My girlfriend got down on her knees, bowed to me, and pointed her hands up by her head. My time ran out with no guess to find that it was Yoda. What inspired her to do such a thing? We were playing Time’s Up! Deluxe.
Times up! Deluxe is a party game by R&R games. Its for 4 or more players but since people are paired in the game even numbers work best. It takes about 30-45 minutes and retails around $20.
Components
The games is basically a bunch of cards, a timer, and a score pad. Each card has a yellow and a blue side with a name printed on each side. This was one of the more novel things they thought up since it allowed the 525 cards to do the job of twice that (that’s a 1050 for the mathematically challenged). The rulebook is easy to follow and has descriptions of the people named on the cards. This was a lifesaver since I would have never guessed Boris Badenov was a Bullwinkle villain. The deluxe edition also comes with a electronic timer which is handy.
Although the components are pretty straight forward there still was a few faults with them. The descriptions should have been on the cards themselves. This would have saved many whose that moments. The timer while handy I wish could have been able to auto set to 30 sec. Also, the game is devoid of any kind of art or decorations with the exception of a few creepy people in costumes on the box cover.
Gameplay
What to you to with a bunch of cards with names? In this game you guess them three times with more restrictions each time. On the first round, the players only know a portion of the cards in play and can say or do anything short of giving away the name. On the second round, one word is all the players can say. On the last round, no words are used at all. This would be impossible but since the same group of cards are used all game there is an inverse relationship between the amount of knowledge of the cards verses the quality of clues given.
The game itself isn’t were the fun lies. It provides the backdrop and a reason to make a fool of yourself. Yes, your trying to win but the off the wall clues and the strange gestures provide the fun. Far after the end of the game the conversation will be locked on to something that happed in game.
Conclusion
If you like party games, then this is a good one. If you don’t, this isn’t going to be the one to change your mind. Is it for everyone? No, shy people will hate it and some might find acting out the last round a bit award, but if you are wanting a game that is all fun and next to no rules, then this is the one for you.
Final Score
I had a lot of fun playing it with my girlfriend’s parents but it’s not something my usual game group would touch. 7/10
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Mall of Horror: fun game bad place to shop.
After getting into board gamming, I started having a group come over to play. Their number vary from a couple to a lot of people but the more we played a problem started to arise: We didn’t have enough six player games.
I scoured board game geek looking from the best games to fill that gap and I came across a gem. It looked fun, light, and had a theme I could love. The problem arose when I tried to find a copy. After two months of searching, I have it, Mall of Horror.
Mall of Horror is a negotiation game by Asmodee. It plays in around a hour and supports 3-6 players, but I have found six players is the when this game shines.
The game is apparently out of print and, according to the communication with Asmodee, is not being reprinted anytime soon.
Components
The pieces to the game aren’t anything that your going to be talking about for some time. It comes with wooden tokens for the players characters, a board, some dice, a box to cover the dice, some cards, 6 voting dials, and a good number of plastic zombie figures. Everything is functional for the game, and they did a good job bringing out the theme (especially in the cards which look like Polaroid pictures). There insert in the box even that holds everything the way it should be. The only real beef I have with the components is the lousy rules which were translated from French and it shows. Luckily, there are some good player aids available to fill that gap.
Game play
The game plays out very simple: everyone moves a character, zombies are added to the board, and people vote on whose getting eaten. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until everyone is in the same room or only four characters are left.
There are some additional rules about what can be done in each room and what abilities each character has but the game would still be dry as four day old toast if it didn’t have so much player interaction. The deals, the betrayals and the alliances are what make this game worth playing.
Conclusion
The game is everything I expected. My group enjoyed the first play so much that we played it again that night. The only problem I had with the game was that players can be eliminated and have little to do for rest of the game. Granted this may not be the game for everyone. If your players holds grudges, this is the wrong game. If your players are on the dry side, this is the wrong game. If you have players, that are into making deals just to backstab at the right and you can laugh about tit afterwards, you will love this game.
Final score
It looses one point for the bad rulebook and one for the player elimination. 8/10
I scoured board game geek looking from the best games to fill that gap and I came across a gem. It looked fun, light, and had a theme I could love. The problem arose when I tried to find a copy. After two months of searching, I have it, Mall of Horror.
Mall of Horror is a negotiation game by Asmodee. It plays in around a hour and supports 3-6 players, but I have found six players is the when this game shines.
