Keyflower

I played Keyflower for the first time during the COVID-19 Movement Control Order period in Malaysia. It is not a new game. It's just that I never found a time to try it out. Since we couldn't go out to meet people for boardgame sessions, Allen, Han and I arranged to play online using BoardGameArena.

The Game

A big part of the game is the bidding mechanism. The game is played over 4 rounds, and the first half of a round is bidding for (mostly) tiles. Your currency is workers, and they come in four different colours. Red, yellow and blue are regular workers. Green is rare workers which you can only get under special circumstances.

The first person who bids on an item decides which colour will be used. Subsequent bidders trying to outbid him must use workers of the same colour. This makes green workers very powerful and valuable. When you use green, others may not have enough green workers to outbid you, or may not think it worthwhile.

Tiles that you win through the bidding are added to your village, which starts with one village centre tile. You also bid for player order. At the top left you can see three ships with workers and tools. These are resources which will enter the game next round. Based on player order, you will pick which set of resources to claim next round.

At the bottom are our villages. We had just started growing them. The tiles have various powers, e.g. producing resources, converting resources. To use the power of a tile, you just need to place a worker (or more) on it. You may already start using the power of a tile that is still in the common pool and not yet claimed by anyone. You may also use a tile already in another player's village, just that the worker you place there will become his next round.

The tiles are double-sided. You may upgrade them to the more powerful side by spending resources. Also you gain victory points when upgrading a tile to the other side. To do this upgrade, you need to not only have the necessary resources, you also need to deliver them to that tile. Some tiles generate resources. Sometimes you gain resources at your village centre. You need to perform deliveries to transport resources to the desired destinations. Deliveries are simply one type of tile power. The village centre has such a power, but it is not strong. You usually need more tiles with delivery powers if you want to be competitive.

Some tiles are for end-game scoring. Everyone gets three such scoring tiles at the start of the game, and they are kept secret from other players. You get to plan ahead based on these tiles. In the screenshot above, this scoring tile gives me 10pts for every set of three different tools. At the start of Round 4, everyone must pick at least one scoring tile from his hand to be added to the bidding pool. You have had time to plan to fulfill the scoring criteria, so usually you will be aiming for those tiles you add to the pool. However it is not guaranteed that you will get these tiles. You still need to win them through the bidding process. Usually you'll try to release tiles which are helpful to you but not to your opponents. This way they are less motivated to fight you for these tiles. However if some tiles are too good for you, your opponents may be forced to compete just to deny you, even if the tiles don't help them much.

After winning some tiles, your next problem will be where to place them. This stage of a round is a little like Carcassonne. The sides of the tiles must match up. Road with road, river with river, field with field. You want your village to be compact to minimise delivery distances. You want to be efficient. Sometimes tile placement affects scoring. Ideally even when bidding you should already plan where you'll be placing the tiles you will potentially win.

The village in the centre is Allen's. At one point he messed up his planning, and his village expanded in an unwieldy fashion.

This particular scoring tile gives you 12pts straight, without needing to fulfill any criteria.

I had added to the pool one scoring tile which was particularly important to me - the tile which would give me 10pts per set of 3 different tools. I had been saving up my tools for it. Unfortunately Allen competed for it and won it. That tile would probably have given me 30pts, and that would be about half my total score. When I bid for the tile, I was stingy and tried to win it with a low bid. Allen knew it was important to me, and he outbid me. I did not have enough workers to continue the fight. I lost the forest because I went cheap on one tree. Aarrgghh! Priorities!!

The Play

The bidding aspect in Keyflower reminds me of trick-taking games. Once anyone starts bidding for an item, the colour (or suit) for that item is locked. You may not have many workers in every colour, but if you are quick, you can protect your bid for a particular item by using your strongest suit or others' weakest suits. Managing your currency (workers) is an important tactical element.

From the beginning of the game you already have 3 scoring criteria in hand, and you can prepare to fulfill them as much as possible throughout the game. This is the long-term strategy aspect of the game. You do long-term planning. You develop your village based on some general goals. It is satisfying to grow and improve your settlement. There is a fair bit of optimisation. Min-maxing. You want to plan carefully and play efficiently, minimising delivery distances, fully utilising the delivery action, producing just enough resources for what you need.

