These are the kinds of stories that a game of Mage Knight, a late 2011 release by Wiz Kids and designer Vlaada Chvatil can weave. Through its interesting and complex game play, Mage Knight tells a story that is inevitably different every time you play.  Make no mistake however that Mage Knight is a brain burner of a game. One that will have you making calculations and checking reference cards over and over again. In fact Mage Knight is the one game in my collection I will not teach to new players.

You heard me correctly. I insist if someone wants to play Mage Knight with me they read the rule books, yes that is plural, and have a basic understanding of the game.  The game has 2 rule books and multiple reference cards.  While the mechanics of play are simple once you know how, the getting there can be daunting.

I won’t go so far as to call the game fiddly or say the rule books are a mess but there are a lot of items you will be constantly checking on your first plays. Remembering where to find a rule is often more challenging then the rules explanation. Is it on a site card? The walk thru book or the main rule book?   If you go great lengths of time between play sessions you’ll more then likely find you need to look up many items you once knew.

It’s why I have waited so long to review this game and why this review will be very light on rules explanation.  You might ask yourself why keep a game in your collection that you refuse to teach and the answer is simple, solitaire play. Mage Knight has one of the best solitaire mechanics around. The game plays significantly quicker alone then with friends. Multiplayer games are going to be long. I played a shortened scenario this past weekend with 2 other experienced players and it took 4 hours. However in the end the experience is worth the time, at least for me.

Components

I’d like to say Mage Knight comes with a lot of components and leave it at that but lets just try and capture them all. First the game comes with a handy insert, actually inserts as they are in pieces. It’s very easy to customize your box and have a good storage solution.

You’ll receive 4 figures representing the various Mage Knights and you also receive 4 click figures for the cities. The click portion of this game is only to tell you what level the city is at and what kind of enemies you have to defeat when trying to take one down.

A shot of the many components

There are 20 sturdy hexagonal tiles.  One is a starting tile, 11 are green backed basic tiles and 8 are brown backed core tiles. These tiles are randomly picked based on the scenario chosen.

There are seven mana dice which you roll to form the source. This is where you draw mana for your spells and abilities. There are a lot of crystals to represent the various mana types. Crystals can be gained by abilities and they are stored on your player card. Unlike mana die they stay with you until used.

For each of the 4 players there is a player card, skill card and a set of tokens for various game tasks. Each players mage knight has different skills adding even more variety to the game. Then you have card board tokens for all the different enemies you will face. Green ones for marauding orcs, white ones for cities, purple for mage towers and so on.  There are also turn order cards for day and night plus site reference cards which contain the rules for the spaces on the board.

This tile contains some nice location very close to each other

Finally you have the cards and there are a lot of them. Each player has a starting deck. There are unit cards in two different skill levels and these cards you recruit to build your army. There are spell cards, artifact cards, wound cards and advanced ability cards.  There is also a day / night board to indicate which cycle it is and also tell you movement cost. Last but not least in the main scoring track which is where you fame and reputation are tracked.

My only complaint is the card quality. If you told me at the beginning of 2011 two of my top five games would be produced by Wiz-Kids I would of thought you crazy but here we have it.

Unfortunately the card quality of Mage Knight is the same strange and easy to tear material found in Star Fleet Captains and Expeditions.  You’re on a roll Wiz-Kids time to step up the quality on the cards.

Impressions

At it’s core Mage Knight is sort of a deck building game. What I mean by that is while you’ll add cards to your deck and recruit units to play in front of you. You never really create large cumbersome decks and you don’t cycle threw them multiple times.

In fact when a players deck is empty he may call for an end of turn and if his hand is empty he must call for it. Because the game is broken into day and night turns and there are typically 2-4 days in a scenario. At most you’ll be going through your deck 8 times.

Ice Mages are a nice unit to have

A player turn in Mage Knight (there will be multiple for each day / night turn) is pretty simple you may move and then do one interaction. What that interaction may be depend upon where you end your turn. If you’re next to orcs you can fight them. If you’re on a dungeon or tomb you may explore it and fight the monster within. On a Monastery you can burn it down or just visit for healing or to recruit units.  Some locations need to be conquered before they can become useful. For example the mage towers that dot the landscape are covered with purple enemy tokens and these are tougher then your standard green enemy. Once you defeat them the mage tower opens to all to sell spells or recruit units.

Whether you conquer a keep or explore a tomb when you do so you mark it with one of your shields. this doesn’t prevent other players from using it’s benefit but it counts towards end of game scoring.  There are bonuses for different things like the person who is the biggest adventurer or collected the most artifacts. Just about every place you visit or monster you defeat benefits you in some way by either increasing your fame, awarding you items or boosting (and in cases of burning a monastery lowering) your reputation.

The Mage Tower reference card

Each turn there is a unit offering row of cards. Some of these unit can be recruited in villages, others in mage towers and some in multiple places. You recruit a unit by visiting one of these locations and paying the influence cost. At first level you can only have one unit in your army but as you get more powerful you can add more. Units are very valuable when fighting tougher monsters and pretty much required for taking a city.

Let me take a moment to get back to the basic game play mechanic of playing cards. The card you play will allow you to do things like move, attack, block or influence. Each card has a basic effect and a boosted effect and you boost them by supplying mana to them.

You get the mana by using the one die you can pull from the source or crystals you have acquired. So one card might be a move 2 but when boosted with a green mana be a move 4.

If you run into a situation where you need more points in something you can take a non related card from your hand and play it sideways for a point. So if I needed 6 movement points to get somewhere and I only had a single move card giving me 4 points. I could play 2 other cards sideays for 2 more movement points.

It is here where Mage Knight differs from other deck building games. There are going to be turns where you can’t do what you want or doing so is going to cost you a lot of cards. You have to be able to adapt and plan ahead with your hand because your often not cycling many new cards into it. Often the assault on a keep is not done in one turn. It might be a turn moving next to it and then another turn attacking it.

I’m almost crazy attempting to explain combat in this review but let me try. Enemies have an armor value at the top of their chit. This is how much damage you need to do to beat them. They may also have added armor bonuses or resistances.  They the have an attack strength on the left, a fame value on the bottom and possible special abilities on the right.

A combat round is broken down as follows.

1. Range and Siege Attack Phase is the only chance you have to attacked an enemy with ranged or siege attack cards and defeat them before they can attack you. As with anything in combat it’s all or nothing. If I can give 4 or more ranged damage to the Orc summoner above then he is dead. If I can only do 3 it’s not worth it because damage doesn’t carry over. Some monster are fortified against ranged attacked like the Crypt Worm above so only siege attacks work on them.
2. Block Phase is next and any enemies that survived the attack now apply damage. Again it is all or nothing, you block all the damage or you take it. The Crypt Worm above is going to deal 6 damage and if i can only find 5 block I need to assign 6 damage.
3. Assign Damage is next an anything not completely blocked in step 2 is assigned.  Damage can be assigned to units or to your Mage Knight. The higher the Mage Knights level the more wounds he can soak up.  Wounds card go either on a unit making them useless or into your hand which can be bad since they count against your hand limit.
4. Attack phase is last and it is here you can now fight back with any attack cards, even ranged. So above I had a 3 ranged card that couldn’t kill the orc but now I can play it with my 2 attack card to defeat him.  Monster can be resistant to various forms of attack. For example the Ice Golem, he is resistant to cold and physical attacks meaning those do half damage to him.  So while a 4 fire attack would kill him you would need 8 regular attacks to do the same.

Confused yet? The whole thing can be overwhelming when you have multiple monsters with various types of resistances. This is why I called Mage Knight a brain burner your constantly calculating results not just in combat but even in movement. In fact Mage Knight is one of the few games that explicitly states in the rules to let players play their turns out to calculate them and if they are wrong start over.

Obviously you need to use judgement here, if someones turn has passed and then they figure out they could of won a combat well too bad. However if someone moves to a comabat spot and then realizes before starting the combat they were wrong your best to let them start their turn over.  As odd as this may seem not doing so slows down the game as it becomes analysis paralysis while people do the numbers in their head.

Summary

Mage Knight is a really good game with some very interesting mechanics. I’ve probably played more games of Mage Knight in the last 3 months then anything else in my collection. The unfortunate part of that is 99% of them have been solo. The one thing that detracts from the multiplayer element is downtime between turns that escalates as the game goes on. The game gets progressively harder as more tiles are put in play and then the core tiles start to show up. Monster get tougher, battles take longer, choices get tougher.

All of these things make the game great but from a multiplayer aspect it gets slow, long and tedious. Nothing feels worse then watching someone play out their combat to realize they made a miscalculation and then try over and over again to see if they missed something. It feels even worse when you’re the player in that situation. None of these things matter when playing solo as you can take all the time you like without worrying about others.

In the end you need to determine if Mage Knight provides enough interest for you to invest the time and energy in not only playing the game, but also learning the game and becoming a better player. For me that answer is a resounding yes as I enjoy it immensely. For others they may find their adventure in lighter fare and honestly I couldn’t blame them one bit.

I think 5 years from now Mage Knight players will be looked at as being in a special club, those only brave (or crazy) enough to withstand the obstacles this game wants to throw at players to enjoy the experience. I hope when that time comes I’m still among them.

What I like

The mechanics are wonderful once you learn them. The game really feels different each time you play. The multiple scenarios provide different challenges.

What I didn’t Like

Card stock, down time and I think the combat resistances could of been done in a more accessible manner.

