Argent: The Consortium, Part 1: Box Contents

The hardest part about reviewing any game with a colon in the title is having a double-colon article headline.  That really is quite frustrating.  However, we're going to push through the pain as we bring you the latest review from our mighty game pile: Argent: The Consortium (oh God, we've done it again!) from Level 99 Games.

This had been sitting in a box for the last 3 months, with every intention of using it for our next unboxing podcast.  Unfortunately it seems that assembling the team for a game is considerably easier than assembling for a recording session, so eventually the decision was made to just open the damn thing and actually get some games out of it!  So here we now are, with this article for your reading pleasure as a result.

You lucky lot.

Anyway, 8am caffeine-fuelled ramblings aside, Argent: The Consortium  is a Euro-style resource management game for 2-5 players.  The game is set in a magical university, and the university chancellor's seat has been left vacant.  Each player takes on the role of a high-ranking member of the university faculty, and through resource-gathering and worker-placement they must win as many votes as possible over the course of 5 rounds, securing themselves as the next chancellor.
As is our usual MO for board games, we'll be vigorously studying (see what we did there?) the box contents in this article, before a thorough exam (okay, we're done with school puns now... maybe) of the gameplay mechanics in part two.
So, wands down, time for first period, and let's see what's inside the box of delights.

Before getting into the box, let's talk about the box itself.  With Kickstarter projects we like to talk about how professional the overall presentation of the game is, and the quality of the game components.  Obviously most Kickstarter games are run by very small companies or even just a couple of enthusiastic individuals, so at prototype stage we never scrutinise the physical quality of the game, just the gameplay.  Once it's been published, however, the rules change - small company or not, if you're putting your game on the shelves then you're throwing down with the big boys, and should be offering up a product which can hold its own!  The podcasted, but currently un-reviewed CLASH! Dawn of Steam was an example of a Kickstarter project which didn't result in a retail-quality product, whereas 404: Law Not Found showed us all how it's done!

We're happy to say Argent falls into the latter category.  It's a big-box game of a similar kind of size to the likes of Arkham Horror, Smallworld, BioShock Infinite: TSoC and so forth.  When you pick it up for the first time you notice the weight straight away - this is a game with a lot of content and it's not shy about it!  The box itself is nicely illustrated, cleanly printed, and of a solid build.  This is something which can end up in the middle of a big game pile and not come out any worse for wear on the other side.
It straight away gives you an idea of the overall styling of the game as well, which we feel is going to prove a divisive point amongst gamers and possibly harm Argent's potential audience.  As an American game built on Euro-game mechanics, Level 99 have interestingly chosen a Japanese Anime/Manga style for the character artwork.  It's bold and certainly very colourful, but will be less likely to strike a chord with the older generation of gamers, instead aiming much more towards the younger crowd.  Time will tell whether this will impact the success of Argent in the long run, but we can't help but feel that a more classical illustration style would probably have appealed to a wider audience.

Anyway, enough about the box, time to delve into the contents!

If you're going to vie for chancellorship of the university then you're going to need a suitable candidate.  In Argent there are 12 candidates to choose from: 2 each from 6 colour-coded departments within the university, which consist of Planar Studies, Divinity, Mysticism, Natural Magick, Sorcery, and the Department of Students.   Each department can only have one candidate in the running for the chancellor's role, so each of the 6 Candidate Sheets is double-sided giving the players the choice of a male or female character from their chosen department.
The sheets themselves are relatively simple, featuring an illustration of the chosen character, a summary of the turn sequence, a space for discarded cards, a list of starting items, and a track across the top of the card for storing the player's apprentices when they're not out running errands.
A fair few games these days - such as Zombicide - choose to print their character boards onto thick, board-quality card stock, whereas many are content to just use a standard card thickness.  Argent goes for the latter, but frankly the Character Sheets aren't really going to be getting handled, so there's no real risk of them becoming tattered in any hurry.

One of the unusual things about Argent is that it's a big-box board game without a standard board.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a break from the norm.  Instead there are 15 smaller boards, each of which represent a room in the university.  Depending on the number of players, 8-12 of these boards will be used during the game, with the white-bordered rooms always in use, and the remaining rooms drawn at random, or selected based on one of the pre-set layouts in the rulebook.  Each board is also double-sided, with side B featuring slightly more advanced rules for more experienced players.
During each round, players will send their Mage tokens on errands to the various rooms throughout the university, and reap the rewards for their success (or failure) by way of various resources.

Well if we're running errands then we'd better have some minions to do it with!  There are 6 different colours of Mage tokens, and the game comes with a set of reference cards to remind the players of the different Mages' abilities.  The red Mages, for example, can wound an opponent's Mage and send them off to the infirmary.  Green Mages are immune to wounding, and so are good for placing in key areas around the university.
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that there only 5 reference cards.  Well the poor little yellow Mages (or beige, if you believe the rulebook... we don't) are neutral Mages - they have no special abilities, but when push comes to shove you might find yourself needing all the help you can get your magical hands on.

The actual models themselves are of decent quality.  Many board games these days treat their players with tabletop-quality miniatures, which look amazing on the board but often result in a higher price tag.  The models in Argent aren't particularly intricately detailed, but do the job, and at the end of the day they are simply playing pieces rather than miniatures.

