Kobayakawa

Plays: 6Px1.

The Game

Kobayakawa is a microgame consisting of cards numbered 1 to 15, and a bunch of coin tokens. It is played over 7 rounds. At the start of a round, everyone is dealt a card, and one card is revealed at the centre of the table. This is called the Kobayakawa. Beginning with the start player, everyone gets to take one action. You have two choices - either draw a card then discard a card face-up (i.e. an opportunity to change your card in hand), or draw a card from the deck to replace the Kobayakawa (i.e. changing the Kobayakawa value to whatever you draw). Once everyone is done, you take turns deciding whether to bet 1 coin. Finally the players who opt in reveal their cards, and the highest number wins the pool, plus one more coin from the general supply. The twist is this: whoever holds the smallest number gets to add the Kobayakawa value to his card value. This twist is the very soul of the game.

The two face-up stacks at the centre of the table are the discard pile and the Kobayakawa.

The Play

I did a 6-player game, which seems to be the ideal number. Despite the simple rules, I find the game very thinky. When a player decides to draw a card, does that mean he has a low card and he's hoping to draw a higher one? When he decides to replace the Kobayakawa, does that mean he has a low or middling card and he's hoping to change the Kobayakawa to a higher number? The current value of the Kobayakawa needs to be considered too. A low number means it won't have a large impact at round end. You will need a high number to win. Maybe not the highest, but something close to the highest. A Kobayakawa value of 2 will let 14 beat 15, if these are the only two numbers opting in. If 12, 14, 15 are in, then 15 still wins because the bonus of 2 goes to 12, which doesn't help it win.

I find that I keep thinking about every move the other players make. Why did she do this? Why did he do that? Now of course some people may play the game very randomly, and may even win. That would make my careful deductions meaningless. The group I played with did not play that way. Everyone put at least some thought into his decisions.

The cards being discarded can be an important source of information too, and not just for card counting purposes (which is important too because it gives you definite information). Someone discarding a high card may be holding another even higher card, or may be holding a middling card and hoping to gain the Kobayakawa bonus. Even how quickly a player decides can give you a hint. A long pause would mean a difficult decision. Then looking at the discarded card may help you guess what the card still in hand is.

There is a poker feel to the game. You can observe the reactions of your opponents to guess their card. How do they react when someone changes the Kobayakawa and gets a larger number? Someone who looks happy might have a small card in hand. During the betting stage, there is also some bluffing. Someone who looks confident may be just trying to scare others into backing off. Someone who looks unsure may be trying to lure others into betting so that he can win more coins.

Turn order can make a big difference. The later you are, the more information you'll have before you need to make your decision, both in deciding your action and later in deciding whether to bet. So it is not surprising that the winner of a round becomes start player for the next round - usually the least favourable position to be in.

Our game was a 6-player game, which is the highest number, so when it came to the betting stage, many cards were already seen. With so few cards remaining in the draw deck, and only 15 cards in the game in the first place, it was easy to count what numbers remained. I tended to be conservative and I counted cards carefully. I ended up rarely betting, and it so happened that when I sat out, it was the right choice. I would have lost my bet had I committed. However, I am not sure I was playing right despite my "correct" decisions. Maybe during the action phase I should have taken the other action? Or maybe during the betting phase I should have bluffed and scared others away? One funny thing in our game was after it ended, we realised we had been playing all this while without the #15 card. It was missing right from the start and no one realised it. That probably distorted our decisions, because most likely someone had suspected that another player was holding the #15 card and thus refrained from betting.

You start with only 4 coins. If you are very unlucky, you'll go bankrupt after four failed bets. There are only 7 rounds in the game.

I like how they stylised the original Japanese name 《小早川》 and turned two of the characters into simple vertical lines.

