The 12 days of gaming christmas

Firstly, I am so, so sorry that I have only managed to get this post up now, although I have a mostly legitimate reason. On Saturday I was completely brain-dead (schools has just kicked out for christmas), on Sunday I was at relatives and on Monday I was ill and I am still suffering from it. So hopefully this revised edition of an ancient christmas carol will make up for the wait (and it better do, I spent all morning researching this) and satisfy your gaming christmas song needs.

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Forbidden Island

On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
2 Oddball Aeronaut sets
and Forbidden Island

On the third day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronaut sets
and Forbidden Island

On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronaut sets
and Forbidden Island

On the fifth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronaut sets
and Forbidden Island

On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronaut sets
and Forbidden Island

On the seventh day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

On the eighth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
11 versions of ticket to ride
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

On the ninth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
17 expansions for Settlers of Catan
11 versions of ticket to ride
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

On the tenth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
18 Magic the Gathering duel decks
17 expansions for Settlers of Catan
11 versions of ticket to ride
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

On the eleventh day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
27 types of Risk
18 Magic the Gathering duel decks
17 expansions for Settlers of Catan
11 versions of ticket to ride
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
1298 different types of Monopoly
27 types of Risk
18 Magic the Gathering duel decks
17 expansions for Settlers of Catan
11 versions of ticket to ride
7 editions of Call of Cthulhu
6 discworld games
4 campaigns for Frostgrave
4 campaigns for the One Ring
3 smallworld versions
2 Oddball Aeronauts
and Forbidden Island

So there you have it, my new and improved version of the 12 days of Christmas and if you haven't guessed already, the numbers are the amount of types of that product (although I bet that that monopoly figure has gone up by the time you read this)! Now there is only one more thing for me to say… MERRY CHRISTMAS!

My top 5 games (+ highly recommended) part 2

As the festive season approaches many of you will be frantically scrambling about for presents for your loved ones and family. So to help I have compiled a list of my top five games (plus highly recommended) which you can buy to fill those last minute present slots. This is part two of two blogs I have been doing and so if you want to see the first post go here. 

3rd place goes to… Snake Oil

Snake Oil is a crazily funny game, where you have to try and sell crazy products to customers that could be anything from ninjas to cheerleaders. This is a game that you can play with anyone and this would be a great game to play with non-gamer relatives. The lack of rules make this game a really easy to pick up and teach so everyone, however brain dead you are. If you want to see a full review of this then you can go here to see it.

2nd place goes to…Sushi Go

Sushi Go is a game where you have to collect an array of delicious sushi to eat, but the thing is the conveyer belt of the food is moving. Do you grab the last maki roll but risk forfeiting that tempura because the hand of cards you pick from you pass to player on your left each turn? I can't believe I haven't reviewed this game yet, because it is one of the greatest games ever. The rules are simple and logical making teaching it a breeze yet you can get some serious depth out of it after your first couple of games. The artwork is also amazing and all of these reasons together make this game a must have.

And finally 1st place goes to…Ticket to Ride!

This is a time tested classic released in 2004 (when I was but a tiny tot, learning my way through this crazy world) and it has been given many awards since, including the much sought after Spiel des Jahres. In it you are playing as train lords, trying to build routes through the ever crowded train lines to claim transportation victory. Ticket to Ride is one of the most exciting games ever, the cramped board means you have to rush for routes, often competing with your fellow players to get the last slots. The play time is long enough for you to get your teeth into, but short enough to make accessible to anyone, making it a go to introductory game. Overall this is an amazing game and many people I am sure agree with me that this deserves top spot.

So there you have it, my top games ever, and I hope that this list satisfies those last minute gift needs. 

My top 5 games(+ highly recommended) part 1

As this year draws to a close and all you people are scrambling around searching for christmas presents I feel like the time is right to do a list of my all time favourite games this year. This blog I will award highly recommended, 5th place and 4th place to three lucky winners with the next following up with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. So without further ado, let the prize giving commence.

The award for highly recommended goes to… Celestia

Celestia is a really fun game that I reviewed here. In it you are travellers trying to get the most exotic

gifts by travelling to different islands, the further the island the better the reward. However to do so you have to guess at whether the captain has the right equipment to confront the challenges in the journeys from one island to the other, and if you believe not, then abandon ship and collect your prize. I really enjoy the looks of this game and I have always wanted to get to the fifteen point island in this game       (although I never have). Also the way you have to read the captains face to see if they have the right equipment is really fun and secures this game highly recommended.

                                 5th place goes to…Takenoko

Takenoko is a game where you have to make a giant bamboo garden for a panda (called Tony in our house). I reviewed this game a while ago in the history of this blog and so my writing is a little bit rusty but if you aren't put off by that fact the you can find that review here. Takenoko tactical enough for you to think about strategies, but it isn't to much to take in. It is a really pretty game, with the stackable bamboo that will grow through out your game under the loving care of the gardener (who we call Frank). All of this combines together to make a really nice easy going game that definitely deserves the 5th spot.

4th place goes to… Tokiado

Tokiado is another orientally themed game where you are travellers, walking down the Tokaido road that connects Edo and Kyoto in Japan. It has some amazing artwork and a tranquil feeling that makes it a really nice game to play. Along with that it has some really innovative mechanics, like the person who is at the behind everyone else on the road gets to take their turn, and if their still behind everyone they get another one, meaning that if you leap to far ahead in the game, your points score will be highly impinged. I reviewed this game here if you want to look at it in a bit more detail.   

