Review – Page 2 – Let's Game More

1-5 Players
Designer: Connie Vogelman
Publisher: Stonemaier Games

Following both the big hit Wingspan, Stonemaier got together again with the designer of the fantastic Apiary to create a follow up based on dragons. Does it take flight or does it fail to scale well?

Gameplay

During 4 rounds, players first spend their coins to take one of three actions. You can play cabe cards to one of your three caves, play dragons on your caves, or explore each location, activating each space up until where you have dragons. At the end of each round players dispute in end of round criteria, like Dragons that are friendly, cave cards played, etc.

Exploring and lots of dragon and cave abilities will have players go around a guild. Most spaces have resources to get, but on top and bottom are spaces where you place a cube to either get a one time ability or end game points

Solo Gameplay

Well, I am a huge fan of Automa Factory, and my absolute favorites are Wingspan and Apiary. Well, to no one’s surprise, the solo mode is just as clean and elegant. With two modes, but basically the Automa focuses on going around the guild mat, and it does do it quite fast. At each brown location, it will either get some cards for endgame points or place a cube on the guild.

Components

Stonemaier went fairly minimalistic. All tokens are cardboard, and there is no fancy card tray or dice tower. What it does offer is a huge deck or unique dragons with gorgeous artwork and a lot more usability. And while Wingspan had factoids on the cards, Wyrmspan left that to a totally unnecessary but just as much awesome book with individual facts for each creature. I don’t mind the lack of storage, specially since expansions will come and all, and I very much appreciate the option to upgrade to premium components separately.

Wyrmspan or Wingspan

Of course this moment would come. Well, how close are they? I’d say 70%. They share the same DNA, but there is enough to differentiate to avoid redundancy.

But which is better? It’s a hard question. On one hand, Wyrmspan comes with a ton of adjustments based on feedback for Wingspan. On the other hand, Wingspan has so many cool expansions that add a lot.

Comparing base to base, it will come down to play style and preference. Wingspan has the idea of diminishing actions with increasingly explosive turns. Wyrmspan breaks down a lot of the habitats explosive capabilities between the exploration, caves and more dragons with played abilities. This means less explosions but more constant bursts.

Wingspan is also the tighter of the two games, being harder to make exactly the plays you need. Wyrmspan is more giving, with a variety of resources always coming your way. Also, Wyrmspan has a bigger interaction with the guild.

Conclusion

If you already have an opinion on Wingspan, the chances of having the same on Wyrmspan are quite big. That being said, for me it was love at first play. Each game I appreciate more the changes Connie Vogelman brought to the system created by Elizabeth Hargrave. It all feels familiar, yet novel. My only criticism is that the solo play felt a bit easier, specially when comparing the top difficulties.

Score: 9.5/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Micro Cosmos

January 30, 2024 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

Designers: Michał Jagodziński and Kamil Langie
Artist: Jarosław Wajs
Publisher: Thistroy Games

Sometimes is good to take a look at not only new games, but ones that flew under people’s radars. I feel like that is the case with Micro Cosmos. I was a big fan of the light but compelling game Thistroy previously releases, Micro City. Is their take on space also good?

Gameplay

On your turn, first you may upgrade your ship, then you must move. After moving, you may at up to two cards with a very interesting system. You have two rows of 3 cards in your cargo, and each cards have colors on the bottom and top. If the color of your location matches the color of the part of the card touching the cargo, you get to activate it. Cards played or used from the bottom row go to the top, ones on top are discarded.

Then you may take one or two actions, depending on your location. You can gather resources, find and settle survivors for more resources and points, add colonies and trading posts that get you points and also increase your terraforming capabilities and get you also points.

Terraforming is the last action, where in each planet you may spend resources to contribute to that planet. Each resource contribute bumps you up in the track for that planet, and when all have been added, it is terraformed. Then each point on the track gets you a vp, and the ones who contributed the most get a bonus. Game ends when either 3 or 4 planets have been terraformed.

Solo Gameplay

Automa has their own dedicated ship and deck. Their turn couldn’t be simpler. Turn a card, do what it says. Resource decisions have just a couple of rules, and it’s mostly doing the same things as you. In my experience, scoring for the Automa has been very close to my own pretty much all games, which feels like a very well tested effort.

