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Pusheen Purrfect Pick: Perfect game for new gamers

By Meeple Lady | May 12, 2021 | Comments 4 comments

This review of Pusheen Purrfect Pick was featured on Episode 108 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features aco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Lucky Numbers, Ginkgopolis and Burgle Bros 2.

The American Tabletop Awards recently announced their top games for 2020 in four categories: Early Gamers, Casual Games, Strategy Games, and Complex Games. Soon after, a discussion launched off on Twitter regarding the naming convention, and how the word “early” is a much better alternative for what many would call “filler” or “gateway” games. The group members said they selected that term because they wanted to be respectful without being reductive.

And as we know, as gamers dive deeper into the hobby, the term “gateway” is thrown around toward such games as Ticket to Ride, Catan, etc. to signify which game got them into the hobby. But we forget that these aforementioned games can be difficult for someone who has had no previous gaming experience whatsoever. And that high barrier to entry can be a turnoff from diving into our wonderful world.

So what makes a good game for early gamers — those completely new to modern board games? The consensus seems to be a game that’s fun and can be taught very quickly and easily. Pusheen Purrfect Pick fits that criteria, along with its delightful artwork that makes it easy to draw new gamers in. The card game from Ravensburger, designed by Steve Warner, was published in 2021 plays 2 to 5 players and takes about 30 minutes to play, and comes with a nice glossy double-sided board, two decks of cards and a Pusheen figurine made of a study rubber material that’s used as a first-player marker.

For those unacquainted, Pusheen is a cartoon cat, a rotund, adorable gray feline with little feets that’s an internet sensation. Her cuteness is directly translated in this board game, which includes her house, friends and yummy treats, a perfect game for new gamers and for experienced gamers who want something completely chill with the potential for a little playful meanness.

The game comes a sturdy, glossy game board that’s double sided. This is the side with Pusheen’s house.

To set up the game, pick one of the board’s sides — either the setting for inside Pusheen’s house or outside at the park — and place 12 random essentials cards face up on each space marked with a dotted line. Then randomly place 4 Snapshot cards face up next to the game board. Give the Pusheen figure to the player who most recently fed a cat as they’ll go first. This, sadly, will never be me as I’m deathly allergic to cats and will only play with cats in board games.

This side of the game board is set in the park. Essentials cards are placed in the dotted lines.

The game is played over a series of rounds, in which the active player places the Pusheen figurine on a paw space on the board. These paw spaces are situated in between four essentials cards, and the active player selects one of the cards to put into their hand. They then check to see if they satisfy any of the requirements from one of the face-up Snapshot cards, and if they do, discard the Essential cards for it, take the Snapshot card and place it in front of them. Each Snapshot card has victory points on it as indicated by the star symbols on it.

Then the rest of the players in clockwise order do the same exact thing: choose one of the remaining cards surrounding Pusheen — or draw a random one from the Essentials deck — to put it into their hand, and then score any of the Snapshot cards remaining.

The Snapshot cards have requirements printed on them to score their victory points, as indicated by the number of stars on the card.

Game play continues until one player has 10 or more stars. If no one has 10 or more stars yet, then the Pusheen figurine passes to the player on the left, and a new round begins.

Easy peasy, right? Describing how to play the game took less than a minute to explain. It’s purrfect for early gamers. (See what I did there?)

So what’s on an Essentials card? There are three types: friends, items and actions. Friends and items cards provide the items necessary to fulfill Snapshot cards. They include charming things like other fluffy cats, rainbows, diamonds and the like. Action cards require the play to do them immediately as soon as they pick up the card. Some actions include removing Essentials Cards from the board or choosing any layer to give you a card of their choice. Actions to mix up the game.

The artwork in this game is just so adorable. But of course it is because Pusheen herself is very adorable.

For more experienced gamers, this game’s drafting mechanism for the gamed as if you see that an opponent needs a specific Essentials card to fulfill a high-value Snapshot card, you can place Pusheen away from any of those cards. It can be a little mean, especially at high player counts, because then it’ll be four turns until you get to place Pusheen where you want her. Again, the game is light enough that it’s just playful meanness.

But in the grand scheme of gaming, this meanness is a small possibility as most new gamers will probably not be playing like this.The game’s sturdy, high-gloss components mean this game can be played just about anymore. And it’s very portable — the box size is a small square, like those 2-player games you’ve seen from Patchwork or Targi.

Pusheen Purrfect Pick is 100 percent a light game. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s anything other than that. But for what type of game it is, it’s just delightful and something that is purrfect for early gamers and those who love adorableness.

And that’s Pusheen Purrfect Pick! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening! Bye!

Brave Little Belgium: The WWI little army that could

By Meeple Lady | February 26, 2021 | Comments 1 comment

This review of Brave Little Belgium was featured on Episode 105 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Codinca, Root: The Marauder Expansion, Dice Throne and Concept.

Every so often there’s a discussion online about how to bring in more diversity to wargaming and how to make wargames more accessible. There isn’t enough time on this podcast segment to address the first issue, but for the second one, having a rulebook that isn’t the length of a novella helps immensely. For gamers who don’t play wargames, there’s nothing else more daunting — well, other than a grumpy grognard on your table — than opening up a new wargame, seeing a million chits and a 50-page rulebook.

