Friday Filler: dnup

If you like Scout, then you will like dnup. It is a card-shedding game, just like Scout, but is smaller, less complicated, easier to teach, and plays faster. It is also from the designer as Scout. The latter, published by Oink Games, was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2022 and won the Origins Award for Best Card Game in 2023. It is not an Oink Games title though—and not just because the components fit in the box! Another difference is that there is no semblance of theme with dnup.

dnup—short for ‘Down up’—is published by the Asmodee Group. It is designed to be played by between two and five players, aged eight and up, and can be played in fifteen minutes. The aim of game for each player is to try to empty his hand of cards. This done by playing cards from his hand as sets of the same value that are of a higher value or greater size than the ones on the table. If a player is the first to empty his hand this way in a round, he gains two letters. The next player to empty his hand, gains a single letter. The first player to be able to spell ‘dnup’ with his letters wins the game.

dnup consists of forty cards, five Player Aid cards, sixteen letter tokens, and the rules leaflet. The forty cards are marked with two different numbers. The cards can be turned over so that the upper number can always be read, but the lower number is always upside down and cannot be read as easily. The Player Aid cards show the card distribution at each player count and the actions that a player can take each round. The sixteen letter tokens are used to keep of player score.

At the start of a round, each player receives a hand of cards, the number varying depending on the number of players. A player can rearrange the cards in hand at any time. When he receives his hand; when it is not his turn; and when he picks up cards. What he cannot do is rotate his hand. What this means is that he can build sets of cards easily throughout the play of the game. On his turn, a player first discards any set he played the previous turn and takes on action. He can play a set of cards onto the table on front of him; add a card to an opponent’s set; take a set of cards from in front of an opponent; or rotate the cards in his hand. Unlike in Scout, where there is one set of cards on the table, in dnup, each player has a set in front of him. When a set is played, it must be bigger than another set already in front of another player. When it is, the lower set must be returned to its player, who must rotate the returned cards before adding them to his hand. If a player adds a card to an opponent’s hand and it increases the value of the set in comparison to another set, that lowered valued set is returned to its player’s hand. This is a key tactical move as it forces cards back into a player’s hand and they will not be same value because the cards have to be rotated. Similarly, a player can play a low set in the hope that another player will put down a better set and force him to take the cards back into his hand, and rotating them, give him cards with numbers he can use to make better sets. This adds some nice tactical options. Of course, taking cards back into a player’s hand means that he has to rotate them and he has to rearrange them. Sometimes that can be advantageous for a player, sometimes not. When it is not, a player will have to rebuild a set, but the game play is speedy enough that it does not take long.

dnup does include a two-player option. For this, each player has two play areas and can play sets into both areas. This also means that sets in a player’s play areas can conflict with each other, but it also means that a player can use it to his advantage. However, the two-player option is not quite as fun as there is not the same degree of interplay between the players. Thus, dnup plays better with multiple players.

Physically, dnup is very nicely presented. The rules are simple and clear, and the cards are attractive in bright and breezy colours.

dnup is as bright and breezy as it looks. The game is easy to teach and learn, and it plays easy too. This means that it plays well with families and younger players, but there is just enough of an edge to the game that experienced players can play it a bit more cutthroat.

Peninsular Peregrinations

Since 2007, the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award-winning board game Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder, has been supported with new maps, beginning with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. That new map would be collected in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 2 – India & Switzerland, the second entry in the Map Collection series begun in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 – Team Asia & Legendary Asia. Both of these have proved to be worthy additions to the Ticket to Ride line, whereas Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa and Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland have proved to add more challenging game play, but at a cost in terms of engaging game play. Further given that they included just the one map in the third and fourth volumes rather than the two in each of the first two, neither felt as if they provided as much value either. Fortunately, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania came with two maps and explored elements more commonly found in traditional train games—stocks and shares in railroad companies and the advance of railway technology. This was followed by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6: France + Old West, which provided two maps exploring a common theme—telegraphing each player’s intended placement of their trains; then by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, which focused on borders and connecting them; and lastly, by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy which examines two ways in which long routes affect game play. Thematically, the next entry in the series is connected by peninsulas.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea gives the Ticket to Ride fan with another Asian map and another European map, both of them depicting peninsulas and offering two new, and quite different ways to play Ticket to Ride. The standard game play remains—draw Destination Tickets and attempt to connect them via various routes between cities using sets of Train Cards that match the route colour, scoring points for both claiming routes completing the Destination Tickets. On each turn a player can still draw two Train Car Cards, either from those face up or from the deck, play Train Car Cards to claim a route, or draw new Destination Tickets. Or not, because in this expansion, there are limits placed upon when a player can draw Destination Tickets, and this is not the only way in which Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea differs from either the base game for Ticket to Ride or other map sets.

Of course, Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea requires the base game for its train pieces and scoring tokens, and both of its maps are designed to be played by between two and five players. The Iberia map includes one-hundred-and-ten Train Car Cards, fifty-four Festival Cards, a Ticket Draft Card, and fifty Destination Ticket Cards. The map itself depicts the Iberian Peninsula, primarily Spain and Portugal, but routes over the Pyrenees into southwestern France and ferry routes across the western Mediterranean to Palma, capital of the Spanish island of Mallorca. There is nothing radical or different about the map. Rather, the game play is different. This begins with the set-up. After the standard number of Train Car Cards are dealt to the players, the fifty-four Festival Cards are shuffled into the deck of Train Car Cards and the Ticket Draft Card is inserted into the combined deck. The players are dealt a total of Destination Ticket Cards. Instead of deciding to keep several of them and discard the rest, each player drafts on passes the remaining Destination Ticket Cards to the player on his left. This is done until each player has six Destination Ticket Cards, at which point, he can chose to discard two. This will mean that a player will get to see most of the Destination Ticket Cards that the other players have rejected and have some idea as what they have kept. There is the luck of the draw in drawing Destination Ticket Cards in any version of Ticket to Ride, but this draft mechanic randomises the draw even further, and it makes it difficult for a player to tailor his Destination Ticket Cards so that they fall along similar routes. Yet, Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea adds an extra twist to this.

When the Ticket Draft Card is drawn from the deck of Train Car Cards, a second draft takes exactly like the first, but going in the opposite direction. This has a player draft six new Destination Ticket Cards and keep four. It forces a player to consider eight new destinations that he has to connect and again they may not fall along similar routes. It also forces a player to marshal his train pieces since he knows will need some in the latter half of the game to complete the new Destination Ticket Cards. This also has another effect, which is to prevent a player from claiming as many routes as he can to speed up the end of the game. Up until this point, the players have not been allowed to draw new Destination Ticket Cards, but the other effect of the Ticket Draft Card is that now they can. However, with eight Destination Ticket Cards in hand, there is going to be less diving for new Destination Ticket Cards in the hope of scoring big.

The other means of scoring that Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea adds is Festival Cards. When drawn from the Train Car Card deck, a Festival Card is placed on the edge of the board nearest to the Festival City mentioned on the Festival Card. Many of the cities have multiple associated Festival Cards and when drawn these placed in a stack. When player claims a Route that connects to a Festival City, he can take all of the available Festival Cards for that city. At the end of the game, a player scores points for each set of Festival Cards he has for each city. This is a set collection mechanic similar to the railroad shares for the Pennsylvania map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania.

Of the two new mechanics in Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea, for the Iberia map, the draft mechanic and the Ticket Draft Card are better than the Festival Cards mechanic. The draft mechanic alters some of the fundamentals of play and forces a player to think in the long term, husbanding his train pieces as important resources not knowing how many he will need towards the end of the game, and knowing that at some point the scoring opportunities are going to get more complicated. The Festival Cards does offer extra scoring opportunities that are easier because a player can claim routes even if they are not on any of his Destination Ticket Cards, but is just a bit busy and adds clutter around the edges of what is a large board.

