Case Study: Castles of Burgundy

A case study is the initial thoughts the Board Game Ripper has on a particular board game after only a few plays. This is just my initial impressions and are subject to change after I feel I have played enough sessions of the game to give it a proper review. 

 

                It is no secret among my gaming group that I am a Stefan Feld fan and I have enjoyed every game of his that I have played with only one single exception. I find that his games tend to be perfect engines built to a smoothness that you will not find in most other games. I don't mind the victory point salad model as it makes his games true skill test as you try to achieve the most victory points possible with every turn. I also find that his game designs tend to lead toward multiple paths to victories and I rarely play the same game with the same strategy twice. Now I have heard from the whispers of gamers that Castles of Burgundy is the best Stefan Feld game available and nearly every pod cast raves about how good the game is. With such recommendation from a designer I love, I had to purchase this game. Unfortunately the game got lost upon my vast over flowing book case of new games. It sat in that lonely pile for six months until a few days ago  I happen to glance upon it. It was time to break it out and Castles of Burgundy became the new game for the week.

                Now I will say that I do not think this is the best game from Stefan Feld although I do think it is one of his best games to date. I am ashamed that it took me this long to get Castles of Burgundy to the table and the first play through with my wife was an amazing experience. Now my wife loves all of the Stefan Feld games that I have in my collection as much as me so I knew that she would probably love this game as well. Our first game lasted three days as we usually play games on my lunch breaks at night since she has to work in the mornings. We usually keep the game set up on the dinning table and play for a good forty minutes every night. This game wan an instant hint and my wife loved in after the very first round. This is a great game and it will find a very comfortable home in my collection next to the other Feld games.

Agents of Smersh: Hunting Dr. Evil in Arabia

                                                 



 

Designer: Jason Maxwell

Artist:   George Patsouras and Julia Semionova

Publisher: 8th Summit

Year: 2012

Players Count: 1-4

Ages: 13 +

Playing Time: 90 minutes

Mechanics: Storytelling, Co-Op, Dice pool, Area movement

Agents of Smersh is an interesting title that has sat on my shelf unplayed for a couple of years now as I completely forgot I owned it. In fact, I was surprised to rediscover that I actually have a copy signed by the designer of the game. I blame the Cult of the New which has its slimy tentacles wrapped around me--I hardly have the time to revisit older games in my collection. If it wasn't for the interest by one of the members of my gaming group, I might have passed over this game yet again. Luckily for Smersh, it happened to catch the eye of my gaming group who kept asking to play it over and over. Unfortunately, I also seemed to have a group that was simply too large for the game so we would end up playing something else. Finally, last week, I only had a four player group so we sat down to play the long-awaited Agents of Smersh.

Now Agents of Smersh is similar to one of my all-time favorite games: Tales of the Arabian Nights. Both games are story telling games that are more like the old Choose Your Own Adventures than an actual board game. Both games use a large book of encounters as their primary mechanic and part of the joy of the games is to see what random trouble finds your character. It is inevitable than that the two games will be compared and most people will ask how they stack up to one another. I will do my best to compare and contrast the two games as I give you the Ripper's opinion on Agents of Smersh. 

                                            

 

How It Plays:

Agents of Smersh is a story telling game set in an alternate history where Smersh, an acronym for a Russian counter intelligence agency, has gone independent under the leadership of Dr. Lobo and is attempting your standard evil genius/spy plots to take as much power as possible. Players will be working together as secret agents for the UN to stop the nefarious plans of Smersh before it's too late.

 Each player will receive a player board that contains all the stats of their characters, and the game comes with five different characters all based on old 70's spy stereotypes. On your board each character has five basic skills that will be used to form your dice pool when you attempt a test and each character has skills at different levels. You mark your current level with white cubes and skills can increase over the course of the game. On the other side of your player board will be another track which is your Will stat and these points can be used throughout the game to help manage your dice pool when making test. You also have some starting information for your character and each character has some special ability listed that breaks the normal rules of the game. On the bottom of your player board is the starting location for your character and this is where you will place your character's cardboard cut out at the beginning of the game.

