Sky Team

The Game

Sky Team is the 2024 Spiel des Jahres winner. It was already getting many positive reviews before it was nominated. What surprised many people was it went on to win. This is a strictly two-player game, and the SdJ has never been awarded to such games. Sky Team is a cooperative dice game about landing a plane. You are pilot and copilot of a plane, and you must collaborate to do your job while under communication restrictions. There is a time limit. Within this time you must complete all landing preparations and in the final round you must land the plane right on the dot to win the game. 

There is a fixed number of rounds. By the final round you must advance the plane to precisely arrive at the runway and land it. No earlier, no later. The basic structure of a round is each player rolling four dice, and then taking turns to place them on the board. The dice are rolled behind player screens, so you don't know what numbers your partner has, and you can't discuss the numbers or where to place them. You can discuss strategy before the dice are rolled, but once rolled, zip. 

The board looks a little intimidating the first time you learn the game, as if you need to learn how to fly a real plane. However once the rules are explained to you, you will realise how well the board is designed. The icons and colours all make perfect sense and there are plenty of visual cues to remind you of how things work. You don't need to memorise the rules. The board is as good as a reference sheet.  The square indentations are where you can place dice. The pilot uses the blue spots, and the copilot the orange spots. Spots with both blue and orange can be used by either player. There are four spots which must be filled every round, two for each player. These are the spots near the centre of the board, controlling the wings and the engine. 

Let's talk about the wings first. The dice you place determine how the wings tilt. The difference between the two dice tilts the plane. You need to be careful not to tilt it too far in either direction, because you'll lose control and crash (and lose). Since you don't know what numbers your partner has, controlling the tilt can be tricky. 

Next, the engines. The semi circle above the two engine spots has two marks. If the dice total exceeds the first mark, the plane advances one step. If it exceeds the second mark, the plane advances two steps. The plane may advance one or two steps, or none at all, depending on the dice total. You need to remember that by the final round, the plane needs to reach the runway. If you fall short, or overshoot, you lose. 

There are columns of dice spots along the left and right edges. These spots only allow dice of specific values. These are tasks that must be completed before the plane lands. There is no hurry, but you do have to remember to do them. Every round, two of your dice must go to those mandatory spots, so you only have two dice that can go to other spots. It's not a lot. 

The dice spots at the bottom are for making coffee. Coffee gives you energy. In game terms, each cup of coffee you have can be used to adjust a die value by one. This can sometimes be a life saver. It's something worth spending a die on, as a form of insurance. You can use two or more coffee at the same time, for example drinking two cups of coffee allows you to change a 1 to a 3. 

That long board on the left represents your distance to the airport runway. Every time the plane advances, this distance is shortened. Notice those plane icons on this board. These are other planes which are in your flight path. If you advance into them, you crash and lose the game. You need to use the radio to tell them to get out of your way. Both pilot and copilot can radio these other planes. The pilot can do it once per round, the copilot twice. When you place a die on a radio spot, the die value determines which plane you can send away. The die value is your distance to that plane.  

The long board on the right is your altitude. It is effectively your countdown mechanism. By the time the altitude reduces to 0, you'd better be fully ready to land. This is a natural and thematic build-up to a climax. You need to time everything perfectly for that final round in order to win. 

The Play

I played Sky Team on BoardGameArena.com with my Hong Kong friend Jetta. We are separated by a 4-hour flight. We, okay I should say I, crashed rather spectacularly in our first game. I advanced our plane too fast and crashed into a Japan Airlines plane. I had misunderstood the rule about the engines. I didn't realise that the moment I placed the second die, the plane would start moving. I had thought the moving was done at the end of the round, and I still had time to radio the JAL plane to ask them to duck. 

We quickly made a fresh attempt. This time I was much more careful. If you play this game properly, you are not supposed to be communicating at specific times. You will have to learn to communicate through your plays. Figuring out how to communicate this way is interesting. You need to think why your partner is making this move. You have to think about how you should place your die in order to give specific hints to your partner. This little dance of trying to think what your opponent is thinking and how they will interpret your actions is fun. When my partner places a 5 on his wing, I will be able to calculate the range of numbers I can safely place on my wing so that the plane doesn't tip over. By placing a die, my opponent is helping me plan my play. Your play provides information to your partner. 

