Dingo Bingo!

Dingo's Dream (or Dingo Bingo, as I like to call it) is a fun and simple tile placement game that can be adjusted in difficulty according to your desires. I am a bit late to play this little gem, but I finally had the chance to try it out at the new venue of The Dice Saloon in Brighton and bought it after one game. In this 2 - 4 player game Dingo and his pals have managed to get lost on walkabout, which is pretty easy to do in the outback so I don't judge them. As a player, you must visit the animals dreams and guide them back home from the fragmented dreamscape clues in their minds.

Players choose one of the four different animals, then they each set up 5x5 grids of their chosen tiles with the animal side down, but keeping the tile with their animals name to one side as this is used on the first turn. A Dream Card is revealed, and the aim of this game is to have your tiles animal side face-up and matching the Dream Card layout. One player is the Dingo Bingo dealer, turning the Walkabout cards to reveal the next tile to flip. The cards are identified by five different colours and five different landscapes, whichever tile corresponds with the card revealed by the dealer is then flipped over to reveal the animal side, then players slide the extra tile in their hand into the grid, pushing out a tile to use in their next turn and keeping the grid 5x5.

The introduction of hazard tokens stirs things up a little. Amongst the Dream Cards you will find a Hazard Card, with symbols showing various ways to set up hazards on the Dream Card. Using this as a guide, you can choose a layout and place the four brown tokens on one of the Dream Cards. In order to win this time, you must have none of your animal tiles on the hazard spaces on completion of your dreamscape. This also means that it is possible for both players to lose, so if that happens then you just play again. Interestingly, if there is a draw then there is no tie-breaker, everyone could be a winner in these dreams! Spiritual fulfilment and rites of passage will be celebrated.

Dingo's Dreams is compact, easy to set up and understand, quick to play and a great introduction to board gaming. The beautiful illustrations by Ryan Lakat really set the tone for this game, and after many plays I can happily say that this is a great and easy family game, and the advanced options can shake it up a bit. There are strategy and puzzle-solving aspects. Even though the tiles are randomly placed in the beginning, it is then your job to shift them around with each new clue called out. I first came across bingo elements in a modern game with Rise of Augustus, and even though I find normal bingo quite boring, I am just drawn to these kind of games. Beating your opponent to the finish and yelling your animal's name in victory is very satisfying, and the theme of sifting through the lost animal's deep dreams to help them find their way home tugs on my heartstrings, so give this game a go and see if you can get your critter back!    


Marisa     

The Mint Works

Mint Works is an amazing little game designed by Justin Blaske for one to four players. The game does exactly what it sets out to achieve. It is portable and plays under 15 minutes The turn pacing is fast paced and it doesn't leave you bored. It took me five minutes to learn and about ten to play our first game. The table space is small and makes for the ideal travel game. The theme is light and the game, despite being simple, has an element of depth to it. While at times the choices are obvious, most of the time there is more than one viable option for you to carry out in a turn, and certainly more than one way to achieve a victory. 

The only copy I have played came from the second Kickstarter campaign, which is larger than the original and everything fits inside perfectly (which is more than I can say for Mint Delivery). Like Mint Delivery this game also boasts a solo experience. It delivers but I couldn't imagine playing it more than a handful of times, while the A.I. is tough, the game mechanics and simplicity almost don't justify sitting there and playing it on your own. Although, that being said, I found it more rewarding than a game of solitaire.   

It certainly is better than most games that play under ten minutes out there and is a great way to introduce new gamers to the worker placement mechanic. We now use it as a Water Deep lite, to warm people up to the idea before cracking out a 45 minute far deeper version of the little game they just played. I love it and have already played it over twenty times in the space of no time at all. It is a great crowd pleaser. 

For months I was unable to secure a copy as it was sold out everywhere, I am pleased that I backed the second Kickstarter run and if you like light games or want a change from the typical social deduction or push your luck fillers, then this is for you.