Luckily, publishers like Hollandspiele, which specializes in military history games, offers one such game that’s perfect for gamers who want to dip their toe into the proverbial wargaming pool. Brave Little Belgium, designed by Ryan Heilman and David Shaw, is a quick-playing 2-player wargame that came out in 2019 and plays in about an hour. The game comes with a mapsheet of Belgium, 8 dice, and 88 chit counters.

Brave Little Belgium is a 2-player wargame that came out in 2019.

The game is a great introduction to popular wargaming mechanisms such as chits and chit pulls, and the rulebook is an easily digestible and understandable eight pages. The game takes place during World War I. Germany has declared war on France and needs to plow through Belgium, which declared itself neutral but is now working with allies to try to hold off those German forces. One player plays as Germany, while the other plays as the Entente forces, which consist of Belgium, French and British troops.

The game takes place over at least 6 turns, max 8. The setup is probably the hardest part of the game — that is if you don’t know your Belgium geography. Chits are separated by army, and stacks of them are placed at various points on the map. There’s a handy-dandy diagram on the back of the rulebook, which I missed the first time I played and couldn’t help but laugh at myself when I realized it existed. There are also fort markers that are placed at the fort locations. Lastly, Garde Civique chits are randomly placed face-down across cities and towns on the map by rolling two dice and consulting the chart on the player mapsheet.

This chart for the Garde Civique setup makes each game a little different.

The army generals’ chits that start the game are placed in a cup of your choosing, as well as three Turn End chits, and special events chits that favor each player. A couple other army generals are placed on the turn track, meaning when that turn starts, they get thrown into the cup for the potential for their army to activate.

Chit pulls are a popular wargaming mechanism. You randomly draw a chit from the cup, and then that army activates. When three Turn End chits are pulled out, the turn ends. Sometimes that happens much faster or longer than you anticipated, which contributes to the tension of the game. There’s nothing like staring at your opponent and dramatically pulling the exact chit you need.

The turn ends when three Turn End chits are pulled. Here you can see all the generals that were activated.

Army forces are split into two types: infantry and cavalry. Infantry have two movement points, while cavalry have four movement points. Movement across the map takes one movement point between straight lines or two movement points between squiggly lines.

When an army enters a location that contains their opponents’ chits, a battle occurs. Players then move their chits to the battle section of the mapsheet and separate their troops based on their combat factor. The chits are clearly marked with a picture of a dice to represent that. Both players roll dice and hand out hits accordingly. This battle box is actually quite handy and makes it easy to understand how battles work.

The victory line on the west side of the mapsheet marks one of the German troop’s objectives.

For example, a unit with a combat factor of 5 has to roll a five or higher on their roll to successfully hit their opponent. To apply losses to your armies, you either turn the chit over, revealing a weaker army unit, or remove them from the game.

When battles occur at a fort, the fort will roll a number of dice based on each step it possesses, and it needs to roll a 5 or higher to hit. As the fort takes hits, and this is after all the army units have been depleted, it loses a step and it’s turned counter clockwise to indicate that.

Having this box on the mapsheet makes it easy to play out battles, and the Combat chit is placed on the location from which the battle is taking place.

To win, the German player must destroy a fort at Liege, destroy the fort at Namur and occupy a city on the other side of the victory line on the western side of the mapsheet with an infantry unit. The German player must complete these objectives by the Aug. 19-21 turn. If the German completes these objectives after that turn on Aug. 22-24, then the game is a draw. If the German player does this on the final turn of the game, the Aug. 25-27, then it is an Entente victory. To summarize, the longer the Entante player can hold off the German forces, the better.

There is one other way the German player can lose. When three Turn End chits are pulled and the turn ends, the German player can activate any armies that didn’t get activated during that turn. But they must roll a die first, and if they roll a 4, 5 or 6, they commit an atrocity and move up the atrocity track. The German player then moves their army like a regular activation. If the German player commits 5 atrocities, they immediately lose the game.

If the Germans commit five atrocities, they immediately lose the game.

If you’re vaguely interested in checking out a wargame but don’t know where to start, then Brave Little Belgium is a good one to check out for an hourlong game of battles, strategic movement, chit-pulling and dice rolling. It’s a classic David Vs. Goliath situation (the Belgium troops are small and spread out at the beginning, and the German forces are coming in hot and heavy, and it makes for a satisfying win when the Belgian army holds them off. I also particularly appreciate how you’re eased into the game with the introduction of more French and British troops each upcoming turn.

And that’s Brave Little Belgium! This is Meeple Lady for the Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!

The Field of the Cloth of Gold: Giving gifts even when you don’t want to

By Meeple Lady | January 25, 2021 | Comments 2 comments

Dear readers — Happy 2021! As you may have noticed, I didn’t end last year with a recap of the best games I’ve played in 2020 because, to be honest, I didn’t play too many new games last year and overall just felt so drained and uninspired. 2020 was such a bleak year for many, and it seemed for a brief moment that 2021 wasn’t off to a much better start.

This past week though, everything seems slightly less horrible. And that, my friends, is a start. And guess what? I even got some gaming in!

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is a 2-player game from Hollandspiele that came out in 2020.

I received The Field of the Cloth of Gold, published by Hollandspiele, during the holidays. Designer Tom Russell provides this charming description about it: “This game was created to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the world’s most famous three-week party, in which King Henry VIII of England, and Francis I of France, spent ridiculous amounts of money and resources to peacock at each other.”

