boardgaming in photos: #25 in the world?

I have been wanting to bring Faiyum to the table again for some time. Finally I did a 2-player game with younger daughter Chen Rui. She absolutely slaughtered me, even though it was her first play. She went into building and using workshops, and I didn't. There seemed to be few workshops so I thought it wasn't worthwhile to get into. I really enjoy how differently each game of Faiyum can develop. It depends a lot of which are the cards purchased by players, and how they collectively build on the map. 

Chen Rui likes the crocodiles in the game and can't help but play with the components. This above looks like some dark magic ritual, or maybe a zoo. 

She played crocodile stacking on the side

This is a more normal shot of the game

I have not started using the expansion yet. Even the base game offers much variability. 

I taught Shee Yun and Chen Rui Take Time. It is still very enjoyable, and sometimes still pretty tough to beat. We played Levels 1 and 2, and then skipped to try some missions in Level 5, and then Level 10. 

At Level 5, every segment must have exactly two cards. That is certainly restrictive and challenging. It is important to discuss a general strategy before every game. Once you start playing, you can't discuss strategy or cards anymore. 

It is nice that the game comes with card sleeves, and very pretty ones. I think these are promo items. I use them, but they don't seem to be very sturdy. They are already showing signs of wear and tear. If this gets worse and cards become marked, I will have to remove the sleeves and just switch to regular transparent sleeves. Well, I probably shouldn't be complaining about a free gift. The publisher spent money to give buyers something extra. 

I played Attika with Chen Rui again. We used to play this game a lot. I wondered why this 2003 title has not been reprinted, only to find out that it has actually been reprinted in 2018 as U.S. Telegraph. I like the original art much more. 

This is Guru Guru Labyrinth from Japan. You are dungeon explorers. You will go on three expeditions. Each trip you try to bring back treasures. You can do that only when you are able to defeat all monsters along the way. 

A round of play is set up like this. You create many stacks of just two cards. Cards can be good or bad. There are treasures which are worth points. There are monsters which will try to hurt you. There are also heroes who will fight the monsters. On your turn, you examine a stack of cards, and decide whether you want to take it. If the heroes in the stack are able to defeat all the monsters in the stack, you will score points based on the treasures and defeated monsters. If you can't overpower the monsters, you will leave empty handed. So normally you'd only take a stack if it is worth points. If you don't claim the stack, you don't place it back into the circle. Instead you distribute the cards to the subsequent stacks, like playing Mancala / Congkak, one card each. The cards must be distributed in ascending order, and the last card being distributed is turned face-up. The number of stacks in play will dwindle. The stacks combine to form larger stacks. You want to find and claim a high valued stack before time runs out. When there are too few stacks left, you will be forced to claim a stack. 

Blue cards are heroes, red cards monsters, yellow cards treasures. 

As a round progresses, you will get more and more information about the stacks in the game. There is a reference sheet listing the cards and their numbers. When cards are distributed, it must be done in ascending order. Based on the last card which is revealed, you have some idea what the other cards that have been distributed might be. There is a memory element in the game. 

This is a stack that will give points. There are five swords, which is enough to defeat that monster of five skulls. The monster is worth 10 points, and the gold coins 2 points. 

That large white marker is for marking where you have taken a stack from. If you decide to decline, it reminds you from where you should start distributing cards. 

I found the game so so. I think it's because I don't like memory games. There is some push-your-luck in this game. The longer you stay, the bigger the stacks become. But will you be able to find a lucrative stack before time runs out? Or will you end up stuck with no good stack? 

Mythic Battles: Ragnarok is a 2-player tactical battle game. You have a team of various Norse gods, mythical creatures and fighters. You win by defeating the boss of the enemy team, or by having your boss grab and consume four runes. 

Playing on BGA is much less sexy than playing the physical copy. The physical game has many pretty miniatures. 

Characters in the game have different stats and special abilities. As a character takes damage, their ability weakens. You slide that marker piece downwards to indicate damage taken. Characters are activated through card play. You need to have the right cards to activate a character. Some cards are not character specific and can be used in many ways. You need to use them wisely. 