The game requires some long-term planning and prioritisation. With only two dice that you can choose to place in spots other than wing and engine, many of the tasks you need to complete can only be done across multiple rounds. There is quite a lot on your plate. You need to use you dice wisely. 

I was the copilot (orange). I placed two 2's on the radios, getting two planes a short distance in front of us out of the way. Now I had a 6 and a 1, and these must be placed on wing and engine. This was a tough situation, because 6's and 1's are extreme numbers. Putting either one on the wing was risky. If Jetta didn't have a number near mine, the plane might tilt out of control. It would be safer to place a 6, because the plane was currently tilting towards his side. If his highest die was a 3 and he placed it, the plane would tilt right by 3 steps and would still remain in control. If he only had 1's and 2's we would be doomed. Unless we still had coffee. 

The game comes with different variants, presented as different airports around the world you can land in. That's nice. Different airports come with different challenges. The basic rules remain. 

This was the final round. We were at ground level, and we were precisely approaching the runway. Now we must have the wings perfectly balanced. The landing gear also needed to be fully extended. We had done our preparation well and we had coffee on the ready. Our final round was a breeze. Everybody went home safe and sound. We had the kind of perfect landing where passengers applauded. 

The Thoughts

I fully appreciate why Sky Team won the SdJ. It is an excellent light strategy game. It is not too heavy so it works for families and couples. The setting is novel. I absolutely love the component design. It creates an immersive experience. At the same time, it is highly practical. The game board is also your reference sheet. 

That process of working out how to communicate with your partner through actions is fun. When you manage to achieve understanding and complete your mission together successfully, it is highly satisfying. This aspect makes the game a nice couple game. You feel the connection. 

Dorfromantik

 

The Game

I kept thinking of Dorfromantik as Dorf Romantik (two words), and had trouble finding it on BoardGameGeek.com. It is the 2023 German Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres) winner. It is originally a computer game, and I purchased the computer version when it first came out. Back then I felt it was very much like a boardgame. It is a solo game, and you do tile placement. I guess it is not surprising that it has now been turned into a real boardgame. The boardgame publisher sells this as a boardgame for 1 to 6 players. I see it is essentially a solo game. Technically it is called a cooperative game, but it is actually a solo game with turns divided among the players. 

When you play Dorfromantik, you draw hexagonal tiles from face-down stacks and use them to build a landscape. This is very much like Carcassonne. You play until you run out of tiles to place. There are rules to tile placement, and also ways of scoring points. You score points when the game ends. Everyone plays as a team, and there are no individual scores. There is only one team score. The terrain types on the tiles include villages, forests, wheatfields, rivers and train tracks. The only restrictions on placement are the rivers and the train tracks. Rivers must connect to rivers, and likewise the train tracks. A tile edge with a village can be immediately next to a tile edge with a forest. It just means the villagers are living right next to a forest.  

Mission tokens are placed on some tiles - those speech bubble tokens with a number. The number indicates how big a terrain needs to be (stretching over how many tiles) for the mission to be completed. For example in the photo above there is a train track mission with 6. The train track is currently length 2. You will need to grow it to length 6 in order to complete this mission. One important rule is when you add a mission token to a matching terrain, that existing terrain must not already meet the criteria. You can't add a value-6 mission to a track of length 9. If you do that, you are considered to have failed the mission. The mission token is discarded. 

There are two types of tiles with different backs. Those on the left are the mission tiles. When you draw one, you flip it over to see what kind of mission comes with it. You must then draw a mission token for the tile. The other tiles, on the right, are just regular tiles. On your turn you can choose to draw either type. There is a rule that there must always be at least three active missions in play if possible. The first three tile draws in a game must be mission tiles, in order to fulfil this condition. 

When setting up a game, the mission tokens are arranged face-down. There are five types, corresponding to the five terrain types in the game. 

The number on a mission token is the criteria to be met and also the score value. 

