Looking Back at 2018 - The Best and Worst Games I Played

Hey hey I'm back. What's that you say? 6 months no posting? Dropped off in the middle of a "week of reviews"? I certainly have no idea what you are talking about...

With 2018 over and 2019 rolling in fast I thought I would give my thoughts on the some of best game and those that were disappointing that I played last year.

Let's start with the disappointments so we can end the article on a high note ok?

First up is Charterstone. I wrote a big old article about it earlier in 2018 and my thoughts on it still stand (though I know I am in the minority). It's an okayish worker placement game with legacy elements that ask players to make a lot of important decisions with no information, basically resulting in a haphazard series of random events. 

At it's core I like the basic mechanics of Charterstone and wish that they had doubled down on that to make it an interesting worker placement game instead of a unsatisfying legacy game.

The other disappointment was Keyforge. I was really looking forwards to this game as I like the core mechanics of a lot of 2 player vs style card games but have little desire for deck building (though I do love Dominion and similar ilk, wha???). 

Unfortunately after playing a fair amount (20ish games) of Keyforge, the game has some drawbacks that just make me not want to play it anymore. The first being that the random deck concept, while alluring, is quite bunk. Very few decks seems to work in a satisfying way, and balance issues are all over the place. The second thing is the cards themselves, both the theme of smashing together all these genres (remind me too much of Smash Up, ewww) and the actual abilities of the cards themselves feels like a bad Magic the Gathering fan set rather than a professional set of cards. They do nothing but make the game cumbersome to play with too many modifiers and having to fuss around with so much number wang every turn. This makes the games take about 50% longer than I feel they should for a game of this depth.

It's a bummer because I really like the core rules of the game, decks are made of three factions, each turn you can act with just 1 of them, gather aether or attack, cash in the aether for keys in order to win. Simple and easy to understand. Then they messed it up with poorly thought out overly complicated cards. 

Also the rule book sucks and is incomplete. 

Okay with that over with how about we pivot 180 degrees and talked about some awesome game?

The first one is a game I have been playing all year (and now into 2019) and that is Fabled Fruits. I wrote about it back in March and now with a lot more plays this filler slash legacy game continues to be good fun. Each game mixes up new cards with those from previous games, keeping it fresh but without making it complicated. 

There is a lot of cleverness in the rather simple concept of Fabled Fruits and I look forwards to playing more of it. 

A lot has been written and discussed about Gloomhaven in the years since the first edition came out. It is a huge semi-rpg, semi-dungeon crawler with random events, legacy and campaign elements, a long story and so many missions and content to spare. I could write about it for ages but won't. There is nothing much I can say that hasn't been said by others dozens of times. There is a lot I like about Gloomhaven and getting together with 3 other players every few weeks as out Guardians of Gloomhaven work though the volumes of content is very much enjoyable. That's not to say there are a few things that think could have been better and a couple of things that just "feel wrong" about the mechanics, but it's mostly small niggles that after the more than a dozen games we've played in 2018 I've gotten over.  For such a big beasty of a game that could have fallen apart in so many places Gloomhaven keeps it all together in a huge well developed package that will continue to be great for  years (probably) to come.

Swinging back to games in smaller boxes Azul really surprised me. This game is so simple, pick and place colored tiles to score points, but being that so much of the game hinges on what other players are doing, every time it's nail biting push your luck oppertunity based darings.

Also it's just so damn pretty, definetly one of the best looking games I played in 2018. It plays great regardless of player count and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Azul is a game that I think will stick around as a mainstay in the games I want to play.

Back to a game that I've written about before my forth choice is Merlin. I'm always down for some Stefan Felf and Merlin does not disappoint. There is lots to do with many choices every turn and paths to victory every game. I think it looks good and plays smooth. 

The long setup time is about my only issue and I've got a load of games I enjoy that suffer from that (coff coff Gloomhaven). When I want to ride the points pizza train Feld is always there for me and Merlin is a great entry on that menu.

