Search
Search results
Amerigo
8.0
Rate It
Tabletop Game
In Amerigo, the players help Amerigo Vespucci on his journey to discover new land. The players...
Boardgames HistoricalGames ExplorationGames
Parfs (178 KP) rated Jumanji: The Game in Tabletop Games
May 2, 2019
Easy to play (1 more)
Good art work
Great family friendly game
This game is great and really fun to play as a family. Simple enough concept combining numbered dice, action cards and picture dice. Draw an action card at the end of moving your counter, the card has a short rhyme about the danger you are facing along with some nice art work, it also shows what picture you need to roll on the picture dice to stop you from filling up the danger zone. You have 6 seconds to roll the picture to match the card.
The game says for people aged 8 to adult but have to say my 4 and 6 year old have been able to play this and really enjoy it fully. We can normally finish the game in about 30 minutes so is a great little time killer and the replay ability is good.
I would have liked the counters to have been shaped to match the game pieces from the movie instead of the plain coloured cones that are supplied but it is a minor gripe.
All in all if you are after an enjoyable board game you really can't go wrong with this game. It is well priced at below £15 from most retailers and is worth every penny.
The game says for people aged 8 to adult but have to say my 4 and 6 year old have been able to play this and really enjoy it fully. We can normally finish the game in about 30 minutes so is a great little time killer and the replay ability is good.
I would have liked the counters to have been shaped to match the game pieces from the movie instead of the plain coloured cones that are supplied but it is a minor gripe.
All in all if you are after an enjoyable board game you really can't go wrong with this game. It is well priced at below £15 from most retailers and is worth every penny.
Marriage Card Game
Games
App
Marriage, brought to you by Bhoos.com, is a 3 deck, 21 cards rummy game popular in Nepal, Bhutan and...
Kingdomino
7.9
Rate It
Tabletop Game
In Kingdomino, you are a Lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore...
BoardGames TilelayingGames FamilyGames
Wooden Block Puzzle Game
Games and Entertainment
9.0
Rate It
App
It's FUN, simple and 100% RELAXING guaranteed! Get your BEST puzzle today! Let's join over...
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Broom Service in Tabletop Games
Jun 24, 2021
A show of hands for all of us who have dressed for Halloween as a witch, wizard, druid, fairy, or the like. My hand is raised. How awesome would it be to actually have power to fly – even by broomstick? Or to make some excellent magic potions? Well daydream no more. Broom Service puts you into the world of flying witches and gathering druids and even Weather Fairies all to help your business deliver potions to towers and other buildings with magical tenants.
At its heart Broom Service is a trick-taking card game with pick-up-and-deliver mechanics flowing to the board. Each player will be attempting to supply the board’s towers and castles with magic potions, but they will need to craft them first. AND one does not simply HAVE potion ingredients handy – they need to gather the correct supplies. The winner of Broom Service is the player who best can supply areas of the board by claiming tricks to increase production of said potions.
To setup place the board in the middle of the table (I am waiting for a game to come along that asks you to place the board in the Northwest quadrant of the table or something similar). Populate the board with the proper Heavy Cloud tokens to be whisked away by players for points and access to additional board areas. Place player score tokens on 10 VP along the VP track. Shuffle the Event deck and randomly place seven cards in a draw pile, revealing one into the discard. Each player will receive their two witch hat pawns to be placed on the main castles, a deck of 10 role cards from which they will choose four each round, a set of one each of the three colors of potions, and magic wands per the rules. The game can now begin!
On a player’s turn they will choose one of their four role cards and place it face down in front of themselves. Once all have done this, the starting player will announce their chosen role and declare that they wish to be Cowardly or Brave. For instance, a player may say, “I am a Cowardly Fruit Gatherer” whilst revealing their role card. By declaring Cowardly, the player immediately performs the action on the bottom of the card for Cowardly Fruit Gatherers: produce one purple potion. In order to perform the actions on top of the card the player would need to declare that they are Brave. The player will not perform the action quite yet as now play continues to the next player in line who, if they also chose to play the Fruit Gatherer card, will declare if they will also be Brave. If so, the newest player to claim Brave will be essentially winning the Brave Fruit Gatherer trick. This continues around the table until the very last Brave Fruit Gatherer has declared and won the trick. The winning player then performs the action while all other previous Brave Fruit Gatherers receive NOTHING. Brutal.