Components

I am always curious on how small box games deal with component usage and storage, but this one is quite good. It’s a small but tall box, with a great tray system which makes setting up and tearing down very easy. Symbology is mostly clear and, while it’s not the easiest rulebook to read, I felt it left me with little doubts.

A few minor quibbles, though. First, tokens are obviously small, so it’s a game susceptible to bumps, so be aware if you, like me, are clumsy. Second, a way to keep track of your terraforming rate would be good to avoid counting your colonies and trading posts every time. Finally, the reference card is quite good, but could have a quick description with costs of each action. You get the hang of it easily, but it would have been helpful.

Conclusion

I was expecting a light game like Micro City, but this is a much more involved beast. It’s very much a resource management game, where you spend as quickly as you earn them. It’s also a lightn and ing fast ordeal where every opportunity counts. As far as little box big game goes, there is very little here not to recommend. Micro Cosmos is a game that leaves me impressed after every game.

Score: 9/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Raiders of Scythia

December 4, 2023December 4, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designer: Shem Phillips

Artist: Sam Philips

Publisher: Garphil Games

About the Game

Garphil Games released an amazing game called Raiders of North Sea with two expansions and it’s still regarded as a modern classic. Then they went back on the system and released Raiders of Scythia. How does it fare against its predecessor and on its own?

Gameplay

The core premise remains: you start your turn with a single worker, you end with a single worker. One of your options is to work, where you will place your worker on one of the top locations and activate that to get or trade resources and cards, play crew or solve Quests. Then you pick up a worker from a different space and activate that too. Or you can raid, where you must have a number of crew members and spend provisions and Wagons to get all resources in one place and points depending how strong your crew is plus the dice from that region. However, the dice also place wounds on your crew, reducing their strength or even killing them.

Solo Gameplay

On the AI turn, they will block off one space, where you can’t place or pick workers from, and then proceed to try to raid. They check if there is an available spot on the right region, if they have enough provisions and enough strength from horses. If any of these are false, they either get a quest or more of whatever is missing. Otherwise, they clean up the spot and get a fixed amount of victory points.

Components

For the most part, the components are Garphil level quality. Great cards, great art, meaningful symbology. I love the Kumis and provision tokens, and the coins, specially on the Deluxe, are amazing.

There are some snags though. Unlike North Sea, all bag resources are hexes, just with different colors. However, the brown and black are hard to tell apart in some lights. This is specially jarring since brown ones (Wagons) are necessary to raid lower regions.

I also feels like the board is way too crowded. The art is great, but it is a busy background and can be visually overwhelming.

Comparing Raiders

Raiders of Scythia is basically Raiders of the North Sea with some of expansions integrated, but there are new things.

The heroes now are not one special type of crew, but your character that has an unique action that can be taken on the Town Centre without discarding a card. Also, gone is the armor and Valkyrie tracks (not big fans of Odin those Scythians). Instead, the damage from Fields of Fame are integrated on all raids. Also, you now can get horses and eagles to boost strength, provide victory points and add more actions to the Town Centre.

From Hall of Heroes, mead to strength up your attacks becomes Kumis, and the Quests are mixed with the chieftain tributes and are a single thing.

So, strictly speaking, do you need both? No, you don’t. There is plenty of overlap between them that having one makes you not miss out big on the other. But is there space for both? Absolutely. I own both and play them in different times for different reasons.

For me, if you want to pick one it boils down to if you will get just one box of each, or if you would get North Sea complete. As a base game, Scythia is more robust and interesting. But, when complete, I like the options of North Sea better. Also, visually I like North Sea way better.

Conclusion

What about on its own? Raiders of Scythia is absolutely fantastic. It gets a simple premise with simple rules, and transforms it into this game with an ebb and flow play style where every turn is a question of efficiency and opportunity. And it took its big brother and condensed into this fantastic amalgam that is truly bigger and better than all its parts.

