New Bedford Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview for a game that is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final art, components, and rules are subject to change.

Dice Hate Me Games was one of the first board game publishers to get their start on Kickstarter. They have done quite well for themselves and have a very strong reputation as a great company that puts out consistently great games.

Five of the Town action spaces

Next up from Chris and company is New Bedford. Designed by Nathaniel Levan at Oakleaf Games, New Bedford is a worker placement game set in the titular Massachusetts city during the time of whaling. Players will use their workers to collect resources, build buildings, and go on whaling expeditions.

Play takes place in phases. The first is the Action Phase, where players will take turns placing workers onto the seven starting action spaces, as well as any built buildings, and resolving their effects immediately. Town spaces are not blocked once workers are placed on them, but the player who places on each space first will get a bonus.

Light colored buildings can be used for actions,
while dark colored buildings are worth points at the end of the game.

Players will also be able to build their own buildings. Unlike Town spaces, buildings can only be used once per round. Additionally, the player who builds a building owns it, and can use it on future turns for free, while other players who use the building will have to pay the owner $1. There are also buildings which cannot be used as action spaces, but rather score the owning player points at the end of the game

After all players have place their workers, the Movement Phase will begin. All ships at sea will move 1 space up the whaling track towards the Return space. Then, the Whaling phase begins. Whaling tokens are drawn from the bag equal to the number of ships on the board. These tokens are then drafted by the players, with players who have ship farther out to sea choosing first. Whale tokens chosen this way are placed on the player's board, next to the corresponding ship. Any whale or open sea tokens that are leftover will be returned to the bag at the start of next round's whaling phase.

When a player's ship returns to port during the Movement phase, players will have to pay a "lay." Each whale token paid for, will earn the player points indicated on the token. Players can also choose to (or they may have to if they can't afford lays for all their whales) sell any whales tokens that return to port. When a player sells a whale token, she receives half of the cost of each sold token from the bank. Then, moving in clockwise order from the seller, each player will have the opportunity to purchase the sold tokens for the full cost. Any amount paid goes to the bank, and if a player cannot or chooses not to purchase whale tokens, the next player clockwise will have the opportunity, and so on.

The game continues in this way for 12 rounds. At the end of the game, players receive points for any whale tokens in their possession, any buildings which score points, and for leftover money ($5=1 point).

That's New Bedford! It is a very enjoyable game, with a refreshing mix of familiar mechanisms. The worker placement aspect is fun, since it both removes the tension of being locked out of spots, but retains the tension of having to prioritize placement because the bonuses for being first at a Town space are pretty good. The whaling mechanism is always very exciting, especially as the game goes on and the bag really only has a few whales mingling with a mess of worthless open sea tiles. I especially like the choice of having to either pay for your whales or sell a few for some much needed money. Should I sell for some quick cash, but then risk giving my opponent's the opportunity to score points? And once you've gone through that decision, the next time you're at sea you'll think twice before automatically taking the big 4 point whale (which costs $8 to bring back)! Or maybe you'll spend most of your time in Town, building up a bustling economy, and then waiting at the docks to buy the leftover whales from your overeager opponents with too many whales!

New Bedford does a lot of things right - but the best thing about the game is that it is one of those games that is easy to both learn and teach, but will surprise you with its depth after you dive in for subsequent plays.

If you think New Bedford sounds great, go pledge your support for the game on Kickstarter today!

Peptide Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.

Genius Games is an independent publisher that had recent Kickstarter success with their first title, Linkage. That game was about DNA transcription. The game currently on Kickstarter, Peptide, is about using RNA to build proteins. Sensing a theme here?

Peptide is a set collection card game that also combines elements of card drafting and action selection in interesting ways.

There are 3 main types of cards in the game. Organelle cards are drafted by players and used to take actions. RNA cards are collected by players through the use of Organelle cards, and are used in order to create the Amino Acid cards (which are worth points). 

