It's game time at... uhm... now where was it again? Thingummy... ahh...

Contributors: Daniel, David

My abiding memory of the 29th was the full and fruity embracement of the 'slow method' in boardgaming terms as I finally broke my duck with a first game of Kingdom Builder. It was ironic that Jon and Paul started the game debating who was the oldest between the two, as they then went on to play like two old biddies who were queueing for their pension at a closed down Post Office. I have a tendency to play fairly quickly so I'm used to minding the time between turns, but the point when Tom fell asleep on my shoulder finally prompted me to enthusiastically encourage the chaps to oblige us with a slightly more hasty approach to proceedings. At least they both remembered to put on their trousers before leaving the house, so there was an upside.
We were scoring for connecting hotspots on the board and some other stuff with getting cubes into organised lines, but the connections were clearly the biggest opportunity so that's what I went for, figuring that I'd naturally collect some of the other rewards as a by-product. I made a bee-line for some bonus tokens that allowed me to put down extra cubes, and later on added another that let me leap one of my existing pieces into a new space which was handy as I was running out of cubes fairly rapidly and wanted to stretch out to one last connection point. At the end my estimation of the value of the scoring cards proved correct as I totally crushed it - can't remember the exact scores but there was somewhat of a noticeable gap.

Overall it's a fairly simple and abstract game where you stick cubes into boxes and score points for making patterns, with some additional fluff that fortunately elevates it from it's somewhat uninspiring roots and prevents it from becoming murderously tedious. It reminded me a lot of the early style of Euros when they were in their heyday, kind of a big puzzle that you all add stuff to as you go, and not a lot of interaction beyond the occasional moment where somebody goes in a spot you were hoping to grab. I don't know if it's something I'd seek to play multiplayer - think I'd rather sit down to TTR for this sort of thing, which works on similar principles and which I think is a lot more engaging than this - but I do understand why it's popular and might even get this on an app at some point.

We had some piscine flapping at some point which was doubly fun due to Tom's broken fingers, yet another bash at Council of Verona, and a late game of Machi Koro to finish up (I'm going out on a limb here but I'll say that someone named Tom probably won one or more of these).


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James B and I started the evening with a game of A Duel Betwixt Us. A two-player card game about duelling Victorian gentlemen. Each player works their mine with an allotted set of miners (including a zombie one, because zombies!) to create, Iron, Silver and Gold Ingots which are then used to create various weapons and armour that are played in front of each player. At the end of a players turn they can choose to start a duel, if you aren't lucky with the draw you can often lose the first few duels with no chance to build any weapons. There's also a sneaking suspicion that whoever goes first is guaranteed victory. Will need some more games to confirm but it feels as though first player gets the ball rolling and there's no way of stopping it.
After that was a game of Deep Sea Adventure with Dan, Jon, Paul and I and which was missing the dice so we used regular dice in a way that still confuses me, albeit I'm easily confused. I think I managed to win this one by being a coward, that's all I can remember, and that Paul always got stranded too far down.

Next up was a game of Bruges with the Bruges: The City on the Zwin expansion with Gareth, Peter and I. I thought it was wonderful, 165 character cards that each have their own artwork and abilities. Players build houses, hire characters and build canals whilst gathering as much prestige along the way. You have to think on your feet a bit and strategy goes out of the window depending on what characters turn up as well as various character combos. I think Peter won this with Gareth second and myself last. I gambled on the plague on the third round and lost about seven workers which didn't help. It's a great game and I would happily play again.
The other table had finished as well by then so Dan, myself, James B, Tom and Philip moved onto a game of Council of Verona. I can't really remember what happened apart from James B won the first round due to Philip moving player markers between two characters. I then think James B won the second round due to another similar mix up.

To finish my evening was a game of slapping, tickling and finger swirling, we also played a game of Happy Salmon. 

The one where Jon was well and truly Goosed

Contributors: Daniel, Jon, David

A warm welcome to newcomers Andonknee and Antoinohn, otherwise more normally known as Andy and John, who had no idea they would be making flipper hands with strangers when Philippe invited them along to a game night.

