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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Corsairs of Valeria in Tabletop Games
Apr 2, 2021
If you look at my current Top 10 List (at date of publication), you will see that my #1 game is Valeria Card Kingdoms. I just love the lore, mechanics, artwork, and gameplay so much that it easily rose to my #1 spot after just 1 play! So I am definitely a sucker for all things Valeria. Quests of Valeria, Villagers of Valeria – you name it, I’ve got it. So when the latest VCK expansion was on Kickstarter, with the option to add a new little Valeria-verse themed dice game, I knew I was all in. Does Corsairs of Valeria live up to the hype of its predecessors?
Corsairs of Valeria is a dice rolling game in which players are racing to sail the Valerian islands and collect 6 treasure chests before any of the other pirate captains do. The first person to do so will claim the position of Commodore, and its associated status and power! To setup the game, each player receives a Ship board and ship meeple in their chosen color, 2 silver, and is randomly given a Captain card for the game. Each Captain card gives players a different special power to be used throughout the game. Ship boards have 2 dials to track Treasures and Grog. Set up the Start Island, shuffle and select 3 island Tracks to be placed above the Start, and finally end the lineup with Skull Island. Place 2 silver on Skull Island, and the game is ready to begin!
Each turn has four phases: Roll, Re-roll, Actions, End turn. First, gather all 5 dice and roll them. In the Re-roll phase, players may pay 1 Grog to re-roll any or all of their dice. You may re-roll as many times as you wish per turn, as long as you have Grog to spend. Once you are satisfied with your die rolls, you perform the actions shown on each die. Cursed dice must be executed first – for any dice that have a Skull on them, you must pay 1 silver to Skull Island per skull face shown. After Skulls are resolved, the rest of the die faces may be executed in any order you wish, as long as you resolve all the same symbols at the same time. The Grog symbol allows you to gain 1 Grog, the Silver symbol allows you to gain 1 silver, and the Map symbols allows you to move your ship meeple 1 space on the island track. Certain islands on the track provide additional resources once they are passed, so collect those as applicable. A Cannon symbol allows you to attack – either an opponent or a Merchant ship. To attack an opponent, you must roll at least 3 cannon symbols, and the chosen opponent then must give you all of their silver. To attack a Merchant ship, you must be sharing a space on the track with a Merchant ship, and you collect the resources printed on the ship for the number of cannons you spend to attack. After you have executed all of your dice actions, pass the dice to the next player and your turn is over.
At any point during the game, when you acquire 5 silver, you immediately trade them in for 1 treasure. Treasure is tracked on your ship board. The first player to reach 6 treasures wins the game! If, during the game, a player reaches Skull Island before 6 treasures have been claimed, a few things happen. First, that player receives all of the silver on Skull Island. Next, all ships are moved back to the Start Island, the 3 island Tracks are flipped to their opposite sides, and 2 silver are once again placed on Skull Island. The game continues in turn order, just now with new Tracks in play. If any player reaches Skull Island for a second time during the game, then the game ends once that player finishes their turn. In that case, if 6 treasures still have not been claimed, the player with the most Treasure wins.
I’m just going to start this off by saying that I love Corsairs of Valeria. Just like the other members of the Valeria family, this one checks off all the boxes that I love: great artwork, solid mechanics, and enjoyable immersion in the universe of Valeria. Let’s talk about gameplay first. At its core, Corsairs of Valeria is a dice rolling game, which is a luck-based mechanic. However, this game does provide options to employ strategies through the Captain powers and re-roll phase that give the player a little bit more control over what they can do each turn. Maybe you’re bad at rolling dice, but having the option to pay 1 Grog to re-roll any/all dice can get you out of a bad jam. Or maybe you have a powerful Captain ability that can really dictate your strategy and offer a path to success. It’s not just about the dice rolls, but about what you do to use those rolls to your benefit. So overall that just makes the game feel more engaging and enjoyable to me because I as a player have the ability to strategize each turn, I am not just at the mercy of the dice.
Another thing that I love about Corsairs of Valeria is that it is so simple, quick, and light to play. The rules seem a little involved at first, but ultimately here’s how a turn plays out: roll dice, re-roll if desired, perform actions/collect resources, end turn. The symbology is straight-forward, the turn phases are logical and concise, and there really is no down-time between turns. It requires strategy but still feels light enough to be a good palate cleanser or introductory game for newer gamers. And an awesome thing with quick games is that it is so easy to play several games in a row. I play at least 3 games of Corsairs before I decide to move on to the next game in my queue.
The consistency and continuity between all of the Valeria games is a huge plus for me. I love the artwork and appreciate that Daily Magic Games keeps bring back the same artist to create a cohesive universe! All of the Valeria games stand alone from each other, but the style and artwork make them all feel like a united entity.
Maybe I am a bit biased because VCK is my #1 game right now, but I think that Corsairs of Valeria is great. It is easily in my Top 20 games, and could continue moving up the list with more plays. It’s fast and light, yet strategic and engaging enough that it keeps me excited and energized throughout. There’s not a down moment when playing this game because ultimately, it’s a race! Keep an eye on the opponents, decide which strategy is best with your given die roll, and get a move on to get those treasures and best your rival captains. Purple Phoenix Games gives Corsairs of Valeria a sea-worthy 10 / 12.
Corsairs of Valeria is a dice rolling game in which players are racing to sail the Valerian islands and collect 6 treasure chests before any of the other pirate captains do. The first person to do so will claim the position of Commodore, and its associated status and power! To setup the game, each player receives a Ship board and ship meeple in their chosen color, 2 silver, and is randomly given a Captain card for the game. Each Captain card gives players a different special power to be used throughout the game. Ship boards have 2 dials to track Treasures and Grog. Set up the Start Island, shuffle and select 3 island Tracks to be placed above the Start, and finally end the lineup with Skull Island. Place 2 silver on Skull Island, and the game is ready to begin!
Each turn has four phases: Roll, Re-roll, Actions, End turn. First, gather all 5 dice and roll them. In the Re-roll phase, players may pay 1 Grog to re-roll any or all of their dice. You may re-roll as many times as you wish per turn, as long as you have Grog to spend. Once you are satisfied with your die rolls, you perform the actions shown on each die. Cursed dice must be executed first – for any dice that have a Skull on them, you must pay 1 silver to Skull Island per skull face shown. After Skulls are resolved, the rest of the die faces may be executed in any order you wish, as long as you resolve all the same symbols at the same time. The Grog symbol allows you to gain 1 Grog, the Silver symbol allows you to gain 1 silver, and the Map symbols allows you to move your ship meeple 1 space on the island track. Certain islands on the track provide additional resources once they are passed, so collect those as applicable. A Cannon symbol allows you to attack – either an opponent or a Merchant ship. To attack an opponent, you must roll at least 3 cannon symbols, and the chosen opponent then must give you all of their silver. To attack a Merchant ship, you must be sharing a space on the track with a Merchant ship, and you collect the resources printed on the ship for the number of cannons you spend to attack. After you have executed all of your dice actions, pass the dice to the next player and your turn is over.
At any point during the game, when you acquire 5 silver, you immediately trade them in for 1 treasure. Treasure is tracked on your ship board. The first player to reach 6 treasures wins the game! If, during the game, a player reaches Skull Island before 6 treasures have been claimed, a few things happen. First, that player receives all of the silver on Skull Island. Next, all ships are moved back to the Start Island, the 3 island Tracks are flipped to their opposite sides, and 2 silver are once again placed on Skull Island. The game continues in turn order, just now with new Tracks in play. If any player reaches Skull Island for a second time during the game, then the game ends once that player finishes their turn. In that case, if 6 treasures still have not been claimed, the player with the most Treasure wins.
I’m just going to start this off by saying that I love Corsairs of Valeria. Just like the other members of the Valeria family, this one checks off all the boxes that I love: great artwork, solid mechanics, and enjoyable immersion in the universe of Valeria. Let’s talk about gameplay first. At its core, Corsairs of Valeria is a dice rolling game, which is a luck-based mechanic. However, this game does provide options to employ strategies through the Captain powers and re-roll phase that give the player a little bit more control over what they can do each turn. Maybe you’re bad at rolling dice, but having the option to pay 1 Grog to re-roll any/all dice can get you out of a bad jam. Or maybe you have a powerful Captain ability that can really dictate your strategy and offer a path to success. It’s not just about the dice rolls, but about what you do to use those rolls to your benefit. So overall that just makes the game feel more engaging and enjoyable to me because I as a player have the ability to strategize each turn, I am not just at the mercy of the dice.
Another thing that I love about Corsairs of Valeria is that it is so simple, quick, and light to play. The rules seem a little involved at first, but ultimately here’s how a turn plays out: roll dice, re-roll if desired, perform actions/collect resources, end turn. The symbology is straight-forward, the turn phases are logical and concise, and there really is no down-time between turns. It requires strategy but still feels light enough to be a good palate cleanser or introductory game for newer gamers. And an awesome thing with quick games is that it is so easy to play several games in a row. I play at least 3 games of Corsairs before I decide to move on to the next game in my queue.
The consistency and continuity between all of the Valeria games is a huge plus for me. I love the artwork and appreciate that Daily Magic Games keeps bring back the same artist to create a cohesive universe! All of the Valeria games stand alone from each other, but the style and artwork make them all feel like a united entity.
Maybe I am a bit biased because VCK is my #1 game right now, but I think that Corsairs of Valeria is great. It is easily in my Top 20 games, and could continue moving up the list with more plays. It’s fast and light, yet strategic and engaging enough that it keeps me excited and energized throughout. There’s not a down moment when playing this game because ultimately, it’s a race! Keep an eye on the opponents, decide which strategy is best with your given die roll, and get a move on to get those treasures and best your rival captains. Purple Phoenix Games gives Corsairs of Valeria a sea-worthy 10 / 12.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Sheepy Time in Tabletop Games
May 27, 2021
Have you ever had trouble falling asleep? One method that supposedly helps lull you into a gentle slumber is counting sheep – imagine sheep prancing across a field and jumping over a fence. What seems like a simple and mundane task to us is actually a full-time job for these Dream Sheep! So put on your PJ’s, lace up your slippers (?), and clock in for a night of fence-jumping, all while avoiding the spooky Nightmares that will try to scare you awake!
Disclaimer: We were provided with a copy of Sheepy Time for the purposes of this preview. What you see pictured below are the retail components. -L
Sheepy Time is a push-your-luck game in which players take on the roles of Dream Sheep, tasked with helping humans fall asleep. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns racing their Sheep around the board, using special Dream powers, and avoiding the Nightmare that lurks around the board. The player that earns the most points (as described in the rules) will be declared the dreamiest sheep of all! To setup for a game, place the board within reach of all players and attach the Fence between spaces 10 and 1. Place the scoreboard and Pillow Reference tile nearby, and give all players a Sheep, Wink, Pillow, and Zzz tokens in their chosen color. Select one of the three provided Nightmares to use this game, shuffle their cards into the deck of Sheep cards, and place the Nightmare meeple in the center of the board. Shuffle the Dream tiles, drawing and placing one randomly on spaces 1 and 5 of the board, and reveal four more tiles to create a market. Place all Pillow tokens on the 40 Winks space of the scoreboard, choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin!
