How to Play Aquatica

This, like I said, is a hand management and engine building game where you try and generate the most points. Whomever has the most points at the end of the game, and there are three game end triggers, will win the game.

But Aquatica comes more down to how you use the cards in your hand to generate more cards and complete locations. And, in a lot of ways the game is about how you can combo locations together. Each location has some actions that you can do. They might give you more money or fighting power to get more locations. They might push up past blank actions on locations. Or they might let you score locations that you’ve used all of the actions for. Plus a little bit more.

So on each turn you can play out a single card action. But you chain together as many location actions as you want and makes sense. I say makes sense because you might chain some actions together that you don’t use the benefit. For example, I might not use the fighting power that I get on a turn. But I want to push a card past that to get the benefit I do want or to be able to store it as a treasure.

Here’s Rodney with more.

Chaining Actions

Let’s talk a bit about chaining actions or chaining location actions because I think that is the strongest element of the game. It is the part of the game what you are really puzzling out with the help of manta rays. I didn’t mention manta rays, but they provide actions like the locations do. However, they can refresh when you refresh your hand of cards.

But the chaining of actions provides an interesting puzzle to figure out. You need to figure out which actions, like I said, to push past and basically waste. They might be a waste, but it might help you score more points or score an end game scoring objective faster than your opponents. So there is strategy around it.

And a lot of the locations, you find, take a fair amount to get. But that is again where and why you might skip on a locations actions. I say skip, I mean pass over without the benefit. So you pass over so that you can get what you need to buy or conquer another location. You still need to think about the blank spaces. Because you are not allowed to just pass over a blank space. You need an arrow to do that, so it’s an interesting puzzle.

The Manta Rays

The manta rays are a fun addition to the game. Like the locations they are a resource that you can basically spend for coins, attack power, or to move locations further up. But unlike locations it isn’t a use it and that section or action is hidden. Manta rays flip over and there are a few cards what when you play them flip them back. So there is good interesting with the character cards that you use.

I also like around the manta rays how they help with Aquatica’s end scoring objectives. In that the four you start out with are the scoring markers for when you score the objectives. So the first person to score them gets 8 points, next 5, and than 3 after that. But as a benefit of not scoring, you keep your manta rays around longer. And as long as you can complete all of the objectives later in the game, you keep that benefit going.

The Boring Part of Aquatica

Now Aquatica isn’t all fun and excitement of how you chain your location actions together. You get a main action in the game, and that is playing a card that does, generally one thing or one pretty basic element of the game. It interacts with the main board to recruit a character or get a location. That is about it. There is a bit more, but not that much more.

And even recruiting a character, a new character with a new version of an action is not that exciting. By, because the actions don’t vary much or feel that much stronger than they do with your starting actions. The only reason to recruit more characters is that they are slightly better and you need them for an objective. Otherwise, I think just the basic actions might be about as good.

This element of the game just feels lacking. As you recruit characters it costs money. That cost is from 5 down to 0 and everything slides down. I’m not sure that it’s worth paying more than one or two coins to get something. It’s never worth spending resources which can get locations to go all the way to 5. No card is that much better. So recruiting feels more like a bust of a turn.

Final Thoughts on Aquatica

I want more in this game. I don’t think it’s that often where I complain about a game having too little. And really, I don’t want that much more. I just want the cards for the characters I recruit to feel cooler. They are all so one and done that it doesn’t feel like I’m setting anything up or being that clever about it. And in a lot of ways that is holding the rest of the game back for me.

Why is that when I like the manta rays and the locations? Well, when I flip manta rays and slide up cards, it is all for an action that doesn’t feel that exciting. I complete this great puzzle of sliding cards around to get to 8 conqueror that I use when I play down a card that gets me a location. No points right then, which is okay, a benefit I can use right away, unless it just let’s me buy stuff or conqueror stuff. In which case, I get a great toy for the future with a pretty boring and basic action.

That said, I want to look into the expansions. This game might benefit from them because it might add variety. If it adds variety, then I think the game and the basic character actions might seem more interesting. And I need to play with the king, the powerful characters you can start with. It won’t make the other recruiting feel better, but it might make the game feel more interesting from the start with the actions I can do.

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How to Play Furnace

Furnace is an engine building game, like I mentioned, that is played over four rounds. And each round has two parts because you aren’t just building an engine, you need to get the cards for the engine. To do that, you are doing an open auction or bidding process. There are some unique rules to the auction that we’ll talk about in the next section.

At the end of the auction you get cards and resources for your engine. You put the cards into an order that when it fires off makes the most sense. You collect your resources and then spend those in the engine to turn out money. The money you get is purely your points, the more profitable that you are, the more points you get and you win the game.

That’s the simple version of it. But there is more going on in Furnace to talk about. So let’s dive deeper into three areas.

The Auction

The first spot is the auction in Furnace. Honestly, probably the most unique part of the game. And the part of the game that I think with two players, which I played at, is just okay. I’ll talk about the mechanism they use to balance it in a bit with two players.

But the system is simple. Players have chips to bid with, or tokens I guess a better way of putting it. The tokens are one through four. You play one at a time on the cards that you’d want to add to your engine. There are specific rules on where you can play, though, you only are allowed to play on one where you haven’t played. And one where that number isn’t yet, aka. no ties. So it offers some strategy, do you keep back your four to steal something late? Or do you go early to lock in something you want or need?