Alchemists: Solo Variant

 

Intro:

I really enjoy deduction games, and I really enjoy Alchemists. However, I also like to play games by myself. This is one game that easily allows for this thanks to the game app. Rather than play as multiple people or have dummy players, I just created a solo variant so that I could avoid all the fluff and get to the core of the game and what I like best: deduction/research. I'm still testing this out and refining it, but I thought I'd share it anyway for those who might like something like this.

Requires:

• Alchemists' Lab App
• 32 Ingredient Cards (remove 1 of each ingredient)
• Research Board and Tokens
• 1 Player Board, Deduction Sheet, and Results Tokens
• Writing instrument (pen, pencil, sidewalk chalk, blood, idk, whatever)

Constable's Report: Warband

 

Hey there Folks, it’s the Constable tasked with the invigorating task of keeping Mr. Ripper on his toes.

In a most interesting letter, dubiously filled with scattered bits of slashed cardboard and smashed meeples, is a piece of stationary that is yet again addressed to my office which reads only one word; Warband. Most certainly there is another foul case of Lusiocide which must be investigated.

In an effort to get into the mind of the Killer once more, let’s go over the evidence.

Warband is a “tactical” boardgame for two to five players where you each compete with each other to lead the strongest resistance against the Darkness (I suppose someone let their five-year-old take part in the plot design) which threatens the world at large. The game is set in a world where multiple races are indeed joining together but none are human and each must assist each the others in fighting off a dark nameless enemy or face extinction, but each wants to come out on top in the end.

Well now, what on God’s Green Earth could be wrong with this setup? This seems like a jolly great concept which could easily make into The Ripper’s stash of games we have yet to uncover. Grand battles, Armageddon, and outsmarting your enemy; let’s see what kind of grand map we are going to be doing all this tactics and battle tomfoolery in shall we?

 

*Turns to Nearest Fellow Investigator* I say, old boy, it appears some bloke has run off with our map and left us only the point tracking board. Dastardly deeds abound; what is this world coming to?

    *Whispers in Constable’s Ear* You mean to tell me that THIS is our grand map for which we are holding a campaign of epic proportions to protect our species? Oh dear, it appears we may have a motive for our Murder already. Now now, fellows, lets’ give this little thing a crack at it. Great things come in small packages, you know.

    To skip all the painful complaining, dear reader, I’ll gloss over the fine details and give you the glaring discrepancies.

Our rating system in the station works as such, we take the most important details we see fit, rate them on importance of 1-3, and we see what our score is.

-10   Bloody worthless piece of shite game which will send me honking at the slightest reference. Games of this ridiculous horridness have yet to be experienced, but should we ever I might start murdering games myself.

-5 Deserves every bit of torture it got and more! Close the case, boys.

-1 to -3 A generally bad game, but could just not be my Cup-of-Tea. Easy to see why a maniac like the Ripper could find justification in forcing this game to pay its debt to nature.

0   Sods all chances of remembering this one ever again. Shred the report, boys.

+1 to +3 Good game, nothing to see here, Blokes, move along; yet another lamb to the slaughter.

+5 A perfectly good, law abiding game with a wife and three kids. You Monster! Or worse, probably kidnapped by The Ripper Himself should he fancy it.

+10    Great blinding mutt’s nuts this game was Stonking ACE; might worship it if I could. God only knows what The Ripper has in store!

    VICTIMS

The game features a money system, which as my fellows know is a free point or two on my scale of Bully to Bollocks. The money, though not featuring a heavy influence over the concept or theme, is important to the game and scoring system so it is a victim in this case, I suppose. +1

        The theme is most excellent. +1

I’m not sure we’re off to a great start, Warband.

    MOTIVES