Love Letter

You are a suitor trying to win the love of Princess Annette. However she has (very inconsiderately) decided to lock herself in a castle and so you must rely on the lengthy process of using intermediaries in the castle to get your letters to the princess. I mean do they not have some form of postal service in this country!?

The objective of love letter is to either eliminated all of your competitors or have the highest numbered
card when the communal deck you draw cards from runs out. To start everyone draws one card from the deck and the game can begin with the starting player drawing a card. They then choose one out of their two cards to play and apply the corresponding effect which can be anything from looking at another player's hand (the priest's special ability) to secretly comparing hands with another player with the person who has the smaller value card being eliminated (the baron's ability). You must however be wary because although the princess's card has the highest value, if you discard her you are automatically out of the round, making her one of the biggest risks in the game.

The first things you notice about this game is how compact it is (it can easily fit in my blazer pocket)  only needing 16 cards to play the game, meaning that you can take it anywhere with you making it the perfect game to take on holiday for example. Although if you do have a bit more space you can use the other amazing components like the bag you keep everything in which is delightfully furry.

Although there is player elimination the rounds go so quickly that you barely notice the wait before you can join in again. The fact that rounds go so quickly means that you can fit a game in any small patches of time that you have spare. 

The game has the right amount of strategy to make it interesting as you figure out what card everyone else has, while trying to keep your hand secret. Although luck plays a role in this game, you can improve you chances by figuring out how many cards of a specific type have been played letting you have a better picture of what everyone could have (this is made easier by the help cards which show you how many of each card there is) but still keeping a bit of uncertainty in the game making it feel fair while still being tense.

Also, every game you play is different as before you play each round, you remove the first card from the deck face down, making every game different and putting another factor you need to add into your calculations.

I absolutely love this game, it is portable, fun and has the just right amount of strategy. The only thing that I would say is that some people might not like the suiting theme but you can just get one of the various different re-skins like the: batman, hobbit and star wars themed versions. This is a must have game for practically everyone and I would give it a 9/10!

Cash n Guns

A wise robber once said, 'The danger isn't over until the heist is over'. Unfortunately that wise robber was wrong and died shortly after as his friends shot him repeatedly to get a bigger share of the loot from a heist they just completed.

Cash n Guns is a party game in which you try to collect the most treasure from a robbery you just completed while trying to eliminate your companions from the competition by giving them three wounds. At the start of a round (of which there are 8) you put out the 8 treasure cards that will be available that round and then deciding whether you want to load your gun with a bang or a click(you have 5 clicks and 3 bangs). Then everyone points their foam guns at someone else with the intent of either shooting them with their bangs or scaring them with a click and making them stand down. At this point, players have to decided whether to stay standing, risking being shot or lay their character down but not be able to take treasure or shoot this turn. Everyone flips over their cards and discards them, with the people shot by a bang taking a wound and laying their character down. Everyone left standing proceeds to take loot going clockwise. This is done until there are no more treasure cards left and the winner is the player with the most money who is still alive.

The first thing you notice when you first set eyes on this game is how lovely the components are. The box has this lovely mat finish and also the gangsters characters you play are illustrated in this funny cartoon style (they also stand up)! My favourite loot cards are probably the paintings (loot cards that the more you have the more their value) which are goofy versions of other classics like the mona lisa. The foam guns really add to the feel of the game and although you can play without them (probably a good idea if I take this into school) they are really nice.

I do have a couple of problems with this game though, mainly player elimination. With a run time of 30 minutes it can get really boring if you are eliminated in the early rounds (I once died in round three) and you have to be content with watching your companions play while you get to do nothing but watch. There are even problems with this kind of thing even if you are alive because as soon as some aims at you with a bang card you are out for that round, you are either lie yourself down or be shot and have to lie down. This first means that it feels a lot less like you can do anything to affect the outcome of the game and also it is quite boring having to watch of your friends are choosing what loot they want while you are stuck twiddling your thumbs (although for a lot less time than if you are killed outright).

Although this game does have some problems while you are alive you do get to make some interesting decisions like whether you should put a bang or a click in your gun and who to point it at. Also the push your luck aspect of the game is nice as you way up the rewards of staying up with the shots you might take if you don't lay down. It is an interesting decision if you make it to the loot sharing phase on when to take the god fathers desk an item always put out on every turn which lets you redirect one persons gun if they are pointing at you and take first pick on the loot next time.

