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. ..

GAME PROCESS Assassin's Creed Brotherhood of Venice has a great tutorial mode: through a chain of memories, you gradually get to know the gameplay without having to read the rule book from cover to cover. However, I will describe the gameplay in general so that you don't have to judge the appeal of a game by its franchise alone. At the beginning of each turn, you draw an event card that will have some effect on the current turn. Your assassin can then spend one of three action cubes (or four if you stocked up on one from past turns) to move to another map tile, attack, or perform actions necessary to complete the mission objective.  The mechanics of movement here are simple: with one action you can climb the roof, climb the tower or sneak down the street. And since it's Assassin's Creed in front of you, you can synchronize by climbing to the roof and find out the location of hideouts or scenario objectives. In addition, here, as in Monolith's Conan and Batman Gotham City Chronicles, players can divide the stock of actions between themselves. This is especially important because players can spend Action Cubes completing mission objectives together or attacking enemies. In short, unite and conquer. When you find yourself in the same location as a guard (or vice versa), you first have to make a Stealth check. If you fail to roll the dice, you are exposed and alerted. More about anxiety below, but I assure you, it does not bode well.  In stealth mode, you can use the hidden blade to stealthily eliminate guards. Or, if you're really lacking in thrills, you can wield a sword or other weapon that makes a noise that will expose you and cause you to panic. White combat dice represent a hit, the activation of a weapon's special ability (which also counts as a hit), and the response of surviving enemies. As soon as corpses appear, it is wisest to get rid of them before other guards notice their dead comrades. At the same time, you not only remove miniatures from the field, but also draw cards from the deck of equipment: in this way, you can get more simplified equipment and/or troubles like the appearance of new guards. In the enemy action phase, you draw a card from the reinforcement deck and then move all the baddies according to the instructions on the card. Reinforcement cards are double-sided: one green side is good, and the other side is red. It applies when alert mode is active, and essentially means that twice as many enemies will spawn. Memories (ie the party) ends when you complete all missions, when all assassins are dead, or when all guardian miniatures are on the field and you need to field new ones. Remember double spawn? This is one of the main nuisances that cause anxiety mode. Also, one look at the pile of black dice that enemies drop makes it clear that your three pitiful health cubes won't last long if you're mobbed.  In full parties (after training) there is also a staff phase. It is played at the beginning and end of each game. You can recruit allies, upgrade your headquarters, heal assassins and craft new equipment. EXPERIENCE FROM THE GAME  Most likely, your first impression will be a sharp pain in the lower back: lifting this heavy coffin will not be easy. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood of Venice is primarily a campaign mode with legacy elements, boxes with surprises and many envelopes in which the game hides its secrets from you. There are also three sticker sheets and a campaign progress tracking sheet at the end of the campaign book, where you'll mark your experience and completed objectives. You will no longer have to "spoil" any of the components. It is difficult to describe the gameplay of the game, in which there are many secrets, no spoilers of anything. Each assassin has his own personal envelope with character cards (new abilities become available at each level), items available for crafting, and skill cards available for selection at levelup. There are 26 flashback missions in the game, including 4 side missions (one for each assassin), so the base boasts a lot of content - and a lot of quality miniatures. Although the game scales to 1-4 players (if one player plays as two assassins), 1-2 is optimal. An injured Assassin does not automatically heal between missions; Must spend influence on healing at headquarters. Otherwise, your character either becomes weaker at the start of the next mission, or you play an apprentice assassin without special abilities, or you take another assassin.  What about stealth? Yes, it plays an important role. In the first few missions, you can hack without much consequences, but already in memories #0.4 (either the first or the second mission, which plays according to the full rules), stealth becomes critical for success. It was only here that I realized that the event card most often tells you where the enemies will go, which allows you to plan your actions in advance. In addition, each location has a limit of 4 enemies (or a corpse - the enemies that appear replace the corpses), which allows you to breathe a little (you will not be swarmed by a large crowd) and to effectively eliminate several enemies with one action cube . There are a lot of guards here, especially after they sound the alarm. A lot. Scenarios are quite diverse, for example, collecting key items, killing a certain character, escorting and more. However, the games as a whole develop in a similar vein: you stay in stealth mode as long as possible, and when the alarm sounds, you get involved in a mad meat grinder on the streets of Venice.  I played several hours of the Assassin Creed II. In my opinion, the concepts of timing, leaps of faith, and Templar vs. Assassin fights translate well into the game. There is a feeling that this is exactly Assassin's Creed. Although the core mechanics are taken from V-Commandos, overall the game fits perfectly into the PC franchise. Especially those moments when your plan falls apart and you have to improvise, hacking your way through enemies. The gameplay is generally slick and cinematic, reminiscent of Cthulhu: Death May Die. "Extra" hits can spill over to the next opponent - several corpses in one fell swoop. You can walk on the rooftops with the same ease as the streets. There are no tons of little nuances and exceptions to the rules, no mountains of status effects (hello, Blade and Sorcery). In terms of replayability, each assassin has 3 skill cards per level to choose from, as well as 2 HQ upgrade options and 2 ally options. In addition, when replaying the scenario, the event cards will appear in a different order, and randomness (manifested in both dice and events) can make the mission easier or more difficult. Although the plot will not impress you, if you like the gameplay, then you probably won't mind going through the campaign a few times. CONCLUSION The slow-moving plot with short plot twists is intriguing, and each envelope is like a mini-addition, teasing with the promise of something new to explore or learn. The plot itself is not bad, but what drew me to the game the most was the gradual disclosure of its secrets. As for the gameplay, the missions are fast-paced, with slick gameplay and constant action that always makes you want to lay out one more batch before folding...