Anna 

Skull

Skull (or Skull & Roses, as it is also known as) is the perfect bluffing game for parties, drinking, travel and just casual late night chats. We have mentioned it briefly before when this blog was first set up, and it is still a firm favourite in the household. I have played this game abroad, on trains, in restaurants and over dinner. It's portable, easy to teach and pick up and fast to play. I have even taught it to people using playing cards, just 3 hearts and a spade per player. 

In this 3+ player game, each player starts by playing a card face-down, then each player in turn adds one more card to their stack, unless they feel cocky enough to challenge. The challenge consists of the player saying how many roses they think they can reveal from what has been laid down on the table without revealing a skull. Other players can outbid them, aiming to reveal even more roses. The highest bidder must then turn over the coasters starting with their own stack first. If they reveal only roses they win, if they reveal a skull they lose, sacrificing one of their cards at random and putting it out of play. Two successful challenges will win you the game, or if you are the last player left with cards. 

The base set comes with six sets of coasters but it is possible to play with more if you buy extra sets. If you have played Liars Dice aka Perudo, then you will already be familiar with the set up, as both games tread similar territory. I highly recommend this, I truly believe it is a must-have for all households.

Anna

Wyvern: The Card Game

Sometimes you can find rewarding and special things by looking in strange corners and asking questions like 'what's in the box?'. There has been a mystery box behind the counter at my local games store for ages, I wasn't sure if it held anything for sale because it was all closed up, but on the off-chance I asked if it contained any promo cards for board games. There were no promo cards inside but there was a collection of unopened decks and booster packs of the game Wyvern, an out of print two player card game that came out in 1994. This was one of the first collectable card games to pop up after the success of Magic; The Gathering, yet for some reason Wyvern has not stood the test of time as strongly as Magic. Magic cards are dominating the counters and Wyvern is shut up in a box, so it felt good releasing those decks from the box...and into my bag for a bargain price!

Wyvern is officially classified as a fantasy collectable trading card game, but I see elements of deck building and bluffing. You are, in essence, building a deck to play with and trying to trick your opponent into unearthing the hidden terrain whilst throwing gold at your dragons to tempt them into doing your bidding. The dragons represented on the cards are based on dragons from mythology, and the cards have a real 90s fantasy aesthetic pleasure.

I have been playing lots of friendly tournaments of this game. My dragons have been wiped out a lot, but they have held out for a long time and I've managed to get a couple of wins in. Maybe I would do better if I weren't so tight with my gold. It is a solid game, with lots of unexpected turns, you get really involved with your opponent - watching each other like hawks! Here is a little guide to the game play:

Players have 25 gold pieces and two decks of:

15 plus Dragon Lair draw pile

35 plus Action/Treasure cards

* terrain cards belong in the dragon lair

To set up the game players shuffle the dragon lair pile and the treasure horde pile separately. Both players take the top six dragon cards from their lair pile and look at them secretly, then arrange them face down to create the battlefield, putting them in two rows of three cards. Front row dragons can attack your opponent's first row, only flying dragons can fight over one row, and super flyers can attack over two rows - so bear that in mind when selecting where your dragons (and secret terrain) will go. Both players also draw a hand of seven cards from the treasure horde draw pile.

Terrain can be mischievously placed in the rows to deter your opponent, as terrain cards have negative effects for the other player if they reveal it, hurrah! Another bonus is that after your terrain card has been revealed and used, it can be replaced with a fresh card from your dragon lair. The new card is placed face down in your battlefield. However, if the terrain is revealed using a Scout dragon then the tables are turned and the terrain card is discarded with no effect.

There are seven phases of the game, it is turn-based but some phases allow both players to participate:

Phase One

Draw a card from the treasure horde pile.

Phase Two

Place a treasure card with special effects by one of your battlefield rows. If it costs gold then pay the price from your precious gold pile, depositing the spent gold into a collective 'gold mine' pile.

Phase Three

You may change positions of any two cards in the battlefield, including treasure. You can always peek at your own face down cards if you need to remind yourself what is hiding there, I do all the time!