When the game ends, the longest river and the longer train track score points too. Some terrains feature flags. These terrains score points based on how big they are. There is generally a tendency for similar terrains to group together. 

If you compare this photo and the previous one, you can see how the landscape has grown. 

This village is size 7 at the moment (covering 7 tiles). It can still further expand, from the open edge at the top left. 

When a game ends, you use this score pad to do scoring. If it is your first time playing, you will only use the first two rows. The other scoring conditions can only be used after you have unlocked them. Dorfromantik is a legacy game. You play through a campaign - a series of games, and as you play, the game itself changes. Game components and rules are added, based on decisions you make and your achievements. There are five mystery boxes in the game which contain game components. As you play through the campaign you get to open them and add new elements to the game. The new elements give you more ways to score points, and more to think about. 

This is a legacy game with no destruction aspect. You don't tear up cards or mark anything permanently. When you feel you've played the game enough, you can reset everything. You return all the game components to the right boxes, and you can let a new group of players experience the game from scratch. 

This is the legacy campaign chart. The table on the left tells you how many ticks you can make depending on how high you score at the end of a game. You tick path sections in the central area to make progress along the paths. When you reach specific stations, you unlock new game elements. You can use them in your next game. 

So far younger daughter Chen Rui and I have played five games, and we have now opened all five boxes. However we have not yet unlocked all game components and scoring conditions. We still need to play more to unlock them and to be able to use them. 

The Play

Dorfromantik is a peaceful and relaxing game. For seasoned gamers the first few games will feel easy and simplistic. The strategy is straight-forward, and it is easy to complete all missions. However as the campaign progresses you will unlock more game components, scoring criteria and missions. The game will become more challenging. It will no longer be easy to balance your priorities between the many missions and ways of scoring. There will be more to think about. There will be trade-offs to consider. For non gamers and casual gamers, the early campaign is a gentle introduction to the game system. It is welcoming and pleasant. 

There is no clear definition of when a campaign ends. You can play as many games as you want. Eventually you will unlock all rules and components. You can consider that the end, but you can still keep playing the game in its complete form. I sound like I'm talking about a Super Saiyan. After you reach the final form, you probably won't want to reset to start over, because it would be dull. The only reason you want to reset the game is to let a new group of players experience it for themselves.  

The speech bubble icons are mission icons. All mission tiles have such an icon at the back. When you decide to draw a mission tile, you flip it over to see what type of mission it is. You then draw a mission token of the specified type to place onto the tile, before you add the tile to the landscape. Whenever you complete a mission, you move it off the landscape to an area for scoring. If you fail a mission, you also remove it, but you put it somewhere else. If a mission tile on the map no longer has a mission token (like in the photo above), it means the mission has been completed or it has failed. Only missions still in progress, i.e. still having a chance to be completed, remain on the map. 

You want to make one very long train track and one very long river, because only the longest ones will score points. 

If you compare this photo and the previous one, you can see how the map has developed. 

This is another game. Wheatfields, forests and villages which have flags will score points. You will try to make them as big as possible. However they will score only if by game end they are completed, i.e. have no open edges. In the lower section of this map you can see a wheatfield (yellow) of size 14. It is worth 14 points now. However it still has an open edge, at the bottom right. You can still expand from here to hopefully score more points. However you must remember to close this open edge off before you run out of tiles. Else this wheatfield will score nothing. 

The Thoughts

Dorfromantik is a good family game. And that's what the Spiel des Jahres is all about. They recognise great family games. It is cooperative, so it works well as something parents can play together with children. The game is refreshing and a little different, which is nice. It being originally a computer game may attract non boardgame players to dip their toes in our wonderful hobby. That's certainly a plus. 

Challengers!

The Game

Challengers! is the 2023 Kennerspiel des Jahres winner, i.e. the German Game of the Year in the Expert category. I had already noticed it when it was first released. I thought the premise was interesting and I wanted to give it a go. After it won the award, I thought I shouldn't wait any longer. So I asked Allen and Han to try it out with me on www.boardgamearena.com. Challengers! is a premium game, which meant I had to restart my subscription to be able to play it. The monthly subscription is MYR 24 (~USD 6), which is a good deal. If I only spend MYR 24 for a gathering with friends, I'm happy. Since I had subscribed and the minimum was one month, after our online meet-up I went online by myself to play more with strangers. 