The Thoughts

Kobayakawa is a game of knowing when to strike. It looks nothing like Poker but surprisingly it has a bit of Poker feel. There is luck, and you have limited control, so the key is judging when the right time to gamble is, or creating the right time to gamble by bluffing. There is a lot of guessing what your opponents are thinking. By looking at how much I have written about such a simple game, you can tell I am very intrigued. The depth in this game is not in how complex the calculations are, but in reading your opponents' intentions and playing the psychological game. The number of cards in the game is so low that it's easy to count all cards - what you've seen, who discarded which card. The key is how to make sense of this information. I was quite surprised such a minimalistic game made me think so much. There are some subtleties which are not immediately apparent. It's an ingenious piece of work.

the beauty of simple games

I find that I have been enjoying simpler games recently, games that I can quickly skim the rules on the spot and teach everyone to play, and then have a good time. I used to think that being a boardgame hobbyist means enjoying the hobby is more about the games than about the players. We as hardcore hobbyists enjoy trying new games, exploring different strategies, and experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. Lately I find that I also enjoy a more relaxed manner of playing. We are still playing games, but it is less about learning the games and navigating the puzzles they present, and more about using them as a simple platform to interact with fellow players. It's gaming the players more than gaming the systems. I quite enjoy such experiences, e.g. with my Taiwanese friends, and with my family. We skip the challenging learning phase found in more complex boardgames, and jump straight into games which everyone can play competently and be competitive at. Everyone gets up to speed quickly. Also, I am less burdened with reading game rules and making reference sheets. It's a great feeling switching to a more laid-back mode now and then.

Ice Cream Combo

Plays: 3Px1, 2Px1.

The Game

Ice Cream Combo is a real-time game where players race to complete ice creams according to customers' orders. At any one time there are a number of orders on the table depending on the number of players, and these are free-for-all - whoever is the first to complete an ice cream according to the specs claims that order card, and then reveals a new order card to take its place. When a player completes his fifth order, the game ends, and everyone scores his completed order cards.

Every player has his own deck of 30 ice cream cards. Before the game starts these are shuffled, divided into three equal stacks and placed face-down in front of the player. When the game starts, all three stacks are flipper over, and the player can start making ice cream. The first thing you need to do is to convert an ice cream card into an ice cream cone. Ice cream cards are double-sided, the front being a scoop of ice cream of a specific flavour, and the back being an ice cream cone. So you have to sacrifice one scoop to make a cone. You can have at most two work-in-progress ice creams. You can move the topmost scoop between any of your two work-in-progress ice creams and three ice cream card stacks. During the game you are constantly shuffling scoops around to try to make ice creams that match one of the orders at the centre of the table.

The starting setup of a two-player game.

Two completed ice creams. The order card at the top left indicates that you need two flavours, and two scoops in each flavour arranged in this particular way. Complete this order, and you'll earn $3. If you have a cherry on the topmost scoop, you earn an extra $1. The order card at the top right requires ice cream in five different flavours. There's a rainbow coloured scoop of ice cream on the right. That's a joker and can stand in for any flavour.

There are some special cards in the order card deck. If you draw such a card, you execute special actions. E.g. one such card lets you steal a scoop from another player. There is also a card which is an ice cream cone. You can use it immediately, saving you one ice cream card which you need not flip over to become your new ice cream cone.

The player who completes his 5th ice cream declares game end. You check your completed ice creams to make sure they have all been done correctly. Ice creams with mistakes score nothing.

The Play

I played with my daughters Shee Yun (10) and Chen Rui (8), and was surprised that they both beat me. I had thought I would easily beat them at such speed games. My little princesses are all grown up now. Sniff sniff. The game is quite hectic. There is not much player interaction, since you rarely get to directly mess with others' plans. If you beat an opponent to an order which he has spent much time and effort on, that can be a big impact because all his work is down the drain now. That can be quite funny, or frustrating, or both. Overall it's a race game. You race to complete ice creams, and when possible you try to pick up odd bonus points here and there, e.g. those cherries.

