Tag: vital lacerda
Escape Plan: Grabbing the loot and running

Escape Plan: Grabbing the loot and running

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This review of Escape Plan was featured on Episode 59 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Monopoly Deal, Village, Ticket to Ride: New York and Piepmatz.

We’ve all watched countless heist films. A group of skilled individuals lay out a plan, execute said plan and grab the loot. And then what’s the saying? The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Well, then shoot, Plan B. Hide the loot and lay low – for now.

But now the time is up, and we’ve all got to grab our hidden loot and get out of the city.

Welcome to Escape Plan, the latest game designed from Vital Lacerda, with artwork from Ian O’Toole, published by Eagle-Gryphon Games in 2019. Escape Plan picks up right this moment of the heist narrative: players have three days to evade the cops, get their money and get the heck out of the town.

Escape Plan, published in 2019, is Vital Lacerda’s latest game.

Lacerda himself has said that he just adores movies and is constantly inspired by them when designing board games. And Escape Plan manages to capture the tenseness of those heist films we’re so familiar with, all the while figuring out the game’s puzzly inteconnectivity that is a signature of Lacerda’s board games.

Each day has six phases: players get their income, the police start to close the exits, the city gets revealed, change turn order, player take their turns, and then prepare for the next day. At the start of the game, you don’t know which one of the three exits is the correct one, and you also don’t get to see where different locations are on the board because the city hasn’t completely been built out yet.

I really enjoy this aspect of the game because it forces you to make decisions with the new information and locations presented to you at the start of each day.

On your turn, you either move or rest. That’s it. Simple, right? But wait, it’s a Lacerda game! When you do a move action, you move 1-3 spaces on the board, try and avoid the police, and visit a location. The most common locations to visit are businesses and safehouses, where you can either collect end-game VPs or up-front cash to help you with your getaway.

Eachh player gets their own board, which tracks their income and has spaces to hold their contact cards, asset and equipment tiles.

Each player receives a different escape plan and a player board, which holds asset and equipment tiles, and contact cards, as well as tracks your income, wounds and executive actions, which are free or paid actions you can take during your turn at any time. The more of certain actions you complete, the more locations on your player board unlock, thus increasing your capacity to hold all these various items.

Your income goes down goes the more locations you visit, as you drop off a cube from your player board to indicate you’ve done an action there.

There are also various locations on the board that assist with movement (the subway stop and helipad), the convenience store (where you can purchase equipment to evade the police or you can raid lockers for money if you have a key), and the clinic and hospital (where you can heal your wounds.) There’s also the chapel where you can decrease your notoriety.

Notoriety is a huge element of the game. Doing just about anything will increase/decrease your notoriety, which re-calculates after every single action round. Notoriety is a track that allows you possibly get more money at the lockers and unlock asset tiles, but it essentially puts a target on our back because when you cross certain thresholds on the notoriety track, all the other players will move the police toward you. And that’s not good in this game.

Notorious!! Having the most notoriety is good and bad, but probably mostly bad.

Also not good is getting caught by the police. When you enter a hex with police on it, nothing happens. But when you leave that hex, you will get wounds.

Players can also employ biker gangs to help evade the police or reduce notoriety as an executive action.

Lastly, if you decide not to move on your turn, you can rest. Resting means you flip back your contact cards and equipment tiles on your board, as well as the First Aid tile. Those items are now all available again. And you can only rest once per day, a total of three times in the entire game. But since you have so few actions, I wouldn’t advise taking this action unless you absolutely have to.

The game does an excellent job of making you feel the weight and pressure of being hunted. There are so few actions in the game, about 12-15 actions total, that every single step has such huge effects on the game.

You’re constantly looking over your shoulder and wondering if another player’s actions will send the police over in your direction.

Everyone starts at the center of the board, but the city isn’t built out yet.

