Creating an inclusive gaming space is central to Cards or Die’s mission. We want to bring people together with boardgames – here’s some tips on how you can make everyone welcome at your table.
Christmas Gift Ideas
If you’re looking for some game suggestions to get the gang playing together this Christmas – look no further; no matter what age the person or what they are interested in there’s a board game (or card game) to suit everyone.
Feline Felonies – a whole lot of catitude in a tiny tin.
Feline Felonies is one of a trio of new games from Atikin Games. Together the games form Playful Pets – comprised of Animal Alliance, Feline Felonies (both 2-4 player competitive games) and Canine Capers a 1-4 player cooperative game). I’ve received a preview copy of Feline Felonies so the components you see in my pictures aren’t finalised – things like colour and alignment will be rectified for the final posh copies. I think you’ll agree it’s still looking cute. But do not be fooled – this game is anything but cute; it may show you its belly but you’d be a fingerless fool to tickle it!
Components.
The board is super nifty – it comes in 6 playing card sized portions. It is a park bordered by 4 rows of houses. A magnetic slide and climbing frame hold the board together – you can sit these on the top or you can flip the board over so that there are no raised bits for your cats to climb over. I love it when out of small packages bigger games appear. Like Deep Sea Adventure which sprawls across the table from its tiny box. I like a game with some table presence.
The components are super cute too – the little cats have this lovely shine and they are nice and chunky. The orange one in particular reminds me of sweets. (Just to clarify I have neither licked nor eaten any of my game pieces so you don’t need to worry about playing them at my events). Clearly designed by a cat connoisseur – the realistic cat toys include the ubiquitous ball of wool, the weird cat toy that we torment them with as well as the hunter’s haul of pencils, flowers, mice (mercifully in one piece), a tuna can and the most prized possession of all – the cat nip! Double sided houses help track stored stolen goods as well as purr points for spending later in the game.
Game play.
The cats move around the board collecting toys, adding more toys, flipping them to their more (or less) valuable side as well as stealing from others before safely depositing their toys at home. At the end, the cat with the most points is crowned top cat.
Each player rolls their dice and then chooses what to spend their purr points on. Cats can spend their points on moving one space per purr point (I can’t even type that without going really scouse); they can spend a point picking up or dropping off one of their treasures or – and this is the really fun bit- they can enter into a battle of stealth and reflexes to purrloin another cat’s treasure.
There are also special actions which allow you to do extra things in addition to your regular actions. For instance if I roll a 5, I can add a toy to the board and that leaves me with 4 purr points to do with as I please. Or, if I roll a 6 I might take a cat nap – move 3 and save 3 points for later. You can choose to take special actions or snub them much as a cat might – you can be as fickle and unpredictable as you like!
However, my advice to you is don’t roll 1s. Cats are not interested in 1s – roll it and your cat will subject you to the disdain I experience when I tell the cat to get down off the table. Rolling a 1 allows your opponent to move your cat who is busy ignoring you. To be fair the cats are doing everything else in this game – all they are asking you to do is use your opposable thumb powers to roll the die. Roll better puny hooman.
This game definitely suits the competitive cat. While it’s fun moving around the board collecting toys and flipping them to make them more valuable it is MUCH more fun trying to steal or flipping other cat’s toys to make them worth less. The stealing action is really satisfying because if you are equally matched, even though the poor kitty you attacked gets to keep their toy, they still have to flip it so it scores less. I feel it really embodies the dickish nature of cats. I’m just relieved there isn’t a thwack the whole lot off the table action.
It’s quick and easy to learn and play. With two players it is really good, competitive fun but with four it is brutal. Some of the games we played were very close indeed so the higher scoring cat nip was useful in ensuring there was a clear winner. Cats don’t want draws. One cat must reign supreme.
This will be available for you to try out at future events.
Arkosa – Don’t Pet The Nerffles.
Arkosa is the new game from Toon Hammer Games creators of Gobblin’ Goblins. While this game is on a different planet, the familiar text, tone and character that I love so much are present. I absolutely love the art work and the way the theme has been executed. Arkosa is a game for 2 to 4 players, it takes 25minutes per player or thereabouts and is suitable for ages 13+. I’m assuming as with so many games this is a reading age consideration as there is nothing in the text or the game itself that is unsuitable. Although having said that, only one colony can escape the treacherous planet of Arkosa – the rest of you will be stranded there forevermore which is a disturbing thought.
The game plays over three rounds from the time when you crash land on the planet to the time when the escape shuttle takes off with one lucky player and their band of hapless but loyal colonists. If you have built the bunker with the finest rooms, a happy colony and maybe put in a few well placed bribes then your reputation will precede you and you will be chosen to escape.
There is more to the name of the game than merely sounding good. As game designer Angela Dickens explains “Arkosa used the word ‘Ark’ because that fits well with the theme. Also, ‘Arkose’ is a type of sandstone and Arkosa is very sandy duney planet!” It is in these unforgiving sandy dunes that your fate as a colony leader is made or broken.