The meat of the game is in the Organelle cards. To start each round, 2 cards per each player is flipped face up in the middle of the table. Then, to start, each player will select one card from the middle of the table for themselves. This will continue until each player has taken 2 cards. 

After the draft, players will resolve the actions of their chosen Organelle cards. These actions include things like drawing Amino Acid cards, gaining ATP energy tokens, drawing RNA cards, matching RNA cards to an Amino Acid card, scoring completed Amino Acid cards and flipping it over and adding it to the player's Peptide chain.

That is pretty much it for gameplay. The game is very simple and flows very well. It has opportunities for some great choices and definitely has educational value! I really like how the different Organelles do different things, and the way the cards are laid out on the table are a great (rough) visual representation of what goes on during this process.

Right now, Genius Games reminds me of Academy Games. Their two games are lighter than Academy Games' stuff, but Peptide, just like Linkage, is one of those rare games that is fun, but also sneaks actual learning in as well. 

If you think Peptide would make a good addition to your collection - or your classroom - go ahead and back it now!!

Slaughterball Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview for a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.

Slaughterball is a board game simulating a future blood-filled sport where 2-4 teams battle it out in a pit. In Slaughterball, teams score points not only by scoring goals, but also by attacking and injuring opponents - that and the name Slaughterball, should tell you pretty much all you need to know about this game!

Athletes in Slaughterball have stats like accuracy, agility, brawling, speed, and toughness. These stats tell how many dice the athlete will roll when testing certain skills. The interesting thing about this is that there are four different types of athletes, who can each perform any of the available actions, but each of them have specialized stats so they are much better at doing certain things. 

On a turn, each player will go through Draw, Onslaught, and Cleanup phases. During the Draw phase, players can discard as many cards as they would like, and draw the same number back into their hand.

The Onslaught phase is the main phase of a turn. Players will activate a number of their athletes one at a time in order to take actions such as Chop, Move, Pass, and Shoot. 

The Cleanup phase is where players may be able to return athletes who have previously been sent to either the Penalty Box or the Slaughter Box. 

The game ends after 6 rounds, and the team with the most points wins! Players can score points being the first to move onto the central Meat Grinder spaces with the ball, by scoring goals, or by knocking down or injuring opposing athletes. 

Slaughterball certainly invites comparisons to the other big sport-combat game this year, Kaosball. I've played both now, and I have to say that Slaughterball blows Kaosball out of the water. Slaughterball is much more streamlined and intuitive, and more successfully combines the aspects of sports and combat that I think both games aspire to achieve. 

If you think Slaughterball would make a good addition to your game collection, go ahead and back it now! 

All Hands on Deck! Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.

All Hands on Deck! is a family set collection game with a fun, cartoony pirate theme. The game consists of 108 cards made up of 3 different bands of pirates (colored suits) as well as a variety of actions cards. 

The goal of the game is to assemble a team of winning pirates - either 7 consecutive pirates from one crew, or 3 consecutive pirates from all 3 crews. Players go about this by participating in auctions and through clever play of their action cards.

Each round, there will be a card from the deck put up for auction. All players will put up cards from their hand into the blind bid auction. All pirate cards values are added up, and the highest bid wins. Any actions cards that are included in the bid are also resolved in turn order.

Once someone assembled a winning hand, the game ends!

That it pretty much it! The game is great for families - it is easy to understand, has fantastic artwork, and a fun theme. Decisions in the game - like knowing which cards to give up in your bids and which to hold onto as sets (as well as which type of set to shoot for) are simple, but also not so easy as to make the game uninteresting. All Hands on Deck definitely has enough gameplay to be enjoyable for everyone, and definitely doesn't outstay its welcome!

If you think All Hands on Deck will be a good fit for you, go check it out on Kickstarter!

Knee Jerk Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final art, rules, and components are subject to change.

I don't think there's anything I love more than sitting around with my friends and family and laughing. That is why I love games like Taboo and Balderdash. They don't is not much to those games, but they produce such hilarious and memorable moments that I simply can't get enough of them. 

Knee Jerk is a game similar to those two in a way. Players need only a deck of cards and about 10 seconds of rules explanation in order to play. 