Do you risk looking for more loot or just run over to the exit as soon as you can? Well, if you delay, once someone exits, each action will cost each player one more dollar, and depending on when you exit, that costs more as well. The first person to exit pays nothing.

If you don’t exit the game, you’re just out of contention from even potentially winning the game. For those who escaped, they count their cash in hand and money they’ve collected from visiting locations, and the person with the most money wins the game.

The game board is double sided and scales differently for player counts. For fans of Kanban, the character of Sandra shows up in Escape Plan and is the automa for the 1-player game. I just realized that Sandra is Lacerda’s wife’s name, and that made me chuckle. Cool beans, I think.

A sampling of the contact cards and equipment tiles. And some gas cans when you really need to hoof it through the city.

Overall, I just love this game, and probably his lightest to date, but, and that’s a big but, it’s still a Lacerda game, which means it’s still a heavy game and there are a lot of rules to remember. The rulebook is written well and clear and the iconography is great, so it’s just a matter of if you want to invest time in learning this game, which plays in about 60-120 minutes.

The first time I played this game, it was over in about 90 minutes, and it felt really short for one of his games. But the more times I played this game, the richer game play has become. The game shines when people are actively trying to send the police over to your opponent’s neck of the woods when the options are there for placement.

The theme for Escape Plan works well for the mechanisms, and because of that, it seems more intuitive and easier to pick up than his other games. I also love the variability of each game because the board will be built out differently each time.

And that’s Escape Plan! Thanks, Eagle-Gryphon Games, for giving me a copy of this game. This is Meeple Lady for the Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as meeplelady. Or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!


Arizona Game Fair 2019: Meeting Vital Lacerda

Arizona Game Fair 2019: Meeting Vital Lacerda

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Arizona Game Fair took place recently at the Mesa Convention Center, and I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome the convention was! Now in its third year, the con had over 1,200 attendees. That’s pretty fantastic! Convention founder Andrew Long said the first year had over 300 gamers and the second had 785. I am constantly in awe at how wonderful the Arizona gaming community is.

The convention was one I had been excited about for many, many months. For starters, I never thought I’d ever in a million years meet the designer of one of my absolute favorite games, Lisboa: Vital Lacerda himself! I mean, dude is from Portugal and attends a lot of overseas conventions, which I obviously don’t attend. And they say never meet your heroes because they’re sure to disappoint, but, my friends, I was not disappointed at all. Lacerda is passionate about gaming, friendly, humble and just lovely to be around. He is all about making sure gamers have a good time playing his heavy, intricate games.

It was so freaking hard not to fangirl scream every two seconds when Vital Lacerda was teaching his game. You should all be proud of me, folks!

I arrived Friday afternoon at the convention after working a half day, and I had scheduled a game at 3 p.m. with Chris, Julie, Ken and me to learn On Mars, Lacerda’s upcoming game.

Here we are playing it cool as Vital Lacerda teaches us On Mars.

On Mars is by far his heaviest game, in which astronauts are trying to settle the red planet. This game is nothing like Terraforming Mars, other than the location of the game. Players are collecting resources to explore Mars, build buildings, improve their technologies and gathering scientists. There’s an added element of moving back and forth between the space station and on Mars – for free on the rocket ship that moves as the game progresses or using one of your ships, which can be expensive – which then enables you to take any action on that side of the board. The actions in itself are not hard; the challenge is figuring out how to make your actions work together, in a puzzly interconnectivity that is Lacerda’s signature style. I cannot wait for this game to come out!

I naturally had to bring out the giant tweezers for On Mars. I am so excited for this game!

Chris and I then ordered some Vital LaCider from @CiderCorp and attended a Q&A on Lacerda, with the wonderful special guest Suzanne hosting the panel. She asked some really cool questions about what it’s like to be a game designer all the way to what his favorite pie is. My favorite part of the conversation was when Lacerda said that he’s always learning about new stuff about designing games and that he doesn’t feel like a game designer completely yet. I beg to differ, sir!