The four of us totally crushed some Aliens in the much improved transfer of Marvel: Legendary into Ridley Scotts cinematic universe, despite the dire warnings that we would struggle by not playing the intro setup. Philippe was the medic and did some good work in holding off the worst of the damage that we suffered, and as the versatile android character I leveraged card bonuses to get my attacks up to 20+ damage which was more than enough to take out the worst that came at us, occasionally clearing out the encroaching Alien conga-line in it's entirety. Everything about this game seems to make much more sense in the Alien-verse than in the original Marvel superheroes setting - for example, having Aliens creep in through a breach in the ventilation shaft and make their way toward your hold-out is far easier to parse than a horde of Super Villains mysteriously appearing inside a bank vault before parading through the city streets and disappearing, pied-piper like, across a bridge which you are unable to cross yourself. Having the cards face down adds to the feel of ominous skittering noises approaching, and I also love how the facehuggers are present in all their explosively gory glory. Top marks for a cinematic reboot that is better than the original!

Then onto a proper IBG gaming welcome for the new boys with Rhino Hero, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Fake Artist, and mucho Happy Salmon nicely filling out the end of the evening. The latter was an absolute blast and turning into a sure-fire hit for ice-breaking filler material. What a great night!

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I walked in late, and had the choice of playing Tin Goose with John B, Neil and Phil, or going to watch the second half of a thrilling Ireland v Italy match. Being the social animal that I am, I chose to be goosed...

First things first - this game looks a bit dull. The board is a map of the US, but doesn't contain anything innovative (probably a bit hard with a map, to be fair...) and apart from the cute 'planeeples', the rest of the components won't win too many beauty pageants. The fact that a segment of John's board had already snapped off, and the tiles were all badly miscut didn't help much either. It looked like a victim of Jon's 'deferrystration' regime, if the ferry in question had been in dry-dock at the time....
It looks like it's going to be quite a complex game, and the box states '30 mins per player' - so I settled down with the sinking feeling that he was in for the duration. However, it turns out that the game is relatively simple. Each player gets to auction a card in turn (once around auction, which speeds things up nicely)and then take 3 actions (which are all pretty straightforward). Rinse and repeat 7 times and you're done. In fact, it took less than 90 mins to play, which included 3 newbies, so a pleasant surprise there. 

As with many auction games, it's almost impossible for newbies to gauge the worth of anything at the beginning (or in my case, at the end either...), which did give John B an advantage. Neil took the strategy of "buy anything, whatever the price", and soon had a fleet of airplanes that BA would have been proud of. Phil was more considered, and also seemed to be surreptitiously picking up tokens that would defend him from adverse events. I wasn't buying any planes at all until John advised that I might want to start purchasing, seeing as that was the point of the game. Even with this sage-like advice, I was still reticent to part with any cash (probably as a reaction to my debt-fest during Railways last week...)

Anyway, the game sped by a quite a canter, and it turned out to be quite 'friendly' by John's estimation - only 1 event card played all game. It semed very difficult to call the winner, but it turned out that my frugality had paid dividends, and I won (to my, and everyone else's great surprise) by a reasonable margin from Phil & John, with Neil coming in last, although he did have the most impressive air force...

This was an 'ok' game, that I wouldn't be in any rush to play a second time - and, as Dan remarked, it probably means that he won't be in any rush to play a first time...

But the big news of the evening was that in James' absence, John B somehow metamorphosed into the persona of our resident 'rules-killer' and got not one, but TWO major rules wrong!!!! Unheard of.......

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I've had Village kicking around for a while but never got around to playing it so thought I would bring it and see if I could get a game. James B and I arrived a little earlier and TomToo shortly after. Having played it before TomToo offered to teach it to us for our first game. It's a surprisingly simple game with multiple paths to victory. There's a nice balance to it and you never feel as though you've run out of options. The ageing villagers are also a nice touch as most actions cost time and knowing when you let your villagers die and where is key. During the game I concentrated on sending my villagers out into the world to travel to other villages as well as sending some to the church. TomToo meanwhile sent his villagers to the Council Chamber and James worked both the Market and Church. It was a close game and when it came time to score we were all separated by a point. I ended first with James B second and TomToo third. A great game but one downside are the cubes, which are meant to represent various attributes which are impossible to remember so we just refereed to them by their colour. Not the most thematic part of the game but the rest makes up for it.
After that was a quick game of New York 1901 with myself, Tom, TomToo and James B. There was a bit more blocking this week compared to last week's game as we fought over the same territory. Tom managed his space well and it was clear he would claim most of the end of game bonuses. So it was a race for the rest of us to try and catch him. I ran out of steam towards the end and had to sacrifice a few turns building as the others had successfully blocked me. When it came to scoring Tom won with 70 whilst TomToo and I were tied in second about 20 points behind and then James B some place further back. Those end of game bonuses really made the difference. 

