Game Ninja

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a great addition to our game collection. After seeing it played on Tabletop we searched high and low for a copy only to be disappointed by the fact that it was out of print. The day I randomly found it at our FLGS was an exciting day!
What’s in the box?
The game components are super simple. A bunch of room tiles (either basement, ground floor or upper floor), some dice, a miniature for each character, three decks of cards and a pile of tokens for certain scenarios. Then there is the super important haunt book! I’ve heard lots of stories about the room tiles warping with time but we haven’t noticed that yet and I think the publisher will replace them if they do. My least favourite components are the little clips used to track your characters stats. They slip all over the place and a slight knock can send them flying. We have replaced ours with coloured paper clips.
How’s it play?
Betrayal is essentially a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler. Players work together to explore a creepy house until the haunt occurs. As rooms are explored players might find items, have events occur and discover omens, while rolling dice to accomplish tasks. Every time an omen is found the player roles a bunch of dice and if the number of omens is greater than the pips on the dice then the HAUNT happens! This means someone is revealed as the traitor and they work to sabotage the other players. The other players work to accomplish a secret goal and escape from the house.
Overall Impression
Betrayal quickly became one of my favourite games. I love playing it with our friends that enjoy getting into the setting and playing up their characters. The variability in order of room discovery and the number of haunts available really adds to its replayability, which is super important to us. Another plus is that the mechanic of flipping tiles and rolling dice is super easy to teach to new players. Also, once the haunt is revealed most new players have gotten the idea of the game and are able to work through being the traitor if that turns out to be the case. Overall, I love suggesting this game to friends and it definitely will not be leaving our rotation anytime soon. 🙂 Happy Gaming!!

Machi Koro, one of the newer games in our collection, gets quite a bit of play due to its simple mechanics and easy rules. We picked it up after hearing a lot of hype around the gameplay and art.
What’s in the box?
The Machi Koro game components are really simple, consisting of a couple dice, some cardboard money tokens and a bunch of cards. The cards have really great art for each type of establishment. The box feels kind of empty when you first open it as there is definitely room for expansions.
How’s it play?
Machi Koror is very simple. Everyone starts with two cards (a bakery and a wheat field), three money tokens and four landmark cards (for future building). The object of the game is to be the first player to build all of your landmark cards. This is done by building more establishments in your town to generate more money. Each round a player rolls a die or dice and money is collected based on which establishments are built in your city. Blue establishments collect money on everyone’s turn, while green ones only collect on the players turn, red ones steal money on the dice rollers turn and purple ones collect money based on the card conditions. After money is collected the player can purchase a card from the market to add to their town or build one of their landmark cards. The landmark cards give the player a special bonus once they are built.
Overall Impression
At first I was really excited about Machi Koro. For us the playability with two people is really important and this game was initially great. It was even better when we got to play with three or four people. After awhile though we figured out the one die and ranch/cheese factory strategies and the replay factor went down for me. I still love the artwork and how simple it is for new gamers but I am less likely to suggest playing it multiple times in an evening. There are variations out there for randomizing the cards, which helps to vary strategies but I think once the harbour expansion comes out this game will take off for me again. Right now though the game still has an appeal if I am looking for something that is simple and easy to teach. So I would recommend that it gets played early in the night or between heavier strategy games. Happy Gaming!!

No Thanks is one of the best new additions to our collection. It is such a simple and short game that we can easily fit several rounds between longer more intense games.

What’s in the box?
The box contains a deck of cards (ranging from 3 to 35) and a bunch of read chips. So simple!
How’s it play?
No thanks is a game for 3 to 5 players, where you try to obtain the lowest score by building runs of cards. The deck is built by shuffling the cards and removing 9 from play. Everyone then gets a stack of 11 chips that are kept secret. The first player then turns up the top card of the deck. This player now has the option to take the card or say “No Thanks!” and put in a chip. The play then moves to the next person who can now take the card and the chip or say “NoThanks!” putting in one of their own chips. Play continues like this until someone takes the card and the chips. Once you run out of chips there is no option to pass on the card. The game is over when all of the cards in the deck are dealt. The object of the game is to collect low value runs of cards. Cards are scored based on the lowest number in the run. So a 10, 11, 12, and 13 only scores as 10 points. Also any remaining unused chips get subtracted from the score. So it is a gamble to use all your chips or to horde them for the end.
Overall Impression
This game is great as a filler during the weekly game session. We also like to use it to introduce our non-gamer friends to simple card games. The components are super simple. Overall a great addition to our collection. Too bad it doesn’t work for two players . Happy Gaming!!

