Moonlight Castle

We’ll start with Moonlight Castle, this is a gem collection game that is not the simplest on the list. You are trying to collect the most gems coming out of the Moonlight Castle. But to do that, you need to have the right amount of matching pebbles to be able to grab the gems. So if I want to get a 3 gem tile of green, I need three green pebbles.

To go on top of that, you need to collect the pebbles and figure out what locations to go to on the board in order to get the gems you want. The locations you can go give you between 0 and 3 new pebbles. So there is strategy as to where you go there. And then when you go to a spot, it is going to cost you pebbles. So you need to plan to have enough pebbles to get to a spot and to get the gems.

This game has nice toy factor to it. The tiles with the gems slide out from under the castle in a cool way. And the game itself flows nicely once you get started. I like how you need to plan ahead. You can’t just go to a spot and hope you have enough pebbles. That is something that a kid will need to learn as they play, but a good thing to learn.

Grade For Kids: B-

Monza

Monza is a theme that my kid loves, it’s about car racing. He is a fan of cars and of racing to do stuff. In Monza it is a race to see who can make it to the end.

This is a die rolling game. You grab all of the dice and roll them, they are going to land on different colored sides. And that will determine where you can move on the board as the spots to move up have different colors. So you need to plan and allocate your dice so that you move as far as you can.

Monza is a simpler game than Moonlight Castle, but in a good way. It still requires some strategic planning as you figure out where you move. As we’ve played, it is no longer a game for my kid of moving to his favorite colors if he can. But how can he use the dice to move as far as he can along the track. It makes you plan strategically in how you allocate the dice and plan out your turn.

Grade for Kids: B+

Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling

The final one is Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling. This is a gem collection game and really contract fulfillment in a lot of ways. But the mechanisms are different and fun which I enjoy about the game.

Each player takes a turn as the “fire breather”. You remove a ring from a stack of cool looking plastic gems. The gems fall off and then everyone collects them. The non-fire breather players add gems to cards in front of them to get points by collecting sets. The fire breather tries and stop them. As you complete your sets you get new cards. And once all the gems are collected a new ring is lifted off causing more gems to fall. At the end of the game it is the player who has the most points on completed cards who wins the game.

I like this game a lot because the kid was taught it and is no able to teach it. The rules are simple but it again gives them some simple strategy. How do I pick gems that are most likely to help me complete cards. Or as the fire breather, how do I block others from completing cards. It is a strategy that my kid already sees in the game which is fun.

Grade For Kids: B+

Final Thoughts on Moonlight Castle, Monza, and Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling

These are kids games, I’m not going to pretend that they aren’t. That means that for an adult, it is not always going to be fun to play them over and over and over. However, as I said in the beginning, compared to something like Candy Land there is a lot of fun in these games. And the fact that my kid can teach two of them, Monza and Dragon’s Breath: The Hatchling, it is very cool to see.

I obviously love board games. And I like to see him take an interest in board games. It is a hobby that we can share and there are many more that we already to spend time with. But to see him have an interest in it is fun, and dangerous. Dangerous only because now I am interested in getting more games. But also with the handful of games that he has, it’s now a chance for him to really learn those games which I want to encourage as well. And also encourage to not overwhelm him with new games.

Which of these three games looks the best to you?

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Checkout the Pack Opening

How to Play Star Wars Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited is base defense game where you are trying to take out your base faster than your opponent can take out yours. You destroy their base by attacking it with ground and space troops. The first one to get their opponents base down to zero wins. That’s the simplest element of the game, but how do you get your units and how does it work?

Each player has a deck of cards and two additional cards. Players have a base card and a leader card. Your base is primarily just going to have hit points on it. But your leader card is going to have an action ability and an epic action which allows them to be played as a unit.

Each round consists of players drawing cards, placing one down as a resource if they want, and then going back and forth playing cards or attacking with cards. Star Wars Unlimited is simple in that you play a card, your opponent goes, you attack, your opponent goes. If you’re familiar with other TCG’s (trading card games) there is no responding to what your opponent does.

These actions go on until one person passes (or claims initiative. Then the other player can keep on playing actions and once they pass, players draw and continue until one base is destroyed.

Compare it to Other TCGs

So, how is Star Wars Unlimited compared to a Lorcana, One Piece, or Magic the Gathering? I think that is the question for a lot of people. I like the idea of TCG’s but I already play Magic the Gathering, do I have room to play two games? Especially since TCG’s are lifestyle games for a lot of people.

That question is one that I’ve been pondering. For me, it is closest to a game like One Piece. Star Wars Unlimited is more complex than a Lorcana but much less so than a Magic the Gathering. And this might be intentional. Or, it might be that I didn’t play magic from the beginning. So maybe Magic did start out simpler and grow more complex. But I feel like it wasn’t ever as simple.

For me, Star Wars Unlimited and the other non-Magic the Gathering TCGs are more introductory friendly. They also are newer so they might grow in complexity. But Star Wars Unlimited takes a lot of the greatest hits and puts it together into their package. So not truly unique, but also, not derivative feeling.

The Inherent Problem of TCGs

So, if you don’t know TCGs there is one element to talk about. It’s the scarcity of some cards in the gaming system. And most of the time those cards being that much better. So you want them for your deck because it’ll make what you built stronger and better and more easily able to beat your opponents.

It’s always interesting to see how a company tries to get around it. And I think that Star Wars Unlimited mainly does what you expect. Firstly they do go with a pretty common system of cards where you get more of the basic cards and then fewer and fewer of the increasing rarity. That means with the rarer cards, you need to open more packs to truly get a play set of them.