Over All – A

In the end Mage Knight is a game that is an achievement in design for this reviewer. However it is one that may be lost due to the step learning curve with the game. It’s not surprising that Mage Knight owners seek each other out for games. It plays best solo and the best way to learn the game is to play.

Components

As with generally any FFG game you buy the components are top notch. What you usually need to look out for are the mis-prints and errata that seem to pile up the longer a new FFG game is on the shelf. This was something I was concerned with since an official FAQ was released at the same time the game started hitting stores.  Luckily, at least so far, I haven’t seen many reports of issues. The game comes with four player boards that are doubled sided. One side matches the setup from the original game and the other is the “new” side.

You have four plastic figures for your wizards that fit into one of the four colored bases. You also have five figures for different creatures your wizards can polymorph into.  There are four card board doors with plastic stands to represent the portals in the maze. There is a slew of other card board tokens to represent things from doors, cracks in the wall as well as chits to track energy on a spell.  Finally you have the cards which drive the game play. The cards represent the spells and the items you’ll be using to either eliminate the other wizards or impede them as you try and grab their treasures. There are 8 spell decks or various schools of magic such as cantrips or mutation, all told there are 168 magic cards.

Aside from yet another useless FFG insert in the box the components are all of good quality. I’ve had several players mentioned they would of liked to see plastic sculpts for the objects in the maze like the blocks and doors but I don’t think it is necessary for a game of this nature as it would inevitably make the game more expensive.

General Impressions

One of the first things you’re going to notice is that FFG changed some of the rules. You can find these missing or altered rules in the back of the rule book. FFG has marked them as optional rules but to their credit they have identified each rule that was in the original game.

I mention this because I am rightfully approaching Wiz-War from the eyes of a new player. Someone who hasn’t played the original game and wouldn’t know what rules were changes and missing, pretty much FFG’s target audience. Even if you disagree with the notion that new Wiz-War players are the target audience of this game, as a company you would have to offer veteran players something new.  Unfortunately for FFG these rules changes make the game too bland and near unplayable as a 2 player game but I’ll get to that later.

The object of Wiz-War is simple score 2 victory points or eliminate all the other wizards. You score a victory point for killing another wizard or taking another wizards treasure and having it in your base. Think of it as an old school capture the flag scenario.  Scoring a victory point for killing another wizard is new to the game and I would guess its intent is to speed up game play, which it certainly does and possibly make it easier for new players to compete. However it comes at the cost of making the game a little less chaotic and fun. Yes those are two words seldom used together but ask most Wiz-War players what they like about the game and you’ll most likely here those two words in their description.

Two optional rules will bring the game back to it’s intended form. One is that you only get a victory point for having a wizards treasure in your home base. The other rule is if both of your treasure are in other players bases you die.  These rules may seem like nothing but minor tweaks but it adds a whole new level of play to the game.

You now have to balance making another treasure run against guarding your own stash.  While you can win by eliminating the other players, you will die if your treasures are lost. It’s a fine balance between being aggressive and reading the flow of the game.  Again I can understand why these rules are left out of the new version as standard rules but honestly the game feels a little less exciting without them.

One of the first things you’re going to do during setup is create the magic deck. As previously noted there are 8 magic decks of 24 cards each. One of these decks, the black cantrip deck is only used with the optional new custom spell books rule . The White cantrip deck is used in every game and then the players are suppose to determine 3 other decks to use. You then shuffle these 3 decks with the cantrip deck to from the magic deck.

Again the original rules vary here in that the magic deck is comprised of all the spell decks not a select 4. Using the FFG rules 72 cards are not available during each game. This makes the game a little less chaotic for sure but again at what cost? I honestly don’t know as we have yet to play a game with ever spell deck in play but I can say this. Completely ignore the suggested 3 decks they tell you to use for your first game(s) unless you want to be utterly disappointed.

An unwritten rule we have here at OBGB is we try to play a game at least 5 times before reviewing it. I don’t care if we are first out of the gate, I just want our reviews to be more then the initial impressions that you typically find on other sites because 9 times out of 10 initial impressions are positive. In the case of Wiz-War if I based my review off of my first 3 plays which were all 2 player with the suggested deck this game would be receiving at best a D score from me.

A turn in Wiz-War is pretty simple there are 3 phases.

1. Time Passes Phase
2. Move and Cast Phase
3. Discard and Draw Phase.

The time passes phase is where you resolve any spell effects that could happen during this timing. You also remove any stun markers on wizards and finally remove energy from maintained spells.  We finally hit the first new rule of the FFG version that I find a great addition and that is maintaining spells.  While each player starts with a 5 card hand they have a maximum hand size which is usually 7 but can be altered by spells and items.  Spells themselves besides having line of sight rules also have durations. Some are permanent, other instantaneous and a good deal of these spells need to be charged by energy to be maintained.

You can get energy from energy cards in your hand or some spell cards can also be used as energy. So I might cast a spell that needs to be maintained and give it 4 energy which means it last for 4 turns. What’s new in this version is a maintained spell counts against your hand limit. Having tried a game without this rule where some wizards had a half dozen maintained spells I found this rule to be a much welcomed addition.

During the movement phase a player can move. Make one attack, either physical or via spell and  then cast other non-attack spells. What’s nice about Wiz-War is you can break this up however you want. I could move 2, cast an attack spell then move one more space and cast a non-attack spell. You can also use the energy I mentioned above to boost your movement or supercharge spells. Finally during the discard and draw phase a player can dump as many cards as he wants and then draw up to 2 cards. The only rules is you can go past your maximum hand size and you must discard before drawing. I like the discard before drawing rule because it puts some risk into dumping a decent spell in the hopes of trying to get a better one.

Game Play & Over All Impressions

Like I said earlier Wiz-War is the classic example of my unwritten rule saving a game from my initial impression of it. First of all I think the game is far less interesting as a 2 player game regardless of whether you use the new rules or put in the optional old rules. In a 2 player affair it’s either an all out battle to someone is left standing or a race to grab the other players treasures first. I’ve played at least a half a dozen 2 player games and they always evolve into one of the two scenarios and I’d imagine if by some chance they didn’t and one person tried to play it both ways by scoring and killing the game would still be a lot less fun then a 4 player game.

In a 4 player game with the original scoring options the game really shines. There is constant adaptation to what is going on during the game. Your initial strategy might be to make a dash for one players treasure or to guard your own until others are beat down but you must always be paying attention to what is happening or you might find yourself dropping dead when both of your own treasures are secured. The chaotic, frenzied affair a 4 player game turns into is just a lot of fun.

If you throw out the old scoring system and play a 4 player game with the new scoring rules you’ll still enjoy it more then a 2 player game but it definitely cuts down on the strategy and craziness that makes Wiz-War shine when it’s at it’s best.

In the end it’s easy to see why people who play Wiz-War love the game it’s just a good time.  The whole beat the living piss out of your friends somehow plays better in a light hearted game of crazy wizards battling it out in a dungeon maze. There is just something funny about your friend slowing your way with a rose bush and then hitting you with a fireball spell that doesn’t leave a lot of bad feeling post game.

What I liked

I like the chaotic nature of the 4 player games with original scoring rules. I liked being able to boost moves and spells and in general the game being more strategic then I ever thought it would be when played with the right set of rules.

What I didn’t like

I don’t care for the new scoring rules. I would of rather had another spell deck then a black cantrip deck that is utilized in one custom variant. Two player games are a waste of time in my opinion.  Finally I’d like FFG to included an insert that is useful or just get rid of them altogether.

Over All – B

Wiz-War is a solid game and it shines when played with some of the original rules. The game is also very flexible and you can easily add and subtract rules as you see fit, making custom game types should be fairly easy as well. Knowing what I do now about the game if I were FFG I would of concentrated on adding to the game instead of streamlining it.  Possibly by adding unique wizards with their own personal spell decks or adding familiar and minions to the mix but that’s what expansion are for right?

The things we loved about those games were also the things we hated. They took a long time to play and sometimes they were overly complicated. As fun as it was to keep all the stats, man oh man was it a lot of work. What the average sports gamer takes for granted now were nothing but pipe dreams when I was growing up.

Eventually computers were commonplace and sports games evolved.  My friends and I took our  dreams of running a professional franchise from the tabletop to the laptop.  So it’s been a long time since I have dipped my toe into the water of sports board gaming, honestly because I didn’t see the point.

Along comes a product called 1st & Goal from R&R games and it’s billed as a light, fast playing game of American Football. Sounds like a perfect mix to me so lets take a look.

The Components

Game play in 1st & goal is through the result of cards and dice so these two items make up the bulk of the components. You have an offense and defense deck of cards that players will take their hands from.  The cards are of good quality but very glossy and stiff. They are near identical to the cards found in Flying Frog products like Last Night on Earth. I mention this because I know many people who hate this card material, for me it’s not an issue.

You get 10 custom dice in the game. All of them are 6 sided and unfortunately none of them are ready to play out of the box. A sticker sheet comes with the game and you must affix the stickers to each die. While the sheet is clearly labeled, the stickers are small and the die faces recessed which makes it very difficult to apply them in an aligned manner. There is nothing I hate more then putting stickers on items during a games set up, it’s the reason I don’t own many block strategy games.  I would of rather paid a few dollars more for custom dice.

