LONGHORN BOARD GAME REVIEW In Longhorn , two players compete to collect the most cattle in a 3 x 3 location grid. But be careful, collect too many of one breed and you won't be able to sell them at the end of the game. The game ends when there are no more moves allowed. The cattle you have at the end of the game, as well as any gold nuggets you manage to steal along the way, will give you your points in the game. HOW TO PREPARE THE BATCH A Longhorn only takes a minute or two to prepare. Players first choose which rogue they want. Will you choose the evil Jesse the Artist Byrd or the mean and disgusting Eagle Perkins?  Arrange the location tiles randomly in a 3 x 3 grid. Shuffle the square action tokens and place one in each location. If a Sheriff Badge token is randomly selected, it must be placed on the Nugget Hill location. Mix up the cattle parts and randomly place a certain number of them on each location tile according to the number found in the lower left corner of each location. For example, Red River Valley should always start with 4 cows, while Nugget Hill should always start with 6. Flip a two-sided robber token like a coin, and whichever side of the robber comes up gets to go first (say, Eagle Perkins for this example). Then the opposing player representing Jesse Byrd the Artist will place the outlaw token anywhere with 4 cattle (Dagger Flat, Kid Copper Ranch, Red River Valley, and Cherokee Spring).  Below you can see the preparations for the game and its readiness for the party. GAME TURN The first thing a player does in his turn is to steal cattle. Choose a color and take each cattle figure of that color from the current location and place it in front of you. These cattle will form the player's herd, the value of which will be calculated at the end of the game. If a player selects the last cattle from a location, he must pick up an action token and perform its action. After that, the player must move the robber..

 Labyrinth: The War on Terror is a strategic wargame (although the game also has a lot of politics), which takes place in modern times. Designed for 1-2 players. In the duel, one player plays for the United States, and the other plays for Islamic extremists, between whom an extremely asymmetric confrontation is played out. In the solo version, the player plays for the United States against Table II controlled extremists. Usually, a duel takes about 90 minutes: that's how long it takes to completely scroll through the deck, as soon as the players get used to it and start to understand the cards well. However, the length of the game can be changed by playing until the deck is rolled twice or three times. Each additional scroll adds about 60 minutes. However, the final may come earlier if one of the parties fulfills the winning condition. Solo parts take a bit longer, but at least getting to know the part table is faster.  At the start, 4 layout options are available, each of which reflects a certain era in the US war on terrorism. Most likely, the option "Let's go!" (Let's Roll), in which the action takes place after September 11, when the world community does not yet have a clear position, and other countries are waiting for how the United States will react. There are also post-Operation Enduring Freedom and post-Operation Iraqi Freedom options in which other countries have a stronger stance. There is also an alternate history version in which Albert Gore became president in 2000. The layout is no different from the "Let's Go!" option, but the US has different views on the methods of combating terrorism. Usually I describe the rules in fine detail, but this time I will limit myself to general information.  The countries on the map are divided into Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Muslim countries take one of three possible positions toward the United States: allied, neutral, or hostile. The U.S. can only station troops in allied countries, so if..

GHOST STORIES GAME REVIEW  Ghost Stories is a co-op horror game where you work together with your teammates to defeat one or more incarnations of Wu-Feng and the many ghosts that come before him. Each player takes on the role of a Taoist monk who must stop the wave of evil ghosts and save the village.  Ghost Stories is developed by Antoine Bosa and published by Repos Production . GAME PROCESS  Ghost Stories is a game about battles. You want to clear as many ghosts as possible each turn to avoid being destroyed. Whenever it's a player's turn, he or she can move one square around the village to perform an action. You can do two things: Ask the villagers for help. All village tiles give you benefits such as removing ghosts and moving ghosts to better positions. Try to exorcise the ghosts by rolling the dice. You are trying to match the colors/icons on the ghost card. You can also use Tao Tokens to help yourself if you have a bad roll or if you need more successes. You can also use your monk's special ability each turn, which can allow you to move in a special way or maybe even give you an extra die to use when fighting ghosts. You also get a Yin-Yang token, which allows you to use a village tile without being on it, or to return a village tile that was previously destroyed.  At the start of your turn, each ghost on the field is activated, and then a new ghost appears. That's why it's so important to get ghosts off the field as quickly as possible each turn. Ghosts can have abilities that activate immediately when they appear, abilities that activate when your turn begins, and some even have abilities that activate when you banish them. You win if you can deal with Wu Feng, who is near the bottom of the ghost deck. You lose if all priests die, if three village tiles become destroyed, or if the last ghost card in the deck is put into play. PROS OF THE GAME  Ghost Stories has some great components, especially the ghost..

 Red Rising by Stonemaier Games combines the adventure and fun of a book series with the strategy and challenges of a board game. But was it possible to adapt the novels as well as create a fun game that would appeal to both readers and others? We will discuss! WHAT IS THE GAME ABOUT?  Red Rising is a combo-based card game based on Piers Brown's Red Rising series and inspired by the Fantasy Realms card game. In this game, you start with a hand of 5 cards. On your turn, you will select one of your draw cards into a zone on the field, activating that card's draw advantage. You can then draw a top card from another spot on the board or deck into your hand and benefit from those spots. Location benefits allow players to advance their ship on the fleet track, gain helium tokens, gain a sovereignty token (this also activates your personal player/house ability), or place an influence token on the Institute. Each card in the game features a unique character from the novels in one of 11 suits. Cards have their own base value and scoring conditions at the end of the game. Endgame scoring conditions require players to have certain named characters or card types in hand for those points to count. This means that a card with a base value of 10 can be worth a lot more than the endgame if the player can get the cards to activate their extra point potential. COMPLETION OF THE GAME  Red Rising ends when any combination of players meets all three of the following conditions, or when a single player meets two of the following conditions: Player has 7+ Helium Tokens, Player has 7+ Institute Influence, Player has reached or exceeded 7 on Fleet Path. When this happens, players will finish taking turns, activate all endgame abilities, and then tally the final scores. Players earn points from the total value of the cards in their hand, their position on the fleet track, the number of helium tokens, the presence of a sovereignty token, and..

PLOT  Witchbound is a game about becoming a witch. Coven Cove has been witch-free for over a century, and you will be the first witch in a long time. Will you be able to complete your story path to the end, become a witch and help the island? I will not spoil the prologue, but describe the story part of the game as a whole. Unlike decks like Middara, Tainted Grail, and Stars of Akarios, where you're greeted with sheets of art around every corner and every interaction, Witchbound is less expansive and more like Legend of Zelda and old PC RPGs. You have clues, interact with them and get a mini-story. More on this below in the Mechanics section. Just keep in mind that you won't have to read a ton of text in this solo game. Witchbound has an elaborate plot, but it moves pretty quickly. Whether this is a plus or a minus compared to other solo adventure decks is up to you. GAME MECHANICS The mechanics are perfectly integrated with the plot. They are very light. You interact with surrounding objects of interest, as well as local NPCs, and that's it. Witchbound also has mini-games that I didn't get to play, but overall the mechanics are very simple.  How does it work? For example, you use the basic action "explore" on a bird's nest. This action is number 1. Near the bird's nest is number 59. You combine them to get 159 and read the corresponding paragraph in the mini-story book. Or, alternatively, you can apply the bird's nest sling with the number 7 and read paragraph 759. Interaction with NPCs is arranged similarly. Only you don't use a slingshot on them, but lines like "hello", strike up a conversation and get dialogue, a bit of story and maybe a new quest. As the game progresses, you will acquire new lines, so it makes sense to go back and talk to people you already know about new topics.  Even in the game you will meet contacts: challenges that can sometimes be avoided, and sometimes have to be overcome. The mechanics are the same:..

PORT ROYAL GAME REVIEW AND IMPRESSIONS  Alexander Pfister is a rock star in my house. All of his games (so far) have been huge hits, and Great Western Trail remains my wife's all-time favorite. Port Royal, a game I didn't know existed (or was erased from my memory after I saw the unpleasant Clemens Franz artwork of the old edition). The game was re-released as Big Box and with a bunch of additions. Each game we started adding new elements to diversify the game and it quickly became our de facto placeholder game that lasts under 30 minutes without ANY preparation/assembly. In short, she always makes us laugh in the face of our opponent's suffering. Isn't that why we play games?  In this theme-less game, you basically have to buy cards, and the first to 12 points wins. It's that simple! But the 'try your luck' element is where this game really shines. On your turn, you reveal as many cards from the deck as you want, but if there are duplicate colored ship cards, you lose! Your opponent has a chance to buy a card from your pool if they pay you 1 coin, which is an added incentive for you to flip even more cards. Many of the "crew" cards have special abilities that make your game unique, and some help you avoid crashes by dropping duplicate cards.  The layout and graphics are very nice and thematically sophisticated with a diverse range of ethnicities represented, and even though the types of crew cards are limited, the artwork varies a lot so you'll never get cards that look exactly the same.  Since the game only consists of cards and a compact box, you can literally play anywhere. We've taken this game on picnics, played it in the backyard, on our game table, and we'll take this game everywhere for fun!  We HIGHLY recommend this game if you like a fast-paced filler card game. ..

 Who does not know Sagrada Familia? As a former art and design student, I always wanted to visit this amazing work of art and admire it from a different vantage point than just a computer monitor. With Sagrada, I feel like I managed to get at least a little closer to that. Sagrada is a small puzzle game where you as an artist compete with other artists to create the best stained glass window for the Sagrada Familia. I already liked the theme of the game and couldn't wait to play it. GAME OVERVIEW Preparing the Sagrada for the party is quite easy. Randomly deal each player a personal dale face card along with two stained glass template cards and one player square. Each player chooses one side of the stained glass card and places it inside the player space. Then give each player the same number of favor tokens as the difficulty number on the stained glass pattern card. Then place the circular track with the players' score markers in the center of the table. Also place three random tool cards and public objective cards face up on the table. Finally, place all the cubes in the bag. Now you are ready to create your stained glass window.  The game lasts ten rounds. At the beginning of each round, a player takes two dice for each player and one additional dice from the bag and rolls them. For two players, it will be, for example, five cubes. Then, moving clockwise, each player can choose three options. You can take one die from the table and place it on your stained glass window, you can pay to use a tool card. The tool cards can help you finish the stained glass window by, for example, changing the blocks. Note that if the card already has a service token, you must pay two tokens. Finally, you can do nothing. Each action is absolutely optional. If you don't see a die or card you can or want to use, simply pass the turn and the next player can take their turn. The first move will go clockwise starting with the player who took the dice, the second move of..

 Cubitos is a cube racing game by John D. Clare released in 2021. I recently had a chance to play it a few times and wanted to share my thoughts. GAME PROCESS In Cubitos , players start with nine basic dice (of two types) and roll the dice simultaneously, keeping any dice that show coins or feet. Players can then re-roll any blank faces, but risk burning if no new non-blank faces are rolled. If a player has less than three dice in his active zone from previous rolls and "rollovers", he is in the safe zone and is allowed to continue re-rolling until at least three dice are placed in his active zone. If a player loses, they will not be able to take actions in the current round, but they will be able to move one space up the fan track, which will yield coins and/or hand tokens that will allow players to roll additional dice each round. They have the added advantage of being able to put any dice from their roll zone (those rolled as blank results that round) into their discard zone. The other players' dice that failed must remain in their roll zone and will be rolled again in the next round. This allows players who are knocked out to cycle through their lower value dice and return the higher quality dice to the roll zone more quickly. After each player decides to stop or a player has lost, they enter the running phase together. Any player who rolled the sword symbols on their red dice compares the rolled swords and the winner gets the bonus but has to sacrifice the red die. Because of this, it is likely that different players will win this advantage in subsequent rounds. After matching the red dice, players simultaneously use their feet to move around the racetrack, possibly collecting power-ups depending on where they stopped, and use coins to buy new dice into their reset zone.  Each game has eight new types of dice that can be purchased. Each color of the die has seven cards with different abilities corresponding to it, and one of each is chosen..

ZOMBIE KIDZ GAME REVIEW In Zombie Kidz , players go to the scariest part of the cemetery to lock the gates and stop the zombie horde from spreading through the city. Work together to lock all the gates or destroy all the zombies in the graveyard to win. PREPARATION FOR THE GAME Preparing Zombie Kidz is very easy. Place the field in the center of the playing area. For a two-player game, use the side of the field with diagonal paths between the tombstones. For a 3-4 player game, use the side without diagonal paths. Place one zombie on each goal in the corners of the field, and place the remaining zombies within reach of all players. Place all 4 castle tokens on the side of the field. Have each player choose a character token and a plastic base, then place all of the character tokens on the red tombstone in the middle of the field. Select the first player and you are ready to go. GAME PROCESS The player's move consists of 4 possible actions, which are performed in the following order: PLACEMENT OF ZOMBIES At the beginning of his turn, the player must roll a die and determine if and where he will place the zombie. If the face of the die is black, red, blue, yellow, or green, place the zombie on the corresponding tombstone. If the face of the die is white, the players are lucky and no zombies are placed in that round.  Jeopardy : Any time a player should put a zombie on the field but can't, it's game over and the zombies have won. If placing a zombie causes the character token to take up the same amount of space as 3 zombies, then the zombies have won. MOVING Players can move along one path segment at a time. Players can also stay in their current location. The player could move from the red gravestone area to the green gravestone area in one move. If players use a board with diagonal paths, players can also move from a yellow tombstone to a green tombstone in one turn. If a tombstone is occupied by 3 or more zombies, players cannot..

REVIEW  1-4 players, 40 minutes  Designers: Aske Christiansen  Artist: Apollin Etienne  Publisher: Ludonaute  Publisher in Ukraine: Games7Days OUR HISTORY It's always interesting to know the winners of the Kennerspiel des Jahres and Spiel des Jahres, although the latter is awarded to lighter games that aren't always on our radar. Well, this year it was Living Forest that won the prestigious title of expert game of the year. Which, to be honest, was a bit surprising - considering its difficulty, Living Forest can't be classified as an expert game. But we've played this game quite a few times already and yes, we think it's really too easy for expert level. But we understood why she won the award and it was a great experience. Thematically, Living Forest is set in an enchanted forest (obviously) - the game is inspired by Japanese mythology, though I'm not entirely sure how much. Players embody spirits trying to save the forest from the threat of the Onibi, which in Japanese folklore is represented as a ghost that often appears as fire: that's why you always need to put out the fires that the Onibi lights. The design contributes to the thematic value of the game - the game looks extremely beautiful on the table, and the cards remind us of Medow (which is great). But that's where the similarities end, because we're dealing with completely different games. Living Forest has three win conditions: players must plant 12 different trees, collect 12 mystical flowers, or put out 12 fires. It's always the same number - 12. And that's great - it means we're dealing with a game that's very well balanced, but most importantly, it accurately defines the game's duration at around 45 minutes, which is perfect for this level of difficulty .  So, we already mentioned how balanced this game is - and it's true. No matter which path you choose, you have the same chance of winning if you play it right. Well, that's to be expected from a good..