Review: King of Tokyo

My love for kaiju movies and the giant monster genre in general can be likened to Godzilla himself - large, menacing and when it decides to surface, it will take the combined force of several other monsters and a few potshots by the Japanese military to bring it down.  With that in mind, let's take a look at King of Tokyo by IELLO - a dice game for 2-6 players that plays in a lightning fast 20-30 minutes.

Components: Despite being a dice game, King of Tokyo has an impressive array of components.  The dice themselves are large, solid and just plain fun to roll.  They hit the table with a satisfying clatter and have easy to read symbols.  It's hard to explain with mere words just how amazing these cubes are.  Each player will also get to choose a monster standee and matching score tracker.  These are simple, sturdy cardboard and the artwork is bright and vivid.  The cards used for various monster upgrades and special abilities have got some great artwork on them and are printed on good stock with a nice satin finish.  I'd recommend sleeving them, but then they won't fit in the box insert (always a bummer).  Finally, the game has a board to denote which monster is in Tokyo (more on that later).  It's small and simple, but is on par with the other compnents as far as quality.

Seriously, those dice are amazing!

Gameplay: King of Tokyo is a filler game through and through.  It sets up, plays and breaks down very quickly.  Players take turns rolling the six base dice and matching up symbols to gain different effects.  You can attack other monsters, heal damage that's been done to you, gather energy (which is used to buy cards) or score victory points.  You get three throws of the dice in a turn and can keep whichever dice suit your needs between throws - will you try and wrack up as many victory points as possible or will you pummel the arrogant giant ape that's currently occupying Tokyo?  There is a surprising amount of depth here for so random a game.  The different combinations you can get may allow you to go for one big victory point rush in a single turn or give you the opportunity to gain a little energy, heal your monster and do a little damage.  Like any dice game, it's hard to plan your turn in advance, but I've yet to feel like I've been cheated by the dice.

Rules: King of Tokyo has a simple, full-color rules insert that is mostly easy to understand.  The game has a few quirks (mostly concerning the scoring of victory points).  Once you've got a game under your belt, however, you should be good to go.  Pick up the dice, rolle them, choose which ones you want to keep, roll the rest and repeat once more.  At the end of your three rolls, you compare your dice results and score victory points, damage opponents and gain energy accordingly.  At the end of your turn, you can spend any energy you've gained on upgrade cards that will do anything from giving you an extra head (which allows you to add one of the green bonus dice to your rolls) to forcing you to fight the military and sacrifice health for points.  Possibly my favorite mechanic is the press-your-luck decision of entering Tokyo.  If the Tokyo space on the game board is empty and you roll one of the damage icons, you enter Tokyo.  While in the city, you gain extra points at the beginning of each turn and any subsequent damage rolls you make are directed against all of your opponents.  The flip side to this is that only one monster can be the King of Tokyo, so any damage rolls your opponents make are directed against you and can not be healed..  If you take damage, you can choose to leave Tokyo, but you then sacrifice the bonus victory points.  It can be risky, but so far I have seen many a game won by a lone monster taking on all comers and finishing strong atop the smoking rubble that was once a Japanese metropolis.

Overall: King of Tokyo was a game that I bought based on a brief description and a few promotional shots of the box art.  I am a huge Japanese monster movie fan, so this was a no brainer, however unlike some other games, KoT really delivers on solid gameplay and integrates the theme very well.  I wish there had been mechanics to differentiate the monsters (everyone is exactly the same for now), but the game still delivers on that feeling of giant kaiju clashing in the middle of a city filled with terrified, poorly dubbed humans.  What more could you want?

Preview: Kaiju City

This past weekend I was at G-Fest XIX in Rosemont, IL.  It was a fantastic con and I got the opportunity to break out some wonderful kaiju (giant monster) themed games including King of Tokyo by IELLO, Monsterpocalypse by Privateer Press and a new game currently funding on Kickstarter called Kaiju City by Bonsai Entertainment. I had backed Kaiju City a few weeks before G-Fest and was excited to learn that I would have to opportunity to not only play the game, but meet it's artist, Frank Parr.  Here are a few of my thoughts on the preview copy they had available.