The game is dead simple - the active player (host) deals 2 cards to the table, and 3 to her hand. She chooses one from her hand, and lines it up with the other 2 so that the green arrow of the first card points to the blue arrow of the second card, which points to the orange block of the third card (the one she chose from her hand). This orientation of the cards will create a randomized story prompt. 

After the host player reads the story prompt, the rest of the players begin offering up their versions of how the scene ends. The host then awards the player who answered first a point - in the form of the left-most card on the table. Play then continues with the host placing another card to the right. 

Knee Jerk is so simple, but so much fun. The crux of the game, however, relies on the players you've gathered together. I think that the rules are simple enough that anyone thinking about bringing this out with a group would already have a pretty good idea of whether or not it would go over well. But because the rules are so simple, it is also fairly easy to implement variants.

The game rules also suggest playing where the host awards the point for a story to the first answer given. While this rule certainly fosters a wide range of hilarious answers shouted out without thinking, I also think that having the host choose her favorite story for each round is also a lot of fun. The last game of Knee Jerk I played with a kind of a blend of the two, where the host of the round chose which rule variant she wanted to use. 

Knee Jerk is one of those party games that I love - it brings out a special kind of silliness in people that is just so much fun to be involved in. And just like the best party games, it is not only a blast to play, but it can also create discussions about where some of these ridiculous stories come from - either real or created. Knee Jerk is great party game - and an absolute steal at $10.

If Knee Jerk sounds good to you - go back on Kickstarter now!

Pack O Game Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview for a game (or in this case, games) currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. 

Final art, components, and rules are subject to change.

Chris Handy is a designer I wish had more published work. I greatly enjoyed his 2009 release Long Shot, and absolutely fell in love with Cinque Terre, which came out last year.

So when I heard that he was designing a bunch of small card games with plans of releasing them all in a single Kickstarter campaign, I was very interested. I had also heard that the games were to be released in boxes the size of a pack of gum. When I heard that, I thought that either Chris was talking about huge packs of gum or that I was somehow misunderstanding him. But when the prototypes arrived, I saw that each of the games were, indeed, the size of a pack of Wrigley's. All of the games in this Pack O Games line is the same size, as are, obviously, the cards.

Chris was kind enough to send me 5 of his upcoming games - following are short descriptions and my thoughts on each.

First up - the dexterity game, FLY. In FLY, a game "board" is created by laying most of the cards in the box out in a grid. When the card are laying out this way, they resemble a picnic table - except it is covered in flies. Players take turns dropping a fly swatter card onto the grid. If they successfully cover (completely) any flies while doing this, they take those cards. Each fly in the game has a colored shape on it and players are trying to assemble sets of flies. At the end of the game, each fly that is a part of at least a set of 3 will be worth 1 point.

FLY is not the best dexterity game I've ever played, but it looks great on a table, and is a good time! It is super easy to explain and play - I had a good time playing it with my niece and nephew.


TKO is a boxing game of simultaneous action selection. Each player assembles a boxer made out of a couple cards, and takes an action selection card. Each round, players will secretly place their thumbs on their action selection card choosing either to punch their opponent's head or torso, or block their own head or torso. Both players will reveal simultaneously and resolve their actions. Points are scored for successful punches or blocks, and a player will win a round once she scores 5 points.

TKO is another super simple game, that is definitely more fun than I thought it would be at first glance. Once thing that really adds to the gameplay is that each boxer has a slight advantage in one category. So the decision to either go straight ahead and be a bit more obvious and push that advantage or to try to throw off your opponent and take another path is quite interesting - especially in a simultaneous action game.

HUE is the colorful game of, well - colors! All of the cards in HUE are made up of regions of colors. Players will be placing cards from their hands in order to manipulate the size of the color regions on the board. Each player will be given 6 cards to start each game, but the game will end once each player has played 5 cards. The card remaining in each player's hand will determine which colors will score for that player. Players will look at the 3 colors on their last cards, and will score a number of points equal to the biggest continuous regions of that color on the board.

