PRODUCT UPDATE  Hello everyone, we are happy to inform you about our super big product update. Meet the fresh arrival and novelties of our store :) Hurry up, the games are great and for all tastes, be the first to buy :)7 Wonders 7 Wonders: Duel King of Tokyo King of Tokyo: Lutoborshch Hive: Pocket ImagineDixitDixit 3 : JourneyDixit 4: OriginsDixit DisneyDixit OdysseyCartographers: A Roll Player TaleBoopKing of Tokyo. National Monster 2. ThunderhoundKing of Tokyo: Even More Wicked!EverdellEverdel: BelfaireWings: Fan Art PackCriminal ChroniclesCthulhu: Death May DieCity of HappinessHell TramSalem 1692Cynical StoriesPandemic SaboteurPROMOTIONAL ITEMS  We suggest you familiarize yourself with the promotional items that will pleasantly surprise your wallet)  Intention Intention: Age of Thirst (Intention)  Wings (Wingspan) (Ukrainian)  Endless Winter: Paleoamericans (Ukrainian)  Level 10 (Ukrainian)  5 Seconds (Ukrainian)  5 Seconds Junior (5 Seconds Junior) (Ukrainian)  Marsolovs..

ОГЛЯД ГРИ EL GRANDE El Grande is back. Hosanna. For those who are unfamiliar, El Grande, The Big itself, is one of the great canonical games in our hobby. Every podcast, list, and forum that extends beyond the Cult of the New considers it one of the greatest games ever published. That’s for good reason. El Grande is, in fact, a masterpiece. LE GRAND El Grande is an area-majority game in which players aim to accumulate political power throughout Spain. There are nine rounds, each of which follows the same pattern: players bid for turn order, then choose one of the five action cards available for that round while placing some of their caballeros out onto the board. Every three rounds, players score the board. A big part of the beauty and brilliance of the design is in the way those two—2!—decisions are woven together. Bidding is, on the face of it, simple. Each player starts the game with 13 cards, numbered from 1-13. The higher the card you bid with each round, the earlier in that round you’ll go, but there are two catches. Catch number one: the lower your card, the more caballeros—the meeples you place on the board to mark your influence—you get to add from the pool to your personal supply. Catch number two: the lowest bidding player in any given round gets to bid first for the next.  Then there are the action cards, split into five unique decks. The actions on the cards affect the board in various ways, but it mostly boils down to placing, moving, and removing caballeros. Choices are deeply political and involve a good amount of table talk. A great session of El Grande is a roiling seabed of agreements, betrayals, and machinations. The bottom of each action card also includes between 1 and 5 caballeros, which indicates the amount of influence you can place on the board that turn. There are, of course, some restrictions on placement. On the board, and as yet unmentioned, stands el rey, the King, visiting the various provinces of his kingdom. His position is critical. Caballeros can only be placed in regions adjacent to the King, and nothing—absolutely nothing—can change in the region where the king is present. In addition to putting caballeros out on the board, you have one other option: any number of caballeros can be placed in the Castle, a tall cardboard tube standing on an island to the southeast of the mainland. Why would you want to do that? Every three rounds, scoring triggers. Most of it is rote: go through each region, one at a time, and give the leading players in each region the points indicated on the board. If I have the most caballeros in Toledo, for example, and you have the second most, I get 7 points and you get 4. Before all that happens, though, we have a little bit of drama. At the start of the game, each player gets a spinner wheel showing all the regions. Before scoring begins, each player sets their spinner to one region, places their wheel down on the table, and the Castle is emptied. A moment to shovel praise on whichever member of Hans-im-Glück’s production team suggested giving the new castle a functioning gate. In the history of El Grande, the Castle has had various levels of aesthetic sophistication, but it has always been, fundamentally, a tube. To reveal its contents, one would simply lift the tube. That’s fine. Perfectly fine. Lifting that little gate and having all the caballeros spill out is wonderful.  The Castle itself counts as a region, but the real value comes in what happens after scoring it. Each player reveals their selected region and then places any caballeros they had in the castle out onto the board. This happens, I’ll reiterate, before the rest of the board is scored. The Castle is a source of tension, a sword of Damocles hovering over the board. I love a sword of Damocles hovering over the board. DER GROSS El Grande does everything I want a game to do. The rules are simple. The board state is never confusing. You make three choices every turn: how much to bid, what to pick, where to place. The choices are simple, the ramifications are complex. Truly, the ideal. Oh, and I have to say, do you know how long it takes to set up El Grande? Two minutes. That process is improved by Hans-im-Glück’s decision to include little boxes for each player’s components to be stored in between games, but even without those, that amount of time is a pittance. Lay out the board, hand out the boxes, place the starting pieces out in each province, shuffle the action cards, and you are done. Heaven. Find me a contemporary, comparably rich Euro with that kind of setup time. It cannot, by and large, be done. El Grande is not only a great game, finally made available to the masses. It is a reminder of what games can be, that complication isn’t necessary to create complexity. The Big indeed ..