Each round of Sheepy Time is broken into two phases: the Racing phase, and the Resting phase. To begin the Racing phase, all players will draw 2 cards into their hand. A turn consists of 4 steps: Play a card, Use Dream tiles, Resolve Fence crossing, and Draw cards. The first action you will take on your turn is to play a card from your hand. Most cards will have you move your Sheep around the board a set number of spaces, or will give you the option to ‘Catch some Zzz’s’ (place one of your Zzz tokens on a Dream tile in play). The next step, if applicable, is to use Dream tiles. Dream tiles provide special/extra abilities that can be beneficial to you. In order to use a Dream tile, however, you must have a Zzz token on it – remove your Zzz token from the tile to use its power. So you’ve got to decide when to move your Sheep, or when it’s necessary to Catch some Zzz’s! The third step is to resolve Fence crossing, if applicable. If a cards movement causes your Sheep to cross the Fence, you immediately gain 5 Winks (on the Scoreboard), and decide whether to keep playing this round or ‘Call it a Night.’ If you decide to keep playing, you move to step 4, and draw a new card into your hand. If you Call it a Night, you will discard your hand, and sit out for the remainder of this Racing phase.
If at any point in the Racing phase, you draw a Nightmare card, it must immediately be revealed and resolved. The Nightmare moves around the board, much like the Sheep, but it will Scare any Sheep that it passes! Being Scared once is ok, but if you were to be Scared AGAIN, you get Woken Up, lose all Winks for this round, and are out of the Racing phase. If the Nightmare completes a lap of the board and crosses the Fence before all players have Called it a Night, the remaining players get Woken Up. How risky are you willing to be once the Nightmare comes into play? That’s for you to decide. Once all players have either Called it a Night or been Woken Up, the Racing phase ends. Check the scoreboard for a winner – when a player earns enough Winks in the Racing phase to surpass their Pillow token. If nobody has met that requirement, players will lower their Pillow tokens by the amount specified on the Pillow Reference tile. The lower you can get your Pillow token, the fewer Winks you need to get to win in future rounds! When all Pillow tokens have been adjusted, the game moves to the Resting phase. In this phase, each player will have the choice to either add a new Dream tile to the board, or to Catch 2 Zzz’s. In turn order, players can select one of the Dream tiles from the market to place on an open space of the board, or place 2 Zzz tokens on Dream tiles in play. When everyone has performed their action, the round ends and a new Racing phase begins. Play continues in this manner until one player has been declared the winner!
I’m not typically a fan of push-your-luck games, but Sheepy Time really surprised me! Yes, that mechanic is definitely present in the gameplay, but there is also quite a bit of strategic variability that makes turns feel a little more controlled. The Dream tiles in play will always be different, providing unique abilities to help give you a strategic boost during play. And you always have 2 cards to decide between to play – you are not limited to only one course of action each turn. So yes, there is a riskiness involved with how many laps you think you can get, can you avoid the Nightmare, etc. But there is also a light element of strategy that makes the game more exciting for me. The gameplay itself is also very smooth and intuitive. The turn order makes sense and the flow of the game is pretty seamless. It is fast to teach and learn, and even though the box says 30-45 minutes, it feels fast to play.
Let me touch on components for a minute. As I said earlier, this is a retail copy of the game, and the production quality is great. The cardboard components are nice and thick, the wooden meeples are large and cute, and the overall art style reflects the theme and lightness of the game well. I want to mention that the insert is nice as well – I know it doesn’t effect the gameplay, but it makes set-up/tear-down quick and efficient. AEG definitely knocked it over the fence (get it?) with the production of this game!
So where does Sheepy Time fit into my collection? I think it’s a great game to use to introduce newer gamers to the hobby. The rules and gameplay are not overwhelming, but they offer more of a modern gaming feel than some of the older classics. I would even say that this game can be used with younger gamers as well – take out the Dream tile powers, and just race to see who can earn the most Winks before the Nightmare gets them, or something like that! It is really accessible for everyone, and that earns a big thumbs up from me. So if you’re not quite sure what to think of this game based on the theme/art style, I can assure you that the gameplay is quite excellent. When Sheepy Time hits retail, make sure you jump at the chance to play this game. Definitely don’t sleep on it.
Disclaimer: We were provided with a copy of Sheepy Time for the purposes of this preview. What you see pictured below are the retail components. -L
Sheepy Time is a push-your-luck game in which players take on the roles of Dream Sheep, tasked with helping humans fall asleep. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns racing their Sheep around the board, using special Dream powers, and avoiding the Nightmare that lurks around the board. The player that earns the most points (as described in the rules) will be declared the dreamiest sheep of all! To setup for a game, place the board within reach of all players and attach the Fence between spaces 10 and 1. Place the scoreboard and Pillow Reference tile nearby, and give all players a Sheep, Wink, Pillow, and Zzz tokens in their chosen color. Select one of the three provided Nightmares to use this game, shuffle their cards into the deck of Sheep cards, and place the Nightmare meeple in the center of the board. Shuffle the Dream tiles, drawing and placing one randomly on spaces 1 and 5 of the board, and reveal four more tiles to create a market. Place all Pillow tokens on the 40 Winks space of the scoreboard, choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin!
Each round of Sheepy Time is broken into two phases: the Racing phase, and the Resting phase. To begin the Racing phase, all players will draw 2 cards into their hand. A turn consists of 4 steps: Play a card, Use Dream tiles, Resolve Fence crossing, and Draw cards. The first action you will take on your turn is to play a card from your hand. Most cards will have you move your Sheep around the board a set number of spaces, or will give you the option to ‘Catch some Zzz’s’ (place one of your Zzz tokens on a Dream tile in play). The next step, if applicable, is to use Dream tiles. Dream tiles provide special/extra abilities that can be beneficial to you. In order to use a Dream tile, however, you must have a Zzz token on it – remove your Zzz token from the tile to use its power. So you’ve got to decide when to move your Sheep, or when it’s necessary to Catch some Zzz’s! The third step is to resolve Fence crossing, if applicable. If a cards movement causes your Sheep to cross the Fence, you immediately gain 5 Winks (on the Scoreboard), and decide whether to keep playing this round or ‘Call it a Night.’ If you decide to keep playing, you move to step 4, and draw a new card into your hand. If you Call it a Night, you will discard your hand, and sit out for the remainder of this Racing phase.
If at any point in the Racing phase, you draw a Nightmare card, it must immediately be revealed and resolved. The Nightmare moves around the board, much like the Sheep, but it will Scare any Sheep that it passes! Being Scared once is ok, but if you were to be Scared AGAIN, you get Woken Up, lose all Winks for this round, and are out of the Racing phase. If the Nightmare completes a lap of the board and crosses the Fence before all players have Called it a Night, the remaining players get Woken Up. How risky are you willing to be once the Nightmare comes into play? That’s for you to decide. Once all players have either Called it a Night or been Woken Up, the Racing phase ends. Check the scoreboard for a winner – when a player earns enough Winks in the Racing phase to surpass their Pillow token. If nobody has met that requirement, players will lower their Pillow tokens by the amount specified on the Pillow Reference tile. The lower you can get your Pillow token, the fewer Winks you need to get to win in future rounds! When all Pillow tokens have been adjusted, the game moves to the Resting phase. In this phase, each player will have the choice to either add a new Dream tile to the board, or to Catch 2 Zzz’s. In turn order, players can select one of the Dream tiles from the market to place on an open space of the board, or place 2 Zzz tokens on Dream tiles in play. When everyone has performed their action, the round ends and a new Racing phase begins. Play continues in this manner until one player has been declared the winner!
I’m not typically a fan of push-your-luck games, but Sheepy Time really surprised me! Yes, that mechanic is definitely present in the gameplay, but there is also quite a bit of strategic variability that makes turns feel a little more controlled. The Dream tiles in play will always be different, providing unique abilities to help give you a strategic boost during play. And you always have 2 cards to decide between to play – you are not limited to only one course of action each turn. So yes, there is a riskiness involved with how many laps you think you can get, can you avoid the Nightmare, etc. But there is also a light element of strategy that makes the game more exciting for me. The gameplay itself is also very smooth and intuitive. The turn order makes sense and the flow of the game is pretty seamless. It is fast to teach and learn, and even though the box says 30-45 minutes, it feels fast to play.
Let me touch on components for a minute. As I said earlier, this is a retail copy of the game, and the production quality is great. The cardboard components are nice and thick, the wooden meeples are large and cute, and the overall art style reflects the theme and lightness of the game well. I want to mention that the insert is nice as well – I know it doesn’t effect the gameplay, but it makes set-up/tear-down quick and efficient. AEG definitely knocked it over the fence (get it?) with the production of this game!
So where does Sheepy Time fit into my collection? I think it’s a great game to use to introduce newer gamers to the hobby. The rules and gameplay are not overwhelming, but they offer more of a modern gaming feel than some of the older classics. I would even say that this game can be used with younger gamers as well – take out the Dream tile powers, and just race to see who can earn the most Winks before the Nightmare gets them, or something like that! It is really accessible for everyone, and that earns a big thumbs up from me. So if you’re not quite sure what to think of this game based on the theme/art style, I can assure you that the gameplay is quite excellent. When Sheepy Time hits retail, make sure you jump at the chance to play this game. Definitely don’t sleep on it.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Dreams of Tomorrow in Tabletop Games
Sep 17, 2020
Let’s talk about dreams. They can range from simply reliving a stressful day at work, to remembering THAT embarrassing moment from your past, to maybe even discovering that you have superpowers. In your dreams, there are endless possibilities – but what if they meant something more? According to Dreams of Tomorrow, our dreams actually serve a bigger purpose!
Dreams of Tomorrow is game of set collection that utilizes a shifting rondel (I had to look up the definition too) in which players are working to weave a series of dreams into a complete Dream Sequence. Set in the future, players take on the roles of Dream Engineers, who are tasked with creating Dream Sequences to be sent to the past in an effort to save the future. Can you weave the most powerful Dream Sequence to alter the path of your present life, or is the future doomed to fall?
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -L
To setup the game, place the Collective Consciousness (the rondel) in numerical order within reach of all players. Reveal a number of Dream cards from the Dream deck, based on the number of players, and these cards will create the communal Dreamscape. Each player receives a player card, cubes, and meeple in their chosen color, and sets their resources to the starting numbers, as described in the rulebook. All players begin with their meeples in the first space of the rondel, and in clockwise order, will select and pay for a Dream from the Dreamscape to be placed in their Dream Catcher (waiting area). Once all players have selected a Dream, and adjusted their resources accordingly, the game is ready to begin.