There is also a worker placement aspect to the game, though not a "hard" one. During the bidding stage of a round, you can already decide to place workers to use tile powers. Being first to use a tile does not prevent others from using it. You just make it more expensive. Being first to bid for a tile does not prevent others from outbidding you, just that if you do your first bid well, you can make it expensive and undesirable for others to outbid you. The decision between bidding for a tile and using a tile is often a difficult one to make. There are many things you want to do, but you can only pick one on your turn. You watch your opponents and try to guess what they will likely go for.

The Thoughts

Player interaction is high. Complexity is medium to high. This is quite an involved strategy game that will give you a good mental exercise.

Minerva

Plays: 3Px1.

The Game

Minerva is a design from Japan, by Hisashi Hayashi, a prolific designer. His designs include Yokohama, Trains, Rolling Japan and String Railway. I had not played any of his designs, Minerva was my first time. Minerva was first published in 2015. I played the 2017 English edition, and the artwork is completely different, very much Westernised. Initially I didn't even know this was a design from Japan.

You are Roman governors sent out to found and develop new cities. Everyone builds and manages his own city, starting with a humble fountain. You buy building tiles from the centre of the table to add to your city. Some buildings are free, some cost resources. Some buildings will produce resources for you. Some improve your culture level. Some give one time benefits. Some score points at game end.

A game is played over six rounds. At the start of every round, some buildings are added to the pool at the centre. The number of buildings and the types of buildings are random. During your turn, you can construct a building, or you can trigger a production run. If you don't want to do either, or are unable to do either, you pass and exit the round. Once a player passes, remaining players must pay to perform actions. When the passing player's turn comes again, he earns $1. When you pass early, you put pressure on your opponents, and you may also earn some side income.

These at the centre are the buildings you can buy. Those which are not free have the resource costs at the top left of the tiles. At the top right of the photo you can see six rows of red tiles. These are glory tiles. At the end of every round, everybody compares glory tokens earned that round, and claims these glory tiles accordingly. This is one of three main ways of scoring. Those five buildings on the left are temples. They are the second may way of scoring points. They score points at game end based on various criteria. Whenever one is constructed, another is drawn from the deck to replenish the row.

The components are beautiful, especially the coins. The coins are quite small though. That on the far right is a slave. The rules call this an assistant, but I'm pretty sure he's a slave. At the end of every round you may spend money or glory tokens to buy one slave.

These are the slave prices. This table means if you have X number of slaves (regardless of used or unused), you pay Y amount for the next slave you buy. Slaves become more and more expensive, and you can buy at most five. Those icons at the bottom mean (1) any resource can be spent as $1, (2) if you want to build but are short on a particular resource, you may spend $3 in place of that resource.

The production run is a crucial part of the game. You start the game with just one measly grain. Once you spend it, you have no resources left. Your buildings don't automatically produce every turn or round. Instead you need to take the production action. There are two ways to do production. The first one is constructing a residential building. It's free, and everyone starts with 9 such buildings to be used for the whole game. When you construct a residential building, you trigger a production run in the same column or row it is in, starting from the building itself and going in one direction, until you reach an empty space or another residential building. All relevant buildings along this path produce resources.

In the photo above, the rightmost buildings of both rows are residential buildings. Let's look at the second row. The moment I played that residential building, I triggered the other buildings in that row, from right to left. My buildings produced three scrolls, which represent the art of writing. When scrolls are produced, I get to claim an art tile, which is the third main way of scoring.

Once both ends of a row or column have residential buildings, it is no longer possible to add more to trigger production. This brings us to the other production method - using slaves. You can place one slave into a residential building to use it again. Thus by using residential buildings and slaves, you can do production four times for a particular row or column.

The first temple scores 3VP per military building next to it, including diagonally. The fourth temple scores 2VP per stone resource at game end. The fifth temple scores 3VP per other temple in the same column or row.

So the three main ways of scoring are the temples (scored at game end), the glory tiles (glory earned every round), and the art tiles (first come first served awards subject to having enough culture in your city). Leftover resources and money do give some points. So do the player order tiles in the final round. After 6 rounds, highest scorer wins.

The Play

What I remember most about Minerva is how tight resources are. You have limited opportunities to produce, so you want to make the most of them. I tried to construct as many buildings as I could before I triggered production for a particular row or column, so that by the time I produced, I could produce more. It was a cycle of producing, then more or less using up all the resources produced, and then producing again. This defines the underlying tempo of the game. At the same time you are competing with your opponents for the glory tiles and the art tiles.