ОГЛЯД НАСТІЛЬНОЇ ГРИ PINATA У грі Piñata гравці беруть на себе роль дітей на святкуванні дня народження, обоє намагаються з усіх сил зламати піньяту та отримати всередині смачну цукерку. Розумне керування вашими картками допоможе вам першим розкрити цю оболонку пап’є-маше. Піньята — це весела швидка карткова гра для двох гравців, у якій гравці протистоять один одному, обидва намагаються отримати якомога більше цукерок певного кольору, щоб виграти бажані медалі. Будь першим, хто заробить 3 медалі та стань переможцем вечірки до дня народження! Piñata постачається з 4 полями для маркерів великого розміру, які вказують, скільки цукерок належить на цій картці та чи намагаєтеся ви грати низько чи високо. Колода з 54 карт червоного, жовтого, зеленого, фіолетового, рожевого та білого кольорів (джокерів), кожна з різними номерами. 5 карток медалей, які використовуються для відзначення перемоги. Значення на медальній картці вказує, скільки цукерок цього кольору потрібно, щоб отримати медаль.  Кілька дерев’яних цукерок чудової форми в непрозорому тканинному пакеті.ПРИГОТУВАННЯ ДО ГРИ Приготувати Piñata швидко та легко. Перемішайте великі дошки (і випадковим чином переверніть їх набік) і розкладіть між обома гравцями в порядку від 1 до 4. Витягніть випадкову кількість цукерок із мішка відповідно до числа на кожній плитці та покладіть туди цукерки. Повторюйте, доки на кожній великій дошці не буде правильна кількість цукерок. Розкладіть 5 нагородних карток збоку.Перетасуйте колоду і роздайте кожному гравцеві по 8 карт. Виберіть першого гравця та починайте гру. ІГРОВИЙ ПРОЦЕС Мета гри «Піньята» полягає в тому, щоб гравець зіграв певні карти на своїй стороні кожної великої дошки «Піньята». Дошка зі стрілкою, спрямованою вгору, означає, що гравець намагається розіграти комбінацію карт із найбільшим значенням очок, тоді як стрілка вниз означає найменше значення очок. Кількість цукерок на кожній дошці визначає, скільки карток можна використати для отримання результату. Крім того, кольори на цукерках обмежують гравців грати лише в карти цих кольорів і саме тих кольорів. Використовуючи наведений нижче приклад, зауважте, що картка «3» має спрямовану вгору стрілку з фіолетовими, рожевими та жовтими цукерками. Це повідомляє гравцям, що вони можуть зіграти лише 3 карти, що карти мають бути фіолетовими, рожевими та жовтими, і що вони намагаються отримати якомога більше очок за допомогою цих 3 карт. Коли гравець розмістить правильну комбінацію карт на своїй стороні дошки, він має можливість розіграти карти на стороні суперника. У наведеному нижче прикладі гравець ліворуч уже розмістив правильну кількість і колір карток (використовуючи білий дикий символ як заміну необхідної жовтої картки).  Це означає, що тепер вони можуть зіграти жовту картку за власним вибором на табло іншого гравця. Враховуючи, що ця дошка має високі бали, якщо вони зіграють жовту 1 або 2, вони виграють дошку.ПЕРЕМОГА У ГРІ Коли обидва гравці мають правильну кількість і колір карток на дошці, гра зупиняється, і гравці визначають, хто виграє цю дошку. Гравець-переможець бере цукерки з цієї дошки, перевертає дошку на протилежний бік, кладе на неї нові цукерки, витягнуті з мішка, і гра поновлюється. Якщо після отримання цукерок гравець має достатньо, щоб претендувати на медаль, він бере цю медаль і кладе її перед собою. Гравець, який першим здобуде 3 медалі, є переможцем. ЩО МЕНІ ПОДОБАЄТЬСЯ В ГРІ Як завжди, я починаю з оформлення: якщо коробка не приваблива візуально, ви навряд чи візьмете її, і Piñata не розчарує у відділі мистецтва. Коробка чудова: святкова, яскрава, з темою мексиканської вечірки. Піньята має відчуття 3D, якого зазвичай не можна знайти в настільних іграх, і воно досить освіжає. Юнак, що бігає, зображений на кожній із карток, здається цілком сповненим рішучості добитися свого з піньятою, і вираз задоволення на його обличчі на картках із медалями є винагородою. Поля товсті та міцні, як і можна було очікувати від того, що можна буде перевертати десятки разів в одній грі. Гральні карти мають високу якість і повинні витримати багато ігор. Нарешті, цукерки… яка весела форма та яка тематична, що вони мають форму, як старомодні загорнуті цукерки! Ви та ваш партнер чудово проведете час, витягуючи їх із сумки та складаючи перед собою.ЩО НЕ СПОДОБАЛОСЬ Єдиний мінус, який я можу сказати про Піньяту, це те, що вона іноді може тривати трохи довго. На полі зазначено 30 хвилин, але іноді гра може збільшити 40 хвилин, оскільки гравці аналізують розташування карток. Це не велика угода, якщо обидва гравці знають про це, але просто знайте, що це може бути проблемою. ВИСНОВКИ Варто зазначити, що Piñata – це свого роду ребрендинг старішої гри під назвою Balloon Cup. Якщо ви хотіли спробувати цю гру, але не можете, тому що її важко знайти, тоді Piñata може подряпати цей свербіж за вас, і за набагато нижчою ціною. Якщо ви шукаєте чудову, веселу, досить швидку гру для двох гравців, то Piñata точно вам підійде. Чому б не покачатися і перевірити, чи подобається вам Піньята?!..

