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Review: Dominant Species

Games are fun aren't they? Everyone sat around the table laughing, joking, eating, drinking. I swear sometimes I look around and see so much joviality and merriment it makes me stop and think 'there's not enough booze in the world!' Which is why sometimes I like to play Dominant Species.

See some games aren't fun, some games are Dominant Species and when you play Dominant Species you still sit at a table but instead of laughing and joking, everyone sits there grimacing with either their heads in their hands or their fists in their mouths for hours and hours. There's still drinking though. There pretty much has to be...

Now here at 'Kicking Down The Door' we've been recommending and suggesting almost exclusively games that serve to entice people into board gaming and make it look fun. Take Catacombs for example – which we reviewed here – if someone walked in on you and your friends playing Catacombs, it would be easy for them to understand what was happening; after a few moments of watching you flick discs with your ungainly hams, the casual observer could probably ascertain what the general aim of the game was, that you were really quite poor at it and that it looked hella fun!

Dominant Species isn't like that though. Dominant Species is the kind of game that if someone walked in while you were playing, they'd assume by the pained silence and looks of grief and anguish on the faces of everyone, that there must be a dead puppy on the table. Instead of a dead puppy taking centre piece though, there's a strange geometric board littered with dozens of wooden cubes, cones and cylinders in an intimidating array of primary colours. To the casual observer this is arguably much more unsettling than a dead puppy. What's more, if that same casual observer was to slowly back out of the room and come back two hours later in the hopes it was all a disturbing hallucination, they'd be hard pressed to notice any differences or progression in the game beyond the obvious psychological backsliding of its players.

That said, Dominant Species is probably one of the best board games ever and while it may be every bit as agonizing and difficult as it looks – it's nowhere near as complicated.

The game sets you and your opponents as specific classes of animals fighting for some of those sweet sweet victory points by trying to impose the titular 'dominance' over a constantly changing landscape of various terrains. This is all done to the slow ticking down of an impending ice age that once triggered, ends the game and calls for a final flurry of scoring before someone is crowned the winner and everyone packs up in chilling silence.

At the start of the game everyone is randomly dealt a class of animal ranging from insect to mammal; each class has their own unique set of adaptations and a special ability that wont seem as good as everyone else’s. Then – depending on the amount of people you tricked into playing – you'll all receive a specific amount of species cubes for the duration of the game and a number of cylindrical action pawns with which you'll no doubt drive your entire class to the brink of extinction. There's the usual shuffling of tiles, displaying of cards and after setting up the starting placement of terrains, elements and species, you can all begin the slow push to a mental breakdown.

A game round is split into two parts. The first part is called the planning phase and in the player order dictated by the initiative track, people take turns placing their 'action pawns' in the vacant spaces of the 'action display' according to the type of action they'd misguidedly like to execute. Once all players have placed all their pawns, half of them will realize they've made 'a huge mistake' and we'll move to the 'execution phase' where we simply move down the display as player's take their actions in the order their action pawns were placed and attempt to make the best out of a poor situation. This process repeats until the 'Ice Age' is triggered and the game ends.

In a six player game, each player will initially be given three 'action pawns'; later on there'll be opportunities via the 'dominance cards' to get more – or possibly lose some – but to begin with you'll have three pawns with which to claim some of the thirty nine spaces spread amongst the twelve possible actions on the action display. Here's the type of thing you'll be doing:

First up is the initiative track; this is the all important order players will place their pawns in. The industrious chap or chapette that placed their action pawn in the single space available here, will get to move up a place in that order as well as getting to replace the action pawn they used to do so into one of the few left over 'action spaces'.

Going first is a huge advantage, so huge in fact it's almost a handicap. As we move through the other actions you'll notice that like the bathroom in a large house share, a lot are better when they're used first; to this end the 'advantage' of being first to place can easily turn to analyses paralysis and total cerebral collapse in the face of half a dozen actions that you need to take with equal desperation. You'll inevitably pick the worst one just before your nose starts to bleed, while further down the initiative track, decisions get slightly easier as the more desirable actions get taken away from you.

Next is Adaptation! At the beginning of every round four random elements will be pulled from a bag and put on display. Placing your pawn in one of the three action spaces here will allow you to select one of those elements and add it to the adaptations on your personal animal display thus making your species much more resilient.

Your adaptations will correspond to the element discs that are placed between the terrain tiles on the board. Where they match will signify areas your species can survive and possibly gain dominance. Dominance? Dominance!

According to the rule book, an animal has dominance in a tile “when it has a species present on that tile and that animal matches more elements there than any other single animal with a species present” Which is a simple enough sentence when you don't know what it means but in practice it's a mental workload you could do without. Dominance will be important later though; right now you should be mindful of the element discs not claimed via the 'adaptation' action moving down a space next round to the 'regression box'.

When resolving the Regression action, players will lose adaptations matching the elements contained in the 'regression box' – unless of course they displayed the unusual cunning and foresight to place an action pawn in one of the two available spaces here. Neglecting this action or being too low in the initiative track to get in on time, can result in a really embarrassing mass extinction event as your ability to survive in certain tiles disappears. Which is exactly what happened to the dinosaurs...

The Abundance, Wasteland and Depletion actions work in a similar way to 'adaptation' and 'regression' – instead offering opportunities to introduce new elements to terrain tiles and to then mitigate or cause the loss of elements from other tiles. The combination of these actions and the limited spaces available in them serve to present players with genuine conflicts as they jostle to address the balance between reinforcing their own dominance on tiles, damaging their opponent's or just trying to not to end up extinct.

Another good way of damaging opponents is to choose the Glaciation action. Often there'll be a high scoring terrain tile that other people are heavily invested in but in which you yourself are unable to compete; placing your action pawn in glaciation allows you to ruin everyone's good time by placing a glacier tile on top of the terrain, making it effectively useless, removing everyone's species from the board and snagging yourself some points while you're at it. It's a real dick move basically.

The other actions are the kind of thing you'd expect: Speciation is a way of getting more species on the board, Wanderlust lets you place more terrain tiles, Migration is how you'll move cubes from tile to tile and Competition is a way of picking off your opponents. The final action though is Domination; it's easily the most important action and if you have the mental presence to plan to any extent, you'll have been planning for this. Either that or you'll have just put an action pawn there hoping everything just falls into place by accident... Which is what I do. Shhhhh.

When executing a Domination action you'll hopefully be getting some points and the opportunity to pick one of the lovely 'dominance cards' displayed at the side of the board. Points are awarded to the players with the most species present on the tile, while the reward of choosing a card goes to the player who has dominance in the tile. It's crucial to remember that the amount of cubes you have in an area has no baring on domination, which instead has everything to do with how well suited you are to the environment via your adaptations and the tile's elements.

If your good, when it comes time to take your 'domination' action there'll be a high scoring tile in which you have both dominance in and the most species. You're probably not very good though and because of this you'll often be put in the distasteful position of giving points to an opponent so you can pick a card, letting your opponent pick a card so you can get the points or choosing to score a tundra tile where no one is present because this is why we can't have nice things...

As is hopefully evident, there's quite a lot going on in Dominant Species but the game isn't complicated so much as it is crowded. The plethora of options and considerations seem to exponentially multiply in your mind the more you think about them – which admittedly sounds complicated but it's only because those options and considerations are grounded in simple rules and intuitive mechanics, that you're able to see so far forward that your mind melts.

Dominant Species is a painful game, but it's painful in that good way – which is probably why I've had to stop myself from making a smutty joke every time I've written the word 'domination'. When you're waiting to put your action pawn down you've got a plan; a delicate, wonderful plan and the tension that comes from waiting for someone to take the space you so sorely need and ruin your entire life, is just plain impressive.

The tension doesn't go away once all the action pawns have been placed though – no! It casts it's long, prevailing shadow over the entirety of the 'activation phase' too, as you wait to see whether Adam will take the 'water adaptation' you desperately need; whether Steve will choose the 'mass exodus' card and send most of your species to their deaths in some barren bog; or whether Mark will punch clean through the wall and storm out when the 'sea tile' he obviously wants to score gets glaciated.

It's very much a game of survival, and like in so many games where you have to manage threats and mitigate against certain disaster – it's much more stressful than it is anything resembling fun. Which is fine, a game doesn't have to be fun to be entirely absorbing and as rewarding as it is punishing. Further more, if you endure a palaeolithic climate crisis and emerge victorious, it feels significant; there's a genuine sense of actual accomplishment in winning a game like this and you'll give real consideration to amending your C.V.

That said, when you lose – what's the opposite of a catharsis? A dirtying? A sullying? A disgrace or dishonouring? I don't think the words exist to adequately describe such an exhaustive tragedy... It's not a good feeling though.

Of course this level of mental investment, the ominous board, the thirty minute rules explanation and the excessive play time all serve to create a game that as consuming as it is – cuts an intimidating and unapproachable gait. This doesn't have to be the insurmountable problem it seems like it might be to gateway gamers though. True, Dominant Species isn't the kind of game that's waiting for new gamers just as they get through the gate – in fact it's at the other end of the park – but it's possible, by the choice selection of other games, that you can easily build the novice gamer up to an evening of Darwinism wrought in board game form, even from the most crude of beginnings...

Which is all just a long winded way of trying to round off the ill judged 'Risk Recovery Program' I foolishly committed myself to in this article, and then proceeded to stagger through by recommending Fortress America, Kemet and then Cyclades as a way of drawing a squiggly line that probably goes back on itself, from games like Risk to games like this. While I might not have made the most direct connections, you can hopefully appreciate the sentiment.

With that dead and buried, I'll see you next time for something different and just as misguided...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Cyclades

Psssst... What if I were to tell you there was an area control game where you could pay actual gold pieces* to have an actual flying Nicolas Cage† swoop out of the sky and carry your enemies away? What if I was to also tell you that this game was the third step in our increasingly tedious†† 'Risk Recovery Program'? You'd probably say something like, “Well the bit about Nicolas Cage peaked my interest but this whole Risk Recovery thing is kind of forced, I think I'll pass.” To which I'd respond by mentioning something about the game giving genuine cause to utter the phrase “Release the Kraken!” and leading with a picture of said 'actual flying Nicolas Cage' instead of the traditional game and box spread I usually go for in the hopes you'll click through and read the review.

* Not actual gold pieces.

† Actually Nicolas Cage, there can be no doubt; check out the hair.

†† Really quite strained as well...

Cyclades was released in 2009 and the 'dimly aware of stuff' amongst you will notice that it bares a passing visual resemblance to last week's Kemet, which was released just last year by the same publisher. This resemblance isn't just skin deep though as both games are what scientists are calling 'hybrids'.

While clearly hybrid games are nothing new, the particular hybrid that Cyclades and Kemet represent seems to still be something of a novelty. The high production values found in the art work and the quality of the miniature sculpts (each faction has their own sculpt, they don't just make it in a different colour) appeals to a wide demographic of gamers that want to immerse themselves in a distinct aesthetic and theme whilst also playing something with the kind of transparent structures and systems that can often be found in the more abstract European style games.

Cyclades conforms to this demand by offering us a tight area control game that pits the players as warriors fighting for dominance on the titular Greek archipelago, all the while trying desperately to woo the apparently fickle gods with cash money incentives, so as to help them crush their enemies and acquire control of a game winning pair of Metropoliseses. Metropoli... Meu... Metropaelise...

Looking at Cyclades, it has all the traits of the finest American style games; you've got piles of currency, dice, several decks of cards, stacks of various tokens and most importantly, scores of plastic miniatures ranging from the unique troops and fleets of the specific factions – to fairly impressive sculpts of mythical beasties that may or may not make an appearance on the board for five minutes. The production values are exorbitant but as we begin to play, we notice that it isn't the straight forward game of 'turtling your slowly expanding forces for several hours before striking out with all your military might just before the end' that it looks like.

The first thing you'll do in a round of Cyclades is – as in so many games – a bit of book keeping; cards are going to be shifted up and tiles are going to be shuffled before finally, everyone will receive an income based on the amount of cornucopia symbols they're in control of on the board.

Once this is done, the game properly begins but not in the way you may assume. Throughout the game you'll be able to do all the things you'd expect you could do in a game that looks like Cyclades does; you can build ships and recruit men, then move those armies and fleets around to attack opponents and claim new islands; you'll be able to build ports or forts, collect 'priest' and 'philosopher' cards, summon Nicolas Cage, build temples and universities as well as erect the all important Metropolissseseses – all these options are available to you, just not all at once. Like with so many other games, what makes Cyclades so damn tasty is the way it tries to restrict you in the face of boundless options and the mechanisms it employs for you to negotiate those restrictions.

See each round is split into two apparently culturally diverse parts. In the latter more American influenced part of the round, everything we just described above will be happening; however in the more Euro inspired first half, you and your opponents will be staring grimly at the board, locked so deep in thought while you try to unravel the options available to you and ascertain where those paths may lead, that everyone will have clean forgotten who's turn it is.

The mechanism responsible for this table wide trance is found in the 'offerings' phase – during this phase players will jostle for position by bidding for the favour of the Gods that are displayed on the inspiringly named 'God Track'. In a predetermined order, players will take turns placing their bidding markers on a track above a God of their choice, relative to the amount they wish to bid. This isn't your typical bidding auction though; once you make a bid for a God, your marker is trapped there until you are outbid, at which point you must then choose a different God to bid on, potentially displacing another player and perpetuating a cycle of people putting markers on tracks, then having other players sigh deeply and perform a long and pained facepalm before taking theirs off and doing the same thing to someone else.

This continues until each player has their marker successfully settled on a God, at which point everybody pays the gold they bid and the game moves on to the more American style of play found in the 'actions' phase. This generally involves spending more money than you can afford to on your military, coming up with tediously transparent pretences for invading the resource rich territories of the other players and ignoring the indirect benefits of building universities and other infrastructure until it's almost too late.

Satire...

Before we look at all that properly though, we've failed to address why the theologically perplexing prospect of bidding on a God, presents such a wondrously challenging and thought provoking problem for players – or indeed what the point of it at all is. See these God tiles don't just represent redundant and outmoded deities; they also represent the actions available to you in the 'actions' phase.

If you win the favour of Poseidon for example, then in the coming 'actions' phase you and you alone will get to place a ship for free and buy additional boats for increasing amounts of gold; you'll also be able to build ports for two gold a piece and move your fleets up to three spaces for one gold at a time whilst basking in the smug satisfaction you've denied these options to everybody else. Ares is the same except he deals in land forces, offering you the same opportunities with soldiers and the building of forts. Winning the favour of Zeus or Athena allows you to get involved with the priest and philosopher cards that respectively offer discounts during bidding and help you build an all important metropolis, amongst other things. Finally there's Apollo – a friend to those who've fallen on hard times – his favour is free of cost and offers any and all who seek it a token of financial support.