The twist of having to score a card of colors that you don't get to actually play is really interesting enough, and makes for a great game. Chris did add one more wrinkle to the gameplay, though. At the beginning of each game, players are also given a card with 3 colors on it, (like the rest of the cards), but this one has a skull on the middle color. When this card is played, whatever matching region the skull touches is not counted when looking for the biggest region of a color. HUE is great. It is colorful, simple, cutthroat, and just great to play. It gives the players some control, but still keeps things random enough to prevent players from overthinking. Games are quick, nasty, and fun.

TAJ is another colorful game - this one involves voting and light negotiation. In it, each player is given a card which indicates which color carpets will score positively - as well as which colors will score negatively. The additional wrinkle here is that each carpet is made up of 3 colors - a 3 point color, a 2 point color, and a 1 point color. The rugs cards are all lined up, and a scoring card is placed above the line, over 3 of the rug cards. Each round, a player will propose switching one of the cards under the scoring card with another rug card, not under the scoring card. Players will vote on this switch, executing it if it passes, and removing one of the rugs from the game (and not making the switch) if it does not pass. Once the game ends, the players reveal their scoring cards, and add up their positive and negative points!

TAJ, just like a few of the other games I've gotten to try in this line, is a very subtle game. With its bright colors, small box, and few components, it seems like there can't be much there - but TAJ will surprise you in how strategies will emerge after a couple plays. Despite having a fair amount of think, TAJ also had my friends and I standing up and screaming at each other (all in good fun) after a few of the votes. In my book, that is the mark of a great game.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to save the best for last. GEM is my favorite game of the Pack O Games that I've had the pleasure of playing. It is a game of auctions, bluffing, and borrowing that is so simple, yet so clever. In it, players use coin cards to bid on gem cards. Sounds simple enough, right? First, the auctions are "once around" so once you bid, you're done, and the last person to bid basically has the choice of either giving the card up to the current highest bid, or buying the card for one more than the highest bid (assuming she has enough money). This makes each auction really intense - especially since money is so tight in this game already. Second, during each bidding round, players aren't necessarily bidding on any particular gem - they're really bidding on the opportunity to choose one of the gems still available for themselves - so the winning bidder will pay, and then choose any of the gems still available for themselves. Lastly, each gem card has two sides: leveraged and invested. I thought of these states as similar to mortgaged and mortgaged properties in Monopoly, but it isn't really the same. Once players win some gems, they can use them to pay for future auctions. However, gems won are flipped to the leveraged side, and in order to spend the value of a gem, the value of a gem's leveraged side must be paid, to first flip it to its invested side. Sounds confusing, but trust me - it isn't.

If the auction round was over, this player could spend her coins to flip either of the two gems cards she has to the invested side. These could then be used for future auctions, or would be counted in final scoring (if the game was over).

At the end of the game, players will score points for each invested gem they have won, with big bonus points going to those who have the most of each type of gem. GEM is easily my favorite game of the ones I've played. It is just as small as the other games in the line, but really has the feel of a full game. The decisions of which gems to go for, when to deny the other player's, and what you can afford to reinvest are all sooo difficult and all soo much fun.

If these games sound like ones you  might enjoy, go back Chris' Pack O Games Kickstarter now!! He also has 3 minute how-to-play videos up on the page!

Each game is only $6 including shipping to the US - and there's a special Early Bird level that is only good for the rest of today!

Tymor Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final rules, art, or components are subject to change.]

Tymor is set in a land where players are struggling to rebuild their kingdoms after the world suffered an ancient calamity that has unhinged the natural rhythm of the seasons.

This interesting storyline is reflected in game by a season track. To start off each round, the active player will roll the season die to determine which way the season counter will move. 2 out of 3 times it will move forward normally, but there is always a chance that the calamity's effects will be felt, and the season could remain the same, or even regress to the previous season.

Depending on the season, players will receive income, and will then have to pay upkeep for the units on the board - suffering a penalty for each gold they are unable to pay.