But I like what it does with some of the other rare cards. There are foil cards, you get one per pack. There are hyperspace cards (borderless) where it is the same card but just showing more artwork. And there are showcase, very rare cards, that are foil full art versions of some cards, but they are just that card. This was the issue with the previous Star Wars Destinies there wasn’t a collectability or secondary market. Unlimited will have that.

The downside is that some cards will be more expensive. But even a lot of the common cards are fun to play with. And you always get a leader and a base per each pack. So for someone looking to casually build, those cards are easy to get, which is really important. It makes the game very accessible to get started.

What I Like About Star Wars Unlimited

I already covered some of this before. But one element that I really like is the back and forth nature of the game. I call that out in the rules or how to play section. It makes the game a whole lot easier to play. I go and then you go. There is no spending 5-10 minutes on a single players turn. There is no stack where you need to think about which action goes and which one doesn’t or who the active player is. The game system is nice and clean.

I enjoy, as well, that the game offers some good keywords to it without being keyword soup. Magic the Gathering, and I expect Star Wars Unlimited over time, has a ton of keywords. Right now it isn’t too many and they are all explained well. I felt like I didn’t have questions about what something does.

And I like the strategy in the game. I want to play around with the deck building and I likely will tonight. But Star Wars Unlimited gives you the choice to attack the base or your opponents units. You probably always attack the base. But if you can gun down Vader when he comes out, is that the better plan? Or do they have a sentinel, taunting, unit you need to go through first? And can you outpace your opponent or do you need to be smart about it.

Final Thoughts on Star Wars Unlimited

I like this game a lot. I liked it after I played it at Gen Con. Now that the first set is out and the starter decks are out, I like it a lot still. I think that the game is really smartly designed and gives a fun space to play in. And I appreciate that it isn’t a game that is too complex. It is a TCG that I won’t be bored by but also that I can teach to other people.

That is a great spot for the game for me. I want it to be accessible, rules light, and fun to mess around with deck building. Like I said, my plan is to do some deck building tonight on Malts and Meeples. And I might even show off a little bit of game play or solo a hand or two to see how a deck is going to work. But I haven’t been that interested in deck building in a while. In fact, even though I’ve started playing some Magic the Gathering again, I don’t want to deck build. In Star Wars Unlimited, I want to see what I can make.

Overall, I enjoy this game a lot. If you don’t like TCG’s, this won’t change your mind. If you’re okay with them but like Star Wars, this might be a really good game to jump into. And maybe, I should say, if you don’t like TCG’s but love Star Wars, Star Wars Unlimited might pull you in.

My Grade: A
Casual Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B

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How to Play Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Like I said, Heat is a racing game. It’s about getting around the track the fastest. And if you finish on the same turn, it’s about being the one that goes the furthest ahead across the finish line. It’s what you’d expect for a racing game.

The game can most simply be broken down into three parts. Though the round structure has eight or nine, it is mainly three. First, you pick the gear you want to be in. You can go up or down by one for free, or for two with a cost. Then you play the number of cards for the gear you are in. Both of these are done at the same time.

Then, in turn order, players play out their cards and go that fast. There are several other things that can be done in this step. Sometimes you are flipping cards to go more of a random distance and pushing your luck that way. Otherwise, you might catch up to another card and draft off of them. Or things like cooling down your heat based off the gear that you’re in. All to push yourself past the turns and to the finish faster than everyone else.

How Heat Works

I think that the Heat in Heat deserves it’s own section. Mainly because this is how you break what you are doing in the game. I talked about the penalty of going up two on your gear shifter, that’s giving you heat. Heat also allows you to push yourself around a turn too fast. You spend your difference in speed to the corner speed as heat.

Heat then is your valuable resource for the push your luck element of the game. And every car only has a limited amount of heat. But as you are in lower gears, first or second, you return heat from your hand to your engine. Basically, as you push the car less it cools down so you are less apt to overheat it or spinout.

I really enjoy this mechanism in the game. It, I think, as well as as card play, are the crux of how the game works. If I push to hard and too fast early, I need to adjust my strategy at other times to get it back. But if I’m too cautious with it, now I drop behind and all that heat I have saved might not be enough to let me push around enough corners fast enough.

Stress Cards

So, heat clogs up your deck. But there are other cards that are in your deck of movement cards that can help, or they can hurt. Stress cards give you risk, but also might give you a lot of reward. You must play out the number of cards for the gear you are in. Sometimes that might mean playing a card that only moves you one. But if you’re on a straightaway, that isn’t that good for you. Moving one is only good around a corner if you come in with too high a gear.

Instead, playing out a stress card might be more helpful. They are supposed to be like a momentary lapse of judgement. Basically, you play out that card you and flip a random card from your deck. It is limited to what it can be, though. If I flip, I flip until I get one of my basic cards. So I know that the range can be from one up to four. So it might be worth it, of course, I might draw another one. Or I might draw a four that pushes me past a turn.

Turns

Before we kind of wrap up talking about the game in it’s parts, I want to talk about turns. Turns, as I’ve alluded to can give you heat. It’s pretty simple as to how turns work. As you reach a turn, it tells you how fast you can take that turn. I believe that the range of speed is as high of seven on some tracks and a low of two.

So as you reach turns, you need to maintain speed up to them, but then you need to shift down so that you can navigate the turn without going too fast. But if a turn has seven on it, and I go eight, I just gain a single heat card into my discard. So something that clogs up the deck, but not horribly. And if that gets me past a turn, it might be worth it. So it’s part of the push your luck of the game.

Basic Game vs Modules

So Heat offers you multiple experiences out of the box. You can play, and I recommend it, the basic version the first game. I ended up playing it the first two, just so that we knew what we were doing. That lets everyone keep their deck the same. It’s an even playing field and is a fun epxerience.

