How To Play Trekking Through History

Trekking Through History is a time travel game where you are exploring history over three days. Each day makes up one of your rounds. In each day you spend twelve time or more to gather cards and experiences and add them to your timeline. That is most of the game, whomever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. And we’ll talk about the different ways to get points next.

Getting Points

You get points in two main ways, though there is a third that I’ll touch on briefly first. Those ways are ending your day at exactly twelve time, filling in your daily travel itinerary, and creating runs of time travelled from oldest to newest.

So we already completely covered the first. That is just ending your day with exactly twelve. Let’s talk about the itinerary next. Each day you get an itinerary that has four different columns. Each column corresponds to a different type of event that you can find in the timeline. So as you select your next event to add to your timeline, you need to get events that will give you the right tokens. You fill in tokens on your sheet from top to bottom. Some of the spots give you points for covering them. Others give you points if you complete a row. And there is one more resource we’ll talk about soon.

The other way is by creating a run for your timeline. When you grab a new card you always need it to be more recent than your previous one you grabbed. If it is, you add it to your run of cards. If it isn’t you start a new run of cards. But you keep the old run of cards as well. At the end of the game you score each of your runs of cards. If it’s a single card you lose three points, two you get zero and then it keeps going up from there.

Turn Order

The final thing I want to talk about is turn order. I talked about the twelve time that you can spend. You actually can spend over that, but you always stop at twelve on the time track. And as I mentioned, if you like it up correctly and stop right on twelve you get a bonus three points.

Each card you take, beyond having the different tokens, is going to make you spend an amount of time. There is a resource you can get, time crystals that let you reduce the time. So what does this have to do with turn order?

Well, whomever is furthest back on the clock, the time tracker, gets to go next. And if you spend time and land on a spot with someone else, you go on top of them. So then the player on top of that stack is going to go next. The time crystals allow you to reduce your time so that you are able to go multiple turns in a row.

Then, at the end of the game, whomever has the most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a pretty light game and there is a decent amount of luck to it. Especially in lower player count games the cards for the timeline don’t change that much. So it is possible that in the beginning you get a card that is way back in time, in the BCE (Before Common Era) range and then you need to jump up a long ways and create a gap. So as players you are somewhat dealing with the luck of the cards.

What Works

Firstly the simplicity of this game is great. And not only the simplicity, but one of the things I talk about with a lot of games, the speed of the game play as well. A few turns might take a bit more time. And this is because you want to get the right tokens to optimize your itinerary for the day. But for the most part, most of them are fast, and the game as a whole, three rounds, is really fast as well.

But with that simplicity of what you are doing, I really like that they add in the itinerary. If it is just a game of collecting times and putting them into your timeline in order, that is not super interesting. But the addition of the itinerary gives you that one thing to think about that keeps the game from feeling too simple. How do I get the tokens I need to hit that next big scoring objective is pretty commonly a thought in my head. So I am able to plan out my turns a little bit that way.

And the time crystals are fun as well. They are a resource that is worth a point at the end of the game. But it is almost always better to use them in the game. Why, because it helps you set-up your timeline and it helps you get more cards for that run. It’s another simple thing, but manipulating the turn order is a lot of fun with them. And it can lead to some big swings in your advantage if you do it right.

Who is Trekking Through History For?

This is going to be a game that will be light for a lot of people I’m sure. I find it light as well and I’ll talk about that more. But this is a great game for families in a ton of ways. Firstly, the game play is easy enough to play with kids. I think that even pretty young kids could start to figure it out. And easily by the time your kid is eight, this is a game that you could play.

But the other big reason that this is such a great family game is that it teaches history. Each card, on the back, is going to tell you about the historical event that the card is depicting or the person on the card. It is an amazing opportunity to play a fun game and learn.

Final Thoughts on Trekking Through History

I find Trekking Through History to be a very enjoyable game. It is easy to teach, learn, and play. And sometimes that is an important thing for a game night. Add in the history that you learn form it, and that is a great added element to what you are doing in the game. Plus the game offers just enough to be a solid game as well. There is just enough strategy in filling out the itinerary to keep me engaged and just enough manipulation of the time track with the time crystals.

