Valley of the Kings

Guys, just because its Egyptian themed doesn't mean triangles become pyramids. Its a triangle.

Valley of the Kings is a small box game from AEG's Pocket line of games that includes Cheaty Mages and Sail to India. It is a deck building game set in ancient Egypt. A mechanism and theme that the board game hobby has certainly seen a lot of. Does Valley of the Kings deserve your attention anyway?

One of the starting cards - unlike "copper" it remains useful until the end of the game.

Valley of the Kings does a lot of things that we're seen in previous deck builders. Players buy cards from a pool of available cards, and put them into a discard pile, which will be shuffled into their personal deck later in the game. The available cards in Valley of the Kings are set up in a triangle, and are cycled in a way that is reminiscent of Ascension, but here only half of the cards that are face up are available for purchase, which adds a bit to that formula.

The game also adds two bigger innovations to deck building. First, each card can be used to execute 1 of 3 actions.
     1. The card can be played for money in order to buy cards in the center.
     2. The card can be played for its action.
     3. The card can be buried (permanently removed from their deck) in a player's tomb, for its victory point value.

In Valley of the Kings, any cards left in a player's deck are worthless at the end of the game. Only those cards which have been purged from each player's deck and placed into their tombs are counted as points. This is the essence of what Valley of the Kings brings to the genre - and the main reason the game is so much fun.

As one might expect, cards which have strong abilities are also worth a lot of points. So just like in Dominion - where there is a point where players have to decide to stop buying action cards and start buying point cards - players in Valley of the Kings have to choose how long they want to keep playing that valuable action card, and when they want to bury it in their tomb to ensure it gets counted as points at game end.

One of my favorite things about any deck building game is trying to thin out my deck to make it as efficient as possible. Valley of the Kings really lets me play around with this idea because players are allowed to get rid of any card in their hand once per turn. I like this both because it gives me a lot of control over my deck, and also because there isn't a safety net. I think it would be possible in this game to buy the wrong cards, thin too much, and simply be out of the game. I'm not saying this is likely, or that this game is especially punishing, but I like being treated like I know what I'm doing by a game and its designer.

Valley of the Kings also plays with deck composition by having a fair number of cards in the deck whose actions involved getting cards out of one's own deck, and putting them into the deck of another player. This action would be interesting in any deck building game - but is even more interesting here, as even the weakest/least exciting cards in the game (your starting deck) are worth victory points. So yes, by using one of these cards and then burying another card a player could potentially thin 2 cards from her deck in a single turn, but will the other player bury the card I just sent? Is making my deck a few cards stronger worth the victory point cost? In a two-player game, even a card that is just worth a single victory point could result in a 2 point swing if the shunned card ends up in the other player's tomb.

Deck building is one of my favorite mechanisms in games. Despite this, there aren't many deck building games that I have fallen in love with. Ascension, Trains, and Star Realms are some of my favorites - but with so many mediocre deck builders out there, its hard to keep playing all of them and being disappointed over and over again. That is part of why I think Valley of the Kings has been such a hit for me. The game keeps enough about the genre the same, while putting its own interesting twists on the formula.

I would definitely recommend Valley of the Kings to fans of deck building, and even to those who might feel like deck building doesn't have anything new or fun to explore. I'd rate it a solid 8.0.

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!

Manifest Kickstarter Preview

[This post is not a review, but a preview of a game that is currently on Kickstarter. The final version of the game may be different in terms of art, graphics, or rules.]

Set in the Roaring 20s, Manifest is a game of shipping goods, transporting passengers, and avoiding pirates. It is a family style hand management and pick-up and deliver game that is easy to learn and takes between 45 and 90 minutes to play (2-5 players).

The game ships with two sets of game rules: Basic and Expert. Both rule sets are basically the same, with the Expert game adding deck building mechanisms to play. I will explain how the Basic game works first, and will later illustrate what the Expert game changes.

Before beginning a game of Manifest, players choose how long of a game they wish to play. The instructions suggest that with 4 players playing until a player has 11 points, for a 45-60 minute game, or to 15 points for a 60-90 minute game. 

In Manifest, players control shipping companies, and have two cargo ships each. Each ship is able to hold four items, either goods or passengers. Players will be moving these ships from port to port, picking up goods and passengers and then transporting those items to the ports that want them, as indicated by Contract Cards.

There are 3 Contract Cards that are available for completion by any player. These are face up on the board. The Contract Cards are laid out very nicely, with a large picture of what good/passenger is wanted at the destination port, and dots on the map showing which port(s) the good/passenger can be picked up at, and where the destination port is located. When a player completes a contract, she takes the contract card and places it under her player mat, leaving the number of points it is worth showing. 

A player who is able to complete these two contracts 

would score 5 points - 5 for Petrograd and 1 for New York.

Play of the game is driven by an action card deck. At the beginning of each turn, a player will have 4 Action Cards in her hand. She can play as many of these as she wants on her turn. Each action card can be used for one of three things: movement, money, or the special card ability. Using a card's movement value allows a player to move one of her ships through spaces that are equal to or less than the value on the card. Money on a card can be used to pay to pick up goods or passengers in port, dump cargo or passengers that a player no longer wishes to haul, or purchase a face down contract from the contract deck. Contracts purchased this way are then personal contracts that can only be completed by the player holding them. 

The "World Crisis" card  ability affects everyone playing, and simulates the events of October 29, 1929 - Black Tuesday.

The final thing an Action Card can be used for is the card's special ability. This is the part of the game that really brings in the theme and makes the game stand out. The events range from being able to double the movement of a ship to being able to attack an opponent's ship. The art on the prototype cards that I received is very well done, with the ability text written in a 1920s style newspaper headline style. The titles of the cards are thematic as well, invoking language and events from the time, with titles like Double Whammy" and "Spanish Flu."

The final part of the Basic game are the piracy spaces and attacks. Some regions on the board (indicated by red pathways) are patrolled by thieving pirates. Any ships entering these paths need to roll two dice are pirate attacks! Resolving these attacks is simple: if the player has any cargo in the matching holds of the ship being attacked, they are lost. Some Action Cards have special ability text that allow a player to attack another - these attacks are resolved in the same way, except some of these cards allow the attacking player to steal any cargo lost! 

