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- Babel
This Uwe Rosenberg entry (with Hagen Dorgathen) in Kosmos' two-player
line joins games such as
Lost Cities
and
Tally Ho!.
But if the first is a race
and the second a "back-and-forth", this is a full out boxing
match with plenty of knockdowns and recoveries before it is over.
In fact the options of the offense are so strong it is almost as if
the players are eggshells armed with hammers.
Precariously then, they race to build a minimum number of
towers on five sites (artificially tied to Persians, Sumerians,
Hittites, etc.). Each of these has a special power as if this were a
GMT game (see
Galaxy: The Dark Ages,
Ivanhoe,
Battleline).
Most players will probably find that luck of the draw has
too much influence although some report relief from a variant
which permits any pair of cards to stand in for a card of the
discarder's choice. Kosmos' typical attractive presentation continues
here, including two unusual marker stones.
- Babuschka
Early 80's-era Ravensburger game designed by American Alan M. Newman.
Building on the concept of
Halma (Chinese Checkers),
adds the wrinkle that pieces may not travel backwards. In addition,
the pawns which are nicely-made top halves of Russian babushka
nesting dolls in three sizes may cover one another, preventing the
smaller ones from moving. Interesting for the same reasons as
Halma, but probably too many playings are going to be
decided a bit prosaically by one player having one of his small
pieces trapped until too late. Four-player version appears to
be more interesting than two. Three is disallowed.
- Backgammon (Tric Trac)
Classic abstract apparently dates back five thousand years to
Mesopotamia. May share a common ancestor with Pachisi.
Probably related to the Egyptian game Sennet (not
described here) and spread everywhere by Roman legionaries.
Popularity surged in the United States during the 1970's and
continues today as it is of interest for
gamblers. The inclusion of luck via the dice has probably made this one
more accessible to a wide audience, even though there is still plenty
of interesting and difficult decisionmaking as well.
Tric Trac is the name in French and Russian.
- Bakschisch
The very exotic sounding name of designer Kara Ben Hering is
a red herring indeed as it is actually the pseudonym of Klaus
Teuber and friends who have here designed a blind bidding game
reminiscent of Adel Verpflichtet,
but set in the old Middle East. In particular, players
are attempting to bribe their way through a palace until
they can finally reach the caliph. Simple system moves right
along and works quite well as a light outing, much as with Razzia, although not nearly
as flexible in number of players (four is really required).
Ensure that players are alert at all times as it takes all
the efforts of the other three to foil someone poised to win.
Features unique swirly pawns and very snazzy gold-colored
plastic coins.
- Balderdash
Word game is actually a traditional pastime called "The
Dictionary Game" features players trying to invent anonymous
believable definitions and scoring points for the number of other
players guessing wrong. The commercial presentation is quite an
improvement as a large number of dictionaries were consulted and
many obscure words obtained, often having humorous definitions
in the first place, making the game even more difficult as
well as fun. Also called Call my Bluff, Dictionary,
Dictionary Definitions Game, Fictionary Dictionary.
Followed up by separate game Beyond Balderdash. [amazon.com]
- Ballonrennen
British game about delivering the mail via hot air balloon.
Fairly nice balloon pawns with moving parts permit the balloon
to fly at one of three different altitudes. Nice plastic bits
represent ballast which is released to gain altitude. Gameplay is
more problematic as wind shifts are so sudden and unpredictable
as to throw most planning over the side of the basket. Worse,
it's not difficult to get into a situation where the player is
unable to do anything useful for several turns running.
[Balloon Aviation Games]
- Ballot Bots
This card game of collecting votes is a bit reminiscent of
Drahtseilakt
as well as
Fiji,
though significantly different from each. Each card combines
two numbers, one representing votes, the other unique. One
player, being designated the spotlight, must make several
associations. That is, there are several rule cards, one of
which will apply to the highest card played, one to the
lowest, and the rest to the positions in between. Then players
select cards which are simultaneously revealed and the rules
are applied. The spotlight player has had the tricky task of figuring
out what his hand may best enable him to do while the others
must similarly figure out what he is intending and how best to
either fit in or work against. Rule cards include directives
such as "take the card on offer", "take an opponent's card",
"become the spotlight player", "take a played card and discard all
the rest", etc. It's a very tricky business, actually, made
more complex by the fact that one wants not just votes, but also
diversity of card colors. In addition there is a bonus for the
collector of the most zero vote cards. Theme is more or less
an afterthought here, even though cards have labels and
pictures corresponding to various voter demographics:
liberals, conservatives, undecideds, etc. The artwork is
cartoonish, deliberately primitive and somewhat robotic
looking. Overall this game is a bit of a wolf in sheep's
clothing: an innocent-seeming card game which turns out to be
one for serious game players. Likely most will not grasp all
its possibilities on the first outing, but those who persist
with it – and have a good memory for cards played –
will find rich tactical possibilities. Play only requires twenty or
so minutes as well.
Strategy: Low; Theme: Low; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Medium; Personal Rating: 6
Stephen Glenn & Mike Petty;
Robot Martini;
2007; 3-4
- Ballon Cup (Balloon Cup)
Two player game of various ballooning competitions. The layout
reminds of Lost Cities,
but actual play is considerably more tactical as players can
lay cards on either side of the middle line. In addition,
prizes are being taken all the time in the form of quite small
wood cubes. Collect enough cubes in a color and win one of the
trophies, each of which has a different value. The decisionmaking
is the opposite of Lost Cities where often one doesn't want
to do anything apart from get more cards. Here it is more usual to
want to do many things, but only one is permitted. The important
skill is to evaluate which is most important, often based on
whatever can be deduced about the opponent's goals and hand.
It's also refreshing that both low and high cards are useful,
greatly lessening the possibility of losing due to poor luck
of the draw. Unfortunately the theme is very thin; apparently
Stephen Glenn's original one of a piñata party
was not familiar enough for the German market. But the artwork
is attractive enough and the final result makes for one of the
better entries in the Kosmos series. [Holiday List 2003]
[Buy it at Amazon]
- Balmy Balloonists
Game of strategy on the topic of racing balloons
around the world. Objectivity about one's own design becomes quite
difficult after having been so close to it for so long. What we attempted
to do was create a game which remains true to its adventurous, colorful
and light topic. In terms of the mechanics, it is a racing game
in which players compete by playing cards. However, they do not play cards
in trick-taking fashion as in Canyon. As far as we can tell in no other
game does cardplay simply select the lane of travel; usually cards
vary the rate of speed. Here, the speed is given by the lane which is an
indirection with which players must cope, made more challenging by obstacles.
Moreover,
the lane selection mechanism is further twisted by being not absolute, but
relative. Further planning is introduced by the fact that lane
changes are tied to specific altitudes, and the number and degree
to which altitude can be changed is limited by supplies. Usually
this should provide for a fair game, although in the rare case
that a player draws exactly the cards needed throughout the
game (which ones they are will vary from game to game), the
ability of other players to trigger events or play contrary
winds is available to stop him. With cooperative play, it has
been demonstrated that an apparently sure winner sitting on the
goal line can be stopped and another player several spaces back
overtake him. At the same time, such negative play is limited by
the event pawn mechanism so that a targeted player still has his
fair chance to win. (Use of advantage cards to take valuable
cards into the hand is another
balancing mechanism.)
