, 2 per set (this makes the box heavy). These wooden hilders have Day 1- Day 10 printed on them to keep the tile in the appropriate slot.
  
• A nicely printed map of Asia

The game is printed by Out of the Box and the quality of components is top class, though they could have made things light.

How does it Play?

• Players take tiles 10 of them from the face down draw pile and place them one after the the other without changing the order
• One placed they cannot be moved
  
• Place 3 tiles face up, which forms the discard pile
  

This is the initial setup and then the players start:

• On your turn, you pick up a tile either from the face down pile or from any of the face up discard pile
• You must place this tile by removing one tile from your tile holder, which is then discarded onto any of the 3 piles
• You may even discard the card you have just drawn

That's it, these are the rules. very simple right! The first to complete a logical route of 10 days is the winner!

Of course there are some aspects that needs to be adhered to while completing a route:

• Completed10 day journeys should start and end with country tiles and not transporttion tiles
• 2 tiles from the same country may be included so long as they are not next to each other
• It is not necessary to include any trasnportation tiles in your route
• Transportation tiles cannot be placed next to each other

Now having said all these how do you connect?

• Any country that is adjacent can be traveled by road, so just keep it next to each other
• On the map is the rail route connecting countries and hence you can use a Rail tile to connect those 2 countries
• Each country has a color code (5 colors in all). So you can use an aeroplane of appropriate color and connect it to another country of the same color. Eg. India (brown)- Brown Aeroplane- Russia (brown)
• Countries can be connected so long as they are on the same ocean i.e. Indian or Pacific.

So not fussy at all, pretty straight forward to learn and play :-) There is very little strategy or tactic as everything is based on tile draw, though some nasty things like placing a tile on one of the discard pile to prevent your opponent from getting a tile that you know he/she wants is a fun thing to do :-)

How long does it play?

With a really bad set of tile draws the game can extend upto 30 minutes, else 15-20 min is what you are looking at. Of course with 4 people, you can say it might be a 30 min game on an average. So pretty fast.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well I would say any household with young kids should have the entire set, just because parents can sit with kids, have fun and also learn some basic geography stuff! These games are available in popular toys/book strores across India, so you should get these ones. Otherwise I would say give this a skip as this becomes too boring with limited replayability.

Any Downsides?

Even casual gamers might not get into this game as it is too light. One say a very rare ocassion you might get a play or two, but that's about it. With luck playing such an important role, very difficult to induce gamers into this game :-)

Final Thoughts!

Well, though this game is simple and fun, I would strongly recommend this to only families with kids as they can enjoy more than a grown up adult gaming group. But as a laerning to know where countries are, this can be a fun game of and on! Try it if you get a chance before you buy! I would say for people with Children, get all the 4 games and play 40 days around the World!!

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.

Blokus- A Fun Game with Squares!

Finally, I'm done with the Kosmos-Rio Grande 2-Player games that I had! Phew! Hope you liked a few games from the list and will try out some :-)

I have a few more 2-Player games, but they are a little advanced and hence would be talking about them a little later. Just to let you all know what they are: Mr. Jack, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation- Deluxe Edition, Dungeon Twister, Commands and Colors: Ancients etc.

From now on, I'll be talking about multi-player games i.e. where more than 2 people can join in and have fun. I'll be starting off with a very simple and addictive fun game that takes about 1-2 min to learn, but as they all say "a lifetime to master" :-)

I'm talking about the very popular Blokus (A 1-4 Player abstract Strategy game), which is available across the world, including leading toy and books stores in India. It comes in various versions:

• A classic version- this is what I'm going to talk about
• A 2 player version- Called Blokus Duo
• A Triangular version- Called Blokus Trigon
• A 3D version

Blokus by- Bernard Tavitian

Bernard Tavitian holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Paris VI, an Engineering Degree from the prestigious Ecole Centrale in Paris, a Doctorate in Biophysics from the University of Paris VI and has held a post-doctoral position in the Department of Biochemistry at Yale University in the United States. At 46 years of age, this Frenchman now lives on the revenue stemming from the success of the Blokus® game. He spends his time reading, enjoying music and …. board games. (from http://www.sekkoia.com)

This is an abstract strategy game i.e. a game without a theme. Each player has 21 'Tetris' like pieces that he tries to place it on the board and in trying to do so, he also tries to obstruct his/her opponent.