So thats it for now, but remember to come back next week to see what games are at the top of the pile.

Gubs

In Gubs you are rival chieftains, trying to create the greatest and most powerful Gub colony. You will have to be wary as you tread the treacherous path to victory; traps, hazards and awful events lie in wait for your Gub citizens, on top of that your hard-earned Gubs may be lured off to another rival colony if not protected.

Gubs is fun little card game that can be played in about twenty minutes.  In it you are trying to collect the most Gubs before you draw the G, U and B card in any order. Each turn you draw a card and then play as many as you want. These cards could do one of many things but one type you might draw is a Gub card. Gub cards are, in the end, the things that will win you the game, but there is always the question of when to play it. If you put down an unprotected gub, then it will undoubtedly be trapped, lured or killed by the time it comes back to your go. However, the end of the game could come at any time, and maybe it would be better to risk it and hope the finish is just a few draws away.

Now I hear all you inquisitive people shout, "How do you protect your Gubs from all the bad things that can happen to them?" Well, what you need to save your Gubs from the untimely end that a unprotected one has, is barricades. Barricades can be played on top of a Gub and protect it from almost all the cards in the game and will hopefully help that Gub survive.

There are many ways to hinder your friends in this game but the best example of these are hazard cards. These, depending on what they are, let you lure other peoples Gubs to your colony or destroy all the  barricades (which will mean that by the time the poor person you played the card on gets to react, half their Gubs are gone).

The first thing that I would say about this game is that my sister and I were absolutely obsessed with this when we were younger. For a bit at primary school we used to play a game of Gubs a day and as we used to say, "A game of Gubs a day, keeps the doctors away." I think that is the only game that has ever has that kind of affect on us, and I have played quite a few games in my time.

One of the good things about Gubs is that careful planning and tactics do pay off, but luck is still a big part of it. This means that younger children have a chance against their adult counterparts, and will beat them almost as much as the adults win.

This game could easily fit in a small plastic pouch so if you are going on holiday this would be neat and inconspicuous, letting you waste as little space in your bag as possible. However you do need a table to play it on so if you are looking for something to do on the train then this might not be the ideal game for you and I would suggest you to look at Oddball Aeronauts - which I have reviewed here.

Overall I would give this game a 8/10 and absolutely recommend it for children at primary school age.  

Frostgrave setup

Today I have decided to help warm up all those who have tired hearts in the middle of the week by doing a short blog post. Just below are some pictures of a Frostgrave set up that my Dad and I have been working on. Hopefully I will get to play it soon (we have the "Thaw of the Lich Lord" campaign) and I might even put up a review for it in a while. I hope this lightens your Wednesday blues and if you are curious you can get the paper models here.

Little Wizards

In this blog post I will be talking about a roleplaying game called Little Wizards. If you have no clue of what a roleplaying game is, then go here. Otherwise, come right this way.

Little Wizards is a roleplaying game designed especially for kids. In it you play helpful child sorcerers and mages, running around sorting out tr problems the citizens of Coinworld (the setting of all Little Wizard adventures) face.

Little Wizards has an extremely simple system for figuring out if you can do something hard- for example, to see if you can persuade the Brownies to stop terrorising the village with their troublesome

pranks. First you roll two  six sided dice, add the results together and then add the appropriate trait (more on those later). If you beat the target number the Narrator (the GM in other words) sets you then you succeed!

Now, back to those traits, traits represent how good you are at different things, depending your level of skill at that certain trait you might get  up to a plus 2 to add onto your rolls .These skills come in two different forms, one, normal skills which are body (how good at physical things you are), heart (how good at interacting with other people and animals you are) and brains (how clever you are). However, the real excitement comes with the other type of skill… magic powers!

Don't worry, although they have a different name magic powers work in the exact same way as traits. However, unlike traits, where every Little Wizard will have access to the body, brains and heart traits, with magic powers, each player can choose what types of magic they want to be able to do.

What is it like to GM this game?

Well, I have been lucky enough to have a chance to GM some adventures in Little Wizards and so for the first time I can tell you what its like to be on the other side of the table, controlling all the eccentric characters of Coinworld and the things that go bump in the night.

This being my first experience of GMing a game a was definitely relieved that there was a ton of

helpful hints spread through the book for narrators and even a whole chapter on how to GM a game of Little Wizards. These really helped my entry into the murky waters of the world of GMing but, I wish their had been a bit more advice on what to do when your players went totally of the plot, because they did that - a lot. Also, I wish their had been some advice for making your own tales because although they give you three adventures ready made, you could easily go through these very quickly. In defence of Little Wizards though they do include loads of story hooks and lots of background description for Coinworld, but it would've been quite nice if they could of provide a little more help on adventure creation.

Apart from those few small problems, I really enjoyed GMing this game and I think that I am glad that it was the first game system I ever ran. The adventures that did come with the box were well written and fun, but also made sure that there was a wide variety of challenges so that every single player stayed engaged

My general thoughts

Overall I think that this game is a perfect way to introduce your children into gaming: the setting is imaginative and fun, the rules are simple and adventures are engaging. What I also love about the game is the character creation system, in it, once you have chosen what you want to be good at, all you have to do is roll some dice and look at a table and the rest of your characters backstory, fears and likes will be filled in for you with minimum effort. This leaves more time for playing and less time for trying for wrangle children into making up a character. I would definitely recommend this game to parents wanting something to get for there kids and I would also recommend it to other children looking for there first way into the world of GMing.

Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit

So, as you all, know, the Newt Scamander film is coming out today! Yay! So, to celebrate this I am publishing a special Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit review.

In Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit the premise is simple, you have to try and collect the most cards until, A you run out of cards, B you get bored or C if you are following the rules, someone collects six cards.
To do this, you select a card and hand to someone else on the table. Then you roll a dice with different colours on and the person you gave the card to reads the corresponding question. If you answer the question correctly you get to keep the card, if you don't then the card goes to the bottom of the pack.

If you are a Harry Potter fan (a.k.a my Mum and Sister) then you will enjoy this game the questions are not stupidly easy and you have to have a decent knowledge of Harry Potter. However, the questions are all on the films so people who are really into the books might find themselves getting annoyed at the questions. If you are a Harry Potter fan and you don't know what to do with your time then this game would be perfect for you. If you want to buy it you can get it here.

Call of Cthulhu and Pulp Cthulhu

In this blog post I will be talking about a roleplaying gaming called Call of Cthulhu and its off-spring, Pulp Cthulhu. If you don't know what a roleplaying game is go to here. But, if you know about the wonderful world of role playing games, read on.

In Call of Cthulhu you are an investigator, living in the world of H.P. Lovecraft's books. Throughout the time you play in this world, you will have to face many horrors, which will slowly and surely drive you mad. Unlike many RPG's (Role Playing Games) you are not guaranteed to survive an adventure and your character will eventually turn mad, or die…

One of the biggest advantages of Call of Cthulhu is the games system is relatively simple. If you want to do something, you have to roll two percentile dice (which gives you the numbers 1-100) and check if the total is under your corresponding skill. If you roll under your skill you succeed!

The adventures set you as investigators, following clues and interrogating people until you realise that
the world is not as safe as you thought, and your childhood nightmares live next door.  The horror world of H.P. Lovecraft is brought further into the game by the use of a sanity score. When you see something horrible (and let me tell you, you will), you have to make a check as described above. If you succeed, well then you'll probably be ok - depending on how scary the situation is - but if you fail then you will lose sanity points (or at least a lot more than you counterparts who succeeded). If you have no sanity points you become insane, and you effectively loose control of your character!

I really enjoy the investigative aspect of Call of Cthulhu and it is extremely rewarding as you piece together the clues to figure out, for example, what unearthly cult has been kidnapping and sacrificing tourists. It makes a nice change from the more combat orientated systems that we usually play and it
also has some of the finest single-sessions adventures around. This means that if you don't have the time or effort to play a long-running campaign then this is the game to go to.

However, this game is definitely not good for children in some cases. My sister and I have been scared and frightened quite a few occasions because even if the Game Master does all they can to make it enjoyable for children, some of the adventures are just inherently scary. The fact that your character is going to die and go insane sooner or later is not going to go down well with many children under the age of twelve. However, this is partly solved by Pulp Cthulhu.

In Pulp Cthulhu, you have some luck, literally, to help your rolls succeed. For example, if you are rolling really badly and you are about to die, you can spend all your luck points and survive to fight another day. In less sticky situations you can spend some luck points just to lower your roll, and succeed when you otherwise might have failed. But you won't want to spend all of your luck points, because you may have to roll a luck test, which means rolling under the number of luck points you

have left.

Also the mood of the game is different, there is more emphasise on fighting although it retains its investigative theme. In addition, you are probably not going to go insane as each time you finish an adventure you get a bunch of sanity points back.

Pulp Cthulhu is a lot better for kids, due to the slight change in feel and also how you can escape death with luck points. Overall, I think that I prefer Pulp Cthulhu because it lets slightly more dramatic and cool scenes to unfold by letting people use luck points to do special things. I would however recommend both of these roleplaying games and I really enjoy playing both of them.

All Wound Up - Escape from the Cemetery

In All Wound Up, you are dead. Being dead, can be quite boring sometimes, so you and your friends think that it would be a great idea to have a race. First one to the gates is the winner.
Ready.
Set.
Go!

All Wound Up is a game like no other I know. In it you control windup Zombies as they race each other to the gate at the end of the grave yard. But first you have to find out what your Zombies will get up to. To do this, you have to go through two phases, the drafting phase and the bidding phase.

In the drafting phase you are given a hand of ten cards which each correspond to a different action, for example 'wind one' lets you wind the handle of your figure once. To start the drafting phase you hand five of your ten cards to the person on your left and receive five from the player on your right. Then you pass four to the player on your left on receive four from the player on your right and so on until you pass only one card, selecting the cards you want to keep at each pass. Once you have done that the round is over. This lets you refine your hand so that you have the best possible chance for the next phases, the bidding phase.

In the bidding phase you have to bid with your cards to get the opportunity to complete the actions on them. To do this, when it is your turn, you call out a type of card that you have and play all of them: after that everyone else plays all of the cards of that type from their hand too. The person who has the most cards of that type wins and does whatever action is on the card to their Zombie (unless it is the 'turn opponent' card, a card designed solely to destroy your friends marvellously laid plans).

We were lucky enough to pick our copy of All Wound Up second hand, but unfortunately one of our zombies was a bit worn out. Not that this stopped the fun as it is easy enough to find new wind up figures. We played with these wind up pumpkins on the picture to the left which tended to bounce in a curved path, adding to the hilarity.

One problem we did encounter was that the rule book is basically intangible. I had to resort to asking my Dad to read it, and even he struggled to make sense of it. This meant that for some rules we had to guess and go with what felt like the right ruling. As well as that, in contrast to its light and fluffy theme, it is actually quite complicated. The drafting and bidding seem to get in the way of what the game actually wants to be, a fun family friendly game about racing with wind up toys.