This would never happen with a Kindle

Contributors: Daniel, David, Jon

A cozy night with double Tom for me, after a brief bit of Salmon related palaver we progressed from maniacal fish to magical tomes with The Big Book of Madness. 

We followed up with some gentle holidaying in Tokaido plus the expansion. It was a pleasant game as always  - I built a massive lead during the game with my bargain-hunting shopper monk, but in the final counting Tom Juan had leveraged the end-game scoring mechanisms from the expansion content to rapidly catch up. It all ended in a narrow one point victory for me with Tomtoo caught dawdling on the scenic route. 

Tom Juan then insisted that we suffer through Romans Please go Away, finshing up with a full game (gasp) of Council of Verona.

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Myself, James B and his friend Richard arrived early at 6 to get in a game of Devil's Run: Route 666. TomToo turned up just in time to make it four. It has just been kickstarted and it's a post-apocalyptic race along the Devil's Run with a Mad Max theme. We all started with one car and one bike each, although it felt unbalanced. *edit* I had a quick chat with the developer of this and feel the game we played wasn't a true representation of the final product. it sounds as though there are a lot more rules and scenarios that haven't been released yet that makes the game play properly. Hopefully we'll see this at the club again where I can have another bash at it.*After that was a game of Troyes, one of my favourites. It was an incredibly close game with everyone working on a similar strategy and competition for places was tight. I worked on my usual strategy of filling the activity cards with my workers and utilising the yellow money/victory point Activity Cards as often as possible. Towards the end I realised I wasn't going to score well on any of the secret characters so resigned myself to last place. However when it came down to scoring James won with 38 whilst Richard and I were tied on 34. Lovely game and looking forward to the upcoming re-print so I can pick up my own copy.

After that was a quick game of Sushi Go, James B kindly picked me up a copy of this from the bring and buy at the expo as he knew I enjoyed playing it at the club. Nothing bad to say about it, it's quick fun and I love the art work. I'm interested in what Sushi Go Party! will add when it's released.

To finish the evening was a game of King of Tokyo, a fun enough roll and keep dice game with a monster theme. It plays fast enough that you don't realise that there's not much game here. It was the copy I picked up last week in a charity shop in new condition for £10.

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A 5 player outing for Railways of the World. Jon, Noel, Neil, Phil and Paul decided to try the Europe map, which is always cosy with five! A service bounty in the first set of cards meant that Neil bidded highest to start in Spain. Noel went to northern Italy. Jon went into western Europe with Paul piggybacking along for the ride. Phil decided to stay out of trouble and went straight to Russia!

Jon ignored his usual tactic of taking as few bonds as possible, and spent the first few turns racking up huge debts to ensure that he did not get hemmed in.
Neil decided that Spain and Portugal were lovely places to stay at this time of year and spent the whole game without coming out of that area. He also never delivered a cube more than two links. He also came last.

Noel was also largely uncontested as he built up into Europe and down into Italy, picking up a couple of major line bonuses on the way. Phil build down out of Russia into Europe as well as going into Turkey. He nearly ruined Jon's plan of completing the most valuable major line bonus from Paris to Constantinople, but John was able to take out yet more bonds to just get there first. Paul was trying his hardest to interfere with everyone's plans!

Jon had managed to get the city of Prague all to himself after taking a card which refused entry to any other players-he then added a number of cubes leaving him with several four point deliveries in the last round of the game. As the game concluded Jon was ahead on the points track but when the penalty for bonds was counted up Noel had sneaked a victory by two points. Phil and Paul weren't that far behind. Neil was still topping up his tan and enjoying the sangria...

Four player kingdom builder with two expansion boards in play. This time Noel was unable to execute his usual strategy of picking multiple special abilities that added extra settlements, although he did have a nice boat to sail around....

Phil and Paul made good use of abilities that allowed them to choose from two terrain cards, whilst Jon had a good selection of bonus tiles, allowing him to manipulate settlement placement as well as adding extra ones. Jon brought the game to an end and had managed to score good points in most of the 4 scoring categories. This was enough for the victory. This game plays out so differently each time, I'm sure it's not going to grow old any time soon.

