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Too Many Dice? Nope! Never!

TooManyBones

“Too Many Bones”

Designed by Josh and Adam Carlson,  published by Chip Theory Games

The Quick Summary: You are a Gearlock (a tech-savvy mix of goblin, elf and gnome) going out for adventure. By dealing with different encounters you will gain skills and improve your stats to finally face the final boss of the adventure. You have a limited amount of days to achieve enough progress points to be allowed to face the boss. They call this a dice builder RPG, and it’s pretty much right on.

The Awesome:

  • Very high quality components (neoprene game mats, plastic cards).
  • Great feeling of really developing a character.

The Good:

  • Many different bosses with different game durations. One game can last from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours.
  • If you take the time to read the stories on the cards,  you get a nice RPG feeling.
  • Dice! Many, many dice! Each Gearlock comes with it’s own personalized dice that represents its skills.
  • Very nice dice-rolling mechanic where you need to make choices (can’t use all your skills all the time!).
  • Can be played solo.
  • Combat and health system that uses poker-like tokens is very original and works very well.

The Bad:

  • The rulebook isn’t optimal. Many rules aren’t clear or are only present on the summary sheet. I had to watch a video to understand better the flow of the game.
  • Randomness of rolling dice can be a negative for many, but you know what you get when you buy this game!

The Ugly:

  • Nothing! Except maybe the price and limited distribution (only via the editor’s web site).

Keep it or leave it? Definitely keep it. This game is a masterpiece for its art, component quality, and gameplay. Very good potential for replayability and a good challenge.

Review by Sébastien

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Want to be a Lock-Picker? You May Want to Pass…

Triplock

“Triplock”

Designed by Josh & Adam Carlson, published by Chip Theory Games

The Quick Summary: Welcome to the world of pick-locking where you will compete with another player or against the game! While flipping and moving tokens, you will need to remember where everything is so  you can sort them out in the right order to complete what is required by your cards. Doesn’t sound too hard, unless your opponent or the game decides to move everything around.

The Awesome:

  • Very high material quality, like everything from Chip Theory Games.

The Good:

  • Fast game (15-30 minutes).
  • Can be played solo.
  • There are many different characters that each bring a different skill or advantage.

The Bad:

  • Rulebook is very hard to understand. Had to read it twice and watch two videos to get the feel of how the game works. The rulebook would benefit from pictures or schematics to better understand the flow of the game.
  • Basically a memory-based puzzle, which is bad for me, but can be good for you.

The Ugly:

  • The pick-locking theme feels like it was just tacked on a game mechanic. You never feel like you are actually pick-locking a lock.

Keep it or leave it? For me it’s a big leave it. I received my Kickstarter copy, played with it, and put it on sale five days later. I recognize that for some people this will be an awesome game. The game mechanic and flow will attract many players, but for me it was a big failure.

Review by Sébastien