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.

 

Comune about finding the angles to build for the win

Regular readers will be aware Kanare Kato is both a prolific and well-liked designer of abstract strategy games.

In the past The Meeple Guild has enjoyed several of his games; Iago, Stairs, Lines of Fixation and Meridians some of the best among the ones we’ve played.

This week we check in with Comune, which to start is not quite the top-shelf offering of Kato’s games mentioned above.

That said, Comune remains a game which will hold some interest for those looking for something just a bit different.

Comune is a placement game using rectangular house pieces. The pieces are wooden, a generally appreciated feature of many Kanare_Abstract published games.

The game allows players three types of placement depending on the angle at which the pieces are placed. This creates some obvious depth, but also makes Comune a bit more challenging in terms of game play.

In the game you can place your pieces next to each other at any angle, but not next to the opponent's pieces at different angles.

Now as are most Kanare_Abstract published games, Comune comes in a small – think necklace box size – box, utilizing an easy to fold cloth board. The combo makes Comune and its sister games easy to take to the coffee shop, cabin or business road trip, but also means the aforementioned placement rules can be a bit harder to vision as pieces are in tight areas from the get go.

And the angles are core to the game. The goal is to create larger groups at each of the three angles. 

The easy to take on the road aspect, and wood pieces are the initial draw, and there is depth here to explore with a bit of patience to get your head around things.

So Comune is worth a recommendation and worth a long look if you are ordering from www.kanare-abstract.com/en-ca

Besont proves addictive in its simplicity

Besont was a surprise when it arrived and hit the table.

The game comes in about as simple a form as possible, a cardboard board and low cost little plastic coins --- functional but certainly in no way extravagant in terms of components.

From designer Colin Leamon and his publishing effort Marric Games Besont is a two player placement where you want to be the last player with a legal move.

Taking turns players lay one-to-five coins along any straight line, they don't even have to be connected.

Given that the board has only 15 spaces games are very quick. They are made quicker still by reaching a point where the end point becomes obvious without playing out some of the coins.

Yet in the short playtime comes some interesting choices based on the ability to place multiple coins in various ways.

The games sort of fills the space of Xs & Os, where you lose and want to go again to try something different. It’s pretty easy to kill a coffee break with Besont for that reason.

You might even pull it out to play over a couple of coffee breaks, but it is doubtful it would make the table on day three, the game just starts to feel same-ish at some point. Taken in small doses over breaks of a couple of months though Besont is a coffee filler.

Also of interest, apparently the theme of Besont is tied up with Cornish history. The game board is the Cornish coat of arms made up from the fifteen gold coins Cornwall had to pay for the Duke of Cornwall's release, which is cool.

“As a games designer specializing in simplicity I was struck by the classic design of the Cornish coat of arms, dating back to 1264, and said to myself ‘there had to be a game there - and what a wonderful opportunity to promote the Cornish language’, so I grabbed a pen and paper and set my mind to the task,” related the designer via social media. “I did try one or two ideas before I struck on the Nim mechanic - which, not meaning to boast, I improved upon - by including diagonals and reversing. What I'm most pleased with is how it can be played as a fun two-minute game and also a challenging game for serious players who know the traps because it has nothing to do with math or who goes first.”

Check it out at marricgames.com

Whiz Bang surprises with its play

I recently posed a question with the Abstract Nation on Facebook asking what were three games players preferred on an 8x8 checkerboard.

Not surprisingly there was a lot of commonality in answers and IMHO a few gems missed.

So over the coming weeks I’ll offer a few short reviews of what I see as the best games to be played on an 8x8 checkerboard with the added constraint you have only two sets of 24 pieces – basically you buy two matching common checker sets.

This is #20

I mentioned when writing about Gorgon a couple of games ago that Chris Huntoon games would feature again terms of ‘Project 8x8 &48’ and here we go again with his 2009 design Whiz Bang.

Now I will admit I much prefer one word names for abstract strategy games; Dameo, Yinsh, Hive, and while there is actually a reason behind the name Whiz Bang it does not exactly catch attention as a serious game.

A bit of the story behind the name is taken from Board Game Geek; “rapid advancements in artillery during the late 19th and early 20th century meant that when Word War I broke out, the nature of war would be changed forever. That war marked a shift from the infantry charge of old to the modern artillery barrage. Pieces ranged from small mortars to powerful Howitzers. The larger, more complex the ordnance the more soldiers it required in the gun crews to properly fire it. These pieces usually shot exploding shells - called 'Whiz-Bangs' by the troops.”

Once you know that the name starts to take on some interest, as Whiz Bang tries to recreate the trench warfare of the first World War.

The game is played on an 8x8 board, with each player having 16 pieces aligned on the two rows closest to them.

The centre two rows in Whiz Bang are designated as 'No Man's Land' – which the BGG page notes was “the deadly wasteland that existed between the two sides trenches.” Since the two centre rows are obvious there is no real need to specially mark them.

In Whiz Bang the first player to safely get a ‘soldier’ (a piece) across No Man's Land and into enemy territory wins.

That sounds like a simple goal even though a ‘Soldier’ can move only one step in any direction. A line of Soldiers can also be shifted one space in the direction of their line – which reminds quite a bit of David E. Whitcher’s well-respected game Cannon.

But as in the ‘Great War’ soldiers face a barrage in attempting to cross ‘No Man’s Land’.

In Whiz Bang Soldiers attack by firing shells. The direction and range is determined by how many Soldiers are working together. Two Soldiers connected in a line can attack up to two spaces away in the direction that their line is aimed at. Three Soldiers in a line can attack up to three spaces away, and so on. A lone Soldier can attack any neighbouring space. When an attack is made, none of the attacking Soldiers are moved. The opponent's captured Soldier is removed from the board. Again, reminiscent of Cannon.

Whiz Bang is very much a game of attrition. You must occasionally send a soldier forward into the fray, knowing it will not make it.

You need also to keep defensive structures which as flexible – able to alter direction – to be effective.

It’s all about balance, and ultimately survival.

Whiz Bang accomplishes a ‘sort’ or feel of trench warfare reasonably well, while offering up a solid board game challenge too.