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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

In a Grove (Saturday Review)

Release Date: 2011Players: 2-5 Players
Designer: Jun SasakiLength: 0-15 minutes
Artist: Ian Parovel, Jun SasakiAge: 12+
Publisher: Oink GamesComplexity: 1.0 / 5

A murder had been committed and three suspects were found at the crime scene, but only one of them was the murderer. One of the detectives was already at the scene and had spoken to two of the suspects when you arrived. The detective told you who they thought was the killer, but you wanted to be sure. You pulled the other two suspects to one side and interviewed each of them in turn. You quickly knew who had committed the murder and logged down your suspicion. The only thing that wasn’t clear, was why the crime scene was In a Grove by Oink Games.

Oink Games are famous for their wonderful games that are easy to learn and come in a small box, slightly bigger than a standard deck of playing cards, with bold and brightly coloured illustrations on the outside and really high-quality components inside. So, as you can see, I’m already influenced by the fact that In a Grove is an Oink game. Yet, my high expectations also mean that the bar is set high for this wonderfully quick hidden information and deduction game.

Actually, let’s start with the playing time. Depending on how many of you there are and how long everyone takes to come to a decision, the game can easily be played within 15 minutes. My wife and I always took less than 10 minutes to complete a full playthrough. The fact is, that there isn’t too much to think about when it comes to your turn. You can only choose one of two suspects – that’s it.

As I tried to allude to in the introduction, the theme of the game is the scene of a murder and three suspects have been found. It is up to you to identify who committed the crime, but you only have limited information. Depending on player count, there are between seven and nine so-called person tiles, seven of which are numbered 2 to 8 and then there are either no, one or two person tiles with a cross on them. Out of the person tiles, one is the victim and three are the suspects, all of which are randomly chosen and put face-down, so nobody knows which number persons there are. The remaining person tiles are distributed to the players, face-down again, and each player can look at their person tile as well as that of their right-hand neighbour. In a two-player game, instead of looking at the other player’s person, one of the tiles is played face-up in the middle for both players to see.

Either way, everyone now has two pieces of information to try and decide who the murderer is. Then every player takes a turn secretly looking at two of the suspect tiles, giving everyone two more pieces of information. That’s all there is to decide which suspect to accuse of killing the victim. It’s clearly not enough to go on, at least most of the time and players end up bluffing that they know the answer, when they definitely don’t.

In fact, bluffing is a huge part of this game. If you can convince other players to accuse the same suspect, but everyone is wrong, then whoever accused the innocent person last will get a hefty amount of negative points. That’s sometimes the only way of turning the game around if you’re behind and that’s what makes for memorable moments in the game. If you successfully bluffed and gave another player lots of negative points, bringing you back into the game, you feel very proud and clever.

In a Grove is the sort of game that you need to play with the same people several times, because it’s the metagame that develops from trying to work out if someone is bluffing or not, which makes this game so much fun. In itself, it’s a really simple, quick game, that can get a bit repetitive. However, if you have a group of people and everyone realizes that they can win by leading everyone else onto the wrong track, the game suddenly really shines.

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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 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

Wingspan: Oceania Expansion (Saturday Review)

Release Date: 2020Players: 1-5 Players
Designer: Elizabeth HargraveLength: 45-60 minutes
Artist: Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Natalia Rojas, Beth SobelAge: 10+
Publisher: Stonemaier GamesComplexity: 2.0 / 5

Nectar, when you think about it, is just a sugar-rich liquid, produced by plants, to attract pollinators. Depending on where in the world you are, pollinators could be humble insects, such as the highly adored, busy bees, or they could be magnificent hummingbirds or other birds, or they could even be bats. A free source of sugar is highly prized, as it will give a quick boost of energy, and possibly a little sugar rush too, which make for a valuable reward for all pollinators. So it’s no surprise that this source of food is one of the new resources in the Wingspan: Oceania Expansion by Stonemaier Games.

