A Better Take on an Old Classic

Kids across America were, at one point in our lives, around the time where Sorry stopped being fun and Yatzee was still confusing and mildly dumb, introduced to a classic board game; a game that ended friendships. A game that strained familial relations. One of the first games (outside of Chess) with minis and a currency. A game introduced by a parent or a grandparent with a sly grin on a rainy evening. That game:

Monopoly.

And then one day, after you beat your younger sibling for the ten-thousandth time, after your uncle or dad beat you for the 100th time, and after you got introduced to games like this and this, you realized that Monopoly got one thing right: it put the MONO in monotony.

I really used to love Monopoly, and we own several copies of several different variations (from regular to Junior to Bugs Bunny to Empire). But as I have said before, we live in a golden era of table-top and board games. Never before has there been such a massive variety of games of various complexities, each one relaying less and less on randomness (though that random roll is still of high importance) and more and more on strategic or cooperative thinking.

Monopoly relies so heavily on the randomized die-roll that there is a point in a game at which victory is unequivocally certain for one player and defeat unavoidable by the rest. The holes in the gameplay become apparent, and the strategy, unlike chess, is fairly straightforward. Though it is possible to win without the vaunted Boardwalk-Park Place bank-breaker, those properties are key, and those properties go to the person who rolls the right rolls, largely.

For those of you who tire of Monotony's monotonousness, but you really want a game wherein property, property value, and a race to build income-rich monopolies are exciting, allow me to direct you to:

Machi Koro!

Cards and "coins," that's all the game is. No meeples or minis or game boards. The cards are arranged in numeric order (numbers on the top of the cards), and each small stack of cards is either a resource or business. Thus, every player gets a chance to have access to resources, but the resources are finite and a player could easily corner the market, so to speak.

Every turn, each player  - up to 4 players - rolls one or, later, up to two dice. The die roll "activates" a resource for whomever controls it...sort of like landing on a property in Monopoly. Some resources pay everyone, some pay the person who rolled it, some make the person who rolled it pay.

What do you do with this money?

Either buy more resources or business in your burgeoning little town in order to make more money, or save your money to buy 1 of 4 landmarks (a train station, a shopping mall, an amusement park, and a radio tower....why those 4 things somehow signify an advanced city, I'll never know, but it matters little). Every player starts with all 4 landmarks "under construction." The first player to buy all 4 landmarks wins!

As you can see, there are several similarities to Monopoly, including the accumulation of properties and wealth, making money off of other players who roll your property, and even buying-up the scarce resources (from wheat fields to bakeries to restaurants and cafes). There still exists even the ever-essential-in-gaming randomized die roll. But beyond that, the similarities end. There is complex strategy in which resources you buy and when to build - or not - your landmarks. Do I buy all the 3 &4, 7 & 8 die roll resources, or a gob of 1 and 2, 11/12 resources? can I win simply by making people pay me, or is there a balance?

Our growing little towns...the race is on between Dom and I!

Here's the key: this is very family-friendly. My 8-year-old twins understand the rules, and understand the basics of the strategy well enough that Dominic was within 1 coin of getting the 4th landmark before I did. All 3 of us had 3 of 4 landmarks within just a few turns of one another. It was a close game, but nobody got blown-out. There are winners and losers, but the losing players are bankrupted and beaten into submission; it's a race, and it's a close one, even if your resource and business cards are scant. Its replayability is very high; we played 2 games in a little under an hour.

There are 2 expansions out for the game as well: Harbor, an Millionaire's Row. More variation, more cards, more landmarks, more game, same easy theme with fun illustrations.

This isn't your father's Monopoly, and that's just fine. Family-friendly, kid-friendly, and quick and easy enough that if you have people over for a game night, they'll be playing in no time and even have a shot as a novice at winning.

Vacation on the East Sea Road

10 Days in Africa (and its sister "10 Days" games ranging from Europe to Asia to the Americas to the US) makes a game about a vacation fun and extremely challenging; it's competitive, but in the game, nothing dies or is otherwise defeated or conquered, which in and of itself is a vast separation from normal conduct in the Smith household.