I'm still new to the game, so I am not sure how feasible it is to pay a lot of attention to what your opponents are doing. E.g. to watch which orders they are going for and to avoid clashing with them, or to intentionally beat them to those same orders. My suspicion is you probably need to focus on playing efficiently. You decide on which orders to go for based on what kind of scoops you have at the time. Just go for what's convenient and hope you'll complete it before anyone else does it. Well, that may be just a newbie talking. Advanced players may be able to make better use of observing others.

My opponent Chen Rui.

The Thoughts

Ice Cream Combo is easy to teach and non-confrontational. It's a speed game and it works as a children's game and a family game. It's something you can play with casual gamers or non-gamers. Despite being a real-time game, it feels relaxing. That's probably because ice creams are inherently soothing. Mmmm...

Click Clack Lumberjack / Toc Toc Woodman (2nd Ed)

Plays: 4Px3.

The Game

Only when I looked up Toc Toc Woodman on BGG I realised there are a few different versions. The first edition rules are quite different. The latest edition (Click Clack Lumberjack) has some slight additions to the second edition Toc Toc Woodman. The rules I played was the second edition rules.

This is a dexterity game. You have a leafless tree which has nine layers. Each layer consists of a large core piece interlocked with four thin bark pieces. They interlock in such a way that if knocked sideways, the bark pieces will not fall off. However if the core piece is pushed sideways far enough so that one side of it is hanging in the air, the bark piece on that side will fall down because it is no longer supported by the layer underneath. The objective of the players is to knock the bark pieces off the tree, without knocking off the core pieces as well.

On your turn, you get two knocks with the axe (which actually functions as a hammer). Anything that falls off the tree is yours. The game continues until all bark pieces have been knocked off. Then you score points based on pieces you've claimed. Bark pieces are 1pt each, while core pieces are -5pt each.

The top layer is completely bald now. All the bark pieces have been knocked off.

Behind the tree, on the left, you can see the bark pieces which Chen Rui has arranged neatly.

The Play

The first thing I learned was the two-knocks rule is ingenious. Normally you'd use the first knock to set yourself up to score, and the second knock to actually get the targeted piece (or pieces) of bark off the tree. Well, that is if everything goes according to plan. Sometimes if your second knock is too light, you end up getting nothing other than the gratitude of the next player for having set up the tree so nicely for him. Avoiding helping the next player is a big part of the game. Sometimes when you are not confident you can claim a bark piece, you might as well adjust the tree to make it even harder for the next player.

Gaining points is something you have to do slowly and carefully. Losing points can happen very unexpectedly. Achievements come in small steps, failures can be quite spectacular. That is the excitement of the game. It is like walking a tightrope. You want to get to the other side more quickly than your opponents, but you know if you are not careful, even one misstep can put you out of the race.

One funny thing that happened in our game was when Chen Rui left the tree in a very unstable condition, and soon after Michelle took over the axe, but before she had even touched the tree, core pieces started falling off. So who should take these pieces? I'm not entirely sure. The rules may have specific rules for such a situation. I didn't check the rules then, and just made a ruling on the spot - we removed the fallen pieces from the game. Later on when it was my turn the children started blowing at the tree.

This was probably the third game. We were getting better. The tree was almost stripped bare, but all nine core pieces were still in place.

The Thoughts

Toc Toc Woodman is a dexterity game, a family game, a children's game, a casual game, and a filler. It's fun when brought out on the right occasion. I don't think you can play it many times in the same session though. At least for me, after 2 or 3 games I felt like switching to play something else. However I imagine if played as a drinking game it can be a completely different matter.

No Thanks / Geschenk

Plays: 4Px3 recently, 2 plays many years ago.

I played No Thanks recently at Witch House, Taipei. I have played it before, but I have not written about it at my blog. I hadn't started blogging when I first played it. I chose to play it during my recent visit to Witch House because it was a simple game I could quickly pick up and teach my family. It was fun, and we played three games back-to-back. Later when I checked my rating for the game from 11 years ago, I was quite surprised to find that I had rated it a 5 (out of 10). It is now updated to a 7.