Dreams of Tomorrow is played over a series of rounds in which players will take turns performing 2 actions: Move and Take Action. Movement happens sequentially around the rondel, and players may choose how many spaces to move. To move 1-3 spaces is free, but to move more than 3 spaces will cost a number of resources. When a player decides to end their movement, they will then take the action indicated on the space on which they landed. These actions include: Gaining resources, Catching a Dream, Weaving a Dream, or Activating a Dream Ability. Gaining resources is pretty self-explanatory, and there is one neat thing to note: even if it is not your active turn, most of the rondel spaces have a Shared Effect, which grants an off-turn action to all non-active players. Catching a Dream means that you pay the requisite resources and select a Dream from the Dreamscape. Any caught Dreams go into your Dream Catcher until you are able to perform the Weave a Dream action. When you Weave a Dream, you again pay the requisite resources displayed on the Dream card and move the Dream from your Dream Catcher into your Dream Sequence (play area). To Activate a Dream Ability, you select a Dream card in your tableau, and use the ability printed on it. It is important to note that once Dreams are woven into your Dream Sequence, they will overlap each other, and only one Dream Ability will ever be available for use, so create that sequence wisely! Play continues in turns until one player has woven a Dream Sequence of five Dreams total. The round ends once all players have taken the same number of turns, and then final points are counted. The player with the highest score is the winner!
So all-in-all, how is Dreams of Tomorrow as a whole? I actually was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. When reading through the rules, it seemed kind of complicated and I was a bit worried before my first play. Once you actually get playing, however, the game is pretty intuitive and simple to play. One thing I particularly enjoyed about this game is its iconography. With only three resources and four actions, there are only seven icons of which to keep track. It keeps the cards from being cluttered with text, and makes the costs/abilities clear to understand. The iconography of the Dream Abilities, however, can be a liiiittle more complicated, but the game does come with Reference Cards which explain what every single icon means!
Another neat thing I enjoyed about this gameplay is the addition of Shared Effects. Even if you are not the active player, you will always gain some resource on everyone else’s turn. That adds an extra element of strategy because you have to amass your own resources for Dreams, but you have to be careful not to be giving your opponents too much extra help for themselves! Probably my favorite part of Dreams of Tomorrow are the actual Dream Abilities themselves. Performing the regular turn actions are pretty straight-forward, but Dream Abilities are more special and allow you to do even more on your turn. For example, some Dream Abilities allow you to change directions, move extra spaces, or even alter the Collective Consciousness, re-arranging the cards in a way to benefit you and hopefully hinder your opponents. The Dream Abilities are literal game-changers, and they really keep all players on their toes.
Talking about components, this game is of a pretty good quality. The cards are nice and sturdy, the player boards are decent, and the meeples and cubes are your standard wooden tokens. I’ve said in reviews before, but I always appreciate when games include Reference Cards for players, and Dreams of Tomorrow certainly delivered on theirs. The cards are clear, concise, and helpful during play. The artwork of this game is very vibrantly colorful and just plain pretty to look at. I found myself getting distracted by admiring the artwork, or catching Dreams based on their artwork, instead of taking their point-values or resources requirements into consideration. Oops. That’s just my bad, but the artwork really helps make the game more immersive.
Overall, I would say that Dreams of Tomorrow is a great little game. Admittedly, the rulebook is kind of daunting and seems a little overly complicated at first, but once you get into an actual game, it flows very quickly and easily. After just one turn, I got exactly what was happening and had no further questions about the gameplay. It really went above and beyond my expectations, and is one that I definitely look forward to bringing out in future game nights. Purple Phoenix Games gives it a dreamy 10 / 12. Check this one out if you haven’t before, it may just be the game of your dreams. (Ha, get it?)
Dreams of Tomorrow is game of set collection that utilizes a shifting rondel (I had to look up the definition too) in which players are working to weave a series of dreams into a complete Dream Sequence. Set in the future, players take on the roles of Dream Engineers, who are tasked with creating Dream Sequences to be sent to the past in an effort to save the future. Can you weave the most powerful Dream Sequence to alter the path of your present life, or is the future doomed to fall?
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -L
To setup the game, place the Collective Consciousness (the rondel) in numerical order within reach of all players. Reveal a number of Dream cards from the Dream deck, based on the number of players, and these cards will create the communal Dreamscape. Each player receives a player card, cubes, and meeple in their chosen color, and sets their resources to the starting numbers, as described in the rulebook. All players begin with their meeples in the first space of the rondel, and in clockwise order, will select and pay for a Dream from the Dreamscape to be placed in their Dream Catcher (waiting area). Once all players have selected a Dream, and adjusted their resources accordingly, the game is ready to begin.
Dreams of Tomorrow is played over a series of rounds in which players will take turns performing 2 actions: Move and Take Action. Movement happens sequentially around the rondel, and players may choose how many spaces to move. To move 1-3 spaces is free, but to move more than 3 spaces will cost a number of resources. When a player decides to end their movement, they will then take the action indicated on the space on which they landed. These actions include: Gaining resources, Catching a Dream, Weaving a Dream, or Activating a Dream Ability. Gaining resources is pretty self-explanatory, and there is one neat thing to note: even if it is not your active turn, most of the rondel spaces have a Shared Effect, which grants an off-turn action to all non-active players. Catching a Dream means that you pay the requisite resources and select a Dream from the Dreamscape. Any caught Dreams go into your Dream Catcher until you are able to perform the Weave a Dream action. When you Weave a Dream, you again pay the requisite resources displayed on the Dream card and move the Dream from your Dream Catcher into your Dream Sequence (play area). To Activate a Dream Ability, you select a Dream card in your tableau, and use the ability printed on it. It is important to note that once Dreams are woven into your Dream Sequence, they will overlap each other, and only one Dream Ability will ever be available for use, so create that sequence wisely! Play continues in turns until one player has woven a Dream Sequence of five Dreams total. The round ends once all players have taken the same number of turns, and then final points are counted. The player with the highest score is the winner!
So all-in-all, how is Dreams of Tomorrow as a whole? I actually was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. When reading through the rules, it seemed kind of complicated and I was a bit worried before my first play. Once you actually get playing, however, the game is pretty intuitive and simple to play. One thing I particularly enjoyed about this game is its iconography. With only three resources and four actions, there are only seven icons of which to keep track. It keeps the cards from being cluttered with text, and makes the costs/abilities clear to understand. The iconography of the Dream Abilities, however, can be a liiiittle more complicated, but the game does come with Reference Cards which explain what every single icon means!
Another neat thing I enjoyed about this gameplay is the addition of Shared Effects. Even if you are not the active player, you will always gain some resource on everyone else’s turn. That adds an extra element of strategy because you have to amass your own resources for Dreams, but you have to be careful not to be giving your opponents too much extra help for themselves! Probably my favorite part of Dreams of Tomorrow are the actual Dream Abilities themselves. Performing the regular turn actions are pretty straight-forward, but Dream Abilities are more special and allow you to do even more on your turn. For example, some Dream Abilities allow you to change directions, move extra spaces, or even alter the Collective Consciousness, re-arranging the cards in a way to benefit you and hopefully hinder your opponents. The Dream Abilities are literal game-changers, and they really keep all players on their toes.
Talking about components, this game is of a pretty good quality. The cards are nice and sturdy, the player boards are decent, and the meeples and cubes are your standard wooden tokens. I’ve said in reviews before, but I always appreciate when games include Reference Cards for players, and Dreams of Tomorrow certainly delivered on theirs. The cards are clear, concise, and helpful during play. The artwork of this game is very vibrantly colorful and just plain pretty to look at. I found myself getting distracted by admiring the artwork, or catching Dreams based on their artwork, instead of taking their point-values or resources requirements into consideration. Oops. That’s just my bad, but the artwork really helps make the game more immersive.
Overall, I would say that Dreams of Tomorrow is a great little game. Admittedly, the rulebook is kind of daunting and seems a little overly complicated at first, but once you get into an actual game, it flows very quickly and easily. After just one turn, I got exactly what was happening and had no further questions about the gameplay. It really went above and beyond my expectations, and is one that I definitely look forward to bringing out in future game nights. Purple Phoenix Games gives it a dreamy 10 / 12. Check this one out if you haven’t before, it may just be the game of your dreams. (Ha, get it?)
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Evo (second edition) in Tabletop Games
Oct 11, 2019
I always get so excited when I start a review because I want to tell you all about these wonderful experiences we have had with different games. I want to let you in on all of our inside jokes that make their way into our every day language. But, alas, I cannot. At least not yet. But my hope is that I will interest you enough to give our favorite games a shot so that you can have these, or similar, great experiences. And Evo is one of our favorite games.
Evo pits its players against one another in a clash to populate an island too small for everyone to enjoy harmoniously. It’s a… Small (dino) World, if you will. By improving your clan’s dinosaurs, survivability, and vigor you may be able to establish the most prosperous clan. At least until the meteor hits and wipes everyone off the face of the island anyway…
DISCLAIMER: We do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
Evo is played over several phases over several turns. Exactly how many turns is unknown because the end game is denoted by a randomized meteor token. To setup Evo shuffle the meteor token into the bottom few climate rotation tokens and set them as a stack face down. These will be the round trackers and also will dictate how the climate may change from round to round. Set the climate wheel on the starting space and within view of the players. Shuffle the event cards and place them face down near the enhancement bid board. Give each player the mat, dinomeeples (yay I got one that makes sense!), and bidding totem of their chosen color. Lay the correct map for the amount of players on the table and have each player place their dinomeeples on the corresponding starting spaces on the map. Give each player their starting money (in VP chips). Determine the starting initiative order and place the totems on the bid board in that order. Set aside the combat die and you are finally ready to play!
The first phase of the game is Climate. (after the first round) A new climate token will be revealed which directs the players to adjust the climate wheel or keep it status quo. The climate wheel determines which spaces on the map will have cold, hot, Death-Valley-type, or safe climates for dinos to live on. This is known information at the beginning of the round so the players can plan out the rest of the round to keep their dinos safe before the culling.
The next phase is bidding on enhancements. Draw from the bag enough tokens for the players to quarrel over and place them randomly on the bid board. In initiative order players will bid on enhancements using their VP chips. When a player is outbid for an item they must place their bid totem on another item. Once all players are winning bids on items they pay the supply for their winnings and add it to their mat in the appropriate slots. These could include items to help a dino survive the cold, increase their attack potential, give their dinos more movement (or walks, as we call them), and other special abilities.
Now that the players are enhanced a bit more, their dinosaurs can move on the map. This may be necessary for some, but not all, depending on how they have enhanced their dino clans. A dino can move as many spaces as feet are shown on the player’s board, or the total movement can be split by multiple dinos. The more feet, the more movement. If, during the movement phase, a dino wishes to enter a space currently inhabited by a rival clan’s dinomeeple a combat will occur. Combat is determined by comparing horns and defenses and the roll of the combat die.
Once movement is over, it’s time for the dinos to get saucy – it’s baby-making time! I mean, it’s reproduction time! That’s not appropriate either. You can create one more dinomeeple to place on the map adjacent to another dino. This is how you may expand your empire of cute dinomeeples.
Once these phases are complete the players will consult the climate wheel to see which of their dinos are safe from elimination. For those dinos that are safe a player will earn 1 VP. Play continues in this fashion until the round that the meteor token is flipped from the stack of climate tokens that typically start a round. As the meteor destroys all dinomeeples on the map players will total their VPs and the winner is the clan leader with the most VP at game’s end.