I suspect a number of people would find this game too simple. And I get that, it is simple but it is a game with a very specific focus for why it was made. It is a chance to play a game and learn about history and engage as a kid and as a family. My kid is not quite old enough to play it yet. But I’m excited for the time when I can use this to help him keep learning and have a fun time doing so. There is more to this than the game Timeline, which can do the same thing, but not a ton more.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 6

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How To Play Ramen! Ramen!

Ramen! Ramen! is a pretty simple game with how it plays. On your turn you will add ingredients to two of the three ramen bowls. Your goal is to collect bowls to score which is done by either getting the total of the cards to be 14 or higher. Or to get all seven ingredients into one bowl.

The trick to the game is that you can only place one ingredient per bowl. So if I put down the 6th ingredient into a bowl, I am doing that off of the assumption that you don’t have that 7th ingredient type. If you do, you can score that bowl. Much of the game is trying to set it up so that your opponent will give you an bowl with a number of ingredients in it.

The game ends when all of the cards have been played out. Players then score each bowl separately based off of the number of different ingredients in it. The more ingredients the higher the scores, and the total of all the bowls that is highest is the winner of the game.

What I Don’t Like?

Firstly, I should say, I have only played this game at two. I am not sure that I would want to play it at the full four. Part of the fun of the game at two is that I can really try and set you up to give me something. At a higher player count, it is going to be more random than that. Maybe at three players I can keep stuff far enough from being scored that it could come back to me, but that’s questionable. And at four players, I’d just be worried about not setting up the person after me. So I think this is probably best at a two player game.

That’s not a major complaint, though it does fight against other two player games. And not a major complaint either is that the rules are a bit odd for the game. The game is very easy to play and understand. But when you end your turn, you replenish your hand. That is normal. To do so, you take one card from a face up group of cards, flip out another card to that group so it’s back to four. And then you draw blindly from the top. They turn that end part into three steps. You could just pick a card and draw off the top then flip out a card. It’d be the same thing and easier to remember.

What I Like?

Ramen! Ramen! plays fast, and I like that. The turn angst isn’t there that much. You have three bowls and four cards. And you will only use two of the cards. So there is some decision space, but it’s not too overwhelming. Once we learned the game better, it slowed down slightly, but generally that was not much and just on a few pivotal turns where we were trying to give your opponent as few points as possible.

I also find it interesting how defensive this game is. And I kind of enjoy it. I don’t like playing other games, Magic The Gathering, for example, defensively. But since Ramen! Ramen! is so fast and simple to play, I like it better here. When I pull off a play that makes my opponent get way less points than they were hoping that’s fun. Or when I can set it up so that my opponent can’t help but give me bowls, that is fun. It’s a much simpler version of Hanamikoji that way.

Who Is This Game For?

I could also put it this way. What niche might it fill for a gaming collection. Because this is very much a filler game. If you want something that has pretty simple decisions, but interesting decisions this is not a bad game. Especially if you are playing with more casual gamers.

This is definitely a game that leans more towards a casual gamer. I think that heavier gamers will find it way to light. It is also a game that is going to work well for someone getting into gaming. If they like board game and have played simpler card games, this won’t be a hard one to pick up. In fact, it is possibly a decent alternative to some of the more classic card games you find in Target and such.

Final Thoughts on Ramen! Ramen!

This is a fun game, one that I wouldn’t recommend to everyone, though. It depends on the type of gamer you are and more so on the types of people that you game with. I think that there are a going to be a number of people who find it too light.

But for me, that lightness works. I do think it’s a game that might end up getting moved on from after a bit, though. The game doesn’t change massively from play to play. But then again, either does Hanamikoji. If I wanted to keep something simpler for two players, or maybe for more, on h and, I could see Ramen! Ramen! sticking around. Or as I play it enough times it might leave like Tsuro did.

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

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Heavy vs Medium vs Light Weight Games

Let’s start with something that I’ve talked about before, but I want to talk about it in a different way. I want to talk about it from the point of view of an experienced gamer. This came up in a conversation last night when talking about Catan and how influential Catan was and whether or not Catan is a good game. But it applies to game weight as well. When I first played Catan, and for a lot of us this will be the case. As we play more games, now Catan feels much lighter, much more random, much more mass market.