I've played the entire North Sea trilogy and Raiders of the North Sea is the one that really pops for me. I wrote about it back in the summer and my feelings on it still stand, the clever worker placement, the resource balance and over all race to raid aspect all are great. 

Raiders looks good, plays good and feels good. I've given the newest entry, Architects of the Western Kingdom, a couple of plays and it's also  quite good but I want to play more before I give a final verdict.

That wraps up my top five games of 2018, there are a few more that I enjoyed that didn't quite make it like Dinosaur Island, Altiplano and Rajas of the Ganges. Most of which I just want to get more plays in before passing a verdict.

The future of the blog here will be a once a month post just talking about what I played in the previous month so I hope that's enough for now :) Still working on a possible podcast idea, either solo or with guests. Have to wait and see. Thanks for reading and see you in a month!

A Week of Games, Day 3 - Mystery of the Temples and Unearth

Today I've got some thoughts on two lighter games.

MYSTERY OF THE TEMPLES

Full disclosure, I backed the Mystery of the Temples kickstarter and received my copy of the game via that kickstarter.

Designer Wei-Min Ling has quite a few games under his belt and though I haven't played any of them before I have read good things. The kickstarter for Mystery of the Temples was simple, the right price and looked interesting so I backed it.

The basics of the game involve players moving back and forth between two sets of cards that are arranged in a circle. Some cards get you crystals and/or otherwise allow you to effect your crystals, the other cards allow you to spend them for points in a first-come-first-served system. You can't stop where another player is sitting, so there is a blocking element as well as a race to spend your crystals on the right cards for points.

The second system involves how you place your crystals on your player board in order to spend them. Each crystal has to go on an empty space and when spending them you must be able to trace a line through all the crystals you want to spend in the correct order. Planning this out correctly is very important to avoid wasting moves. The game ends once a player has cashed in four sets of crystals. The winner is the player who got the most points via crystals and what ever the bonus points (random selection at game start) they have earned. All in all sounds like a light weight game with some interesting decisions.

Unfortunately Mystery of the Temples just felt kind of flat. The blocking aspect didn't seem to do anything but extend the game via passive aggressive moves. The main game of racing out the points seemed off due to the number of points earned by how many crystals you cash in, with the lowest not worth it and the highest taking to many actions to get. There are interesting choices but overall it just seemed a bit, well boring. I do want to give it another go, but my expectations are tempered.

UNEARTH

Much like Mystery of the Temples the art of Unearth is what initially caught my eye. Holey heck it looked pretty, but I was not about to be fooled a...well I have lost count now on how many times I have been fooled by a pretty game. But after seeing a play through and reading the rules I was fairly confident I would like Unearth.

The core of the game is dice placement and set collection. Each turn you roll and place a die on one of the available Ruin cards, hoping to collect it for scoring. There are a number of different dice, a D4, three D6's and one D8, each serving somewhat of a different purpose. Each card has a value on it, that when the total value of the dice on the card placed by players equals or exceeds will resolve the Ruin card, giving it to the player with the highest die result, ties broken by any additional dice the players have on the card. Each other player with dice on the Ruin when it is awarded get them Delver cards which are one off special actions that they can spend on their turn to change dice in various ways. When placing a die on a Ruin if the result is 1,2 or 3 you can take one of the hex Stones on it and add it to you ever growing tableau. When you have enough Stones to make a ring you are award a bonus Monument to place in the middle.

So what does this all get you? Well each Ruin is one of five colors, at the end of the game you are awarded cumulatively more points depending on how many of a color collected. You can also score points for having one of each color. The Stones collected can earn you points based on the Monuments you have earned. This gives you two paths to work towards at all times, both being important, but also you are at the mercy of the dice, low rolls won't get you many Ruins but the Stones add up and they will earn you Delver cards that can make a huge difference towards getting the Ruins you want later.

The components are great quality and its one of the few games I have where the insert is actually functional. Unearth plays smoothly and I find it to be quite satisfying on top of just looking good. If you are looking for a quick playing dice game with enough choices to keep it interesting I definitely recommend Unearth.

