Drones vs Seagulls

Drones vs Seagulls is a two player card game about fighting for dominance over the beach. You and your opponent sit on opposite sides of the table, with a long stretch of beach between you divided into 7 segments. You both start with a same hand of numbered cards. The numbers are between 1 and 5. You take turns playing a card to one segment of the beach. If that segment belongs to your opponent and you now wrest control from him by having a higher strength total, you get to trigger the power of that segment. This is the most interesting part of the game. It is the various segment powers which let you do all sorts of nifty stuff. 

You play best out of three rounds. To win a round, you need to control more segments after one player runs out of cards. The other player still gets to play one last turn. You can win a sudden death if you manage to control all seven segments. That’s hard, but highly satisfying if you manage it. 

Segment powers can be randomised every game, creating replayability. One power lets you move one of your cards to another segment. One power lets you move your opponent’s card. One power lets you move two cards. You must use it on groups of at least two, and you cannot choose to move just one card. Powers are mandatory. If you win a segment, you must apply the power. Sometimes that's a bad thing. One power lets you discard an opponent card. One power lets you steal an opponent card and make it yours. One power flips an opponent card face down making its strength 1. As you can see, many of these powers can result in you winning another segment. When you win an additional segment, you get to use its power too. This becomes a chain reaction. This is where the fun is. 

One interesting power is having an advantage in the case of ties. You can imagine if you are currently winning several segments using this advantage, the moment your opponent wrests this power from you, you will suddenly lose several other segments. 

I really enjoy the clever plays you can make in this game. One thing I realise is the game doesn’t even use positional powers. There is no power which applies to adjacent segments. Yet there are already enough powers to make the game interesting. As you play more, one more thing you will realise is that sometimes you don’t want to win those segments with strong powers. The problem with controlling them is you become vulnerable to your opponent’s attack. Being in control of a segment doesn’t let you use its power. You only get to use the power the moment you capture it. 

There seems to be a tendency to want to play small cards in the early round and then gradually play higher cards. Early on you can win segments even with small cards, so it is wise to conserve your resources. However sometimes a well played high card can help protect a crucial segment, or at least deter your opponent by making it costly to attack. How you play depends on the powers present in the game. If the power which turns an opponent card to strength 1 is in play, you will be extra careful about playing your high cards. 

Drones vs Seagulls is a joy to play. Short and sweet and it makes you feel clever. You can think several steps ahead, and you should. You must not only plan for your own chain reaction of wins, you must also think about how the board situation will be and what opportunities you are opening up for your opponent. I heartily recommend this game. 

Revolver Noir

Revolver Noir is a two-player 18-card game from ButtonShy Games. It’s an action thriller movie of a game, about two gunmen in a dark house trying to kill each other. To win the game, you must injure your opponent twice. 

Each player holds a stack of 9 cards in his hand. One of the cards is a map of the house. The rest are individual rooms. You don’t show your stack to your opponent. The top card in your stack is your location in the house. When the game starts you get to choose which room you want to be in. Once the game starts, you have two action points per turn. The house is dark so you don't know where your opponent is. The most important action in the game is to listen. When you perform the listen action, your opponent must tell you one room he is connected to. This helps you narrow down the possibilities of where he might be. You will be doing a lot of listening. 

You can move to a connected room. Every room card specifies the connected rooms. The map gives you a summary. You can shoot, which costs 2 actions points. Every room card also specifies where you can shoot at. You can always shoot at the same room you are in. You can shoot at other rooms which you have line of sight to. When you shoot, you must announce the room you are in and the room you are shooting at. If your opponent is located in the target room, he must announce that he is shot. 

Notice that by shooting, you are also exposing your location. So this is something risky. When I played this with Jon, I was first to get shot. My first thought was since I knew where he was, I could just shoot back at him. However, that wouldn’t be the right move, because he would just shoot me for a second time on his turn, and win the game. This meant I had to run away and the only way for me to win was to try to hurt him with a trap first. 

Setting traps is another thing you can do in this game. You can activate your trap on a future turn, and if your opponent is in the same room as the trap, you injure him. 

