Tales From the Loop: The Board Game Review

Tales From the Loop: The Board Game is a game by Martin Takaichi and Rickard Antroia, published by Free League Publishing. It is for 1-5 players. In this game, players take on the role of kids living in the 80’s in a strange world brought on by the construction of a particale accelerator called the Loop. They will go about living their daily lives meeting up with friends and family and going to school all while trying to uncover mysteries and secrets from this strange world. In the end, the players will succeed or fail together as a team. If they’re able to fufill the win conditions of the scenario before their time is up, they will be declared the winners.

To begin, the board is placed in the middle of the play area. The Insight and Enigma dials in the top right corner of the board are both set to 0. The Calendar token is placed on the Week 1 Monday space of the calendar. Players choose their character and take the corresponding Character Board and Trait Tile. The Trait Tile is placed in it’s slot on the Character Board, face up with the side that corresponds to the number of characters in the game. Players also take the corresponding character standee and 6 Time cubes. Players will then place a Favor cube on the Smiley face space of their Character Board’s Favor track. Players take their Iconic item from the Item deck that is listed on their Character Board. The deck is then shuffled and placed near the board. Players will then choose a scenario to play. It is recommended for the first play through to begin with the Bot Amok! scenario. The chosen scenario card is used as a reference during setup. As noted on this card, the machine figures and Event location tiles are placed on the board, using the grid. The corresponding machine sheets for the machine figures are placed dear the board with the standard response card on the designated space of the sheet. If a machine starts nearby an open location, then the response card is placed with the Routine side up. If the location nearby is not open, then the Alert side is placed face up. The Diary cards with the corresponding numbers as shown on the scenario cards are placed near the board with the red A side face up. The deck of remaining Diary cards are placed nearby. The Rumor cards have a symbol in the middle of the card that will match the symbols on the scenario card. These specific cards are shuffled together and placed in a stack on the draw space of the Rumor track. Rumor cards that are not mentioned on the scenario card are returned to the box. The School cards are shuffled together and placed on the corresponding space on the board. The Firewall tokens are placed facedown near the board. Rumor cards are drawn from the Rumor deck and placed face down on the Rumor track beginning with the first space. If there are any duplicate letter Rumor cards drawn, then they are set aside until there are four different lettered Rumor cards on the board. The cards that were set aside are then shuffled back into the Rumor deck. The Rumor tokens are placed on all the locations on the board that match the letters of the Rumor cards. Each player will then draw two Chore cards and keep one of them. The other is returned to the deck. The Chore cards and the Anomaly cards are shuffled separately and placed near the board. The Character standees are placed at the school ol location M. Any other tokens, cubes and cards from the box that are needed should be placed within reach. The first player is chosen and play now begins.

The game is played over a series of rounds. Each round is represented by a day on the calendar. Each round is divided into 3 phases; the School phase, the Adventure phase and the End phase. The first phase is the School phase. This phase is divided into preparations, the school day and machine actions. The first part of the phase is preparations. The players start off by reading the currently active Diary card so that players understand any effects for the round. Players will then replenish time by returning time cubes from their action space to the pool beside their character boards. Any Rumor cards that are currently left on the board are slid to the right to make space for new ones. If the scenario is played over 2 weeks and the current day is Monday of week 2, then each player draws two new chores cards and chooses one to keep. To start the School Day, if it’s a week day, all character standees are returned to the school at location M. The first player then draws a School card. As long as this isn’t the first round, then the player will draw a number of Rumor cards as shown on the top left section of the School card. The cards are placed face down onto the Rumor track from left to right. If there are no more spaces to fill then the cards are shifted to the right and will push off any extra. Each discarded card raises the Enigma by 2. The first player will then deal with the event on the School card. The test is mandatory and may allow the player to have help or it may even cause each player to roll the test individually. Finally the machines are dealt with for the round. If the School card has a Firmware Upgrade icon then an upgrade takes effect. Hacked machines are reset and will no longer count as being hacked. If a Firmware Upgrade was in effect or a machine was wrecked in a previous round, then the affected machine returns to play. All firewalls are removed from the firewall track. The machine is placed on it’s starting sector and the response card is set to routine or alert based on if the machine is nearby. If a sector is already occupied by a machine, then the machine is placed on an adjacent sector. Next the player checks for machine movement on the School card. The icons and arrows will show how a machine moves, either 1 or 2 sectors. It should be noted that 2 machines can not stand in the same sector. If a move would cause this to happen, then the machine only moves as far as possible before stopping in an unoccupied sector. As long as the move takes the machine through an occupied sector it can move through another machine. After moving all the machines, the response cards are updated based on the sector they are in. Now players are ready for the next phase.

The second phase is the Adventure phase. In this phase players will use their time cubes to perform actions. To begin this phase the first player checks to see if any requirements are met on the currently active Diary cards. Next player take turns taking actions. There are 3 types of actions; movement, adventure and special. There are 4 types of movement actions. Players can spend 1 time to walk from one location to another adjacent location. Players can take a bus ride between two locations with a bus stop by spending 1 time. The players will have to avoid any machines nearby, more on avoiding machines in a bit. If the player’s character has good favor with their parents, they can call them for a car ride for 1 time. This allows the player to move to any open location on the board. The player must then move the favor token one space down on the track. Finally if the player’s character controls a machine, they can spend a time token to take a machine ride. The machine is placed on a sector nearby the character’s current location. The machine will then move along the grid based on the movement value of the machine sheet. The move must end nearby another location but can pass or land on other machines on the way. Once the destination is reached, the machine and character standees are moved onto that location. Next are the adventure actions. These are scout, investigate, trade and hack. For 1 time, the player can scout a face down Rumor card on the same or an adjacent location or a machine at a nearby sector. Scouting a Rumor card allows the player to flip the card over without triggering it’s effects. Scouting a machine allows the player to place the two leftmost firewalls on the firewall track face up. For 1 time, the player can investigate by performing the test on a Rumor card with the same letter as their current location. If the card has not been scouted, then the player flips the card over and commits to the action immediately, more on tests in a bit. For 1 time, the player can allow all characters at their current location to trade items or anomalies. They’re able to exceed their item limit but will have to discard down during the End phase. Hacking costs a varied amount of time. It is a group action that allows the players to take control of a machine. First all the participating characters must be in a location nearby and spend at least 1 time. The cost to hack is the number of firewall spaces on the machine’s firewall track. The character with the most time invested is the hacker and will take control of the machine if successful. Starting from left to right on the firewall track, If the space has no firewall tokens yet, then a random firewall token is drawn and placed face up on the empty space. The top half of the firewall token is checked if the machine is in the routine mode and the lower half of the token if it is in the alert mode. A hack token is used to keep up with which firewall is currently being targeted and whether it is in routine or alert mode. If the firewall already has a token, or once a token is placed of it then the players will be able to start the hacking action. The color on the firewall indicates what action needs to be taken. The test is made just like with any other test. Other player’s characters can help, use items or combos. Tests can be a single color or tow that both need to be completed from top to bottom before being successful. If the test is successful the players move the Hack token to the next position on the firewall track. Once there are no more firewall tokens, the players have successfully hacked the machine and may use it. If a test is failed, then the machine’s response card becomes alert and the hack token is moved down to the lower section of the same firewall token. This is the new test that must be completed to move on. If the machine is already in the alert mode and the players fail a hack test, then the machine’s response card is check to see how it reacts. The failure affects all characters that participated in the hack attempt. Each player’s character that participated is moved to an adjacent location, moving to open locations if possible. Finally there are the special actions. These are rest and home for dinner. The rest action costs 1 time and allows the player to remove one condition or move the injured time cue one step to the right on their character board. If a time cube is removed from the condition, it is placed in the action space, more on conditions in a bit. The home for dinner actions is used when the player either can’t do anything else or decides they don’t want to do anything else. If the location their character is at is open, it only cost 1 time to go home. If the location is restricted, it takes 2 time. If the character is already at their home location, there is no cost. The character standee is then laid down on the location. This signifies that the kid is at home and is unable to help or participate in any further actions. If the player doesn’t have enough time or chooses to be late, the standee is left standing. The player can still help others with their tests at that location. Once players have spent all their time, the final phase begins.

The last phase is the End phase. In this phase players will perform a series of cleanup steps. They will discard excess items, earn good or bad favor, heal injuries, resolve chores and check diary cards. Starting off each player will discard down to four items, discarding any extras. The character’s iconic item may not be discarded. Any character standees that are lying down are home for dinner and they gain one favor, moving the favor token one place to the left. Any standees standing up are not home in time for dinner and must move their favor token one step to the right. If favor is ever reduced to the frowny face, then the character is grounded and must move 2 time tokens to the grounded spaces. They remain locked until the character’s favor reaches a meh or smiley face. If a character is injured the locked time token is moved one place to the right. If it leaves the last box, then it’s placed in the action space. Players then check to see if any of their current chores have been fulfilled. Successfully completed chores reward the player either immediately or in a later turn, but not later than the chore deadline marked on the calendar. If a player receives items that exceed the item limit, remain until the end phase of the next turn. Finally any Diary cards that refer to cleanup or end phase trigger at this time. Once all this has been taken care of a new round begins.

There are a few last things that should be mentioned. Earlier I mentioned avoiding machines, this is when a character enters a location with a machine nearby. First the player checks the response card to see if a test is required to avoid it. If there is a green check mark, then no test is needed. If a red block or yellow special icon is present, then a test must be made using the trait listed at the top of the card. A successful roll means that the character avoids the machine and no effects are triggered. A failed roll means that the machine’s response takes effect following the failure box on the card. Another thing to mention is insight and enigma. If a player fails at a test from a Rumor card or a Rumor card gets pushed from the Rumor track due to an excess of cards being drawn, then the Enigma track is raised by 1 and 2 points respectively. If the player succeeds at a test from a Rumor card, then the insight is raised by 1. Finally there are tests and the dice pool. A normal test or roll is made up of a dice pool of 3 dice against a particular trait. A number of extra dice are added to the dice pool if the character’s strength is used. Likewise a number of dice are removed from the dice pool when using a character’s weakness. Bonuses to the dice pool can be add by other character’s helping and/or the use of item cards. If a die comes up with a 6, then the test is successful. If not, then the test fail but the player can the result can be pushed. To push, the player takes a condition for their character, placing an unspent time in the slot of a condition of their choosing on their character board. This allows the player to then reroll all the dice in the test. If the test fails then the failure portion of the test from the card is taken.

The game continues until the specific win conditions for the scenario have been met. This is done by following the leads on the Diary cards and investigating rumors. Once the condition(s) has been met, the players win the game. However losing conditions are also determined in the same way. If these conditions are met, then it’s game over and the players lose.