Characters.
Each player starts with four founding colonists. As we have come to expect from Toon Hammer the characters are a rum bunch. There are characters like Movoo the mood hoover bringing everybody’s morale down, Combustible Joe who is at constant risk of exploding and the more useful Quaz Oberman who can fix your power shards. Each round you must decide whether to recruit new colonists into your bunker weighing up their usefulness against how fun it will be to play them! Who doesn’t want to announce they’ve got ‘Boeuf’ and play this beauty.
Your Colony and You.
Each turn you can choose to put a colonist to work to gain necessary resources – you will need scrap and magtape to build new rooms, food and nitrogen to ensure the basic survivial of your colonists and power shards to attach to rooms to generate more resources. Or, you can put them to work exploring – this costs some resources but you can gain resources and recruit new colonists to your bunker. Exploring is a risky business on Arkosa and there are many hazards which may befall the intrepid colonist: tentacle mites, explosions, clouds of pestilence and of course the famously volatile Nerffle. Of course there are good things too – sometimes you’ll meet a prescient Jargle or just find a really nice flag.
The risks of exploring are threefold! Indicated here by the three alertness levels of the dreaded Nerffle.
Repuation is everything on Arkosa – it is your passage to freedom after all. To build your reputation you need to keep the morale of your colonists up too. Morale is a tricky and clever mechanism in the game. The morale tracker is relatively short giving you the opportunity to max out your morale score. By doing this you score extra reputation points. In addition each round your morale converts to reputation. So, keeping your colonists well fed and nitrogened as well as happily occupied is good for you all. Exiling colonists or using their happiness to offset the cost of resources costs you reputation. Colonists who are injured on their travels may benefit from a visit to Dr Sawbones a dubious character with questionable practices. It’s all in the luck of the draw really – sometimes he helps, sometimes – let’s just say – he’s less helpful.
So, what have we learnt so far – make sure you have enough food and nitrogen, don’t let anyone injure themselves and make sure you’ve got the right combination of rooms. And above all do not wake the Nerffles. That seems straightforward enough!
Rooms.
Your player board has some rooms ready built on it. But, for you to be able to gain rewards like extra scrap, map tape or morale from it each room needs to have an active power shard on it. Certain events can mean that power shards are deactivated and once placed they are not so easy to move around. Of all the resources they seem the trickiest to acquire. As in all good resource management games, it is impossible to do everything. You are constantly trying to balance and weigh up your decisions. A visit to Disco Dystopia ups the morale in the bunker for instance while the Aphid Farm produces plenty of food but you only have one power shard! You are also doing lots of planning ahead so that you can get all your rooms, colonists and resources lined up just right to benefit you in future rounds. You can also score bonuses for building rooms in certain places specified on your player board. But Arkosa is a hostile planet and the combination of event decks, raid events and the unpredictable nature of the other colonists mean that your best laid plans often go up in a cloud of pestilence. The game always feels really balanced and the three round structure means that your plans are relatively short term which I like.
Bribes.
In the second round it won’t shock you to learn that bribes and corruption are introduced to Arkosan life. Now you have the additional option to score some quite significant bonuses by collecting the resources indicated to pay for the bribe. Will it be a bug rotisserie or a statue of The Savior that will secure your place on that escape ship? But be careful, the bigger the bribe, the bigger the risk. Any bribes not fulfilled count as minus points. Quite rightly when you are discovered trying to unsuccessfully bribe officials your reputation takes a hit. Imagine not only being abandoned on Arkosa but remaining there with that stain on your record!
Once you are confident and know your way around Arkosa – when you can pop down to the Space Bar for a swift half and make it back before Dr Sawbones talks you into some new and groundbreaking surgical procedure – then you can move on to more advanced or just different variants. They are currently perfecting a solo game. We’ll definitely be trying them all out once we get our tentacles on the kickstarter. We have just about mastered the starter game which is perfect for learning what to do. And also perfect when each child in your family decides to learn the game with you at separate times. Ah, teenagers. I wonder if there’s any spaces on that next shuttle to Arkosa…
Eight Games
This month Ellie Dix over at Dark Imp games – ingenious creator of the fabulous Buzzle Box and the Christmas Cracker games – asked me to choose eight different games for eight different scenarios. Head over to their website to find out which ones I chose…
Gorgeous Components from LongPack Games
Since I started Cards or Die I have reviewed many, many diverse games and I have never knowingly missed an opportunity to witter on endlessly about the joy of nice components. So here it is, at last – a whole blog about gorgeous components all very kindly sent to me from Long Pack Games. So whether you are looking for some design inspiration or you just fancy having a look at some lush components – here you go! They sent me a Designer Pack which showcases their products as pictured above and a massive box of games – pictured below.
I can’t claim to have played all of them…yet…. but I have assiduously examined their components.