The game continues in this fashion of players bidding on Brave roles for better results (as in the example, a Brave Fruit Gatherer is able to make two purple potions AND another potion of their choice) until players have played seven rounds. They then add up their points per the rule book and the winner is determined!
Now, this is a brief explanation of the trick-taking aspect of the game, but other roles actually allow players to deliver the potions made, and still others allow players to use their magic wands to whisk away Heavy Clouds for VPs and remove their board space blocking qualities. Each time a potion is delivered, the player will earn VPs. The trick-taking aspect is simply the gist and also crux of the game.
Components. I love the components in Broom Service. The board is nice and super colorful, with all areas easy to read and understand (though some players have issues with where the towers actually lie on the board, but you must look at which area the BASES of the towers touch to determine this). The cards have wistful artwork on them and the art throughout is stellar. The wooden witch hats and potions are all great, and I love the colors used on these – I mean, orange and purple go super well together. And then there’s green. All in all the components in Broom Service are just great.
That said, I give Broom Service excellent marks because it truly is a better implementation of its predecessor, Witch’s Brew, in almost every aspect (even though my wife disagrees). The art is better, the components are better, the addition of the board and its mechanics add so much to the game. I love being able to travel to different areas of the board to deliver items, and I really don’t have too many pick-up-and-deliver style games, so this really fills a niche in my collection. Also, on another personal note, Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday and Broom Service is certainly a game for that season. I am definitely not alone in my assessment of this one, as Purple Phoenix Games gives Broom Service a whooshy 14 / 18. Come at me on this one because I am defo a Brave Mountain Witch… or just a normal reviewer who likes this game a whole lot.
At its heart Broom Service is a trick-taking card game with pick-up-and-deliver mechanics flowing to the board. Each player will be attempting to supply the board’s towers and castles with magic potions, but they will need to craft them first. AND one does not simply HAVE potion ingredients handy – they need to gather the correct supplies. The winner of Broom Service is the player who best can supply areas of the board by claiming tricks to increase production of said potions.
To setup place the board in the middle of the table (I am waiting for a game to come along that asks you to place the board in the Northwest quadrant of the table or something similar). Populate the board with the proper Heavy Cloud tokens to be whisked away by players for points and access to additional board areas. Place player score tokens on 10 VP along the VP track. Shuffle the Event deck and randomly place seven cards in a draw pile, revealing one into the discard. Each player will receive their two witch hat pawns to be placed on the main castles, a deck of 10 role cards from which they will choose four each round, a set of one each of the three colors of potions, and magic wands per the rules. The game can now begin!
On a player’s turn they will choose one of their four role cards and place it face down in front of themselves. Once all have done this, the starting player will announce their chosen role and declare that they wish to be Cowardly or Brave. For instance, a player may say, “I am a Cowardly Fruit Gatherer” whilst revealing their role card. By declaring Cowardly, the player immediately performs the action on the bottom of the card for Cowardly Fruit Gatherers: produce one purple potion. In order to perform the actions on top of the card the player would need to declare that they are Brave. The player will not perform the action quite yet as now play continues to the next player in line who, if they also chose to play the Fruit Gatherer card, will declare if they will also be Brave. If so, the newest player to claim Brave will be essentially winning the Brave Fruit Gatherer trick. This continues around the table until the very last Brave Fruit Gatherer has declared and won the trick. The winning player then performs the action while all other previous Brave Fruit Gatherers receive NOTHING. Brutal.
The game continues in this fashion of players bidding on Brave roles for better results (as in the example, a Brave Fruit Gatherer is able to make two purple potions AND another potion of their choice) until players have played seven rounds. They then add up their points per the rule book and the winner is determined!
Now, this is a brief explanation of the trick-taking aspect of the game, but other roles actually allow players to deliver the potions made, and still others allow players to use their magic wands to whisk away Heavy Clouds for VPs and remove their board space blocking qualities. Each time a potion is delivered, the player will earn VPs. The trick-taking aspect is simply the gist and also crux of the game.