Some rooms have special abilities. You can use them if you are there. One room lets you flood the basement, and if your opponent is there, he gets hurt. The foyer lets you know the exact location of your opponent if he is on the second floor. If you start your turn in the kitchen, you get an extra action point. 

There is a lot of mind games in this portable little game. You are always on the move, trying to avoid letting your opponent know where you are, while at the same time trying to figure out where he is. Sometimes you take a gamble and hope you guess right. I played this at the airport while waiting for my flight. It's a clever little game. It's amazing how creative some of these ButtonShy games are! 

Skull King

Skull King is a trick-taking card game which is pretty conventional compared to many others I have played. Most of the familiar elements are there. So this is something easy to get into if you are already familiar with the genre. It is also easy to teach new gamers. Many non-gamers have some idea of trick-taking games, and Skull King will be somewhat familiar to them. Just say it's a bit like Hearts. 

You play 10 rounds, and each round you draw a number of cards equal to the round number. At the start of a round, you must predict how many tricks you will win. You score points if you get it right, and you lose points otherwise. If you are right, you score 20 points per trick won. There is incentive to win more tricks. If you are wrong, you lose 10 points per trick difference, whether you overestimate or underestimate. You score some bonus points when you manage to beat some specific cards with some other specific cards, and when you manage to win certain cards.  

There are four suits in the game. This is a follow suit trick-taking game. You generally have to follow suit if you have a card in the lead suit. There is a trump suit - the Jolly Roger. There are several special cards. The escape card always loses. This can be helpful to avoid winning too many tricks. The pirate, mermaid and pirate king cards can be played ignoring the lead suit rule. They beat all normal cards. Mermaids are beaten by pirates, pirates are beaten by the pirate king (there is only one pirate king), and the pirate king is in turn beaten by mermaids. 

The game is not that complicated. The powers are simple. Skull King does not offer any wild innovation, but it is solid and it will scratch that trick-taking itch. The biggest focus is making the right predictions. If you can do that well, weak hands won't stop you from winning. In the late game, if you predict zero and you get it right, you score 10 times the round number, which can be a lot. The special cards are fun. They are certainly powerful, but there is always some anxiety when you play them, because someone else just might have that other special card which will beat yours. 

One thing I probably should not be doing is playing this on BoardGameArena.com with 5 players. The game takes a long time to play in asynchronous mode, because there are many turns. Turns are very short, so this game will be better if played in person, or played live online. 

Duo Quest

Rizal's 1+1 Studio is a computer game development studio. Developing a computer game is a long project, and while his team is working on their first game title, they went on a side quest and turned it into a physical board game. That was how Duo Quest was born. Rizal joined our ranks of local Malaysian indie game publishers this year, and has been going to many of the same fairs and events as us. Duo Quest always does well, and his table is always one of the most happening. He has explained the game to me before, but I never had the chance to sit down to play, because I was busy with my own booth. Only when we went to the Thailand Board Game Show together that I had a chance to try the game myself. Neither of us spoke Thai and we had to depend on our local assistants to teach our games. Because of that we had more free time. 

Duo Quest is a cooperative game. Despite the fantasy theme, this is actually a party game. The box says two players, but it works well with three or four. This is a game which tests how well you know your friends. Or it can be a game that helps new friends get to know one another better. Quickly, and with some depth. 

Since this is fantasy, you will have to fight a monster. The monster has life points, and so does your team. The goal is to defeat the enemy by reducing its life points to zero. Every round you take the top card from the monster deck to place in the active area. This will be the monster's action for the round. You also take cards from the player deck. These are your possible options. The active player picks two cards, reads them, and decides which action to attempt. You can tell the action type and card value from the card back, but you don't know the question on the front. The higher the card value, the harder the question. 

To be able to execute the selected action, everyone must be able to write down the same answer (of course, without any discussion). The question is posed to the active player, and he must answer it by writing it down and not showing anyone. The other players must then guess what that answer is, simultaneously writing down their answers. If everyone guesses correctly, this action will be executed. However, if anyone gets it wrong, then this action will become the monster's action. Things can go south very quickly. You might be planning to deal the killing blow, but if you fail to execute the action, the monster will hit you hard instead. 

