Switch, Game Review

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Every so often you are sitting with a few people around and just wanting a quick game to fill in the time. Something everyone gets involved in. In my group we call these filler games. At a couple of recent conventions, Salt Lake Gaming Convention and SaltCon, I came across a game that really fits the definition of a filler game.

Switch is a fast-paced, everyone play at once, game. It reminded me of a game we called Speed crossed over with some Crazy Eights. In Switch you are working to get rid of your hand as fast as possible into a central discard pile.

A hand starts with each player having a dealt hand that you turn over at the same time. Then you get rid of them as fast as possible. You start out with a condition to play cards, pairs, color (suit), or runs. You keep playing on the top of the discard pile until you can't play or a switch card is used to change the condition.

When I played we just played individual hands, but you can keep score to have your game last longer than just a hand. Many hands are completed in less than a minute. I also watched other playing and how many younger players really enjoyed the fast pace of the game and how short of time a hand took.

I can see there is a lot of potential to create your own house rules for discarding. You can also change hand size. You could also create different hand sizes to provide a balance between younger and older players. All of these, and other ideas, create a basic card game that can be played differently to keep the game fresh.

You might be waiting for only a few minutes and be looking for something to fill the gap of time. Or, you might need to fill a little more time. You could even play this between ordering your food and waiting for it to be served.

Switch is designed and distributed by Bored Brothers Gaming (Facebook link). It designed for 2–6 players, with no age listed, to last about 15 minutes (based on the games scoring system).

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Nerdy Inventions, Game Review

Tinkering in the laboratory by adding a watzit here and a widget there can be a fulfilling career. Working to get the right combination of components to make a whole working invention is give a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Then, after the first one is made, being able to put that invention to use to create more amazing creations can take you to a whole new level of self-confidence.

Nerdy Inventions distributed by Mayday Games is a quick playing game well suited for a small family, kids, or even when another couple comes over for game night. It is designed for two to four players and we played it with two and four players. The game moves quickly and easily along, but, you also have the capability of being able to step away from it or break out in conversation without disrupting the game. This makes it a nice addition to the game shelf.

First, I sat down with three other players of mixed ages and we were able to quickly learn Nerdy Inventions and play through without any problems. This first session was with less experienced gamers and everyone enjoyed it. I am sure we were all missing options that were available to us, but no one minded the fact. They were having fun, helping each other and enjoying the interaction through the game.

The next time I played was with a friend who is a gamer. The two of us started the game as we were waiting for the rest of the players on a game night. After we started, we found out the others weren't going to be able to make it and we played one game after the other for several hours.

Nerdy inventionshas easy to understand rules that provide a lot of combinations of what can be done on your turn. Although we didn't hit the lowest age of the recommendation our youngest player was able to understand and apply the rules on their own quickly. More questions came from the more experienced gamers as they were figuring out the nuances of what they could do. After a quick pass through the rules we were able to start our first game.

Each player starts with an invention. Inventions allow the player to make adjustments to their resources, or the inventions available to be created when you get the right combination of resources. The resources are determined by a roll of three six-sided dice.

The game

A turn starts by rolling the dice to determine what resources you have available. The right combination of dice allows you to build new inventions that becomes part of your laboratory. You can also spend dice to move inventions so the resource requirement changes or power one of your inventions you have used earlier in the game.

Using an invention allows an action depending on what the invention is. There are ten different inventions available. The combination of events in a single turn grows as you determine how to spend your resources and use your inventions. The game is designed that everyone will get the same number of turns, usually. There is an invention that allows a player to end the game immediately, if they think it will give them enough victory points.

Every invention is worth victory points. During play you have to decide how you want to fill your laboratory with what's available—what's on the invention row and what you have resources for. At the end of the game victory points are totaled to determine who has the best filled laboratory.

Along with being a good family game Nerdy Inventions is a good addition to have as a cabin game or a filler game. It is in a small package, is easy to set up, and easy to clean up. With the randomness of rolling dice and the order of the deck as inventions are made available the replay-ability of Nerdy Inventions is high.

Nerdy Inventionsby Chih Fan Chen from Homosapiens Lab and licensed to Mayday Gamesis designed for 2–4 players of ages 8+. A game is designed to last 25–30 minutes.

I would like to thank Mayday Games for the opportunity of playing and reviewing their games.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Coins, in Development, Game Review

Some of the coins from the game

The field of battle lies between you. Across the field you can see your enemy prepared to enter as your forces wait for the orders to advance. Each of them personally selected for this confrontation, a confrontation of winner take all.

I was able to play the Coins at Life, the Universe and Everything (LTUE). This was a demonstration game with the developer to gain feedback as he is still working on it. The basis of the game combines a strategy of selecting your troops for battle, moving them into play, and combatting your opponent. We played one-on-one.

Carl Duzett, the designer, currently has the game setup to be a two player game with a fantasy theme. In our discussion he mentioned he is looking at other variations of number of players, themes, and available coins. I will focus on what I experienced with two players.

The mechanic used for combat is flipping the coin that is the troop piece. One side of the coin focuses on defense while the other is focuses on attack. When the coins first move out into play the defensive side is up, but at some point someone has to attack. The coin is flipped and the result of the flip is where the coin stays. There are also some special effects for different coins.

Some coins have an effect when they move into the battlefield. These one-shot events have the possibility of changing the course of the battle. You need to plan ahead and decide not only which piece should be moved out when. Other coins have special actions when that side comes up. But, the strategy starts before you even move a coin into the battlefield.