A mock-up of the proposed box art and some of the components

Components:  Since this was only a prototype, I can't go into great detail about the components, but the artwork they have planned for the game is phenomenally good.  The monsters are all unique and suitably fearsome-looking while the city tiles are varied and the military tiles pay fitting tribute to the armed forces that consistently get crushed in damn near every kaiju film ever made.

Gameplay: Kaiju City has players choose whether to play as the monsters or the city itself.  I know what you're thinking - who would ever want to play as the city and why can't the monsters fight each other?  Well, simmer down because even though I had the same thought going in, I was pleasantly surprised with the stalwart human defenders.  The city player will draw tiles, build up resources and bring military might to bear in a desperate effort to kill 4 of the rampaging monsters.  However, the monsters only need to carve a path of destruction through the city in such a way that no new tiles can be placed in order to achieve victory.  There ends up being a solid amount of depth in placing city tiles as the defender and moving your monsters around to destroy them as the attacker.

Rules: The rules for Kaiju City are nice and simple.  The city player draws tiles each turn to add to the city which starts as a 4x4 grid of unique tiles.  Resources generated by these tiles are used to build new areas of the city each turn.  Meanwhile the monster player will have control of 4 monsters, each with unique abilities that they must leverage in order to destroy the city and prevent the defenders from building new areas.  The iconography on both the tiles and monster record sheets conveniently displays all the necessary information without cluttering up the amazing artwork, so players will always know at a glance what their options are and which monsters are the most threatening or which city tiles look tastiest.

I couldn't resist including the art for Lukar - my favorite monster!

Overall: Unfortunately, I didn't get nearly enough opportunities to play the demo of Kaiju City while I was at G-Fest, but based on watching a handful of games in addition to my own I have to say that this is a refreshing, beautiful and just plain fun game.  The human player will have some tense moments where they'll have to decide which city tiles will be most advantageous to play that turn and the monster player will have to carefully coordinate where they move their kaiju in order to inflict the most mayhem.  Hopefully Bonsai Entertainment will be able to deliver on some amazing components if and when they get funded because everything else in this game is as solid as Gamera's shell.

Review: Small World

Whenever the opportunity has come up lately, I've been playing Small World by Days of Wonder.  Small World takes roughly 40-80 minutes to play depending on how many players you have.  The game supports 2-5 players and is a wonderful blend of simple rules and strategic depth.

Components:  Small World starts off with incredible artwork from Miguel Coimbra and soars from there.  The game doesn't have any plastic figures, but the plethora of thick card stock tokens is both functional and pleasing on a tactile level.  The game comes with 2 double sided boards that are used for different numbers of players.  Each of these boards is colorful and easy to read with a layout that divides the world into various regions - forests, mines, plains, etc.

Gameplay:  In Small World, you'll be competing for victory points over a set number of turns.  Players take control of a variety of fantasy races that are combined with a random special power.  Often hilarious and sometimes scary, much of the strategy and replay value of the game is nested under the different race and power combinations that come up. These races conquer regions by either claiming empty lands or giving a swift boot to whoever happens to be there at the time.  As play progresses, players will reach a point where their current race can't spread much farther and they must go into decline.  From there, the player will choose a new race and power combo and start all over again!  Deciding when to go into decline is a very compelling aspect of the game.  Generally, you'll get less points on a turn when you put a race into decline, but it's worth it for the opportunity to start fresh conquests!

Rules: Small World is sheer elegance in its simplicity.  The basic rule for conquest is to place 2 of your tokens on the territory of your choosing plus 1 additional token for each piece that is already there.  For example, if you're conquering an empty territory, you'd just place 2 of your race's tokens down.  However, if an opponent has 2 of their race tokens in said territory it will cost you 4 of yours to take it (2 as the base + 2 for the two enemy tokens present).  This rule is further modified by the a player's race ability and their special power.

Overall:  Simply put, Small World is a masterpiece.  The game is gorgeous to look at and fun to play on a tactile and strategic level.  It works as a gateway game, plays casually and yet has enough meat on its bones to keep even the most curmudgeonly gamer satisfied.  The only downsides (if they can even be called that) are that there are a vast amount of cardboard pieces to keep track of (which can make cleaning up after a game a lengthy process) and the random distribution of race/power combinations (which can lead to some very opportune turns for someone lucky enough to get the right combo) - but those are nitpicky negatives at best.  Small World should be in your collection, hands down.