This is a minor fighter

There are many characters in the game, and you can form many different types of teams. All characters are unique, and finding synergy between those you recruit to your team is important. In the game I played, I decided to focus on absorbing runes. I thought I did pretty well, but I was careless and my boss (the god) got himself surrounded and killed. Oops. 

I found out that that my blog on BGG is ranked #25 among all BGG blogs worldwide, according to this blog post: https://bgg.cc/blog/1412/blogpost/190594/bgg-blogs-circulation-2026. I have been blogging on boardgames since 2007, but always on Blogspot. I created a blog on BGG many years ago, but I did not use it. My blog serial number is 27. I started using my BGG blog only in Jan 2025. I post the same content from my Blogspot blog there. I decided to do this because I wanted to reach out to a wider audience. I think Blogspot is pretty obscure by now. I should go where the readers are. 

This blog ranking is calculated based on number of posts multiplied by number of subscribers. I am pretty sure I am ranked high mostly because of my number of posts. Indeed I have been writing a lot for the past year. Well, let's see if this analysis post helps to bring some attention to my blog, and I get a boost in readership. If you enjoy what I share on BGG and have not subscribed, please support me by subscribing. 

Joraku

"Joraku" is a Japanese term which means advancing to the capital. In Japanese history, sometimes local warlords will lead their armies and move to the capital, claiming that they are there to protect the Emperor from evil forces. In truth, they want to take control of the Emperor and rule the nation. The game Joraku has an interesting combination of two popular game mechanisms - trick-taking and area majority. This combination works well in presenting the whole concept of joraku. 

The game is played over three rounds. There are seven regions on the board, with Kyoto on the left and the other six regions being numbered 1 to 6. There is a little scoring table in each region, specifying the points you can score at the end of each round. You'll score the most points if you have the highest strength. Second and third places will score points too. In the first round, regions far away from the capital are worth more points and Kyoto itself is worth nothing. However by the third round this switches over entirely. In the early game you will compete in regions further away from Kyoto, but throughout the game you will advance towards Kyoto. 

During game setup you will place your daimyo (your clan leader). Everyone will start in a different region. During the game you will deploy troops, move them, move your daimyo, and your can also kill enemy troops. All of this is done through card play. This is where the trick-taking comes in.

There are three suits, and the cards are numbered 1 to 6, matching the regions on the board. In each suit there is one ninja, which is like a joker. At the start of a round cards are dealt out to all players. You will play one card at each trick, and someone will win that trick. Once all your cards are played, the round ends and you do scoring. Most of the trick-taking rules are standard. You must follow suit if you have cards in the lead suit. The largest card wins the trick, regardless of suit. If anyone has played a 6 and another has played a ninja, the ninja wins the trick. The ninja has no value, but it can beat the 6. 

Whenever you play a card, you perform an action. You do this when playing that card, not when resolving the trick. One of the most important things you can do is to deploy troops. You can deploy up to three soldiers, and you must deploy them in the region matching the card value. The number of soldiers you have is limited, so you don't always deploy the maximum number. You need to think about where you want your soldiers to be. If you play the ninja, you can deploy troops anywhere. If you do not deploy troops, you can use the card value to perform actions. You can move your daimyo or soldiers. Your daimyo can kill enemy soldiers. 

When comparing strength, your daimyo is strength 2, and soldiers strength 1 each. In the early game these regions far away from Kyoto are worth more points, so more soldiers will be crowded here. 

Most cards are dealt out at the start of a round, but there are some which are not known. You can somewhat count cards, but you do not have perfect information. Since you have to follow suit, you are not entirely free to do what you want. You can make use of this to limit what your opponents can do. If you can quickly get rid of one suit, you will have more flexibility. There is card passing before a round starts. That can help you adjust your hand, and the cards your opponents give you will offer some insights too. You know that if you don't have a certain card, it is quite likely one of your opponents has it. Most of the time you plan how to play your hand assuming others do have cards that can spoil your plans. The card play part of the game is quite strategic. 

The area majority plays a big part in this game. You must optimise your resource usage. You don't need to win by a lot, you just need to win by a little, but you want to win in as many regions as possible. That's efficiency. 