Challengers! supports up to 8 players. It is a deck-building game. The game is run in the format of a tournament. Every player controls one team. You will play a series of 7 matches, and earn fans (score points) from the matches. Once everyone has played 7 matches, the two teams with the most fans enter the grand final. Whoever wins the final wins the game.  

With four players, each will match up with a different opponent from game to game. You match the same team 2 or 3 times. When the number of players is an odd number, every round one team will be matched with a robot team. No one is left idle. 

Everyone starts with the same card deck of 6 cards. Before every season match, you have a chance to do deck-building and alter your deck. By the time you get to the 7th match, your team may already be completely different. The deck-building mechanism is very simple. You get to draw 5 cards from a specific deck, and from there you get to pick 1 or 2 cards, depending on which round you are in. While picking cards, you have one chance to discard all your options and redraw the same number of cards. After making your selections, you may also discard any number of cards from your deck. This is so unbelievably simple that I had to read twice to make sure I didn't misunderstand. 

There are six families of cards in the game, and every time you play, you will use five families. Cards are divided into Levels A, B and C. The higher level cards are more powerful. In addition to the card value, some cards have special abilities.  

To appreciate how to deck-build, you need to understand how a match works. Let's talk about that. At the start of a match, both teams shuffle their decks, and the starting team draws a card. A flag token is placed on this first card drawn, representing that the starting team has control of the flag. The other team plays the attack role, and tries to claim the flag. The attacking player reveals cards from his deck one by one, until the total value matches or exceeds the card holding the flag. Once this happens, the flag changes hands, and the attack and defense roles change. 

One important rule is if two or more cards are used to capture the flag, these cards don't remain splayed. Instead they are stacked together so that only the most recent card is on top and visible. Only this card is holding the flag, i.e. defending the flag. The values of the other cards are ignored. 

When a card or a stack of cards is defeated, all the cards must be placed at the bench. Each team has a bench with 6 slots. Every slot can fit one specific card type (i.e. exact same name). If you have multiple copies of the same card in your deck, when defeated they go to the same slot. The bench size is an important element of the game. You lose if you need to place defeated cards at your bench, but you are out of space. What this means is you tend to want to keep your deck to just 6 types of cards. 

The other way you win is by controlling the flag when your opponent is no longer able to attack. That means he has run out of cards. 

You realise that during a match, there is actually very little control or decision-making. You are mostly flipping cards. Victory is determined by what cards you have and the order they turn up. The most important decisions in the game are made when you pick cards to add to your deck. Cards from different families have different characteristics. Some cards jive well together. Usually it is good to have many cards from the same family. 

When you win a match, you earn a trophy, and each trophy is worth some points. As the game progresses, the trophies are worth more and more points. There is escalation. Even if you lose a few early games, you still have a chance to catch up. Some cards let you score points directly. Trophies are not the only way. After 7 matches, you total your points, and the two highest scorers get to play in the final. You don't get new cards for the final, but you still have one chance to remove cards. At the final, you don't bother about scores anymore. Whoever wins the final wins the game. 

The Play

Challengers! is a quick game. Well, I say so because I play online, and the computer takes care of all the tedious bits. Not that it is very tedious. There will be multiple matches running concurrently. You will be occupied with the match you are in, and you won't be able to spend too much time watching other matches. However it will be somewhat helpful to take a glance and have a rough idea who is having what kind of deck. It may affect your decision when your build yours. You may want to know who you will be matching up next, and adjust your card picking decisions based on that. Let's say you expect to face a team with many high cards. If you have a card which discards the top card of your opponent's deck, that can be quite a blow to them. 