But even with all of the problems with the rules, there are still some incredible moments in the game, as your friend goes careering off the side of the board or your windup toy ends up facing the completely wrong way and you haven't even made it past the first tile. Overall I would give this game a four out of ten.

Continuing with this scary theme, next week I will be back reviewing Call of Cthulhu and its counter part, Pulp Cthulhu.
P.S I have known discovered the wonderful world of technology with Blogger. I have now added a subscribe feature to my blog! You never know, next I might even look at putting some of my blogs on BoardGameGeek.

The One Ring - roleplaying game

In this blog I will be talking about a role-playing game called the One Ring which is set in J.R.Tolkien's Middle Earth. If you have no idea of what a role-playing game is go to this previous post to find out all about it. However, if you do, come right back this way.

One Ring is set in the famous Middle Earth. A fantasy land full of dwarves, elves, humans, orcs and

countless more. In One Ring you are a intrepid hero, fighting back the encroaching darkness. One Ring is set after the battle of Five Armies but before Frodo and Fellowship of the Ring have departed on their epic quest to save the land.

In the One Ring you can choose to play one of the many cultures that occupy Middle Earth. For example, you could be a stout dwarf from the Lonely Mountains, a crazy old women from the woods, a travel hardened merchant human or, if you want to, a courteous hobbit bowman.

In the One Ring, when you want to do something (like if you wanted to wrestle an orc to the ground) then you have to roll some specially made dice to try and beat a target number - and there is a reasonable chance you will fail. Take a deep breath, I'm going to explain the special dice now. First there is the Feat die (a twelve sided die) which has the numbers one to ten and two other special runes: the Gandalf and Eye of Sauron runes. The Gandalf rune allows you an immediate success, which means that no matter how incompetent you are, you always have a chance. However, an Eye of Sauron rune is definitely not good!  The Eye of Sauron is worth zero when rolled and, to add insult to injury, then something bad can happen in the story, so not something you want to roll if you are already nearly unnconsious and about to be eaten by the spiders of Kirkwood. However, in addition to the Feat die, you might get to roll some six sided Success dice. How many Success dice you get depends on whether your character has any skill in the particular activity you are partaking in. When you roll, the score from your Feat and Success dice are added together to determine if you reach your target and succeed in what you were trying to do. So far so normal, but the Success die also has special Tengwar rune alongside the number six. This Tengwar rune lets you do special things if you succeed, whether that be dealing extra damage or convincing that goblin that it should really run away now.

Another special mechanic, which I really like, is hope. You can spend hope from your personal supply to boost rolls which could be life-saving in tricky situations. So, what's there to stop you from blowing all your hope in the first few seconds of the adventure you ask? Well, if you have less hope than shadow (a really hard thing to get rid of) and you roll an Eye of Sauron you lose control of your character and the game master gets to take control of it, you gain a permant shadow point (normal ones can be worn off) and a flaw (a personality trait your adventurer gains, like greedy).

One of the last rule I want to talk about is fellowship phases. Fellowship phases are the sections between adventures that allow you to develop your character's story while the winter months are upon you.

The first thing I have to say is that I absolutely love this game. One of the first things that I adore about it is the Feat die. It is really fun how there is always a chance to succeed by getting a Gandalf rune, no matter the odds.

One of the things that this system does well is making it feel like you are in Middle Earth. This is partly

due to the emphasis on travel in the rules (think about it, both the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are stories about journeys, one going from the  Shire to the Lonely Mountain and the other from the Shire to Mordor). Another way that the system makes this great feeling is with shadow and hope. You are always wary of spending hope, because if you use too much of it things will start to go wrong very quickly. The fact that it takes a really long time to get rid of shadow to makes it feels significant when you get one, not just a minor setback.

The other special thing about the One Ring that I love is the Fellowship phases. These really let you delve into all that backstory of your character which you never get a chance to look at in other systems. For example in Dungeons and Dragons you never really know your character, they are just numbers on a sheet instead of actual people that have a life. In one fellowship phase, my hobbit bowman put on a big archery festival and was awarded the title of Alderman.

The setting is also an extremely good one to play in, as everyone knows (or should know) what Middle the fantasy setting which everyone knows and loves.

Earth is like and so it is a lot easier to imagine the world you are in and care about it.  It is not just some random fantasy setting the no one cares about and knows nothing about, it is

Overall, I think this game is absolutely amazing. I would defiantely say this was one of my favourite, or maybe even my absolute favourite role-playing game.

Next time I will be going back to board games with All Wound Up : Escape from the Cemetery.

What is role-playing?

Although over the history of this blog I have only reviewed and talked about board games, I have decided to talk about a different but just as fun type of game called role-playing. This article will explain what role-playing is and why you should do it. If you are already familiar with role-playing then I will be reviewing some in the blog posts that follow.

What is role-playing?

Role-playing is a collaborative storytelling game where you are the heroes. In roleplaying you get to choose what you want to do and how you want to do it, while working in a team with your friends. In gaming you each play a different character that has their own individual strengths and weaknesses, meaning that everyone will have a chance to save the day with their expertise. 