The Game

The game consists of a bunch of plastic chips and cards numbered 3 to 35. At the start of a game everyone gets the same number of chips, and some cards are removed from the deck face-down. You don't know which cards are out of the game. The start player for a round reveals the top card from the deck, and then has two choices. Claim the card, or place a chip on it and pass it clockwise. If the card is passed to the next player, then that player faces the same two choices. The round progresses, and the chips accumulate, until finally someone claims the card and all the chips on it. That player then becomes the start player for the next round - reveal a new card and decide what to do. The game ends when the draw deck runs out.

Here's how scoring works. Every card gives a negative score based on the card value, while the chips are worth 1pt each. The catch is if you have claimed cards in a running series, only the smallest card in the series counts. E.g. if you have 24, 25, 26, 27, you are only penalised 24pts.

That's all there is to the game!

The Play

In the first game we played, we had the misconception that it was good to collect cards in sequence. It's actually much better to not collect any cards at all. If you already have 24, and 26 comes up, it is not the right thing to do to claim it and hope for 25. 25 may be among the cards removed from the game. Also even if it does come up, someone else might take it just to spite you. In fact, if you can get someone else to take such a big number as 26, that's a good thing. This is not a set collection game. It is a pain avoidance game.

Michelle had a misdirected strategy in our first game.

I also learned that collecting chips is not the best way to gain points. A chip is only 1pt. The most important value in the chips is pain avoidance, not scoring. You use them to push cards to your opponents. You can't completely avoid taking cards, because eventually your chips will run out, so you need to pick the right time to take a card and the chips that come with it. Managing your supply of chips is key to maintain flexibility in controlling when you want to accept or reject a card. Running out of chips is very dangerous because it means you have no choice but to claim a card passed to you, which may be disastrous.

When a card you do not fear comes up, e.g. the 33 card when you already have 32, it's usually time to extort chips from the other players. There is no hurry to claim such a harmless (to you) card. In fact, if an opponent happens to be short on chips, it might be an even better idea to force him to swallow poison.

We overlap cards which are in sequence, so that it's easier to read everyone's play area.

Chen Rui was rather pleased with the chips she had amassed. That pile there is not the supply. It is all her money.

The Thoughts

No Thanks, like 6 Nimmt / Take 6 / Category 5, is a how-far-you-fall game. Everyone scores negative points. It's about making others do worse than you. You can try to play nice and focus on damage control in your own area, but it's more fun watching others burn harder than you. The rules are very simple, but the game has a unique and twisted evil streak which is rare, which I appreciate. Imagine noblemen smiling and pushing a gift around, saying oh no this is too precious and I do not deserve it, you must have it. The game is easy to teach, and when it clicks, the players will narrow their eyes knowingly and start nodding and smiling at one another.

Morels / Fungi

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

Morels was first published by Two Lanterns, a small publisher. It received widespread praise, and was later republished by Pegasus as Fungi. It is a two-player-only card game about a walk through the forest to pick mushrooms. Not an everyday setting for sure.

A row of eight cards is set up at the centre of the table, representing the forest path and the mushrooms (and other items) along the path. The first two cards are considered to be right under your feet. You can easily pick either card here. Other cards are slightly further away, and to pick them you need to pay sticks, which is the only currency in the game. You collect mushrooms because you want to cook them to score points. You need to collect at least three of the same type in order to cook a batch. You also need a pan for each batch you cook. Pans are another type of card you can collect from the card row. Every turn, regardless of whether you've picked a card, the first card will be moved to a decay pile (and more cards drawn to replenish the card row). The decay pile represents mushrooms which are not picked starting to spoil. It will only be discarded when it grows to four cards. Players can use an action to claim all cards in the decay pile, which is a good way to gain many cards quickly. However you must stay within your hand limit. Also you don't get to pick. It's all or nothing.