With your options in the second part of a game round so explicitly tied to the God you successfully bid for the favour of, the 'offerings phase' of the game is easily and perhaps oddly the most engaging and gripping. However the subtleties of the decisions you make in this phase don't begin and end on whether you want to muster troops, move a fleet or acquire your fourth philosopher card; they go deeper. See the order of the God tiles is randomized every round and this is also the order players will take their actions in the latter phase of the game. So if – for example – you won the favour of Ares hoping to march your troops to the next island over and steal Steve's poorly guarded Metropolis from him in the 'actions' phase, then it would be a real shame if Poseidon was positioned first and the player that won his favour used his actions to destroy the bridge of boats you were hoping to cross your men over with.

The consideration of player order is made of further import when you take into account the deck of mythological creature cards displayed above the God track. At the beginning of a round three beasties are put on display and are available at a decreasing cost from left to right. These creatures offer special and immediate abilities which can be bought and used by any player while performing their actions; such as the 'actual flying Nicolas Cage' which will swoop down from the sky, his thinning, receding locks billowing gracefully in the wind as he snatches up an opponents soldier of your choosing and delivers them to the after life. There's also the Kraken of course, which can be summoned anywhere on the board and sustains its self on an ethical diet of locally sourced Greek ships while you stand at the table and shout for its release in your finest Liam Neeson brogue.

So in any given round of Cyclades you'll be presented with a host of truly difficult choices; do you want to bid on Ares and see through an invasion you've been planning for literally several rounds? Maybe you can't abide the possibility of 'actual flying Nicolas Cage' falling into enemy hands, in which case you should bid for the favour of Poseidon so you can go first and take him for yourself; of course if someone doesn't out bid Adam for Athena then he's going to get a fourth philosopher card, build his second metropolis and win! Even when you choose who to bid on, how much do you bid? Too little and someone will outbid you forcing you to bid on someone else; if you bid slightly too much you could still be outbid but will have raised the stakes on that track too much to be able to compete in it again if you're given the opportunity; bid way too much and even if you win the favour of that God, you wont be able to afford to pay for your actions in the next phase.

There is a lot going on in Cyclades and a lot to admire but the thing that seems to work best, is the balance! There's a balance between the silent thousand yard stares that are generated by the 'offerings' phase and the dice rolling, plastic pushing puerility that's brought about in the 'actions' phase; there's balance between the Gods – which is a loaded statement but pertains more to the equilibrium found in the cluster of actions they make available to players than it does to any weighty notions of polytheistic pondering (I've got a thesaurus open in another window); there's a painful balance to be found within the bidding mechanic of the 'offerings' phase and this all works to create a balance between players, as they're encouraged to openly speculate on each others strategies and work together to thwart the ambitions of those that fly their waxy wings too close to the radiance of a second metropolis.

Cyclades has accomplished a rare and impressive feat in the way it's married a very simple game of area control with a equally simplistic 'bidding for actions' mechanic. In doing so it's not only created a strong and productive unity between American and European style games – it's also created something that is as accessible as it is challenging and as frustrating as it is down right fun.

There are those of course that feel Cyclades is lacking. They feel too limited by the restrictions put in place by the designers and especially in the later game – feel like there are obvious next moves that when blocked off by other players, aren't sufficiently compensated for in the other options available. Coupled with a strong element of leader bashing, this can make for a frustrating game for some people and not in a good way.

Fear not though weary reader, for Cyclades has been expanded and these problems have been largely laid to rest. The first expansion of Cyclades is found in 'Hades', which is in fact several small expansions that can be inserted into the base game as a whole or in part. These modules include – as you may expect – the inclusion of a sixth god, Hades who brings his own host of terrifying actions to the game; they also add a stack of 'divine intervention tiles' that do... things; there are a host of 'heroes' that are shuffled in amongst the mythical creature cards and finally there's the inclusion of rules for a preliminary 'pre-positioning round', which remedies the staleness of the dictated set-up in the base game.

All this serves to inject a tight and sometimes restrictive game with a surge of additional options and possibilities for generating gold, mustering forces and just about everything else. There's also a second big box expansion due out later this year called 'Titans'; this seems set to offer a new game board as well as rules and components for a sixth player as well as, you know, Titans... I don't know what they're going to do but I'm excited! That's not all though – the publishers, 'Matagot' clearly aren't naive to the similarities people see between Cyclades and their recent release in Kemet, so will soon release a small expansion they've rather ineloquently dubbed 'C3K'. This expansion gives you cards and tiles that will let you use the creatures from one game, in the other! Which just sounds perverse.

“But Mike!” Not a single person uttered. “How are you going to shoe horn this into your increasingly laboured and awkward 'Risk Recovery Program'? I mean it kind of feels like this should have been suggested before last week's Kemet, which didn't even have dice!?”

That's probably correct – moving from the crude origins of Risk, through the plastic pornography that is Fortress America all the way to Kemet– Cyclades would probably have been a softer next step between the two. The cold hard truth of the matter though, is that Cyclades dove-tails much more nicely into next week's game than Kemet does. So check back next week (probably not next week I've got a lot going on) when we conclude our Risk Recovery Program by punching painlessly through to a world of wooden cubes and strategic hexagonal tile placement whilst also carrying our message to other alcoholics... I mean – no, I don't know what I mean.

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Kemet

By now you'll no doubt have realized that board games, beyond being a harmless bit of fun can also be an insightful way of engaging with history and the world around us; a way of considering real people and politics from different perspectives and appreciating actual events in a more tangible context. This type of 'edutainment' (what a great word, what a great... great word) is probably most evident in this week's game, 'Kemet' which delicately captures the period of Egyptian history depicted in the acclaimed documentaries 'The Mummy', 'The Mummy Returns' and to a 'not at all' extent 'The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor'.

Kemet is also the next game in the series of reviews we're rather conceitedly calling our 'Risk Recovery Program'. Last time we took our first step in that program by looking at Fortress America, a game that comes with so many plastic pieces it's hard to know what kind of joke to make; something about grown men and choking hazards I imagine... Whilst Fortress America was both ridiculous in theme and production values, we liked it a lot and decided that by providing scope for actual strategy and options for mitigating the luck of the dice, it was a natural stepping stone from Risk. But where to go next? Well, Kemet obviously. Let's take a look...

The blurb for Kemet suggests that you and your opponents play the part of mythical Egyptian deities battling it out on the sands for, well for reasons... The truth of the matter though, is that while Kemet looks every inch as thematic as last week's Fortress America and other 'American Style' games of the same ilk – the thematic backdrop for Kemet is just that, a back drop. When we get down to it we begin to see a game that structures its self around solid mechanics like 'action selection', 'Dice-less combat' systems and 'engine building', with an objective grounded in cold hard 'victory points' as opposed to something more thematically suited to the anthropomorphic lion/dog/cat Gods that the players assume the mantles of.

Setting up, you'll be given a player board with 'action spaces' printed upon them, five 'action tokens' to eventually put in those spaces, some combat cards, a sprinkling of a dozen plastic soldiers – ten of which you'll immediately place on the board – and three giant four sided dice in red, white and blue. Now you're instantly going to want to know how and when you'll be rolling these dice; the sad fact though, is you never will! At least not in a way that has any relevance to the game. Instead these dice are going to sit in your chosen city space and represent pyramids, which sounds less exciting until you realise these pyramids are integral to interacting with the ocean of game defining 'power tiles' placed at either end of the board.

These 'power tiles' are the beating embalmed heart of Kemet; they're what lifts the game apart from the rabble of other plastic afflicted area control games and turns it into a lean and compelling kind of beast; the kind possibly, that demands to be buried with all its physical wealth and a score of its surviving servants and slaves to one day rise again, destroy Brendan Fraser and run off with Rachel Weisz.

Without the 'power tiles' Kemet is a light and simple game where players take it in turns placing action discs down on their player boards to earn currency, recruit troops and then to move those troops around in a bid to crush their opponents, gain control of 'temples' and steal pyramids; all of which will yield victory points, ten of which you'll need to win. Not very inspired is it? Just as well then that Kemet does come with 'power tiles' and with those 'power tiles' Kemet is a deeper and richer game that confronts you with an abyss of interlocking options and possibilities.

Options and possibilities like: Buying the 'Giant Scorpion' tile so you can have your army march in the company of the respective miniature, thus giving them greatly enhanced combat stats and the kind of Ancient Egyptian cool you can only really attain by having a giant freakin' scorpion riding with your crew. You could enhance this by buying the 'Blades Of Neith' tile that forces your opponent to play their combat cards face up, then compound this advantage by getting the tiles that give you extra strength in combat and let you inflict more wounds.

Of course a worthy opponent may react by acquiring the 'Giant Flippin' Snake' tile, which renders your giant scorpion worthless, as it does with all the other beasties. They could also buy the tiles that give them superior combat cards and the devastating 'Initiative' tile that makes their opponent lose two units before the battle even begins, thus reducing the advantage you gained by buying the 'Blades Of Neith' and making you feel silly and scared.

Your player board affords you the option to buy one power tile of each colour every round – assuming you have control of the required pyramid - and by purchasing power tiles you begin an arms race with your opponents, but not the scary kind that places the world on the brink of nuclear war; no, the cool kind that produces a smorgasbord of complimentary effects and abilities which riddles the game with surprising nuance and litters the board with delicious sort of sand-sculpted monster miniatures.

In a lot of games decisions can often be limited to begin with, encouraging you to progress before you can unlock the more attractive options and expand your choices. Kemet isn't like that, it's not a game that encourages you to hide behind your city walls, silently and carefully building up your strength; instead, Kemet is a game that makes everything available to everyone right from the start and far from wanting to hide behind your walls, you're actively encouraged to come tearing out from behind them, baying for the blood of your enemies and the sweet, sweet victory points it will bring.

This sense of immediacy to game play is all at once both liberating and paralysing. Playing through your first couple of rounds of Kemet has an effect on your brain that's not entirely dissimilar to when your spouse goes away for a few days; the seemingly boundless options granted to you by your new found freedom are so staggering you just end up spending most of the night caught in a vicious YouTube spiral before going to bed a little bit earlier and hungrier than you usually would. While Kemet doesn't exactly induce a YouTube spiral, it does cause new players to spend a good five minutes staring vacantly at the power tiles at least twice a round, while veteran players will know exactly what tiles are going to make the most effective combinations. This is a short term problem though and one that's more than compensated for by the pace and balance of the rest of the game.

The pace in Kemet is set by the inspired allocation of victory points, so as to stimulate the maximum amount of conflict. There are several types of victory points in Kemet, they fall into two groups; permanent and temporary. Permanent victory points are awarded to players who won a battle as the aggressor and to players that control two 'temple' areas at the end of a round. Temporary victory points are awarded to players for every level four pyramid they control and for every 'temple' area they control. In this way players are encouraged to pick fights and spread themselves thin from the very outset.

The pace of game-play is further supported by the simple yet nuanced combat system. Combat is triggered by selecting a 'move' action on your turn. When you move your armies you can move from one space to a connected space as you'd expect; but Kemet, ever the proponent of historical accuracy, also allows you to literally teleport your men to the other side of the board by the power of prayer and the utilization of cannily placed obelisks. Once occupying your desired area, if enemy troops there be, then fighting shall ensue. Resolving combat is a simple affair where the strength of one side is compared to the other by combining the amount of troops one side has with the effects of any power tiles they have and the strength and stats of the simultaneously revealed combat card they produced. Each player has an identical deck of six combat cards they'll cycle through during the progression of the game, which stimulates some genuinely painful decisions as combatants attempt to predict what their opponent may play, while wondering if now is the time to play their card with the most strength or perhaps play the one with the most defence?

Loosing a fight isn't the painful experience it can often be in other games though. If you're defeated, what's left of your forces can either retreat to an adjacent area of your opponents choice or be recalled to your supply in return for an equivalent amount of 'prayer points'; 'prayer points' that can be used to redistribute those same men on your next turn. While in other area control games a series of military defeats can leave you reeling and crippled, Kemet is a forgiving game that makes it easy to bounce back from disaster and difficult to run away with unopposed success.

All in all, what looks on the surface to be a game of geeky exuberance and arbitrary conflict, is in fact a keenly balanced and well structured game that puts action and interaction at the forefront of its design. The mythical Egyptian theme may only be skin deep but that skin is as thick and leathery as it gets. The mass of wonderful miniatures beg to be played with, yet underneath all the finely sculpted scarabs and over-sized dice is the clunking and whirling of Kemet's interlocking and complementary mechanics; simple in and off themselves but when brought together provide a game that is in equal parts accessible, cunning and most of all fun!

“But Mike” I hear no one screech “How does this fit into our 'Risk Recovery Programme'?”

Well, if Risk is a bare bones game of raising armies and throwing dice at your friends until they go home; and if last week's Fortress America then builds on this by offering a thematic and strategic siege based scenario, over which you can throw lots of different types of dice at your friends in a bid to mitigate luck and encourage tactical play; then Kemet is a further evolution that strips all but the most negligible elements of luck out of the game, whilst inciting a state of considered strategy and ruthless conflict from the very first round. The fine balance of boundless options and limited actions penetrates every layer of the game, promising to gently introduce newer board gamers to aspects of gaming that could otherwise seem cold or intimidating if it wasn't for an accessible rule set and the sugar coated lure of giant sand snakes and oddly enormous dice. In short, Kemet is a lot of fun and a great game in its own right but it's also an excellent bridge from games like Risk, to games like this...

But we're not there yet. Check back soon as we take our next step by admitting we are powerless over board gaming and that our lives have become unmanageable...

Please...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Fortress America

The news! It's pretty naff isn't it? At least over hear in the UK it is, as it often just seems to be a succession of vapid anecdotes about how disgraceful women are, how offensive celebrities are and how more needs to be done to put poor people in prisons forever and ever. About once a day though – amidst the cautionary tales from twitter and the latest reactionary [not so] medical warnings about how your tooth brush is giving you cancer – there's a news story that regardless of your nationality makes you silently mouth the words, “America must be stopped!”. Which as well as being very tenable political position, is also the thematic setting of this week's game and the tentative first step in the 'Risk Recovery Program' we promised you last week.

Fortress America is set in the not too distant future, where despite international outcry America has developed a new system of high powered giant death rays, that in addition to providing an impenetrable shield against intercontinental missiles, also allows the 'United States of Freedom' to level any target in the world with pinpoint accuracy and for no other reason than “'murica!” The world now at the complete mercy of The Untied States decides enough is enough...

Ranged attacks having been made redundant, a simultaneous land invasion is launched with the 'Asian's People's Republic' (yellow player) storming in from the west; 'The Central American Federation' (blue player) charging up from the south and the 'Euro Socialist Pact' (red player) staggering in from the east, all with the intent of dismantling the global threat that is the US and once again restoring peace and order to the galaxy. There doesn't seem to be anything happening in the north though. Presumably at this stage in the near future Justin Beaver has become Lord Ruler of Canada and decreed that everyone wear pants that are so ill fitting that your average Canadian can no longer walk down the street, never mind assembling a military force capable of mounting a northern invasion. Or maybe they're just leaving room for the long rumored 'Wrath Of The Beliebers' expansion?  