I live-tweeted some of the conversation. You can read the whole thread below:

After the panel, there was a Hungry Hungry Hippos tournament. My blue hippo was defective, and I got knocked out in the first round. I did not win one of these cool meeple trophies. Womp womp.

Everyone’s getting ready to chomp down some marbles!

There were plenty of tournaments at all game levels happening throughout the convention, as well as a contest for miniatures painting.

Here’s Andrew, Lord of the Board, sitting with some of the cool meeple trophies for the tournaments.

On Saturday, Chris and I hit the ground running with a 6-player game of Flamme Rouge. These guys placed some chocolate eggs on the track so that we passed them, we got a candy treat.

Benjamin and Steve both run g3gamenight in the northwest Valley, while Scott and Mike live down in Tucson.

In Flamme Rouge, players simultaneously draw four cards and pick one to play for both of their cyclists, their Rouleur and Sprinteur, and you go through the course dealing with inclines and other areas, while utilizing slipstream and avoiding exhaustion if you’re in the front of the pack. I started out strong, but my cyclists lost steam halfway through the game. Super fun!

Flamme Rouge is a fun simultaneous-card-selection and deckbuildng game!

Next up, we played Imhotep. My buddy Mark loves to 3D print things to deluxify his games, and it was really satisfying dropping cubes into these structures. He found these files on Thingiverse.

These structures hold all the giant cubes. I probably should’ve taken a better photo from the side so you can see how they all stack up. Next time!

I then taught a game of Teotihuacan, which meant I busted out my giant tweezers. I’ve taught this game a few times, and I finally feel like I got the hang of this teaching this beast. We ended the game by building the pyramid, and Chris nearly lapped all of us. The worst.

We finished our pyramid, which ended the game a few rounds early.

We then played a quick game of Catch the Moon, which is always a hit with gamers!

Catch the Moon is another great filler that always looks great on table.

Afterwards, I joined 10-player game of Welcome To. I’m pretty bad at this game, but it was still fun to game with all these cool peeps.

My Welcome To neighborhood wasn’t well developed. People trigger those objectives so fast!

Chris and I got asked on Friday to take some photos in costume for a live game on Saturday of The Usual Suspects, hosted by the Game State Show. The suspects’ photos were all lined up in the hallway after their show. Who looks the most suspicious and is guilty? Indeed it is not I.

Look at all these suspicious people! I do love having giant mugshots at home now.

I then took a break to get ready for one of my favorite things to do at a convention: run a ginormous game of Sidereal Confluence. I was able to gather 9 players for this game, which uses ALL THE ALIEN FACTIONS. I had never run a game this large before, but luckily, a few had played it before I had some help in answering questions. There’s a trajectory at the start of the game where I start explaining the rules and then I get a lot of puzzled looks about this game, which makes me worry that I’ve accidentally dragged folks into a 2-hour grudge match, but then once the first round gets underway, things start sorta clicking and people embrace the absurdity of the game, and we just all start yelling at each other for cubes.

Here are all nine players for Sidereal Confluence. Everyone is still pretty relaxed since we haven’t started yet, except GloryHoundd and me, who are already uber excited.

Luckily, we were seated in the far end of the convention floor, as we were all pretty loud, and lots of folks stopped by to see what the game was all about. And they’d see me standing with giant tweezers in hand counting down which players can take a colony they’ve successfully bid on. One person said it sounded like a craps table was happening on the convention floor. That is exactly what it look like – yelling, people throwing cubes, and hands going everywhere on a giant table with a million cards on it.

Sidereal Confluence is such a table hog!

We ended the night talking with Ferdinand of Cardboard Stacker and playing Filipino Fruit Market, which is a unique area-control, trick-taking card game with fruit.

This game by Peer Sylvester is a neat twist on trick taking. I wish it was widely available!