Components. I love the components in Broom Service. The board is nice and super colorful, with all areas easy to read and understand (though some players have issues with where the towers actually lie on the board, but you must look at which area the BASES of the towers touch to determine this). The cards have wistful artwork on them and the art throughout is stellar. The wooden witch hats and potions are all great, and I love the colors used on these – I mean, orange and purple go super well together. And then there’s green. All in all the components in Broom Service are just great.
That said, I give Broom Service excellent marks because it truly is a better implementation of its predecessor, Witch’s Brew, in almost every aspect (even though my wife disagrees). The art is better, the components are better, the addition of the board and its mechanics add so much to the game. I love being able to travel to different areas of the board to deliver items, and I really don’t have too many pick-up-and-deliver style games, so this really fills a niche in my collection. Also, on another personal note, Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday and Broom Service is certainly a game for that season. I am definitely not alone in my assessment of this one, as Purple Phoenix Games gives Broom Service a whooshy 14 / 18. Come at me on this one because I am defo a Brave Mountain Witch… or just a normal reviewer who likes this game a whole lot.
Paul Kellett (118 KP) rated Dawn of the Zeds (Third edition) in Tabletop Games
May 20, 2019
Staged rules to ease you in slowly (1 more)
Strong solo game plus team and 1 Vs many rules
The Ultimate Zombie Tower Defense
I've been wanting DotZ for some time so jumped on the reprint and expansions when they hit Kickstarter last year.
As a solo player, having a town defense game designed as a solo game first was a big draw for me and the game certainly doesn't disappoint.
After hearing so much about it and the complexity, I was surprised to find it a lot smaller than I expected - the board is smaller than most modern board games and there aren't anywhere near as many chits and cards as other wargames. The game will play easily on a coffee table.
The first thing you see are the 5 rule books, but these are handily split into a "Start Here" basic game book which lets you quickly jump in and play a basic game, just your heroes fending off the Zeds from reaching the town, the advanced rules which lead you through the next level of difficulty, adding in extra rules, the set-up guide with all the instructions for each difficulty level plus epilogues to see how well you did. Next there is the Farmingdale Dossier - a reference book with all the various hero and zombie special skills and finally, the complete rules A-Z with rules for all difficulty levels and game modes.
The levels are all colour coded so it is easy to sort and set up the desired difficulty level and the rules are similarly split up and each rule numbered so you can quickly find what you need.
Gameplay is tight and atmospheric, you really feel like you are holding back the zombie hoardes. Careful planning and strategy is vital as actions are limited (and you never actually know how many actions you will get from turn to turn making you make some hard choices as to what is best to do each turn.
Overall a very satisfying game that will keep me busy for a long time and the ability to add more advanced rules when I feel comfortable is great.
As a solo player, having a town defense game designed as a solo game first was a big draw for me and the game certainly doesn't disappoint.
After hearing so much about it and the complexity, I was surprised to find it a lot smaller than I expected - the board is smaller than most modern board games and there aren't anywhere near as many chits and cards as other wargames. The game will play easily on a coffee table.
The first thing you see are the 5 rule books, but these are handily split into a "Start Here" basic game book which lets you quickly jump in and play a basic game, just your heroes fending off the Zeds from reaching the town, the advanced rules which lead you through the next level of difficulty, adding in extra rules, the set-up guide with all the instructions for each difficulty level plus epilogues to see how well you did. Next there is the Farmingdale Dossier - a reference book with all the various hero and zombie special skills and finally, the complete rules A-Z with rules for all difficulty levels and game modes.
The levels are all colour coded so it is easy to sort and set up the desired difficulty level and the rules are similarly split up and each rule numbered so you can quickly find what you need.
Gameplay is tight and atmospheric, you really feel like you are holding back the zombie hoardes. Careful planning and strategy is vital as actions are limited (and you never actually know how many actions you will get from turn to turn making you make some hard choices as to what is best to do each turn.
Overall a very satisfying game that will keep me busy for a long time and the ability to add more advanced rules when I feel comfortable is great.