The Expert game plays similarly to the Basic game, except instead of drawing Action Cards from a shared deck, players will be drawing Action Cards from their own decks. Money also has an additional function in the game, in that it can be used to draft new cards into player's decks. There will be a row of 3 cards available for purchase, all of which cost $3 each to put into a player's discard pile. These cards will then eventually be shuffled into and drawn from a player's deck. 

Manifest is a solid pick-up and deliver game with some fun "take that" chaos added in. As I said above, the special abilities on the cards really add a lot of flair to what is otherwise a pretty basic (though still entertaining) family game. I think that Manifest is one of those games that could be played on the same game night as Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride with a group of gateway gamers. It is simple to learn and play, but has a good amount of planning and strategy - as well as a couple laugh out loud moments each game.

SchilMil Games is currently seeking contributions on Kickstarter to fund a print run of Manifest!! They are well on their way to being funded having already raised over a third of what they need!! If you're interested in pledging for a copy, head on over to Kickstarter to show them your support!

[Jim would like to thank SchilMil Games for having a prototype copy of Manifest sent to him.]

Trains Review

One of the newest deck building games that has been generating buzz is Trains.

Trains, simply put, is "Dominion with a board."  (If you haven't heard that phrase yet, then you probably haven't heard much about the game at all.)  Each player starts with a train track in a single city on the board, as well as a very basic starting deck (consisting of "Normal Trains" which are money, and a few cards that allow you to interact with the board).  On each player's turn, he is allowed to buy, play actions, lay tracks and build station improvements as many times as his cards allow (based on icons and available money).  When buying cards, they simply go into the player's discard pile.  When performing board related actions, the active player will also collect "Waste."  Play continues in this manner with players attempting to lay tracks to connect different cities while also building stations in those cities until one player has exhausted their supply of track, all of the stations are built, or four piles of cards are exhausted.  At that point, whichever player has the most points based on what they have built, what they have bought, and what they have played is the winner!

The first pro that I have for Trains are the Waste cards.  Every time you do anything beneficial, you gain a Waste.  Want to lay track?  That's a Waste.  Want to improve a station?  Waste.  Buy victory point cards?  Waste.  Go where another player already is?  Extra Waste.  Granted, the Waste cards slow down the game by causing each player's deck to be suboptimal, but Waste management is also a nice addition to the genre.  In previous deck building games, there have been bad cards that clutter up your deck, but in Trains, dealing with these cards is a central facet of the game.  Additionally, there is a rule built just for this - a player has the option of passing his entire turn and simply trashing all of the Waste in their hand.  (Seems fitting to trash waste, doesn't it?)

Building multiple stations can be valuable

The next pro that I have for Trains is that there is quite a bit of replayability to the game.  The board is double sided, and there are 30 different piles of cards to choose from each game.  (These are called "kingdom cards" in Dominion, but do not appear to have a specific name in Trains.)  Of these 30 options, you only use eight piles per game.  Thus with the double sided board and 30 different options for available cards, there are a large number of different setup choices.  This will allow people who fall in love with the game to play it repeatedly without worrying about it growing stale.

The game also plays smoothly.  But, instead of spending time fleshing out that, let's move on to an element that I haven't decided about.  There has been a strong tendency in the games that I have played to ignore the board.  How does this work?  Well, instead of gaining points by connecting cities and building stations, you can also gain victory points by purchasing certain cards.  The crux of this strategy lies in Waste management.  Whereas improving a city multiple times and connecting different cities on the board may gain a player 5-10 Waste cards, buying a victory point card only nets a single Waste.  Therefore, it is much easier to build a deck that can buy a lot of victory point cards than it is to build a deck that can utilize the board efficiently.  In the games that I have played, I have not seen anyone win while completely neglecting the board, but there does seem to be a strong strategy around ignoring the board for the first half of the game.

This leads to my first con.  If you have improved several cities and built your infrastructure, it is far too easy for other players to connect to your cities and earn the same points - and this can be very frustrating, as there is nothing that you can do to stop them.  At the end of the game, cities score full points for each player that has built a track in them.  To build where another player already has track costs some extra money and gains extra Waste, and building in a city that has been upgraded also costs extra money.  However, there are cards that allow you to ignore each of these extra costs.  So, it will happen that one player will improve several cities, and another player can swoop in and claim equal credit - and do so much more quickly (and inexpensively)!  I wish that there were at least an occasional option (possibly one of the card piles) that allowed a player who was already in a city to prevent other players from being able to build in it.  I would imagine that something like this would be coming in future expansions.

Here are your basic currency: worth 1/2/3 money

My second con for Trains is that it feels a bit too similar to Dominion.  Essentially, it feels a bit like a re-themed expansion to me: "Dominion, the Board Expansion!"  Whereas I think that Dominion is a brilliant game, the similarities cause Trains to conjure up thoughts about Dominion throughout the game.  Then, Trains can start to feel a bit incomplete as it has not had the time to build the vast array of expansions that Dominion has.  I will freely admit that not everyone will share this con, and many people will like Trains much more than Dominion as they will feel like they are doing something with their deck, instead of building a deck just for the sake of having a deck. Yet for me, I don't know that I can play Trains without thinking of Dominion.

My final con is simple.  I cannot shuffle the cards in Trains (which is really annoying in a deck building game).  I have actually played on two different physical copies, and when I shuffle the cards, they clump together.  Now, when I say this, please keep in mind that I have been shuffling cards for 20 years or longer, as I have been playing games of some sort my entire life.  Each of the individual piles of cards seems to be the same height, but I think that some of the cards are a fraction of an inch different than others - which causes this problem.  And, now that I've said this, also be fully aware that many people that I have played with think that this is all in my head.  I'd be curious to see if other people have experienced what I'm talking about here - please leave a comment and let me know if you have noticed this, or if you can shuffle the cards with no problems.

Overall, I give Trains an 8.0/10.  I think that it is a very well made game, but (as you're tired of hearing), it is so similar to Dominion, that I don't see myself pulling it out instead of Dominion, except for with friends that really didn't like Dominion.

If Trains sounds interesting, you might also check out these deck building games: Nightfall, Puzzle Strike (which is actually "chip building"), and Quarriors (which is "dice building").

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Trains.

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game Review

One of the games that I've been most eager to try over the last few months has been Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game.