This game is a lot about timing. Let's look at the glory token competition at the end of every round. Do you do a production run early, which may give you fewer glory tokens? You may end up with too few to compete well, or you may not have enough to spare to buy a slave. Do it late, and someone else may have passed, making your actions more expensive, and possibly even unaffordable. The art tiles are first come first served, so there is always pressure to grab the art buildings early, to grab the art tiles early, even if it means you are being less efficient. The nature of the competition in this game is similar to that in Agricola - grab it before your opponent does.

In the early game I was so focused on my own city that I didn't pay any attention to Allen's or Han's cities. I had missed one important rule, and thought that production runs only went horizontally. I built my city row by row, unlike Allen's city above which had one row and one column. If you look closely at his row of buildings, both ends had residential buildings now, and both residential buildings had a slave each. This means he had done production for this row four times.

This was Han's city. At this point he had one residential building in each of the four directions of the compass.

This was my city. Due to the initial misunderstanding of the production run rule, I had built it in rows only. One thing unusual you will notice is the two adjacent residential buildings at the right end of the first row. The residential building on the left occupied a space which was previously occupied by another building. The residential building on the right was constructed first to trigger a production run. Then I used a special building to relocate one building to another part of the city, thus creating a space. Later, in this space I constructed the second residential building. The second residential building helped me trigger a production run for almost the whole row. It was just one building fewer - the one which was relocated.

My city at game end. I was quite the prolific writer, scoring all the scroll art tiles. I had only ever bought one slave, deployed to the residential building at East End. I used all nine of my residential buildings. You can count them.

Han and Allen optimising their last few moves.

The title bars of the buildings are colour coded for easy recognition. E.g. purple is for military buildings.

This temple gave me many points. 3VP per adjacent green building meant a 21VP bonus!

The Thoughts

Minerva is a game of tight resource management and meticulous production planning. It is a game with careful timing. Even though you'll be doing your own thing at your own cities, you do still compete in many aspects - in grabbing buildings, in racing to claim art tiles, and in the arms race to get glory tiles. The order buildings appear, and the number of buildings coming up each round, are randomised. This can greatly affect each game. E.g. some games are richer in some resources but not others. This creates variability from game to game.

Kingdomino

Plays: 3Px1.

The Game

Kingdomino is the 2017 Spiel des Jahres winner, designed by Bruno Cathala (Abyss, Cyclades, Five Tribes, Mr Jack). It's a family game and a light strategy game. You build your own little kingdom using domino-like tiles. These are rectangular tiles consisting of two squares. Each square has a terrain type, and possibly one or more crowns. You have an imaginary 5x5 grid in which to build your kingdom. Every round you add a tile to your kingdom. Once the tiles run out, you score your kingdom, and whoever has the highest score wins.

Everyone starts his kingdom with a 1x1 castle. You grow your kingdom outwards from here. Whenever you add a tile to your kingdom, at least one square must touch an existing square of the same terrain type, just like playing dominoes. E.g. a wheatfield square on the new tile matches up with an existing wheatfield. If you are unable to match either square of the new tile with an existing square, you will be forced to discard the new tile. The only exception in terrain matching is the castle. Any terrain matches the castle.

You may choose not to place a tile even if it there is a legal placement. Sometimes this can be beneficial, but this is rare. Discarding a tile is usually involuntary.

You score points for each connected group of terrain squares. The value of a terrain group is the size of the group multiplied by the number of crowns on it. In the photo above, the large wheatfield group is worth 6VP. Size of 6 x 1 crown = 6VP. There are two tiny minefield groups, and currently one is worth 1VP (because of the 1 crown), the other is worth nothing. If these two minefield groups can later be linked up, they will be worth more. You want to build big terrain groups, and you want to have as many crowns as possible in them, especially the bigger groups.

One important restriction is the build area of 5x5. You must never exceed 5 rows or 5 columns. You may expand out from your castle in any direction. The castle need not be fixed as the centre of your kingdom. However if you are able to make it the centre, you earn a 10VP bonus at game end. Also if you manage to place all 12 tiles claimed during the game, making a complete 5x5 kingdom with no holes, you score a 5VP bonus.

