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Pilfering Pandas (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 1-4 Players
Designer: Janice Turner, Stu TurnerLength: 15-30 minutes
Artist: Gianfranco GiordanoAge: 8+
Publisher: Wren GamesComplexity: 1.5 / 5

Things had gone missing – food, to be precise. Someone was taking bits of food here and there and stashing it away somewhere, hiding it from the eyes of everyone, especially the keepers. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t any of the visitors to the zoo, but one of the animals – or a group of animals. The meerkats were acting suspiciously as well and were clearly involved. However, as security camera footage was closely monitored over the coming days, it came as a shock that the zoo had a group of Pilfering Pandas by Wren Games.

Here is the latest game from Wren Games, who have landed one hit after another, first with the addictive two-player co-op game Assembly, and then with the deeply thematic solo game Sensor Ghosts. So the expectations are high for Pilfering Pandas and the pressure is on.

The game is off to a great start, because it can be played solo, co-operatively as well as competitively. That’s something that’s very hard to achieve, especially so because this time Wren Games have gone for a set collection game. So, yes, here is another game based around playing cards, but set collection feels like a relatively big departure for the designer and self-publisher – and Pilfering Pandas takes set collection to another level.

But let me start at the beginning. In the game, you’re a group of pandas who are pilfering food from other animals as well as visitors to the zoo and are giving it to the meerkats who convert it into supplies, or tools, that you need to escape. I was immediately reminded of the penguins from Madagascar, who were always trying to be “cute and cuddly”, so that they wouldn’t draw any attention to themselves as they were executing their escape plan.

It seems, the pandas in Pilfering Pandas are taking the same approach. However, I must say, the theme in the game is really just a skin, than something integral to gameplay. Saying that, the illustrations by Gianfranco Giordano are absolutely gorgeous and perfectly pitched for the game. They are a little bit stylized, which lends itself to a deck of cards, while still retaining the cute and cuddly factor, making it hard to focus on playing your cards, because you just want to keep looking at the lovely animals on the cards.

However, at the end of the day, on your turn you draw one or more cards, which is where the “pilfering” comes in. If you take more than one card, you are starting to attract the attention of the keepers, and depending on whether you play solo, co-operatively or competitively, you either get closer to being discovered and losing the game or you can’t pilfer multiple cards again for a while.

You choose the cards in such a way as to give you either a set of cards with the same number or a sequence of numbers of the same suit. If you have at least three cards with the same number of three cards of the same suit in sequence, you can then play them either to a shared row or to your own, depending on the mode you play in. That represents giving your pilfered food to the meerkats who give you supplies in return.

So far, that’s just standard set collection, but Pilfering Pandas adds a twist. The very first set you play out to a row can be anything, but if you add more sets, your new set will have to either match the number or the suit of the existing set – and you can add a new set either to the left or the right to the already played cards. You can also extend an existing set, for which you will only need one card.

I think this twist makes the game very interesting and much trickier than other set collection games you may have previously played – and it doesn’t end there.

In competitive mode, if you want to end the game, you have to have exactly one card in your hand at the end of your turn, and you will have to have played at least ten cards out in front of you. So playing a set of cards and ending with no cards in your hand isn’t enough. You always have to have one card left over, because at the end of your turn you always have to play one card into a central offer row, from which other players can take one or multiple cards.

It’s trickier than you think, because as you play sets, you don’t automatically refill your hand – and you usually only draw one card at the beginning of your turn and you also have to play one card at the end of your turn. So to get more cards into your hand, you have to pilfer multiple cards from the offer row, but then you attract the attention of the zoo keepers, which means you can’t do it again for a few turns.

It becomes a real puzzle, but when you pull it off, it feels amazing. In fact, it’s what makes the competitive play really shine. Timing is important. You don’t want to end the game too early, if you’re not in the lead, but you also don’t want to end up with too few cards in your hand, or you’ll find it hard to play more sets. It’s a real balancing act.

The solo and co-operative mode turn things around slightly. There is still a central offer row, from which you can draw one or more cards, but there are now several meerkat rows that you can play sets to. Your aim is to reach a certain score, before you have attracted too much attention from the zoo keepers, which start to catch up with you whenever you take more than one card. You still have to have a certain number of cards in the meerkat rows, making timing really important again.

You also need to switch up your thinking, because now you need to play cards into the offer row to help the other players make sets, while in competitive mode you really don’t want to play any cards that your opponents might need. So the solo and co-operative modes are really different from competitive.

Yet, for me, Pilfering Pandas really shines in competitive mode. Maybe I’m not a true co-operative player at heart, but it just feels like the game really challenges you as you play against other human players. Timing becomes a lot more important and holding onto the right cards is often vital.

That is not to say that the solo and co-operative modes don’t work. In fact, when I play Pilfering Pandas with my wife, we always play co-operatively. It’s the mode that suits best when we play together, and I think for a lot of people it will be the same.

It’s also going to be attractive to solo players. I can’t really comment too much on this mode, because I rarely play solo games, but when I tried it, it felt really close and you do have to work hard to win the game and help your pandas escape the zoo. The keepers are always close on your heels and it will take a few attempts before you beat the game, and then you can keep playing and try to beat your score.

So, if you want a lovely set collection game, with wonderful illustrations and a lot of replayability, then Pilfering Pandas is definitely for you.

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Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

  • I was sent a free review copy of this game by the publisher.
  • At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Wind tunnel (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

Nobody likes a game with more rules than necessary. The more rules there are, the longer it takes to learn a game, especially if there are also a lot of edge cases or exceptions. Too many rules can lead to confusion and slow down the flow of a game and consequently increase playing time. In this article, I want to look at streamlining games and how it can affect the playing experience.