The other element is that you still get something if you lose the bid. Each card has symbols on the bottom that you use for your engine. On the top, however, is something that people who lost the bid get to use. It might be gaining resources. Or it might be the ability to change resources into rarer resources. And you get to do that top action the number of times equal to the chip you put down. So if it’s gain two coal and you played a three, you get six coal. The person who won the bid just gets the card, no resource bonus.

Two player Cavet

Now quick about two player. In two player there is a dummy player who randomly places out their numbers. The downside to this is that it’s random. So they might steal a spot you really want with a four. They always bid last, but it can mess things up. And because it’s random it makes the auction less strategic.

The Engine Building

Now let’s talk about how Furnace does it’s engine building. I think that, again it’s simple. You run through the cards that you got in whatever order you want to. Basically you spend some time after each auction phase to get your engine in the right order. When you feel like it’s good, you kick it off and you start gaining and spending resources.

I like this element of the game, and the complexity of the engine is not too high. It’s basically trade resources for another resource, rarer one. Gain resources, or sell the resources. That is it, and I like that about the game. Because, if there is too much more that you could do with your engine, it’d bog down the game.

Even with that said, I would be somewhat careful who I play this with. Someone who is very analysis paralysis prone is going to find themselves shuffling little things and calculating little points just to make sure it is perfectly optimized. A timer would be an option to help with that, but it’s not part of the game, naturally. It shouldn’t affect most people, the game isn’t that complex, but it will some, and might make the game feel too slow to some people who just sit there.

Owner and Starting Card

Finally two things to talk about the owner and the starting card. These are two things that make you a bit unique. The starting card is pretty similar for everyone. What the card has is basically the same for everyone. You gain and upgrade token, you can convert a resource to points, and you can use your upgrade token. The upgrade token is simply that you can flip cards in your engine to make them better. Adding a second ability to trigger.

The owners, which might not be the right term, are more interesting in terms of giving unique game play. They provide you with a special power that means you can do something unique to your character. In my game play, I could spend two coal to repeat a card. My opponent could upgrade without the upgrade token. They aren’t game breaking, but they let you break the rules in interesting ways, if you can utilize them well.

Final Thoughts on Furnace

I like Furnace. After an initial play, I believe that I gave it an 8 on Board Game Geek. So I like the game a lot. But it isn’t without a concern to me. But let’s talk about what I like about it first. And I think the most interesting part is the auction. I love the strategy that I could see, even with the randomness of the dummy player in two player mode. I ideally win a card with my four and three for my engine. But if I don’t, well, then I gain a lot of resources, hopefully.

And I think the strategy around which chip to bid when is interesting. Because it is possible to get blocked out of a spot you want because someone plays down the same number. So you need to weigh that out as to when you guarantee you get something. Or when you hope to sneak a three onto a card and be able to keep it. Or I want to try, in a three player game, holding back a two and seeing about stealing a bid.

But let’s talk about my concern. It’s not a negative, and they already have helped with it some. There is an expansion for the game, I own it, but I haven’t played with it yet. But my concern is that that the variety in cards is low. That said, too much variety and it would cause analysis paralysis to run rampant. So they need to balance the variety so I feel like I’m building a unique engine each time. But so much that it locks up the game. And the expansion adds a few more cards for that variety.

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How To Play Icecool Wizards

Immediately it’s pretty easy to see the differences between Icecool Wizards and Icecool. Icecool Wizards is adding in a new element to the game. You are still in a penguin school, but this time a school for wizards. And you are trying to collect resources or knowledge to be able to cast spells.

The basics of how you do that is similar to what’s done with Icecool. You flick your penguin twice each turn collecting resources. And no one is chasing you down. Instead, you and your opponents compete for the resources and the exams. You get both of them by crossing over them on your turn.

Then the game ends when all the resources are gone and players have an even number of turns. You score up the resources you haven’t spent on exams. And you get points for exams. The penguin with the most points wins.

Initial Reaction on Icecool Wizards

Let’s look into my initial reaction to the game here because I think it’s useful to compare it quickly to Icecool. I think that Icecool Wizards, for me, is a step down from Icecool. Mainly because Icecool is a pure dexterity game. There is some cat and mouse, but it’s all about flicking the penguins about.

Icecool Wizards offers some of the same thing, but seems to have built on it in a way that doesn’t make it more fun. It doesn’t make it unfun, but it adds in some to the game. And some of it I think is the smaller board size. It’s meant to be more portable and take up a little bit less space, I guess, but it neuters the ability for some great shots.

I think the fact that it’s all players versus each other versus a one versus all style of game also hurts it. The tension is gone and the excitement of that will they or won’t they hit me is gone. Instead a lot of it comes down to luck so let’s get into some of this.

Luck vs Skill

So let’s talk about what I mean by this. I kind of touched on it above, but the original Icecool is the skill of a player versus the skill of the other players. Can I pull off better shots and avoid the hall monitor better than the other players.