COMPONENTS
This game has a lot to offer as far as components. Pretty much anything that you can think of, this game has. Everything from miniatures and standees to dice, cards and even dual layered player boards. There are plenty of cardboard pieces including rumor tokens, hack tokens, marker tokens, firewall tokens, various scenario specific tokens, trait tiles, event location tiles, a first player token, a calendar token, a magnetrine ship standee and several character standees, as well as the dials that attach to the board for enigma and insight. There are also dual layered character boards that are cardboard as well. The game comes with some wooden pieces. There are orange time cubes, black favor cubes and white counter cubes. There are plastic machine miniatures as well as 8 bright orange dice. There are 6 large machine sheets for each of the miniatures and a bunch of cards in two sizes. There are smaller item and anomaly cards and then the standard sized cards for scenarios, diary cards, school cards, chore cards, rumor cards and machine response cards. Finally there’s the game board. Phew! That’s a lot of stuff. Just looking at that huge list of pieces you’ll realize the box is packed full. The organizer in the box does a great job at keeping everything organized rather nicely. The artwork has this really retro 80’s Stranger Things style vibe to it that I really enjoy. The standees and character boards really help sell that feel too. The miniatures are really great. I noticed that my copy of the game had 2 spaces missing in the organizer that I’m guessing is for the miniatures from the 2 expansions that are available for purchase. The card quality is really good and every piece in this box is top notch quality. Needless to say, I really like the overall look and feel of the game. Like I said, you can definitely feel the theme coming out of this one. It’s really well designed and looks great. I really love it.
9 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The game came with two books included inside; the rulebook and a lore or world book. The lore book explains all about the setting of the game and even gives a timeline of how this world exists. It really helps makes sense of the game for those that care to take the time to read through it. I don’t think it’s necessary reading but it’s really nice to see it included with the game for those that want more on the world. The rulebook is laid out fairly straight forward although there are a few sections here and there that I found myself going back and forth through. I do wish that these parts had been a bit more streamlined so that I wouldn’t have had to flip pages repeatedly. The book is full of great pictures and examples of how to play the game, making it a lot easier to understand. The last page of the book has an alphabetic index of all the major topics so that you can easily look up whatever you need to find. The back of the book has a contents page with each major section of the book highlighted. The book also includes a whole bunch of variant rules for making the game easier or harder as players see fit. Everything from caring parents to erratic firmware for machines is included. I don’t know that I’d be ready to play any of the harder variants right now, but I’m glad that they’re there for when I get brave and decide to give it a whirl. Overall I think the book does a fine job of covering pretty much anything you need to know to play the game. I will say though that there are some key terms and stuff like nearby and avoid and adjacent that I had to read over several times before I fully got what it was trying to tell me. Don’t know if I just wasn’t getting it or it wasn’t explained properly. Either way, you really have to be careful and read everything in the book if you want to play the game correctly. That bothered me a bit but otherwise it was fine. Basically this isn’t one that you’re going to be able to speed read through in a few minutes and start playing the game. It will take some time to get through. Just be prepared.
8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
As a big fan of Stranger Things and story driven games, this game immediately appealed to me when I first discovered it. However I didn’t realize just how much that I would enjoy it. Each scenario literally pulls you into this amazing world that the designers have created. Each new rumor draws your further and further down the rabbit hole, as you try to uncover the mysteries of the scenario. Of course you always have to be aware of where the machines are and what they’re doing so that you don’t get scared or injured. Being able to utilize different items and the correct traits for a particular task are key. That said, there’s a lot to enjoy with this one. With a ton of cards for each scenario, there’s plenty of new stuff to uncover every time you play the game. This makes the game highly replayable in my opinion, as the mixture of cards is going to be different every time. Another thing that makes this replayable is having a bunch of different character with different strengths and weaknesses. My first game I played solo with the Hick and the Bookworm. Thought they’d be a nice mix of characters. Seemed like on all the different videos that I watched, everyone was using the Computer Geek and I simply didn’t want to go that same route. In any event, I had so much fun leading my characters around the board and experiencing all that the game has to offer. I thought it was pretty appropriate that the Hick’s favorite cousin showed up as his first chore to deal with, while the Bookworm was really wanting a transforming toy. Guess they’ve been reading lots of comics or manga. With those first hints of story, I was hooked. The game really came to life for me. Needless to say, I really enjoyed playing this one solo. There’s lots of challenges and it was a lot of fun. Multiplayer was a little slower to play but still enjoyable none the less. My family found it a bit long, but I’ve heard that some of the other scenarios aren’t quite as long as the first one is. So far I’ve only played the first one with other players. I think once I determine the length of each scenario, I’ll be better able to figure out which ones my family would enjoy more. Don’t get me wrong, they did enjoy the game. They just didn’t like that it took so long to play. Still need to try it out with just 2 players, but I’m sure it will be much like playing the solo game, so I’m sure it’s great. Overall I think fans of shows like Stranger Things or that genre will enjoy the game world and mysteries of this one. I also think anyone that enjoys story driven games like Lands of Galzyr, Spire’s End or any others like these, will really enjoy this one as well. The game is family friendly but probably best with teens or older, just because of all the things that you have to keep up with. This is a game that I highly recommend.
9 out of 10

OVERALL
Tales From the Loop: The Board Game is a scenario driven adventure game of exploration and excitement. The game time varies based on the scenario chosen. Most play sessions last from around an hour to two and a half hours. That’s a bit longer than my normal chosen game length, but time goes by quickly so it doesn’t feel like you’ve played that long. The components are amazing quality. There’s really a lot to love here, even without prepainted miniatures. The rulebook is a bit long and takes a bit of time to read through. It also isn’t perfectly streamlined so you’ll find yourself flipping back and forth a good bit. Thankfully there’s a great index at the back of the book. The game itself is a lot of fun. With 7 different scenarios included in the box along with all the variety of cards that you may or may not see during the game and there’s plenty to keep you busy for awhile. The multiplayer game is really good but the solo is top notch. With all the amount of variability and scenarios, the game is highly replayable. It’s also family friendly but I’d recommend playing with teens or older as there is a good bit to keep up with and younger players may become overwhelmed. Fans of Stranger Things or story driven games like Lands of Galzyr or Spire’s End should really enjoy this game. This game is one that I highly recommend. You will definitely enjoy getting lost in the world of the Loop.
9 out of 10

For more information on this and other great games, please check out Free League Publishing at their site.

https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/

Traders & Raiders Review

Traders & Raiders is a game by Mark Hanny, published by Joe Magic Games. It is for 1-5 players. In this game, players will take on the role of a fantasy hero as they move around the realm, gathering resources to build markets and buildings, trading those resources for more valuable ones and recruiting fellow adventurers to help defeat horrible monsters threatening the towns. The player that can prove their mettle and become the greatest hero the realm has ever seen will be declared the winner.

To begin, the main board is placed in the middle of the play area, along with the fortnight board, which is placed beside it. The follower cards are shuffled together and placed next to the board beside the follower spaces. The building cards are also shuffled and placed next to the board beside the building spaces and beneath the follower deck. The top five cards of each deck are drawn and placed out on the corresponding spaces beside the decks. One of each resource token is placed on it’s corresponding space at the bottom left section of the board. Common items are placed on wood spaces, uncommon on stone spaces and rare items on parchment spaces. Map tiles are placed randomly on the board face up onto the map spaces. Monster tokens are also placed randomly on the board but are placed face down on the monster spaces. All of the fortnight tiles are placed in the draw bag and shaken up. One random tile is drawn from the bag and placed on the “starting goods” space on the fortnight board, along with one additional resource of each kind shown on the tile, except for gold coins. The starting player is chosen. Each player will then choose a player card, receiving all the market tokens, player tokens and matching standee for that card. Each player will start with one gold and one resource of their choice. Each player after the first player will receive a bonus based on turn order. For more information on each bonus, please see the rulebook. Once all this has been completed, players will place their standee in any town on the main board going in reverse turn order. Players are not allowed to start in the same town as another player. Once all players have placed their standees, play now begins.

The game is played over a series of rounds. Each round players will take a turn. On a player’s turn they will choose to take either a group or solo action. Group actions, when chosen, allow all players to perform the same action as the player that chose the action or they may gain one common resource that is produced in the city where their character is located. Solo action, when chosen, allow the player to choose an action that has already been chosen by another player. With these actions, only the player that chose the action are allowed to take the action. The player pays one resource of any type on the solo action space at the bottom of the flag. When the Fortnight action is taken later in the round, the player tokens are removed from the flags, leaving the resource tokens in place. The next time a group action is chosen, the player takes the resource token opening up the solo action space to be taken.

There are 7 different actions that a player may choose from; move, build, trade, recruit, collect, rescue or fortnight. The first action is the move action. For this action, the player moves their character’s standee from one town to another. Once the player reaches a city, they must stop unless their character has a horse. This allows them to move to an extra city past the first city. If a player has a galleon, they may move from one port to another port. If a player has a dwarven scout, they may move from one mountain city to another. It should be noted that there are no limits to the number of character standees that are allowed in a town.

The next action is to build. For this action, a player may pay the cost of one building card and place it face up in front of themself. It should be noted that some cards will cost more based on the space they’re at on the board. These costs may be a coin or a number of resources. Players are able to build a building that another player has built. They simply pay the cost of the building as shown on the card and then place a player token on the highest numbered circle shown on the card, gaining points based on where they were on the card. All players that built on that card will gain the resources produced by the card during the fortnight action, even if the player that performs the fortnight action doesn’t choose the item from the fortnight tile. Resources in parenthesis reward the player with one gold instead of a resource when that particular resource appears on the fortnight tile. The player can gain a building card or buy a market, but are not allowed to do both. To buy a market, the player pays the resource cost and places a market token on the tent icon of the main board in the location that their character’s standee is located. The cost for markets are shown on the board. Only one player is allowed to have a market in a particular town. Once a player has a market, they are allowed to trade in that town as if their character were there, gaining the resources produced by that town during the fortnight action.

The next action is to trade. For this action, the player is allowed to trade things shown in the town they’re located or in a town that they have a market tent. Players are allowed to trade resources or gold coins for other resources or gold coins. They are allowed to trade as many times as they would like, as long as they have the resources or coins to trade.

Another action is to recruit. To perform this action, the player chooses a follower card and pays the cost of it plus any additional cost based on where it is on the board. The follower is placed in front of the player. Instead of taking a follower, they may choose to purchase a weapon tile. To buy a weapon the player pays a resource of any type and places the tile in front of themself. These tiles are used in combat with a monster during a rescue action. They increase the combat factor by one and are then returned to the main supply after they’re used.

Another action is to collect. For this action, a player may gain all the tokens of one type on the main board from the city where their character’s standee is located.

The next action is to rescue. With the group action, each player either chooses to rescue or to pass. If the rescue option is chosen, then the player will place their standee on the monster space attached to their current town. If there is no monster space currently on their town, then they can’t perform this action. Before revealing the monster, the player draws a fortnight tile and places it on the lowest number of the fortnight track. The tile is placed facedown to show a bonus to any players meeting the requirements. If the tile shows a red monster icon, then all monsters are assumed to be raging. The monsters are revealed and the number beside the + on the tile is added to each monster’s number. The player checks their combat factor which is equal to the number of lightning bolts on their player card plus any follower cards. The player may also spend weapon tiles to increase their combat factor by one for each tile spent. These must be spent before performing a luck roll. A luck roll is needed if the player’s combat factor is less than or equal to the monster’s number. If the player’s combat factor exceeds the monster’s number then the rescue is successful and no roll is needed. When performing the luck roll, the player rolls the 8 sided die. If the roll is equal to or less than the player’s combat factor, then the rescue is successful, otherwise the player fails in the rescue. If the player loses the rescue, then they must lose one resource, including gold coins. If the rescue is successful, then the player gains the number of resources shown on the monster token with a maximum of 4. The resources chosen are taken from the town where the monster is located and can include gold coins. The player may also not gain two of the same resource. After performing the rescue, the player’s standee remains in the same town. If more than one hero are in the same town and attack the same monster, then the players attempt the rescue in turn order. Once the monster is defeated, then the remaining players receive no rewards but lose no resources either. The player that succeeds in performing a rescue action takes the monster token to be used during end of game scoring.

The last action is the fortnight action. This action can be taken once three other group actions have been taken and are only available as a group action. If there is a fortnight token face down on the track, then the player turns it face up. If there is no token on the track, then the player chooses one from the draw bag. The player places it face down for a possible bonus for any player able to meet the requirements. If a red monster icon is shown, then there is no bonus. The fortnight tile is then flipped over and the player chooses one item from each of the 3 columns receiving one common, one uncommon and one rare resource. These resources are placed on the resource section of the board. When player with 4 or more players, two resources are chosen from each column. If a player has a market in a town that produces that resource, then the player gains one of that resource that was chosen from the supply. If a player has a building card that produces that resource, then that player gains one resource of that kind from the supply. If the card shows a resource in parenthesis, then the player gains a gold coin when that resource appears on the fortnight tile. If a player has a player token on a building card, then that player also gains a resource from the supply. Resources from a building card are gained even if the player that chose the fortnight tile chooses a different resource. Once all resources have been collected, all player tokens are removed from the group action flags, leaving any resources on solo action spaces there. The player tokens are returned to the player. If there is a follower card on the far right space of the track, then it is removed from the game and all the remaining follower cards are moved one space to the right. The same thing is done with the building cards. A new card is drawn and placed on the empty spaces for both tracks. The first player token is then given to the next player to the left of the player that took the fortnight action. That player will take the first action on the next turn.

