silverwing

This game has been around for a while. Match the color or number just played. Get rid of all your cards first but don’t forget to say UNO when you play your next to last card or you will have to add more cards to your hand. Easy to learn and a good game to play with younger players. There are additional special cards that have game effects like wilds, reversing the flow of play or forcing the next player to draw extra cards for their hand so I recommend about 9 or above for the kids but use your own judgement.

First let me say I like this style of game and miss it as you rarely see it these days. I am not going to go over the rules in detail but will expand on what’s going on. You have a common board area that shows the current status of the magic items of the game on a little position track for each item, You want to get the marker to one end or the other of the track which locks in the result. i.e. The book will wind up open or closed, etc… Which way you you want an item to go depends on your wizard’s character card. You also have a faction on your card. On your turn you can question another player. They answer by going through a stack of cards and selecting the 1st one that reveals a true fact about their character, Each card has a series of numbers on the back and you match the 1st card showing your number on it. You get to see the card but don’t know ahead of time what fact you are revealing and some are more informative then others. Once per player per game you can hold a conference off to the side separately with each player. You can lie when exchanging info but you never know what the others already know. You win if you get a favorable outcome on the items, but even if items are locked in an unfavorable position you can get a shared victory if your faction wins.

First question- Do you like games that require you to convincingly bluff friends and family? If you don’t or are really bad at it this is not the game for you. Second question- Are you looking for a light, quick card game to fill time at a game session? Then this may be for you. You start with a small deck of cards each of which has one of many different roles on it. There is of course more than 1 copy of each role so it is possible to have the same role twice. Each role has a game power. These cards are kept hidden. On your turn announce who you are and gain the benefit unless someone challenges you. If you are challenged you have to show the card of that role. If you cannot you lose one card and have only one left. If you lose both cards you are out of the game. If, however, you have the card and show it your challenger loses permanently one of their cards and you place the revealed card into the deck, shuffle it and draw a replacement role card. Last person with any roles left wins. The variation in the game comes from what the roles do but again if you can’t bluff convincingly you will lose.

You start with 3 dice referred to as “cities” in the game and 3 food. You also have a pegboard track showing levels of food, wood, stone. pottery,cloth and food. the dice have 6 different Icons. They are- 2 food, 3 people, choice of 1 food or person, 1 coin, 1 good, or 1 skull and 2 goods. You can roll up to 3 times. You must keep all skulls but may reroll all other dice. You record the results on the pegboard track. Then you must resolve disasters(skulls) and feed your cities- 1 food per city. You can then use people to aquire more cities(dice) or build monuments(victory points). Being the first to build a monument gives you more points than building that monument after someone else has. You can also buy 1 development(per turn) by spending goods for it. Developments have game effects. The game ends at the end of a round of turns in which someone has gained 5 developments, or sall of the monuments have been built by someone(It doesn’t have to be the same person for each one). The game is easy to teach and plays fast.

There is nothing really new in the mechanisms, but they are nicely combined. You try to gain keys by paying cards or try to create the strongest combo of cards(or pretend to do so) against the current challenge. The keys give you in game bonuses that may help. The weakness of the game is that 1 or more players can decide to play to thwart a particular player. Those players won’t succeed every time of course but it does take some of the fun away.

I call it that because when I break it out we never just play it once.
On your turn you roll 4 dice and pair them up any way you want. You must advance one of 3 neutral markers at least 1 space on separate tracks(one track for each possible dice pairing). If you can’t your turn is over and you lose any advances made that turn. If you can advance a marker you must then decide whether to roll again or whether to stop and place your color of marker where the neutral markers are. There are 3 neutral markers for you to advance or place on your turn. Reaching the end of a track 1st allows you to claim that number, you need to claim 3 numbers to win. Once a number is claimed it no longer counts as a viable choice on future rolls. The game is fun and fast with lots of replay value.

Unlike a lot of dungeon crawl games the difference on this one is that from adventure to adventure you may not always get to run the same character. An example is that the archer is not available until the 2nd adventure. I recommend that you develop 2 characters for overall use. In the base game the adventures are designed for 4 characters and there are 6 to choose from. If you like focusing on 1 character’s development this can be a problem. The game emphasizes the PARTY(not characters) succeeding or failing.
The miniatures are great. Additionally, the point of view and opponents(Giant Centipedes,etc…) is a nice departure from the standard fare.
I enjoy the game and would recommend it.

I have played this a few times but have not been inspired to rush out and buy it. It is based on the popular GoW series, however, for me there is nothing that feels “unique” enough to make me rush out and buy this over other games such as Claustrophobia or Earth Reborn, Space Hulk or even something like the old game Mutant Chronicles by Pressman. Each player takes the role of a special character with some particular ability and attempts to achieve the scenario goal. This format has been around quite awhile(Mutant Chronicles is from the 1990s) but has only recently been recognized as a distinct sub-genre(cooperative) thanks to Pandemic and Defenders of the Realm and others who opened it up from a sttrictly sci-fi future war theme. Again, sadly, nothing made this game stand out for me from it’s predecessors.