There are many different styles of role-playing and basically all of them use a dice to help figure out

whether you succeeded or failed at a task that has some skill in it (so you don't have to roll for walking down the stairs). Normally this is done by rolling some dice to try and beat a target number set by the Games Master (more on this person latter) and the target will get bigger the harder the task is. There are lots of systems that that use this mechanic like: Dungeons and Dragons (one of the best known role-playing system out there), Little Wizards (a children's role-playing game where you take the role of child wizards) and the Dr
Who role-playing system, so all you Dr Who fanatics can play your favourite Time Lord if you wish to. However each has it's own individual take on this concept, as well as letting you play in different world.

The Game Master (GM) is like the narrator of the story that the players are in, who sets the challenges that the players will have to face along their journey. On top of that the game master is in control of all the other people in the world that aren't player characters (also known as Non Player Characters) whether that be the most dastardly of villains to the helpful village shop owner from down the road.

Why should you do it?

Well, firstly, because it is really fun. You will enjoy at least one part of it, wether that may be talking to barmen to get information or cleaving orcs heads off (which I personally find a highly satisfactory and enjoyable past time).

It can also let you have some good quality time with your friends as you make memories of great

defeats and triumphs that will never fade.  One last thing that is amazing about roleplaying is that in most systems your character gradually get better throughout the time you play and it is tremendously fun to see your character turn from a weak and feeble 1st level character to a kick-butt hero that can charm their way out of anything and defeat an army of orcs blind folded. 

If you have children, I would encourage you to get them involved in role-playing as it really helps their story telling and problem solving skills as they explain how they managed to cast the magic spell to save the besieged town or figuring out how to sneak past the guards with only a bit of string and a candle stick.

Another thing that is really cool in gaming is that there is a vast number of different systems set in different worlds which makes you feel different things. For example at one moment you could be in a firefight on Tatooine in Star Wars Edge of the Empire and at the other you could be tracking down cultists in Call of Cthulhu (a investigative horror roleplaying game that is set in H.P Love craft's world). 

There are many different types of roleplaying and so next time I will be reviewing the One Ring system where you play brave and gallant heroes in Middle Earth after the Battle of Five Armies but before Frodo sets out on his quest to destroy the One Ring.

The Beetle Game

The beetle game is an old classic game where players are trying to collect a complete beetle before anyone else does. You do this by rolling a dice and then seeing what corresponding body part you get for that dice roll. Ones get a body, twos get a head, threes get an antennae, fours get an eye, fives get a mouth and finally sixes get a leg. If you get a body part that you can add to your beetle, you get to role the dice again to see if you can get another piece. At the start of the game you have to first get a body and then get a head before you are allowed to collect pieces of any other type.

The beetle game is a game you can play with basically anyone who can role a dice, meaning it is good with small children as long as they can be trusted to not put everything in their mouth. Also you can play it when you are shattered as you don't have to think much at all. The game can get quite tense near the end when two people only have one bit to go. However it can get really boring at other times when you roll the dice but find out that you already have the piece which you rolled. Similarly, the start of the game is really boring as you have to get a body first and if you roll anything else you don't get anything. And to make matters worse once you've got the body you've got go through the same process again with the head! This rule means that if you are unlucky you will be left in the dust as other people are busily building their beetles when you are still trying to get your body. Having this game in 3D is really quite fun as if you are bored you can play with the parts (or put them in a Halloween display) but you can play this game on pen and paper. Personally I would give this game a 3/10 and only recommend it to people who have young kids.

Smallworld

In small world you are the leader of a race of fantasy creatures, trying to conquer as much territory before your race goes into decline and eventually dies out. However their are more than one race about and this world isn't big enough for all of them.

In Small World the aim of the game is to collect the money by conquering and holding regions on the board. You do this by placing special cardboard counters that represent your fantastical race on the board to conquer your chosen region. However some regions cost more troops to get into, your normally need at least two plus however many cardboard pieces there are in the region(these could be other peoples troops or mountains for example). In Small World one of the main tactical decisions you will have to make is when to go into decline. As you get further on into the game you will soon find that your pieces are spread very thinly and you can't do much at all. However all hope is not lost as you can plunge your race into decline and take a new at the start of the next turn. Races that are in decline can't take over new territory and can have the maximum of one counter on each region (making them easy to take over). Each different race has their own unique power and a random other power which can make or break a game.

Small World is a really fun game and I really enjoy the simplicity of the rules makes it easy to play and learn. One of the things I love about this game is when you take over a really heavily fortified section controlled by one of the other players on the table, and watch their face slowly crumple as they realise that their unconquerable fortress has indeed been conquered. Another thing I enjoy is the special powers and how they can really dramatically change the way you play. However the  game is not without its faults, for example when you go into decline you basically lose an entire turn which is really boring as although turns aren't really long, it might be awhile till your next turn in a five player game. Also if you are playing this game with younger children they may get upset when they get attacked so it is probably best to stick to the age guidelines of eight and above (although every child is different). Overall I would give this game a 7/10.

Cortex Challenge

Cortex Challenge is a fun party game for up to 6 players that challenges your brain in a variety of different ways.

In Cortex the aim of the game is to finish your cardboard brain (made up of four pieces) before any of your competitors. To claim a brain piece you need to collect two cards of a similar type by completing the challenge that is on it. Each turn your draw one of the square cards. An example of one challenge you might have to complete is spotting the animal that appears twice on the card before any of your fellow players find the match or a challenge where you have to figure out which object appears the most times. If you are the first to complete a card you can collect it and hopefully cash two similar cards in for a brain piece.

