The Weirdwood Manor game begins with a narrative that explains the situation. Lady Weirdwood rules a magical mansion that is the link between the mortal realm and the fairy lands. It's her job (along with her overseers, which can be players) to keep the forces of evil at bay. However, something went wrong, and some evil from the Fairy Kingdom broke into the estate and came to wreak havoc. Cooking is quite interesting. Everything about the game, from how the manor works, to the interesting abilities of the different characters you can play as, to how the side characters (called companions) act… everything serves this theme perfectly. Next, we'll take a look at how the game is set up and played. If you want to skip it, skip to my thoughts below. Otherwise, click on the link and check out how the game works! PREPARATION Setup is relatively easy, although there are a lot of steps involved. First, setting up the main tablet: Collect the two halves of the estate. Place the rooms of the outer ring in your ring in random order. Collect and place the Day Corridor and place it inside the outer ring rooms with Day 1 at the top of the board. Place the middle ring rooms in your ring in random order. Place the corridor of time inside the rooms of the middle ring with the first morning location at the top of the board. Place the inner ring rooms in your ring in random order. Place six scarab tokens in the innermost room (Throne Hall). Place one scarab token in each room of the inner ring. Place three scarab tokens in random rooms of the manor (no room can have more than one scarab at this time).  Shuffle the companion deck and place four companions face up as the current market. Shuffle the Overseer Tactics deck and place it near the board.  Place tokens (scarab, min, knowledge, and power), dice, and dice near the board.  Then the preparation of the player: Each player chooses an overseer and takes the player board associated with the selected overseer. Then they… …place the blue cube on the battle cube track. …place a red die in the 3-space of their health track. …place a pink cube at the start of their Power experience track. …place the red cube at the beginning of the combat experience track. …place the orange cube at the beginning of the tactical lane. …put whatever resources/power tokens the warden starts with into their supply. Players take appropriate positions. They are located in the hallway at the top of the board. Players take their personal deck of action cards, discard the Shadow Steps card (this card is always in the player's starting hand), shuffle the remaining cards, and deal two additional cards to form their starting hand.  And finally, there's the fairy monster setup. This is different for each of the three monsters. GAME PROCESS Weirdwood Manor is a cooperative game. A player's turn consists of playing an action card from their hand (required) and taking any additional actions (see below) they wish to take. If a player has an Overseer Tactic card in their hand, they can play it to improve the action card. When they play an action card, it will be played into one of the positions at the top of the player board. The selected position must not contain an action card. These positions are related to the time of day: morning, afternoon, evening or night. After the game, before anything happens, the time-of-day corridor advances (i.e. rotates counter-clockwise) at least one cell; it must stop so that one of the three time slots that coincided with the time of day where the action card was played is at the highest point. The player decides which of the three to use. If the day corridor changes so that the highest space moves from night back to morning, then the day corridor also advances to the next day. This can result in a game over (see below). The movement of these two corridors is vital! When they alternate, the rooms in the manor can become isolated. This can result in the players (or the fae monster) being trapped in the room until the corridor turns again. That is why it is important to carefully choose which of the three places to use for this time of day. STANDARD ACTIONS There are several standard actions that can be obtained with the selected action card: these include: Move: With this action, the warden can move to any room in the estate, as long as he can trace corridors and rooms that are not blocked. A move cannot pass through a room with an opponent; if a supervisor enters such a room, the turn ends. If they have another turn, they can leave that room and continue to another. Portal: This action allows the warden to teleport from their current room to any other room in this way. An unblocked path is not required. Attack: This action allows the Warden to initiate combat. If there are scarabs in the room, that's what attacks; if a fae monster is in the room and there are no scarabs, the