But then along comes this beautiful game in which players are not only, like 10 Days, playing a game about taking a vacation; in this game, the point isn't even to be the first one done with the vacation or race or beat the other players. Instead, the point of this game is to have the most interesting vacation, however long it takes!

The game: Tokaido, a game about a trip along the famous East Sea Road in Japan, an historic road that connects Japan's cultural center of Kyoto with its socio-political center Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Tangentially: season 3 of Wil Wheaton's Table Top premiered the past October, and the first game he went with this season was Tokaido. I was intrigued watching his show, and took a chance and splurged on getting it.  I'm thrilled I did.

The first thing I noticed was the artwork. Beautiful, coordinated colors with characters and scenery done in a peaceful, rounded, cartoony style is done in a way that still achieves a sense of minimalism and simplicity. The colors are bright and pastel and even the gameboard itself is elegant and calm. Nothing about the artwork suggests stark competitiveness or implied violence; instead, the game pieces and elements are a pleasure to look at, art in and of themselves.

Next is the gameplay. The rules are simple: move as many spaces as you want, with one restriction: you must stop at each of the 4 Inns on the way to Edo. The order of turns is simple: which ever player is last, or, furthest from Edo is the first player to move, moving in order as to whomever is last. Thus, the order of play could change every turn, which is an interesting twist. Sometimes is pays to be slow; other times, such as making it to an Inn, it pays to be first.

Assuming the role of one of 8 "characters," each with a different nuance or focus, what does a player do during their turn? Buy souvenirs from villages. Meet interesting people along the road. Paint. Visit a temple. Soak in some of Japan's famous hot springs (maybe even sometimes with Snow Monkeys!). Eat really good gourmet food.

Yup. That's it. Have an interesting vacation.

This is a wonderful family game. I was worried, given the normal nature of competitive (or even combative!) games we tend to play at our house, that the boys would be bored by this game. Once we cracked it open and started it up, though, the boys were captivated and participated with a surprising level of sophistication and forethought.

Moreover, each of the boys grasped the nuances that their "character" brought to the game and used that strength ably. Jacob's character excelled at art, and finishing the paintings propelled his character all the way to 2nd place. Dominic's character reveled in soaking in hot springs and being accomplished. Isaac's, a diplomat, was adept at meeting interesting people along the way who could help him have a great journey. For my part, a priest (heh...), being appropriately worshipful at the temples helped me win the day.

But here it is again: winning isn't a race in this game, and isn't done on the backs of the other players. The is a game about accumulating the best and most wonderful memories. At the end of the game, as your road-weary legs carry you for your final steps in to the Inn at Edo, though you may be penniless, you can still win the game because you had and shared the greatest memories and experiences and have a deep tale to tell. What a great theme for a game! Though it's far from being cooperative, every aspect of the game focuses on a zen calm and in reveling in the surprises and accomplishments of your fellow travelers along the way.

The coolest part is that the journey - the vacation - becomes tangible in a way. I remember my journey from Kyoto to Edo last Friday evening as something fond and fun, and something that still sticks with me. Jacob still talks about how "beautiful" his paintings were, and Dominic declared from the bathtub the other night that he was soaking in a hot spring "like on my trip in Japan." That is what this game is able to invoke, why we will certainly play it again, why I can't wait to teach my friends how to play, and why this game is among my highest recommendations.

African Vacation

Thanks to my good friend Greg and my other good friend Jay, my kids and I were introduced to the fantastic family game called 10 Days in Africa. This game - and all of its other iterations, including 10 Days in Europe, 10 Days in Asia, 10 Days in the Americas, 10 Days in the USA - is a fantastic geography lesson on top of a strategy game deep enough for adults to enjoy but functionally simple enough for even my 6-year-olds to not only grasp, but beat me at!

Each player has 10 days in which to fulfill a trip across Africa by foot, by car, and by plane. Seems easy enough. But the complexity is this: you first fill each of your 10 slots with a random draw of countries and vehicles for travel. Then, in turns, you try to make sense of your jumble, organize the travel correctly, and draw new cards as-needed to make your trip work, all in-secret with your tiles facing away from your opponent. The first one to complete 10 days is the winner.