This game has won about 9 awards between 2000 when it was released to 2005.

What do you get in the box?

This game comes with:

• A game board with 400 squares.
• 84 pieces (i.e. 21 pieces in each of the four colours- Red,Blue, Green & Yellow). Each of the 21 pieces has a different shape.

That's it! The 21 pieces are actually 'Tetris' like pieces that range from one square to 5 squares (In all possible combinations). The pieces look solid with very good finish.

How does it play?


As I mentioned earlier, this game takes about 1-2 min to learn and believe me, no exxagaration here.

• Each player must begin at one of the corners of the board.
  
• The order of play is blue, yellow, red, green.
  
• Each new piece that is placed on the board must touch another piece of the same colour, but it can only touch at the corners, never along the sides

The above rules are picked straight from the website. I didn't bother writing it because these are the rules! You can just buy the game and start playing after reading the 3 bullet points!

You can play solo and try to put all the pieces on the board or with 2 players choosing 2 colors each or 3 players choosing one color each and one neutral color with everyone playing the neutral color or 4 players where 2 people team up and play as a team.

The game ends when no more pieces can be placed on the board and the scoring is as follows:

• Each square which is not placed on the board counts as a negative point.
  
• A bonus of 15 points is awarded if all 21 pieces have been placed on the board.
  
• This bonus is increased to 20 points if the 21 pieces were placed on the board with the single square being placed last.

Though it might appear that you have to keep changing your game plan i.e. very tactical, it definitely has a strategy element if you play it more!

How long does it play?

This game takes somewherebetween 20-45 min depending on how much time people take to think. Believe me though the rules are simple, this game is very engaging and will make you come back anytime!

Who would you reccomend it to?

I think everyone should have it. I had not written about it before as this was a multi-player game, but this simple game is so good and available across that I recommend everyone to have it.

Any Downsides?

Well can't really think of any, apartfrom the fact that the classic version might be a little clumsy to carry during travel. (BTW that's why you have the travel edition or the DUO :-)
Final Thoughts!

This is a classic, very simple yet very attractive. It is not that abstract like Chess that will leave you brain drained after a really intense game. It gives you enough exercise for your grey cells to keep coming back and having fun with your entire family. As you keep playing this game more and more, you'll get to understand the differnt shapes better and would know whether to use a piece in an attacking fashion or a defensive fashion. Even a 5-6 yr can have as much fun as any of us!

The World of Boardgames!

In this new era of co-operative video games, 3D graphics, motion sensors, virtual gaming community etc. etc. What place does boardgames have? Most of us ask this question when you see a boardgame in any near by store. I have observed most of them dismiss the category of boardgames as being boring, mundane and just for kids!

Whenever I go and share that I love boardgames and that boardgames are for real people and fun. I kind of get a very quizzical look- Something like boardgames ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಹಾವು ಏಣಿ ಟೈಪ್? (meaning snakes and ladders?) A slightly more educated comment would be "You mean boardgames like Monopoly?" Well I really don't have anything against these games, in fact I grew up like many others with these games, but boardgames are way beyond these games.

I started this blog to share a few thoughts from this fascinating world of boardgames!