You can't have a game called Argent: The Consortium without a Consortium.  Well, you could, but it would be maddeningly illogical.  It'd be like having a game called Billy The Space Penguin and basing it around a dinosaur named Joe.  That way lies madness.
As mentioned earlier, the aim of the game is to secure votes for your candidacy, and the Consortium cards represent the movers and shakers of the university whose votes you'll be canvassing.  There are 18 Consortium Voters, but only 12 used in any particular game.  As with the room boards, there are 2 white-bordered Consortium cards, which are always in play, and the remaining 10 are drawn at random.  Each of the voters has a different voting criteria - one may vote for the player with the most gold, one for the player with the most mana, one for the player with the second-highest influence, and so on.  Where the game becomes interesting is that only the white-bordered Consortium cards begin the game face-up, so at the beginning of the game the players will not know 10 of the win conditions.  As the game progresses, they'll earn the right to peek at the face-down voters, and can then start to tailor their tactics to this new information.

The Consortium Voters need a place to hang out while the players are engaged in their House of Cards-esque political maneuvering, and so the Consortium Board becomes their home.  The 12 voters take their places in the centre of the board, and the players' influence is monitored on the track around the edge.  One of the constant, white-bordered voters always sides with the player with the highest influence total, so it's an important resource to chase after in the early stages of the game.

Without magic, it would be a fairly ineffectual magical university, and so the players are going to need some spells!  The oversized Spell cards each feature a different spell, and each spell has 3 levels, which can only be unlocked through research.  The first level allows the player to take a card from the deck and opens up the most basic capabilities of the spell, whereas further levels unlock its full capabilities.  Depending on which Consortium Voters are on the table, it could be beneficial to have a wide range of low level spells, or just one or two which are fully tricked-out.  Spells can usually only be used once per round, and can be used to gain resources, hinder your opponents, or give advantages to your own Mages as they scurry about doing their master's bidding.
Each player begins the game with a spell specific to their character, with the other spells having to be earned as the game progresses.  There are also a limited number of Legendary Spells, but these have been sealed in the university vault where only the players' Mages have hope of locating them!

More cards!  The other two major sources of resources are Supporters (top) and Vault Cards (bottom).  Both can be secured by your wandering Mages to add to your arsenal during the round.  Some of the Vault Cards are classed as Treasures, meaning that you can reap their benefits every round gaining gold, mana, influence, or bonus abilities.  Others are classed as Consumables, which tend to offer a more powerful benefit but as a one-time thing.  Supporters work in much the same way as Consumables, but again both of these can contribute towards the favour of particular Consortium Voters.

The final remaining type of card - the Tower Card - is an interesting addition to Argent.  During each player's turn they are granted one action, and for that action they have the option of taking a Tower Card.  Each player may only have one, and once the last one has been taken, the round ends.  Each card bestows a different reward, from influence to the First Player token for the following round.   This means that the round won't end until every player is ready for it to proceed, and so if you have a grand masterplan to implement, no one can rush you through it.  They can also force players into difficult choices - do you place one of your Mages into a prime location on the board, or do you give up Mage placement for a turn in order to claim the Tower Card which adds to your influence?
Once the round has been completed, all of the Tower effects are resolved, and then the cards return to the table for the next round.

This then just leaves the usual plethora of tokens.  Once again these are cleanly printed onto good quality stock, so should stand the test of time as the games wear on.

One thing (or two, more accurately) we were disappointed with were the upgraded coins and mana tokens.  Originally the coins were going to just be more card tokens, and the mana tokens would have been acrylic cubes, but these were both upgraded as Kickstarter stretch goals.  If we're being completely honest, we can't help but feel they would have been better left in their original incarnations.
Many games use card tokens for coins, and as long as they're cleanly printed then they don't detract from the gaming experience at all.  The upgraded plastic coins are of the same sort of quality as the kind you'd find in a childrens' shopkeeper playset, and if anything actually lower the overall quality, feeling cheaper than the other game components.  We may at some point further upgrade ours to metal roleplay coins, but would rather that we hadn't felt compelled to take that step.
The decision to give the more random shapes to the mana tokens was understandable, giving them the general aesthetic of formless arcane energy, but the downside to this is a purely practical one - they don't fit in the box as well, and are a little more chaotic when you've amassed a decent number of them and they're piled all over your Candidate Sheet!

So those are the physical components of Argent: The Consortium.  Our overall thoughts are definitely positive at this point.  Aside from the plastic coins, everything seems to have been produced to a very high, professional standard.  If this was handed to us and we didn't know it was a post-Kickstarter game, we would have thought it to be from a big game developer.  The cards all have the satin finish which seems to be popular lately, which means that sleeving will probably be in order, but as the cards aren't cycled through as often as you'd expect, this isn't particularly urgent.  Obviously the style of artwork will be very hit-or-miss with people, but regardless of opinions on the overall aesthetic, it's all definitely of high quality.

We've already played through a number of 3 player games, so over the next week we're aiming to try it out with different player numbers and then we'll be back with the gameplay verdict shortly!  Stay tuned!