Players travel by foot to contiguous countries. A car tile allows the player to skip 1 country in between, and a plane tile allows a player to travel from one color of country to the same-colored country using that color of plane (a blue plane allows a player to travel from one blue country to another one anywhere on the continent, red for red, yellow for yellow). 

In Which Isaac and Dominic Conspire

The concept is so simple, but it really makes players think tactically, given your introductory jumble of tiles, about how to quickly put things in order. How does one know if one should start with one of or even any of the tiles they currently have, given what one could draw? 

Endlessly complex and engaging, this game also has given my kids a sense of geography. Each tile includes not only the name and shape (and color for game purposes) of each country in the massive continent, but population and capital as well! 

Tangentially: I tend to listen to NPR in the mornings as I prepare breakfast for the boys before school. With all of the news around ebola, we have played this game, and my kids were able to identify the countries threatened by the disease. They also got a sense of just how vast a continent Africa is, and just how far away other countries are from the threat. 

This is one of those games you can play as a family or even as a date-night couples game (2-4 players). 

One of these days, we'd love to get the other games and find a way to link each of them into one uber-game: 10 days around the world!

TableTop Season 3!

Many of the games I have purchased lately have come from one of my favorite YouTube shows, Wil Wheaton's TableTop (find information here and here). It is actually a ton of fun to watch Wheaton and his friends play board games, and it gives you a sense of what's fun and not, or your type of game or not.

Last Thursday marked the launch of TableTop Season 3! And the first game is one that intrigues me on a number of levels: Tokaido. The essence of this game is that you are all travelers on the famous East Sea Road leading from Kyoto to Edo (modern day Tokyo). The point of the game, however, is not simply to arrive at Edo first, like a race. Rather, the game is about which player has the most interesting journey along the way. From painting to shopping for valuables to swapping stories with samurai to praying at temples and on and on, players acquire points for doing interesting things and become a whole, balanced person. How Zen!

I'll get out of the way; do yourself a favor and watch the episode. I'm putting this on my Christmas list.

Also, do yourself another favor and tune-in every Thursday for a new episode of TableTop.

The Game of the Path

Wil Wheaton's TableTop, soon to start its 3rd season on YouTube, is one of my sources of awesome games (and one of my sources of lazy Sunday morning entertainment). Manhy of the games I've played with my family and friends have come from either that channel or my good friend Greg (one of our contributors on Gamer Dad).

It was TableTop in which I discovered this morning's game: Tsuro: the Game of the Path.

Tsuro is an impressively elegant game that is easy enough for my 6-year-olds to learn and even be competitive. The premise is simple: each player controls a little dragon. Starting from the edges of the board, each player in turn simply places tiles and moves their dragon along the path the tile creates. The more tiles that are placed as the game goes along, the longer each meandering path takes. The goal is simple: through strategic placement of tiles, force your opponents' dragons off the edge of the board and be the last dragon standing.

Beware! The longer the paths get, the more and more likely it is for you to have no other choice but to move your own piece off the board! Being too clever by half is certainly a pitfall for players.

This is a wonderful family game. One game takes maybe 20 minutes to play, and the twins stayed engaged because they could participate directly (rather than "help mom and dad") and enjoyed the challenge of making winding paths and moving their pieces along (and ours if we were unlucky enough to be on a tile that their new tile touched). In one sitting, all 5 of us played twice and 3 of us played a third time, all in less than an hour.

The game is built for 2-8 players, which is perfect for our family of 5. Though the box says it is rated for ages 8+, again, the twins (at 6) were not only heavily engaged, but Jacob won the first game!

As an aside, I love the artwork for this game. The simple, elegant lines of the cards and even the script suggest the swooping, graceful paths of flight of birds of prey, and the drawings and colors are rich and vivid. The game is as much a pleasure to look at as it is to play.

Simple, fast enough for short attention spans, and strategic enough to be puzzling and interesting, I highly recommend Tsuro.

I am the King of Tokyo

From atop the smoldering ruins of Edo castle, Meka Dragon lets forth a fiery blast of mechanically made flame.