How you claim tiles is the interesting part of the game. At the start of the game, you draw a number of tiles equal to the number of players. Every tile has a number on its back, which is indicative of its value. Terrains have different rarities and different numbers of crowns, so in general some are more valuable than others. The tiles are arranged in order of their numbers. Players then take turn claiming one each by placing their pawns. If you claim the lowest numbered tile (which is roughly the least valuable tile), you will have first pick next round. If you claim the highest numbered tile, you will pick last next round. That means you'll take whatever others leave behind. This mechanism of picking both the tile and the turn order for next round is the key element in Kingdomino.

You are constantly assessing the values of the tiles both to yourself and to your opponents. You need to watch their kingdoms to know what they want. Decision-making is based not only on what you want, but also on how desperately you need to deny your opponents. The value of a tile is certainly not simply based on its number. It is much more dependent on the board situation at each kingdom.

In the photo above, the column on the right are the tiles being claimed in the current round. One of them has been taken and the player is now adding it to his kingdom, so the tile is gone. After placing the tile, this active player will pick a tile from the left column to be claimed in the next round.

The game is played over 12 rounds only. Some tiles are randomly removed during setup depending on the number of players, so once the draw pile is exhausted, everyone will have claimed 12 tiles, and the game ends.

The Play

Kingdomino plays very quickly. It's a family game, but it almost feels more like a children's game. The rules and mechanisms are simple, but there is some strategy. You do need to think ahead a little how to build your perfect little kingdom. There's the invisible 5x5 boundary you need to consider. You need to keep your options open for future rounds. The bonuses for having a perfectly centred castle and for having a complete 5x5 kingdom are not easy to achieve. Both require forward planning. I may be making this sound complicated and thinky, but in practice, everything is clean and clear, and the game progresses briskly.

Building your own kingdom is solitaire play. The player interaction is in drafting tiles and fighting for turn order. There is no aggressive player interaction, only the passive aggressive type where you claim a tile which your opponent would have wanted.

The game feels like a puzzle - how do you build your kingdom and maximise your score? How do you try to fit everything in to fulfill all the scoring criteria?

The Thoughts

Kingdomino reminds me of Santiago, because the connected area scoring is similar. Santiago is a mid-weight strategy game. Kingdomino is much lighter. It is brisk and pleasant, and can be done in 20 minutes. Ivan said he is able to play with his young daughter. The only bit she needs some help with is the multiplication. Normally I am less interested in short games because they tend to be less satisfying. In the case of Kingdomino the challenge in building that perfect little kingdom is enticing me to play again.

Cottage Garden

Plays: 3Px1, 2Px1.

The Game

Cottage Garden is a light game from Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola, Le Havre). It has the Tetris-like puzzle element, similar to Patchwork and A Feast for Odin.

Every player has two 5x5 player boards. These are your flowerbeds. Your job is to fill them up with the Tetris-like pieces, which are mostly flowers (some are other garden decorations or equipment). Each time you fill up a flowerbed, you score points, and then get a new flowerbed to start over. There are flower pots and plant covers on the flowerbeds. You want to keep them exposed as much as possible, because they are what score points for you. The L-shaped piece on the left is your score board. When you score flower pots, you may advance any one of the orange scoring markers. When you score plant covers, you advance a blue marker. Notice that each step a flower pot marker advances gives you 1pt, while a plant cover marker gives you 2pt per step. Also, between 14pt / 15pt and 20pt, there is only one step, so it is a steal if you manage to get there.

The cat pieces are 1x1 pieces which help you fill up your flowerbeds. They don't score points, but they are convenient and they can be used at any time.

This is the main board, called the nursery. During game setup, it is filled with flowers tiles. Players claim flowers from this board to add to their individual flowerbeds. The die is a countdown mechanism. At the end of every player's turn, it is moved one step clockwise. When it completes a full circuit around the board, its value is increased by one. When the value reaches 6, the game enters the final stage. Upon entering the final stage, flowerbeds with too few flowers are immediately discarded. The game ends after the remaining flowerbeds are filled up by their respective owners. The twist is from this point onwards there is a penalty at the start of every turn you take. So you want to finish up your flowerbeds as quickly as possible. Otherwise whatever you score from them may not be sufficient to cover the penalties.

The die also determines which flowers are available to the active player. On your turn you may only choose from the flowers in the same row (or column) as the die. The active row sometimes needs to be refilled. If there is only one flower tile remaining, the row is refilled before you take your turn. Alternatively, you may spend one cat to refill it, giving yourself more choices.

Notice the tile at the top left corner of the flowerbed on the right. There is a flower pot on it. These flower pots score points too, not only those printed directly on the flowerbed.

