A Day (or Two) of Games

Here at Games & Tea we're regulars at our local hobby store Titan Games, and over the course of Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th August they were kind enough to let us use their store to host two days of board and card game goodness.  The main reason for this event was to try and introduce players to games they hadn't yet experienced (or in some cases hadn't even heard of!), but to be honest we were just thrilled to be able to spend two days playing some fantastic games with new opponents!  We took every game in the Games & Tea arsenal down to Titan with us, and some extras were brought in by some of the other regulars, which meant that even we were able to experience something new.

Day one started with a round of Felinia, the spice-trading cat-based game which has become a cult hit amongst Titan regulars, and a firm favourite here at Games & Tea.  We were more than happy to sit this one out, allowing four brand new players to experience the joys of this game, as we guided them through the turn sequences.  In an exceptionally close-run game, victory ended up being snatched by The Caustic Triton from fellow gaming blog The Hobbynomicon.

"Spice must flow..."

The day continued with a round of Letters From Whitechapel, an amazing game from Fantasy Flight in which one player takes on the role of Jack the Ripper and the remaining players must work together to catch him before his murder spree is complete.  Dark subject matter aside, Whitechapel is an exceptional game, with very tense gameplay and some seriously strategic thinking required (a full review will follow soon).  The game takes place over four turns, and in a dramatic turn of events, Jack was caught at the very end of turn three!  He could have made it back to his hideout, but one last attempt to throw the police off the scent was his downfall, and his reign of terror ended.  Once again we sat this one out, hand-holding for a new Jack player and taking the police through the motions at the same time.

"Did anyone hear footsteps?"

Iello's King of Tokyo was a new discovery for us, courtesy of another Titan regular.  Each of up to six players takes on the role of a monster movie archetype (or sometimes far-from-archetype!), and each must compete to become the greatest monster in Tokyo.  It's a game with very basic mechanics and a simple premise, but is a very good wind-down game, and falls very much into the light-hearted category, along with the likes of Looney Lab's Fluxx.  Sadly our Kraken became a little too ambitious, and was the first monster to die at the hands of its peers.
Speaking of Fluxx, a few rounds of Star Fluxx found their way into the afternoon's play, which were especially good as we were once again introducing new players to the game.  Star Fluxx has a general sci-fi theme running through the game, with references to Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy in amongst the deck.
Keeping with card games, an epic five-player game of Atlas Games' Gloom was possible, thanks to the fifth family added by the Unfortunate Expeditions expansion.  The stories flowed thick and (occasionally) fast, with some compelling (again, occasionally) narratives.  There was love, a cruise, game-manufacturing apes, spice-cat expeditions, and a cannibal cookery course... everything you could want from a tale of death and woe.  Not to mention a very eventful dog.
On a less sinister note, time was found late on in the day for a round of Dixit, from Libellud.  Once again, two of the players were brand new to the game, keeping Games & Tea's mission profile of bringing new game experiences to the masses right on track!  The game ran very closely up until the very final round, where we just managed to scrape a victory by 2 meagre points!

Day two took off very quickly, with a game of Fantasy Flight's Relic, a game based on the Talisman system, but based in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe.  This was a slow-paced game as we needed to brush up on the rules, having left it gathering dust for some months.  This isn't because Relic is a bad game, but it is extremely complex and requires a lot of time and effort to play through to the end.  Even on the beginners' mission this game lasted around 2 hours, with a Sister of Battle just about snatching a victory after the Sanctioned Psyker looked as though he had it in the bag.
With the Felinia crowd busy playing Magic: The Gathering, a round of Wyrd Miniatures' Puppet Wars was set in motion; a 'shoe box' sized game with Lady Justice facing off against Pokey Viktoria.  The game got off to a slow start with both players advancing cautiously to the neutral workbenches, both wary about drawing first puppet-blood.  Lady Justice's crew looked to take the upper hand quickly, by shredding the heaviest hitter in Pokey Vik's crew, but this only seemed to enrage the latter master, as Lady Justice suddenly found her crew dropping like flies.  As Lady J's numbers started to dwindle and Pokey Vik began to gain the upper hand through workbench possession, the Justice crew went on an all-out offensive, targeting the opposing master relentlessly, and eventually managed to pull a victory out of the bag.

"PUPPETS! FORM UP IN RANKS!"

With the war for the workshop over, it was time for a new war to be fought.  We've recently been pulled into the world of Fantasy Flight's X-Wing Miniatures game, and were curious to see whether it had to be played as a full on tabletop gaming system, or if it could work straight out of the box (containing one X-Wing and two TIE Fighters).  A starter set was cracked open, the pieces assembled, pilots chosen, and the basic quick-start scenario was played.  It was a short-run game, but the two Imperial pilots were able to outmanoeuvre the lone Rebel, and the wreckage of a solitary X-Wing was left drifting through the asteroid field as the TIE pilots reported back to base.

"I can't shake him!"