Components. There are a LOT of components in this box. One of the best components in the game is the well-designed box insert. As you unpack the game you can really just setup right out of the box. The maps, bidding board, and climate wheel are normal-style game boards and of good quality. The cards are OK and get the job done. The die is a painted wooden die and it’s fun to roll. The climate tokens, VPs, and enhancement chips are all thick cardboard. The play mats are a matte cardstock (and that’s fine because it just holds your components). The other components are the cloth bag for enhancement draws and those cutie little dinomeeples! Everything is really well-produced and has held up really well for us. My only minor minor complaint is that I wish the dinomeeples were a different shape per color, but everyone having brontosauri is fine with me too. The art. The art is SPECTACULAR on this one. Seriously really great artwork. The cards, the boards, the playmats, the enhancements. Everything looks just amazing.
I kinda already let you know that I love this game. So I am not going to wax poetic here and go into some long analyses of why I love it. It is a more-involved Small World (I hope you caught that shameless reference in the intro) that uses dinosaurs instead of fantasy race/class combos. You know Evo is great when you can compare it to an already-great game from the same designer. I also think you could play Evo and Small World back-to-back and have an enjoyable experience. They are similar, but offer a different experience FOR SURE. I know this one is tough to find nowadays, but please, if you see it for sale in the wild PICK IT UP. It’s a great game that will offer years and years of play for you and your game group. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a prehistoric 16+ / 18. I say “plus” because I may change it to a 6 in the future. It’s that good.
Evo pits its players against one another in a clash to populate an island too small for everyone to enjoy harmoniously. It’s a… Small (dino) World, if you will. By improving your clan’s dinosaurs, survivability, and vigor you may be able to establish the most prosperous clan. At least until the meteor hits and wipes everyone off the face of the island anyway…
DISCLAIMER: We do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
Evo is played over several phases over several turns. Exactly how many turns is unknown because the end game is denoted by a randomized meteor token. To setup Evo shuffle the meteor token into the bottom few climate rotation tokens and set them as a stack face down. These will be the round trackers and also will dictate how the climate may change from round to round. Set the climate wheel on the starting space and within view of the players. Shuffle the event cards and place them face down near the enhancement bid board. Give each player the mat, dinomeeples (yay I got one that makes sense!), and bidding totem of their chosen color. Lay the correct map for the amount of players on the table and have each player place their dinomeeples on the corresponding starting spaces on the map. Give each player their starting money (in VP chips). Determine the starting initiative order and place the totems on the bid board in that order. Set aside the combat die and you are finally ready to play!
The first phase of the game is Climate. (after the first round) A new climate token will be revealed which directs the players to adjust the climate wheel or keep it status quo. The climate wheel determines which spaces on the map will have cold, hot, Death-Valley-type, or safe climates for dinos to live on. This is known information at the beginning of the round so the players can plan out the rest of the round to keep their dinos safe before the culling.
The next phase is bidding on enhancements. Draw from the bag enough tokens for the players to quarrel over and place them randomly on the bid board. In initiative order players will bid on enhancements using their VP chips. When a player is outbid for an item they must place their bid totem on another item. Once all players are winning bids on items they pay the supply for their winnings and add it to their mat in the appropriate slots. These could include items to help a dino survive the cold, increase their attack potential, give their dinos more movement (or walks, as we call them), and other special abilities.
Now that the players are enhanced a bit more, their dinosaurs can move on the map. This may be necessary for some, but not all, depending on how they have enhanced their dino clans. A dino can move as many spaces as feet are shown on the player’s board, or the total movement can be split by multiple dinos. The more feet, the more movement. If, during the movement phase, a dino wishes to enter a space currently inhabited by a rival clan’s dinomeeple a combat will occur. Combat is determined by comparing horns and defenses and the roll of the combat die.
Once movement is over, it’s time for the dinos to get saucy – it’s baby-making time! I mean, it’s reproduction time! That’s not appropriate either. You can create one more dinomeeple to place on the map adjacent to another dino. This is how you may expand your empire of cute dinomeeples.
Once these phases are complete the players will consult the climate wheel to see which of their dinos are safe from elimination. For those dinos that are safe a player will earn 1 VP. Play continues in this fashion until the round that the meteor token is flipped from the stack of climate tokens that typically start a round. As the meteor destroys all dinomeeples on the map players will total their VPs and the winner is the clan leader with the most VP at game’s end.
Components. There are a LOT of components in this box. One of the best components in the game is the well-designed box insert. As you unpack the game you can really just setup right out of the box. The maps, bidding board, and climate wheel are normal-style game boards and of good quality. The cards are OK and get the job done. The die is a painted wooden die and it’s fun to roll. The climate tokens, VPs, and enhancement chips are all thick cardboard. The play mats are a matte cardstock (and that’s fine because it just holds your components). The other components are the cloth bag for enhancement draws and those cutie little dinomeeples! Everything is really well-produced and has held up really well for us. My only minor minor complaint is that I wish the dinomeeples were a different shape per color, but everyone having brontosauri is fine with me too. The art. The art is SPECTACULAR on this one. Seriously really great artwork. The cards, the boards, the playmats, the enhancements. Everything looks just amazing.
I kinda already let you know that I love this game. So I am not going to wax poetic here and go into some long analyses of why I love it. It is a more-involved Small World (I hope you caught that shameless reference in the intro) that uses dinosaurs instead of fantasy race/class combos. You know Evo is great when you can compare it to an already-great game from the same designer. I also think you could play Evo and Small World back-to-back and have an enjoyable experience. They are similar, but offer a different experience FOR SURE. I know this one is tough to find nowadays, but please, if you see it for sale in the wild PICK IT UP. It’s a great game that will offer years and years of play for you and your game group. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a prehistoric 16+ / 18. I say “plus” because I may change it to a 6 in the future. It’s that good.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Spy Club in Tabletop Games
Aug 12, 2021
You guys have heard of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” The globetrotting super-spy who is hard to pin down? Well imagine what she may have been like as a young person. I bet she had her own spy club. And now we have a game to play to emulate what it may have been like in such a club. **This game has nothing to do with Carmen Sandiego.
Spy Club is a cooperative memory and deduction card game utilizing an action point system and sharing of resources. It is set in any neighborhood where kids can gather in groups and snuff out a mystery. The goal is to whittle the clues down to the correct Motive, Suspect, Location, Crime, and Object of the Crime. Are you intrepid youths up to the task?
To setup, place the main board on the table, and the Escape Marker upon it at the bottom of the track. Shuffle the Movement Deck cards separately by backs, remove one from each differently-backed set, and place them in day – sunset – night order in its space. Each player receives a play board according to the number of players and a spyglass in their favorite color to go upon their play board. The Idea markers can be in a rough pile near everything else. The Clue Deck is to be shuffled and placed face-down (or face-up, whichever you prefer; they are double-sided) and each player is dealt a number of Clues equal to the number of spaces on their play boards. Clues will also be dealt to an “Incoming Clues” area (an offer row or “market”). DO NOT LOOK AT THE BACKS OF THE CARDS. Like, EVER. Unless you use an action to do so. The Suspecteeple will be placed on the right-most Clue Card of the starting player’s board. The game of sleuthing may now begin!
A player’s turn will consist of three main steps with different phases in those steps. Step 1 is Use Actions. Players will be able to use three Actions on their turn. These Actions are: Investigate, Shift Focus, Confirm, and Scout. To Investigate the active player will flip a Clue Card from their collection to its back. They may then continue flipping their cards or stop at any time. To Shift Focus a player will simply move their spyglass to a different Clue and collect Ideas equal to the number of Clues whose aspects match the newly-focused one (two Ideas if moving to a Location and a player has two Location Clues). Skipping Confirm, to Scout simply means purchasing a card from the Incoming Clues area to a player’s board, with a discard of an existing card already there.
Confirming is where the main action in Spy Club lies. Players will be attempting to Confirm five Clues of matching aspect (Location, Motive, etc) in order to hone in on the correct aspect. To Confirm, a player can submit a Clue from their collection (hand) to the main board. The cost, in Ideas, depends on where the spyglass lies. If the spyglass is directly under the Clue to be submitted the cost is nothing. However, if a player wishes to complete three Confirm actions and they have matching Clues on either side of their spyglass, they would need to spend two Ideas for each Clue resting one space away from the spyglass.
There are also rules for taking “Teamwork Bonus Actions,” but I will let you discover those on your own.
After these Actions are carried out, Step 2 is Refill. Firstly the active player’s hand will need to be refilled from the Incoming Clues row, and more Incoming Clues come out to fill that row.
Step 3 is Move the Suspect. Drawing from the Movement Deck the active player will match up the Movement cards from the previous round and the current round to find out how many spaces the Suspecteeple will be moving through players’ cards. Depending upon which aspect Clue the Suspecteeple lands a negative action will be levied against the players. In some ways the Suspect could land on cards that trigger no negative action, but I will leave that for you to discover as well. I am a bit… distracted.
Play continues in this fashion of players Using Actions, Refilling the Clue cards, and Moving the Suspect until players win by solving all five aspects of the crime, the Suspect escapes, the players run out of Idea markers, the Suspect escapes due to running out of Movement cards, or there are insufficient Incoming Clues to refill a player’s hand. So there are four ways to lose and one way to win.
Components. I find the components in Spy Club to be good overall. Nothing really stands out as amazing, either in design or quality. The art is very good, though. One thing I will say about the components as a whole is that once the game is setup and in play it looks fascinating on the table. I love the way it looks and certainly assists with full immersion. Always a plus in my book.
There are so many things I love about this game. And there are so many things I didn’t even explain here! Ok I’ll tell you one. Spy Club can be played as a one-shot game night medium-length (60 minutes) game, or can be converted into a campaign game where players will play five connected scenarios using a giant stack of cards that are not in use for the one-shots. That is simply fabulous! I can play one game of this to get people hooked, then reel them in by offering to continue this as a campaign to see what the main story arc is really trying to tell us. Oh man, that’s just special and I love it!
I feel like I have been playing a lot of really great games lately, and Spy Club is certainly a GREAT game. In fact, I told the rest of the team that this one is a contender for my Top 10 Games of All Time list. It has everything I love in a game: it is difficult (my first game I would have lost had it lasted one more turn) without being too heavy, it is inviting me to play more games (especially with the campaign mode active), I just like looking at it on the table, and creates a stunning amount of tension as we race against the game clock to figure out the crime aspects.
I have had this in my collection for too long without it being played, and I am so sorry that it took me so long to get into it. I will certainly be playing this a LOT more, and introducing as many people to it as I can. I think in the gaming world it is flying under the radar, but I will be one of its champions and suggest it as much as possible. If you like certain aspects (hehe) of Clue, 13 Dead End Drive, Carmen Sandiego, and even Jaipur, then take a look at Spy Club. Purple Phoenix Games gives this a super-sleuth 11 / 12. I actually might go play it right now. Yes, at 11:07pm.