In Legendary, you are assembling a team of superheroes in order to thwart a Mastermind (super-villain), and his dastardly scheme!  (After all, this is comic book based.)  In order to do this, you will create a "villain deck" that contains a few piles of villains, henchmen, bystanders, and scheme twists.  You will also create a "hero deck" that contains a few different superheroes.  Each turn, you will reveal the top card from the villain deck, and (if it is a villain), then it will push all of the other villains along the board; and then it will be leering at you, threatening the city - and thus a great target for being punched in the face.  After flipping a villain card, you will play the cards from your hand in order to purchase more heroes or to attack villains (or the Mastermind).  The villains you defeat go into your victory pile, whereas heroes you acquire go into your discard pile (to be shuffled in and drawn later in true deck building fashion).  Play continues like this until the heroes have defeated the Mastermind four times or (theoretically) the Mastermind has completed his evil scheme (which basically doesn't happen).  After the players defeat the Mastermind, whoever has the most victory points in their victory display is the winner!

So, the first thing that I will mention about Legendary isn't a pro or a con.  It is simply this - don't play this game as a cooperative game.  When playing games that are semi-cooperative, some people (and by "some people" I mean "I do this, and so I assume everyone else does") are tempted to play the game in a strictly cooperative fashion.  For example, I do this with Castle Panic.  Don't do this with Legendary!!  Basically, the game just isn't hard enough for this to work.  Legendary needs to be considered a competitive game with a potential chance that everyone collectively loses.  But, really, the game is generally tense at the beginning, but by the end of the game the heroes completely obliterate their foes (in my experience).  I have managed to lose this game one time, but it was a fairly artificial loss.  The scenario was a countdown - you lose once a certain number of scheme twists are flipped over.  And, when playing, I was playing on the hardest combination of settings - with three extra scheme twists and with the Mastermind having five extra strength.  So, I simply wasn't able to defeat him before the time ran out (part of this was also due to my selection of heroes).  After this, I played another scenario and won easily, with the only threat being that the villain deck might have run out before I had won.  (The villain deck is pretty small in a solo game, and if the villain deck runs out, it's officially a "tie".)  So, I reiterate - don't play this as a cooperative game.  I was very excited that this was cooperative.  Don't fall into my trap.

Loki - with obvious evil intentions

Now that I have gotten that little disclaimer out of the way, let's start in on the pros.  The first pro is that the game is superhero based - and is specifically based on my favorite set of superheroes (I've always been a much bigger fan of Marvel than DC).  Admittedly, I probably would have absolutely no interest in this game if it weren't for the licensing.  Yet, I think that Legendary has done a good job of making the game have a bit of a comic book feel.  Everyone will vary on how "thematic" they believe the game to be, but I enjoyed the different schemes that you could play, with each one representing how the Mastermind was attempting to take over the world.  They helped the game feel somewhat thematic while also adding some additional replayability to the game.  (Granted, there are some other things that are absolutely wretched from a thematic perspective, like the Deadpool cards that you play that causes a villain to capture a bystander.  Really?  My hero is encouraging the villains to capture innocent bystanders?  Doesn't seem very heroic.)

The next pro that I have for Legendary is that there are two sets of cards available - the villains that you can fight, and the heroes that you can buy.  In mechanical terms, Legendary is very similar to Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. (Yes, that is a link to my review of Ascension.  And, yes, that was one of my very first reviews, so don't judge it too harshly.)  I thought that Ascension was fine, but I was constantly frustrated that the cards that you had to choose from seemed to always be the opposite of what I needed - if I had money, then they were all monsters; if I had the ability to fight, then there weren't any monsters.  Legendary has fixed that with something insanely basic - there are two tracks.  There are always heroes to purchase (and I mean "real" heroes, not generic upgrades, though a "SHIELD Officer" is also available).  There is also at least one villain card that is flipped on the start of each turn - so, generally there is someone that you can fight.  (It is possible that a scheme twist or innocent bystander is flipped, in which case you might only be able to fight the Mastermind.  That's a rare situation, though.)

Though I really enjoy many of the aspects of Legendary, I still have a few cons.  My first one is this - the game is very reactionary.  As I have played the game more (I've now played around 7 times), I've realized more and more how much of your strategy is decided for you by reacting to what cards are present.  You can hope to have an ongoing strategy, like chaining tech heroes together, but you can only buy what is in HQ on any given turn.  And so, at least some of the strength of each player's deck will be based on what cards were available when it was their turn, and if those cards happen to work together.  But, the game isn't only reactionary when it comes to purchases - you are also reacting to which villains are threatening the city.  There might be turns where you have a lot of fighting power, but the only villains available are enormous, and so your turn is completely unproductive.  And the player that follows you may flip up a tiny villain that they can obliterate and get a bonus for doing so.  I would like a bit more control over my destiny than I often feel that I have in Legendary (but again, I felt like I had much more control than I did in Ascension).

Heroes and Villains - living near each other... for now

The other major con that I have for the game is that the setup and tear-down are excessive.  For each game, you have to select a Mastermind, a Scheme, a certain number of Villain groups and Mastermind specific Henchman group(s), count out some Scheme Twists (based on the Scheme) along with a certain number of Bystanders (based on number of players).  Finally, add in some Master Strikes.  Then, shuffle all of these (except the Mastermind and Scheme card) together to form the Villain deck.  Also, grab several Hero decks and shuffle them together.  Also, assembled each player's starting decks.  Then, once the game is over, you have to sort all of these different shuffled piles back into their original groups - and what makes this worse is that the Villain cards have different art on them.  (The Hero decks all have the same art, but with different colors; some people wish everything had different art, others wish everything had matching art.  You can't please everyone on art apparently.)  So, setting the game up and tearing it back down are not trivial tasks.

Overall, I give Legendary an 8.0/10.  I enjoyed the game, and I've honestly played it more than any other game that I've tried recently.  Unfortunately, I think that it may be reaching the end of it's gaming lifespan for me (I can't tell yet).  I'm actually fairly curious to see what will be added in the upcoming expansions, and whether they will breathe new life back into the game for me.

If you're interested in Legendary, you might also check out Sentinels of the Multiverse, Star Wars: Living Card Game, and Friday: A Solo Adventure.

Puzzle Strike: Shadows Review

Today's review is of the latest game in the Fantasy Strike realm - Puzzle Strike: Shadows.