The game system has a basic card deck and many themed decks. Questions in the basic deck are more general, for example, are you an introvert or extrovert? Which is more important, art or science? Do you like children? The themed decks will have more specific questions, for example about love and relationships. There is even one deck which requires some physical exertion. All these questions will test how well you know your friends. If it is a new friend, the game reveals how you perceive them. 

After the players have chosen their actions, it is the monster's turn to pose a question. If everyone is able to write down the same answer to the monster's question, its action strength is reduced. Getting this right can be crucial. After all questions have been dealt with, you execute all the actions. Defences block part or all of the attacks. Anything which gets through deals damage. Potions heal. I only tried the basic game. In the more advanced decks there are other card powers and the advanced monsters have more fanciful abilities too. 

Now I can appreciate why Duo Quest triggers so much laughter. This game sparks much discussion. It gives you that feeling of "so you're that kind of person".  This is a simple game which non-gamers can easily get into and enjoy. I find this is a great game for chasing girls (or boys) too! 

boardgaming in photos: City of the Big Shoulders, Pax Pamir, Russian Railroads, Tokaido, Barrage

City of the Big Shoulders is a shareholding game. The best known shareholding game series is probably the 18XX games. I have never been comfortable with shareholding games because I feel there is a disjoint. You don't own a company. You own shares of a company. It is not your company. Of course, this is the whole point of shareholding games. So it's not a problem of the game mechanism. It's my personal preference. I am uncomfortable that I can't call this my company, and someone may manipulate me out of my own company, the company I founded! Companies are just tools for making money. You can and should destroy "your" company if it hurts your opponents more than you. In City of the Big Shoulders I think the chances of companies switching majority shareholder are small. Yes you can invest into your opponents' companies, and you can manipulate the share value through buying and selling shares, but mostly you are still managing the companies you founded, and generally you want them to do well. So compared to other shareholding games, City of the Big Shoulders doesn't make me anxious as much. 

This game is very much like an entrepreneurship simulation. You are starting companies, attracting investors, recruiting employees, buying raw materials, producing goods, and selling them. This sounds like work! This is running a business. I like declaring dividends, because as the majority shareholder of my companies (ok, "my" companies) I earn the most. As you can see I can't quite get away from the "my" company mindset. I probably should explore alternative strategies like intentionally damaging a company just to make others lose money too. 

When investing in others' companies, you do have to survey the board situation. What product is it producing and how is the demand? Is there competition? Do the competitors have a stronger brand? You can get a sense of how well the company will do. Of course, it is still subject to whether the majority shareholder decides to take good care of the company. An older and better established company may not be more attractive than a young startup. The startup probably has cheaper shares and also more room for growth. In the end it is all about return on investment. You want to be the richest individual. It is not about owning the biggest companies. 

I have played Pax Pamir several times now, but I am still not entirely sure I know how to play it properly. This time I did a three player game with Han and Jon. Both Jon and I decided to support the Russians. Han supported the British. This became a tough game for Han because it was two vs one. 

I got into an awkward situation. I did not plan my card purchases well, and got stuck with a maximum tableau size of three for most of the game. I had a huge hand size though. Unfortunately that wasn't very helpful. I worked hard on playing my discs. Discs represent player influence. Many of my discs were on player cards, both mine and my opponents', as spies. I had three discs used for marking gifts purchased. This was a huge sum invested. I was a little stuck. If I were to switch allegiance to another faction, I would lose these three discs. 

Russia was much stronger than Britain, and Jon's score and mine were soon much higher than Han's. So my main competitor was now Jon, technically an ally. I did not have much influence on the game board itself. I did have many spies, and I could do assassinations and dirty work like that. While holding the lead in the number of discs deployed, I triggered a dominance check to initiate scoring. This gave me more points than Jon, putting me 4 points ahead. That allowed me to win the game. At that point I had no discs at all on the game board. I did not control any region. 

This was the end of our game. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure I know how to play the game. I feel most of the time you have to analyse what cards are available in the market and you just make the most out of the situation. It is about surviving the chaos and grabbing opportunities that come along. You can't do much deliberate planning. 