But as you gain comfortability with the game, you can add in modules. You might decide to add in weather which is going to affect how the track performs. Or there might be hazards or difficulties on the track you can add in.

But I think the big one is upgrades. Your deck contains twelve basic cards. Three of each card numbered one through four. In the basic game, everyone has a zero, a five, and an extra heat card that go into the deck. Drafting, those cards come out, and you pick your specific cards. Or you draft from cards three times so that you replace those cards. And the cards you draft might go faster, or offer more variability, or let you draft better. They change up how you might want to focus on the strategy of your game in a very fun way.

Plus, there are modules for racing a championship. So you might want to do that can run a few races. I haven’t played with those yet, but I’m planning on it.

Is It Fast?

So let’s answer the question that I asked at the beginning of the article. Is Heat a fast game? Often times racing games can run into an issue. I take my turn and my car moves. You take your turn, and if you play with five or six people, it can take a while to get back to my turn again. And that doesn’t feel like a car race. Watching Nascar, Indy, or Formula 1, they are all fast. And a car racing game should be fast.

I think that Heat improves upon this a lot compared to some other games. The first two phases, picking your gear and cards, those are done all at the same time. It’s only when you get to card play and moving distances that it goes in car order. And that is fast because it is just flip your cards and move that many spaces.

For the most part, I think Heat solves that issue. There might be some strategy or a couple of rounds in a game where it goes slower. Where someone wants to try and guess what other people have picked to get their right cards and right distance. But that is rare, so the game moves along well.

Who Is Heat For?

Heat is for people who want a fun racing game. It’s from Days of Wonder, so they tend to make more family weight games. They made games like Ticket to Ride, Small World, Five Tribes, and more. So it’s a racing game that I can pull off the shelf and play with anyone. I might not add in things like drafting or weather modules, but the base game is still a lot of fun.

That said, the game still works for more experienced gamers. It isn’t just a light filler game, there is strategy in what you are doing. And if you want to mess around with that you can. But it’s never so heavy and complex that it would keep more casual players from playing it.

Final Thoughts on Heat

I really like Heat. The expansion came out today and I pre-ordered it already. I want that seventh car and I want two more tracks. I’m sure it’ll come with more as well, but that’s mainly what I want from it. Heat works really well as a racing game, and I think it does hit that sweet spot of feeling like you are racing while not being too chaotic. But it’s also not bogged down int he game play either. For me all of that just works.

I do think that now that I’ve played with the drafting, I want to draft. Getting cards that really change up how you can attack the track is awesome. I might even teach with drafting. Especially if players are familiar with gaming at all. The drafting and those cards don’t offer too much additional complexity. But they add in just a little so that you can feel unique.

The one thing that I want to do is play with the dummy players. It is possible to play Heat solo. And maybe I’ll do that on a stream, or tonight, I might have some time to try it for myself. So my review is incomplete because I haven’t done that. But it would be fun to try that out and see how well that works for me.

Let me know your thoughts on Heat: Pedal to the Metal. Have you gotten it to the table? Do you enjoy it’s racing feel?

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A

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How To Play Frosthaven?

Scenarios

Frosthaven is very much like Gloomhaven with a few things added to it. Mainly around one phase of the game. In Frosthaven you are going out and exploring scenarios, dungeon crawls, where you are fighting enemies, looting treasures, and sometimes completing goals as well.

This is done through a card play system where you play out two cards. The cards are split into two halves, the top and bottom action. You can do the top or bottom action on either card you play, but you must do one of each. These actions are going to be how you move about the board or attack an enemy, primarily. There are other actions but they are less common and dependent upon what character you are playing. The most common one is that some characters will also have healing abilities.

Town

After a scenario you head back into town where a number of things happen. You activate buildings that you’ve gotten up and running in town. They might have an ability that triggers before anything else. The goal, is, as I talk about this, to not spoil anything.

Then you shop, level up, retire characters, craft potions, and more in town. This might not all be available immediately, but it will come available as time goes on in the game. Each of these actions can be done in any order by the players, so you complete a lot as you go.

Finally, as a group, you spend resources if you want and if you can to build a new building. Building up buildings or leveling them up is how Frosthaven is going to grow as a town. But once you do that, you complete the town phase and are ready to head out on your next scenario.

Frosthaven or Gloomhaven?

This is an interesting question. Mainly, do you need both Frosthaven or Gloomhaven. Or is either game that much better than the other one? I think that thus far there is one that I prefer, slightly. I think that Frosthaven is slightly better. But if you own Gloomhaven, it isn’t enough of a difference to go out and buy Frosthaven and not play Gloomhaven.

Frosthaven gets the slightly nod for me in a few areas. Firstly, the town phase adds to the game. I like what you do in town and I like that you get to decide how you grow your town. That means that how I play Frosthaven and how you go through it are going to be different.

The other areas are around the writing and scenarios. The scenarios are better written. But it is more than just that. There are more scenarios with other objectives. In Gloomhaven I kill everything and the scenario is done. In Frosthaven, that is still often the case. But there is more going on, often times, it is kill everything and complete this objective. Or I guard a location or attack a location in order to win. The main mechanisms are similar all the time, but there are more that provide more than just kill everything.

Is It That Much Better?

But what if you find Gloomhaven to just be okay. Is Frosthaven that much better that you need to get that?

No, Frosthaven, at the core, uses the same mechanisms. The card play and action system is the same for your characters. You find that is most of what you do in a game. The scenarios are still the major part. But now the world offers more choices in what you do. So as you play through, you develop more of a specific path for your group versus the game leading the way.