 Without putting it in a long box, I decided to dedicate the next review to the game Floating Market from our acquaintance from Morocco, Ben Pinchback. This time around, Ben sends players on a much weirder mission than controlling market stalls — we'll play as tiny Thai shekels who scour the floating market in search of fruit for their grandmother's salad. Whoever collects all the ingredients first will receive a salad from grandma. As I said in the previous article, the toy packaging components of this company are great, but the gameplay... We will look at it today. Let's find out what is hidden behind the phrase of the authors in the description: "Experienced board players will appreciate the unique combination of long-familiar and new mechanics of rolling multifaceted cubes with fast and fun gameplay." WHAT IS THE GAME ABOUT? In the first paragraph, the entire plot, which, like almost most Euro-boxes, is unnecessary. But, let's face it, the subject is... offbeat/funny/ridiculous (emphasis added)? The justification for collecting a set of multi-colored cards in the form of "you're a granddaughter, but here's a papaya" is kind of... strange, in general. But that is not the point. You will not be able to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the game in any case, neither at the expense of the design, nor at the expense of the theme or mechanics. Here we will roll multifaceted dice. WHAT'S IN THE BOX? The playing field, which is a floating market and its surroundings:  Several tokens for operating on the playing field:  Player Color Meeples and First Player Marker:  Fruit and Coin Cards:  A mountain of player-colored dice, all suits from d6 to d12: HOW TO PLAY? There are seven types of fruit represented by cards. The object of the game is to be the first to collect 5 or 7 different ones depending on how long you want the game to be. These fruits are stored on boats, and all the efforts of the players will be directed to getting the cherished fruits from them. To do this, each round, party members alternately place their minions in action slots (usually "one slot = one person"). There are three meeples per face and they are displayed one at a time for several laps, after which, at the end of the round, it is determined which boat brought the fruit. And this is the central mechanic of Floating Market - which fruit is given in the round is determined by throwing a mountain of cubes. The same cubes that are declared as game pieces are sets for each player consisting of two hexagons (2d6), one ten-hedron (d10), one dodecahedron (d12) and one tetrahedron (d4). The point is that by displaying your three myples, you add one more cube to the general pool. As a result, the final roll is made with a handful of dice, made up of the dice of all the players (one per person).  For each boat on the playing field, a value is determined, when it falls, it brings a fruit, and the one who sent his soap boy to it receives a cherished card. In addition to the boats themselves, there are "modifier" locations on the field, such as: send a ship here - throw a "+2 to the final value" marker into the general pool of cubes. With the help of such simple "bets" on a specific boat and attempts to modify the throw in your direction, the game goes on: each round, three little men from each player run away to boats/locations, after which we shake a handful of cubes collected by the combined forces of the cubes and see who got the fruit . Next round. Among the nuances, there are also coins, outstanding for those who guessed the number that fell out, not exactly, but it turned out to be quite close to the final one. You can buy the desired fruit in a special slot for the amount of these coins. In other words, one coin is a quarter of any fruit, because four pieces are asked for the whole. IMPRESSION What can I say - both after the first and after the following batches, the impressions actually did not change, which is rare, because they did not shift by one degree or in any direction. Floating Market is a completely random dice game, with players trying to get to the average arithmetic roll. In general, the above proposal explains the whole point of the flooring. It is not at all worth going for a combination of cube throwing and maple placement - there is no cunning interweaving and interaction of them, but there is a guess. There is only one feeling from the action: "Come on, come on, cubes, show me the right number!" The sad thing is that, as it happens in deliberately bad and average games, here the player does not influence the result of the throw, he just watches what happens by chance. The author of the box tried to take advantage of the variability of players' preparation for the final throw by choosing a cube added to the pool; plus, tried to introduce an indirect mechanic of getting fruits - when the number that fell out does not fall into the boat where your boy is, everyone who at least roughly guessed the final value (found himself on boats nearby) gets a couple of coins, having scored which, later can buy any fruit in a special slot.  It turns out that every round the players just throw dice, someone (sometimes two) gets a fruit card, someone coins, and so on from turn to turn. In other words, Floating Market doesn't have the thrill that players are looking for in a push. The throw is the result. Next round. The throw is the result. Next round. No other emotional and intellectual inserts. Between these repetitions, only the distribution of three of your meeples on slots, which do not bring anything new: well, +2 to the final value, well, -4 to it, but here you can get coins, even if you make a big mistake with guessing. The emptiness of the gameplay can only be covered by excellent components and good illustrations, and excitement, since the throws happen quite quickly and regularly, plus the game itself does not last long at all. What else are the pluses? Let's try to find interesting solutions in the game. When you roll your first dice each round, you must add one of the dice to the pool, thus setting the roll's range. You can put a soap on the boat to block it, but since you don't yet have much information about what dice will be in the pool, you can only guess at the final range. And you can put the dice in some slot action, such as "+2 to roll", and only after a round of moves - when each player has already added his dice to the pool - decide which boat to send the boy to (if he is not already busy with more agile and risky boys).  