The game continues until the last space of the fortnight action board is chosen. If the fortnight tile is placed during a rescue action, the game does not end until a fortnight action is chosen. Once this action is taken, the players get the bonus shown and are given any resources of the fortnight tile just like during any other fortnight action. Each player then gets one last build, recruit or trade action in turn order before the game ends. Players will then add up their points from building cards, gold coins, monsters, follower cards and possible bonuses from their follower cards. The player with the most points is the winner.

One last thing of note, there are 3 different types of potions that provide special abilities. Teleport potions allow the player to move to any town on a move action. Agility potions give the player +2 in combat during a rescue action. Trade potions allow the player to trade as if they have a market in every town during the trade action.

COMPONENTS
Let me tell you, when I opened the box for this game, I couldn’t believe how much stuff was inside. I mean there are a lot of components with this game. So many that the game came with two plastic organization trays just to hold all the resource tokens. Besides tokens for resources there are monster tokens, player tokens, map tiles, weapon tiles, fortnight tiles, gold tokens and standees, all of which are cardboard. On top of that there are colored plastic stands for the standees, wooden market tokens, a luck die and a metal starting player token. There’s also a nicely printed draw bag for the fortnight tiles. There’s a game board and a smaller fortnight board. Once everything is laid out of the table, it does take up a good bit of space though. When I laid it all out on my work table to take pictures, it took up pretty much the whole table. The artwork on everything from the cards to the tokens and the board are all really nice. I especially like the card designs for the followers and player characters. These are especially well done. All of the cardboard pieces are thick and are great quality. Needless to say, I really like how good everything looks. The printed draw bag was an especially nice touch. Overall I really think that everything was designed to fit well together. I really think this is a good looking game that really fits the overall theme. For me, it’s a win.
9 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook is good. It is a little rough around the edges but for the most part it’s not too hard to follow. Sometimes I think there were things that should have been explained earlier in the text than they were but once you read through a particular section, I think you’ll get it. The rulebook has plenty of pictures and examples of gameplay which is very helpful. It also has a few variants that provide a couple of other options for playing the game. There are solitaire rules for playing the game solo and a rare resource ability variant that allows players to spend rare resources for a special effect. Both provide some interesting ways of playing the game. I especially enjoy the solo rules as I tend to play a lot more solo games lately. The solo rules use the solo deck of cards and have players trying to score 90 or more points in a novice level or 130 points or more for more advanced players. I think everything here is fine and it does a pretty good job of explaining everything. I did have to read through some sections a couple of times to try and understand exactly what a particular action did but after playing a couple of times, you understand it. The rulebook doesn’t take an incredibly long time to read but it can be a little difficult for your first play. Overall though, I’m good with the rules.
7 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Orleans and Puerto Rico had a baby? Well I think the resounding answer would be this game. You take the map side of the board along with gathering worker chips in Orleans, turn those workers to resources and there you go. Take the simultaneous action selection and victory point earnings from Puerto Rico, throw it into the soup with those Orleans mechanics and that’s kinda what it feels like to play this game. I’m going to spoil this just a bit. I enjoy both Orleans and Puerto Rico quite a bit so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed this one too. I especially liked the solo rules. It has one of the fastest AI turns in any solo game that I’ve ever played. On top of that, it’s easy to play, once you learn the rules. I will say that moving around the board can be difficult, especially at the beginning of the game. Getting those horse or galleon cards are pretty vital to moving unless you just want to stick to one section of the map. The game really has a lot of choices that you can make and that can lead to a lot of tension between players when you’re playing multiplayer and when playing against the AI. With so many options and choices, that leads to a lot of replayability with this game, as you’re very unlikely to run into the same situations more than once. Resources are going to change up as will the different options from the various cards. The multiplayer game is just as fun as playing solo but does take a bit longer. I think fans of games like Orleans and Puerto Rico will really enjoy this one as well, especially if they’re looking for a faster playing solo game. Overall I really enjoyed playing this one and will definitely be playing it again. I highly recommend it.
8 out of 10

OVERALL
Traders & Raiders is a medium weight game of resource management and strategy. It doesn’t take a long time to play. Most game sessions are around an hour, especially with the solo game. The components look good. I especially like the artwork on the cards. The rulebook is a bit messy but includes solo and variant rules which I like. The game itself is fun, especially as a solo game. For me it reminds me of Orleans and Puerto Rico, both of which are really good games. I like how quickly the game plays and how the solo game gives you a great challenge. I think if you like games like the two I mentioned or enjoy resource management and simultaneous action selection, then you’ll for sure enjoy this one too. This is one that I highly recommend. As a multiplayer game it’s really good but as a solo game it’s great. Definitely one that I want to play again.
8 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Joe Magic Games at their site.

http://www.joemagicgames.com/

Lands of Galzyr Review

Lands of Galzyr is a game by Sami Laakso and Seppo Kuukasjärvi, published by Snowdale Design. It is for 1-4 players. In this game, players take on the role of a forest critter in a vast fantasy world. They will be adventuring across a magical landscape as they attempt to earn prestige through various tasks and noteworthy feats. Players can choose to work together or compete to see who the most valuable player is. In the end, the player that can gain the most prestige will be declared the winner.

Before the first game, the card trays and adventure boards are set up as noted in the welcoming letter provided inside the box.

To begin, the card trays are placed within reach of all players. Each player chooses a character and takes all the card from their character’s save slots in the card tray. The cards in the global save slot in the trays are taken out and sorted by type. Players then choose whether they would like to play competitively or co-operatively. The global status cards are placed face up where everyone can see them. Anything that affects the setup on these cards are then dealt with. The board is then placed in the middle of the play area showing either the winter or summer side, based on the global status card. The location cards and any local status cards are then placed on the board in their appropriate places. The event cards are placed facedown near the game board to form the event deck. The quest cards are placed with the public side face up in a row near the board to form the noticeboard. A quest token is placed on each corresponding location on the board. The remaining quest tokens are placed nearby. Each player’s prestige token is placed on the 0 space on the prestige track. The dice, skill marks and timer tokens are placed near the board in a common pool. The Book of Adventures is opened on a tablet, computer or phone to randomize te starting day. The day token is then placed on the appropriate slot on the top row of the calendar. Any timed effects are then placed using timer tokens onto the calendar and paired with the specific card’s timer box. Each player takes the corresponding adventurer board and figure that matches their character. Each player places their item cards faceup below their character board. Status and companion cards are placed beside the player’s character board. Quest cards are kept in the player’s hand. Any cards with timed instructions are dealt with the same way as above. The starting player is chosen and given the starting player token. The starting player places their adventurer figure on the location card of their choosing based on their possible quests. Other players in player order, are then allowed to do the same thing, placing their characters figure on the board. Once all these steps have been completed, play now begins.

Before I start, let me state that I will do my best in this review to make sure and keep the spoilers of the game to a very bare minimum. That means that I will only reveal things on a need to know basis and only those things that will be discovered in the first few moments of playing. Everything else will be left to discover on your own.

The game is played over a series of rounds with each player taking a turn in player order. Each round consists of 2 phases; the Adventure phase and the Calendar phase. The first phase is the Adventure phase. In this phase, each player takes a turn beginning with the starting player. On the player’s turn they may either travel or begin and resolve a scene. At any time, as long as the player is not resolving a scene, they may trade gold and/or items and/or pick up quests from the noticeboard, if the player’s figure is on the quest’s pickup location. They may also abandon any quest that they would like to. Players may only have 3 quests and must abandon down to 3 if they have more than that. Traveling is as simple as moving the player’s figure up to 2 adjacent spaces on the board, as connected by a route. Some movement keywords will modify the number of spaces. After traveling, the player must then resolve a single scene. First they must check to see if any cards available to them have any mandatory scenes that are marked with a lightning bolt. If so, they must choose one of these. If the player doesn’t have any mandatory scenes, then they can pick the scene themself from Quest cards, Adventurer status cards, Location cards, Local status cards or Event cards that the player has available to them. To choose a scene, the player must meet the prerequisites in the scene box of the card. Most times this is based on where the adventure’s figure is on the board. If the player cannot choose a scene from one of the other sources, then the player can begin a scene from the event card. An event card is drawn and the story master chooses the first scene from the top down where the prerequisite is met. The story master keeps the card until the end of the scene where they are then told where to place the card afterwards. Once the scene is chosen, the story master selects the chosen scene in the Book of Adventures and reads it out loud. Some portions of the scene, written in turquoise, are meant just for the story master. These are not to be read aloud but only resolved by the story master. Normally as the scene is read, the story master will present the player with several options to choose from. Sometimes the option might require gold to be paid to choose the option. Once the option is chosen, the story master selects the chosen option and continues to read. Some options require a skill check which I’ll explain in a bit. Sometimes the Book of Adventures will ask a question that must be answered truthfully. Often times this checks to see if the player has a certain tag, which might give a new option. These special options usually have a starry effect around them which should be specified to the player. As I mentioned a moment ago, sometimes skill checks are required for certain options. These checks involve one of the six skills. Each check has a difficulty range of easy, medium, hard or unknown. Each one requires a different number of successes. Of course, the higher number the player gets on the check, the better the result. Easy checks require 1 success. Medium require 2 and hard require 3. Unknown checks are just that…unknown. To perform a skill check, the player takes the 5 base skill dice, swapping out any of these with an advanced die for any corresponding skills they might have. Advanced skill dice have two double success for their own skill and two regular success for the two skill adjacent to them on the adventurer board. Base skill dice only have 1 success for each skill. Items, companions and adventurer status card effects can influence skill checks. These can be used before or after rolling or rerolling all the dice in the dice pool. Effects can’t be used more than once per skill check. A star represents a success for the current skill check, while a broken star represents a failure. Once the skill check has been resolved, the story master reveals the outcomes based on the number of successes that the player received by matching the outcome in the Book of Adventures. The story master then continues to read, resolving any possible effects like before until the end of the scene is reached. This ends the player’s Adventure phase. Play passes to the next player to begin their Adventure phase.

Once all players have taken a turn performing their Adventure phase, then the Calendar phase begins. In this phase, the day token is moved to the next day on the calendar and in the Book of Adventures. If there are any tokens on the new day, then the associated timed effects are resolved one by one, starting with the topmost token. Once all this has been completed, a new round begins. The player with the starting token begins a new Adventure phase and takes their turn.

The game continues until a number of rounds have been completed based on the player count as noted in the rulebook and on the Discord and Harmony global status cards. If players were playing competitively then the player with the most prestige at the end of the game is the winner and begins the scene shown on the Discord card. If players were playing co-operatively then the player that was the most valuable player is chosen to read the scene from the Harmony card.

One thing should be noted, during the game some scenes will have a handshake icon on them that allows the player to choose a partner to help in the scene. Players must be on the same space and agree before this may be chosen. This does not count as a turn for the other player. All decisions are still performed by the active player but the partner may provide access to their character’s skill marks, items, companions, adventurer status, gold or tags on their adventure board. However in skill checks, each advanced skill die is limited to just 2 dice. The players are also able to trade gold and items at any time during the scene.

Finally once the game is over, players must perform a series or steps to save the state of the adventurers and the game world. This provides an ongoing experience where each character’s choices affect the following games. For more information on how to save the game, please consult the rulebook.