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is a two-player game that plays in about 20 minutes. One player is the king of England, and the other the king of France, and players work to amass a hand of tiles so they can play those tiles into their court and score them when taking actions.

The tiles in the Field of the Cloth of Gold come in four colors.

Tiles come in four colors: gold, blue, white and red. Your hand is kept secret from your rival (I used tile holders from Rummikub so I wouldn’t have to hold tiles in my hand) while your court is in public view. Tiles that aren’t in your hand or your court, or on the board are kept in a container of your choice so that you can randomly draw them when needed. This place is called the Darkness — and yes, that’s what the rulebook calls it. Also worth noting that the rulebook is a mere four pages, making the game easy to learn and jump into.

There are seven locations on the cloth board — a very nice bonus to the game, I might add — and players have two tokens each that they can choose from to move to an open location for their one action on their turn.

The game can seem like your standard worker-placement point salad but for each action you take, your rival is presented with a gift — the tile that’s randomly drawn and placed at that action location — to be placed in their court.

This very thing creates an unbelievably high tension between you and your opponent, a strategic dance to avoid giving your opponent the tile they need, which often sits on the action you truly want to take. It’s an absurd gift-giving mechanism that forces you to hand over a gift while you smile through gritted teeth.

Every action location has a tile underneath it and that tile is gifted to your opponent when you take that spot.

There are seven action locations on the board.

The first spot is Dragon, where you move the dragon token so that the dragon blocks a location from being activated.
The second spot is Secrecy, where you can tiles from the Darkness. The number of tiles depends on where you’re sitting on the score track.
The third spot is Gold, where you reveal gold tiles from your hand and place them in your court. If you have more gold tiles than your rival, you score 2 points.
The fourth spot is Blue, where you reveal blue tiles from your hand and place them in your court. If you have 1/2/3+ tiles, you score 1/3/6 points. The blue tiles in your court are then removed from the game.
The fifth spot is White, where you reveal white tiles from your hand and place them in your court. You score 1 point per white tile in your court. The white tiles in your court are then removed from the game.
The sixth spot is Red, where the active player reveals their red tiles from their hand and places them into their court. Both players receive 1 point for each red tile in their court and then the red cards are discarded from the game. Note, the rival player does not get a chance to place red tiles into their court during this action.
The seventh spot is Purple, where you reveal all tiles from your hand and place it into your court. You score 2 points for each set in your court. A set is a collection of four tiles, one of each of the colors.

This back and forth continues until one person hits 30 points or there are no more tiles in the Darkness. Also, as one moves up the score track, they draw more tiles during Secrecy (represented by the black box in the photo below), ramping up the game. But as you move up the score track, your gold tiles are worth less at the end. These points from your gold tiles are added to your score on the score track, and the player with the most points wins the game.

The game ramps up as the players’ scores increase.

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is incredibly tense but also very fun! Game play is quick, and the game is over before you know it. A simple decision opens up opportunities for your rival and you try your best to mitigate them. I know I spent my games staring daggers at my opponent, hoping he’ll vacate the spot I need to score points. But then again, I also left my one token on the location he wanted to go to. And when in doubt, you can always send out the dragon to wreak some havoc!

Hanamikoji: Getting charm points with the geishas

By Meeple Lady | December 16, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

This review of Hanamikoji was featured on Episode 102 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Forbidden Desert, Sorcerer City, Chai and Just One.

There was a time in my life when my two-player games sat unplayed on my shelves. But since 2020, the year that none of us could’ve ever predicted, many of those games have since hit the gaming table.

Hanamijoki, first reviewed by Ruth in Episode 18, is one of those delightful two-player games that have come into the rotation. Designed by Kota Nakayama and artwork by Maisherly and Mashiro Misaki, Hanamijoki is an abstract area majority card game that features gorgeous and colorful Japanese style geisha artwork.

One geisha is holding an umbrella, one playing a flute, one pouring tea — each scene is unique in activity and color. This version I have is published by EmperorS4 but this game is now being published by Deep Water Games.

Hanamikoji comes in a small box that’s easily transportable.

This small portable box, which is about the size of a small paperback, includes 7 geisha cards, 21 item cards, cardboard victory markers and cardboard action tokens — 4 for each player. Though the game comes with few components, it packs a big punch with its tension-filled back-and-forth gameplay. And you don’t need a lot of table space to play this game, which is good these days as many game tables have evolved into multi-purpose spaces within the household.

In Hanamikoji, players are working to gain the favor of the seven geishas by collecting their favored performance item, in this case, cards that match the geishas’ symbol. The seven geisha cards are displayed in between the two players, and this is where most of the gaming occurs as cards are placed above or below each geisha card based on which player plays them. Each geisha card has a number on the top left of the card, which indicates their charm points and equals the number of matching item cards for that geisha. The geishas range from 2 to 5 charm points.

Hanamikoji is played over three rounds. One item card is randomly removed at the start of each round. Players begin a round with a hand of six item cards, and on their turn, they draw an item card from the deck and spend one of their actions playing cards from their hand. For those actions, there are exactly four of them, and each player gets the same set to be used in any order by the player on their turn.

Hanamikoji action tiles — Each player has the same identical four action tiles.

The four actions are represented by cardboard tiles, and if a player uses that action during the round, they flip it over to the non-colored side. So, what are these actions?

The first one is choosing 1 card from your hand and placing it face down in front of you. This card will remain a secret and will be scored at the end of the round to go toward that geisha’s charm points.

