New To Me: Winter & Spring 2013

As with its predecessors, this article is intended to talk about the games that I played recently which I’d never played before. Most of them are games that were published in the last year or so within the United States, but on occasion I play a “new to me” game that is quite older; they’re all listed here.

I usually write this article on a quarterly basis, since that tends to offer up a good selection of new games. However, my new game selection in Winter was quite poor due to a combination of sickness and vacation (fortunately, not at the same time!). So I didn’t write the article in April, as I usually would have … then got deluged by new games in Spring. So, I’ve got a lot to talk about this time …

Keep in mind these are not my assessments of whether the games are good or bad, but instead my assessments of whether they appeal to me. Generally, I like light but strategic games that are euro designs but that don’t feel like work to me. They’re in roughly descending order of interest.


The Great

Bora Bora in PlayBora Bora (2013). In some ways this Stephen Feld game feels pretty similar to Castles of Burgundy since you’re (again) trying to make good use of die rolls to engage in a variety of tasks. Of course, I love Castles and so I’m thrilled to some of the same ideas in a fairly different game. I really like the tension of Bora! Bora! as you’re constantly fighting to fulfill tasks while keeping your eyes on piles of other potential victory conditions. There’s a lot to keep track of and thus a lot of different paths to victory.

Copycat (2012). I’ve already written A Deckbuilding Look at Copycat, which provides some in-depth analysis of this game. Basically, it combines worker placement and deckbuilding into a very coherent and enjoyable whole that simultaneously shows off the fun factor that Friese puts into so many of his games via fun theming and funny artwork. I have some concerns about the game’s ultimate replayability — but I probably wouldn’t say that at all if I weren’t comparing it with the rest of the deckbuilding field. Just looking at it as a euro, this is a great release.

Space Hulk: Death Angel — The Card Game (2010). I think that Corey Konieczka knocked it out of the park with this game because it managed to take a lot of the fun elements of cooperative games, and to squish them down into a fast-playing and claustrophic-feeling 30 minutes or so of gameplay. That’s fairly brilliant, and also very enjoyably adrenaline-inducing.

(As you’ll see, this is one of many new-to-me co-op games that I played in the last six months, all as part of a game design project I’m working on, which I hope to write more about later in the year.)

The Very Good

Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar (2012). This is a worker-placement game with a gimmick: you place the workers on gears which slowly increase the value of their actions over time. The gimmick works surprisingly well, as you’re constantly deciding which actions you really want from your workers at which levels. The game also works against some common strategies for worker-placement games, as you no longer necessarily want to place and remove your workers as efficiently as you can. The end result is not only innovative (thanks to the mechanics) and evocative (thanks to the beautiful board), but it’s also thoughful and fun as well.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue (2011). A cooperative game that follows closely on the heels of Pandemic, but this time you’re fighting fires and rescuing victims. It has a lot of the same advantages as its predecessor, including characters with great roles and a fun simulation system, here depicting the spreading flames. The result is a great new option in the co-op field, and I suspect the expansions give you all the variability you’d even need.

Romans Go Home! (2013).  This is sort of an auction game, where you’re playing cards openly; every round the player with the highest sum of card wins the current Roman fort, but loses his cards; while the other players keep their played cards out for future rounds. It reminds be a bit of Reiner Knizia’s Great Wall of China in that regard. Romans’ big twist is that the auction cards are all “programmed”. You lay out a set of cards simultaneously, corresponding to a set of forts that can be won, and then you reveal them one at a time. Special powers which can interact with each other in weird ways keep everything hopping. I generally love programmed games, and this one works quite well, offering a new twist on an old genre.

(I’ve actually played this game previously, in prototype form, but I played it for the first time in its published form in the last quarter. It’s also designed & produced by a friend, so caveat reader.)

Mansions of MadnessMansions of Madness (2011). An interesting variant on an Arkham Horror sort of game. You similarly have investigators moving through a scary locale, picking up equipment and exploring. The game feels somewhat less abstract than Arkham Horror because the location is so specific (a beautifully illustrated mansion). There’s also an interesting (and largely successful) attempt to create a real story, and the game plays in a much more reasonable amount of time. I think I’d generally play this instead of Arkham Horror given my current limitations of playing time.

