Tsuro board game and app review

Tsuro is a relaxing game where you lay down tiles to make a track for a counter to follow, trying to disrupt other players plans while staying on the board yourself. There are two different versions: the game in its physical board game form, but it can also be found on the app store on a Ipad or Iphone for a fraction of the price. In this review I will talk about both versions, weigh up their merits before giving my final verdict.

In both versions, Tsuro is a laid back, easy going game where each turn you place a card and have the satisfaction of watching your player piece snake along the path you have laid for it. These simple rules make it prefect to pick up and play with practically anybody, especially friends and family.  With loops being especially satisfying to pull of, it is fun to see the board crowd up and as you try to not run yourself into the edges of the board.

My one problem with the game, is that how you draw cards which you lay down is unnecessarily complicated ,which slows the pace of learning and playing the game down considerably. When I got to try out the physical game at a convention with my Dad, it made us lose the flow of the game every time we drew a card. Luckily the app automates all of this card drawing, so you can just sit back and play which is one of the reasons why I like the app version so much.

While having physical counters that you can touch is nice, the cards do get knocked pretty easily in the board game, disrupting the game as you scramble to put them all back where they should be. This however is once again solved in the app as the cards slot neatly into place with zero effort on your part.

The one problem I have with the app compared to the physical board game is that if you are playing with your family (which I often do), you have to pass round whatever device you are playing the game with, meaning that you can only really see what is happening on your turn. However in the actual board game everyone can see everything that goes on making it much more inclusive.

My favourite feature by far of the app is that it draws a line showing you where your piece has been, so you can look back at what a wiggly mess you have created when the game is over. It takes the satisfaction you get from when you make a loop in the normal game and multiplies it the the nth degree by playing a little chink sound when you cross back over you line (and do not even not get me started about when you chain several loops in a row).

Overall, with a price several times smaller, better features and a more fun playing experience, I would definitely recommend buying the app for Tsuro, as the board game is just not as good due to all the reasons I have talked about. It looks like the digital revolution has come to even board games, so I suggest you sit down, download the app and play of a game of Tsuro.

Never Let Me Go book review

This is a book review on Never Let Me Go although before I go ahead with this review, I must say that I studied this book in English and had some spoilers going into it from my teacher. Therefore my experience with this novel my be different to yours. I tried to keep spoilers here to a minimum but there will be some minor ones.

Never Let Me Go is a book about a group of three students: Kathy, Ruth and Tommy growing up in a twisted reality like our own but as the book goes on you realise how alien it really is. It explores the ideas of friendship, love, death and our human nature, so on the whole, a pretty hard hitting book. It is written by Kazuo Ishiguro a Japanese born English writer who is known for books like 'The Remains of the Day'.

This book does not push the intricacies of the story into your face, but is subtle much like our own lives. The relationships develop in this book in a way that gives the characters more than one aspect and leads along with the narrator Kathy as you try to figure out whether you like someone or not. You can really appreciate this fact once you have watched the film, which goes out of its way to let you know THIS IS A LOVE TRIANGLE OK, unlike the book in which this aspect of the story is a layer which is not pushed down your throat but is one of the many shades that make this book whole.

However, at some points in the book my immersion was broken by some really obvious metaphors that did not fit what was actually going on in the story at that point in time. It was like Kazuo really wanted to have a certain image in the book but couldn't think of a good place to put it in, so he just awkwardly shoved it in. Fortunately, this is easy to look past and so did not present too much of a problem.

One thing you can give Ishiguro though, is that he understands humans better than many people, if not most. This makes the characters feel grounded as they go through the complex emotions that you experience when you are growing up and going throughout the rest of your life. You can understand why a character would do something and relate to them. Unfortunately, some people don't come to stories to see a perfect reflection of life but one with characters that break the norm and fight back against injustice. If you count yourself as among those, then this book may not be a good fit for you but then again this kind of writing might be the holy grail to someone that likes these aspects in a book.

This is the three characters in the film of Never Let Me Go.

With these relatable characters it is impossible not to be moved to some degree by certain moments although different people will be moved by different parts of the book depending on how your life has unfolded. For example people with less life experience like me at 14 years old, some bits won't be as poignant. There is a heavy theme of caring running through the book and for someone like me who has had the luck of not having to care for someone, will find it less powerful.

My final word of warning is that there are some pretty explicit points in this book and the subject of sexuality is a thing that returns time and time again. So if that would make you uncomfortable, I suggest that you don't read this book but pick up one of a plethora of other great novels (like Of Mice and Men).

Overall, if this book sounds good from what you have read above, I definitely recommend sitting down, getting comfortable and then giving Never Let Me Go a go.