Phase Four

Action! No matter whose turn it is, both players may play as many action cards as they wish starting with the player whose turn it is. Action cards are played one at a time. It is hard to reign in the greed here, as it is so tempting to bombard the round with action cards that pump up your dragons or weaken your opponent in advance but remember you only draw one card per turn, you don't draw back up to seven after your go. There are cards in the deck that allow you to draw more, but it is a gamble.    

Dragon Slayer Action cards may also be used during this phase, if it is your turn. These are handy and can be used to block your opponent from using certain dragons.

Phase Five

Battle it out or swap a dragon! You can either attack one of your opponent's dragons by paying one of your dragons to swoop in, or you can swap one of your dragons/terrain for a fresh one from your lair. When you awake a face down dragon you pay gold equal to its strength, plus any extra if the card shows the gold coin symbol. Once the dragon is face up, you don't need to pay for it again to fight (unless someone turns him over). Indicate to your opponent which one of their dragons you want to fight. If it is face down then they must pay the price to reveal it. Whoever has the highest strength, including any modifiers from treasure cards in play, is winning here. Battle Action cards may be played in this phase to help out, some cards add strength to your dragon or decrease your opponent's strength.

Phase Six

After the battle or terrain exposure is resolved, there is a second action phase.

Phase Seven

The player discards back down to seven cards, if they had more.

The game ends when one player has no dragon or terrain cards in their battlefield. The winner scores 25 points plus one point for every remaining dragon and terrain on the battlefield and one point per remaining gold pieces. The loser scores half of their leftover gold.

Wyvern is a great two player game, that gets even more in-depth when you start trading, adding extra cards and swapping out old ones. It is fun trying out the different set-ups and the deck content. As the decks don't seem to have a limit in cards, you can get pretty epic with this one. I think I do prefer it to Magic. I know there is more variation in themes in Magic (I have a vampire deck, woohoo!), and lots more scope for future deck building as the game is still going strong, but there is something satisfying about playing a retired dragon card game. Maybe I like feeling archaic.

     

Right now I am still playing around with the combos. Terrain cards are great traps unless a scout reveals them, but it's all part of the risky dragon business! Gold is my Achilles heel, The stronger the dragons are, the more expensive they are to field in battle, and I'm still trying to find a good balance between dragon strength and gold expenditure. I either rinse out my gold too early or hold onto it so it is too late to use it effectively. I will be playing this a lot more to find my groove!

If you like the sound of this game then ask your local shop keeper if they have any decks knocking about from the 90s :)

Marisa x

Dark Is The Night

Whilst scrolling through Instagram I came across Dark Is The Night, a game currently on Kickstarter (with just over two days to go!) and it sounded like a fun two player game to try out. I am always on the prowl for filler games that stimulate and entertain, and lately I've developed an appetite for hidden movement and deduction games - I blame Captain Sonar and Noir for that. So I got semi-creative, fashioned up a make-shift board and grabbed some miniatures to act as player pieces with some crudely drawn tokens to see how this game plays. 

The hunter is camping out, keeping her wits about her, while a cunning monster lurks in the darkness, circling its prey. This hunter is no sitting duck, she is equipped with two arrows, a tasty morsel of meat and a trap. Like all good hunters, she came prepared. She knows which direction the monster starts in and can then attempt to deduce where the beast actually is. She could fire an arrow into the dark hoping that it will strike the monster, she could leave a trap that deters the monster and will alert her if it gets too close, or she could place a piece of meat somewhere to tempt the hungry monster out of the shadows.

Players act as either the hunter or the monster, taking it in turns to move one space on the board then use an action. The hunter is represented on the board by a figure sculpted by Chad Hoverter, who worked on Mice & Mystics, and the monster has a dial it uses to track its movement in secret. Playing as the hunter, you are constantly trying to work out where that tricksy monster is with the use of your tokens and a bit of logic. The monster has nothing to lure the hunter towards them but it has the Feint token which allows it to secretly move 0-2 spaces once a game.Then it could end up right in your path, ready for dinner! After the hunter uses the last token you have five turns left before the finale. The monster could eat the hunter, the hunter could kill the monster or maybe no one kills anyone - and they all go hungry tonight!