Puzzle Strike: Shadows is basically the exact same game as Puzzle Strike (3rd Edition).  If there were any rule changes, then I missed them completely.  Essentially, Shadows is what you would get if you loved Puzzle Strike and hated all of the chips - so you threw them out (including characters) and replaced them.  But kept everything else the same.   And, well, I've already reviewed Puzzle Strike.  (If you missed it, here is a link to my Puzzle Strike 3rd Edition Review.)  I also don't really feel like telling you the exact same thing that I've told you before.  And yet, the fine people at Sirlin Games sent me this shiny box and asked me to write something about it.  Where does that leave us?  Well, I suppose it means that I should talk a bit about some of the chips that I thought were interesting.

The first chips I will cover are character chips.  Specifically Gwen's chips.  To me, Gwen is the most unique character that I have seen in the Puzzle Strike chip set.  Why?  Because she punishes you for playing her!  One of Gwen's chips is "Shadow Plague."  Shadow Plague gives you a wound every time that you discard it (such as at the end of your turn - or if someone forces you to discard a chip).  You can only get around this by spending an action.  The other chips that Gwen has are much better.  (And rightfully so!  Otherwise nobody would ever purposely use Gwen.)  One of them gives you an extra action, chip, and attack action (so you net an attack action), and the other gives you an extra brown action, two chips, and lets you force all of your opponents to discard a chip.  Overall, Gwen is interesting, but I think that it takes an experienced player to actually use her well (which I am not - I did not do well when I played with her).

Gwen and Menelker

The next character that I found interesting was Menelker.  Why?  Because Menelker has a chip that lets you remove a puzzle stack from the game.  And, if there is already a puzzle stack removed from the game, then it re-emerges when you select a new stack.  On the surface, this is neat but limited; once you remove your most hated stack from the game, then there's not really much use for the chip.  But then, once you think about it for a minute, you realize that this is actually really powerful - you can remove the most powerful stack from the game, and then when you can afford to buy it, you can bring it back by sending a different stack out of the game!  Thus, you are able to control access to the best puzzle chips.  His other chips are also interesting.  One of them forces each opponent to reveal his hand and discard his highest gem - fairly generic, but useful.  His other action allows you to trash all 1's from his gem pile.  Then, half of them are sent to an opponent (then the chip is trashed).  This ccan be amazing - especially if you either don't use a lot of Combines, or if you've recently been crashed quite a bit (and thus you have a lot of ones in your gem pile).

The third character I will mention is Quince.  Quince's chips are really fairly unique.  The first one is an ongoing chip, and it gives you an extra action and piggy-bank every turn.  However, you must discard it at the start of your action phase if you have an odd number of chips.  It's really interesting to see how long a player can keep this chip alive.  His next chip allows him to pull two chips from his discard pile and show them to another player - who then gets to pick which one he can keep in his hand.  And, Quince is allowed to play the newly scavenged chip this turn.  So, you can try to force players to select your preferred chip by doing things like showing them a nasty attack and your desired chip - and assume they'll select the one that doesn't hurt them.  Quince's final chip is another ongoing.  If Quince's gem pile totals at least three, then no player is allowed to buy a chip that costs more than the total of their gem pile.  This chip can grow very annoying; unless you're not doing well, in which case it hardly affects you!

Some fun puzzle chips

A bank chip that I found interesting was "Bang then Fizzle."  Bang then Fizzle works with your gem pile, like Quince's chip.  Specifically, you can only use it if your gem pile totals four or less.  However, when you do get to use it, you get two extra actions and you get to draw two chips!  This chip is incredibly powerful in the early game, but if you load up on too many of them, then you'll have a hand full of worthless chips later on.

The last two chips that I will mention are both attacks.  One is "Color Panic" and the other is "Just a Scratch."  Color Panic is a fun one - it gives you an extra attack, and it allows you to name a color, and force every other player to discard a chip of that color if they can.  If any of them can't, then you get an extra action.  Nice.  Just a Scratch gives you options.  Either you can give each opponent a wound, or you can trash a wound from your hand or discard pile and play another attack.  The second option is nice, because if your opponents are all jerks and play Just a Scratch, then you'll need to discard wounds.  Of course, you can try to persuade them when you buy the chip that it's just to cleanup your bag, not to attack them; who knows, they might even believe you.

With all that said, I give Puzzle Strike: Shadows an 8.5/10.  Like I said, it's the same as Puzzle Strike.  However, I like the basic Puzzle Strike chip set slightly better than this one (hence the slightly lower score).  If you love Puzzle Strike, then picking up Shadows should be an obvious choice.  If you're interested in Puzzle Strike and aren't sure which set you should buy, I'd encourage you to buy the basic set first - but part of that is because I think that everyone should have to carry around the giant bright pink box that it comes in.

If Puzzle Strike: Shadows sounds interesting, you might also check out Nightfall, Thunderstone, and Pixel Lincoln.

I would like to thank Sirlin Games for providing me with a review copy of Puzzle Strike: Shadows.

Pixel Lincoln Preview

Basic setup of the game - Pixel Lincoln scrolling through the levels

Well, because of this blog and people that I have met through it, I occasionally I have the opportunity to do something cool.  This time?  I got to play a game of Pixel Lincoln with it's designer, Jason Tagmire.  Now, due to schedules and such, I only got to play a single game of it.  Because of that, I'm not going to call this a review (hopefully after the project funds on Kickstarter I'll be able to pick up a copy and do a review at that point) - this one is simply a preview so that you can know what's going on with the game when deciding if you want to back it on Kickstarter.

What is Pixel Lincoln?  I know that I was wondering this after checking out their campaign page.  It's a deckbuilding game based on a DS game, based on a different game??  What??  Well, basically, what happened is that Jason made a little game that he was showing off at conventions as a novelty, more than anything - kind of like, "hey, this is neat."  Well, a local (video) game development studio thought that it was cool and decided to make a Nintendo DS game from it.  That's pretty cool.  I don't know the details on that, but I think that it should be coming out sometime in the quasi-near future.  However, in the meantime, Jason got to keep playing around with this "Pixel Lincoln" character.  When doing so, he came up with the game that you see on Kickstarter.