The South Korea map is noticeably different and has a direct effect on play. This is because instead of the route colours being distributed across the map, they are clumped together in zones. There are a few grey routes as you would expect, but otherwise, all of the red routes are together in a zone, all of the blue routes are together in a zone, and so on. This has an immediate effect upon drawing Train Car Cards, because no matter what colour Train Car Cards a player draws, he is signalling which zone he wants to claim a route in.

In addition to the new map, the South Korea expansion includes fifteen Express Train Cards, forty-four Destination Ticket Cars, a Province Mat, and a province Scoring Card. The first rule that the South Korea expansion adds is the same draft mechanic in the Iberia map, but not the Ticket Draft Card. The second is for the Express Train Cards. Each player is given three of these, marked ‘+1’, ‘+2’, and ‘+3’. Each can be used once per game to either increase the number of Destination Ticket Cards a player can draw or the number of Train Car Cards a player can draw. This will give a player a one-time boost when each is played.

A player has another action that he can do after claiming a route. This is to place an extra train car on the Province Board. The Province Board is marked with several lines matching the colours of the Train Car Card and numbered from one to eight. The Train Car must be placed on both the line corresponding to the colour of the route just claimed and on the number equal to the length of the route just claimed. A player can also expend extra Train Car Cards to claim a higher number. If that number has already been claimed, the Train Car is placed on next free number of a lower value instead. An Express Train Card can also be expended to claim a higher number. At the end of the game, each player totals the combined value for the numbers claimed on each line and is awarded points according to their rank.

The South Korea map is a simpler, more direct map than Iberia. It rewards faster, more efficient play because the competition to claim routes is more open. Players telegraph to each other the zones where they want to claim routes when they draw Train Car Cards of a particular colour and so the race to claim routes within a zone can become tighter. Similarly, there is a race to claim routes because having done so, a player can claim numbers on the Province Mat that will contribute towards their final score. The Express Train Cards do give players a one-off advantage each time they are used, so should not be wasted. Overall, the South Korea map is much more competitive in comparison to many other Ticket to Ride Maps.

In addition, both maps offer something to the wider Ticket to Ride family. The drafting mechanics from the Iberia map could be used with other maps as could the Province Mat from the South Korea map. The drafting mechanic would have a greater effect upon play since it counters common game play elements such as collecting Destination Ticket Cards with roughly the same routes, playing Train Cars in order to speed up the end of the game, and drawing Destination Ticket Cards late in the game to score extra points along already claimed routes. Certainly, it would be interesting to see these rules implemented elsewhere and their effects examined, perhaps in a book dedicated to new rules for Ticket to Ride?

Physically, as you would expect, the production values for Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea are excellent. Everything is of a high quality and both looks good and feels good in the hand. The only item that could have been a better quality is the Province Mat, which is on card and not mounted. It is a pity that there is not room on the South Korea map for it either.

Given that Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea changes the way in which Ticket to Ride is played—the Iberia map in particular with the far reaching, even structural effects of the drafting rules—this is not an expansion for the casual player of Ticket to Ride. Rather it is for the fan of the game who wants to be challenged in new ways and the board game player who wants to be challenged more than the standard play of Ticket to Ride offers. Of the two maps, the Iberia map is the better, but the South Korea map is still good. Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea continues to offer new ways to play a tried and tested, even venerable format.

Friday Filler: Dying Message

Dying Message is an Oink game with a difference. Notably, it comes in a bigger box than the standard size for a title from the Japanese publisher. It is also particularly gruesome. Even bloody in its own way. Which is to say, a ‘felt’ way. Dying Message is a party game, a social deduction game with a classic theme. That is, to find out who committed a murder. The identity of the murderer—because this is a game—is determined randomly, but the role of the victim is always one of the players. In fact, the players take it in turns to be the victim, each time their killer being randomly determined. Only as the victim, a player does not start the game dead. Only dying. In classic murder mystery style, the victim gets to leave a message for anyone who finds his body. In blood. His own, of course. Only in the moment of death, he has forgotten the name of his murderer, so can only draw vaguely helpful clues that might help the authorities—as represented by the other players—identify who did the deed. At which point, the victim is dead and as his player, he can only listen in, keep his mouth closed, and try not to get too frustrated as the other players play detective and fail to detect any clues in his otherwise brilliant ‘dying message’.

Dying Message is published by Oink Games and designed to be played by between three and eight players, aged twelve and up, in roughly twenty minutes, and three modes. ‘Joint Investigation’ is the standard mode and has the players work together to solve the murder; in ‘Competitive Investigation’ the players race to be the first one to solve the murder; and in ‘Speedy Death Showdown’, the players race to create a message and be the first to die. Besides the rulebook, Dying Message consists of thirty Suspect Cards, fifty Message Cards, six Alphabet Tokens, a Judgement Card, thirty-two Score Tokens, a six-sided die, and a Dice Cover. The Suspect Card are large and each gives an illustration, the name, occupation, and description of a potential suspect. The Message Cards are double-sided and are marked with a symbol or shape or sign or line drawn in blood red. The Alphabet Tokens are marked ‘A’ to ‘F’, as is the die. They are used to indicate a Suspect Card in a lineup, whilst the die is rolled to determine the murderer and Dice Cover is used to keep its result hidden once rolled. Lastly, the Felt piece is intended to be used to enhance the theatre of the Victim’s death.

Set-up is quick and simple. The player to be the Victim draws six Suspect Cards for his cards, assigns their Alphabet Tokens, and then draws fifteen Message Cards. He rolls the die to see which of the Suspects did him in and hides the result under the Dice Cover. The Victim then has a minute to craft his message to the other players, the Detectives. Only the side of the Message Cards visible can be used, and when crafting the message, he cannot hint or point at or spell either the Suspect Card or its associated Alphabet Tokens. Otherwise, the Victim can arrange the Message Cards he uses—and he does not have to use all of them—as he wants, including covering parts of them up. Once done, the Victim essentially groans and falls dead on the table, his head resting the pool of blood (or on the felt!).

At which point, the Detectives enter the scene. They can read the details of the Suspect Cards, they can look at the Message cards in play, but cannot move them, and they can examine the Message Cards that the Victim did not use. The Detectives have three minutes to deduce who did it, at which point, they collectively point at the Suspect Card representing who they did the dirty deed. The Victim uses the ‘Judgment Card’—either its ‘Found Peace’ or the ‘Lost Hope side—to indicate whether or not they have been successful.

Once done, the next player becomes the Victim and the procedure plays out again until everyone has had a turn at being the Victim. Then each player awards points based on what he thinks was the best Dying Message using the Message Cards and which was his favourite Dying Message. The player who scores the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

The ‘Competitive Investigation’ plays out in the same fashion, but instead of the Detectives all pointing to the Suspect Card they all collectively think is the killer, they individually point to the Suspect Card they think is the killer. Scoring is more complex in this mode. No points are scored if all of the Detectives were either correct or incorrect. The Victim will score points for every Detective who correctly identifies the Suspect, whilst each Detective who is correct will score points for each Detective who was incorrect.

Lastly, in the ‘Speedy Death Showdown’, each player draws fifteen Message Cards and secretly chooses one of the Suspect Cards as his potential murderer. They then race against each other to be the first to craft a message using the Message Cards. The player to do so, takes the Felt and becomes the Victim. The other players become the Detectives. Play then proceeds as per the standard ‘Competitive Investigation’, including the scoring and winning conditions.

The heart of Dying Message is the Message Cards. Getting the most out of them and being able to craft the most effective message is the key to the game and its play. They are also where its fun lies too. Of course, sometimes a Victim will be faced with Message Cards that can easily be arranged to form a message, at other times not, and so he will be forced to do the best that he can. So, there is a luck element there, but it really is up to the Victim to do his best with what he can as after all, it is the last thing he will do. Yet even if a Victim has crafted what he thinks is a great message, there is no guarantee that the Detectives will be capable of deducing anything from it. Which leaves a lot of groaning to be done in the post-mortem as each Victim explains what he was trying to convey with his message.