Needs a snazzy title and pic

Quite literally so...


Contributors: Daniel, Peter, Jon, David


A busy old night, four tables on the go and jam packed with all kinds of games. Milda, Paul M, Gaz and Shaz spent the evening referring to one another as carbohydrate preparation kitchen appliances in an all-night bash at BSG.

We had Blood Bowl: Team Manager followed by the bi-annual appearance of The World Cup Game on our table; Tomtoo insisted that I show him the proper way to play these games so it was only fair of me to thrash him in both... BB:TM was a bit of a one-sided affair as my team, the Chaos Bastards, stomped, stamped, poked, gouged, and relentlessly flouted the regulations to a solid victory.

The highlight of the evening though was the tit-for-tat rivalry between myself and Pleco James in the World Cup Game (2002 tournament) that resulted in China knocking Brazil out of contention in the group stages with a magnificent three nil victory. We even tried our best to get them all the way to the final stages, but alas they were knocked out in a close second round match against Belgium. It all started when both James and I found ourselves with only one decent team each, caught up in the same group with another two of James' sides. Eschewing the opportunity for a gentlemans agreement in letting Brazil and Turkey coast through to the second round, he instead decided to go for the throat in an attempt to dump me out of the competition. Anybody who has sat down to a competitive game with me will know where this was headed next: after Tomtoo decided to join in by helping China get a couple of goals ahead against Turkey I mercilessly used every opportunity and resource to bury Brazil and Costa Rica, with the hilarious result that China came out as group champions with Turkey a comfortable second.

After the group stages were resolved, James and David had to make a move so we split their remaining teams evenly and carried on. I somehow ended up with teams in both the final and the play-off and as of such the second best highlight of the night was Magnus, having resigned himself to losing the final, playing a total dick-move card on Tom simply so that my other team Sweden (Magnus' home country) could come third. Turkey ended up lifting the cup for those that are interested...

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Animals on Board started it all off for Jon, James, Neil and myself. I seem to remember Jon and Neil attempting to be "big on Gorillas". But I may be wrong as all the animals in Animals on Board look alike. I believe Jon's (or was it Neil's?) animals made a break for Noah's Ark at the end which meant his ark dwindled. I kept my 100% record in this game and managed to win.

Imhotep followed. There is a lot in this game for 30 minutes. Decisions decisions. Really there are only 3 options and they are all very straightforward but it is amazing how challenging those simple decisions become. I again maintained my 100% record. This time for coming last. James won with ease.

Finally Guilds of Londonwith Phil coming on for Jon. It is a fairly fiddly thing first game as you constantly have to check what the icons and cards do. This was my second game and by your second game it all becomes second nature and the game feels a lot smoother. James was streaking ahead with his plantations and Guilds flipping in his favour throughout the game. However in the end I managed to overtake thanks to a raft of game-end scoring cards. Like any game with game-end scoring cards which can be drawn throughout the game, there is a fair amount of luck if you manage to draw a card which exactly matches your strengths. So it was with me - I got lucky. I'm liking this game a lot more with this play and hope to get a few more in before the new Essen season destroys anything that went before it.

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Animals on Board

Always fun to play one of James’s games that he introduces by stating – “I’ve played this at least twice before, and have got the rules down pat.” Also fun when said game has only got about 3 rules. Absolutely hilarious when another player questions the main rule about scoring, only to discover that James has it all wrong (again). Snigger.

Anyway – it’s a bit like ‘Piece o’ Cake’ (I cut you choose) but with animals. And animals, if you happen to be a rhino or hippo, that look very similar. Nice mechanisms, but no-one (apart from Jon, whose score completely bombed) managed to collect the magic number of 3 animals, which seemed to be the point of the game. And because you couldn’t see what other players were collecting, it made it difficult to split up the animals into meaningful groups.

Hmmmm – so much hype – such nice pieces – but it didn’t grab me too much, mainly because of the hidden (but trackable) info and the luck of the draw. But it was worth it, just to play with ‘rulesmeister’ James…

Imhotep

OK – now I am partial to games which I would class as ‘super-fillers.’ Genuinely 30-45 mins (or less) in length, but leave you feeling that you’ve played something much meatier. Step forward Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small, or San Juan or even Paris Connection. Imhotep definitely fits this category. Only 3 choices of what to do each turn, plenty of meaningful decisions, and opportunities to screw over other players, if you’re that way inclined…

James won this one by a country mile, having picked up several bonus cards which paid out increasing amounts as more blocks were added to certain areas.It feels a bit like Medieval Academy (another excellent super-filler), with the different scoring ‘zones’, but without the card drafting. But if does have lovely chunky wooden cubes, which you actually build stuff with (well – sort of). A worthy SdJ nominee and straight onto my wishlist….