We played loads of games in a row, then after dinner and miniature painting we squeezed a few more games in. It is an enjoyable and quick game, that is easy to set up and simple to learn. The game is produced by Ape Games, and designed by three university students studying game design. Go and check this game out here if you enjoy fast deduction games and trying to stalk your opponent.

Marisa xx       

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope 2017 brings you all an abundance of happiness and also some new games to play. After Christmas and my birthday I have a few new additions to the collection, which I look forward to playing, and then sharing my experiences of them here. 2016 was the year of discovering deck building and set collection games on a grander scale, so I will continue checking them out whilst experimenting with everything I can get these eager mitts on. 

Tonight I will be punching out and playing my surprise Christmas present: Lords of Waterdeep! I still have a thing for worker placement games, and this one is just so beautiful. Annoyingly I am back to work tomorrow, which means no more staying up until 3am playing games for a while...maybe until Friday.

Have a great week, everyone :)

The Library Pot

It is no secret that I am a boardgames cafe addict. Launching a Kickstarter and going on a mini tour has allowed me to indulge in many a cafe and gaming event. On our many travels to promote the campaign, Glori Eternia, we booked a Demo event at The Library Pot - Richmond's first board games cafe. I had wanted to visit this place as soon as I had heard about it on twitter, and the Kickstarter was a great excuse to take the trip!

We arrived totally drenched from the relentless downpour of rain, but were warmly welcomed by Rob, the owner of the cafe, and promptly seated in a comfortable booth. The Library Pot is a beautiful place, the booths and seating areas are adorned with greenery and glittering little lights. In the corner that houses the boardgames, an impressive shelving unit towers over the customers with a diverse range of games. The friendliness and hands-on attitude from the staff and owners was great, they got involved and actively encouraged people to play, allowing their customer's to enjoy themselves and get stuck into the games. There is a real sense of homeliness and comfort in The Library Pot, it is plain to see that the owners are genuine advocates of tabletop gaming and the aspects of social interaction that come with it.

Before demoing Glori Eternia we played some brief filler games with diners who were new to gaming, and had ventured in The Library Pot after hearing about it's unique appeal. We played Dobble, Pairs and Funny Farm - all very interactive games that really break the ice and let the healthy competition mount up, whilst having a laugh in the process. When it came to demoing Glori Eternia we had a lot of fun with the cafe's regulars, and even got out a funny dice game we made last year called Clench that was a rousing success with the crowd. 

The delicious menu with delectable cooked meals sets The Library Pot apart from a lot of other cafes, with the fusion of contemporary pub classics and some Japanese cuisine, it is almost like a restaurant as well as a boardgames cafe. There are lighter bites to keep hunger sated, as well as the larger and wholly satisfying meals, and most importantly - desserts! Cinnamon rolls with ice cream? Hell yes! I know I am supposed to be talking about the games, but, I cannot help myself. 

In case anyone needed further reason to visit this cafe, did I mention that there is a ball pit downstairs? Yes, you can relive those days of carefree ball pit action, just as I did! We ended up staying there very late, despite it being a weeknight and a long drive back, but it was worth it.

To sum it up, Rob and Emily were perfect hosts; both entertaining and mindful of their guest's needs. The collection of games included the classics and some hidden gems, the food was divine, the ball pit was a riot and the whole evening was unforgettable. If you want a good time in Richmond and fancy trying out some games whilst munching on some fine food then go and visit The Library Pot. I know I will be going back there very soon!

Marisa xx                 

Hail to the JunKing, baby!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can find some really great games on Kickstarter if you browse through now and again. Last year I backed lots of games, and one of the favourites of the bunch is JunKing. Now, as much as I love finding gems and other precious artefacts in a game, I find hoarding the tatty junk in this game just as rewarding! Playing as one of the scavenger imps that roam around the junk yard means you get to rummage through the piles of interesting and unsavoury trash to deck yourselves up in the finest of rubbish. The object of the game is to raise your social standing, and to find the precious crown to be the crowned The JunKing!