On a player's turn, she gets to activate all of the units she has on the board. There are types of units (not including buildings). These units can all perform a "basic move" which is just moving from one hex to another, as long as there are no opponent's units in the destination hex.

The game looks great on the table. And this is just the prototype!

The Merchant's special move allows him to move into hexes occupied by enemy forces. The Priest can, instead of moving, spend gold in order to build a new settlement, or upgrade an existing one. Soldiers have the ability to start combat. They can declare an attack as their action, moving into a hex with opposing units and beginning a battle.

One of the most interesting parts of Tymor is that each of these types of unit's has a unique was of scoring the player points. The Merchant scores points by being on a hex with a opponent's settlement during the income phase of the game. Not only will this Merchant give the owning player some extra cash, they will also move up the Trade Points track on the score board. Priests score points by building up the player's Empire, and Soldiers score points by eliminating the enemy in battle.

How beautiful is that artwork?

This gameplay I have outlined above would definitely work, and make a decent game. But the cards in the game add whole new layers of strategy, tactics, and bluffing to the game. These cards come in 3 varieties that match the three types of units and scoring in the game. They have abilities like allowing units to act as other units, providing boosts to the normal actions, and just gaining the player resources.

Tymor is a lot of fun to play. It is that rare game that I am always on the lookout for - great theme, euro mechanisms, with a healthy dose of dice. I really like how there are 3 different score tracks that focus on the 3 different types of units. It makes the overall structure and goal of the game very easy to grasp. A game with similar weight and complexity without this simple differentiation/structure could easily be seen as overly complex for some people - I think the designer has done a great job in this respect.

Keep away from my stuff!!

One thing I don't care for in the game is the fact that since all 3 of the different ways of scoring are almost mandatory, combat is inevitable. Now I enjoy combat games - check my review of BattleLore Second Edition if you don't believe me! But what I don't really care for is combat in games where at least part of the goal of the game is to build stuff up. I just hate the feeling I get when something that I put effort into building up comes crumbling down.

One of my favorite parts of Tymor is the way that scoring works. I've already talked about how I like the segmented scoring system in Tymor, which is great. But another aspect of scoring in Tymor is that each of the separate scoring categories works a bit like a race. The most points a player can get in any of the categories in 10 points - the top space on each track. However, at the end of each round, players check to see if anyone has made it to the top of any of the tracks. If they have, that track is considered "closed" and while other players can still score points on that track, no one else may enter the top space. And since the players' positions on these tracks are very much public, this dynamic can create some very interesting interactions and motivations for the players on the board. Additionally, the tracks also act as a timer - since the game will end once all 3 tracks have been closed.

Tymor is a wonderful little game. It takes a few mechanisms we've seen before, throws in some really interesting new ideas, and is good solid fun. It isn't too complex, but it's also far from a filler. If you think you'd like a get a copy of Tymor for yourself, go check out the Kickstarter going on right now! The campaign is almost half way funded with plenty of time to go!

Athlas Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview for a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Game rules, components, and art are all subject to change from the prototype version I was sent.]

Athlas is a game that I was very excited to try out from the moment I saw the art. The more I read about the game, the more I thought it was the kind of game for me.

In Athlas: Duel for Divinity, players face off against each other as they use different custom built avatars, or Alphas, to fight to obtain relics and prove they are worthy of godhood.

One of the most interesting parts of Athlas is the character creation. After players agree on a Summoning Point total, they each take their deck of 170 cards, and create 3 "Alphas." These Alphas are essentially templates - copies of which will be summoned onto the battlefield to attempt to be the first to open the portal to Athlas.



Each player has 9 genus cards - which are the basic building block cards for the Alphas. These come with a few innate abilities, but the fun really begins once players start customizing and building their Alphas. Most of each player's 170 cards are equipment, abilities, or spells which can be assigned to Alphas. These can be things like weapons, superpowers, or magic abilities that will help each Alpha achieve the player's goal of victory.

