Game Reviews, Strategy Articles, and More

Foreword

This is a rules-light two-player abstract strategy game. I like rules-light 2 player abstract strategy games.

How to Play

Goal

The goal of the game is to eliminate all of a single type of your opponent’s pieces. (There are 3 types.) You do this by capturing their pieces and building stacks with your own. Stacks can only capture stacks of equal or lesser height.

You can also win by making it impossible for your opponent to capture a piece on their turn.

Set Up

You can either randomly set up the discs, use a predefined setup, or alternate placing discs on the board.

Turn

1. Capture
2. Capture, Stack, or Pass (Skip this step for the first player’s first turn.)

Capture

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto an opponent’s stack of equal or lesser height. Remove your opponent’s stack from the board.

Stack

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto another one of your stacks; this combines the two stacks into one. For determining if you have a disc of a type, only the top disc of a stack counts.

Pass

Do nothing.

Conclusion

This game is simple, elegant, and excellent.

When I previewed this game, I characterized it as a hunting game, and I think that nails it. The ringed piece (Tzaar) is quickly hunted down to just 1 remaining for each side, since each player only starts with 6. To protect their last Tzaar piece, each player will put it on top of a stack. The first player to do that will always have the higher stack, if they stack it every turn. Due to this, that player can chase down their opponent’s stack(s) with impunity.

While this happens, the second player will generally need to shift into hunting their opponent’s second or third rarest pieces (the Tzarra and Tott respectively). So now, the first player is still trying to capture the last Tzaar piece, but they also need to protect their other pieces. The second player, on the other hand, needs to focus on evading the first player’s mega stack while chipping away at the more plentiful discs. This is frequently accomplished by having a few smaller stacks of 2 to 4 discs, as opposed to a big 4+ stack.

Throughout this process, each player can also set traps to ensnare their opponent. For example, player 1 leaves a 3 stack vulnerable. If player 2 captures that 3 stack they might be allowing their opponent to capture one of their stacks. Or, the capturing stack might be put into a position where it can no longer move, neutralizing it. Overall board awareness is critical to winning this game.

Another major decision point in this game is determining when to make a second capture and when to stack. In almost all games, you win the game by capturing your opponent’s pieces. So, capturing moves you directly toward victory. Stacking, on the other hand, is necessary to prevent you from losing; but, it does also give you an offensive edge for capturing. In general, big stacks are better for defense. Multiple small stacks are better for offense.

Everything I have discussed in my conclusion is emergent from the incredibly simple rules. The strategy is surprisingly deep and the better player will usually win. But, there is a lot to pay attention to, and if you neglect something, you can quickly lose. It is easy to focus on attacking and let yourself be eliminated. I really enjoy the back and forth of this game. If you enjoy abstract strategy games like Chess, The Duke, or Push Fight, I highly recommend this game.

Foreword

This is a deck-building word game. While everything may not be perfectly balanced, it is still an excellent game that works with a lot of different people.

Deck-Building

In a deck-building game, everyone starts with an identical deck of cards. These cards are used to acquire new and better cards during the game. All cards you acquire are eventually shuffled into your deck. This means that you will then be able to use the new cards you acquired, in that same game. In addition, all of the decks will diverge as each player makes their own card acquisitions.

Different deck-builder games handle scoring and end game in different ways. Some other deck-builders include but are not limited to: Dominion, Baseball Highlights: 2045, Star Realms, Thunderstone, and Valley of the Kings.

How to Play

Starting Deck

Each player starts with a 10 card deck containing 5 wilds and the letters L, N, R, S, and T.

Turn Overview

At the end of each turn, you draw 5 cards from your deck to use on your next turn.

On your next turn, you use up to all of the letters in your hand and the common vowel to spell a word. That word is worth a number of cents equal to the combined total of the value in the top left of each card used. For instance, if you spelled ‘s*lent’ using 4 of your starting letters, the common card, and 1 wild, it would be worth 5 cents. The wild is worth 0 cents.

With the cents earned from your word, you may buy new card(s). If you had 6 cents, you could buy 3 2-cost cards, 1 6-cost card, or any other combination that adds up to at most 6. Cards you buy go directly to your discard pile.

After you buy your card(s), discard all cards from that turn, whether you played them or not. Repeat this process until the game ends.

Card Type and Abilities

Cards are either Letter cards or Fame cards.

Letter cards have higher cent values (for purchasing more cards) than the starter cards. They can also have abilities that trigger when used in a word. For instance, there is a P that costs 5 cents to buy, is worth 2 cents when played, and, when used as the first letter in a word, it is worth 2 more cents.

Some of these abilities include drawing additional cards at the end of your turn, gaining cards, trashing cards (removing cards your your deck), and even giving a one-time double word score.

Fame cards are either wilds or common cards. Wilds provide 0 cents when used in a word, common cards provide 1 cent. Fame cards are important because they are what give you points at the end of the game.

Your deck starts with 5 1-point wild cards, and there are 4 other wild cards that can be purchased during the game. The higher the cost, the more points it is worth at the end of the game.