The game itself is fairly simple, players take it in turns to draw cards from the 'junkpile', place a card from their hand in play and then choose one action - either activating an ability on a card in use or activating their character's ability; whichever will help them get the edge over their opponent. After triggering your character's ability, you turn it face down so it is sleeping. All that rummaging and hoarding is tiring work! You can re-activate them again using an action in a future turn. The game ends when the crown is drawn, and the winner is the one with the most points. 

All of the junk cards are worth points. There are three different varieties of junkcards; Mounts, Helms and Devices. Mount cards are placed underneath the character, Helm cards are placed on top like an insane hat, and devices are placed either side of the character. Some of the Mounts and Helms are deemed 'Stackable', which allows you to lay multiple items in play. If the card is not stackable, then you can only have one out at a time, but can discard it to your hoard in exchange for a new card. Your hoard is important, because it is where you build up your points. Each card in your hoard is worth one point at the end of the game. Each junk card on your imp is worth points, and the sought-after crown is worth 10 points! There are some devices that give you five points if the crown has been drawn by another player, which makes the game more exciting and unpredictable. 

To rock the game up a bit more there are event cards slipped in amongst the junkpile. If one is drawn then the unlucky player who drew it must take a card from the Event Deck and suffer the consequences. Don't panic, as they are not too harsh. It is usually the case of losing a card in play or everyone gets to take an additional card except the person who drew the event, that kind of thing.

The artwork is brilliant, the cards radiate a mixture of cuteness, humour and a little bit of ick. I do love them, but I would deeply sanitise myself if I came into contact with any of the devices in real life!

The little subtle (and not so subtle) references to pop culture hidden on the cards are great. The Junk Spirit Finder and the Assorted Hat are probably my favourites. Oh, and the puns! The flavour text on the Assorted Hat reads 'I just saw something Slitherin' out of there' and it did have me giggling. There is also a set of expansion cards that I have not yet tried, but they look fun.

JunKing is for 2-6 players, and it suggests from ages 14+, but I think children younger than 14 could grasp it. Plus, I have not come across anything censored yet in all the seven games I've played. This is a thoroughly enjoyable and light gaming experience, there are loads of cards so there is more re-playability and lots of laughs involved.              

    

Thanks for reading, have a good weekend :)
Marisa xx

Relic Hunters

Sometimes I get the urge to plan themed boardgame sessions, which is usually influenced by watching a certain film or by significant factors in my surroundings. Last month, watching California Man and hearing the background noise of Farcry Primal on the X-Box inspired me to get out a few (loosely) prehistoric themed games such as Stone Age and Dino Hunt Dice. This week I was reading about a new exhibit at the British Museum and it spurred me to set up an evening of treasure and relic hunting games; Temple Run: Danger Chase, Lost Cities and Forbidden Desert.

An evening of hunting for and procuring precious artefacts ensued. We would be risking our lives ransacking temples, and still be home in time for dinner. The very frantic Temple Run: Danger Chase was first on the table. The game starts after you have already entered the sacred temple and ransacked it, probably making a mess and a lot of noise. You have taken the Golden Idol and are now being pursued by the freaky demon monkey creature! The object of the game is to outlast your opponent through a series of dice rolls against the clock, the dice dictate how far you will move and how far the demon monkey will move after you. The board lengthens to allow continuous play, and the game will go on for as long as you can stay ahead of the freaky creature chasing you. Oh, relentless demon monkey, just let me take this idol - it belongs in a museum!

Lost Cities is a two player card game where hand management and set collecting come into play. Both players are launching expeditions to discover the lost and forgotten cities of the past. So, we are not just searching for treasure or relics here, we are searching for entire cities! Cities that will, undoubtedly, contain treasure and relics. The locations are represented by different coloured cards, each with number values 2 -10, and with special investment cards that can increase your success or penalise you if the expedition does not go as planned! Players take it in turns to either lay an expedition card in ascending order or discard one, then take one from the draw pile. When the draw pile runs out the game ends and the maths confusion begins for me. Being terrible at maths, I rely on calculators or my opponent's brain to do the scoring. The creator of the game, Reiner Knizia, is a doctor of Mathematics, and he uses this skill well to create amazing balanced games. 

