"Zooloretto" does not let go. Point. I don't stop liking this unimaginative game at all... On the shelf there are untried "Dracula" and "Shadows of Camelot", recently "Warcraft" came with an add-on, and I want to play "Zooloretto". If anyone doesn't know, Zooloretto is a game about a zoo. In it, players act as managers of their own zoo, buy animals, build stalls and new enclosures, in short, do everything to earn victory points. As one of my friends likes to repeat: "Everything is like in life." "Zooloretto" is not really an original game. The author (the well-known Comrade Shakht) reimagined his most successful brainchild - the game "Coloretto" - in a new way: threw the hell out of abstraction, added money to the game, replaced colored cards with tokens with animals, and voila! We had to come up with a new name... Before us is a game that looks great, with simple rules, high dynamism, low competitiveness. In short, a find for the family. "Professional" boardgamers perceived the game as recycled material, saying that "Coloretto" is pure gameplay, leavened on interesting mechanics, and "Zooloretto" is purely a money-making game. But! This game has one great feature - it is not abstract at all. For me personally, this is the main reason why I prefer to collect animals rather than pieces of colored cardboard. Any action in this game is closely related to the setting and is logical. Money brings a very light economic aspect to the game in addition to the tactical one, and add-ons provide a fan. Appendix one: Tokens of Podlanka. Finally you can make abominations! These are nine tokens of problems that play in the zoos of rivals and close places for animals in enclosures, prohibit the construction of stalls and break the roof of the reserve, forcing to spend on major repairs. I like to make abominations! Appendix Two: Mission Maps. Loudly shouted, of course, about the mission. Simply, at the beginning of the game, each player receives a card on which it is indicated for which animals the player will receive more points, and for which he will not receive at all. Only 5 animal species out of 8 are shown on the maps, which makes players compete harder for them. At the beginning of the game, these cards create a light atmosphere of the game "Mafia", everyone is thinking about who will collect the giraffes you need, and who will push the useless pandas, for which you will not get points anyway. But you can throw these pandas into your spare! They don't give a minus for them either! Supplement three: "Zooloretto XXL". It is the simplest. Just doubles the number of tokens. However, there is another side to such a sharp increase. There are too many animals! Now the reserve is swelling like yeast, and you have to buy a large aviary without fail, although this does not save the situation much. zoos of the world stand, apparently, empty cells) and cut off glasses for it. However, the course is not very profitable. 6 points for the first serve, 5 for the second, 4 for the rest. Other additions somehow did not work for me. Scatters of mini-addons from one Super Animal tile, such as King Kong, Christmas Reindeer, and other fabulous fauna, have a common drawback: they give a big advantage to whoever acquired that animal. "Zooloretto Exotic" introduces a new system of visitors to the game, which, as if from another game, was torn off. "Aqualoretto" (Shacht knows how to invent names) is the same thing, but filled with lappet. In our gaming group, which consists of girls, the game went with a bang! Fewer than two or three games in a row are played extremely rarely, since the duration of the game is 15-20 minutes. The number of jokes and pranks at the table is off the charts. The game is recommended to everyone who does not like complicated rules, as well as to all animal lovers. PS The most frequent phrase during the parties: "Buy an elephant!"..

 Rune Age is distinguished by a high level of interaction between players and aggression (up to the elimination of the player), asymmetric factions and different game scenarios. The scenario shown on The Realms of Terrinoth reduced the game to an "arms race" in which the goal was to accumulate enough power to destroy the main enemy, the dragon lord card that lies in the center of the table from the start and has a power of 18. The west was mentioned and mentioned. a co-op scenario in which "trouble" is thrown into the deck of events, and players must work together to counter that deck. Scenarios also determine the cards available to players; yes, in the scenario played out at the event, there were only 3 different neutral cards available to players. SCHEDULE The basic set of the game features four factions - the same as in Runewars. Each faction has its own unique set of stacks of cards that a player playing as a faction can buy into their deck, and they are unique. Most of the faction's special cards are troops. In addition, each faction is matched with one card representing the kingdom itself, which has 20 stamina. Also, each faction has its own stack of so-called fortresses - they give players points of influence. Common deck cards can be bought by all players. These include gold cards and neutral cards; the second includes various tactics that can affect the player's turn or battle, as well as neutral troops. The city maps represent the various cities of the Terrinoth universe (Vinevale, Frostgate, etc.). Cities have defense levels at their disposal and can be captured by players. Once a city is captured, it is positioned in front of the player who captured it and can rotate 90° (like resources in collectible card games) to grant them influence points to purchase cards. The Event Deck provides unique instant events and enemy cards that come into play and can be attacked by players. Most of the enemy cards when defeated bring artifacts to the winner - they provide the player with additional game opportunities. All players receive starting cards according to their faction. Thus, the human faction receives maps of troops of four types: infantry, archers, knights and siege towers. Their prices are 1, 2, 3, and 4 gold, respectively, and their power is 1, 2, 3, and 4. In addition, there are 3 fortress cards available to the human faction, each of which can be purchased and placed in front of you by spending 4 gold or capturing with battles (with a total strength of 2). A captured or purchased fortress earns 1 point of influence. All army cards, in addition to price and power, have special game features that are used in battle. CONDITIONS OF VICTORY Any game in Rune Age begins by choosing a scenario, depending on which the victory conditions change, for example, to destroy a dragon lord whose power is equal to 18. In addition, it is possible to win by destroying the kingdom cards of all opposing players - the player whose kingdom card has lost all 20 