Overall I think that if you get the right people together (those being normally teenagers like this which is lucky seeming as I am one) it can be a blast, with the silliness of pointing guns at each other and laughing as one of your friend dies (in the game of course). However if you are playing with kids or people who don't like the idea of pointing guns at each other or having to wait for the game to end before they can get back in if they die then it could easily turn sour. Also if you are playing with young kids they could get upset if they died or some was shooting at them. I think I would give this an 8/10 if I was playing with the right group of people but 4/10 if that was not the case.

Flamme Rouge

 Riding a bike is cool but do you know what's cooler pretending to ride a bike! The tour de france is cool, but you know what's cooler flame rouge. Flamme rouge lets you pretend that you are the cyclist you wish you were(without even breaking a sweat)!

Flamme rouge is a racing game were you try and get either one of your two bicycles across the finishing lining. You have two different decks made up of movement cards, one for your rouler(your all-rounder cyclist) and your sprinter(which can go really fast at some points but to contract that also go really slow other times). Picking one of these decks to do first, you take four cards and choose one of them to be that riders movement of that turn and discard it from the game while the other are put at the back of the deck to be re-used later(meaning that if you only pick your good cards at the start then you will be overtaken in the late game as you have to pick the bad cards). After that  everyone moves their cyclists corresponding to the movement cards starting from the biker at the front moving back. Then you get to move up all the packs that are one space apart together because of 'slip-streaming' and they everyone at the front of the pack takes a exhaustion card which is put in that cyclists recycling section.

The first thing I love about this game is the huge variety of strategies that present themselves from the challenge of managing your riders deck and the different strategies that the decisions you make represent. For example you might try to form a breakaway, conserve your energy for a final sprint or if I was in the game just go slowly for the entire race.

The art is also very nice, with different art for each of the riders decks, which is a really nice touch that makes it feel like you are controlling two people instead if two little pieces on a board. However I do have one problem which is scaling, because according to my calculations (which involved lots of counting, searching the internet and a cow) that the course in Flamme Rouge is only 518.16 meters long and a stage in the tour de france covers about 166666 meters and it would take about 33.6 seconds for professional cyclists to complete it. Saying this, the flame rouge is a flag that marks the last kilometre in a race and 518.16 meters is kind of close to a kilometre.

But if you look past the fact that the race is absolutely tiny, you can bask in the brilliance of the theme of this game. It simulates the fact that going out in front is tiring and the help from slipstreaming riders get but also how it is really hard to form a break-away from any length of time without being swallowed back up by the peleton. Anyone who has watch even a bit of cycling will recognise this from the actual thing. Everything works really intuitively

My last small problem is the cyclists, which all had their rides fall of them, and so we will have to glue them back together (all though it will almost certainly never happen, I am very lazy). Also, it is slightly hard to tell the difference between your router and sprinter but it isn't that bad.

Overall the problems are insignificant really, when you think about how easy the rules are to explain, while also not making the game simple or limiting any of the strategic options. I think that this is an amazing gateway game but is also worth it for anyone who wants a great racing game. Overall I would give this a nine out of ten and recommend this to basically anyone.

Magic Maze

You are a band of adventurers and because going out adventuring doesn't exactly turn the same profit as getting a regular job, you have, unsurprisingly, no money. So instead of trying to trade goblin heads for the weapons you so dearly need, you decide to just steal them and save all that time wasted bartering. What better place to rob all your supplies than a shopping centre?

Magic Maze is a cooperative game where you have to get four different pawns (representing an archer, fighter, dwarf and wizard) to different shops for the planned robbery and then running to the exits as quickly as possible for obvious reasons. But instead of each of the players controlling one of these pieces, you can all move them a different direction. But two things make this game exciting, one, you are up against the clock and two no one can talk. 

Although this game has an unassuming cover, it holds an absolute gem inside. The first thing you notice about it as you start playing is how intense it is, if your mind wanders of to something else for a moment, it will soon be drawn back in as someone bangs a big red pawn in-front of you which basically symbolises them shouting 'DO SOMETHING!' at you. This is quite different from the turn based games which you aren't always engaged when it is someone else's go and are only actually playing 50% of the time.