From the Wishlist: Dominant Species

This is a new kind of post that I've been kicking around for a while.  I've got a massive list of games on my wishlist and every now and then I have to go back and refresh myself on what I'm waiting to buy and why.  With that in mind, I thought a series of entries about some games on my wishlist might be enough to entice other people to take an interest as well as foreshadow some of my upcoming reviews.

For the first installment of "From the Wishlist", I'd like to discuss Dominant Species by GMT Games.  GMT is, of course, the company behind Twilight Struggle - a game which sits atop the charts over on Board Game Geek.  I have limited experience with their games, but they generally cater more towards complex themes using simple components.  Dominant Species is no exception.

The box art pretty much says it all.

The game chronicles an encroaching ice age and the struggles of various types of animals as they try and adapt and compete over resources that are becoming more and more finite.  Now, I'm a huge fan of biology and evolution so the theme for this game has got me hook line and sinker.  The mechanics focus on worker placement, tile placement and area control, but I haven't been able to see it in action yet.  The rulebook is posted online, but I generally get a better idea for a game when I have the components on hand to reference.  Speaking of the components, I've found a few images/videos of them online and...well...they're definitely the weakest selling point of the game for me.

Photo credit - Penteado, BoardGameGeek.com

I don't want to go too nuts posting other people's pictures of the game, but I feel that this one best encompasses the overall package that is Dominant Species.  For me, what you see here does not match what you see on the box.  The colors are muted and the components are all abstract representations.  If this were a Fantasy Flight game, you can bet that there would be about 250 little plastic insects, reptiles and mammals.  With that being said, I'm a sucker for wooden components and these little blocks and cones remind me a lot of Pandemic which is a game where the abstraction of the theme works perfectly.  Obviously, all I can do without playing the game is judge the pieces aesthetically.  While they might not be as grandiose as I'd like them to be, they do look well made and functional which is really all a gamer can ask for - everything else is gravy.

Dominant Species carries a hefty $79 price tag.  Obviously, online retailers can offer it for a considerable discount, so it's up to each gamer to decide whether they want to save some cash or throw a lot of support behind their friendly local game store (expect a post about that debate soon).  For my money, I could definitely see myself paying retail for this game.  While the components might be lackluster, the theme has me salivating.  Coupled with a strong position on the BGG charts and a number of favorable reviews, I find myself helpless to resist the call of nature to change, adapt and thrive.

Since this is a new "feature" on the blog, I'm anxious for your feedback.  Let me know what you guys like and dislike about From the Wishlist and the blog in general.  As always, thanks for reading!

First Impressions: Civilization and the Lord of the Rings LCG

This past Saturday was a good day for gamin'.  I got to head to my friendly local game store after class and spend the whole day playing games.  We started off with Civiliza...err, Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, got to try the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game and ended on a high note with Red November.  Now, I've already reviewed Red November and both Civilization and LotR were learning games, so I'm just going to give some impressions and notes rather than any full reviews.

First up was Civilization.  Before I say anything else, I must once again give Fantasy Flight Games kudos for posting all of their rulebooks online.  Being able to skim the rules beforehand (as well as watching Drakkenstrike's excellent components breakdown) took some of the edge off of setting up the game, but we still took out time with the rules until we got used to the turn order.  The components lived up to Fantasy Flight's usual standard - especially the map tiles, which were rich and vibrant, and the market board, which hosted a lot of mechanics/components very efficiently.  I was particularly enamored with the combat system, but I'll save that analysis for the full review.  Overall, Civilization was a blast and I am eagerly looking forward to playing it again.

Now, halfway through Civilization, I noticed a brand new box sitting up on the demo shelf.  I gasped audibly and leapt our of my chair to grab it and peruse it's grim contents.  This was the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game - a game that I've been lustily eyeing for a while now.  It's good.  Very good.  Probably one of the best cooperative experiences I've had from Fantasy Flight.  The cards are stunning and I often found myself totally absorbed in reading the bountiful flavor text and staring wide-eyed at the beautiful portraits on each card.  If you like the idea of forming a fellowship consisting of your favorite characters from the books as well as a few unique additions provided by FFG, then check this game out - and bring a friend.  I'll be reviewing this as soon as I can get my Gollum-like mitts on a copy.  In the meantime, there's a wonderful introductory video series on the FFG page (at the bottom).

