30-Second Boardgame Reviews

May 12, 2017

Stick-It-To-’em Dungeon

“Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan”

A game based on the popular stick-figure web comic about fantasy adventurers. Move into a dungeon, place a room down which may result in some special rules, meet a monster, but your opponent chooses the monster from their hand, add up bonuses, solicit help from other players, avoid “Screw This” cards from other players, roll the dice, defeat the monster (hopefully), and collect loot. Wash, rinse, and repeat until you defeat the dreaded lich Xykon! Plays a lot like Munchkin but with a build-it-yourself-board, but which lasts a little too long. Plus, because the other players choose a monster from their hand, they could totally mess you up. Which happened to me. A lot.

If you like Munchkin and the snarky humour of the “Order of the Stick” web-comic, this would be great. If you like neither, then not so good.

One Line Verdict: For a small slice of fans, indeed. All others keep moving past this particular dungeon.

May 10, 2017May 10, 2017

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, Keep those Dice Rolling…

“Biblios Dice”

Run your very own medieval monastery! Collect the various supplies (scrolls, manuscripts, pigments, quills, ink) you will need to produce magnificent illuminated manuscripts by rolling 6 (or 7) resource dice. Choose one set of results and move up that number of spaces on the associated resource track. Or get gold. Or move up on the bishop track and get bonuses. Or manipulate the value of some of the resources. Unless of course it’s market day, when the active player divides up the dice (5 in group, 3 in the other) and everyone secretly bids, one card at a time, to win the right to a group of dice. The game ends four markers reach the top of the resource tracks, or one player reaches the top of the bishop track. Points are added up for first, second, and third place based on the value of each particular resource. Most points wins! But be careful: not moving up on a track means you get negative points for being at the bottom. And in a game where the winner and 3^rd place were separated by 4 points, that’s a big difference.

A game where randomness is not so bad, as there is always something good to do. Just choose wisely and you advance at least a little on all tracks. Use clever strategy in timing the manipulation of the value of the resource, but watch for the abrupt end. Light enough for gateway, deep enough to make for interesting choices.

One Line Verdict: Don’t take a vow of silence on this one. Scream it from the abbey roof about how good this game is.

May 9, 2017May 15, 2017

Monopoly Boiled Down to its Cold, Dark Heart

HighSociety!.jpg

“High $ociety!”

A pure bidding game where you try to buy the most stuff. Start with a limited number of dollar amounts in your hand: simply bid on items, ranging from artwork to basketball teams and castles worth different amounts of prestige, as they are turned over. But be careful: once you spend the money card, it’s gone. And the cards vary in their amounts, so there’s no change. As the game goes on, you begin to lose your flexibility with your bid amounts. And watch out for misfortune cards: bid to NOT get these. At the end of the game, the person with the least money in hand is instantly eliminated, and the remaining players add up their point totals. And win by only winning three items.

A game of tight auctions, steely gazes that rewards the cold-hearted and cut-throat. The limiting of bid cards in both amount and use is very smart and requires clever strategizing in your bid. But most of all this game is about reading your opponents and forcing them out.

One Line Verdict: Great filler for feeling what it’s truly like to be rich. In other words, totally evil.

May 8, 2017May 15, 2017

Dead Men Walking

“The Walking Dead Card Game”

A re-theming of the excellent “6Nimmt” with zombies. The players all simultaneously pick a card from their starting hand of 10 cards, reveals it, and each player then plays their card into one of four rows, starting with the lowest number first. Your card is placed to the highest number it is closest to. If you place the sixth card in a row, you end up taking that whole row of cards. Each card will have between one and six bullets on it: the more bullets you collect, the worse off you are. Gasp in horror as all four rows fill up with five cards and just pray that your opponents will take rows before you…and oddly thematic as you see hordes of walkers slowly build up as cards are placed down and more and more bullets show up…Three rounds later, the person with the least number of bullets wins! There’s also a hero mode where you try and TAKE the most bullets, but that one seems lame and tacked on.

Great for people who like “6 Nimmt” and zombies (or walkers, if you prefer). Great even for people who don’t like the latter. But the pictures on the card might be too scary for the little ones.

One Line Verdict: solid game, tacked on theme, but still fun because the core game is great.

May 8, 2017May 15, 2017

Evolve This!

“Evolution”

Help your species survive in this Darwinian adventure! Play cards to give your species different traits, or discard cards too grow their population or body size. Traits will range from the defensive, to the symbiotic, to the dangerously carnivorous. Then feed your burgeoning species food which become victory points. But be careful: you and the other players seed the watering hole at the beginning of each round, so make sure there is enough food to sustain your population, or purposefully create a food shortage to winnow everyone’s numbers. And watch out for predators…But once you fall behind in this game, because you draw new cards equal to the number of species you have, it is very hard to catch up. And that Alpha Predator can really, really wreak havoc on a bunch of poor herbivores.

A relatively straightforward game without a whole lot of picky rules, but lots of ways to sabotage your opponents. Or play cooperatively. Or it’s just an arms race to see who gets the biggest, baddest predator first.

One Line Verdict: Truly, the survival of the fittest. All others need not apply.

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).