Stomple Review

A game that I had never heard of prior to GenCon was Stomple. Fortunately for me, I walked past their booth, and the game looked interesting enough for me to try a demo of it.

In Stomple, 49 marbles are laid out on a 7x7 grid. Each of the marbles carefully rests on a foam inset, and the board is placed on top of a wooden "holder" (for lack of a better word - it catches all of the marbles when they fall through the hole that they are resting on). After the marbles are randomly placed, each player randomly selects one "Stomple", which shows a marble color on top, and has a base that fits into the same place as the marbles. Unfortunately for the marbles. On the first turn, a player takes their Stomple, starts from the edge of the board, and "Stomples" (the box says Stomp, but what does a Stomple do? Stomple, of course) a marble; and if that marble is adjacent to another marble of the same color, they Stomple that one. And the next one. And the next one. Until they have Stompled all of the adjacent marbles of the same color. On the second and all following turns, a player can either continue Stompling (in the same manner as on the first turn) any marbles that are adjacent to him, or he can "Hop" to another marble of his color to get better positioning (thus Stompling it and ending his turn). The object of the game is to be the last Stomple standing when no other player has any moves that they can make. And at that point, you score points based on how many marbles are left. Then you play again. And again. Until you get to a certain number of points. Then you declare a winner. And play again.

So, the first pro to Stomple is that it is incredibly fun. The back of the box states that it can be addictive, and I would tend to agree. Sure, it is great to win the game, but the physical act of Stompling the marbles is fun as well. And the game itself lends to a lighthearted atmosphere where friends can simply get together and enjoy each others' company while playing a fun, high quality game.

Speaking of enjoying people's company, Stomple's next pro is that it can really be played by just about all ages. I could see friends playing this with each other. I could just as easily see parents or grandparents playing this with their children (and grandchildren). The rules are straightforward enough that anyone should be able to master them, and the act of Stompling I think will appeal to children, motivating them to ask to play the game (and yet the game won't be annoying to adults).

The third pro for Stomple is that it is a beautiful game. I have at least one friend that will buy games that he can set out on his table because they look pretty. Unfortunately, when he does this, he often winds up with games that are gorgeous, but aren't very good as an actual game (I'm glad that at least he isn't buying dozens of fancy chess sets). Stomple would make a good game for this - with the quality of the wooden board and the marbles (and even the Stomples), the game would look good if you left it out for decoration.

A neutral point of note before getting to the cons: I'm not really sure how long the board itself will last. Since the holes that the marbles are pushed through are made of foam, I don't know how long they will last in terms of both years and plays before they will wear out. This is important to me, as I can see this being a very good game for grandparents to have in a game closet that can be pulled out whenever the grandchildren are visiting. And, if that game closet is anything like the game closet in my Grandmother's home, then those games will be in there for a long, long time - and so I would hope that Stomple could last that long.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of cons with Stomple. The first of which is rather trivial. Stomple is a very noisy game. This isn't really very true when playing the game, but when setting up the board, and when transporting it in the car, the marbles roll around a lot and ram into each other. Again, this isn't really a major indictment to the game, but it is something to be aware of - make sure that you plan on playing it in a place where some occasional loud noises won't get you kicked out (stated another way, "this is not library friendly").

A more significant con to Stomple is that it feels like there is too much luck in the game. Now, with that said, there really are only two random parts to the game: the setup and the selection of the Stomples. However, if you start the game with most of your marbles in a continuous line, you will be at a very significant disadvantage in the game. The other aspect of the game (and why it "feels" like luck instead of actually being luck) is that in a large game, you don't have very much control over your chances of victory. When playing six-player, the board simply is too small to allow everyone to have many movement options - and so it is very easy to eliminate players; and to be defeated no matter what your "strategy" might have been. Because of this, I think that as a "strategic" game, Stomple is probably best with 3-4 players. (As a fun game, however, Stomple truly is fine with 2-6).

