Mass Effect: The Board Game

Mass Effect is a popular console game. It is a third person role playing game set in a sci-fi world. The boardgame version was released in 2024. One of the designers is Eric Lang, the hugely popular game designer who has done many Fantasy Flight Games titles. The other designer is Calvin Wong, a fellow Malaysian. This is like the dream for us Malaysian game designers - having the opportunity to design a game with a world top-level game designer. 

Notice that the box cover has Calvin's Chinese name as well. The publisher took this very seriously. When they decided to put the Chinese name, they did not just use any random font. They contacted the console game localisation company in China and asked them for the official font in the Chinese edition of the game. I admire that they take these production details so seriously. 

I visited Calvin's booth at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang, where he showcased Mass Effect. I did not sit down to play a game, but I asked him to give me an overview of how the game works. The design direction behind this game is to make something that is accessible to many people. The target audience is fans of the console game. The idea is to get them interested to try the board game version of the game. Many of them may not be boardgame players. Yet. 

The game is scenario based. When you sit down to play, you pick a scenario which has its own map and setup. Regardless of the number of players, there will always be four characters in play. If you have fewer than four players, some of you will play more than one character. Each scenario has its own winning and losing conditions. A scenario does not take too long, so that if you want to, you can play a series of two to three scenarios within one evening. There is a plot line structure which links together multiple scenarios. This creates the experience of playing a campaign. What happens in one scenario carries over to the next. You don't always play with the four fixed characters. There are more than four to choose from so you can try different combinations.

These are some of the characters you can play. Every character has their own character sheet. They have their own sets of abilities and also possible upgrades. 

You get to play these characters.

When a round begins, the start player rolls a whole bunch of dice. Thereafter everyone takes turns utilising three dice. The icons on the dice specify what kind of actions you can take. You take turns executing actions until the dice are used up. This is a cooperative game. You work together as a team to complete your mission.

Calvin Wong the game designer

Mini Rogue

The Game

Mini Rogue is a streamlined and compact dungeon crawler, which can be played solo or as a two-player game. You enter a dungeon and fight through traps and monsters, sometimes collecting equipment and gold along the way, sometimes leveling up as you gain experience. Eventually, you will get to the boss at the end of the journey, and if you beat it too, you win.  

The game comes in a small box. Your encounters in the dungeon are represented by cards. Every segment of the dungeon is represented by a 3×3 grid of cards. You start with the card at the top left and must get to the card at the bottom right. You may only move right or down. If you survive all the encounters, you complete the segment. You then move on to the next segment.

The 3x3 grid is the current segment of the dungeon you are in. 

You roll dice to determine the outcomes of your encounters. You need to roll above specific values for success. Die rolls also determine the penalty or reward, depending on whether you are successful. As you level up, you get to roll more dice, which means your chances of success will increase. However, as you move deeper into the dungeon, the monsters will get stronger too.

Possible results of your encounter are listed at the bottom of the card. 

This is your player board. You track several stats like level and hit points. 

This is a monster. At different levels, the stats differ. 

Several other aspects of dungeon crawlers are present. You can get poisoned. You can get cursed. You can obtain magic potions to use on yourself or on your enemies. You can equip yourself with weapons and other items.

Purple cubes track the potions you carry (max 2). 

There are four characters to choose from, with different special abilities. 

The Play

So far, I have only played this as a two player game. Although many elements of typical role playing games have been simplified, I find that there is still a lot to handle. The game is physically small and the number of game components is low, but the gameplay is still rich. I kept referring to the rulebook to check what the icons mean and how to resolve specific situations. This is by no means a light game. It is still very much a dungeon crawler. The early game seems to be more luck-heavy, since you only have one die and your fate is very much dependent on that one die. Or maybe I need to work harder to find ways to mitigate this early luck factor. 

Unfortunately we didn't last very long, and I never got to experience the late game. Every fight with a monster is a fight to the death, theirs or yours. There is no running away. The moment you get stuck with a monster you can't kill, it's game over. I like this. It keeps you on your toes. 

As you explore the dungeon, cards are revealed. 

This is the master map. You need to survive 10 segments to get to the final boss. 

