The Game Shelf Reviews:- Hadrian's Wall

Game: Hadrian's Wall

Publisher: Garphill Games and Renegade Games Studios

Designer: Bobby Hill

Year: 2021

 

Hadrian's Wall initially caught our attention because it comes from Garphill Games, publisher of the North Sea Trilogy and The West Kingdom Trilogy, which both have a huge following in the gaming community. Hadrian's Wall stands alone as a whole new 'roll and write' style game set in the Roman period of history.

However, if, when I say roll and write, you're thinking of abstract games like Qwixx or Ganz Schon Clever where it's a game all about the numbers you roll on the dice, then Hadrian's Wall is a whole different beast. There's no rolling, and it's not really a 'Flip and Fill' game (like Welcome To or Kokoro) either, but there is a random input generated each round that will be the same for evey player, and you are writing on a sheet of paper and filling in boxes.

If you've enjoyed Fleet Dice, or are looking forward to Three Sisters, both from Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback, or you've played and (unlike us) enjoyed Rome and Roll, another heavy take on roll and writes in the same setting, then here are some thoughts on Hadrian's Wall.

 

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Tucano

Game: Tucano

Publisher: Helvetiq

Designer: Théo Rivière

Year: 2021

 

 

Tucano is another lovely looking game from publisher Helvetiq. Most Helvetiq games are unified by their small box size, and eye-catching bold artwork, which makes them a perfect pick for toy stores, gift shops or other places where you might not find modern board games on sale. It always makes me happy to spot a stand full of colourful Helvetiq games in an unusual shop, just imagining that they might be an avenue into some new and interesting modern board games for those on the look out for a pocket-sized gift.

Tucano is a family game for 2-4 players, in which players will be collecting tasty (and adorable) fruits into sets to try and score points, but the toucans who live in the forest might have other plans, swooping in towards the end of the game to steal, or gift fruits to or from other players around the table.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- The Rival Networks

Game: The Rival Networks

Publisher: Formal Ferret Games

Designer: Gil Hova

Year: 2021

 

The Rival Networks is a two-player sequel to The Networks from Gil Hova and Formal Ferret Games. The Networks already had a player count of 1-5, but you did have to make a few modifications to play at two players. For us, the modifications were small and not detrimental to the game, but two player variants can really put some gamers off. The two player only, The Rival Networks, is a smaller box game that distills many of the same concepts and certainly shares the same theme and tongue in cheek references to your favourite shows.

 

Each player is responsible for their own television network, selecting shows and pairing them with the right stars to get the most ratings. Plus, if you advertise at the right time for your target audience you'll also start raking in cash, as well as viewers!

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Maglev Metro

Game: Maglev Metro

Publisher: Bezier Games

Designer:  Ted Alspach

Year: 2021

Maglev Metro is a game from the same designer and publisher as Suburbia and The Castles of Mad King Ludwig - two games that share quite a bit of DNA. Maglev Metro is something completely different, combining pick up and deliver with engine building, in a pretty familiar setting of a railway or metro network. The setting does try to stand out from the crowd by injecting a futuristic theme, but aside from the components, we certainly didn't feel any thematic elements brought about by the setting. Your train is a striking plastic piece with metal trim, to denote a train capable of magnetic levitation, and it's robots (bronze, silver and gold meeples) who are key to the early phase of the game before your network starts to attract actual people. 

Maglev Metro uses a triple (!) layer player board to invite you to build a metro system in either New York or Berlin, and players use transparent hexagon tiles to build tracks around the city. The transparent tiles can be layered to create a pretty accurate representation of how many city metros have lots of interlinking and overlapping routes. The game certainly has a striking look on the table and its mix of mechanics are two favourites of ours, so Maglev Metro holds a lot of promise.