The game supports up to four players with one player taking on the mantle of 'Freedom' to play America and up to three other players taking on the roles of the global alliances formed by the rest of the world. The objective of these global alliances is a mutual one as they work together to capture and hold at least 18 cities until the end of a round, while the United States player must successfully repel invaders for a whole 10 rounds; at which stage the global alliances no doubt realize that the devastation they've caused to American infrastructure has led to all their favorite shows being cancelled so – because what's the point in 'liberty' if you can't watch the latest season of 'Walking Dead' – decided to just go back home instead and let America 'have this one'.

The premise is heart warningly laughable and so is the amount of plastic that comes pouring out of the box and on to the board. If you've been engaged in the 'designer board game' hobby for more than a week, then you've probably stumbled across the term 'Ameritrash', which is a crude way of describing the types of games that generally favour a strong theme over strong mechanics and a luck:skill ratio that tips towards luck like an American tips towards (My 'Google Analytics' is telling me it wouldn't be prudent to finish that joke. It was good though!)... Anyway, Ameritrash – Fortress America is the game that could well have founded the phrase as the utilization of plastic and dice is just beyond gratuitous!

Gratuitousness isn't necessarily a weakness in board games though and just because Fortress America is at the spear head of a genus of games made synonymous with the word 'trash', doesn't mean it actually is, trash – in fact it's kind of all right! How's that for a review?

The thing about Fortress America is – like your grandparents old dog that has a racial slur for a name – it's from a different time. Originally published in 1986 it was one of the later additions to a range of games called the 'Gamesmaster Series' which included the likes of the expansive 'Axis & Allies' and the unending 'Shogun'; all of which made an attempt to marry the light accessibility of Risk to the more scenario specific type war games found in the hex based Avalon Hill bookcase series that ran through the 70's. As such we're left with a game that resides in limbo, finding its self somewhere between the crassness of Risk and the more structured and complex strategy driven games, only with the added asset of looking like an obscene amount of fun right out of the box. And that's one of the benefits that 'Ameritrashcan Style' games gain through their flashy components and disposable play – They're a lot of fun to play with!

A round of Fortress America is split into four turns with the Western, Southern then Eastern invaders taking turns to work through seven phases of play before the US player responds by doing the same. During an invading player's turn they'll dump more plastic on the board by way of a 'reinforcements phase'; they'll then declare areas they intend to attack, manoeuvre into position to do so, then begin throwing mountains of funny looking dice at each other before taking a final 'Invasion' movement and checking their supply lines so as to declare new territories captured.

The US player's turn plays out more or less the same (sans the supply checks) but with the addition of a terrible little phase called 'fire lasers', which is exactly what it sounds like. Once the US player has completed their turn, we check to see if the invaders managed to hold 18 cities, if not the game round marker moves up and we repeat the process.

This structure of play isn't particularly graceful and really does feel like the relic of the 80's it is. Each player plays out the entirety of the seven phases in a turn before passing to the next player who does the same. While this isn't so bad for the constantly engaged US player who is the target of all maneuvers and attacks; for the other invading players, there can be prolonged periods of downtime between turns. This can be remedied with a two player game but will leave the 'invader' player of that scenario over-worked and with a nose bleed. That isn't the only clunking that can be heard coming from the box though, as there's actually quite a desperate and tense game under all the plastic miniatures and thunderous dice rolls – it just doesn't emerge until the round marker crawls past the half way mark.

See when you sit down to play Fortress America it starts out kind of how you'd expect it to; which is to say your turn seems an overly complicated and fiddly build up to an anti-climatic and equally fiddly dice roll that facilitates you carving through the US forces like they were French. As the rounds progress though, the same heavy realization that occurs too late to nearly every invading military force slowly dawns on you; this is harder than it looks and you haven't really thought it through...

As an invading player your invasion will at first be text book and you'll begin to suspect the game is horribly unbalanced as you collectively capture most of the cities you need by the end of the third turn. The asymmetry of Fortress America isn't just an aesthetic one though and as you move into the fourth and fifth rounds of the game and begin to slow down, it will hit you!

The US starts out with most of their plastic on the board – all be it spread out and vulnerable – while you and your fellow invaders arrange 20 of your 60 miniatures into concentrated invasion zones. The rest of your miniatures are made available to you at a rate of 8 at a time during the 'reinforcements' stage beginning each round. This is all well and good until you realize that by the end of the sixth round all your troops will be on the board and you wont be getting any more. Your forces slowly become thinner and weaker; your chains of conquered territories become routinely compromised and all of a sudden the game seems unbalanced again, except this time the scales have shifted. While you've grown weaker and more thinly stretched out, the US has become stronger with clusters of partisan troops popping up more and more frequently and the city skylines becoming crowded as more giant death rays are erected.

The four or five rounds in the middle of Fortress America are definitely where the meat of the game is and it offers up genuinely engaging and strategic play as the US swipes through vulnerable territories, compromising supply lines and reclaiming cities (which often results in the US player getting more men on the board); while the invaders struggle to keep composure and try to divide the US player's attention and resources by mounting waves of diminishing assaults against the same cities in an increasingly desperate bid to put an end to the American War-machine. Either side of that five round game you're left with something a little lopsided and clumsy, which is just one of many criticisms that can be levelled at this golden oldie.

Okay so Fortress America isn't a technically sound game and while it has a surprising amount of depth somewhere in the middle – on the whole it feels kind of drawn out and needlessly convoluted. Yet somehow, that doesn't really matter; see there's something about it that just reeks of nostalgia. Even though I hadn't encountered Fortress America before this year, there's something so familiar and satisfying about playing it, that you can easily forgive the excessive periods of downtime, the awkward movement mechanics and the confusing masses of plastic that litter the board.

The theme and the components seem to exude this aura of 'kitschy cool' that makes the game a genuine joy to play. For me it reminds me of the kind of games I wanted to be playing in the 80's and so brings with it a level of wish-fulfillment that hits a very tender spot few games reach. And it's for this reason as well, that we're recommending Fortress America as the first step in the 'Risk Recovery Program'. It's such an obvious progression; offering a comparable experience except with tangible objectives, ways of mitigating luck, disposing of player elimination and offering a thematic scenario that stokes genuine investment in the game play, even when you're not directly involved.

While it may not be to everyone's taste, Fortress America offers an immersive and at times genuinely challenging evening of disposable gaming that lets you play with plastic soldiers and hover tanks while sticking it to America – all be it while sticking your tongue firmly in your cheek while you do.

Next week we move to step two of the 'Risk Recovery Program' where by we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of our selves, while we find out what effect a healthy serving of more modern mechanics can have on a game of plastic miniatures and area control.

Please come back...

[kickingdownthedoor]

'Tis The Season To Be Gaming, Tra la lala laaa...

It's Christmas isn't it? I can tell because I've been drunk for six days straight already on something called Glühwein. I'm pretty sure they only sell that at Christmas right?

For those of you without alcohol dependency issues you may have noticed some other more subtle signs that the season is once more upon us. Perhaps you've noticed that there's a tree in your front room or that Michael Bubléhas once again awoken from his eleven month slumber (no doubt lured from his little Christmas cave with the promise of a stuffing sandwich) to croon all over the television and radio in another effort to sell what I'm sure is the exact same insipid album as last year and the five years before that.

Christmas isn't all bad music, binge drinking and indoor gardening though is it? No! It's a time for friends, family and playing a bad board game with them all for hours and hours...

Last year I spent a good ten minutes looking for a nice Christmas themed board game, because despite how I feel about Michael Bublé, I like Christmas a lot and my family – while not exactly enthusiastic about 'one of Mike's board games' – will often condescend to play one at Christmas because that's just what families do at that time of year. So I in my naive enthusiasm, thought a lovely Christmas themed game might just be enough to get them more in the mood this year.

Turns out there really aren't any games about Christmas though. There are a few games that give a nod and a wink to the season, such as the occasional small Munchkin expansion or the winter based re-themes for Ticket To Ride and Carcassonne; other than that meagre acknowledgement and a few other efforts best left unmentioned, there wasn't really anything of note – which was strange.

There's a board game out there for nearly every conceivable theme. Do you want a board game about getting your husband to buy you a pretty dress? There's a game for that. Fancy a game about grunting at your friends while beating them with clubs until they turn a pile of wooden blocks into a pleasing construct? There's a game for that too. There's even a game about queuing outside shops in communist Poland! So why on Santa's snow covered earth is there no game about Christmas? Then it struck me...

We're not normal, are we? Me and you reader, we're different. I mean here you are reading the latest installment of a weekly board game blog – not that I'm judging because here I am writing one. My point is, for us, for people that spend time reading and watching videos about board games, our interest in them is beyond that of your average Joe. Think about him (or her) for a second, sitting there on Christmas morning in crap slippers, unwrapping another Michael Bublé CD. What do they know about board games? To them and sadly the vast majority of people, a board game is by it's very nature 'Christmas themed' because that's generally the only time of year they'll ever play one.

So I suppose if you're a board game designer and you make your game about Christmas, it's not only a moot point in most cases but you're also basically restricting people to a narrow three week window in which it's not socially repugnant to play the thing. Which as well as being commercially non-viable, is a real damn shame! Think of all the games we're missing out on:

The Night Before Christmas! Is a 2-5 player co-op game that's due for release in my imagination next year. Players take on the part of the merry little Christmas elves that form the logistical back bone of the whole Christmas present delivery gig. Taking on various roles in the 'Christmas Utility Network Teams' the elves operate within, players must manage Santa's delivery of presents around the world. Now in this game SANTA is a 'Semi-senitent Advanced North Tech Abstract, which just means this game is a fan of tedious, obscene and ambiguous acronyms. Every player controls a SANTA, ensuring it doesn't spend too long in countries that leave SANTA some booze next to his mince pies thus getting him blind drunk, as well as making sure countries that leave carrots are routinely visited to keep his mode of transport fueled and functional, so that players successfully deliver presents to every time zone before the sun comes up.

Then there's The Little Elves Work Camp! Which came out a couple of years ago – again, in my imagination – but was promptly banned. In this game players are each running a factory in the north pole dedicated to the production of presents for Christmas. Players compete to fulfill orders and score points for doing so, whilst also managing a workforce composed of what is essentially a slave race of elves by finding a balance between keeping 'productivity' up but 'self worth' down and executing 'trouble makers' out the back. Festive...

It's disappointing that we don't have more games about breeding and maintaining a subservient race of elves. If your family's anything like mine though, then they're a little bit racist and any game that sparks actual discussion could easily devolve into you politely agreeing with something horrific in an effort to avoid a massive row about religion and 'the gays'. So in retrospect maybe my desire to play something other than Monopoly at Christmas might be ill-advised.

Okay so that's obviously just me being hyperbolic for comic effect but still, come Christmas evening when your family has cleared away the remnants of dinner and sits there full of food and drink; suggesting that they maybe all play a board game usually goes over well and maybe there's a reason the majority of households turn to games like Risk instead of Chaos In The Old World.

If you're asking me – and no one is – then the success of games like Cluedo at Christmas is down to the success of games like Cluedo at Christmas. No, I didn't accidentally a word. I said what I meant, I just said it rather ineloquently. It's cyclical, is what I'm trying to get across; it's popular because it's popular. Your Grandparents played these games at Christmas, so your parents played them and all right, so you probably don't play them much because like I said, we're different – but most other people are playing them and that's exactly why most other people are playing them.

Did anyone make it through that paragraph?

What to do then? Our families are the hapless prisoners of tradition, insisting on flawed and tedious games to round off the festivities and there's nothing of an appropriately seasonal theme to make them comfortable about playing something else.

I suppose I could suggest a spiralling list of excellent games that can be explained and understood in minutes as a remedy; games that appeal to and satisfy particular aspects of our psyches that are partial to building things or collecting things. I could suggest a mountain of games that shrug off complexity for depth and interaction. I could... And I already have, it's what this whole site has been about. There are around twenty articles and reviews dedicated to just that, so instead we're going to look at this from another angle. Instead of suggesting a haul of strange and foreign games to replace the likes of Monopoly, Cluedo or Risk; I'm going to choose one of these games (lets say Risk) and suggest three alternatives.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'that doesn't make sense. You're not suggesting games to replace Risk, you're suggesting alternatives? Isn't that the same thing?' No! Well yes – but no! These are going to be games that retain a passing resemblance to Risk; games that kind of feel like Risk but they're going to be better! A lot better but they're also going to be similar enough and have enough in common that people will feel comfortable around them.

It's going to be like a rehabilitation program. In the coming weeks I'll suggest a succession of games that will help you slowly wean the ones you love off Risk and on to cleaner, healthier games. Yeah? That's going to be my present to you over this festive season. So what did you get me? No don't tell me, I like the surpass.

Anyway, come back next week when we'll start off on the road to recovery by looking at the first of three Risk alternatives.

Merry Dicemas everybody!

…Sorry.

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: X-Wing

So if I was to kick this article off by writing – Accidental Incest! In bold letters, just like that; what's the first thing you think of? Iceland probably and quite rightly to. What about the second thing you think of? Star Wars? That would be the correct answer.

Star Wars is great isn't it? No one is disputing that here. There are points in the original Star Wars trilogy though, that made you suspect George Lucas was just making it all up as he went along – like he does with his jaw line. The accidental incest between Leia and Luke might be the strongest example of this but there are many more; such as the Ewoks, overly vulnerable exhaust vents that lead straight to the core reactor, as well as tedious conversations with ghosts scribbled in at the last minute to back-peddle over some confusingly contradictory statements made in previous films. “From a certain point of view...”.

One of the things that underpins all the wonky dialogue and hap-hazardous storytelling with a genuine sense of authenticity and consistency though, is the spaceships! The designs of the skirmishing fighters, the aesthetics of the battle worn fleets and the Millennium flippin' Falcon, all serve to take a fantastical fiction about space wizards and giant death lasers, then ground it all in a universe that feels strangely real.

So when over 36 years later we only seem to have one proper table top game about the whole damn saga, it's just as well it's all about those ships isn't it?

'X-Wing: The Miniatures Game' came out late in 2012, and you could tell because the world over people started throwing money at their computer screens and through the open doorways of their friendly local game stores in a bid to acquire the game and the beautiful miniatures that accompanied it. It's been over a year since the game's release and with wave after wave of expansions, not even the drawn out period of economic despair we've been enduring has been able to stem an ever growing hoard of gamers from screaming 'shut-up and take my money' at the game's publisher, Fantasy Flight.

Now X-Wing isn't the kind of table top game we usually look at here at Kicking Down The Door. As the byline on the box suggests, it's actually what we call in the industry a 'miniatures game'. Miniatures games are traditionally a sprawling cash sink of a hobby that usually starts out with the players buying a 'bare-bones' and obviously inadequate starter set, before re-mortgaging their homes and selling their first borns to begin expanding their game one miniature/unit at a time, until they have enough stuff to play the game as the designers intended.

