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     

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                   

Patchwork

Last week the popular game by Uwe Rosenberg, Patchwork, came to the IOS and Android and I have been playing it quite a lot. I know nothing beats an actual physical game, and the only things that hold me back from buying up all the games I enjoy are money and space! Seriously, some games are HUGE and I live in a teeny place where my walls are mostly stacked boardgames. But buying this game as an app was a great idea and totally justified as I see it as sampling a game before committing to buy. Also, sometimes it can be nice to curl up in bed with a game and play under the snuggly duvet. Shut The Box used to be a bed favourite as the rolling dice is contained in the box, but I'm not sure if the neighbours appreciated the constant dice rolling noise and the wooden slabs being flicked over.

Patchwork is a relatively simple game to play, and like many games it has a greater depth to it that emerges the more you play. The game had a few bugs on the initial download but these have been rectified and it plays smoothly now. The game emulates the tradition of patchwork quilting in the USA, where generations of families diligently work on creating beautiful patchwork quilts to pass on down. Now you can try your dab hand at it without the pain of stabbing your fingers with the needle. 

In this two player game, you compete to create the most attractive and high scoring quilt. The game fuses elements of puzzle-solving, time management, spatial control and strategy. At the start you are given a 9x9 grid to make your quilt on and are given five buttons. Buttons are the currency of the game, and the victory points. Buttons are worth one point and any leftover holes on your quilt are worth minus two points. To make a nice attractive quilt it must have minimal holes, I am still working on that part.

The score is kept by a time track on a separate board, which not only keeps track of the points but it gives you little perks to make the game even more interesting. Another interesting thing to note is the mechanism of the time track. After each turn the player who is behind or on top of their opponent's token goes first. So you could end up taking consecutive turns, if you play your *buttons* right!  

At the start of each turn players are given the option to choose from three of the available patches to buy and sew onto their board, or players can select the Pass option by sliding the button at the bottom of the screen. This allows you to move your time token one space in front of your opponent, then collect one button from the bank for each space moved. A good way to stock up on buttons when you are low. 

Each patch for sale is worth a certain amount of buttons and takes a certain amount of time to sew. Both of these are shown on the patch. Some of the more bizarre shaped patches display buttons too.

Once you have purchased a lovely patch, you can flip it diagonally and horizontally to make it fit nicely, but patches cannot overlap each other. Make sure you flip them using the buttons on the screen and not manually flipping them with your fingers, that did not go well! Once you are happy where you have placed your patch you sew it in and gain points for covering up holes. Sometimes life does not hand you buttons and you find you cannot afford any of the patches, if this happens then you select Pass and collect some buttons for your next turn.

Remember that time track and it's little perks? There are five 1x1 patches on the time track, whoever passes a patch first claims it and may place it on their board to fill a gap in the quilt. If you are anything like me, there will be a few holes on the quilt! Those awkward shaped patches that display buttons on them come in handy here too. On the time track there are buttons placed on the route, and when you move past a button on the track you receive as many buttons as you have on your quilt from the bank. It is raining buttons! Happy day. This button downpour happens to both players, regardless of whoever passes it first. 

There is also a bonus incentive for the first player to create a 7x7 quilted area. I am yet to do this as I tend to pick up the more abstract patches with the buttons.

This is a really fun, light and engaging game for two players who enjoy a little strategy and buttons. I look forward to playing a physical copy and holding all of the buttons in my greedy paws. 

  

Button Men

As much as I adore epic table top games with great components and a playing time that absorbs you fully for an hour or two, I will always have a special place in my heart for engaging yet brief games, such as Button Men. 

Designed by James Ernest and released by Cheapass Games in 1999, this wonderful little combat dice game was one of my first experiences into the world of table top games. The game play is as simple as you want it to be, and like many dice rolling games it is short but it can be prolonged if you do as I do, and turn it into a tournament of fighters!

Button Men is a game for two players who take turns rolling their dice in order to capture each other's dice. The game was originally sold as two packs of 2.25" pin back buttons (that is badges, to all you folk from the UK), but now you can download the character's cards here for printing. The characters, or fighters, all have names, unique numbers relating to their die attacks and a little bio which usually concludes with 'and she likes to beat people up'. Essentially, the fighters are rather like street fighters or prize fighters, busting each other up for the glory.