I'm flying high, defying gravity:- Maglev Metro

Game: Maglev Metro

Publisher: Bezier Games

Designer:  Ted Alspach

Year: 2021

Maglev Metro is a 1-4 player pick up and deliver game which sees you setting up metro stations either across Berlin or Manhattan. This new state of the art Magnetic Levitation (Maglev for short) system offers next to no friction allowing for fast, easy transit of passengers. So long as you can build all the lines, stations, and fix all the technical hurdles involved. Starting with a small team of robots that can be assigned as you want, you'll spend actions in order to locate, collect and drop off robots to the correctly coloured station. Doing so lets you put the robots on your player board, increasing the efficiency of your actions and ultimately letting you transport people. As cool as a train system for robots would be, your system is meant to take people, so these are where you'll get the majority of your points. 

 

The map starts nearly empty, with only a copper, silver and gold station to begin the game. Each station will have a couple of robots on it. On your turn you'll take two actions from the list of options in the centre of the board. Most of the actions are self explanatory, track lets you place new track tiles or remove existing ones, move lets you move along track to the next station, capacity is how many people you can carry, while pick up is how many you can collect from the station you are at for one action, build stations lets you add new stations to the map and reverse train lets you switch directions without reaching the end of the line. This leaves a couple of more complex actions: Drop off is used to deliver passengers to the station you are currently on. If they are the matching colour then they are placed on your board on a matching colour slot. Refill station lets you pull passengers out of the bag to the station you are on. Adjust is perhaps the most unique of all, letting you take robots off of your player board and then reassign them, letting you tweak your engine for the current requirements.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Mandala Stones

Game: Mandala Stones

Publisher: Board&Dice

Designer: Filip Głowacz

Year: 2021

 

 

If you attend board game conventions, then you'd perhaps recognise Filip Głowacz as the co-owner of board game publisher Board&Dice, wearing a flashy Pac-Man themed suit. Mandala Stones is his first published board game design, and we were fortunate to try out a digital version late last year and immediately fell in love with it. The physical version makes itself even easier to love with its fantastic, colourful heavy plastic pieces which remind me of the pieces in Azul.

Mandala Stones is an abstract game for 2-4 players in which you will collect towers of colourful stones to optimise your scoring opportunities. It has lots of puzzliness and an every changing game-state that both looks fantastic and keeps you constantly engaged in the changing opportunities on the board. It's one we have been really excitd to share our thoughts on.

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure

Game: Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure

Publisher: Brotherwise Games

Designer:  Aaron Mesburne, Kevin Russ

Year: 2021

Boss Monster is one of the earliest games I remember playing when I was introduced to board gaming. Amy's friends were not board gamers at the time, but they were geeks and video gamers who were dipping their toes into the hobby. Boss Monster is exactly the sort of game, alongside Munchkin and Catan, that university students with a geeky disposition were playing 10 years ago. It's not a game I ever really revisited, finding it too be a bit basic, but it certainly has an audience, is perfect for comic store shelves and has spawned many expansions.

Overboss takes that same theme and 8-bit artwork, but applies it to a tile-laying game, co-designed by Kevin Russ who designed the fabulous Calico - a truly special puzzly tile-laying game. With those credentials, we had to take a look at what twist on tile-laying Overboss has to offer

Where was that secret wall?:- Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure

Game: Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure

Publisher: Brotherwise Games

Designer:  Aaron Mesburne, Kevin Russ

Year: 2021

Overboss is a 1-5 player tile laying game set in the world of Boss Monster. Playing as one of the titular boss monsters, you have finished designing your dungeon and now it's time to create a dangerous overworld to defeat all but the most valiant heroes. You don't want to spend time and effort resetting your traps after 'Steve the Farmer' wanders in afterall! To do this you'll be drafting tiles and monsters from a common market and using those to create an overwold. Each landscape type scores differently, creating a unique puzzle every game.