COMPONENTS
This is a truly gorgeous looking game. It definitely catches your eye once it’s all setup on the table. The game comes with a variety of different cards, tokens, dice and other pieces. There are 8 different card types, each with different backs to easily distinguish them from each other. There are items, companions, quests, adventurer statuses, local statuses, global statuses, events and locations. Each card has some very gorgeous looking artwork. If you’re familiar with the Dale of Merchants games, then you’re familiar with the art style. Much of this game looks like it’s been taken from that world and that would be because it has. This is the same world as Dale of Merchants and the other Snowdale Design games. The cards have a great finish to them and they simply look amazing. The locations fit nicely into the spaces on the board and become a cohesive part of the board. The board is double sided with a winter and a summer side. The location cards are also double sided with the same sides on them in winter and summer. I just love pulling out the next card and finding a new item or companion to accompany my character on their journey. Each card truly pulls you even more into the world of the game. The adventurer boards are gorgeous and highlight each of the 4 characters. There are places on them for the skill markers to be inserted, as well as a gold wheel to keep up with the characters ever changing money. The adventurer figures are screen printed wooden meeples that are simply adorable. They are so fun to move around on the board as they travel around. The skill markers and dice are all made of high quality plastics or acrylic, not sure which, but they’re phenomenal. The dice are laser cut and are bright and colorful much like the skill markers. The are small and large skill markers and each of the colors for these and the dice match up with the skills that are being used. There are also lots of tokens, some in cardboard and others in screen printed wood. The quest and day token are both wooden, while the prestige, timer, starting player and souvenir token are all cardboard. Each of these are colorful like the dice and skill markers and really stand out on the board. The game also comes with some card trays and dividers to keep everything all nice and neatly arranged inside the box. There’s also an achievement sheet for keeping track of some nice little things your characters might accomplish, as well as a travel guide that welcomes you to the world of Galzyr. Every piece, every component is designed to bring the world of Galzyr to life on your tabletop and I really feel that it does the job perfectly. If I had to add one thing, it might be a physical copy of the book of adventures. I think having that would be a nice alternative to using the app on my phone or on the computer. Other than that, there would be nothing. This is a stunning game that is definitely a sight to behold.

9 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for this game is very well written. It’s not overly long or complicated, so that means it can be read fairly quickly. There are lots of pictures and examples of gameplay throughout the book. One of the first pages contains pictures of every component in the game. The next couple of pages explain a bit about the adventurers, their skill marks and skill checks and all the different card types. Each section goes into great detail about how each one works with plenty of instructions. The next 2 pages consist of the setup for the game before spending pretty much the rest of the book on covering the rules in a step by step fashion. As noted, there are instructions on saving the game, as well as resetting the game back to it’s original state. This isn’t really recommended as the game is all about each choice having an effect on the game world, however it can be done if players choose to do this. Having personally played both solo, co-operatively with my daughter and then resetting the game to play with my whole family, I can say that it’s not difficult to do. More on my experience with this in the gameplay section. The final page contains keywords and iconography on everything. To be honest, this was one of the easier rulebooks to go through that I’ve ever had. It was so simple to understand everything. The wonderful pictures and thematic images throughout really got me into the game before I even started playing. Honestly I can’t say enough good things about the rulebook. I was able to quickly find what I needed as I played through the game the first couple of times, which made it a lot of help. Needless to say, I am very pleased with the overall look and feel of it and think it’s one of the best I’ve ever read through.
9 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
My daughter and I really enjoyed this game. I’ve played it several times solo, as well as playing several times with my daughter. The game plays well both ways. The stories are so rich and vibrant. It’s such a joy to discover new places, critters and items. Every time that you play the game, it simply builds off of itself. Whatever you had when you finish one game, you carry with you into the next one. I love the continuity that this provides. It really feels like the characters are living beings with their own lives, hopes and dreams. It’s so very easy to get lost in the tales and want to never leave. The gameplay is so very simple with some simple dice rolling and decision making. A lot of the time, we’ve found ourselves looking at what we felt our character would do considering the options available. If I’d been playing one character like a sneaky thief, then it makes sense that the character would prefer to use a more sneaky route to get what they want then to simply try to negotiate with an NPC. Moving around the board sometimes felt like I didn’t have enough movement actions to get where I was trying to go in one round, thereby forcing me to have an event out in the wilderness of the map. Honestly I think that was planned by the designers. Otherwise you most likely wouldn’t just be going for those random encounters that happen outside of the cities. Another thing that struck me was how that certain cards will make it possible for you to swap out one or more of your skill marks for a different one. While I think that’s interesting and can help you refine your character into something more attune with your playstyle, I thought it would have been nice to grow your character as you play. Let’s say that I’ve been doing a lot of negotiating with various NPCs over one or more playthroughs of the game. Wouldn’t that make sense then that I’d grown in that skill, thereby earning a new marker in communication? Instead it seems that certain items are more apt to rearrange your skills. While that’s cool and can possibly help in certain storylines, I would have liked more or a progression. I think eventually then you’d be able to max out your characters with all the skill marks if you’d played the game a ton of times. Unfortunately that’s not the case, or at least it hasn’t been in what I’ve uncovered in the game so far. Another minor gripe that I would have is the items. Why can you only have 3 items? Let’s say that I have a ring, an amulet and a pair of boots. Are you telling me that I couldn’t carry anything in my hands or on my back or even in my pockets? What about a backpack? Why can’t I have one of those and be able to increase my carrying capacity? In the first game or two it’s fine, but the more I play, the more I have to make hard decisions on what to keep and what to get rid of. Several times I’ve discarded or sold something only to find that I could have really used that in one of the later encounters. It’s a bit frustrating. Hopefully some of these things will be addressed whenever the first expansion for the game comes out, or possibly even in an update to the rules. As it is, these are only minor gripes though. I’ve played the game several different ways. I would also like to mention that I had a chance to play with 4 players with my wife and kids. To be honest, I prefer to play solo or with 2 players. With four players it just took too long between turns that my kids starting getting bored. When playing with just my daughter and myself, she was completely spellbound. With four players it just did not go over well. My son felt it had some similarities to the Scooby Doo Coded Chronicles Game which he was not a fan of. I think it was due to all the reading that was being done. If I were to play it again I think I would only play solo or with 2 players. That seems to be the sweet spot for this game. All that said, the game isn’t bad. It’s just that some things I think could have been done differently and would have made it more enjoyable. I will say that I loved playing it. I do think the story telling aspect of the game could get old if that’s not your thing so I can completely understand if someone didn’t like it. In any event, if you enjoy great story telling or if you loved those old choose-your-own adventure books, then this is absolutely the game for you. This is a game that I highly recommend. This one is a gem.

One last thing I felt I needed to add. As I noted earlier, I played 4 player with my family which meant I had to reset the game to play it. I now understand why this isn’t recommended. After playing by myself with one character, then playing with my daughter with two separate characters everything was really awesome. Each character had these amazing stories. When I reset all that so that all 4 of us could play with new characters, I felt the sting of loss. Everything that I had experienced with my first characters was returned to the box and I had this new story that I didn’t enjoy as much as my first play throughs. I will say, from experience. Don’t reset your game! Don’t do it. PSA over.
9 out of 10

OVERALL
Lands of Galzyr is a story telling adventure game set in the same world as Dale of Merchants. It doesn’t take a very long time to play, unless you have more than 2 players. Most game sessions last around an hour, longer with 4 players. The components are gorgeous and everything looks amazing. The artwork fits in perfectly with the Dale of Merchants series. The rulebook is well written and easy to understand. It’s one of the best rulebooks that I’ve seen in awhile. The game itself is lots of fun, especially if you enjoy story driven games without a lot of combat. Playing solo or with 2 players, I enjoyed it and so did my daughter. Playing with 4 players was more of a chore and not something that I would enjoy playing again. I like the overall look and feel of the game and would highly recommend this one. Fans of story telling or the old choose-your-own fate books, would find a lot to enjoy with this one. As I said, it fits in perfectly as a companion game to Dale of Merchants and it’s expansions. Overall this is a good game that everyone should play.

9 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Snowdale Design at their site.

https://snowdaledesign.fi/

Living Well Is the Best Revenge Review

Living Well Is the Best Revenge is a game by Mataio Wilson, published by Cryptozoic Entertainment. It is for 2-4 players. In this game, players will be trying to overcome the bullies and tormentors in their life by unlocking their inner abilities and burying their enemies under a pile of points. In the end, the player that can live their best life and rise to the top by scoring the most points will be declared the winner.

To begin, the reroll tokens are placed within reach of all players. Each player chooses a color and receives the player board, player token, 10 ability cards and 2 dice of their chosen color. Players will then take their ability cards and arrange them in a row in front of themself going from left to right from 1 to 10. Each card is placed with the “locked” side face up. Players will then take a corresponding black power die and place it with their other dice. They also will take a yellow/gold power die and place it on their #10 ability card. Each player takes a reroll token and play now begins.

The game is played over 3 rounds. Each round consists of a number of turns. On the first turn of each round, all players will roll and resolve their dice at the same time. This only happens on the first turn. After that, players will take turns resolving their dice individually. On the first turn, players will roll their 2 colored player dice and will unlock their first set of abilities, more on this in a bit. Once this is done the player that rolled the lowest total on their dice becomes the first player. On a player’s turn, they will follow 4 steps. The first step is to roll their dice. This time, the player will roll both of their player dice and their power die. The other players will also roll their power die. It should be noted that if a player has unlocked their #10 ability, then they will gain an extra yellow power die to roll. In the next step, the opponents will gain 1 point for each of their power dice that matches with any of the player’s dice and that also matches one of their unlocked abilities. The opponent will need both to match to gain a point. Each power die that they roll can earn up to 1 point. For the next step, the player can use any of their unlocked abilities. For the numbers 1-6, the ability can only be used if it matches their rolled power dice. For the numbers 7-9, these can be used once per turn to modify the player’s dice total, allowing them to unlock new abilities. This brings us to the last step. Once the player has finished using abilities, then they will add up the numbers on their player dice to determine their player dice total, applying any modifiers from unlocked ability cards. The player will then choose a combination of their locked ability cards that add up to exactly their player dice total and unlock them by flipping the card over. Only cards that have not been unlocked may be chosen. If the player can’t unlock any cards because they don’t have locked cards that add up to their dice total, then they are knocked out and are out of the round. This ends the player’s turn. If the player has been knocked out, they’re not allowed to take any further turns for the rest of the round and must be skipped until the round ends. However they will still roll their power dice on their opponent’s turns to try and score points. Unlocking the #2 ability card will grant the player a reroll token, which can be used to reroll a player die at any time, before unlocking any new abilities. Anytime a reroll token is used, it is returned to the supply. Once a player has completed their turn, then play passes to the next player to continue the round.

The round continues until one player has unlocked all 10 of their ability cards or all but one player has been knocked out. If a player ends the round by unlocking all 10 of their abilities, then they will earn bonus points by rolling all 4 of their dice and scoring points equal to the total. If the round ends because one person was left standing while the others were all knocked out, then that player will roll 2 dice and score the total. If this isn’t the end of the third round, then a new round begins. All players will flip over their unlocked abilities to the locked side and return their yellow power die to the #10 card, if they’d unlocked it during the round. All players will then start a simultaneous turn just like the previous round.

At the end of the third round, the game ends. Each player will flip over any of their unused reroll tokens to score an additional 2 points for each, adding them to the point total. The players check their scores and the player with the most points is the winner.