Lastly, as the store was closing, we broke out Red November.  For this game, we were joined by a few new recruits who had never served aboard a gnomish submarine before.  Due to time constraints, we ended up rushing a bit and there were a few turns that were dominated by one player or another dictating what someone should do (a classic problem with co-op games), but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves - despite the fact that the sub somehow caught fire and we all died.

Things will be quiet for the next week as I head out of town for Thanksgiving.  I've got a few posts in the works, though, so expect a lot more in the coming weeks.  Have a safe and happy holiday!

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game

Last night I sat down to a game of Talisman.  This is becoming an annual affair for me - an itch that I feel the need to scratch once every 10-15 months.  Often considered to be something a classic, Talisman is a strange mix of mechanics that I have no reason to like, but that I still enjoy every once in a while.  But I don't want to spoil my review, so read on, intrepid adventurer and see if the quest for the Crown of Command is right for you...

Components: There's not a lot to say about Talisman's components.  It's Fantasy Flight.  The figures are top notch, the cards are sturdy and the board is absolutely gorgeous.  I'd like to point out the artwork on the board itself.  The board is laid out in fairly standard Ameritrash style (simply square spaces going around the board), but the artwork and layout do wonders in making it feel like a more lush and definitive setting than, say, Monopoloy.

Talisman's board injects a lot of theme and flavor into what is an otherwise very basic design

Gameplay: This is where Talisman suffers the most.  The gameplay is completely random.  Roll based movement means that you can never be sure where you're going to end up.  You do have the ability to move either clockwise or counter-clockwise around the board, but that often ends up just being a choice between landing on a space where something bad will happen or a space where something potentially bad will happen.  Much like Settlers of Catan, there is no meaningful strategy that one can apply to playing Talisman.  You're basically spending the whole game reacting to your opponents moves and your own luck with the dice and encounter card deck.

Rules: For what it is, the rules work very well in Talisman and are as balanced as they can be in a game that is based almost exclusively on chance.  Characters roll dice, decide which space to move to and then are confronted with challenges that largely consist of a random roll to see if they can reap their space's rewards while avoiding it's pitfalls or drawing from the event deck and hoping you pull a shiny new sword instead of a devastating dragon.

Overall: Despite my harsh breakdown of the gameplay & rules, I still like to play Talisman - just not often.  The theme and overarching goal of the game is something you'd expect to see in a strategic, choice-driven fantasy game like Descent or Runebound, but the reality is that need to approach Talisman as a casual, goofy game where you may end up as a toad hopping around avoiding ghosts or a troll decked out in Holy Crosses and Crusading lances with a unicorn mount.  This game will often leave you feeling helpless and without any control over your own destiny in the game, but with so many tactical games that hinge upon a player's actions from turn to turn, Talisman offers the opportunity to just kick back, roll some dice and see what happens.

Super Dungeon Explore - Preview

I'm still working on how I'm going to format entries that aren't reviews (and how I'm going to format reviews that aren't just copy/pastes from boardgaming.com), but for now let me go ahead and share this link to the D6 Generation Facebook page that shows off all the components of Super Dungeon Explore by Soda Pop Miniatures.

Ok, yeah.  That was basically an excuse to cram as many links as possible in as short a post possible, but the game looks really damn good.  I'm looking forward to the possibility of a D6G review and/or some video reviews on Board Game Geek.

Chaos in the Old World

Chaos in the Old World is a competitive game for 3-4 players by Fantasy Flight Games. It's widely considered to be best with 4 players and I, for one, can't imagine why you would play it with any less. The game plays in about 90 minutes, with the usual addition of 20-30 additional minutes for first time players

Before I begin, an anecdote – Last winter, some friends and I got together to play Chaos in the Old World (CitOW) on a Friday night. We started around 9pm and did not stop until 5am. We played 4-5 consecutive games and would’ve played another had we not been starving. The game hits the table very often in my group and we always have a blast with it.