On Sunday, we began the day playing Passing Through Petra, which is a neat puzzly tile/trading game from J. Alex Kevern, who has designed crunchy one-hour games like Gold West and Sentient. Traders travel on a caravan through the desert, and you can welcome various traders into your market and facilitate trade with people who have the goods they want. But filling your market happens in a specific order, so timing your market with the appropriate tiles at the right time for maximum trades is just delightful. I just wish the caravan on the board wasn’t so fiddly though.

I enjoyed the puzzly aspect of Passing Through Petra but not the fiddly caravan mechanism.

I then taught a game of Mexica, which is always a hit with people and has such table presence that people stop by to take a look at the game.

I love how Mexica gets all kinds of mean!

I ended Arizona Game Fair chilling with Kevin Russ and Suzanne, and we played a first games. First up was Krass Kariert.

Chris, Kevin, Suzanne and I all hung out until it was about closing time on Sunday.

Krass Kariert is a quick fun card game in which you’re trying to beat what’s already played, through a simple hierarchy of singles, pairs, runs and triples. But you cannot rearrange your cards! If you need to play a pair, they have to be sitting next to each other. But as you pull cards from your hand, naturally, the gap closes, and you can find new combinations with the cards remaining. Super fun!

Krass Kariert is a fun quick card game from Amigo where everyone wins except the last player to clear their cards.

We of course played some roll-and-writes, too! I did spectacularly horrible in Metro X, but won Cartographer! Suzanne said there’s a bunch of roll-and-writes out there, and it’s all a matter of finding one that you resonate with. I guess I do better with placing tetris tiles and completing objective ones than filling numbers on subway routes.

Cartographer is a puzzle style roll-and-write set in the Roll Player world. It has four objectives for each game, with two scoring during each of the four seasons.

Lastly, there was a special tribute at the entrance for my buddy Tom Wells who had passed away recently at an all-too-young age of 50. I had fond memories playing Arkwright and The Colonists with him in previous conventions, as well as gaming with him on the occasional Saturday morning. His badge was hanging up all weekend.

We’ll miss you, Tom. I still can’t believe you’re gone.

And just like that, three games of gaming came and went. The chill atmosphere, friendly volunteers and wide open space made the convention a pleasure to attend. There were also vendors there such as Eagle-Gryphon Games and Gamelyn Games, as well as wood workers and artists. The convention also had a designated women’s space, which is pretty fantastic, and a separate area for RPGs. There was plenty to do for all the different types of gamers!

There was a lovely space for female gamers who were more comfortable away from the main convention floor, and lots of games scheduled in the space, too.

Thanks again Arizona Game Fair for having me as a guest. I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year. And folks, save the date for next year’s convention: March 20-22, 2020. Hope to see here! We’ve got sunny skies, perfect for outside gaming, and giant cactus!

Chris and I visited the Desert Botanical Gardens after the convention. Fun times!


Lisboa: A Masterpiece from Vital Lacerda

Lisboa: A Masterpiece from Vital Lacerda

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This review of Lisboa was featured on Episode 46 of The Five By.  Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Mr. Jack, Lords of Waterdeep, Apocrypha and KLASK.

 

Lisboa is a game published by Eagle-Gryphon Games, designed by Vital Lacerda, with gorgeous artwork from Ian O’Toole. It plays 2-4 players, and even though the box says 60-120 minutes, my experience is it plays a little bit longer than that with maximum players.

Before we begin, Lisboa is by far one of the most complicated games I’ve ever had to teach, learn and play. In real life, rules explanation can take about 30 to 45 minutes. So if heavy games are not your bag, feel free to skip ahead five minutes. I totally will not be offended.

Lisboa is gorgeous, from outside the box to the game itself.

Lisboa is beautiful, crunchy and has a little bit of everything that a heavy gamer like myself enjoys. The game has area control, set collection, card drafting and tile placement. And probably most importantly, you get to decide your end-game scoring conditions.