And Catan goes from when we first played it, a medium weight game, into a light weight game. And that is because of our shifting perceptions of gaming. At this point in time, I could learn and teach Catan for the first time in a few minutes, the game isn’t that complex for me. However, when I was learning it back then, it was different. There wasn’t the oral history and teaching of a game that naturally occurred with Clue, Monopoly or Uno. And Catan is more complex or as complex as those games.

What’s the Point?

I do have a point with all of that, I think that often as people in the gaming hobby versus people getting into the gaming hobby, weight can vary drastically. For example, I play a ton of games but a war game that is a 2.5 is going to feel way heavier to me because it is outside of game types I know how to learn. But for a war gamer, a war game with a 2.5 out of 5 weight wouldn’t be hard to learn.

So weights of games change depending on the experience level of the gamer. The more that you play, the lighter games will become, because the more you will know how games work and how to learn games. To pull another example of how this works, Gloomhaven is not a complex game to me, at least in how it plays. But for even a lot of experienced gamers, that is a lot to learn. So be helpful to new players and try and understand their weighting and understanding of games.

Family Weight/Gateway Games

Now a good way to get around those light/medium/heavy debates is by calling a game family weight or gateway. These two can be slightly different as an older group of people can probably handle something slightly heavier, but there will be overlap.

A family weight or gateway game is the one that you’d take to play with your family. Can you teach the game to your parents, aunts, uncles, or maybe they’re gamers, so some other group of non-gamers easily. Where the difference between family and gateway could arise is that family is going to imply for most people it’ll be a topic/style/text that is family friendly as well.

These are the games like Catan though, the ones that I might find to be super light now. So I don’t need to say that it’s a light game or an easy to learn game, because it might not be. I can call it a gateway game which makes it feel friendlier when someone is learning. Calling it light and someone not getting it makes them feel inferior, but the nomenclature of gateway, that has a very different feel.

Filler Games

Next we go onto filler games. What is a filler game you might ask? That’s a game with a quick to the table and play time. It is a game you can pull out of the box and get played with a number of people in a few minutes while waiting for another game to wrap up or more people to show up. These games don’t always add in a ton of strategy to them, instead they are meant for making fast decisions and getting onto the next turn. These games are often so fast that we don’t really consider them in gateway or family weight categories because it’s less about playing it to teach new people.

What About More?

Well, there are a lot more types of games out there. I talk about a lot of them over the years and they can be found over here and more topics on board games. I think that there is a lot of interesting game types to talk about and I can dive into them more.

But this topic of game weights and kind of the different types of lighter games as interesting to talk about. I skipped party games because I tend to think people who are looking for light or gateway games have already played a lot of party games. And there is certainly a wider world of games that can be jumped into as people play more games.

I also wanted to talk about it this because I do see people often encouraging new players to get bigger and more complex games. I think it’s a good reminder for myself and for other more experienced board gamers to remember the board games that we started out with. Even if Catan wasn’t our gateway game, we all had some game like that which we started with.

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Pros

• Solid Price for Deluxe
• Can Get Everything
• Cooperative Game

Cons

• Game Can Be Really Easy
• Shipping to some locations

The Page

Fireside Games has done a very good job on this page. I feel like they have some advantage with that because this is a game that already exists. I first found out about this game when it was on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop show. I fact, I was so interested in the game, I picked it up. You can see my TableTopTakes review here.

Let’s talk about the upgraded pieces, because those are a big deal. That is what is selling this campaign, because the base Castle Panic, that hasn’t been hard to find. The plastic monsters look cool, or the wooden tokens. Mainly I am noticing the updated art. The art on the original Castle Panic has okay art, but this one, it has much better looking art. It isn’t serious art, but it is a good for a light cooperative game you can play with your family.

The Game

The game itself is a good time. This is one that I have in my collection, though, I haven’t played it in a while. Why is that, it is because the game is easy. Castle Panic is a cooperative game that is meant for families. I think I have played it around ten times, and I probably have beat it nine of those times. That is too often for me to win a cooperative game.