stamina points and is out of the game (this game moment is being clarified and is not the truth). FLOW OF THE GAME  There are three types of resources in the game: gold, influence and power (the ability to fight) - all of them are represented on cards. Cards are purchased by spending the required resources and then either go into the player's discard pile, which is later transformed into their new deck, or are laid out in front of the player, ready for action. During his turn, a player can spend gold or influence to buy new cards, or start a battle to capture a card. Gold is spent as in other similar games: the player simply discards gold cards from his hand and acquires new cards for the amount of their value. Influence is carried out by the cards lying in front of the player. They are not mixed in the player's deck, but are returned by 90° as payment for the purchase of cards. The third possible action is to declare a battle by playing troops from your hand. At the end of any player's turn, everyone adds five cards from their decks to their hand. This allows you to enter the battle as a defender without being helpless on your next turn. BATTLE Battle works like this. A player declares a battle during his turn and first states his objective, which can be a neutral city laid out at the start of the game, a neutral city already captured by another player, an event map showing an enemy (including the main enemy - scenario objectives), or a kingdom another player. In all cases, the battle is the same, but only at the end of the battle with the event card, an additional loss step is performed. The player who announced the attack is considered the attacker. He starts the battle by laying out a troop or tactic card from his hand. If the target is a neutral card, the player simply continues laying out cards until they want to stop, or until the power of the laid cards exceeds the defense level of the attacked card. If another player controls a card, players take turns laying down one card until both save. After saving, the player can no longer lay out cards; if one player saved, the other player can lay out as many cards as he wants. Maps of troops and tactics also use their game capabilities. Once the winner of the battle is determined, all cards are discarded into the hosts' discard piles. In a battle against a neutral enemy, a die is rolled to determine the player's losses. Two faces of the cube are empty, three - with one depicted army, and one - with two. The dropped edge dictates how many troop cards the player will be forced to destroy before calculating the final strength of the opposing sides. A few words about the abilities of the cards. Having played a pawn, the player reveals the top card of his deck, and if it is another pawn, he can take it into his hand, otherwise discards it or returns it to the top of the deck. The archer's ability allows you to force the opponent to discard one troop card (from those already laid out on the table for the battle). The ability of the knight allows you to reveal the top card of your deck, and if its power level is 3 or less, take it into your hand, and if it is more, discard it. A siege tower allows you to discard cards from your hand and add +2 strength for each of them for the duration of this battle. The undead faction has more interesting actions, for example, resurrection: such troops, entering the game, allow the player to find a card with the ability of resurrection in his discard pile and put it into battle. Other factions have cards that can "injure" themselves to gain extra power or allow the host to draw more cards during battle. A few words about the terms "drop", "wound" and "destroy". When discarding a card, the player simply places it in their discard pile. When destroying a card, the player returns it to the purchase pile from which it was purchased — including the card leaves the player's deck. If a card is destroyed during battle, it no longer adds power to the host. Therefore, troops that can destroy other people's cards are very valuable. Wound (this only happens in battle) a card, the player turns it 90 ° to indicate that it is wounded - the card still adds its power to the host's total power for that battle, but after the battle it is not reset, but destroyed. Tactics cards can be played during turn and battle. For example, Battle Cry and Forced March. The first is a combat tactic and gives +1 power for each friendly troop participating in the battle. Forced March allows you to destroy one card from your hand to draw two cards from your deck. Such cards are bought by spending influence. MISCELLANEOUS NEUTRAL TROOPS A neutral demon army has been spotted in the game. It costs 6 units of influence, has a power of 5 (the strongest of the observed troops). Additionally, a demon cannot be destroyed during battle unless it is first wounded. A very useful ability to battle with enemies (event cards). EVENTS DECK The deck of events is formed before the game. The objective card starts the game already on the table - it was the main enemy (dragon lord) with a power of 18. At the end of each round, before the first player starts a new round, a new event deck card is drawn. During the familiarization game, the first artifact from the event deck appeared, which was laid out according to the text in front of the player sitting to the right of the first player. It gave the player an additional unit of +1 influence. The following events turned out to be enemies that, when defeated, left the player as artifacts that give additional points of gold or influence. Near the end of the game, an instant event appeared, which turned out to be an enemy and attacked each of the four players in turn. His power was 12 points, and the player had to exceed them by playing cards from his hand. Any points not absorbed were converted into damage to the player's kingdom map. Yes, the eyewitness (and author of the original note) who had no combat cards in his hand took all 12 damage, reducing his kingdom's durability from 20 to 8 all at once! THE FINAL BATTLE The people won. At the beginning of the last turn, the player had one gold card, Battle Cry and 3 Forced March in their hand. After playing Forced March, the player destroyed the gold card and got two infantry. After playing a second Forced March, I killed one infantryman and got a infantryman and a demon. The third Forced March destroyed the footman and allowed for a second demon and a knight. People at that point already had an artifact that gives +3 might in battle with the scenario objective, so the player started the final battle by playing a demon (+5 might), a demon (+5), a knight (+3), taking from the top of the deck into a pawn's hand, a pawn (+1), revealing and discarding a gold card from the top of the deck, and a Battle Cry (+4) that gave 21 power with the artifact. Since..

