Reviews Archives - Page 4 of 31

Brass: Lancashire & Birmingham

12 November, 2018 Kai Reviews

It is the eighteenth century and the skies darken over England. That’s not a metaphor for anything, nor is it talking about the typical English weather. The Industrial Revolution has begun and coal smoke blackens the air and lungs of England.

The original Brass turned ten years old last year, but the game by Martin Wallace still holds a proud overall rank 24 on BoardGameGeek at the time of writing. Not bad in a time where new games are so numerous that many won’t even be remembered ten years from now.

Two new editions by Roxley are a great opportunity for us to review this modern classic. Technically it’s Brass: Lancashire that is a new edition of the original Brass, Brass: Birmingham is more like a spin-off. However, the two games are so similar in rules and theme that we decided to put them in one review and highlight the differences.

Everdell

31 October, 2018 Kai Reviews

For many years a civilization of forest critters has prospered in the shadow of the mighty Ever Tree. Between grass, moss and rivers the bird, rodent, reptilian and amphibian people of Everdell have built a home. A home they are slowly outgrowing. And so some enterprising ones of them have set out in small groups to found new cities for their children to grow up in.

It will not come as a surprise that each player leads one of those expeditions away from the Ever Tree. Into the wild, the unknown… the adventure. How much of a city can you build in only one year?

Powerships

22 October, 2018 Kai Reviews

Gigawatts of power roar to life right behind you seat. There is no space for luxury in your spacecraft. This thing wasn’t built for comfort, it was built to win the fastest and longest race in human history. Longest in distance covered, that is. The time of a Powerships race is about half an hour. The distance covered is the whole solar system. Sometimes twice. Where we’re going we don’t need the laws of physics.

Powerships is a racing game by Corné van Moorsel and a remake of his own Powerboats. There are no bells or whistles to it. You set out the course and up to seven players put their interplanetary pedal to the metal. First to the finish line wins.

10 Minute Heist: The Wizard’s Tower

16 October, 2018 Kai Reviews

The night is moonless and cloudy, entirely dark except for a faint, multi-hued glow from the wizards tower. The night is also silent, except for the almost inaudible, metallic noise of thieves screwing pitons into ancient masonry. Wait! Thieves? Why, yes. That would be you.

The two to five players in 10 Minute Heist: The Wizard’s Tower are thieves breaking into the tower of wizard Alazar, collector and protector of rare and dangerous magical items. But that old sorcerer has vanished and for once has gone away. A perfect opportunity.

Quest for El Dorado

8 October, 2018 Kai Reviews

Welcome to the jungle we’ve got fun and games. It’s a little known fact that Guns N’ Roses recorded this song in just one take, with no written music or lyrics, after trying an early prototype of Reiner Knizia’s The Quest for El Dorado. Yeah, those guys are gamers, too.

The Quest for El Dorado packs everything the lyrics promise. There’s quite a lot of jungle, because that’s where the fabled city of El Dorado happens to be. And there’s a lot of fun and games for the whole family, because El Dorado is a family deck building game with enough fun in the box to earn a nomination for the 2017 Spiel des Jahres.

Bronze

17 September, 2018 Kai Reviews

The Bronze Age was the beginning of empires on Earth. Political and cultural units larger than just one settlement started appearing anywhere people can live. Larger cities happened. Trade between them became essential. And with trade the empires spread further.

With Bronze you get the chance to spread your own Bronze Age empire, not in a big, complex civilization builder but in a quick, streamlined game with simple rules but complex decisions. Everything you do seems trivial, but there are many consequences attached to your choices.

Bunny Kingdom

30 August, 2018 Kai Reviews

In the Year of our Hare 1492 Bunstoph Columbun, an acute listener even among bunnies, heard sounds of life from the other side of the Atbuntic Ocean. A New World thus discovered, the rush for colonizing it began. Up to four Rabbit Lords go to make this new world theirs in the name of the great Bunny King. The most successful of them will earn the coveted title of Big Ears plus all the golden carrots their ships can carry.

Bunny Kingdom is a card drafting and area control game by the illustrious Richard Garfield, inventor of such things as Magic: The Gathering and Robo Rally. This new game has a deceptively cute theme and design, but don’t let that fool you. The contest for the new world is fought with all the cunning a bunny can muster.

Dragon Castle

15 August, 2018 Kai Reviews

Dragon Castle is a game based on Mahjong Solitaire. It takes the basics of the classic game and builds around it until we get a modern, Euro-style game that can have up to four players.

Luxor

26 July, 2018 Kai Reviews

I thought I’d seen every possible way to use cards. Keep them in your hand. Put them on the table. Facing you. Facing everyone else at the table. Turning them every which way to change what they do. And then along comes Luxor, a Spiel des Jahres nominee by Rüdiger Dorn, with a way to use cards that is all new, and yet super simple.

There isn’t much of a story to Luxor. Each player controls a group of adventurers as they make their way through the legendary temple of Luxor to the pharaoh’s burial chamber. It’s not so much what you’re doing or why that makes Luxor interesting. It’s the how.

Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg

3 July, 2018 Kai Reviews

The Quedlinburg Quacks are not the east German town’s hockey team. Neither are the Quacks of Quedlinburg a family of celebrity ducks living in the area. I would love if they were, though. No, The Quacks of Quedlinburg (original title: Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg, no official English title yet) is one of Wolfgang Warsch’s games on this year’s Spiel des Jahres shortlists. We already reviewed the others (Ganz Schön Clever and The Mind), so today we’ll talk about quacks and snake oil salesmen.

The players in Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg are charlatans selling their potions and tinctures at the annual fair in Quedlinburg. At least, they will sell them if they manage to make them without blowing up their kettle. Spoiler: they won’t. Not reliably. The possibility of your kettle exploding is the fun. And the best part: when it does explode you have no one to blame but yourself.