Each player starts the game with a 3x4 board (4x4 in the advanced game) and optionally a choice of two Boss Monsters to play as. Five terrain types will be selected for the game, and all tiles of those types are gathered and shuffled before four tiles are dealt out into a market. The associated monsters are then put into a bag and four monsters are drawn, one paired with each tile. On a player's turn they simply take a tile and the associated monster and place it anywhere on their board. The monster must be placed on the empty space in the middle of the placed tile with a couple of exceptions. The game will continue like this until everyone's boards are full.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Game: Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Designer: Isaac Vega

Year: 2021

 

Ashes Reborn is a re-release of Plaid Hat's successful two-player customisable dueling card game, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. The reprint is described as version 1.5, with not significant changes from the original game, but some improvements to the wording and balance of the cards. If you've never played Ashes before, then this would be your entry point, or you could use the 1.5 Upgrade Pack to upgrade your original copy.

 

If you want to dive deep into the game, then a huge number of expansions are on the horizon with a new phoenixborn character in each pack. Plaid Hat Games are even running a direct subscription service, but frankly, there is a huge amount of content in just this base game box, with the six phoenixborns allowing you to play 15 different combinations with the preset decks, plus the option to deckbuild, making the variety pretty endless!

Keep Droning On:- Cryo

Game: Cryo

Publisher: Z-Man Games

Designer: Tom Jolly, Luke Laurie

Year: 2021

 

 

 

Cryo is a 2-4 player worker placement game that tasks you as a survivor of a ship that has crashed on a strange, and cold, planet. In the last moments about your great starship the resident population split into factions and began infighting. Now you find yourself in control of the drone bay, desperate to preserve what human life you can save, so long as you know you can trust them! You'll send drones out across the planet's frozen surface in order to gather supplies, rescue your crew and construct transportation that can carry the humans safely underground before the cold night makes the planets surface entirely inhabitable.

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Cryo

Game: Cryo

Publisher: Z-Man Games

Designer: Tom Jolly, Luke Laurie

Year: 2021

New Z-Man games always catch my attention, in particular because they don't release a ton of games every year and each one seems to attract a fair amount of buzz. Cryo definitely has the eye-catching artwork that was enough to get my attention, and Luke Laurie seems to be a designer name to look out for these days with both Whistle Mountain and Dwelllings of Eldervale receiving many positive reviews.

So, putting aside our disappointment with Z-Man's last big release, Paleo, I went into Cryo excited, particularly by its description as an 'engine building, worker placement game', in addition to its good looks. In Cryo, you are hostile factions vying for control of underground caverns on an icy planet. From the safety of your engineering platform, you can send out drones to scavenge resources and ultimately transport your crew to the caverns.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- A Gentle Rain

Game: A Gentle Rain

Publisher: Mondo Games

Designer: Kevin Wilson

Year: 2021

 

A Gentle Rain is a solo or cooperative game from designer Kevin Wilson. This small game (think of the box size of Oink Games, like Deep Sea Adventure and A Fake Artist Goes to New York) is perhaps not what you might expect from a board game design behemoth like Kevin Wilson, best known for his work on Fantasy Flight titles like Elder Sign and Arkham Horror.

It's definitely a little out there with its packaging and concept, inviting you to put on some comfy clothes, make a cup of tea and take some deep breaths before enjoying the relaxing experience in the box where you'll be trying to cause eight blossoms to bloom with optimal tile placement. There's not many games out there that can truly make me relax, so I wonder if A Gentle Rain can bring some much needed calm to our board game table.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- The Quacks of Quedlinberg: The Alchemists

Game: The Quacks of Quedlinberg: The Alchemists

Publisher: Schmidt Spiele

Designer: Wolfgang Warsch

Year: 2021

The Quacks of Quedlinberg is a game that I absolutely love. We play it so much that the Geekbits felt like a great investment in spite of their high price tag. It's a game that I will always recommend since it's fantastic for both gamers and non-gamers, so I can recommend it to anyone. The Herb Witches expansion was easy to fit into the base game and we play with it every time we play because it doesn't add too much that is new and different. The Alchemists is the second expansion and it definitely adds something brand new, and I'll need to remove the base game insert to fit it into the box! 