Before the game commences players select which fighter they wish to use and collect the dice equipped to that fighter. Some fighters have the 'X' symbol, which means you can choose any die between d4 and d20 to use. Players start by rolling all of their dice, then arranging them in a row in numeric order. The person who rolls the lowest number goes first. A good game for low rollers like me. 

There are two moves you can choose from during your turn, a power attack or a skill attack. A power attack allows you to use a die of your own to capture a single die of your opponent's that is equal to or less than the number you rolled on your die. A skill attack allows you to use several of your dice to capture one of your opponents, with this attack your dice must add up exactly to the value of the die you capture. I must say, this game has really helped my poor maths skills! Once you have captured a die it is taken out of the game and into your possession, then the die you used to capture it is re-rolled and placed back into the game. This process is alternated between players until one player has had all of their dice captured. After each round you add up your score to see who has won, each captured dice is worth its size in points and each of your own dice remaining is worth half its size. The first player to win three rounds is the champion!

Just to heat things up a bit and add some extra carnage, there are some special dice rules that were introduced in various expansion packs. I tend to play with speed dice and poison dice in games, they are less complicated than some of the others and quite useful. You can use one speed die to capture any number of your opponents dice, as long as the value of your speed dice adds up exactly to the captured dice. Poison dice are tricksy as they worth negative points at the end, if you keep it you must subtract its full value from your score and if you capture it then you subtract half of the value. I like to pick a lurid green colour die to represent my poison.

This intense little game becomes so addictive, and the more you play the more strategies you discover. I would always try to take out my opponents high numbers using my rolled high numbers but I have learnt that it is worth leaving your high rolls as they are, unless your opponent can use a Skill attack to combine dice! I love seeing a stupidly low number on a d20 and capturing it with a d4 - how very satisfying. Another great thing about this inexpensive game (it is by Cheapass Games, after all) is that it is really compact, you only need a handful of buttons and an assortment of dice. I have taken this to hotels and on long journeys without any fuss, just be careful rolling. you do not want to lose dice on the train! It is also available as an app on the iphone, and it makes a pleasing dice roll sound. 

Button Men is fast, furious, cheap and fun. There are loads of fighters to choose from by various popular artists and there are several expansions, even a cute Sailor Moon one. It really is an excellent duelling game that keeps me occupied for a while.

Thanks for reading

Marisa xx

        

         

A Trip to Draughts

This week I ventured up to London to visit the board games cafe, Draughts, to see how many games I could rip through from opening to closing. The cafe is situated in Hackey, a short walk from Haggerston station, so locating it was fairly easy. On weekdays it opens at 5pm, so we made sure we were there early, loitering around outside - even though I had a table booked in advance, because I am silly like that.

Draughts is a really unique place, it was a very fun experience and reasonably priced at £5 each to play as many games as you can handle. The food and drink were quite affordable too for a London venue, and amid the mass rounds of pear juice and Jalapeno pretzels we got quite a few games in. At the back of the cafe there is a library of games to browse through, over 500 games of all genres under one roof like a treasure trove. The staff were friendly and keen to recommend games, then demonstrate how to play them. We started off with something light to warm up; Elk Fest. This is a simple little dexterity game where you and your opponent flick counters from either end of the table. The counters act as stepping stones for the wooden elks who balance upon them, and you must move them across to the other side without the elks falling off.

After settling in with the elks, we moved onto Machi Koro, which I have wanted to play for a while now and was happy to finally crack open the box. It is a city building and dice rolling game, and it is very addictive. You build up your city by collecting various cards through dice rolls and coin counters. Some cards give you extra benefits and hinder your opponents, I had a cheese factory stolen by my opponent! As soon as it was over I was ready to go again, but other games were calling so I relented and moved on to Imperial Settlers.   

       

Imperial Settlers is a civilisation building game, where you are playing as early settlers from major continents, collecting resources to build and trade with. The concepts and mechanics of this game were not ones I was too familiar with so I found the first round rather daunting but I soon adapted and was racking in the apples and meeples. This game is fantastic, and I ended up going home and ordering it for next day delivery.

