Boardgame talk for Meeple & People
Nothing is easy when the gods are against you. Especially not getting home across the sea when the god in question is Poseidon. And even less when Poseidon is a friend from whom you just stole the last piece of pizza. That’s the setup of Odyssey – Wrath of Poseidon: up four players are Greek navigators on their way home, one player is Poseidon who feels slighted by the Greek’s victory at Troy. Together, they play an asymmetric deduction game.
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There are many boardgames about wizards throwing fireballs at things, but very few about the other kind of magic, the kind where skilled performers go on stage and make their audience think that magic might be real. One of those few games is Trickerion, an intensely strategic worker placement game with many details to keep track of and very limited …. well, everything. Between limited resources, limited time and limited space, every decision is tough. Just the way we like it.
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Our first review of a 2016 Essen game is, by necessity, of a light game. We have to play it a couple of times, after all. Futschikato / Fuji Flush, a card game by Friedemann Friese, is as light as any game we ever reviewed, but nevertheless is a really fun game. That’s all thanks to one small twist: low cards can gang up on high cards. No matter how good your card is, you can never feel safe.
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Once they get into gaming, most people discover their go-to designers at some point, the handful of designers who’s name is enough to make them buy a game. Vital Lacerda is one of my go-to designers, and so it was only with a slight hesitation that I took the big chunk of cash from my wallet to pay for the huge box that is The Gallerist. And I haven’t regretted the decision since, The Gallerist has exactly what I love Vital’s designs for: finely interwoven game mechanics that seem complex at first, maybe even convoluted, but reveal an elegant design underneath and meaningful, multi-dimensional decisions on every turn.
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Some might find a game where one player is literally Hitler offensive. I’m not one of them, and I’m glad, because that would keep me from a great hidden identity game that has tiny bit more structure than other games in that genre. At least for me it makes a huge difference.
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Ignacy Trzewiczek and Portal Games are usually known for heavy games, but with Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot they ventured into family game territory. Here you wage sea battles by throwing a metric ton of dice into the game box and then using more or less improbable ship upgrades to fight. For family-friendliness, players don’t fight against one another but compete who can capture or sink the most non-player ships.
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Usually, when a game is about traveling a road, you win by arriving first at the destination. Of course racing is fun, but it’s not the only way to travel. Sometimes, going slowly and enjoying the trip is what you should be doing. Antoine Bauza’s Tokaido rewards that type of travel, here the winner is the player who had the richest experience along the way. That makes Tokaido very different from a racing game, and in the best way, too.
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Every year Fragor Games releases one game, designed by the Lamont brothers and produced with ridiculously pretty ceramic miniatures. Last year, that game was A Game of Gnomes. It’s what it says on the box: a game, and about gnomes. Except the title and some puns in the rule book, it has nothing to do with that other A Game of …. Something that everyone is talking about, but it has a lot to do with mushrooms. And it has the largest single component in any game we have here at the Meeple Cave.
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Building a dynasty of nobles, how much drier can the concept of a game possibly sound. Have children, marry them to other families, repeat until rich and and famous. I was happy to find out that this prejudice was dead wrong. Despite its theme, Among Nobles is anything but dry, it has a great balance of simple rules, strategic decision and player interaction.
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Being rich, influential and groomed for political office, that must be such an incredibly boring life. Why is it that the lower classes get all the fun? Well, you’re not going to let them have it without you, and if you have to get rid of your wealth and your good reputation to join them, then so be it. That’s why you and some equally rich and dimwitted friends started the Prodigals Club, a contest of who can most effectively ruin their future.
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