The game also comes with a magnetic board of a football field and then a magnetic football and yardage marker. This is a really nice touch. Since both of these items will be moving a lot, the magnetic nature of the board makes life easier. There are clear plastic bingo chips to track each players score and time outs and then a plastic coin for the opening flip.

All of the components are of the highest quality and if it wasn’t obvious from the above my only issue was putting the stickers on the dice.

Playing the Game

Game play itself is pretty simple each player is going to have either the offense or defense deck in front of them depending on who has the ball and they will have a hand of 8 cards. Each player will choose one of the cards that corresponds to a play.  In the base game you have 6 running plays and 6 passing plays on offense. On defense you have 6 run and 6 pass defensive plays. Once each player has selected a card they play them face up and compare the plays called to determine which dice are rolled.

For example if the offense calls a Sweep play and the defense calls an inside blitz the player on offense is going to roll the the Red offensive die, the black defensive die and the white play die. That’s not a good result for the offense. However let’s say the offense calls a FB strong against a prevent defense. In this case the player is rolling the red, ivory and blue offense dice with the black defensive die and white play die added to the mix.

Before we get any more specific lets discuss the 10 dice that come with the game. You have 6 dice representing the offense. Red, Ivory and Brown which are typically rolled more on run plays. Then you have yellow, blue and green which are the typical pass play dice. You have a black defensive dice which is always rolled by the defensive player on each play and the result is usually a small negative amount which is subtracted from the players roll.   These seven dice are refereed to as the yardage dice. The one random factor to all of this is the play die.

The play die is rolled on every play as well and it can cause a number of things to happen. One side has a big X on it, this result means the play gained no yardage and you ignore the results of the yardage dice. Another side has a breakaway symbol. When this comes up you tally the results of the yardage dice apply them and then re-roll all the dice (including the play die) again. If you get another breakaway symbol you do it again. It’s possibly but unlikely to score a big play on any yardage result with the breakaway symbol.

The play die also has a turn over symbol. When this comes up you apply the results of the yardage dice and then roll the referee die and if another turnover symbol comes up you switch sides. The final result on the play die that means anything during this phase is the penalty symbol. When this comes up before applying the yardage results you roll the referee die and penalty die and this will tell you who the penalty is on and how many yards it is for. Results of this die are 5, 10 and 15 yards. There is also a 5A which means if the penalty was on the defense the offense can take the 5 yards and an automatic first down.

After a play is over the players discard the card played and then draw a new one. From here it plays like normal football, you need first downs to keep moving. When you score you can kick the extra point or go for 2. When ever  the ball changes hands whether by turn over or score the players take their hands put them on top of the respective decks. They then swap decks, shuffle them and draw a 8 card hand. The game uses the cards to handle the timing as well. Whenever the player on offense is out of cards in his hand / deck the half or game is over. Running plays have a burn symbol on them and this means when they are run you not only discard the play card at the end of your turn but also one from the top of the offense deck. You can also opt to burn clock on any successful passing play.

The counter to this is the time out and it is well done. Besides negating the burn play result or announcement from the player on offense it allows both players to either search their discard pile for a card and add it to their hand or shuffle their entire hand into their deck and take a new one.

There are rules for everything from onside and fake kicks to hailmary passes. There are even some cards on offense that can’t be played inside the 20 or 10 yard lines (red zone) which is a nice touch to make the game more realistic.   As previously stated the rules are simple and easy to grasp.

Summary

In the end 1st & Goal is an enjoyable game but it is more based on luck and bluffing then strategy. I guess you could argue that the real game of football is the same in this respect. Coaches are calling plays, opposing coaches are guessing what is being called and trying to counter it. What is missing is the individual player match ups, the ability to see what sets an offense is in and calling a proper defense to counter. However that is no the intent of 1st & goal in my opinion. The game makes no qualms about what it is. A light strategy title that covers the basics of being a football coach and it plays in a really fast manner.  The game has expansions that apparently add unique teams with their own play styles and I would assume cards and dice but like the game they have been very hard to find.

What I liked
The components were really nice including the magnetic boards. I like the rule mechanics and while they might not be as deep as some sports gamers would crave they do an excellent job of portraying the game. Seldom do you see really outlandish play results.

What I didn’t like
Putting stickers on dice. Limited play selection.

Over All: B
Back in my childhood days 1st & Goal would of been a game that my friends and I would of played non-stop. It would be so easy to run a fast league in this game and even thought it would be missing the players and their stats it would of been fun. Today however I find it hard pressed to get to the table because of my gaming crowds tastes. The friends I do have that are sports gamers are playing them on the Xbox and PS3.  In my opinion I would think any sports gamer should try this one at the very least.

How the Game is played:

Hero Academy is played on a 9×5 grid. Each team starts the game with 1 or 2 crystals which they must defend and 6 random tiles of their limited reserve. Teams take turns playing their tiles (heroes, weapon or armor upgrades, potions, or spells) or moving their heroes on the playfield. Playing a tile or moving a hero costs one action and each turn consists of 5 actions. Victory is achieved in one of two ways; either by destroying the other teams crystal(s) or by eliminating all of their heroes.

The game currently has two factions, the Council and the Dark Elves, which you can play with.  Each faction has their own unique abilities and subsequent strategies. The game is free to download and comes with the Council; the Dark Elves are available as an in-app purchase. Each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses and learning how to play to those strengths and avoid those weaknesses is part of the allure.

Each faction consists of fighters, casters, shooters, support, and a super unit. The Council has the Knight, Wizard, Archer, Cleric, and Ninja. The Knight is a good defender whose attacks knock back enemies. The Wizard casts spells and can attack multiple enemies (including the crystal) at once with chain lightning. The Archer provides ranged attack but is weak in melee combat. The Cleric can heal and revive your heroes and also provides ranged attacks. The Ninja is strong in melee combat and can teleport and switch places with any of your heroes.

The equivalents for the Dark Elves faction are the Void Monk, Necromancer, Impaler, Priestess, and Wraith.  The Void Monk is strong in melee and does splash damage. The Necromancer casts spells and can create a weak Phantom unit from fallen heroes. The Impaler provides a ranged attack and also pulls enemies closer. The Priestess weakens enemy attacks and heals and revives your heroes. The Wraith can turn into a super beast by draining fallen heroes.

Learning how to use each character in conjunction with one another is crucial to developing winning strategies. You’ll also have to adapt your strategy based upon which heroes you have available to you. To add to the strategy are different special squares on the playfield that grant your hero special abilities like extra power or defense. There is also a square that weakens the defense of your opponents’ crystal(s) if one of your heroes controls it.

Once you are happy with the five actions you have taken you submit your turn and await your opponent to take theirs. The reset button allows you to try different action combinations until you are satisfied with the results of your turn. When it is your turn again you get to see a replay of the actions your opponent took during their turn making it easy to quickly get back into a game where your last move might have been a couple of days ago.

As an app:

Hero Academy is very polished for a free game. Everything from sound to visuals is handled very well and lends to the RTS-lite vibe they have created. By purchasing the Dark Elves faction ($2) all ads are removed from the game but the ads themselves are not very intrusive.

The touch controls usually handle very well but there are times where you accidentally move a character that you were just trying to look at their potential movement. This is a result of the small screen move than it is the actual game controls though. This doesn’t happen too often but it can be an annoyance. Fortunately you can undo any such movements.

The lack of a single-player mode where players can practice against AI is a shame. A game like this would really benefit from a single-player mode because the only way to take your lumps is to play somebody else and a lot of people might be turned off by that. I know I usually like to get my bearings on how a game is played before I start taking on human opponents.

As it is unless you start playing a friend who is also new to the game you will probably get matched up against someone who already knows how to play the game and you will lose, and lose some more until you start picking up on some different strategies to employ. If you are willing to take your lumps, though, there is a lot of fun to be had. They did include a strategy video in a title update and that helps combat player newness a little but it is no replacement for a single-player mode.

Final Thoughts:

My initial fears in my preview of this game were that most games ended by having one team’s heroes completely eliminated rather than by crystals being destroyed. I have noticed that as people are learning strategies that is not the case anymore. Sure, there are games that end that way but I have had plenty of games end with the destruction of crystals.

After playing several games as both factions I feel they’ve done a good job of balancing each faction where neither really has a distinct advantage over the other. You can have success with either faction against the opposite faction. So players not interested in spending money on the Dark Elves faction are not at a disadvantage. Hopefully any future faction releases will be able to maintain this balance because releasing a faction that is a little too powerful will lead to a splinter in the user base where those who refuse to buy the new faction will just stop playing.

I have enjoyed my time with Hero Academy and I am definitely glad that I took the chance I normally wouldn’t with a multiplayer game and just jumped in without having played against an AI. Give it a chance to sink its hooks into you and there is a good chance it will. Grade: B

Hero Academy

Robot Entertainment

Free

iPhone

The deluxe edition comes with 60 scramble cards and 50 states cards. It has 4 U.S maps which each player can reference during the game. The deluxe edition also comes with a book which tells a very creative story about the premise of the game, in short never let the states party together.  Even though my daughters enjoyed the game I think they liked the book even more.  My 8 year old is a heavy reader and I think she has read it a half dozen times already. Getting back to the game aside from these components you have a rule book and the games box.  From a quality standpoint the components get the job done. The cards are standard playing card size and of very good stock. The player maps are small, think greeting card size, but again printed on good quality paper and honestly don’t need to be any bigger.