The difficulty level is also perfectly managed, when you start you can play the base levels which unlike most game the simple game is just hard enough to be a challenge to a new player (but not to hard at the same time) and as you get more experienced you can choose to do the harder levels which get increasingly complex. For example, each of your must have to go to different exits when they are running out or have to contend with security cameras or in one of the later scenarios your quest for the perfect heist spans two dimensions!

My one problem with this game is that with the bigger player counts some people are given identical action cards except for the fact that one person gets to do a special action as well.. This means that your role in the game is a lot less important ,when you are in a pair, as if you don't spot a vital move you need to make your partner will just do it for you. This means that you feel like you aren't impacting the game and that is a lot less fun. One way to get round this issue is to just split that special card up, meaning on player could do the movement and the other could do the special action making both roles important. The issue is partly resolved in the game by at some points swapping roles, so you wouldn't get a bad role for the whole game but still that is not a perfect solution.

Another thing that this game succeeds with enforcing silence onto the players is eliminating the possibility of someone telling everyone what to do because they can't talk. Which is sometimes a problem in co-operative games were one person basically plays the game and other people are left twiddling their thumbs.

Overall I would say that this game is an excellent option when you feel like working together for a change and is a fun experience which is good for all sorts of situations. I think I would give this a 8.5/10 and recommend it to basically everyone.

Happy Salmon

A 2017 survey into who were the most happy people in the world has showed up some unusual results. It found that the most happy participents weren't exactly people, but instead fish. Salmon as it turns out are very, very happy.

Happy Salmon is a party game full of frantic fun as you try and get rid of your deck of cards by doing various different actions like high-fiving and the signature Happy Salmon move where you slap your hands together. Once you have completed the action shown on your card with someone else then you can discard it and move on to the next one, if you end up in the case that no else has same action as you then you can just put that card at the bottom of your deck to complete that action later.

That is the rules explanation done and you could now play Happy Salmon with minimal to no instruction from the rule book. So I bet you can all guess what my first comment about this game is (and if you can't I am very disappointed in you) being that the rules are so simple, you can take it out and be playing with people having never heard of it in 5 minutes. A major positive if you like me have a bunch of friends who are relatively new to this whole 'gaming' thing.

If you are averse to lots of noise then this might not be the game for you because Happy Salmon gets loud really quickly, as everyone starts shouting (probably not the best game to play in the school library) to see if other people have the same card. This creates an amazing atmosphere as everyone scrambles to get rid of their cards and makes this a pretty much perfect party game.

If all of those things don't make you want to run of to buy this game then the case will, because it is probably the best board game pouch ever created. I mean what more could you hope for than a smiling salmon with a tail and two cute fins that compactly stores your game in style. The cards are also suitably robust so you don't have to worry about them being damaged in the crossfire.

The small playtime of this game means that you can play it several times in a quite short time, but I wouldn't suggest playing it for more than 10 minutes. Actually if you play this for ten minutes I would be very impressed as this game gets you to run round tables and do different hand movements at an increasingly fast pace (exercise and fun at the same time, this is new) which for most people gets them out of breathe in about 30 seconds.

My only complain and this is really not a big deal, is that when you get the cards they are all stuck together which is a minor inconvenience as you have to spend about five minutes breaking them apart but like I said this is the only fault I could find with otherwise flawless game.

Overall I think this game is one of the best party games I own and it is always fun to play. It is also really nice how they provide variants for people with limited mobility. I think I am going to give this game a 8.5/10 and totally recommend it for anyone who wants a really fun party game.

The royal game of Ur

I am really sorry about how long it has been since I last posted, but for the game we're going to be reviewing that wait probably went past in a blink of an eye, seeing as it is over 4600 years old! You might think snakes and ladders has been around for quite a long time, but compared to this game it is barely a young whippersnapper (literally, it has been alive for 3800 years more)! So before I start on the normal review, I feel like we need a history lesson(this is the point where you all shout 'Yay, I love history lessons!' and start jumping up and down excitably).

