Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath Review

So, the latest Dungeon Command set that I received in the mail is Curse of Undeath. Or, if you prefer, it's Dungeon Command: "The One with Zombies!" And, since I've already reviewed both Dungeon Command and the Dungeon Command: Tyranny of Goblins set, I'm going to assume you are familiar with the game. If not, I'd recommend that you read my Dungeon Command review, as this review will only focus on the Undead faction.

My basic impression of the Undead faction is that I think that they might be the strongest faction thus far, but they are also the hardest to play.  With all of the previously released factions, there is generally a single characteristic that almost all of the units have.  However, this is not the case with the Undead.  With the Undead, there is a fairly even breakdown of order cards between Constitution (13 cards), Charisma (11 cards), and Intelligence (9 cards).  (There are also 3 "Any" cards.)  And, to go along with these orders, the Undead are the most diversified when it comes to unit attributes; though most of the higher level units have multiple attributes (to make the Orders slightly easier to use).  So, though the Undead have a lot of strong cards, the chances of you drawing cards that you can't play is also much higher.

By far, the most awesome minis in the set

With that said, what all can the Undead do?  Well, they seem to have a few themes among their cards - surround the enemy (or get surrounded), get a benefit when damaging units, and breaking the rules about summoning.  Let's start with the swarming aspect of their cards.  One of the new units is the "Skeletal Tomb Guardian."  This Guardian makes a basic melee attack of 20, which isn't terribly impressive.  But, whenever he makes a melee attack, he also does 20 damage to each other enemy creature he is adjacent to.  Very nice!  There are also at least three orders that get bonuses from having giant battles.  "Death Grip" allows you to make a melee attack and add 10 damage for each other Undead creature that is surrounding your target.  "Necrotic Howl" simply deals 10 damage to every enemy adjacent to the targeted creature (and is a Minor, so it doesn't even cost you an action).  Finally, "Corrosive Blood" is a defensive card that allows you to prevent 10 damage and then deal 10 damage to each tapped creature adjacent to you.

The next focus of the Undead is about getting a benefit when damaging units (after all, they do have vampires).  First, of course, they have a vampiric unit - the "Vampire Stalker."  And (I'm sure you're not surprised by this), the vampire is able to heal when he successfully inflicts damage.  But, in addition to the vampire unit, there are also a couple of "Vampiric Touch" order cards that give a very similar effect - but they allow you to deal 30 damage and heal for 30 damage, instead of only healing for 10 (like the vampire).  The last card that gets a bonus from dealing damage is the "Hulking Attack."  This attack does a basic melee attack (with a 10 point bonus) but, if it is successful, it allows you to regain a morale, which is nice. 

Lich Necromancer and Call to Battle is an amazing combo

The third "focus" of the Undead is really just a combination of one of the units and order cards - the "Lich Necromancer" with the "Call to Battle."  The Lich Necromancer allows you to deploy Undead units adjacent to him when deploying.  And, the Call to Battle attaches to a creature and allows you to deploy one creature during the action phase.  Thus, this combination allows you to bring units into the fight directly from your hand, and just in time to attack.  This is an incredibly powerful combination.

The other two things that are powerful enough in the Undead faction that they warrant a mention are the giant undead bone dragon ("Dracolich") and the "Terrifying Revelation" (which, conveniently can be played by the Dracolich, since he is a level six unit with Charisma).  The Dracolich has an ability that allows him to make three ranged attacks (of range 5 and 20 damage), as long as he is attacking a different target each time.  And, the Terrifying Revelation simply forces a target opponent to lose three morale (which might be the most powerful order card that I've seen). 

Overall, I give Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath an 8.5/10 (just like all of the other Dungeon Command sets).  I think that it does a good job of expanding the game and adding new elements, and some of the order cards are worth using even if you don't want to use the Undead as your primary faction.

If you like the Dungeon Command series, you might also check out Legend of Drizzt (since all of the minis are compatible with it), Mage Wars, and Nightfall.

I would like to thank Wizards of the Coast for providing me with a review copy of Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath.

Jumpin Review

At GenCon 2011, I purchased a box of 3M titles at the auction. Honestly, I knew nothing about them and only bought them because I was interested in Feudal. Knowing that I might as well try them out, one of the other titles made me Jump (hehe)! Jumpin was a spatial reasoning game! Excellent.

In Jumpin, each player controls a set of 12 pawns (lined up in two rows of six) that they are trying to move across the board into their opponent's starting zone. The twist to the game is that pieces may only move by jumping. They are allowed to jump over any number of pieces, can jump horizontally or vertically, can jump over any player's pieces, and they can "multi-jump" from one empty space to the next, as long as there remain pieces to jump over. The only thing that they cannot do is move a single space without jumping (or jump over multiple empty spaces). Players take turns selecting and jumping with a piece until one person has successfully moved all of his pieces across the board. Whoever successfully does this is declared the winner.