Spy Club is a cooperative memory and deduction card game utilizing an action point system and sharing of resources. It is set in any neighborhood where kids can gather in groups and snuff out a mystery. The goal is to whittle the clues down to the correct Motive, Suspect, Location, Crime, and Object of the Crime. Are you intrepid youths up to the task?
To setup, place the main board on the table, and the Escape Marker upon it at the bottom of the track. Shuffle the Movement Deck cards separately by backs, remove one from each differently-backed set, and place them in day – sunset – night order in its space. Each player receives a play board according to the number of players and a spyglass in their favorite color to go upon their play board. The Idea markers can be in a rough pile near everything else. The Clue Deck is to be shuffled and placed face-down (or face-up, whichever you prefer; they are double-sided) and each player is dealt a number of Clues equal to the number of spaces on their play boards. Clues will also be dealt to an “Incoming Clues” area (an offer row or “market”). DO NOT LOOK AT THE BACKS OF THE CARDS. Like, EVER. Unless you use an action to do so. The Suspecteeple will be placed on the right-most Clue Card of the starting player’s board. The game of sleuthing may now begin!
A player’s turn will consist of three main steps with different phases in those steps. Step 1 is Use Actions. Players will be able to use three Actions on their turn. These Actions are: Investigate, Shift Focus, Confirm, and Scout. To Investigate the active player will flip a Clue Card from their collection to its back. They may then continue flipping their cards or stop at any time. To Shift Focus a player will simply move their spyglass to a different Clue and collect Ideas equal to the number of Clues whose aspects match the newly-focused one (two Ideas if moving to a Location and a player has two Location Clues). Skipping Confirm, to Scout simply means purchasing a card from the Incoming Clues area to a player’s board, with a discard of an existing card already there.
Confirming is where the main action in Spy Club lies. Players will be attempting to Confirm five Clues of matching aspect (Location, Motive, etc) in order to hone in on the correct aspect. To Confirm, a player can submit a Clue from their collection (hand) to the main board. The cost, in Ideas, depends on where the spyglass lies. If the spyglass is directly under the Clue to be submitted the cost is nothing. However, if a player wishes to complete three Confirm actions and they have matching Clues on either side of their spyglass, they would need to spend two Ideas for each Clue resting one space away from the spyglass.
There are also rules for taking “Teamwork Bonus Actions,” but I will let you discover those on your own.
After these Actions are carried out, Step 2 is Refill. Firstly the active player’s hand will need to be refilled from the Incoming Clues row, and more Incoming Clues come out to fill that row.
Step 3 is Move the Suspect. Drawing from the Movement Deck the active player will match up the Movement cards from the previous round and the current round to find out how many spaces the Suspecteeple will be moving through players’ cards. Depending upon which aspect Clue the Suspecteeple lands a negative action will be levied against the players. In some ways the Suspect could land on cards that trigger no negative action, but I will leave that for you to discover as well. I am a bit… distracted.
Play continues in this fashion of players Using Actions, Refilling the Clue cards, and Moving the Suspect until players win by solving all five aspects of the crime, the Suspect escapes, the players run out of Idea markers, the Suspect escapes due to running out of Movement cards, or there are insufficient Incoming Clues to refill a player’s hand. So there are four ways to lose and one way to win.
Components. I find the components in Spy Club to be good overall. Nothing really stands out as amazing, either in design or quality. The art is very good, though. One thing I will say about the components as a whole is that once the game is setup and in play it looks fascinating on the table. I love the way it looks and certainly assists with full immersion. Always a plus in my book.
There are so many things I love about this game. And there are so many things I didn’t even explain here! Ok I’ll tell you one. Spy Club can be played as a one-shot game night medium-length (60 minutes) game, or can be converted into a campaign game where players will play five connected scenarios using a giant stack of cards that are not in use for the one-shots. That is simply fabulous! I can play one game of this to get people hooked, then reel them in by offering to continue this as a campaign to see what the main story arc is really trying to tell us. Oh man, that’s just special and I love it!
I feel like I have been playing a lot of really great games lately, and Spy Club is certainly a GREAT game. In fact, I told the rest of the team that this one is a contender for my Top 10 Games of All Time list. It has everything I love in a game: it is difficult (my first game I would have lost had it lasted one more turn) without being too heavy, it is inviting me to play more games (especially with the campaign mode active), I just like looking at it on the table, and creates a stunning amount of tension as we race against the game clock to figure out the crime aspects.
I have had this in my collection for too long without it being played, and I am so sorry that it took me so long to get into it. I will certainly be playing this a LOT more, and introducing as many people to it as I can. I think in the gaming world it is flying under the radar, but I will be one of its champions and suggest it as much as possible. If you like certain aspects (hehe) of Clue, 13 Dead End Drive, Carmen Sandiego, and even Jaipur, then take a look at Spy Club. Purple Phoenix Games gives this a super-sleuth 11 / 12. I actually might go play it right now. Yes, at 11:07pm.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Funkoverse Strategy Game: Harry Potter 100 in Tabletop Games
Aug 30, 2021
Because I haven’t given my readers enough insight into my nerdiness, here are a few more things I’m into: Harry Potter, the MCU, and Doctor Who. I also have several Funko Pops! characters somewhere here in this house: the Tenth Doctor, the Twelfth Doctor, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Ant-Man, and Dr. Strange to name a few. So when I heard that a game was coming out where I could possibly use my Funkos for something other than sitting on my armoire, I got excited. Oh, also it’s Harry Potter themed? COUNT ME IN!
Funkoverse Strategy Game: Harry Potter (which I will now refer to as HP Funko) is a tactics-based strategy game where effectively using Action Points is the determining factor in victory. Each player will take charge of a 2- or 3-character team engaged in one of four included scenarios to gain VP (the awesome teal shards). This is done in different fashions, and for this review we used the “Territories” scenario.
DISCLAIMER: The Tenth Doctor and Dr. Strange are not included in the game, I supplied them. In the box are discs to represent a generic Auror (Ten) and Death Eater (Strange). If you choose to use a supplementary Funko Pop! please know that they may be much larger in size and difficult to maneuver on the board. Also, I will not be detailing every rule in the rulebook as there are just too many. For full rules, download the rulebook today or pick up a copy at your FLGS! -T
To setup follow the instructions in the rulebook and the chosen scenario. For Territories, it will look similar to the setup below, but the characters may not be facing a camera, as mine are. Once the players are satisfied with setup, the first player token is flipped coin-toss style to see which team will lead the first round. The game is now underway!
Turns are somewhat simple: each character can do two actions, which include: Move, Challenge, Interact, Assist, Rally, and Use Ability/Items. Movement is two squares, with diagonals allowed, but not through any part of an obstruction. In fact, obstructions and line-of-sight are big parts of the game, as several pages of the rulebook are devoted to them. To Challenge another character is the combat of the game. The attacker will typically throw two dice to initiate an attack and the defender will use as many dice as is printed on their character card. However, this is a Harry Potter game, so Challenges will also allow characters to use magic spells to augment their attacks or inflict other debilitations or statuses on their targets. Simple majority of successful results rolled wins the Challenge. Characters may be knocked down as a result of a Challenge, and if already knocked down and successfully attacked again, may also be knocked out of the game for a certain number of rounds (usually one).
To Interact with a token on the board a character will need to position themselves either directly on the token or one space adjacent. These tokens could be merely points on the board that earn points, as in the current scenario.
If adjacent to a downed ally, a player could use an Assist action to stand up the ally. However, a character may stand themselves up on their turn by using both actions to Rally. This is the character’s entire turn worth of actions, but may be necessary to avoid being knocked out and placed on the Cooldown Track.
Lastly, characters may need to spend actions to use an ability or an item in their possession. Each ability and item will have its own instructions written on their respective cards. These will be instantly recognizable to fans of the HP universe and will use Ability Tokens or require the user to place the Item Card on the Cooldown Track to be used on a future turn.
After alternating characters on each team has exhausted every character, the round ends. Players will refresh their characters and move all tokens or cards down a space on the Cooldown Track. Should end of turn activities score teams VPs, they will claim the shards for their collection. Once the scenario’s objective has been met a player will be crowned victor and forced to cast Riddikulus on their opponent(s).
Components. This game does not ship with a ton of components, but the bits and pieces contained in the box are wonderful. The cardboard map and pieces are nice, the cards are good quality, and all the tokens are great as well. I really enjoy the VP shards and of course the smaller Pops! that are the main characters. They are a bit smaller than all the Pops! I have, but I’m not really a huge Pops! collector, so that may be the norm nowadays. The art throughout is really well-done and evocative of the theme. Overall the components are brilliant.
I am no fan of Mage Wars style games, as I typically find those types of tactical games tiresome. I usually end up just moving around and casting a spell every once in a while, but then it’s just a tedious game of cat and mouse that I just don’t feel like ever playing. However, with the scenarios provided with HP Funko I feel like I have a mission other than knocking out my opponents. Yes, I could still do that during a scenario, but that’s not the main focus. I like that quite a bit. In fact, there are generic tokens in the game that would even allow players to create their own scenarios. I might be interested in creating my own to play with a younger crowd even.
Moving those big heads around is fun and makes me giggle a bit, especially when they knock into each other and fall down because of the elephantitis of the noggin. I also like being able to send in my Tenth Doctor to use his Sonic Screwdriver to take out he-who-must-not-be-named whilst Dr. Strange looks on in amusement. Being able to use your own Pops! is a great twist and I am definitely a fan.
I guess I DO like tactical move-around-the-board-and-do-stuff games after all! I just needed a little direction and a good theme to pull me into the genre. I also have the expandalone for the HP version of this that includes Malfoy and Ron, and can’t wait to add those in as well. And let me tell you how much I need the next expandalone that includes Dumbledore, Hagrid, Snape, and Umbridge. I need, like, I NEED to deal some damage to that pink witch SO MUCH. In any case, Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a patronus-fueled 10 / 12. If you are on the fence about this gimmicky-looking game, then let me help you – get it. Play it a lot and play it with lots of other people (when possible). Extra points to Hufflegriffinsnake if you yell out the spell names a la Harold Potter in the movies.
Funkoverse Strategy Game: Harry Potter (which I will now refer to as HP Funko) is a tactics-based strategy game where effectively using Action Points is the determining factor in victory. Each player will take charge of a 2- or 3-character team engaged in one of four included scenarios to gain VP (the awesome teal shards). This is done in different fashions, and for this review we used the “Territories” scenario.
DISCLAIMER: The Tenth Doctor and Dr. Strange are not included in the game, I supplied them. In the box are discs to represent a generic Auror (Ten) and Death Eater (Strange). If you choose to use a supplementary Funko Pop! please know that they may be much larger in size and difficult to maneuver on the board. Also, I will not be detailing every rule in the rulebook as there are just too many. For full rules, download the rulebook today or pick up a copy at your FLGS! -T
To setup follow the instructions in the rulebook and the chosen scenario. For Territories, it will look similar to the setup below, but the characters may not be facing a camera, as mine are. Once the players are satisfied with setup, the first player token is flipped coin-toss style to see which team will lead the first round. The game is now underway!