Overall, we feel that no other game is quite like it. Few other games
feature such a refreshingly rich mixture of mechanisms, which offer
opportunities for tactics and long-term strategic planning, but still
include a degree of unpredictability with which players must cope.
[Balloon Aviation Games]
[more]
- Banana Republic
As in Junta, the topic is corrupt politicians.
Players allocate their bribes and hit men cards to
projects of varying values in secret, but each placement gives a chance to
see what others have placed there. There is a definite
memory element that may put off those players
burned out by undergraduate work. A good concept, however,
which is further refined in
Corruption.
Doris & Frank
- Banditos
Michael Schacht card game of desperadoes seeking to rob banks in six
Wild West cities, e.g. Santa Fe, Tucson, Tombstone, etc. Reminiscent of
Kardinal & König: Das Kartenspiel
in its lookahead nature, the main problem in robbing these
banks is not breaking in, unlocking the safe or even security
guards, but making the trip to the town in the first place. Each
destination has four milestones represented by cards randomly
distributed to the players. On his turn a player either plays
such a card to advance the trip, places the card face up in front
of himself or offers to pay for the right to place another's
such card. The offer mechanism is innovative in that only one
offer per turn may be made and if the seller does not accept,
the deal doesn't go down. Buyers can ensure a deal however by
paying the full price.
The main reason to do this is to enable the fourth card to be played, which gives
the player the bank's full value. On the other hand, this player may end up netting
less than half the proceeds because of the payments to necessary to get there.
The other dilemma is that the round ends when any player has no cards which means
not all banks get visited. Figuring out when this is likely to happen is important
in cutting costs. The card illustrations are very cute and go along with the light
level of play. Some mental energy can be applied here, but one can imagine adding
some form of card trading or other mechanisms to make this more desireable for
strategists. Otherwise, were the theme less sinister, could probably work for
a child audience.
- Banque Fatale
Stefan Dorra game of shares and auctions. Each turn a share in either one or two companies
is sold via blind auction. The innovative wrinkle is that the money bid comes in different
types, all completely equal in terms of value, but completely different in terms of side
effect. In this market, each bidding chip corresponds to a company and only the firm
receiving the most bids will climb. Others drop at least one level or all the way to the
bottom if not chips of its color are bid, a banque fatale indeed. Players take
turns drafting back the spent chips and then the current player may sell a share. So
players have several conflicting goals. Of course they want to spend a lot to ensure
buying shares, but at the same time don't want to contribute to propping up others' share
values. They would liek to bid a lot of their own colors, but not so many as to have no
chips left with which to avoid the big plunge on future turns. Finally, when on a selling
turn, they want to avoid having their high value stock increase in price because then it
may not be sold, but on the other hand if it should peak, they receive a nice dividend.
In addition, players need to avoid the problems of being either the only person in a
stock or, conversely, acquiring a stock which everyone else also has. It's all rather
challenging and counter-intuitive, especially as it's so difficult to keep a stock's
price stable, much less make it rise. One strategic idea that seems to work is to hoard
the chips of a stock held by everyone but you, if you can afford it, that is. The entire
playing, like the designer's
For Sale,
lasts a mere 20-30 minutes, but ineffably is not quite as exciting. On the other hand,
when compared to the latter, so few games are. Perhaps there is too much a feeling of
helplessness? On the other hand, if you've been playing just a bit too much
For Sale
or others of its type, as a welcome change of pace, you can bank on this one.
- Barbarossa
Unusual mix of party and society game was,
according to inventor Klaus Teuber, inspired by the
Riddle-Master Trilogy
of books
(The Riddle-Master of Hed,
Heir of Sea and Fire
and
Harpist in the Wind)
by Patricia A. McKillip
in which wizards are devoted to the creation of riddles and
riddle solving tournaments. In an interview he stated So players write down the titles of
their sculptures which must be guessed by opponents in a way akin
to Twenty Questions. But it's not really about sculpting
ability since a sliding schedule of point awards tends to ensure
that any figure which is either too easy or too difficult is
penalized (i.e. there are penalties for being guessed very
early or very late). More likely in most games the winner will
be the best analyzer/guesser and, perhaps surprisingly, the
one making best use of his free movement points. One doesn't
want to use them up too early and be locked out of a glorious
scoring opportunity and yet there is no point in saving them
if one is about to be scooped. There's some strategy too in
the word game sense as one may sculpt a book yet call it a
"volume" or "tome". This light, colorful game is a category
mixer that actually works and especially so for those who value
both analytical thinking and creativity. On the other hand,
those who don't like other word games or who take their playing
too seriously ought to stay away as there are too may ways to
wreck its balance by not playing in the right spirit. If your
initial strategic thoughts are to deliberately sculpt something
about which you know little so that you can't answer questions
about it usefully, or to sculpt something so badly
that its own mother wouldn't recognize it, this means you.
The
Alan Moon house rule
forbidding creation of blobs and the
Richard Vickery house rule
further penalizing bad sculpture at the end game are advisable.
Title means "red beard".
[amazon.com]
[Holiday List 2002]
- Basari
The setting is a Middle Eastern bazaar. Players travel
around the board landing on various stalls. On each turn
the players may try to take the jewels pictured on the
stall, take the number of Victory points listed on the
stall, or roll the dice and move that amount forward. The
player also subtracts the number rolled from '6' and gets
that difference in victory points. The main feature is
that each player secretly bids for which action he wishes
to take by use of simultaneously-revealed tiles. If two players bid for
the same action, they must negotiate a deal in jewels to
see which one gets to execute it. Nice, light game
of guessing and limited negotiation. If you want to try it out,
I have managed to win by a small margin with the strategy of choosing
victory points on every single opportunity. But if you do, you probably
don't want to announce this ahead of time.
- Bas-ket
Game for 2 children by Cadaco features an enclosed case trapped inside of which
are a facsimile basketball which is flipped by two sets of paddles into
an opposing basket. The winner is the one with the most points when the
timer expires. Features only very mild amusement as there is no strategy
at all, only skill.
- Battleboard
Amusing "gadget game" with a medieval castle theme. The plastic board
has a vertical cardboard separator so that players cannot see the opponent's
plastic king and knight pieces. Pieces sit in holes which are connected via
a conduit to the symmetrical position on the other side of the board. Players
attempt to be the first to have two pieces reach the wall, the king reaching
it permitting retrieval of a lost piece. Pieces are lost when on each turn
an opponent places an air plunger in a hole on his side of the board and
presses down. If there is a piece in the hole on the other side, it will fly
up into the air a foot or so and be claimed by a convenient well on the plunger's
side of the wall. Mostly a game of bluff without much strategy, nevertheless
has a high fun factor.