Boxes
I try to avoid negative comparisons in reviews but boxes are the one area in which I fall down. When I’m judging the box you have chosen to put your beautifully designed game in I am unavoidably considering the packaging hell that is Abalone in it’s weird hexagonal box, Uno in a double width tuck box, and that one that I can never get the lid off – it involves a lot of shaking and usually takes two people. I forget the name which is why it catches me out each time – no-one wants to start a board game with a box wrestle.
I am happy to report that all of the boxes that LongPack games sent me tessellate pleasingly and they all opened easily (not too easily though – when packaging your game you also need to consider will it survive a Rodney Smith box toss?). The boxes for Caracho and Throw Throw Burrito even had a cut out for ease of opening.
Usually my favourite box type (yes I have a favourite box type – what of it?) is a magnetic closer like the one Valentine’s Day comes in but they also sent a drawer style box with their Designer Pack in that may be a contender for favourite box design.
The best box by far though was the Slide Quest box which is an integral part of the game. The levers, which allow you to steer your knight to victory avoiding traps and monsters, rest in cut outs on the box: ingenious.
Cardboard
The punchboards in many of the LongPack games come with a corner thumb hole so that you can easily free them from their box and get punching. These beauties are destined for Scrap Store Leeds so they can have a second lease of life. Nearly every piece popped out cleanly or with just a little wiggling.
In the designer pack the little press out factory had multiple layers to press out. Even though it was already 3d this added a really effective edge to the model.
The board for Catalyst locks together like a jigsaw enabling the game to fit in a small box and still have a thick sturdy game board. In Crown Of Emara the board joins like this and is also double sided – giving you a choice of a lighter, plainer graphic if that suits you better.
Slide Quest comes with a clever little gadget for saving your game so that you can pack away mid way through and not lose your progress. What a brilliant idea, especially for younger players and for games that require a lot of setting up. You can see it in the picture above.
Playing Pieces.
They offer a variety of quirky pieces – the small shiny hearts in Valentine’s Day, the cool cardboard cars in Curacho, the double sided islander and boat pieces in Blue Lagoon. In Happy Bunny little plastic carrots of varying lengths are ‘planted’ in the box – you work co-operatively to bring the biggest and best carrots home for the bunny’s family. Nemo’s War has actual jewels – which always makes me want to play a game! While Just One comes with wipe clean plastic easels and whiteboard pens with attached rubbers.The chunky wooden components in Crown of Emara are particularly lovely. I love wooden pieces in a game – tactile pieces are a feature of many of my favourite games and wooden pieces transport me straight back to childhood – the little huts in Blue Lagoon are a particular favourite.
Throw, Throw Burrito, which involves collecting a matching set of cards so that you can launch squashy Burritos at each other, comes with super soft squishy Burritos. After numerous outdoor games and people with questionable aim, I have had to wash these with soapy water and they’ve come up great! So, I’m optimistic that they will stand the test of time!
Many of the games also included ample plastic bags to sort your pieces into. This is something that Weird Giraffe Games and some others always do and although I imagine it is a low cost addition I love the fact that someone has thought of it. It makes a difference and is definitely worth considering.
I am very conscious that a lot of the parts I have mentioned have plastic involved. It is possible to avoid plastic completely as Blue Orange have demonstrated in many of their games and some of the games here have managed. LongPack games do use eco-friendly raw materials too as well as using non-toxic printing ink, non-toxic play mats etc. They have said that they are working closely with their clients and suppliers and producing more green products than ever before. They have also planted lots of trees around the factory to contribute towards offsetting their carbon emissions. The plastic pieces do seem well made and I would hope that they will be usable for a long time. Of course to properly test that I would have to schedule this review for when I’m passing the games on to great-grandchildren. When I look at the components in some of my retro games I am amazed how long they have remained intact and I hope that these games will have long and productive lives.
LongPack of course produce cards of various thickness and finish and dice with all sorts of designs as well as standard dice. The picture shows the dice that come with the car racing game – Caracho. LongPack also offer consultancy so you can always chat to them about your ideas. I know that the fact I haven’t played all of these means that there will be parts that I have underappreciated, that play into the mechanic or work really well but I hope this has given you some ideas whatever stage of design you are at.
BuzzleBox – a bundle of games, puzzles and family time.
The Buzzlebox, created by Dark Imp Games is a selection of games and puzzles delivered to your door for the whole family to play with and figure out together. At the moment there are two themed choices available- Gardens and Chickens or Doughnuts and Cake. With a Space themed box on it’s way soon. Dark Imp games very kindly gifted us the Doughnuts and Cake box. There are 5 of us in my family – all with different, yet often, overlapping tastes in games. The children are 15, 13 and 12.
As soon as you start opening the box, the fun begins. There were stickers on the box which related to one of the three puzzles. These stickers were everywhere – on the back of things, on the letter, inside a packet of card games – a really simple touch that made it immediately engaging. It’s also worth noting that there is no excess packaging or plastic which is a breath of fresh air when so many companies overlook the importance of this.