Kingdom Builder

Paul, Noel and Jon couldn’t bully anyone else into joining them for some settlement-building action, so 3-player it was (which works fine with KB – it’s 2-player that pretty much sucks!) Having said that, Neil was leaning over from his game of Guilds of London almost constantly, so maybe he would have been better off joining the party……?

1 expansion board was in play, which gave rather a nice bonus of moving a little ship around the rivers, allowing a neat way of crossing into otherwise remote locations. Combine this with the basegame special ability of placing settlements on the water, and a powerful combo was possible. Only Paul managed to get one of both of these, with Jon and Noel having to settle for one or the other.

Paul got himself a bit hemmed in at the start, while Noel went for his usual strategy of getting the bonus tiles that allowed him to place extra settlements each turn. This meant that he was placing 6 settlements rather than 3 for most of the game. Consequently, he finished the game at a point where Paul and Jon still had several settlements to place – although his last turn wasn’t overly productive in terms of points. Unfortunately, Paul had failed to score in several categories, and after 3 scorings he had only 4 points – surely a record! Jon had managed a large joined up area, and had also been the only player to score the bonus for 7 settlements in a diagonal row, which was enough to allow him the marginal victory by a couple of points form Noel. Really fun game, which plays quickly with 3 players – good stuff!

7 Wonders

The 3 amigos stayed together (with onlooker Neil still casting an interested gaze their way every 30 seconds or so) to play 7 Wonders with the ‘Cities’ expansion (which is pretty much obligatory with Jon’s copy now…) 3 players is great, because you interact with every other player (as opposed to simply your neighbours, which is one of the complaints against the base-game with higher player counts…)

Paul had a Wonder-board that enabled him to avoid battles for a couple of Ages. Jon then bought the same ability in the second Age, which left Noel effectively fighting himself for one Age (no inappropriate comments about being from Northern Ireland should be added here….)

Paul & Noel both chose to pursue scientific discoveries, whereas Jon went for a mixed strategy, including blue ‘points’ buildings, as well as sneaking a third Age ‘double military’ victory over Noel. However, this wasn’t quite enough, as Noel had a useful Wonder ability to copy one of Jon’s Guilds, which netted him enough points to pip him to the post.  

Poison

Say what you like about Mr Knizia, he does know his Maths (that’s MathS plural, for our transatlantic readers, not singular as you incorrectly like to call it….) Poison is a simple card game, where you have 3 suits, place them in 3 piles, and try not to go over a total of 13 in any of them. However, the numerical values of the cards are designed specifically to make this darned difficult, so a game that is easy to explain, can be a real head-scratcher to play.

Jon, Paul & Noel played 3 rounds, and as far as I can recall, I won. It might have been Paul, who was definitely ahead at some point, but was hindered by an awful lot of poison in the last round, but it certainly wasn’t Noel, who wins more than his fair share of games anyway.


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As well as The World Cup Game the other game I played was New York 1901. I convinced Phil to give it a go, Magnus joined shortly after then Noel came in to make it four. It's the second time at the club and it played a little differently than usual. There was almost no blocking of each others lots or any active attempt to fight over territory. This meant it was more of a solo affair as we built up our skyscrapers unhindered and each of us managed to build a legendary skyscraper which was surprising. The win therefore would come from one of the bonuses which Phil managed to score and sneak a win over Magnus (iirc) as I managed to share two bonuses with Noel and Magnus and thus gaining no points. I think it's a bit more interesting when players fight over lots and it's more of a challenge.

There can be only one... or maybe as many as nine...

 Something is very wrong with Google image search.

Contributor: Daniel

Gazza, Shazza, and Philazza got in an early start with Drakon. The rest of us started to file in and seemed content just to hang out and chat until we hit critical mass and started playing games.