 

The Alchemists introduces a reason for you to be brewing your medicines and that is to cure the ailments of the patient you select to treat each game. Strangely the patients aren't after anything specific - your brand of science is more about throwing everything in there and crossing your fingers, but somehow that works!

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Fairy Tale Inn

Game: Fairy Tale Inn

Publisher: CMON 

Designer: Remo Conzadori, Paolo Mori

Year: 2021

 

 

When you think of CMON as a board game publisher, then perhaps you think of Eric Lang, big miniatures and huge games, but they also have a considerable line of abstract, or puzzly games. Fairy Tale Inn falls into that abstract game line alongside games like Potion Explosion, Gizmos and Sugar Blast, which collectively stand out for their bright colours and high quality production.

Fairy Tale Inn is what you might expect from a gamer version of the classic Connect 4. You're dropping tokens into the vertical board that sits between two players and the only downside is that you don't have that flap at the bottom of the board that releases all of the pieces at the end of the game!

The Fourth Pig Made a House of Plastic:- Fairy Tale Inn

Game: Fairy Tale Inn

Publisher: CMON 

Designer: Remo Conzadori, Paolo Mori

Year: 2021

 

 Fairy Tale Inn is a two player tile placing game with an immediate resemblance to the classic connect four. However instead of faceless tokens, the tiles you are adding to the grid represent different fairy tale characters, each with their own abilities and uses. Your objective isn't simply to get tiles in a row, but instead to place them so that each can maximize their own unique scoring mechanism to get you the most coins.

Each turn you'll be taking one tile from the market of four to place. The first two options are free to take, while the final two will cost you a coin or two to pick. You then can drop that tile into the top of the vertical grid board. Many characters then have an immediate ability that can be triggered, for example the little pigs want to be grouped in clumps, scoring you one coin per friendly pig they are in a group with. After placing a tile you'll draw a new one from the bag and place it at the top spot of the market ready for the next player to play. Turns continue like this until there are three columns where the tiles have reached the roof of the inn. At this point the game ends, end game scoring characters are assessed and the player with the most coins will win.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Escape Tales: Children of Wyrmwoods

Game: Escape Tales: Children of Wyrmwoods

Publisher: Board&Dice

Designer: Jakub Caban, Bartosz Idzikowski

Year: 2021

Escape Tales: Children of Wyrmwoods is the third in the Escape Tales series from publisher Board&Dice. These narrative driven escape room experiences are the most in depth tabletop escape room games we have found and their themes definitely speak more to an older gaming audience than a family one. Children of Wyrmwoods is best played over two sittings since its a long game, especially if you go out of your way to explore each and every puzzle. 

Children of Wyrmwoods takes inspiration from vintage fantasy for it's theme, presenting you with a rather underwhelming character to start with. Naturally things aren't going quite as well as he would like in his small rural community and he soon finds himself out in the wild with no understanding of his surroundings or how to survive. With a bit of ingenuity you can guide Gilbert from commoner to hero... or at least to the end of his journey, hero might not be on the cards!

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- It's a Wonderful World: Corruption & Ascension

Game: It's a Wonderful World:

Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu

Designer: Frédéric Guérard

Year: 2020

We like to think of ourselves as discerning Kickstarter backers. We typically only back games when there's a good reason to do so - perhaps the Kickstarter is super good value compared to retail, or perhaps the game, or parts of the game will never come to retail at all. With It's a Wonderful World we were drawn in by all of the campaign content the game had to offer - campaign content that we have so far never touched!