- Battleline
Adaptation of the Reiner Knizia game
Schotten-Totten
by GMT for the American wargaming set, complete with transforming
the cards into Rodger MacGowan-rendered ancient warrior types and additional
special effects cards. While the presentation makes matters seem more
serious, the artwork actually comes off rather bland, lifeless and,
surprisingly, unnecessarily small. Play itself is virtually the same
with the special cards being mostly an outlet for the desperate. In
any case they can be mostly nullified if one player simply refrains
from using them, which is probably for the best as the original is
very appealing without this additional gimmickry. The probable long-term
effect of this offering will probably be simply to open even more eyes
of traditional war game players to the possibilities of German-style games.
- Battleship
A 1932 booklet claims that the game originated with soldiers in Russia
during the First World War. It was first published by
the Starex Novelty Co. in 1931 as Salvo,
again in 1932 by Strategy Games Co. as an air game called Wings,
then by the Strathmore Co. in 1933 as Combat, the Battleship Game.
Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy,
the same game by Parker Bros. came a decade later. It competed with
the Maurice L. Freedman Co. version called Warfare Naval Combat
and one by Transogram called Convoy.
In 1961 Ideal published a version again called Salvo.
It has since appeared in many other titles versions in many countries.
Basically it is a game of guessing the locations of ships on the opponent's
hidden grid, a pure process of elimination chich doesn't have much strategy.
Adults who get roped into this one can add a minimal level of strategy
by using the "Salvo" variants which appear in some editions.
A
- Battling Tops
The board is a mildly sloped plastic bowl with four launching stations.
Players wind strings around the stems of differently-named plastic tops.
Attached to the other end of the string is a plastic handgrip which attaches
to the top. Simultaneously all players pull back on the grip which spins
the tops and launches them onto the board. The last top still spinning when
the others have falled wins.
An action game with almost no player control, although players may attempt different
launching techniques, it can sometimes be amusing
because a top when dying will sometimes swerve wildly and take out several
competitors. Tops are individually-named, thus encouraging tournaments and
ascribing of personalities.
- Bayon
Adlung card game about sending out explorers to the five continents is
reminiscent of
Source of the Nile
because of the concomitant need for fundraising.
But this is a far, far less complicated endeavor.
The "undiscovered" continents hide their secrets in card decks to which players
commit funds and an exploration team in order to claim. Tragically, every
expedition claims one of the differently abled explorers, but at least the
success provides a lot of funding.
Players can scout out continents before trying if they
like and interact in three ways: exploiting a card before an opponent can do so,
putting a customs block in their path or buying one of their explorers out from
under them. There are interesting strategic considerations – do you go for a lot
of quick small expeditions or a few big ones? – as well as considerable reaction
to the moves of others. Artwork is a fairly standard version of what one can find
in collectible card games these days, but does not fully exploit the feeling of
the time it attempts to reflect.
The character naming, e.g. "Lara Craft", is too feeble an attempt at parody;
it should have been either much stronger or played straight.
So the mechanisms, quite clean, tend to carry more of the thematic load.
But the overall is pleasing, for armchair explorers especially.
The title is the name of a
historic temple
in Cambodia.
A chart showing the possible values of each continent card
would be a valuable play aid for serious competitors.
- Bazaar
Sid Sackson game about a Middle Eastern bazaar. Has no
real travel or desert, but is an abstract rendering of the
barter and trading that goes on, and in particular, the
process of continual "through-trading" to get what it is
that you ultimately want.
Contrary to most games which are "haul in as much as you can",
here one is actually penalized for having too much unused material.
Points are collected based on
the number of remaining gems the player has each time a
card is claimed, the fewer the better.
Thus a player needs to be efficient not in the sense of
earning a lot of gems, but in making only necessary trades.
It is
Chess-like
in the sense that a player must traverse
a decision tree of possible trades which lead to more
possible trades and so on. This game could be played very
well by a computer, particularly if the optional rule that
prohibits rolling the die except when no trade is possible
were employed. Later published as a different game under the
same title and thus called Bazaar II. A third version
appeared as
Samarkand.
[more]
- Beast, La
Trick-taking card game by Avid Press of New York, 1992, but
said to be based on a traditional Italian card game. The game
comes in a wooden box which includes a deck of cards and play
money meant to represent beans. The style of play is after
Ramsli, but with several features lacking. Here, if the
turned up trump is not of interest to anyone, the hand is thrown
in without trying any alternatives, wasting time. During play,
it is illegal not to play trump (slough) if unable to follow suit, reducing
decisionmaking. The order of cards, A-3-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-2 is
arbitrary and nonsensical. The game is supposed to be about collecting
beans, but instead of reinforcing this theme, the game provides
ordinary play money which has nothing to do with that except for
the blandly printed word "bean". Cards are rendered in color after
the Tarot deck including cup, gold, sword and club — artwork is functional
but rather crude. Players would be better off providing their own cards
and beans.
L
- Beim Zeus
Game about auctioning island properties and building Greek temples
owes a lot to Metropolis. Presentation is very nice including
a wheel gadget that permits in-the-fist style auctions. The rules
themselves are quite a hurdle however and figuring out what was
intended a game in itself. It appears that the idea is that every
property is meant to be auctioned off though the rules never state
how the deck is to be reconstituted. The timing of
the "god stone" is not well explained either. The sequence
of play does not mention the income phase, nor is the game nice enough
to print it on the board, but instead there are silly rules
about penalizing players should they happen to forget to take their
income. In terms of actual play, income is so minimal as to have
almost no effect on the outcome so why players are forced to waste
time with this phase is mysterious. There are some nice features
in terms of figuring out the groupthink about which types of
temples will be built most, but the fact that temples come in
only three varieties makes it a bit prosaic. One longs for the
greater variety of buildings in a game like Metropolis
or Big City. The auction is of the "blind double winner"
variety which is not the best for a tight game as it leads to
reckless overspending and at times incredible bargains.
- Beowulf
Multi-player Reiner Knizia game in which players
represent the Nordic hero's companions who nevertheless
also compete for fame and glory. The unusual L-shaped
board displays the significant events in the epic tale
via a labeled, serpentine track. (The artist, John Howe of
Lord of the Rings fame,
probably hasn't heard of Kurt Vonnegut's
Palm Sunday in which the author proposes the
interesting idea that the action of any story can be represented
as a line graph – unfortunate as it might have been interesting
to use here.) Winning each story event requires cards of
up to two types that are known in advance, but win or lose,
each player will receive something – in the case of the last
placed player, usually a negative something. But no player can
be entirely knocked out. Probably the most innovative and
controversial element is the ability to gamble by drawing
cards in the round-the-table bidding that reminds of Taj Mahal; when one is out of
cards this is the only option short of resigning
and taking the lowest place still available. But it has the
downside that if cards of the right type are not taken, the player
takes a slight wound – a mere scratch really, but accumulate
enough of them and lose points at the end. Deciding if and when to
risk drawing cards – I have seen some have success drawing on the
very first round even when holding some of the appropriate cards
–
is one of the more interesting decisions. Another is how many to
spend on a current challenge and how many to save. There is clearly
a psychological element as one tries to gauge opponent strengths
from their bidding style, usually one of assured (overbidding),
timid (bidding to match) or desperate (gambling). The artwork is as
beautifully realized as one would expect. The board includes a
round, separable piece in the centier which is useful for
displaying the event's booty. There is no need for player pawns,
but curiously the Beowulf piece is not gloriously elaborate.