 Many draw parallels between "Cuba" and such games as "Puerto Rico" or "Struggle for the Galaxy". Indeed, the driving force of these games is the choice of character cards (roles, phases - the essence does not change from this). Let me remind you that in the basic "Cuba" players have five characters at their disposal: a worker (extraction of resources and products), trade (buying/selling goods), architect (construction of buildings), foreman (activation of buildings) and mayor (export of goods for victory points ). In each round, each player plays four characters from this list, and the remaining character after 4 rounds goes off to engage in politics, buy votes with the player's money and seek leadership in those same votes to be able to dispose of the four bills and decide which laws will be accepted by the government. , And which are rejected.  Addition "El President" adds one round of moves in each round. In addition to 4 of the 5 characters, each player must sooner or later use one of the available Cuban cards, taking it from the field for himself and performing a unique card action. At the beginning of the round, each Cuban is in a separate place on the field. A certain action of the president is tied to each such place. By taking the Cuban's card, the player crosses out one of the president's possible actions from the list in this way. At the end of the character phase, the presidential car drives along the boulevard and stops near the last card of the Cuban (the others have already been sorted by the players). After that, the president's action is performed, related to the place on the field where the card of the remaining unwanted Cuban is located. Cubans: dancer (player becomes the first player in the next round), musician (player receives 2 coins), day laborer (allows to immediately move the player's products from the yard to the warehouse), port master (replaces ships in the port), lawyer (activates one building per coin), revolutionary (the player receives a victory point).  Actions of the President: In the next round, two characters will go to the parliament. All bills are accepted, the phase of buying votes and voting is skipped. In the next round, it is allowed to move the worker figure before using the foreman. For a coin, each player can rebuild an already existing building into another, spending only the difference in resources. The leader loses 2 victory points. Each player takes a token of any product from the market.  In addition to all of the above, the El Presidente expansion includes several tokens for new buildings, ship maps, and bills. Among the latter, I would like to draw attention to a very strong law that should pull up the laggards. As long as this law is in effect, players will receive additional points at the end of each round. Everyone will receive the number of points equal to their current place on the victory points line: the leader will move up by 1 point, the third player - by 3... This method of pulling out the laggards was used back in Snow Tails. Thanks to this law and the fifth action of the president, the counting of points in the last game in "Cuba" revealed a striking equality: three out of four players scored the same number of points and the winner had to be determined by the amount of cash left at the disposal. In general, "Cuba" with the addition, despite a slightly higher difficulty, is somewhat more loyal to lagging players. Still, this game is not suitable for family leisure: too many rules, too much planning. However, if you sit down to the game to shake your brains, and not just to relax, if you are worried about the upcoming mental duel, where the main weapon will be a mixture of hard calculation, logic and cunning, then "Cuba" will not leave you indifferent...

 Uno is liked by absolutely everyone who played it - a proven fact! The rules are simple and easy to remember, and the games last 15-20 minutes. A deck for playing Uno contains only 108 cards. There are cards with the numbers 0 to 9 of four suits, as well as special cards: 8 "Take Two" cards, 8 "Back Move" cards, 8 "Skip a Move" cards, 4 "Order Color" cards, 4 "Order Color and take four." Each player is dealt 7 cards and the first card is placed for discard. The goal of the game is to be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand. The winner gets points according to the cards remaining in the hands of the other players.  Each player in Uno discards one card during his turn in such a way that the discarded card matches the color or face value of the card discarded by the previous player. Special cards bring a lot of surprises to the game. For example, with the "Skip Turn" card, you force the next player to… you won't believe it… skip a turn! You can also change the direction of the move with the "Opposite" card, that is, if the move was transmitted clockwise, then the "Opposite" card changes the direction counterclockwise. By discarding a Take Two card, you can force the next player to take two cards and skip the turn. You can order the desired color using the "Order Color" card. Any suit can be used for this card. And the worst thing is the "Order a color and take four" card, using which you can both order the color you need and force the next player to take 4 cards! When one of the players has only one last card left in his hand, he must say "UNO!". If he forgot to do this, and one of the players noticed it, then he forgot to say the magical UNO! takes two cards from the deck. But be on the alert yourself, your opponents are watching the number of your cards, making sneaky plans and will also use special cards against you and each other in every possible way! "Uno" is a great game for the company! Parties fly by quickly and are full of joy and fun! And after each finished game, you want to play again and again! The game will not get boring and will appeal to different people, "from small to large"!..

