Review of Rhein: River Trade [#JonathanFranklin]

Rhein: River Trade

• • Designers: Marco Canetta and Stefania Niccolini
  • Artists: Alan D’Amico and Mirco Paganessi
  • Publisher:Arclight, Devir Americas, Giochi Uniti, Stratelibri,and available for sale in the GeekStore
  • Players: 2-5
  • Ages: 12 and up
  • Time: 60-120 minutes (First play will be ~30 minutes per player)
  • Times Played: 3

• Game provided by Devir US for review purposes

Image by BGG: draghetto

Rhein: River Trade

Have you ever wanted to cruise on the Rhein/Rhine river?  If so, do I have a game for you.

To prepare for your cruise, you need to know what is along the Rhein and this game will teach it to you while making deliveries to many of the places you will stop at and eat.

At the same time, do you like What’s Your Game? Games like ZhanGuo and Railroad Revolution?  This game was designed by the pair who did those. This game is lighter than games from WYG, but it has almost that same level of crunch, so if you are looking for a 45 minute snack of a game, this might not be the right appropriate.

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Game of Trains

• Designer: Trehgrannik
• Publisher: Brain Games
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 8+
• Time: 20-30 minutes
• Times played: 5, with review copy provided by Brain Games

Game of Trains is a small format card game which has been described by more than one gamer in my group as “Ticket to Rack-O”.  In this game, players each start with a locomotive card.  Each player is dealt 7 railcar cards (from a deck of 84 numbered cards), and at the start of the game, these cards are placed in descending order behind the locomotive card.  The goal in the game is to change or rearrange the railcars so that they are in ascending numerical order.  The first player to achieve this will win the game.

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Orient Express

• Designers: Carla and Jeff Horger
• Publisher: Rio Grande Games
• Players: 2-5
• Ages: 14+
• Time: 60-75 minutes
• Times played: 3, with review copy provided by Rio Grande Games

Orient Express is a new 2017 release from Rio Grande Games, and it is a sequel to 20th Century Limited, a 2015 release by the same duo.  In this new version of the game, players control competing railway companies – each trying to contribute the most to the Orient Express.

The board is a hex-map of Europe, with many labeled cities scattered around the map (more or less in their real locations).  A nationalism track is found out in the Atlantic Ocean off to the left of the British Isles.  Next to the board are four Passenger cards (with a draw deck next to them).  These passenger cards have 4 cities on them and a point value for the card beneath the cities.  Additionally, at the top, there is a small crescent area which has one of nine different Bonus Scoring designs.  On the other side of the board, the nine decks of regional cards are found.  To start the game, each player then gets 5 cards which can be chosen from the passenger cards, passenger deck or from any of the 9 regional decks.  (The rules also give you a starter setup of cards which appear to give a balanced start.)  Players also get a player aid sheet, 35 track pieces, and 10 Entry Waivers (which are white cubes).  Finally, three bonus cards – one from each of three decks – is randomly selected and placed next to the board as well. Continue reading →

Joraku

• Designer: Iori Tsukinami
• Publisher: Moaideas Game Design / Tasty Minstrel Games
• Players: 3-4
• Ages: 14+
• Time: ~60 minutes
• Times played: 5 total, 2 with original version from Moaideas, 3 with new version from TMG

Joraku is a new release from Tasty Minstrel Games.  The game was originally produced by Moaideas, a publishing house which has had a lot of interesting games in the past few years: Guns & Steel, Flip City, League of Hackers – just to name a few.  There is a budding partnership between the two companies as TMG has also released new versions of Guns & Steel and Flip City in the past.

The game can be described as a “trick taking card game with a strong area-control aspect”.  In this game, players are trying to march their armies to Kyoto.  This version of the game has a four part board (made of smallish tiles)  that shows a stylized map of Japan that is split up into 7 segments – the left most column is un-numbered (representing Kyoto), and then the next six are numbered from 1 to 6, increasing as you go to the right.  At the bottom of each section is a chart that shows the scoring for each of the three rounds in the game.  In general, the highest scoring areas in the first round are on the right, the highest scoring areas in the second round are in the middle, and the highest scoring areas in the third round are on the left. Continue reading →