A Week of Games, Day 2 - Roll for the Galaxy

ROLL FOR THE GALAXY

Back in 2007 a little game called Race for the Galaxy came out and became very popular. I enjoy it very much and have played many hundreds of games of it over the years.

Seven years and many expansions later the die based version came out, Roll for the Galaxy. I often find my self liking the smaller quicker "dice" based version of games that come out, sometimes as much as the original. Roll for the Galaxy is no different. Roll takes the core principles of Race, building a tableau, gaining new abilities, picking actions and trying to score the most points the quickest but rather than having it all card based the mechanics are moved to dice. Each player getting a ever expanding pool of dice they roll each round to perform actions. The more dice allocated to an action the stronger it is, but you can only guarantee one of the action types per turn (chosen in secret), while hoping the other players pick the others you want to do as well.

Where Roll really shines is the speed of which it is played, rolling dice, allocating and using the dice are all more or less done simultaneously, meaning a 4 or 5 player game moves along at a quick race, er pace, actually feeling more like a race than the original game. The mechanics are smooth and it's easy to keep track of what both you are doing and the other players accomplishments.

I think Roll for the Galaxy does a great job of capturing the feel of the original, with it's own twist, being a lighter, quicker easier to learn game. I give it top marks and enjoy it a whole lot.

(There is also an expansion, Ambition, which adds more dice colors and objectives, both enhancing the core game without over complicating it.)

A Week of Games, Day 1 - Sagrada

Once again I let this sit a few weeks longer than I meant to, but that just means I've got more to write about I guess. In fact there will be a game "review" each day this week rather than just the big Sunday drop.

SAGRADA

The vivid colors of Sagrada initially drew my attention to this game. Pretty colored dice, nice components with simple and clean rules guiding you into a light weight game. How can you lose? Well...

Sagrada is a game about picking dice and placing them into certain slots on your player board. At the start of each round random dice are picked from a bag and rolled, then one by on each player picks and places 1 die, then back around for a second die. You are attempting to fill in your specific stained glass window. There are rules to dice placement of course, dice of the same color or number cannot be next to each other and certain spots on your board will only accept certain colors or numbers. The strategy to get what you need and place it without blocking yourself off down the road is quite good. There are random objectives to score points at the end of the game, based on various factors such as having rows of all unique colors or fully completed columns, ect. A handful of special abilities that you can use once or twice during a game (such as moving dice) are also available.

All in all Sagrada sets itself up to be a light but clever game involving dice, right in my wheelhouse. But after a half a dozen plays I am left unsatisfied with how it all works out. The random dice out of the bag can really do you in by no fault of your own, if the colors or results you need don't come up...well you are out of luck as there is very little to no recourse to mitigate this. If the dice you need are not available then you can't place and even if you can you may not be able to work towards the point giving goals. I do like the picking of dice and core mechanics of working towards filling your window, but each time the game I have played has been won by a significant margin based purely on the luck of people fulfilling their personal secret goal. This goal gets you 1 point per result on dice of a specific color and each it has been the decided far above any of the public goals. It kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you lose and couldn't have done anything about it, even in a lighter game such as this.

Ultimately I think Sagrada asks you to make interesting decision during the course of play, but then doesn't actually reward you for doing so at the end.

Back tomorrow with another dice game...

Summertime, Vikings and Alpacas

Oops this got a bit derelict didn't it? From once a week to nothing for three months. Wow. Well I am back and have changed up the format a bit (similar to my other blog A2Steam) and will be doing smaller write ups on specific games and bunching them together every few weeks.

Also noticed some new followers on the Facebook site, welcome, hope you like what you read. 

RAIDERS OF THE NORTH SEA

The first of a trio of similarly themed games where players partake in the Viking Age. I've given this one a number of plays now and it is very good. At its core Raiders is a worker placement game, each turn you place a worker and perform an action and then you pick up a worker, performing that action. These must be different actions and the workers don't belong to any single player, so you could be picking up workers another player has put down in a previous turn. There are also three tiers of worker - some being better/worse at certain actions, some action being exclusive to a particular tier.