The first thing that I like about Jumpin is that it is an abstract reasoning game, but it is unlike any of the other ones that I have played. (Yes, I have heard analogies to Chinese Checkers, but I believe that the inability to move a single piece truly sets Jumpin apart from even Chinese Checkers.) Moreover, if I played games that were similar to Jumpin, it would probably be because they borrowed mechanics from Jumpin, not the other way around (the copyright on the one I bought is 1964). My favorite element of all abstract reasoning games is that they challenge me to think in new and different ways, and the fact that Jumpin is so unlike anything that I have played is wonderful.

The next thing that I like about Jumpin is the challenge that each player faces in navigating his pieces into his opponent's starting position. If there were simply a line that the pieces had to cross, and then they were removed from the board, then the game would be completely changed (and I think it would be much worse). However, once a player starts getting some of his pieces into his opponent's starting zone he is forced to pay attention to how he will successfully navigate his other pieces into the zone. Normally, the "easy" path that he has created will get blocked because of pieces that have already crossed - therefore, he will be forced to repeatedly readjust where his pieces are, thus costing extra moves. Whoever is able to anticipate this and plan accordingly will have a distinct advantage.

One element of Jumpin that I haven't decided if I like is the fact that you can strand a pawn. If you jump away from a pawn, thus leaving it completely by itself, there is no way of moving that pawn unless you backtrack to it's location on a future turn, or if your opponent is kind (foolish) enough to move adjacent to it. For the most part, I have been able to avoid stranding pieces, as this was a trap that I very quickly noticed. The few times that I did strand a piece, I found it to be incredibly frustrating. And, the game is unforgiving enough that stranding a piece will most likely cost you the game against a good opponent.

A pawn's eye view

An unpleasant element that I noticed about Jumpin that I do not recall experiencing in other spatial reasoning games is that there feels like a lot of down time. The game starts off fairly slowly as each player is simply jumping over one or two pieces. After a little while, the game really starts to get exciting as players will be able to jump their pawns across the entire game board in one or two moves. After this exciting phase, the game slows down again as the players are attempting to finalize their navigation into their victory area. I wish the game did not have these "slow" phases, but was able to maintain the feeling of excitement that it had in the middle of the game.

My next con for Jumpin is that it feels much more like a race than a challenge against an opponent. In most spatial reasoning games, you are constantly facing decisions of whether to move in a way that benefits yourself, or move in a way that blocks your opponents. I think the best example of this is Abalone in which you feel like two sumo wrestlers attempting to move each other. However, in Jumpin, I rarely felt like what I did affected my opponent. Yes, he was able to jump over any of my pawns that I moved, so I would occasionally have to make sure that I did not help him with my movement. A few times I could even block a move that he was planning to make. For the most part, though, you will only be jumping over your own pieces, he will jump over his, and you will see who managed to race to the finish line faster.

Overall, I give Jumpin a 7.5/10. It was quite a pleasant surprise to me that I had received a spatial reasoning game, and I enjoyed playing it.  The slow parts of the game and the fact that I don't really feel like I'm challenging my opponent keep it out of my upper tier of spatial reasoning games, though. (And, it doesn't help that I feel like I get worse at the game the more I play it. I can't really understand what's going on with that element of it.)

If Jumpin sounds interesting, you might also want to check out Pentago, Ingenious, and Stratum.

Sunrise City Review

I would like to thank my guest reviewer Chris C. for continuing to bring us wonderful reviews such as the following:

Sunrise City is a recent tile-laying game by Clever Mojo Games, who also made the excellent and very popular Alien Frontiers.  Tile laying is a widely-used mechanic, appearing in games as diverse as Taluva and Eclipse.  The giant of the genre is certainly Carcassonne, and Sunrise City draws on this lineage while adding some neat new ideas.

A game of Sunrise City is played over 3 rounds, each divided up into four phases.  First, players draw zoning and building tiles and pick a unique role that will give them a special power until the next round. In the second phase, players place their zoning tiles on the table, extending the city outward.  Then players bid on the right to build on the empty zones.  Finally, in the building phase, players place their building tiles.  Buildings can either go on zoning tiles that a player has won the right to build on in the bidding phase or on other buildings to create upper floors.  They must always be placed on zones or other buildings that match their color (except for the purple “mixed use” zones and buildings).  The color-matching requirement creates exciting tension as you hope the spots on which you can build will remain available.

Double points for landing on 10

The scoring mechanic is a particular novelty of Sunrise City.  As players earn points, they move up a 10-place track with a star at the top.  Every time a player gets past the star, they earn a star-shaped “benchmark token” and loop around to the bottom.  But a player who lands exactly on the star earns TWO benchmark tokens.  The player with the most benchmark tokens at the end of the game wins, so a large part of the game’s strategy comes from maneuvering to land exactly at the top of the track and “double” your scoring.