When I read the rules, I thought the rule for the parasol was rather silly. If you need to borrow a flower tile from the main board to see whether it fits well on your flowerbed, you are supposed to place the parasol on the spot from which you borrowed the tile, so that you won't forget where you need to return the tile to. I thought that was unnecessarily cumbersome. However when I actually sat down to play, I realised it was indeed easy to forget where I took the borrowed tile from. I was humbled. The gamemakers knew what they were doing.

Flower tiles not yet in use are to be arranged in a queue beside the nursery (main board), so that players know what is coming next. The hand cart points to the head of the queue.

This is a completed flowerbed. Look closely and you will see that two of the flower pots are actually round tokens and are not printed on the flowerbed. On your turn, in lieu of taking a flower tile from the nursery, you may take one of these flower pot tokens. This sounds like a good deal, since each flower pot is worth 1pt. However flower tiles are much larger and help you complete a flowerbed more quickly. So usually these flower pot tokens are used to fill up those odd spaces on your flowerbeds which are hard to find flower tiles for. When scoring this completed flowerbed above, you move one orange marker 6 steps (for the flower pots) and one blue marker 2 steps (for the plant covers).

The nursery is double sided. Depending on the number of players, the rules are slightly adjusted and you need to use the appropriate side.

That red line at the elbow of the L-shaped board means something. Whenever a score marker crosses the line, you gain a cat. The scoring mechanism in Cottage Garden pulls you in two different directions - quality vs quantity. If you focus on advancing a single orange marker and a single blue marker, they will most likely exceed the 14pt and 15pt spots on the score track, and give you bonuses by jumping straight to 20pt. Being first to reach 20pt also gives you a bonus. This is the quality angle. The quantity angle presents two incentives too. If you advance your markers evenly, more of them will cross the red line, giving you more cats, which in turn help you complete more flowerbeds. Also, each time your third marker of a colour leaves the starting space, you gain a free flower pot. This again helps you fill up your flowerbeds.

The Play

Playing with the children.

When I explained the rules to the children, they sounded a little complicated, because there were quite a few situations I had to describe and explain what needed to be done when they came up. However, the actual playing of the game was very simple most of the time. The various situations I had to explain did come up, but not frequently. Most of the time you are just picking a flower tile and placing it on one of your flowerbeds. This is a casual and relaxing game.

There are some tactics in picking the flower tiles. You can see which tiles fit your flowerbeds well, and you can calculate whether you will have a chance to claim them. You can also check whether a tile you want is useful to your opponents. If it is, you probably want to take it before someone else does. Otherwise you can probably risk the wait. You can also look ahead at the tiles which will be soon entering the nursery. Sometimes it is worth spending a cat to bring them in early, so that you can get your hands on a particularly nice-fitting flower tile. There are plenty of little tricks to apply, but nothing too taxing.

Tempo is something to consider too. You want to time your planting such that when the game enters the final phase, your flowerbeds are either almost complete, or barely started. A mostly empty flowerbed means you can discard it without taking penalty, and an almost completed flowerbed means you will take minimal penalty before finishing up and scoring points.

I have listed quite a number of tactical considerations, but I am probably making it sound more complex than it actually is. This is a light game. Perhaps I am being influenced by the artwork. I cannot picture this being anything other than a leisurely pastime, like some quiet gardening work.

A 2-player game in progress.

Chen Rui suggested we put the flower pots in the cart, which I thought was a brilliant idea!

The Thoughts

Cottage Garden is a light family game, a casual game. There is some strategy, but it is generally relaxing and non-confrontational. The main selling point is the Tetris-like spatial puzzle element. How much you like the game depends on how much you like this core mechanism. The rest of the game are supporting mechanisms. Comparing Cottage Garden and Patchwork, in Patchwork you won't be able to fill up your player board, but in Cottage Garden you will fill it up again and again. There are many tools to help you do this. It is as if Uwe Rosenberg felt bad for teasing you in Patchwork, and now wanted to give you the satisfaction of getting the job done. Cottage Garden has more rules and more components, and thus should be more complex. Strangely, it doesn't feel so to me. In fact there is one aspect in Patchwork which makes me feel it is the deeper game. In Patchwork you need to consider the economic ramifications when you choose a tile. You need to plan for the future, you need to stay solvent (even if your currency is buttons). Cottage Garden is more pure in driving you towards completing your flowerbeds. It is a straightforward, pleasant game.