I think that is a major enough difference for me so that I can say that I like it better. But if you don’t like Gloomhaven and the mechanisms, it isn’t enough for the game. It is an extra 10% on top of the game. That isn’t going to cause the game to switch up on how it feels. 100% of the game of the Gloomhaven system is still in the Frosthaven system.

The New Stuff

I already wrote an article on the new stuff. And I even did a review just focused on that. If you want to see all about the new stuff, check that article out here.

Improving Old Stuff

I find that Isaac Childres and team also have improved on some of the old stuff. Mainly around the characters in the game. The balance feels better. And the mechanisms even on the starting characters is more. I remember Gloomhaven out of the box, characters feeling less interesting than the ones that we are playing now.

I think that some of that is there is an expectation that people know the system. Frosthaven doesn’t feel like it needs to teach everything in the game. It just needs to add in a little bit more and provide a different experience. It goes back to the question, do you need both. I think that Frosthaven, even with the characters, wants you to have both.

I appreciate, though, that the game is mix and match. So if I want to bring in a character from Jaws of the Lions, that is possible. If I want to play a character from Gloomhaven, I can do that. Will I do that, unlikely, but it is possible. Mainly from Jaws of the Lions, if we find that we’ve retired most to all of the characters, I think it could happen. But that is not that likely, nor are we close to doing that.

Final Thoughts on Frosthaven

I love Frosthaven. Clearly from what I’ve written about it, I think that it is just as strong as Gloomhaven. However, you won’t ever see it separate from Gloomhaven on my Top 100 Games (of all time) lists. Why, because the core of the game is the same. So there isn’t enough for me to say that what I do changes or that one game is massively better than the other one. Frosthaven feels like a continuation and iteration on Gloomhaven. And I think that is just fine.

For some, that might not be enough to come back to Frosthaven. If you like Gloomhaven but just beat it, or want to try a majorly different campaign, or maybe are burnt out on campaigns, Frosthaven is unlikely to be what you want next. It is, as I said, mainly still Gloomhaven. But if you love Gloomhaven, beat that campaign and you want a game that does more, but not so much that it feels harder or fundamentally a different experience, Frosthaven is for you.

My Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: C

Note, this is not a game that if you are a casual gamer you should jump into. I think once you understand the core loop and system of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven it isn’t bad to get going or continue in. There is a learning curve to that, though. If you play with someone who knows and likes the system, they’ll be able to ease that transition along. Or, grab Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion which has a tutorial built into the game to teach you how to play.

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How to Play Chomp

Chomp is an open drafting, tableau building, feed your dinosaurs game. And that should explain what’s going on, not really. Let’s start out with the goal. In Chomp you are trying to score the most points for having fed dinosaurs and points from goal scoring cards that you draft.

The game has a Point Salad style drafting mechanism. You have an open group of cards. Three of them are on the dinosaurs and the land. The other three are on scoring mechanisms. On your turn you take one of those cards. And the cards need to stay on the side that they are on.

The ones with the dinosaurs you play out into your grid or tableau of dinosaurs. You are trying to place it so that groups of like dinosaurs are together and fed. The carnivores need to be near watering holes where there is meat or herbivores that are the same size or smaller than them. And herbivores need to be near plants. Neither of them want to be near the tarpits, because even if they are fed, if they are adjacent to tarpits, in they go. But if you get a tarpit or something that won’t score for you, you can always layer your next dinosaur card over it in your tableau.

Then scoring cards will give you your own unique end game scoring. So you might get points for the big carnivores or the most dinosaurs at the edge of your tableau. Whatever it is, they add in additional end game scoring bonuses. And most points at the end of the game wins.

Dinosaurs vs Scoring

That, like in Point Salad, is the crux of the game. The difference is that Chomp is a much faster game. It is built to be a filler as you only draft nine total cards. So how many scoring cards do you want to take versus how many dinosaur cards.

The one difference between Chomp and Point Salad is that in Chomp you can still score points from the dinosaurs. It might be that you get most of your points from the dinosaurs if you can set it up so that your herds of dinosaurs are fed. I’ll talk about how that’s interesting soon. So it isn’t as much a cut and dry that you need to push for three to four scoring cards. That is about half your cards. Instead, you might build towards a couple of scoring cards and snag them when they score you good points.

Feeding the Herd

Another element of Chomp that I enjoy is how feeding the herd works. It makes knowing if a dinosaur is fed or not fairly easy. There is a hierarchy where if there is a tarpits, doesn’t matter if they are fed, they are dead. But otherwise if any dinosaur in a group of like dinosaurs is adjacent to the food source, the whole group is.

You might play a group of medium herbivores across five tiles or spaces, but as long as one is adjacent to food and they are all adjacent to each other, that whole group is fed. So it makes for a simple system. At the same time, if a carnivore is adjacent to a herd of herbivores and those are it’s food, it will make that whole herd extinct. So it makes for some good tableau building.

Game Speed

This is an area that I want to say is a bit more of a mixed bag for me. I like how quickly the game plays. When we sat down and learned it, we immediately shuffled up and played again. The game doesn’t take more than 15 minutes as a two player game. Longer with more players, but not long because while each player has options, they are limited and you don’t make decisions that many times.

That said, you also don’t make decisions that many times. Sometimes it is very obvious as to what the decision is that you should make. That isn’t to say that the game doesn’t offer decisions, but because it’s only nine cards and one of them is given to you at the start of the game, it moves quickly. And I like that about the game.

Who Is Chomp For?