The only reason we know about this game is because of a man called Sir Charles Leonard Woolley who was famed for his excavations in some tombs in Ur (in Mesopotamia) which uncovered two game boards, no awards for guessing why the game found in them are called the royal game of Ur. Although
the true rules will never be fully uncovered (what I'm going to be reviewing is an educated guess of what it played like all those years ago, many other interpretations exist) a tablet date to 177-176 BC was found which explains it partially allowing approximations to be played today.

Now, on with the review. The aim of the royal game of Ur is to get all of your seven markers of the end of the board while at the same time trying to get extra movement by landing on special squares
and kicking your opponents back to the start by landing on their pieces. You do this by on you turn rolling four, four sided dice which have two whit dots on two sides and moving one of your counters the amount of white dots you got on all of your dice. If you land on a star, then you get another roll but you don't necessarily have to move the same counter. If you land on your opponents piece you send it back to the start.

To get your piece to the end, you start at on of the sides of the board, first moving up until you hit the top of the board then going down the central isle until you can breathe a sigh of relief as you round the final corner meaning your opponent can no longer catch you as you each have separate ending spots. If any of this confuses you, I suggest watching this video of this age-old game being played, as it includes an explanation of the rules.

In terms of the actually quality of the game I was pleasantly surprised, their is a lot more strategy than you would think; when to dash down that central row while avoid being caught, what piece to move with your throw and how to get one of those precious extra rolls by landing on the stars.

Although there is strategy, this is still a game based on luck but that is not necessarily a bad thing, because no matter how well you played, there is always a chance of your plans coming crashing down with a roll of a dice, which makes for some serious tension. However instead of this kind of defeat absolutely ruining the game for you and scuppering your chances of winning, due to the small size of the board it doesn't take long to get back into the race. As well as this, to make the game even more exciting, the royal game of Ur has a built in balancing mechanic as the more pieces you get of the board, the smaller amount flexibility you have with choosing which piece to move giving your opponent an advantage. Also, the more pieces the losing player has, the more they can put more onto the board at one time, making it a lot harder to navigate all the way to the end without being kicked of.

If I had one minor complaint that would be that you could roll zero white spots on your turn therefore meaning you would not being able to move anything, which is really boring and makes it feel like you wasted your turn.

For me this really feels like a next step from snakes and ladders, while still being simple and letting people who have only played a couple of times having a decent chance to win but do remember if you are looking for something more in-depth and strategic then this game might disappoint you. Overall I would give this a 7/10 and recommend it to anyone who is playing with children or is slightly brain-dead.

P.S. The main reason I wrote this review was that I was lucky enough to actually see a copy of this game at the British Museum which was pretty incredible and if you are in the area I highly recommend giving it a visit.

Hobbit Tales

Hobbits (the ones in Jr Tolkiens world) loves pubs, probably there favourite places apart from there homes. But when you gather a group of hobbits in a pub something is inevitable to happen, they will start telling stories. Tall stories that probably never happened, never will happen and were likely made up on the spot. In hobbit tales, we are a group of hobbits, and we are in a pub.

One person to start the game is chosen to be the narrator, and draws 5 adventure cards (in a 4 player game) and draws 2 extra adventure cards to be the pro and epilogue of your story. Adventure cards consist of elements that you have to include within your story like for example 'a warm welcome'. However the other players are trying to play hazards on the adventure cards by matching  symbols on the hazard cards in their hands to the adventure ones on the last 2 cards. If the symbols do match, then you can play your hazard card and depending on the roll of a 12 sided dice the hazard may or may not succeed. If it does succeed then the narrator must take out the adventure card it was played on from the story and the narrator has to incorporate this hazard into their narrative. The more hazards are played onto your story the less likely it will reach its conclusion and the less victory points it will score you. 

So the first thing you will have noticed is how I haven't covered is the scoring system, well, thats because its just terrible. I just use my own home rules because well, the scoring system the rules provide don't give you much reward for actually telling a good story, it is more about luck. You could just flip a coin a few times and the outcome would have probably the same likely hoods of winning if you played it using there own scoring system, which is why we don't.

But saying that, scoring lots of points isn't the really the reason you play the game. You play the game because the way that you have to try and tell a story using adventure cards that seem disparate at best as you try and incorporate the hazard cards in to your story. For me at least this is a really fun and enjoyable experience

Another strong thing about this game is the component quality, which is lovely, the cards are beautifully illustrated and everything has a really lovely feel to them. The slightly larger than normal cards leave a good amount of space for the illustrations without being to cluttered.