Doughnut Dash
I approached Doughnut Dash with trepidation. Anyone who knows me or has ever been in the car with me knows that my sense of direction is non-existent. So, when I saw the direction cards and read some of the sugar rush action cards – my heart sank. However, I am happy to report that I navigated the game successfully (multiple times) and I really enjoyed it. There are cards which clearly label the directions and the cards that allow you to change direction all contain an example which I’m sure was put there for younger players but was totally vital to me!
You are running a pair of impish thieves who must make their way round the factory stealing doughnuts from the shelves and from other thieves that they encounter. The theme is brilliant with lovely wooden components that are pretty and bright. We played it with 2, 3 and 4 players and it was brilliant each time. My only complaint is that it didn’t play 5. It is rare that we can get all 5 of us to play the same game at the same time – for once they were all interested in playing together and so we played in different groups but it was a shame we couldn’t play all together.
I have spoken to one of the Dark Imps and it turns out they have psychically resolved my concerns by designing the next box (which is Space themed) to include a 3-6 and a 2-9 player game which is awesome. I look forward to ordering one of those!
One of the really nice things about this game is that you can try out different strategies – there are lots of different layers to the game which gives us plenty of incentive to play it again and again. For instance the Sugar Rush cards help you out by allowing you to adjust which direction you travel in or to swap some cards but if you can save them they are worth points at the end of the game. And the more helpful the card, the higher the value if you can avoid using it. Another clever idea is the rainbow frosted doughnuts which actually start off costing you points but if you can collect a set they are incredibly valuable. It makes collecting them a risky strategy but then choosing not to collect might leave them all for one other player – do you want to give away those points? It’s questions and balances like this that make the game fun and varied.
Top Cake
In Top Cake you are a hotelier competing to create the finest cake at the industry’s leading luxury trade show. You must bid against other hoteliers to grab the finest layers to construct your showstopper. But of course, it’s not so easy: bids are hidden, a reverse cards allows you to switch so that the lowest bid wins, a snatch card allows you to trump any bid but only once per game, the first player token doubles as a tantalising 1/2 point bid and if you match bid cards with another player your cards are returned to you! These are a few of the intricacies which make this such a great, thinky game. Played over 5 rounds you need to think quickly and decisively. Cake waits for no man!
Of course, you’ve also got the attraction of building a deliciously illustrated cake or a spooky looking cake which of course I gravitated towards. Unfortunately some swine snatched my bat cake topper. I’d have won if it wasn’t for those pesky bat stealing kids.
Top Cake plays 2 to 4 players and is definitely more fun with more people. Like Doughnut Dash your strategies are strongly influenced by what other people do; you need to continuously adapt. In this way the games in the box are perfectly designed. They are supposed to ‘help you reclaim family time by playing board games together’ and they definitely achieve that. There is a lot of interaction in all the games in the box, you need to be acutely aware of each other and each others’ decisions.
Puzzles
Even as I was still unpacking the box, I uttered the word ‘puzzle’ , pondered aloud about where all the stickers were and what they meant, and my 15 year old was immediately all over it. He absolutely loves a good puzzle. The first task of finding all the stickers in various places had him hooked. He was so keen to get going and the girls were working so rather than keep him waiting (or worse, risk loss of interest!) I actually photocopied the puzzles so he could get stuck in straightaway.
Despite 15s head start he graciously gave the others the thinking time they needed and didn’t blurt out all the answers so we were able to work together to get one of the puzzles completed. We don’t have a great family record in this area.
On recent holidays we have completed treasure hunts that you can buy from the Tourist Information shops. They are great fun and everyone loves doing them but they are always a source of contention. This fun holiday activity always culminates in me clutching the clues to me so no-one else can see and a strict ruling about not blurting out answers before other people have chance to think or speak. My son is particularly talented at both puzzles and irritating his siblings so these measures are necessary. So I was ready – hence the photocopying and the ‘Don’t tell your sisters any answers and DO NOT give them clues unless they ask for them’ ruling. However, I’m sure other (less mad) families won’t need to worry about that.
The first puzzle we did was a good mix of clues carefully pitched to play to each of our strengths; some the children couldn’t have got and some that my partner and I had no idea of that the kids got immediately. I thought it was well balanced and we were forced to work together which is both the purpose and the attraction of the Buzzle Box.
Unfortunately we were stumped by the other two puzzles – they were just too tricky for us. But, by following the link on the puzzle card we got some clues which led us to our three cake related words. I’ve chatted with one of the Dark Imps and she is looking at both the difficulty level of puzzles and considering different ways of helping people to access clues in later boxes. Once you have all the clues you can unlock the secret page on the website.