For once, the dice favor me.  I have rolled four little claws to deal damage to all the other monsters battling me over Tokyo.  With a sinister glare I remind my kids, my opponents, that I have the Fire Breathing card in play and my neighbors both take an extra point of damage.  With a sigh of relief they think they'll get another turn to unseat me.  Then I reveal my evolution,  Mecha Blast, which adds two more points of damage to my attack, for a total of seven damage.  Alienoid was resting on 7 health, and now he rests in peace.  Boogey Woogey still felt safe sitting on 6 health, but he too was reduced to ash, leaving only Meka Dragon standing.  Neither of my kids could deny that I was the King of Tokyo....Well, at least for a few minutes.

I picked up King of Tokyo a couple months ago and my family and I have been playing ever since.  We enjoy it so much that I carried it to Florida in my carry on and we played several games every morning for a week.  And everyone played, my wife, all four kids and myself.  Not in every game, but we all played!

The premise is easy, everyone is playing a giant monster attacking Tokyo.  Two stats define your monsters Health and Victory points.  Your health hits Zero and you're out. Your Victory points hit 20, you win.  Now, during the game you can purchase cards which affect how your monster plays.

Game play is driven by dice..  Each turn you start with six dice, all of which are the same.  The sides  are 1,2,3, Energy, Damage and Health. Yatchzee style, you get an original throw of all the dice and two rerolls of any or all dice.  When you are done rolling you collect what you rolled. EAMPLE: You end with two dice showing Energy, three dice showing twos and the last die showing three, (E, E, 2, 2, 2, 3) you would collect two Energy tokens and two victory points as the Numbers on the dice need to be collected in triplicate.  So the last die showing three is wasted.  (In one lucky roll, my wife rolled 1,1,2,2,3,3 and earned nothing and discovered the worst possible roll of the dice...!)

So you damage your foes, heal yourself, collect victory points and energy.  Energy is used to buy cards.  The cards are what make the monsters different.  With enough energy collected you can purchase cards like Extra Head, roll an extra die on your turn...(The game comes with two extra dice.)...Nova Breath which allows your attacks to damage all other monsters...Rapid Healing allows you to swap Energy for Health.

And that is about it, there are a couple mechanics I didn't cover like controlling Tokyo, but when it all boils down it is FUN, simple game that the whole family can enjoy.  Roll the dice and spend your resources to become the King of Tokyo!

Since the game release, two expansions have been released to add to the original game.

The first one is Power Up!

In Power Up!, we find a new character Pandakai (Who owns the Evolution, Eats, Shoots and Leaves.) and a new set of cards, Evolutions.

The Power Up expansion adds Evolution cards which help define each monster - The basic game has every monster identical except for cards, the expansion helps give each monster a "feel"...Meka-Dragon is much better at dealing damage.  The Kraken (A Cthulhu type monster.) can take advantage of his sunken temple.  The King (Only missing the Kong.) brings all monkey themed evolutions and Cyber Bunny can wield the Electric Carrot if he plays his dice right...Evolutions add a simple rule, if you roll three Hearts/Health on one turn, you draw an evolution.

The second expansion is going to be hard to find soon, as it was a limited printing for LAST Halloween.   In King of Tokyo: Halloween we find two new characters (The Pumpkin King and Boogey Woogey) complete with their own sets of Evolution cards.  There is also an orange set of dice.  At first this seemed totally frivolous to me, but after so many four player games played on the floor having a spare set of dice on the other side of the board was pretty nice.

The Halloween expansions also introduces costumes.  A monster can wear one costume at any given time, and each costume changes your monster a little.  Wearing the Astronaut?  You win at 17 victory points instead of 20.  Wearing a Vampire costume?  Then you heal one point when you damage another monster.

Overall, I cannot recommend this game enough...Easy..Fun..Accessible for all the gamer levels in your house.

**UPDATE**
On Greg's recommendation, the Smitty clan bought the game as well.  Since then, less than a week ago, we've played several times already.  This game is an absolute hoot.

Giga Zaur wins the day

Thing 2 was the Smitty clan's first official winner, with Thing 1 being the most recent.  I...still haven't beat my kids.