If you don't mind slightly changing the scoring system and like telling stories then this is the game for you. Also, it can be used in conjunction with the One Ring roleplaying game (which you can see my review of here) but I haven't really seen it being used in the game. Overall I would give this game a 7/10 and suggest it to anyone that can't get there head out of a good story.

Pass the Pigs

So, continuing with this theme of mainstream games, we are going on to a game about throwing pigs (no, not actual pigs you idiot) that has been a family classic for many a generation, so lets go!

To start the game one player takes the two miniature rubber pigs and throws them, with different combinations of landings scoring you different points and then they have a decision to make, should they push their luck and take another throw or play it safe and guarantee what points they have but also end their turn. Now, this is a vital decision to make, because if you throw a certain combination of pig positions (which comes up quite often), then your turn ends and you lose all your points. The first person to reach 100 points wins.

This is a pure and simple push your luck game which is tense and exciting at every roll, while remaining simple to teach and learn. It is always funny when your friend is going for one last roll and then loses all the points they scored on that turn, and this threat of losing your points makes this game, a game.

But saying this, the luck element which lets this game work also means that on some turns you take your first toss and your turn ends. Nothing you can do about this, as you watch everyone else actually get to do something.

Next, a minor complaint is that someone has to add up the scores ,taking them out from the game to do mental maths, I can tell you, we do enough maths at school, I don't need more practice.

Finally, I have to address the elephant in the room, or the pig if you want, you are throwing pigs!   My sister absolutely loves them, and I like them to -although hippos are better, just saying- but I do feel like the novelty will wear of and then that will reduct a major part of the fun in the game.

To wrap this up, pass the pigs is a ok push your luck game which is good for young people, due to the simple rules and the pigs, but for anyone but a family with small children the entertainment might wear thin after a while. I would give this a 5 out of 10.

Bananagrams

So, we've all played Scrabble right, you know that word game that takes forever, is tricky to score and incredibly frustrating as you try and fit words on to a grid to score the most possible points. Well, what if I told you that there was a game that took about a quarter of the time to play, had no dull scoring process but still gave brain hurting quality as you try and make words with letters that seem to hate you! If that sounds good, come on in.

In Bananagrams, the aim of the game is to be the first to use all of your letters and there to be none in the central pile either. To do this you try and make a personal grid of interlocking letters in real time -you don't take turns in this game - that form words with (to start of with) 21 tiles. Once someone finishes all their letters, then they must shout 'peel!' and everyone takes an extra face down tile from the dump' one of your letters for three other random ones, sometimes saving you from a pickle but other times just worsening the problem.
middle, however finishing those last few letters is not always easy with those awkward letters that often pop up. To mitigate this, you can '

First things of, let me just say that this way better than Scrabble: you don't have to wait ages for other people to finish their turns (as you are working on your own board), it is quicker and easier to transport (fitting inside a cute banana shaped pouch) and you are more likely to be able to get young children to play this than it's old and slow counterpart. The ability to get rid of hard letters and to not have to worry about how much a word scores makes it possible for primary school goers to join in.

On the other hand, this isn't going to be the game that will suddenly make you love word games if you don't all ready, it is really just a streamlined version of scrabble with less hard thinking. You are still arranging words in different ways in a crossword like creation, that is still the same but in a more pure version if you like. The outer skin has just changed, not the concept behind it.

The component quality is nice and the rule book is clear and easy to read, all coming within a cool banana shaped pouch (isn't that the coolest thing ever, I mean a banana) that neatly stores them away. The tiles are strong, and you will not have to worry about breaking anything when some one inevitably'by accident'.
drops the down the stairs

Overall I would say it is a solid word game that I would play with 8 year olds and upwards because you still need a solid understanding of words to have a go at it. Though I know that some people out there will absolutely love and some hate it, I walk the line between the two, but will still always prefer to play this than Scrabble. I am going to give Bananagrams a solid 6/10 and suggest you word aficionados go out and play it.

Why should you play board games?

So, after what I reckon has been 3 years of doing this site (also know as nearly a quarter of my life), I thought, hey wouldn't it be a great idea to remind myself and all you people about why we play games. So, lets do that now.