Let me continue with what a game feels like that has way too many rules. That usually means that two or more rules basically say the same thing and each variant might just deal with an edge case or exception. That will be confusing and ensure that players will refer to the rulebook many, many times as they play the game, which means playing time is noticeably increased due to the re-reading of the rules. So that’s definitely something that needs to be addressed or the game experience will be painful as the flow of the game and the immersion in the game’s world is constantly interrupted.

In fact, edge cases and exceptions should be removed completely, whenever possible. If something can’t be covered by a general rule, then it will mean players will either get stumped when they encounter an exception and will have to look it up in the rulebook or they may not even realize that there is an exception and fall back to what they believe is covered by a general rule. If edge cases are missed, players won’t be playing the game as it was intended and chances are, they will have a negative experience – even if sometimes, accidentally “house ruling” a game can lead to a better experience of course.

So, let’s assume the rules have already been optimized insofar that there is no duplication. However, there can still be way too many rules and by that I mean more rules than most people are likely to be able to remember. That rules complexity will usually make for a bad playing experience, because nobody is quite sure what they should do, which is made worse if players have multiple options on their turn. Games will feel like walking through treacle, except that treacle is at least sweet, while the playing experience will be bitter.

If the rules of a game can be streamlined and cut down to a manageable size, then playing the game will flow a lot better and therefore feel much nicer. If a game has only a handful of rules, then it will be easy to learn and remember. On your turn, you will know what you can and can’t do and chances are you will be able to formulate a strategy that will guide you through the game. Players will feel much more in control of the gameplay, as opposed to games with huge rules overheads that feel like they are playing you.

Saying that though, just because a game has very few rules doesn’t mean it’s not going to be complex, of course. Many games, that seem very simple at face value, turn out to be really thinky, because players have many options on their turn or they have to plan several steps ahead to be successful. Just think of something like draughts, which has very simple rules but will take a while to master and become good at. Go is, of course, another example of a game with relatively few rules but huge complexity that arises from the players’ choices.

Let me try and go full circle though, because sometimes it’s actually nice to play a game that isn’t fully streamlined and requires you to spend a good amount of time learning the rules before you can start playing. Even during the game your brain is not only occupied with deciding what to do on your turn but to some degree also remembering the rules. There is a fine line here between the relatively large number of rules making for an enjoyable experience and a game becoming really painful because the rulebook is more like a badly written novel.

There are more elements to all of this, of course. It’s not necessarily just the number of rules that will affect the players’ experience of the game. Clarity, just like duplication and edge cases, is very important – rules need to be well formulated so they are easily understood. The order in which rules are presented also matters and is probably one of the hardest things to achieve in rulebooks. Often it is clear which rules should come first, but not always – and making the right decision here can make the difference between a game that will never get played and one that will make your brain burn while you ask for more and just can’t stop playing it.

What do you think? Do you prefer games with very few rules or do you quite like reading a large rulebook? What games have you come across that have hardly any rules, but still create a deep and memorable game experience? What games do you think have just too many rules, so that you have house ruled them to make them easier and more fun to play? Please comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Superficial depth (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

I really enjoy writing reviews for board games, but maybe not quite as much as I enjoy writing my “Topic Discussion” articles, like this one. For some reason, reviews require a bit more effort from me and often don’t quite flow as easily as my thought pieces. In this article, I want to show you what goes into writing a board game review for the blog.

Let me start by saying that what I describe below is how I approach board game reviews. I’m not saying that this is how board game reviews should be made by everyone or that other people’s reviews are better or worse than mine. There are so many different ways of approaching reviews. A “first look” or “initial thoughts” piece has just as much use and value as an in-depth tear-down of a game’s design, mechanisms or a strategy guide. They will have different, but overlapping audiences and all try to help the reader (or viewer – or listener) understand what a game is like – and hopefully, help them decide if they want to play the game and maybe even buy it.

I never set out to review games on this blog. I’m more of a creative writer. So when I first started reviewing games, I found it quite hard. The reviews were more of a summary of the rules, some stats and maybe some quick thoughts about how I got on with the game. They were rather dry and mechanical. Sure, if you read any of them, you could probably work out if it’s the sort of game that you might like – or not. However, there was no real feeling in any of the reviews, no idea of the game experience.

Over time, that changed, of course. These days, I tend to talk about rules or mechanisms very little. The focus is on the experience. I like to mention components more often these days: chunky dice, thick cardboard, etc. I talk about laughter, frustration and other emotions. I talk about theme a lot more and the visual appeal overall, specifically illustrations and artwork. I tell you if a game makes your brain hurt or if it’s just a lot of quick, light fun. I even mention what others have told me about how they felt when playing the game.

Mechanisms still get mentioned, especially when they are new or add a twist to established mechanisms or if it’s a specific mechanism that directly evoked certain emotions or reactions in the players. I also still mention playing time, in particular if the game is very short or very long. Rules and rulebooks also still get talked about, but more from the angle of whether they’re easy to understand or unnecessarily complex.

I hope that people who read my reviews can identify with those emotions and decide if a game is for them. However, these days I expect readers of my reviews to also look at playthroughs or download a game’s rulebook, if they want to know more about how a game plays, from a mechanical perspective.

My reviews also often tend to be positive, which is because most of the games I have reviewed so far, are ones I bought myself. So, of course, if I bought a game, it’s because I was expecting to like it. That means, reviews have often been a foregone conclusion. However, that’s now changing. I’m being sent review copies a lot more nowadays, so it does now happen more often that my reviews aren’t as glowing as they may have been previously.

Saying that, even when I first started writing reviews, I would always point out if there was anything I didn’t like, didn’t understand or otherwise didn’t get on with – and that’s still true now. Irrespective of whether I paid for a game myself or was given a review copy, I will not hesitate to point anything out that’s not right – in my view. However, I will always say why it’s not right or why I don’t like something. It’s about constructive criticism and not about just dissing a game.

