Teaching Inis

There’s a particular board game I love. It’s been at the number one spot on my favourite’s list for a number of years now. Designed by a French designer, published by a French publisher, it is entirely themed on Irish mythology. 

Inis is about trying to control key gameplay states on the board to be crowned king of The Island. It has an awesome table presence, from it’s uniquely shaped modular board pieces, to the lovely little minis each player moves around the board, to the stunning artwork on the cards, all licensed from a world famous Irish artist that specializes in Irish mythology art. When the game is laid out on a table, it just screams at anyone walking by “Hey you! Come look at me! I’m beautiful!” 

SHUX is a convention run by a popular board game review site based in the UK. The twist is, because they love me and wanted to spend time with me, they chose Vancouver to host their convention! I got a ticket to the very first one, sight unseen, day one of sales, some 10 months before the actual event. 

I played Inis four times over those two days. Worse, I taught Inis NINE times over the two days. By early on the Sunday, people were hunting me down because other attendees had been tweeting about me. I had The Teach down to a fine art, a swift 25 minutes, filled with gags to keep players engaged. 

On Sunday morning I borrowed a second copy from the actual owner of the company that publishes Inis and ran two games side by side. It was an amazing sight that made my heart sing with joy. 

But even so, I was burned out by Sunday afternoon. Staying up gaming in the convention hall until 1am Saturday night/Sunday morning probably didn’t help. So, as I was expalining the game for the nineth time, I decided that this was the last one. 

Halfway through The Teach, someone walked by the table, stopped and said “Ooohh! Inis! I’ve wanted to play this all weekend but never got the chance.”

Inside my head, my brain silently screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOO!! Don’t you-“ but my mouth involuntarily responded “I can teach you once I’m done here.”

I heard a door slam and my brain stomped off angrily into the foggy ether of my subconsciousness. 

Thankfully, he thanked me, but said he was heading to the airport soon and would have to take me up on the offer next year. 

My brain shouted “You’re on your own!” as it drove out of sight in an imaginary red Ferrari, and I really don’t recall much of anything from the rest of that Sunday. 

The moral of the story is: Don’t stay up until 1am at conventions when you have a whole other day to come, even if it is to school a table of friends in your first game of Nations: The Dice Game by winning with at least a twenty point gap to second place. 

Gaming Dad

My large board game collection has been largely gathering dust since March. Actually, apart from a complete reorganising in the early days of the first lockdown, it’s been entirely gathering dust. Up to recently, I’ve avoided adding to my collection, knowing that I wouldn’t be getting to play any of them any time soon. As well as saving money, it removed the feeling of the cult of the new, or of “missing out” on new releases. I figured if I was still interested in a game once all this was over, it was worthwhile adding to the shelves. 

But in the last couple months I’ve cracked and added a small number of games to my collection. Not including Kickstarters that I had backed pre-pandemic, all the new games I’ve gotten are ones I can play with my kids, mostly my five year old daughter. We’ve turned the morning into a regular game time, putting the screens away and playing a few games face-to-face. 

I love board games for the social, hanging out with friends aspect, and I really miss that during this extended time of physical distancing. Playing games with Ada helps a lot. Seeing her grow and understand games and rules more and more makes me so happy. I hope she’ll at least tolerate occasionally gaming with me when she’s older. I’d hate to have to guilt trip her into playing Inis again with her nerdy dad.

I’ll still do it. I’ll just feel bad. 

Inis

I'm not usually one for games that fall into the "dudes on a map" category of board games. I've never been good at strategy, and find it hard to see those critical moves in map games.

But Inis is based around Irish mythology, with card art by Jim FitzPatrick, an artist I grew up seeing in my text books throughout my schooling. I had to at least have a look. And thanks to a local convention, I got to try it out with a friends copy before I took the plunge myself. As it turned out, it took me about 16 hours before I owned my own copy.

I fell madly in love with Inis from the moment I played it. It is a legendary experience, full of magical moments. Win or lose, I always have a great time playing it and come away with great tales to share.

Inis is an area control game. It's a battle of wits to be in command of territories on a modular map that changes every game. You can declare your intent to become King and win once you meet one or more of the three possible victory conditions.

Inis is a drafting game. You have to react every turn to the cards you end up with in every turn from a tiny selection of possibilities. There are only 17 Action Cards in a full four player game, with four dealt to each player every turn and the last one burned, or placed to one side. Rather than keeping the hand delt to you, you pick one, and pass on the rest. You keep doing this until you have a hand of four cards. This gives you some control over the cards you have every turn.

Inis is fast, easy to learn. The rules are intuitive and allow the game to flow nicely, though your first combat takes a little work to get through. Once you see one play out, combat is a breeze as well. The strategy layer is clean and clear, and really accessible. I never felt overwhelmed by Inis, though I still love seeing the amazing moves other players manage, and learn from every game.

In my experience, Inis always results in excitement and laughter, whether you win or lose. At the end of almost every game I've played we've talked about the amazing actions or surprises that each player managed in the game while we're packing up. The final, winning move is nearly always an epic play, resulting in whoops and cheers regardless if you end as High King or defeated clan.

It's also one of the very few games I have played that genuinely work in all its player counts. Lots of games claim 2-4, or 2-5, but really only work with 3 or 4 players. Inis works with 2, 3 or 4. My 2-player game was an incredible head to head, filled with fast card play between two players that had played the game a few times. The whole game lasted a hair over an hour and felt really good.

The board and cards are beautiful to look at, evocative and full of colour. The components are fantastic, with really nicely detailed minis to represent your clans. One of the molds has a great moustache too.

Thanks to cutting back on new board games this year, I've played Inis more than any other game in my collection in the last seven years since moving to Vancouver. While at SHUX in October, I ended up teaching the game to nine different groups of people, resulting in about 30 new players, and played in four of those games.

This is easily my most treasured board game right now. I crave another game like some sort of addict. After over a dozen games played, I might even win a second time!

Related Posts:
Board Game Review Master List

Rest The Wallet

Last year, 2017, I decided to stop buying board games for the majority of the year. Or, maybe, to try to stop. I love board games. It's hard for me to not add games I enjoy playing to my own collection, but, in an effort to see if I could, I set this personal goal.

Because I bought it through an online store, I can tell you that the last board game I bought before taking this decision was bought on March 7th, 2017. It was Inis, a game that would go on to have a huge impact on me, but that's a story for another post.

My personnal purchasing prohibition extended to Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sources as well. This was important because I had developed a problem of backing too many games this way, especially if they offered exclusives. Luckily, I had hit winners almost every time, getting really fun games htat I enjoyed getting to the table.

Setting out, I gave myself one exemption. I had tickets to the first ever convention by board game website Shut Up & Sit Down, SHUX, being held in October. I would be allowed by one game at the convention. I would also be receiving new games through Kickstarters that I had backed prior to March, so my shelves would still see fresh additions throughout the year.

Over the following nine or so months, I played the games I owned a lot more than I have in recent years. I often buy games that I'm really excited about, play them once or twice and than buy the next game I'm really excited about. Rinse and repeat. This year, I racked up a lot more plays on a lot less games, especially my new favourite, Inis. I also cracked open some old classics that I love buy hadn't played in years.