X-wing isn't much different as the 'core set' you'll inevitably begin with will provide you with a skimpy offering of two TIE Fighters and a single X-Wing miniature, as well as everything else you'll need to begin playing. This core set is refreshingly cheap but what's provided inside is really the bare minimum of what you'll need to start playing. Ideally you'll want at least one more core set and a couple of the single ship expansion packs to have a proper game. This will probably mean spending £60-£70 and I know what you're thinking; you're thinking “Mike, for that kind of money I could buy Eclipse and enough hookers to play 2 full player games of it.” To which I say, “just hear me out, this might be worth it. And, you know, be careful with that kind of thing...”

When setting up X-Wing players must first have a nude wrestle by a log burning fire to decide who gets to play the rebel scum and who gets to play the imperial dogs (at least that's what Dave told me, he wouldn't let me see the rule book). Once that's been settled players will clean up and 'build their squadrons' by picking pilots and attachments for each ship. Your choices will have a point value and you'll be building your squad to a pre-agreed limit – 100 points per player should make for a juicy enough game.

Now X-Wing breaks away from most other miniature games in two ways. Firstly, all the models come pre-assembled and pre-painted to a fairly impressive standard, so you don't have to worry about glueing obscenely expensive pieces of plastic to your face and getting paint in your eyes; secondly the rule set is light and accessible, so you don't have to own several thick rule books and trick people into playing with you – they'll often consent, willingly.

Once you actually begin playing X-Wing, the misgivings you had about how much money this all cost you and how you're going to pay the electric bill next month will quickly vaporize under a torrent of laser fire and fun!

The game is dirt simple; each ship comes with a 'movement dial' and during the first phase of a turn, players will spin that dial to the arrow representing the specific maneuver they want to execute. Once this is done we move on to 'activation', where players follow an initiative order and implement their chosen maneuver by taking the appropriate template, fixing it into the front of the ship's base, then whilst holding the template in place, they'll pick the activated ship up and move it to the front of the template. Easy! Often though, this is done to the horrified shrieks of your opponent as you accidentally knock over a bunch of other ships and completely compromise the legitimacy of the next phase, which involves you finally shooting things.

To shoot things, you must first check a target is in range, then you and your opponent roll attack and defence dice in a refreshingly simple system where the attacker just tries to roll more hits than the defender rolls evades. The order in which movement and attacks are played out is dictated by your individual pilot's initiative number which is printed on your ship card. Low initiative numbers move first and attack last while high initiative pilots like Han Solo move last and shoot first. Shoot first... Do, do you get it? It's a joke you see because in – never mind...

So the game's as simple as that; you move then you shoot. There are other smaller rules that make for a more tactical and immersive game though. After your movement for example, you get to take an action such as 'evade' or 'focus', which can offer greater defensive or offensive advantages during the combat phase. Choosing these actions offers interesting and conflicted decisions, just like choosing your movement does as there are simple rules dealing with 'pilot stress', whereby more extravagant maneuvers will leave your pilot too strung out to perform an action, and so you'll have to choose a more basic maneuver next turn if you want to get them all nice and relaxed again.

It's simple little rules like 'stress' that make you take pause and realize how 'cool' X-Wing is. I mean you're fighting X-Wings and TIE Fighters in space! You're having R2D2 patch up your shields while you bank around as your opponent barrel rolls into an asteroid then explodes like any TIE Fighter pilot worth their salt should. You're executing a Koiogran Turn with Vader, quickly moving to the rear of your opponent to deliver a potentially lethal and unopposed attack. You're playing Star Wars!

For the last few weeks here at Kicking Down The Door we've been looking at licensed games and more specifically their value as gateway games, where the theme is so familiar and engaging for new players that it allows you to introduce them to a more involved gaming experience than you would otherwise be able to.

X-Wing is the by far the best example of a licensed gateway game I've encountered. The rules are simple and intuitive whilst game play is rich and thematically relevant to its source material. There are a lot of good licensed games out there where a popular license has just been slapped over a mechanically sound game, but there's just no connection in the relationship between game and theme. The Game Of Thrones Living Card Game is an example of this; it's a decent card game and a popular theme but at no point do you feel the plots and emotions of the source material bleed into what you're doing in the game.

X-wing doesn't fall into this trap, instead every rule seems to serve game and theme in equal measure; it drops you right into the middle of the those famous Star Wars dogfights and completely immerses you in the joy of weaving your ships in-between asteroids and trying to outmaneuver or out-gun your opponent.

The core set depicts X-Wing as a mostly two player game. As you throw money at expansion after expansion though, you'll inevitably end up with enough to play 2v1, 2v2 or even a six player 3v3 game if you've been financially irresponsible enough! These team games are easily the best way of enjoying X-Wing and add a whole new layer of theme and tactics as you try to work seamlessly with your team mates, desperately trying to emulate all the regimented grace you'd expect from a squadron of the Empire's finest – only to end up constantly cutting each other off and offering up a faltering mess of ships, slowly staggering up the table in the infamous 'sitting duck' formation.

Playing with more players also offers a more inexpensive way of playing and enjoying the game on the scale it works best, as people can temporarily combine their personal collections of ships to create scenarios worthy of the license. Un-combining your collections though...

X-Wing is undoubtedly worthy of it's hype, but is it also worth it's price tag? What's pictured throughout the review is enough plastic to play a decent four player game of X-Wing; it's also enough to buy you the last five games we've reviewed here. So what should you do?

Simple, buy them as well!

X-Wing may be expensive but it's also expansive, allowing you to play quick two player skirmishes or massive four player battles. This versatility of play will allow you to get the game to the table much more frequently than you would something like Battlestar Galactica, which requires a more specific amount of players and a more specific play time. In this way you're likely to enjoy the small fortune you squandered much more frequently.

All of this is a moot point though. Next year the 'large ship' expansions come out and when they do, I don't suppose it's going to matter much whether the game is any good or not. I mean, look at them...

Next week, something else.

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Gormenghast

Hey,

So some of you (three of you?) may have noticed that these tedious articles and reviews of mine have been coming with a disconcerting frequency. You're no doubt concerned that my other responsibilities have been ill-prioritized to allow for this, and you'd be right. Because of the time I'm taking to write this week's review, the mould in the bathroom is that bit closer to achieving sentience. Now while my concerns over how that will play out are very real, my dedication to writing overly long reviews that perform poorly when posted to Reddit is boundless by comparison.

Writing a review a week has an inherent problem for a man of my limited income though. See the problem with weeks is that there's like fifty-two of them or something every year and while my board game library is more formidable than my live-in lady friend would probably like, it's not so formidable that I can spend week after week waxing ecstatic over one awesome game after the other. Every now and again we're going to have to toil through a cautionary tale like 'Gormenghast'...

Gormenghast came out of nowhere a couple of months ago. I was idly browsing the 'new releases' of my favourite online board game store, wondering what this month's house-hold kitty might be better spent on, when I saw it right there. 'Gormenghast!' I thought, 'My long suffering significant other loves Gormenghast, I simply must acquire this game'.

After convincing my lady friend that soap was a luxury we could live without for a month – as well as washing up liquid, shower gel, three days worth of food and a new light-bulb for the bedroom – I purchased the game and quickly went to checkout what 'board game geek' had to say about Gormenghast (because that's how I work – buy first, ask questions later). But there was nothing on 'board game geek', there was no entry for the game, nothing! Intrigued, I did the only thing I knew how to do, I googled it. Still, nothing!

This was unusual (and retrospectively probably a warning) to say the least; I had begun to suspect a 'board game geek' entry for a game poofed into existence the second it took form inside the designer's head. The game eventually arrived though and I was able to draw my own vapid conclusion – but we'll get to that. Let me tell you more about it first.

Gormenghast is obviously based on a popular BBC mini-series from the distant past of the year 2000; which from what I remember was all about Jonathan Rhys Meyers acting poorly at people. My lady friend also informs me that the show was adapted into a trilogy of books which were somehow written many decades before the show, and that Jonathan Rhys Meyers is actually a very fine actor with lovely eyes.

I had my doubts so I turned to google again: Turns out that Jonathan Rhys Meyers does in fact have lovely eyes but that Gormenghast is actually about (at least in part) the rise of a man named Steerpike from the position of a lowly 'kitchen rat' to 'Master Of Ritual' – which is apparently kind of a big deal – and the Machiavellian schemes by which he rose to such a position. Sure enough, when we set-up a game of 'Gormenghast the board game', that's pretty much what it's about.

The game board is actually a composition of nineteen randomly drawn 'castle tiles' which players take it in turns to construct. The remaining castle tiles sit off to the side for later use and then every space gets a small 'artifact tile' placed on it. This small tile is usually an item of some description but could also call for some of the game's ten characters to be placed onto the board. In this way a unique game board is created every time. Players also receive a hand of 'plot' and 'action' cards as well as five 'influence tokens' before starting.

Players take on the role of a Steerpike type character and just like he does in the 'story' summary of the wikipedia article for Gormenghast, you'll spend your time exercising influence over the inhabitants of the castle and manipulating them into some very specific and unsavoury acts that will help to propel you upward to victory.

To begin with you'll have a hand of seven cards. Five are 'action cards' but two of them are plot cards; these plot cards will have a block of flavour text on them with a character name, a room name and an item all highlighted in red. Your objective is to get the character named by the card into the room named on the card and turn in your plot card for a victory token. If you manage to achieve the trifecta by also getting the item named on the card inside that same room with that same character, then you'll instead get a glorious three victory tokens, getting you a third of the way to a game winning nine.

It all sounds rather good. Based on my limited knowledge of the source material, the game seems to be a faithful simulation of at least part of the story. It's certainly a labour of love for the game's designer as he's responsible for creating all the in-game artwork as well as taking the time to incorporate appropriate blocks of 'flavour text' onto everything, which no doubt helps immerse fans more completely into the game. There's even something called a 'Book Of Ritual'; at various points in the game players are prompted to roll a 'Ritual Dice', turn to the appropriate page where they'll read more flavour text, then resolve some kind of event – which sounds very exciting.

In practice though, playing the game is kind of like watching Jonathan Rhys Meyers act at stuff; you can tell a real effort is being made by the way his eyes get all narrow, but it just doesn't seem to work...

When you begin playing, there's a glimmer of hope that this could be a game comparable to 'Discworld: Ankh-Morpork'; which is another game based on a famous body of literature offering simple but engaging game-play, plenty of player interaction and a firm respect for the source material. The mechanics seem like they'll offer up a fast and casual experience with an amount of competition that just nestles nicely into that 'goldilocks zone' that makes for an ideal gateway game. It doesn't quite pan out that way though.

To get the game's characters to pick up items and move into the rooms you want, you'll have to play 'action cards'. Now on your turn you can play as many action cards and do as many things as you want before passing – which is quite liberating – and the action cards introduce a seemingly juicy element of decision making by bearing three important pieces of information on them: They'll have an influence rating, a movement rating and a text effect. When you play an action card, you'll play them for one of these three things. So far so good right?

Now before you can use action cards for their movement points and actually move a character, you have to have influence over them. To this end you'll play action cards for their influence and put the appropriate amount of your 'influence tokens' on a character's card to represent this. It's likely that more than one player wants to influence the same character, in which case you're promised a tug-of-war as players engage in some sort of meta struggle, like two devils dicks on someone's shoulders; one telling them to go to 'The Chamber Of Cats' and fire a servant and the other one telling them to go to the 'Rookery' and kill all the birds.

There's the faint hope that you'll have an intriguing game of subtlety and cunning, that the abstract conflict between the players will pulse under the game's tiles bringing Mervyn Peake's sinister and introspective world to life. That hope quickly veers into oncoming traffic though and dies in a painful and slow way as you realise it's just a game of dumb luck.

Not all of the characters, rooms and items are going to be in play at the start of the game. While there are things you can do about that if you have a plot card that requires one of those missing elements, it's undermined by the fact someone probably has a plot card which has all its elements in play and conveniently close together.

Everything seems to reward luck: The tug-of-war you were promised from players competing for influence over the various characters, it's completely sidestepped the second someone realizes there's no point putting an influence token on a character – and thus declaring their intent - until they have all the action cards necessary to complete their plot card. Meaning the player who wins was the player lucky enough to get good plot cards and the action cards they needed when they needed them.

In my last game I was lucky enough to have the plot card, the available character, tile, item and the action cards necessary to get three points on my first turn. I didn't do anything on my second turn so I could build up my hand of cards again, then got another three points on my third turn. I quickly won that game and nobody could do anything about it other than hope my luck ran out.

The designer obviously hoped players would attempt to complete plot cards piece by piece; laying some influence down, moving a little, then sacrificing some of their action cards to mess up someone else’s plans. But you can't be certain of someone's plans so you're usually just randomly altering the state of the board; which is what The exciting but inevitably disappointing 'Book Of Ritual' seems devoted to as well.

Even when you try playing more interactively – by sacrificing your own progress to hopefully scupper someone else's – you're just setting things back a couple of turns and drawing the game out. There's certainly the illusion of choice and strategy but when you reach for it, it's just not there. Unlike the mould in my bathroom, which is just everywhere. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I've made in warning you about this game? Sometimes at night I think that black fury abyss calls my name...

We don't have to end this on such a sour and disturbing note though. If you want a game that delivers everything Gormenghast promised; check out Discworld: Ankh-Morpok, which I reviewed here a while ago. And if you want to hear about a licensed game done so right you'll risk financial insolvency to acquire it (and you'll probably have to), then I'll see you next week when we'll end our run on licensed games and make your wallet weep for a time when you had a gambling problem instead of a board game hobby.

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Spartacus

Man-dancing! It's a dying art-form these days. For most of us it's something we only see acted out between emotionally stunted primates as they try to navigate their way from the club to the takeaway once a week. Mostly it involves a man throwing his bag of chips (read fries America!) at another man before they both try to rip each others shirts off while punching one another in the head; presumably so a female in close proximity will choke to death on the testosterone and they can lay their eggs inside her hollowed out carcass... I refuse to believe these people procreate conventionally.

Time was though, man-dancing wasn't just something to do after a jägerbomb, it was a cultural institution and an invaluable aspect of placating and inspiring the masses. Its participants weren't made to pay damages and barred from the venues in which they won their victories; they were lauded as heroes and became superstars in the eyes of the baying crowds that gathered in purpose built amphitheatres all over the world.

I know, you didn't come here to learn; let's just take a look at this board game all about man-dancing and find out whether violence is really as cool as the television says it is. Spoiler – it is!

Spartacus was the surprise hit game of 2012. Based on the semi-popular, guilty pleasure of a TV series, 'Spartacus: Blood & Boobs'; there were some understandable reservations as to whether the game would manage to live up to the nipple count of the television series, and a justified fear that the whole thing would just be crap.

The show, 'Spartacus: Blood & Angry Sex', ran for four seasons and followed the story of Spartacus (obviously), beginning with his capture by the Romans and his sale to a Gladiator school. The first two seasons focused on Spartacus's rise to greatness in the arena as well as the intrigue and politics of the Ludus he belonged to. Later seasons depicted his involvement in the Third Servile War, however the board game chooses to base its self in the blood and treachery of the early seasons; each player taking on the role of a Dominus in one of the 'great' houses of Capua, as they bid to gain influence and glory by scheming against one another and fighting their Gladiators in the 'games'.