Podcast: CLASH! Dawn of Steam - First Impressions

With International Tabletop Day having been just yesterday we had a great day of playing games, drinking tea, and just having general fun.  As part of the day's hijinks we recorded another 'First Impressions' podcast for a recently received Kickstarter game: CLASH! Dawn of Steam from Mad Ape Games.  We'll hopefully have a full review up and running within a few weeks, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy listening to our first impressions of the game quality, as well as our photos of some of the card which caught our attention for one reason or another!

Love Letter: Batman Edition Review

Good day to you, ladies and gentlegamers! As we've mentioned in the past, we thoroughly enjoy every review we bring to our readers, but we get an extra bit of joy from reviewing a new release - purely because of the fact that it allows us to feel as though we're on the ball for once!  So, brace yourselves for probably the shortest gameplay walkthrough we've ever brought you, as we take a look at Love Letter: Batman Edition by Seiji Kanai, from Alderac Enterainment.

Love Letter itself is a very popular and well-established casual card game, and has been a staple of many gamers' collections for quite some time.  Even with comic book heroes very much ascendant in recent years, this is probably one of the most surprising games to receive a superhero paint job!

To date we haven't actually played the original Love Letter so will be unable to draw direct comparisons, but we're chalking this up as an advantage as it leaves us able to dissect the Batman Edition on its own merits, and give it an unbiased score.

Love Letter: Batman Edition is a competitive card game for 2-4 players, in which each player takes on the role of the Dark Knight, and has to outshine the other Batmonei (we established this as the plural of "Batman" on a Hobbynomicon podcast!) in recapturing the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum.

At the beginning of the review we mentioned that this would probably be our shortest gameplay explanation to date, and this is entirely down to the fact that Love Letter: Batman Edition is a mind-bogglingly simple game to play - to such an extent that we were left wondering why we never picked up a copy of the original version.  Before you click away though, we like to think our Cards Against Humanity review proved that simple mechanics do not a bad game make, and similarly our Arkham Horror review went to show that complex mechanics don't necessarily pave the road to a good gaming experience.  So stick with us as we go through Love Letter: Batman Edition and see how it plays out...

Contents-wise, Love Letter: Batman Edition is a very light game.  There are 16 Game Cards, each printed with lavish artwork depicting either Batman, Robin, or one of the many major supervillains from the Batman universe (for those DC fans interested, with the exception of The Joker they're all New 52-based).  Each of these cards contains a nice, plain-English explanation of how that card functions, which we'll go through shortly, and a number in the top-left corner which dictates the card's value (the higher, the better).

As an extra little assist for players, there are also four card lists included in the box, explaining the value of each character, the card's abilities, as well as a reminder of how many of each card are in the deck (there may be five Batmonei, but there is only one Mr J!).

"I'm Batman!" "No, I'm Batman!" "I'm Batman, and so's my wife!"

This just leaves a bag of small wooden Batman tokens, which are used to keep track of the scores across each round, and the rulebook.

And that's it!  Not a great deal to look at (although certainly very pretty), but let's put them all together and see what happens...

The aim of Love Letter: Batman Edition is to gain 7 Batman tokens before any of the other players, through rounding up the highest-valued Arkham escapees.

To start the game the Game Cards are shuffled and then one card is randomly discarded face-down, not to be used throughout the rest of the game.  Lover Letter: Batman Edition is a game of bluffing and deduction, so having one unknown card missing from the deck adds an extra challenge to the latter.

Each player draws a single card to create their starting hand, and then the round begins.  During each players (very quick) turn, they draw one card off the top of the deck, and then have to discard one from their hand,  Some of the cards have positive effects, some have negative effects, either of which can be used to try and misdirect the other players about the remaining card.  Some can be used to eliminate other players from the round, whilst some eliminate the player who discarded it, and one way to win the Batman token for the round is to be the last Batman standing.

If the deck is depleted then the round finishes, and the player with the highest value card in their hand wins the Batman token, or - in the event of a tie - the player with the highest value of discarded cards wins.

Confused?  That's fair, it's a far simpler game in practice than on paper!

For example...

Going back to Batman himself from the earlier photo, his discard ability allows a player to guess at the card in another player's hand.  At the beginning of the game this could be an outright guess, but as more cards are discarded deduction can start to creep in.  Of course players do have to rely on complete honesty from one-another, but frankly anyone who can't be trusted through a casual game has no place in any gaming group, in our opinion!  Batman is the lowest value card in the deck, so keeping him in hand serves very little purpose in the long-run, so he will usually get discarded/activated a lot.

Harley Quinn is a high-value escapee, with a value of 7 (second highest only to her puddin' - The Joker - himself), so keeping her in hand is usually going to be a good play.  However, her ability forces her to be discarded if Two-Face or Poison Ivy are drawn.  In the example above the player has just drawn Bane, who allows players to basically play a quick game of Top Trumps!  Now whilst the obvious play would be to discard Bane and hope Harley's 7 is enough to knock out an opponent, a sneakier play might be to discard Harley, leading the other players to believe either Two-Face or Ivy is in your hand.  Throwing the other players off the scent for a turn like this can be a devastating move, especially with such high card turnover and fast deck-depletion.