COMPONENTS
The game consists of a stack of ability cards in 4 different player colors that match with the 4 colored player boards. There are also a stack of reroll tokens and a whole bunch of dice of different colors. The ability cards are large tarot sized cards and are double sided with artwork on both sides. The finish on the cards are similar to linen finish with a satin like feel to them. The artwork is like all the other Steven Rhodes style games and has that whole 80’s vibe to it. It’s very sassy and silly but I really like it. The reroll tokens and the player boards are all thick cardboard. The boards are especially thick and solid. There’s not much to these but they get the job done and keep everything organized as far as keeping up with the score. The dice are all colored. There are 2 dice of every player color with white pips, 1 black power die with player color pips and 1 yellow die with player colored pips for the #10 card. Every player color has a set of these. In my game, the yellow dice are actually gold. I have to say that I quite like the gold dice. It feels like you’ve actually accomplished something when you’re able to unlock that die to roll. Needless to say, I really like the components for this one. Everything looks great and it works really well with the game. The theming and mood of everything fits perfectly. It’s definitely a good looking game.
9 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook is very similar to those of the other games in the Steven Rhodes volume 2 trilogy. Like all the others in this series, this book is 10 pages long. The first pages gives an overview of the game and goes over the component list. The next 7 pages explain the setup and cover all the rules in a step by step manner. The last couple of pages clarify some things about the game and explain the different abilities of the 10 cards. There are lots of examples and plenty of pictures throughout the book. I think the book does a great job explaining the rules and everything is very simple to understand. Pretty much the only thing bad about the whole thing is the use of black pages with white writing instead of the normal other way around. I’m not a big fan of these types of rulebooks as the pages tend to smudge and show fingerprints and such a lot easier than normal pages. Didn’t like this in any of the other Cryptozoic games and don’t like it on this one either. Not a major issue but simply a pet peeve of mine. Other than that, the rulebook is great and looks good.
9 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
When I first saw this game, my mind immediately went to the scene in “The Neverending Story,” where Bastian rides the Luck Dragon to scare the bullies so badly that they jump into the dumpster. Take that and roll in some feelings of the game Machi Koro and you’ll have this game. Each round you’ll be rolling dice and trying to unlock cards in your tableau to score points. There are some strategies to this and a bit of manipulation of the dice, but there’s not much more than that to the game. I know some people would think that this sounds completely boring and dull, but that’s not the case at all. I actually enjoy this game quite a lot. Figuring out which cards to unlock is the key. Of course the game does have a good bit of luck from the dice rolls, but this is easily mitigated with the abilities of the larger numbered cards. Being able to unlock your extra power die is also a good thing as it can help you get more points rather quickly. The main thing is just to try and maximize your points as best as possible. This game does a lot of things right and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. It’s a quick and easy to play dice rolling game that is fun for the entire family. Unlike some of the other games in the series, this is one that even the younger players could enjoy, as long as you’re good with the artwork. For me, I found the game to be a great filler game that is easy to get to the table. It’s one that I think a lot of gamers and players will enjoy. The dice rolling reminds me of Machi Koro. Fans of that dice roller should enjoy this one too. It’s easily a game that I can highly recommend. It is quick and simple enough that I can play it while waiting to play a larger, heavier game. It’s very entertaining and scratches that nostalgia itch as well. Needless to say, it’s really good.
9 out of 10

OVERALL
Living Well Is the Best Revenge is a dice rolling game of living your best life. The game doesn’t last very long. Most games last around 15 minutes or so. The components are top notch and the artwork is silly and fun. The rulebook is well designed and easy to read and understand. The game itself is lots of fun. It’s fairly simple and easy to play but has enough strategy that even hardcore gamers can enjoy. It’s sold as a game for players 14 and up but I think if parents are good with the artwork then the game could be played with even younger players. I don’t really see anything that’s overly difficult for them to understand. The game does have a good bit of luck but some of the cards help take care of this so it’s nothing to worry about. It bears some striking familiar chords to the game Machi Koro for me, so I think that fans of that game would enjoy this one too. Honestly I think it’s one that everyone will enjoy. Overall I really like the game and I highly recommend it. It’s definitely one that you will find hits your table again and again. It’s just that much fun.
9 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Cryptozoic Entertainment at their site.

https://cryptozoic.com/

Cryptozoology for Beginners Review

Cryptozoology for Beginners is a game by Mataio Wilson, published by Cryptozoic Entertainment. It is for 2-4 players. In this game, players will take on the role of students on a field trip to capture the best photos of some of the most elusive and mysterious creatues ever. The player that can best complete their assignments and collect the most points will be declared the winner.

To begin, the Assignment deck is shuffled and placed face down near the middle of the play area. The Cryptid deck is also shuffled and placed facedown but on the other side of the play area, leaving room in the middle for a Public Assignment Area. All of the Reward tokens are turned facedown and shuffled together to form a pile. The first player is chosen and is given the Bus standee. Play now begins.

The game is played over 3 rounds. Each round is divided into 4 steps. The first step is to choose assignments. To do this, each player is dealt 2 Assignment cards facedown. Each player then chooses 1 to place in front of themself faceup as their Private Assignment and 1 to place in the Public Assignments area in the middle of the play area.

This brings us to the second step which is to draft cryptids. Each player is dealt 8 Cryptid cards facedown. Players will choose 1 card from their hand and place it facedown in a stack in front of themself. The remaining cards are then passed to the player on their left. This continues with players choosing a card and passing the remaining cards until there is a stack of 8 cards in front of them. The last card that is passed to the player is placed on top of their stack. One thing should be noted, players may look at their stack of cards at any time during the draft.

The third step is when players take their turns. At this point, players take their stack of cards into their hand. They will then take turns playing and activating cards beginning with the first player and going in turn order. Each player’s turn consists of 3 steps. First they will choose a card from their hand and place it faceup in front of themself. They will then activate any abilities on their faceup cards. To activate a card, the player must turn it sideways along with the required number of cards of the same type. If the player doesn’t have the required amount of cards of that type, then the card may not be activated. Activated cards that have been turned sideways are not allowed to be activated again or to be used to activate another card until it has been readied by turning it right side up. For the final step the player may complete assignments. If the player has any faceup cards that meet the requirement of a Public Assignment, they are allowed to claim the card and place it in front of themself sideways to show that it has been completed. If the player can complete their Private Assignment, then this card is turned sideways to show it has been completed. It should be noted that some assignments reward the player with a bonus effect that takes effect immediately upon completing the assignment or at the end of the round based on the card’s text. Also of note is that some card effects grant the player a Reward token, which is drawn randomly from the facedown pool. The player is allowed to look at it secretly once it’s been taken before placing it facedown in front of themself. These provide points that will be used to help determine a winner at the end of the game.

If a player has no cards left in their hand at the beginning of their turn then their turn is skipped. Once all players have no more cards left in their hand to play, the round ends. This brings us to the final step which is the end of the rournd. In this last step all the Cryptid cards that are in front of the players, both the activated and unactivated ones, are placed in the discard pile. Some Assignments allow a player to keep a card if they choose to, or it may be discarded along with the others. If a Cryptid card is kept, it is readied by turning it back right side up. Any completed Assignments and any uncompleted Private Assignments are kept. Uncompleted Public Assigments are also left as well. The first player marker is passed to the player with the least amount of points from completed Assignments, not counting Reward tokens. A new round will then begin and each player is then dealt 2 new Assignments from the deck.

The game continues until the end of the third round. At this point players will then reveal all their Reward tokens and add up both the points on these and the points on any completed Assignments. The player with the most points is the winner.

COMPONENTS
This game comes with two types of cards, a first player marker and a series of Reward tokens. The first player token and Reward tokens are all made of thick cardboard. The first player marker is a standee showing a Bigfoot riding on the back of a school bus full of kids. It’s actually quite funny looking and is in the same art style as the artwork on the various cards. It’s a really fun piece that helps players keep track of who goes first. The Reward tokens have stars on them and a point value of either 3, 4, 5 or 6 points. These are nice and get the job done. Nothing really spectacular with them, but then there doesn’t have to be either. The main part of the game is the cards. There are Cryptid cards and Assignment cards. Both sets of cards are really well made and have a really nice almost linen finish to them. The artwork is kinda goofy and fun. It’s done in the Steven Rhodes style and has that sort of zaniness about it. They look quite nice and I enjoy the art style. It’s not quite as out there as Let’s Call the Exorcist, far as the artistic design goes but it’s definitely unusual to say the least. It’s not going to blow you away but it’s still fun and may make you laugh. I rather like it.
8 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for this game is very similar to the one for Let’s Call the Exorcist. It’s the same size and is laid out pretty much the same way. The book is the same length of 10 pages. The first page gives an overview of the game and goes over the components before spending the next 7 pages giving you the setup, explaining the rules and telling you how to win the game. The last couple of pages are used on clarification of different things and concepts in the game; such as keeping cryptids and gathering new assignments. The back of the rulebook adds some optional rules for playing the game for the first time and also for playing with only 2 players. The book has plenty of pictures and examples. I think that the rules are pretty well written and do a good job of explaining how to play the game. It’s fairly quick to read and is pretty simple to understand. The one bad thing about the book is that the pages are black with white writing. With books like these I find that the pages end up getting smudged fairly easier than with white pages. It’s not a major concern but it is a pet peeve of mine. Overall though I think the rules are laid out quite well and the book is nicely done.
8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
One game mechanic that I rather enjoy is card drafting. This game takes that mechanic and adds a bit of a twist to it by adding assignment cards and powers to the cryptid cards that you draft. Of course there is some luck to game as you don’t know what you’re going to draw on that opening hand. You might end up with a couple of cards that help you complete your private assignment, or you could draw absolutely nothing to help you. This is mitigated at least a little bit by the public assignments, as there’s usually something that you can try to draft towards. Speaking of private assignments, why are these face up? Shouldn’t a private assignment be…I don’t know….private? If the card is face up then your opponents are going to know which way you’ll probably be drafting towards and could very well try to hate draft so that you wind up with nothing to help you. What this winds up doing, at least as far as I’ve seen is not a lot of points being scored. Instead there tends to be a lot of random cards played which don’t do a whole lot as far as scoring goes. I think for the most part, there should be some errata released which changes the private assignment to face down. That way at least you’ve got something that your opponents can’t work against you on. Then it becomes more of a thinking game. For example: “There were three Nessies in this hand when I got it earlier, now there’s two. I’m guessing that one of my opponents could possibly be going for Nessies. Better take one of these to keep them from being able to possibly activate a card.” This makes playing the game a bit more strategic instead of aggressive. In any event, I thought the game was pretty ok. I mean, it has some nice mechanics and I did enjoy playing it. The problem is that it’s doesn’t do quite enough to make it that much different from any other card drafting game. That’s not to say that the game isn’t fun. As I said, I do enjoy it, there’s just not a lot of variety with it. That said, I do think that fans of card drafting games will enjoy this one. I’m sure I’ll be playing it again very soon. The theme is one that my family enjoy quite a lot. Honestly I didn’t see anything that would keep this from being a fun family card game. The gameplay might be a bit advanced for some of the younger players and the artwork might be a bit scary for them as well so it’s probably better played with teens or preteens and older players. In any event, this is one that I’d recommend. It’s full of crypto fun.
8 out of 10

OVERALL
Cryptozoology for Beginners is a light weight drafting card game with a few small twists. It doesn’t take a long time to play. Most game sessions last around 30-45 minutes. The cards and tokens are well designed and the artwork is a lot of fun. The rulebook is well designed and easy to read through. The game itself is fairly simple and is your basic card drafting game with the addition of trying to complete assignments to score points. I don’t really see that the theme fits with the actual game but at least it looks cool and is still fun despite that. There are one or two things that I didn’t like, such as the private assignments not being private, but other than that it wound up being an enjoyable game. I think fans of card drafting games will probably enjoy this one, although it doesn’t do that much different from any of the other card drafting games out there. I think the one thing that keeps it fresh is the artwork. For that I think the game works pretty well with teens or preteens and older players. Overall this is one that I’d recommend. Just make sure that you bring your camera, never know when you might spot one of those elusive creatures.
8 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Cryptozoic Entertainment at their site.

https://cryptozoic.com/

Let’s Call the Exorcist Review

Let’s Call the Exorcist is a game by Mataio Wilson, published by Cryptozoic Entertainment. It is for 4-8 players. This game is based on the artwork of Steven Rhodes. In this game, players take on the role of Innocent or Possessed as they attempt to either gather Holy Artifacts or reveal Cursed Artifacts based on which side they’re on. They’ll have to be careful as you can’t tell who to trust. The player that can retrieve the correct artifacts the best will be declared the winner.

To begin, each player is given 1 point token. The cards are separated into Cursed Artifacts, Holy Artifacts, Mischiefs and Blessings. The Cursed Artifacts and Holy Artifacts are shuffled separately. A certain number of each set are counted out for the main deck, based on the number of players. The Mischief and Blessings are shuffled together into a single pile. A certain number of these cards are also counted out for the main deck, based on the number of players. The set aside cards are then shuffled all together to form the main deck. This deck is then placed face down in the middle of the play area. The remaining cards from the 4 sets are returned to the game box. A certain number of role tiles, that include innocent and possessed tiles, are now counted out and shuffled together. Each player is dealt 1 tile facedown and are instructed to look at their tile secretly. They will then place their tile face down in front of themself. The players are told to remember their role, as they’re not allowed to look at their role tile again unless a card effect specifically allows them to. The first player is chosen and play now begins.