Isle of Skye

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

The first thing Isle of Skye reminded me of was Carcassonne. Every player builds his own kingdom in a very Carcassonne-like manner - placing tiles and making sure the sides match. There are three terrain types on the tiles - grassland, mountains and lakes. These must match when you place a tile next to another. However roads don't need to match. They can terminate in a dead-end abruptly. The tiles have many other elements - sheep, cattle, farms, ships, barrels, lighthouses etc. All these help players score points in different ways.

This is the main board. At the start of each game, four scoring tiles are drawn from a pool and placed on the spaces marked A to D. They determine the scoring criteria for each of the 6 rounds in the game. Many scoring tiles come in the box, so there are plenty of variations in the combinations and orders of these tiles, making each game different. The 6 plates on the board represent the 6 rounds in a game, and the ribbons with alphabets indicate which scoring tiles will be active for each of the rounds. E.g. in Round 1 only scoring tile A will take effect, while in Round 6 tiles B, C and D will all take effect. Taking tile A as an example, everyone scores points based on his largest lake. The lake scores 2pts per tile.

The most important part of the game is how tiles are acquired. At the start of every round, everyone draws 3 tiles and places them in front of his screen. Everyone gets to see everyone else's tiles. After that, you secretly decide which of your three tiles you will remove from the round, and how much money the other two are worth. These are done behind your player screen. You use the axe marker to decide which tile to put back into the bag, and you use your own coins to set the prices for the other two tiles. Once everyone has done this, the screens are removed, and the axed tiles are removed. Beginning from the start player, everyone gets one chance to buy one tile from another player, paying the price as indicated. If there is any tile that you don't sell, you must buy it yourself. Upon the conclusion of the tile buying phase, a player may have up to 3 tiles, one purchased from another player, and two of his own which are not bought by others. In the worst case, he may have no tile, because he can't afford to buy one, and both of his are bought by others. After all the buying is done, players add their new tiles to their kingdom, and then score the current round.

When the screens are removed, you may be surprised, e.g. a tile which you have expected to be available is being axed by the owner, or the owner has set a price which is higher than the amount you have set aside.

One crucial part of the game is how you set the prices for your tiles. Set it too low, and you would be making things easy for your opponents. Set it too high, and you may be forced to pay the price yourself. A tile is usually worth a different value to different players. Sometimes it's because of the difference in terrain and kingdom shape. A tile that fits one player may not fit others. Sometimes it's because the players are focusing on different scoring criteria, or they have collected different scrolls. Scrolls are one type of element found on the tiles. They are used for end-game scoring, different scrolls specifying different scoring conditions.

Everyone makes money at the start of a round, so money is injected into the game economy. There is a base income of $5, but you earn more for barrels connected to your castle by roads. When players buy tiles from one another, money stays in the system. When they buy their own tiles, the money is paid to the bank and thus leaves the system. The value and power of money changes depending on how much is in circulation. Every $5 is worth 1pt at the end of the game.

The Play

We did a 4-player game. Kareem taught Jeff, Allen and I to play. I completed a medium-sized lake in Round 1, which allowed me to start scoring. It was worth 8pt each time it scored, which was a decent amount in the early game. That helped put me in the lead for most of the game. Unfortunately that wasn't necessarily a good thing. From Round 3 onwards, trailing players earn some extra money, depending on how many opponents are ahead of them. The end-game scoring from scrolls can be a significant part of the final scores, so taking the lead throughout the game is no guarantee for success. Planning well for the end game is important. Kareem did this very well, buying many tiles with scrolls. I did poorly, and ended the game with just one scroll. When we did the end-game scoring, I dropped from first place to last.

Allen had a funny experience. Somehow he often came away with fewer tiles. Everyone liked buying his tiles. Maybe he was always lucky (or unlucky) to draw attractive tiles. Even when he priced them high, others still bought them. He had a smaller kingdom, but on the bright side, he was filthy rich. The money did help him to "protect" his tiles later on, pricing them beyond what others were willing to pay, or could afford to pay.

In the late game, prices sometimes went beyond $10. At this range, we had to consider carefully whether the tiles were really worth the money, because $10 was 2pts.

This was the last round, before the final scoring was done. I (green) was in the lead, but this was hollow. I was ill-prepared for the final scoring and I knew things were not looking good.

This was my kingdom at game end. I had only one scroll, at the bottom right. It gave me 1pt per tower. I had 3 such towers in my kingdom.