After all, just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean someone else won’t like it. I might not like games that take more than 3 hours to play, but for other people, it might be the perfect length. However, rather than me saying that I didn’t like a game, I will explain that I didn’t like it, because it was too long for me. The reader can then decide if the game is for them.

In fact, I do think that’s an important point about reviews in general. A negative review isn’t a bad thing. As long as you know why a reviewer didn’t like something, you can work out how you feel about it. Sure, if your taste in games is similar to mine, then a negative review from me might put you off buying a game. However, I doubt your taste in games will actually be exactly like mine. So when I don’t like a game, you might still like it.

Anyway, I digress a little.

The other thing I make sure of is that I play a game enough times before I review it. It will depend on the game what “enough times” means, of course. Some games you only need to play a couple of times, others you need to play half a dozen times. In fact, some games you probably should play dozens of times, but there comes a point when I have played it enough to be pretty confident that I can talk about my experience with the game and review it.

The thing is, in reality, I should probably not only play a game several times, but also at different player counts. After all, many games do feel quite different when played solo, with two players, three players or more. Yet, I really can’t do that, at least not usually. Some of my reviews do specifically say what player count I played the games at, others aren’t quite so specific, but it’s hard to play games several times per player count. In fact, it’s impossible to do so.

You have to bear in mind, that I do have a day job – and that’s probably a really important point. If I was writing board game reviews professionally, I would have a lot more time to try out games in as many ways as possible and be able to write much more detailed reviews. They would probably be more like analyses of the games, than reviews, but you get the idea.

So, I do as much as I can to give a game a fair chance. That also means that I will contact the publisher, designer or whoever the relevant person is if I have questions or if something doesn’t seem right. After all, it is possible to misunderstand or misinterpret rules or make mistakes as you play a game. I’m sure we’ve all been there. It happens, so I do the best I can to play games as they are intended before reviewing them. I’d hate to write a review that’s based on a rules mistake – and that’s irrespective of whether the review turns out to be positive or negative. If it’s based on mistakes, it’s not good.

I hope this article has given you a rough idea of how I approach reviewing games. It’s a little behind-the-scenes look, which might help you see the blog in a slightly different light.

If you have any questions about my approach to reviews or anything else that I do, please feel free to get in touch. You can leave a comment below or contact me directly. I’d love to hear from you.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Dokojong (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 2-5 Players
Designer: Jun Sasaki, Hayashi Shiina (椎名隼也)Length: 15-30 minutes
Artist: n/aAge: 10+
Publisher: Oink GamesComplexity: 1.0 / 5

Someone had hidden the Emperor’s dogs. It was an outrage. The Emperor suspected their cabinet ministers who strenuously, but politely, denied the accusations and pointed their fingers at their counterparts. They eagerly offered to help the Emperor find their dogs, but they clearly had something to hide. When the Emperor was convinced that they could hear a dog behind one of the closed doors leading to one of the ministers’ private chamber, that minister would quickly lead the Emperor away to another minister’s door. The Emperor got dizzy, but eventually, one of the dogs was found in the room of minister Dokojong by Oink Games.

Yes, I’m reviewing yet another game by Oink Games, but that’s no surprise. All of their games can be learned and played very quickly. They come in wonderfully small and vibrantly colourful boxes, so are perfect to have with you or place strategically around your house to encourage others to play them with you. Dokojong is no different.

The game is all about misdirection, bluffing, double-bluffing and generally trying to persuade the other players that their guess of where you have hidden one of the Emperor’s dogs is wrong – and not only that, but that in fact, a third player has actually hidden it somewhere completely different. Or maybe you’re double-bluffing and want the other players to think that.

It’s the sort of game that you start playing like a lot of hidden information games. You will randomly choose one of the five doors that the dog might be behind and then see what the next player does. If your guess was correct, chances are that they will deny it and point at a different door instead. So, over time, one of you will have gathered enough information to know for certain where the dog is and then use their turn to open that door – and yes, they will be right. The game starts out as being very much about eliminating options one by one, until there are only one or two left – at which point, you can take a confident, almost educated, guess.

Of course, over time, players will realise that they need to start bluffing. That’s when the metagame begins. It’ll probably take two or three games before it’s clear that always directing players to another door isn’t the right choice. Sometimes it’s better to accept the choice, even if that’s where you have hidden the dog. That’s the first level of bluffing – but it won’t take long until you need to double-bluff.

Dokojong quickly descends into a game of “you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know”. You have to keep changing when you bluff or say the truth, so that the other players can’t tell.

The thing is though, that Dokojong is really a lot more about probabilities. Players have the option to directly accuse the lead player and point at a specific door. If the dog is behind that door, the lead player gets one strike – and after three strikes, they’re out. Each accusation is a 1-in-5 chance, because there are five doors behind which the dog could be. So chances are, that your guess will be wrong.

Yet, making a wrong guess isn’t actually so bad. All you have to do, is reveal one of your five doors that doesn’t have the dog behind it – and if you survive a round with three revealed doors, you get a point – and once you gain two points, the game ends.

So, in reality, you get three guesses. Get all three wrong, you get a point. If you guess correctly with one of the three guesses, the leader gets a strike. Overall, the odds of simply guessing give you an almost 50:50 chance of winning the game. The odds are slightly against you, but not by a lot.

Unfortunately, those odds break the game for me. It’s really a lot easier to just guess, because chances are that you will win. There doesn’t seem to be any mechanism in the game to encourage players to not randomly guess, even though Dokojong really seems to be designed around the concept of people pointing at doors, slowly revealing more information, until they have limited the options enough to make a confident guess. That’s how the game should be played and that’s how I really enjoyed playing it.