Each character in Love Letter: Batman Edition serves a different purpose, and learning how and when to use them most effectively is the key to victory... that, and a good poker face.  Catwoman, for example, allows a player to look at an opponent's hand.  Two-Face allows a player to trade hands with an opponent altogether.  Robin allows a player to ignore the effects of other cards for a full turn.  And The Joker (a personal favourite) puts the player who discarded him out of the round - you are playing as Batman, after all, so allowing Gotham's most notorious criminal to slip through your grasp is grounds for immediate dismissal.

As mentioned above (although now with a bit of context!) being the only non-eliminated player wins a Batman point, or after the deck is depleted, having the highest-value inmate in your clutches snags you that little wooden bat-symbol.  At the end of each round the deck is shuffled and the process is repeated until one player has 7 of those coveted points.

So that's Love Letter: Batman Edition.  With a learning time of roughly 90 seconds (no kidding, that's actually how long it took us to get a game going!) it's one of the quickest and easiest games to pick up on the market, but with some light-hearted theatricality and deception, it's still incredibly fun to play.

The physical components of the game are manufactured to a high standard, and the artwork - as mentioned earlier - is very nice to look at.  Being a quick game to play, it makes an excellent warm-up, wind-down, or intermission game to any games night, and the turns rotate so quickly that it feels more like a party game, as you always seem to be taking an action of some sort.  It's simplicity and short play-time make it an excellent game for younger gamers with shorter attention spans as well, so if you have a young Bat-fan in the family and you want to draw them into your gaming hobby, this might be a good place to start!

Criticisms of the game come very few and far between, however we've always prided ourselves on our impartiality, and so will work to find any negative points we can.  First of all it's not so great with just 2 players.  Even with the mystery card removed at the beginning of the game, the deductive side of Love Letter: Batman Edition falls a little short when you only have one opponent to outfox.  The only other criticism (and ye gods we're having to scrape the nitpicking barrel here!) is that there will inevitably be people getting upset over the choice of villains in the deck.  With a limited-sized deck and so many Arkham alumni to choose from, some people will end up having their favourites missed out.  (On a personal note, the inclusion of The Joker, Harley Quinn and Catwoman was enough to keep me happy, anyone else is purely a bonus!)

The Good Points

• Quick to play.
• Even quicker to learn!
• An excellent entry-level game for younger gamers, or those new to the specialist game scene.
• Nicely tactical, in spite of the simple mechanics.
• Very well presented, with nice artwork throughout.
• "I'M BATMAN!"

The Bad Points

• Limited appeal with only 2 players.
• No Riddler or Penguin, to name but two, so Nigma and Cobblepot fans will be disappointed.
• Very difficult to resist the urge to growl "I'M BATMAN!" with the Batman card in hand.  Anyone?  Oh, maybe that's just me then.

Recommended Number of Players: 3-4

As mentioned, Love Letter: Batman Edition struggles a little with 2 players, but it comes to life with 3 and excels with 4.

Average Game Time: 20 minutes

Each round of Love Letter: Batman Edition only lasts a couple of minutes, but with a target of 7 Batman points a full 4 player game has the potential to cap at 25 rounds!  However, this is unlikely to happen, and 20 minutes is a good average game time, which can even be shortened if needed by reducing the number of required points.

Replay Value: High

With its short play-time, this is a good game for filling gaps, whether a lunch break, or a pause between bigger games on a game night.  As a result, it's likely to be a game which is played little and often, and so will be very easy to keep coming back to.

The Future: Darkest just before the dawn...

Okay we have to admit that comment wasn't really relevant, but we just thought it'd look really good there!  Love Letter: Batman Edition is a standalone game, so really doesn't have anywhere further to go.

Price: £14

The RRP on Love Letter: Batman Edition is £14, and there are two versions available.  We've shown you the boxed version (as we like having pretty boxed games filling our shelves), but there is also a bagged version, which doesn't come with the box, but includes a Batman-embroidered canvas bag for ease of transportation.  Both retail for the same price, and with both Love Letter and Batman being very popular, we imagine it will be readily available on the shelves of most gaming stores before long!

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10

 Tea consumed during this review: Typhoo, milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew Rating: 7.5/10

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more of the same, come and like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our reviews, as well as our general day-to-day ramblings!

Space Alert, Part 1: Box Contents

Well at this point we certainly can't be accused of keeping on top of our game reviews!  For many and varied reasons we've dropped off the face of the gaming earth for the last several months, but just because we haven't been reviewing doesn't mean we haven't been playing!  Obviously the downside is that our readership numbers have dropped off, and we can't blame anyone for that, but on the plus side it now means we have a bunch of games which we have well and truly played to death, which we're ready to approach with a reviewers mindset now!

So to end our reviewing drought, we're going to be taking a look at Space Alert by Vlaada Chvatil, from Rio Grande Games.

Space Alert is a co-operative board game for 1-5 players, set on a short-range interstellar exploration vessel which is apparently entirely crewed by people dressed like Cyclops from X-Men.  The role of the ship is a simple one: execute a hyperspace jump to a nearby sector of space, spend 12 minutes scanning the area, and then hyperspace jump back to Earth to report the findings.  The ship is pre-programmed to carry out its mission.  The ship knows what it's doing.  The ship is valuable.

The crew are not.