By the time I got to SHUX in October, I actually didn't feel like breaking my self imposed sabbatical, but I did end up buying the expansion to one of my favourite games, Sheriff of Nottingham. I know this gets onto the table regularly, so I didn't feel bad about it being my cheat.

But then Christmas rolled around, and an obvious in hindsight, unforeseen wrinkle. Boxing week sale. Several of the nearby board game stores have massive sales in the week after Christmas, ending on New Years Eve. One puts a blanket 25% off everything in store. It would be hard to resist not availing of that offer.

Or it would have been any other year.

Looking around the store, I just didn't feel like buying anything. Nothing exciting jumped out at me. Those hot games that appeared throughout the previous year had now cooled and lost their shine.

I walked away, my goal securely intact for the last week of 2017.

This was a fantastic, refreshing action for me to take. It opened my eyes to how easily I was spending money on board games. As of this post, I haven't backed a Kickstarter in 2018 yet, nor do I have any desire to. What few games that have shown up and peaked my interest I've chosen to let come into retail so I can see how things shake out over time.

There are a few games that I've added to my collection since January 1st, but all of them have already proven to be worth my time, either because I played them a bunch at Meetups, or because continuous reviews suggest they're my kind of game. Reviews of them will be coming.

This was an amazing experience, and one I'd recommend to anyone. It'll hopefully have a lasting effect. I'd like to say I'll be more reserved with my future purchasing, but only time will tell for that.

 

Captain Sonar

Captain Sonar is, ideally, an 8-player realtime board game where two teams of four take command of a submarine each and try to blow the other team out of the water. The four crew of each submarine are:

The Captain, who calls out directional orders for her boat and watches in dispair as her and her crew spiral into an inescapable, crushing darkness.

The Radio Operator, who listens to the increasingly uncertain commands of the enemy captain and attempts to discover the location of the opposing vessel, mostly through a haze of frustrated head-scratching and sudden clarity, akin to solving a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

The First Mate, who is tasked with making ready the various systems on the submersible, and then politely informing the captain she can't use them because everything is broken and/or on fire.

The Engineer, who breaks things constantly, much like some sort of traitorous gremlin.

By working as a team, or at least a horribly faded facsimile of one, you hope to inflict four points of damage to the enemy first, crushing them within their steel sarcophagus under tonnes of seawater.

Played in realtime with a full player count, Captain Sonar, by Matagot, runs at about 30 minutes, the first 25 of which see both teams travelling the frigid depths, oblivious to their opponents true location, before ending in a burst of adrenaline and excitement as everything suddenly clicks into place on both sides of the table. It is crazy, chaotic, frustrating and utterly, absolutely, insanely genius.

The first time I played Captain Sonar was with six players, one of whom was probably too young for the game. This resulted in a 3 versus 2.5[1] player game. It ran longer than hoped, mostly because I was teaching and learning how best to teach it along the way. The second and third had eight players, but also ran well over 30 minutes each, for a few reasons, none of which were the games fault[2].

Games four through nine however were much more how I imagined the game would play from reviews I had seen. Games four, five and six were all fast, frantic and unbelievably hilarious, with everyone howling with laugher whether they were on the winning boat or not. This, despite those games being played in a noisy convention hall among 200-odd other gamers. Games seven, eight and nine were equally fast, in a room with just the eight players present, but ended with some tension, not due to the game, but to the mix of personalities present.

Captain Sonar is a fun party game and should absolutely be treated like that. Don't over-think actions, or get annoyed when someone on the other team makes a mistake. Laugh and congratulate your opponents, win or lose, and then challenge them to a rematch. Don't worry if you're feeling lost in your first game at the start. You're supposed to feel like that. Trust me, the other team feels the same way.

If there is a fatal flaw to Captain Sonar it is the player count. Dispite the box proclaiming it to be for 2-8 players, you really do need eight players to have the most fun[3], which is fine as long as you treat it like a party game, only played when you have lots of people around. And play it in realtime. There is a turn-based varient, but use that to run through a few sample rounds before pushing into realtime as soon as possible.

The artwork is beautiful where there is artwork, the roles are hilarious, the player interaction is chaotic and the game has become a huge favourite in my collection, after a short rocky start almost beached it. I've only owned it since Christmas, and with nine games played already, I don't have any other game that I've played that much in that short a time since, probably BattleStar Galactica The Board Game was released. And if that isn't a huge endosement, I don't know what is!!

Amazing YouTube board game review (mostly) channel No Time For Games has a wonderful short on Captain Sonar. Watch it below, then go and watch everything he's made (there's not that many and they're all short[4]) and then subscribe, because this guy deserves more fans.

[1] Maybe even 3vrs2, because one of the players on that team was splitting his time between his own station and watching and correcting her station, diminishing his role effectiveness in the process too.
[2] Missed rules and language barriers mostly, though also hard-core gamers over thinking things a bit.
[3] I weep at the thought of playing it as a 2-player game.
[4] I highly recommend his Inis video.

Related Posts:

Board Game Review Master List

 

Pack It Up

I put together a video of me packing my shiny new Game Canopy with some of my favourite games! The orginal version had a piano cover of a licensed track, but this one has license-free music thanks to BenSound.com.

Related Posts:
The Game Canopy
ChromaCast Cajon Bag
Battle Of The Board Game Bags

Battle Of The Board Game Bags

I now own both an expensive and cheap option for carrying my board games. I've seen lots of people online asking about if it's worth spending the money on an expensive bag, or is the cheap option just as good. Let's compare them both.

The Game Canopy is designed from the start to carry the weight of several games at once. It is stitched with that purpose in mind, as the handle straps are actually one long piece, going all the way around the base of the bag, stitched in several places, distributing the load across the whole length. The ChromaCast bag is designed to carry a cajon, a square drum that is much lighter than a stack of board games. It is lightly stitched, with the top handles are only stitched to the top of the bag. Because of this, although the capacity of the ChromaCast bag is greater than that of the Canopy, the Canopy has a higher carry load limit. My ChromaCast has already ripped where the handle meets the bag, even though I avoid filling it fully.

There are two stitched on thin shoulder straps on the ChromaCast, with a very minimal rubber pad on each or your shoulders that effectively does nothing while carrying games in my experience. If they were replaceable, I'd invest in better ones seperately, but they're not. This is a pity, as, given the weakness in the top handles, this is how I mainly use the bag. The shoulder strap for the Canopy is high quality, with a thick shoulder pad that includes a nice light rubbery underside to stop it slipping. It's great, with one catch. It doesn't come included with the bag, but is an additional purchase. Still, it's strong, has really nice clips and looks great.

The materials on the main bag bodies are very different as well. The Game Canopy is made of a much higher quality material, both inside and out. The exterior is a lovely dense weave fabric with a pleasing shine, and the interior is durable but soft, protecting those precious game boxes. The ChromaCast has a lighter fabric on the outside and a very light fabric on the inside. It's not terrible by any means, but certainly cheaper looking and feeling, plus, I'm wary of it rubbing against the game boxes, especially as the fit isn't quite as snug as the Canopy.