Turns are somewhat simple: each character can do two actions, which include: Move, Challenge, Interact, Assist, Rally, and Use Ability/Items. Movement is two squares, with diagonals allowed, but not through any part of an obstruction. In fact, obstructions and line-of-sight are big parts of the game, as several pages of the rulebook are devoted to them. To Challenge another character is the combat of the game. The attacker will typically throw two dice to initiate an attack and the defender will use as many dice as is printed on their character card. However, this is a Harry Potter game, so Challenges will also allow characters to use magic spells to augment their attacks or inflict other debilitations or statuses on their targets. Simple majority of successful results rolled wins the Challenge. Characters may be knocked down as a result of a Challenge, and if already knocked down and successfully attacked again, may also be knocked out of the game for a certain number of rounds (usually one).
To Interact with a token on the board a character will need to position themselves either directly on the token or one space adjacent. These tokens could be merely points on the board that earn points, as in the current scenario.
If adjacent to a downed ally, a player could use an Assist action to stand up the ally. However, a character may stand themselves up on their turn by using both actions to Rally. This is the character’s entire turn worth of actions, but may be necessary to avoid being knocked out and placed on the Cooldown Track.
Lastly, characters may need to spend actions to use an ability or an item in their possession. Each ability and item will have its own instructions written on their respective cards. These will be instantly recognizable to fans of the HP universe and will use Ability Tokens or require the user to place the Item Card on the Cooldown Track to be used on a future turn.
After alternating characters on each team has exhausted every character, the round ends. Players will refresh their characters and move all tokens or cards down a space on the Cooldown Track. Should end of turn activities score teams VPs, they will claim the shards for their collection. Once the scenario’s objective has been met a player will be crowned victor and forced to cast Riddikulus on their opponent(s).
Components. This game does not ship with a ton of components, but the bits and pieces contained in the box are wonderful. The cardboard map and pieces are nice, the cards are good quality, and all the tokens are great as well. I really enjoy the VP shards and of course the smaller Pops! that are the main characters. They are a bit smaller than all the Pops! I have, but I’m not really a huge Pops! collector, so that may be the norm nowadays. The art throughout is really well-done and evocative of the theme. Overall the components are brilliant.
I am no fan of Mage Wars style games, as I typically find those types of tactical games tiresome. I usually end up just moving around and casting a spell every once in a while, but then it’s just a tedious game of cat and mouse that I just don’t feel like ever playing. However, with the scenarios provided with HP Funko I feel like I have a mission other than knocking out my opponents. Yes, I could still do that during a scenario, but that’s not the main focus. I like that quite a bit. In fact, there are generic tokens in the game that would even allow players to create their own scenarios. I might be interested in creating my own to play with a younger crowd even.
Moving those big heads around is fun and makes me giggle a bit, especially when they knock into each other and fall down because of the elephantitis of the noggin. I also like being able to send in my Tenth Doctor to use his Sonic Screwdriver to take out he-who-must-not-be-named whilst Dr. Strange looks on in amusement. Being able to use your own Pops! is a great twist and I am definitely a fan.
I guess I DO like tactical move-around-the-board-and-do-stuff games after all! I just needed a little direction and a good theme to pull me into the genre. I also have the expandalone for the HP version of this that includes Malfoy and Ron, and can’t wait to add those in as well. And let me tell you how much I need the next expandalone that includes Dumbledore, Hagrid, Snape, and Umbridge. I need, like, I NEED to deal some damage to that pink witch SO MUCH. In any case, Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a patronus-fueled 10 / 12. If you are on the fence about this gimmicky-looking game, then let me help you – get it. Play it a lot and play it with lots of other people (when possible). Extra points to Hufflegriffinsnake if you yell out the spell names a la Harold Potter in the movies.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Deep Blue in Tabletop Games
Mar 17, 2022
A couple of months ago, Travis was in town, so he and I went over to Josh’s place to get a day of gaming in. It was an awesome time to play together, and to get to experience some new games for each of us. While we were there, we got to talking about some of the games in Josh’s collection, and he pulled out Deep Blue. He’d had it for a while, but had since gotten another game that he felt did the same things but better. So he asked if either of us wanted to take it off his hands. I said sure, as I’d never played the game before. Now that it’s a part of my collection, is it going to stay there? Or will my feelings mirror Josh’s with regards to the gameplay?
Deep Blue is a nautical game for 2-5 players of deck building, hand management, and a bit of push your luck. In it, players take on the roles ship Captains who are racing to collect treasures from undersea wrecks. Players will be hiring Crew members, sailing across the sea, and sending divers down to wrecks to salvage any valuables. The race is on, though, because you are not the only Captain on this treasure hunt… Throughout the game, players will stumble across 4 Wrecks that make up a Sunken City. Once all 4 areas of the Sunken City have been discovered and searched, the game ends. The player who earns the most VP from their collected treasures by the end of the game is declared the winner!
To setup for a game, follow the instructions in the rulebook – there are simply too many to detail here. The basic gist of setup is to create a market of Crew cards, shuffle and randomly distribute Wreck tiles across the board, and create a Gem pool. Each player will receive a player mat and starting cards in their chosen color, as well as 2 ships to be placed on the starting space of the board. Players will also get a treasure chest, in which they will keep their VP throughout the game. Set the Dive Site board, Gem bag, and VP tokens off to the side. Select a starting player, deal out starting tokens accordingly, and the game is ready to begin! Pictured below is the setup for a 3-player game.
On your turn, you will take one of four possible actions: Recruit a Crew Member, Sail, Rest, or Dive. Throughout the game you will be building your personal deck by Recruiting Crew Members. These new Crew offer unique abilities and scoring powers to be used during Dives. In order to recruit a Crew Member, you must pay the corresponding cost listed by its location in the market. To do so, you will play cards from your hand with $ symbols that equal the required cost. Once you play a card from your hand, it goes facedown onto the Rest area of your player mat. Take the Crew Member you just hired directly into your hand, and move the Market cards down to fill in the empty space, drawing a new card for the final slot. If you choose to Sail, you will play a number of cards from your hand with the Propeller icon. The number of icons dictates how many spaces you may sail. You can use all of your movement on one of your ships, or you can break movement across both ships. If you end a move on a face-up Wreck tile, you will ‘anchor’ your boat to one of the open scouting spots. These scouting spots offer special scoring benefits during the Dive on this tile. If you end movement on a face-down Wreck tile, first you will flip it face-up, and then anchor your boat. When landing on a buoy or an empty dive site, nothing happens.
On any turn, you may instead choose to Rest. To perform this action, you will shuffle all cards that reside on the Rest area of your player mat, and then draw only the 3 topmost cards into your hand. This is the action that allows you to refresh your hand, as you play more cards and your hand starts to dwindle. The final action choice is to Dive. This action is the crux of the game. When you have a boat on a Wreck tile, you may choose to start a Dive. The first step is to declare your Dive – decide which Wreck to Dive if your boats are on different Wreck tiles. Before the Dive begins, any opponents who have boats on adjacent Wreck tiles may move their boats to your Wreck in hopes of also profiting from the Dive. When all eligible boats have been moved to the Wreck, you will then officially begin the Dive. Take the Gem bag and Dive Site board. You will then draw Gems out of the bag, one-by-one, resolving them as necessary. Red, Gold, Silver, Green, and Purple gems are treasures, and can earn you VP. Blue and Black gems are Hazards that must be defended against in order to continue the Dive.
After a Gem is drawn and placed on the Dive Site board, players may choose to play a Crew Member to increase their VP earned. For example, one card allows you to earn 8 VP for a Green gem, instead of 0. To defend against hazards, players may play Crew from their hands who have the ability to negate the hazard, or may use the special ability of their scouting spot on the Wreck tile. If you are unable to defend against a hazard, you are forced to resurface and leave the Dive. The Dive continues in this fashion, until either the active player decides to end the Dive, or when they no longer have the ability to defend against hazards. Any players who still have boats at the Dive Site will collect VP from Crew cards they played, as well as a base amount of VP for the different Gems that were drawn. Once a Dive has been performed at a Wreck, that tile is removed from the game, leaving an empty dive site behind. If players have performed a Dive at one of the 4 Sunken City tiles, it is removed from the board, but placed on its corresponding space in the corner of the board. After all 4 Sunken City tiles have been moved to the corner of the board, the game immediately ends. Players will count up all the VP collected throughout the game, and the player with the highest score is declared the winner!
So how do I feel about Deep Blue overall? I would have to say that it’s fine. Just fine. There are some elements that I really enjoy, but others that kind of frustrate me. What I enjoy – the bits of strategy involved, and the awesome components. What I don’t enjoy – the pacing of the game and the imbalance of actions. To touch on the pros first, this game does require some strategy. You have to decide where to Sail, which Crew to recruit, which Crew to play and when to play them, etc. VP are earned by participating in Dives, so you want to make sure you can be at as many Dives as possible. That means keeping ships close to opponents to profit from any dives they may choose to initiate. Another interesting strategic element is the Rest action. You shuffle your discard pile, but then only draw the 3 topmost cards into your hand. You might not always draw what you were wanting, but you are always allowed to take a Rest action, regardless of how many cards are in your discard. There is no hand limit in this game, so do you rest every other turn to ensure you have almost all cards in your hand? Or do you dwindle your hand down in order to perform other actions instead? It’s all about your strategy, and you never quite know what your opponents are trying to do.
Now for the cons. The pacing of the gameplay feels really slow to me. You are only allowed to perform 1 action per turn, so it seems like the game takes a while to really get going. At first, everyone is going to be wanting to Sail, as all players start in the same starting area of the board. You want to get your ships out there ASAP. But then you run out of cards, so you have to take a turn to Rest and get those cards back. You’re taking a bunch of little turns to accomplish any one bigger thing, and that bogs down the gameplay for me. If you were able to perform 2 actions per turn, that would probably alleviate some of this frustration, as it would allow you to progress more quickly than by taking only a single action. Another aspect I mentioned is the imbalance of actions. The Recruit, Sail, and Rest actions all feel to me like they are on the same level, but the Dive action is different. Which in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But the process of the Dive action is vastly different than any of the other actions, to the point that it kind of feels like a different game to me. For half of the game, you’re playing this game of strategy, deck building, and optimizing placement across the board. But for the other half, it turns into a push-your-luck frenzy that seems disjointed from the rest of the game to me. No matter how strategic and careful you are with your actions, it ultimately comes down to the luck of the draw.
To touch on components for a minute – the production quality of this game is awesome. The board, Dive Site board, and VP tokens are nice chunky cardboard. The cards are colorful, have cool artwork, and are sturdy. And the treasure chests are awesome little plastic chests that definitely are holding up well. The Wreck tiles are big and thick, the Gems are cute, and the ships are fun to play with. So overall, this game is made very well.
You can probably tell by now that I have mixed feelings about Deep Blue. There are aspects that I like, but other aspects that negate some of those positive attributes. I was psyched for a cool nautical deck builder where I could really flex my strategy, but got more push-your-luck than I was anticipating. Deep Blue will probably stick around in my collection for the time being. But, like Josh, I will probably find something that gives me the same vibes but done better. It’s a game that I’ll pull out from time to time, but definitely not one that’s going to break into my Top 10. With that said, Purple Phoenix Games gives it a sunken 4 / 6.