At the beginning of the game players are randomly dealt a 'house card', depicting the household they will be Dominus of as well as the unique abilities and starting assets of that particular faction. These assets take the form of a specific number of slaves, gladiators, guards and an amount of gold which are all laid face up alongside the player's 'house card' and the gladiator miniature they have selected to represent them in the arena.

The objective is to be the house holding twelve 'influence points' by the end of one of the game's three phases and oh how it's glorious!

Spartacus the board game has managed to tap into the very biceps curling, bosom heaving heart of the show and just like the show, the game is crude, it is gratuitous and despite your better judgement and what other people will think about you, you will begin to care about the oiled up meat bags you send off to fight to the death.

Critics of Spartacus will tell you the game hinges too much on luck, that the dice-fest that is the 'arena phase' offers too little opportunity for tactics; that the card play of the 'intrigue phase' is a mindless orgy of “I play this against you!”, “I block that with this!” then the entirely unexpected yet inevitable “Well Jupter's Cock blocks your block!”. They'll also tell you that the game devolves into a 'pile on the leader' type of affair until someone eventually wins by playing an entirely trivial card you never knew existed.

Now they're mostly right, all of that is true of Spartacus, yet somehow, just like Bradley Cooper's Oscar nomination, it's hard to care. Let's walk through a turn...

You're playing house Batiatus! At the moment you're sporting two sexy slaves and three gladiators, one is pathetic and weak, one is adequate but wounded and one is glorious and everybody knows it; you also have seven influence and a small amount of gold. At the very beginning of the upkeep phase you'll be refreshing all your cards, which means your slave girl Melitta, whom you 'exhausted' in the previous round to gain a gold coin (it's left for you to read in-between the lines of how that works) gets flipped back over (pervert) ready to be used again in the current round (you sicken me).

Once all your cards are refreshed you must then deal with your wounded gladiators by rolling a dice to see if they recover, remain injured and thus good for nothing, or the gods forbid, die! You roll a three, which means good old Varro lives to see another day but doesn't yet recover from his wounds. Next it's time to balance the ledgers. This is done by receiving a gold for every slave you own and paying a gold for every gladiator. Which means you, having three gladiators and but two sexy slaves, owe a single gold to the bank. All that book keeping being done, we move onto the game proper.

At the beginning of the 'intrigue phase' everyone draws three cards from the 'intrigue' deck. On your turn you can play cards for their text, cash them in for their value and/or use the special abilities of your house and assets. This is the least interesting bit of the game and it plays out kind of like Prime Minister's Question Time; instead of vague and disingenuous statements though, players take it in turns pulling cards out of their asses in an effort to improve their standing and scupper the progress of their opponents. Usually this phase will see players bloat their treasury and increase their influence by one or two, while the player currently in the lead will have their influence brought down by one nefarious scheme or the other. Just like in Prime Minister's Question Time though, there's a good chance it'll end with your best gladiators having their wine poisoned and your guards dead (I've never made it to the end of Prime Minister's Question Time)...

The 'market phase' is next and this is where the game gets better. Ostensibly this phase of the game is a quick and simple bidding round. A number of cards from the Market deck are put face down on the table and one by one they're turned over for the players to make a blind bid on. This is how you're going to get new gladiators, more slaves and better equipment; this is also where the game being based on the television series 'Spartacus: Blood & Pert Bottoms', contributes a major asset to game play.

See so long as someone your playing with is familiar with the show, when the cards of the 'market phase' are turned over, they'll be able to talk the rest of the table through the back-stories of the gladiators and slaves that were revealed. Don't pretend it wouldn't be more interesting to know that the gladiator Segovax has the largest cock before you all start bidding. This kind of 'insight' will also spill over to the 'arena phase' and enhance player's investment in the fights; making the stand off between Gannicus and Oenomaus, not just a battle between two of the games toughest gladiators, but a tale of betrayal and vengeance as someone points out that that guy slept with that guys wife!

Your investment in the game though isn't completely hinged on whether you're aware that your 'body slave' Nasir is also the gay lover of your best gladiator Agron. There's enough tension and drama in the game even if you're all ignorant to the lore of the television series. Because when someone like Spartacus becomes available during the 'market phase', the significance of such a powerful gladiator will be obvious, and players must then make a tough decision between splurging all their gold on trying to keep him out of their opponents hands, or saving their money to make a strong bid to become 'host' of the games.

Bidding to become 'Host' is the closing action of the 'market phase' and moving into the 'arena phase' the winner of that bid immediately gains one precious point of influence and gets to invite two players to participate in the games. What follows is exactly the kind of thing you were hoping for when you first opened the box and set this game up. The selected players must make painful decisions as to which gladiators to offer up to the sand and once that's done the rest of you get to bet on the outcome.

This is ingenious! A gladiator fight is a drawn out affair where the two involved parties just roll mountains of dice at each other until one of them wins. Now this is more tense and fun than it has any right to be on it's own, but the ability of the other players to get involved by betting on who will win and by how much, secures the investment of the entire table as the two contenders pick up their compliments of dice and begin.

As the rounds tick over that investment will go through the roof as players build a kind of history between each other. Trying to win will almost take a back seat to the drama that unravels between the houses; that time house Tullius put your defeated gladiator to the death will be scorched into your soul and repaid in like, even if such an action is to your detriment; and the time your prize gladiator Gannicus was humiliated with a defeat against an obviously inferior opponent, will have you hungrier for a rematch than you are for a game winning influence point.

When the game inevitably ends, you'll want to continue playing regardless. Those rematches you were lusting after that never took place? You'll play them out just to see what happens; the two fierce champions that never faced each other in the arena? You'll have them smack down together just for the personal satisfaction.

Even if you've never heard of the show 'Spartacus: Blood & Oiled-Up Gyrating', you'll be hard pressed not to see this is an unnecessarily fun game. There may be better games; there may be more technically accomplished games with a greater depth of strategy and tactics, but there aren't many that are this unashamedly enjoyable. With a recent expansion increasing the player count from four to six and introducing team battles in the arena as well as a host of new gladiators, slaves and 'intrigue' cards to play around with; the experience at least becomes one with an increasing breadth, if not a greater depth.

To dovetail into the meandering trail of thought we began last week though; Spartacus is a perfect example of a licensed game that makes for a gripping, engaging experience amongst fans of the show that haven't really played 'proper' board games before. The ease at which Spartacus seems to have captured the feel of those early seasons will make a game with several phases, mechanics and nineteen pages of rules a surprisingly accessible and light affair for those not yet formally indoctrinated into 'the cardboard way'.

So go, take game in hand and put dice to purpose! Next week we’ll continue our spotlight on licensed games by looking at E.T. The Extraterrestrial: A Parker Board Game Based on the Film! Or maybe something else...

[kickingdownthedoor]

A License To Thrill!

 Hey you guys!

First of all, let me apologize unreservedly for the title of this article, it had to be done. Next, hands up if you've been reading these ramblings of mine since the beginning. Anyone?

That's just as well... If you had been a long time reader of my overly long and poorly punctuated ramblings, you may have noticed a couple of things; one; I don't know how to use semi colons properly; I know I need them; I just don't know how to use them; Secondly; that the original mission statement of Kicking Down The Door was to explore the does and don'ts of gateway gaming and recommend games that will help introduce your friends to, as well as 'Kick Down The Door' to, the world of modern board games. As such, when we reviewed Battlestar Galactica last week, none of you would have noticed that a game with that level of complexity, length and fiddlyness of rules was in clear violation of that original mandate. Or was it?!

This week we're going to be mostly exploring the world of licensed games (See? Do you get it? The title? Because it's about licensed ga– never mind...) and why they represent an excellent opportunity to throw your uninitiated friends in at the deep end when introducing them to real board games.

Now if you're anything like me dear reader; then you can clear a room within an hour of eating parsnips (parpnips?), and you have trouble 'selling' some of your friends on how balls to the wall awesome board games can be. These friends may be slowly – but quite rightly – moving to the peripheral of your social circle, yet all the same it irks you that your explanations of how you spend your Friday nights can raise eyebrows and lower your credibility as an actual person.

“What are you doing tonight Mike?”

“Well I'm going around to a friend's house to build a structurally unsound spaceship and set off on a race across the galaxy only to be destroyed by a score of massive asteroids and my own piss poor engineering skills.”

“That sounds ridiculous. I'm going to spend my Friday night raising my children, paying my mortgage and/or drinking my self into oblivion. Like a grown up!”

We've all had that conversation haven't we? Haven't we? You know, where one of your increasingly estranged friends just doesn't seem convinced by your sermons on the joy of cardboard and the happiness it can bring. Maybe you even invited them to join you in a game; a game you carefully selected for it's light rule set and heavy player interaction. However, instead of being won over by the simplicity of the game, the potential for interaction amongst players and the genuine depth to the decisions that are presented; your 'friend' simply sat there, maintaining their disinterest – almost impressively – in the face of one of the most engaging games you own.

Now it may be that this 'friend' of yours just isn't built for board games. Maybe they simply lack the discipline to focus on something for more than a moment? Maybe they hate thinking? Maybe they have their own god damn problems and don't want to spend their free time worrying about imaginary ones... Maybe though, just maybe, the games you've been trying to inflict on them haven't engaged any of their interests?

Often when we're attempting to introduce our friends to the glory of this little hobby, we'll be either overly zealous by dropping them straight into the deep end of whatever fresh hell has risen to the top of the BGG charts this month – the kind of affair that will see grown men with advanced engineering qualifications quiver at the lip and tear up – or, we'll mollycoddle them with a game about trains, which has colourful cards, about three rules and a level of personal investment that falls somewhere short of how you felt about your last bowel movement.

What we sometimes overlook, is the opportunity that games based on popular TV shows and movies can afford us. These are games that will often appeal to an established interest that our friends may share, be that a life long love affair with things that happened in 'a galaxy far far away...' or a desire to get a 'fix' in-between seasons of their favorite shows. In either case, a game based on a pre-existing license can give the uninitiated a well placed foot hold they can invest their confidence in as they begin their ascent to cardboard glory!

The reason we often overlook licensed games though, is that traditionally they've usually fallen on the crap end of the good/crap spectrum. In the past they seem to have been designed with all the care and consideration of, of... of something poorly considered. They have for the most part, been shameless cash ins, luring the unsuspecting consumer to purchase the game for no reason other than its tenuous and superficial affiliation to the license pictured on the box, then offering the board game equivalent of a confused shrug once the box is opened. The most obvious examples of this offence are the seemingly infinite Monopoly re-themes.

This is quickly changing however and recent years have seen a score of fantastic license based games that have risen from a position of suspicion in our collective opinions, to that of treasured favorites and much loved staples of our board game nights. No longer are we treated to some tedious roll and move affair that neither looks like nor feels like the show or film it claims to be based on; instead we're getting games that feel like a labour of love, diligently crafted to replicate the experience of the film or to submerge players in the events of the show, but doing so in the frame work of a mechanically sound, consistently engaging, actual game!

What's more exciting than a brilliant board game based on your favourite cancelled TV show though, is the possibility that said board game can engage with your friends on a level that simply escapes the latest critically applauded offering to rocket up the 'hotness'; not because the newest 'euro style' game is bad or complicated you understand, but because it's probably about building canals in Ellesmere Port. Now while that's something your friends could come to appreciate in the way you do, for now they'd be far more enthused about the possibility of wrecking Northern vengeance on the Lannisters, flying a TIE Fighter into an asteroid or dropping the One Ring into Mount Doom.

Lets take last week's Battlestar Galactica for example; what we have in Battlestar is a game with thirty plus pages of fairly dense directions, hundreds of words of in game text and a rules explanation that can easily stretch past the twenty five minute mark. On paper a game like this can seem like a cherry picked example of 'what not to play with people when introducing them to modern board games', however Battlestar Galactica is commonly cited by people as the game that got them into gaming, and that's often because they were already fans of the show.

See, a fan of Battlestar Galactica already understands the awful tensions wrought by an unrevealed Cylon or the risks of a rushed FTL jump; they've watched about six years of that kind of thing play out on the television, so when you begin explaining the rules that govern 'revealed' and 'unrevealed Cylon players' and the particulars of the 'jump track', they have a clearer understanding of where things are going.

I can explain this better, hold on... Convoluted and inappropriate analogy time:

You know when you were a kid and you were watching those art shows where a guy with laboured breathing starts drawing a picture without telling you what it's going to be? You sit there trying to work out what it's going to look like and how that bit is going to join up with the other? Well a rules explanation is like that; you sit there perplexed, worrying that you'll never realise what's being drawn, but slowly the picture emerges and you begin to understand. However, the more complex the picture, the longer that period of protracted confusion and panic will last; in this moment minds wonder and enthusiasm can be lost as people start to worry that the picture is never going to be completed and the 'artist' is going to be dragged into a drawn out court case over historical sexual assault allegations...

Which is generally what we want to avoid when introducing people to board games (the protracted confusion and panic I mean, not the historical sexual assault allegations, but that too I suppose), so we generally select games that are quick and simple to draw when introducing people to the hobby. However – and here's the bit where this will all make sense – when you're playing something like Spartacus with someone who is a fan of the TV show, then they already have a good understanding of what the picture is going to look like in the end, and because of this they're able to sit through a longer and more complicated drawing; they'll be able to follow the lines better as you make them and hold faith that that bit must join up with the other bit in this way.

That wasn't much better was it?

The take home point is that the presence of a perfectly scaled miniature of the Millenium Falcon in a game is going to allow some of your friends to cope better with rules about 'range', or things like 'combat' and 'action phases', also something about a 'damage deck'. The possibility of sacking Lannisport with Rob Stark's northern host should be enough to get a few of your chums past the thirty minute mark of a rules explanation, while the mere opportunity to bet on a fight between Spartacus and Gannicus is surely all the cajoling it will take to expose a handful of them to something called an 'intrigue phase' and an explanation as to the workings of 'Jupiter’s Cock!'.

A well targeted licensed game can be an invaluable tool when trying to show people how much fun board games can really be. While they've been getting steadily more credible in their critical reception though, not every license based release hits gold. With that in mind, stay tuned over the next few weeks as your old pal Mike takes you through a few of the better games and maybe one or two of the more disappointing ones.

Next week we'll begin by looking at E.T. The Extraterrestrial: A Parker Board Game Based on the Film! Or possibly something else...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Battlestar Galactica

Hello reader.

Like I'm sure everybody does, I sometimes spend protracted periods of time worrying about the various apocalyptic scenarios that could befall our civilization and wipe our species off the face of the universe. The most likely scenarios to my mind will probably involve some sort of disease, self induced nuclear destruction or the gods forbid, something involving Bradley Cooper... Probably something involving Bradley Cooper.

Like most people though, I have my favourite apocalyptic scenario; which involves creating really cool robots that ultimately rise up against us, enslave us, then inevitably exterminate us.