Are you looking for an exciting space adventure? Then look no further. Quantum will give you everything you need to satisfy the hunger of exploring vast regions of space. Offering a rich theme of exploring space and colonizing planets, Quantum is a fantastic addition to any game collection. Each of the four factions have a thematic back story that helps to build the world while you are racing your dice ships through space.

What’s in the box?
The Quantum box is full of quality pieces. Each faction comes with a thick, sturdy cardboard reference sheet, 7 solid dice (5 for ships, 1 for research and 1 for dominance) and a number of small Quantum cubes. The area of play is constructed by arranging a number of thick cardboard squares, which range from a value of 7 to 10. Battles are decided using the additional black and white dice included. Lastly, upgrades and advantages are supplied through cards that are obtained throughout the game.
How’s it play?
The dice you control are your fleet and the core of the game. An initial roll of the dice sets up your fleet for play. Each player only has access to a total of 5 ships (3 initially and 2 through an upgrade card). The value of the die has two key roles; 1) how far you can move that die and 2) the type of ship that it represents in your fleet, which indicates the special move that it can take. On your turn you can take 3 actions plus each ship can take a special free action. The actions available are: reconfigure (reroll a ship), deploy (relocate a ship from your scrapyard to an orbital position you control), move/attack, research (add 1 to your research die) and most importantly construct cube (place a cube on a planet where the pips on your ships, in orbital positions, equals the value of the planet). Being first to construct all of your cubes wins the game but plan accordingly because constructing a cube takes 2 actions! Even so, every time you construct a cube you get an upgrade card for free. Attacking and defending occur when a ship moves into a square already occupied by another player’s ship. The outcome of the battle is decided by adding the pips on the ship die to those rolled on either the defence die or the offence die (the black and white dice). The other 2 player dice are used as the dominance die (increased/decreased through battles) and the research die (increased by an action). When the dominance die reaches 6 you immediately construct a cube for free, whereas when the research die reaches 6 you can choose an upgrade card for free.
Overall Impression
I was first introduced to this game at my FLGS’s tabletop day celebration. At first I wasn’t sure what to think, but as we played I realized there is a great theme wrapped around a highly strategic game, and it is fantastic. I really like the tactical feeling as you deploy your ships across the game area. The modular board adds replay value, as any combination of planets you can think of works. As for the optimal number of players this game works really well with 2 or 4 players. As long as you can get over the confrontation of battling ships it works great as a two player game, with no need for a dummy player. I have two complaints though. First, even though the dice are awesome neon colours they have a sticky feeling to them. I’m sure there is a way to get rid of this but it feels like they are dirty from the time you open the box. Second, I really enjoy a box that is built for the components and on first glance the Quantum box is just that; however, don’t be fooled!! The slot for the cards is slightly too shallow for them. We store our games on their side and every time we open the box the cards are everywhere. These are complaints that I can definitely live with to have such an awesome, simple but highly strategic game in our collection. Happy Gaming!!

The amazing mind of Antoine Bauza has brought us yet another winner! The genius that gave us the fabulous Hanabi, 7 Wonders, Takenoko and Ghost Stories returns with Rampage. This dexterity based game of destroying building and eating meeples is quickly moving through the ranks to becoming one of our favourite games.

This game has super simple mechanics. Each player takes on the persona of a monster smashing and crashing through the city. Flick your monster feet onto the sidewalk of a building and start the demolition (hold your monster above the board and drop to cause major destruction)! The object is easy: eat more meeple sets (1 of each colour), consume more buildings and by all means don’t break any of your teeth! Every player also has a secret power to unleash when they see fit, as well as character and power cards that help them to score extra points or take out other monsters.

What’s in the box?
The Rampage box is chalk full of cool components to build your city. Tons of meeples and thick cardboard pieces to construct the buildings and chunky wooden vehicles to throw at your follow city eating monsters. The monsters are also really solid wooden pieces that hold up really nice as you drop them all over town.

How’s it play?
On your turn you can do two of four actions; move your monster (flick the wooden disc representing your feet), destroy a building (only if you are on the sidewalk), blow things over (literally blow things around by placing your chin on top of your monster and taking a deep breathe) and toss a vehicle (flick a vehicle off the top of your monsters head). Then eat all the MEEPLES in your neighbourhood (well up to the number of teeth you have left)! You lose teeth by either getting hit by another monster, getting hit by a vehicle and depending on how full the runaway board gets. The runaway board fills up when meeples are tossed off the board.

Overall Impression
This game is really catchy and I was surprised at how much I enjoy playing it. After a long day of work this game is a prefect way to distress. Just build a city and start throwing things around. It plays really well with two people and I think it will be excellent for little gamers. Definitely pick it up if you just want a fun, easy game to play in-between the more serious, strategy heavy games.