So why is it still in my collection? Castle Panic is a step above kids games. This is on par with games like Ticket to Ride, Catan, Splendor and more of those family-weight games. So I’m keeping it in my self for when I can pull it out to play with my kid as he gets older, but also for people who I am maybe introducing board games too. Pandemic would have been my go to cooperative game, but some people might prefer the theme be a little bit different and a fantasy tower defense is different.

Back or Brick

Is this a Back or a Brick for me? This is a Brick. Now, would I recommend this game to new gamers, I would. This is a fun cooperative game. However, I don’t know what I’d recommend this fancy version. Unless someone loves the game, I don’t see the value in it. The cost is very good and shipping to continental US is great. However, for more serious gamers who are playing more complex games, unless you know you like it or know you have a group, I don’t recommend this. It is clearly doing well, but it is a specific audience that I would recommend it for.

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Game Play

In this game, you are trying to defeat some villain, in our case it was Red Skull. They have their plan, Red Skull is trying to create havoc and get Hydra to take over, and they have placed threats all around the city. As the heroes you are going around, fighting his minions and thugs, doing heroic actions to thwart his plans and rescue bystanders all so you can get to the point where you can punch Red Skull and take him out.

To do this, you are playing cards out on your turn that do one to two actions. These cards either have you moving, punching, a heroic action, or maybe a combination of some of those. There are also cards with wilds on them. Now that doesn’t seem like much, but you also get to use the symbols on the cards of the person before you. So in our game, if Ant-Man did two heroic actions, and the Wasp played a wild, she’d get to do two heroic actions and then an action of her choice.

Every third player turn, the villain goes. The villain actually starts off the game as well, they will move, possibly, around the board and then do several different things. There are bam effects that they do, this might be doing damage, or advancing their threat. If they ever complete their goal, they win, if they don’t have any more scheme cards to draw, they win, if a hero has no cards in their hand or to draw, they win.

Initial Thoughts

This is a very light weight cooperative game, and that’s not really a negative, it’s just a fact. Marvel United is meant to be a game that’s played by families or with people who aren’t as much gamers, but the Marvel theme appeals to them. This is what I was expecting from the base game, and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I already can tell that I’d definitely recommend this game to families with younger children as well, because most of the cards don’t have text on them, and the board even has a limited amount of text that kids will probably learn after a few plays of it.

There is also a good amount in the box. You get 3 villains and 7 heroes in the base box, so you have a lot of different combinations that you can play. We picked Ant-Man and Wasp because they are a team-up group, obviously, and also because their minis are great with Wasp taking off from or alighting upon a die, and Ant-Man getting ready to leap off of a quarter. But all of the minis are great in the game, Red Skull is a little boring, but in all fairness, he isn’t the most dynamic looking character. And in the base box, you have a lot of great heroes, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Black Widow round out the rest of them, so you have a great variety to play from.

I also like that each hero has a normal selection of cards ranging from heroic actions to punches, to maybe a move and a punch, but they also have three unique cards to them. These cards do have a bit of text on them, but are really the cards that give them flavor. Ant-Man, for example had a card that is called Quantum Realm that has no symbols on it, but it allows him to go back through the cards that he’s played and swap that card with any of them. Or he has a card where he shrinks which means that he can’t take damage for a turn, or grows so he can punch one villain really really hard.

As a negative, I think base box only, it has enough game play for a family game, but for hobby gamers, you’ll miss not having at least an expansion for the game. This is meant to really be that retail version that you can pull off of the shelf at Wal-Mart or Target because you see it there, and it won’t be too much to play. The expansions, according to what I’ve heard, are supposed to add in more interesting game play and challenges that might be a bit tougher and more gamer.

Final Thoughts

This is a fun game that for me is going to need more. However, I have more of this game coming. And even without more, I had a fun time playing it, and I think it’ll be a game that’s good for a ton of people. If you have kids who are interested in Marvel movies, cartoons, comics, whatever it might be, this is a great option of a game to get them, I should have said that pre-Christmas. If you know someone who isn’t a gamer who likes Marvel, they might like this game as well. It really should be an evergreen recommendation for a family weight game, and then the expansions, when they come to retail, people can pick and choose if they want more. Overall, though, a good experience playing Marvel United and a game that I want to play again and play with more.