The Alpha genus cards as well as any equipment, ability, or spell cards assigned to it come with a summoning cost, however. So that each time a player brings a new copy of the Alpha onto the battlefield, she will be getting closer and closer to the summoning point limit players agreed upon before beginning the game. So players really have to decide what kind of game they want to play. Should they load up their Alphas with lots of powerful abilities and weapons, knowing they won't be able to summon to many to the battlefield? Do they go with a swarm approach and build smaller Alphas with less power, but who cost less and can be summoned multiple times per game? Does a single minded Alpha team stand a chance? Is a more balanced team not min/maxed enough? Should the Alphas be fast, nimble, slow, powerful, ranged, melee? All of these decisions need to be dealt with by players as they go through their decks of cards to create their Alphas.

A few of the Divine Intervention cards available in the game.

Players also build a deck of 4 Divine Intervention cards. These cards can be played at almost any time, and can have a powerful effect on the course of the game. The catch with these cards is that they must be played in the order the player chose to put them in at the start of the game. If a player finds she really wants to play her third card, but hasn't played her first card yet, she can do so, but the first two cards will have to be discarded with no effect. So again, careful planning in how players build their decks is important.

My super Spell Binder had extra health, health regen, and a bunch of awesome spells...and "only" cost fourty-four points to summon!

Once the construction phase of the game is complete, players will summon copies of their Alphas to the battlefield and activate them in order to acquire and hold 2 of 3 relics that are on the board. Combat in the game is diceless and, in fact, not randomized in any way. When a combatant uses an action to attack another combatant, stats and bonuses are compared and damage is assigned. Combat itself is fairly straightforward, but with all of those awesome power card in play, keeping everything your and your opponent's Alphas can do is where the challenge lies.

The game ends when one of the players controls 2 relics at the beginning of her turn. The player wins!

Athlas is a very engaging game with beautiful artwork and a lot of interesting decisions and customization options to play around with. I am someone who loves video game RPGs, and Athlas definitely gave me the feeling of getting to "level" up my characters as much as I wanted - without any grinding. A lot of the fun of this game is in being able to create your 3 fighters the way that you want, and then getting to see if the strategy you planned for when you were spec'ing out your troops does what you thought, or crashes and burns.

The best thing I can say about Athlas is that it reminded me of a slightly heavier, much less random version of Summoner Wars. If that description sounds appealing to you, I think you should absolutely go back this game! It has already funded, but only has 3 days left, so don't wait!

Ophir Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview of a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/justinschaffer/ophir?ref=card). Components, art, or rules may change between when Jim played the game and the final release of the game.]

Ophir is the latest game from Terra Nova games (http://www.terranovagames.com/) seeking funding on Kickstarter. Their previous game, Guile, was successfully funded on Kickstarter about a year ago, and is a light, very interesting, card game all about bluffing and deduction.

Comparatively, Ophir is much more complicated than Guile, but it does still very much fall in the "family" category of games. In Ophir, players assume the roles of different government, trade, and religious dignitaries who are all sailing around the region of Ophir with a singular goal - building the Temple.



A lot about the setup of Ophir is modular and randomized, which adds a lot to the replayability of the game. Even players who have played previously will have to take a good look at the board state after everything has been set up and reevaluate whether their strategies will be effective for this game.

The locations of all the goods and the Temple and Market are random, as are the two barriers (which block player movement), as well as the order of the market cards (somewhat - there is an A and a B deck, which are shuffled separately and then combined, A on top of B). Players also draft the special roles in the game, with the first player having her choice from among 1 more than the number of players.

Players will be sailing around to the different islands, picking up goods, and delivering them to either the Market or the Temple and receiving rewards like money, favor, or victory points. The main way to score points in the game, though, is by contributing gold or silver towards the construction of the Temple. Players can purchase gold or silver by paying either coins or favor, and can then deliver the gold or silver to the Temple site in return for victory points.

