Spiel : Boardgames in the UK

We tried out this Reiner Knizia game published by Playroom Entertainment last night. It turned out to be quite a bit more thinky than I had expected. On your turn, there are lots of places to play and you want to be sure that you’re not setting someone else up to freeze you out of claiming a tile. And the scoring has got that typical Knizia wonkiness that gives you even more to try and work out. We quite enjoyed it and Chris managed to pip me on the tie-break for the win by a single artefact symbol.

The Easy Play line of games from Schmidt Spiele is becoming a great series of short, light family games and I’ve yet to find a dud in the ones I’ve tried. Big Points, Los Banditos, Burgen Land and Finito are all really fun and now the latest addition, Level X by Stefan Risthaus, keeps that good run going.

If I were to draw a parallel, it would be with the old Sid Sackson game, Choice, which is great both as a solitaire or multi-player solitaire game. Level X adds a bit more interaction and competition to the mix. A player on his turn rolls four dice and then combines these to make one or more groups that total between 5 and 10 pips. The board shows for each number a series of spaces at the end of which is an X space. So if you group the dice to make a 5 and a 7, you move your marker one space along each of the 5 and 7 paths. Some turns later, if you move a marker onto the X space, you knock any marker occupying that space off and gain a VP token. On subsequent turns, if your marker is still there and you choose to group your dice to make that number again, you continue to gain VP tokens every time you score that number - a big incentive for your opponents to race down that path and knock you off. Each number has a limited supply of VP tokens and when three sets of the tokens has gone the game ends. There are also 4 bonus tiles that can be gained if you collect a set of VP tokens for each number 5-10 and these can prove critical if you manage to grab one, although everyone else is likely to try to freeze you out of at least one number to prevent that happening. The whole thing is wrapped up in 20-30 minutes.

Jan, Chris and I tried it for the first time yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. The game came down to which of Chris and I could gain the last 9 VP token. Chris needed it to stop me getting a 15 point bonus tile but was unlucky to roll numbers that didn’t add up to 9. Next turn, I did and was able to empty the 9 VP token pile, making three piles empty, and claiming the bonus tile. I won by 15 points. Good stuff.

Last night, Jan and I had an enjoyable game of Zahltag, a 30 minute card game about fulfilling building contracts, designed by Franz-Benno Delonge and released by Ravensburger.

Players employ up to 10 in total of four different types of workers, whom they are hoping to utilise on building contracts. Each turn, a card is turned over from the contracts deck and normally it reveals a building contract that requires a specific combination of workers to fulfil the job. Players then examine their hand of worker cards and secretly bid how much they require to be paid to complete the job. The lowest bid gets the job, receives immediate payment, and sets aside the workers needed for that job. These are then tied up until the start of your second subsequent turn, meaning your ability to meet the requirements of contracts arising in the meantime is more limited. Working out when only you are able to fulfil the worker requirements is key here as then you can demand the maximum Eu 8m payout. Mixed into the contract deck are six payday cards, at which point all those players with more unemployed workers than the person with fewest unemployed need to pay Eu 1m per excess worker. Once the fifth payday card is revealed and dealt with, whoever has the most money wins.

The game plays pretty well with two and turns move along very quickly. I suspect the game would play better with three or four players as the bidding would be that bit more competitive. As it was, Jan surprised me by accumulating more cash than me by game-end, as I had thought I’d been a bit ahead of her most of the way through. However, we both enjoyed the game and both rated it a 7.

Jan and I played Jaipur on Sunday, a fabulous card game by Sebastian Pauchon and published by GameWorks. Lots of tricky decisions about when to collect camels, exchange goods and how quickly to cash the goods in for treasure tokens. Best of three rounds means games last about 20-30 minutes. I really enjoyed this a lot.

Played this follow-up to Pillars of the Earth with Chris yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. Working out the best way to generate points was interesting and the perm six from twelve actions each round was novel. Chris did the better job as he scored loads of points by building up his medical knowledge and curing several villages from the plague. Ended up 65-56 to him. Interested to see how it plays with four as there should be more competition for building projects.

Played a couple of games of this neat little card game designed by Leo Colovini and published by Rio Grande. It is a set collection game that feels like gin rummy but the tavern adds an extra element of tension because, if somebody changes the prisoner colour you were playing for, it can wreak havoc with your hand. And the penalty for setting sail without the fewest stowaways is pretty harsh so you need to watch how other people seem to be doing before risking a declaration. I’ve only played two player but that works well and I suspect, with more players, there is a bit more chaos and setting sail is more risky. The only downside is that I have tended to declare early (and usually successfully) and Jan has found it a bit frustrating when she has been seeking to improve her hand just a little bit more. Hopefully, it hasn’t put her off too much.

Played this again the other night with Jan and Chris. I’m still not sure about this one. I like the ideas behind it and the multiple areas you need to play in but I’m not sure if it gets hindered by the randomness of how long each round lasts. This time, we had a long first epoch, the second was so short none of us got to re-flood our Niles and the third was somewhere in between.

Finale is a game I’ve had for years and have never managed to play it…until now. It is one of the classic Kosmos two-player range. Each player has a similar set of player cards and sets out 11 players in their choice of formation. They also have a set of tactic cards and on each of the six turns, players choose a tactic card and compare the values. The higher value attacks with a combination of players as shown on the tactic card and the defender picks players to defend. Dice rolls are added to the strength of each side and if the attacker breaks through on goal, a similar process establishes whether a goal is scored. each turn represents 15 minutes of play so after six turns, the final whistle is blown and whoever has scored more goals wins. However, if it is tied, extra time is played over two further turns and if then still tied, penalties ensue.

Chris and I played tried this tonight and had a good time as it was pretty close throughout. Chris took the lead in the opening minutes but I soon equalised and managed a second just before the half time whistle. Into the second half and I was reduced to ten men following a cynical foul on Chris’s goalkeeper, who had to be substituted. He then marched down the pitch and made the extra man tell and tie the scores at 2-2. Mid way through the second half, Chris took the lead while the bad luck for goalies continued and my keeper got injured and had to be replaced. With whistles from Chris’s crowd for the final whistle resounding around the ground, I managed a counter-attack in the closing minutes and put the ball in the net to make the score 3-3 after 90 minutes. The opening half of extra time was an ugly affair and Chris’s team was also reduced to ten men but he did sneak a critical goal. My team tried everything to get the equaliser but with time running out, I was reduced to nine players after one of my defenders received a second yellow card. Chris managed to play out the remaining minutes and recorded a good win 4-3.

Four of us tried this Amigo card game designed by Rudiger Dorn tonight. It played ok but was a bit long for what it was.

Basically, at any one time, there were four treasures up for grabs, some of which gave positive points and some negative (although the negatives could be turned to positive by subsequently winning an identical negative card). From your hand of four treasure cards, you play a single card in either your or an opponent’s colour against one treasure. You also can play an action card, which essentially alters the normal rules and either helps you or hinders someone else. After a certain number of cards have been allocated to a particular treasure, it scores for the person with the most points of their colour placed against the card. Once all the treasure cards have been won, the person with the most net positive points wins.

Once we got into the swing of what we were trying to do, the game ran reasonably smoothly but there didn’t seem to be too much forward planning one could do. Each turn was basically optimising a gain for yourself or hitting somebody else. For a quick card game, it seemed to take a bit too long overall but, with four, there didn’t seem too much downtime between turns.

In our game, Rebecca and I seemed to be trading blows to knock each other down, although Jan was definitely doing her best to make sure I didn’t prosper. In the end, Catherine edged the win, although Rebecca did really well in transforming her negative cards into positive points and only ended up one point behind the winner.

Last night, Jan and I tried this new card game by Phil Harding and published by Z-Man Games. I was pretty impressed as it plays really well, has a good theme to tempt non-gamers and is all wrapped up in 30 minutes. The fact that it won best Australian game in 2008 does not surprise me (although it probably didn’t have too much in the way of competition).

Our game went right down to the wire with Jan winning by a single point: 106-105.