Top 5 Allplay Games

5. Chomp

This one is just a fun little game. I like the simplicity of picking a car and trying to create dinosaur herds. Of course you need your dinosaurs not to die off, so that is a whole element of the game. But the game is, like so many Allplay games, fast to play and easily to follow and learn. That’s a hallmark of their games, and I won’t mention it again because it’s true for all of them on the list. Chomp works because it’s a fun system with fun cards and a fun theme. It’s not the thinkiest, but not all games need to be.

4. Mind Space

Next up is Mind Space. One area that Allplay has only a couple of forays into is roll and write games. But The ones that they do are a lot of fun. Mind Space is about mapping your mind, though the theme doesn’t really matter. It’s about putting various colors onto the board to score points. Of course there are rules as to how you place and you get bonuses as some points in time.

One element that I really enjoy about the game is the flowing system of cards. Shapes hop onto the flow and then each round progress one spot further down. So you know that a shape might be getting close to going off the flow so you need to grab it now if you need that color. Of course, you also need to hope that the color you want is the one rolled there.

3. Mountain Goats

This one I need to play my physical copy, but I love playing it on Board Game Arena. The game play is simple, you just roll dice and climb up paths with your mountain goats. When you get to the top, you get points. When another mountain goat gets up to you, it bumps you back down.

This is just a filler game, but it’s one that’s fun. And I said I wasn’t going to mention it again, but that’s what Allplay does well. I think it works especially well here in Mountain Goats because there’s the excitement of how long can you stick at the top and keep getting points before you get knocked down. And you can stay up longer, because it’s a longer climb on smaller points, but of course, it might be better to grab the big points instead.

2. River Valley Glassworks

This one is new as of this year. But I really like River Valley Glassworks. I think that it works as a solo game. And I think that it works at two or at four or at five. Every player count works well. And that is not something that can be commonly said about games. Most of the time they find a spot they work the best, and there might be an ideal, but there isn’t a bad player count.

The game is simple, put down a piece of glass and collect adjacent glass. But it’s so much more than that as you need to plan out your scoring attack. You score columns and rows. But which you focus on, and how much you focus on both is the question. And the scarcity of glass colors as well is fun. Plus the shapes mattering to collect glass and colors matter when placing it on your board. There is a bunch going on for a fast game.

1. On Tour

My favorite is the other Allplay roll and write that I can think of. And this one is about making a route, low to high, for your band to travel. It’s a fictional band, but you’re basically trying to place dice combinations, 1 to 100, on your board so that you can make a pathway that is always getting higher. The concept is simple, but the game play and execution is a ton of fun.

It’s one of those games, too, that I like where at the beginning you feel like anywhere works. You place a number do, you feel like you can connect it. At the end of the game as decisions become tougher, you also have fewer spots to play. So it’s that nice balance of when the game could lock up, you already find yourself limited in options.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy Allplay for the most part. A few games I find just to be okay. Kabuto Sumo is an okay game. Big Top, I think I could have fun with that, but it wasn’t my favorite. But games I like such as Pollen, Dandelion and others miss the list. And there are still others like Couture and Ghosts of Christmas that I want to play really badly. Or a whole mess of trick taking games as well from them.

Of course, not all their games are going to be for everyone. But for me, they are very consistent. And I think that consistency is going to tell you if you’d like them or not. Because once you play one or two, you’ll know what type of games they are. And you will find out if Allplay is a company for you.

What’s your favorite Allplay game?

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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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Via Kickstarter

Let’s start here because there are a number of note. A quick rundown on these will be good, but a number of them I already talked about in Back or Brick.

Once Upon a Line – The Butterfly’s Breath

This one I wanted to back because it looked incredibly different. It talks about how it is so new with it’s scratch off stuff for a board game. That isn’t “new” but to build a whole game around it is definitely is. This is an adventure game where you try and scratch off words or shapes to progress story. The concept just sounded fascinating, but also like it was pretty straight forward.

For that reason I didn’t go all in on this one. There is going to be plenty of content in the base game. But I didn’t have enough confidence in the game beyond the interesting mechanic to say that I wanted it all. But I also think that this game is unique, so I want to try it.

Marvel United: Multiverse

It’s more Marvel United, of course I backed it. Marvel United: Multiverse really describes the core box. But, the rest of the expansions, around events like Age of Apocalypse, Annihilation, or Civil War, and there are more as well, are very interesting.