Despite its planning aspects, success feels overly dominated by
luck in drawing cards and although the presentation take a sip of
flavor, theme fans are not likely to find enough to please them
either. Such a game might otherwise be okay as a gateway for those
new to the hobby, but the gambling element seems to run counter to the
"planning is important in these games" message one wants to
deliver. Expert tacticians, especially those into the fantasy
genre, are the most likely to be pleased here, if anyone.
Strategy: Medium; Theme: Low; Tactics: Medium; Evaluation: Medium
- Bethump'd With Words
Trivia game for the dictionary set. Questions come in many areas
including word origins, Shakespeare's usage, homophones, eponyms
and not a few others – I suspect most will learn something they
never knew before. A player doesn't get to choose this question
type, however – it is provided for him via roll of the die, which
gives one of six difficulty levels, an issue also unfortunately
out of the player's purview. A successful answer permits moving
a number of spaces equal to or less than the level, the goal
being to eventually land on all the letters in a pre-determined
word. There are some spaces that permit "teleporting" across
the board. Landing on another pawn lets you teleport it
across the board. As far as the question cards themselves,
the creators could have been more careful in their formulation,
onerous though this task must have been, for they do not always
seem fair for their levels. For example, some level 4 cards seem
considerably more difficult than some level 6 cards. Other cards
are factually wrong, such as a "euphemism" card intimating that
Ronald Reagan ordered an invasion of Panama. Either the Bush
invasion of the isthmian state or Reagan's daring takeover of
Grenada must have been intended. It is suggestive that many
of the euphemism cards seem to be about Reagan ... Overall,
with home fixing of some cards this will be okay for language
mavens and fans, but the strategy aspects, while not the worst
seen in a party game, could certainly be improved.
[amazon.com]
- Betrayal at House on the Hill
Cooperative game of horrors found in an abandoned house. Along the
lines of the typical horror movie plot, players represent
variably-powered characters left stranded at a mysterious mansion.
They reveal rooms in the tri-level by turning up tiles which offer
items, events, omens, traps and ability enhancements. As more omens
appear, it becomes ever more likely that a dice roll will trigger
the horror-filled second half of the contest. Now one of the
players – generally the one least equipped to fight the menace
–
becomes possessed by the lurking evil and seeks to destroy
the other characters. This player leaves the room to read one
handbook while the rest read another – both have only partial
information about what the other can do. Particularly hidden is
exactly what the good characters need do to destroy the menace.
Everything here seems to work pretty well, although it should be
noted that these comments are based on use of the
revised handbooks
published at the Avalon Hill website. Characters are rated for
Might, Speed, Knowledge and (borrowing from Call of Cthulhu),
Sanity, the current levels being indicated by plastic sliders
mounted on the edges of the heavy cardboard cards. Progression up
and down the scale is not linear, but tailored for the particular
character, and for balance. The opposite side shows a different
character so there are plenty to choose from. Resolving "to hit"
rolls is kept simple as rolling the number of dice equal to one's
ability, trying to exceed a total. The dice show only values 0-3
which greatly simplifies the counting. The scenarios are both
balanced and full of story value. With 50 available, it will take
quite some time to repeat any. Artwork is suitably dark
while the communication design is mostly good, though some icons
are hard to see in certain rooms, especially those with tiled
floors. There are too many cardboard bits if anything – one would
have thought more generic, re-usable ones sufficient. There are
nice, painted figures for the characters, but they are a bit
fragile and did not receive a special insert to protect them as was
done for
Shadows Over Camelot.
This is a thematic delight and obvious labor of love. Many
will enjoy the group planning and strategizing to destroy the
menace as well. On the other hand there is plenty of randomness and
many early turns can be boring as players race around to enhance
abilities. Too, this bit of game state needs to be memorized as
each player can do it only once, something not seen in 99% of all
German games. It's too bad there is no way to get hints about what
the menace will be, and who, so as to be able to try to plan for
it. Overall, it remains a worthy entry for most players.
Strategy: Low; Theme: High; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Low
- Beyond Balderdash
Follow-on to Balderdash widens the scope to include
people, initials, movies, and dates.
This should help level the playing ground
in some groups as well as add some nice variety.
[Buy it at Amazon]
- Biàn Sè Lóng
This currently popular Chinese card game employs traditional
cards and is a
Crazy Eights
variant. Modifications are few: (1) If you do not play a card
you must burn one by placting it in a deck face down before
you. These count against you at the end, according to rank. (2)
After playing or burning a card, a new one is always drawn. (3)
When you play a card which matches the rank of the previous one,
you may change the suit to any color you like. (4) The wild card
rank is Jack rather than 8 (a trivial change – might be more
fun to use a
Tichu
deck and designate the special cards as wild). (5) Aces have the
value (in terms of penalty points) of 1. This version tends to
give players more options and the requirement of burning a card
(similar to playing a patron at the bar in
Café International Kartenspiel)
makes decisionmaking acutely challenging. At the same time players
are constantly getting information on others' hands from the
relative point values they are playing. Mandarin title means
"Chameleon".
Strategy: Medium; Theme: Low; Tactics: Medium; Evaluation: Low; Personal Rating: 5
- Big Boggle
Essentially the same as Boggle, but
featuring a larger grid. Perhaps a bit less strategic since it is
easier to form words, but helpful if one has a lot of players.
[Buy it at amazon.com]
- Big Boss
Wolfgang Kramer game of building and merging
automobile manufacturing companies owes much to Acquire. New features of interest
include a linear rather than grid board and three-dimensional
stacking ability. Luck of the draw seems to play an important
role, although ameliorated by the requirement to spend for
extra cards. Groupthink is thus probably just as important. The
very large plastic pieces fit nicely into the slotted board but
unfortunately are opaque and thus make it difficult to see the
important numbers they cover. Tall towers also tend to make it
difficult to view parts of the board – may be best to play it on
a low coffee table. Parodic names of real automobile companies
add humor. While less dry than Acquire, not as much fun
as Shark.
- Big Cheese, The
Cheapass Games production of a very simple dice and auction
concept is cynically set in an environment of corporate
greed. Project managers bid employees to get projects and make
money upon completion. But in real life, wouldn't the winning
project manager be the one who bids the fewest rather than the
most employees? Maybe more time should have been spent finding
a theme for this one. Although the tension between wanting to
spend in the auction, but then having to wait longer to take
advantage is there, any strategy is eventually obliterated by
the vagaries of just a few die rolls. So skimpy are the rules
that they are printed on just one side (as are the cards). This
obsession with cheapness leads to a rules ambiguity. I believe
the intent was for reclaimed tokens to return to their usual
owner, not the one who won the most recent auction. Not only
is the art unprofessional, it is unattractive. This might have
worked as a quick game to play in a restaurant, but the large
number of not-supplied components – ten tokens per player
and several polyhedric dice (a single six-sider can stand in
unsatisfactorily) – precludes even that humble role. Remembering
to remove the tokens at the end of each turn can be tricky too
–
"did I pull one off this turn or not?" – which suggests that
a system which lined up cards in order where they can reach
completion one by one might have been a more workable system.