Physically, Dying Message is very well produced. Everything is of a good quality and the rulebook is a quick and easy read that clearly explains the rules. The game is also easy to teach. The Felt is absurd, but fun.

With its  high number of Suspect Cards and Message Cards, Dying Message has plenty of replay value. It is a game that works better with a higher player count—especially ‘Speedy Death Showdown’—as there is more variation and more player input. At its heart, Dying Message is a classic murder-mystery, social deduction game which gets inventive by adding physical and creative elements to its play. It is clever and it is fun, and it can be enjoyed by casual, family, and veteran gamers alike.

Friday Filler: Maskmen

The mini-games from Oink Games pack a lot of game play into small packages. In fact, the publisher’s small boxes have become as much part of its signature trade design as a design challenge for its game designers who have to pack their creations into these small boxes. The result is that the games themselves are easy to fit on the shelf and easy to fit into a pocket or bag to take to the next game session. And another aspect of Oink Games’ designs is that they have been around longer than most gamers realise, much longer than the publisher’s breakout title, Scout, published in 2019 and the Origins Awards Best Card Game Winner and a Spiel des Jahres Nominee in 2022. Maskmen is a much older game, having been published in 2014, and shares some similarities with Scout. In both games, the players must play cards (or pieces) of an equal or higher value of the previous set already played. Of course, both mechanics and theme differ. Scout is a ‘card shedding’ game, whereas Maskmen is ‘ladder climbing’ game and in Scout, the players were trying to have their performers outperform each other in the circus, in Maskmen, the players are promotors trying to have their wrestlers gain dominance over each other and win Lucha libre seasons.

Maskmen is designed to be played by two to six players, aged nine plus, and can be played in twenty minutes. Inside the box are sixty Wrestler Cards, thirty Strength Markers, and twelve Score Markers. The Wrestler Cards represent the six different wrestlers in different colours, ten each. The Strength Markers match the colours of the Wrestler Cards and there are five of each colour. Both Wrestler Cards and Strength Markers depict the masks worn by the luchadores, the masked Mexican wresters, and importantly, the Wrestler Cards are not numbered. The Score Markers are valued ‘+2’, ‘+1’, and ‘-1’, and are awarded at the end of each season for the winner, the runner-up, and the player in last place. The game is played over four rounds or Seasons and the player with the most points at the end of the four is the winner.

At the start of each season, each player is dealt a hand of Wrestler Cards, the amount varying according to the number of players. The first player—initially determined by the most recent person to have viewed a wrestling match, but on subsequent seasons, the player who came last in the previous season—plays one Wrestler Card. This puts the Strength Marker for one luchador into the ring. Subsequently, the players can play their Wrestler Cards in one of two ways. The first is to establish a luchador whose dominance over any luchador has yet to be established. This must be over another luchador and done with one more Wrestler Card than was previous played, up to a maximum of three cards. The other is to play Wrestler Cards on a luchador who is stronger than a previously played luchador. If a player cannot or does not want to play any more Wrestler Cards, he can ‘throw in the towel’ and his participation in the Season is over.

What is important here is that the Wrestler Cards are not numbered and instead, it is the number of Wrestler Cards played on a luchador versus another luchador that establishes the dominance of one over another. The dominance of one luchador over another is tracked using the Strength Markers. These depict the masks of Maskmen’s six luchadores and have little cutouts where each luchador’s mouth and chin are visible. These cutouts match the curve of the top of each luchador’s head, which means they can be stacked up the table to show which one is on top of another and has dominance over the luchadores below him. Once dominance has been established for one luchador over another, it cannot be changed during the season. However, it is not always possible to establish the ladders, or hierarchies, of dominance of every luchador over another and this can lead to the creation of multiple ladders on the table, showing the relationships between some luchadores, but not others.

Ultimately, a season will come to an end when one player has played all of his cards for that season. He wins the season and the ‘+2’ winner’s belt. The runner-up is determined by whomever has the least cards in his hand, and the loser, the one with the most.

Although the aim of every play is to empty his hand, he need not rush to do so. There is scope in Maskmen to be tactical, a player might hold three Wrestler Cards of one colour until it is the right moment to establish a luchador’s dominance rather than rushing them out early, playing smaller numbers of cards to maintain dominance, and so on. It is not too tactical though, just enough to keep a veteran player happy and a casual player intrigued. The game is at its most casual at two players, random at five or six with the cards divided among so many players, and cutthroat at three of four.

The theme of battling luchadores is a way for the players to empty their hands of Wrestler Cards, but whilst quite light, it is a stronger than in Scout. This is because the theme in Scout does not affect or enable the telling of stories, whereas in Maskmen, the theme of one luchador being stronger or better than another is physically depicted in the ladder of masks on the table and players can, if they want, tell the story of how any one luchador performs over a whole season. Plus, over the course of the game, a luchador of one colour might be at the bottom of the hierarchy in one season, only to bounce back in the next season and narratively, fight his way to the top.

Physically, Maskmen is a sturdy tight package. The artwork on the Wrestler Cards and the Strength Markers is striking and simple, whilst the rules pamphlet is easy to read. The stacking of the Strength Markers which show the hierarchy of dominance is not as easy to understand as it could be and the owner of Maskmen should definitely play through a few hands himself to understand how it works before teaching it to others.

Maskmen is a fun little filler, which makes use of an engaging theme to drive its game play. Its basic play is easy to teach (though some elements not quite so much) and it offers some depth beyond that, but not too much, making suitable for family and casual play as well as play by experienced players too.

Friday Filler: Flip 7

Flip 7 is a simple, push your luck card game. It is easy to learn and easy to teach and it plays fast. It also suitable for families, and if truth be told, it is really simple. Yet there is a tension to the game play that really can keep the players on the edge of their seat from one turn to the next. Published by The Op Games—responsible for the highly pleasurable Tacta—it is a designed for play by three to seven players, aged eight and up, and a game can be played though in roughly fifteen to twenty-five minutes. The aim of the game is to be the first person to score two hundred points. Points are scored based on the total value of the cards a player has in front of him. Each turn, a player receives a card from the Dealer and turns it over, adding it to the cards he has in front of him. If he receives a card with the same value as a card he already has, he is bust and out of the round, scoring nothing, but if a player receives seven cards that do not match, he scores a ‘Flip 7’, and is awarded bonus points.

Flip 7 comes in a bright and breezy box which contains just ninety-four cards and a rules leaflet. Eighty-one of these cards consist of numbers ranging from zero to twelve. The number of cards with each value is equal to value on the cards. Thus, there are ten cards marked with ten, seven cards marked with seven, three cards marked with three, and so on. The exception to this is, of course, the card marked with zero, of which there is just the one.

The other cards are Action cards and Modifier cards. There are three types of Action card. ‘Flip Three!’ forces a player accept and flip three more cards, whilst ‘Freeze!’ forces a player to end his participation in the round and bank the total score. When he receives a ‘Flip Three!’ or ‘Freeze!’ Action card, a player can play them on himself, but he can also play them on another player. A ‘Second Chance!’ Action card must be kept by the player who receives it and comes into play when he receives a duplicate value card, in which case both the ‘Second Chance!’ card and the duplicate value are discarded. A player can only use one ‘Second Chance!’ per round and if he receives a second, must give it to another player. The Modifier cards range in value from ‘+2’ to ‘+10’ and also include a ‘×2’ card. These do not count to the ‘Flip 7’ bonus, but will alter a player’s score for the round.