Let's first start of by understanding what boardgames really are?
As the name suggests most of the boardgames are played with a board, dice, tokens, cards, different varieties of game chips etc, However boardgames are not limited to just this. Even your age old favorite (in fact one of my favorite too!) ಛೌಕ ಭಾರಾ (Chauka Barah- a 5*5 or 7*& matrix with tokens going around to reach the centre), ಕೈ ಮಯೇಲ್ ಕಾಶಿ (a simple game played with sea-shells), ಮೇಕೆ ಹೂಲೀ ಆಟಾ (that you find engraved on temple ಪ್ರಕರಾಸ್) comes under the boardgame domain. Lot of modern games don't even have a board, they are purely card games. Some of them are just a set of books with host of instructions and a few dice- you just develop a character and build a story out of it (this specific category is called Role Playing Games or RPG's in short and extremely popular in the western world). The art work for many modern day boardgames have gone beyond imagination with minuaters representing tokens and game pieces bringing in a whole lot of realism to the game play experience.

In India though the market for boardgames has been fairly limited. I do see an influx of a few more international games into large stores like Crossword, Landmark & Sappire toys (Bengaluru), but bye-and-large the range is limited that gives grown ups a perception that boardgames are for kids.

Sure it is for kids, in fact there are thousands of them desogned just for kids, but there aremore than 30,000 designed for adults as well. Yes, more than 30,000 differnt games and this is an ever growing list by the day and month!

If there are 30,000+ games how come we don't see them? Unfortunately in India the culture of playing boardgames is very limited- may be because of our lifestyle, which is already highly interactive, maybe because of cricket (haha),or maybe we were just not exposed to them!

I find it hard to believe that the modern day child does not even know ಛೌಕ ಭಾರಃ, ಪಗಡೆ (Pachisi or Indian version of the Ludo) etc. Most of us get into the video game mode at a very young age and outgrow the available boardgames. Again I'm not against video games, in fact I own a Nintendo Wii and love it. However there is this "something extra" that boardgames bring in and that something is interaction, bringin in people closer, having fun together, making noise and laughing out loud, using your grey cells to outwit your friend (for a change not the computer) and having a laugh about it even days after you've played the game. Getting in the family to enjoy an evening by forgetting eveything around. This is what I see boardgames doing. The collective fun experience for eveyone involved.

Let me talk you through some of the popular games available in the Indian market today:

Monopoly: Business World as we knew it during our days ;-) popular even among adults even to this day. I saw a group of teens at Landmark pick this up and asked out of curiosity why did they pick this up- the answer was ' We know this is fun, and we've played it', we have a few friends coming over and we thought we could have good time'. Recently my friend acquired a copy of this (the Indian Edition) and played it with his entire family (wife, brother, parents) and said he didn't even know that his parents liked such games.

Clue: This is a Parker Brother's classic detective game popular ever since 1957 if I'm not wrong. Details of this game in another post.

Life: Another popular family entertainer with loads and loads of fun

Taboo: One of the party games that is extremely popular- something like Charads you could say, but more fun

Pictionary: Game of drawing pictures

Scrabble, Riversi, Mastermind, Dr. Wood's series of games etc. etc

I can go on and on with this list, but the point is the market for the "Real Boardgames" are non-existent in India. I'm sure there are only a handful of us in India who have heard of Puerto Rico, Caylus, Notre Dame, Setlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Thurn and Taxis, Agricola, Race for the Galaxy, War of the RIng, Descent: Journeys Through Darkness and thousands of others right?

The above mentioned list is just the tip of the ice berg in the world of boardgaming. Boardgames where you develop economy, manage resources, bid fr items, use strategies to upset your opponents and not sheer roll of dice, plan your every move- this is the world of boardgames that I've come to know in the last few years.

A world that is so fascinating that everytime I introduce anyone to any of the games that I own- they have surely given a nod to play another and ready to take up more complex games. It has become a regular feature in any of the outings that I go with my friends, friends, relatives and others wanna play games over the weekend and borrow some to take them home to try out with their families :-)

I would be sharing in this blog about these games- Games that I own and aspire to own etc. I would start by giving you a brief history of how I got into boardgames :-) (of course it is my blog!!) and then start by taking one game at a time and writing musings on them- be it game mechanics, components, length of play, fun element etc. etc.

Hope more people start playing boardgames and make these games available in India rather then a few of us who shell out a fortune to get a game imported or beg someone to bring it along whn they come to India!!