Dungeon Mayhem Review

After defeating a dungeon full of monsters, you have to split the loot your adventuring party has collected. The barbarian claims he should take it all as he killed the most orcs and soon it descends into utter chaos. Magic missiles and daggers fly in free for all battle where the last one standing takes home glory and bragging rights. You could even it call it dungeon mayhem (you see what I did there, no, I don't think it was funny either).

In this small and simple card game your aim is to reduce all your opponents to zero health points as you play one of four characters (a barbarian, rouge, wizard or paladin). You play by using cards from your characters unique deck which can let you attack other players, shield yourself, heal, play even more
cards or do your character's powerful legendary move.

With that small paragraph, you now can basically understand how to play, which shows off the greatest strengths of this game, it's simplicity. With the explanation taking only a few minutes and a round itself only taking a few more, you can squeeze this in with anyone at anytime (no matter how little experience they have with the board gaming hobby). This is helped along with an immaculately laid out rule book that clearly shows everything you need to know.

However, just because you can play this with anyone doesn't mean you should, as in this game you will directly attack one another. If you know a child or someone who wouldn't like the idea of attacking their brother or smiting their coworker and taking their share of it in return, they will not enjoy this game, as that is basically all you'll be doing.

Throughout the game players will get knocked out, which is slightly boring for those that have to wait for the game to end,  before they can join in again but games go by quickly enough that this isn't too much of a problem.

Overall this game is addictive, fun and can be played with fairly much everyone. This is going to definitely become a staple in my household and I will being playing this a lot in the near future.

Fortnite - Save the World Review

So, although I normally just review board games, I have decided to take a leap into reviewing video games for your information and entertainment along with my other normal reviews. What better way to start it off than by talking about fortnite: the biggest, most talked about, social phenomenon of 2018 and I might wager 2019 as well... Well not quite, you see, fortnite is actually two games, with one being the free battle royale game which you have no doubt heard about, but the other a zombie survival game called 'save the world' that you have to pay for which shall be the subject of this review.

After spending a decent amount of money on it (I managed to get it for £20 as there was a sale on but the normal retail price is £40), I excitedly booted up the game and was met with a barrage of glitches and bugs, just about making it through the tutorial with a sigh of relief. Little was I to know that the worse was yet to come, as after you had gone through the tutorial you had to download the rest of the game and so began one of the most frustrating 30 minutes of my life. There were no clear instructions for how to do this and for a beginner like myself at computer games, this could have been the end of the road. But in the end I learnt, by asking my friends and scouring the forums, that you need to go into the launcher for fortnite and click the little cog symbol on the side of the launch button.

After the Herculean trials I had to face in the tutorial, it looks like the programmers had managed to swat the pesky bugs away from the main game, so I started to play. The main body of this game involves searching around game maps and gathering materials to make weapons, building defences around an objective and then defending that objective from zombies. Using the game controls from the more popular battle royale game in terms of building, it is quite intuitive and the learning curve for missions is low making it easy to enjoy the missions right from the get go. The only element that takes a while to grasp is the crafting system but, with a bit of help from friends, I was soon doing that like a pro.

Now, I can get onto the really juicy part of this review, talking about the game play.  Well I must say that it is pretty fun to shoot down herds of zombies, giving you a sense of power that is not often there in real life. As well as that you could say there is almost something cathartic about building a protective base around a site that you must protect from the undead hordes. You undertake the levels with other random people on the internet and there is a quite fun sense of camaraderie as you mow down swathes of zombies.

Just playing the game normally is fun but the games downfall comes from its story mode, which forces you to go off and find random items (like some books for the librarian or some presents for the cleaner) and takes you away from the fun of zombie killing. It turns a fun game into a fetch and repeat cycle with you just mindlessly going from point A to B. Unfortunately, to access the games content you have to go through with these tasks, and I can never be bothered to do that, leading me to still be stuck on the first stage (from which I don't think I will ever progress). This really makes it a lot less fun to play the game as either you can go through the story and get new levels to play, or actually have fun.

A big reason you might be drawn to this game is the allure of  v-bucks (the in-game currency for fortnite) which can be earned through doing side quests and be spent on costumes and dances in the main battle royale game. These challenges aren't too tricky to do, and can be completed through just normal playing though if you want to complete all three daily quests a day you might have to spend some more time on the game than you would want to.

Overall this is a really fun game to play, but the story mode sours the taste it leaves in your mouth. I would recommend buying this if you can get it as an offer (like the £20 I managed to buy it at) but it would be hard to justify buying it for the full £40 with the issues of the bugs and story mode.