warden can attack the fae monster. The attacks are described in more detail below. Get Resources: These actions give the warden more resources. If a warden moves to or fights in a room where there are no opponents (either because they weren't there to begin with or because they were defeated), they can perform the actions provided by the room. Rooms have the ability to provide resources, receive warden tactic cards, recruit companions, create combat dice, and more. Actions granted by rooms (and special abilities, etc.) include: Forging Battle Dice: This action allows the warden to gain more dice to use in battle. There are three types of dice that can be forged: red dice that focus on offense, black dice that focus on defense, and blue dice that are a balance of both. The attacks are described in more detail below. Recruit Champions: With this action, the warden can recruit a companion. Companies have a resource cost (which increases with each additional partner). Sidekicks give the warden two things: an optional action they can use, and additional spaces they can play action cards on. OPTIONAL ACTIONS As mentioned above, players can also take optional actions in addition to their actions from action cards and rooms. Additional abilities can be used before or after an action card is played. There are three additional actions: Character Abilities: Each Warden has three special abilities that must be activated. Each power can be activated once per turn. Companion Abilities: Companions have special abilities that usually require them to be exhausted (reversed). An exhausted ability cannot be used again until the companion is upgraded. EXPERIENCE At the bottom of the player board are three experience tracks. Many things (mostly combat) will result in the player gaining experience. Each experience point gained moves any of the experience track markers along its track. When the token reaches certain thresholds, the warden will receive things like power tokens, resources, healing, or even swords (extra damage) and shields (damage protection) in all future battles. Winning this game is all about controlling your experience as well as controlling your opponents on the board. END OF THE MOVE When a player has completed all the actions they are going to take, their turn ends. This means: Monster Phase: A fairy monster takes an action. This action comes from their special deck of cards and will involve advancing the time-of-day corridor by multiple slots, moving, attacking, or gathering strength. As the game progresses, the power of these actions increases. Scarab Phase: Remember when I said that action cards should be placed in the time of day position above the player field? Remember I said that satellites add positions that can be used for additional action cards? Well, this is important because if all positions are filled, then a special scarab phase occurs at the end of a player's turn. In this phase, more scarabs appear, the ones that were already there are moved, all the action cards you have in play are reset, and your companions are updated. The appearance and movement of scarabs is the dangerous part here: if two or more scarabs occupy the same room (except for the Throne Room), that room becomes invulnerable. Damaged rooms are flipped over and cannot be used until the infestation is removed. To remove the disease, the scarabs must be dealt with, and then the warden in that room must pay the price specific to that room. Action Card Phase: When the fae monster completes its action and the scarab phase ends (assuming it did), then the player adjusts their hand to have a number of cards equal to their current health (1 to 6). If they have too many cards, they fold; if they don't have enough cards, they take. FIGHTS Combat is a big part of what will happen in the game. Overseers can initiate combat with an attack; a fairy monster can start combat during the monster phase. The fight boils down to the following: The Warden tallies up the total number of swords and shields they have as bonuses on cards in play, as well as bonuses on their experience tracks. They then add the result of rolling all the combat dice they have. After receiving these amounts, opponents roll combat dice. Compare the number of swords the warden has with the number of shields the opponent has. Each sword that exceeds the shields deals one damage to the opponent. Each scarab can take one point of damage; each fae monster is unique in how it deals damage. Compare the number of swords of the opponent with the number of shields of the overseer. Each sword that exceeds the shields deals one damage to the warden. Damage can be taken as health, combat dice, or power tokens. Any excessive damage is ignored. Blue combat dice have a special icon on one side. The effect of this icon is specific to each guardian and fairy monster. As..