The art work on the cards is cute for lack of a better term and I don’t mean that as a slight. You have a total of 110 cards, 60 of which form the actions for the game and 50 of which depict the states. Each card has unique artwork and you can tell a lot of time and care went into illustrating them, but there is only so much you can do with the shape of states. To sum up the components, they are the usual high quality I expect from a Gamewright produced game.

The object of the game is simple you need to send the most states home by correctly matching your state cards to the scramble cards that come up.  The player who has sent the most states home when the state deck is depleted is the winner. The game starts with each player being dealt 5 state cards which he or she plays face up in front of them.  This is called forming your “state line” and you should spend a few minutes getting familiar with your states.

Each state card in addition to the state name has a picture and color. The states capital and it’s nick name are also on the card. Finally you should located where the state is on your player map. Once everyone is ready the first player flips over a scramble card, puts it face up and reads it out loud. Scramble cards come in two varieties, Find-it cards and Go the Distance Cards.

Find-it cards have various challenges on them. One card might instruct you to find a state in your line that has a picture with one eye. Another might ask you to find a person’s name hidden in the capital or that touches the pacific ocean. Players then look at their states and if they find one that matches the criteria they slap it and announce it’s name. The first player to do this gets to send that state home which means they put it in their score pile and then draw another card off the top of the state deck to add to their line.

Go the Distance cards work a little differently. When one is turned over the player then flips the top card of the state deck and then each player scans their states to find which one is closest to the randomly flipped state and pushes it forward in his line. Once all players have done this the player who has the closest state gets to send his state card and the flipped on to his score pile.

Whomever wins the round by slapping a Find-it card or winning a Go the Distance challenge is the player who flips and reads the next scrambled card. Play continues until the state deck is empty then you simply count up your state cards in your score pile and the person with the most wins.

There are a couple of ways you can customize the game to make it easier to play and add a bit more randomness to it. For younger players you can eliminate the slapping mechanic and simply let each player who can match a Find-it card score their state. I found this particularly useful with my 7 year old who was at a disadvantage, in fact without it she would of hated the game. There are also some house rules for scoring multiple matches, scoring for your home state and swapping cards with other players.  None of them really change how the game is played but they all seem to speed up the game.

It’s always tough to score games of this nature which is why I always play them with my daughters and get their thoughts which you can find below. From the standpoint of an adult gamer Scramble States is not something I could see myself playing without my kids.  Where the recently reviewed Mermaid Beach and Rory’s Story Cubes I could definitely see playing with adults.   As a game Scrambled States is completely based on luck and is devoid of any strategy. The cards you draw into your state line and the scrambled cards are random and there is nothing you can do to affect that.

From an educational stand point you have a game that most 7-10 year old children will enjoy and it teaches them not only general geography but also state capitals and slogans (i.e. nick names) in a game that can be played in about 20 minutes. It’s perfect for the class room, family trip or family game night when your kids just want “one more game”.

8 year old: B
“I like slapping the cards and figuring out the puzzles and capitals”

7 year old: B
“I like the pictures of the states and finding the colors and faces”

Over All: C+ (B+ educational)
As stated above from an educational standpoint this is a good game. I would give it a solid B+ if my evaluation was only based on that aspect.  As a game there is no element to it other then luck and matching. My opinion is most kids would grow out of this game by the time they were 10 if not sooner. Unlike most of the other Gamewright offerings I have played you would be hard pressed to get a group of adults to play this on their own.

Being a Cylon in Battlestar Galactica is so much fun for those people who don’t mind being the bad guy. You’ll fit in if you liked Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Heel Wrestlers, Megatron, etc.,etc.

In fact, you’ll find that your goody-goody friends will suck as Cylons because you kind of need that against the grain mindset to sabotage the Galactica and bring ultimate destruction to the human fleet.

One final generalization before going into my 5 Steps. . .being a Cylon is much more variable than being a human, in fact, it’s one of the most broad roles in all gaming. You have a number of options at your disposal: go Cylon right away, Flip at the worst possible moment, Flip upon getting an Executive Order, Don’t flip and try to cause distrust against the humans, play like a human until opportunity strikes or you can win by not flipping at all. So keep that in mind when I offer these tips, because if I had the room, I could go with 20-30 different tips. . .I’ve narrowed this to my favorite/top five:

1. If you are Starbuck (or any other pilot) Go Cylon Right Away!

As mentioned above, there are a number of nefarious ways to win as a Cylon, but as a pilot, you are hamstrung on negatively affecting the outcome as an unrevealed Cylon, because the expectation is you’re going to launch in a Viper and go roll some dice and shoot up some Cylon Raiders. If you try to do anything else nefarious, it’s going to be pretty obvious and you’re probably looking at a one-way ticket out the airlock. Save yourself the trouble and go Cylon at the first possible opportunity. You’ll do so much more damage that way.

2. Use your Words and Not Your Cards early on

A rookie Cylon mistake is throwing too many bad cards into skill checks while being an unrevealed Cylon early in the game. This is a tactic that seems logical, but it is easily tracked and gives the human players too much information. It is so much better to foster mounting paranoia among your prey vs. being so direct that they figure out a Cylon is sitting in their midst. Remember, the Cylons spent 40 years planning their attack on the humans–don’t spoil it by being overbearing with early card play. Getting the humans complacent thinking that all the Cylons will come out later in the game is a much more powerful tactic.

3. Do Not Stay in the Resurrection Ship for extra Super Crisis Cards

The Super Crisis Cards are very powerful tools of destruction for the Cylons, but they aren’t so important that you should waste an entire turn fishing for a “better” one. The temptation is there early in the game to go Cylon on your first turn and then spend a second turn grabbing additional Super Crisis cards. The problem with this move is that it is much too passive and doesn’t do anything bad to the humans. Think about it this way, unless you were Executive Ordered and reveled, you already wasted a whole turn just doing the reveal action. Don’t waste another grabbing a card. Take that turn and do something nasty to the Humans. . .they’ll  hate you more for it!

4. If you are the Admiral, keep your reveal in your back pocket

Being Admiral in Galactica is an odd role at times because even though you hold a “lofty title,” outside of a number of crisis cards where the either/or decision lies on your desk, you don’t really  do much else except for deciding on the distance cards after each FTL. Being a hidden Cylon Admiral can quickly turn the tide with these FTL Distance Decisions and you can shift the game by going farther faster or by inching the Galactica ever slower toward the ultimate goal (of usually 8 distance plus one jump).

In a 5-player game, as Admiral Cylon, you’ll want to have Galactica go as slow as possible. If you are Cylon off the bat, throw out as many 1 distance cards and excuses as possible to throw off the scent of you being a toaster as long as possible.

In a 6-player game, if you are Admiral Cylon right off the bat, you want Galactica to move as fast as possible. . .basically, this is to ensure that the Sympathizer is a third Cylon crippling the Human Chances. . .it’s so much easier to win as the Cylons when 50% of the turns are doing something unhelpful to the humans.

Best Cylon Admiral: Helena Cain. Her ability to kill folks going to the brig and her once a game special move can both be used to benefit the Cylon Armada.

5. If you are the President, stay hidden and keep those quorum cards handy

Being President in Galactica is the only other role where you can benefit for a long period of time by staying a hidden Cylon. The simple reason being that some of the quorum cards can be downright nasty to the humans. Especially the ones that put players in the Brig. . .basically, these cards can be stored and used to essentially cripple the human effort late in the game. When all of the humans are throwing a kegger in the brig vs. partying it up in the Pegasus’ engine room, a swift Cylon victory will be at hand.

Best Cylon President: Laura Roslin. Her ability to get two crisis cards and pick one is designed to help the humans. . .when you are an unrevealed Cylon, this becomes a fun tool to slow down the fleet and make things that much more dicey for the humans. Just don’t overdo it.

Bonus End Game Programming from Cylon HQ

One last point. To win as a Clyon, you need to hammer and keep hammering at the humans’ weak link. If you’ve done your job, one of their precious resources are hanging by a thread, so make sure you apply the right pressure to snap their last bit of hope.

If the humans are low on fuel or if Galactica is damaged, concentrate on the Cylon Fleet. You can burn additional human fuel by attacking Galactica and their fueling ship hidden in the fleet stack

If the humans are low on population, you want to concentrate on getting your Raiders on the board to apply pressure on their fleet.

If the humans are low on food or morale, concentrate on the crisis card deck and use any remaining Super Crisis Cards. This will help the humans burn their cards and create traps to stumble into on future turns where they will miss on a critical skills check and lose the game.

Well, that’s it for now. Using these Cylon-friendly tactics, you should have a much easier time with being the bad guy, and really it’s sometimes good to be very, very bad (insert evil cackling laugh here).

How the Game is played:

Food Fight tasks players with gaining 10 victory points in order to win the game. Victory points are gained by plating your army of food soldiers and winning meals worth various victory points. Food Fight can be played with 2-4 players and in two different ways; Boot camp or Draft.

Boot camp has players start with 9 random cards while the draft has players passing piles of cards back and forth while selecting one card each time until all of the cards have been taken. Of the two I am a much bigger fan of starting with a draft as it gives me an opportunity to craft my own starting 9.

Cards come in two varieties; food and condiments. Food cards are the soldiers you enlist for battle and condiment cards are instant cards that help one of your soldier cards during battle. Each soldier card has a yumminess score. This yumminess score is essentially their strength in battle. Each soldier card is also broken down into one of the different types of meal. The meal type of the card comes into play as some cards get a yumminess bonus if they are fighting on a battlefield that matches their meal type or some condiment cards only help foods of a certain meal type. Also, tiebreakers go to the soldier whose meal type matches the battlefield meal type.