 I'm back with a box of colorful cubes, cards and coin tokens. From the euro, that is. This time an unremarkable one, about which no one says much. Maybe they are hiding something, trying to prevent such a great game from being played by tabletop players all over the world? Let's figure it out. At first glance, everything looks quite ordinary. The Chilean port city of Valparaiso is the port to give the name to another box of euros about how some men try to sell the more expensive gray cubes for the maximum number of pesos to other men who trade orange cubes. But what are they hiding? The secret to chili and fiery gameplay? WHAT'S IN THE BOX? Two-sided playing field for 2-3 and 4-5 players. The sides differ in the number of villages on the island and slots for trade dice.  Tablets for players to stockpile resources and plan their actions using cards.  A pile of cardboard tokens that includes coins, trading tokens, and the first player's marker.  A pile of wood, consisting of meeples, houses and player ships, as well as resource cubes of three types.  An hourglass is especially for narrow-minded people who can't figure out what they want to do and thus annoy others. Mechanically not used in the game, except for the above purpose.  Action Cards: Five decks of 8 cards for each player and a small neutral deck that can be purchased during the game. GAME PROCESS Valparaiso is pretty much standard Euro, where you exchange resources for points, but with little interesting chips. Games without them are usually so unremarkable that they don't even reach the top seven on BGG. In the analyzed box, the rating is almost exactly 7, this is not a very high indicator, and further I will explain why the game is not accepted by the community. But now we will consider the features of the gameplay, and there are two of them that stand out: 1. Programming of processes per round. From the start of the game, everyone has a hand of 8 action cards. You place four of them into special slots on your tablet at the start of the round and do them in the order listed, one at a time, when it's your turn to walk. Moreover, the sequence can be broken by paying a certain amount of coins. And they are important because at the end of the game they change 20 to 1 for victory points. Therefore, every 1-2 is given for small actions and their adjustments can affect the final score, which here is quite small. Conditionally 30 points are scored.  There is also an additional mayor slot where you can lay out a card, but for this extra action you pay 5 pesos, so you have to think about whether it is worth the drain of invested resources. As the game progresses, players will be able to use resources to purchase additional action cards in their mini-deck that are more effective and, among other things, that bring victory points. They play in the same way and give either similar actions or significantly improved direct ones. In this point of originality, I will note an unusual and interesting way of obtaining these new cards. Each player has a ship token in port that can be loaded with goods (three types). All enhanced action cards are located in one of three sea zones where you need to swim and ship certain resources there, after which the chosen card is added to your deck. At the same time, the deck of new actions is divided by strength, and you have to pay gold for more powerful cards, and in a cunning way.  2. But the second item is an unusual feature of Valparaiso. Several villages and intermediate points between them are depicted on the playing field. In the villages, you can carry out trade operations according to the original scheme. By playing the trade action card, you activate all your merchants in the villages and they bring you profit. How many little men are in the village, so many times you trade there for one action. In addition to the question "what will I get in the village?" is solved in an original way: in each location there is a set of dies, in which today's losers are indicated. For example, in one move you get red cubes, and if you come to another, you will get the opportunity to buy more cubes, but for coins, and in the third you can exchange resources for points, etc.  All of these opportunity tiles are circulated daily in the villages and trade opportunities vary each round. Another trick is that if you want to trade in the village, you need to get to it with a special traffic card. And the further you move, the more expensive it is, while passing through intermediate points, you will need to pay the owner of this point.  Yes, you can still build your own houses in intermediate points and villages: the former will allow you to collect tribute from those passing by, and the latter will increase trade activities in a specific village. Here, in fact, are all the unique features of the game. We shake the deck a little with new action cards, wander around the villages and exchange red and white cubes for coins and victory glasses. In the end, we consider who bought the cards more expensively and collected more money in order to merge all this into the software at the exchange rate. IMPRESSION Very flat. Valparaiso presents itself as a normal Euro, with interesting mechanics of markets and buying action cards. But as a result, everything flows into flat, some ... same-type, or something, body movements. The original mechanics even capture your attention for a while, because everything here is not the same as in ordinary Euros. However, gradually the process turns into monotony and the realization that you are not doing anything original. For example, the ability to change the sequence of programmed actions for money initially seems like a good game feature, for example, you can skillfully adapt to the actions of your opponents. But as a result, it turns out to be a completely useless stray, which works not that several times per party for everyone, but once for several parties. After all, if you plan correctly, then you never need to change the sequence, and even situations when it may be necessary to overtake an opponent are very rare, or rather, do not actually occur at all.  But this is a minor minus, okay. And here is a plus from the same opera: the mayor's action slot, which can be used for 5 coins - this simple chip works as it should. Want some extra action? Please: pay money and do more. Nothing special, but cool. You have to consider whether you need this extra action or it is better to save your finances. The same sailing on a loaded ship according to maps is done interestingly, but no more. It doesn't feel like a separate mechanic, it's just another way to make the game different from everyone else. Why? For the player in the process, this means nothing, a small chip that does not affect the general perception in any way and does not stand out in the brain as a noticeable feature of the game. Well, yes, to get an enhanced action, you must first spend four basic actions: get goods, load on a ship, swim in the right direction, buy a card.  Does it feel like an adventure, a gameplay feature? No, just a series of intermediate body movements for the purpose of buying a card approximately the same as the one you have in your hands. The same with trade in villages. The idea of sending your traders deep into the island, finding the right treaty tiles with the right effect, waypoints where you can set up a checkpoint that charges a fee - all great. It sounds In fact, it turns out like a ship - a bunch of left-wing actions for the same thing that we have seen in other crowds. We spent a movement card, then a construction card to set up our house, then used a trade card - three actions in all - just to get a couple of goods cubes.  It is because of these contrived actions, which lead to rather ordinary and unimpressive results, that the general feeling of monotony of the process is created. The player works-works, accumulates-collects these few resources, then loads, floats, unloads the mined, and as a result receives a card, the same as his starters, but with the possibility of purchasing some additional tree. And while this whole routine process is going on, victory points are collected, and the game ends very quickly. You managed to buy a trio of cards, once or twice to merge goods for software — and here is the final tally. Oh_oh  The interaction in the game is carried out at the level of blocking transitions from village to village with your houses and charging for passage, but this is not enough to talk about any competition on the field, in principle. Therefore, the players here are quite independent from each other and adjust each of their engines, if it can be called that separately. I'd even go so far as to say that this minimal interaction hinders the jostling, as the constant hand-to-hand exchange of coins becomes tiresome after only a couple of rounds. Someone built a house at the crossroads. And now every other player, passing through this path, must give 2 coins to the owner. So everyone started trading in one village - and everyone who does an action there must give a coin to everyone who has their little man/house in that settlement. And so every turn! If you want to show someone by example what fiddling is like in board games, sit down to play five in Valparaiso.  This is the general impression. But the box is not without advantages. Yes, the overkill with intermediate actions is felt, but these walking around the island and setting up the construction of houses in the villages were declared as a board chip. Loading the ship with goods and storing in the port what will still be needed on land is also fun. The development of all these mechanics by the authors is visible. No matter how you play, the time of the game is at your disposal — only 20 minutes per..