The game is played over a series of rounds. Each round consists of several deals. To start a deal, the deck is dealt out so that each player has the same number of cards. Each player will then secretly look at their cards. They may, if the wish to, describe their cards to the other players. They may say anything about their cards including if they are Holy, Cursed or even what the effects of their cards are. The player may be completely honest or may be dishonest. The players will then shuffle their cards and place them facedown in a row in front of themselves without looking at them. Players will then begin to take turns choosing cards to reveal. The player doing the choosing is called the Seeker. The Seeker chooses another player’s card and may not choose one of their own. Once chosen, the Seeker flips over the card and it is then resolved. The resolved card is then placed in the center of the play area for everyone to see. The player whose card was revealed is named the Chosen. Once the effects of the revealed card are resolved, the Chosen player becomes the new Seeker. This continues until there are as many revealed cards faceup in the middle of the play area as there are players. Once this happens, the deal ends.

Once the deal ends, the cards faceup in the center of the play area are moved to the side so all players can see what cards have already been revealed. The remaining facedown cards are then gathered together and reshuffled to create a new deck and a new deal begins. Each new deal will consist of 1 fewer card for each player.

A round continues until the last Holy Artifact or the last Cursed Artifact is revealed. It’s effect is resolved like normal before the round is ended immediately. At this time, players will reveal their Role tiles. Each player on the team that revealed all it’s artifacts will receive 2 point tokens. If noone has 7 points yet, then the game continues and a new round begins with new Roles and a new deck. The last player Chosen becomes the Seeker for the new round. It should be noted that only during the first round will players receive a point token at the beginning of a round. In later rounds, this will not happen.

The game continues until a player has 7 or more points at the end of a round. When this happens, the player with the most points is the winner.

COMPONENTS
This game consists of 3 things; Role tiles, a deck of cards and Point tokens. The Role tiles and Point tokens are all made of thick cardboard. The Role tiles consist of Possessed and Innocent tiles. Both have the face of a young girl on them, except the Possessed looks like Linda Blair from the Exorcist. The Point tokens are little round tokens that are double sided with little crosses on them. They kind of look like Holy Wafers or something. I wish these were a little bit bigger but they get the job done. The cards have a great finish on them that’s something like a linen finish or something of that nature. This makes shuffling and dealing out cards very easy, as nothing sticks together like in so many other games these days. The artwork on each one is in the Steven Rhodes style and is a tongue in cheek dig at many different movies and other media. The art style is silly and kinda goofy so even though the game has a devilish theme, it isn’t demonic or anything like that. It’s rather comedic and humorous to be honest. That art style reminds me of the old Garbage Pail Kids cards more than anything else. Included in my copy were a few extra cards and a large double sided carboard cross. This thing is pretty much the size of the box. One side looks more heavenly while the other is rather dark and snake like. I’m guessing that it’s supposed to be used as the first player marker or something? That’s the only thing that I can figure as there’s nothing in the rulebook about what it’s used for. I will say that this was pretty much the only thing in the box that made me feel a little unnerved. Didn’t really care for that piece. Other than that, I think the game while a little dark is still kinda funny and silly looking. It’s definitely not what I was thinking when I first heard about the game. Definitely an unusual looking game.
8 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for this game isn’t bad. It’s fairly small and fits neatly inside the box. It only has 10 pages but packs a lot of information in those 10 pages. The first page explains what the game is and goes over the components before spending the next 5 pages giving you the setup, explaining the rules and telling you how to win the game. The last couple of pages are spent explaining the card types and clarifying each particular card. The back of the rulebook includes how to set up the deck and how many innocent and possessed tiles to use for each group of players. The book includes some examples and several pictures, mostly in the section for card clarification. I think the book does a pretty good job explaining the rules and how to play the game. It’s fairly easy to read and doesn’t take a long time either. About the only bad thing that I can think of would be that I’m not a big fan of using black pages with white writing. The pages tend to get smudged a lot easier from the oils on your hands then on regular white pages, or at least they don’t show up as easily. This is the same issue that I’ve had with the rulebooks for the DC Deck Building Game. It’s not a major issue but I prefer my rulebooks to not look all smudged up. Overall though, it’s not bad.
8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
Truth be told, when I first got this game I thought that I needed to throw it in the garbage and set it on fire. After calming myself down and looking through the other games in the collection I realized that I needed to give it at least a look. Have to say, this was not what I thought it was. While the theme is a bit odd and definitely not one that most people will be clamoring to play, based on the name alone, it’s actually a fun and a bit silly game. If you remember the old movie with Leslie Nielson, “Repossessed”, then this game is kind of like that serious when it comes to the theme. It’s really not anything to worry about. As I mentioned earlier in the components section, the cards all have these iconic movie references, like for the Ark of the Covenant the Necronomicon, etc. Except that the names have all been changed, to protect the innocents. Sorry I had to. These and the silly fun artwork make this not a dark tool of the devil but actually a neat and easy to play social deduction game that uses the Exorcist as a theme. What makes this different than games like Werewolf, Mafia and the like is the introduction of the Holy and Cursed Artifacts. When you first get your cards, you know what you’ve got. Once you’ve shuffled them up and placed them in front of yourself, then you don’t know which ones are which. Granted if you had a hand full of Holy Artifacts and you’re an Innocent, then you’ll feel pretty safe having any of your own cards flipped over. It’s not knowing what your opponents are doing and wondering if they’re lying because they’re really possessed or if they’re telling the truth and they’re innocent. Sometimes you’ll flip a card over and think that the player was lying but that’s not always the truth. Sometimes other cards will get moved around and really mess up what you thought you knew. Numerous times I’ve found myself questioning and even requestioning my own thoughts. While I’m not necessarily crazy about the theme, it’s actually not heavy so it’s one that you can feel ok playing with most teens and older players. Can’t say that I’d recommend it for the younger ones, but since the game is rated for 14+, I think that’s a pretty good measure of where it needs to stay. Fans of social deduction games like Werewolf, Mafia and the like will most likely enjoy this one immensely. This is one that I’d recommend giving a try before judging it. You might be surprised at it and find a fun game for your next game night with the crew.
8 out of 10

OVERALL
Let’s Call the Exorcist is a social deduction game with a supernatural twist. The game doesn’t take very long to play. Most game sessions last around 30 minutes or so. The components are very nice and the cards are lots of fun and kinda silly. The rulebook is well designed and easy to read through. The game itself is a bit unusual but an actually fun game for when you have a big group of players together. The theme makes this feel a bit unsettling at first but it’s not something to actually be concerned about. It’s a pretty good game that just about as creepy as the movie “Repossessed” with Leslie Nielson. Granted it’s not one for the younger players and should definitely be played with players 14 years and older. Still if you’re tired of the old social deduction games and want to mix things up a bit, then this is one that will be right up your alley. Fans of games like Mafia, Werewolf and the like should really enjoy this one. This is one that I’d recommend trying out with the right group of players. Just don’t leave your Holy Water at home.
8 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Cryptozoic Entertainment at their site.

https://cryptozoic.com/

Zaberias Review

Zaberias is a game by Moshe Glick and Benny Goldstein. It is for 2-4 players. In this game, players will take control of a tribe of warriors as they battle across Zaberias for control of the land. Players will need to build cities and buy units to attack and defend with as they attempt to rid the land of their opponent’s cities and units. In the end, the player that can best lead their tribe to victory by defeating their opponents will be declared the winner.

To begin, each player chooses one of the four tribes and takes the corresponding map board, along with the dice and pieces for their chosen tribe. Depending on the number of players, the player’s map boards are placed either across from each other in a 2 player game, in a triangle for a 3 player game and in a square for a 4 player game. Each player will then set their Armory close by and place one of their wood cities into the slot above their corner city on their map board. Each player starts with only 5 coins, so one of the coins in their Armory must be flipped over to it’s spent side. Players roll a die to see who the first player is and play now begins.

On a player’s turn they may purchase/upgrade cities, purchase units, move units and attack with units. There are 3 different types of cities; wood, metal and gold. Wood cities are free to build and provide 1 coin at the beginning of the player’s turn. Wood cities only allow the player to create wood units. Metal cities cost 2 coins and provide 2 coins at the beginning of their turn. They also allow the player to create either wood or metal units. Gold cities cost 3 coins and provide 3 coins at the beginning of the player’s turn. These cities allow the player to create gold, metal or wood units. To upgrade from a wood city to a gold city, the player must first upgrade to a metal city before upgrading to a gold one.

Once a player has one or more cities on their map board, they may purchase units allowed by their city, as noted above. To purchase a unit, the player simply flips the required amount of coins over and places the unit on their city of choice. Most units have a special ability that can help their allies or possibly even harm their opponent. For more information on each of the unit abilities, please check out the rulebook for the game.

Each unit has a specific number of steps that the unit can move in a single turn. Each square on the board costs 1 step. Units can be moved a number of spaces up to their step number along paths, on the grass and through the trees. Some units even have special abilities that allow them to move over water. One thing to note is that only one unit may occupy a square. Units may not jump over another unit, including one of their own. However flying does allow units to move over other units but they must end their movement on an empty space. The player is allowed to move as many units as they want but each unit may only move once per turn.

Like steps, each unit also has a range number. Once the unit is in range of an opponent’s unit, they may attack or use any special abilities. Attacking another unit with a ranged attack is allowed even over water. Units without a ranged attack may only use a melee attack on a unit in an adjacent space. Each unit has a strength number which is a combination of the unit’s muscle and the result of a dice roll. This number is used for both attack and defense. To attack, the player simply declares which unit they are attacking with and rolls the amount of dice the unit has. The result is then added to the unit’s muscle. The opponent will then do the same thing for their targeted unit, by rolling their dice and adding the result to their unit’s muscle. The unit with the highest score in battle wins. The losing unit is removed from the board, being returned to the player’s armory. Like moving, each unit may only attack once per turn. It should be noted, units may be moved and then attack or may attack and then move. If the result of the attack is a tie, the attacking player may continue the attack or stand down. If the attacker continues the assault then each player will roll their dice again and compare their battle scores once more. When attacking a stronger unit, a player may choose to ambush the opposing unit by attacking it with more than one of their units in range. The ambushing player combines all of their attacking unit’s battle scores against the enemy’s battle score. If the ambush is successful, then the opposing unit is removed from the board. However if the ambushed unit has a battle score higher than all of the attacking units, it not only defends itself but defeats all the attacking units removing all of them from the board.

Players may not only attack other units but may also attack cities as well. Vacant cities may easily be attacked by simply placing a unit on them. This allows the player to place a wood city on the space. Enemy cities may be attacked in 3 different ways. If the city does not have an enemy unit on it, then the player may move their unit into the city and attack the city’s defenses. Each city has a different level of defense; wood cities roll 1 die, metal roll 2 dice and gold roll 3 dice. If the attacking player wins then the enemy’s city is removed and the player may place a wood city of their own. If the attacking player loses, then the attacking unit is removed from the board. If the city is occupied by an enemy unit, then the defending player combines the city’s defense with the unit’s strength. The losing unit is removed and if the city was unable to defend, it is also removed. The city does not become the attacking players until they move a unit into the space. If the player chooses to attack an unoccupied city from an adjacent square or from a distance with a ranged unit, then if the attacking player loses, they do not lose their attacking unit as the city has no ranged attack.

One last thing on attacking and defending. If a player’s unit is being attacked, they may use other units within range of the attacker to assist with defending against the attack. A defending unit will then add their muscle only, not their dice to the defending unit’s strength.

Once a player is done with their turn, play passes the the next player in turn order. The game continues until only one player has units or cities left on the board, having destroyed all of their enemies cities and units. The player that is able to do this is the winner.

One last thing of note, across the boards are special places that may help a player. Portals allow a player’s units to move from one place to another. Gold mines give a player a coin at the beginning of their turn. Power Stars gives all of a player’s units 1 extra muscle point.