As soon as you realise that you might as well just accuse the lead player directly, because your odds are probably just as good as when you try to slowly reveal the truth, the game stops being fun. I seriously hope I misunderstood the rules or missed something somewhere, because Dokojong could be the type of game that is great at parties and a great ice breaker. It’s sad and I feel really bad, but as it stands, I can’t recommend it to anyone and until someone tells me where I went wrong, the game will be put away.

Useful Links

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

  • I bought and paid for the game myself.
  • At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Divisions (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

The board game community continues to work towards inclusivity, representation and diversity, which is great to see, but of course, the road is rocky and we’re still a long way away from where we should be. It is important we continue to call out bad behaviour and it is great to see more people and companies are prepared to own up to their mistakes and genuinely try to do better. In this article, I want to look at a related question: whether it is better to look for commonalities or differences, not just in respect to calling out bad behaviour, but also more in general.

My starting point is that as a community, people in the board game hobby should encourage inclusivity. Everyone should be welcome, as long as they themselves are welcoming people, of course. We don’t want anyone who is trying to exclude others. So looking at what it is that we, as a group, have in common, what it is that we all share, seems to me to be very important.

Obviously, we all love board games. Sure, we don’t all like the same kind of games, but we all like to play games. In fact, it’s not just board games. It’s also card games, role-playing games and all the other games that are part of our hobby. I’ve still not found a good term that includes them all, other than maybe the word “games” on its own, and that’s why my blog has “Tabletop Games” in its name. I wanted to invite everyone who likes to play a game on a table to come to the blog. However, I do know games aren’t always played on a table, but on the floor, in your hand or maybe on your lap – and I do want all types of games, and gamers, whatever that term means, to feel welcome on the blog.

Anyway, I digress a little. The point is, what we have in common is that we like to play games. That’s a great thing that we share.

Many of us also enjoy the social aspect of playing games. It’s about sharing an experience with others. However, there are many solo players who are part of our community and part of our hobby. They must not feel excluded, but what I’m trying to say is that some of us have things in common, even if we don’t have that in common with everyone in our community.

So, commonalities can be wide-reaching or they can be restricted to smaller groups. However, ultimately they are things we share and that tie us together and make us feel part of a group.

The flip-side to this is, that anything that we share as a smaller group implies something that’s different between us and another group. Those differences can be a positive thing though. I might love resource management games that last one to two hours while others prefer dexterity games that last 15 minutes to half an hour. That’s what makes us different, but that’s also what makes this hobby so interesting. There are many different preferences and tastes in our community and there are many games that will meet those preferences and fulfil those tastes.

That is, until there isn’t a game that actually meets our expectations. I’m not talking about a game that we thought was going to be amazing, but turned out to be really disappointing. I’m talking about not seeing enough diversity represented in our hobby. Most games are aimed at white cis men. So, the differences in our community, the things that make us all unique, are not represented enough in the games we see in our hobby.

Of course, things are getting better. We’ve seen an increase in women designers and black designers recently and I do hope the trend continues and we see more gay designers, trans designers and so on, so that our hobby becomes really diverse. I also hope we see a larger diversity in the roles such as illustrators, game developers and publishers. Yet, this article isn’t about diversity, so I won’t go into this topic much more at this point.

However, I do want to illustrate that there are many differences and these differences are a good thing and we need to encourage more of them, as long as we can also find commonality in wanting to see those differences in our hobby and in being welcome to anyone and everyone.

The problem comes when differences are purely pointed out to sew the seeds of hostility and division. We don’t want to discuss whether we should have white or black designers, male or female. It’s not one against the other – it’s about us, all of us. Whenever I see discourse about “us and them” I shudder. The discussion should be about “all of us”.

Oh, and before you say it: no, I’m not saying “all lives matter.” Black lives matter – trans rights matter – these are hugely important and must not be forgotten. Positive discrimination is important to help address imbalances and try and move away from a status quo that’s purely based on a terrible history. However, as I said, that’s not the topic of this article.

My point is that sometimes two groups are pitted against each other, when they’re actually not on opposing sides. We sometimes don’t see that we’re actually going in the same direction, even if we’re coming from different starting points. I do feel that we should put more effort into finding where we can work together towards a common goal, even if we’re on different journeys and are aiming for slightly different targets – but chances are, that we can go some of the way side-by-side and help each other.

As I said at the beginning, we need to continue to call out bad behaviour. We can no longer just tolerate everything. I know I have to do better and I’m still learning. I will most likely make mistakes along the way and probably sometimes still turn a blind eye when I shouldn’t. However, I hope that I am on a similar journey to many of you and that together we can make our community an amazing place where everyone feels welcome and where all of us, however different we are to each other, can find a common goal: enjoying board games.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Luzon Rails (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 3-5 Players
Designer: Robin DavidLength: 45-90 minutes
Artist: Jessi CabasanAge: 12+
Publisher: self-publishedComplexity: 2.5 / 5

It was going to be a tough project. The local geography wasn’t on our side: mountains, pine forests, rainforests and a number of rivers. However, there were also many plains that would make it easier for us to lay tracks. Whichever way you looked at it, it was going to be a huge undertaking, but the economical benefits were even bigger and many investors were ready to put their money into the stocks of Luzon Rails by Robin David.

Here is the first cube rail game I’ve ever played and I was very excited to back this game on Kickstarter and couldn’t wait to play it when it finally arrived. I was previously put off by the image that rail games are difficult to learn and difficult to play, requiring a good head for maths. It’s an image that 18xx games tend to have, but Luzon Rails is different.

Its ruleset is really pretty straightforward, making it really easy to teach and learn. It’s the sort of game that you need to play a lot to master. You get started really quickly, but with every game you adjust your strategy a little, try out something else and learn something new. If you play the game with the same people and you all learn together, you will constantly have to adapt your strategy to what other players have learned. Very quickly, a sort of metagame develops and that’s something really interesting for me.

