Hardback

Hardback can be quickly described as Scrabble meets deck-building. It’s a neat idea. I wondered whether there has already been other deck-building word games, so I did a quick search and found a few. Hardback itself is a reimplementation of a 2014 game called Paperback. That is apt indeed. Upgrades, folks! 

Here’s the basic idea. Every turn you draw five new cards from your personal deck. Every card is a letter of the alphabet. You try to make a word with your cards. If you manage it, you gain the benefits on every card. It can be points. It can be money which you can then spend to buy new cards for your deck. There are also other powers. You can flip some cards face down. When you do this, that card becomes wild. Often you need to do this to be able to make a word. However you won’t enjoy the benefits from face-down cards. You don’t need to use every card. You can discard some. Naturally you don’t get benefits from unused cards either. You don't save money from turn to turn. Leftover money will be used to buy ink. 

This above is an example of how I spelled PERIL. In hindsight, I should have spelled PRUNE, making the L wild instead. It would have given me an extra point from the U.  

Throughout the game you will buy new cards for your deck to augment it. You may remove cards from your deck too. Newer cards are generally more powerful and help you score points more efficiently. The game ends at the end of a round when someone reaches 60 points. 

The core idea is simple. Here are some mechanisms which make the game more interesting. In addition to the basic cards, there are also genre cards in four types - horror, romance, adventure, and mystery. These are all better than the basic cards, and each type provides some unique bonuses. The powers of genre cards usually have two parts. One part will be activated as long as you use the card in your word. The second part will also be activated if you have another card of the same genre in use. What this means is you probably want to specialise in one or two genres so that the chances of you drawing two or more cards of the same genre are higher. 

One card power lets you double the point or money value of an adjacent card. If you manage to pair this with a high valued card, it becomes a huge bonus. One card power lets you reserve a card in the purchase pool. Since this is a deck-building game, there is also a power which removes weak cards from your deck, so that your chances of drawing strong hands increase. 

One mechanism which I find a lot of fun is the ink and ink remover mechanism. At the end of every turn you can decide to spend some of your money to buy ink. You spend ink to draw more cards. This way you can make words longer than five letters. This means you can earn more money and score more points within the same turn. In the game, there is a bonus for having made the longest word. There is some risk though. A card you draw using ink must be used in your word. It cannot be turned face-down to become a wild card nor can it be discarded. If you are unlucky, you may be forced to pass because you can't make a word. You waste a turn. Here’s how the ink remover might save you. This is a rare resource. You can use it to turn a card drawn using ink into a normal card. That means you are not forced to use it and you can flip it face-down to become wild.  

In this example above, the B and O are of the same genre, and the Y and D are of another. This means I am able to use both the basic power and the genre power of these cards. The G and U are wild. I need to flip the L and the C to become G and U respectively. It is always satisfying to be able to spell long words. 

There's one mechanism called timeless classics. These are cards which have their letters in landscape instead of portrait orientation. You can see an example in the screenshot above - the V. When you are able to make a word using a timeless classic card, it stays in front of you and gives you benefits every round, regardless of whether you are able to use it in future words. Your opponents can force you to discard such timeless classics by making a word including your letter. They don't gain anything from your letter though. They only force you to discard your letter. 

I had much fun with Hardback. It is certainly something different from what I usually play. The deck-building and card power parts might feel a little complex to non-gamers, so if you are using the word game premise to lure them to play, do be a little patient in explaining these aspects. I like that this is a game in which you can ask your opponents to help you make a word. They will get a small reward. It is satisfying to be able to puzzle out a decent word. The option to turn cards wild offers much flexibility to players. This will work as a family game. Although adults will have an advantage over children, being able to help one another with making words can turn this into an educational game at the same time. Even when you play with friends, you might learn some new words from them. 

Sblap

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

Sblap is a real-time children's game similar to Halli Galli. Every card in the game has two elements, a letter of the alphabet, and an alien. At the start of the game, all cards are dealt evenly to every player. Your objective is to get rid of all your cards. You shuffle your cards to form a face-down deck in front of you. On your turn, you flip over a card and play it onto a central discard pile. If the letter or the alien of your card matches that of the previous card, a race is initiated. Everyone tries to be the first to slam his hand on the discard pile. Whoever does this first is the scorer for the round, and gets to distribute the cards in the discard pile to all other players in any way he fancies. However there is a catch. Before he does the distribution, he takes a test. He needs to think of a word beginning with the letter on the card just played. In the beginning, all the scorer needs to do is to just say one word. However, in Round 2, the scorer not only needs to come up with a new word, he also needs to remember the previous word. In this way, a chain of words is formed, and every time a player becomes scorer, he must say aloud the whole list. If he fails, instead of distributing the cards in the discard pile, he must instead take all the cards myself. This is painful. Any time a scorer fails his test, the chain of words is reset. In the next round, you start again with just one new word. The game is played until a player runs out of cards. He is the winner.