By coincidence, that just happens to be the setting of the extremely popular board game Battlestar Galactica, which we're about to look at now...

Battlestar Galactica was given an honourable mention last week, when we reviewed Panic Station; which if you remember was a terribly lovely little game all about panicking in a station. But it was also a very thematic game that was semi-cooperative and made excellent use of what the kids are calling, a 'traitor mechanic'.

Now we liked Panic Station a lot, despite it's flaws: but it was a small game that consisted of just a deck of cards, a handful of wooden tokens and rarely lasted longer than an hour. What we have in Battlestar Galactica though, is another game from the same semi-cooperative genre, but its play time spans an entire evening and its components fill a whole table with cards, dials and little plastic space ships... Space ships I tell you!

Battlestar Galactica is a fully licensed adaptation of the re-vamped TV series of the same name. As such, the setting of the game is borrowed from the early seasons of the show and sees the titular Battlestar – as well as the rest of the human fleet – being pursued and harried across the galaxy by the relentlessly sexy Cylon forces. Hopelessly outmatched, the humans must survive the Cylon onslaught long enough to make it to the supposed sanctuary of the planet Kobol.

To make a difficult game silly though, a number of the other players will be 'skin jobs'; which is a term that not only provides a surprisingly clean google image search, but refers to the type of Cylon that looks indistinguishable from humans, and was planted amongst the crew and populous of the fleet to act as saboteurs.

Imagine with me if you will weary reader: Your playing the part of an ace 'viper' pilot called Apollo. You started the game in your 'Viper' – much to the envy of the other players – which is one of the cool little plastic fighter ships that's floating in the space around the Battlestar. Your friends are all either aboard the 'Battlestar Galactica' or the presidential ship at the top left of the board, 'Colonial One'. Things haven't been going well...

Your only a few turns in and while the other players managed to miraculously bring down the Cylon 'Basestar' that started the game right in front of you; the fleet has been rapidly overrun as Steve and Dave both revealed crises cards that swamped the board with more Cylon Basestars and Raiders. The Battlestar has taken hits to both the 'weapon's control' station and the 'hanger bay', rendering those spaces inoperable, while the destruction of civilian ships by the Cylon Raiders on your flank has already started chipping away at your precious resource dials.

The other four players at the table have their heads in their hands as despair closes in. Not you though... At the start of the game everyone was given a 'loyalty card' that dictated their allegiances; yours told you you were a Cylon, a 'skin job', a god damn toaster! As such the carnage that has ravaged the human fleet in just three turns, fills you with excitement. But you must be careful though, if the humans begin to suspect you're a Cylon, you could end up in the brig. So you follow suit and complain about how unfair it all is, that the 'jump preparation track' has only moved one space and that it'll be a long time before you can even make a risky jump out of this nightmare, also that Cylons are all inbred and live off benefits or something like that. Yeah, that should do it...

It's your turn, so you start by taking your compliment of skill cards from the various decks. As Apollo you're entitled to a 'tactics' skill card, which typically lets you manipulate die rolls or for an action look ahead at the 'destination' or 'crisis' cards that could be coming; you'll also draw two 'piloting' skill cards which will make you more proficient at dogfights in your Viper, and finally you'll get a choice of two skill cards from either the 'leadership' deck, which will often let you give actions to other players, or the 'Politics' deck which sometimes allows you to acquire skill cards outside of your skill set, such as 'engineering' which makes repairing ships and damaged stations possible.

Once you've taken those skill cards it's time to take your movement. Now if you were on one of the big ships, you could move from any one space to any other space; even from ship to ship so long as you discard a skill card to do so. As it happens though you're piloting a Viper, so you have the further option of staying in your ship and moving to an adjacent space area where you can try and shoot down some Raiders. The thing is though, you're particularly useful in space and could conceivably take down a whole string of Cylon Raiders and you're a Cylon, which would make Christmases very awkward. So instead you mumble some nonsense about the importance of getting some repairs done and you discard one skill card to move from your Viper to the damaged 'weapon's control' station.

Adam looks at you in astonishment. He's no doubt wondering why you, as their best pilot, are abandoning your little ship to go and repair 'weapon's control' when there are swarms of Raiders poised to take out the civilian ships behind you.

It's all right though; see now it's time for your action and instead of doing something that will actually help your human 'friends', you choose to play one of your 'politics' skill cards, that as an action allows you to draw any two skill cards you want. You draw two 'engineering' skill cards promising to repair 'weapons control' with them on your next turn, because you're a human like the rest of them. See? You're trying to help.

Adam Doesn't look convinced, so you reach under the table and give his thigh a reassuring stroke. This doesn't help...

At the end of your turn you're required to reveal the top card from the 'crisis deck' and resolve it; it's a 'weapons malfunction' that requires all of you to pass a 'skill check' or else two deployed Vipers will be damaged and in addition, any characters at 'weapons control' will be sent to 'sickbay'; which means you, you're in 'weapons control'!

Also three more Cylon Raiders launch from the Basestars... Both of them...

Now the 'skill check' is something the rule book takes three and a half poorly laid out pages to explain and I've no intention of regurgitating any of that here. Instead I'll offer up an unhelpful and obscene analogy by suggesting the 'skill check' process is similar to setting up a charity clothing bin, hoping that everyone donates generously but opening it up at the end of the month to find that someone took a massive shit in it and now the whole thing's ruined!

As a Cylon, it will be your job to shit in the allegorical 'charity clothing bin' without being detected, or – if you're particularly masterful – by making it look like someone else’s shit instead. By doing this you hope to make the humans fail the skill check and ensure that the terrible things on the crisis card become a reality.

And so play goes on in this way; players take some cards, take a movement, take an action, then deal with a crisis card until they either get to their destination of Kobol, or die in one of too many ways. Usually the humans will die because one of their resource dials ran down to nothing, but they can also be killed if the Battlestar takes an embarrassing six damage tokens or if a Cylon boarding party advances too far.

While the job of the hidden Cylon players is obviously to scupper humanity’s efforts at survival by sabotage and being generally less than helpful; the humans role is to simply survive despite this, but doing so depends massively on being able to root out the Cylons amongst you and 'deal' with them. Which is what the game is really about...

On a superficial level, Battlestar Galactica is a survival game about managing resources, taking calculated risks and damage limitation. The presence of hidden Cylon players turns it into a completely different kind of beast though. On top of everything, players become enthralled in a deeply psychological game of '“You're a Cylon” “No! You're a Cylon!”'

Imagine with me once more weary reader: Your playing the part of the fleets Admiral, William Adama. As Admiral you start the game with your finger on the button of two deadly nukes. Or you did... You're ace pilot Apollo turned out to be a stinking toaster; after some suspiciously ineffective actions on his part and a metaphorical charity clothing bin full of pilot shit, you all managed to throw him in the brig before he caused any more trouble. Unfortunately he'd left you in such a mess you were forced to fire both your nukes at the Cylon Basestars that surrounded you.

Since then you've managed to make two FTL (faster than light) jumps away from the remaining swarms of raiders. It's cost you dearly in fuel and population though. Only your food resource dial hasn't hit the red yet but it wont be long.

The Cylon scum that was once your ace pilot has since revealed himself and gone to the Cylon Resurrection ship where he's been able to take pot shots at the Galactica and force crises on you. It hasn't taken him long to see that you're once again surrounded by a Cylon fleet. The FTL jump track isn't yet at a point where you can jump safely, but you can ill afford to take more damage.

It's your turn; you take your compliment of skill cards and move from Command to the FTL Control space. You decide to use the action of the space you're in and take an early jump. It's at this point the game gets really good!

See in a five player game, the 'loyalty deck' that you drew from at the beginning to find out whether or not you were a Cylon, is composed of enough cards for everybody to get two. It's not until you cross half the distance required to get to Kobol, that you'll receive your second card, and when you do everything changes.

When the game began, it was possible that both Cylons were active and working amongst you to destroy the fleet. Equally probable though, was the possibility that one or in fact none of you were yet Cylons, and the two 'You are a Cylon' cards that are used in a five player game, were left in the second half of the loyalty deck.

This is why Battlestar Galactica is such a highly regarded game. The tensions that are drawn from the mere possibility of a Cylon player are enormous. The humans can ill afford to let a Cylon player run unchecked, shitting in all the charity clothing bins and making choices that compromise the safety of the fleet. So the players scrutinize every action, thought and word that comes from their fellow crew members. Any wrong look or ill timed bathroom break could be a sign someone is a fracking toaster. But then there's the doubt; what if there is no Cylon in play yet? What if you throw Adam in the brig and he's human! The consequences of a false accusation are too devastating, you can't afford to waste the time and cards necessary to get a human in and then back out of the brig.

You reach under the table and give Adam's thigh another reassuring stroke. He says he's not playing games at your house again...

But when the second round of loyalty cards are dealt out, a whole new dilemma presents its self. Players you were sure were human could suddenly be compromised! Suddenly you have to build up relationships of trust again and old suspicions bubble to the surface. Of course it could easily be that you're the sleeper agent, and trust me when I tell you that if this is the case, you'll want to be sick in your mouth. But you can't do that, it'll be suspicious.

Battlestar Galactica is one of the biggest and most involved games we've reviewed here at Kicking Down The Door. Despite its scale and depth though, it remains essentially a simple game where all your options are either written on the board or on your cards. The complexity however, comes from the interactions with other players, the accusations, the deflections, the baneful stares. And there in lies the real joy of the game.

While the likes of Panic Station or The Resistance can create snack sized bites of intrigue and deceit for nearly an hour at a time; Battlestar Galactica can slowly build and sustain the same levels of social turmoil over the course of an entire evening, creating a feast of paranoia and mistrust for you and your friends to gorge on all night long. And with three big box expansions providing more boards, more ships, characters, cards and variants; there's plenty to keep the game fresh and coming to the table time and time again.

So say we all...

Next week, something else!

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Panic Station

Hello you,

It's that time of year again isn't it? The time of year where it's always wet, an invasive fear of your heating bill begins to gnaw at your psyche, the delicious atrocity that is toffee apple cider once more adorns the shelves of the super market liquor aisle and two things happen: One, board game reviewers like myself are required to look at games which have a horror theme slapped over their mechanics; and two, Mrs Mike and the lady that lives in the flat across the hall from us, conspire to throw a joint Halloween party that at any one time will see no fewer than four strangers in my front room, staring at my wall of board games and saying “That's a lot of board games. Do you like board games or something?”

In light of this, I think it's only reasonable to take a look at a game called Panic Station. Which is a game all about panicking... In a station...

Panic Station is a game that came out about this time of year, back in 2011. It promised to be a spiritual adaptation of classic horror flick 'The Thing', wrought in board game form. Everybody was very excited, and understandably so; Panic Station was going to be a 'paranoia driven' semi cooperative game, where players would each control two characters sent to a remote compound that was over-run by alien parasites capable of secretly infecting your fellow team mates and turning them against you. Your objective was to seek out and destroy the alien hive before you were all killed, or worse...

The game adopted a popular device of modern board games, known as the 'traitor mechanic'; and through a unique implementation of this mechanic, one of you would be secretly 'turned' at the very beginning of the game. This player would be called the 'host' and their objective would switch from trying to destroy the hive, to protecting it at all costs by killing, or more deliciously, infecting the other players and thus recruiting them to 'team parasite'. It was this prospect of 'infection' that got everybody's trousers twitching.

There were already a number of popular games that hinged on a 'traitor mechanic', such as The Resistance or Shadows Over Camelot, where people are dealt secret cards that dictate their allegiances for the rest of the game. These cards would usually be dealt out at fixed points during the game, typically at the beginning, or in the case of the massively popular Battlestar Galacitca, they'll also be dealt out a second time half way through. The paranoia that Panic Station promised, seemed to come from the fact that players loyalties could and would be compromised at any point during game play; creating a fluctuating climate of fear and mistrust, akin to the type of thing you get when using the toilets of a train station at night.

That's what Panic Station was supposed to be; but when the game was released, what a lot of people felt like they ended up with was a clunky, imperfect, sometimes tedious experience with awkward mechanics and patchy rules disguising a fatally flawed, probably broken game. Much like using the toilets of a train stat- No that doesn't work...

Now the game has been readily available for a number of years – allowing for revised and better written rules – the zeitgeist of enthusiasm for Panic Station, that then erupted into isolated cases of fury and outrage, seems to have dwindled to a passive whimper of disappointment. Which is a shame really; because it's actually quite a lot of fun.

At the beginning of a game of Panic Station, players will control both a gun-toting android and a flame-thrower wielding human. To this end they'll have a wooden token representing each character on a starting room card placed in the middle of the table, and they'll have two corresponding character cards upon which they'll record the health and available actions of their dynamic duo.

Players will also be dealt a hand of five cards; three of which will be their personal 'infection cards', and the other two will be items randomly dealt from the 'search deck', which has been arranged in such a way to ensure someone draws the 'biohazard card' and secretly becomes the 'host' by the end of the first turn.

The actions available to a player consist of exploring the compound by moving around and laying down more room cards; searching those rooms to draw sorely needed equipment from the 'search deck', and using that equipment to whatever end your paranoia addled mind deems most effective; be that unlocking a door with a 'key card' or knifing your friend in the face – just in case...

The ability of the 'host' to infect other players and thereby turn them traitor, is facilitated by the rule that insists that when a player enters a room with another player's character, that player must choose to either attack that character or trade with them; which is accomplished by each player giving the other a card from their hand.

Now this is where the 'infection cards' that every player has been given come into play. If you're a good guy, if you're true to the mission, then those blood spattered cards don't do anything and aren't allowed to leave your hand under any circumstances. However, if you've had your loyalties compromised, then when performing a trade it's possible for you to give one of those cards to the other player, thereby infecting them.

Infection isn't that easily spread though; see Panic Station is set in the far off future where for some reason only androids are allowed to use guns and everyone received comprehensive sex-ed when they were at 'future school'. As a consequence of this, if you suspect you're going to receive an infection card from someone who just wandered into the same room as you, then you can block this attempt by selecting a 'gas canister' card during the mandatory trade. Trading 'gas' for an 'infection' not only makes for a strange sentence, but protects you from actually being infected and means the other player's card simply has no effect. Because as you'll remember from your own sex-ed, petrol is the most effective form of contraception.

Gas canisters aren't going to be something you just want to throw away to the other team though. For those of you who haven't been infected, your job is to locate the room card with the alien hive on it, get there with your flame-thrower wielding human, then as an action play a massive three 'gas cards' to burn the hive and win the game. And so this wonderful and terrible mind game is played out amongst the players as they inevitably cross paths in the cramped labyrinth of the compound. Your internal monologue races with questions; do you trust this player? If you don't, can you get away with not giving them your last gas canister? Maybe they'll try and win your confidence by trading you a superfluous item first? Maybe you should just shoot them? What if they're on your team? What if they're not? Will Ben Affleck be a surprisingly good Batman or will he leave us all longing for the George Clooney days?