Which brings me to padding. The ChromaCast is padded to hold a cajon, so it has nice padding around the sides, and even on the top and base. The main difference is that, while appearing to be roughly the same thickness as the padding in the ChromaCast, the Canopy padding is a more rigid material, holding the bags shape even when empty. Also, the Canopy has a protective flap of padding inside the zip to prevent the zip from making contact with the boxes.

The Canopy is fit to hold standard sized game boxes snuggly, with no room to shift around and rub against anything. The ChromaCast is just a fraction bigger in width and depth, allows boxs to slide inside just a bit. I avoid this by including play mats on the side to fill out that gap. The Canopy can hold five game boxes, while the ChromaCast holds about seven, though, as mentioned above, I don't advise filling it.

Finally, the Canopy includes four D-rings and a pocket front and back, perfect for clipping a water bottle too, or storing small snacks. The pockets are big enough to hold small card games to help get your game evening rolling, though they don't have a cover, so be aware of the weather outside. There is a full rain cover available for the Canopy that covers everything, which I got because I live in Vancouver. The ChromaCast has no extra features. I guess cajon players don't need snacks. Or a quick round of Rhino Hero before the gig.

It's obvious that the Game Canopy is a far superior product, but that was never going to be the take away here. It costs six to seven times that of the ChromaCast cajon bag. Of course it's better. That doesn't mean the ChromaCast is bad. In fact, I really like it. It's certainly a fine alternative as long as you keep a few things in mind, namely not to over load it and maybe consider getting a trolly to move it instead of carrying it.

But, the Game Canopy is gorgeous. I'm delighted I got it, and am perfectly happy to have paid so much for the final product. It's going to be joining me to all my board game meet ups and conventions for many years to come.

So what would I recommend? I can't easily answer that. If you can afford the Game Canopy and even think it might be, possibly, maybe worth it for what you need, then get it. It absolutely is what you need. It's every bit as amazing as it looks. But if you just want something cheap and functional, the ChromaCast cajon bag is perfectly adequate. It's not going to set your world on fire, but it's better than plastic grocery bags!!

Related Posts:
The Game Canopy
ChromaCast Cajon Bag

ChromaCast Cajon Bag

I've always wanted a good carry solution for my board games when I bring them to friends game nights or meet ups,m which is why I backed the Game Canopy on Kickstarter. But as with any Kickstarter, I had a long wait ahead of me, and several events before then.

I started to hear about alternatives to expensive custom carry cases on the BoardGameGeek forums, and one in particular was mentioned again and again.

Cajons are cuboid shaped drums played usually by sitting on it and slapping the face with your hands. But the important thing about them is that the carry cases are them also cuboid, with some padding, and, roughly speaking, about the same base dimensions as a board game box. According to the folks at the BGG forums, ChromaCast made a good one that was fit for purpose, and only cost around $25.

At that price, it was worth the risk.

My ChromaCast cajon bag can hold six to seven board game boxes stacked one on top of the other, as long as we're not talking the oversized ones. Even then, there's a little breathing room on the sides for a hardback RPG book or small card games. It has light paddding all around, and a big, chunky plastic zip running down each side that opens the entire front panel, giving easy access to remove any of the games within, which is very nice. It also has a flap on the front top that covers the gap at the top where therre isn't any zipper, protecting the contents from the rain.

The fabric is apparently water resistant, though I doubt it's to any great degree, but it's a fair sight beter than an Ikea bag would do, or, apparently, my backpack, which has failed me once too often. The interior fabric is rough and I wouldn't want to have my games sliding around in it too much, as I could easily see it rubbing off corners and edges. That's why when I've used it to date I've packed it on the sides with either some light cloths or one or two play mats.

The stitching around the outside isn't designed to stand up to the weight of a full load of games either. The top handle is only stitched to the upper seams, and the shoulder straps, while slightly better, are still very lightweight. I used my bag to carry games to a few meet ups and Terminal City Tabletop Convention, and it's already ripping at the top.

One solution I've been using is not over filling the bag. Instead of packing the seven games it could hold, I only pack four, filling the rest of the space with a large felt I can use on the table we're playing at, as well as some small, light card games. Even then, I'd only carry lighter boxes in it, so no Cosmic Encounter. Another option is to invest in one of those small shopping trollys you often see the elderly employ. Attach the bag to that and wheel it around, rather than carrying it.

It's clear that others have been using this bag and enjoying it for board game travels. The Amazon reviews are all 4 or 5-stars, with hilarious comments like "Cajon owners beware, the board gamers have found your Cajon bags, and we love them", and "I bought this for my husband who is a HUGE gamer".

Mainly because of it's price, I'm hesitant to dismiss the cajon bag as a possibility if you're looking for something to carry your games in. As long as you're aware of the caveats and willing to be careful with it, you really can't go wrong for $25. It is functional, it will somewhat protect your games, and it does turn heads when you unzip the front panel and reveal a broad selection of games instantly accessible for play.

Related Posts:
The Game Canopy
Board Game Review Master List
Battle Of The Board Game Bags, comparing the Canopy to the ChromaCast

The Game Canopy

I don't drink, smoke or do drugs, nor have I in recent years been spending money on addictions I used to have, like comics, action figures or video games. These days, and for some time now, board games have been my one vice, the one thing I impulsively spend money on, either in my friendly local gaming stores or online, especially at Kickstarter.

I'm proud of my collection, and enjoy sharing it with others, both long time friends and new. But carrying games safely has been an issue for gamers like me for years. We use Ikea bags, backpacks or, in a pinch, light plastic shopping bags, risking rain and crush damage, or the corners getting rubbed away on rough surfaces, all of which have happened to games I own at least once. In fact, just last month I brought Captain Sonar to a friends place, safely tucked into my backpack, only to arrive at gaming and have to wipe off the rain that got though the fabric.

I do live in Vancouver after all. It's a temperate rainforest. It rains.

A lot.

Which is why, despite the perceived high cost, more-so after including shipping and taxes, I was willing to back the Game Canopy from Level 3B when it appeared on Kickstarter back on April 24th, 2016, almost a year ago now. I was there when the campaign went live and one of the first backers, number 191 out of a final total of 1,753. This isn't even my first time talking about the Game Canopy on my blog.

After what felt like much longer than a year of waiting, I have my new game transport system in my hand. A year of waiting, anticipating, reading updates, following progress, getting increasingly more excited about how good it could be. That's Kickstarter's biggest flaw. No matter how good the final product is, it's almost impossible to live up to the imaginary possibilities that lengthy waiting conjures up.

Except, the Game Canopy is that good.

Padded on all sides, including base and top, the Game Canopy is custom built to protect your games in best possible way. Level 3B thought of everything. There is even padding inside to cover the zip so that it can't rub against its precious cargo. The top carry handles are stitched all the way around the bag to prevent the load from pulling on one seam, with D-rings on all corners front and back giving you plenty of options for how you'd like to attach the shoulder strap, which itself is the nicest shoulder strap I own, thick padded with a grippy material underneath.