When you encounter the merchant, you can buy or sell stuff. 

The pawns are lovely. 

The Thoughts

Mini Rogue is a miniaturised dungeon crawler, but it is still very much a dungeon crawler. It's a constant struggle to survive. You need to fully utilise everything at your disposal. You need to plan to level up and to equip yourself. I've never been a dungeon crawler fan nor am I into roleplaying games, so this game didn't quite click. I got it because I was curious about how they miniaturised the whole dungeon crawling experience. I'd say they were successful. 

The Story

I bought this game at the Ares Games booth at the Essen game fair 2024. Well, to be more precise, I got it for free. This is one experience that will make me always remember Ares Games fondly. I browsed their shop and found one of the games being sold, Port Arthur, interesting. Browsing further, I saw the other game in the series, by the same designer, 300: Earth and Water. I decided to get both. One of them was EUR25, and the other EUR29. As I prepared to pay, the lady made me an offer. She said if I picked a third game, I could get three games for the price of two, with the lowest priced game made free. I thought why not. So I browsed the shelves again. I really couldn't find anything else I was particularly keen to try. I only found Mini Rogue to be somewhat interesting, because it was trying to do something a little unusual, packing a dungeon crawler into a small box. So I picked it. Now Mini Rogue was only EUR25. That meant I would get it for free. I thought I was being quite clever. Had I picked a game with a higher price, I would be spending more money in total, despite getting one game for free. I thought the lady would now probably regret making me that offer, because instead of generating more revenue, I was just getting a free game from them. That was a bad deal for them, but a great one for me. The lady checked my three items. She said to me, "Since the third game is EUR25 too, then let's do this. The EUR29 game will be free, and I'll charge you for just the two EUR25 games. So the total will be EUR50." She gave me an additional discount! That was such a nice thing to do. This little act of kindness is what will make me always remember Ares Games fondly. 

It is something we should always remember. Choose to be kind to people. 

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

The Game

Gloomhaven was once the #1 game on BoardGameGeek.com. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a standalone game set in the same universe and not an expansion. It uses similar mechanisms and is slightly simplified. It is currently ranked #9 on BGG, which is amazing. Whether Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion should be ranked so high is debatable. They are legacy games, which means to truly experience it, you need to be committed to play through the whole campaign. Players who are willing to make that kind of commitment are probably big fans of the genre. They are already inclined to like the games. Those who are not very interested will not likely buy or try the game. So legacy games naturally filter out players who may not rate them high. This is how they have some advantage over non-legacy games in the BGG rankings. The Pandemic Legacy games which I like have this advantage too. 

Jaws of the Lion is a fantasy-themed roleplaying tactical battle game. This type is not really my cup of tea, but given the opportunity to try this popular game, I was happy to give it a go. The game is scenario based. One game is playing a specific scenario in the scenario book. Every scenario has its own map setup and objectives. The game comes with 25 scenarios. That's not as many as Gloomhaven, but if you manage to get 25 plays out of a game, it's great value for money. 

I picked this character to play - the bomb guy. There are four characters to pick from. Every character has its own deck of cards. Your actions in the game are all driven by your deck. At the start of a game, you hold all your cards in hand. Every turn you play two cards to perform actions. Each card has two halves. You must use the upper half power of one card, and the lower half power of the other. As you play, you will eventually run out of cards. You will then need to perform a reset to take your played cards back into your hand. As you do this, you randomly lose one card. You go through this cycle multiple times and you will have fewer and fewer cards. You must complete the mission before you run out of cards. This is the time pressure you have to face. 

This is a cooperative game, so you are working together with your fellow players to complete the mission. As you gain experience and money, you upgrade yourself and buy equipment. These are the legacy elements of the game. 

The tutorial (learning scenarios) in Jaws of the Lion are well done. You don't need to read through the whole rulebook to start playing. You just follow the tutorial booklet. There are five tutorial scenarios, and they introduce rules to you bit by bit. By the end of the 5th scenario, you will know the full rules. The first two scenarios are a little simple, but from the third one onwards this very much feels like the full game. Map setup is easy, because the maps are already printed in the booklet (see photo above). You don't need to assemble scenario maps using multiple game pieces. You still need to place some monsters and treasures, but overall it's not much work. 