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Pros

• Theme
• Aesthetic
• Mechanics
• Game Difficulty
• Price and price options

Cons

• Theme

The Page

I love this page, they do a great job on it and honestly, I could just look at that artwork all day. Shawna JC Tenney’s artwork is just beautiful and it fits so well for the theme and the weight of the game. This is not a heavy Euro, you are not fighting for spots on the board in hopes that you’ll be able to do what you want to.

They also have a ton of previews for the game as well. And I know it says reviews in there, but assume that anything on a Kickstarter page is always going to be more of a preview. If it were a review and it was negative, they won’t put it up on the page. So maybe checkout Board Game Geek for reviews. But that’s about the only knock that I have on the page.

The Game

This is a company with pedigree for creating good and interesting kids games and family weight games. And this game looks like it falls in line with that. The mechanics are pretty standard Euro but with a bit of dice rolling to supplement what you are trying to do. I like the idea of crafting things and building up a tableau of things in front of you to score points.

What it also does, and I commented about it above is that it’s friendly in your worker placement spots. There are generally three types of worker placement games, ones that don’t limit where you can go, ones that allow you to bump someone from a spot – generally giving them a benefit, or ones where only a limited number of people can go. This one is the friendly type where anyone can go anywhere which really does help keep it in that family weight game.

Back or Brick

For me, this is going to be a brick. Now, that seems weird considering how much I’ve been positive about it. But I’m looking for a spot for it on my shelf. Will it replace those introductory family weight games that I already have, I’m not sure. Is it one that will get played much right now or even in the next few years as I have a 2 year old, not a kid who is ready to learn a game like this, I don’t think it will. I think this is probably a really good game that most people will enjoy, and I think if you back it you’ll like it, for me, this is just not the right time for me to back a game like this one.

How about for you, is this a back or a brick?

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Pros

• Look of the game
• Weight of the Game
• Price
• Pretty Pretty Dice

Cons

• Luck factor

The Page

This is a company that understands how kickstarter works, and they’ve done a good job on their game page. They have nice images and the game really pops visually when looking at it. I like that the how to play is at the top of the page, I only wish there was a little bit more detail than the rules prototype link and a link to a video. It talks about how the caskets can benefit the players in multiple ways, but doesn’t say more than that. Otherwise, everything is laid out really well and looks interesting to me.

The Game

The game itself, like I said, I have a general idea of how to play it, and it looks like a game that would be one that would work well for my gaming group. There’s some push your luck, it seems fairly light, so I think that all would work well.

Visually, as I keep on saying, this pops on the table, so I think people would be interested in it for that reason as well. And kind of like with food, you consume board games first on their looks a lot of the time, and this one looks like a feast.

Again, I will come back to the how to play section, you get a general idea of how the game works, but it should have more information. We’re seeing a lot of what you can do, but not any of the why or why it matters. And there are some elements, like the “ofrenda” that are mentioned as something that can be used, but nothing more than that. Either do or don’t tell me what I component does or what an element is, don’t just toss it out there as it’s something but we won’t explain it like it feels.

Back or Brick

For me, this is a back. And I’ll probably do the one to get myself access to the pledge manager just to decide because I know there are a few more games I’m interested in this year. That said, what sells me on this game is their attention to detail with the artwork and how everything seems to tie correctly into the Mexican culture and they are very careful about that, but with all of that, they still created a fun game, it isn’t just a history or culture lesson. I think that the game group would enjoy the push your luck and manipulation of the caskets that seems to be in the game and it feels like while there is luck there’s also a fair amount of strategy.

How about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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10 – Ascension
Now, a lot of people would have Dominion on this list, but I have an issue with Dominion as an intro deck building game. An experienced player can look at the combination of cards and quickly see the best combo, a new player will not get that strategy for a while, and therefore can be stomped. In Ascension because there isn’t a fixed market of cards, I think it works better as an gateway game. And the fantasy theme is as interesting to new gamers as a middle ages theme, so either works for that. In Ascension you are building up your deck of cards and creating combos, and while Ascension’s combos can be complex if you chain things together or remember to play cards in a certain order, the game is also pretty forgiving with that, and someone can simply focus on combat and killing monsters if they don’t want to try a combo strategy and do just fine. That’s the other thing about this compared to Dominion that works better, you kill monsters, which is a mechanic that people can understand for gaining points instead of the more abstracted set-up of adding provinces to your deck that at the end of the game will give you points.