Love Letter (2012). I always love a new filler, especially if it’s particular clever, and this one is. The concept is blindingly simple: you have a hand of two cards, and you pick one of them to use. Clever plays can knock other people out of the game, else you try to have the highest value card at the end. I’m not convinced there’s a lot of strategy, and the suggested game length runs a little long, but those are my only complaints.

The Good

Il VecchioIl Vecchio (2012). Another new worker-placement game — or perhaps, as one friend calls it, a “worker movement” game since you’re really moving workers around a map in order to take specific actions. This is a pretty abstract game, but one with lots of moving parts related to a variety of resources, which have to be used carefully alongside the workers that you’re moving around. It’s original and thoughtful but it really shines by the fact that it’s super-fast playing.

Tokaido (2012). An amazingly simple game of moving forward along a track to collect a variety of resources. The biggest catches are that you can never move backward and that other players can block your access to resources by taking the resources themselves. The result is surprisingly thoughtful, as you simultaneously try to maximize the number of things you can get while also figuring out when you need to jump ahead to grab something really important that someone else might otherwise take. I enjoyed it for the beauty of the components, for the lightness of the game, and for the depth that it still allows.

Las Vegas (2012). This new Alea game is super-light, but it’s still a very enjoyable filler as long as you play with the neutral dice variant. The basic concept is that you roll dice each round, then put some in an appropriately numbered casino. In the end, casinos pay out to the players who put the most dice there. Put that all together and you’ve got all the aspects that you want in a dice game: lucky rolls, unlucky rolls, forced moves, and pushing your luck. I regularly bring it around as a 15- to 30-minute filler.

Arctic Scavengers (2009/2013). I covered this one in more depth in A Deckbuilding Look at Arctic Scavengers. It’s a slightly simple deckbuilder, but it’s got some depth thanks to interpersonal conflict that’s pretty rare for the field, and that helps maintain interest.

Samurai Sword (2012). Take Bang! Apply Samurai theming. Release … except this new game does a bit more than that. It fixes the biggest problem of Bang!, player elimination. It also generally feels like it plays more smoothly and thoughtfully than the original. I think it’s a fine example of what happens when you  apply additional development to an already well-polished game, and I suggest it to Bang! fans — though I know some Bang! fans that didn’t like the changes.

Kola (2013). This is by the same designer as Romans Go Home!, so I’ve also played it in prototype form. This one is more of a pure auction game, using one of my favorite twists: the winning bid is the lot that’s bid on next turn. These games always offer a lot of tactical interest, as you have to think really carefully about what you’re bidding — because you may want to get the bid back or you might want to make sure that you don’t give away too good a set of cards. I’m less fond of the memory aspect, where you’re dumping cards into a pile that you’ll score at the end — like in Ticket to Ride: The Card Game or Mamma Mia! — but that’s a personal preference.

Elder Sign (2011). This was a pretty fun dice-rolling co-op where you’re trying to solve individual rooms by rolling the precise correct pattern of dice. There are a few ways to help out your fellows and there’s some slight character specialization in the game, so the cooperation works, perhaps better than in Arkham Horror (which this game is closely related to). On the downside, the theming comes across as paper-thin; this is mostly is an abstract, which is often a danger in dice game. In addition, the game is weighted to be way too easy. Still, a fun game.

Power Grid: First SparksPower Grid: The First Sparks (2011). I never liked Power Grid because there was too much effort spent constantly calculating — as you figured out costs, what you could spend, what you had to save to power your reactors, etc. First Sparks had a little less of that, with the excessive calculations only required at the very end of the game, and it plays faster, and it had fun theming. So, I liked it better than the original. However, that’s a big YMMV since I’m clearly not the Power Grid audience.

