Reviews – Page 6 – 30-Second Boardgame Reviews

May 6, 2017May 7, 2017

Analog Video Game

“Bloodborne”

Based on the tough-as-nails video game. You and your fellow adventurers fight strange monsters through simultaneously selecting different tactics and weapons cards. However, the monster gets first strike and will most likely kill all of you. But if you survive, damage the monster, take its blood echoes (which are your victory points as well), and if you kill it, everyone who participated gets a trophy as well. But be careful, if you are killed and you didn’t “bank” your blood echoes, you lose those points! You can upgrade your cards with more death-dealing weapons, some which even mess up your opponents. Fun, quick, with a little bit of deduction…what will my opponents do, and can I kill this thing?…and yes, wildly swingy.

Great sense of player interaction as you balance between hurting your opponents and keeping them around to help you. Pretty quick and easy to learn: almost a filler.

One Line Verdict: Not quite a killer game, but definitely has its moments of tension and surprise.

May 4, 2017

Going Once, Going Twice…

“The Game of 49”

Bid for spaces as you try to get four in a row! A pure bidding game as you bid for spaces that come up for auction on a 7×7 grid. Flip a card, bid on it. That’s about it. Win the auction and place a marker on the board. The more markers you have, the more money you can make in later rounds when these Payoff cards are flipped. But there is a careful balance in this game as you try to get the spaces that you need, but have enough left at the end to get that space that will win you the game.

Next level Connect 4, as you try to outbid and outfox your opponents for coveted spaces. Admittedly, a better game than that with a clever twist for payout cards. Basically a pure bidding game.

One Line Verdict: If you like auctions and bidding, this is a must. If you don’t, then pass on this one.

May 4, 2017May 4, 2017

Monster Mash

“Diamonsters” These cute little monsters want diamonds! A very quick and easy bidding game: flip a card, and try to win that monsters and add it to your collection by bidding with a card numbered 1-5. The same number card played by different players cancels each other out, and high number left wins, but 1 beats 5! Winner places the card she used plus the card she won into her face up “monster collection.” Repeat until one player has three of the same monster in her collection or has five face-up diamonds (which are printed on the cards). The winner of the round gets one plastic diamond piece. Repeat until one player gets five diamonds (or so, depending on the number of players).

More of a “what card do I think my opponents will play?” sort of filler, with surprisingly poorly written rules for the endgame. Because you take the monster you played and the one you won into your collection, there is some strategy. Not much, but some. Cute illustrations, giant box.

One Line Verdict: These monsters are easy to avoid. Unless it’s for like 5 bucks.

May 3, 2017

A Game NOT About Scoring a Rich Husband

“Gold Digger”

A Reiner Knizia designed game that plays QUICK. There are six mines: each turn you play a settler or gold on a mine. If you play a settler, you can stake a claim. But be careful, you only have three claims you can stake, and if you place it too early, people will fill your mine with fool’s gold, which score nothing. Play too late, and you won’t be able to score on a lucrative mine. A game all about timing and patience and knowing when to strike. Or strike out, as the case may be.

For fans of Western themed games with a strong press-your-luck element, with some good old-fashioned cut-throat action thrown in.

One Line Verdict: Drop a claim on this one for a fun little filler.

May 2, 2017May 6, 2017

Star Trekkin…

“Star Trek: Five-Year Mission”

Become the crew of the Starship Enterprise (either TOS or TNG) and explore the galaxy in this dice allocation game. Draw an alert of either blue, yellow, or red indicating the difficulty of the missions: maybe it’s a transporter hiccup. Or maybe it’s the Borg. Then roll your dice and then assign them to complete different missions. Match the dice requirements on an alert card to complete it, but if you and your crew have too many uncompleted mission cards out, a mission fails. Complete a number of missions based on difficulty to win the game, or fail five to lose.

Not too high a difficulty curve, with special powers for each role to make things just a little more interesting, because it’s just roll the dice, match them on a card, and repeat.

One Line Verdict: Trekkers beam up for this one. Everyone else, it’s pretty light and diverting, but not planet-shattering (not like that big beam that Nero used to destroy Vulcan in the Kelvin timeline).

