Josiah Fiscus is one of our newer members, and he writes up a monthly recap of the games he plays. He is planning to repost his thoughts here.
March 2024Games I played for the first time this month, from worst to best, along with my ratings and comments.
Lorcana – 4/10 I have been in tune with the Collectible Card Game world almost since the beginning. For my high school senior project, I wrote a paper on the history of CCGs and designed my own (it wasn’t very good!). So if you haven’t been playing and reading about this genre for the past three decades like I have, and instead are a person who simply “likes Disney”, don’t let me yuck your yum. But Lorcana is, in my view, a simplistic, derivative, soulless game that misunderstands what makes CCGs so great.
Magic: The Gathering is, of course, the granddaddy of all CCGs. And really since its inception, there have been people clamoring to remove the variability from its mana (cost) system. The idea of simply playing any card facedown as a mana source, rather than having to draw specific cards that do this, goes back at least 20 years to games like Duel Masters and VS System. And there have been many more since then that have done this as well. Lorcana uses this exact same concept and presents it as innovative. Beyond this, it simply uses the same power/toughness stats and renamed keywords that many other games have already more adroitly copied from Magic.
Absent this context, I might find Lorcana to be merely boring. But the lack of innovation combined with runaway success is frustrating to me, in the same way that the success of Taco Bell must be frustrating to authentic mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants. If you slap Disney branding onto something, it will sell more, that’s just a fact. Never mind the fact that Stitch and Sergeant Tibbs and the Duke of Weselton are all functionally the same card. What a missed opportunity to embrace the flavor of the vast library the designers can pull from!
I’ve only played with the starter decks, so it’s possible that more complex cards do exist that better capture the flavor of the world. It’s also possible that deck building provides challenges that would elevate the mechanics here in my view. But it won’t ever be able to fully escape the insipid nature of its overall design.
Player with review copy provided by Flat River Games
During the great Arab Agricultural Revolution, hardworking farmers transformed the landscape of the Alpujarra into a world of bounty. With their innovative irrigation and terracing techniques, they brought water to the hillsides to create fertile farmlands. In this game, take on the role of a fruit farmer, diligently working to grow your crops and deliver them to the hillside villages. Life here is not easy, but with tenacity and dedication, you can live a rewarding life close to this wonderful land and all its beauty.
Alpujarras is a turn-based game in which players move their mules around an action track outside the game board. The player who is furthest behind takes the turn and moves their mule to an action space to perform an action.
Played with review copy provided by distributor, Hachette USA
NOW! is a real-time competitive card game where everyone plays at the same time.
Discard your cards as quickly as possible in search of the perfect number! Watch out, your deck is limited and you’ll go through it faster than you’d think! Think you have the best card? Shout «NOW!» Get as close as possible to the target numbers(without going over!) to win them. Get the most points, leaving your opponents with none. And, most importantly, try to keep your cool, while everyone else loses theirs!
Played with preview copy provided by Taiwan Boardgames
Formosa Tea was originally released around 2019 and I remember seeing it at Essen. The original Taiwanese version was done by Soso, and the English version was done by Tasty Minstrel Games. It seems like both had small print runs, and there wasn’t a reprint done, so this game was hard to get a hold of. There is a new KS project to bring the game back to the market and offer a few new rules to tighten the game up a bit. I was sent an advance copy of the game (Well, actually an original version with the new rules and some new bits) to try out. FWIW, I never owned nor reviewed the original version, and while my records say that I played it once, I didn’t recall many of the details of the game – so essentially the game was new to me when I played it last week.
The synopsis from the publisher:
The sub-tropical climate and environment of Taiwan makes the island highly suitable for cultivating top quality tea. But it wasn’t not until the 19th century after English businessman John Dodd discovered some amazing Oolong tea there that the Taiwanese tea business truly begin to bloom and “Formosa Tea” became world-renowned.
In Formosa Tea, players are tea farm owners competing to harvest the best tea leaves, improve their tea processing techniques, and produce tea of the highest quality for not only the domestic market but also for the international market. With the unique worker placement and worker advancement mechanisms, along with the tea dehydration and scenting processing, players must use their workers wisely to make the best tea in the market. —
Before there were these funny electronic devices that seem to be everywhere, I remember road trips where we had to make our own entertainment. One “20 questions”-style game that we played focused on solving a mystery. Players would be given a somewhat obtuse prompt of a situation and must then figure out what happened and why by asking a series of yes/no questions. Mystery Detective collects many of those mystery puzzles, printing a title and subtle picture/clue on one side with the explanation on the back. It currently comes in two flavors: a collection of 100 “classic” riddles (many of which I remember from my childhood) and one based on “Funny Deaths” – a mix of made-up and real-life cases where things went terribly wrong.