Chomp is for people who are looking for a simple but fun filler game. It is fast, the decision making space is pretty light. But there is enough that it won’t be boring for someone who is looking for some decisions. I think it’s a good balancing act for that. And it’s a small box, as I’ve said before, if it’s a small box light, few decisions filler, it can stick around my collection.

Final Thoughts on Chomp

Firstly, I haven’t played it yet at all player counts. I want to play it solo and I want to play it at four. This isn’t a game, though, that I look at it and I think I must play it solo. Instead I look at it is a very fun filler experience which is honestly what I was hoping for from the game. The box is small, I didn’t expect something big and heavy. I expected something fun as I got to play out dinosaurs and have a good time with that.

And for me, the decision making space is just enough to keep the game interesting. You don’t know which scoring objectives are going to come up. But you might try and set-up some scoring objectives for yourself. There are decisions to be made in the game that it’s fun and it’s fast. And I don’t think I’d want much more to think about. I think the combination of the two things, feeding your dinosaurs and scoring cards, is enough to make it a unique puzzle every time.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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How To Play New Frontiers

The game is all about building up an engine to generate points. You do that by developing technologies, gathering and converting goods, and settling colonies. To do that you are doing one of several actions in the game hoping to build the best engine to get the most points. And each action is better for you, if you take the action. But everyone get’s to follow along and do it as well, there is just a benefit for you.

The game ends one of several ways. But the most common ways, that I’ve seen, are people settling planets or developing enough technologies. If you push either of them over past their limit the game is wrong to end at the end of that round of turns. Or you might end the game by running out of explorers to settle planets or victory points from the pool.

The Actions

Let’s talk a bit about the actions. They are the core of the game because that’s how you determine what is being done. On each players turn they pick an action to do. And that action generally has a benefit to the player if they are the one doing it.

There is a main core group of actions that you might take. And there are some additional actions as well, but there is what I would consider kind of a central loop of actions. Develop, produce, trade/consume, explore, and settle make up that core set of actions. There are additional actions that move you up in priority order, and add objectives for everyone to score to the game. But those are more minor actions that players take.

Develop

Developing is all about building out the new technologies. If you select that, you get a dollar discount as well, so it’s a benefit to be the one taking it. The technologies help in all of the other areas I’m going to mention. So what they are doing for you really depends on what you want to do in the areas below.

And as you gain more credits you can purchase more expensive and better technologies or discoveries. Including 9 cost ones which can provide a significant amount of your scoring if you’ve built and engine that leans into one of them.

Produce

The production action is kind of what you think it would be. It’s your chance to produce goods. Some of the planets produce goods, some produce windfall goods (only when you settle) and others don’t produce.

The goods come in different varieties. There are more expensive and less expensive goods. Though which good shows up more often on the planets, that I feel like is pretty evenly balanced. The development tiles, though, tend to offer more points or benefits for the less expensive ones.

Trade/Consume

Trade and Consume is all about taking those resources you got and turning them into points and money. You are always able to trade in a good for money. But that is only for a single good, not for as many as you want.

If you want to deal with more that you’ve produced, then you need to be able to consume. Consuming a good is one of the ways where you can gather points. Most goods have planets or development tiles that you can consume a good for a dollar and a point. So it might be less efficient in getting money, but a solid way to get points.

Explore

So how do you get the planets? That’s with the explore action, as you explore them, you aren’t settling them, you’re just finding planets that you want to add to your empire, by which I mean your engine. You pull seven (base game) or eight (with expansion out). And then in turn order, starting from the player who chose the action, you select a planet. The bonus is that the player who chose the action gets to select an additional planet.

Settle

Finally, in that core set of actions is settle. Settling is settling the planets that you’ve explored. Only once a planet is settled is it able to start producing or do you get it’s power. You need explorers to be able to settle. So if you take the settle action you gain a free explorer.

Everyone gets the rest of the options. You might take two explorers. Or the other option is that you can settle a planet. You either need to spend the credits and explorers to settle. Or you need to have enough military and explorers to settle. Planets either take one or two explorers to settle.

Level of Luck

I think that this is useful to talk about. I didn’t mention how you pick which planets are in the pool to explore from. And exploring is where the most luck shows up in the game. You draw out planets, it’s possible for it to lean heavily towards planets that need miliary or completely away from that. If your engine is built in a particular direction, that might not work for what you need.

But that’s about the level of luck. And the game, I’d say, if you explore, or that action is taken maybe 8-9 times in a game, you maybe have a single time where there isn’t something for you. So the luck level is pretty low.

I even have gone with a strategy that is all about developing. With that one, I was barely even needing to explore. My engine was just on the technologies. And those are all face up, so I could come up with a strategy that made a lot of sense and with basically zero luck. Once I was able to produce and consume at all, when other people took those actions, I was set.

Strategy Mix

I like how the game offers different strategies to play around with. For some paths it’s all about gaining military and once you get enough, it’s easy to conquer and settle almost any planet. I also, like I mention above, went with a strategy that didn’t care what planets I got. Generally, though, your starting planet is going to determine your initial leaning. And as long as the first couple of explores support it, it’s very possible to build up different strategies.

Some strategies, though, are harder than others. Some of them require specific keywords to really work. You get more points if you own planets with the word “uplift” on them, or you are best at fighting “rebels”. Generally these planets offset their rarity by offering more scoring. But the more specialized it is, the more potential for just a bad draw of planets.

Who Is New Frontiers For?

I think it’s for people who maybe wanted a slightly different experience or another experience like Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, Jump Drive, and Ares Expedition (not in the series of games). If you love the engine building and just want more this one is for you. It also offers a bit slower pace of play than some of the other ones on the list, while still being notably faster than Ares Expedition. But, I guess the simple way to put it is people who like engine building games.