 This will be a short review, as befits a short game. But please don't take this to mean that Seaside is a bad game. The game is actually good, but it's short and sweet, and you can play it on a picnic table, on a beach towel, or even standing at a bar table. The story goes that when Brian Burgoyne designed Seaside, he specifically wanted a game that could be played on the beach. This meant a game that was portable, durable, and most importantly, waterproof. This is how Seaside was born, a game in a small canvas bag with thick double-sided painted wooden discs. GAME PROCESS The gameplay is extremely simple, in fact the only thing to set up is to get the instructions out of the bag - you don't even need to read them, if you already know how to play, you just put it down. During the game, each player reaches into the bag and pulls out one disc, determines which of the two sides they want to "play", and then does what the disc indicates (either places the disc in the middle of the playing area or in front of them - more on this at moment). Sometimes a player may be allowed to draw a second or third disc in a row, but eventually the bag goes to the next player who completes the same sequence. When the bag is empty, players will add up all the discs in front of them and determine who has the highest stack, and that player is the winner. Seaside is one of those games that you can literally learn on the fly. WHAT DISKS MEAN Of course, there's a bit more to the game, but it's always nice when the game mechanics are simple. But to collect disks, you need to know what each of them does. There are generally two types of disc faces: white bottom (which allows the player to hold the disc in front of them) and blue bottom (which requires the player to place the disc "sea", also known as the middle of the playing area). Discs with a blue bottom will also have a "play again" symbol, indicating that you can draw another tile from the bag, as you will throw it into the ocean. White bottom discs are available in one of 4 options: Sandpipers, Crab habitats, Beach and Waves. Waders allow you to collect all the isopod discs from the center of the table and stack them. But for the rest of the game, you can only collect Wader stacks of the same height. When you have two crab habitats, you can collect all crab discs from the center of the table, as well as one from each of your opponents who has a crab. Beach Discs allow you to collect shells from the center of the table, one for each beach in front of you. Finally, the player with the most Wave Discs at the end of the game can collect all remaining discs from the ocean, a powerful late-game option. EXPERIENCE FROM THE GAME Seaside is the perfect way to start or end a game night, or teach someone who doesn't really like board games, or play with younger family members, or if you just want something that won't tax your brain. There's something magical about reaching into a bag without knowing what you're going to get. Maybe there are 4 crabs in the middle of the table, you already have 1 crab habitat, and you're hoping to get a second one. Or maybe there are lots of isopods and you're just hoping for a wader. Or maybe it's almost game over and Shelley has more Wave discs than you and you're hoping to even the odds. Since you never know what you're going to get, you can help Miranda by pulling the exact tile she needs. Or maybe you get exactly what you want, but then the next player gets what they want too. So if you're looking for a casual game to pass the time, give Seaside a try. You can even pretend you're at the beach...

 If there is one truth in the world of modern board games, it is this: the powerful constantly organize ridiculous competitions. Whether it's to see who can become the greatest mage to determine who can outdo everyone else or, in the case of the 5 Towers, to see which architect can build the tallest towers in the city, it's clear that the powers that be have way too much time on their hands (and seemingly endless funds) at their fingertips. GAME PROCESS Basically, 5 Towers is a betting game. During each round, five cards will be turned face up from the deck for all to see. The first player calls the number. This number indicates how many cards the player is willing to take from the board to add to the set they are about to create in their personal area. Each player has a chance to increase the bet. The tricky part is that if you win the bet, you MUST claim the number of cards you bid from the display and you MUST add them to your table. Any unclaimed cards are added to the public discard pile.  Sounds simple enough, right? Not so fast. There are five card suits (tower types) and sixteen cards per suit, numbered from zero to fifteen (4-5 player games have a few extra cards). Each card can only be placed on a tower of the same type, and each card placed must be less than the value of the last card placed on the tower. The only exceptions to this rule are the numbers eight, nine and zero. Any number can be placed on top of an eight, and a nine can be placed on top of any number. Zeros at the top of the tower. Once a tower is zeroed, that tower cannot be manipulated in any way until the end of the game. After the player who won the bet has taken his cards, he has the opportunity to perform one "demolish" action. A break involves removing the top card from any tower in your tableau (if the card is not zero) and placing it in your personal discard pile. This is useful for creating better cards and abilities. For example, if you're stuck with a seven sitting on top of a fifteen, breaking the seven to replace it with an eleven gives you more opportunities to add that tower in future rounds. At the beginning of the game, you will choose a starting player. At the end of the round, after the winner places their cards on their tableau, the person standing to the left of the starting player becomes the starting player for the next round. Once you've passed a deck, the public discard pile is shuffled to create a new deck. Once this new deck is passed, the game ends and the scores are tallied. COUNT Each of your towers scores points equal to the number of cards in that tower. If there is a zero on top of a tower, the score for that tower is doubled. Then score one point for each card in your highest tower. After you count this positive result, you will lose points for the cards in your stack. The first card is worth -1. The second card costs -2. The third card costs -3 and so on.  