It turns out that the further you are in the turn queue circle, the more information your opponents give you, which allows you to choose a boat more accurately. It sounds logical, but. But this works very poorly in the game, because you can usually stick your little men on the maximum number of free boats and just hope for luck. The strategy, I'll tell you, is quite good in the Floating Market, because you can't influence the result in any way, and blind luck can punish you or lead to victory. The whole game merges into one "throw-and-dwin", and all the nuances and possibilities with the actions of rolling the dice look like something unnecessary, made to make the process seem more complicated than it really is. In a hint where victory depends on the roll of the dice, it cannot be made the final determining factor. First the throw, then manipulations with it - in this case, a game arises, a space for decisions is born, and the results depend on those who play. And when you first do something, affect the dice, and then roll — it's pointless.  It's also funny that there are so many action slots on the field, each of which affects the proceedings in such a small way that, as I wrote above, you can just send meeple boys to random boats and win with no chance at all. Yes, one should roughly imagine the probability distribution, exactly at the level of a child: conditionally add up the values of all the cubes and divide by two to find the middle - but this is a kind of complexity and the basis for "making decisions". Who is this game made for? As stated by the authors, it is simple and necessary for family gatherings - not difficult, but not completely stupid, with an interesting mechanic of obtaining fruit at the expense of cubes. What is so attractive about the throw that determines who gets the winning point (and fruits are actually software, when a certain number of which one of the participants accumulates, wins) is not entirely clear to me. Perhaps, indeed, it is possible to play with children, but against the background of the rest of the representatives of this category, the choice of Floating Market seems unjustified. The topic is so-so, watching someone throw out the number he needs is also not a high-class pleasure, and doing it for half an hour is completely sad. CONCLUSIONS Too simple. Too random. As always, I advise you to try it if you really want to or the topic interests you, but this dish is not recommended for shopping or game night. Do you really like to roll colorful dice and there is nothing more suitable at hand? ..

We are glad to inform you about new products and renewal of goods in our store Meet the fresh arrival and what's new in our store :) Hurry up, the games are great and for all tastes, be the first to buy :)..

 Growing up, I didn't have a lot of variety of board games. Those who were in our family were divided into three camps. We had classic games like Risk and Monopoly, also known as "boring games". A friend of mine played complex scrolling games that required a greater investment of time than my infrequent visits could provide. And there were paranormal games capable of ripping apart the fabric of reality like a popped pimple and letting diabolical hordes into our world. These included spirit boards and cards for divination. But later, during a break between episodes of Duck Stories, I saw something new in a commercial. In bright colors and with a charming voice-over, the video boasted something more like a mountain of plastic than a game. But it was all moving. It made sounds. The gameplay was like a hurricane. I had to get it. It was the game Forbidden Bridge. Her commercial stuck in my memory. And that Christmas was my first introduction to a mechanical device as part of the gameplay.  One of the main joys of board games is unboxing them. This is a childish hobby, reminiscent of unwrapping a gift. You carefully cut the tape that secures the edges, afraid to tear it off and leave a scar on the box. You remove the packing material, enjoying the smell of either ink or earth, which you will realize decades later is not much different from the smell of a long-buried clay shard. You untwist the metal wires that hold the parts in place as securely as the seals on a cursed sarcophagus. My grandfather gave me a swiss army knife at a very young age, and it came off one of these procrastinations and cut my thumb. With tears in my eyes, I barely convinced my father to just put a Band-Aid on the wound instead of stitching it up in his basement office. He agreed, but confiscated the knife until I was ten years old. Carefully taping the wound, I returned to the box. The sore thumb, the long assembly of those numbered plastic boards, the confiscation of my prize folding knife were all worth it. At that point, I was putting in too much effort. Finally the game was ready. The adventure began. And then we played this thing. Even as a kid, Forbidden Bridge disappointed me. Even then, the throw-and-move mechanics seemed shallow and unsatisfying to me, and that's pretty much all the game had to offer. You roll the die. You are moving. The game didn't even allow you to first leave the cube and then choose which figure to move. In addition to rolling a die for your explorer's movement -- by boat, on foot, and eventually jumping from plank to plank on a swinging bridge -- you roll a die to play out events. Stealing precious stones and pushing opponents are the most boring options. But even the most exciting event, where you click on the idol's head and watch the bridge sway back and forth, possibly dropping another hapless adventurer into the river below, somehow feels tasteless and primitive. The grinding of the gear mechanism was heard. This sound effect was harsh and unpleasant. The mechanism looked so flimsy that it seemed like it would take one push from its older cousin to break completely. Soon the bridge was repurposed. It was not so much a game as a toy. Lego Samurai could fall off this bridge. Playmobil titans loomed in the waters below. Every few years we gave the game another chance. I've read this rulebook more than anyone else. But it never helped. The suspicion that all such games with mechanisms are simple trinkets stuck in my head for the rest of my life.  