The game is apparently out of print and, according to the communication with Asmodee, is not being reprinted anytime soon.
Components
The pieces to the game aren’t anything that your going to be talking about for some time. It comes with wooden tokens for the players characters, a board, some dice, a box to cover the dice, some cards, 6 voting dials, and a good number of plastic zombie figures. Everything is functional for the game, and they did a good job bringing out the theme (especially in the cards which look like Polaroid pictures). There insert in the box even that holds everything the way it should be. The only real beef I have with the components is the lousy rules which were translated from French and it shows. Luckily, there are some good player aids available to fill that gap.
Game play
The game plays out very simple: everyone moves a character, zombies are added to the board, and people vote on whose getting eaten. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until everyone is in the same room or only four characters are left.
There are some additional rules about what can be done in each room and what abilities each character has but the game would still be dry as four day old toast if it didn’t have so much player interaction. The deals, the betrayals and the alliances are what make this game worth playing.
Conclusion
The game is everything I expected. My group enjoyed the first play so much that we played it again that night. The only problem I had with the game was that players can be eliminated and have little to do for rest of the game. Granted this may not be the game for everyone. If your players holds grudges, this is the wrong game. If your players are on the dry side, this is the wrong game. If you have players, that are into making deals just to backstab at the right and you can laugh about tit afterwards, you will love this game.
Final score
It looses one point for the bad rulebook and one for the player elimination. 8/10
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Stone age: doing it dinosaur style
I love board games. I love the interaction. I love the components. Mostly, I love the fun my group has while playing them. The game I picked up the other day was stone age, and it has all the things I look for in a game.
The first thing I noticed, when I opened the box, was the quality of the components. Unlike many euro games I played, this had wood that looked like wood, stone that looked like stone, gold and brick--you get the picture. it looked good. It came with a leather dice cup, wooden dice, caveman shaped meeples, a 1st player marker that stood up, and a beautifully illustrated game board and player boards. The only problem I could find with the components was the stinky smell the dice cup exuded and the cardboard food tokens when everything else was made of wood.
The game play was simple. It composed worker placement with a light amount of dice rolling. With the dice luck was a component early on, but the tool mechanic helps take that away by nudging the total of the dice. The rules were pretty straight forward. Everything was self explanatory after we had the rules and didn’t ever need to reference the rule book once during game play.
I am not going into depth into the rules but I have to say the selling point for me was the breeding hut. I mean, what’s better then making the cave people go dinosaur style. It was my girlfriend’s favorite place to place her meeples. She would lay the “newly born” meeple down with the two “parents” over it. “Proud parents,” She’d comment. I’d laugh, she’d laugh, and I am sure the meeples died a little inside.
The only problem I had with the game play was that we kept running out of resources. Luckily, this can be fixed with a set from mayday that will provide more resources and wooden tokens to replace those silly food tokens.
All and all this is a great game. It’s heavy enough for my gamer friends to like but not too heavy for my girlfriend to hate. I would give it a 8/10. Include the extra token set 9/10.
The first thing I noticed, when I opened the box, was the quality of the components. Unlike many euro games I played, this had wood that looked like wood, stone that looked like stone, gold and brick--you get the picture. it looked good. It came with a leather dice cup, wooden dice, caveman shaped meeples, a 1st player marker that stood up, and a beautifully illustrated game board and player boards. The only problem I could find with the components was the stinky smell the dice cup exuded and the cardboard food tokens when everything else was made of wood.
The game play was simple. It composed worker placement with a light amount of dice rolling. With the dice luck was a component early on, but the tool mechanic helps take that away by nudging the total of the dice. The rules were pretty straight forward. Everything was self explanatory after we had the rules and didn’t ever need to reference the rule book once during game play.
I am not going into depth into the rules but I have to say the selling point for me was the breeding hut. I mean, what’s better then making the cave people go dinosaur style. It was my girlfriend’s favorite place to place her meeples. She would lay the “newly born” meeple down with the two “parents” over it. “Proud parents,” She’d comment. I’d laugh, she’d laugh, and I am sure the meeples died a little inside.
The only problem I had with the game play was that we kept running out of resources. Luckily, this can be fixed with a set from mayday that will provide more resources and wooden tokens to replace those silly food tokens.
All and all this is a great game. It’s heavy enough for my gamer friends to like but not too heavy for my girlfriend to hate. I would give it a 8/10. Include the extra token set 9/10.
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