I played with my children Shee Yun (11) and Chen Rui (9). Chen Rui was saying the words aloud from memory.

Chen Rui getting stuck...

The Play

Sblap is a simple game. It's a real-time game, so it is naturally exciting, and it forces you to concentrate. The memory element makes it even more necessary to stay focused. I find that reflex is more important than memory. I didn't have much problem with memorising the chain of words. It was my quick responses which won me the game. Perhaps I feel this way because our word chain never grew very long. It was always fewer than 10 words. So the memory aspect wasn't much of a challenge for me. The kids were tripped up by the memory element. I had thought children would do better at this, because they are pure and they concentrate better.

When a scorer distributes cards, it is possible to play favourites. He can decide who to hurt and who to let off the hook. If this gets out of hand, your game can end in hurt feelings or sulking. It's not a problem of the game. It's a people problem. If you are introducing this game to friends, it's something to be aware of. This ability to target one person or more can be fun if your group is of the appropriate mindset. It can introduce alliances, cooperation, threats, betrayals, revenge and politicking, and these can turn the game into much more than what its basic premise suggests. When playing with children, I suggest not to allow the game to turn into vendettas or bullying, unless it's your kids ganging up on you (like in my case). If so, take it like an adult and just have fun with them.

The Thoughts

I find the game just so-so, because I don't like memory games. I would rather play Halli Galli which has no memory element. Sblap can be educational if you have children learning English. It can be a covert operation to grow your children's vocabulary and to get them to practise English. Sblap is not purely a children's game. It can be a party game too. It is easy to teach and fast to play. You can get casual gamers and non-gamers to start playing within minutes.

family outing to Meeples Cafe

It had been quite a while since my last visit to Meeples Cafe. The outing before this was last year! We were planning to spend about two hours, but we ended up playing for four hours. Just nice for an early dinner at Burgertory which is nearby. As usual, I read up quite a few sets of rules beforehand, hoping to introduce the children to more new games. We have plenty of games at home. Visits to Meeples Cafe are always for trying out new stuff (at least new for the kids).

This is Baker's Dozen, a game by Reiner Knizia. There have been many versions published. I think the first version was Poison. The latest version is Friday the 13th. There are three donut flavours - chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. At the start of a round, all cards (donuts) are dealt out to all players. Then you take turns playing a card to the centre of the table. Cards of the same flavour must be played to the same group. If your card will push a group's total value over 13, you must claim all donuts in the group into your face-down eaten pile before playing your card into the now empty group. Donuts you've eaten are -1VP each at the end of the round, unless you have eaten the most donuts of a particular flavour. You are exempted from the penalty for such flavours. So you either want to eat the most of a flavour, or none at all. The green donuts are rotten donuts. They are jokers and can be played into any group, but if eaten, they are always -2VP each, no exemptions.

Michelle and Chen Rui (7). At this point all three groups had one rotten donut, so none of them look appetising now.

The round cards look good, but are not practical. They are a pain to shuffle.

Chen Rui applied a simple strategy called nom-nom-nom. She tried to eat the most donuts of all flavours, so that she could completely avoid all penalty points (of the normal flavours). She was going against the flow. She kept telling us not to take "her" cards from the table. Michelle, Shee Yun and I played in a more conventional way, so Chen Rui ate a lot of donuts. Her strategy didn't quite work, because she was not trying to force some of us to eat some donuts and get penalised. Also she wasn't trying hard enough to avoid the rotten donuts. She was more keen to collect as many donuts as she could than to avoid the rotten ones. She was having more fun doing that than trying to win. So she came last, and she had a great time.

No more strawberry flavoured donuts in my hand, so I was safe from taking any strawberry flavoured donuts.

Every player needs to manage many cards at the start of a round, and Shee Yun (9) had to resort to sorting her cards into piles. This was not a good idea, because Michelle and I could easily guess which was which, and what flavours she was short on.

Chen Rui ate so many donuts that Michelle had to help her count at the end of the round.