I have a physical copy of Russian Railroads. It was a birthday present from my wife. This is a worker placement game and a development game. In this particular game, my main strategy was to develop the main Trans-Siberian railway, to upgrade the tracks and to score points from that. I completely abandoned industrialisation (the purple track at the bottom). 

Jon's player board

Han's player board

I'd say Russian Railroads is yet another typical heavy Eurogame. There is a lot you can do, but you have to choose to focus on only a few areas so that you can score points efficiently. I often complain about these heavy Eurogames being of a similar mould, but I enjoy Russian Railroads. It is familiar and comfortable. I also like it because of the theme and the art. The game mechanism is a little different from other Eurogames. Hey, at least you don't have the resource collection and contract fulfilment. But yes, you do have the track progression thing. I like the development game element. I guess it is human nature to be happy when you make progress and you build something that makes you proud. 

It is nice to play Tokaido on BoardGameArena.com. This is a very pretty game. I've never found the game mechanism particularly captivating, but I must say it is a beautiful game. 

On BGA all the cards you collect are laid out neatly. Those panorama cards which form a picture look fantastic. They make you want to complete the picture. 

I played with the expansion too. In the top row above, those sakura (cherry blossom) trees are from the expansion, and the bathhouses on the right too. When you visit a scenery area, instead of taking a scenery card of the corresponding type, you can choose to take a sakura tree. When collecting scenery cards, the earlier ones aren't worth much. It is the later ones which will be worth a lot. So if you have no intention of collecting cards for a particular scenery type, it is probably better to just take a sakura tree, because it gives 2 points and 1 money. It's nice to have a choice. You feel you have a bit more control. However I don't find this expansion very important. It's just a nice-to-have. In fact I think it is good that sometimes you are forced to take a low value scenery card because you want to deny your opponent. I like games which give you decision angst, and not games which treat you with kiddie gloves. 

Bathhouses are also a new choice you get. When you visit an onsen (hot spring), normally the onsen card you draw will be either 2 or 3 points. If you are willing to pay 1 money, you take a bathhouse card instead, which is a guaranteed 4 points. 

I played Barrage online. I have played a physical copy before. I did not do a proper rule revision before playing online. I relied on my not-that-great memory of the game. That meant a fair bit of stumbling around. This is a complex game, and stumbling around means you won't do very well. 

Pick Eat

Pick Eat was the first game from Malaysian publisher Specky Studio. It is an educational game about a healthy diet. Specky Studio specialises in making educational games, and Pick Eat certainly contains valuable knowledge and messages. Now this is not the type of educational game which many of us gamers are wary of. This is a proper game, and not learning content trying to be a game. You can tell that this is a game made by a gamer, and not by a non-gamer educator. I've known about Pick Eat for quite some time, and I have always assumed it is a game designed for primary school children, i.e. I am not the target audience. So I've never spent time to understand it more. It was because Buddhima and I went to the Thailand Board Game Show together that I found time to ask him to teach me the game. I was pleasantly surprised. It isn't what I had assumed. 

When you open the box it looks like someone eating

Pick Eat is a set collection game. You collect different types of food. Each card is a food, with different properties and ways of scoring points. The mechanism for choosing and collecting cards is interesting. The active player draws three cards, looks at them, and then offers them to the next player with one card revealed and the other two face-down. The next player then either claims the revealed card, or looks at the two face-down cards to pick one. Whichever option the next player takes, the active player is left with the remaining one. So the active player will also claim one card. This sounds simple, but when actually doing it you'll realise there are some interesting thought processes. 

Let's say you are the active player and among the three cards you draw, there is one particular card you really want. Should you reveal that or keep it face-down? If there is another card which is attractive to the next player, you can reveal that one and hope he takes it, so that you will get what you want too. However if there is no such card, what do you do? Maybe you can show him that good card, and try to trick him into thinking that there is an even better card among those two face-down cards? From the perspective of the next player, choosing a card is sometimes hard too. If the active player shows you a lousy card, it's a no brainer and you'd pick up the two face-down cards. The difficulty lies with those cards which are somewhat good but not great. It's a simple mechanism, but sometimes it gives you analysis paralysis. 

