Block builder a bit to confined

Few things make me feel happier than getting a new game to the table – one made of wood where you get to move pieces around. There is a tactile joy in the game play that is a hard to put into words – but to put it simply I like it.

So Qubik hit the table with an expectation of enjoying it simply based on the fact the game pieces are all chunky wooden cubes – but well-made cubes at that with rounded corners, and with the varying colours of the pieces it looks very nice.

The rules of Qubik – from designer Preeda Pitianusorn -- are super simple. Players take turns to place a cube into a 3x3x3 space until a player creates a straight line of one colour to win. The player has two cubes pulled from a common bag to chose from, pulling a new one after each placement.

It suggests a typical game of Qubik takes around 5-15 minutes, although it seems to tilt heavily toward the shorter end of the spectrum.

It is interesting Qubik can be played by one-to-seven players. The Meeple Guild only gets higher numbers out for role playing so we have not challenged Qubik with lots of players, but with a maximum cube size of 27, with seven players you are not likely to get many turns, and I’d think games might end before the later players get a second turn. The sweet spot, like many games is likely three or four players.

There are three modes of play casual, competitive, and solo. The first two are rather similar and frankly all games are competitive in general.

As a solo effort Qubik is more ‘puzzly’ in nature, but it is a nice feature in a small package game.

On Board Game Geek it was noted, “Qubik is a combination of the classic Tic-Tac-Toe and the Rubik’s Cube” which is quite an apt description.

Now Qubik is not a game in contention to top a list of great games, but it plays quick and in combination with its compact size is a solid coffee break option that will look good on the table to attract interest.

And of course you do get to stack those nice wooden cubes which is a bonus too.

Check it out at www.facebook.com/LifeDMSgame

 

Chicken game not quite up to scratch

This review is for the small box Gigi Gacker, a sort of sister effort to recently reviewed Das wurmt.

The two games share much, both coming from designer Robert Brouwer, artist Doris Matthäus, and publisher Zoch Verlag.

In Gigi Gacker, players are superficially chicks out to eat worms – yes a silly theme that really adds noting to the game but fits with the cartoony art from Matthäus.

In each game round, the number of numbered worm cards equal to the number of players is laid out, and players essentially bid on them. It’s important to capture high-valued worms as they will count in game-end scoring.

‘Mother hen’ cards add a twist to things, and can be crucial in game play.

There is also a rather unsatisfying tie break mechanism here, that while needed, feels forced onto game play to solve a glitch rather than adding something positive.

There isn’t a lot to this one save it plays quick, but alas without holding the interest of Das wurmt .

Like its sister Gigi Gacker plays two-to-five as well, but for two relies on a ‘dummy hand’ something whist players for sure will be familiar with.

In Gigi Gacker the fill-in for a third player functionally works, but is a patch that seems ill-fitting, detracting from this one for two.

Ultimately, where Das wurmt  was worthy of recommendation Gigi Gacker is the weak sister you likely want to pass on.

'Building' a worm should not be this much fun!

When Das Wurmt arrived it was a game where The Meeple Guild were not exactly sure what to expect.

The game, from designer Robert Brouwer, artist Doris Matthäus, and publisher Zoch Verlag (www.zoch-verlag.com), is a small box card game, but the artwork immediately makes one thing of a game more focused on kids.

However, that is not exactly the case.

This one falls in that niche of a family game, or one to play when the in-laws, or neighbours visit, so is not exclusively for younger players, although if they have some simple math skills they can play.

Weirdly theme-wise Das wurmt is a card game about worms – yes you read that correctly.

Worms start out with a tail on the table, and players add to it on each turn.

As ‘segments’ are added you are hoping to create a worm with a value of 10-11-12 – based on the cards in play. This allows you to score a card.

But if the worms gets ‘too long’ or has cards valued at 13, or more, you score negative points.

Along the way a few ‘special’ cards allow you to influence the games – hopefully to your advantage.

As one card in the worm is revealed each turn it’s important if you remember what you place if you can. You want to know what a card revealed will do if possible to the total of the worm, since the actual ‘growth’ only becomes visible when the next head is played and the previous head is turned over.

The game is super simple, and fast, and surprisingly fun – far more than anticipated as it hit the table.

Cards games are generally recommendable because their low cost makes them worth an evening of play, much like a couple taking in a movie. Not every movie is great for the ticket price, nor is every card game, but with Das wurmt  you can buy with confidence. There’s fun in the little box of worms.