Icecool Wizards is a bit more luck focused. Why, because what exams and resources come out are random. The resources always go into specific spots. And while the game tries to balance that out, with powers, if the resources available on your turn are better than the ones on my turn for completing exams, it’s an advantage for you.

Collecting Resources vs Using Powers

Now it’s time to talk about the powers in the game. There are two types of resources in the games. Ones that you get in the classrooms vs ones you get in the doorways. The ones in classrooms are worse in that they don’t add in extra powers. And the exams they are used in don’t offer higher points.

But the ones in the doorways are interesting. There are four of them, and they offer extra powers. An extra flick for one of them, or adding in more resources for another. You might trash an opponents card instead.

These resources offer the decisions that this game is trying to give you. Do you flip one of them over, it’s still worth a point at the end of the game, but now you can’t use it on an exam. But it’s only kind of a choice because if there’s an exam that needs that resource, I can likely get to it in the next turn and it’s unlikely that someone else will have the exact resources to get it. It might happen, but it’s not super likely.

Who Is Icecool Wizards For?

It’s a tricky question. I think that they were attempting to make a game that offers a bit more balancing of strategy with skill. But I’m not sure it hits on that. So that is making it hard to know who this game is for. In some ways, I think it is making the game for a market that doesn’t exist. If you like Icecool, like I do, I don’t think it’s better. If you don’t like Icecool, Icecool Wizards isn’t adding anything new that you need to play.

Final Thoughts

For me, what I’ll like about Icecool Wizards in the long run is if I can mix it in with regular Icecool. Why, because that is how I want to play Icecool. Either as a race or as the hall monitor trying to catch the students. But this one only works with the former, but I think I can make it work with the latter as well. It’s easy enough to keep track of the doors you’ve done through.

Now, if this is your first introduction to Icecool, I think Icecool Wizards is going to be fun. For me, it is still fun. But it isn’t more fun that I’d pull it off the shelf over Icecool. And when I play Icecool, I generally want to play it with a lot of people. So I think it’s a situation where Icecool Wizards adds in too little and too much all at once. It’s too little because the game is too close to Icecool, and I just want to play that one.

Have you played Icecool Wizards, do you like it?

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How To Play Sea Salt & Paper

The game is pretty simple. On your turn you either take a card from the discard pile, or two from the top of the deck and discard one of those. Then you’re doing set collection to get cards that offer points the more you have. Or collecting pairs of different things, boat, crabs, fish, or people and sharks paired together, to get points and take special actions.

During each round you collect seven or more points. And when you want, you can call “stop” or “final”. If you call “stop”, everyone scores their points. If it’s “final” then everyone else gets one more turn, but you can gain bonus points if you scored the most that round. And the other players score less.

What I’m Worried About

I’m not going to say what doesn’t work, I need to play it more to know for sure. But when I play Sea Salt & Paper, there are some things I am concerned about for the longevity of the game.

Firstly that the game is just a pretty small deck of cards. Even at two players you might get through a good chunk of the deck each time. At higher player counts, that is going to be even more true. So that means two things to me. It means that you are fairly likely to see all the cards. But it also means that there is a good amount of luck in the cards that you do get. So is there enough variety in the game?

And does it do enough to separate itself from other small games. It reminds me of a hand management version of Silver or Scram by Bezier Games in a lot of ways. That’s about getting the fewest points by manipulating your “village”, here it’s get as many points as you can into your hand. So is it better than those? And is it better than other filler style games that I have, or smaller games that I have that do similar things? The field of small games that are generally fillers is pretty full, is Sea Salt & Paper good enough to stand out?

What I like About Sea Salt & Paper

Filler Games

I talked about it was a concern how it’s in a crowded field of filler and small games. But I like that about it as well. I think that it’s hard to have too many of those. One of the things that I find consistently true about these small games is that I sometimes run my course on them. Or I need to take a break from them.

But when it’s in a really small package that means that I can keep it on the shelf and rotate through playing it. If it’s in a bigger box, well, that’s much more likely to leave my shelf for good because the ratio of size of game to game play is off for the shelf space premium.

The type of game it is as well I find interesting. I like a game where I need to work on optimizing my scoring while trying to remember what you took for scoring as well. And some of that information is hidden, when you draw two cards I don’t know what they are. But when you take from a discard pile, I can start to figure that out. So it’s a challenge on the players to try and keep on eye on what tells the other players might give on how they are trying to score points.

Scoring

I also like the mermaids in the game. One of the big things about the mermaids is that you can get an instant win if you get all four. But there are only four, so that’s unlikely. But mermaids score points for you as well, they score your color that you have the most of. Though if you have multiple it’s the one that you have the most of and then the next most. But I like how you can push for that. You can try and get the most of a few different colors and even without showing that you’re scoring well you can score well.

And I like the different sets you can collect. The shark/person combo is the meanest. You steal a card from someone’s hand which can really mess them up. But for a filler game, that take that works. But the others, the crab grabbing a card from the discard pile, the fish getting the top card of the deck, or the boat getting to take an extra turn, all of those are fun. And each pair only gives  you a single point, so it’s a good balancing act of collecting those for the powers but then potentially being behind on points.