Picking cards is interesting. The mechanism is simple, but it often presents difficult choices. The option to refresh your card choices is genius. Sometimes the cards you draw look mediocre, and you decide to refresh, only to get an even worse set of choices. Yet sometimes when you decide to refresh, you get cards which are perfect for your current deck. When picking cards you will consider how they can help one another. You want to make combos. However the order cards are drawn is random. You can only hope they appear in a good sequence and at the right time. If your opponent's flag holder is a measly 1, it would be bad news if you draw your mighty 5 to defeat it. It is also bad news if your opponent has a 5, and you draw 2, 2, 5 to defeat it, because you are spending three cards to beat his one card. 

This was when I played against the bot player. There are bots of different strengths - their decks vary slightly. Experienced players can choose to play against stronger bots. One bot card has a strength based on the round number, which means it gets stronger and stronger. By Round 7 it is strength 7, which is pretty strong. 

In this particular game I had 9 types of cards in my deck. I kept this many because I had a card which could remove cards from my bench to a discard pile. This reduces my risk of losing due to my bench being full. However it still depends on the timing of the card draw. If I draw that card too early (no other cards are on my bench) or too late (the bench has already gone bust), it wouldn't help me. 

At the final, only two teams will play. The others can only spectate.

By Round 7, my starting deck had been completely replaced. I picked many cards from the movies family (green). 

Some cards let you remove cards from your bench to a discard pile. That greyed out stack of cards near the top right is the discard pile. By default it is not used. Only specific card powers let you use it. 

The Thoughts

The biggest difference between Challengers! and other deck-building games is the lack of control. That sounds like a bad thing, but it is not. Instead this is what makes it refreshing and unique. The luck of the draw is what you have to contend with. This is the premise which makes the game interesting. When you pick cards, you have to think with a very different mindset. You won't get to choose when to play any specific card. You are at the mercy of the draw, and you have to manage that. 

Many of the card powers are linked to the fact that cards turn up at random. Other deck-building games don't have most of these powers. Some powers let you look at some of your cards and rearrange them in an order you like. Some cards give you a bonus if they happen to be at the bottom of your deck. 

Challengers! won the Kennerspiel des Jahres, which is the expert gamer category, but to veteran gamers this is just a mid-weight strategy game. There is a healthy dose of strategy, but this is a game which gamers can play in a relaxed, light-hearted manner. There is a significant luck element. You don't need to overthink it. 

Challengers! is a pleasant surprise. Definitely worth giving it a go. It did not disappoint. 

one of the top sites

I only recently discovered that my boardgame blog has been listed as one of the top boardgame sites at Frugal Dad. Woohoo! It’s a long list with 33 entries, but still. Here’s how my blog was described:

"Sharing insightful reviews and analysis of a variety of different board games, Hiew’s Boardgame Blog lives up to its name. Each review includes detailed descriptions of the game and the instructions, as well as impressions from actual play. The comprehensive thoughts shared in each review help provide a clear picture of each specific game."

This list appears to have been made quite some time ago though. Some of the websites on the list are no longer active. BGG is not on the list, and I’m curious why. Anyhow, I am going to stick that fancy-looking logo on my sidebar.

11 Jan 2013: There link to Frugal Dad's list does not work anymore. It seems the page has been taken down, or they have done an overhaul to their website. Now I can only find their logo. I'm using this old logo because this was their logo when they released their top boardgame sites list.

Board Game Internet Awards 2007

I did my daily boardgame internet surfing today, visiting BoardGameNews, and found that the 2007 Board Game Internet Awards have been announced. To my surprise, my blog won the Best New Site award! That was completely unexpected and I am very flattered. When I started the blog, it was only for the convenience offered by Blogspot. Much easier than what I used to do - manually editing HTML pages for the boardgame section of my website. I had expected myself to be making blog posts about once or twice a month, i.e. a similar frequency as how I used to update the boardgame section of my website. However I ended up enjoying blogging about my boardgame hobby more than I expected.

The BGIA was how I found the NYC Gamer blog, which was the Best Blog winner of 2006 (I think). This is a blog of quality over quantity which I admire a lot. Very good depth in the articles, and always interesting.

One thing I can say about BGIA is this is going to be a one-off thing for me, because I won't be qualified for Best New Site in 2008 anymore.

What's funny, and embarassing, is that even other people who read my blog agree that I'm writing more than I'm playing boardgames.