The original Dark Tower had ads too. But I never saw her as a child. I only had a vague idea of Fireball Island, another project that was also later revived by Restoration Games. But that time I had enough. A few other board games have been on my desk—sorry, my nursery floor—but never again have I ventured into games with a knee-high mountain of plastic. When Restoration Games announced the release of Return to the Dark Tower, I had the same ingrained suspicion. What rubbish, I thought. What a waste of space and money. But I was wrong. Right now, Return to the Dark Tower offers something similar to the original game. See, there's this dark tower, and you play as a group of heroes, yes, and your task is to defeat the evil within it, right? There's a lot of familiar flavor to the game's monsters and enemies, but it's not an attempt to reinvent the wheel [of time] that we've used so often before. From the point of view of experienced board players, the game may seem quite ordinary. For now, we are not going to consider the plastic giant on the table. Like the bridge in Forbidden Bridge, the tower in Return to the Dark Tower is a fully mechanical device. This thing is huge. It obscures the view of the field like some kind of supernatural eclipse. Connected to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth, the tower screams and roars when enemies attack. Sometimes it buzzes and spins, scattering deadly skulls and spreading distortion across the four kingdoms. Sometimes it informs that it is necessary to remove the print. At such moments, the tower glows and pulsates, revealing a grim maw that spews out skulls or, worse, reveals a glyph that increases the cost of one of your heroes' actions. Sometimes this is accompanied by mechanical sounds, the motor gives itself away. But does it look cheap? Not a bit The tower itself is only a small part of what sets the game apart from something like Forbidden Bridge. The more important factor is that it's a real game, and an awesome one at that. Forbidden Bridge offered only a mechanical trinket instead of a game. Return to the Dark Tower ditched that cheap approach. Here, the device and the game are inseparable. They complement each other. And asking which of these is more important is like asking which scissor blade cuts better.  Part of my misgivings about Return to the Dark Tower was that it wasn't limited to just one mechanical device. The original game used a computer built into the wall of the tower. These days, it's getting harder and harder to wow kids with computers, let alone displays built into everything you can find. Instead, Return to the Dark Tower works over a wireless network. I'm agnostic when it comes to board games with digital components. I play board games in part to distract myself from screens, and like anyone else whose digital possessions have been lost at least once due to technical failure or licensing issues, I'm reluctant to give up too much of my board games to digital apps and other upgrades . I still have the Forbidden Bridge. If its original incarnation in 1992 had required an app, there's no telling if the thing would have supported the operating system I use today. But I will say that this is the most enjoyable digital part of a board game I've ever played. Automation is an important part of program integration. When your turn ends, you throw the skull into the tower. The program instantly understands that your turn is over and starts playing out the events. These events are far from how they are presented in most board games. This is not just a drawing of some card. Sometimes nothing happens at all. In other cases, monsters appear or attack, or do something strange and deadly. Sometimes the villain lurking inside the dark tower spawns threats or quests that you need to watch out for. After all, these threats can ripen and punish if you do not deal with them in time. In turn, you can hire companions. They provide benefits by themselves and also generate ongoing story in the game world. Such a sir drives the enemy to a more profitable territory; Lady Elven Face allows you to spend a resource to gain a skill. Before long, an event phase brings together three or four disparate branches, all acting in concert to create a world that breathes life into its farthest reaches. Perhaps a card system like the one in Robinson Crusoe could handle this, where threats return over time and any choice can have lingering consequences. But even in this case, such a decision would be cumbersome. You'd have to randomize the timing and appearance of the distortion, determine the enemies and their actions, slowly develop the villain's overarching plot, not to mention keep track of the status of your companions and any ongoing quests and dungeons. It's just too much. Since the game works with the app, you don't have to worry about that. The same applies to other functions of the program. Combat, for example, has common roots with card games. To defeat an enemy, you move to their location and start a battle. The app will then provide you with a deck of cards. You pick a few, upgrade them with advantage points gained from your hero's skills, terrain, and more. If the battle was fought physically, it would require a lot of cards. A lot of cards. Decks for each monster and their variations are often with uncertain results. You see, the battle here is like a game of luck. Each enemy card has a value. To defeat a bandit, you may need to kill ten of your warriors, spend spirit tokens, or scrap a few potions. You can weaken an enemy card and the effect will change, but not always in the way you expect. Perhaps now the enemy will demand to sacrifice only five soldiers. Maybe another buff will drop that number to zero, or you'll get some warriors altogether because you'll kill this beast without taking any casualties. The bottom line is that with the help of the program, the game easily copes with these issues. Nothing will be lost sight of. You'll never go through five decks of nearly identical "Attack C" cards looking for the right knockback only to realize you've confused them with a deck of "Surge D". Instead, all your attention is focused on making the most of your strengths. Should you waste advantage on weakening a card you can implement but don't want to? Or should you wait and see if the next card hits you even harder? Sometimes a successful..