Common cards are worth 5 points at the end of the game. You get common cards by making words with at least 7 letters. To get the first common card, you need a 7+ letter word. The second common requires an 8+ letter word. 3rd requires 9+. Final requires 10+.

Game End

The game ends when 1 of 2 conditions is met.

• Any 2 piles of fame cards are depleted

or

• All of the common cards are depleted

Conclusions

I enjoy Paperback. I bought this for a family member that plays a lot of Words with Friends, and she loves this game. Paperback works well as a word game, and it works fairly well as a game in its own right.

As a word game, you get the same feeling of accomplishment when you create an excellent word. In addition, it’s generally not difficult to know the most potential points you can score in a hand, and it feels great when you find a word that does it. I generally see the word game enthusiasts chase after cards that let you draw more cards. This lets them create these impressive 7+ letter words which award the common cards. These long words are generally also worth significant cents, for buying.

For those of you who do not enjoy chasing massive words, you can go after individual high cents cards and fame cards. I frequently go this route. Doing this lets me buy the fame cards, and I am frequently the player that ends the game. As a gamer, I do feel like the balance of the cards might not be perfect; the 4 or 5 cent letters and the single-use double word scores are just so powerful.

The other downside of Paperback is the potential length. When a player takes an incredibly long time to think of a word, the game can drag on. This is especially true if there are multiple people in a row taking a long time. In gaming, this phenomenon is known as Analysis Paralysis (AP). The game does address this by allowing players to ask for help. The helping player then gets a reward. In addition, there is a cooperative mode, but I have not played it yet. There are also a bunch of other “expansions” included in the base game. The expansions that I have tried haven’t been great.

Overall, Paperback works excellently as a game I can play with casual players. It works particularly well for fans of word games.

Foreword

Kahuna is a short 2-player game that makes me feel clever. I really, really like feeling clever.

How to Play

Overview

Kahuna is all about timing, efficiency, and momentum. This is a game where each card is a potential bridge (or half of a negative bridge) used to control islands which by controlling you remove other bridges letting you control more islands. I let myself get carried away there purposefully, but the rules are actually fairly simple.

Goal

In this game you fight for control over 12 islands. Whoever controls the most islands, at 3 points in the game, scores points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The Turn

1. Play any number of cards in hand
2. Draw 0 or 1 card

Playing Cards

You gain control of islands by playing cards.

Each card has the name of an island on it. When you play that card, you place a bridge on any of the connections stemming from that island. For example, if I play an Aloa card, I can place a bridge on the Aloa-Bari connection, the Aloa-Duda connection, or the Aloa-Huna connection.

If placing this bridge grants you a majority of potential bridges controlled for an island, you remove all your opponent’s bridges touching that island and place one of your discs on the island. The disk shows that you control that island. For example, say I have the Aloa-Bari connection and my opponent has the Aloa-Duda connection. I then place a bridge on the Aloa-Huna connection (I could use either an Aloa or a Huna card to do this). I now have a majority on Aloa and would remove my opponent’s Aloa-Duda connection. This could cause your opponent to lose a majority on a different island. This in turn means they no longer control that island.

The second use for cards is to remove bridges. It takes 2 cards to remove 1 bridge. You can either use 1 card from each island or 2 cards from 1 island. For example, if I wanted to remove my opponent’s Aloa-Duda connection, I could use either 2 Aloa cards, 2 Duda cards, or 1 Aloa card and 1 Duda card.

Drawing Cards

At the end of your turn, you may draw 1 of 3 face up cards, 1 face down card, or choose not to draw. If your opponent chose not to draw on their turn, you must draw on your turn. Your hand size is 5 cards, if you have 5 cards in your hand at the end of your turn, you may discard a card face down to draw a card. If you draw a face up card, turn a card from the top of the deck face up to replace it.

Scoring

When you draw the last face up card of the deck, the round ends and scoring occurs. A game has 3 rounds. Bridges are not removed at the end of each round. Shuffle the discard pile to reform the deck for the next round.

• After the 1st round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 1 point.
• After the 2nd round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 2 points.
• After the 3rd round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 1 point for each island they control more than their opponent. So, if player A controls 6 islands and player B controls 3, player A would gain 3 points.
• The player with the most points wins.

Conclusions

I enjoy this game. Like all of my favorite games, this game has a decent amount of depth to it. The rules are simple, but the more I play it, the more I realize. How much do you hoard cards? When is the best time to gain majority on an island/kick your opponent’s bridges off of islands? Which island connections are safe and which are risky? Do you want to expand your bridges on islands where you already have a majority? When do you want to not draw a card? How often should you remove bridges? These are a few of the interesting questions that arise when playing the game.

This game also has the potential for really huge, impressive moves. “I remove your bridge here, so I can play mine there and take control of this island. That then makes you lose control of this island so I will take control of that one too, kicking you off it entirely as well.” I also find it interesting that sometimes the most dangerous thing you can do is to gain control of an island.

Planning is highly rewarded in this game, but you can get lucky face up draws as well. You can mitigate this luck slightly by not drawing a face up card. This in turn doesn’t give your opponent a guaranteed new, situationaly perfect card. I very much still want to play this game more.