The second action is choosing 2 cards from your hand and placing them face-down in front of you, and these cards will not be scored during this round.

The third action is choosing 3 cards from your hand and placing them face-up in front of you. Your opponent then selects one of these three cards to place in front of a geisha on their side, and you get to place the other two cards in front of a geisha on your side of the table.

The fourth action is selecting four cards from your hand and placing them in two piles of two cards each face up. Your opponent then selects one set of cards to place underneath the corresponding geisha, and you take the other ones to place in front your geisha.

Players go back and forth taking one action each until they’ve exhausted all their action tokens. Players flip over secret cards that score, and count which player the geisha favors based on the number of item cards each player has given them. The victory markers on the geisha card will then move toward the player who gains her favor.

Hanamikoji cards — Players play cards on their side of the board to gain charm points.

Players aim to win 4 geishas or 11 or more charm points. If there is no clear victory in the first round, players play until three rounds are over. In between rounds, the victory markers do not reset, but instead stay toward the side of the player who curried the geisha’s favor the previous round. If nobody gets the 4 geishas or 11 or more charm points after three rounds, the player with more geishas wins the game.

This game is tense! You’re initially presented with limited information, as the round progresses, more and more cards are revealed but there’s still are still hidden cards from the one your opponent saves and the one removed from the game.

You also have to make calculated guesses regarding which cards to play or save for a future action because you don’t want to get cornered into giving your opponent only good options because those are the only cards left in your hand.

Hanamikoji is quick to set up and easy to learn. It doesn’t take up a lot of table space, plays fairly quickly at 15-20 minutes, and is compact for easy travel, for when we all decide to travel again. Lastly, even though the game seems deceptively easy, there’s a lot of strategy to explore.

It’s one of the best “I cut/you choose” game mechanisms where you still feel like you have some sense of control over your destiny instead of being at the complete mercy of the other player. And the lovely artwork is just so pleasing and calming — when you’re not racking your brain about which cards to play.

And that’s Hanamikoji! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!

San Diego Historical Con 2020: Wargamers go online

By Meeple Lady | November 20, 2020 | Comments 3 comments

With in-person conventions falling by the wayside this year because of the global pandemic, a spate of online conventions have been cropping up. Last weekend, the San Diego Historical Games Convention — or SDHistCon for short — made the jump into the virtual convention world, and, as someone who has never been able to go in real life before, I’m so glad they did!

Run by Harold Buchanan — designer of the COIN game Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection — SDHistCon is a historical board and miniature gaming convention that’s taken place around the Veterans Day weekend. Buchanan said this year’s online convention took about five weeks to plan and it sold out in two weeks, with 170 gamers virtually attending. The in-person convention attracts wargamers from all over (there’s overlap with the Consimworld crowd), and who doesn’t want to spend a few days in sunny San Diego in November?

Buchanan has been running this convention since 2015. On this year’s experience, “first, we had an absolute blast managing the convention — a testament to the people involved. Second, the outpouring of appreciation from participants is overwhelming. I may have underestimated how much we needed the interaction with other gamers,” he said.

The entire convention was based out of Discord, which initially greeted you with the #Lobby, #Lounge and a few other general channels. The channels were then organized in alphabetical order by game designers, who then had their own subchannels (both for text and voice) for the games or sessions they were running. It made it easy to hunt down which room you were looking for based on the schedule on Tabletop Events. Inside the schedule, it also listed if a game or demo was going to be carried out via Tabletop Simulator or Vassal, online platforms many use for gaming, and whether you should download it ahead of time.

“We refused to go forward until we were comfortable the technology would work, we were properly staffed for support and we had the interest from the celebrity designers that have always made this con an unparalleled experience,” Buchanan said.

And that celebrity designers’ list? Impressive and consisting of many, many years of experience.

Friday

The COIN Reunion via Discord. I am totally fangirling here.

The first session I attended that Friday night was the COIN Reunion, a panel discussion with most of the great COIN designers of the GMT game series. The COIN designers present were Volko Ruhnke, Mark Herman, Morgane Gouyon-Rety, Bruce Mansfield and Brian Train. It was so lovely hanging out with them all in one space and learning more about each designer and their design processes, and what it took to get their game published. And here’s a hint: It definitely does not hurt to have Ruhnke look at your design!

I then popped into photographer Scott Mansfield’s “Photographing Your Games” session, and this was an absolute treat! Mansfield shared his presentation through the Discord stream, along with many tips for lighting and angles, as well as incorporating storytelling and compelling captions with your image on hand. Also, using simple tools such as foam core and flashlights, you can really make your image stand out. This was one highlight of my convention!

Look at how awesome all these wargames look! Scott Mansfield makes it look so easy!

After that, I hung out during “After Hours” with Moe & Harold while they caught up with designers Ananda Gupta and Bruce Mansfield, with Scott Mansfield joining in later on during the stream. Again, lots of fun, light-hearted discussion about each designer and their games, and the convention overall — like hanging out with a bunch of folks catching up.

“After Hours” with Moe and Harold on Moe’s YouTube channel.

Saturday

I popped into an afternoon demo for Hollandspiele’s Brave Little Belgium with designers Ryan Heilman and Dave Shaw. Two other players had signed up to play this, but I was observing the game through Vassal and listening in on the discussion on the Discord channel. Heilman was nice enough to navigate through how to find a room in Vassal, which I downloaded for the first time for this event. It’s always great when a designer teaches their game, and since I do own a copy of this, its time to get Brave Little Belgium on table soon.

