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!

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.

Jambo- How Good are you at Trading?

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

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

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

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

Jambo by-Rüdiger Dorn

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

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

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

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

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

What Do you get in the box?


This game comes with some really nice and neat pieces:

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

The artwork on all of them is top notch.

How does it play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long does it play?

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

Who would you recommend it to?

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

Any Downsides?

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

Final Thoughts!

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

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

Caesar & Cleopatra- Indulge Yourself in Ancient Politics!

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

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

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

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

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

Caesar & Cleopatra- by Wolfgang Lüdtke


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

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

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

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

What do you get in the Box?


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

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

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

How does it Play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long does this play?

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

Who would I recommend it to?


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

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

Any Downsides?

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

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

Final Thoughts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Odin's Ravens by Thorsten Gimmler

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

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

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

What do you get in the box?

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

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

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

How Does it Play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Long does it Play?

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

Who would you recommend it to?

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

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

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