The player with the most points wins. IMPRESSION Over the past few years, I've grown to love little games that I can stick in my pocket and play during meals or lunch breaks. It's not that my love for big Euros is gone. It's that my time playing them has almost completely evaporated. Between work, marriage, and raising a five-year-old, my time is much more limited than it was in the past. My gaming life exists in those moments between things. 5 Towers is ideal for this new installation. It fits in my pocket. The rules are simple. The gameplay is challenging, but not so challenging that you can play forever. From opening the box to packing it, I only spent 20 minutes of my time. And what a great 20 minutes it is. From the very first draft, 5 Towers cards face several difficult decisions. The whole premise is that you build towers to score points. The bigger these towers are, the more points you earn. But what if you're just starting out and all the face-down cards are small numbers? Should you pass and let your opponents hit them? Or should you bet on at least one, knowing you can always demolish it later? I mean, after all, to score points, you have to at least build something. In the case of low numbers at the beginning of the game, it is quite easy to make the right decision. But what if there are a bunch of average numbers? what then And that doesn't even take into account what other players might need for their towers. If one of your opponents can draw three cards, can you also bet three? If you have to rip a card to do it, how many points are you willing to spend to deny your opponent those cards? One broken card at the end of the game isn't too bad. But three or four? Now you are talking about some serious cons. If you're sitting on top of a huge pile of points, you can probably handle losing six or more. But if you struggle to collect something, is it worth the risk?  I would be remiss if I didn't mention the gorgeous design on these cards. Each card is a treasure trove of subculture references. On one card you will face the Genie from Aladdin. On another, you'll come across Johnny Depp's take on Willy Wonka. And you'll find these cards that look like they're referring to something, but you don't know what. Table conversations are sure to arise as you and your colleagues try to unravel them. Trying to decipher all these Easter eggs is almost as much fun as playing the game itself. From the short time to the gameplay and design, 5 Towers hits all the right notes and I can't find anything negative to say about it. This game is a lot of fun and I'm glad to have it in my collection...

 Almost two years ago, I praised 7 Wonders: Architects as a worthy game in the 7 Wonders line, alongside its more mature counterparts, 7 Wonders and 7 Wonders: Duel. I talked about speed and charm like it was supposed to be a quintessential family game. I still believe in all of this. In fact, 7 Wonders: Architects remains a constant game in our family and is one of the most popular games overall. Younger kids still adore her and teenagers still join us for the experience. After weeks of post-release patience, we grabbed a copy of the first expansion, 7 Wonders: Architects – Medals, and brought it to the table on vacation. It was a great decision. MY SURPRISES Medals bring two new wonders - the Roman Colosseum and the ancient city of Ur. The Colosseum twice allows you to steal one card from another player—as a tribute—only to then provide a free card from the center as a benevolent compensation. Ur brings the beloved Kitty along with a free card. These mid-game triggers fit the game perfectly without feeling contrived. More importantly, the title medals are a bunch of stick-on plastic targets for players to chase. One four-point medal sits next to each deck of cards, prompting players to the left and right of it to join in the chase: first player gets three blue cards, first player gets seven cards, first player gets two Miracles plus Kitty sections. . These mini races are fantastic. The "advanced" module rightly recommends adding two medals to the center of the table as common bait. Throw in a few more progress tokens, including a third copy of the cherished 4PO/12PO token to bring the realm of science to life, and this slim box becomes a smooth performance of "more of what I love." If I were to make a complaint about this additional offering, it would be that there is currently no solution to combine the bits into one box without giving up the game's greatest convenience: those player storage trays. If you are not against a box lift, you can combine the new with the old; but Medals have low prestige if you can't stand that thought. If Medals changes the base game, then it opens the door to victory that doesn't require winning a race to complete a Miracle. The wonder can't be ignored, but there are sixteen potential points in the medals, as well as some progress tokens that enhance the scoreboard in other interesting ways. All in all, the new side paths are fruitful and also encourage players to play all kinds of games. For example, if you're a player who usually ignores the war game, you'll want to add some variety to the war medal to your right and the collect-all-five-type medal to your left. Better yet, a progress token that lets you hold on to your horned shield cards after a conflict can turn a fighter into a lover. Extensions are best when they enhance and encourage without rewriting the script. All in all, Medals gently and convincingly sticks its grubby paws into every crevice of 7 Wonders: Architects. The result is a more complex experience—not complex like Vinhos, but complex like a good cup of coffee. The flavor profile is a bit richer, offering an extra note to the player who wants to talk it up a bit more. If you love 7 Wonders: Architects, you won't regret adding medals to the table right away...