May 1, 2017May 2, 2017

Shields Up! I said, “Shields… AAAGGGHHHH”

“Space Alert”

Try to survive the dangers of space in this real-time programming game. Threats in the form of random space debris and alien ships will hurtle towards your from space and aliens will try to take you from inside your ship! Fire lasers, raise shields, increase power to your different ship systems, control kill-bots, and launch fighters to deal with these threats. But this is a programming game: play your cards in advance in a 10 minute real-time round, and then execute them one at time in the execution to see what actually happens. Maybe you guessed right. Or maybe you’re just hanging out somewhere watching your ship slowly fall apart.

Trying to keep track of one crew member’s actions is hard: doing two at the same time in the 10 minute time limit is well-nigh impossible. But with a full four, it is a frenzied blast.

One Line Verdict: Sign on for this voyage for some fast, tense, space-faring action.

May 1, 2017May 1, 2017

Martian Chronicles, Steampunk Style!

“Mission Red Planet” (2nd Edition)

Send your steampunk astronauts to Mars to control areas and collect valuable resources. Pack your astronauts into a ship, blast a ship off, land on some section of Mars, move some of your Martian men, or even sabotage spaceships journeying to Mars. Score points for area majorities on different sections of the red planet. Simultaneous card selection to perform these actions: do you pick a high number to go first, but get a weak action, or do you wait to perform a more powerful action? Or do you watch your opponent blow up your rocket with three of your astronauts in round 2 of the game and watch all hope of victory escape your grasp? I would say the last one. Definitely that one.

A good introduction to action selection and strategic play. Light enough to learn, with just enough strategy to make things interesting.

One Line Verdict: sign up for this particular mission to Mars.

April 28, 2017April 29, 2017

House of Dice

Blueprints

“Blueprints”

Use dice to build buildings in this clever little dice-drafting game. Each round, players will get a secret blueprint for building a small building composed of six dice. Roll the dice, and choose one to add to your building. Numbers indicate if you can build on top of existing dice, so put low numbers on the lower levels. Colors indicate different building materials. Following the blueprints is actually optional: you score extra points if you do. After all six dice are placed, buildings are scored; points are awarded depending on material, dice face, and placement. VICTORY points are then awarded for first and second place buildings, as well as for completing runs or using the same material or building high towers or having the same number dice. Three rounds, add up the victory points. Best plan: carefully choosing between maximizing your building points and end round bonus victory points. Worst plan: not following the blueprint and not getting the end round bonus.

A tricky little dice-drafting game that offers lots of strategic decisions that is the perfect length. Just hard enough to get you thinking, but light enough to serve as a filler.

One Line Verdict: Just the right length and very satisfying.

April 27, 2017May 1, 2017

A Game That Cuts Your Heart Out With a Spoon

“Sheriff of Nottingham”

Try to smuggle goods past the corrupt sheriff in order to stock your shopping stall and earn the most points. Easy enough: place goods and/or contraband in your bag (contraband scores much more points then the goods), and the bag to the player who is currently Sheriff and, give a number of goods and one true item. Bribe the sheriff to get him to look the other way and let the contraband through, of if you are the sheriff, try to convince people to make it worth your while not to look and bust their smuggling. Players take turns being the Sheriff and smugglers. So, there can be give/take dynamic as you bribe, cajole, and convince the other players to let you through. But when you can’t bribe/smuggle correctly nor guess when someone’s lying to you, you’re not winning this game. Like me, in this case.

A game all about social dynamics and the strategy of when to smuggle, when to bribe, and when to tell the truth.

One Line Verdict: Cut it out with a spoon. At least for me. But if you like bluffing games, it’s quite nice.

April 26, 2017

Good God, Is That a Review of Qwirkle?! …. Yes, Yes It Is.

“Qwirkle”

The classic abstract game that’s basically Scrabble with colors and symbols. Tiles come in six different shapes and in six different colors. On your turn, place tiles crossword-style onto the main playing area, trying to get rows of either six of the same symbol in different colors, or six different symbols in all the same color. Earn points for each new row you complete, and a completed row of six earns you 12 points, a Qwirkle (shouting that out loud is optional)! Draw new tiles to replace the ones you placed, or if your tiles are complete garbage, skip your turn and replace as many tiles as you want from the draw bag. Play until all tiles are exhausted and the player with the most points wins!

Like Scrabble, but easier…but also harder because it takes a little bit to wrap your head around the color and shape matching. Opens up lots of spatial options. Like the ad for another boardgame once said: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master! Well, maybe two evenings.

One Line Verdict: No wonder it’s a classic, unless you don’t like abstracts, then you should probably pass on this one.