Overall, I give Stomple an 8.0/10. I'm glad to have added this game to my collection, and I really think that it will continue getting playing time. I would recommend this game to anyone that likes abstract reasoning games, but I would highly recommend this game to anyone with children that enjoy playing games.

I would like to thank Stomple's designer Greg Zima of GaZima Games for providing me with a review copy of Stomple to play.

Summoner Wars: Master Set Review

So, as many of you know by reading my original Summoner Wars Review, I really love Summoner Wars. Because of this, as soon as I heard about the Summoner Wars: Master Set, I was very eager to pick up a copy. (NOTE: The link is to Plaid Hat Games' Store, which is the only place I currently know of where you can get a copy of the Master Set.)

Normally in reviews of expansions, I write about the major changes that are introduced in the set. However, since the Master Set doesn't really change anything about the rules of Summoner Wars (at least, not that I noticed), I will instead focus on the races and contents of the box.  I am assuming that you have already read the original Summoner Wars review that I linked to, and I will not be rehashing the pros and cons of the Master Set (since they are the same) as I normally do in my reviews.

The Master Set includes 6 races (who will be addressed later), the premium gameboard, and is setup to be able to easily hold all of your armies. What's more, it has all of this for only $50. Previously to get into Summoner Wars, you had to buy a two-player starter set for $25, which came with a fairly pitiful fold-out game board (and to buy the premium board you had to pay another $15). Plus, to get more armies, you had to buy faction packs for $10 each. Therefore, to get 6 armies and the premium game board, you were looking at paying $80. And now, it's only $50. Right there, I could already stop writing this review (and assume you read the original review already), and you should all be convinced to go buy the game. Instead, for your reading enjoyment, I will write about the races.

Mountain Vargath: This race (looking somewhat like minotaurs) is the most straightforward, easy race to play with. Play lots of units, charge, pound on your opponent. Most of their units have abilities that are pretty easy to capitalize on; abilities that do things like give you an extra die when you're attacking on your opponent's side of the board. Like I said, get close and pummel your adversaries. I really enjoy using this race, and it is also very convenient to give to a new player.

Deep Dwarves: This race could also be known as the Magicians. Most everything that they do causes you to use magic. Fortunately, their Summoner has a special ability that allows them to take the top card from the Discard Pile and put it on your Magic pile (but then you can only use one unit to attack that round). They have a bit of a learning curve in seeing how they can fit together, but once a player learns to use them, they can be incredibly effective. One of their units (Scholar), specifically, has a Strength of 0. However, for 1 Magic, you can cause every unit that attacks an enemy that happens to be adjacent to a Scholar to attack with an extra die. Therefore, they are able to attack with 1 if you use their ability (since, by definition, as a melee unit they are adjacent to whoever they would be attacking) - or, more usefully, your other units are able to attack with 2, 3, or 4 dice. This is a quick way to slaughter an opposing Summoner.

Benders: Also known as "Sheer Awesomeness in a Bottle" (my term). First of all, you must make sure that nobody ever gets very close to your units - none of them are melee, and they all have hitpoints in accordance with that (such as Champions with 3 or 4 hitpoints). However, they are all able to attack at range effectively, and their abilities are phenomenal. Things like Stun, "Common enemy Units that begin a turn adjacent to this Deceiver cannot move or attack during that turn." One Champion can also force a Common units to attack twice in a turn. And another Champion can capture any opposing unit that he dealt the final blow to (even Champions!). These guys can be a lot of fun to play.

Sand Goblins: This is an interesting mix of what you would expect traditional "Sand People" and Goblins to do. For example, they have Camouflage, which states "This Javelineer cannot be attacked by non-adjacent Units." That is fairly standard for a "Sand Person." However, they definitely have a Goblin flavor; one of their Champions, accurately named "Biter" has an ability called "Crazed" which doesn't allow him to move if he is adjacent to an enemy. Another traditional Goblin character is the "Scavenger", which takes destroyed cards and puts them under himself as protection instead of sending them to your magic pile. These aren't my favorite race to play, but, they can't all be favorites, or it loses it's meaning, now doesn't it? They are still a very solid race.