The maths side of things isn’t a huge issue either. There is some division and rounding, multiplying and adding, but it’s really minimal and shouldn’t require the use of a calculator. A lot of the game is more about your gut feeling and trying to predict what other players have planned or might want to do. It’s almost more about bluffing than calculating stock prices and dividends.

In Luzon Rails, players can invest their money in shares of five different railway companies. They will then be able to lay track for the railways that they own shares in to reach industrial cities, ports, developed towns and eventually Manila itself. As different locations are connected to a railway, that company’s share price will go up. Ever so often, every company pays out dividends to their shareholders, which is based on the stock value divided by the number of shares that have been bought.

That all makes sense, but this isn’t your standard Euro game. It’s not like you build track for your railway. You build track for a railway you own shares in, which is different, because other players may also own shares in the same railway as you and they may even own more shares than you. So by increasing the stock value of that company, you increase the value of everyone’s shares and if someone has more shares than you, they benefit more.

Also, you don’t spend your money to lay track, but the railway company’s money and the only money a railways company gets is from share issues, government grants and connecting to developed towns. So when you bid on shares, you’re encouraged to bid high, so that the railway company has plenty of money to build track, which will allow it to increase its share price.

The problem is, at the end of the game the player with the most cash in hand wins. It makes (virtually) no difference how many shares you own. They’re basically worthless at that stage, except that everyone will get one final dividend payout at the end of the game.

So, as you can probably tell, there are a lot of things you need to consider and balance. Investing a lot of money in shares means the companies have more potential to increase their stock value, which will give you a return on your investment. However, if someone else also owns shares in the same company, you may be less inclined to try and push up the stock value for them. In fact, it is possible to intentionally use up the limited amount of tracks available to each company to run a line into the middle of nowhere, therefore giving other players less opportunity to drive up the stock price for that railway.

Buying shares itself is also very interesting. It’s all done via auctions, with the active player setting the starting bid. Once you pass, you’re out of that auction. Auctions are multi-faceted. You might literally just want to jump onto the bandwagon and try and buy a share in the railway company that has the highest stock value. Of course, the current owner will not want you to do that, so they will try and outbid you. However, you might also pretend that you’re interested in that company, when in fact you’re just trying to get another player to pay a lot of money from their coffers, so they don’t have enough left to bid on the company that you put up for auction in your next turn, because that’s the company you really wanted to invest in. The problem is, the other player may realize that and leave you hanging with the highest bid, forcing you to pay over the odds.

So, there is a lot of player interaction in Luzon Rails, but it’s not just as simple as a take-that – it’s more of a take-that-but-that-hurts-me-too-but-hopefully-not-as-much-as-it-hurts-you. It’s about bluffing, looking at what everyone else is doing, a bit of table talk and generally all the sort of things I like in these kind of games.

The rest of the game is what is called an open, or perfect, information game. Everything is there in front of you. You can see how much money everyone has, how many shares, how much track each company has left, what actions are available and everything else. The only thing you can’t see are the action cards players have in their hands – which leads me to explaining about action cards.

Each round, seven action cards are dealt out openly and at the beginning of the game, as well as after every two rounds, players draw up to two action cards into their hand, which they keep secret. On your turn, you either play an action card from your hand or one of the seven open ones and then carry out the action. Actions are laying track, developing a town on the map, auctioning shares or giving a government grant to one of the railway companies. Depending on what cards are available, a round can play quite differently.

Yet, as most cards are visible, you can plan pretty well in advance. In fact, you could probably math out every turn and work out how much to bid for a share in every auction. However, the cards in hand and the fact that you can only see one round’s cards mean that you can’t plan fully. There is still an element of surprise, on top of the surprises that players themselves create when they decide to do something that nobody expected.

Luzon Rails is a very dynamic game. There is definitely an overall strategy that you follow, but tactics come into it a lot as well. There are even going to be alliances, where two of you try to bid up a third player during an auction, just so they don’t have enough money left to bid on the company both of you are interested in. Yet, alliances are going to be fleeting, because everyone wants to make the most money out of the shares they own.

The game is not set in any particular time period, but it merely uses the geography of Luzon as a way to present a challenge for players to lay track and increase the share prices of the rail companies they’re invested in. However, I would like to give you a brief historic overview, so you can put things into context. Luzon is an island that sits at the northern end of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean. It was occupied by many different countries over its lifetime1. China instituted a governor in the 1400s, some parts of the island became a Sultanate of Brunei soon after, the Spanish arrived in the 16th century and in World War II, the Americans stationed around 135,000 troops and 227 aircraft on the island, which was then captured by Japan in 1942. After the war, the Philippines gained independence and Luzon became the most developed island there under the rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Luzon has had a railway since 18922 and the network reached its height in the 1950s and 60s, with lines stretching from San Fernando in the north to Legazpi in the south, mostly running along the western edge of the island. At that time, the railway enjoyed thousands of travellers a day and had an expansive commuter rail network in and out of Manila. However, in the 1970s, the railway system started to fall into decline as investment was diverted into the island’s road network. In recent years, a renewed effort is made to reinstate some of the lines and reinvest in the railway network.

Luzon Rails feels like a great way to venture into the genre of “cube rail” games – and maybe it will take you, and me, into the realms of 18xx one day. However, do expect to play it a lot to really master it. It’s the sort of game that you will want to play again and again, because it will be different every time.