Points are scored every time a building is placed, but also in a variety of other ways.  A player can earn points by placing a zoning tile next to another of the same type to create a “district”, by building next to the special “community” tiles, by building odd-numbered upper floors, or by a number of special powers on the role cards.  Managing the various scoring methods to land exactly at 10 points is a fun challenge.

Another wonderful aspect of this game is its components.  The building tiles are the thickest pieces of cardboard I’ve ever seen in a game, and give you the feel of building a city in three dimensions.  The pieces for bidding are thick wooden poker chips and the game includes large black plastic pieces for keeping track of the odd-floor scoring bonus - they look really neat on the city.  Everything is bright and colorful, though there is one problem in that the blue on the buildings doesn’t perfectly match the blue on the zoning tiles.  Happily, the zoning and building tiles also have icons corresponding to the colors.

Building three dimensional cities

I do have one complaint about this game, which is the amount of luck.  Depending on the tiles you are dealt, it simply may not be possible to get to exactly 10 points, potentially giving your opponents a major advantage.  Luck can be a problem with any number of players.  In the first round of one 3-player game, I drew two all-green building tiles, but there was only one green zone on the entire board.  I ended up having to discard the tiles and miss this major point-scoring opportunity.  In games with 4-players, there are more opportunities for scoring on any given turn, but it’s very hard to plan for landing on 10 points across multiple turns because your opponents will often cause you to score points during their turns.  Since landing exactly at 10 points is so important, it would be nice to have more control over the scoring.

Despite the luck problem, I found this to be a very fun game.  Looking for the best place to play your buildings on the city provides a neat puzzle every turn.  And the game plays very quickly, often in less than 45 minutes with folks who have played before.  In such a quick game with so many fun parts, the amount of luck is probably forgivable.  It certainly feels more strategic than tile-laying
classics like Carcassonne, especially since you draw 4 zoning tiles and 4 building tiles at the beginning of each turn, allowing for a little more planning.  And building a large city in three dimensions is very satisfying.

Overall, I think this is a nice game.  It’s the best game I’ve played that uses tile laying as a central mechanic.  If you like tile laying or are looking for a light-weight strategy game and don’t mind a bit of luck, you should definitely check it out.
7.5/10

If Sunrise City sounds interesting, you might also check out Architekton, Carcassonne, and Cityscape.

I would like to thank Clever Mojo Games for providing a review copy of Sunrise City.

Legacy: Gears of Time Review

So, when I asked about time travel games on Twitter, my feed instantly became the Legacy: Gears of Time fan club. So... well, so I decided that I needed to try it!

In Legacy: Gears of Time, each player represents a time architect that is attempting to invent and influence various technologies.  The caveat is that many technologies depend on other technologies existing - for example, you cannot have the Internet without having Electricity.  And so, influencing a technology that cannot possibly exist due to a historical contradiction is useless.  The game consists of four rounds, with each round consisting of four turns per player.  On each turn, you are allowed to take three actions.  The actions can be moving back in time, drawing a card (you actually draw two and keep one), inventing a new technology, or adding influence to an existing technology.  At the end of the round, everyone checks to see what historical contradictions occur - which technologies were "invented" multiple times, which ones are missing dependencies, and which ones have no influence.  After checking this (and removing technologies as appropriate), players score points for each technology in which they have the most influence.  And, each technology that is an immediate prerequisite for another technology scores again if the dependent technology scores.  (For example, if the Internet scores, then the person that has the most influence on Electricity gets to score Electricity again.)  Then, the influence on the technologies deteriorates, all the players go back to the "present" time, and you play another round.  Whoever has the most points at the end of the fourth round wins the game!

One of those Basic Tools is a fake!

The first pro that I found for Legacy: Gears of Time are the historical contradictions.  And, more specifically, how you are able to "affect" other players with these.  (Yes, "affect" is the polite way of saying that you smack them in the face, steal their points, and then laugh.  Laugh!!!)  For example, if someone decides to invent Flight, then they are going to get several points of influence.  And, if Space Flight is also invented, then Flight is suddenly one of the most valuable technologies in the game.  However, if the player that invented Flight was not careful, then they might have inadvertently stolen credit!  Because, really, I invented Flight in the era right before you "invented" Flight!  And so your "Flight" is a fake!  Ok, so I may have gotten a bit side-tracked reliving some memories.  Either way, it is really fun to play an invention in an era earlier than where that invention currently exists - thus forcing the other invention to be destroyed.  And (something I didn't mention earlier) after each round the eras are all allowed to hold one more invention.  So, the game encourages you to do this.