If you’ve read my reviews of the base game or the European Expansion, you will know how much my wife and I enjoy playing Wingspan. So it was a no-brainer for us to also get the Oceania Expansion when it came out. We’ve played it quite a bit since, but because this expansion does change quite a few things which affect how you play Wingspan, it took me a lot longer to get to a point where I felt ready to review this latest expansion – which I don’t think will be the last expansion either.

In this review, I assume that you have played Wingspan and know it fairly well. I only want to focus on the differences between the base game and this expansion. I think, there will be enough to talk about as it is, without going over what the base game already has to offer on its own.

Let me pick up on the introduction of this article and talk about the new food type: nectar. Having a new food type in itself seems quite innocuous, but the nectar in the Oceania Expansion has wide-reaching consequences.

First of all, there is a new set of food dice, replacing the existing ones completely. The food symbols have been re-arranged to make room for nectar, represented by a pink flower, which will have an effect on what food you will be able to gain.

The player mats have also been replaced by new ones. That in itself doesn’t feel like a necessary result of introducing nectar as a new type of food, but it was an opportunity to change how the game is played a little. I’ll get onto that in a bit. There are also new end of round goals, but none of them actually feature any points for nectar. The reason is, that nectar already scores in another way, which is why a new score pad was also added for the Oceania Expansion.

So, let me explain a bit more about the role of nectar. It functions as a wildcard food source. You can use it instead of any other food type in the game – at least for the most part. Some of the birds from the Oceania Expansion require you to pay nectar specifically to be able to play them, but other than that nectar is a really flexible food resource – except for one thing. Nectar is discarded at the end of each round. Any nectar you still have in your personal supply is taken away from you when you score the end of round goal, so you do have to ensure you have just the right amount of nectar. Use it, or lose it, as they say.

However, the main reason why nectar is so good, despite it expiring so quickly, is that it can score you points at the end of the game. Whenever you use nectar to play a bird in one of the three zones of your tableau, or if you pay nectar to improve one of the actions, you put the nectar tokens on the left of that region. At the end of the game, for each zone, the person with the most nectar in that zone gets 5 points, the one with the second-most gets 2 points. So you could earn 15 points at the end of the game, which isn’t bad at all.

The expansion also comes with new eggs: yellow ones. They’re nice, but as with the European Expansion, the colour doesn’t have any function in the game and is purely visual. What does have a new function in the game are the 95 new bird cards, some of them have a new bird power, a yellow power, which happens at the end of the game. That’s a really interesting idea and does influence the last few rounds of the game, which previously were all about laying eggs.

In fact, it’s not just the yellow bird power that changes how the game plays. The new player mats’ egg laying action has changed. Whereas before you would be able to lay 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 and 4 eggs (from left to right) as you were improving that row, in the Oceania Expansion you are now only able to lay 1, 2, 2, 2, 3 and 4 eggs. So unless you’ve been able to play a lot of grassland birds in the game, your egg-laying ability is a lot lower in this expansion. That does really address what you do in the last few turns of the game. It’s no longer an obvious choice to lay eggs. More often than not, you’re focussing on getting more nectar out and playing birds with yellow, game-end powers.

There are more things in this expansion, of course. There are five new bonus cards and new Automa cards and rules.

The component quality of everything in the latest expansion is really outstanding. Stonemaier Games has set the bar high – not just for everyone else, but even more so for its own games. From the new cards to the new player mats and the nice dice, the quality of the expansion components is just as high as those from the original game.

Additionally, the new cards are really well colour-matched. Of course, if you’ve played Wingspan a lot, you will be able to tell the difference between the fresh, new cards from the expansion and the old, much-loved ones from the base game. However, colour-wise it’s very close and very hard to tell them apart.

It’s actually really nice to get a bit of a refresh from the Oceania Expansion. Our player mats started to look a little worn around the edges, so having a fresh set that replaces the original ones is a welcome bonus.

