=(*)= King's Gate =(*)=

I played this last week...

This is a tile laying game, where there are ten locations and player has to win points printed on the locations by having the most strength around the location. It's a 4 player game with red, yellow, blue and green tiles for the players, each of which have either a number from 1 to 5, or a cup or a dragon (some of these tiles are shown in the image above).

The game starts with a location being laid (and the locations are marked 1 to 10 to show the order that they are to be used) and each player plays one tile per turn around the location during their turn, usually, but there are exceptions. The tile with the 1 has a star on it to remind players that they can put as many 1 tiles as they have in hand (max of 6 tiles in hand) during a turn. The cup, is a bonus tile that has a strength of zero, but can be played in addition with another tile, if the location permits. Most locations permit the placement of multiple tiles, if the tiles themselves allow it. However, two locations only permit a limited amount of tiles to be played and there are some locations (marked by black circles) allow a player to do nasty things to the tiles around that location. The dragon, for example, removes a tile from play.

When all 10 spaces around the location is filled, players calculate who has the strongest strength around it by summing up the number of their tiles around the location and get points as printed on the tile. The last player gets no points. The player who completed the tile then gets to place the next location touching at least one of the existing tiles. This goes on until all players run out of tiles, or location 10 is completed, whichever comes first.

Gamewise, it's pretty boring, but there are twists with the personalities that can be won. I've never played with the personalities, since I've always played this game with little kids who want to feel grown up by playing a grown-up game so I have no idea how they factor into the game. There aren't a lot of tiles anyways, and in a 3 player game, the game ends after about half an hour at location 8, so games are relatively short.

There is some Strategy with this game. Whoever wins early and scores all the low points will generally lose later when the higher scoring locations are placed. The cup and the multiple 1s adds an interesting twist as it means one cannot count on who might finish the location. And of course, a 3, with the sword icon, cannot be displaced by a dragon or a higher scoring number while a location with a black circle is being played, so it is good to horde 3s until such a time as it proves useful.

What is gorgeous about this game is the artwork, which ensures that no matter which way the tiles are placed, as long as they are upright, the images are "completed" along the edge that are placed. Although the art may seem dull at first sight, the details that it contains is excrutiatingly well done and one gets to enjoy the scenery "in between turns" which, due to the tile laying nature of the game, is different every game.

The other thing that the box contains, besides a tray that doesn't seem to hold the tiles too well, are gold coins with 1 and 5s on them to allow a player to keep track of the score. I find these tokens useful for teaching maths to the younger players, i.e. I have 4 points (4x1) and I score 4 more points. How many point would I have? 8. What would be the most efficient way to deal with the tokens? Take away a 1 and add a 5, literally 4-1+5=8.

Overall, this is a boring game, unless one is playing it for educational purposes. Oh, and the game I played? I lost to the youngest player. Go figure!

=(*)= Switzerland to Ride =(*)=

I had the opportunity to play Ticket to Ride (the original) and two games of TtR Switzerland (among other things) over the past few days, so here's a quick review of TtR(S).


Apologies first for the blurry cards. I must have saved the smaller resolution and image size...

What's TtR Switzerland all about? Well, first and foremost it's a 3-player game, and that was the main reason why it saw play over the past few days - because there were only 3 players available. So that's a plus in its book.

TtR Switzerland also takes to it only one feature from TtR Europe - the tunnels. This made it a lot easier to explain to a first time gamer the rules since there were only tunnels to explain, and there weren't any ferries or stations or the other ancillary rules from TtR Europe. The streamlined multicoloured locomotives drawing (i.e. just like a normal card) also made play a lot more smoother, as players didn't have to stop and ask how many cards they had to take after taking one of those locomotives.

The other plus of course, are the multi-route tickets, two of which are shown above. The players I was with simply loved the fact that it is almost impossible to block those cards as there are 3 possible end destinations. One complaint however, was for the multi-route tickets with originated in Switzerland. The names of the cities, unlike the normal route tickets, were not geographically marked and it took a while to locate them. Otherwise, they were fine.

The other complaint in the game, although not a big complaint, is that the names of some of the places were a bit hard to pronounce. "Brno" - is that Birno, Bruno, Beerino? Well, it's definately not on the list of destinations that a regular person outside of Europe would have generally heard of, let alone pronounce.

Even with the double routes open in a 3-player game, some of the routes were still heavily utilised and blocked. Geneva, for example, saw all 4 routes getting used up on both games, while competition was tough at Bern, Basel and Zurich. The eastern part of the map was sparingly used, especially the south-eastern part. Apparenlty Italy isn't that popular as it is miles from the cities mentioned above.

I won the first game, and drew first on the 2nd after the longest route was taken into account (yes, we were playing with the longest route and most destinations bonuses). We were also playing with the new replacement cards which felt so much nicer not only in terms of the smooth finishing, but also because there are no typos (which came with the original cards in the box).

Overall, this game is great for beginners who have played TtR the original, but have not yet got any experience with the other maps yet. I would strongly recommend getting the replacement tickets and the 1910 cards for more fun. The group I was playing with was so enthusiastic about the map that they are looking forward to the Nordic map, which I explained, will have something more (ferries, 9-card routes). Switzerland is a logical fit in progression between TtR and Nordic with Europe and Marklin after those (although not necessary in that order).

I think Switzerland probably made my gaming group TtR fanatics!

=(*)= San Juan =(*)=

The capital town of Puerto Rico is also a card game for the Puerto Rico board game.


So I had a chance to play this game over the holidays (was that 2 weeks ago? Blimey!) and although I enjoyed the company and the playing, I didn't really enjoy the game.

This is a card game, and it entails drawing cards to hands, taking actions in rounds, building buildings, producing more cards and trading produce. Sounds a lot like a CCG, but it's not. It's a card game. The object of the game is to score the most victory points (printed on almost every card. The game ends when one player has built 12 buildings.

The graphics are great for a card game, but is subpar when compared to the images in a typical CCG, or at least the CCGs I'm used to. The gameplay is relatively fast, thanks to the simplicity of the rules (again, when compared to the CCG). I was also told that the game is a lot simpler than it's parent Puerto Rico. There are tactics and strategy involved in the game, but as I played it only once, I could only vaguely sketch out them tactics and strategies.

The gameplay uses almost nothing new to a CCG player - the cards in your hand function as buildings, resources and produce depending on how they are played. Building can only happen in the building round and Produce can only be produced during the production round. One thing that might be new to a CCG player is that the turns do not consists of fixed rounds. There are as many rounds in a turn as there are players and during each turn, each player gets to pick which rounds are in the turn. It's not really novel, though. One of the rounds in a turn that you may pick is the "Draw" round - this is the only card game where one is not guaranteed to draw every round, which makes cards in hands all the more important.

To make a long story short, I finished with 12 buildings and won the game. And I'm saying that not to boast but to illustrate the point that I didn't enjoy the game not because I lost (I didn't!) but because it's a bit skimpy for my taste. At the end of the game, I commented that it feels very much like a game of Citadels, but is less exciting and has more resource management (not exactly in those words) and everyone who was playing with me agreed that it was so. Ah well! This is not something I will get for my own collection. I'll stick with Citadels, thank you very much.

I think this game is meant for hardcore Puerto Rico lovers who are looking for a quicker and lighter version of the game (hence the simplicity and cards as opposed to board). For the average Gamer though, I'd recommend checking out Citadels.