Plus the game adds in a few news things as well. Mainly it adds in equipment cards that you can swap in generically or for specific characters. And then campaign decks as well which will change up how you can play a series of games. I like that idea for the game. And while I still want a dungeon crawl style game with these characters, CMON did a great job of offering so many fun things.

Catharsis Sagas: Nocturne

This, honestly, was not going to be a back because I have to play Catharsis still. The game does look like a ton of fun, so I want to get it to the table and chuck some dice. But do I need more, the answer is really no. But it is cheap, so I grabbed it. It is more adventure for Catharsis and new characters to face off against, or play as, I’m not completely sure anymore as this one has wrapped up. And when a crowdfunding campaign wraps up, I kind of forget about it between updates.

Fork

This is a small back, as was Catharsis Sagas. Fork is a trick taking game where Fork stands for Fox, Owl, Rabbit, and Kale. And depending on what you play down, it determines who wins. The concept seems simple, but like there is enough game there and enough different of a twist to trick taking that I wanted to give it a try.

Stonesaga

I am lucky enough to know one of the designers and game with him often. So this is one I got to playtest already and actually get to see the prototype this past weekend at The Source in Roseville Minnesota. But this is a fun survival exploration game as you build up your society, gather food, and try and survive.

It is played in a legacy type of experience. So you create your character(s) throughout the game and develop the society your way. I think that the mini games you play are good and easy to follow what is going on. It isn’t a cheap game, but the components are nice and there is a lot in the game.

Chomp, Sail, Couture, and Mind Space

Finally, from All Play (used to be BoardGameTables.com) there is a set of four small games. Chomp, Sail, Couture, and Mind Space. Each of the games looks interesting. And I backed it for all of the games. A couple of reasons for doing that, the games do all look interesting. I am least interested in Couture, but when you want to get three of them, it is better to get all four because you get the upgrades for free.

Chomp has a fun dinosaur theme. Sail is trick taking, and Mind Space is a roll and write game. So I am definitely interested in how all of those will work. And Couture is an auction game which might be very interesting. It just jumped off the page less to me than the other ones did.

Gamefound

Gamefound is generally slower than Kickstarter. Though there are some good projects on there that I backed as well.

Arabella

This is an interesting one for me to have backed. It is a roll and write game, I love roll and write games. There isn’t anything interesting about that. But it is an 18xx train, stock game as a roll and write game. I don’t play 18xx games. They don’t interest me that much because it’s really a whole system to learn and get good at. And the people who are good at them are very good at them. Plus, probably one that is harder to play.

But as a roll and write game. Now it is a more interesting to me. I like the idea of taking a big game like that and making smaller. It might still take a while, but it won’t take as long. And I hope that it offers a very big and different roll and write experience.

Witchbound

Witchbound is another one that I got to preview and one that I am very excited for. This and the next one are two similar games. But Witchbound is a game where you are the first witch on Coven Cove in over 100 years. And it is a point and click adventure as you interact with people and locations and solve puzzles, fight bad guys and more.

What I like about this one, besides the fun theme. Is that it is a simple gaming experience with a lot of story. So I can pull it out as a solo game and play around with minimal setup. Plus then a good amount of story with minimal setup which I think is a lot of fun and a sweet spot that not too many games are in, Lands of Galzyr being the best example I have.

Robomon

Finally we have Robomon. This is one that I almost backed when it was active and then I late pledged. But Robomon is basically a Pokemon game with robots instead of creatures. But it looks like a simple adventure game, and while there is more going on mechanically than Witchbound, my hope is that it’s not too much.

The style of game and the artwork in the game work for me as well. Again, I hope it is a sweet spot of story but also then good game play and ease to get to the table. Another game that I hope is a good easy to the table game with story that is fun to play.

Final Thoughts on Crowdfunding

I picked back up some of what I have been backing. A few reasons for that, but mainly, I knew there would be a few bigger games to start the year that I wanted to back. I know that in March there is going to be another one with the Chip Theory Elder Scrolls game.

What games will you be adding to your collection that you’ve backed in the past few months? Any ones that I maybe missed that you should I should checkout?

One that I had backed and dropped my pledge is Andromeda’s Edge. I want it still, but space Dwellings of Eldervale. While that sounds fun, and I am sure it is more than that, do I need two games that are going to be similar? I ended up deciding no on that one.

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