Set-up and play are simple. The cards are shuffled, and one person is designated the dealer, who in turn deals out a single card to each player and they place the cards in front of them or resolve any Action card. Each turn a player can decide to ‘Hit’ and receive another card or ‘Stay’ and not receive any further cards, ending his participation in the round. If a player receives a card whose value is equal to a card that he already he has, he is ‘bust’, which ends the round for him with no score. Play continues until all of the players have either gone ‘bust’ or decided to ‘Stay’, which ends the round. A round will end if a player achieves a ‘Flip 7’. The game continues until a player has scored two hundred points.

The risk and the push-your-luck aspect of Flip 7 lies in both the value of the cards and the number of them in the deck. Higher value cards score more points, of course, but there are more of them the higher the value, and thus there is a greater chance of a player receiving a duplicate card and being forced to go ‘bust’. So, a player wants the higher value cards for their scoring value, but is constantly wary of receiving duplicate cards and scoring no points at all. Conversely, the lower value cards will score fewer points, but there are fewer of them and the chance of a duplicate is lower. From the start of a round the player is aware of the number and values of the cards in the deck and as a round progresses, the cards his rival players have in front of them will also indicate how many cards there are left in the deck and what their values are going to be.

The tension between the desire to score points and the increasing possibility of going ‘bust’ and scoring no points is made that much more sharper because everyone can see what cards everyone else has in play. So, they can see how close they are to going ‘bust’ and feel that tension too. Is that player going to go ‘bust’ or is he going to be lucky and receive another card that pushes him one step further closer to a ‘Flip 7’? The luck of the draw can go the other way, of course, and a player might find himself going ‘bust’ after receiving just two or three cards! Further, as the rounds progress and the total scores rise, the tension also goes up as players attempt to catch up with their rivals—and the thing is, with the right cards and perhaps a Modifier card to two, it is entirely possible.

Physically, Flip 7 is nicely put together. The cards are big, bright, and easy to understand, whatever the age of the player. The rules are also clearly written and include scoring examples for the Modifier cards as well.

Flip 7 is really no more complex than Vingt-et-un or Blackjack, though of course, without the gambling aspect. It is a really simple game to play and understand, one that constantly asks a player to push his luck and wonder if another card is worth the risk. Flip 7 is a real filler of a game that just sometimes can be a real thriller of a game.

Friday Filler: Tacta

Tacta, published by The Op Games, is a game of connecting cards and covering them up, of twisting them and flipping to make the right connections, and ultimately, trying to be the one with most dots visible. The game play is incredibly simple to play and teach, but it can get slightly complex when trying to find the right place to place the cards. The playing time is about twenty minutes, it can be played on any size surface—even odd ones if there is other stuff on the table, and it is designed to be played by two to six players, aged seven and over. Quite simply, Tacta is a great filler game with decent replay value because of its simplicity.

What really stands out about Tacta are its cards. There are one-hundred-and-eight of these, double-sided and matt black except for the neon markings that line the edge of the cards and the various shapes that appear to be cut into the blackness of the cards—triangles, squares, and rectangles. Some of these are marked with dots and some are simple outlines. The look of the cards is simple, but amazing, almost as if they have burst out of the film, Tron. The cards are divided into six decks—coloured blue, green, orange, pink, purple, and red—of eighteen cards each and each deck is identical.

The aim of the game is simple and that is to have the most dots visible from your colour cards. Do that and a player wins. To do that, each player will be placing one card on his turn. This can be from the top or bottom of the deck—the cards are double-sided, and the card drawn must be placed so that one of its features, whether a triangle, square, or rectangle, covers up a feature on a card belonging to another player. Ideally this should with the dots showing and if it covers up another player’s feature with dots, then all the better, but a blank feature will still cover another player’s feature with dots and prevent them from being adding to that player’s final score. A player will also be thinking about how he can protect the features with dots on his cards from being covered over by the other players, so that there is defensive element to placement as well. There are few limits on card placement, the primary being that a card cannot cover another card when played and cannot connect to features that do not perfectly match.

Set-up itself is simple. Each player receives a deck and shuffles it, holding it in hand so that card can be drawn from the top and bottom of the deck rather being fanned out. The starting card is placed in the middle of the table. It has a simple white grid on it that allows any shape to be played onto it. After that, the players take it in turns to draw and play cards, the play area quickly filling with the cards in a tightly packed and connected sprawl. At the end of the game, everyone counts up the number of dots that are visible on their cards and the player with the highest total wins.

The core game play of Tacta is simple and easy to explain. However, this is not the only way to play and the game includes five alternate ways. There is an option for shorter playing time by removing cards from each player’s deck, playing as teams—dividing each deck between two players, and even a real time version in which everyone tries to empty their deck first and trigger scoring before anyone else can. This works well for larger groups. There is also a version where players share decks, but only score from their own colour, so they are trying to sabotage the player holding the other half of their deck, whilst still trying to score with what they have their own. The team play, free play, and sabotage play are the most out of the alternatives given.

Physically, Tacta is very black, from the box to the rulebook, all highlighted in the game’s neon colours. The rulebook is very easy to read and the cards simple to use, each deck also being marked with a symbol for the colour blind.

Tacta is a great filler. It is simple and easy to learn and teach, so is family friendly, but it can get cutthroat too as players aggressively hunt for their opponents’ dots to cover. Lastly, its stark neon on black design really gives it a presence on the table.

Friday Filler: Rafter Five

Everyone has agreed that the best way of getting off the island is to build a raft. However, nobody can agree on the best way to build a raft, or even how to build a raft. Whilst everyone has also agreed that the best way to get off the island with their treasure is the raft, the raft is so rickety that it is in danger of collapsing and dumping everyone into the sea. Fortunately, there are no sharks, but when you fall into the sea, it is everyone for themselves as they try to rescue their treasure. It is perfectly possible to rescue your own treasure, but not the treasures belonging to your fellow raft builders, and if you lose their treasure, they will get mad at you and throw you off the raft! This is the set-up for Rafter Five, a fast-playing dexterity game for one to six players, ages seven and up. Published by Oink Games—best known for the games Scout and Deep Sea Rescue—Rafter Five is a game that uses all of its components, including the box lid and base, looks great on the table, plays in twenty minutes or so (but probably faster depending on the dexterity of the players), and surprisingly for an Oink Games title, is not a squeeze to get back in the box!

Rafter Five consists of five Rafters, forty-two Treasure Chests, six Penalty Boards, one Raft Card, forty-two Lumber Cards, and the rules leaflet. The Rafters are the game’s meeples, ones that the players will move around from one turn to the next. They are much larger than standard meeples and vary in size and shape, tall, fat, thin, short, and really help to give the game much of its character. Plus, they feel good in the hand. The Treasure Chests come in six colours, so that each player has a set of seven. The Penalty Boards also come in six colours to match the Treasure Chests and have five slots marked with an ‘X’. If a player’s Penalty Board is filled up with the Treasure Chests of the other players, he loses and is out of the game. The Raft card forms the base for the players’ raft, whilst the Lumber Cards are slightly wavey lengths of card, marked with the sea on one side and wood on the other.

Set up is simple. The game’s box is turned upside down, placed in the centre of the table, and the lid to the box is placed on top, also upside down. The Raft Card is put on top of the lid, as are all five Rafters. Each player receives the Penalty Board and Treasure Chests of his colour. In two- and three-player games, each player will be given Penalty Boards and Treasure Chests of multiple colours.

The aim of Rafter Five is to build as big a raft as possible, whilst loading it up with treasure, without it collapsing. When it does collapse, the player who caused the collapse receives all of the Treasure Chests tipped into the sea. He keeps his own Treasure Chests to place again, but Treasure Chests belonging to the other players must be put onto his Penalty Board. If a player accrues five Treasure Chests belonging to other players on his Penalty Board, the game ends, and he is the loser, whilst everyone else wins! The game also ends when there are no more Lumber cards to place or all of the players have put their Treasure Chests on the raft. In either case, the player with the most Treasure Chests belonging to other players on his Penalty Board is the loser and everyone else wins.