Like many Kickstarters, It's a Wonderful World came in a huge box, with lots of room for additional content and we have a rather large, air and foam filled box on our shelves as a result. Inside it is a very small drafting and tableau building game that we absolutely love. Its box is far too large, but it deserves its shelf space. The latest expansion, Corruption & Ascension recently got a retail release and we have easily added it to the box for the main game (and could probably do so about 20 times over and still have more space!).

A Corrupt Dystopia!?:- It's a Wonderful World: Corruption & Ascension

Game: It's a Wonderful World: Corruption & Ascension

Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu

Designer: Frédéric Guérard

Year: 2020

It's a Wonderful World is a 2019 engine building game which has you draft and build cards in order to create an efficient dystopia capable of making bigger and better projects and attracting the bravest and brightest to your shores. Corruption and Ascension serves as a 'Bigger and Better' expansion, with new cards that produce humongous amounts of resources and points, assuming you can afford the damn things! Should your budget be more limited then you might want to veer more towards the corruption side of things, these cards tend to be far cheaper to produce, but some of the more crooked people involved might happen to wander off with some of your existing resources. You weren't using that anyway right?

A brief explanation of the base game: Every round each player will be given a hand of cards. From this they choose one to keep and pass the rest on. This repeats until everyone has seven cards, at this point each player can decide which to try and build and which to throw away for resources. Then each player's base will generate the five resources of the game, with a bonus token going to the player making the most in each category. This continues for four rounds at which point the game ends. Corruption and Ascension adds a new deck of cards from which players add a number of cards to their card pool for the draft. This gives them more options, including the new cards which either have ways to altar your production both positively and negatively, gain huge production boosts at huge costs, or tremendous end game points with ridiculous construction requirements.

The Digital Game Shelf:- Still Gaming Online During Covid-19

March 23rd 2021 marked the 1 year anniversary of when the UK first went into national lockdown. We've had some brief phases of less strict rules during that time, but mostly it feels like we've not seen anyone, or got together and played games for a year at this point. At the start of the pandemic I had energy and enthusiasm which I channeled into coming up with creative ways to continue to get my physical board games to the table by playing with friends over Skype. For many weeks, I posted weekly blogs, sharing ideas for which games play well online. Over the course of a year, my enthusiasm has definitely diminished, but I am still trying to keep a regular meetup for Skype gaming with one friend and by co-workers.

Here's some highlights of the best online gaming successes we've had in the past few months!

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Photosynthesis: Under the Moonlight

Game: Photosynthesis: Under the Moonlight

Publisher: Blue Orange Games

Designer: Hjalmar Hach

 

Year: 2021

 

It's wonderful to see so many games with a nature theme now populating board game shelves - it's a theme that has a wide range of appeal both inside and outside of traditional hobby gaming circles - really broadening the market for the games we all love. Photosynthesis was one of the first games we noticed making the most out of a nature theme and it did so in a big way. I have really vivid memories of sitting on the sofa, punching and assembling the trees - such an iconic board game piece! The look of Photosynthesis has instant appeal and elevates Photosynthesis from an abstract game to one that really integrates theme and mechnics with the trees literally overshadowing one another.

 

Photosynthesis has been a standalone game for 4 years, since its relaease in 2017, so a first expansion was unexpected. Like many abstract games, Photosynthesis feels elegant and complete, so we were intigued to see what Under the Moonlight might try and add into the mix.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Bandido

Game: Bandido

Publisher: Helvetiq

Designer: Martin Nedergaard Andersen

Year: 2016

Bandido is a small box game from publisher Helvetiq. Helvetiq make a number of games in this line with really stylish graphic design, typically aimed at a family market. They're extremely eye-catching and Bandido is the second from the line that we've tried.

 

Bandido is a cooperative game for 1-4 players, themed around a prisoner trying to dig and underground tunnel network to escape his cell (or her cell if you choose to buy the new version, Bandida!). Collectively, players must build a network with no open ends to ensure that the prisoner is trapped in his own network. 

 

 

 

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Dive

Game: Dive

Publisher: Sit Down!