The Game Canopy can comfortably fit five "standard" sized board game boxes laying flat, one on top the other. You know, the Ticket to Ride, Mysterium, Cosmic Encounter square box. Of course how many you can fit and how many you can carry can be vastly different numbers. My Cosmic Encounter box includes all the expansions to date and is a hefty load by itself. Change the orientation a bit and the Game Canopy is tall enough to handle Inis, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and Legendary Encounters. Side by side. Together. Not that I'd advise carrying those four games together. I have no doubt the Canopy could handle it. I just doubt you or I could. That's a lot of compressed dead tree matter.

And it looks great doing all this. I chose the charcoal base with mandarin trim (read: grey with orange edges), and it's exactly as the promotional photographs indicated. My own photography doesn't do it justice in the visual appeal. I love how clean, crisp and professional it looks, while also being fun and bright. Board gaming isn't just a hobby for recluse stereotypical nerds, and the Game Canopy is easily a carry bag I'm going to be proud to carry around the city to events and display. It's just so gorgeous!

All in all, the Game Canopy is everything I could have hoped for. I'm really excited to take it out to my next game night at the end of the month. I can tell this is the start of a beautiful relationship. Just me and my Game Canopy and Captain Sonar and Mysterium and Takenoko and Santorini and Battlestar Galactica and...

Addendum: While writing this and testing out some game combinations for the photographs I learned my two year old can open and close the zip, and really enjoys playing with my Canopy. A great start for my future gamer.

Related:
ChromaCast Cajon Bag
Board Game Review Master List
Battle Of The Board Game Bags, comparing the Canopy to the ChromaCast

Watch Me Say

One of my favourite board gaming related YouTube channels is Watch It Played, a channel designed to teach you how to play board games without needing to pour over a long instruction booklet. I've been a fan and supporter for a few years now.

Occcasionally, the host, Rodney, will pick a topic to discuss, share his thoughts on it, then ask viewers to share their opinions on the topic, either in the comments, or via a short video. Reccently, he did one on ties in games and how you resolve them or not, and I thought I'd record my own feelings on the matter. It made it into his follow-up video, embedded below.

Terminal Gaming

In a previous post I talked about my favourite weekend of the year, Terminal City Tabletop Convention. I discussed why I love it, mentioning that I get to play lots of games. Now I want to go into detail about the particular games I played.

This year I hit the ground running, jumping into a game of Inis as soon as I walked in the door. Inis (pronounced "Inish") is an Irish mythology themed area control game that I've been interested in since I first heard about it. Thanks to new friend Marc (phone contact Marc TCTC) I got to learn and play it, and then went home and ordered it online. It was really quick to learn, and has a wonderfully clean ruleset, with only combat causing us some initial head-scratching, but once we had a fight or two, we totally understood it. The components are nice, with the armies having a handful of different models for their units, adding nice variety to the board. The art on the cards and tiles is gorgeous, all done by aclaimed Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick.

After Inis, I taught three other players Quantum, the dice-as-spaceships strategy game, which I love, and they seemed to enjoy as well. I'm pretty terrible at Quantum, and usually I'm on the receiving end of another players epic final turn, where all their upgrades fall into place for some bonkers cool victory. But this time, I managed to pull off just that, dishing out a dramatic turn to drop my final colony onto a planet and secure galactic dominance.

One of the highlights of the weekend for me was getting to play four games of submarine themed team game, Captain Sonar, each with a full player count of eight. Well, technically, I played two games and "GMed" the other two, answering questions as they arose. The first one was on Saturday and went a bit longer than hoped, and I was upset that maybe the game wasn't as much fun as advertised. But the three games on Sunday were amazing! Each lasted under thirty minutes, and we're jammed with hilarity and tension! They were exactly how I hoped the game would feel, and now that I've played it properly, I feel I know better how to teach it in the future, and what elements beyond the rules to draw attention to. I'll do a full review of Captain Sonar soon, but the games I played at TCTC definitely taught me a lot about the game.

Super Motherload was being taught throughout the weekend, and I jumped into a game on Sunday, falling in love with it immediately and grabbing the last copy on sale as soon as I was done.

I played many more games over the weekend, but these were just some of the highlights. Terminal City is a great convention every year, but my bank account always suffers during and after.

Not that I'm complaining.

 

How To Make Friends And Crush Your Opponents

When we first arrived in Canada, tabletop gaming was integral in how we made friends. It was through RPG.net that we met the lovely couple who took us in that first week, and showed us around this strange new city. Once we got our own place, the first thing I did was Google local game stores and went directly there, where I met many of the friends I still have today. And I still use tabletop gaming as an ice-breaker for making new friends.

So when I discovered a new tabletop gaming convention was having its first event back in 2014, I knew I had to be there. And I've been going every year since.

Terminal City Tabletop Convention, or TCTC, is a weekend long tabletop celebration started by one man, and has been my favourite annual event of the year four years running. This years TCTC was March 4th and 5th, and I'm already looking forward to next years. Every year I anxiously await the chance to playing with friends I only get to see at the con, as well as making more new friends every year. My phone contacts list is filled with "John TCTC", "Michelle TCTC", and so on, and my group email gaming list grows every March.

TCTC is a great opportunity to play old favourites with new opponents, try brand new releases, classics that you missed, or just something different. Better yet, there has been strong support since the very first year for independant local developers to show off their in-development creations and get feedback on them. Prototype Alley is always a busy corner of the convention floor, and this year, there was even a new award and prize for the most promising prototype submitted, backed by support from Panda Game Manufacturing. I played a bunch of stuff all weekend, and taught a whole bunch more, but I'll leave those details for another post.

One of the more popular areas of TCTC on the Saturday is the silent auction, which started in 2015 with just a few small tables on the stage area, grew last year to fill every inch of space available on the tables, to this year where the stage quickly burst its banks and flooded onto several overflow tables off to one side. The auction gives attendees the chance to bring along and sell games they no longer play, and pick up games they might be interested in second-hand. I've sold something at every auction to date, and usually buy sometihng as well, but this year I was way too busy playing games to bother with the stress of trying to outbid others that I just didn't bother.

I love teaching games. I bring a few bags filled with games I'd like to play or teach, and I do end up spending a lot of time sharing out my collection and teaching others to play while I play something else, or even go teach another game and drift between both as the group play their first few turns. TCTC has a Game Steward system to help attendees pick out and learn new game. Seeing as how I love teaching anyway, it made sense to sign up and help out. I ended up teaching probably over half a dozen games, including Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Tsuro, Onitama, Tak, Patchwork, Santorini, and four different games of Captain Sonar!

One thing that struck me as odd was the number of requests for two-players games. I forget that although I'm there to play with as many people as possible, some folks are there to find new games to play with their partner. It made me wish I'd brought my copy of Quoridor along.