There are a few other types of cards in the card row. Baskets increase your hand size. Butter and cider cards can be used as seasoning when you cook mushrooms, to increase their score value. There is one poisonous type of mushroom called the fly agaric which works like a laxative. If you pick it, your hand size is temporarily reduced and you may be forced to discard cards. This may not be a bad thing. Sometimes you want this because normally there is no mechanism to discard unwanted cards. When your hand is full, you are temporarily stuck. Another way to get rid of cards is by selling mushrooms. You need at least three to cook (and score points), but you need only two to sell. Selling gets you sticks, which, as mentioned above, allow you to pick cards which are further away.

One special type of card is the night card. When you pick such a card, you get to draw a double mushroom from the facedown night deck. These are just like mushroom cards except each card counts as two mushrooms.

The game ends when the draw deck is exhausted and the card row is empty. Highest total score from cooked mushrooms wins.

The numbers in the top left corner of the mushroom cards indicate their point values if cooked and stick values if sold.

The two cards on the left are the baskets, which increase hand size. The cards on the right are the batches of mushrooms I have cooked so far. For two of the batches I have added butter for seasoning (i.e. I get some bonus points). You need at least four mushrooms if you want to add butter.

The Play

The game that Morels reminds me of surprises me - it's Through the Ages. The similarity I see is the card row which keeps running. In Morels this is a sushi bar conveyor belt turned to super high speed. Plates of sushi fly by and you can't grab every plate you want. The fat boy sitting across from you is also grabbing plates. Furthermore, your limited table space means you need to be picky. You need to eat the sushi quickly too to make space. It's chaos! So many restrictions and challenges in your face at the same time!

The sticks in the first edition are handmade. Very nice.

The Thoughts

Morels almost feels like a real-time speed game. You are assaulted by multiple challenges and forced to make tough decisions. The pace is fast. Actions are simple. The juggling of multiple restrictions and considerations forces you to give and take. You can't have everything. You need to make sacrifices and you need to prioritise. The game is like being ejected from an airplane together with an explosion of loose currency notes. You want to grab as much money as you can before you need to pull open your parachute. There is only so much you can grab and only so much you can stuff into your pockets, collar, mouth...

This will make a nice spouse game.

Infernal Affairs retheme of Templar Intrigue

When I taught my Taiwanese friends Templar Intrigue (my blog post here), I explained the mechanisms using characters from the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs (later remade in English as The Departed, which won some Oscars). Templar Intrigue was a Kickstarted game, and I'm not sure whether it is possible to buy it through normal channels. For those who missed it, you may need to make your own copy if you want to try this game. If you like Infernal Affairs, then this retheme which I've made using MS Powerpoint may be of interest. I can't share this on BGG since I don't own the copyrights to the photos I used, which were downloaded from the internet. If you are interested, follow this link.

These are the cards from the original Templar Intrigue. The top row is the Royalist cards (i.e. police force). Starting from the left: card back, the king (the equivalent is Anthony Wong Chau Sang, the superintendent), a monk (policeman), and the Templar archivist (Andy Lau, the mafia mole secretly working in the police force). The bottom row is the Templar cards (i.e. mafia) - the card back, the Grandmaster (Eric Tsang, the mafia boss), a Templar knight (mafia thug) and a traitor (Tony Leung Chiu Wai, undercover cop).

There are four pages in the file I created, and here are two of them.

I put a crown icon on the superintendent card to remind the player who is dealt that card that he needs to reveal his card at the start of the game. One of the cop cards specifies a player number range at the bottom left. This means you only use that card for this specific player number range. This saves some trouble looking up the rules. The mole card has a target icon, meaning he is one of the characters the superintendent needs to hunt down.

The mafia boss card has a target icon too, he's the other character the superintendent needs to identify. There are some disjoints from the movie. In the movie the identity of the mafia boss Eric Tsang is public knowledge. Also the superintendent Anthony Wong knows who the undercover cop is (Tony Leung).