9 – Century: Golem Edition
An engine building hand management game, you could also do Century: Spice Road, but the Golem Edition is cuter and has more interesting artwork. In this game, you’re just buying cards that will help you get the gems you want, playing those cards to turn gems into other colored gems and hope to get the right combination of gems or plan to, to get a Golem, after someone has 5 Golems, the person with the most points from the Golem and coins wins. The game can have an advantage to someone who understands strategy better because you can customize your engine more so for being able to play cards to get the most gems possible and better colored gems, but a quick explanation or why some cards, especially ones that produce gems are really good, and everyone will be on a pretty even playing field. Plus, the game is fast, so after a play the strategy should make more sense and it’s one that people will probably want to play again.

8 – The Grimm Masquerade
A simple deduction game where you are all characters from Grimm Fairy Tales trying to get what you need, figure out who other people are, and be the last one standing to get points. It’s pretty simple, if you are a character you want to get three of one item, the rose of your The Beast from Beauty and The Beast or the slipper if you’re Cinderella, but then you also have something that you don’t want to get. If you get two of those you’re out of the round. The game works on two simple mechanics. You get two cards on a turn, drawing one you decide to keep it or give it away, then you draw another one and do the opposite thing. Then, if you have a pair of matching cards in front of you, you can spend those cards to take a special action, and the special actions are simple, and most of the time it’s accusing/guessing which character someone else is. If you get it right, you get points, if you’re the last one standing, you get points, and after three rounds, whomever has the most points wins. It’s a lot of fun, and you can accuse other people, which is fun, especially when you’re accusing them of being a fairy tale character.

7 – Homebrewers
The newest game, I think that’s going to be on the list. Homebrewers is a quick engine building game, but does some things that really work well. It gives you an easy mode where everyone is the same and you don’t have special powers. For brand new players, this would be how you teach it. The player board has player aides on it, so even though it’s symbols it’s pretty simple. And, the game has dice. Dice are oddly one of those things that make a game seem more familiar, and make it more gateway often because the dice are going to take away from the amount of decision making you have to do. In Homebrewers, it certainly does that as you roll your dice, and you can pay to change dice faces or trade dice, but you roll them once, unless you get 3 of the same side, then you can roll again, and that’s what you can do on your turn. Plus, for an engine building game, it plays very fast, and the theme is fun.

6 – Dice Throne (Season 1 and 2)
One of the classic games that people know well is Yahtzee. You roll three times keeping dice each time, and then whatever you end up with, you use that to score some points. Dice Throne is a slightly, very slightly, more complex version of that where it adds in some card play to it as well, very simple based off of combat points for how you play the cards, and has a nice cheat sheet. You’re going to see and probably have already seen me mention cheat sheets a lot. Dice Throne also works because while it does have a fantasy theme, which can be a turn off for some people, it’s a pretty quick game, and there’s good back and forth to it. Now, when introducing this to people, I’d probably either do teams or do 1 vs 1, because targeting becomes tricky otherwise, though, you can just do king of the hill style targeting for whom you fight. It’s also fun because they do a good job of laying out difficulty level for characters, so you can start off teaching and playing with simpler characters and then move to more complex.

5 – The Lost Expedition
The highest cooperative game on the list, and this one does have a fair number of symbols to keep track of. I try and keep that at a minimum because that can be tricky for some people. However, in The Lost Expedition, they have one of the best cheat sheets (player aides) out there, so it makes it much easier to teach. The only odd thing that can trip people up is hiking difference between morning and evening, basically when you put the cards in numerical order or not. But because cards are laid down from your hand without it being discussed, it’s just the person’s own choice, that means that you can correct how things are done if you are the person who knows the game. This is also nice because if you find out that one of the people you are teaching might be an alpha player, the lack of discussion of playing cards for the hike keeps everyone engaged in the game and the alpha player from being able to alpha game.