Looking forward to playing Brave Little Belgium in person soon!

Later Saturday afternoon, I popped into Andrew Bucholtz’s table, where they were playing Liberty or Death, to say hello and watch a few rounds. I wanted to see how this game looked on Vassal, the online system I’m least familiar with since just downloading it for the first time during the Brave Little Belgium session. The board for Liberty in Vassal just looks so gorgeous!

Liberty, the second COIN I’ve played, has a gorgeous board.

On Saturday night, I joined Cole Wehrle during his panel discussion for a second edition of John Company. He his brother Drew streamed on Discord and Twitch, and it was neat seeing early iterations of John Company and learning what went behind its creation. I’m so looking forward to the updates to this sandbox-style negotiation game.

Cole and Drew Wehrle of Wehrlegig Games discussed upcoming second edition of John Company.

Lastly, I joined a game of Pax Pamir, my top game of 2019, with Dan Bullock and to other gamers. We played on Tabletop Simulator, with discussions on a table channel in Discord. The convention had a bunch of open tables for gamers to congregate in through Discord and get a game going. Our 4P game lasted two hours, and I won by getting the last dominance check, which doubles VPs for the check. Good times!

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I joined and watched a demo for Bullock’s latest game, 1979: Revolution in Iran. Like his previous game No Motherland Without, 1979 is another interesting and tense card-driven game. This game also adds a card-drafting mechanism to rounds — what an cool twist! Can’t wait until this game is out!

Overall, I had a great time at SD Hist Con. I particularly enjoyed the variety of games and panel discussions — there were so many events to choose from, and I’m bummed I couldn’t make it to more, such as the Wargaming Bootcamp! It’s also inspiring to see how battles or historic eras influenced these designers so much that they would devote a good chunk of their time to creating something for everyone to enjoy.

When asked what his highlight of convention was, Buchanan replied, “The chance to document and share the teaching of great designers like Mark Herman, John Butterfield, Cole Wehrle, David Thompson and Volko Ruhnke.”

But honestly, the real heroes were behind the scenes, folks like Bobby and others, who popped into sessions to make sure things were going swimmingly — technology wise — and were always so friendly when you popped into the #Lobby channel to ask a question. Thanks for everything! And a big thanks to Buchanan who enabled me to attend the weekend’s festivities. “It became personal for many to make the experience excellent,” he said.

And that it was. Whether gaming in person or virtually, the San Diego Historical Games Convention is a fun and inviting place to learn and play wargames.

Cinco: An underrated filler game on Board Game Arena

By Meeple Lady | October 19, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

Those who follow me on social media know that I’ve been playing a lot of games online, namely Board Game Arena. I am still not comfortable resuming my weekly game nights at my place, which bums me out as now I have a lot more space in our new house. One game that I’ve discovered on BGA — and have never heard of before until a few months ago — is Cinco.

Cinco is a quick end-of-night filler game that my friends and I have all enjoyed playing online. Think Connect 4 but with 5! Plus, fivefold more strategy than Connect 4. It plays about 15 minutes and worth checking out online.

In Cinco, you’re first dealt a hand of 4 cards. The cards go from 1 to 90, and when it’s your turn, you can either play a card, draw a card, or exchange your entire hand of cards if you have exactly 4 cards in your hand.

When you play a card, you place a marker on the board, which is this numbered hexagon, on any space the value of the card or higher. So, if you play a 65, you can place your marker on the 65 or any open space higher than that. When you select a card to play on your turn, the BGA interface actually shows you where you can place a marker. When you or your team connect five markers in a row, you win!

The 1 and 2 are valuable cards, because you can place the almost anywhere on the board.

You can play Cinco with up to 6 people, either two groups of 3 players, or three groups of pairs. We’ve enjoyed it as a 4P, as you play in two teams. You have no idea what cards your teammate holds, so it’s always so satisfying unknowingly working together to maximize your five-in-a-row options.

Cards can also become wild if you play it and that number and all the numbers above it have markers on them. It’s sometimes strategic to fill up the higher numbered spaces to make one card you have in your hand wild. Having a hand-size limit of 4 cards though really makes the game tight. You should always try to have the most cards in your hand, but sometimes you have to play a card to block your opponent — and even more painful if it’s a low-numbered card — instead of being able to draw on your turn.

Lastly, it’s also advantageous to hold on to really low numbers because you’ll be able to use them for almost any space, and they can be placed in the tough-to-reach center of the hexagon. For a game I’ve never heard of a few months ago, Cinco has quickly been one of our go-to games each game night.

And this was the end. I could not stop the black player from getting five in a row. *Yells Cinco! into the void*

Pan Am: Travel the world in about 60 minutes

By Meeple Lady | September 14, 2020 | Comments 1 comment

We’ve made it to the ninth month of 2020, folks! Pat yourselves on the back. It’s been a busy two months for me, as I’ve been moving and undertaking some home projects in between organizing boxes and boxes of board games. I am seriously never, ever moving again.

In all honesty, I haven’t had much bandwidth or time to play a heavy game recently. I’m hoping to get back into that soon. In the meantime, a shorter game I’ve been truly enjoying is Pan Am, which plays in about 60 minutes.

Pan Am board game box — I’ve been really enjoying my games of Pan Am recently.