John B settled in for a long night with a five player bash at Millenium Blades, a game about playing the game of playing a game. Yo Dawg. It involves wads of money instead of individual notes, which is odd when they could have just used higher denomination notes, and even odder when it's used to simulate buying cards for a CCG which is more likely done via PayPal in the first place. It's supposed to help the players feel like they have loads of cash which is not really 'in theme' with people who spend all their money on CCG cards, unless they are aiming for wish fulfilment here. Can't wait to see the dice game version of this one.

Up at the other end of the room Dan, Tom, and Phil joined me for a slightly less muted evening that began with Mag Blast, from which point Tash and Tom will henceforth be known as the two jerks - Jerk One and Jerk Two - for concentrating their efforts in blowing me up on the first turn. The upside was that I then had the time and freedom to fling abuse at them for the rest of the game, cementing my place as Jerk Three, or big daddy jerk if you please.

Anyway, we then played Quartermaster General, a game about running a supply chain network which is a welcome change from my day job of running a supply chain network. I was handed the double threat of commanding both the UK and US, and Jerk One donned his hirsuite Stalinesque moustache as my dodgy Russian allies. Phil put on his slightly smaller moustache as Hitler, and just like Christian Bale aiming for an Oscar nomination he then piled on 300lbs to also lead the Italians. Jerk Two carefully avoided any racial stereotypes as the Japanese, completing the axis powers triumvirate. Jerk One clearly became less of a jerk as the two of us managed to power through to a win.

Next up was the highlight of the evening, a titanic struggle for the ages as Phil and Tom matched wits in what will be referred to with future reverence as the Rivals on the Isle, or maybe the Griever on the River. With their brows set in manly furrows, the two opponents sneered and growled across the table (either that or they are just coming down with colds). Each raised a hand and then, with steel in his voice, Tom attempted to out-psyche his opponent. “Rock!” he cried, then once more in an excitable tone “ROCK! Go for rock!”

Phil calmly returned a cool impassive gaze, completely unruffled or simply not paying much attention, perhaps distracted in the moment by solving some unimaginably complex equation with the raw power of his mighty intellect or thinking about hanging out the laundry when he returned home later that evening. Not to be dissuaded, Tom upped the ante further by narrowing his already knotted brows to the point where he was squinting down his nose. This time he spoke in barely a whisper, “Rock, I tells ye, go for rock”

Then, the moment came. The choice of tactical decision weighed heavily on their shoulders, a labyrinthine conundrum that could not be solved by simply clefting it in twain with pure mind-power. Should Phil follow the obvious lead and go for rock, or should he double guess Tom’s puny attempts at mind games and double bluff. Unless, of course, that’s what Tom wanted him to think, in which case should he double-bluff the double-bluff and double-bluff himself by doing exactly what Tom wanted him to do but secretly didn’t want him to do. Inconceivable!

With this huge pressure hanging over the combatants they raised their fists to their highest reach before bringing them forcefully downward, crying out in harmony as if some ephemeral release, almost religious in nature, had occurred between them.

“Ro!” they cried, before raising their gnarled and lumpen hands once more. Down they came again, faster and harder than before, with another cry that reverberated the very walls around them.

“Sham!” they yelled, rattling screws loose in the furniture, two arms once again quivering the air with the raw energy pulsating all around this very spectacle. Finally they swept down again for the third and last time, the mighty roar shaking the foundations and creating a sonic boom so deep that people in the next town mayhaps felt slightly uneasy for a brief moment.

“Bo!”
“Phil, you pillock, why didn’t you pick rock?!?”

And so closes this chapter on Tom’s incredible victory, a bittersweet ending as he then announced his intention to immediately retire from formal competition with a one hundred percent win record. A true legend in the annals of rock-paper-scissors. Pay-per-view highlights with detailed expert analysis will shortly be available online, wherin the great many questions you no doubt have will surely be answered.

After that we played Exploding Eggs & Empires, a short filler that plays well but which was not to my taste. It was a bit like 6-nimmt mixed with Brave Rats, or a bit like Romans Go Home according to Tom – one of those games that’s a bit like other games and not at all like itself, but unfortunately is a bit like other games that aren’t very good. I admit that I switched off fairly quickly during this one and started playing random cards in the last two rounds with variable results - minus twenty something the first time and plus thirty something the second time, which was the highest score of the round and more than I got when playing with proper intent. The dodgy stumpy-legged generic fantasy artwork and nonsensical setting feel a little bit desperate in begging you to overlook the gameplay. No, I don’t think I’ll be playing again, but others seem to like it so I expect to see it continue doing the rounds.