Cortex is a really quite fun party game where everyone gets stuck in, trying to out-compete each other to collect those precious brain pieces. It gets particularly exciting near the end of the game when everyone is desperately trying to claim those cards and win their fourth bit of brain. It is also not like a general knowledge quiz as their is no pre-required knowledge. However, one bad point about this game is that there are some special touch cards. I didn't like these, as when you draw one, only the person who won the last round gets to guess, by touch alone, what the textured picture underneath is.  So if you are not very good at Cortex you never get a go at the touch challenge. However apart from that, Cortex is a very good party game which would work perfectly for a games club at school. I would give Cortex a 7/10 overall.

Oceanos

In Oceanos you are a daring, deep sea explorer, searching in the unseen depths of the ocean to find marvellous creatures and treasure. Will you be the best submarine Captain in the sea, or will your opponents grab that top spot?

Oceanos is a card drafting game with a twist. In the game, your goal is to collect as many points as possible by building your reef and your submarine. At the start of a round, the Captain deals two or more cards (depending on what level the turret of your submarine is, see below about upgrading). You all then choose one of those cards to add to your reef and then pass the unused ones back to the Captain (a position which moves around each turn). The Captain then chooses one of the cards they were presented with and adds that to their reef. Once you have repeated this process five times you score, getting points for animals in your reef and from the propeller of your submarine. After you have scored you move onto the next lower level of the sea and continue your exploration in the same manner.

Throughout the game, you have the possibility of upgrading your submarine's various parts, which allows you to do all manner of things from: being able to have more cards to choose from, to being able to take more than one card for your reef and getting extra points when you score. Another interesting element of the game is divers. On some cards there are treasure chests, when you play a card with a treasure chest you can choose to put one of you limited number of divers onto the card (you can get more divers by upgrading your submarine). However, as you play through three different levels of the reef you can choose to not place a diver and see if you can place it deeper down and collect more treasure. At the end of the game all divers surface and you collect all the treasure from the divers card and the cards above it. This means that there is the potential to get a lot of points if you hang on to your divers until the end of the game, but you can only place them on a treasure card, so do you risk it and keep your divers in your hand or do you play it safe and get the guaranteed points?

We received this game just a few days ago as a review copy and we were delighted to see when we opened it the amazing artwork on the submarines and cards in this game. We were even more delighted to see that inside were all the bits you need to make 5 submarines! My sister and I immediately got into popping out all the cardboard pieces and we soon had in front of us an array of submarine parts. After reading the rules we jumped into playing it. It took a good ten minutes explaining the rules to my Mum and Dad (this game is slightly complicated due to all of the rules about upgrading you ship and all the bonuses you got from that). It was really cool how you could upgrade the different parts of your submarine, and I took great pleasure in maxing out my propeller. Another of the things that I really enjoyed was how you built up your reef, and how you drew cards from a different deck for each different level. The one thing that did come up as we were playing was how some of the submarine parts didn't fit together very well, meaning that sometimes it was a bit of a struggle to get the bits to sit flat on the table. Apart from that, the experience was really enjoyable and my family and I had a fabulous time.  Overall I would rate this game 8/10 and recommend it for anyone who is slightly older.

Cube Quest

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a gigantic fight. Two kings had fallen out and had decided to wage war on each other, determined to rid the planet of the other king. The battle has now been going on for years and both of the kings have suffered heavy losses. Now, in a last gasp attempt, they have rallied their supporters one last time to go and win this war once and for all! You are one of those kings…

Cube quest is a two player flicking game, where the aim of the game is to knock your opponent's king cube off the playing mat. You do this by taking it in turns to flick your cubes, trying to hit your opponent's pieces and eventually hit them off the board. If you flick one of your cubes into the other player's half and it has a shadow face showing on the top of the cube then it is captured. Once a cube is captured, you have to roll the cube like a die. If it lands with a coloured face up, the cube escapes and is immediately returned to your castle, if not, the cube is taken out of the game. Some cubes have more colour faces which makes them more likely to return to your hand if captured, meaning that some cubes are better than others at attacking. There is also an option as you get better at the game to customise which cubes you have, and hopefully make the perfect army.

Personally, I really enjoy cube quest because A, it is a really fun dexterity game, where you can choose how complex you want it to be and B, I'm really rather good at it. You could start with a pre-generated army and get straight into the flicking, or you could carefully build you own. The choice is really yours. Unfortunately, I don't get to play this game very often as, when my family has time to play games, we normally want to play a four player game. As well as that, my sister complains that it hurts her fingers when she flicks (seriously). So if you are a family looking for a game to play together then this may may not be the one for you, but if you are an child that has lots of people available to play games with, then I would definitely check this game out.  Overall I would give this game a 7 out of 10.

Timeline

In Timeline you are a daring time traveller trying to fix timeline of the after the Dastardly Dr Nefarious blew it up with his destroy-o-matic. You now need to piece back together history, making sure that every event is in exactly the correct order.

In Timeline, you have to try and be the first person with no cards by trying to place cards which represented events in history before and after each other on a timeline. At the start of the game you four

cards and you take it in turns placing trying to place them down in the correct time order, but beware if you place the card in the wrong position, you will have to draw a new one, making the turn useless.

Personally, I think that Timeline is a pretty fun filler game to play in-between other, larger games. Due to it's focus on dates, small children would probably find it frustrating, as they get every card constantly wrong. However one way to make sure the adults don't win every time is to, give them more cards to get rid of while children get less. In terms of the gameplay, it does get quite tense at the end as you try and race to place your last card down before your opponent and claim victory. But the lack of player interaction means that it does get dull after several games. Overall I would give it a 6 out of 10.