Reason 1!

They make you laugh(normally, I wasn't laughing when my sister betrayed me in Risk), now you may think, how's laughter king to help me in life? The answer to that, is in many ways. First of all, laughing helps increase endorphins in your blood which in turn lowers your blood pressure. Having a low blood pressure means you are much less likely to get artery damage, heart disease and a stroke.  Tell that to the people say staying cooped up in your room all day playing board games is not healthy. 

Reason 2!

Board games also help with you problem solving skills and other cognitive stuff, and stop cognitive decline (you only really need to worry about this when your old, so this issue isn't exactly on my radar).  This reduced cognitive decline also reduces your risk of things like Alzheimer's and dementia, making board gaming like one of the most healthy things around! In fact, it is so healthy, I think we should
scrap PE (Physical Educacion) and bring in a healthy two lessons of board games a week!

Reason 3!

For me this reason is one of the most important reasons of all, board games let me spend time with my friends and family. With a Dad who is always away doing science talks and a Mum who works her back of in a university trying to get academics to do what they said they would in grants (it's like herding cats, but harder) I enjoy the time I get to spend with my family. Also, board games are a good way to socialise with friends, I play Jungle Speed (you can find a review of here) regularly with friends in the library and have introduced one of them into Magic the Gathering (which you can also find a review of here).

So there you have it, three great reasons to play games and some cool facts to show your parents if they complain about your time-consuming hobby.

Things to look out for!

So, I'm back. Yes, after what must have been months (and what a few horrible months those would have been), I'm back. Now, must of you will be crying 'Where have you been George?' and those of you who aren't should. One word, tests.

But seeing as I have a short respite, lets get started on my top things to look out for in the up-coming future.

1, Kung Fu Panda, the board game

I. LOVE. KUNG FU PANDA. I mean, come on, who doesn't. So you could imagine my excitement as I realised that a cooperative miniatures board game was coming out (a bit like mice and mystics if you know what that is) based entirely on it! It is going to be made by Modiphius a producer of quite a few big hits and should becoming out soon on kick-starter (a place where most young games start). Although when I said 'soon', I probably meant that it might come out this year… possibly. They say the delays on its arrival are being caused as they have to check everything with dreamworks, but I am still pumped about it, delayed or not. If you want to more about this but-kicking, fists-flying and death-defying game, go here.

2, Amonkhet, Magic the Gathering

As part of the constant cycle of new cards pushed out for Magic the Gathering (if you don't know what this hugely popular game go here) a new set is coming out, Amonkhet. It has an Egyptian style theme, which I adore (I am a bit of a history junkie), and the story behind it promises to be good. Like history, I love a good story. For more information, go here.

3, The Harry Potter Miniatures Game

Well, I'm not sure what really else to say, the title does it for me. My personal reason for being excited, is that hopefully, I can use this to get some of my friends and even maybe my sister into war games. Also, I am crossing everything I've got that there will be a expansion based round the new 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' , I mean, who doesn't want to control an army of cute magical monsters that could tear your throat out in a instant. 

4, the UK Games Expo

Now, I know that this is not a games, but I do have to say, I am more excited about this than anything else on this list. It is where I will hopefully buying most of my games to review and play for the next year and I encourage you thoroughly to go to it. If you want to see my account of last years show go here and the website for this years go here.

Qwordie

Qwordie is a crazy frankenstein creation of a quiz and a word game stitched together with a bizarre fixation on platypuses. Only slightly weird then.

In Qwordie the aim of the game is to try and collect enough letters on your stack to reach a certain hight  (depending on how long you want the game to take). But how do you do that, I hear you cry. Well, at the start of the game you draw 5 letter tiles and each turn you get the choice to either choose one letter tile from the communal pool (which starts at 15 tiles) and put it in to your hand. However, if there is nothing you want from the pool, then you can randomly take two tiles from the box, putting one into your hand and the other into the pool. The round ends when someone can spell from the letters in their hand an answer to question card that everyone is working towards. If the person correctly spells it, they can add all the letters they used to their stack, and you draw another question card. However, you keep your letter tiles, so even if you didn't win this question, you are more prepared for the next one.

