Larry Levy: Review of Marco Polo II

Posted on December 3, 2020 by huzonfirst

Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

  • Designers:  Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini
  • Artist:  Dennis Lohausen
  • Publisher:  Hans im Glück
  • Players:  2-4
  • Age:  12+
  • Time:  60-120 minutes
  • Times Played:  4, all online

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Italian-designed games.  Simone Luciani, in particular, has created some terrific games over the past 10 years, with The Voyages of Marco Polo (which he co-designed with Daniele Tascini back in 2015) being one of my all-time favorites.  So when the two of them released a sequel last year, cleverly called Marco Polo II (which I will henceforth refer to as MP2), I obviously was the first one in line to buy it, right?  Well, actually, no.  See, another of my gaming quirks is avoiding expansions, spinoffs, and sequels of existing titles.  I love exploring new things, so I’d much rather devote my limited gaming time and budget on brand new designs.  The rules for MP2 made it clear that it shared an awful lot in common with MP1, so I was in no hurry to check it out.  However, Boardgame Arena recently came up with a beta version of MP2 for online play.  A friend of mine tried it and said he really enjoyed it, so when he asked me and some others to check it out, I happily agreed.  Getting the chance to try something new in the midst of my personal lockdown was something to look forward to, sequel or not.  So, did the irresistible force of a Luciani game overcome the immovable object of my prejudice against spinoffs, or was it the other way around?

Rather than keep you in suspense, the tl;dr answer is:  I loved it.  MP2 is one of my favorite designs of 2019 and the only real question is if I prefer the original or the newcomer.  Let me explain why this sequel worked, while so many others didn’t.  But first, I need to go over the workings of the game.  I’ll focus on the things that are different between MP2 and MP1, but for the benefit of those of you who haven’t played MP1, let me briefly list the mechanisms that the two games share.

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Weekly Giveaway #1 – Pendulum

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Dale Yu

OK, we’ve spent a lot of time this year writing up reviews, and frankly, there’s not enough room in the Gaming Basement for all of them…. So, we thought it would be a neat idea to start a series of weekly giveaways where our loyal readers can enter in raffles to win these games! We’d love to see the games end up in homes where they can get played and enjoyed!

First up – Pendulum from Stonemaier Games. Read our review here!

Unfortunately, for the time being, we’re going to limit this to US mailing addresses only. Given the cost of international shipping right now – it might actually cost us more than the value of the game to mail it abroad – and well, we don’t have the budget for that… As long as the game fits into a USPS flat rate box, that’s how we’re going to send it to you.

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Suzie-Q

Posted on December 2, 2020 by xitoliv

Designer: Hisashi Hayashi
Artist: Ryo Nyamo
Publisher: OKAZU Brand
Players: 2-5
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Times Played: 4 with a purchased copy

Suzie-Q an auction of game of sorts, though it feels a bit odd to describe it that way. More specifically, it’s an interpretation of a “unique bid auction”, where bids are made blindly, but it isn’t the highest or lowest bid that will win. Rather, it is the “unique” one. What is the best known example, at least to me, is something like a “Guess the lowest number” contest for hundreds or thousands of people (or convention attendees). Of course it isn’t just the lowest, it is the lowest unique, and that’s where the barbecue spices are.

What Suzie-Q does is, well, a few things. Firstly, you’ll be writing three digit numbers and, to score, each of your digits will need to be unique from the other players, not just the number as a whole!

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Toraja (Preview)

Posted on December 1, 2020 by xitoliv

Designers: Hamzah Alfarabi, Vicky Belladino
Artist: Aulia Azziawaty
Publisher: Congkak Fun Factory
Players: 1-5
Ages: 12+
Times Played: 4 on my demo copy

This will be a different sort of post, as this game isn’t available…yet.  This is one of the titles that was being demoed at the Indonesian booth at Spiel 2019, but this year’s events have delayed me talking about for a bit. As I understand it, the game is still in development, so everything I say below could be different if you have a change to play.

Toraja is a game about managing a coffee plantation in the eponymous region of South Sulawesi in Indonesia. Mechanically, it is at home in the “roll & write” genre, but rather than being dice based, it uses a card draft.

You’ll be planting coffee trees, reading up on the latest scientific literature, building a road to transport your fruits, planting clove trees to enhance the flavor, irrigating your trees, and a bit more.

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Dale Yu: Review of Cloud City

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Dale Yu

Cloud City

  • Designer: Phil Walker-Harding
  • Publisher: Blue Orange
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30-45 minutes
  • Times played: 3, with review copy provided by Blue Orange

cloud city

Cloud City is another Phil Walker-Harding game that I pretty much loved from the get-go (the others were Cacao, Gizmos and Barenpark).  For some reason, his designs just hit my sweet spot.  They tend to be on the simpler side, yet they offer enough depth to remain interesting for multiple plays.  In Cloud City, players are competing architects, trying to come up with the best plan for the skyscrapers that poke up through the clouds.

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Posted in Essen 2020, Reviews | 1 Comment

Gloomhaven: Does it live up to the hype? (Review by RJ Garrison)

Posted on November 28, 2020 by RJ Garrison

Gloomhaven

Designer:  Issac Childres

Publisher:  Cephalofair Games

Artists: Alexandr Elichev, Josh T. McDowell, and Alvaro Nebot

Players:  1-4

Playing Time:  60-120 minutes (I’ve also seen 30 minute/ player)

Ages:  12+

MSRP: $140.00

Photos provided by Cephalofair Games

In December of 2017, Designer Issac Childres took the #1 spot for board games on the world’s #1 board game site, www.boardgamegeek.com (BGG), with his massive “Euro-inspired tactical combat” game, Gloomhaven.  Gloomhaven knocked Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau’s Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 out of the top spot and has been holding steady since.  

Gloomhaven’s first kickstarter in 2015 raised over $386,000 and the kickstarter for the second printing raised nearly $4 million!  The upcoming sequel to Gloomhaven, riding on the coattails of Gloomhaven’s popularity, Frosthaven broke records for crowdfunding and raised close to $13 million!  To date, over 200,000 copies of Gloomhaven have been sold.  That’s a lot of people owning a lot of Gloomhaven.  The game has a rating of 8.8 (out of 10) on BGG with 39,366 ratings as of the printing of this article.  Over 15k gamers have rated the game a perfect ‘10.’  But does the game live up to expectations?

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