References

  1. Luzon’s history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzon
  2. Luzon’s railway history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_National_Railways

Useful Links

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

  • I bought and paid for the game myself.
  • At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Paid preview (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

According to the online Cambridge Dictionary1, a preview is “an opportunity to see something such as a film or a collection of works of art before it is shown to the public, or a description of something such as a television programme before it is shown to the public.” It’s generally something you can attend, either virtually, in the case of watching a preview of a film online, or in person, by going to an early screening of a film in the cinema. Some previews are free, some you have to pay for and sometimes previews are only offered to a limited number of people. I want to look at the term “preview” in the context of board games and also investigate what a “paid preview” means in our hobby.

My immediate reaction to reading the dictionary definition of “preview” and comparing it to what we call “previews” in the board game hobby is that there is a difference between me watching a film before it’s being released or attending an art gallery before an exhibition is open to the public and me watching a YouTube video or reading a preview for a board game.

In the former, I am actively involved. In the case of a film, I get to see the whole film. In the case of an art exhibition, I can look at the pieces for as long as I like (within reason, of course) and take each piece in myself, seeing each one with my own eyes.

The latter relies on the creator of the video or the written piece to present everything to me. I can’t touch the components. I can’t play the game myself. It’s an indirect experience.

It’s also different to a board game preview event organised by a publisher or distributor, where people can touch the games, try them out, usually in the form of a demo, speak to the designers or other representatives there to ask questions and get a direct, first-person impression of what the games are like.

It seems as if the board game previews that we’ve become used to seeing are not actually proper previews. They are filtered, through the lens of another person. That in itself isn’t a problem, but the more board game preview videos you watch, the more you get the impression that the focus is on the positives and potential issues or problems are ignored. I understand that a preview isn’t a review, so there is no need to point out the pros and the cons, but because a board game preview doesn’t give me an opportunity to discover the problems and issues myself, it is necessary for the person creating the preview to do that for me.

Of course, even during a preview event that people can attend, the organiser will put the most positive spin on everything. They might not even allow some games to be inspected more closely. Demos of games may be limited to the parts of a game that are the most exciting. Yes, a preview event is often very much like a marketing event – and in the same way, many board game preview videos or articles are actually much more like promotions.

That case is even stronger when you think about paid previews – and in this context, I mean paid for by the publisher, distributor or someone directly linked to the project. Simply the fact that they are paid for means they are promotions – or adverts. Someone is paid to present the game in the best light. Even if the person previewing a game has the best intentions of being impartial and genuine in the way they represent everything, they’re still creating promotional material. Even if they criticize the game, the gameplay, components or whatever, because they’re getting paid to make the video or write the article, it’s still a promotion. Even if the payment did not come with any strings attached and the “previewer” was asked to be completely open and honest, it’s still an advert.

Of course, in different countries, the rules and regulations differ. So in some countries, you don’t have to specify if something is paid for, if it is a promotion or an advert. In other countries, you are required to say so. What classifies as an advert also differs between countries or jurisdictions. So it can get very messy.

However, I think it is important that previews that are paid for are always shown as such, irrespective of jurisdiction. In fact, I strongly believe they shouldn’t even be called previews, but adverts or promotions, especially if these videos or articles appear to be presented by a person in their own right. If a video appears on a publisher’s website or their YouTube channel, then I will immediately assume that this is a promotional piece – even if it doesn’t actually state that anywhere. However, if the same video appears on one of my favourite board game reviewer’s channels, I will assume it’s their honest, personal opinion. So it would be disingenuous to call the video a “preview”, when in fact it’s a “promotion” or an “advert”. As I say, I don’t even think calling it a “paid preview” is right if the video appears on a reviewer’s channel – and even if that reviewer genuinely presents their personal opinion.

I also don’t understand the problem with calling something a “promotion” or an “advert”. It’s as if these terms are dirty somehow or cheapening the work that’s been put into them. I often admire well-made adverts. Epic videos showing a board game in a cinematic style are amazing and should be celebrated. There are a number of YouTubers who do great work in that area and none of them should be afraid to call their videos “adverts”. It’s great if they get paid for the work they do and get paid what they deserve. In fact, that’s another issue that the board game industry still often gets accused of: expecting people to do work for free or only offering small remuneration.

So, maybe it’s time that we remove the apparent stigma of promotions and adverts and encourage people to call their work what they are. That way we also lift up those people who write reviews without any payment, like myself, whose work is done independently and not influenced by a publisher or distributor and whose opinions are genuine and honest.

What do you think of the use of the term “preview” in the board game hobby? How do you feel about “paid previews”? Do you believe the work that’s been paid for by a publisher is genuinely independent and not influenced in any way by the payment? Do you think the words “promotion” or “advert” are bad when applied to work that’s paid by a publisher or distributor? I’d love to hear what you have to think, so please leave your comments below.

References

  1. Definition of “preview” from the online Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/preview

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Moon Adventure (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 2-5 Players
Designer: Jun SasakiLength: 30-45 minutes
Artist: Jun SasakiAge: 10+
Publisher: Oink GamesComplexity: 2.5 / 5

A massive magnetic storm had hit our moon base. All of our supplies had been hit and were now scattered in a 20-mile radius around the base. The base itself was intact and secure, but we only had a handful of supplies left, including oxygen. We had to work together to recover as much as we could to have any chance of leaving the Moon and returning to Earth. It was going to be tough, but we were all ready for our Moon Adventure by Oink Games.

Of course, this is another review of a game from the wonderful Japanese publisher. I said it before, these games are great, because they come in a small box that’s rammed full of components, they’re easy to learn and usually very quick to play, but they give you enough depth to be appealing to people who like a bit of strategy and planning.

Moon Adventure is no different and it’s a cooperative game, which I think is rare for Oink Games. It’s basically a push-your-luck game where you try and go as far as possible along a trail of scattered supplies, all the while keeping an eye on the oxygen levels. The further you go, the more valuable the supplies will be, but the higher the risk of you dying. You have to work together and place oxygen generators along the track, so everyone can top up their tanks, improve the track to make travelling along it quicker, so that everyone can get to the more precious items, and also decide who picks up what supplies when, because everyone has only so much room to store things.

