Happy Pigs

• Designer: Kuraki Mura
• Publisher: IELLO
• Players: 2-6
• Ages: 10+
• Time: ~40 minutes
• Times played: 3, with review copy provided by IELLO

Happy Pigs first came out in 2013 in Asia, and had some limited availability in the West due to Swan Panasia. I had heard of the game then, but I was not able to get a copy at that time. Fast forward to 2016, and a newly done English version is available from IELLO. In this game, players are competing farmers trying to raise the best pigs to sell at the market. There are four different rounds in the game, and the player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner.

Each player gets a field board and the action cards in his color. Then, prior to starting the game, each player is allowed to buy any five things from the supply: pigs, vaccines, supplements, extra field boards, etc. The pigs come in four different sizes, and you can choose whichever size you want.

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Fast Flip

• Designers: Ken Gruhl, Quentin Weir
• Publisher: Blue Orange
• Players: 2-8
• Time: ~10 minutes
• Times played: about 10, all in a single rain delay!

Fast Flip is a new small format card game from Blue Orange.  The US branch of this company is  fairly new to the boardgaming scene, though they made a pretty good impression on me last Origins with New York 1901.  I had recently received the game in the mail, and it was actually in my game bag waiting for the next game night…  But, last weekend, while waiting out a soccer rain delay, the kids were looking for a way to pass the time, and out came Fast Flip!

The game comes in a small metal triangular shaped tin – about 4” per side – and it holds a deck of cards and some scoring tokens.  There are a number of different game modes to play, though they all rely on the same basic mechanism, being able to rapidly look at two cards and find the commonality.

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Escape the Room – Mystery at the Stargazer’s Manor

• Designers: Nicholas Cravotta & Rebecca Bleau
• Publisher: ThinkFun
• Players: 3-8
• Time: 90 minutes
• Ages: 10+
• Times played: 1, with review copy provided by ThinkFun

Escape Rooms have definitely become part of the social landscape in the past few years. These escape rooms seem to be in most major cities – if you haven’t seen them, just google it… Here in Cincinnati, we’ve had three or four different firms pop up in just the past two years. The puzzle room has also made a splash on (admittedly small) cable TV in the show Race to Escape, a weekly show on the Science channel. http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/race-to-escape/ They are currently offering a preview of a full episode to watch online at – http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/race-to-escape/race-to-escape-video/the-explorer-s-study/

Escape the Room – Mystery at Stargazer’s Manor attempts to package the real life “escape the room” game concept into a box that can be played by a group at home rather than having to pay to go to a commercial “Escape Room” or “Breakout” location. Not familiar with this type of game? No problem; here is some background… Continue reading →