 I would like to offer you a review of Reichbusters - an ambiguous game that was heavily criticized after its release. It's worth noting that I have decent experience in the dungeon crawler genre, and that I played version 1.1 with the errata, solo. In short, I think Reichbusters is a very good and unique game that suffers from being extremely unfriendly to newbies. PROS Uniqueness.  Surprised? You probably thought that Reichbusters is another representative of an endless variety of crawlers tied to "choose an action - roll the dice." But Reichbusters is a completely different game. It is related to competent drawing of action cards, hand management and creation of chains of devastating combinations. Your characters are true death machines, and the Nazis can only deal serious damage to you by attacking in a mob. The game expects you to annihilate multiple enemies per turn and encourages a playstyle accordingly. Until the alarm goes off, your goal is to make sure that at the end of your character's turn there are no Nazis left in range. Something like X-COM on the highest difficulty: you have to wipe out all the enemies without giving them a chance to fire back. In my opinion, Reichbusters is much closer to Dungeon Alliance (only with dice) than it is to traditional crawlers.  Fan As soon as you break through the obstacles, the game will play with all colors and become a very beautiful self. There are almost no residents with components (before the alarm sounds). Compared to some "Blade and sorcery" Reichbusters, one might say, even minimalistic. You focus on optimizing your moves, not calculating AI, modifiers, etc. After the alarm sounds, the game process slows down a bit: you will have to fill and move small amounts in large quantities. However, it becomes easier with experience. Bad guys always activate in the same sequence, always move in predictable ways, and always combine their attacks into one powerful attack. So far, the 6 games I've played have taken less than 2 hours (not counting layouts). The shortest took 70 minutes. All six were raid missions. Redrawability Without exaggeration, Reichbusters is one of the most addictive games in my collection. Thanks to an option like RAID, you can quickly generate a mission for yourself with a variety of tiles, objectives and enemies. With so many heroes to choose from and the ability to choose starting gear and skills, each game is completely different from the last. This is one of the main advantages of Reichbusters. I will also write down the quality components, thematics and decent complexity as pluses. CONS Unfriendliness.  The 1.0 rulebook is just awful. The redesigned version is better, but still not great. Key mechanics (patrol level, alert level, line of sight) are explained in a very vague way, making it difficult to get into the game. Plus keywords. The game has "silent", "stealth" and "stealth". They all work in a similar way, but in the same way. The same goes for "accurate," "focused," and "unmissable." I think cramming so many keywords into a rulebook like a wargame was a mistake. This creates a big barrier for newcomers. Oddly enough, some of the items that can be mined have icons that clearly demonstrate their effect. Why couldn't the same be done with character attributes? Fortunately, the era has larger cards for each of the characters that list the main keywords. But they should have been included in the game from the beginning. Layout Inevitable evil, unfortunately. Primarily due to assembling a map from tiles, as in Descent. A good organizer will reduce time costs, but you will still have to spend 30-40 minutes on the layout. Assembly is fast: 5 minutes. It is easy to be deceived in expectations. This is not a simple cube thrower. There is almost no loot. When the alarm sounds, you should run, not stay and fight. CONCLUSIONS I love Reichbusters. I bought the game more out of curiosity and was surprised at how long it took. The gameplay is polished and very fan-friendly, there are many successful mechanics. The regalness is off the charts, plus chic art and underpants. It's a shame that Reichbusters' reputation has been severely damaged by its lack of newbie friendliness and terrible rules.  Rating - 9/10...