 Sumatra takes you to what is most likely an unfamiliar area - the largest island in Indonesia - and asks you to do a probably familiar activity: while traveling around the area, make notes about what you see in a notebook. Below is my notebook at the end of a five-player game. So, I saw a few people, a couple of crafts, three flora and fauna each, and (most impressively) two volcanoes, along with various equipment. I ignored Wi-Fi, GPS, and villages in this batch because it doesn't matter how much land you explore during your journey, since you still can't encounter everything.  There are nine types of tiles in the game, most of which allow you to accumulate points in different ways: people reward the player who saw the most (and punish the introvert who met the fewest locals), crafts give points for volume, flora and fauna give points only for the highest scores by species (and vice versa, for the lowest indicators there are no points at all), and so on. The game begins with randomly drawn tiles, so players have a stake in one or more areas of exploration, then you head off to wander the island - and then the game really begins. Your tokens are joined by a tour guide on the island, and as your group moves to the first location, you choose a tile number from the briefcase. When you're with a guide, you can either stay with them and explore the current location and take a tile into your notebook if you want, or you can leave the group and run headlong to the next location. You won't get to take anything this turn since you're traveling alone, but next turn the guide will join you and any remaining tiles from the previous location will be moved to the side and replaced with new ones, and you'll have a chance to choose the first Hey, you get rewarded for your adventure. I hope something interesting came out...  If someone has moved to the next location, you know the guide is going to join that player on the next turn and you don't have much time left in the current location. Will you also advance to a new location, skipping a tile now to make a choice later? Or will you stay, picking up one of the remaining tiles before they are taken, all the while knowing that the next turn you'll need to run forward without picking anything up? It's a dilemma you'll face all the time: is the known bird better in the hand or the unknown and perhaps the bird better in the bush? As you collect tiles, you begin to focus your attention along certain paths, both to earn points at the end of the game and to build bonus tile combos to accomplish certain things. The fewer players in the game, the more you can do, although of course everyone is trying to do it, so you'll still be elbowing for this bonus or the other and just as eager to make the first move, possibly giving up to the opponent what they left behind.  A two-player game is very different from a 3-5 player game because you're using the reverse side of the board with fewer tiles for each location, which means that not all one hundred tiles will be played. This also means that there is no guarantee that you will be able to finish collecting your collection or find the same Wi-Fi token that you need out of the box. The decision to stay or go can become even trickier, because if your opponent goes ahead and you don't, you give him a chance to choose the first two tokens of the next lot. At heart, Sumatra is more than a series of choices, because it involves calculating the probability of what might fall and predicting what others might take. So this game is a compelling model of both vacation tours and real life, which also poses the question of whether to stay or move on, and that question comes up again and again. And every choice you make means you choose not to do a thousand other things at the same time...

