A Purchase Decision - Mascarade

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Mascarade

Mascarade is designed by Bruno Faidutti who is best known for his work on Citadels.

He has also designed many other games such as Isla Dorada, Pony Express, and Mission Red Planet.

Mascarade is a bluffing & deduction game with multiple roles in the same vein as Coup.

Game Info

Mascarade plays 2-13 players

Published playing time is 30mins
Mechanics – Bluffing / Deduction / Variable Player Powers

Legends of Andor: OMG tis hard to protect the kingdom!

So after reading around I decided to give in the hype and bought another coop game, Legends of Andor and give it a go. I managed to get my usual gaming group (who usually dislike coops) to give it a go as well! How did it go?

Castles of Burgundy : Why am I not getting this hmm...

Hmm i think I am doing something wrong somewhere...

So after quite a long while of not playing the actual boardgame (I have been playing it online), Jon brought his copy over and we played a 4 player game of Castles. I am not sure why but I am just not getting it. I thought I was doing pretty well with the game but halfway through I was last on the scoreboard yet my board is mostly full. We played with the championship board and Jon mentioned its pretty tough but with all my early 10 point scorings for completing the smaller areas, I still end up dead last! Perhaps I was not efficient enough because I did not go for the green castles which gave extra action (most of my opponents all had at least 3). Perhaps I did not invest in the animals abit more (Jean who played it the first time broke 200 and had a lot of pigs which we did not block and gave her like 8+ points each time she placed a farm). Or perhaps I did not invest in the end game scoring like what Jon did which gave him the win (he had 3). I did have some nice end game scoring but perhaps I wasn't using the buildings enough to give me the combos I wanted. I did snatch the grey 7 pointer scoring tile from Jillian who was also eying it but in the end I was dead last.

BLAH.... time to play online again to practise! :P

Witch's Brew Review

  

Designer: Andreas Pelikan

No. of Players: 3-5 ( 3-6 with Alea Treasure Chest Expansion )

Playing Time: 45-60mins

Mechanics: Role Selection / Deduction / Hand Management

A Purchase Decision - Castle Dice

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Castle Dice

Castle Dice is designed by Luke Peterschmidt and was successfully funded via Kickstarter sometime late last year.

It has recently been released and is available for sale directly from Fun to 11’s website.

Game Info

Castle Dice plays 1-4 players

Published playing time is 45mins
Mechanics – Dice Drafting / Set Collection / Resource Management

Neue Heimat : Shoebox of a game. Literally...

Lots of sabotaging...

I first played this game very early on when I was heading to Meetups to meet new people and learn about this wonderful world of modern boardgaming. I believe I did not know what I was doing then and I was quite out of my league. Can't remember the scores then but I am pretty sure I sucked :P

Crude: What another bingo?

So many pieces!!

Well, heard a lot, wanted to try, finally got to try. Did not complete the game though because it kinda got long and repetitious and the owner of the game had to leave. We weren't sad to see the game go so we could play something else.
Now its not a bad game per say and I can certainly see the draw of the game. When the right die hit, I will raise my arms and yell "BINGO!" much like when I play Augustus. What you do during your turn is rather straight forward too: Sell if your petrol kiosks are hit, refine, pump oil, convert to pumps and buy or sell new equipment. I think the majority of the decision will be whether to sell or what to buy.
After that, just rinse and repeat until someone wins. The other highlight is also when the market changes and the players has to roll the green die to determine which market it changes to. Because of the nature of the game, you kinda welcome these random events (the actual events + die rolls + market changes) so exaggerate it to make the game more fun. Otherwise the rest are kinda auto-pilot in a way. Its not a bad game but I think it can get too long and repetitious for its own good. Try before you buy!

London: This is not Tammany hall!

Omg even though I lost (Because of my loan) its still fun!

I had started to like Martin Wallace games since I played Brass recently and then gotten myself a copy. So i was looking for other games of his to try and London has been on and off my radar for a while. On because its rated highly in BGG (yes I am a sucker for ratings) and off because well the components looked crappy. Dion brought over his limited edition copy (which I think is rather hard to get nowadays) and I am glad to have a play of it.

Smash Up : Mess up

I was the wizards and Gnomes....they don't mix well..

