Dan Blum: Sneak Preview of Food Chain Magnate

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Dan Blum

Food Chain Magnate

  • Designers: Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga
  • Publisher: Splotter Spellen
  • Players: 2-5
  • Ages: 14+
  • Time: 120-240 min

Food Chain Magnate is is the eagerly-awaited new release from Splotter, and as is traditional for Splotter games it’s complicated, on the long side, and relatively unforgiving. If you’re familiar with any of their other releases you’ll feel right at home.

food chain magnate box

As one would expect the game involves placing restaurants on a board and attracting customers to them in order to make money. However, as one might not expect the board play is fairly abstract; players will only be able to place up to three restaurants each on the board and income comes from a relatively small number of houses on the board. Which is not to say that the board play is not important – it certainly is – but the emphasis of the game is on managing your corporate structure, said structure consisting of cards for your various employees arranged in an organizational hierarchy. (I should have double-dared Jeroen to name the game “Human Resources Manager” to see how many people would still buy it.)

Continue reading →

Posted in Essen 2015, First Impressions | 1 Comment

Dale Yu: Review of DC Comics Deck Building Game: Teen Titans

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Dale Yu

 

DC Comics Deck Building Game: Teen Titans

  • Designer: Richard Brady
  • Publisher: Cryptozoic
  • Players: 2-5
  • Ages: 15+
  • Time: 30-45 minutes
  • Times played: 4 sessions with review copy provided by Cryptozoic

DC Teen Titans

As you probably are aware, I’m a big fan of deckbuilders, and everytime that I come across a new one, I like to give it a whirl to see how it stacks up.  Since the genre’s invention in 2009, there have been many different takes on the genre – and because of that, each one has been worth trying out to see what new idea(s) it might bring to the table.

In Teen Titans, you take on the role of Raven or Beast Boy (or 6 other heroes from DC Comics), and you goal is to hone your abilities to take down the most Super Villains possible (and thus have the most victory points).  You start with a ten card deck comprised of 7 punch cards and 3 Vulnerability cards.  The punch cards are your basic attack while the Vulnerability cards represent your weaknesses – and they are inert in game play. Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Dale Yu: First Impressions of Joraku (Moaideas)

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Dale Yu

 

Joraku

  • Designer: Iori Tsukinami
  • Publisher: Moaideas Game Design
  • Players: 3-4
  • Ages: 12+
  • Time: ~45 minutes

Times played: 2, with review copy provided by Moaideas / Taiwan Boardgame Design

CameraZOOM-20150913220722592

Joraku is a new release from 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.  Given that track record, I was immediately interested in their new release for this year.  It was described to me as a “trick taking card game with a strong area-control aspect”.  That pretty much clinched it for me.  In this game, players are trying to march their armies to Kyoto.

Continue reading →

Posted in Essen 2015, First Impressions | 4 Comments

Alan How: Dogs of War

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Dale Yu

 

  • Designer: Paolo Mori
  • Publisher: Cool Mini or Not
  • Players: 3-5
  • Ages: 14+
  • Time: 60-90 minutes

dogs of war box

This Cool Mini or Not game features a load of moulded plastic busts that represent the captains in the game and that seemed to be the CMoN link, so I was not expecting much from the game.  Three simultaneous tugs of war take place over four rounds and the winner comes from the person who has gained the most victory points. These are gained from being on the winning side when these tugs of war are resolved as well as a variety of other ways.

 

The captain pieces are the workers in this worker placement game and determine which side you intend to support in this tug of war struggle.  So my initial impression of a war game from the title was wrong as this is a worker placement game with variable strength workers. Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Dale Yu: First Impressions of Fief: France 1429

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Dale Yu

 

Fief: France 1429

  • Designer: Philippe Mouchebeuf
  • Publisher: Asynchron/Academy Games
  • Players: 3-6
  • Ages: 14+
  • Time: ~2-3 hours
  • Times played: 2, with review copy provided by Academy Games

Fief

Fief: France 1429 was one of those games that was on my Essen watchlist a few years ago, but due to lack of luggage space, lack of game availability and length of game playing time – never managed to make it back home…  Having once been a European History major in college, games set in Medieval Europe have always interested me, and thus I was glad to see that this game has found US distribution through Uwe Eickert’s Academy Games.

I ran into Uwe at Origins ’15, and he was quite excited to show me his new game.  In Fief, players control the fate of noble families – trying to maneuver their family members into both political and church titles – hopefully culminating in the French throne or the Papacy.  Life in 15th century France was much simpler than it is today, and the scoring systems of their games are similarly simplified when compared to 20th Century point salad games.  The game is won by any player who holds 3 Victory points at the end of any round.  The game can also be won jointly by two players in a marriage-sealed alliance if their two families jointly hold 4 Victory points at the end of each round.  More details on how to score points in a bit. Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments

Dale Yu: Getting ready for Essen

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Dale Yu

 

 

Essen-time comes ever nearer – I leave in a mere 22 days for Europe… A few people have asked me how I get ready for the trip, and this seemed like a decent topic for the blog as well.  There are so many things to consider when going to Essen, so I’m sure that this list isn’t exhaustive, but these are the things I’m thinking about this week

 

Travel – I generally fly into Duesseldorf (DUS).  This is the closest major airport to Essen.  When I arrive, it’s a short train into the Essen HBF and with my ticket, I can jump directly onto the Underground (U-Bahn) to get to the Messe.  The ticket machines are found right by the train tracks at the airport station, and they will display in English, so it should be easy to navigate.  Make sure you have cash.  The machines will take chip-and-pin cards for sure, but I’ve only had moderate success with them taking non-chipped credit cards.  There is a travel desk there where you can pay a slight upcharge to have a person sell you a ticket – but they will be able to process your credit card if you have no Euros.  On the way back, we usually just get a taxi.  First, our flight often leaves so early that I’m never sure if the trains are running yet… but more importantly, with 2 large bags, carry on and personal item per person – we’ve just never really been too excited about hauling that on foot to the U-Bahn, up the steps to the S-Bahn at the HBF and then onto the train to the airport and then to the check in desk.  It’s not cheap, usually somewhere between 40-60 EUR, but it’s the only way I can figure out how to get all my stuff to the airport without wrenching my back is the taxi.  We usually need to ask for a Kombi taxi – that is either a station wagon and an SUV-like vehicle given that the two Brothers Yu often have 4 large pieces of luggage, 2 carry ons and 2 backpacks.  Try fitting that into the trunk of a European sedan!

Continue reading →

Posted in Essen 2015 | 4 Comments