The cards are the core of the game. At the centre you see an initiative number. Of the two cards you play on your turn, the one with the lower number determines your initiative. Lower means you go earlier. The monsters have initiative values too. If theirs are lower, they will move and attack before you do. On this card above, the two tiny numbers on the left, at the corners of the upper and lower sections, are the basic actions. You may choose to forgo the main actions for these instead. The basic actions are moving two steps and melee attacking at strength 2.  

This is an event card. These cards have story elements. You read the passage, then decide what you want to do. The outcome can be good or bad, and is only revealed after you make your decision. These events are mostly random and generic. You draw them from a deck after all. 

One of the four characters you can play.

There are different types of monsters, and within each type there are different levels. The yellow and white bases represent monsters at different levels. 

This game component is used to keep track of monsters in play. It shows the health points, movement range and attack strength. The six sections on the sleeve are used to track injury dealt to up to six monsters of this type. Slot number 4 has two round tokens, which means monster #4 on the board has been dealt 2 damage. 

These two are equipment cards. You spend money to buy equipment. Any leftover money can be kept for future games. This is part of the legacy element of Jaws of the Lion. Some equipment are worn, e.g. the boots. You can't wear two pairs of boots at the same time. You can't carry too many weapons at any one time, since you only have one pair of hands. 

This little board is used to keep track of elements in the game. Elements are a kind of magic force. There are six types of elements. Some actions you take generate specific elements. You shift the marker for that element to the rightmost position, signifying that this element type is available. Certain actions when taken with the presence of specific elements become stronger. At the end of every round, the element markers shift one step left, representing the elements waning. Eventually the markers will return to the leftmost position, which means the corresponding elements are no longer active. Characters can generate elements for themselves and for one another. This is one way you cooperate and boost one another's abilities. 

The Play

The learning scenarios in Jaws of the Lion are very well structured. I could start playing very quickly. Although the first two scenarios were short and simple, the experience of learning the game was smooth and easy. Now I am not a particular fan of fantasy roleplaying battle games. Jaws of the Lion doesn't feel particularly different. To me, it is mostly just another one of this type of game. The core mechanism of managing your cards is interesting. This is a little different from other games of this type that I have played. You don't roll dice. Sometimes you draw from card decks. There is still some luck. However you can plan out many steps in detail. Much of the game is deterministic, like how the monsters behave and the effects of your actions. You can plan meticulously. Completing a mission is like solving a complicated puzzle. It is planning a long sequence of actions, taking into account how the monsters will react to your actions.  

Allen and I ganging up on a monster

Some maps have treasure chests

These acolytes in red are a pain

Water snakes

The golem is slow, but incredibly strong

For some scenarios, the booklet is not big enough for building the entire map, so a supplementary booklet is used (see the lower part of this photo). 

This time it is he hero being surrounded by monsters

The Thoughts

A few years ago when Gloomhaven was still the #1 game on BoardGameGeek, I almost started a campaign with a few other friends. The pandemic was still happening then. We never got around to start our campaign because we were busy with all sorts of different things. Now that I have tried Jaws of the Lion, I consider that item on my to-do list checked. Jaws of the Lion is pleasant but not surprising for me. Take that with a grain of salt, since it is not my type in the first place. The card mechanism is interesting. The scenarios are immersive. I'm not sure yet whether I'll continue. I still have not done tutorial scenario 5. Since I have only played a handful of scenarios, I can't comment on the overall legacy campaign and the story. That should be an important part of the experience. I'll share more if I do continue the campaign. 

My introduction to RPG's - Fiasco

Plays: 4Px1.

My long-time boardgaming kaki (buddy) Allen has expressed interest in trying out Role Playing Games (RPG's) for quite some time. RPG's are a different genre from the boardgames we are used to playing. When I think of RPG's, the picture in my mind is a bunch of guys sitting around a table playing with paper, pens and dice, and talking a lot. From outside looking in, it's alien. There are no game boards, no fancy cards, no pretty pawns. Where's the game? I have been reading boardgame articles and following boardgame news for many years. I have by now learned a little about RPG's through osmosis, because some boardgame articles mention RPG's. I just never made an effort to try one out. Finally this year Allen decided it was time to stop being NATO (No Action, Talk Only). He got in touch with some local RPG players to request for an introductory session. I grabbed the opportunity to step into the world of RPG's.

