First up was The Downfall of Pompeii, by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede, the same sprightly gent that gave the world Carcassonne. I've picked and pawed this one in many a retail store, but finally decided to pull the trigger recently because I've always been fascinated by the doomed city. Recent headlines have only served to get it trending back in my fevered brain.
Color me surprised when I discovered that the game is remarkably straightforward, like a light Euro version of Survive: Escape from Atlantis. In the first phase, participants take turns playing color and number-coded Pompeii Cards to place their rotund little meeples in various Buildings spaces on the board.
In the second phase, the placement rule expands considerably. If you drop a dude or dude-ette into a given Building, you can place bonus citizen based on the number of flat-mates they have. For example, if you placed a person in a Building with two friendos, can drop two more bonus "Relatives" in different sections of the same abode, another color-matched structure or a neutral Building.
At this stage, players will also start to pick up and play Omen cards, which are used to huck rival citizens into the Volcano. Typical targets for these sacrifices are meeples close to the exits or owners who have already made an enemy around the table.
Things go absolutely banana-cakes in the final phase of the game. Instead of placing any new citizens, Lava Tiles start dropping on the board. Naturally, these tiles can be used to block potential escape routes and kill whole swathes of fleeing citizens. In an elegant reflection of "mass panic", escaping meeples move a number of spaces equal to the total number of Screaming Mimis in their starting space. For example, if one of my peeps has two others companions in its square, that jobber can move up to three spaces towards the gates.
Notwithstanding the fact that it's kind of a pain in the dodecahedrons to set up the draw deck, this game is a blast (pun vaguely intended). Even though the rules are simple, there's a fair amount of strategy to placement in phase one and movement in phase three. Social engineers will also enjoy goading rivals into an Omen-fueled sacrificial tit-for-tat.
A little bit o' strategy, a nice dollop of luck and the gleefully-anarchic ability to sink enemy meeples from downtown into a plastic Volcano...what's not to love? This one scores four pips outta six with a terrifying tilt up towards the top o' that ominously-smoking mountain.
Next up is PARKS, by Henry Audubon.
In this delightfully-beautiful game, players take on the role of Hikers venturing out on the Trail to revel in the Sun, Water, Trees and Mountains. By collecting these elements, players can Visit famous American National Parks for victory points. Along the way, participants can take Photos for additional veeps and vie for control of the Camera, which makes this endeavor more efficient.
Players accomplish these tasks by moving their two explorers inexorably along the Trail, jostling for position and picking up the "ingredients" they need. Normally there's a "one hiker per space" limit, but participants can flip their Campfire Tokens once per round to break this restriction.
Players can also collect Canteen Cards, which let you convert Water into the more rarefied elements needed to visit certain Parks. At the end of the Trail, Hikers can pay the matching elements to Visit a Park, reserve a Park or purchase helpful Gear Cards which give you rules-breaking powers.
End game victory points are tallied from the value of Visited Parks, possessing the First Player Token, the total number of Photos you've taken and from one of two secret objective Year Cards selected at the start of the game. Ergo, the winner is always in doubt right up to the very end.
So, basically, Parks is Tokaido if the paths between the Inns changed and expanded on every leg of the journey.
Thematically, the concept of going on hikes to get the elements needed to be the sole visitor to a famous park is a bit wonky to me. And, since secret objectives are highly dependent on the Park Cards that appear in the limited three-slot "market", your ability to complete these tasks feels like a bit of a crap-shoot.
Nevertheless, as a nature freak, this one is right up my alley. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the game is patently gorgeous. The First Player Token, evocative Park Cards and Hiker / Resource Tokens are all top-notch. And although they didn't need to make all of the wild-resource Wildlife Tokens unique, they did, and this sort of attention to detail really deserves praise.
But Parks isn't just a pretty face. The variable Trail order, Advanced Site Tiles and Season Card resource tweaks alone make for a more varied experience than base-game Tokaido. And, since there's no limit to the number of Canteens and Gear you can collect, you aren't limited to a single character power that virtually dictates what spaces you should visit. Heck, clever players can even forge a pretty decent efficiency engine for themselves! Add in the "photography competition" and you've got an experience that's tons o' fun.
Side note...Dear Keymaster Games: please gimme a Canadian expansion already!
Parks scores five pips out of six!
Finally, we played Seven Bridges, one of only two roll-and-write games that I've actually enjoyed! After both That's Pretty Clever and Imperial Settlers fell completely flat for me, I started to think that maybe "R&W" games just weren't for me.
But, as it turned out, I just needed a designer to marry appropriate, compulsively-playable, mechanics with an appealing theme...I.E. the same criterion I have to any other type of game. Cartographers, with its Tetris-y spacial relations and "throw-a-spanner-in-the-works" player interaction, did this particularly well. And, lo and behold, Seven Bridges appealed to both the gamer and the shut-in tourist in me!
Over the course of five rounds, players draft customized dice that let them fill in a "walking tour" around the beautiful city of Königsberg. As they pass by Landmarks on the map, they unlock special Bonus actions. These are either Immediate, like filling in one or more "free" map spaces, or Reserved, such as unlocking the ability to traverse previously-blocked Footpaths or re-rolling * slash * re-distributing dice.
In the end, players score points for their optimal enclosed route, which is determined by the number of right angles multiplied by the number of Bridges crossed during your stroll. They also get exponential points for all of the Bridges crossed and Landmarks visited, Buildings and Trees they passed by, points next to visited map edges, and the scores associated with unlocked Bonus actions.
The simple act of filling out the matching pattern on a drafted die to expand your footpath around the city is simple, fun, intuitive and elegant. Ron Halliday, the designer of Seven Bridges, is a professional cartographer ..and it shows. The mini-map is visually appealing and the custom dice are hella-sweet.
I know this probably sounds ridiculous but, in some tiny way, playing Seven Bridges reminds me of something I genuinely miss, and that's strolling through the streets of some beautiful, historic European city to see as many wonders as I can before it's time to go home.
And, for that, I just want to thank designer Ron Halliday. I know it's a small comfort to me, but it's a comfort nonetheless.
Seven Bridges scores five pips out of six with a massive tilt up towards the weather-vane on the top of Königsberg Cathedral!
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Hey, folks! If you're enjoying these mini-reviews, please consider buying me a Coffee, which, full disclosure, will likely go towards the future purchase of more Seven Bridges map pads!
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