Designer: Romain Caterdijan, Anthony Perone 

Year: 2021

 

 

 

Dive is a simultaneous programming game for 1-4 players. Plaers are divers, descending into the dpths of the ocean and passing many of its creatures along the way. Divers must carefully avoid sharks, whist taking advantage of freidly turtles and manta rays who might be able to give you a free ride, hastening your descent.
 

The ocean is represented by layers of transparent blue acetate that are stacked in the centre of the table. This stack is a very eye-catching centre piece and you'll spend the whole game gazing into its depths in this very unique, and stunning game of visual perception.

 

 

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Kombo Klash

Game: Kombo Klash

Publisher: Hub Games

Designer: "Nero" Ondrej Sova

Year: 2021

 

Kombo Klash follows on the heels of Flip Over Frog, in a series of smaller games published by Hub Games. What these games have in common is that they create a fantastic puzzle using animals on tiles and manage to deliver a satisfying game in a small package, not by cramming a big game into a small box, but by distilling a very simple set of mechanisms into an addictive and fun puzzle. With the aid of some charming animal artwork, and a fabric playmat that keeps the box size down, Kombo Klash is a very impressive small package. 

 

While Kombo Klash is a reimplementation of the game Kombo Afrika - it's not one that ever seemed to make it to the UK market and Hub Games have really taken it to a new level with the new artwork. What is, at its heart, a tile-laying abstract puzzle for 2-4 players definitely brings fun to the table with the character-filled animals. 

The Game Shelf Reviews: Deckscape: Escape from Alcatraz

Game: Deckscape: Escape from Alcatraz

Publisher: dV Giochi

Designer: Martino Chiacchiera, Silvano Sorrentino

Year: 2020

The tabletop escape room craze does not seem to be slowing down and we are here for almost all of them! I think that we follow all of the major series, from the largest ones, like Escape Room: The Game to the smallest, which are the Deckscape games. Each series has its own unique twist and the Deckscape games continue to impress us with what they can do with a simply deck of cards.

Like all of these escape room games, we sometimes find that the harder ones can be a source of frustration and sometimes arguments between the two of us and yet we keep coming back for more and we're up-to-date with almost all of them!

 

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Holi: Festival of Colors

Game: Holi: Festival of Colors

Publisher: Floodgate Games

Designer: Julio E. Nazario

Year: 2020

 

Holi: Festival of Colors is a game with gigantic table presence. You'll begin each game by constructing the three-layer board, where each layer is a transparent sheet of plastic grid. Aside from its three-dimensional form, this extremely colourful game instantly reminded me of another recent title from the same publisher, Floodgate Games. Bosk was a similarly colourful, light, area control game that had you placing out your coloured markers on a grid. Being that Bosk and Holi are from different designers, I do wonder how that pitch went down - "I have a game that looks a lot like another game in your catalogue, it's also area control, but it plays very differently". I suppose that's the key though, Holi is a very different game and ultimately seems to fit into a catalogue of very colourful games from Floodgate Games.

Dyeing to Play Again?:- Holi: Festival of Colors

Game: Holi: Festival of Colors

Publisher: Floodgate Games

Designer: Julio E. Nazario

Year: 2020

Holi is a 2-4 player area control/abstract game that takes place on a unique three-layered board. Each player has a meeple that will be throwing colours around, staining the floor and other players in order to earn points. Eventually you'll be able to climb higher on the tower, with any paint thrown on the floor on tier two falling down to tier one if there is an open space below it. From your high vantage point you can rain death paint from above to soak your opponents in your valuable points.

A game of Holi starts with each player placing their meeple on a corner of the ground floor 6x6 grid. On your turn you may do two optional actions along with one compulsory action. You can move to any space on the floor, should you end up on top of candy or paint tokens then you'll pick them up. Paint of your colour can then be thrown once again, but paint of other players and candy will be kept until the end of the game. The second optional action is to climb. If you are surrounded by paint on the four orthogonal spaces then you can climb up to the next layer, giving you a height advantage over your foes. 

