Review – Page 2 – Let's Game More

1 player

Designer: Jinhee Han, Heewon Kang

Artist: PASIO

Publisher: Best With 1 Games

Crusoe is lost in an island full of danger, dice and rondels, and it’s for him and his friend to overcome this and survive. Is this game a great adventure or should it be fed to the wild animals?

How To Play

To setup the game, put the two cloth mats side by side. Put the meeples on the map on the action rondel, and markers on the event rondel and day tracker. Also get all tools and pick one character, one friend and one mission card.

Every day is split in morning, afternoon and evening. On mornings you roll the 3 available dice and put them in crescent order. The lowest value moves the event marker on the rondel and triggers a new event.

Then on the afternoon, the player chooses one die at a time, advance the meeple in the action rondel and either take the action, advance the marker on your friend or build a tool. Each die value gives the player 0-3 stars to use in certain actions. The actions vary on building your shelter, getting resources, moving on the map or hunting. The stars also determinate which tools you can build.

During night, you first eat a food, then depending on the value of the die placed there on the turn before it’ll trigger the weather (which will damage your shelter or you) and animal ambush (which varies by the area your in).

You win if you achieve the mission on your quest card, which usually is building a specific tool, getting to certain area on the map, hunting a certain animal, etc. You lose if you run out of health or out of days.

Rules and Components

This was originally a PnP, and just now got published. I think during this time the rules were tweaked and refined by the designers and it shows. Rules are clear, concise and, for the most part, comprehensive. There is also a big section for individual cards, which I appreciate.

The game comes with two cloth boards, which are super nice, but they are small and that causes a few problems. The map is hard to read from a distance and the spaces for the resources can get cramped and block their information.

All the rest is relayed through icons and they very functional and clear, specially after a few games under your belt.

Score: 8/10

Gameplay

Dieson Crusoe is an intense game for its duration. It’s an interesting mechanism to have larger numbers on the dice be better for actions, but also more dangerous. Also, I like that every resource has a secondary effect to manipulate the game state in some manner, but it’s also something that you will not use often as things can get tight and you need them for tools and buildings.

It has a nice tension arc, where the danger rises as you progress through the island and through the days. It gets more dangerous, but you also yield more resources for exploration and hunt. I feel like this is a well balanced, albeit tough game. Don’t let quest 1 fool you.

Score: 8.5 /10

Theme and Art

The artwork and design is fairly simplistic and quite clean, but it does have a very distinctive look. It for the most part favours usability, but the game still looks great on the table.

The map is where you will find the most details, but it is very evocative of illustrations on books. Robinson Crusoe is a story told many times on baord games, so it’s well known. Dieson Crusoe takes that and uses just the right elements to evoke parts of the story without being too complex.

Score: 7.5/10

Conclusion

I think it’s no secret that this game was inspired by Robinson Crusoe: Adventures in the Cursed Island by Ignacy Trzewiczek, but condensed down into a 30 minute adventure. You can recognize easily the DNA, and I felt right at home instantly.

But that’s not all it is. It has its own unique mechanisms that are engaging and fun. I really like the action rondel and the way the dice used determinate the bad things coming your way. Knowing when to be risky and when to play safe is a huge part of the game.

I feel like this is a very solid and tense solo experience that will have you coming back to beaten time and again. My impression is that this game was designed by and for players, as lots of PnPs are, and got a deserved polished release.

Rules and Components: 8/10

Gameplay: 8.5/10

Theme and Art: 7.5/10

Score: 8/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Metrorunner

June 23, 2024 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-5 Players

Designer: Stephen Kerr

Artist: Ignacio Bazán Lazcano

Publisher: Thunderwork Games

Thunderworks stepped out of the Roll Player universe and allied with designer Stephen Kerr to have a go at the classic cyberpunk big corporations world with Metrorunner. But is this job a hit or bust?

Gameplay

On a player’s turn, they will first move one or two spaces clockwise on the track, then either do the space action or a district action. Space actions are simple, like getting resources, getting more jobs, or playing a route mini-game to get resources and some track advancements. A district action is getting resource cubes and finishing jobs from that district.

Whenever a player completes a job, they tuck the completed card on one of three spots (each holding three cards). This gives additional resources or advancements, and also allow the player to compete for majorities and specific combinations.

Players keep going until someone crosses either the notoriety or the influence, every one has one last turn and the game is over.

Solo Gameplay

The AI system is very simple. You play with two tokens to represent them, and after you turn you turn over one AI card. They will move to block spaces, take jobs away, and or remove cubes, and advance on tracks depending on how it’s notoriety compares to you. However, the Automa does not score, instead the game has a beat your own score system.

Components

Everything has a classic cyberpunk look, with lots of acrylics and pseudo code flying around. However, the presentation never superceeds usability, and the iconography is simple and objective.

One thing I highly highly highly appreciate is how the players board are made. They have elevated slots on the back that you can easily tuck the cards with messing everything around. Having played a lot of games with cards being tucked behind player boards, that is a very welcome addition.

Just one additional note, you have the option to get the metal version of the hack tiles. It’s totally unnecessary, but wow is it satisfying to manipulate!