It has all the elements I enjoy: worker-placement, bidding and route building (and blocking!), all packaged in a gorgeous game. And for a company that hasn’t existed for almost 30 years, that iconic logo immediately transports you to the golden age of flying. And with my personal travel in short supply these days, it’s fun to travel the world via the beautiful destination cards that the game comes with.

In Pan Am, players are competing to build a network of air travel. They’re bidding for airport landing rights, purchasing planes that fly longer ranges, claiming routes, and buying Pan Am stock. You’re also trying to create favorable routes in order for Pan Am to purchase them at a profit so you can invest in growth for your company.

Pan Am event cards — There are a couple of event cards for each round to randomly choose from when creating your event desk. It creates a unique game each time!

The game plays for seven rounds, and at the start of each round, an event card is drawn. These events tweak the rules for the round and affect the stock price of Pan Am. The goal of the game is to have the most Pan Am stock, and while it’s good to purchase the stock early while the price is still low, you usually don’t have enough income to do so.

Pan Am stock price — The stock price of Pan Am will fluctuate throughout the game. Best to get it early — if you can afford it!

For our 2P game, you start with 5 engineers (this number varies based on player count), and you take turns placing one engineer on action locations on the board. Some of these locations have numbers on it, so placing your engineer indicates your bid for that action. Another player on a future turn can outbid you by placing their engineer on a higher-valued spot in that location. Your engineer is then returned to you to place somewhere else, or at a higher-valued spot in that original location on your turn. All the locations with a bid can only have one winner on it when resolving.

Pan Am player board — In our 2P game, players start with 5 engineers, 2 destination cards, one hidden directive card, 3 planes and $12.

Other locations, like routes, resolve in placement order and don’t require a bid. This makes claiming routes especially tight as your opponent may want to build before you and foil your plans. To build a route between two cities, you’ll need landing rights either by having an airport in one of the cities you’re connecting, having the city’s destination card in your hand, discarding a card in your hand from the same region as one of the cities you’re connecting, or discarding two cards from the same region that’s different than the one you’re connecting. Lastly, you’ll need a plane from your fleet that can fly the route between the two cities. You place the plane on that route and then your income increases by how long the route was.

I absolutely love the bidding mechanism of this game. Even though I’ve only played this game as a 2P, it makes all your actions extremely tight and tense. Players might be fighting for that one destination card that satisfies the route they want to build, or maybe you’ll spend your action to be the first to build a route this round. You have to keep an eye out for what your opponents are planning!

Pan Am destination cards — There are always four destination cards in play, and players must bid on the card they want to take into their hand.

The last location that hasn’t been mentioned is Directives. This allows players to draw a directive card, which gives them a one-time or end-game bonus and can be powerful when played during the right phase. This location also allows your engineer to get Priority Access during the next round, meaning you’ll get to place your pawn first before the first player takes their turn.

Pan Am Directives deck — Directive cards offer bonuses and are kept secret from other players.

Once everyone places their engineers, you resolve each location in order, paying your bid if you need to. If you’re unable to pay your bid, you have to sell back any Pan Am stock you have at half price to gain some money for the bid.

The last phase of each round is the Pan Am phase. This is where Pan Am expands along one of its route, hopefully hitting a route you’ve already built so you can sell it to them. When you sell them a route, you get a payout based on how large it is and your plane is returned to your fleet. Your income, however, does go down, but the nice profit bump is well worth it. Players then get their income and move onto the next round. The player with the most Pan Am stock after seven rounds wins.

Pan Am routes — Here’s Pan Am expanding along its South America route.

Pan Am is super enjoyable, and the artwork is just delightful to look at. The game is widely available at Target for about $30. And while I personally am not flying anywhere in the near future, I can dream of faraway locations to visit while playing this game.

Fort: A deckbuilder where kids, pizzas and toys rule!

By Meeple Lady | July 27, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

We are officially almost through the seventh month of 2020 — also known as the longest decade ever — and it’s times like these when I get nostalgic for a much simpler time. A time when kids could actually go over to their friends’ houses and play in their yard, a time when kids, pizzas and toys ruled.

Fort, now available on preorder from Leder Games, is a game that takes you back to that time — complete with endearing and whimsical artwork. This unique deckbuilder is all about recruiting friends and building forts, and it plays 2-4 players in about 20-40 minutes.

Fort includes four sturdy player boards and a score tracker.

The game box is compact, but it has a lot of neat components in it. The player boards are made of thick cardboard with cutouts to place your pizza, toy and fort tokens in. I love it when player boards do this as it eliminates the accidental swipe of pieces with certain body parts. The cards are glossy, sturdy and colorful, and just a delight to hold in your hand. The game also comes with made-up rule cards and perk cards, which are smaller in size but also made up of the same glossy card stock. Lastly, there’s a scoreboard to keep in the middle of the table and marks the park area for the game.

I love how the tokens fit nicely into the player board.

And then there’s the top-notch artwork from Kyle Ferrin, whose artwork has created the enchanting world found in Leder games. The kid cards come in all types and colors, and they’re are just so fun to play with. I mean, who doesn’t want to play with Puddin? She seems so sassy!

How freakin’ adorable are these kid cards?

So back to the game. On your turn, you play one card, and sometimes you can add extra cards of the same suit (there are six suits in the game) to improve some actions. The one card you played has a public action, which other players can follow, and a private action, which is something only you can do.