Shadow Elves: Who said that elves were wimps? Oh right - most fantasy books that I have ever read say that. Fortunately, these Elves come with their friend the "Hydrake", which destroys everything. Everything. He has 3 attack dice, but he can attack each enemy unit that he is adjacent to. Oh, and he also has 8 health. As for the rest of the Elves, they have some interesting abilities but the general strategy is to hang back and shoot at your opponents - and choose the most opportune time to charge in and strike. They are well designed to truly have both a traditional "Shadow" and "Elf" feel to them.

Swamp Orcs: Last but not least are the Swamp People. They have a special card called a "Vine Wall". This annoying thing (my opponent normally plays with this race instead of me - hence things that they are able to do are very annoying) starts sprawling it's way across the battlefield. This serves two purposes. First, Swamp Orcs can be spawned just about anywhere (after all, there are Vine Walls everywhere, and you only have to spawn next to a Wall). Second, it drastically hinders the movement of all other players (who have to roll to move their units across Vine Walls), while improving the abilities of the Swamp Orcs (they often get bonuses for being adjacent to a Vine Wall or for moving over a Vine Wall). This is a very interesting new way of strategizing in Summoner Wars, and because of this I am very pleased that they were included in the set.

Overall, I give the Summoner Wars: Master Set a 9.0/10. If you love Summoner Wars (and if you don't, why did you really read all the way down to here?) then you should definitely look to buy this set. It is definitely worth the money, and it is also a very good way of storing all of your old Summoner Wars sets (though the box is a bit bulky).

I would like to thank Plaid Hat Games for providing me with a demo copy of the Summoner Wars: Master Set.

Jab: Real Time Boxing Review

So, I feel like it's only fitting to start this review with a confession. I had absolutely no interest in playing the next game. I had read a review or two about it, and it really didn't seem to be something I would enjoy. In fact, when I was talking to Michael Mindes (owner of Tasty Minstrel Games) at GenCon, I was very reluctant to even accept a demo copy of it. The game I'm referring to is Jab: Real-Time Boxing. In my previous experience, "Real Time" in board games is normally synonymous with "horrible". Fortunately, I did accept the copy from him, and this allowed me to write the rest of this review (which, of course, I feel is definitely worth reading)!

In Jab, each player represents a boxer that is attempting to defeat his opponent - either through a knockout, or through winning three rounds by judge's decision. Each boxer is represented by three cards; a head, left side, and right side - each of which can be punched by your opponent. Each player will also have two piles of punch cards in front of him (one in front of his left hand, one in front of his right) - and he must play the cards from the appropriate hand (for example, right side pile with the right hand). When landing these punches, a boxer is looking to do a number of things: stagger his opponent by landing a Haymaker follower by a punch of the same color (this steals 2 health from your opponent), counter-punch by having a punch of the same color on each player's stack (this is worth 2 judge points and steals 1 health from your opponent), or by landing combos (such as Jab, Uppercut, Cross) by having each of the punch types listed on the current combo showing on your opponent (this is worth judge points at the end of the round). You can also block your opponent's punches by playing cards of either the same color or type on top of the showing card (for example, if they have hit you with a Red Hook, you can block it with any Red card or any Hook card - or you can block a Haymaker with any card). Once players run out of cards, the round ends and judge points are tallied - with the player gaining the most points winning that round (assuming nobody was knocked out). If a player runs out of health and then takes more damage, he can be knocked out, thus immediately ending the bout (and causing massive amount of trash talking).