Conclusion

Metrorunner is an incredibly well produced game, but, most importantly, it’s engaging and fun. It’s a fairly light and quick game, but it takes that spirit and runs with it, pun intended. Rules are easy to understand, that game doesn’t overstay its welcome, but I do feel it rewards repeated plays to learn the efficiency puzzle. If you’re into this weight, it’s a great addition to your collection.

Score: 8.5/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Lata

March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designers: Rola & Costa

Artist: Marina Costa

Publisher: Pythagoras

With the second edition of Cafe, Pythagoras started its small box collection called Quinas. The second of this collection is last year’s Lata, about the production of can sardines and mackarels. Can this be a good game or is this collection just fishy?

Gameplay

At the beginning of each of six rounds, players bid with their action points for turn order. Then, following that order, they get more cards for their factory, then spend actions to activate their production cards, spend that production to fulfill contracts for money, and to get end of game scoring.

At the end of each round, the contract and end of game scoring are refilled and every production is discarded except for regular sardines.

Solo Gameplay

The game flow is the same for solo, except or instead or the initial bid, the player spend their actions to see more production cards. Since they have to add two, and some spots cost money, the player can be forced to place unwanted cards and disrupt their engine. There is no win or lose, it’s a beat your own score type of deal.

Each of the player boards have a solo specific side with its own twists, like one starts with no money and another only have options of pairs.

Components

As usual for Pythagoras, the components are somewhat minimalistic and very theme driven. That means that it’s not the most obvious for gameplay, but they do look good. The cards have a nice quality, and the artwork is well done. Symbology is fine, not the best, but the rulebook is clear enough that I didn’t find a lot of issues playing, even on the first time.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Cafe, their first on the collection, but I like Lata even better. It feels like a tighter and more cohesive game, while still having the high efficiency gameplay elements.

Specifically for solo, this feels more well tested and developed, which I appreciate. And the fact we have four different boards add to the variation.

Score: 8/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Ark Nova

March 22, 2024March 22, 2024 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

1-4 Players

Designer: Mathias Wigge

Publisher: Capstone Games / Feuerland Spiele

I’m slowly venturing into the heavier side, specially on euros. Ark Nova is a game that has made a big impact on BGG, but is the fame deserved or is it hype?

Gameplay

In Ark Nova, you are managing a scientific zoo, by playing animals, acquiring sponsors and making deals with universities and other zoos. This is all based on a very interesting 5 action card system, where each card lies under a position 1-5 that determines the strength of the action. When you take the action, it goes to the 1 position, pushing all others one space up. Each action can also be upgraded to a more versatile version where you can usually do multiple things at a time.

By playing cards and doing many actions, you go up on two different scoring tracks, appeal and conservation. Appeal is your actual points, and also your income, while conservation gives you bonuses and has ranges that subtract from your score. Once those two meet, the game will end, and the score will be your appeal minus the lower range of your conservation, which can be negative.

Solo Gameplay

Solo play replaces the break system that some action use to move the game forward and activate income with a fixed time system. You start with seven cubes, and each action moves one to the left. After the last one is moved, the break is triggered like on the multiplayer game, the top cube goes to the main board, and you reset with one cube less. At the end of the sixth round, game is over. You have to be positive to win.

Components

Ark Nova has a ton of pieces, from habitats from sizes 1-5, special habitats and other diverse tokens. Thankfully, it comes with two trays where you can organize them and make them super quick to both setup and tear down the game. Components have a simplistic look, very euro-y, but are very effective in their usage.

This is a card based game, and believe it there is variety. The pile of cards is absolutely huge! Normally this can be good or bad, but Ark Nova does not require specific cards, but actually is all about collections of symbols, and there is a nice spread. Cards also present some scientific information and try to be as thematically accurate as possible.

Just a little quibble though: this has to be the blandest and uninspired money ever. It doesn’t even look like money. But, honestly, it’s not the star of the show anyway.

Conclusion

I love card based euros, so there is a lot of competition on this area. Does Ark Nova shine? Oh, yes, it does. Before playing I was a bit intimidated by the many things happening in this game, but it takes but a few rounds to get adjusted, and its heart it is a very fluid game. The action card system is the big differential, and it works beautifully, creating a lot of tension and very interesting decision spaces throughout the game.

Also, this is a game where you can’t do everything. That’s not just a statement, it’s a built in mechanism. You can only upgrade 4 out of the 5 cards, you can only partner with 4 out of the 5 zoos. You upgrade or have more workers for the influence board, but not both. However, you never feel out of options. Every turn feels relevant and rewarding.

The sheer amount of cards is impressive, and it could be a good or a bad thing if not well balanced. I have now played with I believe most if not all of the deck, and I never had a game where I felt that I couldn’t do anything. The fact that the spread of the symbols is well done, there is always a route you can go to, and very rarely is the same. Just be aware that the deck is a pain to shuffle…

Score: 9.5/10

Review

Let’s Review More: Wyrmspan

February 22, 2024March 22, 2024 Luiz Gustavo Mendes

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