Overall, not recommended, but would welcome the basic mechanism
in the context of a full-fledged, multi-mechanism board game.
- Big City
Game of city planning owes a lot to Sid Sackson's Metropolis, as do a lot of
others about city building. Placement on city blocks is based on
cards drawn from decks of specific neighborhoods. In addition
there is the possibility of placing new neighborhoods and
also a trolley line. All that seems to be missing is a baseball
stadium. Plastic pieces are very nicely made and a new box is fun
to open since just like a box of chocolates one discovers layer
after layer of nice surprises. The course of play is a bit odd
in that much of the game is not unleashed until the city hall is
placed, but it may be that no one sees a particular benefit in
placing it. Probably someone should monopolize a neighborhood
in order to place it in safety. In general, understanding
the consequences of one's actions takes experience and a few
completed games. Because the board may change so much between
turns, I recommend not more than three players so that planning is
adequately rewarded. In general a nice experience with lookahead
ability greatly rewarded. Negotiation fans will find a variant
which permits card trading for their use. Apparently the rule
which permits the streetcar line to branch was added only for
the English edition; I think I prefer going without it.
- Big Idea, The
Something of a party as well as a strategy game. Players put
together an adjective with a noun to create a new invention,
e.g. "Mentholated Cat" and try to get other players to invest
in the new idea with hopes of it paying off. Initially there
is no way to choose which one to invest in, so players tend
to do it based on whatever they find most humorous. Later on
as investments pay off players will tend to invest in projects
not those of the leader. Probably pales after most of the jokes
have been found, but with expansion kits would be an excellent
entry in the hard-to-find "mindless but fun" category. Plays more
easily if coins rather than a scoring sheet is used. Similar to
Apples to Apples.
- Big Shot
Alex Randolph game (2001) of auctions and area dominance, set
in the American metropolis of the 1920's. The field of play
is a group of city lots worth varying numbers of points and
flanked by "doubling" parks at the corners. Each turn players
bid on a random group of cubes, the winner being able to place
them freely. When a lot has reached seven cubes, its majority
winner is awarded the lot, but in a delightful rule, on a tie a
player only having a single cube wins instead. Also innovative
is the funding system: players can take one fixed size loan
per turn, but only if otherwise unable to bid and each at 10%
higher interest. Bidding just to take a loan is common and
is associated with the game's endgame issue. Bidding here is
essentially an attack in other guise and the fact that a player
can bid freely – even on cubes of no practical benefit – means
an out of the running player can often decide the winner. It's
unfortunate because otherwise this moves well and gives rise to
stimulating bidding, funding and placement decisions. A case of
"too good to be true" apparently. This could perhaps still be
enjoyed by a friendly group who can trust one another to refrain
from kingmaking.
- Big Top
Adaptation of the traditional card game,
Fan Tan,
is based on an interesting idea. In the original, the main tactic
is to not play a card which is early in sequence to thus prevent
opponents from playing their higher cards. Inventor Ray Mulford
must have noticed that this is rather all-or-nothing. What if the
game permitted a middle ground? So here, under a strict system of
rules, players can offer points if someone would just play the card
they need. And, to make things more interesting, the game changes
the number of suits from four to eight. Finally, before the hand,
players must place weighted wagers on which suits they think they
will manage to complete. In effect this simple-looking game becomes
a subject for rigorous cost-benefit analysis! But to shine as such
it requires that all players approach it in this analytical way.
On the other hand, its appearance and simple rules will probably
most likely appeal first to those who take games more casually.
But players should be thinking about things like
which should have priority, getting payouts or letting others have
payouts? If you have purposely buried a card, when is the ideal
time to bring it out, if ever? Solutions probably depend on which
tack your opponents are choosing. The cards are decently made, as
are the charts. Markers are rather flimsy. The artwork is
stylistic, individual and interesting enough that it deserves to
have been better served. Had the captions that give factoids on the
history of the circus been omitted, the illustrations would be much
easier to appreciate. This from a reviewer who usually prefers text
over art. The cards are also only usable in one orientation The
biggest problem of all, however, is the incomprehensibility of the
instructions, which are so unhelpful that I have taken the unusual
step of preparing a
rewrite.
This is a simple game, but so many of the good ones are. It's
better with more players – up to six are accommodated – and many
of its decisions are subtle ones of close measurement. Its circus
theme has nothing to do with play, but it is a cheery one.
Another good game on this topic is
Feuerschlucker.
[Advanced Primate Entertainment]
Strategy: Medium; Theme: Low; Tactics: Medium; Evaluation: High; Personal Rating: 6
- Billabong
Somewhat unusual kangaroo race game featuring players racing
around on a grid with a central lake (billabong). Efficient
forward movement is accomplished via long distance jumps
over other pieces. The game is thus more in the abstract vein
with considerable lookahead ability essential to good play.
[Franjos]
- Black Box
Two player game of logical deduction refers not to aircraft flight
recorders, but rather the idea of shining rays of light into a
two-dimensional box to figure out where four or five items are
located. The box is represented as a grid set up by one player
while the other declares where he would shine the light. The
setter gives one of the following responses: (1) the light hit an
item directly and was absorbed; (2) the light encountered an item
in a one off row and was thus reflected ninety degrees away from
it and came out elsewhere; (3) the light could not go anywhere and
was reflected back out. From such information the player tries
to figure out the locations of all the items in a few moves as
possible. It's a very absorbing problem for the active player,
but as in Mastermind
or Eleusis there is no
decisionmaking for the setter during the actual game. There
is potentially some fun in the setup if the opponent is known
since some setups are more deceptive than others (for example,
multiple reflections are possible). But overall is probably
best played as a solitaire computer exercise as is offered at http://www.brettspielwelt.de.
The Eric Solomon creation is rather ingenious in the way it has
taken care of the problem of consistency of results regardless
of where a light is shined. By the way, should work well in
atypical settings like on a plane or over email as the players
don't necessarily have to be co-located.
[Franjos]
- Black Spy
Alan Moon trick-taking card game akin to
Hearts
but with special spy cards thrown in. Worthwhile.
- Black Vienna
In a logical game akin to
Sleuth,
players must deduce the identities of three spies represented
by lettered cards which have been removed from the deck.
Questions are pre-programmed onto cards and ask another player
to indicate how many matches he has to the three indicated letters.
Quite challenging to figure out the best question and to whom it should
be asked. Probably less subject to luck than
Sleuth.
Unfortunately difficult to find, but not difficult to create
for oneself. There is some fragility here. If players are not
careful and accidentally give a wrong response it often ruins the
entire game for everyone (though it's sometimes recoverable). A
good tip is, enforce the rule that whenever a player responds to a
card, he must pick up his cards and view them when determining the
response. Experience teaches that this helps to avoid most of the
problems. Players who only consult their note sheets to make this
response make errors far momre frequently than otherwise.