On his turn, a player does three things. He picks up a single Rafter from the raft and then a Lumber Card. He must then place the Lumber Card on the raft and the Rafter on top of that. The Lumber Card must be placed so that part of it is on top of another Lumber Card on the raft (except on the first turn, when a player is free to place the Lumber card how he wants). Lastly, he put one of his Treasure Chests anywhere on the Lumber Card he just placed.

Rafter Five is as simple as that, but the longer a game goes on and the more that Lumber Cards and Treasure Cards are added, the more precarious the splay of the Lumber cards that make up the poorly constructed raft grows. The Rafters are the balancing factor, acting as a counterweight to lengths of Lumber Card hanging over the edge of the raft with their Treasure Chests perched precariously on their lengths. Picking the right one can the key to a tense, but safe turn, but pick the wrong one and everything goes tumbling into the sea! Placing a Treasure Chest where it is more likely to tip into the sea, such as at the end of a Lumber Card, dangling over the edge, is a legitimate move, but this highlights the key aspect to Rafter Five. Most dexterity games are about placing one thing or removing one thing to a stack. Rafter Five is about placing three—the Rafter, the Lumber Card, and the Treasure Chest!

Physically, Rafter Five is very nicely presented and packaged. The components are of good quality and the Rafter pieces are nice and sturdy in the hand, and ever so cute! The simplicity of the game means that the rules are easy to read and grasp.

Rafter Five does include a solo-mode, but it is more of a stacking puzzle than a game, so consequently less interesting. That said, the game plays well at whatever player count, with four or five being about right, and it is suited to play by the family, being very easy to teach and learn. Rafter Five is a great filler game, easy to learn, quick to play, but full of tension that grows and grows as more Lumber Cards are added to the raft.

Friday Filler: Souvenirs from Venice

The last two weeks you have spent in the city of Venice have been amazing. You have visited the Doge’s Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, and the Bridge of Sighs, as well as taken a gondola ride on the Grand Canal, explored the Rialto Market, and taken a day trip to the island of Murano to discover its unique glassblowing tradition. The food and wine have been good too, but now your holiday is nearly over. Your flight home leaves tomorrow, but you have one left one last thing you have to do to the last minute—gifts to take home for your friends and family. In fact, you are not really sure that you have enough time to search the shops for right gifts and get to Marco Polo International Airport for your flight home. It is not helped by the fact that the three friends you are buying for, hate it when they are not treated equally, but you have hired a gondola and you are going to search high and low for the right gifts for the right people—or miss your flight trying!

This is the set-up for Souvenirs from Venice, another game from Oink Games, the Japanese publisher best known for Scout. It is a set-collecting game designed for two to five players, aged eight and up, that can be played in thirty minutes, and it is from the same designers who did Deep Sea Adventure. The aim of the game is three sets of matching souvenirs and get to the airport. At the end of the game, each matching set of souvenirs will score points, whilst souvenirs that do not match will lose a player points. The players have to find the right souvenirs, make sure they do not have wrong souvenirs in their hands, and get to the airport. Only a player who gets to the airport in time will have a chance of being the winner.

Besides the rules in French, German, and Spanish as well as English, Souvenirs from Venice consists of forty-eight Souvenir Tiles, thirty Money Tokens, five Summary Cards, an Airport Card, a single die, and five Gondolas. The Souvenir Tiles range in value from five to ten and in turn depict Venetian Glass, Venetian Masks, Leather Goods, Gondolier Shirts, Squid Ink Pasta, and Fridge Magnets. Each Souvenir Tile is actually a shop and items are the goods they sell. Two depict the ‘Pigeon’ and ‘The Pigeon Feed Seller’. The die is marked one, two, and three, rather than one to six, and the gondolas are done in brightly coloured wood. The Summary Cards are reference cards for the play of the game.

Game set-up is simple. Each player receives a gondola, six Money Tokens, and a Sun. The Souvenir Tiles are laid out in a seven-by-seven grid, or five-by-five if two players, all face down, whilst the Airport Card is placed in one corner instead of a Souvenir Tile. The grid is open as the spaces in between represent the canals of Venice where players’ gondolas will travel, moving from intersection to intersection. All of the gondolas are placed on the Airport Card where they start play.

On his turn, each player must do three things in strict order. These are ‘Research’, ‘Move’, and ‘Buying or Selling’. In the ‘Research’ step, the player flips over any tile face down so that everyone can see it. In the ‘Move’, the player rolls the die and moves his gondola that exact number of spaces, hopping over any other player’s gondola in the way. ‘Buying or Selling’ gives a player two options. If he buys, it can be done in secret, looking at a Souvenir Tile adjacent to his gondola, but keeping it hidden from the other players, or he can buy any face up tile. Either way, he replaces it with Money Token. If he sells, he places a Souvenir Tile in his hand on the table face down, replacing a Money Token which he takes.

If the ‘Pigeon’ and ‘The Pigeon Feed Seller’ are both revealed—and they have to be revealed face up when discovered, they force each player to pass a Souvenir Tiles (or a Money Token if they have no Souvenir Tile) to the player on his left. This can mix things up, forcing a player to scramble to find matching Souvenir Tiles with the ones he has in his hand. However, this really comes into play later in the game rather than earlier, as the earlier it happens, the lower the chance it has of mucking up a player’s hand.

Souvenirs from Venice is a primarily a push-your-luck game, although it does have a memory element in that a player may need to remember the Souvenir Tiles he has looked at and where they are. However, what a player is mostly doing is pushing his luck to three sets of Souvenir Tiles, ideally of a higher rather than lower value. Of course, there are more of the latter than the former. Thankfully, a player can choose to sell to get rid of a poor value Souvenir Tile if he knows where one with a better value is or if he simply wants it out of his hand. The latter may be necessary because the other push-your-luck element of game is the timer element. Once all of the Souvenir Tiles have been bought or flipped over and face up, the flight leaves the airport. Anyone not at the airport by then, cannot score any points for the Souvenir Tile sets they have collected and automatically lose. Any player with sets of Souvenir Tiles at the airport gets to score, and the player with highest score wins.

Souvenirs from Venice is decently presented, if as with every Oink Games title, packed tightly into its little box. The quality of the components is good and the rules are clearly written.

Souvenirs from Venice is a solid, satisfying little game. It is a light game, better suited to family audiences and has a surprisingly decent theme that matches that lightness.

—oOo—

Oink Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Friday Filler: Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice

High up Mont Blanc stands the Refuge du Nid d’Aigle, a shelter considered to be the starting point for the royal route up the mountain. Here is where you last heard from John, your brother, a letter you received two weeks ago. In the letter he promised to call you in a few days, but never did. However, he also revealed that he had made an incredible discovery. This was a clue to the location of one of the greatest missing treasures from the end of World War 2—the Amber Room. Often considered to be a candidate for the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’, the amber panels of the room, backed with gold leaf and mirrors, was looted from the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg by the Nazis, taken to Königsberg on the Baltic coast and there lost from history! Now your brother knows where the Amber Room might be and that there are people after him. Is John simply missing? Has he been kidnapped? Is he even alive? And does he really know anything about the location of one of the greatest missing treasures of all time? And from the too few clues that he has given you, can you find John before it is too late?

This is the set-up for Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice. Published by La Boîte de Jeu, it is a storytelling game that is very much like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book or a ‘Click & Point’ computer adventure in which the story is told by proceeding through a deck and making choices when prompted. However, although it may possess the playstyle of a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book or a ‘Click & Point’ computer adventure, Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice is not necessarily a solo game. It is designed to be played by between one and six players, aged ten and over, and in an hour or less. Thus, it can be played solo, but it can also be played co-operatively, with the players deciding together what the heroine of the story—Sophie—will do in each scene and location, the current cards being laid out in front the players for everyone to see and examine. Yet unlike a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book or a ‘Click & Point’ computer adventure, there is no random factor in Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice. No dice to roll as in a solo adventure book or clicking a button in a computer game. All of it what happens as Sophie searches for her brother is down to the players, the choices they make, and the consequences of those choices.

Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice consists of a deck of one-hundred-and-twenty-eight cards. The cards are large, full colour, double-sided, numbered between one and one-hundred-and-twenty-eight, and played through in order starting with one and moving through card by card. Of course, depending on the players’ choices, they will not see every card in the deck on a single play though. They are likely to skip over whole sections of the deck as determined by their choices. The cards come in six types. The purple cards are Character, Objective, and Ending cards. These represent Sophie and what she wants to do. The green Clue cards give information about a situation or a challenge. The yellow Story cards move the adventure on. The dark blue Situation cards depict items, locations, or people. Often they can be arranged together to form larger scenes. The light blue Action cards are what Sophie can do and in the game they are used to interact with the Situation cards. They form the key mechanical part of play and come in two types. The ‘Window’ cards have a rectangular hole cut in them and text indicating the action, such as ‘Search Gather Explore the area’, whilst the ‘Notch’ cards have notches cut into the side. The red ‘Status’ cards indicate Sophie’s current condition, such as ‘Sophie is weak’ or ‘Frozen’.

At the start of Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice, the player takes the top card off the deck, turns it over. This is card number one. He reads it and follows the instructions. Initially, this will be to draw the next set of numbered cards. They are placed on the table so that everyone can see the current Objective card; the Action cards available and thus, what Sophie can do in the scene; and the Situation cards that show what Sophie can see. These are areas on the table known as the Objective area, Player area, and Panorama area, respectively. Once the cards are in front of them, the players debate and decide what they want Sophie to do, choosing an Action card to combine with a Situation card. When this happens, the player takes the Action card and slides it behind the chosen Situation card. He then picks up the two cards—Action and Situation—together and turns them over. Most of the reverse of the Situation card will be hidden apart from what can be seen through the window or notch of the Action card. The window will reveal information, whilst the notch will show a number indicating the code for a lock or another Situation card that the players must now consult.

For example, Sophie has arrived at the Refuge du Nid d’Aigle. This is Card One. It tells her which cards to draw and place on the table. They include several Action cards and several Situation cards. Card Eight states, ‘Someone is waiting upstairs in the lobby’, and depicts a young man leaning against a bar. The players decide that they want to talk to the young man, but cannot decide between the simple ‘Chat Talk’ Action card or the ‘Ask about your brother John card’. After a quick debate, they select the ‘Chat Talk’ Action card as it is not confrontational. The player picks up the ‘Chat Talk’ Action card, which is Card Five and slides it behind the ‘Someone is waiting upstairs in the lobby’ card or Card Eight. When the player turns the two cards over, he can read the text and the clue that is not covered. The players are free to use as many Action cards as they want, but each one and the consequences that follow, must be completed before another action can be attempted.

Initially, most of the actions the player will be directing Sophie to take will involve talking and asking questions, but as play proceeds, other Action cards and actions become available. Sophie also has opportunities for theft and violence, the latter when she picks up/steals an ice pick—which then has its own Action card—though resorting to such methods will probably get her hurt or mistrusted, depending on the action. Yet there are also some utterly amazing Action cards and thus actions that come about due to particular circumstances, such as ‘Feel around using your hands’ when Sophie is in the pitch dark or ‘Match×1’ which she can strike to reveal where is in the darkness!

Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice is not a challenging game (or puzzle?) to play, certainly not in terms of the rules or mechanics, and is not too challenging in terms of the story. In fact, the publishers rate the difficulty at two out of five. The simplicity of play and the standard sequence of card numbers means that Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice is also easy to set back up again. So, if the players fail the first time, they can set it back up and try again and start looking for other clues and interesting ways to interact in a different way with the locations and people within the mystery. Even when the players do solve the mystery and find John, there is nothing to stop them resetting the game and examining other clues to find out where they might lead Sophie. That said, with just one-hundred-and-twenty-eight cards and a difficulty of two out of five, subsequent playthroughs are not going vary too widely, though of course, the endings probably will.

Physically, Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice comes in a small, but solid box. The cards are all glossy and full of vibrant colour, whilst the artwork on them is excellent. The rules are clearly explained, though the text on the cards might be a little small for some readers.

Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice is a solo adventure book in a box, with the cards replacing the paragraphs and giving the mystery a pleasing physicality that twists the tension a little as the players slide an Action card behind a Situation card in the hope of getting a good clue. This is a game that people are going to want to play and play again until they have solved the mystery at its heart and if they have played it in a group, they are likely to want to try it again, playing alone this time. However, once the mystery is solved, there is relatively little need to play again. Except, that is, if a player wants to introduce it to a new group, because although it has a slightly longer playing time of an hour, the combination of the game play’s simplicity and tension with the intrigue of the mystery, means that it works as an ice breaker game as well. That simplicity plus the mystery means it works as a family game as well.

Back Stories: Alone Under the Ice packs a good mystery, excellent artwork, and clever play into its solid little box.

Friday Filler: Order Overload Café

Ever spent a shift in a café receiving and trying to fulfil ever more confusing orders from probably annoying customers? Being forced to put on your best customer service and make sure that despite the confusion and despite the probable annoyance, the customer receives the right order with a smile? Well, that is what playing Order Overload Café is all about. Published by Oink Games—best known for the games Scout and Deep Sea Rescue—Order Overload Café is a game about memorising confused orders from too many customers in which every employee in the café has to do their very best to remember as much as they can. As the game progresses, the café gets busier and the orders get bigger and more complex. This is a co-operative game and it is designed to be played by between two and six players, aged six and over, with a typical game lasting no more than twenty minutes.

Being an Oink Games title, Order Overload Café comes in a tiny attractive box which is packed tight—but thankfully, not too tight, with the game’s components, Besides the ‘Game Instructions’, these include eighty-four Order Cards, six Special Ability Cards, seven Level Tokens, and six Salesperson Tokens. The Order Cards include a wide range of drinks and snacks—French Toast, Banana, Chocolate Chip Cookie, Banana Milk, Iced Coffee, Iced Coffee without Ice, Room Temperature Coffee, Extra Hot Café Latte, and more. Some of these items are very specific and detailed. The Special Ability Cards, which can be used once per Level, do things like forcing another player to say the first letter of each card in his hand or allow the player to discard an Order Card from his hand. The Level Tokens are numbered from one to seven, indicating ever increasing degrees of difficulty that the players have to beat to proceed to the next Level. The Salesperson Tokens each have a smiling face on one side and a frowning face on the other. It should be noted that the cards and rules for Order Overload Café are given in French, German, and Spanish as well as English, meaning that the game could be used in the classroom as an aid to both teaching and learning another language.

Game set-up is simple. The Level Tokens are laid out in order, from one to seven. Each player receives a Special Ability Card and a Salesperson Token. The latter is placed on the table with the smiling face face-up.

At the start of the Level, the current active player draws a number of Order Cards equal to the players multiplied by the current Level. So, with four players, this would be four Order Cards in the first Level, eight Order Cards at Level Two, twelve Order Cards at Level Three, so and on. At the start of each Level, one player is the Order Taker. His task is to read each of the Order Cards that make up the current order out loud and as he does so, all of the other players have to memorise as many of them as they can. The Order Taker then shuffles the Order Cards in the current order and deals them out to all of the players. A player is allowed to look at his cards, but must keep them hidden from the other players. The player to left of the Order Taker becomes the Active Player, whilst the other players are the Checkers.