The Thoughts

The most special aspect of Isle of Skye is the tile pricing and buying mechanism. Evaluating how much each tile is worth to different opponents and to yourself is tricky. There are many factors to consider and priorities to weigh. There are many different ways of scoring, and many different elements on the tiles which count towards these ways of scoring. They feel abstract and uninspiring to me. I feel they exist purely for the sake of creating many different incentives. They are there to create differences in values of the tiles to different players. I can't link them to the setting. I can't imagine any interesting backstory.

The game has a spatial element - how tiles fit together and how you sometimes want to complete certain terrain sections. There is satisfaction in seeing your kingdom grow, and in optimising your tile purchases to maximise scoring across multiple criteria. The kingdom building part is mostly a solitaire game, since everyone plays in his own area. Overall the game isn't attractive to me, because of that feeling of multiple ways of scoring existing for the sake of having multiple ways to score. It is needed to support the tile buying mechanism, but it rubs me the wrong way. The tile buying mechanism itself is quite clever.

Patchwork

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

If your exposure to Uwe Rosenberg's games started with games like Agricola, Le Havre, and Caverna, you will be quite surprised with Patchwork, because it is something very different. Patchwork is a short, 2-player-only game. It is a light strategy game with a significant spatial element.

Both players start with a blank 9x9 board (see left of photo). You want to fill up your board as much as possible, using tiles bought from the centre of the table. Available tiles are arranged in a huge circular track (which takes up much space). A common pawn (see lower left of circle) is placed between two tiles in this circle, and will move clockwise. On a player's turn, he may buy one of the three tiles in front of the common pawn. The common pawn is then moved to the space vacated by the just-purchased tile.

The objective of the game is to have the most money, and the currency in the game is buttons. You spend buttons to buy tiles. Some tiles have buttons on them, and these tiles earn you buttons at specific points during the game. At end-game, you need to pay 2 buttons for each exposed space on your board. Whatever you have left is your final score.

This is the central board. It is a countdown device. The 2 players start from the outermost space and work their way inwards. The game ends when both player pawns reach the centre. Each step in this countdown track is one unit of time. When you buy tiles, you need to pay the cost in two currencies - buttons as well as time. Buttons is straight-forward. It's your main currency in the game. Paying the time cost means moving your player pawn on the central board, i.e. counting down.

The turn order mechanism is like Thebes and Tokaido. Whoever is behind on the time track goes next. It is possible to take two or more turns in a row, if your opponent is far ahead in front of you and you take small steps.

Two important things to take note of in this photo: (1) Whenever your player pawn passes one of the small 1x1 pieces, you claim it and use it to fill one space on your board. This is something you race for and try to manipulate your pawn movement to grab before your opponent can do so. (2) Whenever your player pawn passes one of the buttons, all the tiles with buttons on your personal board earn you buttons. This is how you get income, which you will need to buy more tiles.

When you can't afford to buy any of the three tiles in front of the common pawn, you have another option - you can spend time to gain buttons. You move your player pawn to the space exactly in front of your opponent, and gain a number of buttons according to how many steps you have moved. This happens quite frequently in the game I played.

This was my player board in the middle of the game. My income level was 9 - I had 9 buttons showing now on my board.

The Play

I played with Allen. Both of us were new to the game. The rules are quite simple. This is a flexible complexity game. If you want to think of all the possibilities when you make your move, you can. You can consider which of the three tiles available to you fits well on your board, whether there is one among them that your opponent wants and you should deny him, whether you are going to put the common pawn in a position favourable to your opponent after you buy a certain tile, and so on. If you want to play in a light and easy manner, you can too. You can play by gut feel and with minimal analysis. The decision you need to make on your turn is simple - spend buttons (and time) to buy a tile, or spend time to earn some buttons.

I noticed that Allen did do some tactical calculations, e.g. timing his move precisely so that he could grab one of those 1x1 tiles before I could, or so that he could take two consecutive turns. There are such clever moves that you can try to pull off. There are such small, interesting tactics in this seemingly simplistic game.

The tiles come in many different shapes, and many are quite large and unwieldy. It is quite challenging to fit them well on your player board. It is a fun puzzle to figure out from turn to turn.

The pawn always moves clockwise. The available tiles are the next three in its path.

This was my player board at the end of our game. I still had 9 empty spaces - 3 at the top left, 5 at the top right and 1 at the bottom right.