So, a few game designers seem to have gained inspiration from classic video games recently.  I don't know that I can blame them - I played a ton of Nintendo games, myself, as a kid.  So, now we have Puzzle Strike, which is a Tetris/boardgame hybrid, BattleCon which is a throwback to Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2, and Pixel Lincoln. Instead of the fighting or puzzle genres, Pixel Lincoln takes its inspiration from the classic sidescroller.  It really reminds me a lot of the old NES game "Bad Dudes," because of the pixelation and the scrolling through levels to fight mini-bosses and bosses.  There's also an element of Super Mario Bros, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and maybe even some Double Dragon involved.

Purposeful pixelation and over the top items

How does it feel like an old video game?  Well, obviously, the first thing is in the purposefully pixelated artwork.  But, the actual game is played in an interesting sidescrolling fashion.  There are levels that your character attempts to fight his way through - represented by cards that are in front of your character.  As you encounters each card (item, enemy or character), you must decide how you will deal with that card - do you want to jump over it (like in Mario), do you want to fight it (if it's an enemy), or do you want to purchase it (if it's an item or character)?  To start the game, you have a few jumps (which are worth $1 and allow you to avoid cards that you don't want to deal with) and a few "Bearderangs" (which are ranged weapons that deal 1 damage).  Any enemies that you defeat go into your score pile - and any items that you purchase go into your deck to be drawn later.  And, once you get to the end of the revealed cards, 5 new cards come out and you continue fighting your way through - just like having the screen transition in some of the old games.  (I can still see the end of the level for TMNT: The Arcade Game where suddenly Bebop shows up as a boss and you have to fight him.)

Really, the initial setup reminded me of Ascension, and I was very concerned that the game was going to be far too reactionary and chaotic. When we played, it was two player, so it might have some of that feel with more people playing.  However, in our game, I didn't have that frustration.  It's very odd - you are still reacting, but you have both more and less control as you react.  You have less control, because you have to react to every card in the line.  Yet, you have more control, because you can choose to end your turn instead of reacting to the card - thus prepping your hand to deal with that card on your next turn (or just jump over it, if you've got the right card).  It really just has a completely different feel than any other board game I've played.

Losing life is less common in Pixel Lincoln

Another game that I think it needs to be contrasted with is the Resident Evil Deckbuilding Game, though, they really work drastically differently in every way.  The main reason that I will make the comparison is that both of the games go for the "you don't know what you're going to encounter while exploring in the game" concept.  In Resident Evil, bluntly, this annoyed the snot out of me.  I would setup for an amazing turn, and then I would encounter some tiny monster that was barely worth any points.  Then, I'd have a pretty good hand - one that would kill everything but the final monster.  So, inevitably, I would run into the final monster and die.  In Pixel Lincoln, however, you get to see what's coming - at least the next few things that are coming.  And, when you get to "a new screen", you aren't forced to deal with any of those new cards immediately - you can end your turn and draw back up before resuming.  Plus, the boss is at the end of the level!  As life should be.

Now, one of the other hot words right now is "deckbuilding."  Yes, this is a deckbuilding game, but a lot of the traditional strategies and feel of "traditional" deckbuilding games (Dominion) isn't really in place here.  One of the main deckbuilding strategies is to get rid of all of your initial cards, since you will be buying better ones.  But in Pixel Lincoln, there aren't any jumps that you can buy (in the game we played at least), so you will need these initial cards all game, unless you intend to defeat/purchase every card you encounter.  Yes, you might be better off by getting rid of the Bearderangs, but that's about it.  And, there are still a few times that you can cull a few cards from your hand - when you encounter a "Level Checkpoint."  Notably, this is also when you deal with bigger bosses: the mini-bosses and then the final boss for the level.

Overall, I don't think that Pixel Lincoln is going to revolutionize the way that you look at boardgames.  However, I do think that it provides a fresh new game that gives a very different gaming experience from any other boardgame that I have played.  I enjoyed the game that I got to play of it, and I intend to get a copy of the final release.

Hopefully I've helped shed a bit of light on what Pixel Lincoln actually is, and helped you make a decision on whether this is a game that is worth funding on Kickstarter.  If not, I understand (after all, it's not my game), but if you're interested in supporting Pixel Lincoln, you can check it out the Pixel Lincoln Kickstarter campaign.

Friday: A Solo Adventure Review

So, I normally don't play solo games. Because I have so many friends? In my mind the answer is yes, but in reality it's probably because the part of board gaming that I enjoy is the social aspect. Yet, when some reliable sources (other blogs I read) highly recommended Friday (and when I realized it is really cheap), I decided to give it a try.

In the game Friday, you are on a deserted island - and you love it! Unfortunately for you, the infuriating Robinson has crashed on your island. So, you decide to teach him how to survive (not because you're nice, mind you, but because you really want him to gain the survival skills needed to leave the island by defeating pirates). Let's face it - Robinson was a bit of a wimp when he landed (and not very smart either). So, you go through teaching him the basics of survival. In terms of gameplay, you start with a basic deck of cards - Robinson's initial skills (as pitiful as they are). There is also a hazard deck, and each turn you draw two cards from the hazard deck and choose one of them to resolve. The hazard will give a certain number of cards that you can play for free, and any additional cards will cost you a life to play. If you have enough points to defeat the hazard, then it goes into your deck (it has two images on it - one representing the hazard and one representing what Robinson learns by defeating it). If you lose the hazard, you lose life equal to the difference - but when losing life, you can also trash cards that you played based on how much life you lose (which can let you get rid of cards that are -1 strength). Unfortunately, you don't live in a time-warp where Robinson can do this forever. He is getting older. This is represented by having an "aging" (bad) card added to your deck each time you have to reshuffle it. You will go through the hazard deck three times (with it getting progressively harder), and then if Robinson is still alive, he fights two pirates. If you win this, Robinson has left the island, and you are left in peace!! (Otherwise, he died while fighting the pirates - so either way, you win, because he's leaving you alone.)

Cards are dual use

The first thing that I like about Friday is how the deck building element of the game works. I like just how bad your deck is when you start the game (mostly 0 and -1 point cards). Yet, I like the fact that you can purposely lose hazards in order to sacrifice some of these cards. I also love the fact that Friday prevents you from doing a fairly standard deck building strategy of trashing most of your deck to only leave the best cards because, if your deck becomes too small, you will get aging cards very quickly. Yet, even with the aging cards, there are hazard cards that (once defeated) you can put in your deck that allow you to discard (or redraw) a drawn aging card. All of these things fit together beautifully.