When you claim a card, you add it to a row before you. If the card you claim is face-up, it stays so. Ditto if it is face-down. This matters because it affects scoring. You may add the new card to the left or right end of your row of cards. Where you place it may affect the scoring of some cards which score based on their immediate neighbours. In this photo above some cards are placed slightly lower to indicate that they are face-down. When the game ends, you need to flip them over to score them, and being slightly offset reminds you that they are the face-down cards. 

These cards are from an optional module. They are missions. At the start of the game you draw two then pick one. If you fulfil the mission by the end of the game (in the form of having only specific types of food) you score bonus points. These missions are all real diets, e.g. a low carb diet. 

Water cards (e.g. the leftmost one in the photo above) are the most valuable. Most of the time they are a no-brainer. Always take one when you have the opportunity. This may seem unbalanced, but I like this kind of design decision. It sends a message that staying hydrated is important. And I believe perfectly balanced and symmetrical games are boring. You should have cards that feel overpowered. If the active player offers me the choice of a face-up water card, I will be suspicious whether there is another even better water card among those two face-down cards. 

The scoring conditions are linked to the theme. For example some fruits help our bodies better absorb vitamins. Such fruits score points for vitamin type cards you have. When you understand the reasoning behind the scoring conditions, you find that there is much knowledge about nutrition you can teach using this game. You don't need to be a nutritionist to play the game well. You simply apply common sense about eating habits. You will do well when you apply healthy eating principles. So the game feels natural. 

Pick Eat is a light game. It has a simple core mechanism which non-gamers can execute without trouble. Ultimately it is only about collecting cards. Gamers will appreciate the subtle strategy and psychology in the card offering and card choosing. I am glad I tried the game. It is certainly not of the same type as many typical educational games I have played. It feels more like a hobby game. Yet at the same time it is founded solidly on an important subject - healthy eating. 

Hardback

Hardback can be quickly described as Scrabble meets deck-building. It’s a neat idea. I wondered whether there has already been other deck-building word games, so I did a quick search and found a few. Hardback itself is a reimplementation of a 2014 game called Paperback. That is apt indeed. Upgrades, folks! 

Here’s the basic idea. Every turn you draw five new cards from your personal deck. Every card is a letter of the alphabet. You try to make a word with your cards. If you manage it, you gain the benefits on every card. It can be points. It can be money which you can then spend to buy new cards for your deck. There are also other powers. You can flip some cards face down. When you do this, that card becomes wild. Often you need to do this to be able to make a word. However you won’t enjoy the benefits from face-down cards. You don’t need to use every card. You can discard some. Naturally you don’t get benefits from unused cards either. You don't save money from turn to turn. Leftover money will be used to buy ink. 

This above is an example of how I spelled PERIL. In hindsight, I should have spelled PRUNE, making the L wild instead. It would have given me an extra point from the U.  

Throughout the game you will buy new cards for your deck to augment it. You may remove cards from your deck too. Newer cards are generally more powerful and help you score points more efficiently. The game ends at the end of a round when someone reaches 60 points. 

The core idea is simple. Here are some mechanisms which make the game more interesting. In addition to the basic cards, there are also genre cards in four types - horror, romance, adventure, and mystery. These are all better than the basic cards, and each type provides some unique bonuses. The powers of genre cards usually have two parts. One part will be activated as long as you use the card in your word. The second part will also be activated if you have another card of the same genre in use. What this means is you probably want to specialise in one or two genres so that the chances of you drawing two or more cards of the same genre are higher. 

One card power lets you double the point or money value of an adjacent card. If you manage to pair this with a high valued card, it becomes a huge bonus. One card power lets you reserve a card in the purchase pool. Since this is a deck-building game, there is also a power which removes weak cards from your deck, so that your chances of drawing strong hands increase. 

