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Sequence
Sequence
1982 | Abstract Strategy, Card Game
Addictive
If you hate card games and strategy games then I’m afraid Sequence really isn’t for you. However if like me you love both types, then Sequence is a highly entertaining and addictive game.

It works a little like Connect 4 with cards, but with a lot more detail and thinking involved. And like games like Monopoly, the cards you get are based solely on luck (of the draw/dice) and your strategy is what helps you win. But unlike most strategy games, Sequence is a fairly short one. It doesn’t drag on for hours (unless you spend a long time picking where to place pieces), and it doesn’t get boring. It can get a little frustrating at times, especially when you know you can have nothing to prevent your opponent from winning, but that’s all part of the game.

The only criticism is that despite stating it is for 2-12 players, it’s actually only for 3 players or 3 teams, as there’s only 3 different colours of chips. Whilst I understand that you can’t have a huge amount of players, surely 4 would’ve been a better and more appropriate number of players/teams/colours?

Despite this, it’s still a hugely addictive and fun game to play, I can’t see it getting old any time soon!
  
Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game
Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game
2017 | Card Game, Dice Game, Fantasy, Roleplaying
Over 250 unique pieces of high quality artwork (3 more)
Solo play using one character
Massive replayability
An evolving story that's different every time
Can take 4-5 hours with 4 players (1 more)
Can be brutally hard if the dice roll bad
An Epic Narrative Adventure Game for 1 to 4 heroes
Gloom of Kilforth is an epic narrative adventure where you try to complete your saga and defeat the ancient evil bringing the land into gloom.

You start by choosing a character, class and a saga to tell. Your character and class give you your starting stats (combat, knowledge, sneak and influence) while the sagas are 4 chapters long and each chapter requires 2 (or 3 if only playing 1-2 players) keywords to complete. Completing a chapter levels up your character giving you more health and a new skill.
Keywords are found on the cards you encounter as you search the map and are colour coded to give you a hint to where they are most likely to be found.

The map is a 5x5 grid of cards with Sprawl City in the centre and a mix of Forests, Mountains, Plains and Badlands arranged randomly around it.
Every time you enter an empty location, you draw a card from the relevant terrain deck and interact with it.

Encounters are won by rolling a number of d6 dice equal to your skill in the stat list d on the encounter. Success is on a 5 or 6 so playing to your character's strengths is paramount.

Each player starts with 4 health and at the start of each round, you gain action points equal to your current health which makes strategy and stealth the key to early success.
It also means that the game starts slowly but starts to snowball as you complete the chapters of your saga and level up.

At the end of each round, you make camp and draw a night card which causes a location to fall into gloom and possibly trigger an event. A character ending the day on a gloom location will suffer 1 health point loss.
This is the game timer, so you have 25 days to complete your saga, gain more skills and equipment and confront the big bad.

Despite the random encounter draws and the size of each terrain deck (30+ cards each), every card has been carefully designed to fit into the game and let you narrate a unique story as you play.

If you want a unique narrative adventure game with a solid depth of strategy, look no further.
  
Pretense
Pretense
2015 | Bluff, Deduction, Party Game, Real-time
Have you ever invented something that already exists? I have. I invented the mechanism that is used in fast food joints where you can fill up the cups with just enough ice and pop (yes, it’s POP) per size of cup. So it only fills up enough ice and pop to fill a Small cup, for example. I invented that!! Until I saw that it was in use a year later after not doing anything about it. In any case, Pretense is a game that I should have invented. It’s one of those ideas where you think to yourself, “Well gall-darnit, why didn’t I think of that??”

This is a Button Shy game so you know it will be compact and fit into one of those nylon wallet things. Mine, however, was Kickstarted and came in and still resides in a clear plastic bag. No wallet. Oh well. It’s a small set of cards that you deal out to attendees of your game night when they arrive. Each player then reads their role cards to themselves and the game is on.

A game of Pretense is a meta-game that lasts the entire game night (or longer if you are hard core). When you have your role card you are trying to get someone to satisfy your role’s requirement so that you may catch them, announce your role, and then take their role card to assume their requirements. The “winner” is the person at the end of the game with the most amount of won role cards.

As you can see from the Klutz card above, if someone mentions that you suck at keeping your rolled dice on the table, you can announce that you are the Klutz, take their role card and continue playing as someone else. Well gall-darnit, why didn’t I think of that? It’s genius!

And it IS genius. It is a simple and sleek design that keeps everyone on their toes for the entire evening, trying to catch each other saying or doing something outrageous or quite normal – just to slap it in their faces and flaunt their gaming supremacy.

Components. Again, I have the Kickstarter Button Shy version of Pretense and it’s some cards in a basic clear plastic bag… well, sleeve. The cards are fine quality, and the art on them is quite good. They all have the same portraiture but with different subjects, and a nameplate above the game details. No issues on components or art here.

Pretense is a game that I can pull out with minimal (or no) explanation and have people plotting and sneaking all night long. I believe the boxed AEG version also provides role token (a la Werewolf) so everyone knows which roles are in play, but that’s no fun. It’s catching people when they aren’t thinking about what they’re doing that really makes this one shine. It will never make my Top 100 list, but I will also never let it go. I do love it and it has led to many hilarious accusations and subterfuge, so it will be mine for all time. As this game is difficult to really rate (due to it being more of an activity and not so much a game), I have left off any numeric values. This is a good time and you should defo try it out.