Tag: Player Interaction

Heroic Echoic (Saturday Review)

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I slammed down Cowgirl and immediately opened the bidding with a "Klik", which was countered with a "Thwak" and to which I responded with a "Splat". A "Twang" played by the other side brought us level again, which meant I could still win this. After a moment's hesitation, the other side played "And" and immediately put down Wheel-Demon, closely followed by "Zooom", giving them the leading bid. However, their unexpected move actually gave me the advantage. I put down "Kerunch", which they countered with "Eeeek!!", which I trumped with "Crrash", which they... no... they couldn't keep up. The bids were level, which meant I was victorious and was inching closer to victory with another two Heroic Echoic by Happyclash Games.

Bots Up (Saturday Review)

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With a loud "Bang!" the head flew off, followed by a "leg-splosion" that severed both legs, leaving only the body and the left arm. It wasn't pretty. Yet, you knew you could turn it all around. There were still plenty of options. You just had to duck and dive and try and swap body parts with another robot to boost your own. You were sure that in the end you would be a Bots Up.

Viticulture: Essential Edition (Saturday Review)

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The irrigation system was ready, but there was still work to be done on the trellises. The windmill, cottage and tasting room were still just ruins and only the first third of the wine cellar was accessible. The crush pads were all clean and ready to receive the first harvest of grapes, yet the fields were still bare. Orders for some red and white wine had already come in and two types of grapes were ready to be planted. It was the beginning of a vineyard that was going to be splendid. Mama and Papa were looking forward to putting the work in and creating a heritage that would make the family name proud. At the same time, it was daunting, because they knew nothing about Viticulture by Stonemaier Games.

Swatch (Saturday Review)

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"Hm. Deep Purple looks good. Life's A Peach is also very warm and rich. Oh, and of course, we want the Cactus Jack. That would be the perfect triad of colours." You step back and look at the colour samples you just painted onto the wall in the kitchen. "Yes, that's it." You're so pleased to have come up with this perfect colour scheme. It had been harder than you had expected. Mixing the 13 cyan, 14 magenta and 15 yellow in the right combination had been a bit of job, let alone getting all the red, green and blue to mix up the cyan, magenta and yellow, but the result was more than worth it. "Yes," you say out loud, "that's the perfect Swatch by Minerva Tabletop."

Chai (Takebacks)

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A small queue of customers was waiting outside. It was our opening day. We had our tea ready and some bits in our pantry, but still had to buy the flavours, which we wanted to get fresh from the market during the day, so that every tea would taste fresh and our customers would be happy. Everyone was nervous, but there was nothing for it - we had top open up and start serving Chai by Steeped Games.

Carbon City Zero (Saturday Review)

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It was time to build a better future and turn this city around. We knew we had to reduce our carbon output quickly. Our aim was to be carbon neutral. Yet, the road there would be difficult and tough decisions had to be made. Modernizing our housing stock, building wind farms, offering grants for solar panels and everything else would cost a lot of money. If we wanted to move quickly, we might have to accept a temporary increase in carbon output to build factories, that would help us finance the final goal - or we could go slowly and use our existing funds to improve things gradually. We were not alone though. There were a number of others who wanted to become the first Carbon City Zero by Possible.

Calculated victory (Topic Discussion)

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If you like competitive games, then you're probably familiar with trying to gauge where in the ranking you currently are during the game. Some games offer score tracks, so it's immediately clear how far ahead or behind you are - or if you're somewhere in the middle. Many games, however, keep the score hidden and it only becomes clear at the end who won. Yet, it can be very important to know if you're in the lead or not, so you can plan accordingly.

Quadropolis (Saturday Review)

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"I think everyone agrees. We want to build the best metropolis in the world and we have a great opportunity to do so from scratch. We have a large plot of land that is ready to be built on. We can really create something special here that will make everyone happy. It will be magnificent." The mayor looks around the room at all the happy and excited faces, until he spots the urbanist. "What's wrong?" the mayor asks. "Well," the urbanist replies, "we do have a few challenges. Depending on which architect builds what we can place new buildings only in certain columns or rows of the empty plot's grid system, and we can only choose buildings from a specific row or column from the available ones. It's going to be really tricky to build our Quadropolis by Days of Wonder."

Coming around again (Topic Discussion)

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There are many reasons why some games are played a couple of times and then put to one side. Often the game just doesn't suit you or your games group or it doesn't meet the expectations you had. However, there are also games that are put to one side, but then get brought back to the table again after some time - and I want to look at what these games are for me and why I put them away for a while before getting them out again.

Open information (Topic Discussion)

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In open, or perfect, information games, everything is there for everyone to see. Nothing is hidden. The whole state of the game is right there in front of you. Chess is probably the most famous perfect information game - and the most classic one. However, just because all the information about the game state is available to you, doesn't mean you actually know everything. In this article, I want to look at what information you need to work out for yourself in these games and what game experience that creates.