We met up with two experienced RPG players, Darren and Kai. We had discussed much beforehand about which game to do. They wanted to make sure they picked a suitable introductory game for us. They introduced to us the many different settings, game mechanisms and game styles within the RPG hobby. We eventually decided to try Fiasco. It is a highly regarded game, and it can be completed within one session (some RPG's can play for years, each session being like an episode in a TV serie, which is almost unimaginable to me, a boardgamer). However Fiasco is not exactly a typical RPG. It puts much emphasis on storytelling, and is light on game mechanisms and rules.

Like many RPG's, the game Fiasco is basically a book. You need to prepare your own sheets of paper, pens, and dice.

The Game

Fiasco has a simple game structure and a simple set of rules governing the overall process. Each time you play, in addition to these rules, you also need the content from a scenario booklet. The game comes with a few scenarios. Many other scenarios have been written and released, including some by fans of the game. We picked a scenario about a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The game is played over four rounds. In each round, every player gets to tell a story from the perspective of his character. The story must come to a point where the protagonist faces a dilemma. The active player can define the dilemma, then ask the other players to decide the outcome; or he can ask the others to state the dilemma, while he decides the outcome. The whole game is about players working together to construct an interesting story.

The game starts with a setup phase, to determine the key elements of the story from which the players will elaborate and expand the story. A set of dice is rolled, and it becomes a pool shared by all players. The scenario sheets list many story elements, all numbered 1 to 6. To select a story element, you need to claim a die with the corresponding number. Players take turns doing this to pick the elements they want in the story. These elements determine the relationships between players. Some will give a character a goal or mission. Some of these elements are described in a vague manner, to allow the players freedom to make up their own stories.

As the game is played, whenever a dilemma is resolved, the active player claims a die depending on whether the outcome is good or bad. You take a white die if the outcome is good, and black otherwise. The colours of these dice you collect during the game will matter eventually, when you reach the finale.

The dice we used. The game requires 2 white and 2 black dice per player. We used the blue dice to stand in for the black dice.

There will be a twist in the middle of the game, after Round 2. A procedure defined by the game rules helps insert this twist, and the players now need to incorporate this twist into their story. It is meant to push the story towards a climax. At the end of Round 4, there is another process to determine how the story ends for each of the characters. This is where the dice collected by the players throughout the game come into play. They are rolled to determine what kind of ending the characters get individually. You look up the scenario booklet to check what your die roll means for your character, and you need to conclude your story according to the general direction the scenario booklet says. The description given by the scenario booklet is usually quite generic, to give you space to fill in the details. E.g. it might say "although you did not achieve your goal, you have gained something unexpected instead".

Fiasco does not have many rules. The rules just provide a framework for the players to tell a story together. The scenario booklet gives you many interesting story elements to get you started, and it is very much up to you how you want to tell the story. The story elements provided by the game system are not meant to restrict you to tell a specific story. They are to assist you and to inspire you to tell an interesting story. They give you a rich and realistic setting to apply your creativity.

The Play

It's hard to imagine the game by describing the rules. I think it is best to just share the story that I made together with Allen, Kai and Darren.

Here's the starting setup of our story. My character was a retired government official, Mr Ron Brown, who used to be the governor of Bombay. He was on a secret mission to deliver a precious diamond from London to New York. He had already retired and had had no intention of being involved in any more political matters. It was upon the urging of an old friend that he agreed to take on one last mission for his government. To avoid suspicion, he kept a low profile and pretended to be just a retiree visiting relatives in USA. He was very nervous about the mission, and he was anxious not to fail his country. Darren's character, Pierre, was on the surface a French gentleman in the jewellery business. However true identity was a notorious jewellery thief, and he had his eyes on this diamond Mr Brown was carrying. He had his network of spies and had learned about this mission well before Mr Brown stepped aboard the ocean liner to New York. He had arranged to be sharing a cabin with Mr Brown. Kai's character was female, a young lady from a noble family which had now fallen from grace. The downfall of the dynasty was due to a much publicised case of jewellery theft, which was the work of Monsieur Pierre. Allen's character Douglas and Kai's character were newlyweds, and they were on their honeymoon. One twist that we had at game setup was there was going to be an incident between Mr Ron Brown and Douglas involving this exclamation: "Who are you? What are you doing in my closet?"