Actions such as getting supplies, gold and hiring crew are all in service of going out and raiding. Once you think you are reads you take a "double" action (uses up both of your actions for the turn) to raid an outpost. This will use up a worker permanently but in return gives you resources and usually access to a higher tier worker. These resources can be turned in for point (raiding also get you points), armor and gold (to hire more crew). Sometime raiding will lead to the death of some of your crew, that also get you points. The game ends when a certain amount of top tier outposts have been raided.

A lot of Raiders is about pushing to get the good stuff first without over reaching and loosing too much. The outposts are first come first serve so you can't dawdle, but the pace will be set by other players so if the other players are taking their time that gives you some breathing room. Raiders scales well (2-4 players) and moves quickly.

I've really enjoyed this one. From simplicity of rules to interesting decisions, without being a brain burn. Raiders also looks good too with the components being top notch and lovely art. 

SHIPWRIGHTS OF THE NORTH SEA



This is the second of the three games in what I am going to call the North Sea Trilogy and Shipwrights is for sure a different game from Raiders. Unlike the worker placement and resource management of Raiders, this one is mostly card based. 

Each round players draft cards, then play them as craftsmen or use them as one off actions, then they get their gold and workers for the next day with the goal to have the most points when someone has built their fourth ship (ending the game). Easier to build ships are worth less points but you could attempt to race out the game vs those who are building bigger ships. There is also a lot of "take that" game play in the action cards - though none of it feels harsh, more like player created obstacles for you to overcome.

Just like Raiders, the components are top quality and it all looks very nice. Turns go by quickly and it the pressure to get what you need and build it first feels good. It is a much lighter game than Raiders but it fills it's own niche in this trilogy.

I have to make a note that we did play the game wrong - which lead to it taking longer than it should have to play because we we hoarding craftsmen cards. I am looking forwards to playing it correctly...oops.


EXPLORERS OF THE NORTH SEA

The final game in this trilogy really reminds me of Akrotiri but expanded out for more players. In Explorers you are sending out your boat and vikings to explore new lands, gather animals, build outposts and raid settlements.

The basic loop of game play involves a player placing a hex (with ocean and islands on it) on the board, connecting it to previous placed hexes. Then they take actions such as moving their ship, loading and unloading animals and vikings, building outposts, raiding settlements, bringing animals back to the mainland for points and having battles with ships. Most of the actions you take earn you points and doing them in certain ways earns cumulatively more. There is a race between the players to get what they need from the islands and each player also has unique conditions that will earn them extra points when the game is over, which happens when the last hex is placed, so everyone can see the timer ticking down.

It seems the most random of the three games as you don't have any control over where other players put their hexes and you often can't place the ones you have exactly where you want them as they have to match sea to sea and land to land. Combined with the random content of the hexes you do the best you can and try no to make it easy for your opponents and no to hard for yourself.

Explorers of the North Sea moves quickly and the race to get what you want adds pressure but the randomness keeps it somewhat casual. I quite enjoyed it and am looking forwards to additional plays.
ALITPLANO

I am a big fan of Orléans and when another game by Reiner Stockhausen was announced I got very excited. It turned out to be immediately very popular and it took a bit to get a copy but I am glad I did.

In Altiplano you are working a mechanic similar to Orléans, acquiring tokens, putting them in a bag to draw at random and use for various actions. The big difference in Altiplano is not just how they get used but the much more temporary relationship you have with them. In  Orléans they form an every recycling source of "action fuel", in Altiplano they come and go much easier and that's the hook. You are moving around a series of plateaus, each with their own actions on them. You first act is to make sure you can get to where you want to spend the token you have placed onto your planning board. Some of the actions just require to you place the spend tokens into your discard basket, which you cycle back once your draw bag is empty. The rest of the time you are permanently spending these tokens either turning them into better tokens or placing them into your warehouse, which is the meat of the scoring.