4 – Sushi Go Party!
A lot of drafting games on the list coming up, though not all of them card drafting. Sushi Go Party! is a great intro game because you can level up the difficulty as you go. There are some cards, especially in the specials, that are just more difficult to explain, so you can leave those out. But the game is extremely cute with the anthropomorphic foods, and it stands out on the table. The scoring, like I said, can be a little bit funky, but if you go with the base set of the game, what came in Sushi Go!, you’ll have a pretty easy to teach game. And the fact that everyone is playing at the same time is helpful because it means that for the people who aren’t the biggest game lovers they don’t have time to get bored between their turns.

3 – Point Salad
A simple little card game that plays fast, but plays differently and encourages people to think about their strategies and adjust them each game. But it’s a cute game, and that is part of what makes it a good gateway game. You’re making a salad, it’s a silly theme, but it’s one that people understand. And it teaches some card drafting. But, because, the cards rotate as much as they do, you can’t build the biggest strategy. It’s also one, with the concept of either taking a scoring card or taking two veggies, that people can understand how that works. The game play is as simple as that, and all the cards are up on the table, so there’s no hidden information that if someone doesn’t fully get something, it can’t be explained without giving the “expert” in the game an advantage.

2 – Welcome To…
This one is probably the most complex game that I’m putting on the list, and it’s not that complex. It’s mainly that the player aid for helping you know what cards do isn’t that great. But when you can teach it by using a city building, neighborhood building example, it’s again something that people recognize, and they can get the hang of it. In the game all you’re doing is putting house numbers in numerical order and then fencing off neighborhoods, building parks, and putting in pools. Again, all concepts that are pretty straight forward, and when you’re done, you have your little town. Now, some of the rest of them are a bit more complex, but overall, it’s not difficult to explain and play.

1 – Sagrada
This dice drafting game has one important thing going for it for being a good gateway game, it looks amazing on the table. The translucent dice just pop and turn what would be a good looking game into an amazing one. Why this one works well is that the rules are pretty simple, you grab out 5 dice (in a two player game) you roll them, you take one and put it on your board, the next person takes one and then it snakes back with one die being leftover at the end. You’re just trying to fill in a pattern that you’ve been given. Now, the powers can be a bit more difficult to explain, but there are some easy ones in there, and I start with those. And the scoring is simple, plus when you’re done, you have something that is familiar to most people, a stained glass window.

Now, I know this is a top 10 list, and I want to talk about why some games weren’t on here. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Carcassone, and Smallworld are all amazing gateway games, however, this is based off of the games that I like, and they just missed the list. There is also the fact that a lot of people have already played at least some of those games so they are somewhat familiar with them. These are other games that you can play to branch out from those slightly older though still good gateway games. You’ll also notice that as compared to my Top 10 games of all times or games that are showing up on a lot of other lists, most of these have more mundane themes. Stained glass windows, building a town, or food. And while that might not lend itself to that much story, it is something that doesn’t seem as nerdy to a lot of people and something that they can more easily grasp onto.

So what are some games that you’ve had success with as gateway games? Are there any that you’d really recommend?

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Is this big Kickstarter a Back or a Brick for you?
(What does this mean, basically, would you back this or is it a pass?)

First, I’m going to break down the pros and cons of the project.

Pros

• The theme is Marvel and I love Marvel
• The game is cooperative
• CMON is a big company and it’ll get made
• Game play is simple looking
• Game looks like it plays in a reasonable time
• You get a ton of characters with it
• The retail version will pale in comparison to the Kickstarter version
• Reasonable price for base game

Cons

• CMON has a backlog of games to produce first so it won’t come for a while
• Too much PLASTIC
• Game play might be too simple
• FOMO for the add-on, Thanos add on that is Kickstarter exclusive
• FOMO of Kickstarter exclusives
• Possible limited variety in the game
• Shipping costs might be higher

Thoughts on Campaign Page
It’s CMON, this is a well put together campaign with a ton of worry about FOMO for it because there are so many stretch goals being unlocked that are going to be Kickstarter exclusive. This is a downside to the campaign because, I don’t like to feel like I’m backing based out of FOMO.