The Game Shelf Previews:- Three Sisters

Game: Three Sisters

Publisher: Motor City Gameworks

Designer: Matt Riddle & Ben Pinchback

Year: 2021

Designers Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback are behind a couple of my (very different) favourite games, like Wasteland Express Delivery Service and Piepmatz. They are now collaborating under a new self-published label - Motor City Gameworks and there first game, Three Sisters will be coming to Kickstarter on 9th March 2021.

If you're a fan of the roll and write genre, like we are, then perhaps you've heard of Fleet Dice - a game all about fishing that really ups the ante on roll and write games. Three Sisters feels like a spiritual successor to Fleet Dice, with a very different theme and different dice drafting mechanism, but some of the same mechanisms and feel in the combos you can trigger throughout the game. If you like Fleet Dice, or other very combo-centric roll and write games, like the Ganz Schon Clever series, then it's worth learning more about Three Sisters.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Cloud City

 Game: Cloud City

Publisher: Blue Orange Games

Designer: Phil Walker-Harding

Year: 2020

 

 

Phil-Walker Harding is well known for family weight games, like Sushi Go and Barenpark. Cloud City is another puzzly tile that immediately reminded us on the monorails in the Bad News Bears expansion for Barenpark. Mechanically there's nothing in common, but visually the two have a similarity that makes both very eye-catching on the table.

 

Cloud City manages to look like something I'm desperate to play - it's super tactile and you can pretty much look at the photo of a finished game and figure out how to play!

The Game Shelf Previews:- Buru

Game: Buru

Publisher: Crafty Games

Designer: Stephen Selego, Alex Flagg, Taran Lewis Kratz

Year: 2021

Buru is the next game coming to Kickstarter from Crafty Games, who recently funded with Dollars to Donuts - a tile laying game we enjoyed quite a bit. Buru is a game for 1-4 players that combines a clever bidding mechanism with engine building and resource management in a wonderfully colourful setting. That setting is 14th Century Indonesia, where you will play as nobles exploring a new island, trading and paying respects to the gods. 

Buru is coming to Kickstarter in early 2021.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Heart of Crown: Fairy Garden

Game: Heart of Crown: Fairy Garden

Publisher: Japanime Games

Designer:  ginkgo

Year: 2013

Japanime Games certainly have a niche - deck-building card games with an art style that is certainly not to everyone's taste. While there are a couple of games that fall outside of this mould, there aren't many and Heart of Crown certainly fits it perfectly. Fairy Garden is a standalone expansion and a lot of the art is rather cute, fitting nicely into the fairy theme with some anime charm. In other areas, especially the princesses and maids, you will certainly recognise the over emphasis of certain features, that was common in Japanime Games' other titles like Tanto Cuore.

Heart of Crown: Fairy Garden is a standalone expansion to Heart of Crown. In terms of gameplay, we were pleased to find that this isn't just a Dominion or Tanto Cuore clone and it actually has quite a few new and fresh ideas that really change up the formula.

The Game Shelf Reviews:- SINS: Gloom of Greed

Game: SINS: Gloom of Greed

Publisher: Cortadoo Games

Designer:   Daniel Greve, Jacob Lindborg

Year: 2019

SINS is a deck-building game which comes in three different flavours - Gluttony, Greed and Wrath. In this review we'll look at SINS: Gloom of Greed, which on its own is a two players game, although multiple decks can combine to play with more players. SINS was a Kickstarter project and it has a couple of red flags that tell me it might have a few traits of a 'bad' Kickstarter game - one where a few corners have been cut.

SINS made a bad first impression when I couldn't find the rulebook. It's a small box two-player game, so I looked hard for rules written on cards, or a small folded copy and eventually found a QR code. Rules should always be online, but they shouldn't be ONLY online. I don't want to spend ink printing out rules and they won't fit in the box, so I need internet connection to play your game. The excuse here is to keep a 'living rulebook', but this game isn't complicated (although the poorly written rules might have you believe it is). This was just a rush job. Evidenced by the fact the rulebook was evidently written in word and has Tabletopia screenshots as the only graphics!

Now that we're past that first impression, let's take a look at the game!

The Game Shelf Reviews:- Tawantinsuyu: The Inca Empire

Game: Tawantinsuyu: The Inca Empire

Publisher: Board & Dice

Designer:  David Turczi

Year: 2020

Tawantinsuyu is the next in line of a family of board games from publisher Board & Dice set in various ancient civilisations. If you enjoy medium to heavy euro games then you'll no doubt have come across the series and, perhaps like us, you've at least given each one a try. David Turczi is often the designer of the solo modes in these and many other board games, but Tawantinsuyu is a full game, all of his own design.

Tawantinsuyu is a worker placement game for 1-4 players which revolves around the Coricancha Temple - a pyramid-like structure that dictates the actions your workers can take. There's many ways to gather points in the game, but that simple worker placement action is one that has so many factors and interlinking parts that this game is for people who really enjoy a crunchy decision!

The Game Shelf Reviews:- 1565, St. Elmo's Pay

Game: 1565, St. Elmo's Pay

Publisher: Hall or Nothing Productions

Designer:  Tristan Hall

Year: 2020

Tristan Hall and his company, Hall or Nothing Productions make great historical games. 1066, Tears of Many Mothers was the first in a series of card driven games that provide a very accessible entry point into wargames. I'm not really sure what categorises something as a war game, although these two-player experiences certainly are themed on specific battles and wars. 

1565, St. Elmo's Pay is the second game in this series and plays out in a very similar way, and with 1815, Scum of the Earth coming soon to Kickstarter, Hall or Nothing Games really have you covered if you're a history buff looking to get your feet wet with a tabletop wargame-like experience.

Thoughts from the Yellow Meeple:- Tiny Towns: Villagers

Game: Tiny Towns: Villagers

Publisher: AEG

Designer: Peter McPherson, Josh Wood

Year: 2020

When Tiny Towns first released, we played it once or twice, enjoyed the puzzle and then moved on. However, when Covid lockdown hit many nations around the world, AEG began to do live plays of Tiny Towns with an online audience who could play along if they owned a copy. We first borrowed a copy and then bought a copy because of how this game was helping me to feel connected during a very isolated time. After playing it so much, we tried added both the Fortune, and now the Villagers expansion to our copy. Now, aside from the 'Trees' promo, Tiny Towns is one of the very few fully expanded games we own, and it all fits into the base game box!

A Squirrel & a Hedgehog Walk Into an Inn:- Tiny Towns: Villagers

Game: Tiny Towns: Villagers

Publisher: AEG

Designer: Peter McPherson, Josh Wood

Year: 2020

Tiny Towns: Villagers is the second expansion for the resource puzzle/town builder Tiny Towns. While the first expansion added the concept on money to the game, this expansion adds people to live in your town. Animal people, in the form of cute hedgehog, mouse, and squirrel meeples. In addition to these cute new locals there is  the usual selection of new building cards and monuments to further deepen the available strategies in this cube-laden puzzle.

At the start of a game of Tiny Towns: Villagers you'll shuffle and deal out one building card for each building type as normal. You'll then place out two villager cards, one with a low cost and one with a high cost. These villager cards define what the villagers can do in this game. The game will then play much as normal with players taking turns to name a resource, each player taking a cube of that resource  adding it to their board. Once they have made a pattern as defined on the building cards they can replace all those cubes with a building token built in one of the spaces that the cubes were removed from. The game will continue like this until there are no spaces left on anyone's board at which point you'll earn the points for all your buildings, minus points for spaces on your board without a building on it.