Deep Blue is a nautical game for 2-5 players of deck building, hand management, and a bit of push your luck. In it, players take on the roles ship Captains who are racing to collect treasures from undersea wrecks. Players will be hiring Crew members, sailing across the sea, and sending divers down to wrecks to salvage any valuables. The race is on, though, because you are not the only Captain on this treasure hunt… Throughout the game, players will stumble across 4 Wrecks that make up a Sunken City. Once all 4 areas of the Sunken City have been discovered and searched, the game ends. The player who earns the most VP from their collected treasures by the end of the game is declared the winner!
To setup for a game, follow the instructions in the rulebook – there are simply too many to detail here. The basic gist of setup is to create a market of Crew cards, shuffle and randomly distribute Wreck tiles across the board, and create a Gem pool. Each player will receive a player mat and starting cards in their chosen color, as well as 2 ships to be placed on the starting space of the board. Players will also get a treasure chest, in which they will keep their VP throughout the game. Set the Dive Site board, Gem bag, and VP tokens off to the side. Select a starting player, deal out starting tokens accordingly, and the game is ready to begin! Pictured below is the setup for a 3-player game.
On your turn, you will take one of four possible actions: Recruit a Crew Member, Sail, Rest, or Dive. Throughout the game you will be building your personal deck by Recruiting Crew Members. These new Crew offer unique abilities and scoring powers to be used during Dives. In order to recruit a Crew Member, you must pay the corresponding cost listed by its location in the market. To do so, you will play cards from your hand with $ symbols that equal the required cost. Once you play a card from your hand, it goes facedown onto the Rest area of your player mat. Take the Crew Member you just hired directly into your hand, and move the Market cards down to fill in the empty space, drawing a new card for the final slot. If you choose to Sail, you will play a number of cards from your hand with the Propeller icon. The number of icons dictates how many spaces you may sail. You can use all of your movement on one of your ships, or you can break movement across both ships. If you end a move on a face-up Wreck tile, you will ‘anchor’ your boat to one of the open scouting spots. These scouting spots offer special scoring benefits during the Dive on this tile. If you end movement on a face-down Wreck tile, first you will flip it face-up, and then anchor your boat. When landing on a buoy or an empty dive site, nothing happens.
On any turn, you may instead choose to Rest. To perform this action, you will shuffle all cards that reside on the Rest area of your player mat, and then draw only the 3 topmost cards into your hand. This is the action that allows you to refresh your hand, as you play more cards and your hand starts to dwindle. The final action choice is to Dive. This action is the crux of the game. When you have a boat on a Wreck tile, you may choose to start a Dive. The first step is to declare your Dive – decide which Wreck to Dive if your boats are on different Wreck tiles. Before the Dive begins, any opponents who have boats on adjacent Wreck tiles may move their boats to your Wreck in hopes of also profiting from the Dive. When all eligible boats have been moved to the Wreck, you will then officially begin the Dive. Take the Gem bag and Dive Site board. You will then draw Gems out of the bag, one-by-one, resolving them as necessary. Red, Gold, Silver, Green, and Purple gems are treasures, and can earn you VP. Blue and Black gems are Hazards that must be defended against in order to continue the Dive.
After a Gem is drawn and placed on the Dive Site board, players may choose to play a Crew Member to increase their VP earned. For example, one card allows you to earn 8 VP for a Green gem, instead of 0. To defend against hazards, players may play Crew from their hands who have the ability to negate the hazard, or may use the special ability of their scouting spot on the Wreck tile. If you are unable to defend against a hazard, you are forced to resurface and leave the Dive. The Dive continues in this fashion, until either the active player decides to end the Dive, or when they no longer have the ability to defend against hazards. Any players who still have boats at the Dive Site will collect VP from Crew cards they played, as well as a base amount of VP for the different Gems that were drawn. Once a Dive has been performed at a Wreck, that tile is removed from the game, leaving an empty dive site behind. If players have performed a Dive at one of the 4 Sunken City tiles, it is removed from the board, but placed on its corresponding space in the corner of the board. After all 4 Sunken City tiles have been moved to the corner of the board, the game immediately ends. Players will count up all the VP collected throughout the game, and the player with the highest score is declared the winner!
So how do I feel about Deep Blue overall? I would have to say that it’s fine. Just fine. There are some elements that I really enjoy, but others that kind of frustrate me. What I enjoy – the bits of strategy involved, and the awesome components. What I don’t enjoy – the pacing of the game and the imbalance of actions. To touch on the pros first, this game does require some strategy. You have to decide where to Sail, which Crew to recruit, which Crew to play and when to play them, etc. VP are earned by participating in Dives, so you want to make sure you can be at as many Dives as possible. That means keeping ships close to opponents to profit from any dives they may choose to initiate. Another interesting strategic element is the Rest action. You shuffle your discard pile, but then only draw the 3 topmost cards into your hand. You might not always draw what you were wanting, but you are always allowed to take a Rest action, regardless of how many cards are in your discard. There is no hand limit in this game, so do you rest every other turn to ensure you have almost all cards in your hand? Or do you dwindle your hand down in order to perform other actions instead? It’s all about your strategy, and you never quite know what your opponents are trying to do.
Now for the cons. The pacing of the gameplay feels really slow to me. You are only allowed to perform 1 action per turn, so it seems like the game takes a while to really get going. At first, everyone is going to be wanting to Sail, as all players start in the same starting area of the board. You want to get your ships out there ASAP. But then you run out of cards, so you have to take a turn to Rest and get those cards back. You’re taking a bunch of little turns to accomplish any one bigger thing, and that bogs down the gameplay for me. If you were able to perform 2 actions per turn, that would probably alleviate some of this frustration, as it would allow you to progress more quickly than by taking only a single action. Another aspect I mentioned is the imbalance of actions. The Recruit, Sail, and Rest actions all feel to me like they are on the same level, but the Dive action is different. Which in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But the process of the Dive action is vastly different than any of the other actions, to the point that it kind of feels like a different game to me. For half of the game, you’re playing this game of strategy, deck building, and optimizing placement across the board. But for the other half, it turns into a push-your-luck frenzy that seems disjointed from the rest of the game to me. No matter how strategic and careful you are with your actions, it ultimately comes down to the luck of the draw.
To touch on components for a minute – the production quality of this game is awesome. The board, Dive Site board, and VP tokens are nice chunky cardboard. The cards are colorful, have cool artwork, and are sturdy. And the treasure chests are awesome little plastic chests that definitely are holding up well. The Wreck tiles are big and thick, the Gems are cute, and the ships are fun to play with. So overall, this game is made very well.
You can probably tell by now that I have mixed feelings about Deep Blue. There are aspects that I like, but other aspects that negate some of those positive attributes. I was psyched for a cool nautical deck builder where I could really flex my strategy, but got more push-your-luck than I was anticipating. Deep Blue will probably stick around in my collection for the time being. But, like Josh, I will probably find something that gives me the same vibes but done better. It’s a game that I’ll pull out from time to time, but definitely not one that’s going to break into my Top 10. With that said, Purple Phoenix Games gives it a sunken 4 / 6.
Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) rated Those People in Books
Apr 20, 2019
Enthralling Read
I must admit that I was sucked into Those People by Louise Candlish as soon as I read the synopsis. I had a feeling this was going to be a good read, and I was correct. I found this book to be very interesting.
The plot of Those People really held my attention. Basically, the short of it is, Lowland Way, the road where the story takes place, is full of rich people. When neighbors Darren and Jodie inherit a house from a relative, they make their neighbors' lives a nightmare by being loud, playing loud music all day and night, taking up a lot of space with their car business, and not following the neighborly rules of being good neighbors. When a murder occurs, the rich folk of Lowland Way think it will be an open and shut case and that their lives will return to normal. However, nothing could be further from the truth. After reading about Darren and Jodie, I could definitely relate to the feelings of the people on Lowland Way because I've had some pretty bad neighbors. Luckily, they've never been as bad as Darren and Jodie though. I found the plot to be extreme, but it was believable. Sometimes people will go too far if they are driven mad enough (not that I agreed with their actions) as was the case in Those People. There were a few good plot twists. However, I felt like I need more closure at the end of the book. Those People is not part of a series, so I feel like I will never get answers. It's more of a speculative ending which I am never a fan of.
I did enjoy reading about the lives of the characters in Those People. I felt they were all written perfectly and were fleshed out enough to feel like real people instead of just characters in a book. I did find many of the characters to be snobby especially Naomi. She was written really well, but I felt her character had a giant chip on her shoulder. Emma was a complete basket case. I get that she just had a baby, but some of her actions were quite extreme. However, I do know someone like her in real life. Sissy was my overall favorite character. She was the oldest, and she also had the most to lose especially as Darren and Jodie's actions were causing her to lose her bed and breakfast business. My heart really went out to her. I did think Darren and Jodie made for great baddies. I like how Darren would keep his cool for the most part when the others of Lowland Way would lose their cool towards him. For the most part, I felt that females in this book overshadowed the men with the exception of Darren and Jodie. The females seemed to be the stronger characters. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing though.
The pacing for Those People always stayed consistent and held my attention throughout. In fact, I never wanted to put this book down because I was so entranced with what was going on and what would happen next.
Trigger warnings for Those People include violence, death, profanity, and alcohol and drug use.
Overall, Those People is a really good read. I was consistently absorbed by all the drama happening at Lowland Way. The characters were written well, and the plot definitely held my attention. I would definitely recommend Those People by Louise Candlish to everyone aged 18+ especially those who have ever had to deal with some horrible neighbors.
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(A special thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC paperback of Those People by Louise Candlish in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.)
The plot of Those People really held my attention. Basically, the short of it is, Lowland Way, the road where the story takes place, is full of rich people. When neighbors Darren and Jodie inherit a house from a relative, they make their neighbors' lives a nightmare by being loud, playing loud music all day and night, taking up a lot of space with their car business, and not following the neighborly rules of being good neighbors. When a murder occurs, the rich folk of Lowland Way think it will be an open and shut case and that their lives will return to normal. However, nothing could be further from the truth. After reading about Darren and Jodie, I could definitely relate to the feelings of the people on Lowland Way because I've had some pretty bad neighbors. Luckily, they've never been as bad as Darren and Jodie though. I found the plot to be extreme, but it was believable. Sometimes people will go too far if they are driven mad enough (not that I agreed with their actions) as was the case in Those People. There were a few good plot twists. However, I felt like I need more closure at the end of the book. Those People is not part of a series, so I feel like I will never get answers. It's more of a speculative ending which I am never a fan of.
I did enjoy reading about the lives of the characters in Those People. I felt they were all written perfectly and were fleshed out enough to feel like real people instead of just characters in a book. I did find many of the characters to be snobby especially Naomi. She was written really well, but I felt her character had a giant chip on her shoulder. Emma was a complete basket case. I get that she just had a baby, but some of her actions were quite extreme. However, I do know someone like her in real life. Sissy was my overall favorite character. She was the oldest, and she also had the most to lose especially as Darren and Jodie's actions were causing her to lose her bed and breakfast business. My heart really went out to her. I did think Darren and Jodie made for great baddies. I like how Darren would keep his cool for the most part when the others of Lowland Way would lose their cool towards him. For the most part, I felt that females in this book overshadowed the men with the exception of Darren and Jodie. The females seemed to be the stronger characters. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing though.