The meat of Order Overload Café is checking the order. The Active Player turns to the Checker on his left and asks him if he has one of the Order Cards that the Order Taker read out at the start of the turn. If the Checker does, he discards that Order Card from his hand. The turn now ends. If the Checker does not have the Order Card, the Active Player can ask the next Checker and so on and so on, until either a Checker does have it and can discard it, or no player has it. If no Checker has the Order Card, then the Active Player has failed! The Active Player turns his Salesperson Token over so that the frowning face is visible. The Active Player cannot be the Active Player again, but he can be a Checker. The Active Player can also call out an Order Card in his hand as well as asking the other Checkers.

The aim is for the players—both the Active Player and the Checkers—to discard all of the Order cards from their hand. It does not need to be all of the players, but one player per Level if there are two players, two players per Level if there are three or four players, and three players per Level if there are five or six players. If this happens, a Level is completed and its Level Token is turned over. All of the Order Cards are collected, shuffled, and then dealt out again according to the number of the new Level. Play continues like this until either the players manage to complete the seventh Level or all of the players’ Salesperson Tokens are turned over so that the frowning face is visible. If this occurs, the game is over, and the highest Level completed is the players’ final result.

In addition, the rules do include options for competitive play and for mixing the Order Cards from Order Overload Café—Order Overload: Burgers, Order Overload: Spiel23, and Order Overload: Insects. However, all three of these alternate versions are out of print and difficult to find. It would have nice if there was more variety in terms of the Special Ability Cards, but other than that, are no real issues with the game.

Physically, Order Overload Café is very nicely presented and packaged. The cards are of good quality and the cardboard pieces are nice and sturdy in the hand.

Order Overload Café is not difficult to play and its simple rules means that it is easy to teach and play with the family or with the gaming group. Although it is not difficult to play, it is challenging—or at least it becomes so. The first Level or so is a cake walk, but as one Level is completed and the next Level started, it becomes more and more of challenge as the size of the Order and the number of Order Cards that the players have to memorise increases. Not only that but the balance between the difficulty of the game and the number of the players remains constant, and play progresses, there is the constant feel of success as another Order Card is discarded and the players progress work towards completing a Level, knowing that at any moment, the Active Player might get an Order wrong and move everyone one step closer to failure. And failure is frustrating because you do want to beat each and every Level! Plus, unlike many a co-operative game, there is no alpha player attempting to steer everyone’s turn.

Order Overload Café is not a game that you are going to play again and again. Especially once you have beaten its top Level, but it is a good game to bring out occasionally or to play with casual or new players as the challenge is very quickly obvious and the rules are very, very easy to teach and the play is relying on memory not skill. Order Overload Café is a surprisingly good and challenging filler, best suited for the occasional play.

Friday Filler: Costa Rica

Deep in the rainforests of Central America, there are many animals, both rare and common, to be found, counted, and photographed. The common Basilisk Lizard and the rare Red-eyed Stream Frog on the coast and in the wetlands. The common Capuchin Monkey and the rare Rhinoceros Beetle in the forest. The common Chestnut-mandibled Toucan and the rare Jaguar in the mountains. Multiple expeditions have been launched to count all of these animals, each competing to not only spot as many as they can, but also to try and spot one of each. Each expedition leader can decide to explore where he wants and as far as he wants, but push too far and he might get bitten by mosquitoes ending the expedition. Or the others in his group might choose to end the expedition early and take all the credit for what has been found so far.

This is the set-up for Costa Rica: Reveal the Rainforest, a light, push-your-luck game published by Mayfair Games designed to be played by between two and five players, aged eight and up. The game consists of seventy-tiles, thirty Explorers, an Expedition Leader, five Play Aids, and an eight-page rulebook. The tiles depict a type of terrain on the back, either coast/wetlands, forest, or mountains, and a photograph of an animal on the front. Sometimes two animals and sometimes a Threat symbol of a mosquito as well. The Explorers, meeples complete with broadbrimmed hat, come in five colours, six of each, whilst the Expedition Leader is a solid black piece. The Play Aids indicate both how many points a player will score based on the number of each type of animals his expedition has photographed and for photographing all of them and their rarity according to terrain type. Lastly, the rules both explain the rules to the game and give a little background on each of the game’s six animals and Costa Rica itself. Although the rulebook is eight pages long, half of it is in German, so the rules themselves are short and easy to learn.

The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible. This is done by collecting as many tiles—each of which depicts one or two animals—as possible and scoring points for the animals shown on them and for collecting tiles which all together show all six animals in the game. The player with the most points is the winner and the game plays through in about thirty minutes or so.

The set-up for Costa Rica is simple. Sixty-four of the tiles are laid out, face down, in a grid, forming a hexagon, five tiles per side. The remaining tiles are put aside. This adds a further degree of randomisation. Each player places one of his Explorers at each corner of the play area. Together, the group of Explorers made up of one from each player forms an Expedition so that there are six Expeditions in total. The Expedition Leader piece is given to the starting player—either determined randomly or given to the player who has most recently been to Costa Rica. The starting player picks an Expedition and the game begins.

On a turn, a player picks an Expedition and turns over a tile adjacent to the Expedition. This will reveal either one or two animals and also a Threat or mosquito symbol. The player can decide to take the newly revealed tile or continue moving on. If he takes the tile, he adds to the collection in front of him and removes his Explorer from that Expedition. He cannot move that Expedition on subsequent turns. If he decides not to take the tile and instead move on, he first offers the other players the opportunity to take the tile, going round the table one-by-one. If another player accepts this opportunity, then he takes the tile, adds it to his collection, and removes his Explorer from that Expedition. The turn for the current player then ends. However, if nobody decides to accept the tile, the current player continues turning over adjacent tiles, repeating the same process each time.

A player’s turn can also end in another way—too many Threats. If the current player turns over two tiles on his turn that have mosquito or Threat symbol on them, his turn is over and his Explorer is removed from play. He still gains the tiles that have been previously revealed, whilst those with the two Threats on them are discarded. If only one Threat has been revealed when a player collects tiles, its tile is not discarded.

Each player is attempting to push further into the rainforest in search of rarer animals to count. Since he has an Explorer in every Expedition, he has multiple ways of finding them. However, because every Expedition has an Explorer from every player, there is always the chance that if a player decides to push on and explore further in search of better tiles, another player will collect them before the current player has a chance to advance further, undoing all of the current player’s efforts and adding to his score rather than them going toward the current player’s score. This is the ‘push-your-luck’ element of Costa Rica, a player needing to find the balance between the tiles that he has revealed and can take now and tiles that he might turn over if he continues exploring, but in doing so gives the other players the opportunity take what he has already revealed.

On subsequent turns, a player can move any of the Expeditions in which he still has an Explorer. This will decrease as the game goes on and his Explorers return from their Expeditions laden with tiles. If an Expedition consists of just one Explorer, this gives its player a lot of freedom to move and collect tiles as there is no-one to collect the ones revealed before he does.

There is another way in which a player can impede the other players. This is to cut them off in the rainforest. The core game play is all about exploring deeper into the rainforest in search of more animals to count, but a player could choose to lead an Expedition back out of the rainforest. If an Expedition has no adjacent tiles to reveal, it is cutoff and cannot continue exploring. In which case, all of its Explorers go back to their respective players. This can be a devastating tactic, especially if an Expedition contains multiple Explorers as it will hinder the score of multiple players.

The game ends when the last Explorer has finished moving and tiles have been taken. Everyone totals the score for their tiles collected and thus animals counted, and the player with the highest score is the winner.

Costa Rica is simple and straightforward, and both easy to teach and play. Games tend to be quite tight in terms of scoring, but different in terms of collecting tiles, depending upon the number of players. With two or three players, more tiles are going to be collected and scores higher as there is going to be less competition to collect them, whilst game play is tighter and more competitive with four or five players as there are more players competing for the same number of tiles. In general, the game plays best with three or four players as the competition for tiles is not quite so desperate.