Coaster Game
One of our favourites was the 2 player game on a coaster. The one we got was quick to learn and quite straightforward. You each choose an image on the grid and then ask questions to deduce the whereabouts of your opponent’s chosen image. The images are cute and colourful, the game is very appealing and can be played over and over again. Our 12 year old particularly enjoyed this one. It played 2 players but was fairly quick so it was fine to just take turns playing. It’s the kind of game I tend to have in my bag to whip out if anyone uses the ‘B’ word. That’s bored by the way. I’m not sure board games can stop them swearing, if anything they make my partner worse!
You can also buy most of the component parts of the Buzzle Box separately on the website. But honestly I think the box is such good value that the coasters and place mats are the only things I would consider buying separately. The coasters are sold in packs of 120 for only £16.99- they are perfect for weddings or for board games or family cafes. They are a perfect little gift or freebie to give to people if you’re in a games related business.
Game Cards
This pack of three games just needed a deck of cards, pen and paper. I really liked the fact that it included a 1, 2 and 3 player game as it meant that we could all play them kind of at the same time. I’ve had a lot of fun playing the solo game – it’s a patience type game with a puzzle element. My 13 year old really loves traditional style card games so this whole pack was right up her street. I can see the Gooseberry Fool game being a regular family games night feature and I know she’ll want to teach her friends when she can get together with them again. Gooseberry Fool uses a trick taking mechanism which is very familiar and easy to understand. But more importantly it’s a fun little game.
The instruction cards are clear and easy to follow but there is also a link to a ‘how to play’ video which is always helpful.
The Buzzle boxes cost £49.99 and for that you get: 6 original games; 3 puzzles all centred around an engaging theme;
as well as family time, away from distraction, screen free. We really enjoyed ours and the hours of entertainment we have had from it so far make it excellent value. There are loads of reasons to treat the family to a Buzzlebox or it would make a great gift for another family. For us it will the perfect addition next time we are going on holiday. We always take games with us and having tried one of the boxes I would be confident taking this pack of new games as a holiday treat. We usually go camping in the UK so it will be perfect for that ‘occasional’ rainy day!
Taking Board Games Online.
The Cards or Die Board Games collection has been all over the place – pubs, cafes, weddings, corporate training, senior citizens groups, schools, dementia cafes, festivals and now they are heading online.
For me board games are always about connecting with other people. Before now that has always meant sitting round the table, touching the pieces, shuffling the cards, chatting and laughing. Board games are intrinsically tactile and social. But now with all my bookings cancelled I like many of you have had to rethink things. I looked at online gaming in its true sense with virtual boards and pieces but it’s just not for me. I’m not a tremendously digital person. I use technology but honestly I’d be happy if I still had my typewriter, still sent and received actual letters and I could still call the operator if there was a problem with my phone calls.
So the lowest tech solution I could come up with was a google doc, which has suggested times and dates of games along with details of games we can play, and then a Skype call with whoever wants to join in. So far we have played Forbidden Island, Pandemic (I appreciate this didn’t appeal to everyone), Boggle, Fletter Fuse and Picture This. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with people over Skype – I’ve met some new people and seen lots of familiar faces too.
I find Skype, Zoom and any other facetime apps which allow multiple people in the conversation quite awkward. I find it difficult to read social cues if I am not face to face with people in real life so these kind of apps can make me feel incredibly anxious. However, doing a structured activity where (even in co-operative games) we take turns has helped me to feel comfortable online. Board games are a brilliant way to reduce or remove social awkwardness. I knew this was true in real life and now I know it is true online too.
You are more than welcome to sign up to sessions I am running or get in touch and request a game. A group of you can book on (whether you are in the same house or spread across a few households). I am offering this on a pay as you feel basis as I know that many people (like me) are not earning anything if they are stuck at home while others are still making money and can afford to pay something. If you are home alone with no income I don’t want you to feel that you can’t access this service.
The online events are much the same as my face to face events really. I teach the game and then either join in to make up the numbers or just facilitate to make sure we all remember what we are supposed to be doing and when! I email you anything I think might help you play – copies of cards or summary of turn so you don’t need to be familiar with the game to play either.
What works online?
I am still working out the answer to this. So far I have concentrated mainly on quiz games and co-operative games. Have a look on the google doc to see what sorts of games I’m offering for inspiration. Some of the suitable games are pictured below.
If you have the same game as other people this is a bonus as you can use the cards and pieces from each of them although you may still find it easier to just use one board. You can always use a pen and paper to make a note of where you are up to, what cards you have etc.
I have been emailing out anything I think will be useful in advance. It is always useful to be able to see what cards might come up with a summary of what they do and a turn order guide that tells you what sorts of things you can do on your turn. Some people like to have the rules in front of them whilst playing too.
Co-operative games work well as they don’t require you to keep your hand of cards hidden – you are working together to solve a puzzle, grab some treasure, cure a pandemic or escape a windswept desert. It’s also fine that one person moves the pieces on the board. Movement is just one small part of your strategising that turn.