But, with that said, they do a good job of laying out how the game works and the fact that they do that and they give you a rules book that you can look at means that you know what you’re going to be getting with the game. I feel like the game makes sense in terms of it being a family weight feeling game, which is something that intrigues me. It means that I’ll be able to get it to the table with more people, which is always nice.

Verdict
Right now, I’m going to wait until it’s later in the campaign to make up my mind. How much is going to be unlocked, how much is going to be Kickstarter exclusive, and how much is going to be add-ons. I’m leaning towards Back because I love Marvel and because it’s cooperative, though.

What is this for you, a back or a brick (meaning pass because alliteration)?

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That’s when I met a game called Small World.

In Small World, you are pushed into battle with various fantasy races and powers in your attempt to control territories, collect coins, and be the richest at the end of the game. To do this, you select your fantasy race and get the power that is paired up with it. That means that you might get seafaring elves one time, stout halflings, or flying dwarves, and the combinations will probably be different in future games, so that you can’t plan a perfect strategy every time. You take over territories not by rolling dice, but simply be placing down two more cardboard tokens than the number of pieces of cardboard that are there on the board. You can push your luck at the end, but there is no defense roll, unless, you have something like halflings who can’t be knocked out of their first location. Then, once you’ve done all that you can with a race, you put them into decline and you pick another combination that is out there and begin again.

Small World really forces you into conflict, in fact, Small World comes with two double sided boards, for player counts from 2 to 5 players so that the boards are just big enough that you don’t have to fight right away, but you will end up fighting quickly. And that’s just part of the game. In Risk, you would fight and if you did poorly, you’d get knocked out of the game. In Small World, while you lose troops, you can always go into decline when your race isn’t making you enough money and pick another one to come onto the board with and wipe out your enemies. And because of this constant cycling or races and tokens on the board, you don’t feel bad and you don’t feel like people are just ganging up on your troops, because you’ll get them back soon, then they’ll get someone else, and that person will get you and the cycle will repeat.

Small World also has a better time length for the game than something like Risk did. Small World says 40-80 minutes, and I think that’s pretty accurate, with higher player counts the game might go longer, and at two players it might go slightly shorter if both people know the game well. But it isn’t a game that overstays it’s welcome, and that’s what you really want at the table. If it was much longer, it would seem too long because it isn’t that complex a game.

I can actually see the complexity of the game being an issue for some people. This isn’t a highly strategic area control game. It is meant to be a light and fun game and with the art and the race and power combos, that is pretty obvious. You are going to have some tactical decisions to make, but not that many because if you make a mistake and leave an area open, it isn’t the end of the world. That’s good, because the player elimination is another part that isn’t great in some games like Risk. And I keep on comparing this to Risk, because the complexity level is probably less, so it’s a great way to bring people who like Risk or like the idea of Risk into a more modern style of game.

But let’s talk about the one thing that makes this a game that I get back to the table a few times a year, even with all the games that I have, and that’s the race and power combinations. That keeps Small World feeling fresh and unique each game. Plus, it’s something that they can expand, and in fact have expanded upon nicely. I don’t have all the expansions, and I kind of want to get more of them, but it’s fun to have a lot of different races and powers so that you don’t see the same combinations, and even when you do see one repeat from a previous game, you have a whole lot more that are new for you. And sometimes you get really funny combinations that might actually be surprisingly good. Flying Dwarves just sounds funny, but it can actually be good, because you don’t get many dwarves and getting them around to a bunch of mines would give you a lot of points, and that’s easier then spreading them out marching normally. Plus, having your own race and power makes you feel unique, and you get that feeling multiple times during a game.

Overall, Small World is a great introductory game, and even with expansions in there, it’s not too much for players who aren’t board gamers to play. Now, it is probably going to be too simple for some people who have been in the hobby for a long time, and it probably isn’t going to be for the Euro gamer, but for that fun game you can pull out and have a silly good time, Small World does a great job of that. It’s a gateway/entry level game that I would highly recommend for people who are looking to bring those older gamers into a more modern style of board gaming.

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

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