Actions on the card range from gaining resources to put into your stuff or your pack, adding cards to your lookout, recruiting friends, or upgrading your fort. The amount of items that can sit in your lookout or pack depends on the size of your fort.

The goal of the game is to upgrade your fort to a level 5, and you’ll have to spend resources to do so when you use an action card that allows you to upgrade it.

The private or public action can be played in any order, and then players can follow your public action if they spend a card matching the suit of the active card. Once that’s done, the active player recruits a kid card from the park, which always has three face-up cards in it, or from their yard or an opponent’s yard.

If you build your level 5 fort, you gain the macaroni sculpture card, triggering the last round of the game.

Then, all your played cards and your best friends — the kid cards with stars on them that you start with at the beginning of the game — go into your discard pile. The unplayed cards are then placed at the top of your player board, putting them in danger of being recruited by others! There’s something a little heartbreaking about the Rocket Bros being taken by your opponent but that’s sometimes how life goes.

Lastly, you draw five cards from your deck. If you can’t draw five cards, you shuffle your discard pile to make a new draw deck. When it’s your turn again, you first clear out your yard of kid cards not taken by others and place them into your discard pile.

Play with your friends close! Don’t let them start wandering into other players’ yards!

I love the mechanism of following the leader’s action. It allows you to take extra actions when it’s not your turn and reduce the amount of cards left over at the end of your actual turn. Both of these mechanisms — hand management and the follow action — are what elevates Fort from your standard deckbuilder. It keeps all players engaged throughout the entire game.

Fort is based on designer Grant Rodiek’s game SPQF from 2018. I love the retheme and update to it, and I think many others will, too. And even though I’ve only had a chance to play this game as a two-player, the game still had plenty of memorable moments. I can’t wait to get this on table with more people when it’s safe to play with other people again.

Thanks Leder Games for sending me a copy of this game!

Rap Godz: Living that hip-hop life

By Meeple Lady | June 8, 2020 | Comments 1 comment

Truth be told, it’s been a little difficult being inspired to write while we’ve been on lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. But in light of recent events and protests erupting across America, it’s important to take a stance. #blacklivesmatter. Period. There is so much racial injustice happening all over — it’s heartbreaking, and serious change needs to happen. We must do better.

Here in the board gaming community, we can listen, we can educate ourselves, we can speak out against racism and microaggressions, we can create a safe gaming space, and we can amplify black board game designers, artists and creators.

Rap Godz, designed by Omari Akil and Hamu Dennis, came out this year.

Omari Akil is a cofounder of Board Game Brothas and the lead designer of Rap Godz, a game about becoming a hip-hop artist. In this article written by Omari, he discussed how few black board gamers he encounters in the hobby — and even fewer game designers — and he wanted to change that.

I first encountered Rap Godz through my partner Chris who received his copy a few months ago. Chris enjoyed playing a demo of it at a local Unpub event in North Carolina in 2018 and ordered the game when it hit Kickstarter. We’ve had so much fun playing it since, often jamming along with one of our rap playlists!

This is hands down one of the most unique and colorful games I’ve ever played.

Rap Godz is a 2-4 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Each player plays as an up-and-coming rapper trying to take over cities, hit career goals and earn the most record-sales plaques through three albums.

The whole board is laid out like a giant turntable, with crossfader markers indicating which album and track players are on. The entire game is three albums’ worth, with five tracks — or turns — for each album. That’s fifteen turns for everyone, which leaves a short amount of time to go platinum! Painted grooves on the record represent the three resource tracks: swag, skillz and street.

Turn up that track! Isn’t this crossfader piece just so cool?

On a player’s turn, they get a card and play a card. To get a card, they can draw one from the current album deck or discard three cards to grab one of the face-up Come Upz cards.

Cards give you resources and plaques. The ones with a lock and key can only be played if you’ve reached or passed that number on the resource track.

Players then play a card from their hand in front of them and create a timeline of their career. Played cards dole out plaques and resources to the player. Some cards though feature a lock and key, and players cannot play that card until they have equal to or more than the number of resources shown in the lock.

Players can also instead play a Beef card. When they do this, they pick another rapper to start beef with, roll their die and the red die. The other person rolls their die. The player with the highest number on a single die wins the beef. The loser puts the Beef card into their timeline and hands over resources and plaques on the Beef card to the winner. The winner collects a red Beef cube, which can help score an objective at the end of the game.

Do you have enough swag, skillz and street to be the top rapper?

As players cross resource thresholds on the record, they collect Pick Upz tokens, which gives resource, beef or card bonuses and can be used for a later time. The goal of the game is to score objectives by collecting Goalz, Citiez (each city has a different objective such as having the most Yellow cards in your timeline) and the most plaques. The player who has the most points after three albums is the Rap God.

The Goalz (pictured) and Citiez end-game scoring conditions change with each game.

The game has lots of replay value, as the Goalz and Citiez objectives change every game, and the interaction between the players by starting beefs always makes for a fun time. You also have 24 characters — and their distinct abilities and end-game scoring objectives — to choose from, and even Troopers and Cthudus want to be rappers!

The unique theme and components set this game apart. The game comes with a hefty gold medallion to indicate the first player, and I enjoy how the game ramps up with phased in album and Come Upz cards. Giving otherwise regular resource tracks a unique look is pretty creative. I also love and appreciate the diversity of artwork and experiences represented on the game cards.

I love the diversity of the artwork, including the range of looks on these female POCs.