Each player has a warehouse to store the various goods in. But how and where you can place and stack goods has a particular set of restrictions that keep you hopping. You want to fill whole rows for points but you can't start a second row of a goods type till you have finished partially full ones. You consistently juggle how long to hold onto goods to use for actions or when to store them away forever. And all the good are in limited quantities, so first come first serve puts pressure on those players competing in similar goods.

Initially Altiplano can seem daunting with a lot of actions on your planning board, more actions on the plateaus and even more actions can be purchased as attachments but as you are restricted to work with what you draw it becomes more clear. Place and plan the best you can for the current turn and que up actions for later turns. 

I initially was worried that Orléans and Altiplano would be too similar, but they are much different beasts once you see how they play out. I really like Altiplano, though it is unlikely replace Orléans as one of my more favorite games in recent years, it stands tall on its own and is a great example of how a similar mechanic can be used to create a completely different feel.

JAIPUR

Jaipur is a lovely little award winning two player that was introduced to me a number of years ago and once I was able to get a copy has seen a good amount of play.

In Jaipur each player is attempting to score points via card set collection. There is a market of five colored goods cards in the middle of the table and on you turn you can either take 1 goods card and refresh from the deck, take as many goods cards as want, trading equal amount from your hand or take all the camels in the market, placing them in from of you. Instead of trading goods cards you can spend any number of camels and take that many goods cards, replacing them with camels. Finally instead of working the market you can instead discard a number of same colored goods from your hand to claim one of the same colored score markers. These markers are limited, with the ones worth more points harder to get and fewer in number. You claim the markers with just a few cards but the more you spend the higher the bonus you get. The game ends once a certain amount of score marker piles are empty so the race is on.

Jaipur does it's job very well. The pacing between players of what cards to take, what to trade, camel use and when to cash in for points is great. A combination of pushing your luck and outguessing your opponent. It plays quick and is designed for a best two-out-of-three setup so even if the first game goes bad for you there is time to recover. I well recommend it if you are looking for fast paced two player game with great back and forth. Also now that it seems to be regularly back in print it's not a pain to get.

*****

Well that's it for this month, I will be back at the end of August with five more games. Thanks for reading and I hope you found something you like.

The Networks

THE NETWORKS

When I am not playing board games or video games I watch a decent amount of TV. Not random but specific shows that I like season after season. I am the kind of viewer that the TV executives in The Networks would want. Although to be fair they want any and all the viewers.

In The Networks each players is in charge of a TV network and over the course of the 5 season game they will decide the programming for the all important evening line up. It's all about getting the right shows, the best actors and that sweet ad revenue to get you the most viewers (victory points).

Each round of The Networks is a season. In turn order players will pick from a variety of available TV shows, actors, ads and special action cards. Each turn you get a single action, with play being continuous until everyone drops out. You have to balance your money (actors and shows cost you money) with your income (from ads and a bonus, higher the earlier you drop out in around). Each TV show has a preferred time slot that will bring it the best viewers and as the seasons go by the number of views fluctuate. You can bolster a show by adding a star or two (if it allows), but they cost you more money. Maybe attach an ad to offset these costs? Or pick a special action card to give you a specific bonus when you most need it. It might just be time to put a show into reruns and make room for something new. 

There is a lot I like about The Networks. The core loop of mechanics, balancing your money to get the most viewers out of your expenditures versus the timing of when to pick a card before someone else gets it feels really great. There is a lot of open information in the game but because you only get a single action every time you do something you are putting of another opportunity that may not be around when it comes back to your turn. It is a good combination of resource management and pushing your luck. I do have an issue with going last on the first round in 4/5 player games as even though you get more money the number of opportunities is small enough you can end up a good 10 or more points behind that you have to hope you can make up in later rounds.

I also enjoy the art and style of the game. Each of the shows have a humorous name that is a pun or parody on an actual existing show from the last decade or so (some older more well know shows too). The actors all have generic descriptions but between that and the art you have a good idea of who they are parodying. Along with the card art it adds a nice bit of mirth to the game.