Forbidden Desert was one of my birthday presents that I have already mentioned here. The cooperative game for adventurers searching the sun-scorched desert for a legendary flying machine, rumoured to be buried under the ruins of a forgotten city. Working against the clock and events such as sandstorms, an ever-changing board and lack of water you must move and flip over the tiles to uncover the lost machine parts, and do so before you are buried in the sand or die of thirst. This game is fast-paced and fun, it really set the theme of the treasure hunting evening and was a good one to end on, especially as we were victorious! We found that legendary flying machine and flew it the heck out of there. 

The treasure and relic hunting evening was a success, even though we did not leave the room we felt as frazzled and elated as two adventurers who had escaped nasty booby traps or some freaky demons. This weekend I have been watching a string of Arnold Schwarzenegger films, so perhaps they will inspire me to theme another evening. What games would you associate Arnie with?

Thanks for reading, have a good week!

Marisa xx                   

International Tabletop Day

I hope you all had a fantastic time celebrating International Tabletop Day! It is pretty good that we have a day dedicated to the fun of games and spreading the love of tabletop games, and hopefully it has attracted more people over to the crusade of tabletop gaming. 

This year I was unable to go to any events celebrating tabletop games, so we crafted our own marathon of games at home! It was quite a feat; sixteen different games, with some meaty games on the list too and a few that I had never played before. Here is the list of tabletop abundance: 

1. Boggle 

2. Blood Bowl Team Manager 

3. Shogun

4. Tokaido

5. Letters To Santa

6. Mit 3 Dabei

7. Brawl

8. Lost Cities

9. Eight Minute Empire

10. 7 Wonders Duel

11. Raptor

12. Bling Bling Gemstone

13. Zombie Dice

14. Pairs

15. Ticket To Ride: The Emerald City     

16, Noir

Most of the games played were old favourites or ones that had not been played in a while, but Blood Bowl Team Manager and Shogun were new games to me. They had been on my playlist for a while and International Tabletop Day seemed like the perfect occasion to give them a go. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these games, they looked daunting at first but the mechanics were fairly easy to grasp and, like most games, a deeper understanding of the strategy comes through with longer plays. Shogun really did remind me of a lengthier and more strategic Eight Minute Empire, which is one of my favourite games, so that went down very well. I do enjoy a bit of area control and resource management. Blood Bowl Team Manager is a great hand management and dice rolling game with a fun theme, I look forward to playing this a lot more and writing about it in the future. 

Officially, in the United Kingdom, International Tabletop Day is over. But in my home, it will never be over - bring on more games!

Have a great day

Marisa xx  

Dark Souls at Salute

Last weekend I attended Salute 2016 with Marquee Models, as part of their boardgames demo team. I helped demo Zombicide Black Plague all day, but I did manage to sneak away from the table to make a few small purchases and try out Dark Souls.

The boardgame has been created by Steamforged Games Ltd, who have been working with Bandai Namco Entertainment to emulate the experience of the popular video game. I have not played the video game before, I am more of a Cake Mania or Katamari kind of a girl. The people around me playing the demo had played before, though, and they agreed that the boardgame captured the essence of the video game well, especially in the form of combat and the brutally hard nature of the game.

We played a quick demo of the game, jumping in at the deep end and confronting an end of level boss character; the dancer. It is a cooperative game (which is good as you need the back-up!) where you embark upon a perilous a dungeon exploration. Players take it in turn to move and attack. Each action you make depletes your stamina, which is shown on a nifty character card. You use a dry wipe pen to mark off the actions taken and to mark off your health when you are attacked. The stamina is on the left side of the card, and the health is on the right, but if they are all crossed off then you die! Luckily you can replenish health by drinking from your limited Estus Flask or replenish stamina by resting, so timing is a key element for survival.