That's right, Nostromo-wannabes, you're expendable (not to be confused with The Expendables, although if you're the captain I suppose you can order everyone else to call you 'Stallone').  The job of the crew on this noble voyage is to make sure that the ship stays in one piece for long enough to make that return jump, although with giant space jellyfish, malfunctioning robots, saboteurs and nuclear warheads, that's not going to be an easy task!

But we'll be getting into the real gritty details of the gameplay in the second part of the review.  For now, as always, we're going to be taking a look at the box contents so you know what to expect when you... well... examine the contents of the box.

Now just to be a bit different we're not going to start with the board, but with the rulebook.  Or, more accurately, the rulebooks.  As any self-respecting game should do, it comes with an in-depth (though, mercifully, not lengthy) rulebook with all of the gameplay mechanics clearly explained.  It also includes a second rulebook, entitled "How to be a Space Explorer in Seven Lessons".

Seeing as Space Alert is quite a complex game, it has a fantastic method of teaching new players how to play.  The "How to..." book is laid out and annotated like a training manual for space cadets, and slowly introduces players to the rules over a series of short training missions, by the end of which they'll have absorbed the full set of rules and are ready to play the game in full.  In fact the "How to..." book encourages new players to put the full rulebook to one side and start with just the guide, and everyone at Games & Tea has found it to explain the game perfectly, and trained us all up into fully expendable space explorers in no time.

Next up: the board.  The board in Space Alert gives an overview of the ship's layout, with the various ships systems, access doors/elevators, and so forth.  We were unsure earlier about whether to class Space Alert as a board game, as typically a gaming board features some kind of goal or endgame.  Here, the board is basically there just to keep a visual track on the chaos, as your crew desperately fights to keep the precious company property in spaceworthy condition.

We then come to the Threat Vectors.  Whenever an obstacle appears to threaten the ship, from within or without, its progress is tracked on an appropriate Threat Vector.  The threat vectors determine how quickly the threat reaches a catastrophic state, and how many times it deals slightly less catastrophic damage to the ship in the process.  One is assigned to the left-hand (red) side of the ship, one to the center (white), one to the right (blue), and one to the ship's interior.  There are seven of these in the game, but only a maximum of four are ever used, which allows for an element of randomisation.

If you're going to have Threat Vectors then you'd better damn well have some threats!  There are two Threat Decks in Space Alert, which are shuffled to add further randomisation.  The green deck consists of internal threats, so you'll find things like boarding parties, robot malfunctions, hacked shields and so on within this deck.  The purple deck consists of external threats, so this is where you'll be faced with stealth fighters, juggernauts, meteors, and the previously-mentioned giant space jellyfish.  The threats have various strengths and weaknesses, so it's up to the crew to work together to combat these before they tear the precious ship apart, and the bill for damages gets sent on to their next of kin.

So if you're going to combat these threats then I guess you're going to need to be able to move around the ship?  And push buttons?  And generally just do space-ship-type things?  Throughout the mission, each player can take 12 actions - these are determined using the Action Cards, and are planned out using each player's Action Track.

Generally it's a good idea to physically represent the players on the board.  Space Alert features 5 colourful crew tokens, which correspond to the colours of the Action Tracks.  Those grey-looking fellows at the back are the ship's combat robots, and can be led around the ship to fight off invaders... at least until they malfunction and start killing the crew.  Swings and roundabouts, eh?

No board game is complete without tokens, it seems, and Space Alert has them in spades.  The various tokens are used to keep track of internal threats as they move throughout the ship, the progress of external threats, and the damage dealt to the ship itself - that's right, the ship takes damage!  So if you don't work hard to keep it up and running, then that mega-laser you were counting on to save your skin at the last minute might not actually work so well.

And there are some assorted jelly cubes.  Okay, we were a little disappointed to discover they weren't actually jelly cubes.  These translucent plastic cubes and cylinders are used for various purposes in the game, but usually for keeping track of the ship's energy, which can be transferred between reactors, and assigned to weapons and shields.

We were thinking of leaving this out of Part 1 of the review, but seeing as this is a box contents article and this was in the box, we feel we should include it, but feel free to ignore it for now.  This overly-complicated-looking track is effectively the ship's black box recording, and all will make sense in Part 2!

At this point you may be thinking "Okay, you're keeping the ship in-tact, things are attacking you, I get that... but how do you know when/where the threats come from?"  This is one of our favourite parts of the game, and one that makes it quite immersive...

The CD!  Now we've played games with CD soundtracks before (most notably Last Night on Earth), and the soundtrack has done little to enhance the gameplay - in fact, if anything, it's detracted from the experience.  With Space Alert, however, things are different.  This is not a CD of cheesy music, but the audio track of the ship's computer.  Once you've selected a track and pressed play, the designated communications officer has to listen closely to know when and where the threats are approaching from, when players are allowed to exchange or draw new Action Cards, or can even cause a communications blackout, wherein players have to continue without communicating until the blackout resolves.

This makes Space Alert a real-time game, as opposed to turn-based, which adds to the chaos and tension of fending off attacks from all sides!  The CD only contains around 10 tracks, not including the training mission, but a free Mission Generator app can be downloaded for smartphones, which randomly generates missions and is a highly recommended addition to the game.