The Networks was a game that I bought almost entirely on hearing about its concept but like a new TV show I am happy to have tuned in.

Golf

GOLF

Okay this week I've got something for anyone who has a deck or two of standard playing cards sitting around - Golf!

You will need a deck of cards for every 2 players, the full 52 + 2 jokers. Shuffle them and hand out 8 to each player. They don't get to look at them but place them face down in two rows of 4. Then each player flips 2 cards over and the game begins.

On your turn you either take the top card from the deck or the discard pile. If you draw from the deck you can either choose to keep it, swapping out one of your cards (face down or up) or discard it and then flipping over any 1 of your face down cards. If you draw from the discard you must swap out a card. Once you only have a single face down card left (the rest are face up) you no longer have to flip when drawing from the top of the deck, you can choose just to discard the drawn card. As soon as someone has flipped all their cards each other player gets 1 more turn and the round is over.

Your score is the total value of all your cards with some differences. Kings are zero, Jokers are -2 points. Aces are 1 but Jacks and Queens are 10. If you have a matching pair in a column they cancel out and score zero (except for Jokers). If you have 4 matching cards in 2 adjacent columns each other player scores 20 points. Just like real golf you want a low score so making pairs, getting Kings and swapping out those high cards is a must. After 9 rounds who ever has the lowest score wins.

Golf has a lot of variants, from the number of cards you start with, to how they score - it's a game that everyone has their own preferred home rules (even the above rules description is just how I personally learned to play). Mix and match to your liking. 

I really like Golf. It has lots of good decision making in it, despite the luck of the draw factor. Do I keep this card? Should I push my luck for pairs? Discarding this card is really good for the next player, what should I do? Should I flip my cards fast to put pressure on the other players? It won't burn your brain and sometimes you are the the mercy of chance but I think it is a great card game to wind down an evening with.

Fabled Fruit

FABLED FRUIT

So last week I reviewed Charterstone, a beefy legacy game full of all the typical things you would expect from a story telling campaign worker placement game, this week I am going to talk about a different kind of legacy game, Fabled Fruit.

A box of cards, that is what Fabled Fruit is at first glace. There are 2 decks of cards and some really nice wooden animal meeples. Your first game of Fable Fruit has you setting up a small selection of action cards (4 of each) in piles and dealing some fruit cards from a separate deck. Each turn  a player takes their animal and places it on an action card and either does the action or buys the card with fruit from their hand. Bought action cards are flipped and placed face down as fruit juice for that player, get enough and you win. 

The real interesting part comes is when after a card is bough a new card from the action pile comes out. There will be four of this cards so the first four purchases will bring out a whole new action pile. Once a player has enough fruit juices to win the game shows it's big trick. You don't put everything back the way it was, any cards that became fruit juice are removed from all future games in this play through. The actions cards in the center of the table at the end of a game is the set up for the next game. So in a legacy "light" move each game picks up from where the last left off. 

A game of Fabled Fruit only takes about 20 to 30 minutes to play and moves along a good pace. With the ever cycling set of action cards there is always something new to be doing. The action cards are numbered so that they come out in a specific order but as this our first play through each new card is a surprise and each time a pile of action cards that we have been relying on goes away we lament.

So much of the strategy to winning a game of Fabled Fruit is timing. Getting the right fruits, getting additional fruit, taking fruits from players, not having to pay out extra fruits (for going on an action that another player is on) and being able to get the fruit juice you've been saving for before someone else does is all part of it. 

I have only played about 8 games in our current play through and have gotten between a third and half way through the action card deck and am very impressed with the balance of how as cards and particular actions leave play the new ones change up the game play. We have had a few early cards stick around for some time as if some silent agreement between the players on their overall usefulness stopped us from buying them.

Unlike other legacy games Fabled Fruits has two big differences, first off it supports drop in and out play from game to game and even the number of players can vary second once you have finished the "campaign" of games you can just reset the game for another run through as no components are permanently removed or destroyed. 