Physically, Costa Rica is nicely presented. The Explorer meeples are decent and tiles of sturdy card with pleasing illustrations of the creatures on the front. The rules are written and the extra background is a nice bonus.

There is a pleasing clarity to Costa Rica in its game play. There is no hidden complexity or nuance to the game. It is easy to learn and teach, and barring the possibility of cutting off an Expedition, there is no ‘take that!’ element to the game. Meaning it is suitable to be played by both adults and younger players. A solidly simple, straightforward filler suitable for the family.

Friday Filler: Equinox

At each equinox, mythical creatures gather in the magical forest to compete to be the ones to have their tales recorded in the Legendary Story Book and remembered in times to come. Only three will survive to have their stories written down, so the competition is fierce as they confront each other with their magical powers, but they only have one night to prove themselves worthy. This is the set-up for Equinox, a betting and bluffing, card placement game designed by Reiner Knizia, one of the board game hobby’s most prolific creators. That said, Equinox is more of a reimplantation of a reimplantation than a new design, though one which has been given a very attractive retheming. Mechanically, if not thematically, it is a redesign of Colossal Arena, published by Avalon Hill in 1997, which was itself a redesign of Grand National, published by Piatnik in 1996. So, the game has a bit of a history. Equinox itself, was published by Plan B Games, best known for titles such as Century Spice Road and Azul. It is designed to be played by between two and five players, aged ten and up, and can be played through in thirty minutes.

The very first thing that you are going to notice about Equinox is the quality of the components. The cards are large—2¾ by 4¾ inches—and the artwork is superb. The game’s stones, done in pastel colours, add a pleasing tactile feel and heft to the game, and the game even comes with nice little bags to store them in. (To be honest, this is the only thing the bags do, so they do feel superfluous.)

Equinox consists of one-hundred-and-ninety-nine cards, five cloth bags, and twenty-five stones. The cards break down in fourteen Champion cards, one-hundred-and-fifty-four Creature cards, eleven Chameleon cards, three Tree cards, six Row cards, and eleven Disappearance cards. The Champion cards represent the entrants in the competition, and consist of various animals and creatures, such as Squeak (mouse), Stag, Hoot (owl), Ursus (bear), Goatman, and so on. Each Champion has corresponding set of eleven cards in the one-hundred-and-fifty-four Creature cards, numbered from zero to ten. Each creature has a special ability, which is marked on their cards. The Chameleon cards are also numbered from zero to eleven, but do not have a corresponding Champion card. The Row cards, from zero to five, indicate the current round of the game. Their number also indicates the number of Prestige Points they will award the players who placed bets on the surviving Champions. The Disappearance cards are used to identify the creatures who have been eliminated from the game. The stones are used to indicate the players’ bets, each player being able to place a single bet per round.

Each round, the players will take it in turns to play Creature cards on the spaces in the current row underneath their Champion cards and place bets on the cards. A player can also reveal a secret bet made at the start of the game to gain control of a Champion, which allows him to trigger its special ability. At the end of each round, one Champion will be eliminated, so that by the end of the game, only three will have survived. The player who has earned the most Prestige Points from the bets he has placed on the surviving Champion is the winner. Bids placed earlier in the game are worth more than those placed later in the game.

Set-up is simple enough. Each player takes one set of stones and eight Champion cards are selected, either randomly or by choice. The six Row cards are laid out in a column, from zero at the top to five at the bottom. The selected Champion cards are laid out in a line in the top or row zero. They will be the Champions that the players will be betting on over the course of the five rounds. With fourteen Champions to choose from and only eight being used each time, Equinox offers a decent degree of replay value as it means different special abilities to try and activate over the course of the game. The Creature cards corresponding to the chosen Champion cards, the Chameleon cards, and the Tree cards are shuffled to form a single deck. Players then draw a hand of eight cards from this deck.

On each round, the players are playing cards and betting on the one row. A player’s turn has five phases. In the first, the player makes or reveals a prediction. In the first round, this can be an open prediction or a secret prediction, but can only be an open prediction in later rounds. A secret prediction is made on a Creature card from the player’s hand that he hopes will survive until the end of the game. It is placed face in front of him with a stone on top of it. If that Champion does survive to the end of the game, it is worth extra Prestige Points. An open prediction can be placed on a space or a card under a Champion in play, and once placed, no further predictions can be placed under that Champion in that row.

A player can also reveal his secret prediction. This can help him gain control of that Champion, though it means that the other players are more likely to try and eliminate that Champion.

A player can play one of three cards—A Creature card, a Chameleon card, or a Tree Card. A Creature card is placed in the row under the corresponding Champion and it can be played on top of another card. This will alter the strength of combined cards under the Champion, which is important in determining control if a Secret Bid is revealed, and it can activate a Special Ability if the player has control. A Chameleon card can be played on any space in a row and prevents the activation of any Special Ability if played, even if another Creature card is played. A Tree card is not played onto a row, but either forces the other players to reveal if they have made a secret prediction on a particular Champion or allows a player to take a previously played and visible card from any row.

The Special Abilities include drawing three cards for Squeak, retrieving a previously placed stone from any column—including for an eliminated Champion—for the Stag, and play a second card for the Twinz. There are a lot of Special Abilities and some of them are more useful than others.

Lastly, a player can discard cards from his hand, useful if he has cards in his hand for eliminated Champions, and draws back up. If all of the spaces in a row have been filled and one Creature card has the lowest value, its Champion is eliminated and the round ends, otherwise play continues until this happens. The game itself will end when either a Champion is eliminated on the fifth and final round or the deck is emptied.

Equinox is a game of betting and elimination and hoping that the Champion you are betting on is not going to be eliminated. When the Champion player is betting on is eliminated, it is likely to be devastating, because with it goes those bets and the possibility of Prestige Points and victory. It can lead to a player being knocked out of the game early because he cannot necessarily make up for the lost bets, so a player needs to be careful and not signal to the other players which Champion he is backing. Placing a Secret Bet at the start of the game can help with that as can taking control of a Champion if that Secret Bet has been revealed. Taking control of a Champion means that a player can potentially use the Special Ability for that Champion and with the right Special Ability it can give the player an advantage and even a way to counter the losses of backing an eliminated Champion.

However, once a Secret Bet and a potential player’s control of the Champion is revealed, it makes that Champion a target for the other players to eliminate. Also, not all of the Special Abilities are very useful. Further, if no Secret Bets are revealed, none of the Special Abilities will come into play. The likelihood is that only one or two Secret Bets are revealed and so equally, relatively few Special Abilities come into play. The difficulty with that is twofold. One is that sheer number of Special Abilities adds complexity because the players need to know what they are and what they do, despite coming into play infrequently. The other is that their use is an exception, meaning that the players have to look it up in the rules. (And even looking it up in the rules can signal to the other players that a player is about to do something.) It feels as if there should be a way of using the Special Abilities without having to reveal a Secret Bet.

Physically, Equinox is a gorgeous looking game. The artwork really is exquisite. The rulebook is easy to read and contains some good examples of play and scoring. There is an absolutely necessary guide to the Special Abilities on the back of the rulebook, though one per player would have been more useful. That said, the large cards mean that the game takes up a lot of space on the table and the bags, whilst nice, are a frippery too far.

Equinox is a great looking game and it is easy to see it origins as a horse betting game in which the players get to bet on the horses as they run the race and are left behind, one after the other (but hopefully not eliminated). Here though, beyond the core game play of placing bets and cards, it feels overdone in terms of its Special Abilities, that whilst seeming to add replay value, figure surprisingly infrequently during actual play and this makes them harder to teach and thus the game harder to teach and not quite as casual as it wants to be. Equinox is a decent game that will appeal to veteran players looking for a fast-playing cutthroat game of secrecy and bets, whilst for the casual player, its harder edge is hidden by its fantastic looks.