Haspelknecht

• Designer: Thomas Spitzer
• Publisher: Capstone Games
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 12+
• Time: 60-90 minutes
• Times played: 3, with review copy provided by Capstone Games

Haspelknecht is the third game in Herr Spitzer’s Coal Trilogy (the other games being the unspellable Ruhrschifffahrt as well as Kohle & Kolonie).  I have had the chance to each of the other two Coal Series games once, and I liked my initial foray into each.  When I was approached by Capstone Games to try out Haspelknecht, I was most definitely interested.  Even more so when I read that the game length was 60-90 minutes.  Part of the reason that I had not gotten the first two games to the table more often is that it’s often hard for us to get a 2-3 hour game scheduled on our weekly game nights.

In this game, players have a personal board which shows their farm and the coal deposits hidden beneath.  The upper area is the “Pinge” – this is the low hanging fruit of coal mining – it’s lumps of coal on the ground that you can just dig up with your shovel.  You place coal cubes everywhere on your board where you see the black cube icon. Continue reading →

Wind the Film

• Designer Saashi
• Publisher Saashi & Saaashi
• Player Count 2-4
• Time 20 Minutes

If you remember when you had to take pictures with a camera with film and not a phone or a memory card you are in for a treat with this interesting card game. Wind the Film is the latest game from Saashi, designer of 2015’s sleeper hit Coffee Roaster.

The theme revolves around the use of a popular old camera used in japan. It allows the photographer to place 2 images in a single frame. In this game cards represent the film and the pictures. The goal to have great pictures in every roll of film.

What’s in the box:

• English and Japanese rulebooks.
• 84 cards numbered 1-12 in 7 colors/suites. Each color represents a roll of film and tells a little story.
• 7 Good Shot cards one in each color.
• 1 Sunset card
• 1 Score pad
• 4 summary cards

How to play:

The number of suites used is dependent on the number of players. A Good Shot card for each color used is available.  The sunset card is shuffled into the top portion of the bottom third of the deck.  Each player is dealt 5 cards. You are not allowed to change the order of the cards.  Then the scenes are placed in the display to draw from in 4 columns with the middle 2 columns being placed face down. The backs of the cards indicate what color the card is in addition to whether the card is numbered 1-6 or 6-12.

Choose the Scene – the active player picks up 1 to 3 cards in a row starting from the outer edge and adds them to their hand in order to the front.

Wind the Film – the player can then choose to move exactly 1 card from anywhere in their hand forward and number of spaces.

Snap the Shot – play the exact same number of cards into their tableau. Each color will have its own film strip or row.  After the first card is played they must decide whether subsequent cards will played into to the film strip of the same color by ascending or descending order. Cards must be within value 3 of the previously played card. If the card played meets the criteria it goes face up. If the card played does not meet that criteria for any film strip it is a blurry picture and must be played face down into the film strip. It is worth negative 2 at the end of the game.

If a player has a certain number of good shots which are played in the same color they may earn the Good shot bonus card worth points at the end of the game

If the display has 3 or less cards it is refilled. When the sunset card is drawn the game pauses and players play 2 additional cards from the back of their hand shrinking their hand to 3 for the remainder of the game. Prior to playing those cards they may wind the film once.

The game ends when the display has 3 or less cards after refilling. The players may wind the film once more then they play the 2 cards from the back of their hand. The film strip which matches the color of the remaining card in hand scores zero points.

Points are scored for the number of face up cards and 5 points for each good shot card.

My thoughts:

I’ve played with all player counts 2,3 and 4 and found the game played well every time.

Wind the Film makes good use of the “don’t rearrange the cards in your hand” mechanism. I like that it provides some information on the face down cards as well as cards held by opponents so you are taking calculated risks rather than just blind draws. While this has potential to be AP inducing I think the overall light weight of the game and the limitation of information will prevent this. The choices to make when “choosing the scene” or picking up cards can be straight forward or a tension filled especially later in the game. There is definitely interaction as players compete for the same cards. It’s also possible to leave other players with less than ideal scenes to choose. For a simple set collecting game I feel like Wind the Film provides an interesting challenge and makes a great filler.

Thoughts from Other Opinionated Gamers:

Joe Huber (1 play): Recently, many of the Japanese designers have pushed into the traditional European game space, adding components and complexity.  While some of these games are quite good, what drew me to Japanese games in the first place was the combination of interesting themes and simple but fresh combinations of mechanisms.  And that’s what makes Wind The Film so good – the “can’t sort your hand” dilemma of Bohnanza updated with an exception that ties in well to the very fitting theme of taking pictures on film.  I will need to play the game more to know for sure, but I’m hopeful it will move from “like” to “love” for me.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it! Lorna

I like it. Joe H.

Neutral.

Not for me…