The second thing that I like about Friday is that it is incredibly challenging - and that there are different difficulties in which you can play the game. Specifically, there are four different difficulties, and they change what the initial cards and lifepoints are. It amazes me how tightly balanced this game is, because a very slight adjustment to the starting conditions can make the game drastically more difficult. The first time I played was on Level 1 (since I was learning). I scraped out a victory with about one life left. So, I began trying Level 2 (which means that I start with an aging card in my deck). I played Level 2 about 5-10 times in a row, and I never won; I didn't even come especially close to winning.  I went back to Level 1 - won again, this time by more than I did the first time. I think that these different difficulties make Friday have a lot more replayability than I expected from a solo game.

You must defeat two pirates to win

The final pro that I will mention about Friday is that I like how the hazard deck works. Since you will go through the hazard deck three times, a lot of the strategy of the game lies in which cards you choose to encounter at various points throughout the game. If you choose to encounter all of the small hazard cards early in the game, then you will be more likely to lose many of the hazards - but if you win, you will have better cards for challenging the hazard deck the second time through. If you choose to take on the easier cards, then you're more likely to win, but you won't have very good cards for challenging the more difficult hazards - which only get stronger the second and third times through the deck. This aspect of the game is another area in which I think that the game is masterfully balanced.

The only real thing that I can come up with as a con for Friday is very nit-picky. When playing the game, since the hazard cards are two sided, it can occasionally be a bit confusing to remember which card you are challenging at any given time. You are told to put the "free" cards on one side of the hazard and the cards that you sacrificed life for on the other side. However, when you actually look at that, it often looks like you just played one of your cards upside down, so it takes a second to register what exactly is going on.

Overall, I give Friday a 9.5/10. I originally was thinking 8, decided that 8.5 was more appropriate, and really just kept talking myself up from there. When I struggle to find a con with a game, that means that the game really probably deserves a 9.5. I recommend that everyone try Friday at some point or another, and if you're like me and both love board games and periodically travel for work, I think that Friday is crucial for your gaming collection.

If you like games where you are playing against the game itself, you might also want to check out Nemo's War, Defenders of the Realm, and Lord of the Rings: the Card Game.

Nightfall: The Coldest War Review

Hello, friends, and welcome to Nightfall review #4.  This one is of.... well.... the 4th set - Nightfall: The Coldest War.

As with most of my expansion reviews, I will assume that you are already familiar with the base game.  If you're not, I highly recommend checking out my review of Nightfall, so that you'll have a context to frame this discussion, as I only plan on writing about the changes that Coldest War has introduced.

One of the phases of the moon

The first, and most widely advertised, thing that Coldest War introduces is the "Moon Phase."  Essentially, there is a new deck of about 6-8 cards that represent different phases of the moon.  Based on which phase of the moon is currently active, a different global effect will occur.  Some of these will make lycanthropes stronger, others will help vampires, one causes all kickers to resolve.  But, for the most part, these phases target a specific race of monsters and make that race stronger in some way.  And, if that isn't a race that you have a lot of in your deck, then at the end of your turn you have the option of changing the phase to be something else.  Honestly, I found this element of the game to be fiddly and unnecessary.  Since most of the phases only worked based on the class of your monster, it generally seemed to be an afterthought to get the bonus.  You definitely couldn't plan a strategy around the moon, because it changes too often, and it's possible for the phase that you want to never come back up.  More than anything, this element felt like something they tacked on just to have something "new" in the game.  Fortunately, it is optional, and I will probably opt out of using it 98% of the time.

The next new addition in Coldest War are Combat effects.  Combat effects are cards that you can play during any combat phase, and they give you a bonus.  This is nice, since inevitably you will not be able to chain every card in your hand every turn.  Most of these bonuses aren't large enough to be overpowering (give a minion +1 strength, heal a minion, etc), but it is nice to have an alternative way of playing cards.  My favorite Combat effect is the minion that is able to be put into play from your hand, but with only one health.  He then becomes a nice surprise attack to your opponents.  Whereas I was a bit torn, because it almost felt like cheating to be able to gain effects from your cards without successfully chaining them (chaining is the crux of the game!), I do like the new Combat effects, and they help the Coldest War expansion to have a different feel than the previous sets.  This is a nice addition.

The third thing that I will mention isn't really a new addition, but is really awesome.  I love the new wound cards.  It's worth mentioning - Coldest War is a standalone set.  Yet, instead of giving you all "new" wounds, Coldest War gives you wounds of each of the existing types.  This can be a bit confusing when you first look through the set and see "Martial Law" written on some of your wounds, but it really makes sense when you think about it.  Anyway (drumroll....) the new wound effect is: "This card chains to and from any card.  This does not count toward your 1 wound effect per turn limit."  That is amazing!  Suddenly, I want to get hit a few times, because I'll be able to chain on any card on any turn (assuming that other players start a chain).  However, because of the final part (not counting towards your 1 wound effect limit) it makes sense to include the other kinds of wounds - otherwise the Coldest War set woundn't make sense without being mixed with the other sets (and, after all, it is supposed to be a standalone expansion).  So, yes, I love the new wound effect.  I like it more than any of the actual archive cards I've seen in the set!

Bone Cruncher!

The final thing that Coldest War mixed up on us was the starting decks.  Nightfall and Martial Law each had the same starting decks.  Because of those starting decks, the first few turns always felt a bit too prescribed (you start off by playing Yuri, because he gets you extra influence).  This is no longer true, and the starting turns feel a bit more fluid - though, that might simply because I'm not as familiar with these new minions, so I haven't found a "go to" strategy.  Honestly, in some colors I like the original starting cards, whereas in other colors I like the new ones.  The most interesting one is "Snowstorm", whose strength is dependent on how many minions the defending player has (if you play this early when nobody else has any minions, you completely wasted your card).  Though none of these new starting cards are incredibly unique or special, I like that they were included, as it provides more flexibility with the starting game.  Now, you can use the old set, the new set, let each person pick which set to use, or even let each person mix and match from the different sets.  I hope that they continue providing different starting decks in the future!

Now, just because it's fun, here's my (current) favorite card from this set: "Bone Cruncher."  He is a Lycanthrope (this actually matters now, but still not much) with 4 hitpoints, and he deals 5 damage!  Plus, he has a Combat effect that lets you make a target minion's damage unblockable.  Awesome!  Can you just imagine having a handful of these in your deck?  You play one on the table, then discard another copy from your hand to make the first one unblockable - all 5 damage!