The OK

Cinque Terre (2013). There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this roundel-based pickup and delivery game where you’re constantly buying and selling stuff as you circle the board. It’s even got some clever logistics, including: pattern-matching for deliveries (almost like routes in Ticket to Ride) and very limited carrying capacity. However, I also found it abstract and repetitive. This kept the game from really sparking for me, which left it as a pure exercise in cleverness.

3012 (2012). I think this is a decently good deckbuilding game, as I wrote about more extensively in A Deckbuilding Look at 3012. However for me personally, it’s a little too simplistic to generate many plays (even moreso than Arctic Scavengers). Someone new to the deckbuilding field would have a totally different attitude.

WhitewaterWhitewater (2012). I might have liked this river rafting game better if I didn’t have a copy of Fast Flowing Forest FellersWhitewater goes to the same theme of rafting down a river with various currents and obstacles, but it’s a slightly more complex game, which isn’t usually what I’m looking for. Its big advantage is that it has a neat system where you’re simultaneously teamed up with two different players — which is clever and original — but I’d still stick with FFFF.

Credit Mobilier (2009/2013). To be honest, I think this one descended to just “OK” level because of it’s theming: it’s yet another RR game with stock, and I’ve seen a bazillion of those, so one has to really stand out now. It’s actually got some relatively clever mechanics where you roll dice and use those results to control your actions — not unlike the Stefan Feld games Burgundy and Bora Bora. It just didn’t have the same spark though; the logistical purchase and sales of stock felt very raw and, well, financial.

Zen Garden (2013). A tile laying game where you’re trying to form shapes in a rock garden. It was held back by components that made the game hard to play, and sufficient abstractness that I was never really drawn into the game.

The Meh

Tahiti (2012). A pick-up and delivery game that’s on the one hand pretty light but on the other hand has some rules regarding cargo and actions which are pretty complex. I would have rated it as an “OK” game if not for the endgame which can just drag on and on without there being a lot of choice.

Room 25 (2013). This is essentially Running Man: The Board Game. it’s got clever programmed movement, a fun premise, and some neat moving parts, as everyone struggles to get out of the deadly maze of rooms. Unfortunately, its eyes were bigger than its stomach and so it tried to be all sorts of games — and thus included rules for competition, cooperation, and traitors. The problem is that the cooperative game is way too easy and the traitor game offers no actual support for the traitor. I think the competitive game is OK, but after the earlier disappointments, I was less interested in it.

Star Trek: Expeditions (2011). A new co-op by Reiner Knizia and a game wit Star Trek theming … I really wanted to love it but couldn’t. The biggest problems were (1) an abstract and mechanical task resolution system; (2) a really small-picture planet quest that doesn’t take good advantage of the license; (3) a poorly considered victory system where results that should be losses are counted as wins; and (4) poor replayability.

Rune Age (2011). My last new deckbuilding game for recent months, and one that I’m waiting to play one more time before I finally assess it. It’s got some interested elements in it, including strongly themed, unique decks. Unfortunately, it was one of those games that was sufficiently awkward that it always felt like you were playing it wrong. Player elimination, a heavy push toward attacking, a ramp-down toward the end of the game as one of the resources becomes worthless, a lack of enough good cards to buy, and a dragging end game all contributed to its problems.

Veritas (2013). Yet another game that was spoiled by its ending (which seems to be the theme of my “meh” section this time). This game is largely an abstract with some very clever Mancala-like rules where you build up tokens in cities, then spread them across the board in an effort to gain majorities in various regions. We all enjoyed it for the first half of the game, but then the last half dragged horribly, with all the players taking and retaking the same cities turn after turn, no one scoring most of the time, and thus the stupid game never ending. After an hour or more, we were all sitting around the table praying that someone (anyone) would win.

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3 thoughts on “New To Me: Winter & Spring 2013

  1. Thanks for writing up Credit Mobilier. As we initially released it 2005 (albeit in DTP form) perhaps Castles of Burgundy is like it? 🙂
    Have you played Sheepdogs of Pendleton Hill?

    Max Michael
    Stratamax Games

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