Quizzes are good fun online and if there are a few of you in a household you can easily play against another household. In fact I am just off to add Family Fortunes to the list…. Quizzes are also plentiful on the internet and can easily be adapted to match the interests of your family and friends. It’s something you can get creative with – spend a bit of time creating the perfect quiz then get your family or friends online to see who triumphs!
There is a thread which I will keep adding to on the Facebook page which has lots of links to free games and activities so you can always download games there and then play with friends online.
So whether you are playing online with Cards or Die or getting together online with family and friends – keep in touch, stay safe and look after yourselves. Hope to see you at The Winchester for a game when all this has blown over.
Sub Terra II: Inferno’s Edge – choose your own path.
Part One
From the makers of Sub Terra comes an adventure like no other…
Well, actually it’s a bit like Indiana Jones – if instead of triggering a large rolling rock, Indie had unleashed a terrifying torrent of red hot lava. Between 1 and 6 intrepid cavers will adventure through underground tunnels, dodging hazards, outrunning guardians and working together to ‘liberate’ the ancient artefact – no doubt they will put it safely in a museum where it can be ‘properly appreciated’.
In true Indiana Jones style as soon as you lift the artefact even a fraction, it all starts to go wrong – the volcano shudders and one wrong step now will see you fleeing for your lives ahead of lava which cascades through the pathways obliterating everything in its path.
The name of the game is misleading – it sounds like a sequel but it isn’t, which is just as well as ‘sequels suck’ (remember Randy Meeks in Scream?).
Now then – for your own path:
- I’ve played Sub Terra – go to Part 3
- I haven’t played Sub Terra – go to Part 2
- But, is it a sequel though – go to Part 4
Part 2
It doesn’t matter at all that you haven’t played Sub Terra. This is a stand alone game – the mechanics of the game are reasonably quick to get to grips with even if you haven’t tried this kind of game before. The instruction book is clear and helpful.
To begin with you must choose your adventurer. The characters offer a very pleasing range of ages, genders and ethnicity and to be honest that in itself is a selling point for me. In a household of three females and two males I get seriously fed up of having to be an old man because all the female characters have gone. There are 10 to choose from – a pleasing number for a 6 player game. This straightaway gives you a number of replays with varying combinations of special abilities. Each character has two abilities such as healing, protecting others, sniping enemies, blowing up walls, rerolling dice. Some of the abilities last all game and some have limited use.
On your turn you take two actions which combine revealing tiles, moving through the tunnels, healing, picking up items, attacking enemies and digging your way out through collapsed tunnels. If, after you have taken your actions you decide to take another action you can, but it will cost you a health point.
Then comes the hazard phase- roll the die to learn your fate. There are many hazards that can befall you in the tunnels from spike traps to poison arrows that can fire over an alarming distance, cave ins, red hot lava to unsure footing which can also cost you health. And then there’s the Guardians. The Guardians have been appointed to guard the treasure – they are not on board with your museum plans. At the end of each round they advance towards the nearest explorer and if you roll the dice badly they will kill you. They’ve been down there years though and between you and me, I don’t think they’re as sprightly as they used to be. Sometimes they reach your tile but are too knackered to attack until the next turn giving you time to counter attack while they lean on the wall, panting.
Each round you count down towards the eruption of the volcano. But once you lift the artefact from its place everything intensifies. Instead of rolling one hazard die you now roll two, and if the volcano tracker still has spaces left you count down twice as fast. You have to reveal all the tiles and collect three keys in order to reveal and pick up the treasure and then still escape so timing is everything.
Once the volcano tracker is on zero, as soon as someone rolls hazard dice for lava, the volcano erupts. If you haven’t already grabbed the treasure, it’s game over. If you are in possession of the artefact, you need to run! Every time someone carelessly rolls lava you must flip over all tiles that are adjacent to lava. Yes ALL adjacent tiles – it cascades. And the worst thing is that the opening tiles are four tiles in one! It’s alright though, if you’re lost to the fiery fury of the caverns you still get to roll the dice so you can still intensify everyone else’s misery. After all – just because you’re dead shouldn’t mean you get overlooked.
The game looks gorgeous too – there are nice touches like the trace of the disintegrated bridge on the flip side of the tile. Last time I checked kickstarter there was talk of ultraviolet touches.
- Go to The Conclusion
Part 3
Randy Meeks resident film critic in Scream postulated that successful sequels must stick to 3 rules:
“1. the body count is always bigger
2. the death scenes are always much more elaborate – more blood, more gore…
3. never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead”
Inferno’s Edge definitely delivers on the intensifying of the death scenes. As well as the cave-ins we survived in Sub Terra, now we have to face spiked traps and spring loaded spears which fire an impressive distance. The cowardly reveal won’t save you here. You might as well explore – leaping fearlessly into the unknown.
So far our body count has been bigger. The lava surges at an alarming rate spilling over onto other tiles. You’ll never be more glad you chose the Rogue with their bonus sprint action!