 Biblios is one of my favorite fillers. Since I bought it, I've probably played 30 games. A little bit for a filler, you might say. I have two excuses: 1. When you have over a hundred games in your collection, you go to game stores, you often play on your friends' boards, etc., even 10 games for some home toys is a good indicator. 2. Biblios belongs to the category of thorough fillers. That is, the party leaves for 30-40 minutes. It is not for you to fill the counter of duels in the "Scottish Duel". RULES The game takes place in two large asymmetric phases. Phase 1 - sorting the cards and putting them on the hand. Players take apart the entire deck. It is done like this: a player takes one card at a time and must immediately decide whether he takes it into his hand (1 card!), puts it in the auction deck (1 card!) or lays it out for other players (1, 2 or 3 - depending number of opponents). After 3-5 cards are dealt, other players deal with 2-3 face up cards. The move is passed to the next player.  Phase 2 - auction. Here, players trade for cards by opening them from one of the auction decks. At the same time, you need to pay for colored cards with numbers with money, and for money cards with the number of face-down cards discarded from your hand. Cubes? There are dice in the game, but you don't have to roll them. They lie on a special field with the number three up. During the game, cards can be dropped that change the value on the dice by +1 or -1. The top value of the die is the victory points that are awarded at the end of the game. Whoever has the largest sum on browns will receive points from the upper face of the brown cube, etc. The sum of the points on the received cubes determines the winner. IMPRESSION The rules are simple as two by two, and the process is very gambling. That is why we periodically use the game as a gateway for newcomers. With whom did we play it and with random companions on the train, with friends, with parents. Everyone likes the game. In my opinion, she simply cannot cause any negativity...  The first phase clearly tests players for greed. Someone takes a lot of gold and will be the king of the auction, someone collects specific cards of a pair of flowers, hoping to take away 2 dice (in a game of four, 2 won dice is 75 percent of the overall success), someone sits and resents that he is not lucky. The second phase forces players to spread their cards across the distance. The highlight of the auction is that you only know a third/quarter of the cards that will come out. But maybe your bet is on them? The trick of the game is that it is not clear who will win until the very final opening of the hands: that is why the auction almost always takes place with fire from the first to the last card. In Biblios, knowing the number of different types of cards in the deck helps a lot, so when playing with newbies, I always show and remind them which color contains how many cards. A player who knows this ratio can sometimes even calculate whether or not to take a particular card.  Biblios is designed for 2-4 people, but for some reason it never occurred to me to play it dueling. To my taste, the mechanics are not very good at their disposal, but 3-4 players are just that. But the fewer players, the more random cards are removed from the starting deck, which also brings its own specificity to the process. Well, replayability and intrigue are added by cards that change the values of the dice. Their feature is that they need to be played as soon as you take it for yourself in the first phase or win it at the auction. CONCLUSIONS Conclusion: I'm probably not very objective, but Biblios is a cool game. One of my favorite and time-tested fillers. 8 out of 10!..

 An event occurred in 2018. It took place only for fans of abstract beautiful games, and perhaps it is even worth cutting the circle of those involved in "fans of Rainer Knytsia's work". But it definitely happened. The reincarnation of his best game (of which there are several hundreds) Tigris & Euphrates was released. An abstract deck that was reissued even by FFG, one of the trendsetters in the field of amerithrash! "Tiger and Euphrates" is one of my favorite games, even in the 10x10 challenge I recorded it for 2019, so I was intrigued, to say the least, when I heard about its "re-release" called Yellow & Yangtze. And since I am deep in the topic, I will try to cover a little today not only the game itself, but also in the part about the impressions to show its distinctive positive and negative qualities in relation to the progenitor, when they appear. WHAT IS THE GAME ABOUT? Apparently, this is one of the most thematic (if not the only) boards of the "soulless" genius of Knytsia. Players act as the rulers of the country, who seek to squeeze as much territory as possible and subdue all spheres of life in the state, spreading influence wherever possible. On the common playing field, party members build empires using tiles representing different classes of people, from fishermen and merchants to governors and governors. Actually, the theme of the game about the "class struggle" for territories is very strongly felt during the game (for the abstract). And although the process itself is more reminiscent of something like go, I can say that for me personally, the thematic nature of this abstract is at the highest level among all boards of this class. Perhaps because all these permutations of colored tiles are quite varied, each with its own rules and exceptions, well tied to what is happening on the game map. You always understand how and why fishermen or certain governors act, because their actions are logical, and it is impossible to confuse them. WHAT'S IN THE BOX? The components in the foreign box are excellent, as in principle, and in the two previous versions of the game (both from FFG and an older version). Their number and woodenness is impressive. In addition to the playing field, piles of wooden cubes (150 pieces), 140 cardboard tiles and wooden leader tokens, stuffed with all kinds of markers, screens and other goodies. I don't know why, but in this Knytsia game, the content has always been luxurious. (Maybe that's why she's his top 1?) GAME PROCESS Yellow & Yangtze is one of those complex abstract games, where the rules have more nuances and exceptions than in some box with a simple Euro, so I'll limit myself to a general description. So, the playing field is a country divided into many hexagons, in his turn the player places tiles of different colors on the field from a hand randomly selected at the beginning of the game (it is replenished every turn). In addition to the tiles, each player has chips of the leaders of various "professions" corresponding to the colors of the tiles. They can also be displayed on the field and receive points for this according to certain rules, depending on the built configurations of the tiles. Enemy leaders can and should be pushed out of territories with the help of wars, trying to put their own in the most fertile places created by the players themselves. As people create and populate different areas of the playing field, pagodas, such high-rise buildings, will appear on it, which passively form glasses for you. There is usually a war for possession of the latter.  