COMPONENTS
The game comes with a lot of pieces for each of the 4 factions. Each faction comes with it’s own faction board that includes all the coins, units and city pieces for each faction. It also has a map board for that faction and a set of colored faction dice that match the faction’s color. The artwork is really nice and each of the cardboard pieces is really thick and sturdy. It’s a bit difficult to get the pieces out of the faction board sometimes which can be a bit of a hassle. The dice are a little small too. I think some larger dice would have been better. The icons on the dice appear to be screen printed on so I figure after a good bit of playing, they’ll probably start rubbing off since the dice are used quite a bit. Really think engraved dice would have been better. The final gripe I have about the components is that all the faction boards and pieces came wrapped up in shrink wrap. There was no box to hold everything together and the faction maps don’t stay on top of the faction board very well. I’m afraid that I’m going to lose pieces from the game. As a matter of fact, the cardboard on one of the faction boards is already starting to separate. The dice are stored in small foam piece that is at the bottom of the faction board. I don’t know how well that’s going to hold up either. It just really feels like a huge miss in terms of storing the game. Apart from that everything looks really good. All the text is clear and easy to read. I do kind of wish that the costs for the different units was also on the front of the pieces so you don’t have to flip them over just to check the price of each one. Of course after a time or two of playing, you kinda remember what each one costs. One thing that I found odd was that the game claims to be the “#1 Best Educational Game for Kids 6+ To Improve Counting & Reading Skills”. This is posted quite large on the front of each of the faction covers. Where did this “Award” come from? Who said that it was the best? Was this what the designers felt the game was or did the game win some award? If there’s no official endorsement here, then that’s very misleading and not something that I would be very happy about. Hopefully if this gets a 2nd edition, there will be some changes and the major issues will be taken into consideration. Issues aside I think that overall the game looks good, there were just some bad choices made that hurt the design of the game.

6 out of 10

RULEBOOK
Unfortunately the game that I received didn’t come with any rules or rulebook. Thankfully I was able to find a copy of the rules online. That should not have even been a thing. Kind of hard to play a game if you don’t know the rules. Granted there are some great videos on Youtube that explain the game, it’s still nice to have a physical copy of the rules to be able to easily look through when questions come up. Just like I feel the game should have come in a box to be able to store all of the pieces in, the game should have had a set of rules included. That was very poor planning. The only thing that even mentions rules is on the back of the faction boards. There’s a small box on back that says learn to play with video tutorials and it gives the website. Why? Look I loved the Youtube videos, they’re very entertaining and fun. They just don’t do the same thing that a rulebook does. Once I downloaded the rules, they were fairly easy to understand. There are about 5 pages of actual rules and then over 20 pages of frequently asked questions about each of the different units for each tribe as well as rules for rolling the dice. Took a little bit of time to read over everything but once I did, I was ready to play. If the rules had been included I would have felt a lot better about the game and I would have been able to actually have something in hand to rate. As it is without a physical copy, I’m quite disappointed, thus the following score.

6 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
Despite the shortcomings of the components and rulebook, this game is actually quite fun. It’s a fairly simple skirmish style game that combines skirmish tactics with some mild city building. Each building built helps to provide more income to be able to purchase more units to place on the board and ultimately wipe out your enemies and all their cities. Certain special areas make this a bit easier and help to get your unit on the board a bit quicker by providing extra income or even by powering up your units. Quickly taking control of the different cities can make it easier to get units on the board and where you need them to be. The gameplay isn’t overly difficult and is actually quite easy to learn. I think that’s because the game was designed to be played by younger players along with older ones. That’s one reason I fell that the game is a family friendly game that pretty much anyone can play. It does have enough strategy to it that even more seasoned players can enjoy so there’s nothing to worry about there. All the different units have special abilities that can help you secure victory over your opponent(s). Of course the higher the cost for the unit, the better that unit will be. That said, the game does contain a bit of luck. After all, everything comes down to the roll of the dice. Just because you have a more powerful unit doesn’t mean that a bad roll on your part can’t cause you to lose that strong piece to a much weaker one. I’ve seen it happen fairly often. I think that fans of skirmish style games will enjoy the simplicity of this one, especially if they are looking to play with younger players or even less experienced gamers. This isn’t Warhammer or Blood Rage or one of those big miniature style games but it does scratch the itch that those same games do but in a small and easier to manage package. Overall I like the game. It has enough to it that I can see me playing it again. This is one that I’d recommend giving a try, especially if you’re thinking about getting into some of those bigger style games like I mentioned earlier. It’s would be a nice way to see if you like the genre and to help ease you into those types of games.

7 out of 10

OVERALL
Zaberias is a light weight skirmish style game based in a fantasy realm. The game can take a bit of time to play. Most game sessions last around 20 minutes per player. The components are a mixed bag. The artwork and feel of the game are good but the pieces are a bit fiddly and lack a bit of polish, plus the lack of a game box just doesn’t feel right. The rulebook would be ok if it were actually included with the game, but it’s not. The game itself is fun and packs the right amount of strategy in a small package. It’s family friendly and would be good for families with younger players or for anyone looking to learn the skirmish style of games made popular in games like Warhammer and the lot. For this reason I think fans of those types of skirmish games would most likely enjoy this as an intro into that particular genre. It has enough to it that older and younger players can enjoy. Honestly I know that this review hasn’t been completely overwhelming for the game, but I think with just a few additions and improvements, it can be a really great game. At the moment however, this is one that I would recommend giving a try. You just might find you actually enjoy this one like I did.

7 out of 10

For more information about this game, please check out Zaberias at the game’s site.

https://www.zaberias.com/

My First Safari Board Game Review

My First Safari is a game designed and published by National Geographic and Blue Marble. It is for 2-4 players. In this game, players take on the role of explorers in a safari park. They will be trying to get through the park as quickly as possible to see all of the animals. They’ll have to be careful though as the sun travels quickly across the sky. If the explorers are able to make it to the end before sunset then the players will be declared the winners.

To begin, players choose a difficulty level and place the board in the middle of the play area. Depending on the difficulty level, a number of explorers are placed on the first spaces of the board. For the easiest game, 3 explorers are placed on the first 3 spaces. For the most difficult level 5 explorers are placed on the first 5 spaces. The sun token is placed in the first sky space at the top left space on the board. All of the cards are shuffled together. Each player is then dealt 3 cards each. The remaining cards are then placed face down next to the board to form the draw pile. The first player is chosen and play now begins.

On a player’s turn they must take one of two actions; they must play a sun card from their hand or they may play an item card to move an explorer. If the player has a sun card in their hand, it must be played by placing it into the discard pile. The player will then advance the sun token one space to the right on the track. They will then draw a new card, adding it to their hand. If the player doesn’t have a sun card in their hand, then they must play an item card. Once played, the player moves one of the explorers to the first space on the path that matches the card played. If there is already an explorer on that space, then the explorer will jump over that space and move to the next available space on the path. Near the end of the path, if there are no unoccupied spaces left on the path that match the card played, then the explorer is moved to the end of the park signifying that the explorer has seen all the animals in the park. Once the player has finished moving an explorer, they will draw a new card from the draw pile. Once either of the actions has been performed, play passes to the next player in turn order.

The game continues until one of two things happens. If all of the explorers reach the end of the park before sunset, then the players win. If the sun token reaches the last space before all the explorers have made it to the end of the park, then the players lose and will have to restart the game and try again.

COMPONENTS
The game comes with several different pieces. The best looking piece is the board. It’s really bright and colorful with lots of great artwork including tons of different animals, scenery and even the sun. The finish on the board is really great and it folds up nice and neatly to fit perfectly inside the small box. I especially like that the board isn’t overly big so it doesn’t take up a ton of room on the table. The game also comes with a cardboard sun token and 5 very diverse explorer standees that are also made of cardboard and fit perfectly inside the plastic stands that are included. I have to say that I was thrilled to see the inclusion of a disabled explorer in a wheelchair as one of the standees. I think that was great to have piece in the game. The final components of the game are the cards. These I have mixed feelings about. While I like the overall design and artwork on them, I’m not a fan of the quality or the finish. A couple of my cards were damaged where it looked like they’d stuck together during production. It’s not something that really affects gameplay, but it didn’t look as nice and pristine as the other cards when they were played. I also think that the finish could have been a bit better. Even without the damage, the finish of the cards tends to make them want to stick together a bit. That can make things difficult to shuffle the cards. Overall the artwork is bright and cute. It definitely looks like a game for younger kids and I’m sure it’s one that they would enjoy looking at. For older kids and adults, it’s fine and it doesn’t detract or distract from the game. For me, I do like most of the pieces. I just wish the cards were designed a bit better, at least as far as quality goes.

7 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for this game is really easy to read through and understand. The actual rules of the game are contained on 2 pages. The remaining 4 pages are dedicated to facts on each of the different animals included in the artwork on the board. These facts include pictures of the animals as well as which continent the animals can be found on. There’s really not a lot to talk about here. Like I said, the rules are very short and only take a couple of minutes to read through. As a homeschooler I do like the additional facts for each of the animals. I think that it’s a nice addition to the rule book. The only thing that I think would be nice would have been maybe some variations to the game for possibly playing competitively. There are lots of great pictures in the book which help players identify the animals on the board. Overall I think the rulebook does a good job of wrapping up the rules in a condensed format.

8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
This is a very simple game. With the “My First” moniker attached to the name of the game, I wouldn’t have expected anything less. The first thing that I thought of while playing the game was Candyland with a little bit more to it. Instead of having double colored cards, there are other ways to move over two spaces, such as playing a card for one of the explorers that’s already covered up. This will then let the explorer move further ahead on the path. I’ll be honest I felt like this one may have been a little too simple and too young for my family. I think with the right age group, then this one would have went over better. I do like that the game was co-operative, but still would have liked some additional rules for playing it competitively as well. I think that would have helped it out a little bit. For homeschoolers with younger children, I think the game would be a nice step up from games like Chutes and Ladders or Candyland. As it is it didn’t register as well as I would have hoped. Still for families with younger children this would be a great game. I think the co-operative nature would be great for children to work with their parents to get all the explorers to the end of the safari park. I think it promotes teamwork and critical thinking. Overall I like the game. This is one that I’d recommend for parents with younger children around the age of 4-10 years old.

7 out of 10

OVERALL
My First Safari is a very lightweight co-operative game of getting all of the explorers through the Safari park. The game doesn’t take very long to play. Most game sessions last around 15-20 minutes. The components are pretty nice especially for a children’s game. I especially like the game board. The rulebook is very simple and does a good job of conveying the rules. The game itself is very easy to learn and has some similarities to Candyland. It’s family friendly and is truly adorable. This is one that I think families with younger children would absolutely love. The co-operative nature of the game promotes teamwork and critical thinking and is also great for homeschoolers. This is one that I’d recommend for children 4-10 years old. Families with older children will probably want to pass on this one. Overall it’s a nice game that I liked.

7 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out Blue Marble at their site.

https://thinkbluemarble.com/

Science Ninjas Valence Review

Science Ninjas Valence is a game by Nathan Schreiber. It is for 2-5 players. In this game, players will be taking or the role of scientists as they use different elements to form Molecules in order to gain points. The player that can best channel their inner scientist and gain ten points first will be declared the winner.

To begin, the Molecule cards are arranged in the middle of the play area in a specific order and layout as noted in the rulebook. This layout will form the Molecule Bank. The Element cards are shuffled together. Each player is then dealt 6 cards. The remaining cards are placed face down near the Molecule Bank. The top card is drawn and placed face up in the discard pile beside the deck. Players check their Element cards and the player with the highest atomic number will be the first player. Play now begins.

On a player’s turn if they didn’t react with another player on their last turn, they will start by drawing an Element card. If they have only one card in their hand, they will draw two cards. If they have no cards, they will draw three. If a player is drawing only one card they may choose instead to draw the top card from the discard pile. The player may also choose to discard their entire hand and draw three new cards instead of drawing cards. If the player reacted with another player on their last turn, then they will skip drawing cards on their turn.

The player may then perform 3 actions; build molecules, react and trade up. Building molecules is done by finding a combination of Element cards whose Valence numbers add up to zero. The Valence number is the large number at the top of the card with a plus or minus beside them. The player will then take the Molecule from the Molecule Bank that matches the colors of the Element square on the Element card. The player may check the back of the Molecule card to make sure that they built the Molecule correctly. The player will then place the Molecule card face up in front of themself. This becomes the player’s Molecule Stash. The Element cards used are placed in the discard pile. The player is allowed to build as many Molecules as they are able to from the cards in their hand.