The next game up was Agricolam as it was highly recommended by the staff at the cafe. This echoed some of the themes in Imperial Settlers, but is more of a worker placement game. You collect resources to build upon your farm and land. and take a number of actions depending on how many people live in your farm. I was so focused upon growing obscene amounts of carrots that I forgot to reproduce, so I had less people in my farm and less actions to take!

We managed to squeeze in three versions of Timeline towards the end. Timeline is an educational card game where players must use their knowledge (or guess, as I do a lot) to pinpoint when certain events occurred throughout history, and place their cards in chronological order in a row. As the hours flew by, it was so tempting to stay until closing at 11pm but the thought of missing the last train and having to wait for the night bus was too traumatic, so leaving at 10,30pm was preferable. But I must admit, on the way home we played a few games on the I-Phone...and perhaps more games upon arriving home. We have problems!  

Thanks for reading :) 

Please feel free to recommend games to me or just talk about games to me at

kookycherry@hotmail.co.uk

Marisa xx 

   

New Games!

I purchased three new games from Marquee Models this week; Agent Hunter, Fluxx and Hanabi. I am looking forward to playing these, especially Hanabi as it is a cooperative game and I rather enjoy those. Holding a new game and unwrapping the packaging is almost like opening a Christmas present.

I have a sneaking suspicion that even more new games will enter the collection next week, as I have a few game related events lined up! Keep your eyes peeled for updates :)

Have a good night

Marisa xx  

Cartagena

Who doesn't like a pirate themed game? I would choose pirates over zombies, any day. Cartagena is a game about groups of pirates racing each other through an underground passage, to escape the fortress prison they were held in and to reach the port where a sloop is waiting for them. This will transport the lucky pirates away to a land of rum and, probably, booty.

According to the rules sheet, the game Cartagena is themed on a pirate jailbreak in 1672. I did a little research into it and could not find any information on this jailbreak. It seems others also looked into it and found no actual record of this, but there is an imposing fortress in Cartagena that was built in the 16th Century to ward off pirates so perhaps there is some kind of legend surrounding it after all. Also, I am sure the internet does not know every single detail of history.

I love this game. I have played it on numerous occasions and taken a vicious beating, only tasting victory one sweet time. It is very strategic, planning ahead to get your pirates through the underground passage, but also hindering your opponents. You are navigating a path for your pirates, and making sure you do not run out of cards.

This game is for two - five players and there are two different versions of the game; the Jamaica version and the Tortuga version. In the Jamaica version the cards in your hand are concealed and the rest of the deck is placed face down, where all players pick new cards from. In the Tortuga version the players lay their hand face up for all to see, and twelve cards from the deck are dealt and placed face up in a row. The row is re-stocked once it has run out. I tend to favour the Jamaica version as I like the secrecy!

The board is in six segments, you can assemble them together in many different ways, as long as the passages connect either end. Each player is allocated six cards in their hand. The player who looks the most like a pirate may take the first turn. This has only been me once, after I had a particularly manic hair day. 

The cards have a piratical theme, with six different symbols. There is the skull and crossbones, the Captain's hat, a key, a dagger, a pistol and a glass bottle. You play a card to move one of your pirates to the nearest symbol that matches your card on the board. The aim is to get all six of your pirates across the passage but using a strategy that hinders your opponents. When you need more cards you must move one of your pirates backwards, to the nearest pirate behind you, regardless if it is your own or your opponents. If you move to a space with one pirate resting there, then you pick up one card. If you go back to a space with two pirates there then you may pick up two cards. There can only be a maximum of three pirates on one space, so this makes life rather difficult when you are running low on cards, but you can use it to your advantage when trying to stop your opponent from picking up new cards. 

The player who gets all six of their pirates across the passage and onto the sloop is the winner. When I first played this game I hastily sent all my pirates out on my first six turns, it seemed like a good idea but I had so many stragglers and did not want to leave any pirates behind! I became rather obsessed with this game a few months ago, trying to crack the secret to winning and not running out of cards so severely. It takes a lot of plotting, going backwards whenever you see a space occupied by two pirates within your reach, and holding fort by keeping three pirates on a space behind your opponent rather than advancing at times. I am still working on the formula. It is a rather brutal game, but great fun. I hunger for more victories, but I enjoy a challenge so I keep swashbuckling away.            