It’s not without its faults, components being the biggest. But, in the grand scheme, those are fairly minor

Score:9/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Raiders of Scythia

December 4, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designer: Shem Phillips

Artist: Sam Philips

Publisher: Garphil Games

About the Game

Gameplay

Solo Gameplay

Components

For the most part, the components are Garphil level quality. Great cards, great art, meaningful symbology. I love the Kumis and provision tokens, and the coins, specially on the Deluxe, are amazing.

I also feels like the board is way too crowded. The art is great, but it is a busy background and can be visually overwhelming.

Comparing Raiders

Raiders of Scythia is basically Raiders of the North Sea with some of expansions integrated, but there are new things.

From Hall of Heroes, mead to strength up your attacks becomes Kumis, and the Quests are mixed with the chieftain tributes and are a single thing.

Conclusion

It’s not without its faults, components being the biggest. But, in the grand scheme, those are fairly minor

Score:9/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Scholars of the South Tigris

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designers: S. J. MacDonald, Shem Phillips

Artist: Mihajlo Dinitrievski

Publisher: Garphil Games

About the Game

We have the second game on Garphil’s third trilogy, this time about transcribing knowledge from all around the world. As usual it’s hard to follow up a great first game in Wayfarers, so how do Scholars fair?

Gameplay

On your turn, you either play a card or rest. To play a card, you chose one of the actions on you board and play a card and 1-2 dice. The dice will not only determine the value of the action, but also the color. Some actions care about just value, some just color, some both. Primary color dice will also combine color to secondary ones. Each dice can also be modified by up to two works to either change their color or to improve its value. There are less actions this time, mainly getting more translators, adding scrolls to be translated and translating them, and going up on the different scientific tracks.

When you rest, you rest, you get the income of all the cards you play. Those are either getting some dice or activating the income of one of the tracks. This dynamic makes the timing of acting and resting really interesting.

Solo Gameplay

As usual, we have a dedicated solo board, and it uses the 2 color system that Wayfarers used. This 6 card solo deck means that the AI is just interested in getting translators and dealing with scrolls, ignoring the science tracks. However, it still feels like a realistic, though abstracted, opponent.

One big difference is that we don’t have “personalities” this time around, but difficulty levels. I appreciate that route, as it would be difficult to isolate or incentivize too much one aspect.

Components

This is a standard Garphil production, with all the good stuff that comes with it. Great art, great components, lots and lots of symbols but a pretty good rule book with a back dedicated to symbology. It also uses all the familiar components, with the little flag for tracks, asterisks for influence and lots of familiar symbols.

One aspect I think they did great is accessibility. For a game that uses color as one of its central mechanisms, I believe that the way the symbols of the primary and secondary colors differ on more than just color, and the color of the dice and pips were chosen make this fairly color blind friendly. I’m no expert in the matter though.

Conclusion

Scholars feel smaller in scale, but that is actually a good thing. All systems in Scholars feel tighter and more connected. When comparing to Wayfarers, Scholars felt a bit more intuitive though no less of a challenge to optimize.

There is not much to criticize here. It’s what you expect from SJ and Shem, but it feels like a step towards a cleaner and less comborific fashion. And it works really well.

Score: 9.5/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Horrified Greek Monsters

November 12, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-5 Players

Designer: Michael Mulvihill

Artist: Victor Maristane

Publisher: Ravensburger

About the Game

In the third installment of the Horrified series we go to Ancient Greece to deal with Gods, face monsters from tales and meet legends. How much this changes from the formula of the game?

Gameplay

If you are not familiar with Horrified, basically you have 2-4 monsters to defeat, each with their unique mechanisms. On a players turn, they use their actions to collect items, move around, guide people to their safe places and do monster specific actions. Then a card is turned for the monsters which adds more items, some event happens, then some of the monsters activate and may attack the heroes. You win the game by defeating all monsters, or lose if the monster deck runs out or if the terror rises to 7.

If you are familiar and wondering what are the differences, there are mainly two. First, events and activations are not tied to a specific monster, but to symbols present on each one. Each symbol is present twice, and each monster have three. Second, monster specific locations are not static, instead there are 4 lairs in every game, and you have to fine the lairs to your monsters in one of 4 locations.