 I played 2 test games (dueling in the Monk's Retreat scenario and 3-player co-op in the Unholy Quest scenario) and decided to share my impressions. BOX There are many components here. I would even say too much. Lots of cards, tokens, fields... a lot of fiddling. Yes, black cubes turned out to be too much for us and we played without them, it is good to remember which locations I have already visited on a small map. The layout in the first batch took us about an hour - and this despite the fact that the owner of the game has already laid out most of the components by category. The game itself lasted about two hours. Some components look frozen (for example, the Income tablet), although as far as I understand, they have a different appearance in the final version. RULES What I dislike most is the rule book. In my opinion, it needs to be revised a lot. Example 1: In points 9-11 of the layout, you must lay out the stats, spells, and skill cards "on the deck of cards to the left of your hero's card." However, it does not specify that one deck should come out, and not 3 different ones. Worst of all, the exploded view of the game on page 7 shows them separately. So when point 12 told me to "shuffle the deck of cards to the left of your hero card", I didn't know which one to shuffle. In the first game, we made a mistake and did not mix our hero's specialization into the Might and Magic deck. We later noticed the bug, but less experienced boarders will have a harder time. Example 2: When we were looking for battle rules, like any sane person, we looked at the battle rules section of the rule book. Page 33: "Unit Actions in Battle": "When a player activates a card from one of their units in battle, they can do one of the following actions when activating the unit: Movement - ... Attack - ... Retaliatory attack - ..." However, counterattacking is not an action. This is a reaction that is not performed during the player's turn, but after an enemy unit attacks. But we were more confused that the "attack" section only describes when you can attack the enemy. And how to actually carry out the attack? It's on page 27 under "Units" in the example. Admittedly, the attack is very simple and intuitive, but the rulebook shouldn't rely on players to intuitively understand everything. Example 3: Neither the "Recruitment Action" section, nor the "Recruitment Cost" section clearly states how many units can be recruited with one action. One? How many as you like, if there are enough funds? it should be based on that. In order to build advanced creature houses, you must build low-level creature dwellings. This is not indicated on the houses themselves, nor in the "Construction" section, but in the "Recruitment cost" section. Example 4: On token cards, the ankh symbol (artifact symbol) means "draw an artifact card." And in the rulebook, the same symbol means "A hero visiting a location with an artifact symbol draws 2 cards from the artifact deck, chooses one, puts it in his hand, and puts the second card face up in the discard pile." So which option is correct? And what to do if the location has 2 artifact symbols? Pull 2, drop one and repeat? Or draw 4 and drop 2? Or just pull 2? Some locations have 1 treasure chest symbol, some "2 chest symbols -> 1". What to do in this case? We assumed that 1 chest symbol = roll 1 die, and "2 -> 1" = roll 2 dice, pick 1. However, enough problems with the rules. Let's go to the gameplay. RESEARCH OF THE LOCATION  The map is made quite conveniently. Everything would be clear at first glance, if it were not for the problems with the interpretation of rules and symbols mentioned above. Some buildings seem redundant. Yes, the observatory allows you to open a new tile, but you can do the same thing by simply moving and not spending an action west to the location of the observatory. Stables can be considered an empty tile, since their only purpose is to give you 1 movement: as much as you spend to get there. The maps look pretty small, you're playing with a small amount of tiles, so I almost never had to choose where to go next. I think the game lacks more large-scale scenarios with a large number of tiles. Perhaps the "All for one" mode is better in this regard, but it is designed for three. BATTLES  On easy difficulty, fights with neutrals are practically pointless. Even on hard difficulty, we usually beat neutrals without losing. Tier 1-3 armies are especially neutral since they are only a few units. In the second game, on the second turn, my level 1.5 hero defeated the level 4 neutrals on normal difficulty, spending only 1 movement point to continue the battle, and damaging only one of his units (the number changed from "crowded" to "a few"). There can be a decent amount of downtime in 3 player battles. You can fight 2-3 neutrals in one turn (especially if you have logistics or artifacts/tiles that give extra movement). Most are easily won, but battles still take time. I believe that with experience the battles will become much shorter.  Battles between heroes are rare; basically you beat neutrals controlled by another player. After all, defeating the enemy hero will practically take him out of the game: in late you will have an income of about 20-30 gold per turn (10-15 from the start, 5-10 from the mines, 5 from the town hall), which is only enough for " few" units of low-medium level. In addition, if you lose, you have to pay the winner with gold, so he can hire an even bigger army. CITY BUILDING  In my opinion, this aspect of the game is done so-so. Creature dwellings, town hall, mage guild and citadel are practically the same for all factions. You only have 1 unique building (in my opinion, add-on factions have 2), and the effects of some unique buildings are boring or of little use. The Town Hall costs 10 gold and 4 stones and generates 5 gold per turn, so it will only take 3 turns to pay for itself, and substantial income will start in 4 turns. Scenarios last 7-11 turns (Unholy Quest on Impossible difficulty lasts a maximum of 14 turns). There's nothing to buy a town hall, it's smarter to just hire units. And in half of the scenarios, you already have 3 buildings at the start. I built only one building in both parties and saw no point in building more. DECK BUILDING  The most interesting aspect of the game in my opinion, but also flawless. Getting rid of unnecessary cards in your deck isn't easy - it usually involves morale - so it's often best to just not draw new cards. The fewer parameter cards, the bigger the hero, because the deck becomes thinner. Spell cards are hit or miss: they can be useless, they can be really powerful. This is especially true of high-level spells like chain lightning, blast, and respawn. Similarly with skills: attack, sorcery and intelligence are probably the strongest, while artillery, eagle eye and first aid are useless. I think it is logical, because in the PC game they were trash too, but that's bad design. Artifacts are, as it should be, really strong. It is wise to build a deck mostly from artifacts. BALANCE  The game looks generally balanced right now, but after only a few games it's hard to judge the balance. The only difference between factions in heroes and units, because buildings are almost identical, and skills, spells and artifacts are completely random. Jeddite from "Mysterious Sorcerer" makes the mage guild both useless and harmful, because your deck is likely to be littered with weak spells (Jeddite can pick 1 out of 5 spells for free, and with a mage guild you have to pay more with less random control). Minotaurs are too strong for their price. Fat, fast, deal a lot of damage and most importantly bring a bunch of cards. CONCLUSIONS I got a fan from Heroes, but the game as it stands is really underdeveloped. It faithfully transfers the mechanics and spirit of the computer game to the table, but in my opinion, it would be better to deviate from the original source, throwing out some elements of the computer game and adding more original ones. In its current form, I can recommend the game only to those who adore both boards and "Heroes". If you haven't played board games, then the rulebook can be a very serious obstacle (although once you get to know the rules, the gameplay is quite simple and understandable), and if you are not a fan of "Heroes", there is much better...