So, Qwordie is definitely not a heavy game, it will probably only take 20 to 30 minutes and those you could play with little focus. Although, it does require some trivia knowledge to play, as the hard questions aren't necessarily easy. I do like how to you have the decision between whether you choose the safe but probably not best option of taking from the pool, but you could push your luck and try to get the tiles you really need but you risk getting nothing you need at all.

However, from all this, it makes the game just 'meh'. I mean it isn't amazingly fun, but if I was on a desert island I would play it. I think that that sentence describes the game as a whole, although I would suggest it to those who like trivia and things like that. I am going to give this game a 5/10 and urge you to spend your hard earned money on something just a bit more entertaining.

Magic the Gathering

I'm back! Bet you missed me. The torrential amounts of homework has (mostly) stopped and I can start writing these posts again and today I am going to review an incredibly popular collectible card game called… Magic the Gathering.

In Magic the Gathering, you are a planeswalker, a powerful mage that can travel the planes of existence, using the energy from the lands you go to, to power devastating spells. But life is not peaceful for a planeswalker and you find yourself frequently battling others like you. To emerge victors of these bloody fights, you must summon mythical creatures, cast gravity-defying spells and clash in a combat that only one of you can come out of.

This blog, I am not going to explain all the rules of Magic the Gathering because A I can't be bothered to, and B because I think that someone could explain it better anyway. So if you want the low down on how it works, go here to find out all the rules of this game.

Now, after you have read that article (or most of it anyway), it is time to discuss what I think about it. First things first, I have to say I love it, once you are playing, the rules are intuitive and flow easily. Although it can be hard at first to read all those rules, it makes sense afterwards.  I would suggest that you keep a computer connected device to search for the meanings of the key words that sometimes show up on the cards.

Personally, I find that this game has just enough bite to it, to make it not brain hurting from all the possibilities and variables that could come up, but a nice amount of strategy and tactics to make it a good thing to think about.

Two things that I love about this game that other people might be not bothered about, is the art and the story behind it. I mean, I could frame some of these cards and put them up on a wall to look at all day (although I'm not a massive fan of some of the older stuff). As well as this, if you like this kind of stuff (which I do) the story behind the cards is really cool and quite in-depth.

Now then, it is time to debate a real double-edged sword to this game… and that, is deck building. I personally love it, trying to figure out which cards would work really well together and testing your skills against the maker of the other deck. But, to make a deck all by yourself, you will need a lot of cards, and the requires investing money and time which some people will be unprepared to do. However, if you buy a pre made deck, you get two packs full of random cards, to customise the pre made deck you got, which allows you a taste of what deck building is like, but it doesn't give the full experience.

Another thing that is annoying is that Magic the Gathering is quite  reliant on luck, sometimes you will play an entire game, just drawing lands (the things that power your spells) or spells and no lands
(so you can't play the spells you do have). This means you basically spend the game doing nothing and watching as your opponent decimates you and you can do nothing about it. However, the games are short enough and the games detailed here are far enough apart to make it not a massive problem, but
still an annoyance.

 Overall, I think that Magic the Gathering is a really good game, but if you want to get the full depth and enjoyment out of it then be prepared to get your wallet out once or twice. A thing I would suggest  is that if you have a local game store then you can ask for a taster deck, which is 60 cards split in to two smaller decks for you to try out (that was how I first encountered Magic the Gathering). I think I would give this game a 8.5 out of 10 and suspect that I will like it a lot more, the more I play it.

A short break in the normal direction

Unfortunately, due to personal commitments (a.k.a the school play) I cannot continue with my normal practice of putting up blogs, as the time I normally spend in the weekend doing this, I have to do my homework. I think the teachers find it funny seeing me suffer... But anyway, I should be back to the normal schedule in a few weeks, and I recommend reading some of the older posts in the meantime.

Rhino Hero

In Rhino Hero, you have to help Rhino Hero scale a tower, helping people and saving the day before the whole thing comes tumbling down. But the question is, who will topple the tower?

Rhino Hero is a dexterity game where you have to stack cards on top of each other to create a tower, with the person who knocks the teetering construction you have made losing. To do this, on your turn, you play one of five cards you start of with (this is for a four player game). You put the card on top of the the tower and place bent wall cards on the guidelines shown. The cards do not always follow the conventional wall pattern, and some will only require one wall (in my opinion, one of the hardest configurations). As everyone takes their turn, the tower will get taller, until eventually someone knocks it over. The winner is the the person with the least cards left when that happens.