When it works, Panic Station really works. It's everything the box said it would be and more. From the very beginning your every move is motivated through paranoia and mistrust. But as the game unfolds, as the compound fills with deadly parasites and essential resources like ammo and gas cans become scarcer and scarcer; you're forced into uneasy alliances with other players, and your heart literally leaps into your throat every time you're forced to actually trust them. Well, not literally...

For the 'host' player and those who end up infected, the game takes on a different but equally tense and murky hue. It's no picnic being possessed by an alien parasite; you only have three infection cards, which means you only have three opportunities to turn other players. Because of this, you walk an awful tightrope, where you want to appear like you're still dedicated to the destruction of the alien hive, but only in so far as it lets you gain the trust of and infect your unsuspecting team mates. Being outright aggressive simply isn't going to cut it. You'll often end up just wasting your three infection cards, spending the rest of the game impotently chasing people around and searching for something you can use as a weapon.

I think Panic Station is an amazing game, but that's not an opinion that's shared by everyone and it's not hard to understand why; the game certainly has it's fair share of short comings.

Firstly, there's the theme: The theme is exceptional, and it's one the game wears on its sleeve, which is great... except for when it doesn't quite fit. There are numerous examples of rules that make no earthly sense thematically, such as the fact the android's are the only characters that can use guns. If your human finds a heavy automatic weapon he's forbidden from using it; it's all right though, because despite being on the other-side of the complex, your android can instantly equip the weapon your human just picked up and start firing away. Providing it has ammo of course, because obviously you weren't sent on this dangerous extermination mission with actual ammo, that would make too much sense.

Secondly, there's the rule book: I got my hands on Panic Station when it first came out, as such I was treated to a rule book that was often times vague and at one point even cuts off in mid sentence when discussing something no less trivial than how to use the special functions of 'sick bay'. The latest edition of the rules is four full pages longer and while it manages to be at least a little clearer about how some of the clunkier rules work, it still amounts to sixteen pages of fairly dense text for a game that's only advertised to last around half an hour.

Which is basically the third point: The rules are vast and often times unintuitive. There's a wealth of fiddly little rules, that if missed will derail the game; and in a game where a suspicious rules clarification can expose ulterior motives, it can create understandable frustration.

These are legitimate problems the game has and it's understandable that some people don't want to move past them. What's surprising though is how easy it is to move past these problems. Sure for some people it's going to be harder than others, but Panic Station is a short game and while it's possible to have a bad time with the rules, or with inexperienced players breaking the game by trading a card they weren't allowed to trade; it's a simple and painless thing to reset the game and start again.

It's worth it too! Panic Station is accountable for some of my most memorable and enjoyable evenings of gaming. When the game unfolds in the right way, the interaction at the table is hard to replicate; The lies, the mistrust, the accusations and counter accusations, the moment someone unsuccessfully tries to infect you then convinces everyone you tried to infect them... Then there's the conversations afterwards, where people pour over the events of the game, explaining their actions and revealing their motives.

It isn't a perfect game by a long way; but for the investment of time and the tiny amount of shelf space it will use, Panic Station is capable of delivering every parasitic grub of tension and paranoia you could hope for.

Kicking Down The Door recommends!

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Hanabi

Hey, so you know when you're at a party and your friend's brother's significant other is there, and she kinda looks pregnant; but you don't remember your friend telling you about it, so you don't bring it up in case she's just put weight on, but if she is pregnant and you don't congratulate her you seem rude; thing is though, your significant other is also there and you're pretty certain she assumes she's pregnant and she's going to say something about it because that's the kind of thing she does, but you can't tell her not to because your friend's brother's significant other is standing right next to you, so you just stand there and sweat from your ass?

You know that? When that happens? We've all been there right? Well clearly Antoine Bauza has as well, because he made a game about it...

Now last time, in a review that seemed to stretch on for days, we looked at the awesome table gobbler Space Cadets. This week, as promised we're going to conclude our run on cooperative games by looking at something that gobbles hardly any table at all, yet blazes a trail just as bold, if only a little smaller.

Hanabi in fact, is one of the smallest games in my collection and...

Wait, wait, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Mike, that doesn't look like a game about painful social situations, it looks a like a game about fireworks!' To which I'd say, yes... yes okay, on the surface it does appear to be a game about fireworks. I mean there are fireworks on the box and on the card artwork, there's even some dribble in the rules trying to sell you on the tale that you're all inattentive pyrotechnics who mixed up all the powders and rockets right before a major display, and that it's now your job to carefully and quickly undo your mess by combining increasing values of cards of the same colour into six different 'fireworks'.

Don't be fooled though; Hanabi may have been re-themed into some wishy washy game about 'fireworks', but underneath all the colourful card art and the dirt simple rules, is a game that's wrought with all the tightly suppressed angst and bubbling tensions of every awkward social situation you've ever had the misfortune of being in.

The first thing you'll do when playing a game of Hanabi is to deal everyone four cards from the deck. Now in every other game I've ever played where I deal people cards, they ask if they're allowed to look at them. And I say “YES! Of course you're allowed to look at them, they're your cards, why would I give you cards you weren't allowed to look at.” Well in Hanabi that's exactly what you do, you give everyone a hand of cards that they're never allowed to look at and once you've explained this, everyone flipping looks at them!

Once you've taken all the cards back, reshuffled the deck and explained once more that the cards are not to be looked at, everyone will get four cards... again. This time though, you'll carefully instruct them to pick up the cards and hold them up backwards such that everybody else at the table can see what's on them.

The cards that compose the deck all have both a number and a colour on their face. Without looking at your cards, you'll be communally attempting to play them onto the table, in a way that creates six different sets, one of each colour, running in sequence of one to five without repeat. The game ends when the deck either runs out, you complete all six sets or you make three mistakes.

Now as I explained above, the game tries to sell us on the fact that by combining cards like this, we're creating nice fireworks. However, if we think about it in the way the designer blatantly intended, we'll get a better feel for how the game plays.

Here's a couple of examples; obviously the blue cards represent you and your friends negotiating the minefield of social discomfort that is the 'pregnant or not' scenario I described at the top of the review; completing the red set of cards however, is without a doubt representative of having to introduce someone you've forgotten the name of, whilst having known that person for too long for that to be acceptable. Wait, you thought that was the yellow cards didn't you? No, creating the yellow set quite clearly represents soiling yourself in public and trying to excuse yourself and get home without anyone noticing. Then there's the green, white and multi-coloured sets that are all just too obscene to write about on a respectable site like this one.

On your turn you'll commit to taking one of three actions; you can play a card, discard a card or give another player information about what cards they're holding in their hand.

Playing a card is simple, you choose a card to play, put it on the table face up and if it begins or continues a set, you put it in the appropriate place; however if the card is a repeat of something on the table or does not yet fit into a sequence, then it is discarded, you draw another one and flip one of the your three 'mistake' counters, thus recording your slow march to social disgrace.

Now the latter action, is the heart of the game. See there are clearly defined parameters regarding what players are allowed to communicate to each other about the cards they're holding, and that is nothing! You're not allowed to communicate anything; no knowing looks, no audible intakes of breath when Karen is about to play a blue number four card when the blue 'two' isn't even down yet, you're not even allowed to cough “god no, not that one” under your breath! You're not allowed to communicate anything, unless...

If you opt to use your action to give another player information about their hand, you're allowed to tell them one of two things. You can point to cards that share the same number and tell them what that number is, or you can point to cards with the same colour and tell them what that colour is. The catch is, the information must be complete; so when you urgently want to let Chris know which of his cards is the 'five' card you all desperately need to complete your 'white' set with, you also have to point to the other two 'five's' he's holding, which as he'll tell you, doesn't help much at all.

The game here, is that players need to read the subtleties of what other players are trying to tell them. For example, if Steve points to three of Adam's cards and says, “These are all red” then Adam might infer that he's being told that these cards are suitable for discarding, as the red set on the table is only missing a 'five' and surely Steve would have instead pointed out which of his cards were 'fives' if he had one. Surely...

It's in these agonizing moments of utter trepidation and complete frustration that the game really comes to life; because you can't just keep going around the table giving each other snippets of information until everyone has a full understanding of what they're holding in their hands. No! The game comes with eight tokens, and when you choose to give information to another player, you must flip one of these tokens over. If all the tokens are flipped over then you are no longer allowed to give information as an action; instead you must play a card or – in order to flip one of those tokens back over – you can discard a card and draw another, allowing the next player to once again give information.

And so we're presented with this awful brilliant game, that sees it's participants fighting to keep their faces from sinking into their palms when someone begins to pull a precious 'five' from their hand only to throw it onto the discard pile, forever dooming the groups chances of completing that colour's set; or that sees you baulking under the invasive glares of your companions, struggling to turn the fractions of information you've been given into something resembling an informed decision as to what to do with your right most card.

The only way Hanabi could be a better simulator of negotiating delicate social encounters, is if it actually came with a possibly pregnant/possibly fat lady. Of course that would do terrible things to the price point and it would make the prospect of playing the thing just too uncomfortable. When it comes down to it though, Hanabi is a game you just can't expect anything more from; it's small, it's quick, it's cheap and it's simple, but the depth and the tension that comes from such a small deck of cards and a handful of tokens is hard to hold a candle to.

Kicking Down The Door whole heartedly recommends! And if you want the game to look as substantial as it feels, look out for the 'deluxe edition' that's coming out soon, which replaces the cards with domino style tiles and looks like just the kind of game you could play in the pub without being abused. Incidentally, that's what the completing the green set represented... trying to play a board game in a pub.

Shudder...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Review: Space Cadets

Hey you guys,

Now if either of you are like me, you probably have fond memories of watching Star Trek on the old telly box. And you almost certainly remember that one episode where Captain Picard slurred sexually aggressive threats at Wesley Crusher for dropping the bag of sensor tokens on the floor; then later that Irish guy who was in 'Con Air' didn't manage to put down his last two engineering tiles before the timer ran out, so Worf had no energy tokens to load torpedoes, got real mad and had to go and make a cup of tea.

You remember that episode right? Well they made a board game about that episode! It's called Space Cadets, lets take a look...

I brought Space Cadets up last week, when writing a long and tedious article about cooperative gaming. I briefly talked of its excellence and mentioned its genius of implementing timed and simultaneous play to counter problems commonly found in co-op games, such as 'alpha players' and diminished personal investment.

Space Cadets manages to effectively deal with both those problems and in doing so may have created one of the most accomplished cooperative games yet.

The game throws 3-6 players into a space ship and sees them laden down with stress, unavoidable responsibility, performance anxiety and the other ingredients necessary to develop alcohol dependency issues; before launching them off on one of the game's six missions.

Each player will be charged with under performing in a number of the ships nine stations, which are usually small games in and of them selves that are performed simultaneously by players to the distraction of a 30 second sand timer draining out.

A turn is executed over a number of steps; in addition to players carrying out their specific roles in navigating the ship, generating energy, and firing weapons etc. There'll be a brief but destructive step towards the end of the turn where enemy ships move around and threaten to cause an irreparable core breach; then the whole thing starts over again until you complete your mission and jump out of the area, or you all blow up.

So what are you going to be doing when you play Space Cadets? Well maybe you'll be...

The Captain:

Being the Captain is one of the more leisurely roles to be landed with. As Captain you will mostly be in control of keeping the game ticking over by flipping the timer where required and making sure there's always wine in your glass.

unlike on Star Trek though, it's not all drinking and flipping sand timers; the Captain will have a small deck of 'experimental equipment' cards he'll be poring over. These cards will provide you all with a one time only benefit such as 'one enemy ship does not fire this turn'. Only one card can be used a turn though and when it is, it's discarded forever, which forces the Captain into some difficult decisions.

The beauty of Space Cadets though, is that everyone else will be knee deep in actual problems, so no one will notice that you doomed them all by superfluously Upgrading a lock to a super-lock with a 'Focusing Crystal' when you should have obviously flipped the shields with the 'Matrix Stabilizer'.

To compensate for having the relatively stress free job of commanding a space ship, the player who is charged with being Captain will also be given another role, usually...

Engineering:

Now this is a bit more like it. The Engineering Officer (EO) will be responsible for generating and distributing energy to all the other stations, which is something they will be in sore need of if they want to, you know... function.

During the third step of a turn, where all players will be desperately trying to not embarrass themselves as they simultaneously perform their respective tasks; the EO will have 30 seconds to draw seven tiles which he will lay down in an attempt to create as many complete icons as possible. The icons represent all the other stations and for every completed icon in the EO's tile composition, a token of energy will be generated for the corresponding station.

However, this energy wont be distributed until the discussion step at the beginning of the next turn. So while everyone else has to stand up and explain to the class how badly they messed up almost immediately after the fact; as the EO you'll get to quietly sneak your bad news in amongst more pressing discussion of say, an impending attack from the Nemesis ship.

Coupled with the fact that each tile laid down guarantees at least one energy, you'd have to have fallen off your chair during your activation, in order to under-perform in a way that even closely resembles the inadequacy of what's happening next to you at the...

Helm:

As the Helmsman, you're almost certainly going to be drinking, as this is the only effective way to deal with the looks of utter disappointment and dismay that will be routinely generated by your ineptitude.

At the beginning of the turn, you'll choose to spend whatever energy the EO accidentally generated for you in up to two ways. Firstly you can use energy to increase and decrease the speed of your ship, which will have various ramifications that wont occur to you until it's too late; secondly, you can spend energy to draw more standard movement cards.

Standard what?

In the simultaneous activation step, you'll draw a hand of standard movement cards equal to your speed, plus however many energy you sunk into drawing extras. You'll then have to lay these cards down in sequence on your 'helm track'. In this way you'll hurriedly plot the course your ship will take in order for it to end up positioned in the most inconvenient way possible.

When the timer runs down, you'll declare you've 'made a huge mistake', then move the ship marker through more damage dealing asteroid fields and energy rifts than anyone could have thought was possible.

You'll no doubt be doing all this, to the infernal distraction of the crew member to your right, constantly playing with his...

Weapons:

The Weapons Officer (WO) will be intolerable. They'll spend 90% of any given turn, consumed by continually flicking a little red disk up some sort of points track. It's going to be annoying as hell but you'll allow it because they'll tell you they're 'practising' and by the looks of things, they definitely need to. But what exactly are they practising?

Well, during the discussion step of a turn, should you all decide you'd like something shot, the WO will find a couple of energy tokens slid their way. For every energy token assigned to weapons, they'll have to complete a jigsaw puzzles out of tetris style chits during the simultaneous activation phase.

Every puzzle completed inside this 30 second step, becomes an opportunity for the WO to bring shame upon themselves and their family during a sixth step of the same turn, aptly called 'Fire Weapons'.

This later step is performed solely by the WO, and must be executed under the baneful stares of the other players; it's at this point the infuriating 'practising' that everyone has tolerated for too long must come to fruit as the WO will flick a red 'torpedo' disc up a track, attempting to land it in the band marked with the highest number.

He wont...