In 1995, Klaus Toiber introduced Settlers of Catan to the world. It won the Spiel des Jahres that year and, without any hyperbole, changed board games forever. Four years later, Toiber launched his space game with The Starfarers of Catan. This version included a much larger board with planetary systems, new resources to collect, and one large rocket per player. Unfortunately, the production aspects let the game down. The rocket and the parts attached to it often break during repeated actions. As a result, Starfarers disappeared from the shelves, leaving behind a mixed legacy. Settlers of Catan has since been renamed Catan with many expansions. People like me who have long heard that Starfarers is better than standard Catan have been patiently waiting for a Starfarers re-release. In 2019, this reissue finally hit stores. It came with improved plastic parts and a modular field. But is Catan: Starfarers really any good? And can it be better than Catan? Let's bring the game to the table to see for ourselves, shall we? PREPARATION FOR THE GAME You will start by creating a playing field. It consists of six 11" x 11" puzzle pieces that, when assembled, will have several empty spaces that you will fill in with matching dolly pieces. The game's almanac suggests the setup for the first game, including which planetary systems (the pieces corresponding to the empty spaces) go where, as well as the positions of each player's starting pieces at the base of the field. We stuck with this and found it resulted in a well-balanced first game, but then changed the setup for subsequent games. The planets in each planetary system have their own symbol. Find the matching disks and place them symbol-side up on each planet. Set all other discs aside. Place all the resource cards in the tray provided, making sure the item cards go into the slot marked 2:1. Each of the other cards are slotted 3:1, meaning they can be exchanged for other cards throughout the game at this exchange rate. Take eight cards from each resource, shuffle them together and place them in the open hole in the tray. Deal three cards from this deck to each player. Another tray is added for various upgraded missiles (Booster, Freight and Cannon) and broken pieces of glory. Shuffle the deck of Encounter cards and place them in the large hole at the end of the tray. Sort the Friendship cards into four separate decks and place them on the side of the board. Place the corresponding standing tokens next to each deck. Then each player chooses a color and takes all pieces of that color. These include colonies (large hex pieces), trading stations (smaller hex pieces), shipyards (hex rings that fit around the colony pieces), and transport ships (tiny missile ships). Place the round score markers on the number 4 on the board. The first player to score 15 points wins. And there is Rocket. Let's face it: As far as gaming components go, these rockets are pretty cool. If you are playing for the first time, carefully unscrew the top of the rocket and drop 2 yellow, 1 blue, 1 red and 1 black small plastic balls into it. Then replace the top of the rocket. Now shake her. (You know what you want!) Take one of the orange boosters from the rocket upgrade tray and add it to the bottom of one of the three rocket fins. Then everyone gets half a fame token. (Two tokens = 1 point) Choose the first player and start the game. GAME PROCESS If you know how to play Catan, you will be familiar with most of how to play Starfarers. During your turn, you roll two dice, take the total, and match that number to the numbers on the planets. Players who have a trading station, colony, or spaceport next to a number collect a resource that matches the color of the planet. The active player can then trade resources with other players and/or trade resources to upgrade their rocket or build spaceports, colonies or ships. If you roll a seven in Starfarers, anyone with more than seven resource cards in their hand must discard half of their cards, rounded down. An extra action in Starfarers also involves shaking your rocket. In the movement phase, you count the number of displayed balls. This number indicates how many hex corners on the board you can move each of your ships in space. However, if one of these balls is black, no movement occurs. Instead, the player to your left draws the top encounter card from the deck and reads the top part aloud. Many encounter cards contain scenarios (“You meet a merchant…” or “You meet a space pirate…”) that require you to make a choice. If, for example, you choose to fight a space pirate, you and the other player will shake your rockets and compare the total number of small plastic balls that appear in the base (red = 3; yellow = 2; blue = 1). ; black = 0). The Encounter card explains the results and consequences. INTELLIGENCE As you move into space, you can choose to contact those planetary systems I mentioned earlier. Landing on an intersection that is adjacent to one will turn all three discs face up. Some of these will be numbers, indicating that they will generate resources if a trading station, colony, or spaceport is located on a nearby intersection. Some discs may have either the Ice Planet or the Pirate Base. In this case, planetary intersections with these markers are prohibited until they are resolved. In the case of an ice planet, one of your ships must be adjacent to it, and your rocket must be equipped with cargo containers equal to or greater than the number on the disc. At the pirate base, your missile must have a number of cannons equal to or greater than the specified number. When terraforming an ice planet or defeating a pirate base, you first collect a token on the planet and get one point. You then replace it with a disc with the same symbol, placing it face up so that the number is visible. WE ARE LOOKING FOR FRIENDS The board is also populated by four outposts. Each Outpost has a central docking point and places where trading stations can be placed. As a goodwill gesture, when you do, you'll get to choose one of that alien race's bonus cards. All these cards give you a special power for the rest of the game. The first player to reach an outpost will also receive a friend token for that race worth one point. This friend token remains yours unless another player places more trading stations on the outpost than you. If so, the other player claims a Friend. You lose a point and they get one. CONCLUSIONS Catan: Starfarers has a lot to recommend it. Let's start by studying the game. As far as I've seen, the player hints in Starfarers are almost perfect. Even if you're new to the Catan system, the cards are easy to read. They explain player moves and show the resources needed to upgrade your rocket and build a trading station, colony or spaceport. Like Catan, Starfarers comes with a Rulebook and an Almanac. The rulebook covers the basic rules and details the possibilities of a particular move. The Almanac is an alphabetical listing of all game items with details on each part of the game. If you have a question, it will be answered in one (if not both) of these guides. Despite the number of planets in different planetary systems, the chance to get resources is much greater in Starfarers. More resources mean more trading opportunities. Also, the standard trade in the game is 3:1 (as opposed to Katana's 4:1). We were still short on certain resources, but there were more chances to build a spaceship or power up our rockets throughout the game. I'm sure some people may disagree with this, but I welcomed the lack of development cards from Catan in Starfarers. Development cards in Catan are a hidden element of the game that can be obtained as you get closer to victory. I've never been a big fan of these cards, and not having them is a big plus for me. This keeps Starfarers as an open-ended game, which is my favorite style of play. Starfarers, on the other hand, takes significantly longer to play than standard Catan. Our last game of Catan for three players took about an hour, a game of Starfarers with the same number of players took about 2.5 hours. (Our first four-player game, played by people familiar with Catan, took 3.5 hours.) Despite the increased access to resources, it will not be enough to stay only on the initial resources. Therefore, you will need to build spaceships and move them to other planets. Although both games take place within a limited field, the field of Starfarers is many times larger than the field of Catan. Clash cards often pause the game (again, they are drawn when a black orb appears at the base of your rocket), interrupting the flow of the game. Also, many Encounter cards are duplicates. With the attention to detail the team put into the rest of the game, repeating these frequently drawn cards just doesn't make sense. It became something of a running joke every time an Encounter card was drawn, with people around the table saying “You encounter a trader…” before the card was even read. If there were a greater variety of Encounters, they would be approached with some degree of caution. As it was, even the worst results were only mildly annoying and hardly worth the effort. Going back to the questions I posed at the beginning of this review, "Is Catan: Starfarers really good?" So. With Starfarers, Toiber took the concepts of its predecessor and turned it into a great adventure game. This leaves me wondering, "Can it be better than Catan?" For me, Starfarers is better than Catan. On my first playthrough, I realized that I had more fun with Starfarers than I had with Catan in a long time. This wasn't just because of a fancy rocket or new components, it was because the openness of the board demanded exploration, and with it, new things to discover. Another thing I realized during a recent game of standard Catan was that in Starfarers I could actively..