Components: Normally I’d just say “It’s Fantasy Flight” and be on my merry way to the next segment. CitOW has a fantastic set of components. The cards and tokens are top notch, sturdy stock. The board is a work of art consisting of a large map of the Old World that has been etched onto pieces of skin stitched together (the game is very grimdark) and the innovative dials that track the progress of each of the Chaos *s. However, there is one black mark against the game in this category and that is the figures – specifically, the cultists. Each of the Ruinous Powers has their own set of figures and the daemon and greater daemon models are very well modeled. The cultists figures, however, are the same sculpt for each faction and have a long banner pole that is topped with a very fragile 8-pointed Star of Chaos. This banner is very thin and fragile and after a few games, you’ll likely notice that many cultists are just carrying a stick rather than a banner. I have still given the game a 5/5 for components because everything else is so good, but those cultists pieces are worth pointing out.

Rules: CitOW stands out as one of the first Fantasy Flight games that has had an easily comprehensible and well laid out rulebook. Of particular note is the incredibly well written section that gives players pointers on how to play each of the Chaos *s and how to deal with their rivals. The mechanics for this game do an amazing job of creating a setting where dark *s plot and scheme against one another and after a turn or two, everything makes sense. I’ve had a chance to bring this to the table multiple times and not once has anyone I’ve played with before faltered with the rules – it’s like riding a bike.

Gameplay: One of the best features of CitOW is that each of the four Chaos *s is unique. Though they all follow the same rules, each one has a particular flavor and sphere of influence that they can focus on for victory. After my first play through I got a good feel for how each Ruinous Power played and in subsequent games my group and I were able to leverage our strengths to their fullest. Even with new players, the game never feels like it’s dragging and the unique dual victory conditions of the Chaos dials and the victory track give players strategic options for pursuing domination.

Overall: I really don’t have enough good things to say about CitOW. The game has never let me down and is probably played more than anything else within my circle of friends. Being a fan of Warhammer definitely doesn’t hurt, but unlike other Fantasy Flight/Games Workshop games, CitOW doesn’t suffer from being exclusionary to folks who don’t know their Nurgles from the Tzeentches.

Red November

Red November is a cooperative board game for 1-8 players by Fantasy Flight Games. It plays in about 60 minutes, but can be significantly less if you have a group who knows how to play the game. That door swings both ways, though and new players should expect to add an additional 20-30 minutes for learning the rules.

Before I even begin, Red November is as frustrating as it is hilarious. I know several people who despise it because it never feels like you’re gaining any ground, but that’s what makes it so much fun for me. When you’ve got a bunch of drunk gnomes trying to keep a submarine together, things are bound to go wrong.

Components: My experience with the game was with the smaller, first edition. It is my understanding that the revised edition has a more streamlined rulebook, a larger board and new item cards. That being said, the first edition was just fine for me and my friends and had components that lived up to the Fantasy Flight Games pedigree.

Rules: Red November’s rules were a little hinky to grasp at first. The revised rulebook is laid out a bit better and streamlines many of the mechanics, but I’d still be aware that your first go through might take a little more time than the recommended 60 minutes play time.

Gameplay: The premise behind Red November is that your crew of gnomish sailors is racing against the clock to keep their sub together while they desperately try and surface so that they can be rescued. In this case, the mechanics fit the theme very well. The Red November is a hunk of junk that makes the Millenium Falcon look like a ship of the line. Using a time track along the perimeter of the board, each play has the option of committing themselves to as many actions as they please. Each action takes you a certain number of steps along the time track – which itself is dotted with various events and mishaps. As you progress along the track, you’ll be forced to decide whether or not you want to keep fixing things and moving around or stop and wait for the events you’ve accumulated so far to resolve. Often times, this leads to getting all the way across the sub to put out a fire only to have the chamber you left start flooding. As more players are added to the chaos, things can go very badly very quickly. Teamwork is key – unless of course one of your mates decides to jump ship and leave the rest to sink to the bottom of the sea…

Overall: It seems like a lot of gamers aren’t too fond of Red November, but as a portable co-op game with a fair amount of depth it truly shines. Even the new revised edition can be thrown in a backpack and set up on the fly and the game is always good for a laugh. Players almost always start panicking after the first turn and the games deft mix of tension and humor is unique for a game of it’s stature.