Handy little coffee time filler

It has been a long while since a small box game hit the table that I wanted to like anymore than Flip Chess.

The very thought of a micro-version of chess intrigued, and that is what Verne Homsher offers up.

In this one the game board is the plastic box. Pop it open and you have a 4x8 grid board.

The playing pieces are dice – four for each player. Each face on a die is an etched representation of one of the common chess pieces. That’s it in terms of components, although to be clear the dice are chunky and being etched very nice and the compact board means this one pops in a pocket to take anywhere you want to play. Huge marks on looks and quality.

The rules came on separate pages, a small booklet that would fit in the folded board/box is sorely needed.

As it stands there are rules for a few games you can play, which upon initially seeing I applauded because variety is a plus, especially in a small footprint game where managing a ruleset with the depth to hold interest through multiple plays is naturally challenging.

The core game here is the closet to chess, and it’s OK – well for a play or three at least. It doesn’t offer much if you are seeking lots of repeat play.

So we delved into the other rules offered and while they extended interest through a somewhat extended coffee, they didn’t hold interest long either.

On the website (dicemakers.com) Flip Chess sells for $28 and I never dug into postage, but we know that has gotten ridiculously high in general. The game looks so nice, but play never matched the look for us, so this one is a game you need to consider with care.

Production quality so high in this one

There are games which leave one in awe of the quality of a game that hits the table and Blockoff falls into that category.

The game is actually one of those that ‘feels’ almost over-produced in a sense.

The entire game is 3D printed, board and pieces, rendered in bright yellow and blue, so it just ‘pops’ on the table. Get this one out at a coffee shop and you are likely to attract some eyes.

Also of note is that the designer Nate Denham was 12 when the game was created – so kudos to the young creator, with a pat on the back to family for supporting the game available through www.blockoff.fun

But what about game play in this abstract strategy offering?

Well, this one sort of fits into the realm of games a step up from simple Xs and Os, but still rather straight forward, with a ruleset you can learn in about 90-seconds.

Players – Blockoff plays two to four -- begin with their pieces in the corners of a 6x6 grid.

On a player’s turn they must complete a move of three without hitting the same space twice (diagonal costs two movement) and then place a tile to block off an opening.

If you cannot complete your three paces worth of movement then your piece comes off the board. The goal is to be the last person with their player piece on the board.

Yep, that’s the whole game.

So some quick math tells you that in a four-player game you are likely getting a maximum nine moves, but playthroughs with two showed games typically end with players boxed in even with open spaces left – they just can’t get to them.

Blockoff is thus quick – and maybe too quick to inspire die hard abstract strategy fans.

But that rather ‘cool’ look, and the easy to-learn rules and quick play do lend themselves to making Blockoff one to recommend as a starter game to introduce younger players to the genre that will take them in time to Othello, Chess, Hive and all the other great abstract strategy games. So, if you have younger gamers coming up, this would look pretty good under the tree in a few months.

Every move as a 'ripple' effect

Kanare Kato is a rather prolific game designer best known for creating games which can be packed into a small box and taken anywhere.

To the list you can add Ripples, a game which takes minutes to understand in terms of rules, and plays quickly – it is suggested 15-30 minutes, but you would need to be very analytical in moves to burn half an hour with this one.

For two players Ripples is an abstract strategy game where you are battling for control of a 61 hex board. When the board is full the winner is the player with the majority of pieces – so no draws are possible.

It is a territorial game that uses double-sided discs like Othello, but the discs placed by a player are always immediately surrounded by discs of the same colour So you are flipping a lot of pieces on most turns, which for old guys with bigger hands was at times clumsy on the smaller cloth board – common to Kato games.

The board is initially empty.

On a turn a player places a disc of their colour face up in any empty hex. Then flips over all the opponents' discs adjacent to the disc just placed and places discs of their colour in all empty hexes adjacent to the disc. That’s it for rules – super simple.

This one works because it is simple to learn and quick to play. If it was longer in terms of playtime it would over stay its welcome as they say. There is just not quite enough here that you would want longer.

It’s the same thing in terms of repeat play. Ripples is not a game where you want to  hunker down over the table and play the afternoon away with it. Three games is satisfying. A best-of-five, sure, but a best-of-seven might push the limit of Ripples holding your interest. Better to play a few, slip back in the game bag and bring it out in a few weeks for a few more games.

Still as that neat little time filler on occasion Ripples does hold a certain level of charm.