Moving around the board is interesting too, because each player will have an influence die on their ship. If a player wants to sail into a space which already contains another player's ship, she has to either spend a valuable favor point, or risk rolling her influence die in the hopes of rolling a value that is equal to or higher than the highest influence die on the space she is trying to move to. If the roll is unsuccessful, her action is wasted and her ship stays where it is, but if it is successful, she is able to move into that space, and the value she rolled is the new value of her influence die - which could be bad news for the other players who might want to move into her space.

How awesome does that look? And this is only a prototype!

In fact, one of the big draws of Ophir is the really phenomenal looking 3-D Temple that gets constructed throughout the game. As each level is completed by the players, another level is added, which has art corresponding to the Temple getting closer and closer to completion.

The game will end when either the Temple is completed, or when there are not enough market cards left to fully replenish the market. At this point, players will get extra victory points for any gold or silver they happen to be carrying at the time, and the player with the most victory points wins!

While there is a lot of randomization in Ophir, the gameplay is very simple, which makes this a great game for more experienced gamers to play with friends or family members who may not be as engaged in the hobby. The art and components will absolutely help those "non-gamers" feel more comfortable and more drawn to the game as well. The pick up and deliver mechanisms are also very intuitive and will be very easy to explain to new players as well. I feel that Ophir is a great gateway game for people interested in the beautiful art or in a easy to learn pickup and deliver game.

If you think Ophir would make a good addition to you game collection, go pledge now! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/justinschaffer/ophir?ref=card)

Assault on Doomrock Preview

[This post is a preview for a game currently seeking funding on IndieGoGo.]

Assault on Doomrock, designed by Tom Stasiak, is a game currently seeking funding on IndieGoGo. It is a fantasy themed cooperative game that combines a ton of great features and mechanisms. It has players assuming the roles of heroes (that have some rather interesting and comedic traits) who are traveling to the titular Doomrock to fight and defeat the big bad. It does a lot of neat things and really aggressively trims the "fat" from what has become the prevailing model for these types of "dungeon crawl-y" games.

Ready for adventure! Initial set-up for the myriad decks of cards.

Gameplay in Assault on Doomrock is split up into two distinct parts. First, heroes will have to make choices about how best to spend their time exploring and encountering the randomly generated locations of adventure mode in order to visit shops, gather gear, and level up. There will always be three areas available for the players to travel to.



Each area card will have several locations the players can encounter for a variety of effects, some positive and some negative. Most actions players take during this phase of the game will cost a certain number of time units, which the players need to spend wisely - because once these are depleted, the heroes will have to enter combat with enemies.

Combat in Doomrock is done with dice, but not in the traditional way. Each hero will have ability cards which can be activated with specific dice. Before each combat round begins, each player will roll their dice and assign them to corresponding ability cards. Once combat proper begins, each hero will be able to activate each ability once for every die she had previously placed on her hero's ability cards.

If the Rogue had two 6's on her Poisonous Stab ability card, she would be able to activate that ability twice this combat round.

Combat in Doomrock is different from what one might expect from a fantasy game in another way - tactical positioning and movement is very abstracted. Heroes and monsters are represented on the field of battle by cardboard discs. These discs are either adjacent to each other or they aren't (distant). Heroes and monsters can use melee attacks on enemies adjacent to them, and ranged attacks on enemies who are distant from them. 

I had a lot of fun playing Assault on Doomrock. The art is fantastic and beautiful, and I really like how it is set in a fantasy world with the familiar structure that provides, but Tom has put a very funny twist on everything in his take on traditional fantasy that I find delightful.

I also really like how Tom has separated the two parts of the game, the adventure phase and the battle phase. The adventure phase feels much more like a traditional "euro" co-op game, where players are working against the clock to try to find all the benefits they can while avoiding the unavoidable negative events. 

Combat in Doomrock is much more simplified than in similar games, but no less interesting. The fun part in pretty much any tactical combat game of this kind is gaining new abilities, and then getting to use those abilities in unique ways. Rarely is the "OK I have 5 movement, and I can go here, or here...or here..." part where very much of the fun lies. Doomrock cuts all of that out, and lets players focus on collaborating to assign and use their dice most effectively. 