Celestia

In Celestia you are a daring explorer, flying on a airship through the treacherous islands of Celestia. You'll need your wits about you if you are to stand any chance against the dreaded Lockhar pirates, Damock-birds, vicious lighting and muddling fogs.

Celestia is a family game where you are trying to collect the most impressive souvenirs by travelling to the different islands of Celestia. At the start of the game everyone is dealt some cards: cards can be an equipment item (a lighting rod, horn, compass or cannon), or a special card (which I will talk about later). Next everyone places their character counter in the 3D cardboard airship and the game can begin. Players take turns at being the Captain of the ship, as Captain it will be their responsibility to navigate the airship safely to the next island. The Captain starts their turn by rolling the two dice provided, which will have either a blank space or a symbol which relates to a situation the airship has encountered (a lighting bolt, clouds, birds or pirates). Without showing the other players, the Captain will then look at their cards to see if they have the appropriate equipment to deal with the situation at hand - like the horn card to clear the birds or cannons to fend off the pirates. If the Captain has the right equipment, then they will be able to move the airship along to the next island.  But if they can't cope with the problems encountered then the airship, and everyone in it, will crash and go all the way back to the start. However, before the Captain reveals whether they will be able to overcome the situation, everyone else has to decide whether to stay in or jump out of the ship. If they jump out, they take a souvenir card from the island where they disembarked which will give them victory points. The further the island is from the start, the better the card will be. So you'll want to stay in for as long as possible before jumping out. But, if you are on the airship and the Captain doesn't have the right equipment, you go back to the start and get no points at all. Only after all the other players have decided whether to trust the Captain to see them through or abandoned ship, does the Captain finally reveal whether they can take navigate the ship to the next island. So what would will you do? Do you push your luck and hope the Captain has the right cards or do you play it safe and get some points, even though bigger prizes lie further on...

I mentioned that there are also some special cards, which can change the course of the game by letting people do extra things they wouldn't normally be able to do. An example is one card that allows you to force another player to jump out of the ship, regardless of whether they wanted to or not. This means they might end up with a rather lacklustre souvenir compared to their other shipmates who go on (unless the airship crashes). The another fun card allows you to jump to the next island even if the airship crashes, guaranteeing you the most impressive souvenir that flight.

Celestia, in my opinion, is a really great game. The artwork is amazing and I love how you have to try and figure out whether someone has the right cards by just looking at how many cards they have and their face. I also love the exploration aspect of this game, and it always gives me a really good sense of satisfaction as I make it to a place I have never been to before. Overall I really enjoy this game and it is definitely one of my favourite games.

Oddball Areonauts

In Oddball Aeronauts you are an airship commander battling with rival ships in epic battles over the Boiling Sea, with no margin for error.

Oddball Aeronauts is a 15 minute card game that you can pick up and play anywhere. In it you control one of two faction as they fight in the air. These two factions consist of the Pirates (a rag-tag bunch of miscreants who specialise in the fine art of sailing) and the Pendragons (the royal air navy which is hell-bent on wiping the pirate scum of the face of the earth).
The aim of the game is to force your opponent to discard all their cards, while keeping hold of as many of yours as possible. At the start of each round everyone announces a skill, choosing from guns, sailing or boarding. After that, you announce the number of cards that you are going to play and figure out who has the biggest score and so will win the round. The scores are calculated by taking the big number next to the skill you chose to play and add the little numbers on all the other cards you choose to play (using the same skill of course). Depending on who got the most points, you also get to activate the 'winning effect' for your skill. So if you win with guns you get to discard two of your opponents cards, if you win with sailing you get to recover two cards, and if you win with boarding you get to recover one card and also discard one of your opponent's cards. After that, you discard all of the cards you played that turn by turning them over and placing them at the bottom of your pile. You repeat this process until one person has no more cards left. The only other things to talk about are tricks and events. Tricks are basically special powers which cards have, for example, where you get bonuses to your skills if your opponent uses a certain skill or where you get to change the order of two cards in your hand. Events, on the other hand, are special cards which make you compare stats with your opponent to determine who gets a advantage or disadvantage.

One of the main reasons that I bought Oddball Aeronauts was because it said that you didn't need a surface to play it on, and I am going on a holiday with lots of long journeys so we can play it in the car.  Another great thing about this game is the artwork, which is absolutely beautiful. The factions are very evenly matched, and all the games I have played have been really close which makes it exciting. However, the rules are badly written and sometimes confusing, which is a shame for such a simple game. Overall though I think that it is a very good game if you don't always have access to a table and are looking for something to play anywhere.

Loony Quest

A long time, in a land far far away, an old king was about to die, but he had a dilemma. Although he wished for a child to become the king when he died, it was never to be and the question of who should inherit the throne was left open. So, as he was on his deathbed, he ordered a great competition to test the mettle of all the adventurers in the land: the winner would take the crown. The competition was set up, split into seven distinctive worlds filled with crazy monsters and hazardous traps.You are one of the competitors in the games.