Each round in the game is considered a day. Each day starts with battlefields (meals) being displayed, two for 2-player games and three for 3 and 4-player games. Battlefields can either be breakfast, lunch, or dinner battlefields. Paying attention to what types of battlefields you can choose from is a good idea to help you decide on which cards to draft and is definitely a must for deciding which cards to plate for the battle ahead. Each battlefield card also has a victory point total which the winning player receives for winning the battle. This is important as the first player to reach 10 victory points wins the game.

Once you have your nine starting cards it is time to plate five soldiers to go into battle with. Since you know which battlefield you are going to pick ahead of time you will likely choose a starting five who would benefit the most by fighting on that battlefield. That’s not to say that you’ll never want to plate a dinner soldier on a lunch battlefield. Knowing what each card brings to the table (bad pun intended) might dictate that one of your lunch cards would work better on the breakfast battlefield than a breakfast card you have in your hand based the other cards you are plating. Once you are done plating your food soldiers you pick which of the battlefields you want to fight on.

If all of the battlefields are of the same meal type than all of the victory points are added together and only one battle is fought. If there are two or more different types of battlefields then which one you select dictates how the battle plays out. If you are the only player to select that particular battlefield then you will be going up against the dog instead of another player. If you pick the same battlefield as another player then you will be squaring off against that player.

Each battle consists of five rounds. The five soldier cards that you plated are shuffled before the battle starts and the top card is flipped over for each round. The player with the highest yumminess total for the round after all instants are played wins the round and receives a mint. The player who receives the most mints at the end of five rounds wins the battle and earns the victory points at stake. If you are going up against the dog you get the battle points if you win at least 3 mints while getting nothing if the dog beats you.  Once the victory points are claimed the whole process begins again until a winner is determined.

As an app:

Playdek showed that they could translate a card game to iOS with A:CotG and Food Fight is no exception. The menu looks like an old table jukebox from a 50’s diner and the music matches right along. The artwork is very good and a joy to look at.

Like A:CotG, Food Fight includes online and local multiplayer and the ability to play against the AI. With Food Fight, however, they have added a campaign mode where you must defeat 19 special bosses. You must win a breakfast, lunch, and dinner battle against 3 other AI’s before being able to take on the boss. After each battle you get to pick a card to keep for your army and after you beat the boss, which are the special cards, you get to add him/her to your army. It might not be the deepest campaign experience in the world but it is a welcome addition.

Controls are generally good but there are times where frustration sets in when you try to play a card and you can’t quite find the hotspot you are supposed to drag it to. If you drag the card too far it snaps back into your hand. You don’t expect to be able to drag a card too far in a card game but there were plenty of times where I had to settle on double-tapping the card and selecting the action that popped up. It isn’t much but it does become annoying after a while.

Final Thoughts:

Food Fight brings charm and humor in spades. Fortunately it also brings fun. Strategy wise it is not very deep but there is strategy to be found and it is easy to pick-up-and-play making it a good choice for those with children. And as always, I love seeing that it is a universal app. Grade: B+

Food Fight

Playdek, Inc.

$3.99

iPhone/iPad universal

Link: Food Fight

I think it would be fair to say in this case the publisher wasn’t aware of what they had on their hands and most certainly wasn’t prepared. Copies of Eclipse are selling for $150 or more, the game sold out of it’s first printing immediately and it won’t be available again until around April. Game publishing is a tricky business which is a topic for another day but I had a recent conversation with a wholesaler and they have more orders for this game from retailers then for any game they can remember. So what is all the buzz about?

Eclipse is a game of interstellar conquest in the same genre as games like Galactic Emperor, Space Empires 4X and Twillight Imperium. Eclipse stands out from the rest due to it’s mechanics.  It takes all the tedious over complicated rules and book keeping of other games and condenses them into easy to understand systems that can be found in many traditional Euro games.  It also offers a fantastic way to deal with technology and ship configurations.  Stating it plainly Eclipse takes the boring out of the game and makes it fun.

The Bits

Eclipse plays up to six people so each player is going to get 14 plastic ships in 3 varieties.  You have interceptors which make up the bulk of your fleet, cruisers which are a bit bigger and have more slots to work with and then a couple of Dreadnoughts which are the biggest ships available. The ship molds have been used in other games and I’ve seen several complaints on that. In my opinion they get the job done and it’s nothing more then a trivial annoyance.

Each player also has card board star base and ambassador tokens. There are 6 double sided player sheets. On the front of each is a Terran (human) civilization and these all have the same abilities. On the back side there are 6 alien races which all have different abilities and starting conditions. In short you have 7 different races to play with which is a good starting point and of course leaves room for expansion. Each player also receives 33 wooden population cubes which are used to track the 3 resources in the game. There are also 16 influence discs and then 3 more wooden cubes to track a players surplus in each resource.

That’s a lot of bits right there but we’re not done yet. There are also 44 sector tiles which are used to make up the board. 6 of these are starting player tiles, 1 is the galactic center one of the most valuable sectors in the game and the other 37 make up the 3 sections of space. There is a master technology board which houses the 96 technology tiles making up the 24 different techs available in the game. There are 154 ship part tiles, reputation tiles, colony ship tiles, discovery tiles, ancient ship tiles, orbital / monolith tiles, 6 summary cards, 4 information cards, a traitor card, start player token, turn token and to top it off 18 six sided dice in 3 colors used for combat. In short there is a lot of goodies in the box.

With the exception of my player mats everything was in perfect shape and of the highest quality. For some strange reason the player mats are printed on a little thinner material then everything else. This isn’t a particularly big issue but my mats curled at the corners immediately. I’m hearing reports of this only happening to some players so I’m sure it has more to do with the climate of where you’re at. However I found it a curious decision as the mat get more use then anything else during the game.

When everything is said and done you’re getting your moneys worth in the bits department and then some.

Game Play

The rule book is well laid out and the rules in general are very straight forward. The book is about 31 pages but the text and general layout of the pages makes them very easy to read. There are several clear example of play and about 6 pages in the back on the different races and some FAQ questions. The way the rule book is structured it is very easy to find a rule or example if you need to. I find most of the questions during a game of Eclipse come from players who are looking, or rather hoping a rule lets them do something it’s not intended too.

A game round is comprised of 4 phases. The Action phase is first and this is where much of the game occurs. Player take turns declaring an paying for an action, they continue to do so until everyone has passed. On your turn you may pass by flipping over your player summary card. Even when you pass you can jump back in and take a reactive action but these actions are limited in variety and function in a reduced capacity.

Paying for an action works by taking one of your influence disc  and putting it on the action on your player mat. Each time you remove a disc there is an associated number below it.  This number is the cost in money you will need to pay at the end of the round. As you start to take discs away to pay for actions or to control sectors the cost increases greatly. You need to balance your actions with your income in order to be able to pay at rounds end. If you can’t pay with cash you’re going to pay elsewhere such as losing sectors. Losing sectors means loss of income so it’s a nasty cycle you want to avoid.

While I won’t regurgitate the rules here, just know during the action phase you can move ships, explore sectors, research technology, modify your ships and use influence actions. In the beginning of the game you’ll be exploring. The universe is set up so there is a galactic center tile which is the highest victory point tile in the game but also heavily guarded. Forming a ring around this hex are the sector 1 tiles. Then the sector 2 tiles which include your home sector outside of those. The sector 3 tiles are not restricted to this ring, as long as you have a wormhole connection (little symbol on the tile) you can explore out in any direction into sector 3.

Tiles provide resources and some can be guarded by the NPC race called the ancients with their ships. Some tiles also have discovery tokens which provided benefits like a surplus in science, or ancient ship parts or technology. Each tile also has a victory point value ranging from 1-3, the galactic center mentioned before is worth 4. Make no mistake some tiles are more valuable then others and there is a certain luck of the draw factor here especially when staring out. The explore action allows you to not place the tile you have drawn and throw it to the discard pile but it uses your action and it still costs.

The good news is that controlling tiles is not the only way to accumulate victory points. You can accumulate points by engaging in combat. Each time you partake in combat you’ll draw a reputation tile from a bag. These tiles have victory point values on them from 1-4. The key here is you only have so many locations on your play mat to place these and the locations are also used for alliance which I will get to in a minute.

The more successful you are in combat the more tiles you will draw but you only keep one to place on your board and you never draw more then 5 tiles.  What’s great about this is you get a draw just for being in a combat and I have seen a game turn on the loser of a combat pulling a good tile.

I mentioned alliances so this is a good time to discuss them. Whenever you and another player have an active wormhole connection to each other (i.e. adjacent tiles) you can offer an alliance. If both players agree then you simply exchange one of your 3 ambassador tokens and it goes onto the other players mat. You then also give him a cube of your choice from your board to sit on that tile. So I can establish diplomatic relations with a player and give him a cube off my money track to increase my income. It’s an easy way to get a few cubes out there especially when your sectors aren’t generating a lot of a certain resource.

The only way to break diplomatic relations is to attack  the other player but by doing so you then get the traitor card which is -2 victory points at the end of the game. There is only one traitor card so establishing and then breaking the alliance has a lot to do with timing. While it might be good to set these up in the early game, they are only worth 1 vp at games end. Imagine having only 4 spots on your play board and 3 of them filled with ambassador tokens and you are constantly fighting another player and pulling 2,3 or 4 reputation tiles with no where to put them and you’ll understand the dilemma with alliances.