Finally played my first game of Smash Up. I had started one some time ago but did not continue so I was eager to see what all the hype is about. I won't go into details of the rules because you can see a lot of them from BGG. I randomly chose the wizards + magical creatures decks. My opponents had zombie+ghost, martian + robots and ninja + plants. In the end, the player with the ninja + plants won. The game is pretty straight forward to play and understand. There is a fair bit of reading because of the text on the cards and the bases but its nothing too difficult. There are quite a few bits of combos that you have to understand and being first time players that can be hard to grasp especially since you probably won't know what your decks entail. We also played with 4 which I don't think is the optimal number of players for the game as it may cause the game to drag on quite a bit. This game requires quite a fair bit of guarding otherwise potentially there could be a runaway leader concept.
To me, the base scoring mechanism most reminds me of Blood Bowl team manager but I prefer blood bowl because even with 4 it doesn't feel that draggy. We could possibly play with less points to win though. All in all, it was an average game for me but I won't mind playing it again with less players. I heard its really good with 2 so lets see. Try before you buy.

A Purchase Decision - Bruges

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Bruges

Bruges is designed by Stefan Feld and is his third game released in 2013.

Bruges was nominated as one of the three entries for the title of 2013 Spiel des Jahres Kennerspiel des Jahres.( But it did not Win )

Game Info

Bruges plays 2-4 players

Published playing time is 60mins
Mechanics – Hand Management / I Kinda Really Want to Do Everything Yo

Homesteaders: I always don't seem to know what I am doing...

glad I managed to bring this out again...

Whenever I bring this game out to play, I always always admire the awesome components. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I look at the nice cow-eeples, the apple-eeples and all that jazz and I feel that this game is so worth the money. However when I am playing the game I always feel I don't really have a good grasp of what this game is about or when my engine is just about ready the game has ended. Worse is the auction portion which I often overbid.

Fix'it for Dummies - Trajan

The second entry for Fix'it for Dummies is...

Western Town : Oddly named game but surprisingly fun

interesting game play. Would like to try it again...

I have never heard about this game when Roy brought it out and I was surprised to notice that it was released in 2012. Totally under my radar and I scour BGG quite regularly lol... Roy had played it a few times and a few in my group liked it so I was interested to give it a go.

Notre Dame: Another Feld game knocked out of the park!

Interesting maps and scalability no ?

On the quest to finish playing all the Feld games Jon brought over Notre Dame yesterday and we played a 3 player game of it. Won't go into too much details about the rules because its not a new game but I'll share my session impressions on it.

Witches' Brew : I am, you are? So be it...

Played with 6! Woohoo.. lotsa screwage..

I first played this game over at my friend's Eric's place when Jon brought it over and I was quite intrigued by it with all the chants of "I am......." and then other players going "no, I AM....." and all the screwage involved. When we had 6 players yesterday, Jon brought his copy over (I only have the german copy) and we managed to play it together with the amulet expansion which allows the 1st player to veto subsequent players' claims of "I am..." to continue to being that character.

Indonesia: Glad i played this holy grail game....

wow took us 3+ hours...

One of the holy grail games and something I have been wanting to try just to see what its like. So when Bill came over, I asked him to bring it and we managed a 5 player game just after dinner. It took us almost 4 hours to learn and then play the game. I must say all the explaining that Bill did was very helpful because we could launch into the game quite quickly with out any issues.

Push Ur Luck Podcast Episode 13: Play to Win or Play for fun?

Our latest episode is now live! You can get it directly here http://s3.amazonaws.com/PushUrLuckPodcast/PULP+Ep+13.mp3 or via iTunes.

As usual, leave your comments here or any questions you may want us to address in future episodes!
Thanks for listening!

In the Year of the Dragon: Oh the pain and the agony!

I just want to do EVERYTHING.....but i can't. 

So on track to play all other Stefan Feld games in 2013 (when i started to realise I like his games this year :P ), I was eager to try out In the Year of the Dragon and Jon brought his copy over to try out.
I won't go over the details because this is not a new game but I will share my thoughts on it.

Firenze : Come build some blocks with me

All these nice building blocks!

When I saw the art and of course the multitude of building blocks, I was intrigued and hooked. Luckily there was the paste-ups available for the cards which allowed me to pull the trigger and get myself the german copy. The english version was not yet released when I bought the game so I settled for the only german copy available. After setup and all, we were ready for our first game!

Quarantine : Theme hospital it is not

I made them wait for too long....