Solo Gameplay

As with previous entries, solo game is exactly the main game, except that the terror level starts at 3. But, unlike American Monsters, Greek Monsters feel well adjusted for solo play, even with the additional tasks such as the lairs and the legends needing to go farther.

Components

Ravensburger really nails the high quality low cost niche. The cards have good quality, the tokens are good, clear and thematic and work well. The exception is the Minotaur’s maze, there are some ambiguous spots. But nothing too bad.

A big improvement is the rulebook. I like bow even though the theme is different, they kept the same main concepts. But the monsters are clearer in their specific rules, and there is little ambiguity.

Conclusion

First, let’s discuss the whole Horrified system. All three games are, mostly, the same mechanically, and even somewhat redundant. Is this better than adding expansions for the base game? I’m not sure. Horrified is a great gateway game for co-ops, and adding expansions would increase complexity. This way you have variety, and they can keep exploring entirely new themes and settings.

But how is Greek Monsters when compare to the rest of the series. Well, I have good and bad things to say.

On the good part, the change in the activations and events is excellent. Every monster feels more a part of the game, and cards never seem out of place. It’s a simple change, but one that works like a charm. Also, the monster complexity is closer to the original than American Monsters, and that is good. Every monster feel natural and intuitive.

However, I do feel like there was room for more, specially considering the theme. One big miss for me thematically is the Legends. One thing is having innocent villagers that you need to save and don’t have anything going for them. Another is having mythology heroes like Circe and Chiron, and they don’t do anything. They should.

I still feel like if you want just one Horrified game, just pick whatever theme seem more fun to you. But, comparing on the series, I feel like this one is just as good as the first. There is a bit more randomness and challenge this time around, but the game is balanced well for new players and veterans, big groups or solo.

Score: 8/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Apiary

November 1, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-5 Players

Designer: Connie Vogelman

Artist: Kwanchai Moriya

Publisher: Stonemaier Games

About the Game

When I was wondering about the next Stonemaier game, space faring bees was not in my guess list. But here we have a worker placement / tile layer with variable worker values. Is it worth the buzz?

Gameplay

On your turn, you either place one of your bee workers or recall all of your workers to your mat.

When placing, you chose a worker, all with values 1-4, and place them in any action on the board. No spaces are ever blocked, instead if it’s already occupied you bump the existing one. Spaces are not complex, are mostly about getting or trading resources and cards, or adding tiles to your base.

When workers go back to the active pool, either by being bumped or when you recall them, their value increases by one. Level 4 workers trigger special bonuses when played, but when their value would increase instead they hibernate. You lose that worker, but you get a bonus on tracks on the main board. Game ends when all the hibernate spots are taken or when a player uses all 7 of their hibernate tokens.

Solo Gameplay

Automa Factory is amazing, everyone knows that, but that might be the smoothest of them all. You setup with 3 grey and 2 yellow with values depending on the difficulty. On your turn, you flip over a card and do the first action you can, using the top of the deck to see what color will activate and other decisions.

Basically, every automa card will recall and get some points depending on how many of that color they have placed, or carve if they have a level 4 worker, or one of the other actions. When the Automa performers an action, they will mostly get points or some tiles or explanation tokens. Also, most of the actions are clearly are right there on the card, so they are super simple.

Components

That part is almost obvious, Stonemaier has always great components. But Apiary is an interesting case, specially after Expeditions. It’s minimalistic.

The tiles are small, have simple drawings in the middle, and there is a lot of blank space. However, it’s a game with a lot of simultaneous components in the table, so I think overall the approach works beautifully, specially from an usability stand point.

Conclusion

Reviewing Stonemaier games is always a tough deal. There is a ton of excitement and expectations. So I tried to go in as blind as possible, not seeing gameplay or reviews, or even following the design diary.

My initial feeling is that even though it seems overwhelming, about 3 turns in I understood the flow. Is a very intuitive game, and a bit on the light side for the most part.

However, it’s a rich game. Navigating the flow of the bees, yours and others, is the key here. Sometimes a less effective action can absolutely worth in the big picture.

The downside on this game is that the individual mats and factions are important, but not game changing. The flow feels mostly the same. Not a huge deal, but it’s something that I hope gets expanded.