While there might not be many components in a box of Fabled Fruit what is there is quality. The cards and animal meeples are very well done. The cards have unique animal art on all 60+ sets. The colors are bright and pop. The rules are light enough that it would easily work as a family game but interaction keeps a more experienced gamer like myself more than just entertained.

Fabled Fruit is actually a bit of a strange duck. It's light enough and flexible enough that the buy in effort is low, but the engagement and discovery level are much higher. You won't burn your brain but interactive tension is there. I like it a lot and am looking forwards to seeing what new actions are revealed and how they spice up the game in future plays.

Charterstone

CHARTERSTONE

I am a fan of Mr.Stegmaier's games, I really like Euphoria and Viticulture is one of my favorite board games period. So when he announced Charterstone, I was quite excited. It was to be a legacy game and I had only played a few games into Risk: Legacy, which while it didn't exactly do it for me I found the concept very cool. So I pre-ordered and waited. Then we spent the first three months of 2018 playing through the 12 game campaign that makes up Charterstone.

*Just a heads up - it is pretty much impossible to talk much about or give any opinion on Charterstone without spoiling due to the nature of the game. I will attempt to keep spoilers to a minimum (thus not too many photos) but be warned - SPOILERS BELOW*

Charterstone is a legacy worker placement game where up to 6 people (we played with 3) build a town over the course of 12 games. All the standard worker placement tropes are present - place a worker, get resources, draw cards, play cards, etc. Spending your resources to play some of the cards is where the legacy part comes in, if you are constructing a building it is a sticker that you peel off the card and put on one of the designated area of the board. As the game goes on these additional buildings allow for more varied actions your workers can take. The left over card is kept by the player and can later be played again (for a different cost) to bring new cards out of a secret box into the game. Doing this and other things get you points, at the end of the game depending on how many points you have earned you get cumulative bonuses towards the next game. Each game will also have special rules and conditions that are set by decisions made in the previous game. At the end of 12 games who ever has done the best overall wins the campaign.

One of the first things I liked about Charterstone is the art and component aesthetic. It is all very nice looking and consistent. From the nearly empty board that is just full of future possibilities at the start to the crowded end game where it looks like a genuine bustling town. The core game mechanics that achieve this are mostly good, how both early games have simple worker mechanics guiding your process to the later games where each decision has more weight. Though I did have an issue with how in the first few games so many new rules and choices are unlocked mid-game that it was at times confusing and easy to forget them while you are still getting used to the core game play.

The game to game progression is a nice mechanic, earning points get you advancements towards additional income at the start of each game and allowing you to carry over more resources, money and cards from one play session to the next. Making this progress directly related to your victory points lead me to be bothered by one of the choices that kept coming up in our games, you either spent a session constructing building and opening new cards OR working towards earning big points to win the game. The effort of doing the former took enough time during a game with minor rewards compared that you didn't have time for the later. The length of a game was unpredictable as it was based on what people did and if a single person was taking actions that progressed the in game timer (which had some neat mechanics associated with it) quicker there was little you could do about it.

Charterstone is the first legacy game I've played to completion and I am not sure I 100% liked the method of "legacy" contained. I will be more clear, I liked it - but I thought it could be better. To often during and at the end of a game, the players are asked to make decisions that have both immediate effects and long term effects without any context as to what those choices mean. You often have to pick between two option in ignorance, which doesn't really make it a choice at all - its random at that point. In the end picking one over the other just locks out content, content that you have no prior knowledge of, thus making the choice is meaningless. I often didn't feel we gained anything special to our particular play through with these choices. I would have much rather had a more narrative strong progression, show me everything and show it to me in a way that makes a good story, rather than a random one.