One mechanism which I find a lot of fun is the ink and ink remover mechanism. At the end of every turn you can decide to spend some of your money to buy ink. You spend ink to draw more cards. This way you can make words longer than five letters. This means you can earn more money and score more points within the same turn. In the game, there is a bonus for having made the longest word. There is some risk though. A card you draw using ink must be used in your word. It cannot be turned face-down to become a wild card nor can it be discarded. If you are unlucky, you may be forced to pass because you can't make a word. You waste a turn. Here’s how the ink remover might save you. This is a rare resource. You can use it to turn a card drawn using ink into a normal card. That means you are not forced to use it and you can flip it face-down to become wild.  

In this example above, the B and O are of the same genre, and the Y and D are of another. This means I am able to use both the basic power and the genre power of these cards. The G and U are wild. I need to flip the L and the C to become G and U respectively. It is always satisfying to be able to spell long words. 

There's one mechanism called timeless classics. These are cards which have their letters in landscape instead of portrait orientation. You can see an example in the screenshot above - the V. When you are able to make a word using a timeless classic card, it stays in front of you and gives you benefits every round, regardless of whether you are able to use it in future words. Your opponents can force you to discard such timeless classics by making a word including your letter. They don't gain anything from your letter though. They only force you to discard your letter. 

I had much fun with Hardback. It is certainly something different from what I usually play. The deck-building and card power parts might feel a little complex to non-gamers, so if you are using the word game premise to lure them to play, do be a little patient in explaining these aspects. I like that this is a game in which you can ask your opponents to help you make a word. They will get a small reward. It is satisfying to be able to puzzle out a decent word. The option to turn cards wild offers much flexibility to players. This will work as a family game. Although adults will have an advantage over children, being able to help one another with making words can turn this into an educational game at the same time. Even when you play with friends, you might learn some new words from them. 

Monolyth

Monolyth is a design from Phil Walker-Harding. This guy again! Why do I keep coming across his games? He is truly prolific! In Monolyth you collect bricks in various shapes to build a monument block. In the process there are several ways you will score points. The game ends when a player completes his monument. 

At the start of the game bricks are randomly set up around the board. A shared pawn is placed at one of the spots. On your turn you must move the pawn between 1 to 4 steps, then claim the brick where it stops. You immediately refill that spot with a random brick from the box. 

You have your own little player board. This is where you build your own monument. Each of the four sides has a designated colour. You try to match your bricks on each side to the corresponding colour, because this will help you score points.

From another angle

The point tokens on the main game board come in three different shapes, each associated with a different scoring method. For every game one design card is randomly drawn (that square card above). If you are able to create that exact design while building your monument, you claim one square score token. Naturally you will claim the highest one available at that time. Using this card above as an example, the design you need to make is one complete layer of bricks and one complete wall on just one side. 

The hexagonal score tokens can be claimed whenever you complete one layer of your monument. You always take the highest valued token still available. The last type looks like a seashell. You don't claim these by fulfilling any criteria. Instead, you have to forfeit a turn to claim one. You don't necessarily take the highest valued token available. You get to choose. You attach the seashell token to one of the four sides of your player board (see below). By game end, if the number of squares on that side matching the designated colour is at least as many as the number on the seashell token, you score the token. If the requirement is not met, that seashell token is wasted. 

Seashell tokens are limited in quantity, so you have to fight for them. In a 4-player game, you can build at most three layers high, so my black side can score at best 8 points. I have maximised my seashell score. If there is no more 8 by the time I take a seashell, I would have to settle for a lower value. 

When taking a brick, you can choose to discard the one you are supposed to take and claim a small single-unit cube in the same colour. These are limited. They are not an efficient way to build your monument, but they are flexible. Sometimes they are your best choice. 

Monolyth is easy to learn. It works well as a family game, and it is a visually-appealing gateway game. The rules are all intuitive and it is a pleasure to learn to play. There are only three ways to score points, and they are all straight-forward. The most important player interaction is making sure you don't set up great options for the next player. You can see your opponents' structures and what they need. Sometimes you think not just about the next player, but also those after that. In fact in our game we all watched out for the leading player and worked together to avoid giving him his ideal piece. One tactic you can use is spending the turn taking a seashell token so that the pawn doesn't move. The seashell tokens often present a dilemma. How soon should you start claiming them? If you are overly ambitious you might fail and waste your tokens. But if you are slow, you lose out on the good tokens. You can choose to take a seashell token even when you know you can't score it, for the sake of denying others. That's evil, but it's legal. 