If I had one complaint it was that it had become too popular for its current venue. I'm delighted to see it grow and grow, because that means more people for me to become friends with, but it's outgrowwn it's current space. In previous years, numbers have been limited to comfortable levels and I felt that everyone had a table to be at all weekend. This year, Saturday especially, there were plenty of folks wandering the hall looking for a corner of a table to set up and game on. People seemed to be on top of each other, careful not to knock into the gmae beside you with your elbow while you played your game. At one point, we had to move out to the hallway and use two tables in the public access area. Thankfully, while I was writing this post, it has been annouced that TCTC 2018 will take place in a much larger venue! Woot!

Year after year Terminal City Tabletop Convention has been a great experience, meeting and making friends, playing a bunch of games and having a great time. It's the kind of thing I wish we had more often in Vancouver, but it's extra special because it's only once a year.

Roll on 2018!

Related Posts:
Terminal Gaming

 

International Tabletop Day 2016

Last year at this time I had my hands full with a newborn, so I missed out on Tabletop Day. In the past, we've hosted Tabletop Day in our own place, but with Ada, it's difficult for me to focus on a game, so, with Claire's permission, I headed out for a day of board games.

After spending the morning at Family Place with Ada, Claire picked us up from the park before dropping me over to Players Wanted Games on Victoria Drive, and then heading out for lunch with Ada and a friend. I had packed a few games I hoped to play, but nothing too crazy. I stuck to a few small, fast, fun card games, and box games chosen for their ease of teaching and speed of play, as well as repeated success for me in introducing them to new players in the past.

On arriving, I spent a short time browsing the shelves and bumped into a lovely couple who had just randomly wandered into the store while visiting the area. Although big board gamers themselves, George and Jenn hadn't known about the Tabletop Day event, and were just lucky enough to stop by. After bonding over a copy of Mysterium on the shelves, I offered to play a game or two before they had to leave, so, along with the Rubin, a local and regular, I started my Tabletop Day teaching Gravwell, the fantastic space race game of plotting, luck and hilarity.

After Gravwell, George and Jenn were short on time, but I managed to convince them to try one round of Rhino Hero. It was an easy sell, and turned out to be the most tense game of the day, filled with laugh-out-loud moments. Everyone played a stormer, and the apartment grew to an astonishing 14 floors! Rubin and Jenn were standing on chairs toward the end just to play their turn! I ended up playing Rhino Hero three times over the course of the day, with a bunch of different folks, and it was amazing every time, drawing plenty of attention from everyone in the room. Reaching 14 floors successfully might have been the day's highlight, but for sheer hilarity, I don't think I'll ever forget watching Rubin attempt to place a wall, dropping it twice and having to retrieve it before trying again, finally succeeding without knocking the tower! That man has steady hands!

After a quick break to stretch my legs, I was excited to finally get the chance to see and play Pandemic creator Matt Leacock's new game, Knit Wit. This is a fun game of word association, presented in an absolutely beautiful fashion. Everything from the components to the box itself is gorgeous, with tiny, loving details cropping up throughout. This was another game filed with laughter and more than a little head-scratching. We ended up playing two games of Knit Wit before packing it back into it's amazing box.

I'm delighted to have had the chance to teach a bunch of folks Council of Verona, one of my favourite little bluffing games around. It was a chaotic game that ended with just a single card scoring, and poor Romeo wasn't even in the game to have a chance of getting together with his Juliet.

A 6pm approached, I pulled out Quantum. Quantum is always an easy sell, with its beautiful bright dice, colourful planets and great player board, so it was a joy for me to be able to play not only a four-player game, but also a wonderful, fast two-player one right after. They both felt so different, the first full of deals and friendly advice to attack other players, the other a fast head-to-head of landing colonies and retaliation strikes.

Finally, sandwiched between those two games of Quantum were a few games of No Thanks, which got unusually competitive, but in an always friendly fashion.

And that was my International Tabletop Day at Players Wanted Games. Full of great games, lots of laughter and meeting new people. So how did I do? Well, anyone who reads my blog regularly might know that I have a terrible record of repeatedly loosing games I own and often winning games I'm playing for the first time. This started a bit differently, with, if I remember correctly, me winning Gravwell, before quickly returning to business as usual, as I lost Council of Verona and both games of Quantum, but won one of the games of Knit Wit with a maximum possible score.

Rubin won the second game of Rhino Hero by playing his last card, but I don't think we even checked who won the other two, as we were all having too much fun laughing at the tower falling. While Rhino Hero does have rules for deciding who wins when the tower falls, in my experience, people rarely bother to check. The game is fun enough that declaring a winner isn't always necessary.

Lastly, I just want to mention the venue. Players Wanted Games is one of the newer game stores in Vancouver. Before Ada arrived I dropped in a few times to game. The store has a small retail space, but is packed with a great selection of games in all shapes and sizes. They have a huge play space in the back, with plenty of room for a big number of people to game. Yesterday there was board gaming, HeroClix and Magic all going on, with video gaming joining in later in the day!

But what makes Players Wanted special is the staff and regulars. Like I said, I dropped in a few times before Ada arrived, but pretty much disappeared for the last year. Yet I turned up yesterday, was welcomed in like an old friend and I felt like one of the regulars right away, with everyone chatting and having fun. The atmosphere is bright and cheery, and people seems happy to strike up conversations about all sorts of games.

It's a great store, and I look forward to actually becoming one of the regulars over the next few months and beyond.

Related: Board Game Review Master List

I <3 2P

A good two player game pits you against an opponent in a battle of cunning and wits. A great two player game is one I can grasp in a few minutes, and feel competent at after a game or two. So that's chess right out then.

Starting out at the top, Quoridor is my all-time favourite two player game, and easily one of my top board games ever. I've played it with other hard core gamers, and six year olds, and it's great every time. That's not because there's a high element of randomness or something. In fact, it's pure strategy, with zero randomness. Instead, it's so simple to teach and learn, anyone can play. I find that older gamers will over think a series of turns, planning well ahead, while younger gamers just spot the weak link and destroy all those plans. At least, that's what happens to me.

Quoridor is played on a 9x9 grid. Players have to get from the their side of the board to the opponents, either moving one space, or placing one of their ten wall pieces anywhere on the board. You can never corner in your opponent, so the trick is to make their journey to your side longer than your journey to theirs. It's wonderfully simple, elegant and fun. I highly, highly recommended trying it. Gigamic publishes a beautiful wooden edition of the game that might seem a bit pricey, but based on play value, it's worth every cent.

There is a four player varient for Quoridor, which I didn't like for the longest time. But playing it with the school age kids I work with, I saw the value in it as well. It's a completely different strategy, and fun in it's own right, but I still mostly love this game for the one-on-one version.

I picked up RESISTOR_ from Cardboard Fortress through Kickstarter based entirely on the visual design. Luckily, it plays as wonderfully as it looks. RESISTOR_ is about two Cold War supercomputers battling each other, atempting to lull the opposition into a false sense of security, dropping its DEFCON level before launching a nuclear attack without the chance of retaliation. The game is played with cards lined up, each one looking like a big microchip. You have to connect to the opponents computer to drop its security level, which dealing with resistor chips that dramatically reduce the playing field. It's a crazy fast, fun, and funny game, that is easy to play and beautifully presented.