In the end, I feel like this is one of the most approachable or their games. Specially with the great insert, the game can be setup very quickly, and it’s not a long game, but every minute feels interesting and rewarding.

Score : 9/10

Review

Quick Review: Tiny Epic Crimes

October 5, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designer: Scott Almes

Artist: Nikoleta Vaszi

Publisher: Gamelyn Games

About the Game

I will be honest, I was skeptic when Gamelyn announced Crimes as their next Tiny Epic. The theme was unlike all others, it was centered around a gimmick, and it has again co-op and competitive plays, which is always risky. Were they successful?

Gameplay

Tiny Epic Crimes uses the “active player is the last in the time tracker”, mechanism, and on their turn a player moves any amount, spending that much time, then additional time to perform an action, usually arrestijg mobsters, gathering evidence in many ways, or resolving events. Then a new mobster is placed and a new event is revealed if all players are after a threshold.

The competitive mode uses a night and day system, where certain actions can only be performed in the correct time of day. The evidence is shared, but only the last person can review it at all times, and there is a bigger influence of individual suspects (which are private.

The cooperative mode doesn’t time of day, instead each player can only perform certain actions. Also, the time can be reduced if there are too many events or mobsters on the city.

Solo Gameplay

Solo is basically two player co-op, like most of the cooperative Tiny Epics. A really smart decision was to have the only “hand”, the force cards, be shared for both 1 and 2 players. It simplifies the game a lot without too much hit on the balance.

Components

Very standard Tiny Epic affair. Big cards for the players and trackers, squares for evergthing else. The wooden pieces for the players and mobsters are screen printed and great quality, and there is about a gazillion cardboard tokens for everything. Each individual event has its own unique counters, which is nice. Though some are a little tough to identify at a glance.

But, let’s talk about the Epic Decoder System, the big gimmick. It’s not anything innovative. It’s a red filter on many spots to identify characteristics or identity. It’s basically the same filter on games like Decrypto. It is simple, and it works. For the most part… Under certain lights, it is tough to make out, specially the name of the criminal.

Conclusion

To put it very simply, this is the 21st century version of Cluedo. Run around, collect evidence, accuse. It was Eve, with a knife, escaping in a bike.

As far as Tiny Epics go, this is on the simpler side. Move, spend some time, do action, spend some time. Some are fixed, some are wagers, but everything is smooth sailing. The events can get a little convoluted, but that’s good to keep this from being too same-y.

But it works, and it’s a lot of fun! Unlike Zombies, both co-op and competitive work equally well, with their unique challenges and adjustments. There is an element of semi co-op on the competitive, but you’re never getting out of your way to benefit the group.

Color me surprised. This is one I see getting attention often. I play a lot of Tiny Epic with a younger crowd, and this will fit right in their alley. But, even for me as a solo player, it’s snappy, quick and a good challenge.

Score: 8/10

Review

Quick Review: TradeWorlds: Exterra Edition

September 25, 2023September 25, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designer: Kristopher R. Kycia

Artists: Charles Vinh

Publisher: Outer Limit Games

About the Game

Tradeworlds is a game that has a very complicated Kickstarter history, among mismanagement and personal tragedies, and being delivered 6 years later. However, today I’m going to focus only on the game itself, but the 6 year period will be actually relevant.

Gameplay

The game follows a very simple and easy to remember ABCD structure. First, you select a role and perform its (A)ction, then you (B)uy cards from your own personal market, then you can (C)onfigure a ship using a ship, a crew and a weapon card, and finally you (D)iscard as many cards as you want and draw back up to five. You keep doing that until someone achieves the goal of the scenario, be it a number of credits banked or destroy every other homeworld.

Solo Gameplay

The base game comes with a solo scenario where you try to defeat a single menacing ship before it either destroys your home world or hit critical mass. The expansion that comes with the Kickstarter also has a solo AI that simulates the roles and ships the human player has, but in a more condensed form.

Components

Most of the components of the box are fine. The cards have a good finish, not great but feel sturdy and durable. The artwork is generic sci-fi, but it has a cohesive look and the visuals are nice.