One of the biggest things I’ve been an advocate for is representation in the board gaming community. Often, whenever I walk into a room at a game convention, there aren’t many people who look like me, and I want to see more people of color break into and thrive in this hobby I love. And we can do our part by taking action and fostering a more diverse and inviting community.

Backgammon: Let’s go play at the bar!

By Meeple Lady | April 22, 2020 | Comments 5 comments

This review of backgammon was featured on Episode 85 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Raiders of the North Sea, Snow Tails, Banned Books and Orleans.

Every so often, I’m watching a movie or TV show and a backgammon set shows up. I immediately pause the program to examine whether they’re playing correctly or it’s just being used as a prop.

For myself personally, backgammon for many, many years was just a game that existed. A game that people always randomly had in their house, probably a gift from their grandparents or a friend. It’s a game I’m surprised that a lot more people don’t know how to play, considering how old it is. It’s ancient — with its roots tracing back to nearly 5,000 years in Mesopotamia. I finally learned the game as an adult, and it has been one of my absolute favorites ever since. I keep my set in my car so I can bust it out at any time. And people, I have.

Backgammon is a classic two-player game that combines strategy and luck. It’s played on a board, often built into a mini little suitcase, and two players sit across from each other. Each player has fifteen pieces, also known as checkers, two dice in their matching color and a dice cup. Players must move all their checkers around the board in one direction into their home area, which then they can start bearing off the pieces.

This is the opening setup for backgammon.

The problem is: your opponent is moving in the opposite direction and can hit you, forcing your checker to start its journey home all over again by entering at your opponent’s home board, which is the farthest area from your home board.

When you open your case, you’ll see the board is made up of 24 long points, which look like long skinny triangles, and the board is divided into four quadrants. For the purposes of this review, I’ll call the points spaces instead so it doesn’t sound like we’re constantly talking about victory points this entire time. Checkers sit on a space and move in a horseshoe pattern around the board. Your home board is the set of 6 spaces closest to you, and your opponent plays the mirror image of the same board. Each quadrant on the board has exactly 6 spaces each.

There is a standard setup for the checkers at the start of the game, then players begin by rolling one die each, and the player with the higher die goes first. They move their piece or pieces exactly according to what’s rolled, in one direction toward their home board. For example, if a 2 and 4 were rolled, the player moves one piece two spaces, and another piece four spaces, or they may move the same piece two spaces and then four spaces.

To be able to move into a space, it has to be empty, or have your checkers sitting in it, or just one checker of your opponent’s sitting in it. If there are two or more checkers of your opponents sitting on the space, it is blocked and you cannot land there.

This is the white player’s opening move, moving one piece 5 spaces and another piece 1 space.

If there is one checker sitting there that belongs to your opponent and you decide to move in, their piece gets knocked off and goes to the bar, which is usually the middle fold of the case. Your opponent must then roll into an open space in your home board, which has their starting spaces.

On future turns, players take turns back and forth, plopping their two matching dice into their own dice cup and rolling. Players continue until one person bears off all their checkers from their home board. A player cannot start bearing off their checkers until they’re all in their home board, and even then, the player must be able to roll high enough to get them off the board. The first player to complete that is the winner.

There is a lot of back and forth in this game, and while it’s true that a couple of bad rolls could set you far behind, there is strategy in how you move your pieces. You want to move them in pairs, so that no one checker is sitting by itself, practically inviting your opponent to come hit you. You also need to understand when to make a run for it, moving all your checkers past your opponent. Sometimes, it’s advantageous to keep a few behind so that you can hit your opponent when the opportunity presents itself.

There’s also something to be said about building a wall of defense in your home board, so that if you do hit an opponent’s piece, they will have a hard time rolling into their starting area because you’ve blocked off many of their opening spaces

There is also the thing about doubles. Rolling doubles will result in four actions of that same number. For example, a roll of two 6’s is very powerful because you get 6 points of movement — four times!

Most of the game you’re hoping for doubles, while taunting your opponent by rage-shaking your dice cup near their face. It’s very fun.

This doubling cube can raise the stakes on your game.

For those who want to raise the stakes, try using the doubling cube. The doubling cube is a marker representing what the two players are betting. It begins at 64 at the start of the game, and when one player is feeling lucky in their progress, they can move it to 2, meaning if they’re playing for dimes, the winner will now be receiving 20 cents instead.

The other player can agree to the 2 or just end the game and pay the 10 cents. The doubling cube’s sides double from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64. Players have to take turns increasing the doubling cube; the same player cannot keep raising the stakes of the game.

If your opponent wins the game, and you haven’t taken a single checker off the board, you’ve been gammoned, and this doubles the stakes. If your opponent wins, and you still have a checker on the bar or in the home board of your opponent, then you’ve been backgammoned — and this triples the stakes. I’ve seen some epic games where someone had been backgammoned and paid a hefty sum to the winner!

I’ve had my backgammon set for years and it shows! I must’ve purchased this for less than $10 at Target many, many years ago. It has been great to me.

In all, backgammon is a quick, fun 2-player game that’s easily transportable and you can pretty much play anywhere. It has a self contained playing area with its suitcase setup. It’s also very easy to find an inexpensive copy, and chances are there are even a few sets at Goodwill. Just make sure all fifteen checkers are included.

And that’s backgammon. This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. May you always roll doubles, and I’ll see you at the bar! Thanks for listening. Bye!