As for rule 3, while the horrors of version 1 can leap out at you at any point, the lava and the cave ins even destroys their equivalent here. So it doesn’t deliver the full horror of the constantly resurrecting killer but to be fair it’s just as well – you’ve got enough on trying to run faster than lava.
Despite this compelling evidence it isn’t really a sequel as such. The game does have many of the same basic mechanisms making it quick to learn. It is still co-operative and you are still trying to escape a cave system while fleeing from some of the same kinds of hazards. If you enjoyed Sub Terra then you will certainly enjoy this twist on it. It is different enough and fleeing the oncoming lava is both thrilling and infuriating!
On your turn you can still take two basic actions – for instance for one action you can reveal a tile which just involves placing it down or you could explore where you reveal a tile and immediately step onto it.
There are keys that you need to collect on certain tiles – without those you can not retrieve the treasure so there is a clear time pressure evident. Every round you count down to the eruption of the volcano and as soon as you grab the treasure, this intensifies.
One of the most important things for me is that true to form the diversity of the characters is bang on. I had hoped to see the same characters pursuing new adventures but there are 10 different new characters with a variety of genders, ages and races so you should never be in a position where all the female characters have gone. This has happened to me more times than I care to mention. It makes me so happy to see representative characters as standard. Each of the characters has two special abilities – some of the standards are there like health, protecting others, digging through rubble, sprinting. But there are new ones too: bonus reveal actions, re-rolling dice a limited number of times and my favourite – sniping. You can now take out a guardian that is in your line of sight but up to three tiles away.
And now:
- I didn’t like Sub Terra / there are elements of Sub Terra that I really didn’t like – go to Part 4
- How is it different? – go to Part 5
Part 4
If you didn’t enjoy Sub Terra I would still urge you to give this a go. It genuinely is different enough and not just because we have different characters with some different abilities to choose from. This is not a sequel, rather it is a stand alone game with some mechanical and stylistic similarities to the original game.
- But, how is it different? – go to Part 5
Part 5
From the outset, you have a different purpose. Whereas in Sub Terra it was all about escaping, in Inferno’s Edge you must first venture under the volcano to retrieve the treasure and then you must escape. Double the game but it isn’t twice the length, it just packs a lot of action in.
You can still exert yourself to get an extra action but whereas before you rolled to see if you lost a life, this time you just pay for the action with a health point. And if you run out of health points you no longer just lie around and wait for someone to rescue you – once per turn you can crawl painstakingly either towards the exit or the rest of your party.
The cards from Sub Terra are replaced with hazard dice. Pre volcano eruption each player rolls a hazard die at the end of their go, triggering hazards. A new hazard – stumbling – has been added, this costs you a health point. Post volcano eruption you must roll both dice – you really don’t want to stumble now. There’s something satisfyingly tactile and tense about the dice roll that I don’t get from turning cards over.
In Inferno’s Edge it is Guardians rather than horrors that pursue you through the darkness. As well as activating twice at the end of the round, Guardians, who guard the treasure and want to stop you getting your mitts on it, can either move towards the nearest player or spawn depending on your die roll. They move in such a way that sometimes you get a stay of execution – a guardian will have exhausted themselves getting to you and waits for the next turn to launch an attack. I like to imagine them leaning on a wall, panting whilst breathlessly ranting about treasure and certain death. You can also destroy guardians by attacking them and rolling 4 or more as long as you do it before they get their breath back.
You get the same high quality components and the same style of artwork which I really like but this time the pathways are very clear – especially when you flip to the lava side of the tiles. I know this was a concern raised about the Sub Terra tiles.
The Conclusion.
Inferno’s Edge is a gripping game. I love the characters and their abilities; the fast flowing lava and the challenge. Each game is different as you are still at the mercy of the randomly generated path and the random hazards. But the balance of abilities that you choose gives you enough strategic power over the game to let you believe that if it wasn’t for that one decision (usually made by someone else, I hasten to be add) you’d be attending a special preview night at a museum somewhere in London where people marvelled at your tales of bravery and derring do. While, in the wings some guardians wait to strike and take back what is rightfully theirs in what could well be the sequel…. just as soon as they’ve got their breath back…
UK Games Expo: A Haul of Memories.
As the ‘games haul’ posts insinuate their way on to your various social media feeds, making you wonder if you missed out on the next big thing, and the moaners moan about the size or the temperature or something; I’m bringing you something a bit different.
It’s hard not to get drawn into these threads. Negativity begets negativity and our brains are still hardwired to focus on the negative. But we must resist. Our happiness depends upon it – adjust the focus or use a different lens entirely. There is a place for negative feedback and it is vital for any event to receive it in order to grow and improve. I still carry that teacher mantra though – public praise, private ‘suggestions of areas to improve’! Sure by Sunday morning, I thought I’d been there a week and Eldritch Rach thought it was evening. And yes it was hot. And it was brillliant.