Final Thoughts on New Frontiers

I do like engine building games. I was worried after two plays about the diversity of the strategy of New Frontiers. Then my third game I got set-up to go all in on development and that went great. The game is an interesting balance of trying to do everything, but the further in you get the more focused you want to be.

The one thing that I’d love in this game is to be able to build up an engine a bit longer. I’m not sure how to stretch the game out more, though. I often feel like my engine is just clicking for a couple of rounds before the game ends. Though, that is a nice thing about a good engine building game. You never feel like you’re just taking the same action because it makes the engine run best. Instead once you’re to that point or about to that point the game ends.

And I do like how New Frontiers has multiple end of game triggers. I think that handing out all the victory points path might be the hardest, we’ve seen all the others done. So I like how that works, and I do believe that victory points are possible to do. It just requires building a victory point engine versus a money engine or a settling planets engine.

Do you like New Frontiers?

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-

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New Elements of Frosthaven

Now, I haven’t experienced everything yet. We’ve started to see a bunch of it at this point. And a lot of it is around the town phase, so I’m going to spend most of my time talking about those areas. But it is really the area where most of the changes occurred. Gloomhaven had a little map where events occurred for the city. Here, there is no city, but a settlement that you can build up.

Loot Drops

To start the foundation of of the new things you need to know about the changes to loot drops. In Gloomhaven everything that dropped was money, a wolf, it has money. It’s a classic video game type of thing, that wolf just dropped a legendary set of armor. But Frosthaven works to fix that. You still get money, but it’s not the only thing that you get.

You get wood, metal, pelts, and various plants as well. And all of these have additional purposes. It isn’t just to be more thematic, which it is, but it’s also important for the other new things, which I’ll talk about below. I like that you don’t know what you’re going to get, you find a loot drop, you’re drawing from a deck of loot cards built specifically for that case.

Building Frosthaven

And let’s start with that town building. Town building is a blast, for me, because it gives another element to the game to plan around. Now your gold is basically just for you to buy items or upgrade cards with stickers. Instead you need to determine what you’re doing with all of your loot. It might, and generally does, take wood, metal, and furs to build up the town.

Without going into too many details on the buildings, we’ve started to get our city built up. Adding some places that help up produce resources as well as upgrading other places. One of the big elements is the walls, at times Frosthaven might be attacked, so you need to build up walls. But there are limiting factors to what you can build. You need to be able to push up the prosperity level as well, because otherwise you can’t build some walls, or buildings, or upgrade the buildings.

There is more to Frosthaven than just adding more buildings, but a lot of it is what the buildings give to you. Like I said, sometimes resources, and other times, it helps with other areas.

Crafting

One of those areas is crafting. With crafting it’s another spot to spend those resources that you collected. Again mainly the wood, metal, or hide that you’ve collected. And this is another way to get items. I like that it, again, gives you uses for more than just the money. You can buy items, but a lot of the items are crafted which means that it’s an area you need to think about.

As you can probably start to see, you need to consider what you are spending your resources on. And we just recently upgraded this building. It opens up more options and it opens up options that need other options. Not going into specifics, again, you might need a previously crafted item that you add onto to get the next “level” of the item.

Brewing Potions

Then there is brewing potions. This is new as well. Potions in Gloomhaven were another one of those things that you could just buy. Gloomhaven is a well established city, Frosthaven is not. So you need to brew your own potions. That’s combining items together that you’d gotten from looting.

The most fun element, in my opinion, is that you don’t know what you’re brewing. My character isn’t an alchemist, so how should I know what I’m doing. I’m basically mixing ingredients together and hoping that it turns into something good. I think as we unlock more we might start to speculate on a rhyme or reason, but we’ll have to see. Thus far what we’ve made has been good, but not always what we expected.

Final Thoughts

I like how well these new systems work. There is one downside, though, it’s added work. That isn’t a negative, unless, you want to get in two scenarios a night. We play from 7:30, probably starting at 7:45 really, until after 9 to get a scenario done. That isn’t too bad, just over an hour, but with the town phase it takes a bit longer so we don’t feel like we can complete two scenarios.

This isn’t all the town phase, though, part of it that isn’t new, but might be if you’ve only played base Gloomhaven, is the secondary map book. It’s to help with fog of war, that is fine. But it means during the scenario you need to setup a bit more. And that also adds to the scenario time. So small maps that we could probably get through in under an hour are going to take longer.

That’s the smallest of negatives for the game. If you want to play Frosthaven, you should already be onboard for a massive campaign game, possibly stretching over years. If you play more often, it might just be a year. This is a great game, it does what Gloomhaven does. It adds on to Gloomhaven’s lore, and creates its own lore as well. And there are still other new elements that I haven’t fully explored which I’m very excited for.

My Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: D+

(it’s just a lot for casual gamers)

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How to Play SpellBook

SpellBook is a game of collecting materia, basically components to use to cast spells or feed your familiar. So the main thing that you do is collect that materia in order to complete spells and get bonuses that will improve how you can cast spells or feed your familiar.

On your turn, and your turn is split into three parts, morning, day and evening, you do three actions. Each phase has two actions. Firstly, you can use a morning spell or collect materia. Then activate an day time spell or feed your familiar. Finally, an evening spell or learn a spell. Turns are pretty simple that way, just becoming more complex as you unlock more spells.

The trick, or one of them, is that you only can cast a spell once. Now, you can activate it more times, but you can only cast it once. So if I cast the blue spell and it’s a day action, let’s say, I can then use that spell at the level I cast it. But there are higher levels that might be better and I won’t be able to cast it at that level.