River of Gold

This is a heavy Eurogame. You play merchant families trading along the River of Gold and establishing influence as you do so. You have two trading ships sailing downstream, stopping to earn money and load goods. You can supply goods to clients. This is your typical order fulfilment mechanism. You can also build trading houses along the riverbank. Trading houses offer benefits to all ships which stop by. The owner also gains benefits whenever the house is visited. So these are the three main things you do - you sail, you fulfil client orders, and you build trading houses. The game ends when the trading house deck runs out. Highest scorer wins. 

The game board looks like this. There are many plots along both banks where you can build trading houses. The game starts with some already built. When you sail, the space where you stop will always touch four plots, possibly some with trading houses built. You'll get stuff from all the trading houses. You will also get $1 from each empty plot. So the worst case is you earn $4. You only sail downstream. If you reach the river mouth, you cycle back to the top and continue from there. 

The river is divided into six segments representing six different provinces. When you pay to build a trading house, you will be able to increase your influence in the corresponding province. At the end of the game, you compare your influence against others at all six provinces, and you score points based on relative position. When your influence reaches certain milestones, you also get to claim benefits. Influence is one reason you want to build trading houses. With the house you have built, you also hope that others will visit so that you can earn the owner's income. You can visit your own house. This way you earn both the visitor's income and the owner's income. Sometimes players naturally build houses close to one another, because such clusters are attractive to ship owners. Ships want to stop where they can reap the greatest rewards. If you want people to visit your house, you want to make it irresistible. 

Those tables on the right are for keeping track of everyone's influence at each province. The point values for the most influential players are listed here. 

One interesting mechanism in the game is your action is restricted by a die roll. You always roll a die before the start of your turn. The die roll determines where you can sail, where you can build a trading house, and which client you can deliver goods to. The die is numbered 1 to 6, so if you want to sail, you pick one of your two ships, and it sails as many steps as indicated by the die. It is possible to adjust the die value. You need to spend divine favour to do this. Divine favour is a type of resource. When you decide to build a trading house, the die value determines which province you can build in. When you decide to deliver goods to a client, the die value also determines which client you can deliver to. Every client is associated with a die value. You can only serve a client if you have rolled that die value. Thankfully you can always spend divine favour to adjust your die value before you perform your action. 

You always have two client cards in hand. When you successfully serve a client, you get to draw two more client cards and then you discard one. When you serve a client, they usually give you a one-time benefit, an ongoing benefit, and also bonus points at game end based on a specific criteria. 

In the top half of this screenshot above, you can see three missions. You get to score points when you complete them. The missions are, from left to right, serving clients of three different types, reaching a specific influence level in a province, and building all four types of trading houses. The game gives you yet another aspect to consider and plan for as you play. 

These are the currently available trading houses you can build. The icon in the pointy half is the visitor income, and the icon in the flat half is the owner income. The black banner in the middle means how much influence you will gain for building the trading house. 

Influence track for Province #6

River of Gold looks more complicated than it actually is. There may be many aspects for you to think about, but every turn you are only choosing one out of three options - sail, build or deliver. Sailing helps you gain money and goods, while building and delivering require spending money and goods respectively. 

It is interesting to watch how players collectively develop the board. There is an uneasy balance between helping yourself and creating opportunities for others. You do want others to visit your trading houses, so that you get income, but at the same time you are hoping you won't help them too much. Your customers are ultimately your competitors too. When you sail and visit others' trading houses, you will also feel a little torn. You want to gain the benefits from the trading houses, and you have to grudgingly accept that the house owners will gain something too from you visiting. I find this delicious. 

One feeling I get when playing this game is happy times fly by too fast. The game always seems to end earlier than I expect it to. The trading houses run out so quickly! I feel there are still many empty plots along the riverbank. I feel I can compete more. I think this play experience means the game is well designed and well balanced. It makes you feel just on the cusp of greatness, and that's when the game ends - on a high note.