Check it out at kanare-abstract.com

Mining on Mars can be fun

David McCord has become one of my favourite game designers.

Now that deserves a bit of an explanation. It’s not that McCord has created a game – at least among those that I have played – that would make say my top-25 maybe even my top-50 all-time list – but he is prolific in creating games which are pretty accessible in terms of rules and thus creates a rather fun experience at the game table.

That brings us to Mining Mars which fits the above criteria of simple rules and simple fun.

In this one two-to-four players are gathering minerals – different coloured cubes – to the processing plants (game board).

Collect enough and you have successfully processed the mineral which will give you an in-game bonus, and score you points at game end.

One bump in this one is that two of the minerals – ‘rarium’ and the green stuff -- seem to have far more game impact than the others do. That tends to limit the interest in collecting the other minerals, and that detracts from a play a bit.

Initially I doubted there was an in-game comeback, but then Mark used some special cards, manipulated his scoring options, and frankly stole the win.

That said Trevor who appeared destined to win forced the game-end scenario, and probably should have slow played things while trying to overcome Mark’s moves.

That all actually improved the impression of the game. There are in-game actions which can change outcomes.

The components work, but are not exceptional.

The game plays quick, has a certain charm, that would make Mining Mars a fine filler option especially if time in limited and you have new players to teach rules too.

Check it out at www.newventuregames.com

Diagonal moves lift Quatuor above the norm

Quatuor is a recent abstract strategy game from Canadian designer Louis-David Raymond.

Being from a Canadian designer, and an abstract strategy game which is my favoured genre of games, this one excited upon its arrival.

To begin with Quatuor is a self-published effort and Raymond has created a nice looking game.

The pieces are wooden crokinole discs so nice and chunky.

The board – a 4x4 grid -- is some kind of acrylic, which again is very nice.

Each player has eight pieces, and you win by getting four of the pieces in a row. There is nothing new in that regard. There are piles of games with similar goals.

In Quatuor a player slides a piece onto the board around the outside of the board. If that pushes other pieces that is fine – at least up to three other pieces. You cannot push four as that would force a piece off the board.

In terms of getting a piece onto the board Quatuor ‘feels’ a lot like Quixo a game I like quite a lot largely because it is one of those rare abstract strategy games I can get my better half to play on occasion.

Canadian designer 

Initially, Trevor and I expected the game to be drawish. You have only eight moves to win, and yes we ended in a draw once. We still think the more you play the more lacklustre draws may occur.

But saving Quatuor often is the ability to push other pieces by entering on the diagonals. That simple rule is critical in opening the game to ‘force’ those situations where you have two paths to victory knowing your opponent can only deal with one.

Trevor likens Quatuor to Xs & Os, and there is that vibe, but I feel there is a bit more to it than that – maybe because I won far more than I lost with this one.

I do like that it plays quick, and it left me always willing to play ‘one more’ which is about all you can ask from a game that screams ‘play me over coffee’ – with a monthly Quatuor coffee a reasonable expectation.

Tori Shogi a smaller board shogi variant to love

If you enjoy chess you really should take a look into the world of Shogi – essentially the Japanese equivalent of chess.

There is actually a family of related games with the core Shogi dating back to the mid 1500s. It is played on a 9 by 9 board, and the object is to capture the opponent's king.

There are however differences with Western chess.

Most notably, not only pawns but most pieces can promote if it reaches the opponents three last rows – effectively broadening the diversity of pieces.

Secondly, captured pieces become property of the capturing player and during their turn they can ‘drop’ them back to the board instead of performing a normal move, which really changes the game dynamic.

So that is core shogi in a nutshell.

But, this week the review in about a sister game – Tori Shogi or bird shogi – created about 250 years after Shogi.

Tori Shogi is what we would term a variant. In this case it is played on a 7×7 board.

As the name implies each piece is named after a type of bird. The royal piece (King) is the Phoenix. Other pieces include the Swallow (promotes to Wild Goose), Falcon (promotes to Eagle), Crane, Pheasant, and Quail.

The goal of the game is to capture the opposing Phoenix.

Drops are handled in a manner very similar to modern Shogi, with some oddities such as a third swallow cannot be dropped in a file which already contains two others, nor can one be dropped on the last rank, where it would not be able to move. In addition, a swallow cannot be dropped so as to give immediate mate.