Well, that's quite a lot of content, isn't it?  Come back shortly to see how the gameplay breaks down and find out our final score on the game!  Until then, drink up, and game on!

Podcast: 404: Law Not Found - First Impressions

Hello, gamers!  We've been out of the game (excuse the pun) for quite some time, but feel it's about time to get back into the swing of things, and to take a tentative first step into the world of podcasting while we're at it!  On top of our usual review format of "Part 1: Box Contents" and "Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict", we're having a go at a "First Impressions" unboxing recording, seeing as those first impressions can count for a lot, and are often lost by the time the full review has been written up.

So, with that in mind, our first podcast is available below, in which we'll be taking a look at 404: Law Not Found; a recently published Kickstarter project from 3DTotal Games!  We hope you enjoy!

Castilion Kickstarter Review, Part 1: Contents

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage. As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

 

Kickstarter is continuing to throw a whole plethora of interesting looking offerings into the big old melting pot that is the specialist games market.  We do keep an eye on the scene as often as possible and do frequently see a lot which catches our interest, but due to financial restrictions (as mentioned in the past, Games & Tea is a labour of love and we have no gaming budget to speak of) we usually have to just wistfully watch them pass by.  More frequently, however, we're being apporached by creators of games in development (such as the recently funded Pirates! and Good Cop, Bad Cop) to give our thoughts on the game before it hits Kickstarter.

Such has been the case with our latest review, as we take a look at Castilion: a board game of strategy and bashing your opponent's stronghold to smithereens from Joe Mellanby.

 

 

Castilion is a game for 2 players (with potential for more pending Kickstarter success), in which each player must manage their army in a campaign to bring down their opponent's stronghold.  Whilst technically a board game, it does have a very card-heavy element, so let's take a look at the contents before delving into the gameplay...

 

 

First of all we have the board.  Now, the more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed the lack of biscuit crumbs and cat fur in this image, giving away the fact that this isn't our photo.  This is an image of the artwork from the final board - kindly provided by the game's creators.  Seeing as the board in our review prototype was missing the outside edge, we figured we may as well show you the proper thing.  The board takes the form of a map, featuring 8 castles, and a few other resource pick-up points, and it's upon this map that the players' armies must face off against eachother.  Around the outside of the map there are points to stack the various decks of cards, so this seems as good as time as any to take a look at them...

 

 

Fist of all we have the castles.  You can't really have a game called Castilion without castles (well, we suppose you could, but it would be maddeningly illogical), and here we have a fine selection to choose from.  as mentioned above, there are 8 castles on the board, and each one has a corresponding card.  Each castle starts with roughly 200 damage points, although these vary from one castle to the next - the weaker castles tend to be much closer to resources, whereas the stronger ones are further out in the wilderness where they generally have to take care of themselves.  Each player draws one castle at random to act as their stronghold for the game, and the rest are discarded.  But a castle is a seat of power, and if you're going to have one then you'll need someone to... well... sit in it!  So let's move onto the Royals and the Generals!

 

 

 

Castilion features one deck of Royals and one deck of Generals, each with slightly differing attack stats (we'll move onto these when we come to gameplay).  The Generals lead the players' armies on the battlefield, whilst the Royals largely stay hidden away in their castle, lording it over the small folk.  Should the general ever fall in battle, however, the Royal has to take over command and continue the campaign until either death or victory!  As with the castles, each player randomly chooses one Royal and one General to start the game, and the rest are discarded.

 

 

 So you've got a castle, you've got a Royal and you've got a General - looks like you'll need an army!  The armies in Castilion are formed of two coloured decks of 11 cards, with each deck containing Troops, Items, Formations, Actions and a Hero and Heroine.  Each player takes two deks, removes one Hero/Heroine from each colour to place face-down beside the board, shuffles them together, and places them face-down in their gaming area.

 

 

No, we're not talking about the waterworks and the electric company.  There are three utility cards in Castilion, all of which are one-shot uses which can change the tide of battle.  These all begin the game face-up next to the board, and can be claimed by any player who heads to their corresponding map location.

 

 

As any battle-hardened general can attest to, knowing the terrain can make all the difference when it comes to besting an opposing army.  The Terrain cards in Castilion simulate that, slowing players' armies to a crawl, or even reducing their battlefield effectiveness at a crucial moment.

 

 

And finally we have the movement cards - a static army is rather easy to outmaneuver or avoid altogether, after all!  Each player's army can move up to 2 map spaces per turn under their own steam, but the Movement cards are where players can start to use hit and run attacks, giving their armies the speed needed to pull off their grand plans.

 

Phew!  So you certainly get a fair old whack in the basic Castilion game!  Head on over to Part 2 of the review, and well go through how the game works, and give our final verdict on the gameplay!

Good Cop Bad Cop Kickstarter Review

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage.  As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

 

As Games & Tea heads towards its first birthday (we're expecting cake - please don't let us down), it's delighted us just how much we're making in-roads in the gaming scene.  Sure, we're probably at least a couple of weeks away from being mobbed by adoring fans in the street, but over the last couple of months we've had the nice experience of games developers approaching us to review their up and coming games.  It's our pleasure to bring you another one of these now, in the form of Good Cop Bad Cop from Overworld Games: a semi-cooperative card game of hidden identities, deception, and occasionally shooting someone just out of spite/to be on the safe side.