And I like that you can get a color bonus. So if you call for the final scoring you can get a color bonus. It’s kind of like how the mermaids work, but it just happens. So if you’re smart, there are times where you just collect colors to get a bit bonus that way. It’s probably not enough to get you the win, but if you know you’re not likely to score more than the person who called it, it’s a way to get more points.

Who is This For?

There are two different groups that I can think of. The first is people who really like card games. Sea Salt & Paper is a fun card game that fits well into that easy to take anywhere card games. The other is people who are looking for more filler games. If you’re used to having a game night where people split into multiple groups and sometimes one game finishes before another, Sea Salt & Paper is a good fit for something like that.

Beyond the Box Cover Sea Salt & Paper

I’m not sure I get the hype on this game. And I’m not sure that the hype for Sea Salt & Paper has fully survived the initial wave. This is pretty common for the smaller games because people like them who like them, but because it’s easy to pick-up a small game (and fairly cheap), a lot of people do, and there are a lot of okay opinions on it. That isn’t to say that it’s bad, but it’s light and that is going to work for some, but it isn’t going to work for everyone.

But, like I said, because it’s in a small box, I think that it’s going to be a fun one for me to keep around. And because of the simplicity of the game, I suspect that I’m going to be able to table it a lot. And  having a good number of games like that is a good thing for me. I’d even say that Sea Salt & Paper is a great game to take to a brewery or a bar if you want something to play. Let me know your thoughts on it.

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How to Play the One Piece TCG

If you know trading card games, you are going to know a lot of the basics of this game. Playing out creatures, them not being able to attack the round they come out, spending a resource for them. All of that is present in the One Piece TCG. But it is not just a clone of Magic the Gathering in all that it does. But the basics, plus getting your opponents life down, those do match what TCG’s are known for.

The basics of your turn go, refresh cards. So characters that attack and Don, your purchase power that you used all refresh. Then you draw a card and you draw and play two Don. Then you get to play out cards, attack with cards, and do what you want to do until you say that you’re done.

When attacking you pick your target. This is something we see in TCG’s more now like Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited. You either attack a spent enemy card, one that attacked last turn, or their leader. The math on it is simple, if you hit with more or equal attack power you win and knock out your opponents character or knock down the leaders health by one. After the leaders health has been hit one more time than they had health cards, you win the game or lose.

Unique or Interesting Elements

There are a few areas in the game that stand out that feel different from other TCG’s. I say different, I mean that loosely. It isn’t Magic the Gathering, but it’s close or offers an interesting decision space even if it isn’t always completely unique.

Don Cards

Let’s start with the Don cards. There are a few things that stand out to me about them. Firstly, you always get two into your resource area every turn. Well, I say every turn, there are ten that form your Don deck, so for your first five turns, six if you’re the starting player, you are adding to your Don. As compared to something like Magic the Gathering, One Piece really keeps you from drawing dead in terms of card play and mana by always adding Don cards.

The other thing with Don cards is that they offers boosts as well. Each one gives you +1000 to attack. So, like I said in game play, you need to meet or exceed your opponents health total. The Don are one way to take a weaker character who might never be targeted or attacked with and launch an attack. But it is +1000 for the turn, then it goes back to your pool of resources. And they are only value if you are the attacker.

Charging

Now, the Don cards with their +1000 are balanced by this idea of Charging. Charging is how the defending player is able to boost, or one of the ways, their characters power. Some of the cards, I believe only characters, in your hand will on the side of the card have a charging amount. To use that, you simply discard the card and you get a boost to the character who is being attacked.

I like this decision space in the game. While the Don are a resource that you can use over and over again to boost, charging is not. You use that card once and it goes to your discard. So two things are happening there, firstly, when do you just take an attack. Sometimes you might, even to your leader to save a card with Charge on it for later or to play into your line of characters. The other thing is, when you charge with it, it’s discarded and gone. So the new question is, do I want to play it or not. Two very solid decisions in the game.

Life and Triggers

Finally, I want to talk about life and how that works. I wrote down life and triggers because they tie together so closely, but we’re going to start with life. The leader you play with has a life amount. Generally from what I know thus far, it’s going to be in that five to six range, maybe down to four, but that’d be a powerful leader. So it is a small life pool that you are defending. If you hit your opponents leader six times successfully with an attack, in most cases that is enough to win.

But your life is cards from your deck. So when you build up your life pool, you take cards from your deck, not knowing what they are, and lay them out in the life area. So you might just have taken out some of your best cards from your deck, you don’t know. The cards that become your life are random.

Then, when you take damage, those cards are taken off the life total one card at a time. And this is another area I really like, you add them to your hand. When they go to your hand, they might have a trigger keyword on them. That gives you a special bonus, that you can sometimes use, when it is taken from the life pool. It might be dry an extra card, that’s nice. Or it might be, put this card into play and that is for free versus paying the cost. So it can be useful, at times, to take a damage and go fishing for card with a trigger on it.

Who Is This For?

It’s interesting, I think that Star Wars Unlimited and Lorcana are built more towards casual gamers. One Piece isn’t quite there with them. Mainly because there are triggers on cards that just add to the complexity. And because when it is my opponents turn, I need to pay attention. There are things like charging or events that I need to pay attention to.