Only 12 cards are needed, and 2 of them are rule summaries, one each (double-sided) in English and Chinese. If you don't need the Chinese one, that's one card less. When I made the Powerpoint file, I miscalculated the dimensions of the cards. You can see that the cards I printed are a few millimeters short. Thankfully they still worked for me and I didn't need to redo the whole thing. My approach was to use a normal playing card as a base. I sandwiched it with a card back and a card face which I printed. Then I sleeve the whole thing with a transparent card sleeve.

These are the two main stars of the movie Infernal Affairs. If you play with 9 or 10, there will be two Tony Leungs.

Everything fits into this small ziplock bag.

Taipei meet-up and Witch House

I visited Taiwan in early June. It was a family vacation, and I took the opportunity to meet up with my old friends. My boardgame journey started in Taiwan about 11 years ago. It was then that I got hooked on Eurogames. I played frequently with my colleagues at work. It had been a long time since I last met them. Many things are different now - we have kids now, we are working in different fields - but when we got together again, the camaraderie was just like 11 years ago. I felt 11 years younger. I should to go Taipei more.

We met up for dinner, but dinner was definitely not the only thing on our minds. We brought games. Yes, I brought games all the way from Malaysia to Taiwan, which is perfectly normal. After dinner, we continued our gathering at Cher's office, which was near the restaurant. We played games in the conference room, which reminded me of how we used to play Carcassonne in the Director's office during lunch break 11 years ago (the Director was usually not in the office).

I taught them Templar Intrigue, a secret identity team game. I've written about it before here in case you do not know the game. We had much fun, and most of it was not because of the game, but because of the people - the spontaneous jokes, and how we simply click. I explained the game using the characters in the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs (which was remade in English as The Departed). In one game Rick said he would prove that he was Tony Leung (the undercover cop) by giving Carina Lau a phone call straight-away. Each game of Templar Intrigue requires a precise procedure to be followed to allow some players to know the identities of some other players. One of the steps requires everyone to close his eyes, and then the Templar Grandmaster (the mafia boss) and the Templar Archivist (the mafia's mole in the police force) open their eyes to identify each other. In one of our games, when it was time for these two characters to open their eyes, we had three players opening their eyes instead! That led to much laughter. It was Michelle who made the mistake. She was a Templar Traitor (undercover cop in the mafia) and she thought when I announced "mole" I meant her too. Then there was another game in which only one person opened his eyes at this phase. Rick was the Templar Grandmaster and when he couldn't see anyone else with eyes open, he asked for a stop. I was the moderator so I checked everyone's cards, until I realised I was the Templar Archivist who was supposed to have opened his eyes. I was too absorbed with being moderator that I had forgotten my own character.

Templar Intrigue was a great choice. It is simple, it supports up to 10 players, and it's a riot to play.

I'm the king of the kids.

This is Tony Leung, a.k.a. Templar Traitor, a.k.a. undercover cop in the mafia.

Jessy, Crystal, Cher and I playing Carcassonne. This was one of our favourite games from 11 years ago. Others include Ra and Ticket to Ride.

We visited Witch House, where my boardgame hobby began. When Michelle and I lived in Taipei, we were regular customers. After 11 years, the place still felt the same. The main difference was we were now bringing along our children and not coming as a couple. The game in this photo is BANG!. I didn't do any preparation before the visit, since I didn't know what games were available at Witch House now. I decided we'd just play games I'd played before or simple games. Surprisingly we managed to spend about 3 hours there, which was longer than I had expected, given my lack of preparation.

This is the dice game Pickomino which I own.

Talk about horrible luck. It was my turn. On my first roll I picked two 5's, and on my second roll I picked three worms (which were 5pts each). I had 25pts locked (the row of dice at the bottom) and three more dice to roll, which was a very good position to be in. I just needed to roll 1's to 4's to further increase my point value. And what did I roll? 5's and worms! I failed my turn, and instead of claiming a tile I had to lose one.