Overall, I give Nightfall: The Coldest War  an 8.5/10.  Whereas I still like the base game significantly more than this one, because of the new wounds and starting cards I think that The Coldest War is at the top of my list of Nightfall expansions.

If you like expansions, you might also check out (of course) Nightfall: Blood Country, but also Bang! Dodge City, and Thunderstone: Dragonspire.

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Nightfall: The Coldest War.

Nightfall: Blood Country Mini Review

Since I love Nightfall, I am glad that I was able to try out Nightfall: Blood Country. In this review, I will assume that you are familiar with Nightfall - if not, I recommend checking out my review of it.

Here is the extent of the changes in Blood Country - when drafting, all of the extra cards that will be shared by the players are revealed before players select the cards for their private archives.  That's it.  This is a nice change, as you can actually draft knowing whether or not your cards will work with some of the center cards.  However, it's obviously not a huge change.

The first thing that I will talk about with Blood Country is that the packaging is very small.  Because of this, some people might balk at the MSRP being $35.  However, the box comes with 24 new archive cards.  Considering that the "promo" archives that they offer wind up being $5 per archive, $35 for 24 archives really isn't very expensive.  Secondly, if you decide to combine all of your cards into a single box (for ease of carrying), then why would you want a large empty box?  All of the cards from Nightfall, Martial Law, and Blood Country easily fit into the original or Martial Law box.  Plus, if you want to carry around just Blood Country (or a different subset of cards), the box is large enough to hold all of the new cards as well as the starter decks and wounds from the other sets (as well as a few favorite archives), and takes up much less space.  So, overall, I think that the packaging (though initially causing the expansion to look way overpriced) is ideal for what you receive, and the product itself seems priced appropriately.

Those are really the only additions and controversial issues with Blood Country.  So, now I'll just mention a few of my favorite cards.

The first one is called "Pipe Bomb."  Pipe Bomb lets you shuffle the bottom two wounds from the wound stack (the extra wounds), and shuffles them into one of the archive piles.  This card really seems very unique, and can also be very powerful at slowing down (or at least punishing) a player that is buying lots of cards from single archives - especially if they are coming from his private archive.

Another one of my favorite cards is "Harley Doberman."  Harley forces all players to discard a card from their hand each time they put a minion in play - and if they can't discard a card (or choose not to), then they receive a wound.  I love playing a couple copies of this card at the end of a really long chain. Because of how the chain resolves, Harley will be in play before the other minions, and so your opponents will either have to discard all of their cards, or (more likely) will wind up receiving a lot of wounds for the minions that they have in the chain.

Overall, I give Nightfall: Blood Country an 8.0/10.  If you are a Nightfall fan, I think that this is a great option for adding a lot of extra minions in a fairly inexpensive way.  Plus, several of the minions add new strategies to the game aside from just gaining minions and dealing direct damage.

If you like the darker theme of the Nightfall games, you might also check out Mob Ties, Gloom, and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Nightfall: Blood Country.

Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin Review

The latest and greatest (literally) version of Thunderstone has broken onto the gaming scene - Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin.

In case you're new to my site - hi! I hope that you keep coming back (and note, that you can follow me with RSS, Twitter, or Facebook). But, you should also know that Thunderstone Advance is definitely not my first Thunderstone review. So far I've reviewed Thunderstone, Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements, and Thunderstone: Dragonspire. So, I'm going to assume that you're familiar with Thunderstone, and I'm only going to cover the new elements introduced in Advance. If you aren't familiar with the game, you should definitely check out the basic Thunderstone Review - and maybe the Dragonspire one, too (though Wrath of the Elements introduced some new concepts, too).

The first new addition that Advance introduces is that Monster groups now have "Levels". This is small, but is by far my favorite new feature! Yet, not when I play the game by the "official" rules. I think that one of the biggest problems with Thunderstone is that the dungeon often fills up with gigantic monsters, and so nobody will ever go fight them - thus the game gets really boring. (One of the expansions, I believe Wrath of the Elements, introduced a variant of "advancing monsters" that also helped address this problem.) So, in Advance, the official rule is that you select a random monster group from each of the three levels. And, that is the extent of their role - you shuffle them together and play the game. However, it is easy to come up with a slight variant that helps keep the game flowing - either stack all the Level 1 monsters on top, followed by Level 2 then Level 3. You could also shuffle the Level 1 monsters with half of the Level 2 monsters, and the Level 3 monsters with the other half of Level 2. Or, any other combination that you like. No matter what, you actually have the freedom to setup the dungeon hall to prevent this stalling!

One of the more awesome Familiars

The next new feature introduced in Thunderstone Advance may seem a bit "familiar" to you (hehe - I love puns). You can now gain a Familiar. The first time that you defeat a monster in the dungeon, you gain a Familiar. This card goes in front of you and gives you extra abilities that you can perform. Some of the abilities require you to own Experience Points (though you don't spend it). The Familiar stays in front of you every turn until you use it - at which point it goes in your discard pile. But, once you play him again, he will again stay in front of you. This is a neat concept, but I dislike that your Familiar is random and that you have no ability to change it. They all seem to be fairly balanced, but I still think that in a game where one of the main objectives is to tune the cards you play with, it doesn't make sense that you get a card at random with no ability to decide which one to get - though you can prevent yourself from having to draw it by never using it (thus never discarding it). But, if you do this, then the other players with Familiars that are helping them have a slight advantage.  Overall, Familiars are a nice addition, but they won't change gameplay very much.

The third major change (do you like how I've now upgraded that first change to "major"?) is that you now have a fourth option on your turn - you can "Prepare". When Preparing, you simply discard what you want from your hand and keep the rest. Then you draw back up to six cards. This is a very small action, and yet it can be incredibly helpful. When you draw all weapons and no heroes, you can keep a few and hope to draw heroes. When you draw three amazing heroes and three cards that only help in the village, you can keep what you need for next turn. When you get a bunch of useless trophies, you can keep the useful cards. This action will really be used much more than you would originally think, and it mitigates some of the inherent luck involved in trying to draw the "perfect" hand.