 



Good Cop Bad Cop is for 4-8 players, and each player (as the name implies) takes on the role of a police officer (or "cop", as we understand the cool kids call them these days).  Some of these cops will be the very embodiment of honesty, whilst some of them will be a crooked as a politician, and it's the aim of the game for each team to eliminate the leader of their opponents.  Unfortunately this isn't quite as easy as you might first think, as the crooked cops have done a fine job of covering their tracks, so nobody at the start of the game knows which players are crooked and which are honest (aside from themselves, obviously).  As such, the game starts out with an investigatory feel until players know just whom they can trust, after which it can descend into all-out interdepartmental war!

Well that's the rough outline of the game, so let's take a look at the components and then break down just how it all works!

 

There are three main types of cards in Good Cop Bad Cop: Integrity, Equipment, and Guns.

 

 

The Integrity cards determine whether a player is honest or crooked.  At the beginning of each game, each player is dealt three Integrity cards which they must look at and then place face-down in front of themselves.  If the majority of the cards are honest then the player is honest, and vice-versa.  One player will find the Agent card amongst their Integrity cards and one player the Kingpin, which will mark them out as the leaders of the honest and crooked cops respectively, regardless of their other Integrity cards.

Once these cards are placed face-down they have to remain in the same order, which will come into play as one of the game's major mechanics shortly...

 

 

The Equipment cards are the next to be dealt out, as each player is dealt one at random, which they keep hidden from everyone else.  The majority of these can be used at any point in the game, and have effects ranging from the revival of an eliminated player, to switching another player's allegiance for the remainder of the game.  Each player can only carry up to one item of Equipment at a time, so having the right gear on-hand can be a game-changer at critical points!

 

 

And then we have the Gun cards.  These are used to eliminate other players, including the all-important Agent/Kingpin.  There aren't enough Guns in the game for each player to carry one at the same time, so knowing when to sit back and investigate or when to arm yourself for the coming storm can be the key to victory.

 

Once everyone has their trio of Integrity cards and their item of Equipment, the game beings, starting with the player who most recently told a lie - of course getting said player to admit this can be troublesome, as their credibility has already been brought into question.

During each players turn they may only take one action out of four possible options.  They can Investigate another player, which involves taking a look at one of their Integrity cards and returning it to its face-down position.  This is where maintaining card order becomes important, as investigating would obviously become impossible if players could shuffle their Integrity cards between each turn.

The second action option is Equip, in which a player may draw a card off the top of the Equipment deck.

Thirdly we have the Arm action, where a player takes one of the Gun cards from the centre of the table and aims it at another player.  Whilst having a Gun obviously gives players the power of life and death/grievous wounding over the others, the act of taking one does require the player to turn one of their Integrity cards face-up, and so can bring the wrath of the opposing team bearing down upon them!  This makes Gun-grabbing a tactical risk, rather than something to just be done casually.

If you've got a Gun you might as well use it!  The final action is to Shoot, where the player pulls the trigger on their unfortunate target.  The target of the attack must flip all of their Integrity cards face-up, and if they are the Agent or the Kingpin they take a wound.  If they are hit a second time, they are out of the game, and their team is defeated.  If the shot player is just a regular honest/crooked cop then a single shot is enough to eliminate them from the game.

 

"That gunshot wound looks pretty nasty, boss.  I think you're gonna need two plasters for that."

 

After the action phase, if the player is holding a Gun they can choose to re-aim it at another target, and then play passes to the next player along.  Play continues this way until either the Agent or Kingpin are eliminated, or until one player takes control of both the Agent and Kingpin cards, which results in victory for the crooked team.

 

So that's the basics of the gameplay.  But how well does it work?

 

The first hidden identity game which we played was The Resistance, which, whilst a lot of fun, did have its share of shortcomings - one of which was that accusations of loyalty and treason started getting regularly thrown around at the very start of each game.  Good Cop Bad Cop has avoided this pitfall first of all by leaving all players in the dark about one another, and secondly by giving players the power to eliminate eachother.  Shouting up your suspicions about a crooked cop in the game's early stages may seem like a bold move, but in all likelihood it will just end up putting you on the wrong end of a crooked gun!  The option is certainly there to voice your suspicions, or share the findings of your investigations, but we found that most players erred on the side of caution and kept their opinions to themselves for as long as possible.

This makes the investigation part of the game highly crucial, as players are forced seek out just who they can trust and who is a threat.  After several games with a variety of different players, we have to admit that this does start the game off at quite a slow pace, however once players start to get an idea of who is on their side (even if it's just one other player) things start to pick up, and the game quickly becomes quite cutthroat and frantic!

 

Looks like we've got ourselves a Mexican stand-off...

 

One of the mechanics to which we all gave a wholehearted thumbs-up was the aiming of the Guns - specifically down to the fact that it must be done at the end of the player's turn.  This prevents players from simply aiming and pulling the trigger, as the round of play in between can completely change their plans on who to eliminate.  This comes into play all the more so in larger games, adding a whole new level of depths as affiliations may be revealed and new suspicions raised in their place.  One more than one occasion we've witnessed players picking up a Gun card and then changing their target three or four times before finally taking the shot!  On top of the aiming we also liked the fact that taking a Gun in the first place reveals one of your Integrity cards, giving other players  hint at your affiliation, or giving you a chance at a devious bluff.