This one tends to be a quicker shogi, the smaller board with drops still in play make it feel a bit like the proverbial battle in a phone booth. Unlike the chess North Americans are most familiar with the board in Tori Shogi – or basic Shogi for that matter – never really opens up as captured pieces tend to cycle back to the board in drops rather quickly.

Since Tori Shogi is quicker it’s a great gateway to the world of Shogi variants.

Now Shogi pieces are generally differentiated by Japanese lettering which can be a barrier some will wish not to overcome.

But there is good news on that front Kanare Abstract (kanare-abstract.com)  has produced a Tori Shogi set with the actual birds in the background (underscored with their English name), with the Japanese lettering over top. It’s a brilliantly simple solution to easier access to the game and designer Kanare Kato needs a big pat on the back for creating the set.

The game is a classic so highly recommended.

The Kanare Abstract set gets a positive nod too. The pieces are wood, the board is cloth, the packaging small and easy to get to the coffee shop – as are most games from this publisher of which many have been reviewed here previously. The only caveat here is that the game seems a bit ‘squished’ with 32 pieces on the small cloth board. Kanare Abstract did a quartet of games in a slightly larger format – Trike, Slyde, Make Muster, heXantafl – and it would have been nice had Tori Shogi been part of that effort.

The size issue aside – it works it’s just a tad crowded – this one needs to be in every chess fan’s collection. A solid version from Kanare Abstract.

Take some time and appreciate depth of Iye

Most games you can play once or twice and while not necessarily grasping the nuances of it, you at least get an indication of what the general game strategy is going to be.

Iye – from designer Onur Şencan, artist Eda Esentürk Durşen, and publisher NeoTroy Games is among those games which didn’t play out that way.

Designer Onur Şencan has had a long relationship with games.

“My relationship with gaming is actually a bit strange,” he related via email. “While I love all kinds of games, my wife and I met 10 years ago while playing a real escape game (she was a horror character chasing me, and I couldn't escape from her). My parents also met 42-43 years ago at a university chess final.”

Now he dabbles as a designer.

“This is the third board game I've designed, but my main job is designing and playing events for corporate companies. Since I started designing board games, I've been trying out at least 300 different games a year,” said Şencan. “Of these, Grand Austria Hotel and Rococo: Deluxe Edition are the ones I wouldn't mind seeing on the table. Azul is still one of the best options for new players to enjoy the board game.”

But what about Iye?

“Actually, the first thing I tried to achieve with the game Iye was to design an abstract strategy game that I could play myself, that I wouldn't get bored of, and that had a lot of replayability,” said Şencan “Whether playing Iye on a tabletop or in a board game arena, players can expect an enjoyable two-player abstract strategy game where each game is different thanks to its quick-to-understand, fast-playing, and completely random setup.
“In my opinion, the best thing about the game is that no matter how many points your opponent is ahead in that round, you have the possibility of winning that round by putting him in an impossible position with just one move.”

In Iye, (pronounced EE-yeah), you lay out 25 tiles face down on the board, then take turns moving ‘the drum’ around the board. In Iye the tiles are nice – albeit just cardboard – with sort of geometric art representing different elements.

The drum is a cardboard standee and that would have been nice as a wooden meeple.

Of course production has its constraints as Şencan notes.

“When I first brought this game to the publisher, it had a leather board and pieces like Azul's. However, due to demand and insufficient production conditions in Türkiye, we had to select the most optimal components. My dream is to increase awareness of the game through positive board game geek reviews from those who try it on BGA (the physical version of the game is currently only available in Türkiye). This way, it can be republished with my dream components in the future, and thus, it will have the potential to reach the global market.”

The Meeple Guild hopes this humble review helps in that regard.

Now for the game itself, the basic movement for the Shaman’s drum is one, or two spaces vertically or horizontally. When you land on a tile, and you must, the tile does to the opponent.

At game’s end the player with the most of each type of tile scores points of varying values.

Initially the tendency is to just dance around the board until it’s empty, without delving into the deeper possibilities.

Those possibilities lie in sacrificing collected tiles to make special moves, in the hopes of doing one of two things, preventing your opponent from having a legal move – an automatic win – or forcing them to respond by using one of their collected tiles to turn game-end scoring in your favour. It is here where a far greater depth percolates to the top which in initial plays can easily be overlooked.

The use of tiles of course is a balancing act, as one used to move they no longer count at game end.

In recognizing the depth Iye goes from ho-hum initial play, to a game worth a much longer look, and a definite recommendation.