Winning tricks matters, even though you already perform your action when you play your card. One important reason is, of course, being able to lead the next trick. This gives you some control. Also, when you win a trick, there is a small evaluation done in the region where your daimyo is. You score points based on relative strengths. You want to make sure you are strongest where your daimyo is, because otherwise when you win a trick, you are helping someone else score more points. You can make use of this to take advantage of other players. Let them win the trick, but move your soldiers in to the region of their daimyo so that you can steal some points. It's not a lot, but it can add up.

The green daimyo is in Kyoto now

By game end all daimyos have arrived

Joraku combines trick-taking and area majority, and both mechanisms play important roles in the game. This is a game with much strategic planning and tactical manoeuvring. You have to think carefully about what cards your opponents might have and how they might be used against you.

Trash Traders

Trash Traders is a game from Hong Kong. You are raccoons. Now this is not a game about raccoons’ natural habitat or ecology or saving the planet. Instead it is about speculating in cryptocurrency and losing all your money. Raccoons love digging through trash so in this game you trade trash stocks. You win by having as little money left as possible. 

This is a take that type card game. You start with some money. Many of the cards in the game let you manipulate the crypto price. On your turn you may play a card to use its power. There are all sorts of powers. Changing the crypto price is just one of them. You then must buy or sell crypto. Everybody knows crypto is trash and normally they will be worth nothing when the market crashes and the game ends. So you want to waste all your money on crypto. Two things make this a little challenging. If you have spent all your money buying crypto and can’t buy any more, you will be forced to sell. The golden rule is every turn you must either buy or sell. You can’t do nothing. You might end up selling at a high price and making a profit, which is bad in this game. 

The other complication is some crypto are protected from the crash. They are still worth something at game end and not zero. When you buy crypto, you buy from a face down deck, so you don’t know whether the card you draw is a real trash crypto. If you get a “good” crypto, you will want to try to sell it and then use the money to buy hopefully real trash crypto. That takes two more turns which you might not have. The game ends immediately when a market crash card is drawn. Maybe you only have time to reduce the value of those “good” crypto. 

This is a silly party game that is good for casual players. There is some market manipulation and tactics. This is not just dumb attacking. I probably shouldn’t call it a take that game. It is more than that. It is still a simple game. It funded successfully on Kickstarter, and it has several expansions that offer different ways of playing. 

Expansions

108 Outlaws

108 Outlaws is a game from Daryl Chow of Origame. It is based on the Chinese classic novel Water Margin. I have been designing games based on the four Chinese classics, including Water Margin, so I was certainly interested in seeing Daryl's take on the topic. 

108 Outlaws is a tableau building game. All 108 characters of Water Margin are in the game. They are divided into 36 primary characters and 72 secondary characters. In addition to these characters, you have major and minor campaigns. These are objectives you try to fulfil to score points. During the game, you will draft character cards from a pool of available characters. You will play them into your personal tableau. Characters give you resources and all sorts of abilities. You will be using these resources and abilities to claim those major and minor campaigns. The game is played until someone has 12 characters in their tableau. 

The designer himself taught me the game

Minor and major campaigns

One impressive thing about the game is how all 108 characters are different. The secondary characters are all free to play, but to play a primary character you need to spend resources. Primary characters have scoring conditions. If you fulfil the conditions well by having the right cards in your tableau, they will give you many points. Resources are printed in the top left corner of a character card. When you play a character, the resource on the card becomes available to you. When you spend the resource, you rotate the card to a horizontal position. Some cards allow you to reset other cards. When reset, the resource becomes available again. 

Many characters give you some bonus or ability when they are played. Although many of them can be played for free, you would want to play them only when you can fully utilise their powers. This is a game that requires a fair bit of planning. The core actions may be simple, but the variety of card abilities makes this a mid-weight strategy game that requires meticulous planning. You want to draft the right cards which synergise well. You also want to play them at the right times and in the right order to maximise their potential. For example some cards require that you have certain resources, but you don't need to spend them, while others can be played only when you do spend those resources. You want to play the first type before the second, otherwise you would have already exhausted your resources. 

Claiming a major campaign is not easy at all. You need to have many resources ready. Since these are public objectives, you have to watch out for other players who may be going for the same campaign. Scoring conditions of the primary characters is another aspect you must consider. You want to make good use of these. Timing can be critical. You don't want to be caught still halfway executing your plan when someone else triggers the game end. 