Kickstarter is a godsend for two player games, it seems. I guess big publishers are hesitant to finance games that are restricted to such a small number of players. I've been told that even games designed for four players see pressure to expand to six players for retail. But thanks to Kickstarter, I have two more two-player games coming to me, hopefully by the end of the year, if things go according to plan.

Santorini is a stunningly beautiful game that has been under development since 1986 by designer and mathematician Dr. Gordon Hamilton. This is merely the most recent edition, and looks stunning, adding in a whole bunch of new player powers and a few new elements thanks to the massive success of the Kickstarter campaign. The game is a two player abstract strategy game, building the town of Santorini and trying to reach the top of a tower while blocking your opponent from doing the same.

I can't wait to get my hands on this game. The rules are all online, and it would be easy to replicate with Lego, blocks or other components, so hopefully I can play it before this beautiful edition arrives. It's still available to back on Kickstarter for a few more days if you're interested.

Also on Kickstarter right now, but with more time left on the clock at time of writing is Tak, a game from James Ernest and Cheapass Games, based on a game described in the fantasy novel series, The Kingkiller Chronicles, written by Patrick Rothfuss. In Tak, you place pieces on a square gridded board, attempting to build a continuous, straight road from one side of the board to the other. It looks lovely, with wooden components and the promise of a wooden board coming soon as part of a stretch goal add-on, which I will definitely be getting.

I haven't even mentioned Patchwork here, which I have but haven't gotten to play yet. Do you have any two player games you enjoy? I'd love to hear about them! Let me know in the comments to this post.

Board Game Carry Solution

I love board games, that much is obvious. I also love sharing my board games, and teaching folks my favourite games. I love broadening my hobby by introducing people to this amazing social activity. But transporting my games to local conventions has always been an issue.

In the past, I've employed IKEA reusable bags and other tote bags, as well as my backpack, like so many other gamers through the years. However, it rains a lot in Vancouver during certain times of the year, and this has caused issues. I've damaged more than one game box from having it out in the rain, even while it was in my backpack. I can sometimes plan ahead and wrap them in a plastic bag first, but all that is just awkward and messy.

Which was why I got so excited when I saw the Game Canopy from Level 3B on Watch It Played. It looked ideal for my needs. Sealed, safe, and water resistant, and it holds the boxes flat! No more opening up a game to teach and spending the first ten minutes sorting out a pile of cards and tokens that got knocked loose in the box.

I followed Level 3B on Twitter and via mailing list, and anxiously awaited the start of the Kickstarter. I was there the second it went live, and grabbed the Adventurer Level, which includes the Game Canopy, the shoulder strap and the all important rain cover. It's more expensive than a duffle bag, but far safer for my games. It also looks amazing! Like any hobby that isn't a sport, board gaming regularly gets dismissed as a childish, or geeky pastime, so I love having accessories like the Game Canopy that just elevates our hobby to a new level, showing it off in a professional, smart light.

The Kickstarter has only just begun and is already a huge success. It's got over 1,000 Backers, and is about to break $150k in funding at time of writing. There are some odd features of the campaign that I hope get fixed soon. The reward levels are fixed, trying to cover ass many bases as possible with different levels, but still don't suit everyone's needs. The Level 3B team seem hesitant to allow add-ons of the Canopy bag or the smaller Vanguard to pledges, and I noticed that this has resulted in some pledge levels seeing vastly more popular than others. The worst is Game Knight Lite, with no Backers at all. Allowing add-ons would have avoided this, having less Reward Levels, but ultimately more options for Backers. I'm happy with the my level, but would definitely consider adding a Vanguard as well if it was an option. There is one with everything I have, plus a Vanguard and a second shoulder strap, but I really don't want the second strap.

The only other issue I have is that the delivery date is in the far distant future of April 2017. I'd love to have it for Terminal City Tabletop Convention 2017 in March.

It's going to be a long wait.

 

Codenames

Sometimes big fun comes in small packages.

Vlaada Chvátil is the designer of space junk builder and racer Galaxy Trucker and space ship crew simulator Space Alert, but is most famous for the magical stategy game Mage Knight. So you'd be forgiven for thinking that his expertise lies solely in big box, big rules games. But everyone needs a change of pace, and Codenames is Vlaada's.

When you open the box you'll be surprised to find just a few packets of cards, in two varieties, and a sheet of thicker card stock with a few cards to punch out. It becomes immediately obvious that this game is clean, clear and simple, but by no means basic.

Codenames plays ridiculously cleanly. You set out 25 cards in a 5x5 grid. Each card has a single word printed on it twice, back to back, readable from both sides of a table. Then there's the map card, a square card with a 5x5 grid of squares, eight coloured red, eight blue, one black and seven cream. Eight plus eight, plus one plus seven equals 24. The last of the 25 squares will either be red or blue, deciding which team starts first, having one extra word to identify.

Players are divided into two teams, each made up of one Spymaster and one or more Field Operatives. The two opposing Spymasters sit on one side of the table, with their Field Operatives on the opposite sides. The Spymasters can see the map, or key, and are trying to clue the Field Operatives in to which cards are in their teams colour.

But it's not as easy as giving coordinates to the colours you want. Spymasters are restricted to only saying one descriptive word and one number. With that, they have to find connections between the words in the grid of 25 on the table, using the key to tell them which cards are important to them. So if the words Day and Star are in your colour, you might say Night, 2, in the hopes that your team get the connection.

And that's really the essence of the game. There are rules about guessing, such as not using part of a code word, like if Seahorse is on the table, you can't use Horse, or Sea as the clue, and there are rules for passing the turn to the other team, but all that is in the silm rulebook. Spymasters give clues, their teammates try to decipher those hints and find the required cards, and everyone wants to avoid that one black card which acts as an assassin, instantly losing you the game if chosen.

Codenames is fast. You can get a game set up in less than a minute and played in less than five if your team is on fire, less than ten if they're struggling for inspiration. And the second game will be even easier, as all the word cards are double sided, so for a second game, simply flip the grid!

I highly recommend Codenames. It's fast, easy to teach, and endless fun. The grid of words will never be the same, so there's no chance you'll just learn an optimal codeword and over use it. As long as a player can read all the words, they can play the game, so it works really well with younger players too.

There is a free app available for iOS and Android that generates the key and looks pretty. This means that it's possible to try the game using the app and a deck of Apples to Apples words, as long as you do some curation on the cards that come up. A fun way to try out this fantastic board game, but not a good long-term substitute.

Photos and formatting to be added later. I'm running disasterously behind on my posts.

Quantum

For every board game that gets a massive print run, tonnes of hype and a huge release only to be utterly forgotten about twelve months later, there must be dozens of other games that are more worthy of your attention that the publisher can only afford a small print run, gets no fanfare on its launch, but has a rabid fanbase in the following months and years.

First released in 2013, Quantum is by designer Eric Zimmerman and published by FunForge. I first heard about it shortly after it's original release, as loads of people were talking about it online but, honestly, it didn't look interesting to me.