The game ends when someone has fully fed their familiar. Or when someone has cast all seven spells. Then everyone gets an equal number of turns and you tally up your points.

What Doesn’t Work

When I think of Phil Walker-Harding games, in particular Sushi Go Party!, there is depth there. But the turns are simple, you draft a card and once everyone has, you flip it out and play it. SpellBook is more complex than that. Now, it isn’t that complex because it lays out your actions clearly. But for some people, if they were hoping for a game to rotate in with Sushi Go Party!, they might be disappointed.

The same with the player count on this game. It’s a four player game, so unlike Sushi Go Party!, again probably the biggest frame of reference, it isn’t a game for large groups. Not a knock on the game, but a thing to acknowledge with people’s expectations.

Though, I will say, I think that this game compared to others, again Sushi Go Party! and Super Mega Lucky Box, it is a bit fiddlier. By that I mean that SpellBook just has more to keep track of. I wrote about the turn and what you can do. Well, there is also adding materia to a board, so really it’s four steps over your turn, and which ones you do offers a decision point each time. So it doesn’t fly along like you might expect it.

What Works

Now, to contradict some of my negatives, or really the preferences that people might have, I like that you have a number of choices on your turn. The biggest is getting that materia. Because that can set-up everything else that you do. And if you draw to blind, you might get exactly what you need, but it’s also worthwhile to build up an engine of actions to let you pick off the board and get exactly what you need.

Another huge thing about this game is what you’re going for in the game. There are multiple sets of spells. And it’d be easy to give SpellBook another expansion by just adding in another set or two of spells. Everyone always plays with the same spells, so how you activate them and complete them changes up your strategy. Some of that might be determined by what materia is out there, but some of it is looking at the spells and determining which one or ones are going to give you the engine you want to try.

And let’s talk about end game as well. Because the two different end triggers work well. I’ve had games where I went the familiar route. That gets you a lot of points, but it uses up a lot of materia. So you may not cast as many spells, which seems wrong for a game called SpellBook. But it is balanced so that you can go that way, the points will make it close and you might win. At the same time, if you build up a great engine of spells, you can complete them faster. So it gives you two real options to win the game and figure out how you want to do that.

Who Is It For?

I think that people who like Phil Walker-Harding games are going to find this one fun as well. I think it is a bit less streamlined than some. But not as a negative. It is almost a bit of a next step game for him. But not to the point where it is going to be too much or overwhelming for a player. Maybe someone who only plays a few games, but that’ll just be for a few turns, it shouldn’t be for a whole game.

So I think this is good game for playing with family and friends who might like board games but not play them too often. Or it may work well for a group who wants a bit more of a filler experience, but not a light mindless filler. In fact, it’s probably too long for a filler, but for a group who is playing a couple of heavy games in a day that last a long time, SpellBook would be a break in between.

Final Thoughts on SpellBook

I definitely enjoy this game. I think that figuring out the puzzle of how I want to collect and spend materia, whether that’s for a spell or the familiar is interesting. And I appreciate how well balanced it is. That isn’t to say that it’s a perfect game, but it’s one that I am glad I own. SpellBook is that nice weight that I’d say isn’t much more complex than a Ticket to Ride, but just a little bit more to offer a few more meaningful decisions.

And it is also a nice balance of luck, drawing out materia, and the ability to not focus on luck by how you complete spells. It might mean that you go slower to start to really get your engine going like you want, but that might be worth it in the end versus pushing your luck and hoping your draw the right colors. That is something I want to experiment with more.

Overall, I think that SppellBook will work for a lot of people. For heavier gamers, like a lot of Phil Walker-Hardings games it might seem too simple, but that is for gamers who like a lot heavier games. I think for most gamers it’ll be one that works well in a collection and offers good variety.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B-
Casual Grade: B+

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How To Play Cursed!?

In Cursed!? you’ve been cursed by a witch and you need to get her some souls before that curse will be lifted. If you can’t get her eight souls, you die. So, in this game, you are attempting to defeat monsters to get those eight souls.

To defeat monsters, you try and draw weapons from the top of the deck to hit the monsters number exactly. If you are under, you lose cards from the deck as damage. If you go over, you lose that card from your total and still take damage.

But don’t worry, it’s not all luck of the draw, you get items. You start with one and killing some monsters let’s you get another one. And the items on a 180 degree turn of the monster cards. So cards you’ve used for weapons, also on the monster cards, can now become the items that help you. If you get eight souls, you win the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

Cursed!? is a small push your luck game. Sometimes you will get luckier than other times. So if you really don’t like push your luck, this is going to be an easy game to avoid. Is this a negative of the game that it is a push your luck game, not really. The game is what is says it is, but if you don’t like push your luck, yes, it’s a negative for you and one you should avoid.

The one other negative that I have is that the game doesn’t give you many items. The mitigation of a bad draw or some manipulation is low in this game. Again, this ties into it being a push your luck game and really wanting to lean into that. I almost wish that more monsters gave you items and that the items weren’t as good. The items are great, when you get them, it’s just a matter of when you get them. And some items definitely seem to be better than others.

What Works?

Cursed!? is meant to pack a fun experience into a mint tin, think Altoids size, and I think it hits that small/compact nature well. I’ll save my final thoughts on fun until later. But it’s a small game with a very small footprint and a very fast play time. It’s one of those, pull out the game and play it in five minutes of downtime sort of experiences. It’s up there with games like Orchard, Grove, and Sprawlopolis for that, though a much smaller area needed to play than Sprawlopolis.