If you have played Deep Sea Adventure, then you will know how all of this works – the difference being that you all work together, rather than selfishly dive to the depths to get your own treasure. If you don’t know that game, then let me explain things a little bit more in detail – and even if you do know Deep Sea Adventure, it’s worth continuing to read, because there are quite a few nice twists that make Moon Adventure quite different to its sibling – and possibly more interesting as well.

So, imagine a track of small, face-down tiles, which represent the supplies. Each tile has a number on it, which you won’t be able to reveal until the very end of the game. All you know is that the further away from the moon base you travel, the higher those numbers are going to be and to win the game, you need to add up the numbers on the tiles you successfully brought back to the base and if that number is above a certain value, you’ve survived and will be able to make it back to Earth.

You roll either two or three of three-sided dice (they’re actually six-sided, but the pips only go up to 3), depending on how much oxygen you have left and that you want to spend. After all, you might want to keep a good stash of oxygen for later, when you more urgently need it. The dice results represent the action points you have to spend on your turn. Moving costs one action point, gathering supplies and placing an oxygen generator along the track each cost three, developing a route costs two, dropping supplies costs one and so on.

On your turn, you have to decide how much oxygen to spend, then roll the dice and finally choose how to spend those action points and in what order. Travelling along the track is the most obvious, but is also something you want to think about, because if you want to travel more quickly, you want to jump over your fellow adventurers or over developed spaces. So one of you will probably march ahead and place cubes onto tiles to develop them, meaning other players can jump over them for free, thus allowing them to travel further. However, it also means that those tiles can no longer be picked up, making the supplies they represent unattainable.

You also want to place oxygen generators, so players can stop on them to top up their oxygen tanks. The problem with the generators is that they lengthen the track. You insert them between two tiles, so now the journey to the end of the track is going to be one step longer. The other issue with oxygen is that it uses up valuable storage space. Every player has only so many slots available for oxygen and supplies. If you want to carry more supplies, you have to carry less oxygen. It’s another difficult decision you have to make.

There is more though. It’s not just your decisions that decide your fate. The game itself also tries to make it hard for you. There is a deck of cards that represent the oxygen that you can get when you land on an oxygen generator. The problem is, that deck also contains so-called “magnetic storm” cards, which will disable one of the oxygen generators you have placed along the route. Every time the deck is empty, you add another “magnetic storm” card to it. So the more oxygen you consume, the more likely you are to damage one of your oxygen generators.

So, like in every cooperative game, you’re unlikely to survive on your first attempt. You’ll definitely have to play the game a few times to see what you need to do to survive – and even when you all make it back to the moon base alive, you won’t necessarily have won. It’ll depend on what supplies you brought back. It ensures that you need to keep playing and practicing.

Given that the trail of supplies is random, the amount of oxygen you gain is random and the dice rolls are random, every game will play very differently. I suppose, in theory it is possible that you never stand a chance of winning a particular game, if you have really bad luck, but because the game is pretty quick to play, you can easily play again and thus even out the randomness a little.

Also, every player will take on a different role, giving them specific special abilities. The mix of roles can make your adventure harder or easier, depending on what you choose. However, it’s an interesting addition and I found that certain players prefer to play certain roles. Everyone will feel more comfortable doing certain things, I guess. It gives you additional variety, making Moon Adventure even more fun to play over and over again.

The game also doesn’t take up too much space on the table and as it comes in quite a small box, it’s the sort of game you probably want to have with you and play while you’re out and about. Now that we can start going out again, it’s one I’m going to have with me. It’s definitely a lot of fun and a good balance between being easy to learn while also keeping you thinking, without being too demanding.

Useful Links

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

  • I bought and paid for the game myself.
  • At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Emotional high (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

When you play board games, you usually don’t think about the wide variety of emotions that they can create. Playing, board games or otherwise, is mostly associated with fun. Yet, board games aren’t always fun, as we all know. They’re sometimes frustrating or disappointing. They can be calming. They can create anticipation and excitement. There can be tension, love, hate, surprise and much more. In this article, I want to look at some of the emotions that board games evoke for me.

If you know me, you’ll probably also know that there is one game that I have a real love-hate relationship with. That game is Scythe by Stonemaier Games. I feel a lot of love for the game, as well as anticipation, even before we start playing. I really look forward to it and can’t wait to start playing it. I’m excited about choosing a faction, setting everything up and finally being able to take my first few actions. However, as the game progresses, I start to get frustrated. What seemed like a great plan turns out to be a disaster in the end. I lose horribly and hate the game. Yes, I hate “the game” not the other players. It’s nothing personal – it’s all aimed at the game. However, after I’ve slept on it, my hate very quickly turns into love and anticipation again.

Already here are a number of emotions, one following right after the other. It’s a real rollercoaster and that’s probably why Scythe is a game that means so much to me. It’s one of probably only a handful of games that evokes so many emotions in such as relatively short timespan.

Other games evoke more temperate feelings in me. Mystic Vale by AEG is a game that makes me feel quite calm. I’ve played it such a lot now that it reminds me of the feeling I used to get from playing trick-taking games such as Skat or Doppelkopf. When you play a game enough, a lot of what you do is almost automatic. You don’t really have to think about it a lot. Maybe it’s similar to the feeling a good chess player has when following one of the many well-documented and highly analyzed openings. There isn’t much thinking going on. It’s muscle memory. Maybe it doesn’t give you a zen-like experience, but it’s pretty calming in my view.

For a chess player, that feeling changes of course as soon as they go off an opening and get into the meat of the game, so that’s where the comparison stops.