Playing this feels like building a pyramid. To put together the combination of resources for a major campaign, you need several characters in play. If some of these are primary characters, you will need to have some other resources available first to be able to play them. The game feels a little solitaire. You will be busy planning your own tableau. Interaction is in the form of drafting cards from the centre. Sometimes you fight over characters. Sometimes over campaigns. 

Plantful Life

Plantful Life is a roll and write game from Taiwan. You take care of a plant and you nurture it to grow and bloom. The game comes with six different plants, and they need to be taken care of differently. At the end of the game, you will score points in several ways, including how much your plant has grown, how many flowers it has, and how many butterflies it has attracted.

The game is played over 10 rounds. One card is drawn in the first round, two cards in the second round, and so on. You use the numbers on the cards to fill your player board. You can only use at most three cards, so from the fourth round onwards you have more options, but you are still limited to just three cards. There is only one card numbered 1, two cards numbered 2, and so on. This is something to take into account as you plan how to fill your player board. Small numbers are rarer.

You may have multiple pots. They are represented by the brown boxes. Numbers in every pot must be different. Plants grow from pots upwards. Boxes that grow from the same pot can only be filled with the same number. Pink and red boxes are small and large flowers respectively. They are worth more points than regular boxes. Also they are important for attracting butterflies. Wherever butterflies are drawn, players compare flowers. Whoever has the most ticks the same number of butterflies on their player sheet. Others who have fewer flowers tick fewer. Butterflies on your player board score points at game end based on their number squared. 

You have two player boards. One is the plant and the other is your workshop. Filling spaces at your workshop gives you special abilities. Each track can only be filled with increasing numbers. Normally you want to start with low numbers to make it easier to continue to fill them. One track lets you unlock gates at your plant. There are boxes you cannot proceed past unless you have done unlocking. There’s one powerful ability which lets you grow every pot once. If your plant has many pots (like this one above), this ability is very helpful. One ability gives you an extra number every round, which is very handy. However to gain this ability you need to have filled in the third box on the track. This is worth the trouble if you do it early. At late game there is not enough ROI. 

You can see several familiar elements if you have played other roll and write games. I like how different the plants are and how you will choose different powers that work better with them. I like that by using a card deck, the probabilities of drawing each number are customised as opposed to being equal and random. And a card deck has “memory”. You can card count. Playing the game is a pleasant experience. You feel clever when you utilise your workshop abilities well to grow your plant. I’ve never been a fan of roll and write games. The only one I truly enjoy and remember fondly is Draft & Write Records. Maybe it’s the theme. I must say Plantful Life is not radically different. However I enjoy it a lot. It is a little like a solo game since the butterflies is the only aspect that you need to compete in. I like how peaceful and pleasant the play experience is. The art certainly contributes to that. And I’m not even a gardening guy. 

Two of the plant types...

... and how they are presented in the game

Too Many Exits

Too Many Exits is a game from Korea. It is based on the horror movie trope of a bunch of teenagers being hunted down by a mad killer. Like the story about friends running away from a bear, you don't need to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun your friends. This is a single loser game. When one player gets killed, everyone else survives and wins. 

Characters you get to play

The game is set up with a corridor and five locked doors. The corridor is an infinite one. You are all in the corridor and the killer is coming after you. You keep running away, but the killer also keeps coming after you, until he catches at least one of you. The five doors represent doors you might try to escape from. Every door needs a different key. When you find a key, you can try to unlock a door. You get to escape only if the key matches. Otherwise in your haste you drop the key (i.e. you discard the card). Escaping is not permanent. You only get temporarily respite for the current round. Once the killer catches someone, that person takes injury, and you start a new round. You go back to the starting line. The game ends only when a player takes the third injury. 

You have one hand card. On your turn you draw a card then play a card. Super simple. Cards have all sorts of abilities, e.g. slowing down an opponent, or picking a card from the discard pile. Some cards are Keeper cards. Keeper refers to the killer. When you draw a Keeper card you must play it and bad things happen. Once everyone takes a turn, it is the killer's turn to move. 

The premise is fun, but I find the game draggy and the novelty wears off quickly. This is mostly a casual party game. It'll work well with non gamers but I think gamers will not find this interesting. 

Normal side of a character

Panic side means you miss a turn