jtagmire

I’ve owned Quarriors since the end of the summer and FINALLY just got a chance to play it. And oh man, what was I thinking every second that I wasn’t playing this?

Quarriors is a dice-building game. A similar base mechanic to deck building games like Dominion, Ascension, and the rest…, but instead of having to reshuffle when you run out of cards, you just throw all of your dice back in to your dice bag and draw some more! There’s much more to the game, but that one is just so sweet, it’s hard not to start off with it.

You spend Quiddity (it’s currency. Just about everything in Quarriors starts with a “Q”) to buy more and more dice. Depending on the dice you purchase, and the side that you roll, your dice will provide Quiddity, Creatures, or Spells. You send out your creatures to attack and defend, and if they survive a round of the game, you earn points for them. It’s that simple, and it’s that good.

The components are amazing (100+ little custom dice) and the game has a ton of replayability. There are a few variations of each card that corresponds with a set of dice. The faces of the die are the same, but the special abilities, cost and point value can all change, making each game different than the last.

Survive! has been around for years and years, but the new Stronghold Games version brings the intense family sea monster battles right back into our homes… and in a solid new way.

In Survive! you must move as many of your people off of a sinking island, as quickly as possible. Eventually a volcano will bust it’s top and the game is over. But escaping isn’t that easy. The sea is filled with vicious creatures that your vicious opponents will send right into you. The game can be brutal, but it’s all presented in a fun bright, family friendly way.

The components are similar to the original, but even better. There are the same Sea Serpents, Whales and Sharks, but now it comes with much-improved boats, and meeples! The game is also a mix of the Euro version of the original and the old USA version, including the rules for hidden point values at the bottom of the meeples.

This was my favorite game as a child, and I’m so glad to see it again. The recognizable parts were improved, while staying very true to the original. Stronghold went all out with this release and it shows.

Mondo is a serious brain burner. Even on beginner mode. You have to create an island by placing tiles on a board. You score points for creating enclosed areas (sand, forest, grass, etc) and score additional points if you can place animals within those areas. You lose points for volcanoes.

All of that sounds simple, and it is.. but it gets INSANE when you throw a community pile of tiles in the center of the table and start the timer. Everyone is grabbing at once and trying to make it all work. When you’re down to a minute, your brain will do things that you don’t want it to do. As crazy as it sounds, Mondo is a lot of fun.

This game blew me away from the minute I read an advertisement for it. “A decision you make in Game 1 could come back to haunt you in Game 10.” That whole concept is very, very cool.. and to seemed very indie, and very forward-thinking for a company like Hasbro.

In Risk Legacy you modify the game as you play. You choose a faction and add stickers with special abilities. After winning the game, you can name continents and get bonuses if you hold that entire continent in a later game. You can found and name cities, give countries scar stickers (which modify that country in a bad or good way), and everyone’s favorite/least favorite.. tear up cards. The game is permanently modified when you throw out the Mongolia card. It will never show up again, so someone that took over Mongolia has less of a chance to earn bonuses and victory points. The strategy in this game goes well beyond the end of your session, and feels much like an RPG. But the joy of it, is that anyone can jump in and out because the story is all right in front of you on the board. If you miss a session, you can see the winner, and the losers, and the results of that session.

There are a few other reasons why this game is so great. The first being that they improved on the Risk model. Not just by customization, but also by making the sessions last just an hour each. Instead of world domination, you start out in one country and work your way outwards. If you hit 4 victory points (obtained through various methods) you win the game.

This was by far my game of the year, and I hope it’s a business model that starts off a whole new type of campaign games, where previous actions effect future games. Just the idea gets my head spinning.. in a very good way.