- Blackjack (21, Vingt-et-Un)
Traditional gambling card game in which the player draws
cards trying to get closer to twenty-one points than the
banker. It was probably invented in France around 1700 from games like
Chemin de fer and French Ferme.
It appears to be related to Baccarat, which has more
cachet, being the game of James Bond. But Blackjack
made its name in the 19th-century Western saloon. Because it
had a tough job competing there against
Poker
and
Craps,
houses started offering special 10-1 payouts if a player got a
black Jack and an Ace of Spades as the first two cards.
The game's popularity is probably based on its simple rules and rapidly
repeated sense of disappointment or exhilaration.
As the game goes on, players who can count in some way which
cards are no longer available can gain valuable information about
the now assymmetric deck and intelligently adjust the sizes of
their wagers. In Britain, Black Jack is another name for
Crazy Eights.
- Bleeding Sherwood
Card game somewhat similar to Condottiere in which players bid
on randomly-turned up point cards. Connection with Robin Hood theme is
quite thin. As success seems mostly based on luck of the draw, probably
not worth the time.
- Blindes Huhn
Trick-taking card game with a rather unique feature in the genre:
programmed hands. Once players arrange the order of their
cards, they may only choose to play from either the left or the
right ends. Rules and scoring are quite simple to understand
– the only objective is to avoid taking as much as possible
the chicken cards which count for various amounts of
negative points. Really needs to have several hands played to
be appreciated, first to even out the luck of card distribution
(having too many high cards and too few egg cards are both bad),
and second to develop an idea about how others are programming
their hands and figure out ways to program against them. Sometimes
people ask, "what's a game having high strategy and low tactics?"
Since one's options are entirely designed from the start and are
not really changeable, this is an example. The only problem is that
some may feel there isn't enough information to design properly.
Personally I find that the simple approach of ordering the hand in
ascending order can be very successful. Then just routinely duck
every trick with the highest possible card unless one is sure it has
no chicks in it. Of course
this may need to be changed if everyone also follows the same principle.
Many players find the unusual absence of tactics too frustrating.
Cards are very plain, though the few chicken cards do bear cute,
cartoonish illustrations and the numbers conveniently appear in all four
corners. Most subsequent games have learned not to use
difficult-to-read decorative typefaces for important information
such as numbers.
Title translates to "Blind Chicken" and may derive from the German
expression "even a blind chicken finds a kernel once in a while",
the equivalent of the American proverb of squirrel and acorn.
Michael Schacht; Berliner Spielkarten; 1997; 3-6
Strategy: High; Theme: Low; Tactics: Low; Evaluation: Low; Personal Rating: 6
- Blitz und Donner (Hera and Zeus)
Two-player card game by Richard Borg posits the thunder
vs. the lightning in a Greek mythology setting. Reminiscent
of both Stratego and Magic: the Gathering, a
challenging exercise with many different ways to win, or lose, bad
luck with the draw being one of them, but not all that commonly.
Perhaps the American designer is the reason for a lot more feeling
of combat than in the typical German game. Short enough that
there is a tendency to try "just one more" over and over again.
- Blokus
Light, themeless abstract played out on a grid. A player has a
number of oddly shaped pieces which must be fit onto the grid,
the trouble being that three others are trying to do the same. The
first approach for many may be to try to play as in the old video
game Breakout, streaking for the opposite board edge. But
since all one needs to connect is a diagonal corner, good play is
really something more subtle. In fact, the strategy should be to
access to all still open parts of the board and the main tactic
to overlap the corners of the opponents' pieces. These pieces are
nicely made translucent plastic which have the arresting quality
that when jostled against each other sound like breaking glass.
I must confess that when we were exhibiting at Essen 2000, Sekkoia was also there,
in the very next booth and while we nodded a daily greeting to
inventor Bernard Tavitian, we never did get around to trying this,
his game. Part of it was the busyness of the show, but part also
that it looked more like something for children than anything we
wanted to try. But two years later it was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres Award
and even more recently, requested more than
once of me. This impressive slow build makes me wonder whether
this game doesn't yet have a great future. In its favor are
attractive appearance and simple instructions that should extend
the audience to children and grandparents who don't want to
bother with lots of details, even if it may be rather dry for
those of us seeking more of a storytelling element.
- Blue Moon City
Reiner Knizia's light (gateway) game in a fantasy setting is a
thematic follow-on to his two-player Blue Moon. If the games he
has been making the past few years are more mined out of this vein
than of that preferred by the hard core, it needn't be a negative, and
just might be a noble service. Just think how many more people could
grow up loving games if their first impressions weren't formed from
tired, broken down horses like
Risk
and
Monopoly.
Even if Hasbro is blocking this goal in the USA, perhaps it can at
least be realized in other geos. This game – Blue Moon City,
not the ambitious one Reiner is playing – posits the ruins of a
nearly dead fantasy world on a grid of large squares. Players move
pawns around the board, spending cards according to what the area
needs. Completing a demand provides points for all who participated,
and especially the one who contributed the most. These points are used
to buy the victory point markers – which are in limited supply and
get even more expense over time – that eventually provide the
victory. There isn't a great deal that feels new here as players are
dealing with customary issues of timing, and efficiency. What's good
for the newbie is that complexity isn't particularly high and that
final scores often end up pretty close, making everyone feel they had
a chance to win. For the more experienced player, probably the most
interesting feature is in the hand management. There's a lot of
ability to discard, making tricky questions out of how much and
which cards to dump. On the other side, a single card may be played in
more than one way and in various combinations – which to choose is
also non-obvious, which is a feature, though it may slow play at
times.
Reiner Knizia; Kosmos; 2006; 2-4
Strategy: Low; Theme: Low; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Medium; Personal Rating: 6
- Boggle
Game of forming words from a randomly-determined grid of letters.
Simultaneously a game of knowledge, skill and strategy, the latter being
a matter of whether one should try for many short words or a few very
long ones. It doesn't hurt to know something about one's opponents.
[amazon.com]
- Bohnanza
Card game of trading various types of humorous beans.
The Bohnanza Erweiterungs-Set merely adds more bean types
and permits more players. A simple game which may be useful for
introducing those new to games, it is difficult to sustain interest
with so few strategic decisions. Additionally, the earlier in the round
one is, the more success.
[variant]
[Holiday List 2002]
[Buy it at Amazon]
- Bohnanza - La Isla Bohnità
Expansion kit which adds ships and pirates. Unless its charms are
extremely well-hidden, this expansion really doesn't add anything
useful to the game.