And finally we have to give credit to the Equipment cards, which can literally change the course of the game at the drop of a hat.  There are some cards which appear much more potent than others, such as Taser, which allows a player to steal someone else's Gun, or Blanks, which prevents Guns from being fired during a particular turn.  However, some of the less-potent looking cards can be used to devastating effect at the right time.  The Bribe card is a great example, as it allows a player to switch one of their Integrity cards with that of another player.  This may not sound amazing at first glance, but if you're an honest cop and your Agent's already taken a wound and has weapons aimed at him by the crooked cops, it can allow you to take the Agent card for yourself, giving your team the drop on those dirty crooked officers!  Each Equipment card is completely unique, and with a hand limit of just one, it's unlikely that the entire deck will be cycled through during a single game, so repeats of the same effect will be avoided.  This is a bit of a double-edged sword, however, as players will soon learn the effects of each of the Equipment cards - if the only card that can foil their plan has already been played, they know that they can go ahead without any danger.  We couldn't help but think that if the Equipment deck was doubled in size to two of each card, this could be resolved, adding a little more tension as the game progresses.

The other real downside of Good Cop Bad Cop is purely statistical, and comes into play during smaller games.  It's entirely possible after the Integrity cards have been dealt out, that the Agent or Kingpin can be the only player on their team.  Within our first few test games we saw both sides of this, with the Agent left alone in one game, and the Kingpin left flying the crooked flag solo in the next.  This meant that once the single player shot their opposite number for the first time, every other player in the swiftly picked up a weapon and gunned them down before they could pick up another Gun and finish the job.  In both cases the imbalance wasn't noticed until the shooting began, but it was a bit demoralising for the single player to find out that they never stood much of a chance to begin with.  As we say though, this is entirely a statistical issue, and doesn't effect larger games.

 

Stepping away from the mechanics, it's physically a nice game to play.  Being purely a pack of cards, Good Cop Bad Cop is very easy to transport.  Things like the active player or wound markers could have been done as punch-out tokens, but by keeping them as cards the entire game fits very neatly into a box no larger than a poker deck.

As each player will never need more than 5 cards in front of them at once (three Integrity, one Gun, one Wound), it doesn't require a great deal of playing space.  In fact when out FLGS was packed to the rafters, our first games of Good Cop Bad Cop were played in a pub garden with five of us around a relatively small table!

And in terms of the cards themselves, they're pretty darn nice to look at.  You won't find any lavish artwork in Good Cop Bad Cop, but the simplified silhouettes on the cards fit the feel of the game perfectly, and make it aesthetically very pleasing.

 

Overall our experience of Good Cop Bad Cop has been a positive one, and if you wish to support it at the Kickstarter level then you have until May 20th to get on board here.

 

The Good Points

• Good Cop Bad Cop is an easy to learn game and quick to play.
• Set up space is small, and it's a game which can literally fit in your pocket.
• Unlike some hidden identity games, players are not rewarded for throwing blind accusations around.
• The wide variety of Equipment cards can shake the game up in various ways when players least expect it.
• It's a great game for large groups, accommodating up to 8 players.

The Bad Points

• Team-balancing becomes an issue in smaller games
• Experienced players can learn to wait until certain Equipment cards have been played, removing other players' chances to foil them.

Recommended Number of Players: 6+

The team-balance issue is most frequent in 4 player games, and occasionally crops up with 5 players.  With 6 or more it seems to have been pretty much eliminated, but Good Cop Bad Cop is definitely a game which gets better with larger crowds.  If you can pull together a full lineup of 8 players then we'd highly recommend it!
 

Average Game Time: 15-30 minutes

Depending on player numbers, Good Cop Bad Cop will take 15-30 minutes to play - obviously with higher player numbers there has to be more investigation before players start shooting wildly!  Being quick and fun to play though, the entire group was happy to play a few games back to back.

Replay Value: Medium/High

Whilst Good Cop Bad Cop doesn't have much by way of additional mechanics to make each playthrough different, hidden identity games by their very nature owe their replayability to the group.  They are the specialist gaming scene's equivalent of poker, and as long as you have a group who can stonewall eachother and keep their affiliations under wraps until the last possible moment, games like this can be brought back out again and again.

The Future: Under Investigation...

Good Cop Bad Cop is still at the Kickstarter stage, so right now all attention is on making this game see the light of day.  Once it reaches general release, the option of additional cards may be addressed.  With simple games such as this, too many additional mechanics can rob it of its character, but simple additions such as new Equipment cards - or even a third character card such as Internal Affairs for larger games - could be used to help it go the extra mile.  At this point this is purely our whimsical speculation, but it's worth keeping an eye on!

Price: £15/$14

Being a Kickstarter project, it's up to each backer how much they'd like to pledge to Good Cop Bad Cop.  A $14 pledge will secure you a copy of the game upon its release including postage within the US, so with the additional cost of postage to the UK, this works out around the £15 mark.

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5/10

Tea consumed during this review: Typhoo, milk and 2 sweeteners. Brew rating: 9/10

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