You can also acquire victory points from developing technology. Each player board has 3 tech tracks  which allow you to research up to 7 techs. When you research enough technology in one you get victory points. The more you build the more you can acquire. A person who maxes out all 3 tracks can accumulate 15 victory points but that person has research 21 techs during the game. It’s a good option for player who prefer to avoid combat and also some of the alien races. What it also does is allows a player to compete that is in a bad spot or had some tough draws.

After the action phase is the combat phase. Combat is resolve by rolling dice in initiative order but it’s a lot more interesting then that. One of the best aspects of Eclipse is the ship design. Each player has on their mat a blue print for their interceptor, cruiser, dreadnought and star base. Each of these ships come pre-configured with an energy source and then most have hull, weapons, shields or computers. During the game as you research technology you can then retrofit your ships. As long as you adhere to some simple rules on energy management and making sure each ship has a drive you can customize the ships how you want then.

Want a cruiser that has a ton of hull but no shields? How about a dreadnought that has missiles, advance lasers and targeting computers but no hull? You can create the ships how you want them. Each weapon rolls a certain color die (yellow, orange and red) and better weapons do more damage. Shields reduce the die roll of the attacker, computers add to it. Hulls soak up damage and missiles fire first.  Combat is simple roll for each weapon in initiative order and get a 6 or better. A 6 always hits and a 1 always misses regardless of modifiers. Assign damage, rinse repeat.

Another aspect of combat I love is that instead of attacking on a ship types turn it can elect to retreat to a friendly sector. However they just don’t move away, they get put on the edge of the sector and the other player gets a free shot the next round before they get away. It makes retreating risky but it’s an option that you must consider as losing all of your ships in a fight can be the momentum that swings the game.

There are also rules for attacking enemy sectors which allows you to remove their disc and cubes and take control of it.  However there is a tech called neutron bombs which basically eliminates the combat because these bombs wipe out those disc and cubes in an undefended sector. Pretty much every game I have played all players have gotten this tech.

After Combat you have upkeep where you first determine how much money you spent by looking at the last empty spot on your influence disc track, then how much money you made by looking at your income track. If you have a surplus you’re collect that extra into your stores.  If you owe you then subtract from your stores. If you owe more then you have income stored away you can trade other resources away to pay the income. If you still don’t have enough then you start losing sectors as I mentioned way back in the beginning.  Once the money is out of the way you collect your science and material value and add it to your stores. Science is used to research technology and material used for building ships etc.

The last phase is clean up where you straighten out your board, new technologies are reveal to research and the turn marker is move forward. Yes Eclipse has a turn maker and it’s what keeps this game from taking 5-7 hours like other in the genre.

 What I Liked

• The game play mechanics are so smooth it is clear there was a lot of testing of this system and it shows.
• There is little down time except during combat you’re not involved in and even then you’re paying attention to determine your future opponents strengths and weaknesses.
• Ship customization and technology research allow you a lot of flexibility.
• There are no guaranteed paths to victory. At least none apparent after a lot of plays you really need to be able to adapt to the hand you are dealt in terms of sector tiles.
• There are multiple paths to victory. Get a bad draw of starting tiles seems like a killer until you realize you can win this game without being a warmonger. Sure exploration and combat is almost required in every game but you can catch other players off guard by slipping in 13 technology vp’s followed by 12 monolith vp’s.

What I didn’t Like

• As mentioned the player mats should of been thicker in my mind.
• Tiles seem to run out a lot sooner then I would of liked. I understand this is to keep the area compact and push player conflict but I would of liked to explore a little bit more.
• Wish their were more race options. Seven is a good starting point but I’m itching for more already.

Over All:  A+

It says a lot about a design that after completing a 3 hour game most players immediately want to play again. I’ve had countless discussion with fellow players on strategy and proper ship builds. We’ve lingered over the board after a game and discussed how we could of played something better.  I love that Eclipse offers so many ways out of bad situations. For every hurdle there is a solution, for every wall another doorway exists. To me that is the essential part of a good design, allowing the players the chance to overcome their early mistakes. Eclipse is a special game and in a year of great designs it stands head and shoulders over the competition.

The game itself  feels like a combination of Go Fish and Old Maid. You’re goal is to collect shell cards which are the games victory points.  You do this by putting down pairs of cards representing various beach items like a umbrella or sun glasses which are found in the beach deck. Thrown into the mix are special cards which allow you to do various things.

In the beach deck you can find the seaweed card which allows you to make another player take the top card of the beach deck into his hand.  The sneaker wave card lets you pick a player and forces him or her to put a shell card back. You have Mermaid cards which when played allow you to draw a shell card . There are also two mean mermaid cards which allow you to steal a shell card from another player.  Finally the dreaded sea monster card who will eat all your high point shell cards at the end of the game, my daughter hates the sea monster.

The shell cards range in point values from 1-4 and when you acquire one you put it face up in front of you so at any time every player knows who is winning. In the shell deck is also a star fish card which tells you to pass a card to the left or right. This is the only way to get rid of that evil sea monster.  You have a grand total of 76 cards when you add them together. The art work is nicely done and the mermaid cards are all sparkly as my daughters call them. It’s not the most interesting art work you’ll find in a game but to a 7 and 8 year old it was perfect.

On your turn you can discard a pair, play one of your special cards or ask someone for a card just as in go fish. ”Do you have a beach ball?”  – ”No go to the Beach” in which case you draw from the top of the beach deck. The game continues until one person is out of cards or only has the sea monster card left.

What I liked

• It was fast and easy to play thanks to the similarities to other games.
• The mix of special cards that allow you to steal and dig at your neighbor are nice elements. Not only do they add some needed strategy they also introduce younger players to mechanics they will find in more complex games.
• I’ll never have to play Go Fish with my kids again they love this game so much.

What I didn’t like

• It doesn’t play very well with 2 players. It makes the game a little longer and it’s no fun picking on each other. Games tend to last until there are no cards left.
• The art work while adequate was no where near the level of Gubs another Gamewright card game we love.

Over All

Mermaid Beach is a welcomed addition to our game library and my kids love the fact that it was created by an 8 year old girl. Sure it feels a little like the classic games we play with our kids but it adds some new twists which make it more enjoyable for adults as well as teach basic game mechanics to a younger audience.  Speaking of which lets see how the girls grade it.

Big sister( age 8 ) – B

Little sister ( age 7 ) – A

The problem though is that playing as a human can be a major pain in the butt. The real issue is always the Cylon presence and rooting out who the Cylons are is key, but there are a number of other factors in place while trying to steer the human fleet to Earth.

Can you save humanity. . .trust me, it's a rough go.

Anyway, when you play BSG, whether it’s your first game or your hundredth, if you are a human, you are facing near impossible odds. Below, I will outline five key things to do as a human player/team to ensure a chance at victory. While these aren’t universal, and a lot is going to depend on the paranoia in your play group, I think these are five solid keys to play for the win.

Step One–Communication is Key

The first thing that human players need to focus on is keeping the lines of communication open at the table. You don’t want any decision made without a reasonable amount of time to discuss all available options. Everything and I mean everything should be talked over be it actions, card plays, votes, etc. This keeps everyone on track because a rogue human player can lead to disaster. Plus, you can often times fish out possible Cylons if they try to sway the group in an odd direction. The real issue here is trying to make the optimal play each time because that is IMO the only way to keep your resources in check.

Generally, the most successful human teams work as a unit and talk about each move before executing.

Step Two–Protect the Fleet

The next step in mounting a successful campaign against the Cylons is keeping your civilian ships protected. The Civilian Fleet represents the only resource that you have direct control of. Everything else is randomly based either on Galactica damage tokens or via the crisis cards. So, unless you want to roll the dice on keeping the population at a healthy level, you need to protect civilians with your Vipers and, if you are playing the Exodus Expansion, doing everything you can to remove Civilians to safety. If you don’t, you can run into an issue where too many Civilians end up on the board and you end up losing so many that you cannot risk an early FTL jump later in the game or you simply get overrun and everyone gets killed in the process.

Step Three–Don’t Forget your Special Abilities

Each character in BSG has two special abilities: one that is persistent and one that can be used once each game, and I’ve seen far too often the human players forget to use these to either improve their position or bail themselves out. I even fell victim to this a few weeks back when I should have, as William Adama, used his once a game ability to pick up all of the cards from the current vote. I didn’t do this at a crucial juncture and I think it led to a human defeat.

So I suggest the following, start the game by making sure everyone reads (and understands) both of their special abilities and make the engineer or the president in charge of keeping track of when or if they have been used.

Step Four (Part One)–Don’t Trust Anybody, until you can. . .

Basically, this step is here because experienced Cylons can be straight-up bastards. SO, until all Cylons are revealed, do not trust anyone. Now generally, you are going to be able to tell pro-human players from thinly veiled Cylons, but the best Cylon players can hide in plain sight and do the worst damage when you least expect it.

Step Four (Part Two)– Don’t be afraid of offing your “friend”. . .