 As a rule, reviews of game reissues follow a predictable pattern. The author recalls his experience with the original edition or claims that it was a forgotten masterpiece. It's a bit of a cliché, and it works for the most part. However, in this case I can't follow suit as I never got the chance to play the original Yokohama version. As shallow as it sounds, the only reason I never played the old edition was because of the graphic design. The original box cover felt claustrophobic, and the look was like being thrown into a strangely shaped well. When I saw her at the board game meetups, it didn't give me much confidence. Cards were lying all over the table, and there were simply too many leftover wooden cubes. After playing the newer version a few times for this review, I have to confess and say what I missed. This is a great game that easily matches up to fantastic games like Concordia and Puerto Rico. This is the next step after you were spoiled by the starting trio of Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride and Catan. Like any game, it's not perfect, but it does a lot more right than wrong. PREPARATION With that confession out of the way, let's get into what makes this game successful. At its core, Yokohama is a pickup and delivery game about fulfilling orders, capturing equipment, and gathering resources. It is the beginning of the Meiji era, and the city of Yokohama is at the forefront of foreign trade. You are a trader in this boom period and want to outdo your friends. To help you on this journey, you have a small militia of helpers, a president, some shops, and two starting order cards. At the beginning of your turn, you have two options for placing your helpers: you can spread out three of them in three separate zones of your choice, or you can concentrate two in one zone. If you want to place an assistant in the same place as another player's president, you need to pay one yen to the other player. After the assistants are placed, your president takes over. The president's movement is limited to the areas where you have placed assistants, and if you move through any other player's president, you must also pay that player one yen. Wherever the destination is, this zone is activated. The number of pieces you have there, i.e. your assistants and the president, determines the "power" that affects your zone power. Simply put, the more power you have, the more stuff you get. NAVIGATION IN THE HARBOR It sounds simple enough, and that's because it is, but there are some complexities in these innocent rules. When you activate a location with at least four powers, you open up the option to create either a shop or a trading house in that area. These structures offer more than just immediate benefits; they also give you an extra power point when you use that area for the rest of the game. Trading houses prove to be particularly valuable, as they reward you with one yen each time another player uses that location. That's pretty much it in terms of turn flow, but there are some additional areas to worry about. There is a customs field and a church field where you need to donate resources to permanently place a helper in those fields. Similar to Shops and Trading Houses, they give an immediate bonus, but possibly end-game bonuses if you have a majority of helpers in those two spaces. There are also technology cards that break the rules, from a tram that makes movement trivial to a winery that gives bonus points every time you send a helper to the Church. There is even a form of collecting sets to score points at the end of the game. Each order and technology card has a country icon. You get a decent amount of points if you have unique sets of cards, but if you have a pair of country cards, you get a foreign agent. These foreign agents are limited and activating one is similar to activating your President, essentially giving you an extra turn. FOREIGN INFLUENCE If that sounds like a game of point salad, I'm not going to argue, because that's exactly what's going on here. My usual reaction to such a design was a roll of the eyes, a loud sigh, and then a slap on the forehead. I can't do that here because while there are many ways to earn points, they are quite interconnected and using them often helps you in other ways. If anything, this is Yokohama's biggest advantage in the field of conventional pickup and delivery. While many games in this genre tend to confine players to a single, rigid path with little room to deviate from the main objective, Yokohama takes a more loose approach. This encourages players to explore different paths beyond the obvious. Instead of immediately focusing on fulfilling orders, you can create a network of stores and trading houses to increase your production capabilities. In addition, you can start with a large army of assistants and gradually expand your influence in all directions. With this freedom, players can experiment in each session and get a dopamine fix. Like a true entrepreneur, you are always looking for opportunities to take advantage of. Even idle time doesn't live up to the title, as you're constantly calculating the various options you have at the start of your turn. Some players may get lost because of the open nature of the game, but I welcome it. The game embodies the essence of a timeless European-style board