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.

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

Kogworks- Turn the Gears of your Mind!

Continuing with abstract strategy games, here comes Kogworks from Dr. Wood's stable of games. "An Amazing Strategy Game" is what the punch line reads. Well to be honest, this is far from being amazing, but something that can definitely keep you engaged for short periods of time. The game is short and so is this review :-) (Won't bore you all to death)

This is a game played with 30 gears (spur gears)- 15 of each color. Players try to for a chain that connects the gears to a final golden gear at the top of the board and when the bottom one is turned the entire series should turn. This is the game in a nutshell.

Kogworks by- Dr. Woods

Dr. Woods is an Australian company that produces a lot of puzzles, mind benders and abstract games like this one, Kaleidoscope, Heist etc. The company was incorporated with the express mandate to globally commercialize the works of Dr Mark Wood (psychologist) and Frank Dyksterhuis (mathematician/physicist).

I personally feel that Kogworks is one of their better products compared to a host of other games and puzzles that they have out in the market. BTW, all their products are available across all the Landmark bookstores across the country and Crossword bookstores.

This is again a 2 player game. Takes about 5-7 min to read the rules and understand it.

I did mention in my previous post that I would be talking about multiplayer games, but this one's an abberation.

What do you get in the box?

It comes in an oddly shaped triangular (well almost) shaped box:

• A triangular board with lot of pegs to mount the gear
• 15 Red colored gears
• 15 Blue colored gears
• 1 Gold gear

The quality of the plastics are good and robust. I say this as all these gears are costantly moving and needs to be strong :-)

How does it play?

This is a very simple game that offers good tactical depth. However if there was any category called as very light games, I would gladly put this under that.

• Place 3 gears-1 each in red and blue and the gold colored gears at 3 corners of the board.
  
• Each player chooses a color and starts placing a gear on alternating turns
• After each gear each player must prove that his base gear (the corner gear) can turn
• Players can block the other by forming a triangular formation
• Players cannot have 2 of their gears in a corner forming a triangle
• The 1st player to reach the gold gear and successfully turn it by turning the base gear or successfully block their opponent in a way that they can;t turn the base gear is the winner

This is it! Simple to learn and play. I would say it playes well even with kids!

How long does it play?

The box says it takes between 15-30 min. I say it usually takes somewhere between 10-15 min with occassional games going up to 20 min. So it playes fairly fast, with very little downtime. Its great for a coffee break!

Who would you reccommend it to?

If you are looking for a very light game to be placed on your table that you can play while waiting for someone- this is a good game. This is also a good game to keep kids engaged. If you are looking for a deeper game, don't even think about it.

Any Downsides?

Personally I'm not a bigfan of light games. This game looksattractive but fails to impress you in termsof game play. You'll come across this game as a very superficial game and might lose interest after a few game plays, as it lack both in variety and depth. But never the less a good gameif you want to finish fast or kill time.

Final Thoughts!

Personally I guess this is one of Dr. Woods' better games. Others like Kingdom Quest are heavily flawed and not worth your time. This being a very light game can form an addition to your collection, but you may want to try this one out in any of these stores- the guys would be more than happy to play a game with you! Then decide if you want to spend Rs. 700 on this.

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!

Kahuna- Are You Ready for Some Voodoo Magic?

Back with my 3 review! This time it is "Kahuna" another 2 player game from Kosmos. Well what can I say about Kahuna...hmmm... It is something like you either like it or hate it, well that's what I found people telling me. As with me, well of course I like it!

I saw Kahuna for the 1st time in a game shop called "Games People Play" near Harvard Square in Boston. Though I was quite intrigued by the game I went ahead and bought Lost Cities, which I felt was more 'in your face' confrontation :-)

But as time went by, I read more people talking about the game and decided to buy it before trying it! But I'm glad and don't regret this buy :-)

Kahuna by Günter Cornett

Günter has published some games that became very controversial because of their theme. Killing Baby seals!!! Well let's not get into that right now as I don;t know much about it ;-)
But Kahuna was originally published way back in 1997 as Arabana-Ikibiti by a small game publisher, but later Rio Grande and Kosmos published this game in 1998 with all new artwork and became quite popular. Again Boardgamegeek does'nt rank this very high, but I guess they are right as well. This is not a game where you'll play and end up saying "Wow that was some game!" but you'll definitely walk out saying "Very interesting and fun as well".

This is again one of those easy playing short games, easy to teach and play.

What do you get in the box?


The 1st thing you notice is the hand shaped island picture on top of the box, which I feel is cool. The box come with a very nice board (the islands and connections), 24 island cards, the control markers, small wooden sticks which forms the main element of bridges. The artwork is cool and I really like it! As with any Rio Gande Games the components are of very high quality.

How Does it Play?


This is a very simple game. Each player starts off with a hand of 3 cards and his set of markers and brdges. On his turn he/she can play upto 5 cards (or not play any) and connect bridges from the island card he plays. Each island has 3-5 connecting islands and he can connect any island when he plays that island card. That's it!! Really if the game was only this, I would not have bothered to write a review. But the fun part is on their turn players can play 2 cards (of the same island or 1 card each os 2 connecting island) to remove an opponents' bridge. Now this brings in a whole lot os tactics and fun ekement as the person who has more than half the number of bridges from a particular island controls that island.

Now with some clever play plaers can remove just one bridge that can lead to a chain reaction where players loose control of more than one island!! That is a brilliant mechanic in this game. Because the game has just 24 cards the round finishes when the last card is taken (players take cards after they are done with playing cards).

The game is played over 3 rounds similar to Lost Cities (my 1st game review) and score points as follows:
1st round- winner gets 1 point
2nd round- winner gets 2 points
3rd and last round- winner gets as many points as the difference in the number of islands players control

The game mechanics are very simple, In fact one of the somplest, but offers a lot of depth to show your smartness :-)

How long does it play?

Each round may last for about 10 mins, so 3 rounds should take somewhere between 20-30 min depending on how fast you play. Occassionaly some players drag it out to about 40 mins :-) but still is a short game. The thing I like about this game is the smartness in using your cards! Really cool.

Who would you reccomend it to?

Here's where I would like to emphasize that this game may not be for all. On the outset the game may appear boring and lacking in depth. Some don;t like the fact that it is so simple- and that is true to some extent; because if you don;t play against an aggressive player, this might appear one sided and easy. However this is a very different 2 player game that can be a very good adition to your game collection. I would sugest you guys to play if you get a chance and then decide to buy this game.
Any downsides?

As I said this might not appeal to everyone and if you noticed I haven't spoken anything about any vodoo magic right? Well that's right there isn't any! This is an abstrast game with little theme. This game is based on graph theory (yes, mathematics theory) and preceeded a lot of other games in this genre. So this abstractness may be a put off for people.

Final Thoughts!

Of all the 2 player games I have Kahuna is quite different as it can blow absolutely hot or cold depending on your opponent. This game is fun though and a real nice change from the rest of the 2 player games. As a variety to your game collection Kahuna really is good, but then you should 1st like it to buy it!


For more detailed reviews and thoughts you can check http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/63/thing/394