The boss character we fought was controlled by a small deck of cards, all showing the boss's attack, movement, damage and where she will be vulnerable to attacks. These cards are reset once used up, and recycled, remaining in the same sequence so it is easier to predict the boss's actions. When the health was down to halfway on the boss things got crazy, an extra powerful card was added to the deck and it was shuffled to mess things up! I died fairly soon after that, and had to run back to my demo table before they sent out a search party. 

The kickstarter campaign for Dark Souls is launching today, you can check it out here.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

Paradice Found

Last week I finally got the chance to visit Paradice; the new board games cafe in Bromley. After bowing out of work early, my partner in crime and I jumped in the car and drove through perilous traffic to reach the cafe in time for a few games and to check the place out. As we had limited time at Paradice we only managed to squeeze in a couple of games, but we also got to meet the Managing Director, Jason Grimwood, chat to other staff members and munch on some snacks before closing.

Paradice is large, plenty of room for gaming! Downstairs is the board games cafe and shop, upstairs has a nice set up of tables and scenery for war gaming and miniatures gaming. The cafe offers a good selection of hot and cold snacks, and scrumptious cake, of course. The board games library is quite large already, even though the establishment has only been open a few months. There is a lot of choice, with many different genres of games, and I wanted to play so many games! The ground area is spacious, and it soon filled up with people of playing and laughing.  

The two games we got to play were Ghostbusters and Click Clack Lumberjack. Being a Ghostbusters fan, I had been eager to play this and was happy to finally get the opportunity. I had heard of it being compared to Zombicide, so that made me rather excited too. Ghostbusters, by Cryptozoic Entertainment, has the same levelling up system as Zombicide, they are both cooperative games, they share the same movement and point system but Ghostbusters is much lighter and more predictable than Zombicide. The set up was easy, and the rules were simple to grasp, which was a bonus. I did enjoy the nods to the movie, my favourite being the symbols on the dice and gates mirroring the cards Peter Venkman uses to test his subject's psychic abilities. 

Click Clack Lumberjack by Justin Oh was an unexpected gem of a game! A fun dexterity experience where you get to swing an axe at a log. No, you should really gently tap the log! Players take it in turns to GENTLY tap the log with the plastic axe to allow bark segments to fall out, but not enough to knock the tree core out. Knocking out the bark segments will give you one point, knocking out a bark segment with a hidden grub inside gives you an extra point, and knocking out a tree core gives you minus five points. In one clumsily fuelled swing I managed to knock down the entire thing; an instant failure in the game but maybe good Lumberjacking in the real world? This game was easy to assemble, very easy to learn and extremely fun to play. I was surprised that we played it so many times, it is addictive and perfect for a very light session. I felt quite sad packing it up, as it meant the end of our boardgames cafe excursion and a long drive home.  

Bromley is where I grew up; I had lived there my entire life up until last year. The addition of Paradice is a fantastic thing for Bromley, it needs a place like that for people to gather and enjoy quality time with friends and family. Like all boardgames cafes, it reinforces friendly socialising and using your brain to have fun. 

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

       

Massive Darkness

Good news for folks who enjoy a good old dungeon crawl; there has been a new Kickstarter announced, coming out next year from the team that brought us Zombicide!  

The game, Massive Darkness, will encompass the experiences of a dungeon crawl RPG and include beautifully sculpted miniatures, like the ones created for the Zombicide games. 

In the tradition of a true RPG campaign, there will be an array of heroes to choose from, a class to decide upon and skills or traits to spend XP on. Then your heroes will be unleashed in the dark foreboding dungeon, to seek out their fortune and kill the monsters that lurk inside.

Massive Darkness uses the Zombicide system of gameplay, giving your designated DM or game master the chance to become a player rather than controlling the enemies and making the decisions. I doubt the game will be as sympathetic as my DM when I make bad choices, perhaps this is my time to stop with the bad decisions?

You can read more about it here. It is a while until it is released, but that is probably a good thing for our bank accounts! In the meantime, there is always Massmorra to look forward to this year, a dungeon crawling game published by Cool Minis Or Not and it looks fantastic. Being a huge Arcadia Quest fan, that game had to be backed on Kickstarter or there would have been trouble in my household.       

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx