Tsuro

Tsuro is a simple, easy to learn game using a board and tiles.  The tiles create a path for your marker to travel on.  The goal is to stay on the board, and not create a path that will take you off of it.  Whoever is the last one still on the board wins.

Players start with three different tiles from the stack.  These tiles have lines that will create various pathways.  The board is set up as a grid, and your tile must be played in front of your marker in a way that will progress it onward.  If your path intersects with a tile that has already been played, you must follow any paths that your marker comes across.  If the stack of tiles runs out you must wait until another player is eliminated to get another one.

2-8 players.  10-25 minutes.  No expansion available.  Very easy learning curve.

Becky says:

This game is super simple, and one of the best parts about it is that it is so versatile.  It makes a good "filler" game, that is, something that you can play if you're looking to pass just a little bit of time or if you don't want to dedicate a whole evening to board games (we often play in large groups where multiple games are going on at once, so we use filler games when one group is finished and waiting for the other group so we can decide on the next big game).  It holds anywhere from 2-8 players, and usually only takes around 10-15 minutes, though we've had games as short as 5 minutes and as long as 25.  It's pretty easy to explain as well.

Also, for a simple game, the artwork is really lovely.  They use some lovely colors, so instead of your typical red/blue/green/yellow pieces, you have gray, white, black, a dark red, a "caramel color," and a few others.  The dragon and phoenix art is gorgeous, I feel like it's something that I want to frame and hang up on my wall.

I personally feel that there's not a ton of strategy involved, and it tends to lean much more toward a "random" game where luck plays a big part.  That being said, there is still at least a bit of strategy, usually closer to the end of the game, to help you feel like you have a little bit of control in it.  In do encourage people to try not to strategize too much, because I think it can really slow down what is otherwise a quick game if players spend a long time analyzing each piece and trying to plan multiple turns in advance.

Overall I like Tsuro.  It's an enjoyable filler game, though it doesn't exactly blow me away in any way.   We've probably introduced it to at least 20 people by this point, and everyone that has tried it has enjoyed it - gamers, non-gamers, young, and old.  So I think there's something to be said for a game that appeals to such a wide group.  8 out of 10.

Jason says:

I've been on a bit of a kick for the smaller games lately.  The ones that don't have to be epic, intense, hours-long experiences.  Tsuro fits into the smaller category.  In fact, Tsuro may have the simplest learning curve of any game I've ever played.  Yes, it might be easier than Candy Land (because there's no counting of colored dots).

So, to recap the rules:  you have three tiles with winding paths on them.  Play one, and find out where your dragon stone goes.  Fly off the side of the board and you lose.  Be the last one in play.  I love it because a toddler could play it and enjoy it.  Even if someone can't fully comprehend the consequences of their turns entirely, it can still be a nice game with a refreshing pace and some very pretty artwork.

The whole game is over within ten or fifteen minutes, which means it definitely doesn't test anyone's patience.  Better yet, players still feel involved during other players' turns;  because of how dramatically any one tile can change the whole game, you are compelled to pay attention.

Now, there might be one criticism about the game: since every turn can have a huge impact, when more people play, it becomes chaotic to a point where it all seems based on how lucky your path is.  However, I don't think that is so, because sometimes it's just about watching the chaos unfold and having a good laugh about the crazy things the pieces do on their way off the edge of the board.  Sometimes it's just about following your path.

What can I say negatively about the game?  Well, I haven't decided if this game has a lot of replay value or not.  With fewer people, you do get more turns, but it is easy to fall into a defensive style and just try and avoid your opponent.  If this happens, you each just spend most of the game wandering around until the very end, when either you die or you don't.  If you are competitive and you try to actively thwart your opponent, it can be a little better, but then again it could still be frustrating how little control you can wrest from your opponent.  Moral of the story is this: the game is for fun, not to compete.  If you play this game just to win, then you've already lost everything valuable this game can give.

Oh, one more thing: I love how easy it is to take a conversation about the game and turn it into something philosophical, like "you must follow your path, wherever it goes," or "our paths meet, and I am in your hands now" or "the path will always end once all the tiles are played, and you should only hope to stay on the board as long as you can."  Yes, these are pieces of conversations I've actually had about the game, and for that alone, I think this game deserves some credit. 7.5/10 worth of credit.

Poison

This is a rather short card game coming to us from one of our favorite game designers, Reiner Knizia.  There are three cauldrons in which to brew potions, and set of cards with potions of four different colors - red, blue, purple, and then the green "poison" cards.  Each cauldron can only hold one color (not counting the poison cards), and can only hold up to 13 points total.  The cards have values on them that range from 1 to 7.  Players go around playing potions into cauldrons, and if you force a cauldron to go over 13 points you must take all of the cards in that cauldron.  At the end of the round you tally up the potions.  If you got the most of one color (not counting the poisons) then those cards don't count for you.  Whoever has the least amount of points wins.

Interestingly, there is also a different, slightly simpler version of this game known as Baker's Dozen.

3-6 players.  15-25 minutes.  No expansions available.  Easy learning curve.

Becky says:

I like having some good, quick games that still involve strategy and fun.  This game does that.  At first the strategy seems clear cut - avoid taking any cards.  This is usually done by placing your largest numbered cards, like the 7's, first, so that later on you have some 1's and 2's to help you out in avoiding taking the cauldron.  However, sometimes the strategy of trying to get all the cards of one color will work really well.  You have to make that judgment based on what hand you are dealt.

It's easy to learn and easy to explain, which I appreciate.  It's a good filler game but it also isn't too predictable.  I also appreciate games of numbers, which this essentially is.  Other than that, however, I  don't really have a ton to say about Poison.  It doesn't wow me like some other games do, probably due to the simplicity, but I really appreciate it for what it is.  8 out of 10.

Jason says:

When I host a board gaming night, there are two classes of board games that get played: the big games that can take a lot of focus and energy, and the little, intermittent games that are played to cool down between big games.

Granted, it’s not just black and white, and a little game doesn’t have to be played as a little game, and maybe some people don’t even agree on which little games are little.  All I know is that I don’t think of playing Pandemic as a relaxing “warm-up,” and conversely I won’t call Incan Gold the pinnacle of hard-core gaming.  I would play Incan Gold to get things moving, and when everyone’s gotten comfortable, I will bring out Pandemic.

Poison falls into the “little” category, where it’s a simple game with simple rules and a simple objective.  Sure, it’s not going to floor many people with its amazingly intricate gameplay, but it does very well for the category it’s in.  It is fun, and it is definitely worth having in your collection of games.

The game plays very much like Hearts or Pinochle, yet it has a more contemporary flavor to it.  There is definitely strategy to it, and I think if I played it enough, I could get very, very good at this game.  Despite that, just like Hearts and Pinochle, it’s random enough that periodically you can get a stinky hand that just isn’t meant to win.  That’s not a bad thing either, because it keeps even the skillful potions experts feeling mortal.

Also, the artwork is fascinating, the cards look really cool.  It’s a pretty game, what little there is to be pretty.

Now, let’s bring this back around and think: what did I rate Pandemic and what did I rate Incan Gold?  I bring this up because I want to emphasize a very important point: “little” games are not inferior to “big” games.  In my opinion, Incan Gold beats Pandemic by a whole 2.6 points out of 10, and it is a well-earned extra 2.6 points.

I am really fond of Poison.  I think I will rate it an 8.1/10 and because it’s a little game and because it can be a good gateway game, I give my personal recommendation that every gamer have this game.

Citadels

Citadels is a card game in which you collect gold in order to build "districts."  Each district costs a certain amount of gold.  The game ends when one person has built 8 districts, and whoever's districts are worth the most (including some end of game bonuses) wins the game.  Every turn you have the option of either taking two gold pieces or drawing two cards and keeping one.  You then have the chance the build a district.  Then your turn is over and it's on to the next person.

It sounds pretty simple, right?  Well, the twist comes in with the roles/characters.  There are 8 characters, each with its own special ability.  The thief can steal gold, the merchant gets a gold bonus, the architect gets extra cards, etc.  The cards are passed secretly around so that you can select your role - and try to guess what the person before you took, and what the person after them took.  It's not as easy as it sounds to pick a role.  If you want more gold, you'll be tempted by the merchant - by the assassin might want to prevent you from getting that gold and will kill the merchant.  It's all about strategy, and who you pick can make or break the game.

2-7 players.  45-60 minutes.  Dark City expansion available.  Medium learning curve.

Becky says:

For some reason, Citadels tends to fly under my radar.  I'm never dying to play it, and I don't think I'd ever suggest it, but if someone else suggests it I'll definitely play.  I just tend to forget about it, mostly.  It is a fun game, it just isn't a stand out for me like some of the others that we've played.

Our group tends to have a rather large problem that others might not experience, and that's how much downtime there seems to be.  We play with many people that really take a lot of time to strategize and plan out exactly what move they're going to make.  The process of choosing what role you want and then pass the cards around can take over 5 minutes for us.  I've heard from other people that their games don't take nearly this long, so this might only be a concern if you know you play with a group of people that like to take their times with stuff like this.  Also, once the round begins, you take your turn one player at a time, and the majority of other players turns don't affect you, so there's some down time there as well.

But on to the good things: it does take some interesting strategy to try and win the game.  If you want to do well you'll be tempted to take the more powerful characters, like the merchant, who gets plenty of extra gold.  But the powerful characters also have a big target on their backs, so you can be sure the assassin and the thief are after them.  You not only have to make good decisions for yourself, you have to predict what you think your opponents will do and how it will affect you.  And they're doing the same thing, so they might do something different than they normally would if they're thinking about what you're doing.  It's definitely a game where it helps to know your opponents and their style of game play.

One other comment - the two player version of this game is a big flop, in my opinion.  Even though they try to change the rules up to make it less predictable, it doesn't really work.  You can still tell pretty easily what your opponent has chosen.  Plus, the person that goes first seemed to have a gigantic advantage and pretty much controlled the game.  I wouldn't bother with it if you've only got 2 players.

Overall, we play Citadels infrequently enough these days that I enjoy it when it does come out, but I'm never dying to play it.  It's good when we need a change from the regular games we've been playing.  I'm also surprised to find out that Jason enjoys it much more than I realized, as you'll see below.  As for me, I give it a 6 out of 10.

Jason says:

Citadels.  It's a game.

Yep.

It's one of my favorite games, actually.

What stands out about this game is the characters and how much sway their powers hold.  Picking the wrong character can cost you a turn, or all of your gold, or a large portion of your points, maybe a combination of the three.  So basically, the stakes are really high every turn.

Also interesting is that it isn't a matter of numbers or excellent strategy, it's actually a matter of understanding your opponents' motivations.  When you lose your gold, it's because someone else decided to steal from your character; tough luck, you might've avoided it had you considered that that person would steal from the character you picked.  Lots of people suggest that they just have rotten luck playing this game.  However, I say that luck really isn't much of a factor in this one.  Instead, it's about figuring out what everyone will do and how you can maximize your profits from the way things will go.  The strategy eludes lots of people, and lots of other people just don't want to put forth the effort to think things through.  Of course, flying by the seat of your pants is a legitimate strategy, but if you're playing with someone who is really attentive, it is also a losing strategy.

So my short description of the game's great qualities is this: the strategy is person-centric and relies only a little on luck; any single turn in this game is high-stakes, giving the game an extra sense of intensity; the game is simple to learn, but monolithic to master.

Citadels has drawbacks too, and one of them is that some people will be intimidated or discomforted from the intensity of the game.  Some people show this through nervousness, while others simply fail to see why it is so intense.  The game is not for everyone.

So, when playing with those kinds of people (the people that this game isn't for) you get several phenomena; they get distracted during character picking, or they stop caring because they don't "get it."  Unfortunately, this brings the game down for everyone, because it's such a person-centric game.  I'll admit, it feels like a slow game, but it will only feel slow if you fail to see the value of paying attention to the important decisions.

This was a tough review, because no words can truly describe what it feels like to play a good game of Citadels.  I will give Citadels a 8.8, and that is out of a possible 9.999995, but since 99.99995% (also known as 5σ) is good enough to declare a discovery in high-energy physics, it's as good as a 10 for me.  So, 8.8/10.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

The thing that makes Betrayal an interesting game is that it is different every time you play.  It's also semi-cooperative, with a traitor later on.  There are really two main parts to the game: exploring the house, and then the haunt.  Players take on the role of someone exploring a haunted house.  Your character has stats (a number between 2 and 8) for speed, might, sanity, and knowledge.  Throughout the game you are asked to roll dice based on your stats.  These dice are special, though: each one has two blank sides, two sides with a one, and two sides with a two.  For example, if you have a might of 4 and you are asked to make a might roll, you roll 4 dice.  This means you could get anything between a zero and an 8.  In most cases you are trying to roll higher than a certain number that is specified on a card or elsewhere.

The first phase of the game you explore the house by drawing room tiles and "building" the house based on where you go and what tiles are drawn.  These rooms have symbols on them, and could be an event, an omen, or an item.  An event will cause something to happen and may result in you gaining or losing stats, an item is something that you can use in the future, and an omen is an object you hold on to that may do something good, something bad, or nothing at all when you draw it.  Every time an omen is drawn a haunt roll is made.  If the roll on the dice is less than the number of omens that have been drawn so far, the haunt begins.

There are 50 different haunts in the game, and the one you play is based on the last omen drawn and what room it was acquired in.  Once the haunt begins, everything changes.  One player is assigned to be a traitor based on a chart in the rules (it could be the person that reveals the haunt, the person with the highest knowledge, etc.).  They then do in another room to read their traitor rules, while the rest of the heroes read their own rules for the haunt.  Every haunt is different and has a different way the heroes win and a way that the traitor wins.  However, you only know your own objectives and rules - you don't know everything else about what the other side might be trying to do.

3-6 players.  45-90 minutes.  No expansions available.  Easy-medium learning curve.

Becky says:

I really enjoy Betrayal because it has a lot of what I like in a game.  It's got a cooperative element but the excitement of having a traitor, it's got some fun role-playing, and it's pretty unique in that the game is really different every time you play.  With 50 different scenarios, it certainly keeps the interest level up.  That's a lot of different ways the game can be played, and to me I think it's both the best and worst part about the game.

The good news is that the haunt part of the game rarely gets tedious.  Until you've played over 30 times you won't often get a repeat haunt that you've done before, and if you do sometimes you might be the traitor while last time you were on the other team.  Or if you're like me, the last time you played the haunt was a year ago and you don't remember any of it anyway (unlike Jason, who seems to remember every little detail of every haunt ever played).  And there are some really great haunts out there that are a lot of fun.  The best ones are when the game is close between the heroes and the traitor, and it goes on for a good amount of time without knowing which side is going to win until the very end.

Unfortunately, that's not always the way it happens.  When you have 50 different sets of rules and basically 50 different games, it's not surprising that not every single one of them is great.  There are some that are just not good.  But the bigger problem is that some haunts are great in some situations and terrible in others.  One haunt might be tons of fun in a 6 player game but a total dud with only 3 players.  And some haunts are better with a smaller house, while some are better with a bigger house.  If you get a haunt really early on the game or really late in the game, that can definitely affect how well the rest of the game goes.

We've probably played this game 40 or so times by this point.  There are still some haunts we haven't gotten.  But you know what can get a little tedious?  Building the house in the beginning of the game.  That part doesn't really change so much.  Sure, you may take the coal chute to the basement without meaning to, but for the most part it's pretty much the same all the time.  And with no real goal for that part of the game it can get a bit old.

But let's talk about another good thing: it's pretty easy to explain to people.  The first half of the game is pretty basic, and people catch on pretty quickly, especially since the first part is cooperative and you can sort of explain as you go along.  Once the haunt begins everyone reads and learns the rules together, and they usually aren't too hard since you're learning them mid-game.  Sometimes it takes a few plays to figure out the best strategies though.  In some haunts there is really only one strategy, in others there's a few ways to go about it.  Usually haunts like the latter are better because it makes it more interesting, and even if you lose you wonder what would've happened if you'd done it differently.

Overall I do recommend Betrayal.  The theme, atmosphere, and role playing aspect are great fun, and even if your haunt doesn't go so well sometimes that can still save the game.   I'll just say that it was a lot more fun when we first got it.  Now it seems to be more hit or miss.  But we've gotten a lot of use out of it, and still like introducing it to new players.  7.5 out of 10.

Jason says:

The following reading will be an exercise in the appropriate use of the word “but.”  You will see many examples of its proper usage in the correct context.  Pay attention for this in the recurring format, “Betrayal at House on the Hill is a good game, but…”

So… Betrayal is a good game, but it is also strangely unbalanced and… stuff.  The game is, at its core, a role-playing game.  It’s Dungeons & Dragons lite in many ways.  The game is built as you explore, and random encounters happen in each room, testing your character statistics in various ways.  There’s also a ton of information about the characters that you can use to “play your character” if the spirit moves you (and you are with those kinds of people).  Becky was frustrated by the story provided, suggesting there are large gaps in the explanation for why these characters are exploring a house.  I suspect that this instead gives players the freedom to make up their own stories, and that half of the fun of the game comes just from geeking out about the character development you and your friends can make up.

That stuff is nice and all… but… most people probably aren’t into that kind of stuff.  The game still stands on its own as a good game… BUT… many people might notice a certain role-playing aspect to the game that is extraneous, tedious, or downright boring (I’m in the role-playing camp, if I could just find people who aren’t too self-conscious to do it with me).

So… the gameplay is totally fun with its unpredictable nature… BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, it is elementary and unbalanced.  The first half of the game is just setup, then the real part begins with one of 50 semi-randomly-chosen scenarios of varying difficulty, quality, and engagement.  So, 50 scenarios is cool… BUBUBUBUBUBUBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTT!... the game setup is so random that these haunts can’t possibly predict the layout of the house, and thus the difficulty of the scenario.  Most of the time, it comes out either in favor of the traitor or in favor of the heroes, without question.  Sometimes, it comes down to a roll of the dice, or some other random factor.  Less often than I want, it comes down to an exciting duel between the forces of good and evil.  BUHUHUHUHUHUHUHT! when it does come down to that epic battle, this is a tremendous game.  When you play the game for the first time, regardless of the scenario, it usually feels like it works out this way, so somehow, the game manages to give a really good first impression.

For me, this game was really fun for a while, but I slowly realized that it boils down to the same die rolls with different role-playing disguises on them.  When that realization is made, no amount of scenarios is going to restore vitality to the game.

In the beginning, this was a really intriguing game to me.  8.1000000081/10.00000001  (8.1/10) but that is from the point of view of someone who hasn’t played as much as I have.  Keep in mind that I have played this game so many times that my wife and I together can’t count on all our fingers and toes combined (yes, 40+ times, I would reckon!) and after that much play experience, I would rate it a 6.5/10. It’s a good game whose beginning luster fades away the more you play it, BUTT!, after so many plays, maybe every game becomes exactly that: Butt.

Shadows over Camelot

In this cooperative board game, you take on the role of one of the knights of Camelot and are working together with the other players to earn white swords by winning quests.  Every turn, you must “progress evil” and then do a “heroic action.”  The progression of evil is the game taking its turn against you: you usually draw cards during this phase, and things will happen to hurt you or hinder you on your quests.  Then you do something good, such a making progress on a quest.  There are rewards for winning quests, such as white swords, but also penalties for losing them (black swords and/or siege engines).  You win when there are at least 12 swords on the round table and the majority of them are white.  You lose when there are 7 or more black swords on the table, when 12 siege engines have been placed, or when all of the knights are dead.

Most quests are completed by playing cards.  Explained simply, there are fight cards, with a value of 1-5, and grail cards.  There are wars, which are won by playing a straight (1-5, but only one card can be played at a time), and there are some quests where you fight by playing pairs or three of a kind.  And then Excalibur requires you to simply throw cards away, while the grail requires you to place a certain number of grail cards down.

The twist in the game is that there is the possibility of a traitor.  At the beginning of the game every player is given a loyalty card, which may tell them that they are “loyal” or the “traitor.”  It’s also possible for there to be no traitor.  The traitor plays hidden for at least the first half of the game, so it’s tricky for them to appear good buy actually hinder the group.  About halfway through the game knights can make accusations, which are rewarded for correct guesses and penalized for wrong ones as to who the traitor is.  If the traitor has been accused or reveals himself with the use of the “Fate” card, he can then play out in the open.  However, if the traitor goes undetected the entire game, then there is an end of game penalty that could very well mean the difference between victory and defeat.

There are some other minor but important rules, but this is the basics for Shadows over Camelot. We’re also doing the expansion, Merlin’s Company, in this review, as we really haven’t played the game without it.  The expansion adds a travel card deck, that requires you to draw a card and do what it says every time you want to move to a different quest.

3-7 players (8 with expansion).  Approximately 90 minutes.  Merlin’s Company expansion available.  Medium learning curve.

Becky says:

If you know me, you probably know that this is my favorite board game.  I love it for a million reasons.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had a bad time playing Shadows.  It’s always ridiculously fun, even if we lose by a landslide.

I’ll start with the themeing.  The artwork is great.  Even the little knight figurines are well detailed, instead of just wooden tokens or something like that. All of the little details to the legends of King Arthur are wonderful.  Everyone gets to be a specific knight from legend, and many of the cards in the black and white deck reference things from Arthurian legend.  I have to say that playing this game made me much more intrigued about Arthurian legend, to the point where I’ve now done tons of research and am a bit of a “knights of the round table” dork.  I’m even currently working on a children’s novel with a King Arthur theme, and it’s all thanks to this game that I got into it.

But on to the game itself!  It’s cooperative, which I definitely enjoy, because I like working together.  But with the possibility of a traitor, it also creates tons of suspense.  Let me talk about that – the suspense factor in this game, especially if you’re not sure if there’s a traitor and it’s getting towards the end, is huge!  There have been moments where I literally can’t sit in my seat because I’m so on edge about what is going to happen.  Sometimes I have to pace the room.

And the strategy.  I’ve heard a complaint on other reviews that you end up using the same strategy every time after you’ve played it awhile.  I’m not sure why, but for me this couldn’t be further from the truth.  We tend to play with many different people and different amounts of players, so that may be why, but it’s always tough to decide based on your cards where you should go first.  Is it better to win the big quests in the beginning, like the grail or Excalibur?  That gets them out of the way, but then all those black cards turn into siege engines – not good.  Should you stick together as team and all finish a quest, or spread out to hold off the evil in every area?  We do it different ways every time, and no one way seems to be better than the other.  The only thing that seems to be pretty consistent is if you want Lancelot’s armor, you’d better go right in the beginning.  And don’t be surprised if you get some suspicious looks, as the armor is a traitor’s best friend.

Speaking of the traitor, here’s my thoughts on playing that role.  I don’t generally like being the traitor because I hate to be so secretive about everything.  It’s just not in my personality.  I will usually choose to play the traitor in either one of two ways.  1. Be as secretive as possible and do nothing suspicious so that I go undetected the whole game, and then hope that the penalty for not detecting the traitor is enough to turn things my way, or 2.  Once the 6th sword or siege engine gets placed, immediately accuse any random person so they suffer that penalty.  This then leads them to know I’m definitely the traitor and I get accused, but that way I can play out in the open and do more damage.  Of course, even though I don’t usually like being the traitor, I have to admit it felt pretty good that one time when I was able to make a false accusation and then also use the “Fate” card to reveal myself!

Merlin’s company is a good expansion.  Those travel cards can be a pain in the butt, but Merlin’s awfully helpful sometimes.  Some of those travel cards are nasty.  If you’re playing with me you’d better know that you’re sure as heck not traveling anywhere without a pair of fight cards, because if you get charged and have to add that extra black sword I will not be a happy camper.  The expansion also adds the 8^th knight, which can make for some epic 8 player games.

Sorry this was such a long review, but I really love this game.  10 out of 10.  Maybe no game is perfect, but for me Shadows is as close as it comes so it deserves that elite rating.

Jason says:

Shadows is a piece of board game art.  Unlike other games, which convey their entertainment through strategy and competition, Shadows plays perfectly to draw on the power of cooperation and anticipation, then shatters the comfort of cooperation by turning friends and comrades against each other.  In Shadows, you feel the tension in the room as your mind warps every player's moves into acts of treachery and deceit.

I mean it, too, I'm not just trying to be ridiculous.  Art.  This game makes you feel things, and it does it so smartly and skillfully.  To start, I will discuss the mechanics themselves, since this is really the only part of the game to which I can draw comparisons to other, lesser games.

It's a cooperative game, so I'll compare to Pandemic.  In Pandemic, a team doing sufficiently well never has to worry about problems.  In Shadows, completing a big quest adds faster-approaching dangers, so endgame should always be a riveting experience (even moreso with the Merlin's Company expansion).  Furthermore, each player feels like they are contributing to the quest in some way, particularly because they aren't allowed to discuss plans in detail because of the traitor game mechanic.

Yes, the traitor mechanic.  This is how the game turns from a cooperative game into a social experiment on trust and paranoia.  Tension flows through everything because of the traitor.  And most fascinatingly of all, there isn't always a traitor, but because the game incorporates even the chance of a traitor, suspicions often boil over and irreparably rend the team, destroying the forces of good from the inside out.

Last of all, the flow of the game is masterful.  The whole game is sedate in the beginning, but the whole game works slowly, allowing people's suspicions to stew into healthy unfounded accusations.  By the end of the game, everyone is so exasperated that even the most rational person must fight against irrational reflexes.  Finally, when the possible traitor is revealed, the game explodes into a logical race against the machinations of a revealed threat.  Here, people jump out of their seats and furiously count cards, hoping for a ghost of a chance to make up lost ground.  Merlin's Company shines best here, where the travel cards are the element of chance that could mean success and failure.  Wait, did we draw the last Charged! card or might traveling get that last black sword?  Soon, I have to move!  What, Captured!?  We can't deal with this!

Of course, when you can't deal with it, but somehow you come out victorious, those are the best of victories.  Unlike lots of games, Shadows is crafted to supply this last-stand scenario pretty much most of the time, and many times it will end in failure.  This serves to supplement the victories, but it is still fun for me, even if I lose.

The more I thought about this game's review, the more I realized that, either by phenomenal coincidence or by excellent design, this game does everything right for a longer, intense game.  No jokes, no math: 9.9/10 and possibly the highest recommendation I may ever give on this website.

Bang! Gold Rush

For the original Bang! rules and review, go here.  Gold Rush is the most recent in a line of many expansions for Bang!.  There are two major differences in the game: the gold nuggets and equipment deck, and the shadow variant.  First, the equipment deck.  This is a new deck of cards that you can purchase while you play.  Some of the cards you use immediately when you buy them, others are cards that are put in front of you.  They can cost anywhere between 1 and 5 gold nuggets.  Three cards are face up and available for purchase at a time.  The way you earn gold nuggets is by attacking other players.  Every time you cause someone else to lose a life point, whether it’s from a bang! card, Indians, duel, or whatever, you gain a gold nugget.  You can also trade in beer cards to gain gold nuggets.If you want to destroy a permanent equipment card in front of another player, you can’t use any regular cards like cat balou – you must pay gold nuggets equal to the item plus one.  There are several new characters added to the game that have powers that have to go with gold nuggets and equipment cards.

The other major change is the shadow variant.  This effectively allows players to continue playing, even when they’ve been eliminated.  If you’ve been killed, at the start of your turn you draw two cards that you can attempt to use.  You don’t get any life points back and you also don’t get to live.  You use what cards you can and discard the rest.  You can, however, hold on to your gold nuggets that you’ve earned, which allows you to buy immediate use equipment cards.  Once your turn is over you go back to being dead.  If the renegade is killed, he joins the team of whoever has the most people dead (outlaws or team sheriff).  You can choose to play Gold Rush with both new elements of the game, just the equipment cards, or just the shadow variant.

4-7 players.  An expansion to Bang!  Easy learning curve if you’re familiar with the original game.

Becky says:
First, the equipment cards and gold nuggets.  They are a lot of fun and add an interesting element to the game.  Everyone we’ve played with seems to really like this addition.  Most of the cards are fairly straight forward – use as an extra bang or an extra cat balou, or put it in front of you and you can now hold up to 8 cards in your hand.  These are neat.  There are also ones that seem a little too good and pretty much give you the power of another character.  For instance, there is a card that makes it so that cards with a diamond do not affect you – that’s Apache Kid’s power, and a 3 life point one at that.  However, the “really good” ones are not too many of them, and there are many of the other cards, so you may not even see these at all every time you play.  One thing I noticed about the gold nuggets – people get greedy for them, and they speed up the game considerably.  You see something that you like out on the equipment deck, so you shoot whoever’s next to you to get nuggets, not really caring who they are.  This can mess with the strategy a little bit and makes the game a bit more… blood-thirsty.

Now, the shadow variant.  What I love about this is that it means you’re never completely out of the game.  You still get to keep playing, which was a bit of a flaw before.  We would have people die in the beginning or middle of the game and still have it go on for 45 minutes, while they had to sit there and do nothing (or more likely, text someone or play Words with Friends).  I know some people feel it makes the game longer but I don’t think it does very much, because the shadow turns are so brief.  And when you combine it with the gold nugget stuff it evens out.  We have noticed a trend when we play with the Shadow variant though, and that is that it seems to help the sheriff’s side way more than the outlaws.  I haven’t quite put my finger on why that is, but most times the sheriff wins when we play shadow variant – it seems like a bit of an issue for a balanced game.

Finally, the new characters.  For the most part I think they are very good.  Most of them deal with the new gold nuggets and equipment cards, such as Raddie Snake, whose power is that he can choose to exchange a gold nugget (up to 2 times per turn) to draw an extra card.  However, there is at least one character that seems pretty unbalanced and too powerful.  That’s Don Bell – his power is that at the end of his turn, he “draws!” and if it’s a heart or a diamond, he takes another turn.  Effectively it means that every turn he has a 50% chance of getting another turn right away.  And he starts the game with 4 life points.  If he had 3 I could maybe be okay with his awesome power, but 4 is too much.  Too powerful characters either dominate the game or get killed right away.  Our Don Bell got killed right away because his power was too good and no one wanted to see it used.  They all ganged up on him just to get him out of the game, which is really no fun either.  Also, other older characters might not be as good in Gold Rush – we discovered that “Big Spencer” became a “Big Target” when people wanted gold nuggets because he almost always has to take the hit.  Poor Big Spencer got killed right away, and people gained a lot of gold nuggets.

Overall I really like the gold nuggets and the equipment deck.  They speed up the game, which has always been an issue with us.  I also do like the shadow variant because I hate being killed and not getting to play anymore, but I can understand why some people don’t like it.  I give this expansion an 8.5 out of 10.

Jason says:

Dodge City pushes the game further along the asymptote toward perfection, High Noon/Fistful breathes further life into it, and Wild West Show sorta-kinda goes overboard a bit.  Gold Rush puts in a good effort, but for me, not good enough.

I commend Gold Rush for trying to fix the dead-players-out issue.  Unfortunately, the fix is a problem in itself.  In theory, gold nuggets are a good addition that fit into the genre; I like the fact that it is an extra incentive for shooting people.  I do not like the fact that it adds a whole separate class of cards that don’t really mesh with the rest of the game and that are supremely powerful.  When a card like the Calumet or the Boots comes up, there is no reason not to go for them.  Worse yet, those cards are duplicates of powers already assigned to characters, making those characters less unique.  There is something sacred to me about powers.  They are things that make a player feel like they have a personal edge… but not anymore.  I will no longer pick Apache Kid if I know I can just grab a Calumet.

Next are the extra rules to fit the expansion in with the rest of the deck.  First, you can discard beers without regaining life to instead take a gold nugget; bad, it doesn’t make sense.  Second, black-border cards cannot be discarded by Cat Balou; bad, too powerful.  Third, you can force other players to discard black cards by paying the price of that card + 1.  Why would a living player ever do that!?  Just buy your own black-bordered cards if you have enough money!  Only a ghost would force discards, since they could never hang on to black-border cards themselves.  What a boring way for a ghost to spend its hard-earned nuggets.

That brings me to the Shadow Variant, inherently flawed because it requires the gold nugget part to play well.  I think it is a bit too powerful, since it’s almost the Ghost Town card from High Noon, permanently (making that card a moot point also).  As an added minus, it ruins more cards, like characters Pedro Ramirez and Kit Carlson who can manipulate the draws of the next player, but not if a ghost throws off all of that planning.  Silliest yet, the Renegade is no longer a Renegade when he dies, and is instead a swing-vote for the losing team.  It’s all very unsatisfying to me.

My last thought is the characters, which are, to varying degrees, over-powered.  In particular, Don Bell, who gets to play an extra turn on aDraw! of hearts or diamonds.  Arguably better than Black Jack in every way.  This is just another example of a card that I think directly suffers because of this expansion.

So you might be thinking, “Wow, you just panned that game like a prospector in a gold rush!  Can you do better?” to which I would say, “Good pun!  And yes, yes I can.” The market part is a completely separate deck of cards that don’t really fit into the rest of the game.  Instead, why not make a market out of cards from the deck, all costing four nuggets?  As for the Shadow variant, instead of interrupting the flow of the living players’ cards, maybe allow dead players to take one of just a few indirect actions, or maybe have a separate deck for them to play off of (I know there is a website called the Bang! blog which has an unofficial expansion that does this).

So what does it come down to?  I will give Gold Rush a 5.75/10, which mathematically comes out to a 5.75/10.  For all of the panning I did, I would have given it a much lower rating, but I do respect that Gold Rush speeds up the game and allows dead players to play.  I wouldn’t personally include Gold Rush in a game of Bang!, but our house rules say that the designated Sheriff gets to determine the expansions we play with, and if that sheriff says Gold Rush, I won’t say no.

Dominion

This is a deck-building card game in which players attempt to earn enough points to be the others.  Everyone starts with a basic hand of 7 copper coins and 3 estate cards (worth one point each).  Each turn you play off of your own individual deck.  The turn begins by drawing five cards.  You then have an action phase, in which you can play action cards.  Then there is the buy phase, which allows you to purchase new cards to add to your deck – these might be action cards, money cards, or victory point cards.  Finally, you end your turn by discarding all cards played and any that still remain in your hand into your own personal discard pile.  You immediately draw 5 new cards from your deck to prepare for your next turn.  When you run out of cards your deck gets reshuffled.  The game continues in this manner until either all of the province cards are gone (victory point cards worth 8 points) or when any other three stacks of cards have been exhausted.

2-4 players.  Multiple expansions and other stand-old versions available.  Approximately 30 minutes.  Easy-medium learning curve.

Becky says:

One nice thing about this game is that the basic rules are simple enough.  The variety of different action cards can make it seem a little overwhelming, but once you accept that you’re just going to have to take some time to read the cards and get to know them, the game can go pretty quickly.  One thing that I really like is how the playing experience can be different every time, depending on what cards you use.  There are pre-set arrangements that they recommend, but you can also just randomly select which cards will be played with for each game.

One thing that is both a pro and a con is that it can be very difficult to figure out what strategy you want to use, and that can change depending on which cards are used.  Many people I play with build up these amazing chains of action cards, going through almost their whole deck in one turn.  Somehow I just can’t get that strategy to work for me.  I find that if I’m buying action cards it means I can’t upgrade my coins, and if I have mostly action cards I don’t have enough coins to buy what I want anyway.  It’s a delicate balance that you have to find. 

I also love how fast paced the game is.  It’s not like Citadels, where I feel like we wait forever for everyone to make their selections, or even Bang!, where a turn can drag out for far too long.  I know Jason will complain that this game doesn’t move quickly enough for him, which frankly I don’t understand.  I find that half the time, by the time that I have drawn my cards for my next hand and figured out what I want to do with them, it’s already my turn again.  I will note that we don’t own this game, his brothers do, so we only play when they come over which means that it’s always a 4 person game.  It would be interesting for Jason to try 2 person Dominion and see if that fixes his issue with the pace.

While Dominion is a very good game, if I have to note some negatives I will say that it doesn’t always seem perfectly balanced, especially when you choose which cards to play with randomly.  Sometimes it feels like you are getting nowhere fast, so you might as well start buying Duchys so you can get some points.  And while I don’t have a problem with the general idea of the attack cards, some of them seem much worse than others and a few I personally feel are too harsh or annoying and don’t really add much to the game.

Overall I enjoy Dominion, but probably not as much as I could because Jason usually is resistant to play, and what fun is it to play a game when one of the players isn’t into it?  I still give it an 8 out of 10 as it’s a fun game and I am pretty much always willing to play it.

Jason says:

I was really fascinated with Dominion the first time I played it.  It was like a breath of fresh air.  It’s another one of those solitaire-feeling games, where you play your game, other people play their game, and (except for a few exceptional cases of indirect influence) everyone compares their work at the end of the game.  In my mind, I put it into the same style class as 7 Wonders.

Like Bang!, Dominion fills a void in my gaming heart that was once reserved for collectible card games.  Bang! fills the game playing part, but Dominion appeals to the deck-building fun.  Yes, a lot of the fun that people find in collectible games like Magic: The Gathering is the search for the perfect deck design.  Dominion knows this, and it turned that search into a game in and of itself.

Regretfully, the more I play Dominion, the less fond of it I have become.  It is fast-paced, especially for a game that goes by turns, but I still get impatient waiting for people to take their turns.  Normally I have the patience of an immortal, but Dominion just hits some spot in my brain that can’t seem to wait.  That complaint might just be my personal problem, so I think others should judge for themselves on that; let me know what you come up with.

My real gripe with the game is the Attack cards, the part that makes people interact more directly.  Because the game feels like such a personal endeavor, attacks and disruptions feels contrary to the spirit of the game.  Also, they make the game slow down more.

I rate it a 6.6/11, which really just comes out to 6/10.  Even though it is one of the lower scores I have given and despite how critical I am of it, I do enjoy playing it, and there are many times I would rather play Dominion than games like Pandemic or Bohnanza.  I will point out that almost everyone I play games with disagrees with how low a score I gave to Dominion, but because of how impatient the game makes me, I'm sticking with my decision.

7 Wonders

This is a card game in which each player is working independently to create their own civilization.  You start off with a hand of 7 cards, of which you can pick one to build.  The rest get passed to the person next to you.  You usually start by building resources, which are often free, and then you have to use resources to pay for bigger things you want to build later.  There are also ways to earn coins, which can help you pay to build cards.  There’s a variety of different card types of build, and it is often good strategy to pick one or two card types of focus on that.  They include military, civilian structures, commercial structures, scientific structures, and guilds.  The game has 3 rounds, and at the end you add up the points that your structures are worth and whoever has the most points wins.

One other aspect of the game is your wonder.  There are seven different ones, and each one has different rewards on the bottom.  At any point during the game instead of playing a card you can choose to build a level on your wonder and get the reward for that.

2-7 players.  1 expansion available (Leaders) and one coming out soon (Cities).  30-45 minutes.  Medium learning curve.

Becky says:

For one reason or another, I was a little bit hesitant about trying this game, and didn’t really care for it the first time I played.  All of the different cards just seemed so overwhelming, and I was playing with people that had played several times before.  I didn’t even understand what those “green cards” were, and so I ignored them – while other players were getting 30 points from them!  When it comes down to it, though, I really enjoy the game after playing it more.  It is very similar to other card playing, point gathering games, such as Race for the Galaxy and Dominion.  While I am not great at those games I really like them.  I think one of my favorite things about such types of games is that it doesn’t feel as competitive as other games.  You are working on your own little thing and not caring what other people do very much, except maybe when passing cards or building military structures.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t pay attention to what other people are doing – that’s a good way to lose the game.  But it’s not usually your main focus.

Another plus – I really love the little scoring pad.  It seems like such a simple thing, but it helps a lot for tallying up the points at the end.  Speaking of scoring, while some of the areas are straightforward in terms of scores, other ways to gain points are a bit more subtle.  Science, for instance, is probably the trickiest type of card to go after.  Military is somewhat straightforward but the results can vary greatly depending on what the person next to you is doing.  I like the fact that there are different ways to play the game.  I often alter my strategy based on which wonder I get, which makes the game fun and a little different every time.

The biggest downfall for me is that sometimes you just can’t get the right cards.  I was stuck in a game once where I built the resources I thought I would need, and then it turned out there were a few other things I needed later on – which neither of the people next to me had.  So I just went turns where I couldn’t build anything at all, or had to build pathetic little things.  Those games are very frustrating, though that may just be bad luck.  You also have to keep in mind that the game changes based on the number of people playing.  If you have less than 7 you remove cards from the deck.  If you’ve played a lot and have specific cards in mind that you might be searching for, it can be difficult to remember which ones remain in play with fewer people.

Overall I give the game an 8.5 out of 10.  I enjoy playing it a good deal but it doesn’t quite make it to my list of favorites.

Jason says:

Before having played this game, I had been exhausted of all of the "point-scoring" games out there because it had become a stale mechanic to me.  Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Master's Gallery, tons and tons of other games out there are just mathematical processes (these are all games that we will review some day).  They just bored me (I'll also talk/rant about that some day).  But when 7 Wonders came around, it was unique, it was entertaining, it was complex, and most importantly, it was just plain fun.

One of the best parts of 7 Wonders is that everyone takes their turns at the same time.  Fast thinkers and impatient people can breathe a sigh of relief when they play this game, because every turn is your turn.  On a turn, each person selects a card from their hand, then everyone plays their selected card simultaneously.  When you have seven people playing the game, that's seven turns for the price of one!  For comparison, imagine how long it would take if seven people all played Carcassonne.

Alright, so far, I've given this a pretty good review.  What's the catch?  Glad you asked.  The learning curve is steep and high.  Someone playing for the first time shouldn't expect to know what they're doing at all.  You can have an expert teacher who can literally insert information directly into your brain, but you won't completely understand what a good strategy is until you play the game through once.  Maybe even several times, depending on 1) how experienced you are with games in general, 2) how genuinely interested you are in trying to learn the game, and 3) what hints your teachers give you through those playthroughs.  The game is great though, provided you stick it out for that first game.  or five.

So I think I'll give this game a 2.7/3, but of course, if you run through the math, 2.7/3 is exactly the same as saying 27/30, and if you divide both the numerator and the denominator by three, you end up with a 9/10.  So there it is.  9/10.  Or a grade of 90%.  Revel in this, because not many more games will get the "A" rating that I've been giving out lately.

PS: Yes, I know that Carcassonne only holds up to five people.

PPS: If you've never played Carcassonne, then just substitute your own experience with a game that's wretchedly long because everyone takes their turns separately.

Incan Gold

In this game you have to decide when to run and when to go forward – go on into the temple and more riches could be yours, but turn back before you meet your doom!  Each player is given two cards.  One represents proceeding into the temple, the other represents returning to camp.  Cards are flipped over, which either contain treasure or a “hazard” – something like zombies, spiders, or snakes.  Before every card players decide secretly whether they want to keep going or they want to run away.  If a treasure card is turned up, all of the players who are still going forward split the treasure equally, with the remainder staying on the card.  If a hazard turns up, it’s a warning of what’s ahead.  Get two hazards that are the same (two spider cards, or two fire cards), and the expedition is over.

Once you’ve accumulated some treasure, you want to think about running.  If you successfully escape before a hazard, you not only keep what you’ve earned, you also get to split whatever is remaining on the cards with anyone else that ran away.  Try not to run at the same time as someone else so you get all the jewels!  If you don’t leave an expedition before it ends due a hazard, you lose any treasure that you collected.  At the end of the game points are scored based on how many jewels you’ve acquired through 5 rounds.

There’s also 5 artifact cards, one that gets added to the deck before each round.  They are worth 5 jewels each, but you can’t split them with anyone else.  So in order to get them you have to be the only one who runs while an artifact is still on the path.

3-8 players.  No expansions available.  20-30 minutes.  Easy learning curve.

Becky says:
This game is surprisingly fun and addicting.  It’s easy to learn and goes really quickly, so you can finish a game in about 20 minutes.  It helps to know the people that you’re playing with too.  Is Joe usually a risk taker?  Then he’ll probably keep going into the temple.  Mary is a scaredy cat?  She’s going to be the first to run, and she’ll be greatly tempted by those artifacts.  It also shows how well you know yourself.  I’m usually pretty cautious, but sometimes when playing this game I’ll be tempted to keep going!  I find it’s more fun to gamble with fake jewels than with real money, though.  I also love the accessories in this game – the little jewels are so cute and fun to play with!  And you get little tents to keep them in, too J

Another interesting thing about this game, for me, is how different it is depending on how many people you have playing.  It can hold anywhere from 3-8, and we’ve played it with almost every number.  With more people there is a much greater chance that someone will run at the same time as you, and so your winnings will be a lot less.  I had a great strategy developed that worked really well when I played small games with 3-4 people, but it started to fail horribly once we got up to around 5 or 6.  There isn’t a ton of strategy since it’s mostly luck, but it is about making the right decisions.  And the decision will be different depending on the number of players and who you’re playing with, so that’s something to adjust to.  But it also makes it more interesting and keeps the game dynamic.

One last thing – the two cards that you flip over look very similar, so don’t make the mistake of going back to camp when you meant to go on into the temple!  It’s happened more times than you’d think.

Overall this game is a fun and easy one that’s mostly about luck and how far you’re willing to go.  It can be very suspenseful and a lot of fun.  I’ve seen players win a ton of jewels in one turn, and people that have finished the game without a single jewel in their tent.  An excellent game to play if you’re killing time while waiting for someone or if you’re just looking for something quick and easy.  8 out of 10.

Jason says:
OMG WOW THIS GAME IS SO AWESOME I AM NOT WORTHY I AM NOT WORTHY!!!
I’m sure some people are expecting me to say that, because that’s generally my level of excitement when I play Incan Gold.

It’s a game of luck and how far you’re willing to go to risk it.  The classic game Pass the Pigs is almost exactly the same thing, and yet, with the addition of one little twist, it’s a completely different experience.  I’m not going to assume you know Pass the Pigs; what it comes down to is that you’re pressing your luck alongside all the other players, and if you decide to call it quits when someone else does, you have to share the prize.  It makes the decision a lot more difficult because you have to guess the intentions of all of the up to eight players in order to maximize your gains.  I like it.

Now, one of the most exciting things is when there’s one, desperate person left hanging on to the hope that there’s still plenty to be earned in the temple.  Once you get to that place, the ultimate temptation is to keep going and win more and more.  It’s exciting because watching, you know they should stop, and yet if it’s the right person (which it probably is if they got to this in the first place) they will keep on going, and you’ll grab your hair and say, “No, you’ve gotten enough, why can’t you just settle with your small fortune!”  Maybe that’s just me.

This game is simple enough for anyone to play, and it holds up to eight people.  It’s quick and there isn’t much waiting for other people.  There’s not a lot of strategy, it really comes down to guessing what others will do, and often, that’s enough to satisfy those of you that want to overthink your decisions, but it also allows others to simply decide and not be shut out by a master strategist.

 I give this game a 9.6/10 or a 79.68/83 for the mathematically inclined.  But I think that this number is subject to change based on how willing you are to get excited about it.  Play with people who think the way you do and it will be extremely exciting.  Trying not to do what your opponents do (and often failing to avoid it) is what makes the game so fun.

Bohnanza

In Bohnanza, you are a bean farmer.  Your goal is to grow beans in order to gain coins, and have the most coins by the end of the game.  There are a different types of beans in the deck, and each bean has a different number of cards in the deck.  For example, there are 22 wax beans in the deck, but only 4 cocoa beans.  In order to make money off of your beans you need to plant a certain amount of them.  For more common beans, such as wax, you need to plant more than you would for the rare beans such as cocoa or garden beans in order to get a good pay-off.  When you are ready to plant different beans, you dig up the ones you have and earn the coins from that.

You start with a hand of cards, in which order matters.  That means that however you pick the cards up is the order in which you must play them – you can’t move them around within your hand.  You have two fields in which to plant beans.  At the start of your turn you must plant the first bean in your hand, and you may plant the second one if you want.  You then flip over two beans face up from the draw pile.  You can choose to plant these beans , or you can trade them for beans you actually need.

What this game is really about is the trading.  You can trade what you turn face up, but on your turn you can also trade from out of your hand.  There aren’t many rules about trading – almost anything goes.  The only major rule is that when you trade, you must plant the bean that you get, you can’t just put it into your hand.  Trading from your hand is a good way to get rid of beans that you don’t want that are in your way.  You go through the deck three times, and at the end of the game you count up the number of coins you have from planting beans – the player with the most coins wins!

2-7 players.  Multiple expansions available (Bohnaparte).  Approximately 45-60 minutes.  Easy-medium learning curve.

Becky says:

Bohnanza is a fun little game, and pretty easy to get the hang of quickly.  The cards and brightly colored with cute pictures.  In terms of game play, I do like it.  I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite game, but it’s fun.  It’s a very social game, as you are constantly trading or bargaining with people. 

I think the trading is fun, but it certainly depends on who you play with.  You also tend to develop certain “types” of traders, which I’ve developed names for.  There’s the “Too Nice” trader, who will give you the beans you want even if you can’t offer anything in return.  This person tends to go with the line, “just remember it for next time!”  Then there’s the “Miser,” who doesn’t want to trade anything that will help anyone else – unfortunately, that often puts them in a bad position but they’re usually too stubborn to act any other way.  And there’s also the “Bargainer,” who is constantly trying to get a better deal.  “A wax bean for a blue bean?  I could do that, but how about you throw in a stink bean too?”  This person can get very greedy and frustrating to trade with.  It is interesting to see how your friends and family act when it comes to trading beans!

On the negative side, this game can get really long and slow moving if you play with too many people.  This is especially true if the people you play with are stubborn – “But I don’t want to plant this blue bean!  Won’t anyone trade with me?  No?  Well, I’ll keep offering different trades for the next ten minutes anyway.”  The game holds up to 7 but that can often be way too long.  It’s a fun game, but most people don’t really want to be planting beans for 2 hours.  I find it works really well with 4 or 5 people, especially if they already know how to play.