Thus, moving tiles from hand to turn, players turn a desert field into a country inhabited by people and built with pagodas, in which the leaders of different factions fight for control of territories, pushing each other out of their strongholds and trying to create profitable areas. At the same time, the points in the game are of several colors (leaders of different colors, which the player puts out, give him the corresponding points), and the one who scores more in his weaker color wins. So we will have to develop in all directions, well, or develop one thing and take the other from our neighbors. Those who played "Tiger and Euphrates" will get into the nuances from the first time, because there are changes, but they affected only some aspects of the rules, mostly everything remained in the old places. IMPRESSION I'll probably start right away with the feeling about the Tigris & Euphrates progenitor - they are a little different. The general concept on which both decks are based is, of course, identical, but the approach is slightly different. In general, when I had to explain the T&E rules, it often ended in misunderstanding the first-second-third time, because there were enough exceptions, branches and nuances in the rules: in one case red tokens, in another blue/green/black are considered - and that's very similar actions. It is quite difficult for beginners to remember exceptions and twisted rules. Y&Y simplified things, but not in a bad way, more like TI 4ed compared to TI 3ed. The author has made the game more dynamic with the time and the trends of the industry, leaving its former depth. The rules were adjusted in the direction of trimming some nuances. The question is, has everything become so much simpler and easier that the game has lost something that inevitably drew players to the best Knytsia game according to BGG - maybe the wide selection of actions inherent in T&E has disappeared, or something else? I specifically played before writing the review on my old box (not FFG) and updated my impressions of Y&Y.  What can I say? Periodically I will play both, but more often a new version inevitably appears on the table. Why? There is one reason here, which is very important and which even the opponents of the board will not argue with. Introducing newcomers to the updated rules has become much easier. It is difficult to deny that learning T&E is a difficult and often thankless task: behind the simplicity of the mechanic, there are so many nuances that with its primitiveness, it seems that even experienced players had to re-read the rules after a long absence from the game. Yes, just in case, so as not to miss any nuance. Y&Y took a different route, with an example of a war that now takes place in one stage, instead of the previous several consecutive battles between leaders of all colors. This not only accelerated the process, but also changed the tactics of entering and imposing battles, because now victory points are given only for one leader in the war, regardless of how many of them participated in the battle. That is, the player, in fact, now chooses a more profitable color for himself, which must be tightened, without straining too much with calculating the entire battle in advance. That is, it remained the same scale, but the result became less decisive, giving way to strategic planning for the future and tactical maneuvers with the help of tiles/leaders on the field.  The war has become more positional, and the attention of the party members is now focused on the correct position and the alignment of tiles to establish their kingdom-state, capable of giving out maximum points. The emphasis in obtaining PO has shifted a little towards pagodas (monoliths in the old way): since the field is now divided into hexagons, for the construction of a pagoda you need not four (as before), but only three prepared places. But the coolest change affected the properties of the colors of the tiles — it would seem that Knitsia simplified, simplified, and introduced new bells and whistles into the game: each color has some special property-action that can help in the implementation of the player's plans. For example, blue tiles can be laid out in a stack at once if certain conditions are met; when laying out the green, there is an opportunity to get the desired tile into the hand; etc. As a result of this, some "combo" signs appeared, as in some Euros. In addition, leaders off the playing field also bring some bonuses - that is, on the field they give points, and off the field they can be used to get any profits; so, on the one hand, the rules have even become more complicated, but... But no.  The whole game as a whole began to feel much lighter, or more airy. As before, there are many rules, but they are embedded in the head faster, more clearly, so to speak. Of course, there are reminders on the inside of the players' screens that explain in detail all the actions available to the players. Knitsia was able to rework his hit box into something completely new - it was not for nothing that I mentioned the TI 3ed and TI 4ed (two practically identical decks, but the latter is a "lighter" version of the first). And so here: Yellow & Yangtze - a fresh version of grandmother Tigris & Euphrates. And no matter how much I have loved my friend for many years, I have to admit that urban design does not stand still, and the new is not just a well-forgotten old, but also polished to a shine over the years of existence. Again, I will say that both boxes have the right to exist on the table, because although they are mechanically similar, they still play a little differently. Maybe it's my attachment to T&E, because all the last times only a fresh box (besides the "reminiscent-nostalgic" one) is being decomposed. One of the reasons, of course, is that it is a novelty, but the second is that people still refuse to enter the rules of the "Tiger and Euphrates", and few people manage to be jailed for the second batch, while Y&Y is much more warmly received by everyone .  I thought at first that it was due to the design, but the FFG version also had a chic design, but not much changed in terms of gathering new board followers. And it seems that the reason for the greater..