Next, I want to look at tension and excitement. I think most games create those moments when things are close. Maybe in a competitive game, the players’ scores are only a few points apart right at the end or in a cooperative game there are only two cards left in the deck that decides when the game ends and you’re so close to winning together. Everyone is on tenterhooks, because nobody can call it yet – but it won’t be long until the outcome will be revealed. It creates tension and excitement, which will eventually resolve into happiness or disappointment and possibly laughter and joy.

There are also moments during a game, especially a competitive game, when you secretly hope that the other players can’t work out what you have planned for your next turn and all you can do is watch and pray that nobody uses the worker placement space you so desperately need or that nobody cuts off the railway route that is your only option to complete your routes. It’s a very personal moment, but usually a very memorable moment, especially if your hope becomes reality and you can do what you had so desperately wanted to do.

Times of high tension will evoke the strongest emotions. It can be especially disappointing when something doesn’t work out or you can feel really elated when you got away with something and everything turns out just as you had planned.

Some games can also evoke feelings of unease or maybe even disgust. I always mention The Cost by Spielworxx and Stasi – Over and Out by DDR Museum when talking about games that raise moral questions and ask players to make decisions that will leave a bitter aftertaste. I completely understand that feelings of unease or disgust aren’t what we expect when we sit down to play a game, but I do think those types of games have a place in our hobby and are something I am seeking out at the moment.

Games can also create emotions indirectly. I think we all know the feeling when we introduce others to a game that we are really excited about, but we’re not sure how it will be received. We hope that at least some people will like it. We also hope that we can teach it well enough for people to get into it quickly and enjoy it. So when everyone really gets into the game and clearly enjoys it or even asks to play it again, you’re going to feel amazing.

Mind you, even thinking about what game you might want to play next or even buy next, working on a different strategy for a game you played the previous day, marvelling at the artwork of a game or the clever mechanisms or, in my case, writing about games, all evoke emotions – mostly of joy and excitement.

I think that’s one of the reasons why the board game hobby is so amazing. It’s not just the community, but it’s the games themselves, buying or swapping them, looking at them, playing them and everything else that is a great feeling.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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Judi Online

Storytelling (Topic Discussion) – Tabletop Games Blog

We probably all have a favourite children’s story that we loved as a child or maybe a favourite book that we’ve read many times or a favourite film or TV show that we love watching and that takes us away from our day-to-day. In this article, I want to look at how games tell stories and how they draw us into their world.

The first type of games that come to mind are storytelling games, in particular, role-playing games. Here you literally have someone tell you a story – a real person who guides you and your fellow adventurers through this world and tells you what peril you face. You will have to come up with ways of dealing with the problems that are presented to you and verbalizing your ideas. The story is woven by everyone as a joint effort and you really feel in the middle of it all.

There are also storytelling games that rely on storybooks where you read certain sections and are presented with a number of different options that you can choose from to decide what you want to do next. These games can be a singular experience, very much akin to reading a book, but they can also be a group experience where the other players will help you make a choice and together you live through the story – and even in competitive storytelling games, the other players are immersed in what’s happening and maybe secretly hope you make the wrong choice. Either way, the story is set by the book and you, as the players, find a path through it all.

So far, I’ve talked about stories that will be new to you, unless you’ve played the game before, of course, but by using a well-known IP as their backdrop, games can also immerse you in a story, even if the story is already known to you, because you know the IP. Let’s say you’re playing Back to the Future: Dice Through Time, you probably know the films and thereby you know the story this game is telling you. At the same time though, you’re changing that story with your own actions and the decisions you make will retell the story in a different way. Maybe Biff will win and you never make it back to 1985.

Settings can also put you into a world you know, whose stories you’ve heard before or are at least aware of. You don’t have to play a Lord of the Rings game and you can still enjoy a world of hobbits, orcs and magic. The game’s story will be completely different, yet you recognise things and know what is expected of you, even if you’ve never read any of Tolkien‘s books. These settings have become bigger than the imagination they originally sprang from and are now part of our culture and they have taken on a life of their own. Of course, that’s not only true for fantasy games, but also science-fiction, crime and such. These tropes have become commonplace in the Western world and there are many more in different cultures as well.

There are also more literal stories told by history-based games. War games are a huge genre and the battles they try to emulate are real-life events that we can read about and learn from. Those games usually only tell a fraction of the real story, but they do still tell a story of some sort. The suffering and terrible events that took place in these battles are usually glossed over and the focus is much more on strategy and tactics, but you can often still get an understanding of what happened and get a sense of the scale of those historic events.

There are also games set against a historic background that aren’t war games, of course. I’m thinking about games such as Brass: Birmingham or The Cost. All of these types of games tell stories, some of them using the time period as a setting for an economic game while others try and tell you about some serious events that happened and help you get a better understanding of them.

I also think abstract games can tell stories. Yes, even a game like Splendor, which has a very vague setting. You can talk about how you’re purchasing mines to dig for gems, how you improve the infrastructure to deliver those gems to craftspeople who will refine the raw gems into expensive works of art. In On the Underground, the game tries to show you how the tube network was built, but of course, when you actually play, you end up with routes that are all over the place and randomly zig-zag through the tunnels to get the most points. The resulting story feels rather funny, but it’s a sort of story nevertheless.

Finally, the players themselves will also always tell a story through the choices they make or the decisions they take. Pulling off amazing combos, getting away with a risky strategy or just having pure luck are all things that tell a story. Sometimes players intentionally leave a game’s setting behind and create a completely new story as they play. We can be creative in games and bend the world into the shape we want it to be, so that we end up with the experience we want.

There are probably many more ways in which games tell stories and I’d love to hear your thoughts. What other ways do games use to tell stories? What games have you played that told an amazing story? How do the people you play with tell stories in games? Please share your experiences in the comments below.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

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