game, keeping it fresh and attractive even to a fault. TROUBLED WATERS Since there are not many dynamic variables in the game, hyper-analytical players will easily eat up everyone's time. While there's a randomized setup with zone tiles at the start of the game, it's more of a formality than something that's truly game-changing thanks to the absolute autonomy you have placing your minions anywhere combined with unlimited movement. Tech cards try their best to create the illusion of game-changing abilities, but most of them are just extra incentives to do all the standard actions. The setting of the game doesn't play a big role either, as it could be any city and no one would notice. Despite its imperfections, Yokohama has an undeniable appeal that deserves recognition. For a game heavily inspired by European game design philosophies, there's a remarkably high level of player engagement. Other players are constantly hampering you by taking shelter in your designated areas, and your only response will be a few curses. Racing for certain technology cards or placing those vital buildings before other players will become a regular challenge for you. With the right players, the tempo of the game reaches New York minutes. While some may be turned off by the puzzle, this game is not a hard puzzle with one solution. Instead, Yokohama is challenging itself with plenty of options to participate.  Yokohama appears as an elegant gem in the European-style gaming treasure trove, and it's a big room. It has minor flaws like any other game, such as potential analysis paralysis and a somewhat superficial theme. I also can't deny that it does a lot of great things to create an inviting atmosphere. There are multiple ways to win, the rules aren't that complicated, and players are kept engaged from start to finish. Yokohama successfully bridges the gap between simpler gateway games and more complex offerings. This new edition proves that sometimes a second chance at discovery can lead to a truly rewarding gaming experience...

 Spectral is a competitive deductive game, and an unusual one at that. The haunted house you and your companions explore is represented by a 4 x 4 grid of semi-randomized face-down cards, full of gems and curses. You want gems! But beware of curses. You find out where they are by placing any number of explorers between any two rooms and then exploring the contents of one of them. "Content" is somewhat misleading. The rooms in this house don't tell you what's inside. They tell you about the contents of other rooms. On the face of each card is either a curse or, more likely, a gem and one of four symbols. The symbols indicate where the displayed item is located. This card, for example, says that the gem is on the opposite side of the grid:  This card tells me that the curse is in a room that is within two spaces, diagonally:  You spend most of the game placing pieces on a grid and gathering information, all the while taking notes in the notebooks provided. Information is not the only purpose of these components. At the end of the game, when all rooms are revealed and all gems and curses are placed on the field, the gems are distributed among the players using the pieces surrounding that room. Each gem, conveniently enough, is worth 12 points and easily splits into two, three, or four, regardless of the circumstances.  Curses, on the other hand, banish nearby players before the final count. In many cases it is better to find out the location of curses than gems. Precious stones that you can risk, or curses that will not bring any good! There is an element of betting around the placement of pieces. You can give other players an advantage from a position that seems particularly profitable by placing twice as many pieces in the same position. You can even substitute your own pieces, which represents aspects of bluffing that I adore. If I realize I've put one piece next to a curse, who's to say I can't convince someone else I'm on to something good by replacing it with two or three? One of the biggest challenges of puzzle games is to make them interactive, and Spectral has found just about the best way to do it that I've seen. Unused pieces also score points at the end of the game, and depending on the number of players, they score quite a bit. You always have the option of giving away your move if you feel it is better to hold your pieces than risk a bad return. You will never have time to explore every room. By the end of the game, you're making tough choices based on opportunities and hunches.  I have nothing but good things to say about Spectral. Designer Ryan Courtney, of Pipeline fame, managed to combine the trade-offs of territory control and auction games with an engaging puzzle game, all in about thirty minutes. Spectral is smart, interactive, easy to learn and fun. Also, the final reveal of all the rooms provides a nice dramatic moment. Spectral is one of the first two releases in a new series from publisher Bitewing Games, Deep Clean. The idea behind the series is to combine complex game states and inherent gameplay with simplified rulesets. They speak my language. That's all I want. Spectral is a very good start. Oh, and to top it all off, the game comes in a pretty small box. You know, maybe 4.5/5 is too little. We may have finally done it. Maybe this is the perfect game...

 “How different can a card game be?” you might ask yourself. But then you play Faraway and get your answer. Faraway requires you to think in forward and reverse, at the same time, which means that at the end of eight rounds you’re never quite sure whether you made the right moves or not. Let’s find out more. Faraway Overview In Faraway plays will take a journey across the land of Alula “a mysterious continent where a harmonious nature reigns” (Pandasaurus is leaning in pretty heavy on the mythos here). Over the course of eight rounds, players will draft Region cards from a central display, placing them left to right into a personal tableau, and hopefully also acquiring critically useful Sanctuary cards. At the end of the eighth round, players flip all of their region cards face down, and one by one reveal them—starting with the rightmost card. But I’m getting ahead of myself…in Faraway the goal is to earn the most points, which are acquired via end game scoring on both Region and Sanctuary cards. In some cases, points are simply given (this card is worth 5 points), in other cases points are collected from icons or colors on other cards (1 point for every map icon, 2 points for every red or yellow card), and in the remainder of the cards the points are gated behind requirements (2 points for every night card, as long as you have 2 thistle icons). Now, let’s get back to the gameplay. As you reveal the cards from right to left, you score them based solely on the cards which are already revealed. “Oh, you’ve got a card which awards 10 points if you have 3 antler icons? Bummer for you…seems like you didn’t plan ahead.” This is the reason why Sanctuary cards are so important, as they don’t get flipped over at the end of the game. You can earn them for always playing Region cards which are a higher number than the one immediately to your left. If you placed a 7 last turn, and place a 16 this turn, you get to draw a Sanctuary card—and you get to draw additional Sanctuary cards for each map icon you’ve previously played. Sadly you only get to keep one, but these Sanctuary cards generally make the difference between winning and losing. After revealing and scoring all your Region cards, you make one last pass to score any points found on Sanctuary cards, then tally up the points.Faraway or Far Out?  Let’s just lay it out there…everyone I’ve played Faraway with has been tripped up in the first game or two. Even though I always double down on calling out the “forwards then backwards” scoring approach, it still takes them off guard. It usually takes 2 or 3 games to really catch on to how you must shift your thinking. Faraway rewards strategic thinking, but because it’s a card game, you also have to be able to respond to shifting situations. Faraway is also a game which requires making sacrifices. If you draw a card near the beginning of the game that intends to give you 16 points, you better play it for the points. But if you draw that same card in round 7, it might never even hit the table—unless you play it for the icons. Even though Faraway isn’t a multi-use card game in the traditional sense, I think it belongs in that group in spirit. Cards can be both points and resources, or they can just be resources if you can think far enough ahead.  Even though the others members of my game group ultimately felt that Faraway was a bit too thinky for the “small game” time slot we had placed it in, that didn’t prevent us from playing the game a number of times, in an effort to develop an understanding of the game and the strategy it requires. Faraway is definitely a game that rewards multiple plays. What about you, will you give Faraway a shot at your table? In my opinion, it’s a journey worth taking...

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?!..