With it firmly established that X-Wing does work as a standalone game, the table was reset with two large-scale opposing forces to see how the small-scale skirmish compares to an experience of X-Wing as a full tabletop system.

"There's too many of them!"

The game got off to a very close start, with early losses on both sides.  Both forces demonstrated some excellent piloting skills, with ships weaving closely in and out of eachother, working together to take down enemy targets.  The occasional glaring pilot error did start to creep through after the first few turns though, most noticeably in Boba Fett's three-turn streak of crashing into meteors.  Towards the end of the game the Rebels began to gain the upper hand, and when the dust settled Han, Luke and Biggs were all soaring off, undoubtedly heading back to fanfares and medals.
After the Galactic Empire had held a memorial service for Darth Vader, Boba Fett and the legions of nameless pilots, doom and gloom returned to the streets of Victorian London as Letters From Whitechapel unfolded on the table once more (or twice more, in fact).  Again we were pleased to introduce two new players, as well as allowing an experienced player his first taste of playing as Jack.  The first game ended half way through night 2, with some lucky patrol work and excellent deduction leading to a sneaky arrest on the Ripper.  The second game saw another player take their first taste of Jack, but sadly closing time meant that the game was abandoned at the end of night 2.  The police had a rough idea of the location of Jack's hideout, but without those other two turns we'll never know if he was ever caught.
We were able to round things off with a bit of board game rambling, as our Hobbynomicon friends were recording their second podcast, which even included a brief recap of our little event!

Overall the event was a lot of fun, but so many games were brought down by ourselves and others that some sadly went unplayed.  Zombicide, Bugmans, and three different Fluxx varieties never made it out of their respective boxes, so we're certainly hoping the guys at Titan will let us run another such event in the near future.

We hope you've enjoyed this recap of our little games extravaganza!  Normal service will now be resumed, so come back next week by which point we'll hopefully have a full review of Letters From Whitechapel up and running.

Dixit

The game reviews continue to come thick and fast here at Games & Tea, and today we're going to have a look at Dixit: a board game from Libellud for 3-6 players, designed by Jean-Louis Roubira.

 

 

Now the first thing you may notice is that unlike our other board game reviews, we're not splitting this one into two parts.  This is because Dixit is such an incredibly simple game that a 'box contents' entry would take up little more than a couple of paragraphs, and so we're combining the whole thing into a single article.

Don't less this fool you into thinking Dixit's simplicity makes it a sub-standard game.  This is an absolutely charming little game of creativity and flexing the imagination muscles, and makes for a very different but no less enjoyable gaming experience than a lot of games on the market.  So let's have a quick skim over the box contents.

 

 

The board itself (which we would have to describe with the words 'charming' and 'quaint') is styled quite uniquely, in that it's actually built into the box.  This may seem odd at first (and indeed threw us the first time we opened our copy), but this design is very intelligent, in that it leaves the players needing very little space to play Dixit.  In fact as long as you have space to put the box down, you have space to play the game.  Looking past the interesting design, the board is quite basic, simply consisting of 30 numbered spaces for the players to make their way along throughout the course of the game.

 

 

Being a board game, the next thing on the checklist is the set of playing pieces.  In Dixit these pieces are all shaped like rabbits.  Why rabbits?  We have absolutely no idea, but somehow it continues to add to the charm of the game.  We realise this is third time we've used the word "charm" or "charming" to describe Dixit, but frankly it's a term which cannot be thrown around enough as far as this game's concerned.

The 6 playing pieces are all coloured differently, and there are Voting Tokens numbered 1-6 to correspond with each colour of playing piece.  We'll come to the Voting Tokens and how they work in a moment.

 

 

Then the final element of the game is the deck of 84 Images.  These are very simple, containing no text, no rules, just a unique and beautifully illustrated image with which the players must tell their stories and work their way to the end of the board.  These cards each contain an abstract image, ranging from a lady on a ladder carving shapes in the clouds, to a small child casting a shadow in the shape of a vicious wolf.  The cards are all designed to have multiple facets open to interpretation, and in the game description below we'll explore the reason why.

And that's it.  That's the entire contents of the Dixit box.  "How could there possibly be a workable game mechanic in this?" you may ask.  Well, let us show you.

 

At the start of the game each player chooses their playing piece, taking the appropriate colour of Voting Tokens, and draws 6 cards from the Image deck.  The players take it in turns assuming the role of the Storyteller, and imaginations start to get rolling.  The Storyteller must choose one card out of their hand and put a story to it.  This story could be a sentence, a single word, a song, a sound effect, an action; anything at all, as long as the Storyteller is satisfied that it subtly links up to the image on their card.  With the 'story' told, each other player has to give a card from their own hand, face-down, to the Storyteller.  When every player has submitted their card the Storyteller shuffles them together and lays them out in a line, face-up.  Each player aside from the Storyteller then has to place a vote for which card they think best matches the story, and these votes dictate how far each player moves along the board.

 

Let us show you an example...