(And then, after declaring a winner, you repeatedly have rematches since neither player wants to walk away after a loss - be warned, this can cause a never ending loop in your life.  Make sure that you are in a location in which this is acceptable.  You don't want to start a game of Jab at the coffee shop 30 minutes before they close - you will only have completed 2 or 3 of the necessary 15 games by then, and you will have to go to an alternate location to continue punching each other in the face.)

The first pro to Jab was that there really was strategy in a "real time" board game. I must admit that I didn't really expect this, as most "real time" games seem to only be about how fast a player can burn through his pile of cards. However, with the fact that you can win both by judge's decision and by knockout means that you have to pay attention to multiple things at the same time and make sure that you play a balanced game. If one player is focused solely on judge points, he can find himself knocked out before the three rounds are over; conversely, if a player is focusing only on the knockout, his opponent can fairly easily defeat him by playing a little bit of defense and winning the judge decisions.

The other aspect of Jab that works very well is that there are enough things going on in the game to force you to be scatter-brained, but not so many that you can't possibly pay attention to all of them. Here are the primary things you will need to focus on: going for a combo, landing haymakers, preventing your opponent from landing haymakers (and possibly blocking a few other punches for good measure), watching your health, and scoring counter punches. Sound easy enough? It's really not. I think that if much more was introduced to the game, then it might become cumbersome - I think that the designer did a very good job of adding enough to the game to make it a challenge, without adding so much that it was unnecessarily complex.

The next point is more of a neutral aspect to the game. Both of the boxers are the exact same. I think it would have been interesting to have an "advanced" mode in which the players were able to choose from different boxers that actually had different characteristics. Perhaps one that took three health instead of two when staggering an opponent, but that loses 5 judge points each round. Another one that gets bonus points for combos. One that staggers an opponent for one health each time he plays a haymaker (but a stagger does nothing). One that gains health whenever he blocks a haymaker. Obviously, I haven't playtested any of these things, so I don't know if they would work very well, and I especially don't know if they would keep the game balanced, but I think it would have been an interesting thing to add even more replayability to an already high quality game.  (And so, if the designer or publisher is reading this, it might be a nice little expansion opportunity - all you would need are extra boxer "heads" that told you what the ability was).

Now for the first (and biggest) con for Jab. It's really hard to teach new people. By this, I don't mean that the rules are especially complicated - in fact, my summary at the top covered around 75% of them. What I mean is that after I've played the game a few times, I may not be great at the game, but I'm going to be much better than a new player. And so, if I teach a new player (and then completely destroy him so that he runs crying to his momma… you know, after he regains consciousness), it is hard to figure out how exactly to let them play the game and feel competitive.  If they don't feel like they have a chance, then they are not going to want to play the game again. There may need to be some official "handicap" rules that are implemented in games involving newcomers.

The next con for Jab was that, as with any game in which you and your opponent are reaching across the table at each other as quickly as possible, you get in each other's way. Now, from what I have seen, this doesn't actually start happening until you and your opponent start getting pretty good at the game (because that's when you start playing faster). And, honestly, it doesn't happen nearly as often as I was expecting after initially reading the rules.  Nevertheless, you will inevitably have a collision mid-air over the table at some point, in which you will need to pause and re-set the game so that the card that was in your hand and went flying across the room can actually be placed in a valid location. This doesn't happen very often, and is actually somewhat amusing when it does, but it is still inconvenient.

Overall, I give Jab: Real Time Boxing an 8.0/10. I would never have thought to buy this game. And yet, if I had, I would have been quite pleasantly surprised, and I would have thought that it was worth the money. I would recommend that if you have the chance, you try this game - it won't be a perfect fit for every player, but I think that most of you will be quite pleasantly surprised!

And, as a final passing thought as I conclude this summary - it might be really fun to play this against one of your normal opponents that suffers from "Analysis Paralysis" (taking forever to take their turns because they have to weigh their options for hours on end).  It might help you relieve some of your aggression as they get slaughtered for taking forever to play!

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Jab: Real Time Boxing.