Via the expansions, it is a lot easier to kill your crewmates vs. just tossing them into the brig. Via the cards or the Airlock spot on the Pegasus board, there are options to kill folks and I often say there are times when it is ok to do so. For example, if someone has picked a character that isn’t helping or did something questionable, if the team doesn’t know if the person is a Cylon and the option there is to kill them, I say hurl their dumb ass into space. It might cause you to lose one morale point, but it’s worth it if the team thinks they are a Cylon or if they should switch to a different character that will provide more value to the team.

Step Five–Managing the Endgame with Presidential Powers

At the end of most BSG games, the humans are usually hanging by a thread with one of their resource dials hovering just above the zero spot. To me the key resource is always going to be Population because as long as you have 4 or more on that dial you can make the last jump into a three turn adventure and make the last jump using FTL Control. (Fuel is also a key resource, but it’s generally only hit by jumps–clearly if you have no fuel you are going to lose–the reason I pick population is that you can turn a surplus into a quicker win in most games)

A big mistake by many humans is not managing their dials in the final turns. . .and not spending time feeding the president opportunities to improve their standing using the quorum cards. Sometimes this is not doable due to folks being in the brig or busy shooting down Raiders in space, but a real viable late-game option for humans in BSG is feeding the president executive orders to enable them to play quorum cards that can possibly improve food or (especially) morale.

One final late game mistake is choosing to vote on every crisis card. When you are tasked with survival, sometimes it takes some hard choices to make it through the seemingly unending Cylon onslaught. One of these hard choices is skipping votes that cause a loss of food or population vs. a loss to either fuel or morale (the two dials that are most often near zero in the endgame). As some folks in my group say, “You never lose because of food!” (Not 100% proven)

Well, that’s it for this round. . .next time out. . .I will put on my Cylon cap and give you five tips to play as a Cylon and cause ruin to the human race.

Gameplay

Rallyman uses dice as part of the movement. Each die in Rallyman represents a gear so to upshift to first gear you use the first gear die and then to upshift to second you use the second gear die. That starts to make it sound like Formula De, a game which I don’t care for at all, but the two are very different because of the way they use the dice.

One whole turn uses all the black and white dice you want to use. Each die you use moves your car one space forward no matter what. Each die can only be used once in a player’s turn. Certain markings on the board limit the gear you can be in. At the end of your turn you grab a card of the gear you ended in which has a time value on it. Higher gear cards have less time on it than the lower gears since you’re going faster in the higher gears. At the end of the race, the player with the lowest time is the winner. These cards are also a reminder of what gear to start your next turn in. Since it’s not a die, it also allows you the only way to downshift and upshift in the same turn. For example, if you end a turn in 2nd gear, you can downshift to 1st and then back up to 2nd since the die for second gear wasn’t used yet in the turn.

I mentioned black and white dice back there. Well, the black dice have gear numbers on them and there are five from 1-5. There are two white dice that are used to maintain your current gear but move your car one space down the track. So the game play on a turn is to upshift or downshift, trying to be in the highest gear that you can and going as far down the track as you can while obeying the gear limits on the track.

The point of these gears being dice is to determine when you will lose control. The dice have two exclamation marks on them except the white die and first gear which have one exclamation mark. When you roll the dice, three or more exclamation marks means you lose control of your car. You turn over the card of the gear you lost control in and it tells you if you fly off the track to your left or right or stay on the track. It also adds 1 minute to your time while you straighten out your car and get it back on the road. Flying off the road means you need to look at the terrain in that direction and look at the board to see what that means. Going off in to grass does nothing beyond the time penalty, but hitting rocks will cause you to lose two black dice in addition to that time. That means you can only roll three black dice each turn, but those dice can change every turn.

So when you’re rolling the dice the game lets you do two different things. You either can roll all your dice at once and collect time chips for doing so but if you get three or more exclamation marks on those dice you lose control. Time chips subtract from your total time at the end of the race so most of the time you’re going to be rolling this way to “go faster”. The other way you can roll your dice is one at a time. Doing it that way you don’t collect time chips but you can choose to stop rolling whenever you wish. So after you see two exclamation marks you can choose to end your turn or press your luck by rolling the next die. So here, you’re driving slower to keep your car under control and reduce the chance of having an accident. The game also lets you spend a time chips you collected previously so that the die you’re about to roll is guaranteed to be good and you don’t even bother rolling it. This way you can drive even more carefully but it will cost you some more time.

Since this is rally driving, you’re not always on the track and the track isn’t completely flat. The game lets you cut corners, which let you go faster through the corner since you’re straightening out the corner by taking the short cut. When you do this you have to flip over a corner card. They’ll have one of three things on them. Either OK, splashing the corner or tire damage. If it’s OK, nothing happens and you keep driving. Tire damage costs you one of your white dice from this turn on, which can really cost you in the long run since they’re so useful. Splashing dirt on the corner means the gear rating for that corner is lowered by one for everyone else behind you. There are also bumps on the track that give you a boost of one space when you hit them. You can get an additional boost by going one gear higher, but you lose control if you roll an exclamation on that die, no matter what you rolled before. That’s a good spot to choose to roll them one at a time so you have the opportunity to play a time chip on that bump to keep yourself in control.

The boards are also two sided and it’s snow terrain on the other side. The game lets you set up your car with snow tires or regular tires. If you don’t have snow tires in the snow, you’ll wipe out in a second exclamation mark instead of the third one. But snow tires on asfault will only let you roll one white die. So a mixed surface race makes things even more interesting.

Thoughts
So the game is part puzzle when you’re plotting out your gear shifts. It’s part gambling when you’re trying to go fast or cut through the corners. But overall it’s a race game and feels like it. The players around you are going to push you to take risks when they take risks. The first guy cuts through a corner and you’re looking to cut the corner otherwise you’re going to be taking that corner slower than they did. Or you decide to play it safe and it pays off when the leader punctures a tire in a corner or loses control when they roll a bunch of dice at once and get too many exclamations. The mechanisms for how you use the dice cause you to do upshift and downshift in ways that make sense for real driving.

Game designers have to take some aspect of racing and try to translate it in to a game while dropping other aspects because of the nature of moving a real-time activity to a turn-based game. Rallyman does a really good job of finding a balance between those two things. The way the dice and cards are used make it feel like you’re dealing with risks under your control and not having randomness thrown at you. The game gives you a way to get around the track without ever having the possibility to lose control, but that won’t win many races. You could have driven around that track like a granny, but you wanted first place.

Since this race is time based, a rarity for racing board games, you might feel like you’re losing the first race as the 4th player, but as soon as the results are read off after the first course you’ll quickly realize that’s not the case.

There is a little bit of downtime at the start and end of the game because the rules for starting are that player’s starts are staggered. So it goes 1-1-2-1-2-3-1-2-3-4. Which means the fourth player takes their first turn on the 10th turn. Also when you end player one crosses the finish line, then usually player two a turn later so the ending usually goes something like 1-2-3-4-2-3-4-3-4-4. That one isn’t too bad since players can start adding up their times, but that start is killer as a 4th player when you just want to start the game. If you’re willing to splurge on a second set, there’s not too much of an issue, I think, with setting up the same board and having 3 more people play on a second board of the same course layout to make for a 6 player game without too much downtime.

One thing that tends to happen in games is that the first player takes a turn in a certain way and as long as it generally looks like it’s efficient and not too risky, every player behind them will repeat the exact same move. So sometimes you only start to get different moves when someone spins out or punctures a tire through a corner and then can’t duplicate someone else’s move. This will change as you play with people who like to take different amounts of risk or playing with different road conditions and players not having the same type of tire.

What’s to like: Good racing feeling. Lots of different courses to construct with only 4 boards. Rally racing, which is a theme that hasn’t been worn out by every other game.

What’s not to like: A lot of downtime at the start and end for some players. Drivers following in other’s footsteps causes random luck to be the decider sometimes.

Overall:  A

How the Game is played:

Loot and Scoot is a game for 2-4 players. Each player starts the game by recruiting 2 heroes to go along with their initial two hirelings. Players cannot start the game with the same hero combination. The four available hero types are squire, thief, priest, or wizard. After the heroes are recruited each player sets up their dungeon with monster cards that are drawn and placed in the corresponding room. Monsters range from level 1 to level 6. Each player has one level-6 monster to place in their dungeon. The game is over when any of the level-6 monsters is defeated.

Monster placement is part of the strategy as other than the level-6 monster you never know what level monsters you will draw to place in your dungeon. If you put a level-1 monster in a level-4 room your level-1 monster is much weaker than if you place it in a level-1 room. Each dungeon consists of two level-1 rooms, two level-2 rooms, two level-3 rooms, two level-4 rooms, and four level-6 rooms. There are also poison and treasure cards that you can place in your dungeon. Any unclaimed treasure in your dungeon when the game ends is added to your final score.

Each player starts their turn at the inn and is given two action points each turn. These action points can be used to recruit another hero (you can have up to four), beg for gold (takes both action points), build upgrades, train a hero, or go looting in another players dungeon. Except for looting a dungeon actions cost some of that hard-earned gold you acquire while looting dungeons. When you go looting you flip over a card from the lowest level room that has not been cleared. When you flip over a card you must fight the monster in that room. If you fail to kill it you do not have to fight that monster upon entering that same dungeon but you will not be able to progress further in the dungeon until it is killed.