You choose which coins are part of the army you field. The set we played had twenty five coins to choose from and we each had identical coins to fill out our six member force. There are also other ways to build an army: each person could choose from their own set of coins, the players could draft from a common pool, you could take turns drafting from individual pools, or you could take turns choosing which coin every player has. I am sure there are other variations you could come up with to build your force. There are more coins being considered, but even with the current number of coins and variations of creating a force, there is great replayability.

With a force of six the game took about fifteen minutes to learn and play. Variability of time can be made with different drafting techniques and the number of coins included in the armies. These variations allow the game to be used as a filler game while you are waiting for other, and the size makes for a good cabin game that can travel with you.

I look forward to seeing how Coins develops. I believe Mr. Duzett has a good solid start and this is one that can be brought to market.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Meteor, Game Review

The deluxe cover

A meteor swarm is racing towards the Earth. All life is in danger of extinction. Governments are scrambling to build and launch rockets to destroy the meteors before they impact on the planet. Time is limited, however, therefore cooperation is a necessity.

Meteor, from Mayday Games, is a fast paced cooperative game for 1-5 players. Players are building and launching missiles at the incoming threat. The meteors are coming in fast, moving through five elevation zones. Giving the players five rounds, controlled by 5 1-minute timers (in the deluxe), to complete the destruction of the meteors. If any of them get through, the Earth is destroyed.

The game is listed at five minutes, but we found it took a little longer because you have some cleanup between the rounds. Even with between round activities, the total game time wasn't much longer. And, didn't take away from the fast-pace intended. We had 5 players working together to learn and play the game, and we played a half dozen games.

Each game of Meteorstarts with the limitation that players cannot talk to each other. You can gesture, grunt, and try to get attention, but no talking. This lasts until someone can get a communication network in place, satellite or facility. This is a fun twist to the game, which made for some hilarious interactions around the table.

Play is done by placing cards from your hand onto your launch pad, and helping other players build what is on their launch pads by playing supporting cards there. You have a limit number of cards, which are your resources, so you have to watch where your resources can help others. Also, knocking the meteors out of the sky is not just blasting them with the biggest missile you can build.

Along with the resources, you can play with cards that give an advantage and a hindrance to each player. We found these cards added to the game. We played a couple of introductory games without them to learn the basics and then went with everything. All of the cards were balanced and we even faced winning or losing because of the additional factors.

The first game we played took longer as we learned the intricacies of what different cards meant, and what we could do. To accommodate learning, there is a "Time-out" rule so you can look up clarifications. Once we learned what the different cards meant, we weren't looking up rules very often, but we still had a couple of time-outs in our later games.  It seemed like there was a longer learning curve, but it really wasn't any longer because the game is moving so quickly. Even with all of the stops, making sure we knew what the cards meant, we played six games in about an hour.

 

Everyone had fun with Meteor. Some players were getting into it and were talking strategy between games. Everyone agreed this would be a great game to keep handy, and it fits right into being a filler game, or a cabin game.

We were 50/50 on the win/loss record. That shows a good balance for a cooperative game. In one of the games we even pulled off the ultimate B-movie cliff hanger by destroying the last meteor as the fifth timer was running out of sand.

Meteor is from Mayday Games and designed by Mike Young. It is designed for 1-5 players of ages 13+.

Thanks to Mayday Games for the review copy.

If you have any comments, questions, or critiques please leave a comment here, or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Martial Art, Game Review

The clans of Japan are assembling to determine which has rightful leadership. As your clan's leader you must take charge and organize everyone for the upcoming battles. It is your decision of who should fight now and who should be held back for later battles. But, there is more than just sending your warriors forth into battle, you can work on building greater reserves or use treacherous twists to deceive.

Martial Art is the second game to come from Spider Goat Games (their first game was Gangster Dice—review from 2014). And Spider Goat Games is working to maintain the quality of an easy to learn, quick-play game.

Martial Art pits players against each other, battling for control of significant locations. The mechanic is one most people are very familiar with, the same mechanic as in the card game War. However, Martial Art includes hand management, bluffing, and conditional effects that occur depending on the land being fought over, and the cards being played.

Each turn the players battle for a place (as identified on the land card). Some of the lands have effects that come into play alter events, like for Sagami, "After the battle, the player with the lowest strength may take a card from the discard pile, including those this round." And, some of the battle cards also effect play.

Two of us sat down at the table to learn Martial Art. The rules are easy to learn and we were able to start playing quickly. Because the mechanics of the game are something we understood, the only thing causing us to slow down at all was reading the conditional effects to decide if we wanted to use the particular card that round.

Once the land card was revealed, we saw if it had any effect on the battle. Then we selected our battle cards, deciding if there were any we could, and wanted to play, prior to the battle, and which card we wanted to bring into the battle directly. There is also an option of "forgoing" the battle to create a larger hand to choose from later. The cards are placed face down, that is the bluffing part; each player decides their action without knowing what the other players are attempting.

Once the cards are revealed the battle is concluded and any after battle effects are completed. Once one player has achieved a victory condition based on the land cards, the game ends. In our games we never ran completely through the deck.

Since this is a straightforward card game, it plays quickly. We were able to get several games played while we were filling in the time waiting for others of our gaming group. Set up and clean up are also quick. Since you are working with a pack of cards (or 2 for playing the 3-4 player variation), they are easy to have packed away in the game bag, backpack, or suitcase to have ready for a quick game anywhere.

The artwork on the cards is wonderful (classical Japanese). While finishing up, the art work was enough to get other players interested in wanting to learn the game.

Spider Goat Games is bringing another good game to have handy for the spare moments you want to fill. They are starting a Kickstarter campaign in the month of June 2016.

Thanks to Spider Goat Games for a copy of the prototype for review.

If you have any comments, questions, or critiques please leave a comment here, or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

You can join Guild Master Gaming on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter (@GuildMstrGmng).

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