Another action the player may take is to react. Acid and Water Molecules are Reactors and they can react with certain white bordered Molecules. Reacting is done using an opponent’s Molecule. The player takes one of their Reactors and chooses an opponents Molecule that it is able to react with. The bottom of the Reactor cards tells exactly which cards they will react with. An Acid reacts with a Base and with Metal Oxide. Water reacts with Deadly Carbonyl. The player will then return the Reactor to the Molecule Bank and take a random Element card from the player’s hand. If the opponent has no cards then the player will draw an Element from the Element deck. The opponent will then replace the white bordered Molecule that was in their Molecule Bank with the products of the reaction. A Base or Metal Oxide are replaced with a Salt and a Water Molecule. A Deadly Carbonyl is replaced with a Carbon Dioxide and an Acid. The opponent will then skip the draw phase of their next turn. Reacting may be done by a player as many times as they are able to on their turn.

The last action that a player may perform is to trade up. Trading up is done by returning a Salt to the Molecule Bank. The player will then draw two cards from the Element deck. This particular action may only be done once per turn, unlike the other actions.

Once a player has completed all their actions by building molecules, reacting and/or trading up, they will then finish their turn by checking the cards in their hand. If the player has 7 or more Element cards, they must discard down to 6. Play then passes to the next player in turn order. The game continues until one player collects ten points worth of Molecules in their Molecule Stash. The first player to do that is the winner.

One thing should be noted, Helium is a special Element card. If it is drawn into a player’s starting hand, it is returned to the bottom of the Element deck and replaced with another card. If it is drawn later, then the player may add it to their Molecule Stash directly from their hand as if they were building a complete Molecule.

COMPONENTS
The game consists of two decks of cards; a deck of Molecule cards and a deck of Element cards. These cards look absolutely great. They have an almost linen finish to them that looks and feels really nice. The artwork on them is whimsical and fun. I really like how each element has it’s own look and it’s own ninja to represent it. I also like how that the Molecule cards have all the game info on one side but on the back of the card there’s the different formulas, names and how to make each of the different molecules. There’s also more educational information on the back including, on some of the cards, a sample reaction. Honestly I think the cards look great and they do a great job of educating as well as entertaining. Needless to say, I really like the components for this card game.

9 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for the game is very compact, fitting nicely inside the box. It’s full color with a glossy finish to it that looks very professional. There are lots of pictures throughout the book and even some examples of gameplay. The first several pages cover the components and the actual rules of the game. The rest of the book is pretty much devoted to each of the different Element ninjas and their element. This is such a nice edition. It’s educational in the way that it explains each element and it’s fun by giving backstories to each of the ninjas. The book also includes some tips and tricks for playing the game, as well as some alternative rules for playing a few different ways. One page even explains what Valence is. I’ll be honest, before reading this explanation and looking at the pictures, I had no idea what this even was. Guess even us old guys can be taught something. Let me just say, I’m very impressed with the overall work that was put into the rulebook. It took a lot to put everything together like this and to even go so far as creating stories for the ninjas. When I first opened the box and looked through all the cards, I thought the ninjas were cool, but after reading the backstories and learning more about each one, I found them to be awesome. I know in the grand scheme of things that it’s not necessary for all that info and stuff but I think it was a nice touch to add all that and really give kids and parents something more with the game. Needless to say, I’m thoroughly impressed.

9 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
When I first got this game, I thought it would be like so many of those other educational games that seem fun for the first play through and then you get tired of it afterwards. That was not the case with this one. This game is not only educational but fun to boot. It has elements of trick taking and take that and it doesn’t wear out it’s welcome. The idea is of course to get 10 points worth of molecules but you’ll need to not only form your own but mess up your opponents molecules to stay ahead. So many times you’ll get close to winning before one of your opponents will create a reaction that takes that high point molecule and reduces it to nothing but water and salt or acid and carbon dioxide. It’s a bit frustrating but a lot of fun too, especially if you’re the one doing the reaction. I have to say, I really like this one. The quick play time makes sure that you don’t get bored of it. Too many of these card games wind up like playing Monopoly for 3 or 4 hours straight…BORING. This one, however, is not boring. I would even say it’s probably one of the best pure card games that I’ve played. It’s a great game that’s not only educational but family friendly. It’s not overly complex either and can easily be played by players 8 years old and up. It’s extremely fun and definitely a game that I would highly recommend. Homeschoolers will love having this for their science curriculum as it will definitely help get across some of those chemistry concepts. Needless to say, this one won’t be leaving my collection any time soon.

9 out of 10

OVERALL
Science Ninjas Valence is an educational card game that teaches chemistry concepts though the use of ninjas in a massively fun way. The game doesn’t take long to play at all. Most game sessions last around 15-20 minutes. The cards are very high quality and I love the artwork and design of everything. I especially like the extra educational info on the back of the Molecule cards. The rulebook is very well designed and looks amazing. I especially enjoy all the thought and hard work that was put into the extra pages for each of the element ninjas and their elements. The game itself is lots of fun. As a matter of fact, you could easily forget that it is an educational game. That’s just how well designed the game is. It’s very simple to play and is family friendly so that everyone from the 8 year olds to the 80 year olds can play it. It has a lot of great mechanics that die hard gamers will recognize. For homeschoolers, the game is wonderful as it helps teach some chemistry concepts while playing the game. Needless to say, this is a great game for everyone and it’s definitely a game that I highly recommend. I can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t enjoy playing this one. I can’t wait to play it again. The world of science ninjas call me.

9 out of 10

For more information about this and other great games, please check out the Science Ninjas at their site.

https://www.scienceninjas.com/

Mad Libs The Game Review

Mad Libs The Game is a game by Andrew Looney, published by Looney Labs. It is for 3-8 players. In this game, players will be doing their best to make an award winning sentence using the word cards in their hand. The player that can best manage this and prove themself a masterful linguist, will be declared the winner.

To begin, the deck of Word cards is shuffled together. Each player is then dealt 7 cards, the remaining cards are placed face down in the middle of the play area. The deck of Sentence cards is then shuffled and placed in the middle of the play area along with the Word card deck. Once this has been done and players are ready, play now begins.

The game is played over a series of rounds. Each round consists of 5 steps. In the first step a new Sentence is revealed. This is done by flipping over the top card of the Sentence deck and reading the sentence aloud. Next players will choose words. What that means is that each player will choose a selection of cards from their hand to fill all the blanks on the current Sentence card, placing their chosen cards face down in front of themself. It should be noted that players must have a word type that is appropriate for each blank that they correspond to and they must have one Word card for each blank space. Once all players have chosen their cards, they may move on to the next step and read their sentence. In no specific order, players will then take a turn reading the sentence with their set of chosen words to fill in the blank of the Sentence card. As they read, it’s suggested to choose the best version possible of the base word to grammatically fit into the specific blank. Each time the player reads one of their words, they will reveal the matching word card. Once all players have read their sentence, they will all vote for the sentence they liked the best by pointing at the player that read it. Players may not choose their own sentence. Once players are ready to vote, everyone will raise their hand with 1 finger pointing up. At the count of 3, everyone will then point at their chosen winner. The player that gets the most votes will then win a point and be awarded the Sentence card which is placed face down to indicate their score. Once this is completed, the round is over. Once the round ends, all used Word cards are discarded and each player will draw back up to 7 cards to fill their hand. Before redrawing, players may discard any unused cards from their hand as they wish.

The game continues with players reading their sentences and voting for their favorite sentence. The game ends once a player gets 3 points. The first player to do this is the winner.

COMPONENTS
The game comes with 2 decks of cards. There’s a set of large Sentence cards and a large set of Word cards. There aren’t any pictures or anything like that on any of the cards, just words and sentences. The word cards have all the different types of the particular word, each one color coded to match with the words on the sentence cards. The sentence cards have a sentence with a couple of words left out, filled in with bright colored bubbles with what kind of word it is, such as an adverb, adjective or noun. This helps younger players to be able to match up the words with the colors. It also helps them to learn about the words themselves. The cards are good quality and while not being overly thick they are around the same quality as that of Apples to Apples or other games of this nature. While there’s nothing overly amazing about the cards, that’s not the purpose of them. What the cards do is easily replicate the old Mad Libs pads but in a better and more colorful way. Overall I’m completely comfortable with the components and have nothing to complain about here.

8 out of 10

RULEBOOK
The rulebook for the game is a long folded sheet of double sided glossy paper. Once folded, it’s about the same size as one of the sentence cards. The front of the sheet has all the rules on it, which as you’ve seen, isn’t a lot to read over. The back of the rules sheet has some notes on ties, word type shortage, expanding word usage and non player voting. All of which can be used or can simply be ignored. Of course there’s nothing wrong with using your own house rules if you’re not completely crazy about any of these. So far, I’ve not encountered any situations where I had to actually use any of the information from the notes section. Also on the back of the sheet are pictures of the actual contents of the games. These are the only pictures anywhere on the rules sheet. Overall the rules don’t take long to look over and read and they’re very simple. That means that it only takes a couple of minutes before you can actually get right in to actually playing the game. For me, that’s a plus. Needless to say, like the components, there’s nothing to complain about here either.

8 out of 10

GAMEPLAY
As a kid, one of my most favorite things to do was to break out one of those old Mad Libs pads and get my friends, parents or whomever was around to help me create these silly stories with the most off the wall sentences. As we read these, we’d always laugh and just enjoy the silliness of it all. With this game, I’m able to do all that again but with my wife and kids. The stories aren’t as long but it still gets the overall silliness that I used to enjoy growing up. The best part is that I’m not having to stop and write down all the different words, I can just lay down a bunch of cards and read the words off of them instead. In a lot of ways, I feel like the game takes some of the ideas behind games like Apples to Apples and mixes it with the Mad Libs pads. What’s created is this game. I enjoy the sheer silliness that ensues after each player reads their sentence. I have noticed a few times that some players will have trouble trying to read the sentence and insert the correct word, even with the colored bubbles helping them out. I think in those cases, for those players, it’s best to let them hold onto the sentence card and lay their words out in front of them as they read them. Kinda helps to keep everything in order and from getting too confused. One thing that I think I would have liked to have had would have been some longer sentences. A lot of the cards only have a couple of words so there’s not a whole lot of room to add the silliness into it. While that’s fine, it can make for a short game with only 3 or 4 players. I think the first couple of times we played as a family it only took like 10 minutes a game. That’s great if you’re just looking for something to spend a few minutes together as a family with. However if you’re looking for something longer, then you might have to up the number of points to win the game or something like that. As I mentioned earlier, this definitely has some Apples to Apples vibes, so if that’s a game that you and your family enjoy than you’ll definitely enjoy this one too. I think the game can also be used in homeschooling as a fun way of learning the different parts of speech, like adverbs, adjectives…etc. I feel like if you’re kid doesn’t enjoy English then here’s a fun way to help them with at least that aspect of the class. Overall my family and I enjoyed playing this one and will no doubt be playing it more in the days to come. It’s definitely a fun family friendly game that can be played in a short time, which is great for families on the run. I would definitely recommend this one.

8 out of 10

OVERALL
Mad Libs The Game is very light weight party game that takes the fun of the old Mad Libs pads and turns it into a card game for up to 8 players. The game doesn’t take a long time, unless you’re playing with lots of players. For a normal 4 player game, it can be played in around 10 minutes time. The components are just a couple of decks of cards but they replicate the old Mad Libs pads in a much more fun way, adding some bright colors into the mix. The rules are very simply and easy to read making it possible to get started in just a couple of minutes. The game itself is silly and fun and make me think of the old Mad Libs pads mixed a little bit with the card game Apples to Apples. The game is family friendly and can even be used in homeschooling as an educational game but one that’s actually fun. For fans of Apples to Apples or other party style games of this nature, players will find a lot to enjoy. My family has had a lot of fun with the game and we had a lot of laughs while playing it. For us, this is one that I would definitely recommend. If you add this to your family game night, be ready to laugh.

8 out of 10

For more information about Mad Libs The Game and other great games, please check out Looney Labs at their site.

https://store.looneylabs.com/