On the other hand, it is also much easier than Magic the Gathering. There is no stack of actions that needs to be resolved. So it’s do an action, see if opponent responds and repeat that process through your turn. It’s a singular action and response system. So that makes it much easier.

Overall, though, this game is for fans of One Piece. The game play doesn’t stand out in the starter decks as being the most unique, but for a fan of One Piece, the trading card game is going to work better.

First Impressions of One Piece TCG

Generally, I feel like I want to play it more. The game and system are fun and they work smoothly enough. It’s not as smooth as Lorcana or Star Wars Unlimited, but it is more complex. That to me is the value that you get from playing a game like the One Piece TCG. There is more game there, at least in the starter decks.

And I do want to say, this is only in the starter decks that I’ve played for Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited, and the One Piece TCG. But for a starter deck, it gave me enough of a feeling of the game to know that I enjoyed it. Deck building is simple, just cards that match your leaders color, so that is not going to be a major part of what you do. But it is just a solid setup where I do want to see a deck that has more cards with triggers or maybe fewer charges, different options or ways to play.

Overall, I like the game. And it is one that I shouldn’t collect more of. But I that ship has sailed. A box of cards is on it’s way. Though, my plan is that is it. I want to know more of what is the game and maybe do a little deck building and play like that. But if you are looking for a new TCG, and Lorana is too simple (and expensive) for you, One Piece is a nice step up.

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How to Play Vampire the Masquerade Chapters

Let’s start by talking about how it works at it’s core. Because I think that’s a logical spot to start and everything builds upon that. But, actually, before we get to that, let’s talk about the prologue system.

Prologues and Learning to Play

The game uses a series of prologues to introduce you to all the vampire factions and how to play the game. Each scenario is going to teach you something new, from combat, investigation, disciplines, dialog, blood lust or more. Plus it is a system that gives you experience points for each character if you play through all of the prologues.

So, I like this type of system. I like that Vampire the Masquerade Chapters says, reference the rulebook to learn, but you don’t need to live in it to learn the game. Now, often times this is going to lead to be a bit of ambiguity in the game or referencing stuff later.

I find it interesting, though, that as a player you play through all of them solo. We, as a group of four, played through all of them as a group. I ran the game and the other players made decisions and rolled dice for the characters. It is also interesting that you get XP for all characters, one each, from playing prologues. So that means you might start with eight XP each, or if you skip doing that, you might start with two or four depending on group size.

Basic Mechanisms

At it’s core, Vampire the Masquerade Chapters is a fairly simple system. All of your checks are rolling a set number of dice against a target to see if you pass. How they do that is pretty simple and RPG like.

Your character is split into three different areas. Social, Physical, and Mental are the three types of attributes. A skill check is going to let you roll one of those attributes and a number of dice based off of those attributes to get your target. But, let’s say, you play a character with two physical. The target is four, you won’t make it, most likely.

The character also has skills. Each skill is under one of the attributes. And a skill is an automatic success. So if you need four brawl and have two physical, it isn’t over. Especially if you already have two in brawl you start with two successes. The dice have a 50% chance of a success. And a 10% chance of a double success.

And that is most of the game right there. I want to talk about the three areas in more detail, physical, mental, and social coming up.

Physical and Combat

So Vampire the Masquerade starts teaching you about physical and combat right out of the gate. I think that most of the chapters, or at least a higher percentage, over 50% will at least allow for some combat. It is up to the decision players make. But let’s talk about combat and how that works.

I think that combat is an interesting part of the game, though, we found with one vampire versus a human, in this case, it was a bit slow or could bog down. Combat is based around that core mechanism for the players or rolling dice to see if you hit.

But there is more to that. Each character is equipped with a deck of cards. And you use the cards in combat. It is moves like punch or dodge or high kick that you have. And a dodge is purely defensive. A high kick might be purely offensive. And a punch might let you do both. So you are trying to guess, almost rock paper scissors with the combatant as to what you are doing. And a punch, you decide what to do after you see what the enemy is doing, so attack or defense.

And the cards, they might modify what you roll. So a high kick, it’s purely an offensive move and it’s a physical brawl. If you have three successes in brawl and four dice in physical it might add one or two dice more. So you might roll six dice to hit, it’s clearly a move that is just for offense. Same with dodge, that might be six dice on defense with three successes.

Social and Mental

I am going to stick these two together because a lot of what is happening with them is similar. Now, not completely similar as in how you interact with things, but the interactions are the same. There are no cards that you add to this. Instead, it is just a die roll.

In the case of mental, you often are interacting with something, You might investigate a computer, so what has been happening at location, look for clues, things like that. And it is going to be a mental roll.

For social, this is when you often break into a conversation with an NPC. That NPC might be another vampire or it might be a human or it might be a ghoul (if ghouls can talk). And sometimes you might not know if you are talking with a vampire or a human. But it’s against rolling your social attribute level and adding in any automatic successes.

Disciplines

Now, where I am at in the prologues we haven’t hit disciplines yet. But I know some about them from watching Bairnt play it on One Stop Co-op Shop/Meet Me At The Table. These are basically modifiers that you have as a vampire.