Monsters are killed by rolling a 6-sided die. You must roll a six to defeat the monster. Each monster card displays which type of hero can attack. For instance a monster might show that one priest and two squires can attack it. That means that you can roll up to three die if you have one priest and two squires in your party. If your party consists of one priest, one squire, and one thief you will only be able to roll two die to try and defeat the monster. If you fail to roll a six on your first attempt than the monster attacks your party based upon their attack value. Lower level monsters only attack one member of your party while higher level monsters attack two or more. You choose which member of your party takes the damage. Hirelings are killed when attacked and heroes are sent back to the inn.

As an app:

Loot and Scoot is a universal app so you are able to play it on your iPhone and iPad without having to pay for different versions. I am a big fan of that so Loot and Scoot gets bonus points with me for being universal.

Graphically, Loot and Scoot is not much to look at. The character art is decent enough but the fonts and menus look pretty generic when compared to the top-tier board games available on the app store. The animations also seem a bit generic as does the sound. Outside of that the game functions very well on the touch screen and there are no frustrating moments where you cannot do what you are trying to do. You can definitely tell this is a low budget game but that’s not to say there is no fun to be had.

Loot and Scoot offers single-player and multiplayer modes. You can play up to three computer AI’s in single-player mode with Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels available. Multiplayer mode is restricted to pass-and-play but works well.

Final thoughts:

Loot and Scoot’s fast pace makes it a great game for a mobile platform but at the same time it really limits the strategy involved in the game. With games ending so quickly, even with 4 players, it hardly seems worth investing gold in building upgrades or leveling up your heroes knowing that you will need that gold in your coffers to boost your score at the end of the game. This game would benefit greatly from having bigger dungeons where the game would be extended and player strategy would be allowed to unfold. You can extend the game if there are more than two players by choosing “Last Boss Standing” mode where the game doesn’t end until all but one level-6 monster is slain but it still isn’t long enough to really get any strategy going. As it is Loot and Scoot is fun in quick stretches but nothing that will scratch the strategy itch.

Grade: C+

Loot and Scoot

Victory Point Games LLC

$2.99

iPhone/iPad universal

Link: Loot and Scoot

While technically this is a stand alone expansion  to the original Rory’s Story Cubes you don’t need that set to play. The first thing you’re going to notice upon opening this set is you get nine dice in the box and pretty much nothing else. In fact there are really no rules except the four or so paragraphs on the inside cover which I would term more suggestions on how to play then anything else. The gamer in me immediately thought I was missing something inside the set when what I was clearly missing was the ability to think outside the box.

As I was examining the box my 7 year old walked into my den and saw the box. I told her this was a new game and we were going to play it later. She looked at it for about 30 seconds and said “Oh I know this, you roll the dice and make up a story.” I asked her if she had played it at school or elsewhere and she replied “no, I just looked at the box and figured it out.”

Score one for my youngest daughter.

So what then in Rory’s Story cubes? Technically it’s a game to develop creative thinking but in practice it is anything your imagination can dream up.  Each cube as they are called, they are in fact large 6 sided dice, has an image on it conveying an action. Some of them are clear as to what that action is while others are open to a little interpretation.

You roll these nine cubes and you then start out by saying “Once upon a time…” and from there you look at the pictures on the cubes and create a story. For example one of the cubes has a picture of a face peeking around a corner and another one has someone lifting weights. So you might start “Once upon a time a girl name Sally heard strange noises coming from downstairs. She crept down the stairs and peeked around the corner to see her baby brother lifting a set of heavy weights over his head.”

I’ve just summed up the simplicity and the genius that is Rory’s Story Cubes. Rory’s is more an educational tool then a game, but it presents that education in the disguise of a game that turns out to be a lot of laughs for everyone involved.  The lack of a set of rules but some suggestions on how to use the cubes  fits right into the purpose of the product, creative thought.

Some of the suggestions include picking a TV show or movie and then using characters from that to tell a story. Telling a story using the opposite actions depicted or for even more fun acting out the actions as you spin your yarn.  My girls even came up with a version, telling their story with barbie dolls and acting it out. For those asking if there is an actual game here for adults the answer to that lies in how creative you are. You could use these cubes and your imagination to create any number of games that would liven up the most boring of dinner parties.

As a parent it was amazing to see with each new roll of the cubes my girls becoming more expressive and better storytellers while laughing up a storm. While Rory’s might technically not be a game in the literal sense that there is no score, winners or losers. The game itself is the real winner in what it accomplishes in such an easy manner. I had planned to donate these cubes to my girls school after finishing this review but there is no way my kids are going to let that happen.

Final Score: A

Enter the Pathfinder Beginner Box set by Paizo a product so perfect in it’s execution it should have other publishers sitting up and taking notice.  Judging by the recently announced plans for a new edition of D&D that aims to tie all the various version into one product apparently one publisher has.  The Pathfinder Beginner Box is how you not only want to introduce someone to your game system. It’s a masterful example of how to introduce someone to the hobby of role playing games.

Think about when you purchase something like a video game. What is the first thing you do? Do you read the manual or do you just start to play? Now think about classic rpg’s you had to read a lot of text, a whole lot of text before doing anything.

The moment you open the product you’re greeted with a sheet imploring you to stop what you’re doing and read it. The sheet guides you on what to do next. Are you alone? No problem open the Hero’s guide and run through the solo adventure on page 2. Don’t worry if you know nothing. about rpg’s as the solo adventure will have you rolling d20′s, checking your attack bonus and using a healing potion in no time.  If you’re sitting down with a group of people the Game Masters guide has you covered. Once again a few pages in you’ll be running an adventure for your friends. The guide will tell hold your hand as it teaches you the rules to running a game and the players the rules on how to play.

Four ready to play characters are included. Also in the box are blank character sheets, a dry erase flip map for using with the included adventure in the Game Masters guide and card board cut out for monsters and players.  Literally everything you need to play your first session in the Pathfinder universe is in the box and you can be playing in a matter of minutes.  After you have gotten a taste with the introductory adventure and characters you can then read on.

The Hero’s Guide literally walks you through creating a new character. Each section is clearly explained and illustrated and matches up to a section on the blank character sheets. The Game Masters guide gives you tips on running and creating adventures. Expanded rules on combat, magic and traps. There is even a section on monsters included in it to give you some vile creatures to throw at your friends.

Typically with a product like this a buyer is thinking what’s next? Put another check mark on the positive side as the box set not only points you in the right direction. You can download several pdf’s off the website which give you a new character class to play, mini adventures to run and more.

I can’t tell you the last time I opened a product and after going through it the word perfect came to mind. With the Pathfinder Beginner Box I can’t think of any other adjective to describe it. The product is well thought out, executed with a professional and approachable touch. The graphic designer on this product should win an award in my opinion.

The game most certainly will not fit the bill for a lot of veteran role players looking to switch to the system. The limited races and classes will likely drive them insane but I wouldn’t expect that audience to buy the beginner box in the first place.  If you’re new to rpg’s or Pathfinder in general and want a great introduction to the genre or system then you can’t go wrong with this product.

What’s Hot
Everything. This product is what other publishers should measure themselves against when creating an introduction to the genre.

What’s Not
It doesn’t include a dry erase marker…yes that is sarcasm.

Over All: A+
This is a must purchase if you fit any of the criteria listed above. Stop reading and go buy this product.

Hero Academy can best be described as RTS with Friends. If you’ve played any of the “with Friends” games you will feel right at home with how Hero Academy works. To begin play you will have to create a user account with Robot Entertainment. Once your account is created you can link it with your Facebook and/or Twitter account(s). Chances are you won’t find anybody playing it when you link an account but the option is there. You can start a game by entering someones Hero Academy account or just start a game with a random opponent. Being that I am the only person I know that has this game that is the route I have taken so far.

This game might not take off very quickly for the simple fact that there is no tutorial that can be played against an AI. There is a very brief screenshot tutorial and a link in the news section to some more details about how to play the game but for the most part it is the equivalent of on-the-job training which can be intimidating for new users. I did decide to take the plunge and play some random games and so far I am enjoying the game while learning it but I do have some concerns as to the long-term enjoyment this title will provide.

I won’t go into too much detail about the gameplay in this preview (I’ll save that for the review) but I will give you the basics. You choose one of the 2 available factions to play as; the Council, which is free and available from the start, or the Dark Elves, which is available for purchase. Purchasing the Dark Elves team will provide you with a whole new team strategy to learn as well as remove all ads from the game. Each team has 1 or 2 crystals that they must defend. Your job is to destroy your opponents crystal using the tiles you draw. There are spells, potions, swords, shields, helmets, and different heroes at your disposal. The number of tiles at your disposal is limited and should you lose all of your heroes you also lose the game.

Each team gets 5 actions per turn. Actions are equipping swords or shields, movement, attacking, using a potion or a spell, or swapping tiles. Once you are satisfied with your turn you submit it and await your opponent to make their move. When they are done you get notification that it is your turn. Upon loading the game you are shown what your opponent did on their turn.  There’s more to it than that, such as different power squares on the map, but I’ll touch on that in the review after I have more of an understanding how everything works together.

It’s hard to tell so early in the games life but my one initial concern is the fact that most games I have played have been ended by having all of the heroes die rather than the crystals being destroyed. Maybe that is just a by-product of not knowing the game well enough and as strategies start to develop that could become less of an issue. Regardless my initial impressions are that I am enjoying it quite a bit and look forward to seeing what strategies players develop and what potential new factions are released as DLC down the road.

The game is free (unless you decide to buy the Dark Elves like I did) and fun. What more do you need to check it out? If you want an easy win feel free to start a game with me, my username is ScoopBrady.

Screenshots: