Category: Interesting Stuff

Codenames

Vlaada Chvatil is the smartest game making person in the world. One day he woke up and decided to make the best word game of all time and by the end of the day he had (that’s may not be true but I like to believe it is). Two teams will race to figure out their words on a 5*5 grid. On each team is a spymaster who can see the words they need to get on a card. Taking turns they will say one word and one number. The word relates to other words on the grid and the number is how many words it relates to. There is also an ‘assassin’ word, if your team says that, you lose automatically. Brilliant game for every age.

Dixit

Players take it in turn to be a storyteller From a hand of six the makes up a sentence and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). Each other player selects the card in their hands which best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles all the cards reveals them and everyone has to guess which was the storytellers card. The twist – if nobody or everybody finds the correct card, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score. In other words the storyteller can’t be too vague, but neither can they be too specific!

Concept

Its kind of like charades on a board. There’s a point scoring system but most people don’t bother with it. There are a tonne of symbols on the board that could represent multiple things. By placing your tokens on the board you try to link ideas together to make the concept on the card you draw. If the concept on the card is pretty tough then you break it down into smaller concepts. Excellent left side of the brain activity and lots of fun to boot.

Pictomania

A drawing game in which everyone is both drawing and guessing at the same time, giving a chance for those who excel only at one or the other skill to crush other players. Over five rounds you set up six randomly drawn cards on card racks visible to all players with seven related words on a single side. Each player receives one symbol card and one number card, which together indicate which word or phrase on the revealed cards that player must draw. Players simultaneously look at their cards and start to draw. While drawing, they can also watch what others are doing and place a guess card on that player’s stack. Only one guess per player is allowed, and once you make a guess, you can’t change your mind. Other players will ideally be playing guess cards on your stack, too. One by one, players reveal what they were drawing and the guesses that others made. Those who guess your word earn points, with early guessers earning more points, while those who guess incorrectly have their card placed in the center of the table. Once all the guesses are resolved, you determine the black sheep – the player who made the worst guesses who receives negative points. You also lose points for every person who didn’t guess your word. Confused? Don’t worry, once you get it, its amazing and its also by Vlaada Chvatil, did I mention that guy’s a genius, I guess this was his best drawing game ever day!

Time’s Up!

40 Cards, divide them up between everyone who looks at their cards (yes you see some answers). Sort yourself into teams and take 30 second turns trying to get your team mates to get the people/titles on the cards by saying anything (except rhyming or the words on the card). Some are easy, some deliberately obscure to make you use roundabout descriptions to get them. You can’t pass either and if you don’t get it, the next team will tackle the same card until someone gets it. Next round you can only say one word, but can act. However, you use the same cards as the first round. Final round, equals only acting, but again, the same cards. The genius of the game is the in-jokes it creates as people use the terrible description someone did in the first round to get their team to say the answer in the later rounds as opposed to the obvious one. I have laughed to the point of crying playing this one.

Spyfall

See here for full description of its awesomeness.

Warning, this post contains some rude stuff. Christmas is around the corner and everyone likes to have a glass of sherry and get a bit silly with a game. I know Cards against Humanity exists, but so do you, so here are some alternatives. Isn’t it amazing how predominant black and white features in these games???

Crabs Adjust Humidity

Its Cards Against Humanity, but with new all new cards (an unofficial expansion, which when you buy the omniclaw pack, just happens to have enough cards to be a CaH base set!)

Personally Incorrect

Its almost Cards Against Humanity, but you will insert a person at the tables name into the question…to make it personal!

Superfight

From their hands 2 players will take a character and an attribute and then argue why their dude would win the fight. Others vote on who they think should win. There are also four alternate ways to play included. Expansions galore, an R-Rated deck, Anime deck, Walking Dead deck, Geek deck plus a bunch of others.

Moral Dilemma

This game is more a discussion tool, one person reads the card, votes and then everyone else discusses and votes. See if the original person agreed with the majority or is to be a social outcast.

Snake Oil

You take turns being a character (cheerleader, football player, rock star etc…), everyone else takes two item cards and puts them together to make a product which they then pitch to you with a 30 second spiel. The character picks the one they like the best.

Funemployed

Similar to Snake Oil, except you are applying for a job and create a set of 4 qualifications you need to justify as useful things with which to get the job in a 30 second interview.

Telestrations/Telestrations After Dark

Its a posh version of the ‘Telephone Game.’ Everyone gets a phrase/word, draws it in 60 seconds, passes it to the next player who guesses the word and passes it on to be drawn again. See what the result is.

Telestrations after Dark is the same with rude words.

Anomia

Each player draws a card in turn with a symbol and word (e.g. colour, fish, street name), as soon as two symbols match at the table, the two players involved must say something from the other persons card (e.g. fish would be salmon, colour would be red). First to say it gets the other persons card. Funny because thinking fastunder pressure makes your brain go #@#%#^@$!!!

Some expansions to  games are great, others you buy and then barely ever play. In general the Ticket to Ride expansions fall into the former category. Which to pick is tricky and I will often find customers gazing in a fairly bemused manner trying to decide which one to get. Hopefully these next few words will help clarify your choices. I’ll give a general opinion on how good the board game World feels they are (as opposed to my own opinion), but mostly stick to telling you what they give you.

There are three general types of  TTR expansions:

• Card expansions
• Map expansions
• Other stuff expansions

To play the maps you need TTR: USA or TTR: Europe. TTR: Nordic Countries and Marklin only give you enough trains for 3 or 4 players respectively, so bear that in mind when buying a base set.

TTR USA – 1910: It adds 30 new Big City destination tickets, and replacement larger train cards. Also 4 mystery train tickets. This one is OK, to be honest, why after 10 years they still sell the base game with the tiny cards, when all the other base sets have large ones is beyond me. Some feel the expansion tickets fix the problem of the base game, so that building in the West is relevant again because more tickets go there.

TTR Europe – 1912: Similar to the 1910 one. More tickets and slight variants of how to play. It also includes the Warehouse module, which allows you to put houses on the board, which when you build tickets to them allows you to collect extra train cards. Again, if you want more variety in the tickets its worth getting if not then it doesn’t add a lot more.

TTR – Asia Map: This is a double sided map and the most expensive of them all. It adds trains for a 6th player and card rails for team play. One side of the board allows for 6 players and a special rule twist. There are routes that penalize you a train for each spot you build on, they are placed in the corner of the board. Each train you have there at the end of the game is worth -2pts. The other side is a 2 vs 2 only board. You have a communal hand/routes which you use the card rail for as well as your own cards and routes. You win if your combined score with your partner is greater than your opponents. This one is excellent as it gives you two very new ways to play the game, especially the 2 vs 2 twist.

TTR – India/Switzerland Map: The India board was a winner of a fan contest to design a map. It only plays to 4 people and offers a couple of new ways to score points through connecting cities on multiple tickets. The Swiss map is a 2-3 player only board. Many of its tickets instead of going from city to city, go from country to country or country to city by linking routes to France, Germany and Italy. Its a very tight map and great if you only play as a couple because it offers the tension that USA and Europe with 4 or 5 players would offer as the competition for space heats up.

TTR – Africa Map: this is a normal 2-5 player single sided map. The tweak is the terrain cards which are a separate pile of cards similar to train cards which you can draw as well.  Under certain conditions you can use these cards to double the value of the routes you build. This one is a little cheaper than the rest and adds a nice variant to the game by forcing you stick to the more populated coastal areas or dive into the middle where routes are tighter but more valuable

TTR – Netherlands Map: Money, money, money,  MONEY. Every route on the single sided board is a double which are both always used no matter the number of players. To build anywhere you must pay 1-4 coins. The first player to build on a route pays the bank. The second player to build on a route pays the first player who went there. You start with 30 coins, if you run out of cash you must take a loan, which costs you 5 pts at the end of the game if you can’t pay it back. Another good one, there really isn’t a bad map expansion to be fair 🙂

TTR – UK/Pennsylvania: Woah, this one takes TTR to the next level. UK involves a kind of technology tree. You start only able to build 1 or 2 train routes. By spending wild cards you acquire new technologies that give you the ability to build longer routes, go over water etc…madness. Pennsylvania now brings in stocks. There are a variety of companies that you can gain stocks in. Some only have to 2 shares, other up to 15. If have have the most shares in a company at the end of the game you get bonus points, with more points going to the companies with the most shares. To acquire these you claim certain routes on the board, so no more holding onto lots of cards to see what everyone is doing, you need to get on the board quick to start claiming the shares, while also trying to get your routes as well….mind blown!

TTR – Alvin and Dexter Monster Expansion: Two little monsters stomp around the board being a pain in the bum. These monsters stymie players both during the game and once it ends. During play, no routes can be built into or out of a city where Alvin or Dexter are currently nesting, and during the final score tallying, any destination ticket showing a city where either monster stands is worth only half its normal value. Spend wilds to move them around the board. Can be played with any of the boards. A silly, but cheap and cheerful one.

TTR – the dice expansion: rather than draw and collect Train cards, you roll five custom Train dice each turn. Depending on the outcome you can re-roll some or all, then use the dice to claim routes on the board; grab route tokens for future use; or draw more destination tickets. Its tough to find this one, but its the least popular of the expansions, so no huge loss.

 

Essen aka ‘The Spiel’ is the biggest game fair in the World. Over 700 games are released there every year, to flood the market for Christmas time and beyond. Its really tough for customers and retailers to try and pick out the ones they think will be hot from such a crowded market. Here are a few that are rising to the top as well as a couple that are about to be released that had nothing to do with Essen at all.

Above and Below

A worker placement game combined with a story telling element. Above you ground you assign your workers to build rooms, get resources and to generally get smarter to make the best village. Below ground you explore caverns and will read paragraphs explaining what has happened to you as you do this and the options available, with certain risks and rewards. Beautiful art and a very original concept.

T.I.M.E Stories

I’m going to let the Publisher explain this one as its even more unique than the last one and also even prettier!:
T.I.M.E Stories is a narrative game, a game of “decksploration”. Each player is free to give their character as deep a “role” as they want, in order to live through a story, as much in the game as around the table. But it’s also a board game with rules which allow for reflection and optimization. At the beginning of the game, the players are at their home base and receive their mission briefing. The object is then to complete it in as few attempts as possible. The actions and movements of the players will use Temporal Units (TU), the quantity of which depend on the scenario and the amount of players. Each attempt is called a “run”; one run equals the use of all of the Temporal Units at the players’ disposal. When the TU reach zero, the agents are recalled to the agency, and restart the scenario from the beginning, armed with their experience. The object of the game is to make the perfect run, while solving all of the puzzles and overcoming all of a scenario’s obstacles. The base box contains the entirety of the T.I.M.E Stories system and allows players to play all of the scenarios, the first of which — Asylum — is included. During a scenario, which consists of a deck of 120+ cards, each player explores cards, presented most often in the form of a panorama. Access to some cards require the possession of the proper item or items, while others present surprises, enemies, riddles, clues, and other dangers. You usually take possession of local hosts to navigate in a given environment, but who knows what you’ll have to do to succeed? Roam a med-fan city, looking for the dungeon where the Syaan king is hiding? Survive in the Antarctic while enormous creatures lurk beneath the surface of the ice? Solve a puzzle in an early 20th century asylum? That is all possible, and you might even have to jump from one host to another, or play against your fellow agents from time to time…In the box, an insert allows players to “save” the game at any point, to play over multiple sessions, just like in a video game. This way, it’s possible to pause your ongoing game by preserving the state of the receptacles, the remaining TU, the discovered clues, etc. T.I.M.E Stories is a decksploring game in which each deck makes anything possible!

504

That’s right 504 games in one. The game is divided into 9 modules, and to play you select 3 of them which will determine the theme, play mechanics and winning conditions. A flip book is used to explain how each set works. Modules consist of the following:

Module 1: Pick-Up & Deliver
Module 2: Race
Module 3: Privileges
Module 4: Military
Module 5: Exploration
Module 6: Roads
Module 7: Majorities
Module 8: Production
Module 9: Shares

Its an epic idea and the fact he (Friedemann Freese) got it to work is stunning.

7 Wonders Duel

This is probably going to be the best selling game from Essen. Its a 2 player only version of 7 Wonders which uses many of the ideas of the original game, but not the main one. No card drafting occurs, players take from a display of face-down and face-up cards arranged at the start of a round. A player can take a card only if it’s not covered by any others. Players now trade with the bank and as they get dominance in a resource the cost rises for their opponent. A player can win 7 Wonders Duel in one of three ways. Each time that you acquire a military card, you advance the military marker toward your opponent’s capital, giving you a bonus at certain positions. If you reach the opponent’s capital, you win the game immediately. Similarly, if you acquire any six of seven different scientific symbols, you achieve scientific dominance and win immediately. If neither of these situations occurs, then the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The Big Book of Madness

Bored magic students open a book they shouldn’t and release a bunch of nasty monsters. A co-operative game in which you must build your element deck to acquire spells and cards to help your fellow players, all the while trying to fight of the monsters who are slowly driving you MAAAAAAAAAAD!

Epic

Magic the Gathering on steroids! Its not a CCG, but you will be able to expand it. You only get to play ridiculously powerful cards and don’t need the manna to do it either. Its from the people who brought you Star Realms, but its not Magic, so please don’t play it as such or you’ll be sad.

Mombasa

The big Euro of Essen that is slowly climbing to the top of the pile. In Mombasa, players acquire shares of chartered companies based in Mombasa, Cape Town, Saint-Louis, and Cairo and propagate trading posts of these companies throughout the African continent in order to earn the most money. Mombasa features a unique, rotating-display hand-mechanism that drives game play. Each round players choose action cards from their hand, then reveal them simultaneously and carry out the actions. These cards are then placed in a discard pile, and the previously played cards recovered for the subsequent round. Each company has a double-sided company track, so games will vary quite a lot based on which tracks are revealed and at which companies they are placed.

Coming to the cafe in a big group? No idea of what to play and don’t want to end up playing Cards Against Humanity or the Resistence again? Well here is a list of great games that will play upwards of 8 and rated by difficulty to get going with. I’ve ignored some of the more popyular games such as Dixit, Concept and Avalon as they are already fairly well known.

Difiiculty Rating (DR):

1 – Two minutes to read the rules and get going
3 – This may take 10 mins of rules reading to get going with
5 – Best to have already read the rules at home before you get here

Cash and Guns

(4-8 Players, DR = 3)

Its a Mexican Standoff. A bunch of loot is in the middle of the table and everyone is going to point guns at each other to try and get them to back down. You can’t load your gun with a bullet every time though. The question is, who’s bluffing?

Saboteur

(3-13 Players, DR = 3)

You are laying tunnel cards trying to find a route to the gold as a team, but some of you are trying to prevent it. But who? Be too obvious and everyone will bust your stuff to hinder your turns, subtlety is the key.

Time’s Up

(4-9 Players, DR = 2)

Try to get your team mates to name the person on the card, then do it again with one word, then just acting. The names are always the same every round, but the means of communicating change.

Walking Dead Card Game

(3-10 Players, DR = 2)

Simultaneous play makes this game great, plus only 15 mins long. You are laying number cards to try and not put the 6th card in the row and take points. 10 rounds. No, its not very walking dead ish, but still very good.

Good Cop Bad Cop

(3-8 Players, DR = 2)

You are secretly a Good or Bad Cop. One team member is the FBI dude or the Kingpin. If that person is shot your team loses. You slowly deduce who is who by revealing their Good/Bad Cop cards in front of them, however everyone has three, so just because their first revealed card is good doesn’t mean the other two arn’t bad…

Bang the Dice Game

(3-8 Players, DR = 2)

Similar idea to Good Cop Bad Cop, but your actions are determined by dice. The game play is more streamlined than the card version and it only takes 30 mins.

Space Cadets Dice Duel

(4-8 Players, DR = 5)

2 Space ships battle to the death. Two teams. Each one has a captain who assigns limited action dice to the different stations on the ship that control guns/movement/shields etc… You have to work as a team to fight the other ship and the captain has to decide who gets what and when. Its involves a lot of people shouting.

Wits and Wagers

(4-20 Players, DR = 1)

Ask a question that involves a number answer. We all give our guesses, then bet on each others answers getting paid out for whichever was closest.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

(3-10 Players,DR = 2)

Everyone gets a role which enables a bit of information then we try and figure out who the werewolf is. One guess. Get it right you win, get it wrong the werewolf does. 10 mins a round = awesome.

Spyfall

(3-8 Players, DR = 2)

See review here.

I Hate Zombies

(3-13 Players, DR = 1)

Half of your are human the other half are Zombies. Play Rock/Paper/Scissors to fight each other. The humans all have special powers though. Keep going to You’ve killed all the Zombies or all the humans have been turned. You’ll never play more RPS in the space of 10 mins in your life.