The packaging is nicely done. The game box (bottom right) is like a real donut carry box.

Although I wanted to get the children to experience new games, sometimes they requested to play games which they have played before and liked, like GIFTtrap. This is a game about picking gifts for your fellow players. You need to know what they like, and you also hope they know what you like. Giving and receiving appropriate gifts both allow you to score points, but if you give or receive a gift which is not appreciated, you lose points.

Shee Yun's (blue) recipient score marker (in the shape of an opened box) has already reached the goal, which means the rest of us have been giving her the gifts she likes. We know her well. Her giver score marker (shape of unopened gift) is still at 0pts, which means she is horrible at picking gifts for the rest of us. At the moment I (green) am the most successful in picking the right gifts for my family.

Michelle (purple) is currently closest to winning. Both her score markers are near the goal. You need both to reach the goal to win.

Michelle (purple) is just one step away from winning.

Take It Easy!, a game I have heard about for a long time, but only now played it for the first time. Every player has his own board and an identical set of tiles. One player takes the role of coordinator, and randomly draws a tile. He announces what tile it is, and everyone else looks for the same tile from their respective sets. Then everyone adds his own tile to his own board. This repeats until you fill up your board. The objective is to complete lines with a single colour. E.g. so far I have completed a yellow line and a green line. The yellow line gives me 9x4=36pts. The green line gives me 7x4=28pts. It's a simple multiplayer-solitaire game, like FITS. I'd avoid likening it to Bingo, because Bingo doesn't require much strategy or planning. Take It Easy! is more challenging.

I have played Hare & Tortoise before, but this was the first time for the children. This was the 1979 Spiel des Jahres winner, and I think it is a very good family strategy game.

It is a race game, but you are not rolling dice to move. The dice are only used when you land on a specific space, to determine whether you encounter good luck or bad luck. It is mostly up to you where you want to move, just that you need to pay carrots (the currency in the game) depending on how far you move. The game is more about managing your carrots (how to earn them, how to spend them) than about blindly rushing forward.

Look how serious Chen Rui is. This game is mostly open information, the only hidden information being cards in hand, so Michelle and I could give the children advice on what good moves were available.

Shee Yun and I.

These are cards from Dragon Parade, a game by Reiner Knizia.

In Dragon Parade, the dragon dance troupe starts a round at the palace (centre of the board). Players then play cards to move the troupe towards either the yellow gate (on the left) or the red gate (on the right). After each card you play, you also place one of your hawkers on an empty space on the board, hoping to guess where the troupe will stop at the end of the round.

At the end of a round, if the dragon dance troupe stops exactly where your hawker is, that hawker earns 5pts. If the troupe stops near a hawker, he earns 3pts. If the troupe stops on the same half of the board (yellow or red) as a hawker, he earns 1pt. For a complete game, you play the same number of rounds as the number of players. The game has a little stock market feel. You have partial information and partial control, and you need to read the group's thinking. You need to guess where your opponents will try to push the troupe, and you have to take into account your bit of control over its movement too.

You start with six cards every round, but you will only get to play four. The surplus two are important, because they are useful information, and they give you options. After playing the first three cards and placing your hawkers, everyone pauses to discard two cards, i.e. you need to decide which one is going to be your last card. Only after that everyone plays his last card to see where the troupe finally lands.

Hamsterrolle was another game we have played before and the children wanted to play again. It's a dexterity game of adding wooden pieces to the wheel and hoping you don't cause other pieces of fall off.

Bananagrams was new to all of us. It's a real-time game. Everyone starts with a certain number of tiles depending on the player count. There will be leftover face-down tiles at the centre of the table. Your goal is to use up all your tiles to make interconnected words. Once someone achieves this, he announces so, and then everyone must draw one more tile from the central pool. This new tile must be added to your network of words. Sometimes it means taking apart your network and rebuilding it.

If you get stuck with a particular letter, you can decide to pass and return it to the pool face-down, but the price is you need to draw three more tiles from the pool. When there are fewer tiles in the pool than the number of players, the game enters the end stage. Whoever uses up all his tiles wins immediately.

Chen Rui was youngest, so we let her team up with Michelle. Shee Yun and I played individually. The game is fun, portable, and easy-to-teach, but I think it doesn't work very well when there is a big gap in English skills among players, e.g. parents and young children. I took a time penalty in our game, but still managed to win rather easily. Maybe I need to find a better way to handicap myself.