The pacing for Those People always stayed consistent and held my attention throughout. In fact, I never wanted to put this book down because I was so entranced with what was going on and what would happen next.
Trigger warnings for Those People include violence, death, profanity, and alcohol and drug use.
Overall, Those People is a really good read. I was consistently absorbed by all the drama happening at Lowland Way. The characters were written well, and the plot definitely held my attention. I would definitely recommend Those People by Louise Candlish to everyone aged 18+ especially those who have ever had to deal with some horrible neighbors.
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(A special thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC paperback of Those People by Louise Candlish in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.)
Ryan Hill (152 KP) rated Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) in Movies
May 10, 2019
“You said it yourself bitch, we’re the Guardians of the Galaxy”
The Marvel marathon continues. We started with the story of a soldier out of time. Now we move on to the tale of a group of losers having to learn not to kill each other and maybe, just maybe, becoming friends along the way. Guardians of the Galaxy I view as the movie that fully cemented Marvel Studios as the powerhouse we know today. The popularity of Iron Man and Thor spiked after their respective films, but I'm gonna guess if you pulled someone random off the street and asked them who either character was before their movies were released, they could probably at least tell you who they are. Now, not too far separated from the humongous success of The Avengers, here comes Marvel with a film about characters next to no one, not even some avid fans of comics, knew existed. And wouldn't you know, five years after Guardians came out and made Groot a household word, it's still one of their best films Marvel has made.
Guardians of the Galaxy almost off the bat confronts two major complaints I hear about Marvel flicks. First, that they don't look cinematic. Call it the "TV show aesthetic." Moderately flat shots, muted colors, forgettable music, etc. Second, that they're too heavy on witty banter and don't leave enough room for genuinely meaty substance. In regards to the first point, this film looks gorgeous. The color palette and cinematography are both creative and have an absolute blast with the concept of creating a grandiose space opera with equal parts charm and toilet humor. Each planet has its own distinct decor and aliens. Gunn managed to create a fleshed-out, lively, and unique galaxy. In regards to the second point, while there is all sorts of banter to be found throughout, including a Jackson Pollock cum joke, Guardians of the Galaxy has to have the biggest heart out of any film in the MCU. The movie is a full measured ton of fun, but it tugs at the heartstrings in a way few modern blockbusters have been able to achieve.
Four of the five Guardians have something in their life that lead to great tragedy. Peter and Drax lost family very close to them. Gamora and Rocket were tortured and bred to be bloodthirsty warriors. But then, there's Groot. Sweet, unassuming Groot. A beast in battle, but a gentle giant otherwise. His existence seems simple. He eats a leaf off of his shoulder, he drinks water straight from a fountain, and he's more than willing to grow and give a flower to a small girl. He's perhaps the closest we have to a lead character who is wholly happy. The Guardians all start off as renegades, loners, folks reasonably hardened by lives that have enjoyed fucking them over. We get to see them by the end of the film not just grow into heroes, but friends and good people. I am Groot. You are Groot. We are Groot.
Marvel took a big gamble with this movie, but it payed off so absurdly well. The humor is great, the characters even better, and the atmosphere equal parts fun and emotional. Guardians of the Galaxy stands out in the sea of superhero films as a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve. It's weird, but it's damn proud of the fact that it is. Maybe it's alright to be a loser. The world could use a few more losers to help us along the way of life. I think what I'm trying to get down to is this: It was polite of James Gunn to make a movie to go along with his sick mixtape.
Guardians of the Galaxy almost off the bat confronts two major complaints I hear about Marvel flicks. First, that they don't look cinematic. Call it the "TV show aesthetic." Moderately flat shots, muted colors, forgettable music, etc. Second, that they're too heavy on witty banter and don't leave enough room for genuinely meaty substance. In regards to the first point, this film looks gorgeous. The color palette and cinematography are both creative and have an absolute blast with the concept of creating a grandiose space opera with equal parts charm and toilet humor. Each planet has its own distinct decor and aliens. Gunn managed to create a fleshed-out, lively, and unique galaxy. In regards to the second point, while there is all sorts of banter to be found throughout, including a Jackson Pollock cum joke, Guardians of the Galaxy has to have the biggest heart out of any film in the MCU. The movie is a full measured ton of fun, but it tugs at the heartstrings in a way few modern blockbusters have been able to achieve.
Four of the five Guardians have something in their life that lead to great tragedy. Peter and Drax lost family very close to them. Gamora and Rocket were tortured and bred to be bloodthirsty warriors. But then, there's Groot. Sweet, unassuming Groot. A beast in battle, but a gentle giant otherwise. His existence seems simple. He eats a leaf off of his shoulder, he drinks water straight from a fountain, and he's more than willing to grow and give a flower to a small girl. He's perhaps the closest we have to a lead character who is wholly happy. The Guardians all start off as renegades, loners, folks reasonably hardened by lives that have enjoyed fucking them over. We get to see them by the end of the film not just grow into heroes, but friends and good people. I am Groot. You are Groot. We are Groot.
Marvel took a big gamble with this movie, but it payed off so absurdly well. The humor is great, the characters even better, and the atmosphere equal parts fun and emotional. Guardians of the Galaxy stands out in the sea of superhero films as a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve. It's weird, but it's damn proud of the fact that it is. Maybe it's alright to be a loser. The world could use a few more losers to help us along the way of life. I think what I'm trying to get down to is this: It was polite of James Gunn to make a movie to go along with his sick mixtape.
Kara Skinner (332 KP) rated Of Mice Not Men in Books
Jun 12, 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Non-Romance
Page Count: 350 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
After manmade natural disasters wiped out most humans and life around the world, war breaks out among the remaining humans. The faction called the Developers want to take the resources from Earth and leave the dying planet behind to join the stars. The Harmonizers want to stay and restore Earth’s resources. Both factions race to stop the other, using deadly, even sadistic measures. After all, the fate of the planet and the human race lies in the balance.
I had my ups and downs with this book to be sure. Aside from the book badly needing a proofreader, the writing itself is well done, only dipping into preachiness about human’s greed a couple of times. The brain curdling torture scenes were deliciously awful and made me stop reading a couple times to look up pictures of pet pigs until I calmed down enough to continue.
I thought I had a stomach for violence. I read Stephen King books and have watched plenty of horror movies. In middle school I reveled in shocking my classmates with presentations of General Sherman’s March to the Sea and torture practices from the Spanish Inquisition. In high school I was the only one who could watch the video of a shark eating a turtle without looking away ( but I ended up crying about shark fin soup later that year).
The point is, violence in books usually doesn’t bother me. But Canterbury takes it to a whole new level in a few of the torture scenes. It wasn’t just the twisted sadism in the scenes that bothered me, however. It was the fact that both sides are tooth achingly aware of the finite resources left and yet they both spend resources making inefficient weapons. The Developers do it in the name of sadism and the Harmonizers end up with weapons that are less effective than gun powder guns. I guess it shows that humans don’t make sense.
There are a lot of characters in this book, but Jasmine is the main character. I didn’t like her at first. I found her too cold-hearted and hot-headed. Granted, she’s in deeper and darker shit than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but despite her parents dying, she isn’t a sympathetic character for most of the book. Her relationship with Thomas feels as forced as a cheap jigsaw puzzle. Mostly she is indifferent to him or pushing him away. For awhile the only reason she was still with him was out of fear of being alone. And then suddenly she loves him? I never really bought it. Cynthia’s relationship with an alien artificial intelligence robot feels more real and she thought she was hallucinating it.
But I ended up really liking Jasmine in the end, and even Thomas. The plot was fascinating, even a couple of parts I was skeptical about at first and this book turned out to be entertaining, even though I guessed two of the biggest plot “twists” (if you can even call them that) as soon as the foreshadowing again. But one plot twist I didn’t see coming at all, which was great.
I do wish the sides were not so black and white. The Developers were clearly evil with practically no human sides in any main characters while the Harmonizers were clearly peaceful with no dark streaks to be found. It ended up making what could have been a great story about needless conflict and saving the world sound a little like anti space exploration propaganda. That being said, it is still entertaining.
While Canterbury’s writing skills are rough, he has the potential to be a great science fiction/horror writer.
Page Count: 350 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
After manmade natural disasters wiped out most humans and life around the world, war breaks out among the remaining humans. The faction called the Developers want to take the resources from Earth and leave the dying planet behind to join the stars. The Harmonizers want to stay and restore Earth’s resources. Both factions race to stop the other, using deadly, even sadistic measures. After all, the fate of the planet and the human race lies in the balance.
I had my ups and downs with this book to be sure. Aside from the book badly needing a proofreader, the writing itself is well done, only dipping into preachiness about human’s greed a couple of times. The brain curdling torture scenes were deliciously awful and made me stop reading a couple times to look up pictures of pet pigs until I calmed down enough to continue.
I thought I had a stomach for violence. I read Stephen King books and have watched plenty of horror movies. In middle school I reveled in shocking my classmates with presentations of General Sherman’s March to the Sea and torture practices from the Spanish Inquisition. In high school I was the only one who could watch the video of a shark eating a turtle without looking away ( but I ended up crying about shark fin soup later that year).
The point is, violence in books usually doesn’t bother me. But Canterbury takes it to a whole new level in a few of the torture scenes. It wasn’t just the twisted sadism in the scenes that bothered me, however. It was the fact that both sides are tooth achingly aware of the finite resources left and yet they both spend resources making inefficient weapons. The Developers do it in the name of sadism and the Harmonizers end up with weapons that are less effective than gun powder guns. I guess it shows that humans don’t make sense.
There are a lot of characters in this book, but Jasmine is the main character. I didn’t like her at first. I found her too cold-hearted and hot-headed. Granted, she’s in deeper and darker shit than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but despite her parents dying, she isn’t a sympathetic character for most of the book. Her relationship with Thomas feels as forced as a cheap jigsaw puzzle. Mostly she is indifferent to him or pushing him away. For awhile the only reason she was still with him was out of fear of being alone. And then suddenly she loves him? I never really bought it. Cynthia’s relationship with an alien artificial intelligence robot feels more real and she thought she was hallucinating it.
But I ended up really liking Jasmine in the end, and even Thomas. The plot was fascinating, even a couple of parts I was skeptical about at first and this book turned out to be entertaining, even though I guessed two of the biggest plot “twists” (if you can even call them that) as soon as the foreshadowing again. But one plot twist I didn’t see coming at all, which was great.
I do wish the sides were not so black and white. The Developers were clearly evil with practically no human sides in any main characters while the Harmonizers were clearly peaceful with no dark streaks to be found. It ended up making what could have been a great story about needless conflict and saving the world sound a little like anti space exploration propaganda. That being said, it is still entertaining.
While Canterbury’s writing skills are rough, he has the potential to be a great science fiction/horror writer.