In the end, it’s not a game I want to play all the time, but I enjoy it every once in awhile.  I don’t feel it’s particularly outstanding in any way, but it’s just fun with a little bit of strategy.  And sometimes, you don’t need a crazy, complex game – you just want that game that lets you have a good time without too much effort but still requires a little brain power.  Bohnanza fits that niche well.  7 out of 10.

Jason says:

Bohnanza.  Here I am, an American writing a review of a game by the German publisher Rio Grande games.  I always liked that about this game.  It has nothing to do with the review, but I thought I would share that.

Interesting game, certainly another unique one, which I say because I haven’t seen another game that does quite what Bohnanza does.  The game is simple; you plant beans, you dig up beans, you get money.  Your friends are also doing that.  The trick is that everyone wants stuff that everyone else has.  So it’s really a game about trading in a way that makes your hand work as well as it can, which can be especially difficult since the order of the cards in your hand matters.  Yes, a stink bean in the back of your hand could be just the trade leverage you need to secure your new bean farm, but a stink bean in the front of the hand could spell disaster for your hard-earned bean empire, a situation that most often just… well… stinks beans.

Alright, so what about the game?  Extremely social and interactive, that’s a plus.  And it’s easy, that’s a plus too.  I would also venture to say that winning the game isn’t nearly as fun as just playing it, which I think is a big point in its favor.  Of course, with any social game, it matters who you play with, and it’s important not to get hung up on people making strange trades that you think don’t make sense: there’s no rule that they aren’t allowed, and you have no idea what kinds of beans are cluttering up their hands or how desperately they want to trade that clutter away.

Now, having said all of that, this game is a good one, but it’s not one of my favorites.  I don’t get excited when someone says, “Let’s play Bohnanza!” but that is just my opinion.  I think of it as one of those change-of-pace games for when we’ve played tons of Pandemic and Bang! and such.  Like any game, it has its deficiencies.  It can drag a bit if people aren’t focused or if the trading gets too involved.  There may also be a person or two who simply can’t get their bean machines working because that’s the way the cards are dealt.  But I think these small deficiencies fade compared to the positive simplicity and elegance of the game.

Now, I think I will rate Bohnanza at 425.02/538, or a 7.9/10 which means that I rated it higher than Pandemic or Lord of the Rings.  But you see, when I play games, Bohnanza doesn’t really come to mind, even despite how much I like it.  I think of Bohnanza as that guy that everyone thinks deserves better, but no one really wants to throw him a bone because they think they have better things to do.  Maybe it’s just old hat for me at this point.

Lord of the Rings

This strategy game is based on the books, and not the movies.  It is a fairly complex cooperative game, in which up to 5 players can participate.  Players take on the roles of Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Fatty (a minor character from the book) and each have a special power, which they must use to work together to destroy the ring.  They have to get through 4 different boards in order to do so (Moria, Helm’s Deep, Shelob’s Lair, and Mordor).  Players begin a turn by drawing a random tile, which will usually either move them up through the board they are on or make a negative event occur.  They then can play up to 2 cards to progress further through the tracks on the board, choosing strategically which tracks to move up and which cards to hold on to, taking into account the events that could occur later on.  In the meantime the players characters are on a separate track which has Sauron at the end of it.  Various events and die rolls can cause either the players to move closer to Sauron or Sauron to move closer to the players.  Meet Sauron and you’re dead – and if the ring bearer meets Sauron the game is lost.  Victory is achieved if the ring bearer reaches the end of Mordor and is able to successfully destroy the ring without dying.

2-5 players.  Multiple expansions available (Friends and Foes, Sauron, Battlefields, The Black Gate).  Approximately 60-90 minutes.  Medium learning curve.

Becky says:  

This game has definitely grown on me when we played it more.  To begin with, it’s really hard to beat.  We’ve probably played 4 or 5 times now and won twice – but we’re still playing on “introductory” mode, which gives us a bit of a handicap.  I honestly thought this game screwed you over more than Shadows over Camelot ever could and it would be impossible to win.  The really cool thing was continuing to try it and discovering all of these strategies that occasionally work that I never would have thought of.  For instance, there have been times where we’ve just decided to take all of the negative events to get through a board as quickly as possible just to end it and hold on to our cards for future rounds.  In 5 player games we’ve also taken to making Fatty the “mule,” whose job it is to stock up on cards and give them up when necessary, usually spending his turn just drawing more cards.  I love that the strategy isn’t always obvious, and it definitely changes depending on how many people are playing.

It’s a game where working well together is really important, but everyone really has to be involved (unlike what happens sometimes with Pandemic).  Somehow, though, Lord of the Rings lacks just a little bit of the suspense and excitement that we get with Shadows over Camelot.    I’m not sure why that is (maybe the lack of a traitor?), but I haven’t quite found myself literally jumping out of my chair or pacing the room like I have with Shadows.  Lord of the Rings might be somewhat more enjoyable if you won more often, but that’s all part of the challenge.  I do like the fact that you get a score even if you lose, so you can still keep track and try to beat your previous scores. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the artwork on this game is really gorgeous.  Being geeks, we love the theme and the fact that it’s book based instead of movie based.  And we always enjoy a good cooperative game.  8.5 out of 10.

Jason says:

 I read somewhere that when The Lord of the Rings came out in 2000, it was a unique game because it didn’t pit the players against each other, it made them cooperate to beat the game itself.  It’s now 2012, so I guess I’m a bit late to the party, but that’s okay, because it’s still a really good game.  I’ve seen several cooperative games I think I like better, but variety is the spice of life, so this game has a place in my collection.  Also I am a fan of Tolkien’s books.

This game is extremely difficult, so it is rewarding when you can actually win.  Teamwork and discussion is mandatory, and sometimes even the best strategy is simply destined to fail.  Players have to seize every opportunity they can in order to have a chance at winning.  Everything is pretty straightforward and very linear, so it isn’t hard to learn, as long as you are willing to play through the first time knowing that one personwill have their nose buried in the rules figuring things out.  You could also play with someone who already knows the game.

I don’t have much to say about this game, besides that you should play it for yourself; that is a positive endorsement by the way.  Remember that I do endorse this game, because there are a few issues that I do have to point out.  The first is that this game is pretty static, and once you’ve beaten it, that’s it.  There are multiple difficulty levels, but like I said before, it’s extremely linear, so it is pretty much the same game every time.   The second issue is that there are a bunch of little nuances in the rules, and they’re important.  The worst part is that they are scattered all throughout the giant tome they give as the rules.  The rules aren’t very orderly and I’m still not sure I know every little detail there is to know; for example, we didn't know that the ring-bearer draws two cards at the end of every conflict (remember that, that’s important for winning, and lots of people miss that).  My third problem is the same participation problem that plagues Pandemic; it’s easy for a quiet person to sit back and think that everyone else is handling the game.  But then again, maybe communication is one of the skills you can attribute to “being good” at this game.

It doesn’t seem like I said many good things about this game.  But don’t be fooled, I really like this game and I think it’s worthy of anyone’s collection, especially those Tolkien fans (the game is based on the events in the books, not the movies).  As far as I know, it is the father of contemporary cooperative board games.  Also it was designed by Reiner Knizia, who is one of the most well-known and reputable game designers out there.  I give this game a 9.23/13, or a 7.1/10, and that means that I like this game just a smidge more than Pandemic.  So if you’re a savvy board gamer, try this, then try Pandemic.