This basic concept is made more interesting by some of the cards having symbols on them which make you do certain things, for example a card with an exclamation mark on it makes the next person miss a go. However, if you have the Rhino Hero symbol on the card, you must pick up the small wooden Rhino from wherever it was placed last -which could have been lower down on the tower- and place it on the symbol. This is trickier than it sounds, and can mean the difference between a pristine construction and a wobbling mess.

First thing to say is that this game is fun. Not just fun for little kids; fun for everyone. The heights you can get to is quite spectacular, and even adults will find themselves struggling towards the end. Although it does not have the complexity of any of the heavier style games, this works brilliantly to pass the time and the quick turns means you never get bored.

Having said that, one of the things that I did wish the game had more cards and wall bits. If you are playing with younger kids this will never matter, but I nearly used them all up when I was playing it by myself (a thing that is quite pleasurable). Also, more cards would mean you could play it with more people, as the player count only goes up to five, and if you wanted to play it at a party for example, you would have to leave some people out.

Final thing to mention, is that this game also tests your luck, as well as skill. If you have a hand of awkward Rhino Hero cards, your hopes of success would be beaten up, chucked out of a window and left in a gutter to cry it's silent tears, unless of course you are a master (not unlike myself). But overall, I would rate this game 8/10, and I think it is well worth the money for anyone.

King of Tokyo

In King of Tokyo you are a monster laying waste to the city of Tokyo, but there is not just one of you, instead their are many more monsters with the exact same intentions. Soon everyone turns from the city to each other as everybody knows… there can be only one king!

King of Tokyo is a dice rolling game where you have to try and be the first monster to collect twenty victory points, or be the last one standing. Your turn begins when you roll the six beautifully chunky dice for the first time, then you decided which dice you want to keep (based on the symbols that come up on them) and then do that again two more times so that you have a pool that you -hopefully- should like.

If you get a punch symbol then you hit everyone who is in Tokyo city if you are out or everyone outside Tokyo if you are in for one health with each other punch adding one more (you have ten health to begin with). You can get health back by rolling hearts, victory points by rolling three of one kind of number and cubes that look a lot like jelly - there not, just don't even try-- by rolling lighting bolts. These jelly cubes can be used later to purchase cool upgrades for your monster, which can be anything from getting more dice or being allowed to roll the dice you have an extra time.

Finally, I am just going to explain a few rules about Tokyo, firstly if there is no one in Tokyo, you go in and you get one victory point. For every turn you are still in their, you get another two points, meaning you want to stay in for as long as possible. However all the punches that everyone rolls will hit you, and you can't heal in Tokyo, giving you a reason to go out. Each time some punches you, you can swap positions with them and get out.

That is it, and as you can see the rules are pretty easy and you can teach them to basically anyone whether or not they have played games before. The small number of rules means that turns go by really quickly and you are never drifting of into space as you wait for your counterparts to finish their actions.

Remember when I said that you could teach this to basically everyone, well you can, but I'm not sure you would want to. Small children could not like the aggressiveness of the game and get really upset when their person dies (my monster gets killed a lot, I blame it on the dice) which will happen.

Also, this game is basically, if you peel everything of, a game of luck. Even if you select the right upgrades and choose the best possible time to go out of Tokyo, if the dice aren't kind, you don't stand a chance at winning. Personally I am fine with this, but some people hate it and hate the game because of it.

On the brighter side, the artwork and components are amazing. The dice make a lovely handful as you pick them all up and throw them down in a cascade of randomness. The artwork on the upgrade cards is really good and thematic and the character boards are really nicely done to.

If everyone in your group you are playing with are fine with the violence and confrontation in this game then it will make a really funny half an hour as people realise that they have just widely miscalculated and died. However, if anyone is more of a pacifist (including my sister) then it will kill that atmosphere as an integral part of the game is beating each other up. Kindness, is not an option.

Overall I really enjoy this game and am fine with all the minor qualms that I have spoken about before, but you do need to pick your group carefully. It is funny and I would say that it was definitely worth it, giving it a 7 out of 10.