Mystery Detective (Vol 1 & 2) Publisher: Add-A-Game Players: 2-20 Ages: 14+ Time: 15 min (review copy provided by publisher)
The Phantom of the Opera is based on the novel and in the game, one player takes on the role of the Phantom (Erik) and the other Christine.The Phantom of the Opera is the latest game from designer Geonil, who also designed Jekyll vs Hyde from 2021. Like the first design, Phantom is a 2 player trick taking game. The goal of the Phantom is to complete a sheet of music by placing tokens on each note while Christine’s goal is to prevent this.
The game components consist of a deck of cards of 4 suits, a game board or sheet of music (3 different boards are included), 12 markers for the sheet music and 1 die.
Players are dealt their hands and they must each exchange one card. The lead player for the round (the Phantom starts the first round and Christine the second) chooses one of the numbers of the 2 exchanged cards as special and uses the die to note the number.
Players will then play their hand out in a series of tricks. It is a must follow game and there are a few twists in regards to trump. The mask suit is always trump but there may also be super trump which depends on the last trick taken and marked on the music sheet. Above each bar is an icon for one of the 4 suits and if the last trick was taken in that bar then the corresponding icon becomes super trump.
The sheet music has 12 notes, some of which are on or below the middle line and some of which are above. The notes on the music sheet that are on the middle or lower half of the staff and those tricks must be won by the Phantom who places a token over the note. Notes on the upper half of the staff must be won by Christine in order for the Phantom to place a token on the note.
If a special number card is played during a trick, the players must immediately trade cards from their hand. In addition if the trick is correctly won corresponding to the music sheet, an extra token is placed on the music. If the trick is incorrectly won, then the last 2 tokens placed are removed from the sheet music.
After the first is played the cards are collected and shuffled. Tokens are left covering the music. Christine starts the second round. If the Phantom covers all 12 notes they win immediately. If Christine is able to prevent this until the end of the round they win.
Final thoughts: Trick taking games that can be played with 2 players are rare and finding an interesting one is even more rare. I’m glad I found this one!
The Phantom of the Opera is nicely thematic following the tale we all know so well. The art is well done with the suits corresponding to key points of the story.
I really enjoy the little twists to the game play. Deciding when to play a special number and what cards to exchange provides lots of crunch decisions in a short time. The challenge of needing to win or lose certain tricks in a set order makes it a bit more interesting than just trying to win X amount of tricks such as in Fox in the Forest. The asymmetric winning conditions make it an interesting game where playing both sides is fun like in Jekyll vs. Hyde.
Josiah’s Round Up March 2024
Josiah Fiscus is one of our newer members, and he writes up a monthly recap of the games he plays. He is planning to repost his thoughts here.
March 2024 Games I played for the first time this month, from worst to best, along with my ratings and comments.
Lorcana – 4/10 I have been in tune with the Collectible Card Game world almost since the beginning. For my high school senior project, I wrote a paper on the history of CCGs and designed my own (it wasn’t very good!). So if you haven’t been playing and reading about this genre for the past three decades like I have, and instead are a person who simply “likes Disney”, don’t let me yuck your yum. But Lorcana is, in my view, a simplistic, derivative, soulless game that misunderstands what makes CCGs so great.
Magic: The Gathering is, of course, the granddaddy of all CCGs. And really since its inception, there have been people clamoring to remove the variability from its mana (cost) system. The idea of simply playing any card facedown as a mana source, rather than having to draw specific cards that do this, goes back at least 20 years to games like Duel Masters and VS System. And there have been many more since then that have done this as well. Lorcana uses this exact same concept and presents it as innovative. Beyond this, it simply uses the same power/toughness stats and renamed keywords that many other games have already more adroitly copied from Magic.
Absent this context, I might find Lorcana to be merely boring. But the lack of innovation combined with runaway success is frustrating to me, in the same way that the success of Taco Bell must be frustrating to authentic mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants. If you slap Disney branding onto something, it will sell more, that’s just a fact. Never mind the fact that Stitch and Sergeant Tibbs and the Duke of Weselton are all functionally the same card. What a missed opportunity to embrace the flavor of the vast library the designers can pull from!
I’ve only played with the starter decks, so it’s possible that more complex cards do exist that better capture the flavor of the world. It’s also possible that deck building provides challenges that would elevate the mechanics here in my view. But it won’t ever be able to fully escape the insipid nature of its overall design.
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