What is really nice is that you can mix the base game with all the expansions or just choose one or the other. You can be as flexible as you like. I suggest, you just play with the Oceania birds to start with, just so you can see how they work, but we felt we quickly wanted to mix in all the birds. It makes for a huge deck of bird cards, but it’s a lot of fun.

The next question is, if everything fits into the original box. The answer is: it depends. You can easily fit the base game and the Oceania Expansion in the box. Just bear in mind that you will remove the original dice, player mats and score pad. So, that’s fine.

The problem comes, when you want to have the base game, the European Expansion AND the Oceania Expansion in the same, original box. They won’t fit. In fact, the bird cards alone won’t all fit in the plastic card tray. You do have to be a bit “imaginative” here. However, you can fit the eggs and food tokens into the plastic boxes without any problem, which is nice.

Overall, I do think the Oceania Expansion is a worthwhile investment. If you love Wingspan and have played it a lot, then this expansion will shake things up and make you tweak your favourite strategy to accommodate the new food type and player mats. Where the European Expansion introduced some smaller tweaks, Oceania changes the game quite a bit – and for the better.

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.

Wingspan Digital playthrough

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

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

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

Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game (Saturday Review)

Release Date: 2021Players: 1-5
Designer: John Coveyou, Paul Salomon, Ian ZangLength: 45-90 minutes
Artist: Tomasz Bogusz, Amelia SalesAge: 12+
Publisher: Genius GamesComplexity: 2.0 / 5

Progress was slow, but it was very satisfying seeing the little pea seedlings grow and then, eventually, flower before finally producing pods that slowly swelled up to bursting with new peas inside. We carefully crossed different plants in the hope that they would create new varieties and over time we were able to predict the height of the plant, its flower colour, the pod colour as well as whether the peas were smooth or wrinkly based on their parentage. We were finally ready to work out each plant’s Genotype by Genius Games.

The theme is wonderful. It’s the first game I have come across that puts the science of genetics at its heart, using Gregor Mendel‘s famous experiments with pea plants as its setting. The game even comes with a 12-page A4 booklet that explains the science and how it is represented in the game. So you’re encouraged to read and learn more about how the observation of the pea plants’ visible characteristics and how their change in the plants’ offspring, lead Gregor to think about the possibility that there are underlying characteristics, that we now call genes.

There are a lot of things in the game that you probably recall from school biology and that you can recognize as you play, even if the mechanisms of dice rolling, worker placement, resource management and everything else do abstract the science that they represent.

Each round in the game consists of exactly the same three phases, which wonderfully emulate Mendel‘s work of sowing peas, waiting for them to grow, then carefully crossing only specific plants, waiting for their fertilized flowers to mature into pods, before starting the whole process all over again. Each round feels like a gardener’s year.

At the same time, you also feel the limitations that Mendel had to work around. You start with only two plots for planting and only one plant to grow. There are also only five rounds in Genotype and to start with you only have three actions you can carry out per round. So you have to really make sure that every decision you make is the right one.

Of course, like in nature, there is also a lot of randomness. You are at the mercy of the pea plant cards available and they are cleared out and reset each round, so if you don’t grab the plant you need there and then, you won’t see it again. There are also dice in this game, which decide what traits on a plant in your plots you can cover up, which is the main aim in the game, because once you have covered up all traits, you score that card’s points.

However, none of the randomness feels like it’s taking over the gameplay. It feels more like the randomness in nature: you have to work with it and not against it. The randomness never really breaks your plans, but is more there to delay you and force you to think of alternative ways of achieving what you need – and there is usually another way of getting what you’re after.

Overall, Genotype is a lot more about tactics than an overall strategy, not only because of the changing cards available to you and the dice, but also because action spaces are mostly limited to one player or if they’re not limited, they get more expensive if you’re not the first to go there. So you are constantly forced to decide what to do first and what can wait until later.