- Bohn Hansa (Bean Trader)
Move and trade game by Uwe Rosenberg is set in the Baltic sea,
but concerns, what else?, various types of beans. Akin to Empire Builder, players gradually
acquire contracts which must be satisfied by delivering the
indicated beans to the demanding city. Rosenberg, the master
of hand management has again come up with something innovative
by tying each board movement to play of the next card. This
mechanic permits a very clean solution for the problems of how
to periodically charge a tax, to getting new contracts and to
force players to deliver on a contract in timely fashion. He
allows players to manipulate the system a bit themselves
by permanently turning in cards, with some downside, if they
want. There is also a light amount of negotiation as players may
trade beans with one another which works well as sources for
beans are well spread yet demands are urgently pending. There
is also the possibility of negotiating a "teleportation" move
on another's turn which also helps quite a lot. The system by
which new products appear and experience price fluctuations is
also quite elegant, yet permitting player manipulation as they
can often decide after they purchase how much the price will
increase. The cartoonish look, as with all the Bohn
series is wonderful, presenting a very inviting world. There
is some difficulty communications-wise in that the bean tokens
are colored differently than their beans. For example, there
are Green Beans, but the main color on their tile is not green
and green is the color of some other type. So when a player
says he wants to trade green, it can be confusing which one
he means. Players will need to agree in advance to use either
the bean names or the tile colors. The only other problem is
unfortunately a large one: victory may have nothing to do with
skilled play. With wagon space of up to eight beans, it is
far too easy for a player to draw a contract card demanding
beans he already has and in a city where he already is and
gain an instant score at virtually no cost. This can happen in
Empire Builder as well, but at least there the game's
many contracts tend to even out matters. Here the total number of
contracts is so small that even one such event can really dwarf
everything else. This will eventually temper the enthusiasm of
skilled players, but all factors seem to point to enjoyment for
younger players and situations where skill levels are unequal.
At the time of this writing, just before the announcement of
the Spiel des Jahres, it would not surprise me to see this go
far in that award.
[Traveling Merchant Games]
- Bolide
Ever since interviewing this game's inventor
(read it here), I have
been anxious try out his first game (a second on sail racing, has
followed), especially as it was said to improve on Tacara,
which I have seen, but never managed to try. Unlike
Formula De
which controls movement with dice or
Lunatix Loop
which permits speed changes in increments, but leaves direction
entirely up to the player, this game forces speed and direction
to be based on speed and direction of the previous turn. To
accomplish this, a move on the square grid moves forward x
spaces, say, and to the left or right, y spaces. After this
a pawn is placed x spaces ahead and y spaces to the left or
right of the car's ending position. This reflects the speed
and direction of the car and so on the next turn, the new
ending position must be within two spaces of this pawn. By
this game of racing hopscotch the car proceeds twice around the
circuit. This vector-based or inertial technique is not new to
games, having been used in the aforementioned TaCaRa,
the German game Simulator, Star Fist, Triplanetary and
also an old game called Racetrack. While entirely logical,
it is challenging and fun to learn, some practice being needed
to find the best line of progress and avoidances of the sharp
braking rules. Once everyone is up to speed on how to do this,
however, it turns out that everyone wants to pass through the
same spaces, necessitating passing attempts, or "attacks". In
stark contrast to the movement system, these are resolved using
one of the hoariest and least stimulating mechanisms known:
rolling a die on a lookup table. And on this table, even worse
than the fact that the trailing car may fail to pass, there's
a fair chance it will spin out and thus be seriously
out of contention. There are other complaints, many in the area
of components. The small plastic cars ought to have been flat
instead of ramp-shaped as it's sometimes necessary to stack more
than one dobber on top of them, which is nearly impossible to
balance. Small chips should have been provided for under the cars
as well to speed up resetting the dobber and avoiding errors.
There should ahve been markers to indicate draft as otherwise
game state must be memorized – such would help with resetting
the dobber after a draft as well. Players must also remember
game state when it comes to resolving ties in movement order. An
off track chart with separate markers might have been a good way
to indicate this. The track puzzle boards have fared better as
they are large, well made and double-sided, to offer a second
course. At the time of this writing there is also one expansion
pack offering two more tracks, which almost fit in the original
box without removing the insert. Tracks have varying degrees of
length and difficulty, but the bad news is that either games tend
to run prohibitively long or extra measures, such as the twenty
second sand timer must be used to hurry players along. Timing
may or may not reduce downtime considering that in this case
there will be more crashes which need more time to handle.
Overall this is a game that asks a great deal of its players
and so is really only appropriate for auto race fans. This game
would have benefited from closer study of the advances in game
technolog of the past decade. Situations like attacks could be
handled via mechanisms like card set collection, revolving attack
cards à la
Eketorp
or in any number of other ways. Even
if one feels that such situations in real life are essentially
random, in a game players deserve something less prosaic.
Strategy: Low; Theme: High; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Medium; Personal Rating: 5
- Bonkers
Game of the roll and move variety for ages 8 and above, but leavened
by card placement rules which actually define movement on the board.
With less randomness from the dice and luck of the draw, this might turn
out to be quite an interesting abstract.
- Bootleggers
Multi-player game for up to six that feels like someone played
Puerto Rico
and thought, hey, let's make our own game, but instead of
hauling crops to Spain, we'll sell beer to speakeasies!
To the design's credit, apart from hauling, most of
Puerto Rico
has disappeared, apart from the telltale rule that
unshipped creates are lost (and a warehouse card that
solves this). Whatever the genesis, this is also a region
influence game for speakeasy control, a negotiation game
when one player has truck capacity and another more
crates than he can ship and also a game where blind bidding
is used to determine drafting for "take that!" cards.
The mix of mechanisms is novel, as is the topic, but a
few decisions have gone off the road as well. Some cards
are disproportionately powerful, e.g. the ones that
permit shutting down a speakeasy entirely. A player may
have just taken it over for the first time, investing a
great deal to do so and end up losing it the next,
perhaps losing not just the battle, but the war. Perhaps
they were the wrong target for the card in the first
place, but the rules do nothing to prohibit badly-aimed
attacks. Choose your opponents with care. In blind
bidding of course there is unfairness, the more so here
as player hands are dealt randomly, albeit from three
different decks. Victory is really achieved by control of
speakeasies, which once dominated can be very difficult
to wrest away. There are some draconian rules for
catching up – the top producer doesn't produce at all
for a turn – but these usually misfire, and tragically
so, for being the top producer is more likely a sign of
trying to catch up. True leaders are those with the most
money and/or speakeasy control and don't need all that
production. So, incredibly, the last place player is
pushed even further behind. There's also something of a
rich-get-richer syndrome as only players earning a lot
can afford to buy the expensive extra influence in a
timely fashion. Meanwhile the randomness of the
production dice can run the hopes of anyone. Downtime can
be an issue due to negotiations if they run on, but this
part is usually fairly straightforward. Whare are worse
are the cards which mix flavor and rule text and thus
require a lot of reading time. Elapsed time should be
two hours, but can easily stretch to three.
Timing-wise, though, things are well managed as
production and speakeasy opening seem to work in lockstep
with barely a sign of the intention. Presentation
is of a high standard otherwise, including a large board,
plastic bootleggers in six colors, plastic trucks, cubes and
player mats. This should work best for fans of theme who
don't mind a long outing; others are recommended to
approach with caution.
Strategy: Low; Theme: High; Tactics: Low; Evaluation: Low
- Bosworth
Chess-like game for up to four with much smaller board and
fewer pieces. Probably only of interest to the limited number
of Chess fans who nevertheless find it too complex.