Even the most negative of incidents was promptly dealt with and the offender expelled from Expo. I’m not going to go into this here- it has been covered elsewhere and carries too many triggers to open up here. Suffice to say that as an individual the UK Expo response to this makes me feel safer there.
Board games without people are just lifeless boxes filled with meaningless chits and worthless tokens. It is the people that breathe life into them, that make them funny or tense or moving. It is the fabulous people of Expo and the time spent uniting with fellow nerds that I want to focus on.
The Expo started for me with the Press Show. I chatted to lots of people, finally met Angela and Dan who I’ve chatted to online for years and booked in to play a demo of Arkosa – the new one from the creators of Gobblin Goblins. The thing that I enjoyed most about the press show was the enthusiasm of the games creators – I love chatting to people who have passion and belief. It’s infectious. In particular I remember meeting the folks from Pet Evil which is soon to be on Kickstarter; marvelling at the research that went into Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell the board game of English magic published by Osprey Games; playing a pattern making game with my eyes shut while two complete strangers gave me directions and talking penguin puns with Team Custard Kraken the makers of Penguin Brawl.
After that I caught up with Emma from Emmerse Studios and Amelia – Quirk Expert! We drank wine and played ‘Bilder’ a game in which you use the different shaped blocks to build or re-enact the thing on your card while idiots shout things at you which are very obviously wrong. They then draw a card and build something obscure while you make astute and intelligent guesses about the content of their card. That’s how I remember it anyway.
Lots of games by StuffbyBez: Yogi, Kitty Cataclysm and the Wibbell++ system of games.
I spent some time at Expo demoing games for both Bez and Wren Games. One of the heart warming things about teaching games was how easy it was to get strangers playing together. They sat, enjoyed a game, compared experiences, swapped stories and recommendations and then disappeared back into the crowd. These were quick games so often we didn’t hang out for long but I loved sharing some time with people and watching them learn. One of the things I miss about teaching is that interaction when you open something new up to a person and place it in their hands; to witness that sense of wonder, fun and freedom to explore is a miraculous thing.
Assembly and Sensor Ghosts by Wren Games
Most of the booths there are demoing games. I could quite happily spend the days playing different games without spending anything above the ticket price. As much as I love teaching, I love learning. Letting someone who is passionate teach you is a joy. I visited Yay games and played Ominoes and then Snaggit. Snaggit is a new one – a fun twist on observational/ grab it games that requires some imagination. I managed to Snag a copy (!) and I know it will be a sure fire hit at events. I also hung out on the Wotan bus for a while, setting the world to rights with Lawrence and watching and learning some games. There were loads of people playing Brexit but I couldn’t bring myself to join in with that. One of the most entertaining games to watch and indeed play is Ramasjang – a chaotic card game where players add to the basic rule set by making each other do accents, noises, physical actions, whatever they think of. I also learnt the much calmer Castle Build. Over on Redwell Games I was taught Six Gun Showdown which was loads of sharp shooting fun too. If I wasn’t working, I would have made more use of the Board Games Library and the open gaming spaces. Plus there are loads of events and seminars to take advantage of.
A crack collective of indie game developers, artists, reviewers and generally lovely and supportive types got together at the Gaming Rules podcast to explain our existence. Today, using a sobriquet still frowned on by Janice they survive as board gamers of fortune. If you have a games related problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find us….maybe you can tweet #TeamTrevor. It was great fun to catch up with the Team Trevor folks in real life, especially as it was the Crafting Jones’ birthday so we could have cocktails! Any excuse!
Pictures by Emma May of Emmerse Studios
I also attended the Gaming Rules/ Paul Grogan top tips for teaching games seminar. It was fascinating to hear ideas about different approaches to teaching as well as, through audience participation, people’s experiences of different teaching methods. The drip feed approach that Paul advocates resonated with me and I definitely already use elements of it. It’s sparked my curiosity and desire to find out more. Of course other non-gaming-rules events were also available! I missed Jollyboat and The Dark Room which are both awesome. And the only tannoy message I deciphered all weekend was the announcement of the Happy Salmon tournament which I can only imagine was hilarious.
The absolute best bits of UK Games Expo have revolved around hanging out with people: whether it was finally meeting the lovely Katie Aidley in real life; playing Arkosa and thoroughly enjoying the well crafted flavour text and a good game; putting faces to names and avatars or drinking cocktails in the Sky Bar on Sally’s birthday – it was an absolute blast and I can’t wait to do it all again.
I did add games to the Cards or Die collection – some kindly donated, some purchased. Come along and try them out at one of our events. But that’s not my abiding memory of UKGE – it won’t reduce to a pile of cardboard, that is really just a vehicle. My memories and the reason I’ll be back next year is to connect with lots of slightly crazy, passionate, nerdy, kind, gorgeous individuals through gaming. If you want to get involved in that vibe, join us at a Cards or Die event soon – check out our events page for more details or subscribe using the form below so you don’t miss a thing.