Macmoosh

Pros

Well themed
Fantastic artwork
Drafting is an unusual mechanic in a racing game – this adds to the fun.

Cons

Not easy to learn. I’ll put it this way, the first time I played the owner was the only guy at the table who knew the rules. One guy dropped out after 2 rounds as he was really struggling, one guy had a lightbulb moment in the round before last, and after the game was over I realized the guy who knew how to play had build his machine against the rules and the entire thing was invalid.

Overall.

A solid 7. It’s good fun once you know what you’re doing, but don’t be surprised if getting there takes you a while.

Wow, just wow. This is not a game, it’s an experience; and one every gamer should have.

The game starts off as a simple run of Pandemic. After your first play through, it starts directing you to read from a stack of cards. These cards will gradually change the rules game by game. With perhaps 1 or 2 exceptions, the changes each month are minor. But overall the change is drastic and if you were to compare the rules to the first and last month, you would think they were 2 different games.

The components are excellent. You can feel everyone’s excitement around the table as a card tells you to open a box. It feels like being a kid in December opening today’s window on your advent calendar.

I can’t comment on the story without dropping a spoiler. But you just have to trust me here. After the first few months, say March-April (you play a calendar year), the game will have established itself and really start ramping up. By the the end of December we were mentally drained. We’d made some serious moral decisions, been shocked and surprised and regretted earlier reactions as the rules shifted.

A thoroughly enjoyable experience. buy it.

I like this expansion, as Small world is a fun game, albeit a little simple for my tastes. I felt that the main game was lacking a mechanic or two.

The way in which this expansion adds random events, and allows you to see not only the current event – but what is coming up next turn as well, adds a nice extra level to the strategy.

I you’re not playing this with younger or more casual gamers, I’d reccomend adding a deck to your standard game.

I recently saw this game for £3 and figure ‘How bad can it be for that price?’ And honestly, it’s not terrible. It takes about 40 mins and if you’re somebody like me who enjoys a game night of 2-3 small games prior to one massive one then it’s worth picking up a copy.

The main focus of the game is completing deliveries using your trains (dice). Whenever 2 or more cities are linked by a track of dice, 4 rounds of scoring points are triggered. It’s borderline impossible to control the board in such a way that your opponent doesn’t score points on your delivery, as you don’t even need to contribute a single dice to get some form of reward! This opens up interesting strategy options where you find yourself picking the ‘least-bad’ option and help your opponent out less than yourself.

Overall the mechanics and strategies work nicely. It initially seemed un-balanced due to some delivery routes being much short than others, but you soon realise that the bonuses they reward you with on completion are equally minimal.

My main gripe with the game is the playing pieces. The buildings which you can errect at staions for bonus loot are far too small, and some of the players colours are too close to each other. With all of the colours out there to chose from, an almost identical dark blue and purple was a bizzare choice.

If you can handle squinting in the scoring phase as you establish exactly whose train that is though, then give it a go.