Players are knocked out of the game before it is over and
there is a kingmaking aspect.
- Breaking Away
British bicycle racing game is fairly mathematical in a way reminiscent
of Hare and Tortoise. Essentially about predicting what others
will do. For this reason, try to keep the number of players down so that
this is actually possible.
- Bridge
Famous bidding and trick-taking card game based on Whist
(not described here)
was invented in the 1920's and has undergone many changes and variants since.
It has penetrated the public consciousness in ways few other games have,
columns on proper play even being published in daily newspapers. As a result
it should generally be easy to find opponents. The chief downsides
are the many bidding conventions which the newcomer must memorize,
and that in every hand one player does not get to do anything.
Trick-taking games with one of the hands fully open are not to my taste
either. On the other hand, some players prefer this extra information
because it offers more strategic hints for the best way to play the hand.
- British Rails
The
Empire Builder
system is set in a UK so crowded that it should probably be limited to two players.
Deliveries to and from Scotland, access to which is extremely limited,
often seem to be an unbalancing game breaker. Revised 2002 edition
attempts to correct this by providing many more east-west routes, e.g. Lead
from hard to reach Dolgellau, and never before seen special event cards which
give bonuses for deliveries to little visited regions like Cornwall. Whether
this fully succeeds will require more playings, but it certainly works out better
than the original.
[Traveling Merchant Games]
[variant]
[chart]
- Broker (Das Börsenspiel, Il gioco della borsa)
Stock market game in which players buy and
sell stocks, affecting market prices with cards dealt out
at the start of the game. So fragile
that without hardly noticing a player can be knocked
out of the game entirely long before it is through.
- Burn Rate
Card game on the "dot com" business decline of the late 1990's
follows the host of others inspired by one now nearly forty years old,
Nuclear War.
The mechanism of a gradually dwindling score, in this case
representing corporate funding being burned away, is probably
more aptly situated here than anywhere. Players draft employees
in four fields (colors): Sales, Finance, Human Resources and
Development, hoping to find the few whose skill values are higher
than their costs. Meanwhile they play cards on one another
such as the "bad hire" and the "bad idea". The latter often
force hiring of very expensive contractors until a "release"
card can be used to discard the entire project. There are also
"financing" cards players can use to try to shore up their
losses. But cards cannot be played willy-nilly; positive cards
can only be played if the corresponding employee is good enough
and negative cards only if the opposing employee incompetent
enough. The course of play is smooth with some interesting
decisions to make, mostly around hand management, as on each
turn a player may only play cards or discard them, not both.
Also debateable is the number of cards to play/discard, with
players sometimes wanting to play cards which slightly hurt just
to be able to draw more new ones. Comes in a handy, compact
box containing full-color cards illustrated as in Sunday comic
strips. For those familiar with the topic, there are a number
of humorous allusions to now-failed on-line companies and this
game may find a more ready audience among such types. For others,
and maybe even for them, the challenges, situations and humor
seem to become repetitive when it is about half over. Perhaps a
variant reducing the starting funds would improve matters.
Vagaries of bad luck, especially the inability to draw the cards
necessary to fire an incompetent vice-president and hire a good
replacement, may make a player quite vulnerable for quite a spell
and can be frustrating. A better method of showing the score,
e.g. open money holdings or a
score track,
would have helped
in dramatizing the current standings, which are more important to always
know than in most card games.
One other curious fact about the system: finance and development always
do good things while sales and human resources nearly always do harm.
Perhaps we can guess what kind of day job the inventor has?
[Take That! Card Games]
[Cool Studio]
- Brücken von Shangrila, Die (The Bridges of Shangri-la)
Multi-player abstract by Leo Colovini is another in his
characteristic style. Although there is an ostensible
theme of monks and their traveling students who manage to
destroy any bridge just by crossing it, the feeling is
definitely that of the pure abstract. What's good is that
turns tend to pass quickly as in each a player may only
do one of three things: add a monk, add a student to a
monk or perform a student migration, whose strength
depends on comparison of the counters at the source
location with that of the destination. Strategies, e.g
always augment masters, play defense or place students
whetere the most others are, but will most likely lose by
ignoring the tactical needs of each situation. This part
becomes as problematic as a multi-player game of
Chess
since it's very difficult to discern what others are
planning as well as whether on their turn they will make
the move that is optimal for them, even if one clearly
exists. It's likely that as with
Raja,
table talk should be given free rein so that players can
help one another not to miss any important moves. Of
course, many players dislike table talk as it can
engender coercion so the design is in something of a
dilemma. Maybe it should just be played by e-mail so that
there will be plenty of time to consider all
possibilities. While it might be interesting to play a
couple dozen times to see if some best appoach exists,
more likely the solution differs each time, depending on
what players do, being rather
Go-like
in that sense. Presentation is generally attractive with
several wooden high arch bridges comprising the
highlight. I think this should appeal mainly to tactical
experts and to that subset of strategists willing to toss
theme in favor of a spare, clean system. These
tend to also be fans of
Xe Queo!,
Clans
and most other Colovini efforts.
Strategy: Medium; Theme: Low; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Low
- Bus
Players compete to haul the most passengers across a city.
Somewhat reminiscent of another game of Dutch origin,
Smart,
in that passengers arrive
on the outskirts and players have to figure out how to get them.
Similar also in that players can specialize in one thing or
another, but not all at once.
A good game which is not quite there. The "stopping time"
mechanism adds too much uncertainty to the game and thus
detracts from planning and anyway, the penalty of an action
and a victory point for playing it is too costly. If there
ever were a good reason to use this feature, it would be because
the other players are playing extremely badly, in which case
why bother? The turn ordering is also problematic — sharing
the same problem with second edition
Die Macher.
Instead of only the first player position being biddable,
all four positions should be biddable instead of the turn
proceeding in clockwise order. Otherwise, whoever buys the top
position has an unintended consequence on the rest of play and
meanwhile it is unfair that the rest of the players may not even
be able to bid for position at all. Can be unbearably slow with
five players or if they are overly analytical. Decorating the
board and scoring track with popular game names and images is
a cute touch.
[variant]
[Splotter]
- Buzzword
Party game of the guess-the-word-within-a-limited-time-period
variety, akin to
Taboo
and others. The new twist here is that the word is already known,
but the teammates must hear pre-printed clues and respond with the
corresponding expression including the word. Any expression
not guessed can be essayed by the other team. The cards are fairly
well balanced, each including mostly easy answers plus one or two
obscure stumpers. Beyond the frantic play value, it's amazing to
discover just how many different everyday expressions one does not
know. On the other hand, there oddly appear to be just a few too many
ABBA song lyrics, at least for our table – not one could we guess.
There's an easy-to-use scoring technique of turning cards up or down to
indicate which items are guessed correctly. Although it offers less
scope for creativity than others, this is a worthy entry for its type
that with its many cards should provide many hours of a challenge
and amusement.
[amazon.com]
Strategy: Low; Theme: Low; Tactics: Low; Evaluation: Low; Personal
Rating: 7
On to C
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Rick Heli.