Selfie.

This is That's Life!, by the formidable duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling. The rules are deceptively simple, but there is some clever strategy. It looks like a race game, since you roll a die to move your pawns from starting line to finishing line. However the order of arrival has nothing to do with scoring. Instead you score based on tiles you collect during the game. When your pawn leaves a tile, if it is the last pawn to do so, you must claim that tile. This means the race track is constantly changing, getting shortened whenever a tile is claimed. Some tiles are worth points, some are worth negative points. Some are Good Luck tiles, which convert negative point tiles to positive point tiles.

The unpainted cylindrical pawns are neutral pawns called guards. They are initially placed on the Good Luck tiles and the high valued positive point tiles. On your turn, you may move a guard if there is another player pawn on the same tile as the guard. For example if your pawn and a guard shares a Good Luck tile, you'd want to move the guard away first, so that when your own pawn leaves, you get to claim the tile. Similarly, if another player's pawn shares a bad tile with a guard, you'd want to move the guard away to force your opponent to pick up the bad tile later.

My tiles at game end. The three Good Luck tiles on the left convert those three negative point tiles to positive point tiles.

The night before I left Taipei, Cher and Crystal stopped by bringing some gifts. I took the opportunity to teach them Love Letter.

Targi

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

"Targi" means the men of the Tuareg tribes, who live in the western Saharan desert. Targi is a game in the Kosmos two-player-only series, published in 2012. It has been getting consistent praise, and I was curious to give it a try. Allen has a copy. For the past few months he was often unable to join the Friday gaming sessions, so recently I suggested we meet up on a Thursday after work to play some short games. Our work locations are close. Playing in a public location means less space, so we decided to do card games with no boards.

The "board" area in Targi is a 5x5 grid of cards. The 16 border cards are fixed from game to game, but the 9 cards in the central area are set up randomly at the start of every game. During a game round, players take turns placing targi pieces (each player has three) on border cards. A targi may not occupy the same card as another targi, and also may not be placed such that it would be facing another targi across the play area. That means when you place a targi, it is monopolising that particular row or column. Once all targis are placed, if their rows and columns intersect, you get to place tribe markers at the intersections. Normally there are two intersections per player. After that the players execute actions on the cards where they have targis and tribes. Some cards let you gain resources. Some cards let you score points. The most important type if card is the tribe cards. If you have a tribe marker on a tribe card, you may pay specific resources to claim it and then add it to your tribe area. Your tribe area is a 3x4 grid in front of you, i.e. 3 rows each having 4 slots for tribe cards. Tribe cards grant special abilities. They are also worth victory points at game end. Each tribe card has a tribe icon. For each tribe card row where you have four of the same icons or four different icons, you score bonus points.

The game ends after 12 rounds, or after a player claims 12 tribe cards.

The blue and white pieces belong to the players. The light grey piece (bottom centre) is the robber. The robber moves every round, along the edge of the play area. He blocks targi placement, and when he reaches a corner card, he raids - players must surrender goods or money, or else lose victory points.

Whenever a card in the central area is executed, it is either claimed by a player or removed from the play area. A new card is drawn to replace it. The new card is kept face-down until the end of the current round. You can see one such new card in this photo.

This is a tribe card. The tribe icon is on the left. The cost is at the top right. The VP value is at the bottom right. The text describes the special ability you gain.

The Play

This is a VP-scoring game, and what you try to do every round is to maximise the effectiveness of your five possible actions. When placing targis you are directly choosing the action you want to perform. As more and more targis are placed, your options dwindle. So you need to prioritise which actions are most important to you, and grab them before you are blocked by your opponent. You need to consider what your opponent may want, so that you can try to block him too. Where your tribe markers will go depends on how you place your targis, and that's something you already need to consider when placing your targis. This is what makes Targi unique.