I think that is an interesting aspect for Vampire the Masquerade Chapters. It let’s you hone what you want to do. And you access some of them right away and can upgrade them or add more to choose from, I believe, as the game goes on. But, like I said, they modify how you attack and what you are doing. So you can start to push further into being a combat character at the right times and pull back at others.

Vampire the Masquerade Chapters Story

I want to talk quickly about the story as well. The prologue is obviously not the main story. But they do a good job of stringing the prologue together to get you ready for the story. Each part is a bit of story leading up to the main story that you play through in chapters.

And I think it’s worth noting that this is an 18+ game. Now, I say that, depending on the person, it might never be good for them. There is a lot of language in the game, at least at times. Also some elements are just intense. There is a psychiatrist and you hear about the type of patients he is working with. For some that might be triggering, for others it might not be, it’ll depend on the person.

But, I also want to say, after that word of warning, I think the writing is solid. There is a ton of writing, and I have noticed some mistakes in it. But generally it is a missing word or a “thee” in stead of “the” situation. So it is not bad, it might end up with more or bigger ones, but they offer an errata and a corrected chapter as I believe that German got mixed into one of the English chapters.

Final Thoughts on Vampire the Masquerade Chapters

Thus far, and it is early, I like the game. It is an RPG in a box which I know will not work for some people. What I mean by that is I think this game is going to have moments where I go, this makes sense or make a judgement call in the moment. Because, like an RPG, Vampire the Masquerade Chapters is looser with the rules.

That said, I am excited for it that way as well. It means that I can be more immersed in the story. For some people that might stop the story. It will take them out as time is spent trying to figure out that rule for sure to make sure they play the game perfectly. For me, it is an RPG like game, so it is about the story. Make the decision and move forward from it to keep in the story and not break that immersion.

And I like how simple it is to get into the game. The prologue really works. And I think that overall the system is simpler enough that it’ll be easy to remember from session to session. And I like it when a game does that. That’s a downside to something like Gloomhaven or Frosthaven or Tainted Grail compared to this. Until you are a number of sessions in for two, you need to remind yourself of the rules.

But those are just some first impressions. If you have played Vampire the Masquerade Chapters, let me know your thoughts. And if it is interesting, let me know what about it is interesting to you.

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How To Play Metal Gear Solid

Game Modes

So, let me start with saying, there are two game modes. One of them, the one that I played, is not a campaign. There are one off scenarios that are an option to play. The other is a campaign, I’ll need to review that aspect when my copy comes in and I can play it.

But in the mode I played, if I remember correctly VR mode is what it is called currently, is built as one off scenarios. So you pick your player count, set it up for as such and go in and play that mission without any repercussions to what you are doing in an overall story.

Actions

The game itself, though doesn’t change much. Each player, on their turn, has four action points to allot to actions. It might be a single action of moving or dashing. Attacking or interacting with an object, or doing something unique to that character. But you always have up to four action points to spend. And not all actions cost a single point. You find that a better attack uses multiple action points. Or some of the special powers use multiple action points as well.

And then completing an action isn’t always just expending those points. Often time you need to roll some dice as well. You see how successful your attack was and possibly how noisy it was. And that will determine what happens if you succeed or not.

Attack vs Stealth

One element of this game that is and isn’t baked into the mechanics is stealth versus all out attack. The game uses a noise system. If you make noise the enemies on patrol might come and investigate. So actions like dashing are considered noisy actions. That means that you might have made a small noise that one of the guards will investigate.

Or you might fire off a gun. Then all the patrols know where you are, and they’ll start flocking to you. Which, if you’ve already taken out most of them isn’t the end of the world. But it is also possible that more patrols will show up. So the game is really balancing that noise and your ability to sneak around.

And, why not kill everyone, or at least knock them out? Because they come to over time. And depending on how many are active in a zone, it’s possible that more will spawn there, and now you might end up with more patrols to avoid.

Patrol AI

One nice thing about CMON Expo is that while Emerson Matsuuchi, the designer wasn’t there, one of the developers was. So we got to hear about one of the harder parts of the game, the AI system. And I think that it’s worth noting the AI system is likely to take about half a game to get figured out. But it is a slick system that makes sense with that the enemy is doing.

When they don’t know you are there, they just patrol. They walk, they come to walls or if they stop on certain spots on the floor, they turn and they walk some more. So it’s possible to guess their patterns at least to some range.

But when you make a small noise and they think they might know where you are, one of them will beeline to checkout that noise. The others will still patrol. And if they find you, well, they know where you are, and all of them will come to get you. But if you make a big noise, they are all just coming.

Metal Gear Solid Final Thoughts

I really like this system. I think that it works smoothly and you got some of the highlights over it. And I didn’t go over items too much, but they are fun and give you some powerful options. And sometimes you might just need to make some noise, draw enemies and tank a situation.

I ended up playing this twice at CMON Expo. And the first time through Metal Gear Solid, we stumbled into a great strategy that let us win. The second time, because of choices, and I was sitting back some to let other players take the lead, we did a different strategy. And I will say, we got close, but couldn’t quite make it. Things were definitely hairier than the first time though.

So clearly, I like this game enough to play it twice in a weekend. And I also like it enough to have pre-ordered it. Granted, the pre-order did come first, but I could have canceled that. This game is fun. And it isn’t like your normal CMON Zombicide type game, though it might look like that, a little bit. But as you go, you’ll quickly start to realize that you can’t just kill or knock out everything. So this is a very fun game.