One thing I didn't mention about the game is that there is no board. In fact, everything that isn't a token in this game is a card, so while set-up does take a little bit of time, the game has plenty of randomized elements involved in set-up, so there are likely millions of possible variations this game could take each time it is played.

Doomrock is a really fun game, and while I mentioned it does abstract out a lot, it remains a very solid, very engaging and involved cooperative game that will take a lot of teamwork and careful planning in order to succeed. 

If you think Assault on Doomrock sounds like a game you would like to play, head on over to the IndieGoGo page now to pledge your support to receive a copy when it releases this fall. The campaign is currently funded at nearly 200%, so now we're just looking towards stretch goals!

Scrapyard Empire Preview

This post is a preview for a game currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Art and rules may change.

In Scrapyard Empire, players are managing their hands of steam-powered parts cards and using them to build small machines, with the ultimate goal of combining those small machines into game-winning inventions!

To set up the game, each play is dealt 8 parts cards, 5 small machine cards, 1 invention card, and 1 character card.

On a player's turn, she will have 2 actions to spend from among 4 choices:

1. Draw 1 card from either the parts or small machines deck.
2. Attempt a dig from any scrap pile.
3. Attempt to steal a part or small machine card from another player.
4. Initiate a trade with any other player.
5. Activate a small machine ability.

Look at that art!!!

Digging is an interested mechanism because it allows players to get cards from the discard pile - but players are not allowed to look through the deck before choosing to dig. First, they have to roll a six sided die. On a 4, 5, or 6, the player is allowed to deal the scrapped (discarded) cards in a pile in front of everyone until the player sees the card she would like. The remaining cards are put on top of the dealt cards. So digging requires players to have some memory of what is in the scrap pile. 

Stealing is similar in that a player who would like to steal a card needs to pass a die roll (4, 5, or 6 is a success). After a successful roll, the thieving player can choose any parts card from another player (which are always face up), or take two small machine cards from another player's hand, steal one, and give the other back.

When rolling the die in Scrapyard Empire, players have the option of scrapping any cards they have in order to get a +1 on their roll - which is a pretty neat mechanism. 

In addition to needing the Navigatrix in order to build the Time Machine invention, its in-game ability is pretty nifty!

After a player has used all of her actions, she can build any small machines she has in her hand as long as she has the required parts for it in front of her. She scraps the parts, and lays the small machine card in front of her. These are safe from being stolen. The same then goes for any invention cards she can build with the small machine cards in front of her. They are scrapped, and she puts the built invention in front of her. 

The final phase of a player turn is the discard phase. If a player is over the hand limit - 8 parts, 5 unbuilt small machines, and 1 unbuilt invention - she has to discard down until she is below those thresholds. 

Gameplay continues like this until 1 player has built 2 inventions! 

"I say, that giant lizard does like a mite peckish. Hate to be rude, but must be off!"

Scrapyard Empire is a fun card game that puts some neat twists on familiar game mechanisms that fit quite well into a well-themed package. What I really like about Scrapyard Empire is the feeling of building up an engine. First, you need parts to build small machines, with the ultimate goal of building an invention, but the abilities the small machines give you are so good...maybe I'll just build a few extra small machines here..."

I think the best comparison I can make for Scrapyard Empire is that it reminded me of a slightly more complicated (with  player powers, more options, and more interaction) version of the Spiel des Jahres nominated game, Splendor. Obviously Scrapyard Empire's theme is a bit more exciting, and the mechanisms of this game really do make for more interaction - especially with the ability to steal cards from opponents. 

I think Scrapyard Empire is a fun game that will fit very nicely into many people's collections. It has an appealing theme coupled with easy to explain and learn ruleset - and a very reasonable playing time (30 minutes). If you think Scrapyard Empire looks like a winner, go back it on Kickstarter! There are options on there for a deluxe version of the game that looks simply fantastic.

posted 6/18/2014