masongamer

Now I like Shadow’s Over Camelot, but this card game does the game a disservice. In this game you draw cards and remember numbers to get a certain total to successfully complete quests and earn Swords. Seven white swords and you win the game. If you get less than a certain number or have 14 or more points you gain black swords. Seven black swords and you lose.

I found this game to be very uninteresting and dull. If you like counting cards then you may like this game, otherwise; skip it.

Cutthroat Caverns is the aptly titled take that card game that takes Munchkin and turns the volume up to 11. In the game you are all adventurers trying to get out of a dungeon with a powerful artifact. To escape you must face no less than 9 monsters and survive direct and indirect attacks from fellow party members because no one wants to share. The final objective is to be the last man standing, but you don’t want to kill off your friends too soon.

I would play this with an established group that doesn’t mind take that game play.

Star Realms is a great introduction to deckbuilding games. It is fast and very portable and I always find after one play we always tend to play another round, and another, and another, ect. There is some strategy involved but the the cards that come up for purchase make it pretty random, so you have to change strategies on the fly.

There are expansion packs that can be added to the game so the game play can be customized a bit. Overall it is a great filler game.

Machi Koro emulates Settlers of Catan in that you roll the dice to determine how much income you receive during your turn. Some players may not like the randomness of this, but I feel this makes the game interesting and fun. Many people say that the Cheese Factory strategy is the primary way of winning the game, but it hasn’t worked for me. Probably for some odd reason I seem to roll high in this game.

Reception in my game group has been positive and I think it is a fun little game. It is very easy to teach, sets up quickly and plays fast. I think it’s a great light game with a good amount of replayability.

I’ve also found that the game does not play very well as a two player game. Both players tend to just buy a bit of everything and make money the fastest. The game also stagnates in the middle until some one hits a high paying combo.

Like another reviewer on here and others on the internet that question is asked “Do we need another Zombie game?” I do feel the zombie theme is overdone, but Plaid Hat has made an excellent game in Dead of Winter.

First off, this is not zombie killing fest. The zombies are not the primary antagonists, but instead an obstacle the players have to deal with throughout the game. In the game the players represent a group of survivors that have taken shelter in an abandoned warehouse in the dead of winter (hence the game’s title). In this environment the players and the dynamics of their choices is where the conflict arises in the game. The player’s have a choice of numerous objectives that must be achieved to win the game. Objectives can be chosen for a desired game length, anywhere from 45 min to 2 hours. Each player is then given an individual secret objective that if they complete along with the group objective allow them to win the game. Also, one of the secret objectives can/will make him/her the traitor. This dynamic makes the true antagonists of the game the players themselves as they try to complete the story objective as well as their own objectives.

After several plays I find the game is much more satisfying if there is indeed a traitor in the group. In the base rules 2 secret objectives are drawn for each player and one betrayer objective. These are then shuffled and randomly distributed amongst the players. To make a traitor more likely I draw one regular objective per player and shuffle in the drawn betrayer objective.

Although the game does scale whell for 2 players all the way to 5 players, the 2 player game can really only played cooperatively as the traitor player would be obvious.

I love this game, and at the time I write this it is #44 on the Dice Tower’s People’s Choice Top 100. If you like Shadow’s over Camelot and/or The Walking Dead, you will like this game.

I enjoy playing Twilight Imperium (TI3), but there are times that the game is as exciting as watching paint dry (thanks Frank). I was first intruded to the game via the Dice Tower review on YouTube. I bought the Revised Edition and then gathered my friends who love playing Twilight Imperium, we managed to play 3 games, on three different days, in less time than (TI3).

The Revised edition has better components than the original edition. The player boards are made out of a heavy card stock which is a big improvement flimsy heavy paper that was in the original. The game play moves at a good pace and as long as the players do a little preplanning. The game lasts seven turns with the highest victory points being the winner.

Unlike TI3 the game can be played with 3, 4 or 5 players and not have the effect of one player feeling he/she is being on the short end of the stick. Exodus has lees of the Diplomacy feel and encourages more direct combat. Players can make a plan, stick with it and can be successful.

My complaints about the game is the fiddleyness of keeping track of technologies and resources management. Also the action cards could be marked in a better way to indicate the primary action and the reaction. We had a few confusions as to wich wat to orient the action cards.

Overall, the game is fun and enjoyable and can be played in less time that TI3.