PIES GAME REVIEW I love old pictures and illustrations of fruits like those found in botany textbooks from the late 1800s. The attention to detail is impressive, the gradation of shades and shapes, flaws. Cards for Pies captivated me, lovingly executed work in an identical style. I found myself getting stuck on the cards while going through them. These cards create a world with a distinctly pastoral feel, the spine of the book covered in dust. Then I got to the tokens with the pie cut out on them, and I started to worry. They did not feel aesthetic. I caught myself thinking about the old writer's maxim: "Don't put a hat on top of a hat."  Pies is supposed to be an empowerment game and is being marketed as such, but that's flat out wrong. There are no suits, no pressure to follow, no trumps. The game exhibits none of the defining characteristics of the genre. This is an auction game about collecting fruits and recipes to turn them into pies.  Each player places one card from his hand in the middle of the table. Then, from the highest card to the lowest, everyone can choose any of the cards played to add to their table. Some cards have recipes that require fruit combinations, while others give you an immediate bonus. Bonuses can be three Pi tokens that can change the value of the card you play, the ability to steal a card from another player, or the aforementioned dog that protects your painting from being stolen. If you have successfully collected the required fruit combinations, you can turn over the recipe card and discard the corresponding fruit. This flipped card is now locked, a safe source of late game points.  Pies are boring from start to finish. There are very few solutions. Playing cards is rarely fun. The quality of solutions is somewhere between limited and non-existent. The only enjoyment to be found is when you play a Pi token that changes the value of your card by 3.14 so that your card is exactly 0.14 higher than the other player's card. A dog card comes out of nowhere. Pi tokens seem like a gratuitous joke. Their combined aesthetic departure from the game's world, suggesting a creation that doesn't know what it is, is perfectly aligned with the game's inability to choose a meaningful line...

 Project GIPF is a series of eight abstract strategy games designed by Chris Burm. Each game has a hexagonal playing area and involves reducing the number of pieces or mechanics of the playing area. The way they approach these elements is not only unique, but also combines what I think are the best qualities in most theses: simple rules that reveal a complex game. If you've never heard of Project GIPF, GIPF , TAMSK , ZÈRTZ , DVONN , YINSH , PÜNCT , TZAAR , and LYNGK , I encourage you to look them up in cardboard form or digitally online. They are worth your time. Today's game: TAMSK  Before I begin, I know some supporters may object to including TAMSK here. This is because in 2007, when Broome introduced TZAAR , he stated that it would replace TAMSK in the GIPF project. fine. When you write a review about a GIPF project, feel free not to mention it. Having played TAMSK, I know it deserves a mention every time a GIPF project comes up. That's because TAMSK , a game about balancing the falling sands of time against a rapidly shrinking board, is a great game. Great game. GAME PROCESS The game takes place on the hexagonal black field located between them. Each player has three hourglass timers; one takes the black timers and the other takes the red timers. You will also have 32 white rings.  At the start of each turn, you'll take one of your three hourglasses, flip it over and place it in any available pipe next to where it started. You will then place one of your rings on top of the hourglass where it will fall around the tube that holds the hourglass. As soon as one player places the hourglass in the tube, the next player can move. They don't have to wait for the ring to sweep through the hourglass just played. When a tube has rings equal to its height, that tube is out of play. This means that the outermost trumpets can only be played once, the second "ring" of hexes can be played twice, and so on. For an hourglass timer to remain in play, it must always have sand from the top half to the bottom. If the hourglass runs out of sand at the top, it freezes on the board. The pipe he is standing in is blocked until the end of the game. The game continues until neither player can make any additional moves because their timers have run out of sand or they have no valid moves. Again, the winner is the one with the fewest rings at the end of the game. CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE GAME When the taller pipes are toward the center of the board, the gameplay will naturally move toward the center. However, the outer edges can be good places to quickly drop rings in an attempt to block your opponent's hourglass. (Remember that a frozen hourglass cannot move and therefore will not help you get rid of the rings.) By introducing real-time as a game mechanic, players are forced to quickly assess their hourglass, their position on the board, the position of their opponent's hourglass, the areas where their hourglass can be trapped, and how you can catch one of your opponents. sand clock. All in a fraction of a second. With varying degrees of 3-minute hourglass, there is no time for analysis paralysis in TAMSK.  TAMSK is the only game I play standing up. Too much is happening too fast for me to sit and feel like I can take it all in. It's also the only abstract strategy game that gives me an adrenaline rush. True, this type of game is not for everyone. I once played TAMSK with a friend who, at the end of the game we were playing, said, “I play games to relax and take my time between turns. I never want to play that again." Personally, I will play it when I can. It's a fast-paced game similar to Speed Chess, except you don't hit the timer after making a move—the timers are your playing pieces, and you have to manage them both in time and place. TAMSK was removed as an official game in Project GIPF mainly due to production costs. As a result, it has been out of print for years and is hard to find. However, if an exciting abstract strategy game sounds intriguing, then this Pluto from the GIPF project is worth your time...