We needed scraps of paper to write down our character details and the relationships and shared story elements between our characters.

Based on what we had set up above, we had to start making up stories for our respective characters and weaving them into one coherent plotline.

It turned out that Mr Brown and Douglas had a rather complicated relationship, involving an incident in the servant quarters in India many years ago. Douglas was a bastard son born of rape when the young Ron Brown had taken advantage of one of his servants. So Douglas was actually Mr Brown Junior. Douglas had hated this father he had never met since young, and had always wanted to take revenge for the hardships he and his mother had to suffer. However when he encountered the frail old Brown Senior on this fateful journey, and confronted him, all past thoughts of revenge melted away. Douglas realised what he always wanted was not revenge. What he wanted was a father. He revealed his identity to Ron, who was utterly shocked. Ron, now that he is old and lonely, had many regrets in his life. He had thought he would die alone and uncared for, and had never imagined having a son in his life. He was overcome with emotion. He was overjoyed to learn that Douglas had just married, and he was going to meet his daughter-in-law soon.

Young Mrs Brown caught sight of Pierre soon after the ship set sail. It was a most hated face that she could never forget. She had vowed to avenge her family's honour, but for years she had failed to track down this notorious criminal. She had never expected to run across Pierre on her honeymoon trip. Pierre did not recognise Mrs Brown, and had no idea he was now a big red target.

This voyage that our protagonists were on was not just any other voyage. It was a historical voyage meant to set a new world record for sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. To the captain, this was to be the pinnacle of his career. So he was much dismayed when an officer brought news to him that another ship, of a rival captain, was setting sail on the exact same day, and was planning to beat him to making the new world record. He was even more dismayed when his head of engineering came up to him to report a problem with the ship's engines. It was not something he could fix quickly, and he advised not to overstretch the engines this trip. The captain decided he was not going to be discouraged. He knew his ship and his crew, and he knew they were going to make history. He was not going to give up easily.

Mrs Brown overhead the conversation between the captain and the head of engineering, and decided this was an opportunity she must not let slip. She knew the moment the ship reached New York, the elusive Pierre would again disappear. If she could cause an engine failure and strand the ship in the middle of the ocean, Pierre would have nowhere to run, and she would be able to plot his demise.

The resourceful Mrs Brown managed to pull it off. An explosion shook the whole ship. Pierre thought this was the perfect opportunity. In the confusion after this loud explosion, he managed to trick Ron into grabbing a fake briefcase with a fake diamond, both of which Pierre had prepared beforehand. With Ron steadfastly guarding the fake briefcase and running around trying to hide from would-be robbers, Pierre had plenty of time to figure out where the real briefcase was in the cabin he shared with the old man. Or so he thought. Young Mrs Brown was much more effective than she herself had expected. The incident she triggered led to a major fire which was now threatening to sink the ship, as opposed to just causing a delay in holiday plans. Now she had even less time to figure out how to get Pierre. It was now or never, she thought, and threw all inhibitions aside. In the chaos of passengers rushing to the lifeboats, she found Pierre, and headed straight for him, armed with a sledgehammer. Pierre was alert and seasoned enough to know trouble when he saw it, and his instincts told him to RUN PIERRE RUN. Thus began a desperate hunt amidst the fire, smoke, screams and fleeing passengers.

Unbeknownst to Ron, he had been secretly tailed and protected by two British intelligence agents traveling as a holidaying couple. With all hell breaking loose, they now approached him and revealed their identities, and made sure he still had the diamond with him. A Royal Navy cruiser was in the area, and the agents called for support. You could say things were getting serious.