Loony Quest is a fun video-game inspired drawing game where you have to quest through different levels in order to collect the most experience points. At the start of a round, you place a level card in a holder in the centre. Each person then takes a transparent sheet on which they have to draw - by eye - various dots, circles and lines, with the aim of  hitting, encircling and joining the different places on the level card in front of them. After 30 seconds everyone (finished or not) takes it in turns to place their sheet on top of the level card and see how they've done. You get a certain amount of points for completing objectives (like joining up two points on the level card) and minus points if you have touched any traps or monsters. Once everyone has calculated their score, you move on to the next level card. You repeat this till you reach the final boss battle and the winner is declared.  However, it is not all plain sailing. There are bonus and penalty tokens littered around the levels which can help or hinder you. For example, if you land on a penalty token you might have to switch which hand you are drawing with, or if you land on a bonus space you could get to throw a banana token on another player's board and next round they are forced to draw round it. Also cleverly hidden pixies sometimes pop up in levels and if you draw through them you get to do a bonus level. In these bonus levels you have to flick a counter onto a special board, and depending on where it lands you could get from one to seven points (which can be a real game changer)

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Loony Quest and I liked the video-game artwork, which makes the game look so interesting and exciting. I really enjoyed it when you had to do the penalty tokens effects, like holding your pen with only your thumb and your little finger. It was especially funny when someone had to do more than one of these and, almost inevitably, completely flunked the level. The game comes with seven different worlds, and all but the final have six levels in them. This means that the game has a huge amount of replay ability. Although the game is really good, the rules are pretty badly written and you figure most of it out by common sense rather than reading the rule book. Loony Quest I think would definitely appeal to kids seven years old and up, because it is quite hard to do in some places and when you start giving each other penalties the younger children might not like it. Overall I would give Loony Quest a 7/10 and I think that it deserves a place on your shelf.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

In One Night Ultimate Werewolf you are a villager trying to figure out who among you is a werewolf that threatens to kill you all. But, be wary anything could happen in the night, and soon your allegiance may change.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a lying game where your aim is to kill the werwolves on the table,     or if you are a werewolf yourself, to evade attention and shift the blame onto someone else.  At the start of the game everyone is given a secret role (that may or may not have a secret power) which belongs to one of two groups, the Werewolf team or the Villager team.
Once everyone has their cards a section of the game called the night phase starts. In the night phase everyone closes their eyes and a downloadable app (which is made specifically for this game) or a person tells everyone when to do their secret power. Secret powers range from swapping two other peoples card

(an action the trouble maker can take) to the werewolf's power which means that all the werewolf's at the table open their eyes a certain time so they can see who their teammates are.
Once everyone has taken their action, the night phase ends and everyone reopens their eyes and start asking questions to one another to try and figure out what happened in the night phase (as peoples roles may have changed) and who everyone is. Of course the werewolves will be trying to make sure that the  blame is shifted to another ,non werewolf, player and no one ever expects them of being a werewolf. At the end of the time allowed for questioning, everyone votes on who they think the werewolves are. The person with the most votes is "hanged".

One Night Ultimate Werewolf is by far my favourite lying game and I have found that it plays amazingly well at the games club at my school. It is fast pace and something is always happening which keeps everyone interested and focused. This game says you can play with 3 people but, I have tried and I think that you should at least have 5 players before playing this game. Overall I have really enjoyed this game and it is a definite crowd pleaser if you attend any clubs.

Pitch Car

In Pitch Car you are a racing car driver, navigating perilous turns and dastardly corners all while battling your fellow competitors for that number one spot.

Pitch Car a dexterity game, where you have to try to be the first flick your car token three times round a track. The core rules are incredibly simple and they are:
 In a turn, everyone takes their turn by, if their car is touching a safety rail or another car, move their car

one car widths away and then flick it. If the car goes off the track, return it to its previous position.
Like I said, pretty simple.

Due to it's simple nature, Pitch Car is a great game for introducing people to dexterity games, for example, when I took it to the games club at my school (where only me and my sister have any real experience in games) we were playing in seconds and everyone really enjoyed it. It is very fast pace, and everyone is always on their toes, anxiously watching everyone else's move to see if they can retain there position. Another thing that is brilliant about this game is that it has really good quality track pieces (made out of wood) that can be rearranged to make different tracks, meaning that no game is the same. Overall I think that it is an incredible game and is a must for any family.

Tokaido

In Tokaido, you are a traveller, going down the famous Tokaido road which stretches all the way from Edo (modern day Tokyo) to Kyoto. Your goal is to have the best time possible in your travel painting

pictures and buying gifts. But beware, if you end the day with no money to buy food, your happiness could be severely damaged.

In Tokaido, the main aim is to collect the most points by having the most enjoyable experience as you travel down the Tokaido road, visiting various stops along the way. There are a variety of different places that you can stop as you travel along the board, all which do different things. For example, if you stop at farm then you can collect money, which you can then spend on a shop stop to buy gifts and presents. The variety of stops provide a wealth of options for tactics and strategies. The board is divided into days, with a inn at the end of each which provide food and drink for the travellers. Having enough money to buy food at the inn is absolutely crucial, as having a meal at the end of the day provides you with a massive six points (which could make the difference between winning and losing at the end of the game).
A defining feature of the game a rule that states that the person who is at the back of the board gets to go for as many times as they want, until they go past someone else on the board, and then the person who is at the back will take their turn. This means that if you want get to that temple spot half way down the board, then you are going to have a long wait for your next turn.

Another thing that adds complexity to the game is that everyone has a special power which lets them do different things (which help hugely during the course of the game).

I personally love this game due to it's brilliant art work and amazing theme. I also love how you only get your turn when you are at the back of the line, which adds a level of stratergy to the game. This game is one of my sisters absolute favourites and she was the one who actually bought it (a strange occurrence in our household) because she says it, "Seems quite simple on the skin actually it is a quite tactical game. Also, the artwork is amazing." Overall I would give it a 9 out of 10 and I think it is definitely worthy of a space on our crowded games shelf.