Most of your points will come from the tribe cards. You are constantly competing with your opponent to grab these. There is a set collection element, and a tableau building element. You want to get tribe cards which synergise. At the same time you want to prevent your opponent from doing the same.

My tableau of tribe cards at game end. I managed to put together two rows with the same tribe icons. That's a juicy 8VP.

The Thoughts

Targi is a light-to-medium weight game. More complex than the Lost Cities type, but not quite a medium weight game. It will work well as a spouse game and as a post-dinner game. It takes 30-45 minutes to play. It'll work as a after-the-kids-go-to-bed game too when I'm-too-tired-for-a-complex-game-and-I-just-want-to-unwind-a-bit. There is no direct conflict, but there is plenty of player interaction. You are competing to score the most points, trying to grab the most valuable actions and cards before your opponent. However you can't directly hurt your opponent. The targi placement mechanism which drives tribe marker placement is what's unique about the game. The set collection aspect will be familiar to Eurogamers, but it works fine. Collecting tribe cards is a tableau-building game.

The ever-shifting central area keeps players on their toes. You never know what opportunities will come up in the next round. In the game we played we exhausted the goods cards, and I think that's normal. You will cycle through the whole deck. However only about half the tribe cards came into play. So there will be variety from game to game.

boardgaming in photos: Saint Petersburg, Impulse, Jamaica

15 May 2015. Saint Petersburg was popular around 2004, and a new version has just been released, with new artwork, an addition to the rules, and the two previously published expansions included. I noticed that Jeff had stocked it at his webstore, so I decided why not revisit this old title and at the same time help him sell. I later found out he was already down to his last one or two copies, so it was unnecessary after all.

We did a full 4-player game. We played Jeff's copy, which is the first edition, and we included the New Society expansion. This expansion replaces some of the cards in the base game to rebalance it, and also adds some new cards. I have never played Saint Petersburg enough to find it unbalanced, so I never bought the expansion. Now that I've played the expansion, I quite like it. Unfortunately it has been long out of print, and it is very expensive in the secondary market. The 2nd edition contains the expansion, but I prefer the 1st edition artwork.

This was the second time I played Carl Chudyk's Impulse. This time it was a 4-player game using partnership rules. Jeff (light blue) and I (green) were on one time, and Ivan (white) and Boon Khim (purple) on the other. In the partnership game, a team wins when one of the team members reaches 20VP. I was the start player, and right off the bat all of us rushed to the galaxy centre to grab VP's.

My cards.

This was one memorable, crazy game. For the first few rounds my hand was a perfect storm for Trading (i.e. sacrificing cards for victory points). Within three rounds I was already close to 20VP, and was poised to win on my next turn. I neglected military and science, and poured all my effort and resources into scoring points. It was a gamble. It seemed mad, but it was very viable. I was betting on speed. I needed to reach 20VP before Ivan or Boon Khim could stop me. In Round 3, Boon Khim had no choice but to launch his attack. If he didn't stop me, I would cruise to victory. There was one crucial battle he needed to win. He needed to destroy my cruiser so that his cruisers could get past that sector to attack my transports, which were getting ready to score the last few points I needed to win. It was a 50-50 battle. Both of us had only one cruiser. Unfortunately I couldn't hold the line. My front (which consisted of exactly one cruiser) crumbled, and I was soon completely wiped out. It was crazy, and it was great fun.

At this point I (green) had been exterminated. Jeff (light blue) was later destroyed too by the combined forces of Ivan and Boon Khim.

22 May 2015. It was pirate theme night at Boardgamecafe.net. Other than Madame Ching I also played Jamaica, a race game. It is not only about racing though. You also score points by digging up treasures, collecting gold coins, and even robbing the other players. These three are action cards. Everyone has a hand size of three, and every round you simultaneously pick one to play.

Your ship has five cargo holds, and each can only store one goods type - food, cannons or gold coins.