Now like any good gamer, we have played our share of "Theme" games, like Theme Park, Theme hospital for example and when I saw Quarantine being released, it reminded me of Theme Hospital which I enjoyed. Trying to manage my own hospital, taking care of the patients and researching new technology was quite fun for me especially when the patients reacted with all these funny animation. How does Quarantine feel compared to this?

Guildhall: Job Fair. Taxcollector is so realistic ;p

Tax Collector is so powerful!

So the new standalone expansion for Guildhall is out and while I have the base game and do enjoy it (though I won't play it with more than 3), I was eager to try this out to see if its a must buy for me.
Essentially its the same game but with new professions to try out. It feels that the standalone has a different feel to the game. There is a lot of screwage still and that is quite prevalent in our game with a lot of cards switching guildhalls. The tax collector also seems to be pretty powerful and thus requires other players to ensure that it is not abused too much which brings to another point that players cannot afford to ignore what opponents are doing otherwise they can win pretty handily. Not sure if Tax collector is overpowered but with more plays I will be able to determine that. So far it seems that its a profession not to be ignored.
We played with 3 and it did take longer than I expected (maybe 45 mins or so?). I did try to go by tax collector route and grabbed the early few points lead but closed off my tax collectors too early. Then there was a lot of switching of cards around and the discard pile is now even more important because of the Hunter card. Nearer the end though, Jillian managed to have 3 collected sets and with the tax collector as the 4th set, she pretty much had the game in hand. I tried to stop it by robbing her card but she peddled it away from me during her turn.
Not a bad game but jus tlike the base game, it may not be for everyone. Try before you buy!

Guilds of Cadwallon: Is that it?

I did not do very well....

New game that Roy brought along to our gaming night. We have never played the other game this is based on (City of Cadwallon I think) as none of us have it so I was interested to see what this game provides.

Wrong Foot out of the Gates – Incorrect Rules Explanations

I recently taught ( on hindsight, more like, attempted to teach ) Eric and 3 others how to play Stefan Feld’s “In the Year of the Dragon”. Early on in the game ( after the first round ), we discovered that I left out 1 or 2 important details. Not too bad I guess, the game went on smoothly after that. It’s great that we caught it after the first round out of twelve rounds.

But to my horror, when I went through the rules the day after, I realized that I had gotten 2 or 3 more rules incorrect. Bummer. Big time bummer. Small mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless. It irritates me a lot, and that’s what I deserve when I haven’t touched the game for awhile and when I didn’t come prepared.

This brings me to a topic I thought I would like to write about – Incorrect Rules Explanations.

Frank's Ark: Thematic rules but tricky to master

So shy animals cannot be placed here....

I requested Tina to bring her game to office so that I could give it a go. Usually its me bringing my games and this time I wanted to play something I don't have and new to me.

Through the Ages : Simple game mode

Simple game mode. Its been some time...

Its been quite some time since I owned a copy of Through the Ages, played it once before I let it go because it wasn't going to see a lot of gaming time. That was when I was still transiting to being a heavy euro gamer. So I was eager to give it another go again just to see how my tastes have changed, if any. Now I have played this a couple of times since then online and let me say that playing online is way way faster especially when both players (mostly played with 2 online) are online at the same time. Things get resolved pretty quickly and there's not a lot of pushing discs around.
We played the simple game because we were expecting more of our friends to turn up and let me say that I much prefer the longer game. There is war and agression to be had and that makes up half the fun of Through the Ages I must say. The simple game seems to be an introduction to the game and will serve its purpose as a warm up to the actual longer game. Will I still want to own a copy? Not anymore I am afraid. Nowadays quite a lot of the longer civilisation games comes with a little bit more bling (plastic pieces) that enhances the experience and doesn't feel as dry. Through the Ages is essentially a card game with a lot of little discs. Its elegant and clean but I crave just that little bit more jazz to my games nowadays. I won't say no to playing the full game though but I think I will prefer playing it online than in person. With 2 I will be fine, with more it will be a bit more challenging. Try before you buy.

Goblins Drool Fairies Rule : All that rhyming lol

Nice art, excessive rhyming.. 

Jason's kickstarter copy arrived and I was surprised he backed this because he's usually a heavy euro gamer. He mentioned that he got it because of the art and looking at the game I can certainly see the art is pretty cool. How does it play though?