 In this review, I want to talk about an unusual board game. It is unusual for two (even three) reasons: firstly, it is based on a popular computer game (no, no, this is not Civilization), and secondly, this game is an action game. A real action game in a desktop version! And thirdly, the game was successful, which, as you understand, does not always happen in games (or movies) based on well-known franchises. So, meet: Gears of War, or "Six of War"! The board game Gears of War is based on the computer game of the same name, released on PC and consoles in three parts, which has gained considerable popularity. To be honest, I haven't played the original, so I don't even know who the Locasts are and why they fight the humans. Then, you ask, how did I buy it if I'm not a fan of this game on PC? For several reasons: FFG, Corey Konicka, and fancy Artificial Intelligence (AI). The game promised a never-before-seen opponent AI (yes, this is a cooperative game in which one to four people face off against a cardboard dummy), and looking ahead, I will say that the developer managed to fully realize the illusion that you are playing with a fairly intelligent opponent. And all it took was a deck of cards! A very unusual game genre. Although there were games with a similar content before that (Doom, Space Hulk), it was quite a long time ago and each of them had a villain player. So, this is a real tactical shooter! I wonder how Konichka managed to adequately transfer the infernal shooter from the computer to the table and also turn it into a multiplayer? Miracles, and sometimes...  Perhaps, I will tell you about the composition of the box. Since Gears of War was released by FFG, the quality of miniatures and maps should not be mentioned separately - and so it is clear that it is excellent. Although, I will stop a little bit on minky - I have not seen such high-quality ones anywhere on the tables (or so I think). The detailing is excellent, you can see every little thing, and they did not skimp on the size. The artist who painted the miniatures for me noted that it was both easy and difficult to paint them at the same time - precisely because of the excellent detailing, where every jamb was immediately visible. In the tabletop Gears of War, 4 heroes are available, each with their own card, which indicates their starting ammunition (it is slightly different for each fighter) and some unique special ability (more details below). There are a lot of cards in the game - as I already said, the II engine consists entirely of them; also, all orders to fighters are given using maps, all weapons, mission conditions and information about locast monsters are displayed on the maps. Ammunition and grenades are made using tokens, very convenient. The terrain tiles are great, the cardboard is very thick and dense. Some expressed complaints, they say that the small ones are too small, the monsters pile up on them, it's inconvenient, but I didn't notice this during the game - everything is perfectly contained and practical. The tiles are divided into zones, along which the fighters and Locasts walk, very conveniently, there are practically no questions about the range of movement and line of sight (unlike the unforgettable Descent, where the tiles are divided into cells and disputes of this kind arise at every step).  Let's move smoothly to the gameplay. All the missions in "Gears" are varied, it may seem to some that 7 missions are too few for the game, but it is not so. Not only are they all different and use different monsters, but each time the tiles of the terrain will be laid out in a different order, and because of this, the optimal order of passage (if there is one at all) will be different. Each type of monster has its own card, where all the information about them is displayed - how much protection it has, whether it can be cut down by a lancer (ooooo, rifles with chainsaws are not only a feature of "Warhammer"!), how many life points it has, how powerfully it attacks. Some have ranged weapons, some only attack in an area with a fighter. Well, each type of monster has its own special feature, which is activated only if a special sign, popularly known as a "skull", or, using the game's terminology, an "omen", falls on one of the attack cubes. By the way, each weapon in the game not only has 2 alternative modes of fire, but also has its own features that are activated by the "omen". Each fire mode shows how many dice the fighter will roll in an attack, attacking with or without spending an ammo token. The "trick" is that with the consumption of cartridges, the attack is much stronger, but replenishing stores can become a real problem. And if you take into account that with the lack of cartridges, even the "gentle" mode of shooting stops working, you will involuntarily start saving ammunition and sawing more often (especially since some order cards hint).  Now about the Locust AI. Like I said, it's just a deck of two types of cards: 1) monster-specific order cards, and 2) general orders. Due to the fact that the orders are formulated very competently, one gets the impression of an "intelligent" opponent. For example, the order on the Locust map indicates that if the drones (men with rifles) are no more than two zones away from the nearest fighter in line of sight, then they move to him one zone and attack. Otherwise (that is, they are two zones away) - they move two zones to the nearest fighter. In this spirit, almost all the orders are kept, it is very difficult to interpret them. If none of the conditions are met - draw the next card of the order, and so on until the order does not work. The difficulty of the missions varies due to which orders are mixed into the II deck. Monsters appear on the map also in an original way - the tiles are marked with "holes", from which they climb out thanks to the general order cards, and the number and type of Locusts that appear depends on how much a person resists them (the game has excellent scalability , although, of course, the most complete Gears of War opens on the 4th). These holes, by the way, can be sealed with grenades (the goal of the first mission is to seal such a hole), and this is one of the tactics of the game.  And the last type of reaction is "defense". Let's say the preemptive strike didn't work, Cole also missed, and Boomer is already preparing to attack with four cubes. You can discard a card with a "defense" reaction before attacking, and then 2 more is added to your defense dice, which is quite a lot and can save your ass from getting hurt. When wounded, let me remind you, you discard cards from your hand, and if you have nothing left in your hands - you are wounded, and all your actions are limited to crawling one zone in a move; you can be picked up by a friend who is in the same zone as you and spends a card from your hand. Then you go up with zero cards in hand, and take two at the start of your turn. Thanks to all of the above, all this fun with tactics arises. As a rule, there are no less than three reprehensible options for a move, what can we say about unreprehensible ones. By ill-judged, I mean moves that completely ignore the Locust's counter move, or ignore a possible harsh response in the hopes of something. But maybe it doesn't flow here; I witnessed the cruel end of the party move to the 6th - II is sometimes inhumanly insightful and accurate. However, even taking into account "good" moves, you can have unpleasant surprises from a seemingly stupid "cardboard". But it depends to a greater extent on the dice and to a much lesser extent on the issued order cards. You can shamefully miss the Thing with 4 cubes (in the last game I personally saw 5 (!) misses on 5 attack cubes at once), but you can throw away 5 "shields" on 3 defense cubes.  Ah yes, I didn't talk about the combat system. Everything is very simple (it is similar to the game Descent) - there are attack cubes with successful and unsuccessful hits, and there are defense cubes with "shields" and without. Moreover, the defense modifier can change depending on whether a fighter or a Locust is in the shelter or not. Those hits that were not absorbed by the shields are applied. Also, depending on the mission, the tactics of passage also change. Rush to the treasured door to the second level on all pairs, or carefully clean everything and everything, covering each other? By the way, at first, when completely clearing the area and wiping out opponents, be careful. It may seem that it becomes boring to play, because the fighters advance without losses, Locasts are cut out in packs, there is a sea of cartridges ... Suddenly, everything can change, and after a pitiful couple of activations, a couple of fighters will already be crawling under your feet with sobs "don't leave me!" or "run, I'll catch them!" depending on the seriousness of the moment. I note that in a game of 4, getting a couple of fighters to their feet and fighting off the Locusts at the same time is like a feat. Although the situations are different, in one game a soldier blew himself up with a grenade, killing four Locasts (and even managed to stay on his feet, although he was all wounded). Although I talked about the fact that it is most fun to play with four, it is quite a raking composition for three, and for two, and even for one! True, many order cards then stop working, because they are designed for at least two, but I assure you that the game does not lose its charm and fun at all! And yes, an add-on was released for Gears of War, which is a set of maps (more), where there are 2 new missions, new types of monsters and new types of weapons. The new Locasts use base miniatures, replacing their stats. Also, I know that fans make up their fighters, creating their own characteristics.  Summing up, I can't help but note some of the game's shortcomings. Some missions are very long,..

