Keymaster was going with the farm theme this year with its quick little exploding egg push-your-luck dice game, Chicken! and then Keymaster’s upcoming farm sim, Harvest, which goes up on Kickstarter at the end of this month.
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“In Woodcraft, you play as forest people running competing workshops in the woods, with you gathering wood and crafting goods for your customers. Along the way, you hire helpers, improve your workshop, and buy different types of wood and other tools to create the best workshop you can. During the game, players complete their projects with wood (dice) that can be cut down to size, glued back together, and adjusted using dice manipulation to be as efficient as possible with their resources. Whoever builds the best, most successful workshop wins.”
The action wheel board is set up with 7 action tiles being placed in one quadrant. The arc tile is placed over the reward icons. The circular saw points to the end of the next quadrant. Finally, 2 dice of each color are rolled and placed on the board. The income board is set next to this, with the round marker on the first space of that track. Each player places a counter on the hazelnut track, the blueberry track and the reputation track. Tiles are placed on the reputation track on the paler spaces. There are bonuses that are achieved on each of the tracks as you pass them. The scoreboard is somehow shoehorned onto the table, and players start at 0 on this track. 4 order cards are dealt above the board, and 4 helpers are below the board. Finally, N+1 contracts are dealt and placed somewhere where everyone can see them.
I have to appreciate how The OP has bucked the trend on titles and has handily shortened their name from the past, although traces of it still appear hidden in their demo area. In my booth visit to The OP, I was given a tour of four of their newest titles. The A.R.T. Project has players cooperatively trying to recover lost art. Express Route is another co-op but this one has a pickup and delivery theme. The Perfect Wave is a tableau builder about surfing and What the Cup!? is vaguely like Liar’s Dice but with a single 12 sided die per person (bear with me here…)
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The quick pitch: In The Lord of the Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom, players follow the story of Frodo’s perilous journey to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. He is accompanied by his familiar fellowship, who are charged with protecting him from the dangers he will face along the way. The players control the fortunes of this company together by moving the individual figures across the game board on a journey through many well-known places from the beloved Lord of the Rings novels. It is important to beware of the Nazgul while at the same time making sure that Frodo does not lose his confidence and freeze in despair. When Frodo reaches Mount Doom, the players have all won together.
As always, HABA was in full force displaying those kids titles that the powers that be decided to bring over to the US. In addition to a very cool mega-sized Animal Upon Animal setup there was an unusual breadth of games. There were the almost-a-game Wiggle Waggle Geese and The Duck Game and the more advanced puzzle-guessing Key series. What you may not have expected was Capt’N Pepe: Treasure Ahoy!, a legacy game aimed at ages 6+.
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“What’s old is now new” seems to be the slogan of the Renegade booth. They’ve acquired the rights to several older games and are rereleasing them, hoping to attract a new audience. Acquire, Diplomacy, Robo Rally, and the line of Axis & Allies games have all been polished up for new release.
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