 A unique solo game about the first ten centuries of Christianity. In November 2021, the results of the Charles S. Roberts Awards, awarded among tabletop wargames, were published. It was in this list that the name of one of the nominees caught my eye - The Mission: Early Christianity from the Crucifixion to the Crusades. Incredible theme! I couldn't pass. PLAYING WITH OURSELVES So, today I have on my desk The Mission from White Dog Games. It's a solo game: the player creates his own difficulty on the map by handling game sequences and distributing random events, such as the appearance of heresies or schisms. I will say right away that this format of games seems to me to be a big disadvantage. The element of human communication is removed from the game, which (in my opinion) is the most important thing in any board game. On the other hand, if this game was made as a confrontation between churches or communities (conventional Catholics against Orthodox), then, most likely, the game would acquire a sarcastic tone. In this regard, it seems appropriate to me to play even solo games together with someone, consulting and discussing game situations. Here it is all the more appropriate, as the game provides a good reason for an excursion into the history of Christianity and even demonstrates some authorial attitude to the processes inside the church (more on this below). According to the author, the game is Tower Defense. In the center of the map is Jerusalem, six paths lead to it, consisting of squares of cities or regions. We send apostles (and later bishops) to preach in these areas and create new communities. The behavior of pagans is decided by a roll of the dice, each community has its own "difficulty" of appeal. In addition, each region is under one of the political controls. First it is the Roman Empire, then Byzantium, which begins to be tormented by barbarians, and then Muslim troops. This political situation imposes its own complexity: it is more difficult for us to eliminate heresies and convert communities outside of political influence, but we can try to convert some barbarians or send a preacher to these regions, or translate the Bible into the local language. In general, the player has several levers of influence on communities. The bigger and more cohesive your church is, the more resources you can gather to further expand it and solve current problems. GAIT STRUCTURE Historical Phase: Here, new elements are introduced into the game every few turns. Secular Phase: This is where you gather resources, move armies and battles, heresies, epidemics or local kings arise. All actions in this phase are automated - this is "game flow". Religious Phase: This is already the "player's turn", when we make all the decisions, spend resources and move the chips. SMOOTH DIFFICULTY CURVE The wording in the game is very clean, written concisely on the one hand, and with attention to detail on the other. I really liked that the author even discusses the nuances of the design of the tokens, if, for example, they act the same, but are designed a little differently for the relevance of the story (like, for example, the Gentile community with a sun and pre-Christian Jews with a menorah). Another nice solution is the smooth introduction of new elements into the game. You start the first two turns with the command of apostles (sounds!) and only have a couple of rules in place. Then bishops and patriarchs are added, it becomes possible to build monasteries and translate the Bible. Then nomads appear, the fall of the Roman Empire takes place. There are only two modes in the game: the full campaign and the Jihad scenario, which is equivalent to the final part of the game, the most intense. I think that replayability is enough for 2-4 games, especially if you still play with someone. It took me two nights to play an introductory game, and I stopped on turn 16 (out of 27). DIVING IN HISTORY The game has a kind of narrative at the junction of design and rules. A short reference explains in two lines who the Manichaeans are or what Opanas the Great is famous for. There are even examples of the main languages of the ancient world. In the mechanics of the game, as it seemed to me, you can see a Protestant accent. The fathers of the Church, preachers and theologians are presented here as great ascetics who are a kind of "super-weapon" against heresies and paganism, but if they fail, they can raise the counter of the "dark ages". The author explains that such people often raised topics that the hierarchy would like to keep quiet about, and this in turn led to discord in the church. A similar approach to church councils: according to the rules, each of them shares a single church at first, literally making life difficult for the player (although in Orthodoxy there are even days of commemoration of such councils as definitely good events). CONCLUSIONS Pros: unique theme; clean, comprehensive and clear rules. Cons solo games are the first step to schizophrenia) at the first meeting it seemed too easy. If you can find a fellow religious scholar who is either passionate about the subject, or if you're having fun with yourself, then for a night or two, this game will be a fascinating immersion into the ancient world of faith and struggle. It is especially nice that the game can be officially bought digitally for further independent PnP printing...