I also like that the game focused on a single area. This is a push your luck game. As I said, a negative for some people, but it knows it has a mint tin to play with and doesn’t try and add anything more. You could use a cube and a life tracker card instead of losing cards, but then you’d lose out on the variety of monsters, items and weapons because you’d have fewer cards. So I like that it’s all done off of the same deck of cards.

The items also add to the fun of the game. It makes you feel powerful at times. And I think it’d be cool to get more items. But, like I said, I think you’d need to limit the power of those items more. And I think that sometimes having that lots of power is fun, and it can push you over the edge sometime. It’s also one of those that you don’t want to keep the items too long because if it goes wrong it can go very wrong.

Who Is It For?

The solo gamer who is looking for more games that play in a small time. I think it’s as simple as that, if you don’t like solo games, it’s solo only. If you want only big solo games, it’s a pass. Overall, it’s going to be for that solo gamer, actually, get it for a holiday stocking stuffer, it’d be perfect.

Final Thoughts on Cursed!?

This is a fun game, it’s a small game, and it is a fast game. So for what I wanted it to do, it really does. And I think it’s not so light that you can’t play it again and again. Is it like Grove or Orchard where I play it a hundred times in a month, I’m not sure on that. But it is up there with ones that are so fast and simple that I can take them anywhere.

My Grade: B
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B

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How to Play Gap

Gap is a simple game where you play down a number and take the matching numbers. With those numbers you create groupings of colors, as each card will have it’s own color. Your goal, and score, is to create the biggest gap between the color you have the most of and the least of.

Like I said, you take the cards of the matching number. But if there are no cards that match your number, you select a card of the adjacent number. And if you don’t have an adjacent number or a matching number, you add a card to the row.

You play Gap over a number of rounds. At the end of each round everyone tallies the biggest gap between a color you have the most of and the least of. And that score is added to the previous score until a point threshold is hit. In the round the point total is met, the player with the most points wins the game.

What Doesn’t Work

This is an interesting game because after several plays, I think there are some elements that don’t work super well. Firstly, at higher player counts, Gap is a game of luck. And I like some luck in a game, but Gap becomes a game purely about luck of what is out there for you to take. There is no strategy to what you are taking, or minimal at best. You might try and set yourself up to get as much blue as possible, but if someone else is taking blue, you might be unlucky when it flips out.

I also think at higher player counts, the game is too long. A short game, I believe, is to 15 points. 15 points is too long at higher player counts because of that randomness. It is common in a lower player count game to score one or two points as the top scorer in a round. And that, shockingly, can make for a long game. I think at five or six players, I would play to a round total, say four rounds, and whoever has the most points then wins. That is an alternative rule that they call out, but I think, generally, that is a better rule

What Works

Turn Speed

Now, I talked about game length being too long at higher player counts. I do think that turn speed is in the favor of this game. Gap is a game where it keeps moving quickly. Your choices are limited to what cards are available to pick up. It’s a group of four cards, or sometimes at the end of the game more, to create that gap from. So even at higher player counts, it is a very quick moving game around the table.

Scoring

Another area where I think it could have gotten bogged down in rules or slowed the game up is that the scoring is simple. You look at the color you have the most of and the color you have the least of, but that you do have. And you must have a color in play in front of you to score it. So that is very simple. And it is set up to keep the game moving. I see worlds where it is the color you have the most and second most of where that would slow the game down more.

In fact, this is a great piece of strategy to the game. You collect as much of all the colors you want, except for one, so you get the biggest gap possible. I like that twist on the game. It reminds me, in some ways, of Parade. The mechanisms are very different but collecting colors and a scoring puzzle or strategy to improve your scoring is clever in Gap as well.

Lower Player Count

Finally, I like Gap probably best at lower player counts. To bring up another game, Ohanami is like this where strategy greatly changes depending on player count. Gap is the same way because at higher player counts it is random, mainly. But at lower player counts, you can interfere with what your opponent is doing. Or you play a more strategic game overall for when you grab colors, and how you play around what is or isn’t on the board. I wish that were the case at higher player counts but understand that a lot of card games are this way with more players, or at lot of games really.

Matching Number of Adjacent Number

With the strategy, I like that you do have a choice as you play down. You either can play down a matching number to take all the matching numbers. Or for an adjacent number. And you don’t need to play down a matching number if you don’t want. So you decide the speed, potentially, that you add cards in front of you for scoring. But, if you can add a card for scoring via a match or adjacency, you must.

Who Is This For?

Gap is one of those games where I feel like it’s a holiday game. It’s the game you take to your grandparents and play with your cousins at Christmas time or whatever holiday. It’s what you take on summer vacation because you want a game but not a big game.

But, because of it’s length, it isn’t a filler game. Maybe at two players it is, but it’s a sit down and play a simple game while you chat over an hour. That is what Gap is to me, and I think that really describes the group and setting that Gap makes the most sense.

Final Thoughts on Gap

This is one that I find interesting. I both enjoy the game and find it to just be okay. I like Gap for what it is. When I describe the situation to play it above, I know exactly who I might play it with. And, actually, I am going to see my parents in under a week, this is a game that I likely will take up with me. It is simple but there is just enough.

It is also a game I wonder about with games like Ohanami and Parade in that same group. Is there room to play Gap over those games? Right now the answer is yes, there is room. It is a new game, but over time, is that going to be the case. I wonder this about a lot of games. For me, it is a bigger question with Gap because, I think I’d want it to be a game that plays well at all player counts. And I think it likely just hits a limited range for players.

Still, the game is fun, and the game knows what it is. It comes in a flashy box that doesn’t pretend to be a big strategic game to play. For that reason, I enjoy Gap quite well.

My Grade: B
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B+

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