Designwise, I do have some issues. First is the fact that flavor text and game text are written with the same font. It makes it harder distinguish at a glance what is relevant for the game and what is not. Also, I don’t see the need for the double sided cards. Almost all of the information on the back is present on the font, and the aspects that do use the back are fairly minor. I feel like this could have been changed and given a better experience without it.

The rulebook is also a problem. It’s vague and not well organized, making some aspects of the game confusing. It also uses a lot of terminology without actually defining it, leaving it to the players to have to understand by context. The good thing is that the designer is active on BGG, so most of these are just a search away.

Conclusion

This was a messy Kickstarter campaign, with so many falso promises and the unfortunate passing of one of the designers. His father took on the task of getting this game out in memory of his son, and I am glad that it’s being delivered.

But this game was promised for 2018, and I got it five years later. So let’s talk about it. Tradeworlds has elements of many other games, but sadly they are too simplified. There is role selection like Race for the Galaxy, but no actual tension and play / counter-play thinking. It’s just an action you can do that turn, and there are no restrictions around it. There is also upgrading your empire like in Tiny Epic Galaxies. But banking is just a threshold to launch more ships or to achieve a goal in the scenario. The homeworld board goes to the hundreds of banked credits, but there is very little reason to go above 100, ever.

And there is the deck-building aspect. It lacks my favorite aspect of deck-builders, which is creating a refined engine. In the end, Tradeworlds is just a numbers game. There are 4 types of cards, 3 of them used to build ships. While its fun to create ships with different parts, they’re just different configurations of vanilla creatures. You can launch a ship that has 2 attack and 5 resistance, or 3 attack and 1 resistance, and so on. And the fourth type, tactics, are mostly one time modifications of those attributes for combat. It’s all just numbers.

And the reason that I mention that this game was in production for over 5 years is that it could have been given to more people to. Play and refine those issues. TradeWorlds is not a bad or broken game, it’s fine, fun even. But also tame and forgettable. And, because of that, it will not leave the shadow of its campaign.

Score: 4/10

Review

Quick Review: Horrified American Monsters

September 5, 2023 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-5 Players

Designer: Michael Mulvhill

Artists: George Doutsiopoulos, Kory Lynn Hubbel, Victor Maristane, Tom Moore, Joshua Newton, Studio HIVE

Publisher: Ravensburger

About the Game

The team at Prospero Hall bring the terror from the successful and super fun Horrified out of the studios and into the American lore, something I could see Winchester Brothers dealing with.

Gameplay

Everything but the details of each monsters is the same as the original, but let’s recap. On your turn, you have a number of actions depending on your character to move, collect items, and use those items in creative ways to defeat the monsters. Each monster have their unique mechanisms. Then the monsters activate, do some effects and try to attack the heroes or the people in the village. You win if you take care of all monsters, and lose if the terror gets high enough or if the event deck runs out.

Solo Gameplay

Exactly the same as the regular game, except the terror begins at 3. However, unlike the first one, the balance seems a little off. Some monster seem not work as well solo, Bigfoot being the most proheminent example.

Components

I don’t know what happens with the Prospero Hall / Ravensburger partnership, but all of their games I’ve played share the combination of great component quality and decent price. This is, for the most part, true.

Everything was revamped for the theme. Instead of the cook oldies feel, now you have files and notes and stuff. It’s also quite a bit more colorful and bigger. That second part is a bit of an issue as there can be some warping in the long run. Each creature also have their unique tokens and overlays, but, unlike the first one, the overlays are not really overlays, but little placards.

The bad part is the rules, though. The increase in the complexity of the monsters was not followed by a more thorough description. There are points that are quite vague and require you to take a decision or make a ruling. Also, there is one specific case that the game is actually broken, as there is a deduction where one combination has no answer.

Conclusion

I love the new lore, the new visuals and the new challenges. And, I can really hope they continue the line with new takes on the theme, which can be other folklores, other works of art, or so many more.

However, this feels unpolished. Although I did enjoy all my plays, I also feel like the original beats it in almost every aspect. I also feel like it’s a common issue when Prospero Hall takes on more complexity, so it might just be a need for someone to take a closer second view. With the third one coming up, fingers crossed they will have learned their lesson.

Score: 7/10