The Thoughts

I imagine Patchwork will work very well as a spouse game, i.e. when one spouse is a gamer and the other isn't. It's not long or complex, but it's challenging enough and it has some strategy. It's a cute package. It is a puzzle with a spatial element. Your circle of tiles will be different from game to game, so despite being an open information game, the game does not always progress in the same way. I think Patchwork will work well as a filler game too, and as a parent-child game with an older child. It is not a main course game, but it is a refreshing side dish.

Maori

Plays: 2Px4.

The Game

Maori is a tile placement game and a build-up-your-own-play-area game. The theme is about discovering islands, but it's pretty thin. I ordered this game a long time ago after reading some favourable reviews. I thought it might be suitable as a 2-player game with my wife Michelle. Something quick, easy to set up, but not too light. Now that I have played it, it turned out to be trickier than I had expected. And Michelle completely slaughtered me. And this is not even an accountant game like Power Grid or Factory Manager, so she doesn't have a professional advantage over me. I have yet to make my first win.

In Maori there is a ship sailing around a 4x4 grid of tiles. On your turn you must move the ship and then you can claim the tile next to the ship, or another one in the same column if you are willing to pay. You place these tiles on your player board, and when one player's board fills up, the game ends, and you score based on how well you have assembled your island nation. Sounds simple?

The 4x4 grid at the centre of the table, from which players pick up tiles to add to their player boards. I arrange the tiles so that all palm trees point at the same direction, so that it's easier to read.

What's tricky is the various restrictions on how you can place the tiles. The game comes with a number of variants, and each of them introduces additional rules, restrictions or scoring opportunities. We started with the basic game, and with each subsequent game, we introduced new advanced rules. In the base game, palm trees must point north. Islands stretch either north-south or east-west. The available spaces on your player board is itself a restriction, because to fill it up you need to get the right tiles. Single tile islands and ship tiles, although often not high-scoring, are attractive because they are convenient. You don't need to worry about finding a matching island tile to complete the island. When you add the first variant, you gain your own ship on your own board, which you can move around, but on your next turn you must place your new tile next to your ship. With the second variant, you can't move your ship anywhere you want. You must always move it to the most recently placed tile. These additional rules force you to plan well ahead how to construct and complete your board.

Ship icons allow you to move the common ship at the 4x4 grid further, giving more flexibility in picking tiles you want. Shells have various uses, e.g. picking tiles not directly adjacent to the common ship, moving the common ship further, moving your personal ship etc. Both also score bonus points at game end, but only if you have the most.

My player board. The game has ended, so I will have to remove the two tiles on the bottom right because the island is incomplete. Scoring methods are summarised on the right side of the player board.

Game components: common ship, shell, tile back, volcano tile (a special tile which cannot be picked by players, and blocks players from picking tiles beyond it), a regular tile with 3 palm trees.

The Play

In the first few games that I played, I might have been too ambitious and also too liberal in my spending of shells. In the end I couldn't complete some big islands before Michelle ended the game, and I had to discard those half-done islands. So instead of scoring big, I was penalised for the empty spaces on my board. Michelle had been thrifty with her shells, and had also been careful in collecting ship icons. These gave her many points at game end. I lost by a mile.

As we added more and more advanced rules, the game became more and more interesting. It plays as quick as a filler, but the long-term planning of how to move your personal ship, the denying your opponent of tiles she wants, the push to end the game before your opponent is ready, the positioning of the common ship to help your next turn, all make the experience very fulfilling and challenging. This game is not as easy as it looks. Well, at least not when playing with all the advanced rules. This is not Carcassonne-like at all. It is tighter and tougher. It is just different; they should not be compared.

I still have not been able to beat Michelle. I came close, and really thought I could win, but alas, it was not enough. Rematch!

Michelle's completed player board. She even has a completed flower circle, which is worth 10pts (which is a lot).

My player board, using the advanced rules (that's why you see my green personal ship). This is a big improvement compared to my first few games, but I still lost to Michelle.

The Thoughts

Maori looks pleasant enough, but is actually quite tricky. I guess you can play in a more relaxed way by only playing the basic game, but I prefer to have the advanced rules added, at least the first two variants. It becomes a game with lots of tactical opportunities and lots to think about, and yet is still quick. I wouldn't call this a filler game though, or recommend it to be played as one, unless you stick to the basic game.

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Buy from Noble Knight Games. Status: in stock (at time of this post).

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