Because of the somewhat random nature of the cards and game components unlocking as you play we ended up with the last few games actually sputtering a bit in the legacy department. Forced unlocks, dumping tons of components into the game at certain points rather than having the campaign last a few games longer to get them at our own pace or be more carefully designed so this didn't happen in the first place. Of course this was "our play" of the game and because of choices made other campaigns might not see this issue. We also ran into late game issues where buying certain cards got that player nothing other than a few points because the cards that it would normally bring into play from the secret box has already be brought out through other means, but you have no way of knowing this until it's to late. Again a better overall progression pacing would have avoided this.

Charterstone has an interesting end of campaign set up where the game then allows you to play it in its end state as a more standard worker placement game with a board that will be more or less unique to your group. The actual viability of this will probably be all over the place and in our case I don't think the campaign end state of the board would make a good standalone game. Too many random buildings and too many choices were made to suit campaign end conditions and not standalone play.

I feel like I am bagging a bit hard on Charterstone and I know an particular campaign run could be quite different than what I experienced but I really do like what Charterstone brings to the table. The core mechanics are good and the expanded game play options make it an even more full experience. The unevenness in the legacy aspect is what let me down, and even then only slightly over the course of the campaign. I think Charterstone could have been an either amazing set narrative campaign game or just drop the legacy aspect altogether and if it just used all the best parts to make a full game from the get go.

At this time I am not sure if I would buy a recharge pack and play through the campaign again (the board is double sided to allow this). The issues I have with the legacy part of it currently cloud my ability to separate it from the really good parts of the game. In the end playing through the campaign of Charterstone was a great experience with good friends that I just wish had been a little more fulfilling. 

If I had one piece of advice before going into playing Charterstone and something I would do if I did play it again is to use the Automata rules for the non-players to bring it up to the full 6 (if you don't already have 6 human friend to play with). The default rules for what to do with the other non- players are not very satisfying and lead to parts of the game play feeling a bit empty or lackluster. The Automata rules from Jamey's other games are very good and I trust they would fill their rolls here as well.

Ex Libris

EX LIBRIS

Ah libraries, the quiet building where they hide all the books. I first got a chance to play Ex Libris at SHUX last year and immediately thought that it was something special.

Ex Libris is at its core a set collection game. You want to amass a personal library of books, sort them in a particular way and score the most points for your collection. You have a few normal helpers and a single special one with unique abilities to achieve this task. Getting the books and placing them (along with a few other options) is done via placing these helpers on an ever rotating series of locations. Each location has it's own action and varied ways of resolution.

But getting books and placing them is not enough. They need to be placed in alphabetical order, which means there are hard decisions, such as when to skip a letter or when to start a new shelf row (you can have up to 3). Drawing, trading, stealing, moving and swapping books around in a fervor before someone has got enough books in their collection to end the game gives the game a good sense of urgency.

But having a lot of books is again not enough to win on its own. You want books from certain categories, not too many of any one, not too few, just more than anyone else. Make sure you remembered your personal book preference. You don't want banned books. Make sure your shelves are supported and sturdy (rows and columns). And what ever you do don't place them out of alphabetical order. These decisions all tally up on a smartly designed dry erase board for easily seeing who did the best just on their collection.

Ex Libris starts with a solid set of rules and mechanics. Then it adds a ton of lovely extras that give it just that little something special. Each book card has unique and often clever or funny titled books on it. Each special worker is it's own distinct wooden meeple. The art is beautiful and it has one of the nicest boxes I have seen in a while.

I only have two quibbles with Ex Libris, and both are related to the location cards. First the text is far to small and does not stick out enough from the art on the card, making it really difficult to read from any distance. Second the text is abbreviated from the full rules, which while in the back of the rule book, doesn't help during play without having to reference it each time. As players need a decent amount of space to build their collections the first issue can affect everyone as the locations end up deep in the middle of the table and the second issue really bogs down play with new players or anyone not really familiar with each location.

With each play, the random order the locations come out in, the way the book deck gets shuffled and each player's unique special helper means few games of Ex Libris are going to play the same. Easy to understand core rules and well presented scoring reference keeps the game smooth. Ex Libris is quick and clever. I like it a lot and feel it's a great addition to a games collection.

Hmmm...a game about collecting games...