The next pro that I have for Legacy is that the influence on inventions (or "technologies" if you listen to the rule book) deteriorates.  And, most fundamental inventions don't have much influence on them when you build them.  This combination normally results in a mass chaos around round three in which most of the prerequisite inventions exist but without influence - and so, if nobody places influence on these inventions, then all of the better inventions are going to fail.  This makes for some very interesting choices as you decide which of your inventions are most important, and thus which prerequisites are vital to your success.  Or, if you don't have any of the later inventions, then you have to decide whether you want to influence some of the prerequisites (thus scoring a decent number of points but helping other players) or whether you want to use large piles of influence to steal credit for later inventions.

Speaking of influence, my third pro for Legacy is how the Influence Pool works.  To start the game, you have two influence in your pool.  These are the only influence that you can spend on the "place influence on an existing technology" action.  However, at the end of each round, when influence deteriorates, the player with the most influence on each successful technology puts the deteriorated influence in his Influence Pool.  (Only the person with the most influence has one removed, and influence from contradictions and from failed technologies don't go to the Influence Pool.)  Having a lot of influence available in your Influence Pool is very helpful, as it gives you flexibility with your actions - to steal credit for technologies, or to claim all of the useful prerequisites.  So, you are further rewarded for controlling successful technologies.  And, building a lot of fundamental technologies (instead of just a few advanced technologies) helps you in more than just total points.  I thought that this was a really nice mechanic that made the game play very smoothly.

The final pro that I will mention about Legacy is that I like that you can only move backwards on the timeline.  (And then, at the end of the round, you return to Present Day.)  At first, I was really uncertain about this mechanic, but as I played the game more, I really saw why it was very important.  It forces you to plan out what you intend to do in the round before actually performing any actions.  And, if you don't plan this out, then you generally won't be able to build any of the more advanced technologies.  And yet, never being able to move forward adds an element of "chicken" to the game, where several players might stay in the present and draw cards, waiting to see who will move first - and what era they will move to.  After all, you don't want to move back two eras and build Flight, just to see another time architect move back three eras and invent the same thing!

A general timeline

With all that is right with Legacy: Gears of Time, one element of the game I'm still a bit uncertain about - so I will list it as a "point of note."  This would be fate cards.  Fate cards can be incredibly powerful.  Many of them can be worth around 10-15 points if they are played correctly.  One fate card allows a technology to ignore a specific prerequisite.  This can make it much easier to score one of the advanced technologies like Space Flight or Genetics.  Another fate card can move a time architect backwards or forwards one era on the timeline; this can be used to prevent an architect from adding influence to a critical technology - potentially costing them that technology and the one it depends on.  (This can be over 20 points total!)  So, the fate cards are incredibly powerful, and they add a bit of a "randomness" factor to the game.  I think that if there were more of them, then the game might grow a bit too chaotic - whereas less of them might make the game a bit too rigid.  But, overall, I'm not really sure how I feel about this element.

And, now that I've convinced you that Legacy: Gears of Time is a great game, I guess it's time to balance that out a bit with some cons.  First, if someone in your game really wants to calculate the best move at all times, then the game will slow down to a crawl.  There are a lot of decisions to be made, and there is enough open information that, if someone wanted to, they could generally determine the best choice.  For example, you can determine if it is more valuable to take credit for one of the specific prerequisites, and if so, which one.  Or, should you add a new technology.  Should you re-invent a prerequisite earlier in the timeline in order to take control of it?  And, with all of this - which one?  If you want to calculate this, then you have to look through all of the cards in the timeline, calculate up how many of them depend on that technology, and then repeat for the next one.  And, while doing this, you have to factor in how many points you are giving to other players by allowing their advanced technology (or technologies) to score.  Basically, there is enough going on that it can cause someone to unwittingly take drastically long turns if they are not intentionally trying to keep the game moving.

Some sweet technology!

The next con is somewhat similar.  With all that is going on, scoring can be a bit fiddly.  First, you have to determine which technologies are successful.  Then, you have to check which ones are duplicated and remove them.  Then, when scoring, you have to remember who controls each of the prerequisites, so that they can get points also.  Then you have to deteriorate influence on everything, and make sure that those influence go back to the supply or to their owner's Influence Pool as appropriate.  With practice, this element of the game will become a bit easier.  But, some beginner advice will be - have only one person sticking their hand into the timeline.  Have that person take off all of the duplicate technologies, then take all the Influence off of the failed technologies, and then off of the successful ones.  This will help avoid questions like "did <my technology that I'm point to> get its influence removed yet?"

Overall, I give Legacy: Gears of Time an 8.5/10.  I was quite pleasantly surprised with this game, and, with multiple plays, I think that the cons will shrink, just leaving a bunch of pros.  If you're looking for a game with interesting time travel mechanics, then you should definitely check it out.

If Legacy: Gears of Time sounds interesting, you might also check out ARC and Innovation.

I would like to thank Floodgate Games for providing me with a review copy of Legacy: Gears of Time.