Train of Thought Review

A game that I've been trying to find for about six months (since the designer was kind enough to point it out to me and I thought it looked intriguing) is Train of Thought.

In Train of Thought, players take turns playing as the "conductor". The conductor rolls a six-sided die and draws a card - this gives him a starting word (like "House"). From there, he draws the next card, which gives him his destination word (like "Experience"). Now, he uses the starting word along with two other words to attempt to get all of the other players to guess the destination word. If they don't get it on their first try, he can choose one of their words as his new starting word, and try again. Once you finally get them to guess the right word (this may be very quick, or may be an excruciatingly long time), you draw another card, and use your previous destination as the new start word. For each word that is correctly guessed, both the conductor and the person to guess the word get a point in the form of a card being played in front of them. You normally allow each player to be the conductor twice, and then whoever has the most cards is the winner!

The first thing that I like about Train of Thought is that it breaks my brain - and in a good way. Let's go ahead and admit this. My brain is incredibly analytical (some would say that I'm "overly analytical", but I prefer "super analytical", because then it sounds much more like a super power). And, yes, in case you didn't read between the lines, "super analytical" does equate to "software developer", which is what I currently do that actually pays "real" money (as opposed to blogging). With that, creative word games aren't necessarily something that come naturally to me. Train of Thought, specifically, challenges me to think in much different ways than games like Taboo, where I can keep babbling until someone figures out what in the world I'm saying.  I only get three words, one of which is provided for me (and normally irrelevant) - I better make them count!

The next pro is that the game can have some really neat connections to lead from one word to the next. This is, honestly, the best part of this game and what sets it apart from any other word games that I have played.  One of the games we played saw a connection from (I think) the word "weight" to the word "skin". The connection went something like "this covers weight"; which led to guesses of "clothes", "scale", and a few others. To which, the conductor (not me) cunningly replied "scale to dragon". Brilliant! Of course, scales to a dragon are their skin! When things like this occur in the game, it really helps you enjoy the game, and reminds you why you are playing it instead of any of the other multitude of choices in word party games that are available.

Unfortunately, when people choose not to play by the "spirit of the rules", the game still functions, but prevents you from experiencing the previous pro. The only real requirements of the game are that: first, you only have three words, and second, that you have to use a certain one. However, if your starting word is "Sunshine" and your destination word is "Shield", there's nothing to stop you from giving "Sunshine Captain America" as a clue. In fact, this is a pretty effective strategy, and if your goal is to win, there's no real incentive not to use it (people will catch on and disregard your first word). And I can't really point fingers here, because I have also found myself in a bind, unable to find a connection from one word to the next and thus defaulted to this strategy. I think the game would be more fun with a house rule that you are not allowed to do this - even if that requires you to all agree that you don't even keep score (those of us who are a combination of hyper-competitive and really bad at this game would probably not agree to this house rule otherwise).

The next con is in the limited number of cards included in the game. Whereas there are 200 cards, and each card has 6 different words on it, we wound up reusing some of the same words the third time that we played the game. Now, this was a combination of playing with psychologists (they are great at stringing words together to allow people to figure out what they're thinking and thus scoring lots of point - and going through lots of cards) and some similar dice rolls (we never rolled a one - in either game; we rolled a lot of five's), which led to the duplication. However, it still would have been better to have more cards available to keep the game fresh, without having to give it more down time between games (so that we can forget all the words).

Overall, I give Train of Thought an 8.5/10. I eagerly anticipated trying this game for several months, and it didn't disappoint. I think that this is a new take on word games, and I look forward to getting to play it more often. Unfortunately, it will only be once every few weeks, at the most, to make sure that we don't remember all of the words.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing a copy of Train of Thought for me to try. I would also like to thank Jay Cormier (the designer of Train of Thought) for pointing the game out to me. If you're interested in following his adventure in getting games published, check out his blog Inspiration to Publication.