Quantum is a space game with six-sided dice representing your ships. The objective of the game is to colonise a number of planets by flying ships to a planet and dropping a tiny cube on it bringing you one step closer to galactic domination. You can only have one cube of your colour on any planet, so you're forced to travel outwards and get into territory disputes with other players.

It all sounds very dry and unexciting, especially without cool miniature ships to look at while you're playing. But it isn't. It's incredibly tight, exciting and fast, and every game I've played so far has ended with a wicked cool maneuver by the winning player as the final action.

Each die represents a different ship that can be any one of six class of vessel at any time. But that number also tells you its movement value, and even more, it's attack value. In Quantum, lower combat total wins fights, and combat is decided by rolling an attack dice and adding your attacking ship value, comparing that to the defenders defence roll added to her defending ship value. So the slow moving Battlestation represented by the One pip is the best at combat, while the zippy Scout on Six is terrible if it gets in a fight.

Quantum is all about strategy, but at a fun and easy to grasp level. I was never good at strategy games, either in board or video games. I usually got overwhelmed by options and never felt competent, especially in games against other players. But Quantum is so clean, I never felt that lost. Plus, it feels great when the newest player at the table wins because they just quietly sneak a cool victory while the others are attacking each other.

The new edition has beautiful frosted dice that feel great in you hand, and vibrant tiny colony cubes that look far too edible to be safe. The tiles are made of chunky card, the player boards are clean and well laid out, and the rule book is... well, one of my friends asked if he should be wearing gloves while holding it, it was so nice to feel. The pages aren't cardstock, but they are thicker and nicer than just plain paper.

If I have one complaint, it's that they could have included the single tile expansion in this edition. The Void is a tile with no planet, just nine spaces to move through. It's got rules for gaining Research quickly. It was released as a promo card for conventions and events, but then sold on BoardGameGeek.com. It would have been nice to include the tile, rules, and suggested layouts for using it in the new edition of the game, especially as there is plenty of room to include one more tile. As it is, I got the tile through BGG for $6 including shipping, but even then, it didn't include suggested maps, just the tile in an envelope. I posted an image of the information card that originally came with the tile here, just for future reference.

But, honestly, that's hardly a complaint. Quantum is fantastic fun, and I'm delighted to include it in my collection. It's so simple to teach it makes a great, slightly more meaty, introduction to board games for relatively new gamers, while still complex and deeply engaging for more experienced players. I have yet to win a game myself, even when teaching it to an entire new-to-the-game group, but I love every game I've played, and I've never feflt completely outclassed. Highly recommended if you're looking for something with strategy and depth, without the complexity of a miniatures wargame.

Stat Block

Over the course of 2014 I tracked almost every board game I played. It all started on New Years Eve, 2013. I was having a conversation about gaming with friends in which I claimed to lose far more games than I win, but also that I'm more likely to win games I don't own, and as soon as I buy it, I'm unlikely to win again.

Using a calendar I got from a friend, I tracked every game I played, how many players were involved, and weather I won or lost, along with a few other factors for specific games.

The tracking started with a game of Love Letter on January 1st, and ended on December 31st, with a game of Dixit, that technically ran into the New Year, but I'm counting it, mostly because I won.

Since it ended, I've been wondering how to put together the data I had collected into something usable. I'm no statistician, so I didn't know how to start. But a friend recently pointed me to an App for the iPhone that tracks games played and statistics over time, called Board Game Stats. While it is a paid-for App, it's really well built and has some great features, like linking to BoardGameGeek, or tracking not just your plays, but who you played with in each session.

I went back to my calendar and started plugging in all the games I had tracked. I was missing some information, like I had tracked the number of players, but not who they were, so all my games in the App for 2014 have one player, and I either win or lose. So the end stats aren't as good as the App can normall manage, but I did get something to share.

I played 59 unique games, over 194 play sessions. Seven games were played over seven times, with Bohnanza and Cosmic Encounter getting the most plays at 13 each. I won a total of 62 sessions. Given that Hanabi is a game you don't win, so much as do your best as a team, I won't include those four games in working out my win percentage. That's 62 out of 190 sessions, or 32.29%, which is actually a lot better than I expected. There is a margin for error, I may have missed tracking a few games, but it's a good approximation.

Machi Koro has the highest individual win percentage, at 75%, or 6 out of 8 games played, and lots of games have no wins, the highest ranked of which is Tsuro, at 24th most played game, three plays, all loses. Everything above that I've at least won once.

I guess this just goes to prove the concept of confimation bias. I believed I lost most of the games I played, and while I did lose over 50%, I wasn't losing as many as I expected. Given that I ususally play games with three or more players, winning almost one third of my total plays is actually expected!

The App doesn't track whether I'm more likely to win a game on first play or after a few games, nor does it track if I own the game at the time I won, but what it does track is fun to think about.

I'll be tracking my games from now on in the App, but I won't be as fastidious about it as I was in 2014. Also, I wasn't tracking any of my games before now in 2015, so there will be a big gap between plays in early 2014.

Then again, with Ada's arrival, there was a big gap anyway!

 

XCOM Custom Tokens

I recently got some custom pieces cut for my copy of XCOM The Board Game and posted them on my Twitter. The response was amazing! The XCOM Twitter account picked up on it first, before a bunch of regional 2K accounts started posting about it. 2K is the publisher for the video game XCOM, so... that was cool.

Here's how I made them, for those who might be interested.

It all started when I had learned of a place in Vancouver that offered laser cutting to the public. The Laser Cafe is part of MakerLabs Vancouver, and you can just bring them your file, tell them what you want done and they'll cut it for you for a very reasonable price. I immediately thought it would be perfect for the Elite Tokens from XCOM.

Unfortunately, I had no idea how to even begin. Fortunately, I have a genius wife who walked me through everything and taught me exactly what needed to be done.

I took the original cardboard Elite Tokens and the role cards for the role logos and scanned them in with my home flatbed scanner. Later I realised I could get a much cleaner version of the logos from the XCOM The Board Game app on my iPad by simply screen-capping the logos.

I took the file into Paint on Windows 7 and with a bit of tweeking I made black and white versions of the scanned components. I saved each individual component as a .png file, and then imported that into the free vector graphics software, Inkscape.

In Inscape I selected the component and created a vector map, deleting the original rough bitmap. Then I went around the image, cleaning up the vectors, deleting extra points, adjusting others and trying to bring the finished product to a higher quality. It was much easier the second time around with the versions from the iPad app. You live and learn.

At first, I thought what I had was fine until I realised that the black parts of the vector image would be where the laser would etch, and that translated to the coloured aspects of the compents rather than the black aspects. So I had to flip the black parts with the white parts, which, for me just learning to use Inkscape, was a difficult thing to do. Thankfully, as with everything, Claire jumped in to help, making the flip look easy.

The Elite Tokens took a bit more to do due to their unusual shape. I used the cicle tool and square tool to make the basic shape, laying it over the scanned image to keep the same dimensions. The icon in the center was all Claire's doing. She did some voodoo magic and a star was born.

With all the pieces drawn out in Inkscape, I took the PDF file to the MakerLabs. MakerLabs is a makerspace, a collective designed to allow people easy access to large or expensive tools and machines, such as CNC machines, 3D printers or, most intriguing to me, laser cutters, allowing you to bring ideas to life.