At the same time though, there are a lot of action spaces to choose from. So the worker placement element in Genotype rarely stops you from being able to do what you need to do, but is more likely to delay you and force you to select a different option. Hence, it’s about tactics more than strategy, as I said – and it’s not really that high on player interaction for the same reason.

Despite all of these pressures of deciding what to do when, finding solutions to the problems the game presents to you and the player interaction that the worker placement slots create, Genotype actually feels quite gentle and slow. Each round you try and make your life a little easier, by adding more plots, hiring assistants or getting more actions, but there is no glasshouse or artificial light that allow you to go through generations of peas more quickly. There is no mechanisation either. So even though you get better at the process each round, it still feels like a manual process, just like it would have felt to Mendel.

I just wanted to point that out, because the game is a sort of engine builder, but the engine never really gets to run at peak performance – and even though this can seem like a bad thing, it’s actually very fitting for the setting. I actually think it’s wonderful that you don’t progress very much during the game, but then I’m a keen gardener and I know how much work you put into your garden or allotment each year and how little really improves. As a gardener, I enjoy the journey and cherish our harvest or the colourful blooms or their heavenly scent.

At the same time, I can see how it can be frustrating to someone who wants to build an engine and see it running at peak performance, at least for one round. So, don’t be disappointed when Genotype doesn’t deliver that. It stays true to its setting yet again.

Genotype plays relatively quickly, because of the round limitation and despite there being so many different options on your turn, you tend to decide what you want to do without too much thinking time. So, if you’re looking for a game that you can play as a family and that does a good job of teaching you about the beginnings of genetics, then I can highly recommend Genotype to you.

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.

Unboxing Video

Audio Version

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

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Judi Online

Canine Capers (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 1-4
Designer: Nikita SullivanLength: 30-45 minutes
Artist: Nikita SullivanAge: 10+
Publisher: Atikin GamesComplexity: 2.0 / 5

There was something iffy going on in our little country village. My nose was twitchy and I was soon on the trail of some interesting clues. It was clear it was going to take some time and some clever snooping, but I was on a roll and knew I would be able to solve the Canine Capers by Atikin Games.

Canine Capers is a game that comes in a wonderful, standard-sized tin filled with dice, a number of cards that make up your game board, four lovely little pawprint tokens that represent your dog and many tiny circular chips that represent the clues that need to be found and brought back to the Canine P.D. HQ. You can either play solo or cooperatively with up to three other players.

The game is all about rolling dice, but as you play together, the randomness this creates doesn’t feel like a problem. Everyone starts in their dog house and as the game progresses, clues will appear on the board that you will have to fetch and bring back to the HQ in the centre of the board. Everything you can do in Canine Capers is based on action points and it’s your dice roll that decides how many action points you get on your turn. Dice rolls also give you access to special, usually one-off, actions.

So a high number means you can do more on your turn, but a lower number gives you access to more valuable special actions, balancing out the limited amount of things you can do on your turn. That is a lovely touch, because it can feel a bit bad when your dice rolling just isn’t up to scratch. At least, you’re helping the pack with your special actions – and it is very important that all players work together, or in solo mode, that you make the most of your dice rolls.

At the start of the game, there are no clues on the board, so it’s up to you and the other players to add them. That can be achieved by either rolling a 5 or 6 on your turn or by spending an action point when you’re in your own dog house. Clues come in two different varieties: circle clues and star clues. As you can probably imagine, star clues are more valuable, so you’re trying to get those on the board as much as possible. However, you are also able to swap circle clues with star clues during your turn, so all is not lost.

It might sound a bit complicated, and even though it does take a little while to understand how a turn works, every player has a little player aid that explains the special actions that are possible and how much action points they cost. It won’t take many turns before everyone will be in the flow of things and start discussing tactics. After all, that’s what this game is all about.

With every dice roll, you have to evaluate whether you’re better off staying where you are and putting a new clue on the board or whether you should try and make your way to a clue that’s already on the board and try and bring it back to the HQ. If there is another dog closer, maybe they should go there instead, but then they roll a low number, meaning that clue isn’t going anywhere fast. As I say, you’re constantly reacting to dice rolls and the situation on the board and trying to make sure, as a team, you’re getting as many star clues back to HQ, as possible.

The game gets really exciting as the pool of clues runs out. Yes, there are only so many clues available, so as you get to the end, everyone is racing back to the HQ before it’s all over and the clues are counted up. It can get a bit frantic at this stage and the pressure is on to roll high results to be in for a chance to get at least one more star clue back to the HQ.

Canine Capers is a really quick and fun cooperative game for all the family. It comes in such a wonderfully small box, that you can easily take it with you anywhere. It doesn’t take much table space either, so can easily be played virtually everywhere. It’s also really accessible to a wide range of people, making it an ideal family game. I strongly recommend you check out the Kickstarter and take a closer look at it. I reckon you will be pleasantly surprised.

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 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

Feline Felonies (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 2-4
Designer: Nikita SullivanLength: 30-45 minutes
Artist: Nikita SullivanAge: 10+
Publisher: Atikin GamesComplexity: 2.0 / 5

Look! There’s another shiny toy! I’m going to grab it and take it home. It’s mine! Oh, I could show it off to the other cats in the neighbourhood. Then they can see my amazing new toy. It’s extra special after all. Look over there though! Another toy. I need to get that one too. All right, it’s not strictly mine, but it will be. Well, at this rate, there will be plenty of Feline Felonies by Atikin Games.

The series of mint tin games continues. I talked about Canine Capers last week, which is the sibling to Feline Felonies, and both games work very similarly. So once you know one, it won’t take long to learn the other. The difference between them is that Canine Capers is cooperative, whereas Feline Felonies is competitive. After all, dogs work together, while cats do their own thing. That’s a well-known fact – sort of.

Anyway, let me explain Feline Felonies from the start. You and up to three other players take on the role of a cat that is busily strolling around the village green and keeps finding toys that were abandoned there. Of course, your first response is to grab the toy and take it home – and that’s what you mostly do during the game. However, when you find a toy, it’s not very special and therefore won’t score a lot at the end of the game. So what you’re really trying to do is make the toy even more special.

You could flaunt it in front of other cats – or you could be cheeky and steal a toy from another player. After all, nothing is more special than a toy that you took from another cat. It’s now really sought-after, mostly by the cat you stole it from, but also from all the other cats that are controlled by the other players. It might not be a win-win, but it’s certainly a win when you successfully sneak another cat’s toy out of their paws. You just have to make sure you bring it home so nobody else can steal it back.

The whole game is about dice rolling and deciding what to do with the resulting action points, which are fittingly called “purr points”. The action points decide how far you can travel, allow you to pick up or drop off toys, as well as initiate fights with other cats to try and steal their toys. The dice results also give you access to special actions, such as adding new toys to the green. That’s actually quite an important action, because not all toys are out on the green from the start and it is up to you to add more toys as you play. The game doesn’t end until all toys have been placed on the green and taken home by one of the players.

As you probably realize, dice rolling creates a lot of randomness and luck, but I must say, that’s what makes Feline Felonies so much fun. Your opponent might be ready to steal your hard-earned toy from you, but their dice rolls might not go their way and you get a chance to run back to your own home to safely stash your prize. It’s these moments that are so memorable.

It also means that the game is very much about tactics, rather than strategy. You have to respond to what’s happening on the board and do the best you can with the dice result you have. Luckily, there are many options open to you from turn to turn, so you have many different ways of getting precious toys. You can even make another cat’s toy less valuable with one of the special actions, which is probably quite mean, but another way of helping you win.

The game itself comes in a wonderful mint tin. I’ve not yet seen the final components, but the prototype I’ve got is already very promising. Have a look at the Kickstarter page to find out more, but you will find a number of small dice, many tiny toy tokens, some resin paw prints that represent the players’ cats as well as some playing cards that make up the game board and player aids.

Being in a standard-sized mint tin makes Feline Felonies very portable and it doesn’t take up a lot of room on the table either, making it an ideal game to play while you’re out and about. It’s also fairly easy to learn and quick to play, which is perfect and will make it a family favourite.

Feline Felonies will be perfect for you, if you are hankering after some dice rolling fun for all the family where cats do their best to steal each other’s toys.

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 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

Animal Alliance (Saturday Review) – Tabletop Games Blog

Release Date: 2021Players: 2-4
Designer: Nikita SullivanLength: 30-45 minutes
Artist: Nikita SullivanAge: 10+
Publisher: Atikin GamesComplexity: 2.0 / 5

It was unheard of, but here they were: cats and dogs working as a team. They were busily scouring the village green for toys to take home or return to the Lost & Found. It was really hard to believe and when you looked closer, things weren’t quite as peaceful as they seemed – and they were even stranger than you could imagine. The cats and dogs weren’t all working together as one big pack or clowder. No. One cat and one dog were working together as a pair against all the other cat and dog teams. They had formed an Animal Alliance by Atikin Games.

The final game in the Playful Pets series by Atikin Games is not really a separate game. It’s actually combining Canine Capers and Feline Felonies together, but then that’s not right either. If you get those two games, you still won’t be able to play Animal Alliance. Yes, you do use a lot of the components from both, Canine Capers and Feline Felonies, but the game board is not included in either of them. So, you have to get the complete box set, Playful Pets, if you want to be able to play all three games. That’s an important thing to note when you check out the Kickstarter campaign.

Animal Alliance is another competitive game of collecting toys and bringing them to safety. This time you play two characters, a cat and a dog, who work together for the win against up to three other cat and dog teams. If you have played Canine Capers and Feline Felonies, then you will be very familiar with how Animal Alliance works. It’s sort of a mix of both games.

The cats’ aim is to collect the toys and bring them back to their home at the outside of the board, while the dogs will take their toys back to the Lost & Found in the centre. Both try and convert the more basic and therefore less valuable circle toys into special and more valuable star toys. At the end of the game, whoever gets the most points, based on the number of circle and star toys they’ve brought back to safety, wins.

Like in the other two games, your cat and dog will have a number of action points they can spend, as well as a potential special action, all of which is based on dice rolls. However, because you now have two animals to play with, you roll two dice and you can decide which dice is assigned to which animal, bearing in mind that cats will not do anything useful when they roll a 1, while dogs are no good when they roll a 6. That’s really nice, because now you can give the 6 to the cat and the 1 to the dog, so that they’re both working at peak performance.

Dice rolls also decide when and where new toys are placed on the game board. You need to be careful when you put new toys out, because you don’t want another player to take the toy you’ve just added to the game. You want one of your animals to be ready to collect it and take it home.

The cat and dog can also help each other and pass toys to each other, which is useful when a toy is either nearer the edge of the board or the centre. It also means you can try and free up one animal to collect a newly placed toy when it’s their turn, while the other animal in your team delivers the already picked up toy to safety.

Animal Alliance does add an extra level of gameplay to the already wonderful Canine Capers and Feline Felonies. If you prefer cooperative play, then Canine Capers is the better choice for you, of course, but if you intend to get both games anyway, then you might as well go all in and get yourself a copy of Playful Pets, so that you can play Animal Alliance as well.

As I mentioned, the components for Animal Alliance basically consist of a different game board and the player aids for the cat and dog, which work slightly differently in this game, and you get a separate rulebook, of course. The rest of the components, the paw print tokens, the dice and the toy tokens, are all the same as they are in the other two games.

I think you should definitely take a look at Playful Pets and see if Animal Alliance is for you. I reckon it’s worth it, unless you definitely only want to play co-operatively. Atikin Games has released a great series of games with Playful Pets and I love how you can combine two other games to make a third.

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 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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