 

 

Here we have a cat painting a picture of some fish, which are coming to life and swimming off the edge of the canvas.  All in all it's a rather a bizarre sight.  However, the Storyteller is going to focus on one small element of the Image; the fact that the cat is wearing boots.  As a result his story for this turn is simply going to be one word; "Shrek", being a reference to Puss in Boots.

 

 

The other 4 players have selected cards from their hands to fit the description of "Shrek" the best they can.  From left to right we have a dragon, the cat, a sun over a host of umbrellas, a king, and a giant.  The sun might seem like an odd submission, but if you find yourself unable to match an Image to the Storyteller's story then it can often be useful to use this opportunity to discard a card you've been struggling with.

These cards are lined up left-to-right, with each card being given a number from 1-5.  Each player chooses a Voting Token with the corresponding number and places it face-down, so as not to influence other players' votes.  Once everyone has voted the tokens are turned over, and this is where the game gets clever.

If everyone votes for the Storyteller's card, or no one does, then the Storyteller stays put and everyone else moves 2 spaces.  This presents a challenge to the Storyteller, as it means that the connection between their story and their card can't be too obvious, but at the same time it can't be too subtle.  If some (but not all) players select the Storyteller's card then those players and the Storyteller move 3 spaces each, and on top of these moves, everyone (Storyteller aside) who received a vote for their Image moves forward 1 space.

The cards for the round are then discarded, new cards are drawn to bring each player's hand back up to 6 cards, and the game continues.  The winner is decided when the first player reaches space number 30 on the board, or by whoever is furthest ahead when the Image deck runs out, which in larger games will happen quite quickly.

Now you may have noticed a slight problem with this game; if you're playing with 3 players then only 3 cards per turn are being put down.  You'll obviously know which card you placed, so that leaves you with just a 50/50 shot of guessing the correct Image.  This is quickly and easily addressed in the rules, with the suggestion that each player aside from the Storyteller submits 2 cards per round, thus giving a greater degree of choice to their opponent.  That said, Dixit is definitely one of those games where it's a case of 'the more the merrier'.
 

So that's Dixit.  It might seem like a very basic game mechanic, but it works and is a lot of fun.  The simple, non-offensive nature of the Image cards means that it's a very family-friendly game, and for board gamers wishing to get their kids into the hobby you couldn't ask for a better game than this one.  Much like with our previously reviewed Gloom this is a game of imagination and creativity.  Whilst it doesn't possess the same drawn-out narrative element, it does require a lot of thought to go into how to create a short description which some, but not everyone, will guess.  Of course the downside to this is that once again you'll require players who can get the old grey matter working, otherwise you'll end up with a bit of an empty experience.

 

The Good Points

• It's a simple game to pick up, but quite intricate in its own way.
• Very family friendly, an excellent intro game for younger gamers.
• Light hearted and very enjoyable - Dixit isn't a game which will leave you grinding your teeth and monitoring your blood pressure.
• Very compact for a board game.
• The Image cards are very beautifully illustrated.

The Bad Points

• As with all imagination-based games, the right group of players is required to make it a good experience.
• The Image cards are large sized, which is fantastic for showcasing the artwork but makes finding card sleeves awkward.  Shuffling takes its toll quite badly on these cards, and we even started to see signs of wear and tear on our copy by the end of our third game.

Recommended Number of Players: 4+

Dixit is cleverly designed so that it can work smoothly with 3 players or more, but in our experience a minimum of 4 makes for a much better experience.  If only 3 people are available though by no means should this be written off.  Just because it doesn't work quite as well doesn't mean it doesn't work, and 3 player Dixit is still a thoroughly enjoyable game.  It is one of those games which benefits from having as many players as possible, so if you're a member of a large gaming group then a 6 player game would make for a great 30 minutes.

 

Average Game Time: 30 minutes

Regardless of the player numbers, Dixit does seem to have a fairly standard game time of around 30 minutes.  This makes it a great in betweener for a long game evening.

 

Replay Value: High

As the stories are unique to the imaginations of the players, Dixit is a game which is easy to come back to.  Even though the entire deck of Image cards is used in a game, they won't always end up with the same players, and each different player may see a unique interpretation to the card.  Eventually it may reach a stage where your imagination dries up for each Image, but in that unlikely event help is at hand...

 

 The Future: Bright (or at least as bright as your imagination)

Dixit was first release back in 2008, and since then has spawned a number of sequels and expansions.  These include Dixit 2, Dixit 3, Dixit Odyssey, Dixit Quest, Dixit Journey and Dixit Jinx.  For the best part these just add new Images cards into the mix, but once your copy of original Dixit has done the rounds with your gaming groups enough times you may find yourself wanting to pick up one of these to refresh the experience.

 

Price: £30

Dixit retails for roughly £30, which may seem a lot for quite a simple set of box contents, but for a great little game like this one it's worth every penny.  It shouldn't be too hard to find in specialist game stores, but it is a French game and as such might have to be ordered in especially by some retailers.

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 4/5

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