REVIEW In Periodic: a Game of the Elements (hereafter referred to as Periodic), players compete to collect sets of elements and advance their research as they navigate the periodic table. Doing this research requires energy, but a lot of it. Players will need to use their reserves effectively to find the items they need to complete the objective cards and progress along the achievement track. When the game ends, points are earned for the objectives achieved as well as the achievement track, and the player with the most points wins. If you're just curious to know what I think of Periodic, feel free to scroll down to the Opinions section. For the rest... PREPARATION Preparing Periodic is relatively simple. The game board is laid out, and 8 element group cards are randomly placed around it, 4 on each side of the board. The objective cards are separated by color and shuffled into four face down decks. They are placed above the playing field, and the top card of each is turned face up.  Objective cards depict specific sets of items. The objective dice that correspond to the objective cards are then placed on top of each of those items, the bonus tiles for each stack of objective cards are placed on top of the corresponding objective cards, and the lab tokens are set aside. Finally, one energy is placed on each of the periodic trends below the periodic table. After choosing their player's color and collecting their pieces, each player gets some energy to start the game. After the starting player is chosen, each player places one of their lane markers on one of the element group cards (dictated by turn order), their flask on the element with the lowest number corresponding to that element group, and then another lane marker on the first place of achievement track. You are now ready to play Periodic. MOVING In Periodic, players will use energy to move their vials around the game board so they can find the items they need to fulfill the requirements of the objective cards. By putting energy into or taking energy from the Periodic Trend, the player can move their flask in the specified direction from 1 to 5 times. If the move causes the bulb to end up on the spot with the target die, then the player places one of their research dice on the corresponding target card to show that they have discovered the item. If the player has placed energy, then the extra energy can be spent during the player's turn to move multiple times and in different directions if the player wishes. If any player discovers all the elements on the target card, that card is scored. Any player with only 1 research die on their card gets 3 lab points. Any player with 2 research dice on their card gets a 5 point token. The player who completed the card does not receive lab tokens, but instead takes the card. The new card is then turned face up to replace it and the corresponding target dice are placed accordingly.  When setting up the map, Element Groups were laid out around the play area, and players would place one of their lane markers on one of them. To advance along the achievement track, a player looks at the next card of an element group clockwise from their current marker position, and then attempts to end their turn with their flask on one of the elements included in that group. If they do, they place their marker on that card and then advance their other marker one position on the achievement track. As we will soon see, this will provide players with points at the end of the game. ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END A Periodic Game End is triggered when a player meets one of the following conditions: 2 stacks of objective cards are empty, 1 stack of objective cards is empty, and one player has reached one of the last 3 cells of the Achievement Track, or 2 players have reached one of the last 3 spaces of the Achievement Track. Each other player then gets one extra turn. When this is done, the scores are tallied and the player with the most points wins. Players earn points for completing objective cards, collecting lab tokens, remaining research cubes that have been placed on unfinished objective cards, and tracking achievement progress. CONCLUSIONS If you've read my past Cytosis and Subatomic reviews, you'll no doubt know that I'm a huge fan of Genius Games. John Covia's ability to gamify the science behind everyday things continues to amaze me. I've always wondered what the world looks like through the eyes of a game designer. Being able to look down on the periodic table of the elements and see the game there is something that puzzled me. Yet John Covey did it, and it works. In his past games, John turned real scientific processes into games. Cytosis changes the way cells take in nutrients and expel waste, while in Subatomic, players manipulate subatomic particles to create protons, electrons, and neutrons, then combine them to create atoms. However, periodicity is something completely different. In Periodic, you don't put things together to make new things. Instead, you learn about what already exists by examining the structure in which the data is organized. It's like finding out about a person by going through their files in a filing cabinet. Although this can be interesting and informative, the process itself is not very exciting. It's easy to get carried away with smashing atomic particles to create things. It's much harder to get excited about looking at a chart.  However, if you can get past the theme, you'll find a game that might surprise you. On paper, Periodic is a game about efficient resource management and route planning. How do you get the most you can in one go using only the energy you have at your disposal? At its core, however, Periodic is a fast-paced racing game. These goal cards fill up quickly and the achievement track is a ticking clock. You are constantly forced to choose between generalization or specialization. Do you focus all of your efforts on one objective card or spread out over several? If you finish your move here, will it be an easy opening for your opponents to capitalize on and score big points? Is the personal benefit of ending your turn really worth it, or should you wait and see what happens next? There is constant pressure to keep moving and at the same time you feel the same pressure to stand still and stay put. These conflicting desires create an interesting tension, and that tension grows closer to the end of the game. Aside from wishing the theme was a little more exciting, the only downside I can find with this game is that there is no way to change the turn order as of this writing. While this doesn't affect gameplay, it was pointed out to me in at least one play session that if two players were racing to get to the end of an achievement track and could progress each turn, the player who goes first in queue order would always wins. This is important because the last 3 spots on this lane can only accommodate a certain number of players. If you reach the end first, the people behind you will have to settle for second to last place. It's only 5 points, but in a tight race those 5 points can make all the difference. I understand that the final round of the game is designed so that each player will have the same number of moves, and this will be impossible to calculate since a player's starting token is constantly changing positions, but the inability to change the move order is still worth mentioning. In the end, I really like Periodic. While this isn't Genius Games' strongest game, it's still very good. I like the fast pace of the game and I appreciate the challenges that are presented to me. And like all of Genius Games' offerings, I definitely approve of Periodic's sneaky educational nature. John Covey's games always teach you something, even if you don't know you're learning it. When you see Periodic Trends as more than just places to place energy tokens, you realize that these are real concepts that are accurately reflected in how your bulb token moves along the periodic table, and before you know it, you'll be re-searching for periodic trends in Google. And that is the magic that Genius Games constantly brings to the table. The experience goes beyond the tabletop. Their games don't just make you a better player, they make you a smarter person...