The purplish-blue board game, whose color scheme is reminiscent of the Portuguese tiles the city is known for, is set in 1755, when Lisboa was struck by many natural disasters: an earthquake, fires and a tsunami, pretty much leveling the city. And now we’re all tasked with helping the city recover economically. We are taking turns to clear rubble, build ships and sell goods, get permits to construct public buildings, and set up shops so that the city can prosper. And we all want wigs. Lots and lots of wigs, which are VPs in this game.

The board is divided into two main parts: one side shows all the actions you can do on your turn, and the right side is filled with rubble and street locations for storefronts and public buildings.

The right side of the game features the city of Lisboa, where players are tasked to remove rubble, and build storefronts and public buildings.

What the game boils down to is its multi-use cards, and players picking from one of two actions with those cards from their hand of five cards. You can either tuck the cards into your portfolio, or play cards into the royal court to meet with the king, prime minister or master builder. These two main actions, either tuck or play, however, unlock a spiderweb of many, many other actions.

If you decide to tuck a card, you receive the reward or penalty for tucking that card. And then the card either gives influence for later or some permanent ability. You then can sell goods on an open ship or trade with the nobles, which will require goods. There are four goods in the game: gold, cloths, books and tools. Each noble wants a specific type of good, but all of them will take gold. If you trade the nobles, you can perform two different state actions if you meet the required good for that particular noble.

There are six different state actions you can choose from: recruiting officials (which you place on the board and will affect how other players meet with nobles), acquiring a plan (which you need to build public buildings), building a ship (which gives you influence and wigs when people sell goods to your boat), producing goods (if you have a storefront on the map), meeting the cardinal (which gives you Clergy tiles and benefits), and getting royal favors (which allow you to follow someone’s noble visit).

If you decide to not tuck your card, but instead play a card, you can visit a noble or gain the benefit from the treasury card. To visit a noble, you have to pay influence, and depending on who you visit, you can build a store (which is calculated by the rubble left at that intersection), take a decree card (criteria that will score you wigs at the end of the game), or open a public building (which requires to you already have a building permit of the same color in your possession and workers on the board).

Here are a few of the decree cards that score you VPs at the end of the game if you fulfill them.

As more stores are built in the city, it becomes less expensive to take that action because the rubble slowly get cleared. Rubble cubes are randomly placed at the start of the game so at the intersection of each storefront location, the price is calculated based on how many cubes are still there and which color, with beige being the most expensive and blue the cheapest. When you build, you remove one cube, and then pay the cost of the remaining cubes. And this is how you can collect sets of rubble on your player board, which will then unlock more spaces for cards to tuck and progress the game.

Also, when you satisfy the requirements and build a public building, you then gain the rubble the public building will sit on, and then if there is a storefront along that street where the public building was just placed, then the storefront scores VPs. In all, a storefront can score up to three times, if public buildings are placed on the north, east and west sides of the board.

So after you either tuck a card or play a card, you carry out the actions that correspond with the tucking or playing, and then you take a card from one of the face-up piles and your turn ends. The game is played out over two identical periods. The first period ends when someone collects two sets of rubble or three of the four piles of cards are depleted. The second period ends when someone collects four sets of rubble or three of the four piles of cards are depleted as well.

Lisboa manages to keep other players engaged even when it’s not their turn. As with other Lacerda games, there’s an option to follow another player’s main action. At the end of the game, you score any decrees you’ve collected, the various streets are scored according to who has the most storefronts on that street, and you a couple other items such as ships, influence and money.

I love teaching this game, especially when I have the giant tweezers with me!

The interconnectivity of all these actions is what I love most about Lisboa, which I believe is a masterpiece. Each action isn’t difficult per se, but there are a multitude of microsteps that need to first happen in order for you to do something large like, build a public building.

And that’s the super quick overview of Lisboa! This is Meeple Lady for the Five By Games. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as meeplelady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!