Sushi Dice

I thought I would start the morning off with a game that would awaken my senses and make me alert, Sushi Dice by Sit Down! Games is perfect for that. I picked up this game from Travelling Man at London MCM Expo in May, and it has become one of my favourite dice games. You are playing as a sushi chef, preparing delicious sushi platters in haste against your opponent. A deck of cards highlights the different sushi platters that need to be made, three cards are drawn from this deck before the game starts and are laid face up on the table. You and your opponent must try to create these dishes by rolling six dice each simultaneously and matching up the symbols on the dice to one of the cards. When the game begins you start rolling your dice like crazy to make the platters, setting aside the correct symbols and keeping on rolling the other dice until you match the dice to the card. When you have matched up the symbols you ding the service bell and take the card. That card is then replaced by a new one from the deck and play resumes!

 Sounds rather frantic? Well, the craziness is pushed even further to the extreme by the "Yuck" factor. On three of the dice in your hand there are little black skull symbols; the "Yuck" symbol. This means that your sushi dish you were slaving over went horribly wrong, one of the other chefs has tasted it and deemed it unsuitable for consumption. If you roll a "Yuck" and your opponent notices, they can say (or scream, as it often happens) "YUCK!" and that forces you to re-roll all of your precious dice. In a two player scenario, the first player to collect six cards is the winner, the victorious sushi chef from a cut-throat kitchen of critics. 

      

The star symbol on three of the dice is a wild card, it can count as any other symbol in order to help you complete a sushi platter. The star symbol is a life saver in most situations!

Sushi Dice is a fun and quick game, a great prelude to a gaming session and also quite addictive. It can be played with 2 -6 players and is suitable for ages 6+ so it is a good group game for families and friends. Even though the box says it takes 15 minutes, it could last all night, if you take the pressure of the kitchen. The frenzy of rolling your own dice to match the symbols, but also keeping a watchful eye over what your opponent rolls in case they should roll a "Yuck", is not for the faint-hearted!

What to play first tonight?

I have a nice little spread here of games, and I just do not know which one to start with. Why, you ask? Because I want to play all of them right away! It has been a few days since I have had a reasonable fix of gaming, so I am eager to dive right in. Perhaps I will ease into it with Pairs or Just Desserts, or go straight for the jugular with a frenzied game of Sushi Dice. Only time will tell...  

Welcome to Tabletop Stop

Welcome to my blog; the experiences in tabletop gaming from the eyes of a rookie. Like a lot of people, the vast majority of my past experiences with board games had been the usual family games that you find lodged in corners of pubs and rental cottages. Although some were entertaining at the time, they could also be a bit tedious and I longed for something more. I rather liked the social aspect of board gaming and how we weren't staring at a screen in silence, we were interacting and thinking, sometimes working as a team and sometimes there was a bit of friendly competition.

Last year I was introduced into a whole new dimension of tabletop games that blew my mind. These games were engaging, they were fun, some were gorgeously designed - they were unlike any games I had encountered before. Now I am hooked; totally addicted to table top games and have started my own little collection too (which is growing steadily). I love the feel of the printed linen cards, the small components and counters, the custom designed dice and the attractive boards; all of these things are more precious to me than a pair of designer shoes and a handbag, which confuses my family!

In my new adventure into gaming I have noticed that there seems to be a game for everyone. Last week I found a card game about collecting and cooking up flavoursome wild mushrooms, a memory card game about identifying actor's masks in a Japanese theatre and a push-your-luck game where one of the players is essentially dared to go on a dungeon crawl. The sheer variety of games available is wonderful, from the long and strategic games to the short and frenzied games. Often, my mood dictates what kind of game I desire to play, so I am pleased to have an array to choose from.

I hope you enjoy following me on my journey into the tabletop games world. I will be posting about the games I am playing, writing about my experiences, what shops or events I am visiting and in the near future I will be talking to game creators and enthusiasts. Please tell me about your favourite games too, and tell me your recommendations, as I am always on the prowl for something to add to my collection. So far, I feel like this community is a warm and welcoming crowd, that want to get others involved and I cannot wait to wade further into this pool of dice and decks!

Thank you for following.

Marisa xx