Are you interested in Metal Gear Solid?

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How To Play Forest Shuffle

In Forest Shuffle you are building out a forest in front of you of trees and creatures of all types. You might be getting butterflies and and beetles or foxes and rabbits, the choice is up to you. But you look to synergize what you are picking to score points.

To play out cards you are putting cards into a discard row and using them as resources. That discard row is filling up and wiping as the game goes along and as you draw cards. Drawing cards and reducing the draw pile is how the game ends. But back to playing cards, you pick a card to play from your hand and then discard the number of cards in the corner to be able to play it.

Trees you just add to your forest in front of you. But if you play down a creature or a feature of your forest, that attaches to your tree. And trees have four sides that you can attach cards to. The foliage, the base or roots and than either side. So you need to balance playing out cards to score with adding more trees.

Then you draw and play cards until you’ve hit the three winter cards. You won’t know when they show up. But once one or two of them show up, you know the game can end any time. When the game ends, everyone tallies up their points and whomever has the most wins.

Why Is It Getting Popular?

Let me start off and say, I like Forest Shuffle. So me asking this question isn’t me not getting why it is. And I think there are a few main reasons for it getting popular.

Firstly, a lot of people play board games digitally now. Not more than who play in person, but when you can play a game digitally, there is not as much of a time restriction. Especially if you can take your turn and then check later in the day to take your next turn. It doesn’t require you to just be sitting there. It is a chance for people

Another thing is that it is a nature theme. Nature theme games are very popular right now. The success of games like Wingspan and Meadow have shown that you don’t need a big nerdy fantasy theme to make people buy game. In fact, that is a turn off for some people. Nature is a more accessible and friendly theme. It might not be why some people game (or the only theme I want) but it does appeal to a broader audience.

Finally, Forest Shuffle is not a complex game. And I say that in a good way. It is one of two games I picked up with the same premise. It is play out cards to form a forest or tableau in front of you to score points. The other one is either version of Ecosystem, regular or coral reef. What you do on your turn is quite simple. However, what you do on your turn determines the points you get. So there are decisions to be made with how you want to score. It is a good game for simplicity of turns and decision making space.

What Might Not Work For You

But let’s talk about what might not work with Forest Shuffle as well. It is a similar mechanism to other games. I called out Ecosystem, but also Meadow you collect cards to build out a line of cards in front of you. Even Wingspan has you collecting birds and putting them into various habitats and scoring based off of that. So the mechanisms are not highly unique.

I think, for some the general mechanisms of those games across the board will not be what you want. For others, you like it, but the question is how many do you need. Do you need a third or fourth game that offers a similar experience to the other games. Now, it is a different complexity level than the ones I mentioned. Forest Shuffle is more complex than Ecosystem but less than Meadow or Wingspan. So it might fill a niche for you.

What I Want To See More Of In Forest Shuffle

Now, I won’t give a full grade on this. I want to see more in this game and I want to know how it will play after a number of plays. I bought the game, so I like it. Let’s just put it at that. But I feel l like it isn’t one I can give a fully grade to yet.

Mainly, how is Forest Shuffle going to play after five plays? I set five a a number, that is just arbitrary. But what I want to see is, if I play it a number of times, how does my strategy change? Can I have a strategy, I think I did the first game, or is it just luck with cards that come out. How do you balance grabbing cards or passing on cards to play out. What is the tempo of that?

There are a good number of cards in the game. And Forest Shuffle offers a lot of different ways to score. My question and this is the case with any game like this, will I see all the cards, and will there be enough variety to keep the game unique? If the game isn’t unique, than is the game going to stay fun to play.

Forest Shuffle could certainly be expanded. I expect if it does well in retail, not just BGA, that it is going to get expansions. More cards to mix in, or like Ecosystem, another box to play with and vary up the scoring as a standalone game. But that is my concern right now.

Do you like Forest Shuffle?

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How to Play World Wonders

World Wonders is a pretty simple game of tile laying. Each round players take turns spending their seven gold. With that gold you buy tiles, roads, towers, and wonders to place on your player board. You can also buy first and second player but in a two player game that happens less.

You need to build roads so that you can place buildings. And when you place buildings you try and get matching colors or specific color combinations to get wonders. All of this is done in ways to optimize your point scoring. And each thing that you buy has a different cost, so how you spend your money matters a fair amount. Especially with wonders that cost the rest of your gold, whether that’s one gold or six.

You score in a number of different ways in World Wonders. Firstly, wonders give you points. Then there are three tracks you can go up on which push you up on your population track. If you reach the top of that population track you get points. Then surrounded buildings, on all sides not by land and those score points. But you can lose points if you take out a loan and then don’t pay them back. The player with the most points wins.

Initial Impressions

World Wonders is another tile laying, polyomino game. And that isn’t a bad thing, though, the market is starting to become very full of them. New York Zoo, Barenpark, Planet Unknown, and that’s barely scratching the surface. So it needs to stand out in a style of game that is becoming more crowded. So, does World Wonders do that?

Decision Space

From the ones that I’ve played, I haven’t played all of those listed above, I think that it does. Though, it doesn’t stand out due to complexity of the game. World Wonders is easier than most tile playing or polyomino games. I see World Wonders as a game that I can play with my family. I think once the basic rules are understood, maybe a couple of rounds, my wife will enjoy it, may parents might even enjoy it.

This is a solid and accessible game. And I think it does a good thing with game length as well. More players will make the game longer, but the game turns are simple. Buy a piece and place it, whether that’s a tower, wonder, or road. My only knock on the game is that the player aids, for a five player game, are short a couple. If you provide player aids in a game, provide one per player.

Accessibility of the Game

You see all of the wonders and you expect those to be complex. They are not. There is iconography, but after seeing one or two wonders cards, you understand it. That is a hallmark of a good design. In fact, there isn’t any language to the game which also makes it easier to play and more accessible.

A kid with limited reading ability can play this game. An adult with maybe can’t see a lot of small text would be able to sit down and play this game. Now, the tiles do have little symbols on them. Those would be the hardest element of the game to see. But that information only matters to the player who bought the tile so players can aid each other with that.

World Wonders

Is this a game that sounds interesting to you? If so it will be getting a wider release this year. I think I heard October or November, but with shipping, especially around the holidays or leading up to them, I could see this being a game that release closer to that Christmas and holiday time frame.

Just my initial impressions on it, I think this will be a game that will work for a ton of people. I like the game a lot myself. It’s accessible, it has a good play length, and the toy factor is fun. The pieces are nice quality for the game. But it doesn’t turn the game into a behemoth, so you sit down and play what feels like a normal, but slightly fancier board game.

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Initial Frosthaven Thoughts

There are a ton of things I’m already liking about this game. I expected that because it is Gloomhaven’s sequel and I love Gloomhaven. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have some quibbles with it. But also doesn’t mean that I don’t have some things I really like about what I’ve seen thus far.

Firstly, I think the story feels like it is better. Is it great yet, no, I think it’s below the level of story and writing, for example, that I’ve seen thus far in Isofarian Guards and definitely below Tainted Grail. But when I get into it, it’s intriguing where it is leading.

Next, I like that I can play a pretty complex character to start. I went with the Blink Blade, no spoilers in that. And it uses a mechanism of basically building up speed and then using said speed. How you plan that out affects how fast you go on a turn. That is definitely a ramp up in complexity than some of them, but they offer different complexities in the starting characters and tell you what they are.

The one annoying thing and this is something from Forgotten Circles as well, is that you need to use two books for setup. I don’t mind the fog of war feel to it, but it slows down the game. It’s harder to get in two scenarios in the evenings. You need to pause mid scenario and then setup more, that is less fun.

The Highlights

So two big highlights for the game, both things that Cephalofair games didn’t do themselves, oddly enough. But the two apps around the game are great. I enjoy the Forteller one for the story quite well. It allows everyone to be “surprised” with the story coming up more than one person reading it.

The other app is even more of a highlight. The original company that did the Gloomhaven Helper app stopped supporting it and wasn’t going to add in Frosthaven. So Lucky Duck Games, who do great app work, picked up that torch and created and amazing app. The biggest improvement is that everyone can use the app. One person gets the paid version, everyone else gets the free version. I enter in my initiative when ready. I flip cards for the monsters on someone else’s turn. It doesn’t bog down the game with one person doing all of the app stuff.

And for a game as big as Frosthaven, it’s nice to have that flexibility that anyone can do that. We’re not into the swing of things yet with setup, that’s for sure, so we’ll get that faster over time.

The Lowlight

This is also not with the game. I think it’s safe to say that the game itself is as expected. It’s still the Gloomhaven system at it’s core. But one big miss was the insert that I got. And I got this as part of the campaign, which is the only or the major reason I mention it.

In my opinion, the insert isn’t usable. The strength of the foam core, when you have a split in the middle of a box that is meant to hold cards is bad. It doesn’t hold up, even the ones where we were liberal with the glue, they don’t hold up well. There’s just too much weight in the game to make it work.

Now, I think I can speak, as a software engineer, to what happened, or what seemed to happen. This was a rushed job where it was focused on fitting the rules, make a spot for everything and fit it in a box. What you get when you do that is not something that is all that useable. It’s not useable for monsters, it doesn’t support cards well, it’s a mess. This could have come down to it being rushed as well, which I’ll not get into why and whether or not rushing something was a smart call.

In fact, I bought a new one. A 3D printed one that will be coming from Australia, so I’ll get it eventually. But I would need to provide my own, better, glue than was provided by the company. I’d need to use small nails or screws coated in said better glue. And hopefully the foam core would not rip, which it hasn’t to this point. But that’s way more effort for something that might work.

Final Impressions

Even with my frustrations from the insert, I’m still extremely excited for the game. I love Gloomhaven. The Blink Blade is going to be really interesting. And I want to start unlocking more characters and seeing more scenarios and just generally leveling up. So I’m excited for more.

Is this the best jumping in point, no, that’s Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion followed by Gloomhaven. But if you love Gloomhave, Frosthaven is an easy game to recommend next. Let me know your thoughts and experience with Frosthaven thus far?

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