 Today we will evaluate the game "Carcassonne: Amazon". There is no need to consider it from all sides; I think she is well known to everyone. But it is interesting to see what has changed, and what new Klaus-Jürgen Wrede can offer in a series of games with almost 20 years of experience. In fact, like all additions and spin-offs, reimagining the gameplay of the classic board in some way, "Amazon" does not bring drastic changes during the game. Instead, players are offered a new emphasis in the form of a mechanic that now needs to be emphasized throughout the game. This was the case in previous branches, this box was no exception.  Let's start with the first obvious change - the environment is now tropical. Bright jungles, colorful animals, blue rivers and villages with baskets of flowering fruits - everything sets a much more cheerful mood than the gloomy gray Middle Ages. Although I am personally quite satisfied with the basic design, the new version is more pleasing. I know that for some, design plays a huge role when choosing a table, and some cannot be forced to even try an excellent box, when its color does not please the gentleman's taste. So here plus/minus is relative; some will appreciate it, some will not. Of the changes in the gameplay, two can be singled out, one of which is small and one is very large, which greatly changes the accents:  Let's start small. Now the role of "villagers" is played by two huts, two special "meeples", which can only be placed on the "fields" (in this case, the jungle). At the end of the game, points are not awarded for completed castles (in this version, they are villages), but for animals grazing in the jungle. Such a change was already in the series earlier, in the version of "Carcassonne" called "Hunters and Gatherers". In general, it does not fundamentally change anything, except for the calculation, which becomes easier, well, and diversity in terms of drawings on the field is added. A plus of this option is the change in the value of the tiles. Now, if you get an unnecessary village/river, you can always try to profitably attach it to your hunting grounds. That is, the evaluation of cardboard pieces is now also based on the "animal" parameter. The struggle for the "biggest" field has not gone anywhere, as before, someone is trying to join someone else's fodder base, adding tiles from the game-rich jungle side.  And the main change is Amazon itself. A river that is present on 15 of the 80 tiles of the total pool. As soon as the player gets such a tile, he must lay it out, continuing the course of the river. Here it is worth noting that an additional rule for the location of tiles is the impossibility of placing them below the Amazon, which has not yet spilled. A trifle, but most often affects the choice of where to go in turn, and sometimes discourages juicy pieces, forcing to choose other places to settle. But the most important nuance that the flow of the river brings to the gameplay is the bonus points for the caimans and piranhas drawn in this river. They are awarded to the one whose boat sails the first/second Amazon.  Yes, the new "meep" for each player in "Carcassonne: Amazon" is a boat. It is set to "zero" division at the beginning of the game and moves forward at certain moments of the game: when the player occupies the river with a drawn boat; when a player does not place anything in his turn except a tile; and when the points are counted for the Amazon, the one who scores zero moves his boat a division forward in an attempt to catch up with the leaders. IMPRESSION Actually, that's all the game changes. It would seem like little things, but the priorities are very shifted due to the river race. Thanks to this gameplay element, now you have to make a choice not only between "build a settlement" or "build a river" or "occupy the jungle", but also decide when you should put a cannon anywhere, and when you should sacrifice this opportunity to advance the boat. After all, the first player rushing down the river gets a very solid amount of points, from three to five. While the second can get from one to four, and about those who are lagging behind, there is nothing to say. Another rule of the new "Carcassonne" follows from this - you need to build as large settlements/rivers as possible. Not just because it gives you points, but also because when you attach a piece of the same village to an area you already occupy, you don't have to field new meeples, and thus allow you to move the boat forward one division. So potentially not exhibiting also gives points. And in the long run, these are considerable sums.  In general, the innovation is interesting and makes you act a little differently, while getting a slightly different feeling. Not radically different, but I had enough for five games in a row from one event, despite the fact that I played dozens and dozens of games in basic Carcassonne over the years of fascination. Here, of course, the design also played a role, after all, the colorfulness bribes and somewhat disguises the fact that this is the same Carcassonne. But there is a downside to this nice box, noted by many - the structure of the playing field is dictated by the new rule about the currents of the Amazon. You must continue the flow of the river as soon as another piece of it is in your hand, and taking into account the fact that it always flows in one direction, the length of the table should be suitable. There is no way to get rid of this, and sometimes, if you did not take care of preparing enough space in advance, you have to move the configured landscapes to the side so that the tiles fit. It's annoying at first, but after a few games it becomes clear how to lay out the starting tile so that everything fits on the kitchen table.  What else I liked: the roads (which are now rivers) have become more useful because they have boat icons that allow you to move along the river. Before, they were just an unimportant way to knock off a couple of points, who usually preferred something else. Of the minuses, in addition to the importance of the length of the game table, I can only note the absence of "monasteries", which are in the basic "Carcassonne" and did not receive any replacement-analogy in "Amazon". Still, additional interesting ways to set glasses are always welcome. Yes, there is a river in general, a whole separate mechanic, but... CONCLUSIONS Another Carcassonne box for fans of the series. I wanted to write it precisely because I respect the base, and the sequel is very good (the parrot design added points for me personally). A chip in the form of a river will quickly diversify the gameplay and bring freshness when you wanted it. Is it worth taking if there is a basic Carcassonne, and what to choose when the question is one or the other? Unfortunately, I do not advise. If you, like me, are quite a character who is played in all sorts of different ways and in this title specifically, then you can safely take any box. Tournament-level competition is more in the base, probably. In "Amazon" it can get a little greasy due to the randomness of getting points for the river, when someone jumps ahead and the field comes out several river tiles in a row, they give a pack of points. On the other hand, after mastering the new way of obtaining software in our company, no one allowed anyone to rush ahead of the river, realizing that this was the right way to fall behind on the track. All in all, another box in the collection of fans of Klaus-Jürgen Skhidlivosti's work and those who just want a good classic. ..