There are a ton of other changes that Thunderstone Advance makes to the brand, but I won't cover them all. I will say that I think they all improve the game. Here are a few more (without discussion about how useful they are):

One of the new Guardians

• The game end condition is based on a Guardian instead of a Thunderstone (thus, no free points to whoever ends the game unless they kill a huge monster)
• "Militia" have been turned into "Regulars" and have been improved slightly
• "Iron Rations" has been replaced with "Thunderstone Shards" which are worth actually using
• The game comes with a board that helps you in setup by preventing you from overloading a single card type (Weapon, Spell, Villager, Item)
• You can play in a Dungeon (light penalty of 2) or a Forest (light penalty of 1)
• The packaging is better than the original Thunderstone but not as good as in Wrath of the Elements (yet the cards stayed in place when I carried it vertically in a backpack - kudos!)
• Diseases are replaced with Curses, and each one has an Ability that lets you destroy it (by suffering a temporary penalty)
• There are more cards that encourage you to go to the Dungeon even when you don't have a guaranteed victory

Overall, I give Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin an 8.5/10.  If you disliked the previous Thunderstone offerings, there's not enough in Advance to pull you back in.  However, if you liked the previous games, or you were interested in trying out the game, I think that this is a good set to buy.  I think that Advance improves on the game in a large number of small areas, which add together to make a better game.

If you like games like Thunderstone, you might also check out Nightfall, Warhammer: Invasion, and Runebound. Or, if you're looking for more opinions on this set, you can check out a Thunderstone Advance Review from I Slay the Dragon, or another Thunderstone Advance Review from the Board Game Family.

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin.

Quarriors Review

One of the most widely discussed games (whether positive or negative) of 2011 is Quarriors.

"Quarriors is Dominion with dice." That is how I was first told about the game, and I can't think of a better way of describing it myself.  (See here for my Dominion review - one of the first reviews I wrote on this site!) In Quarriors, each player starts with 12 basic dice. Each turn, they draw six dice from their bag (and if their bag is empty, they return the discarded dice into their bag and continue drawing). After this, they roll all of their dice, which can cast spells, provide potential creatures, or produce "Quiddity" (money). After rolling the dice, you can summon any creatures that you rolled (they each have a Quiddity cost to summon), and you can buy one new die from the common area. After this, all of your creatures attack all of your opponents - you calculate your total attack value and your opponent sacrifices creatures until he is able to absorb all of the damage. Then, your turn is over. To start your next turn, if you have any creatures still alive, they score "Glory" points. The first player to a certain amount of Glory (based on the number of players in the game) is the winner. I believe that the game can also end once a certain number of dice piles are empty, but this has never occurred in a game that I have played, so I'm not sure how many piles it is.

My absolute favorite part of Quarriors is the replayability inherent in the game because of how the dice are setup. You have sets of five dice, but then you have three different cards that represent what those dice might be. Yes, each of the cards representing a given set of dice are very similar, but they still change up the game enough to give it some extra diversity. For example, the die representing a wizard may be a wizard that will give you extra glory when scoring, or he may allow you to cull dice from your bag. He may have a special ability that lets you re-roll him and get an extra die from the bag - it all depends on which card is representing that die in any given game. And, each of these different wizards has a scaled cost based on their abilities, so it actually allows some of them to be better than others (instead of all wizards are equal, but simply slightly different).

The next thing that I like about Quarriors are the Spells and Creatures. It is really hard to put words together to explain why I enjoy them, but I think that some of the Spells and Creatures are interesting, and add depth to the game. You can at least somewhat envision yourself actually bringing this giant dragon into the realm - and you feel like you should be suddenly winning since you managed to summon him! (Though you probably won't win based on a single creature, not even a sweet dragon.)

However, though Quarriors definitely has some positive aspects, there are some things you should be aware of. First of all, the game is incredibly random. Did you think that Dominion wasn't random enough through all of your shuffling and drawing cards? You also wished that there was a chance that your card didn't work as you wanted it to any given time that you play it? Then you would like Quarriors. The game can be incredibly fun or incredibly frustrating, all depending on how you roll. For example, that sweet dragon that I mentioned can be incredibly powerful if you roll the correct side of the die... or it can miss completely and give you Quiddity. This can be good, since there is a chance that all of the dice you draw are creatures, and you will need at least some Quiddity to play them; but it's normally frustrating. This element of the game isn't really a pro or con - it is really just the crux of the game, and you need to determine if that is something that you would enjoy.

My first con with Quarriors is that I don't feel like you are ever able to make a good "deck" (bag of dice). In most <whatever> building games, you have ways of getting rid of the start cards/dice, thus making your deck better. This isn't really the case with Quarriors. Yes, there is at least one creature that allows you to cull dice, but most games you will simply be attempting to make your die bag better by adding more powerful dice to it, not by upgrading what you have. This makes early turns more boring as you may be forced to debate on whether it is even worth it to buy the die that you can afford.

The other con that I have for Quarriors was that it felt like my purchases were a bit too prescribed. For example, the creatures are all costed well enough that 9 times out of 10 the creature that costs 7 Quiddity is better than the creature that costs 6 Quiddity. Therefore, most turns consist of rolling all of your dice and then looking to see what die costs the correct amount of Quiddity for what you rolled. What's worse, most of the Creatures that cost less than 5 Quiddity are worthless (in comparison to everything else), so there is very little reason to clutter up your die bag with them. Whereas other "building games" have things that you can purchase that are mid-range in cost, but helpful long term (like the Village in Dominion), I didn't really get that impression with Quarriors. There are very few mid-range cards that actually make your die bag better, which makes you feel like you don't ever have a "good" bag of dice.

Overall, I give Quarriors a 7.0/10. I think that this game can be fun to play with the right group, but that group needs to appreciate lightweight, highly random games. If you enjoy deep strategy and having lots of control over your actions, Quarriors isn't really a game that I think you will enjoy.

If you want to explore more games, you might also check out Dixit, Hanabi, and Smash Up.

EDIT: Since originally posting this review, it has been pointed out to me that I missed a rule.  Whenever you score glory for one of your monsters, you are able to "cull" (remove) one of the dice from your used pile.  This would definitely help address my first con, but I do not believe that this rule would make a big enough impact on the game to where you would ever feel like you had a "good" bag of dice.  Specifically, in 4 player, you very infrequently score monsters (because everyone else kills them), and will probably only score a few monsters before winning (only the big monsters are likely to live long enough to score).  In 2-player, I can see this being a much more important addition.  Thank you to those of you who pointed this out to me, so that I can play it correctly from now on!