Flight Simulator Transporter Airplane Games
Games
App
Flight Simulator Transporter Airplane Games is a brand new 3D Plane Simulator Game! Your mission is...
Rikki Hammond (33 KP) rated Dominant Species in Tabletop Games
Jun 12, 2019 (Updated Jun 12, 2019)
Interesting term mechanism (2 more)
Each species plays slightly differently
Some interesting event card powers
Woefully long at high player counts (2 more)
Boring to look at
Can be almost impossible to come back from losing
An absolute slog of a game
Dominant species is one of those games that you will either love or hate. Now I don't despise many games but this is definitely one of them.
Players choose one of many different types of species in the game, and try to become the dominant species of the game by expanding their species across the different hexagonal tiles on the board, through migrating, reproducing, and attacking other animals. If a player has more animals on a tile than other players, they are considered the dominant species of that tile and can therefore gain victory points from doing so.
Turns are determined by players placing their action pawns on different spaces on the grid to the right of the board. Once everyone has placed their pawns on the grid, actions are then worked from the top of the grid to the bottom. These actions include, but are not limoted to moving your species to another tile, attacking another species, or picking up an event card to use later. The game ends once this stack of event cards runs out, and final scoring takes place.
Each species starts out with a certain traits which means they are suited to a certain type of terrain. You can use one of your actions to gain different traits and therefore allows you to expand your species into different terrain tiles. The event cards are also useful in that they give you special abilities or can change the game in some way. This could be having your species migrate more than once in a turn, to removing every other species from your own tiles.
I like the way the turn mechanism works as it gives each player a little bit of freedom as to where they can place their pawns, and how soon they want their turn to be taken. There are a finite amount of spaces on each place of the grid so if you're action is taken up by other players before you get to it then that's just tough luck. I also like that the different species are slightly different and so gives the game a slight bit of replayability.
These are all the positives that I can give this game however. The game in general is just incredibly dull and boring to look at. Each species is differentiated by different coloured cubes and cones on the board. Take the player boards away and this game could literally be about anything you want.
The game also goes on for far too long especially at higher player counts, and especially if people don't quickly pick up those event cards, as that is the only way the game will end.
The game can also be horrendously unfair to a player. If you make one or two wrong judgements at the start of the game it can be nigh on impossible to come back from being in last place which to me, does not sound fun at all.
Personally I do not recommend dominant species as a game and I do think there are much better ones out there.
Players choose one of many different types of species in the game, and try to become the dominant species of the game by expanding their species across the different hexagonal tiles on the board, through migrating, reproducing, and attacking other animals. If a player has more animals on a tile than other players, they are considered the dominant species of that tile and can therefore gain victory points from doing so.
Turns are determined by players placing their action pawns on different spaces on the grid to the right of the board. Once everyone has placed their pawns on the grid, actions are then worked from the top of the grid to the bottom. These actions include, but are not limoted to moving your species to another tile, attacking another species, or picking up an event card to use later. The game ends once this stack of event cards runs out, and final scoring takes place.
Each species starts out with a certain traits which means they are suited to a certain type of terrain. You can use one of your actions to gain different traits and therefore allows you to expand your species into different terrain tiles. The event cards are also useful in that they give you special abilities or can change the game in some way. This could be having your species migrate more than once in a turn, to removing every other species from your own tiles.
I like the way the turn mechanism works as it gives each player a little bit of freedom as to where they can place their pawns, and how soon they want their turn to be taken. There are a finite amount of spaces on each place of the grid so if you're action is taken up by other players before you get to it then that's just tough luck. I also like that the different species are slightly different and so gives the game a slight bit of replayability.
These are all the positives that I can give this game however. The game in general is just incredibly dull and boring to look at. Each species is differentiated by different coloured cubes and cones on the board. Take the player boards away and this game could literally be about anything you want.
The game also goes on for far too long especially at higher player counts, and especially if people don't quickly pick up those event cards, as that is the only way the game will end.
The game can also be horrendously unfair to a player. If you make one or two wrong judgements at the start of the game it can be nigh on impossible to come back from being in last place which to me, does not sound fun at all.
Personally I do not recommend dominant species as a game and I do think there are much better ones out there.