 Tales of Arabian Nights awaits you with adventures, quests for glory and funny situations. You will wander through magical lands, meet sultans and beggars, and sometimes thieves. Difficult tests of your skills await you, because the goal is to build your destiny with your own hands and bring the story of the greatest adventure to the Book of the Arabian Nights. COMPONENTS  Among the components of the game, the Book of Stories immediately draws attention to itself, which looks like ancient game books. This fat volume weighs perhaps 75 percent of the total volume of the game. Its constant and important companion is the table of reactions.  Also in the box are 4 decks of cards (encounters, treasures, statuses and quests), reference sheets, skill tokens, fate and glory point markers, 3 time of day tokens and a playing field. Plus cardboard characters for each of the players (up to 6), wealth tokens, origins, objectives and a character sheet. And three cubes: one is a fate cube, the other two are ordinary cubes. The illustrations are very beautiful, the quality of the components does not cause complaints, except for the slightly curved field. GOAL OF THE GAME The real goal of the game is to immerse yourself in the story of your adventures, but there is a formal winner: the first person to complete their goal by accumulating both fate and glory points in a certain amount, and then return to Baghdad, wins. PREPARATION FOR THE GAME The game unfolds quite quickly and simply. Everyone takes their character sheet, matching markers, and a cardboard figure and places it in Baghdad, and the Wealth, Fame, and Fortune markers on the starting divisions on the track to the side of the playing field. After that, everyone draws a quest card. All of them are different and require the fulfillment of certain conditions. For example, visit certain places, learn certain skills, or return home after being enslaved. Completing quests rewards fame and fortune, and sometimes wealth or skills. Then decks of encounter, treasure, quest, and status cards are placed next to the field. It is better to arrange the latter in alphabetical order face up in order to find the ones you need faster. A morning marker is placed next to the encounter deck. The players then take turns secretly choosing how many Fame and Fate points they need to win (the total is always the same), and take and place the corresponding tokens under the character sheet. Then a roll of dice determines who goes first.  Finally, starting skills are chosen: 3 talents for each player. Skills are two-sided: on the one hand, it's just a talent for something, on the other hand, it's mastery in something. GAME PROCESS The course is divided into 6 phases: Books of stories. Activating treasure and status effects. Moving the character. A character's meeting with someone. Playing cards and fulfilling the conditions of quests. Activation of the winning condition.  More details: 1) The story book is passed to the player on the left, and the reaction table is passed to the player on the right. One will read the paragraphs describing the meeting and its outcome, and the other will look in the table for the paragraph that corresponds to the chosen action for that meeting. 2) Many treasure and status cards have special effects that affect before the start of your turn. For example, which allow additional movement or open access to a special location. 3) The character's movement speed depends on your wealth and whether you are traveling on water or land. You can move to the maximum, to a part of the speed or to stay in place altogether.  There are ten special locations on the map that can only be accessed through certain encounters. In this case, a goal marker is placed there and you can enter it while moving.  4) After movement, the meeting card is drawn (or immediately go to the corresponding paragraph, if you are in a special place). There are three types of them: characters, terrain and city. They show who or what you have met. All but city cards are reset at the end of the encounter phase. If a character card is drawn, you see what time of day it is now, after which your neighbor reads a paragraph from the Storybook corresponding to the time of day and the character.  If a terrain map is drawn, the choice of paragraph depends on the terrain where the character is standing; brown - mountains, blue - seas, gold - deserts, green - forests, and blue-green - islands.  If a city map is drawn, then before the actual meeting — the paragraph printed at the bottom of the city map — you roll a die and receive one of the bonuses listed on the map. Sometimes city meetings turn into a meeting with a certain character.  As for special places, they do not have their own cards; the paragraph number is printed right in the margin. The process of playing out an encounter is divided into four stages: finding out who or what your character encountered, choosing a reaction, determining the effect of fate, and resolving the encounter. First, your neighbor looks at the encounter table and determines with a die roll (plus the number printed on the location or city where the character is located, plus 1-2 from the fate die) exactly which ifrit you met, for example: vengeful, sad, etc.  The player then decides how to react. The person reading the reaction table looks at the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to the adjective describing your encounter, which reaction options you have. After that, the storyteller reading the Book finds the corresponding paragraph.  For each reaction option, there are three possible outcomes—three adjacent paragraphs. After rolling the dice of fate, which can give 0, +1 or -1, the corresponding paragraph is read. Thus, even encountering the exact same creature as before and reacting in the same way can result in a different outcome.  At the end of each paragraph, a code notation like [D1 / S2 / W+1(Max: Respectable) / Wisdom / Respected] describes how many points of fate, fame and wealth, as well as what skills (if any, the talent turns into a workshop possessions) or statuses gained or lost by a player. There are various statuses, both useful and not very useful. For example, with the "madness" status, another player decides for you how you will react to encounters. Players can also receive random or specific treasure cards or some special effect from the encounter.  It's also worth noting that the outcome of the encounter differs depending on whether you have a certain skill (which can be applied or not applied at will before you know the result), status, treasure, etc. Generally, applying a skill leads to a more profitable result. Sometimes it happens that the character dies. But that's the end of the game; in this case, the player takes the brother or sister of the deceased and begins the journey again in Baghdad - keeping, however, the glasses of glory and fate. END OF THE GAME When someone has accumulated enough fame and fortune to fulfill their secret goal and reaches Baghdad, they declare victory. After that, it's up to the others to complete their goals and return to Baghdad. One of the potential winners with more total points wins. IMPRESSION Tales of the Arabian Nights is definitely not a thoughtful game; what happens to you is mostly out of your control (or completely out of your control if you go crazy). The essence of the game is to listen to the adventures of the characters that are formed during the game. I had a lot of funny and memorable stories. Who wins is essentially irrelevant; the main thing is laughter, smiles and friendly shaking of heads when someone's character goes to jail again (like me for six turns in a row). As an option, you can use the home rule "you can have no more than one status at the same time"; with it, the game runs faster and smoother - there is no need to keep in mind the effects of five statuses in addition to your goal. Even in the game, IMHO, playing your character is welcome; For example, Sinbad should fight (attack) more often than steal, and Scheherazade should prefer conversations to fights. Getting used to the role of your character is easy and interesting. By default, the game is designed for a large number of participants, but it works great for two. It is simple, so even people who are unfamiliar with tabletops can easily join the process. So come quickly to the glorious city of Baghdad, good traveler, and enjoy the Arabian nights. ..

 Designer Scott Almes is best known for the Tiny Epic series of games published under his Gamelyn Games label. Our team reviewed about five of them, and we generally found the games to be okay—nothing incredibly special, but nothing incredibly bad either. Then I reviewed Roller Coaster Rush, another Almes design, and it was probably the worst game I've played in 2023. Really terrible. So, based purely on recency bias, I was a little freaked out when I opened the box for Capstone Games' US-published Beer & Bread 2022 edition. Almost immediately, these fears disappeared. If Beer & Bread landed on my desk in 2023, I'd probably name it my favorite two-player-only game, just ahead of Sky Team. A LITTLE OF THIS, BUT NO MORE OF THAT My review of Beer & Bread starts with a scoring system. A bit like Between Two Cities, New Ark, Tigris and Euphrates and other classics, Beer and Bread is a race for points by completing orders on two different sets of cards, beer cards and bread cards. The lower of the two scores becomes the player's final score, so balancing is key to victory. Each player represents an unnamed village upstream from the opposing village. For six years, the villages will hold friendly competitions to see who can make the most beer and bread. Each year is a circle, and each circle is simple. Given a hand of five cards, players must use a card for one of its three functions. Harvest and Store, which produces one of the game's five resources, which will be stored in a nine-room warehouse. Craft and Sell, an order fulfillment feature that requires the player to spend 4-7 resources to obtain a card Upgrade and clear by requiring a player to slide a card under certain parts of their side of the board to have permanent or ultimate power. It also allows you to move score cards from the bakery and/or brewery to get points at the end of the game. In odd-numbered rounds, players play one card each and then exchange hands. In even-numbered years, players keep previously played Harvest and Store cards and add new cards to their hand for new play options.  Beer & Bread instantly became one of my favorite multiplayer card games because the card options are usually very complex. Over the course of three games—once with a very experienced player, once with my wife, and once with my nine-year-old daughter—I was surprised how often I was torn between two or even three options on a card before making a choice. That said, it didn't slow down the game significantly, as all of my activities lasted less than 30 minutes. The card system is so smooth. The Collect and Store action stacks, so if I play the second card of the Collect and Store action, I get all the resources on both cards on my tableau. This means that you can fill up your warehouse quickly, and if you have a good selection of the five resources (water, wheat, barley, rye and hops) you can usually fill the card in the "Produce and Sell" step a couple of times in each round. I like that the upgrade system is unlimited. Some enhancement cards align with end game points and can be great for setting up early game strategy. I also like that it's aligned with the Cleanse action. By limiting the storage of completed beer and bread cards, it encourages players to use upgrades strategically, and also helps create a production engine or add points in the late game. It was easy to teach, and the back of the rulebook serves as a common reference aid for players. The box is small—not Tiny Epic small, but still pretty neat—and the rules even go into too much detail about each card upgrade, even though I thought it was unnecessary. If you don't want to read the rules, there's a seven-minute video on the box that you can link to. ESSENTIALLY Flawless Beer and bread is fantastic. Easy to learn, easy to play at the table and play in half an hour. I can play with gamers, I can play with non-gamers. Each game will play out slightly differently, and the upgrade system allows players to customize the experience to their liking over six rounds of play. My only issue, and admittedly a nitpick: hops, the green resource in Beer and Bread. Hops appear as a required recipe on only 19 of the game's 60 cards (only the beer cards, and yes, I counted). In all three of my games, it never felt like I needed the jumps. This is because the other 11 beer cards don't require hops, and instead of spending a Harvest and Store action on a card that contains hops, I'm going to get pretty much anything else. This way I have maximum flexibility when it comes to stocking items that can be spent on beer cards AND bread instead of just beer cards. Beyond that? I thought Beer & Bread was the perfect game for just two players. It doesn't dethrone 7 Wonders Duel, but Beer & Bread is really good and immediately the best Scott Almes design I've tried. I save it for games with my family!..