The wonderful staff in MakerLabs took my file and walked through what they offered. I wanted the parts cut in acrylic, and while they had a range of colours, they didn't have the matching colours for each of the roles, so I went with a transparent blue for everything. I thought it would make the parts look kinda... techie.

After making sure they knew what size each of the pieces needed to be, I left the file with MakerLabs, and came back to pick them up a few days later. As you can see from the photos, they came out looking amazing! I did learn one thing that I need to change from this first batch. If I continue to use transparent acrylic, I want to get the images burned in mirror image, so that the etched side will be face down and the smooth, clean side will be face up.

I'm so happy with these. The cuts are crisp and clean, and the etched parts are sharp with great definition, even on the small details. I'm already planning more. Namely, I want to make the XCOM role badges bigger to turn them into drinks coasters. I also have some plans for other custom components for other games, but that... that's a story for another post.

Related Posts
XCOM The Board Game

XCOM The Board Game

I got into the XCOM franchise of games from Firaxsis with the modern relaunch in 2012. It's one of the few games I played a lot of when I got my new PC in 2013, even recording a YouTube series that included a squad of my friends defending the world from X-ray threat. Claire and I also enjoy watching another YouTube play by XCOM expert player BeagleRush, who plays at a level so far above me it's like someone who previously had never heard music listening to a full live symphony every week, and just like that hypothetical fellow, I thoroughly enjoy it every week, but have no idea how it's all done.

When Fantasy Flight Games announced an upcoming board game, I was mildly interested, but assumed it was going to be a miniatures strategy game mimicking the mission gameplay from the video games, and I am terrible at those. So, when previews started arriving, I grew more intrigued, as the designer Eric M. Lang decided to present a game focusing on the base management and global phase of the game instead, and I love that stuff.

XCOM The Board Game is a one to four player co-operative game where the players take on the four key roles of the XCOM Project command.

The Commander looks after global concerns, deploying Interceptors, while also keeping close track of the shared budget, and demanding that other roles "stop buying so much stuff!" Sending too few Interceptors results in UFO's staying on the board, harrassing everyone. Spending too much money has disasterous results on global trust in the Project, because clearly if you can't balance the books, you shouldn't be battling the mooks.

Speaking of mooks, the Squad Leader is in charge of the troops, assigning soldiers to missions and defending the base from attacks. Their role is most obviously critical to success, as successfully completed missions accelerate the chance of the final mission being triggered. But unlike some other roles, when things go bad for the Squad Leader, they go really bad, as soliders die and are taken away from possible combat rotation until the Commander can afford to buy them back.

The Chief Scientist spends their time researching new technology to upgrade the various roles in the game, providing new armour to the Squad Leader, the alien element Elerium to the Commander, or Alien Alloys for their own department, among others. While it is the most relaxed of the roles, it is also, aguably, actually the most vital to overall success, as it is the Scientist who keeps everyone else going when the chips are down.

Finally, there is the most interesting role in terms of mechanics, and also the most controvertial in terms of what it brings to the table, the Central Officer. Their role is to deploy satellites to orbit, but mostly to relay information to the other players. They do this using the free to download app, available on most popular devices and operating systems.

The app has caused some waves among core tabletop gamers, as some seem to feel that a board game should be without electronic attachments, especially one that isn't included in the box. To that, it's worth noting that:

• Games have often come with nontraditional elements, from Atmosfear's videos to Scattergories' clockwork timer.
• Everyone has a phone or tablet these days. Access to the app is unlikely to be an issue with even just minor effort.
• The tasks of the app could be replicated with cards or dice, but only with extreme complexity in set-up and execution, and lots of limited-use components.

The XCOM game app lays out initial set-up, acts as a tutorial and rulebook, controls the game difficulty, what aliens you'll face and where your home base will be located. Relayed during play through the Central Officer, it tells players when to perform actions, from drawing cards to deploying units, and puts every such action under a tight time limit. The game has been built with the app in mind from the ground up, not tagged on halfway through developement, and it shows. It makes complex elements remarkably clean, while adding a tension and excitement that a deck of cards or roll of some dice could not.

Despite having those very seperate roles, communcation and player interaction is vital toward the success of the XCOM Project. Table talk is encouraged, especially during the Resolution Phase. The game is broken into two distinct phases, Timed and Resolution. The Timed Phase is, as you could guess, timed. The app tells you how much time you have to complete the task assigned, from a comfortable 30 seconds, to a few frantic moments. During the Timed Phase, players will commit their units to tasks, or chose cards to put into play, but nothing gets resolved. No dice get roled.

All the dice action happens during the Resolution Phase. This is not timed, allowing players to talk about how things went last round, and plan for the next, as well as activate cards for a wide variety of effects. It's a nice bit of downtime for everyone involved, allowing players to relax, grab a snack or use the washroom. It reminds me of something I heard about in relation to action movies. It's can't be go, go, go action for a full 90 minutes because you'll exhaust the audience. That's why so many great action movies have laugh-out-loud moments, or quiet, somber character pieces. This makes XCOM a much more relaxing game to play than other timed board games, such as Escape The Curse of the Temple or Space Alert.

I've had the joy of playing XCOM: The Board Game a lot recently, and with a wide variety of people, both friends and gamers I had only just met, thanks to a recent convention. I've taught the game to about a dozen or so people, and I can confidently say that it's remarkably easy to teach once you've had a game or two of practice. Pro Tip: Start with the dice rolling, in a broad generalisation. It gives a good basis for understanding why everything else happens. After a quick overview of how the game works, the first round covers most quetions that come up, and the game flows smoothly after that, even for new players.

XCOM is a fast, fun and intense. It's a fantastic co-op game that eliminates any possibility of "Expert Instruction", the possibility of a co-op game becoming a single player experience with viewers. Each player has their very specific roles, and while there is sometimes room for short discussion, the decision falls to the active player, often leading to tough choices that at least feel like you have ownership of that choice, even if it's the lesser of two evils. Actually, it's always the lesser of two evils.

It's a pity that all the rules are in the app. The box includes a single sheet for setup, but no paper rule book. While everything is in the app, it's not convenient for quick referencing rules. Relatedly, there are a few rules that the initial tutorial doesn't touch on, requiring players to search through the ap for answers to questions about exact mechanics or timing. This hurts especially when the tutorial seems to teach everything, while not actually doing to. Also, while most steps during the Resolution Phase will remind players to complete all elements of each step, one or two are missing, such as when a continent drops into full panic (the orange zone), you should move any UFOs in that continent to orbit. This is mentioned in the rules, but not the screen that asks about each continents status.

I love playing XCOM The Board Game, but it's not for everyone. I have a hard time getting it onto the table, and it's highly dependant on who shows up for games night. Anyone that has played it enjoys it, but not everyone is hungry for a second run. If you enjoy some tension in your games, a fun co-op experience and the truth that you will fail far more often than you will succeed, even on Easy, then XCOM might be for you.

Related Posts Board Game Review Hub