Mrs Brown did not manage to get to Pierre. In an untimely explosion, they were both flung into the sea, and she could no longer find him. Ron and Douglas managed to get to a lifeboat. Douglas had expected his wife to join him soon, and when she did not come, he jumped off to search for her. Ron's heart sank as he watched his son plunge into the burning wreck. Was he going to lose his newfound son and daughter-in-law?

Thankfully Douglas did manage to find his bride. However by the time they made their way back to the lifeboat, it had become so full that it threatened to topple over when the other survivors tried to pull them aboard. The survivors immediately starting looking for items to throw out to make space for the young couple. Ron still had the briefcase and diamond, clutched protectively against his chest. It was at that moment that he realised what he truly valued in life. The briefcase and the diamond were unceremoniously dumped, and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, never to be seen again. The Brown family was reunited.

Of course, that was the fake briefcase and fake diamond. The real diamond was found and retrieved by the British agents with the help of the navy. On the other side of the sinking ship, away from the lifeboat the Brown family was on, Pierre was fished out of the water by the navy men on the cruiser. After many years of avoiding the authorities, he was finally captured. However he was no ordinary burglar. With his extensive network of criminals in high places, it was only a matter of time before he slipped away.

Young Mrs Brown failed to take revenge, and ended up in prison. The whole ship were witnesses to her murder attempt afterall. Douglas being the loyal husband visited her regularly, and awaited her release. Ron had almost failed his country and disappointed his old friend, but these no longer mattered that much now.

The Thoughts

This story that the four of us made up together was quite a wild ride. Crazy twists came out of nowhere, and we had to think on our feet to make everything jive. Some of the twists were provided by the game mechanism, some were our own ideas. We needed to harmonise all these story elements, to make sure the story still held, and we also wanted to make it a fun story. Fiasco is very different from the boardgames I normally play. It is an exercise of joint scriptwriting. The game rules and the scenario booklet provide a framework for us to employ our imagination. Normal boardgames don't provide such an experience.

We played for about two hours, and it was an immersive, engaging two hours. Everyone had to pay close attention to the stories told by everyone else, because when it comes to your turn, you have to make sure the story told from the perspective of your character merges well with the stories of all other characters. I was a little sticky about telling a plausible story, and didn't like plot lines that went too far. The story must make sense. Not that we can't have surprises or close-to-impossible events, but the whole thing has to be convincing. If anyone suggests too crazy an idea, I tend to try to steer the story back towards a more logical or reasonable path. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or bad. You are supposed to exercise your imagination in RPG's, but how do you strike a balance between that and telling a plausible story?

RPG players have an excellent command of English. I know my sample is small - just Darren and Kai - but that was one of the biggest impressions I had from my first foray into RPG's. There were some words that they used which I did not understand and had to ask what they meant. And I thought my English was good. They truly dove into the game and acted out their roles, like what actors and drama artists do. In boardgamer circles I rarely see this level of immersion. Boardgames are more about knowing and using the rules well and doing your utmost best to defeat your opponents. You are absorbed in the competition. You are a manipulator of the game system, standing apart from the game world, which you try to control to ultimately give you victory. In RPG's, you are part of the game world, and you mould and grow your game world as you play. You are building an experience, and not trying to defeat your fellow players. Fiasco was a refreshing experience for me.

It occurred to me that Fiasco would work fine in any language. You just need to translate the scenario booklet. It would be interesting to try this with my children. It may inspire them and ignite their creativity.

Darren and Kai shared with me that in most RPG's there is a Gamemaster (GM) who controls how the story goes. The Gamemaster sets the scenario and tells the players what they see and what happens to them. The players decide what they want to do and how they want to handle situations they face. Then the Gamemaster tells them the consequences of their choices. Often this involves some success-or-fail die roll, where the success rate depends on the skills of the characters involved. Many RPG's have very detailed rules on the skills of characters, how they can be upgraded, combat resolution and so on. Fiasco is unlike most other RPG's. It is light on rules, and its focus is the storytelling. Unburdened by rules, players have much freedom to do what they like. There is no GM, because everyone is a GM.

One of the genres in RPG's is the mystery genre, where the GM sets up a case for the other players to solve. I think the next time I try an RPG I'll go for this type.