And as a kind of pre-emptive punishment for such galling incompetence, perhaps you'll consider giving this player the dual role of also having to contend with the...

Jump Drive:

The Jump Drive Officer (JDO) will have a distinctive twitch and be responsible for jumping the ship to light speed once the mission is complete, thus securing victory. If a timely jump isn't executed after the completion of a mission, it's likely you'll be overwhelmed by enemy ships and blow up, thus ensuring death.

This is another station that has a timed activation of its own, at a later step. So when the timer is flipped, all eyes will turn to the JDO as they sit there, seemingly paralysed but for a singular convulsing muscle under their right eye; staring at an array of cards and dice until the timer runs out and a meek apology is offered.

All eyes then turn to...

Damage Control:

The Damage Control Officer (DCO), despite their title, will have very little in the way of control over anything. Instead they'll just be flipping damage cards in response to the professional negligence of their ship mates, and somewhat unfairly receiving a portion of the blame for the devastating results of say, a failed jump attempt.

The DCO's job is made more excruciating by giving them the illusionary option of attempting a repair during the last step of a turn. This is done by flipping cards and rolling dice to another 30 second timer then announcing that you've caused a core breach.

A large part of their role will involve wishing their was someone more competent on the...

Shields:

The Shield Officer (SO) will be a tall, bald, black man with an eye patch; he'll mostly be trying to recruit people for an 'initiative' that's got something to do with avenging the earth.

During the simultaneous activation phase, you'll all have 30 seconds to convince him to sit down at the shield display and make' poker hands' out of the stack of numbered chits that have been dealt to the station. These 'poker hands' will generate points for each shield and once the timer drains down, these points will be calculated and the shield markers slid along to reflect their new strength, or lack of.

Because external damage is taken off the shields before it's sent over to Damage Control, a diligent SO can help mitigate a lot of the problems caused by a drunk Helmsman and a woefully uncoordinated Weapons Officer; so it's a shame they'll be mostly preoccupied with buckling under the mental work load provided by their other responsibilities on the...

Tractor Beams:

The Tractor Beam Officer (TBO) sits in front of 16 face down tiles and assumes a permanent 'face palm' position. When the TBO is given energy, they'll sigh deeply and be able to turn over two tiles for each energy token; they'll then spend 30 seconds burning the image and location of those tiles into their memory.

The purpose of the Tractor Beam station is to collect objects such as crystals, that are floating around in space. Collecting things in this way is often a central objective in a lot of the missions; but in addition to hoarding fancy space gems, tractor beams can also be turned on enemy ships to increase the damage inflicted upon them should the Weapons Officer accidentally cause any.

To successfully tractor beam an object or ship, the TBO must flip identical pairs of tiles and hope to generate enough points to make a successful tract(?). Before an attempt can even be made however, a 'lock' must first be achieved by...

Sensors:

The Sensors Officer (SRO) is charged with acquiring locks on various targets and revealing unexplored sections of space, so the Helmsman can more effectively plot a course through an uninterrupted path of asteroids.

Having a lock on a ship or object, increases the damage dealt to the target and also makes it possible for the Tractor Beam Officer to burst into tears.

To achieve a lock, the SRO will spend energy drawing and assigning sensor cards. These cards will have a picture of a shape upon them, and when the simulations activation phase begins, the SRO will have 30 seconds to wiggle their ungainly sausage fingers around in a bag of similarly shaped tokens and pull out matches to all of their cards.

I've not played this role yet but from my observations, the greatest challenge presented by this station is in not dropping the bag of tokens all over the floor the second the timer is flipped. A challenge no doubt shared by...

Wait, no, that's it. That's all the stations!

Wow! So Space Cadets is an experience... This thing is going to gobble up your table and you're evening; then when it's done and you're rocking in the corner with PTS - but not the bad kind where you hurt the ones you love – you'll be thumbing through the other missions, reading through the advanced systems, looking through the difficulty variants; you'll just want more!

- And here's a tip kids, Space Cadets is at it's best when it's just that little bit too hard. You're not truly having fun until you've got a core breach -

Now Space Cadets is as near perfect as I've seen a cooperative game, but is it suitable for indoctrinating fresh blood into the cardboard way? Well, probably not. Despite all the mini-games people are assigned as stations, being very simple games; there's nine of them, and the thing's going to take an hour to explain. For that reason alone this isn't an entry level game, but it's not far off.

For all it's rules and shear mass, Space Cadets does a near mystical job at remaining accessible and unfalteringly engaging. Perhaps it's the fact that you've got a job – not a role you understand, but an actual job – that keeps you so tirelessly invested in your adventure; perhaps though it's just the excitement of playing with something so new and unique.

Shortly after my first game, I walked home, got in to bed and lay down next to Mrs Mike; then began fantasising about the possibility of getting two copies of the game and eight people, splitting into two teams, each of which would control their own ship on a shared map!

Can you imagine?! Yeah? Well apparently Geoff and Sydney Engelstein can too.

It's always good to have something to look forward to isn't it?

What shall we do next week? Something a bit shorter? Oh alright then...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Love's Labour's wasted...

[kickingdownthedoor]

Co-opting The Co-op

Hello you!

Last week we pointedly reviewed our first co-op game and briefly poked a larger discussion about co-operative games, with an elongated stick, from a significant distance. This week, we're gonna run up and kick that discussion in the head.

So here it is... Co-op games; are they good gateway games?

My board gaming education was mostly undertaken at a backwater internet community I affectionately refer to as r/boardgames. When I initially stumbled into board gaming, it was here I first found out about a lot of the games I would later use to introduce friends to the hobby, and exactly how many cats I could fit in to the box lids of those games.

Way back then, just as now, new gamers flocked to this hamlet of sub-categorized Redditness seeking refuge and advice in the form of posts tagged with the acronym [WSIG], what should I get? These posts would address a community largely comprised of drunks, hoarders and cat enthusiasts, with questions typically like this one...

“Any advice on getting friends and family into board games?”

And typically - as you can see by following the link - this type of post would solicit a number of helpful comments suggesting games like Pandemic, Forbidden Island or other co-op games, because across the board (get it?), co-op games are often viewed as the ideal gateway game, and it's easy to understand why.

Co-op games are very much a product of 'modern board game design' and as such, are of proportionately a much higher quality mechanically than many other genres and styles of games. Unburdened by the relics of bad design such as, 'roll and move' or 'runaway leaders' and 'early player elimination', they stand up as shining examples of how far board games have come.

And they have to! See in a co-op game you're all working together toward the same objective; no longer are you building your own private empire or constructing your own personal spacecraft, nor even are you fighting to save your own pitiful life. Instead, personal stakes, competitiveness and self interests are thrown out and replaced by the more progressive notions of team work and altruism.

Sounds awful when you lay it out like that doesn't it. 'Team work and altruism'... Makes me feel a little queasy, like we might get passed the 'trust stick' and have to write about our feelings on a whiteboard. Yet this is one of the major benefits that cooperative games have to offer; especially if you're new to board gaming and the prospect of taking on your friends for control of the galaxy or some such awesomeness, doesn't so much fill you with giddy excitement as it does a paralysing anxiety and a crippling fear of doing something profoundly stupid in front of other people.

You see as exciting looking as modern board games can be, they can also be dauntingly foreign and somewhat overwhelming. In this regard, cooperative games can be like a gentle old man giving you a tour of an intimidating new work place, except less creepy... and with a greatly reduced chance of having to agree with something racist out of politeness. The point is, co-op games are held in great esteem as gateway games as they allow people new to board gaming, to have a full and comprehensive experience of what a board game can be, without having to worry about executing effective strategies against hardened opponents.

But is this a problem? Does sacrificing competitiveness for team work, rob the first time gamer of one of board gamings defining qualities? Yes games like Ghost Stories, Pandemic and so many more, are all great games, I enjoy them enormously. However when we use these games as a kind of 'phase one initiation' device, I feel like we overlook a significant draw that our prospective gamers crave; things like competition and conflict!

Remember, when something like Monopoly is the only board gaming experience someone has had, and they still accept your invitation for an evening of games, there's clearly something they find very appealing about the experience, and it's probably not the thrill of maybe rolling a double. Instead , what they're no doubt Jonesing for is the thrill of a stake! No, not that kind of stake. I mean a good old 'my dignity depends on this' investment; something that's going to make them chew on their knuckles as the game progresses and everything is put in the balance.

And that's one of a cooperative game's biggest problems; instead of making you the master of your own machine, you become but a cog in the mechanism of another. Now there's fun to be had in the life of a cog, but there's also a greater risk of utter tedium.

Case in point; not long ago, I inflicted a game of Ghost Stories upon some friends. Ghost Stories is a fabulous game of trying to protect a village from wave after wave of invading ghosts, by attempting to exercise them and ultimately defeat a randomly drawn incarnation of an even bigger and badder ghost, but inevitably succumbing to the terror and dying horribly at the hands of something aptly called 'The Hope Killer'.

I love it! At its best, you've got your head in your hands as you're frantically trying to go around the table and come up with an effective strategy together, only to have it blown apart by the arrival of yet another ghost, but wait, there's a chance, there's one chance! If you can use a convoluted combination of abilities, powers and lucky rolls, you might yet be in with a shot at this. All hope lays on your shoulders as your friends look to you with desperation and possibly something resembling awe. Board games don't get much better than this...

However at its worst, you'll be put on 'bell duty' and be rooted to the spot for the entire game, performing the necessary but lacklustre task of ringing the bell and therefore pushing all the ghosts back a bit, while wondering if there isn't more to life than this and wishing you could at least ring an actual bell, that would be better. Maybe after this is over you could go online and look into it; one of those big ones you clang around like a hammer would be good, but maybe an elegant one you dangle between forefinger and thumb would look classier? Of course a bell you could mount on your bike would see more use but... Wait it's your turn!

“Shall I.... Oh you want me to... But maybe if... Or I... Yeah I'll just ring the bell then.”

Now people like me and you reader, we like board games a lot don't we? And as such it's a lot easier for us to become invested in games like Ghost Stories. In the last game I played someone did indeed get lumbered with the ungratifying task of ringing the bell turn after turn, but they still enjoyed the game and that was no doubt down to the fact they were a keen board gamer. Had I dropped this game on Alex from work, a man who's only ever played Guess Who; even had he not been stuck with ringing the bell, I struggle not to see a future in which he doesn't come around around for games again.

So this is actually a commonly recognised problem, that games like Ghost Stories and Pandemic, can suffer from ungratifying roles and stronger players taking away decisions from others, thus creating a diminished sense of investment for the rest of the players. Designers have taken note though, and created a wealth of co-op games that put the 'alpha player' problem to bed by coming up with some innovative mechanics.

For example, in Space Alert players are charged with protecting a poorly equipped ship from waves of attacks. They do this by moving around the ship and pushing various buttons to recharge batteries, power shields, prevent the screen saver from activating, and to fire lasers as responses to real time threats that are announced by the ten minute audio track that plays along to this delicious game. Players still collaborate on who moves where and does what, however Space Alert side steps the 'alpha player' problem by making players choose movement and activation cards from a randomly dealt hand. So instead of one player telling the other players what to do, you have all players telling each other what they can do! Which obviously makes for a more significant investment.

Is that all our problems solved though? I think Space Alert does a beautiful job of over coming what can be a very disruptive problem for some people, but in doing so highlights another. See cooperative games have a running trend in that they almost exclusively have their players just 'dealing with crap'. Waves and waves of 'crap'. Whether you're part of a space crew, a Taoist monk, an investigator from the 1920's, a conquering alien, a heroic warrior in a dungeon or a fire fighter, you're all going to be doing the same thing and that's just dealing with problem after problem.

Now there are games out there that are just satisfying to play; you'll be doing satisfying things like collecting stuff, or expanding things and this is where I promised myself I wouldn't make the penis joke so I'll move on to the other examples of building things, and exploring things. See in a great wealth of games, as you play you gain momentum, you get bigger (still no penis joke), faster, stronger and oh how it's satisfying. In co-op games, you find you're mostly just trying to survive. Waves of problems come at you, be they diseases, ghosts, alien attack ships or zombies; like pictures of Bradley Cooper with a perm, these monstrosities just keep coming faster and stronger.

Now that's not a problem for me and you is it? I really enjoy these types of games, but when I invite my sisters new boyfriend around for a board game, he doesn't want to deal with waves of progressively bigger problems. I mean he's already dating my sister, he probably just wants to relax by playing Robo Rally and programming Twitch to continuously run into a wall.

When you're inducting fresh blood to the board gaming cause, you want them to be invested in what they're playing and more than that you want them to feel satisfaction as they play. The game must be as obviously rewarding as it is challenging, and I fear too few first time players will look at many of our co-op games in that way. Now I know that's a sweeping generalization and it's obvious that a lot of people must have had great success in converting friends with a game of Forbidden Island or the like; but it seems to me, that cooperative games require a bit too much work from their players to be as successful at providing a well rounded gateway experience when compared to competitive games. They're great games to be sure, but there are just too many other types of games out there that do an excellent job of spring boarding the player from something like Monopoly, to a game that is as rich in design as it is in experiences, with the added ease of personal investment.

This is slowly changing though! The last year has seen the release of two co-op games that go a long way to tying up all of these problems. Late in 2012 Queen Games released Escape: The Curse Of The Temple, which we reviewed last week and found to be a near perfect game for transitioning new gamers from quicker and lighter games, to something with more meat on its bones. Escape did an awe inspiring job of making something simple that put players firmly in charge of their own decisions, while creating a satisfying and persistent investment in the game play.

Released not long afterwards, was Space Cadets! This has quickly become a favourite of mine and while it may not be a great gateway game, it's certainly made steps into a bold new frontier of cooperative gaming. Space Cadets is similar to Space Alert in theme and premise, but instead of players awkwardly running into each other in the lift while on their way to recharge the batteries, each player is made the officer of a specific station aboard the ship. Each of the stations is in fact it's own mini game, all of which are activated at... You know what, lets review this next week.

So while I may leave you with a word of caution in regards to offering a cooperative game as bate to your uninitiated friends; know that the landscape changes and evolves even as you read, and it surely wont be long until there's a wealth of cooperative games that are perfectly suited to the grooming of your unsuspecting acquaintances.

Okay, you can go now. But be sure to get up to the very moment news about Kicking Down The Door and other meanderings, by Liking this tragic Facebook page and following this strained Twitter account.

Pip pip.

[kickingdownthedoor]

PSA: Social Mediocrity

Hello you!

Rest assured that a long and tedious article is due for posting tomorrow, so calm right down. Until then however, I'd like to take this moment to make a more visible announcement that Kicking Down The Door is now on facebook and Twitter!

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Seriously though, follow me on here. As it stands I'm twitting to five people, two are organizations and three are spam bots, I need a win people, I need a win! 

Mike

[kickingdownthedoor]

I'm making a weekly (maybe not weekly) board gaming Web Comic! Alright? Are you happy now?!

This one's called 'Bang!' Get it?

That's about as funny as it's gonna get... Tell your friends.