 Kingdom Rush is one of the most accurate transfers of franchises to the table. Conversions of well-known franchises to board games do not always turn out to be successful (it's not for nothing that no one discusses Batman: Arkham City Escape...). But in this case, it turned out to be a masterful adaptation that preserved the atmosphere of the original. All the mechanics make you think, "Well, of course, this is how it should work on the table!" The conversion is not one hundred percent, but fans of the series will certainly not be disappointed with the work done by the authors. Explanation for those unfamiliar with the franchise: a real-time tower defense game for PC and mobile. You build towers along the road filled with hordes of mobs. The more you kill, the more money you get, which you can use to build new towers and improve existing ones, which in turn will help you deal with even tougher enemies.  In the co-op Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time, players also build towers along a fixed route, destroy hordes of mobs, control powerful heroes and upgrade towers. The game is designed for 2-4 players, the games take about an hour. The action of the board takes place after the end of the events of the computer original. In peacetime, the towers were dismantled, which gave the Time Mage the opportunity to gather the forces of evil and tear through the very fabric of space-time. The engineers and mages of the kingdom, which was left defenseless, quickly learned to cope with the magic of time and call towers from the past to the battlefield. During the player's turn, they place towers along the road so that they shoot at hordes of minions walking along it. On each tile of the horde, a grid is drawn, in which several minions are placed in a certain order. To defeat the horde, you need to cover with polymino attacks all the cells of the tile on which minions are drawn. At the end of each turn, the hordes advance, and if they reach the end of the road, each minion left uncovered by an attack will take away one HP from you. If there is no HP left, it's game over.  Cool feature: You decide which towers to place where based on what polymino attacks they fire. For example, an archer tower shoots an L-shaped polymino that covers 4 cells - but only in the direction in which it is placed. Improved turrets can rotate. Some turrets can also fire in multiple directions, attack multiple times, or fire from afar. This puzzle is the essence of the gameplay; its most wonderful part. Attacks cannot overlap each other or hang from horde tiles. So, should we place a wizard's tower here? It will cover only 2 horde cells with 4 uncovered. Is this too ineffective a move? Or maybe detain it with a movement-blocking militia and destroy it in the next round? If the red player places an archer tower in front of my artillery, can we coordinate attacks? How to optimally solve the puzzle and arrange the Tetris pieces in their places is a difficult and exciting challenge.  Yes, about partners: Another feature of Kingdom Rush is how you upgrade towers. To upgrade it to the next level, you don't play the tower card, but pass it to the player to your left. At the end of the round, they will return this card to the stockpile and instead take into hand an improved version of it, which will become available for placement in the next round. A simple and brilliant mechanic that forces you to plan ahead, taking into account not only whether you can afford not to play this tower on your turn, but also the fact that your partner will only be able to place it in themselves (unless they give it to you to re-improve ). Each player has a limited number of empty spaces under towers along the road. If played recklessly, a player may not have enough cards (or mismatched cards) to fill their rook slots. Another nice feature that greatly increases replayability is heroes. Everyone chooses a hero; he is your avatar (fans of the franchise will immediately recognize Malik and Aleria, for example). The hero is represented by a miniature occupying 2 by 2 cells. They can move along the road to the tail horde to attack them or use special abilities. Having lost HP, the hero will respawn on the next turn; sometimes it is advantageous to send them in a suicide attack. Also, each hero has his own abilities and his own style of play.  To win, you need to destroy the portals opened by the Time Mage. Special cards in the horde deck are responsible for them. Portals appear at certain times. Not only are they hard to attack (only with upgraded turrets), but they also deal damage to heroes on engagement and destroy turrets that attack them. In short, you should be ready for them. The game feels well balanced. In every scenario, we felt tension and challenge, but we didn't feel like we were being pushed into a hopeless situation. Each time we won, but barely. You can't do without cooperation here, and planning ahead as well. The only downside to this mind-bogglingly large number of available puzzle options and combinations is analysis paralysis. Yes, one of our players experienced information overload while trying to find the optimal solution. In other cooperatives, there are usually moments: "Obviously, you have to do this and that," but here you can easily fall into a stupor due to the commotion with polymino.  So, this puzzle with a cute cartoon drawing style (just like the original) can interest both children and adults. It is very cool and pleasant to find a way to optimally place the rows of your towers, annihilating hordes of attacking mobs. I recommend taking a closer look at Kingdom Rush...