Entry 91: Week 47- The Age of Atlantis

        Now we have caught up on our blog entries. 

        We initially wanted to play a different game for this Holiday (Thanksgiving) week but as we reorganized our game room shelves so we could find games and know where they are, The Age of Atlantis by El Dorado Games kept catching my eye. 

        On the day we decided to play our new game for the week, my wife was taking care of dishes while I set up the game. She walked into the game room and said “I thought we were playing X game.” I responded that this one just looked more appealing to me for the night, and she agreed. 

THE AGE OF ATLANTIS (2022) 

BGG Description 

For hundreds of years, the city of Atlantis was a self-sustained, booming civilization in the middle of the ocean. According to actual Plato writings, Atlanteans had discovered a new powerful element called Orichelum within their city. Orichelum advanced their technology faster than any civilization the world had ever seen. The Atlanteans were able to create and power giant machines called Myths to defend the city from relentless attacks from the outside world trying to take their precious Orichelum. 

The Age of Atlantis is a highly competitive, engine-building, civilization-like game. You and your friends are each an asymmetric noble house trying to become the most politically powerful. You’ll grow your house’s population, discover new technologies and cultures, and defend your city. All while trying to keep Poseidon, the God watching over the city, from flooding the city. The noble house that has the most political power at the end of the game will be the winner and rule the city. 

—description from the publisher 

Weight 3.32/5 

A Little More Info 

        The game takes place over three Age Periods. However, this does NOT mean three rounds (years) of play unless you meet the requirements for advancement on the first attempts at each Age. To advance the players collectively need to meet the number of required achievements for each age based on the number of players. 

        This game is a competitive game that does have co-op element to it in which everyone needs to help defend the city of Atlantis. There is also a fully co-op mode as well. The Kickstarter version does include a 8 game mini-campaign scenario book that adds even more “adventure” to the game. 

        Each player belongs to a specific House which has a unique 5th building and there are four different Myths to pick from. 

        There are 10 steps that you take in every year (round) in the game. They are the following: 

 

1. Place Workers: Where you take turns building buildings, researching upgrades, and taking various other actions. Each time you place a worker you can take 1 (or 2 if Blessed) free actions and pay morale points to take more. More details of what you can actually do in the rule book (we will let you look that up). After placing all your workers (if you want) you will then Pass ending your Place Workers phase (once you Pass you cannot place anymore workers or take actions). This is the turn-based element in the game. 

2. Atlantean Charity: Where you retrieve your workers from the board and for the player who is behind on the Political Power track one of their workers gain a morale point. 

3. Morale Status: If you have some technology bonuses from the Town Hall, do this first. Then this is where you lose a Favor point for each of your workers that have a negative morale. 

4. Achievement Pause: Where you run down the list of achievements in the current Age and earn point for fulfilling them. This is where you also check to see if the group has met the number of required achievements to move into the next Age. 

5. Rest Workers: Each worker gains a morale point (if possible). 

6. Military Advance: Where each of the cards that are on the game board moves one level closer to the center of the city. This is also where if an enemy breaks through into the city, every player loses 3 Favor points and that section floods. 

7. Poseidon’s Fury: This is where you check to see if you made Poseidon mad. If you have lost all Favor you take a Fury Card and loose 10 Political Points. If you hold a Fury card for the round, you can not take blessed actions (the direction where Poseidon is pointing) 

8. Change Blessing: This is where you roll a die and change the direction the spear is pointing. That section allows whoever places a worker in it to take an extra free action (see #1). 

9. Place New Cards: Depending on what age you are in, you will roll 1,2, or all three dice and place new cards in the outer-most circle on the board. 

10. Change First Player: The first player marker moves to the next person clockwise and the new year begins. 

        This seems like a lot but as mentioned above, only the Place Workers step is turn based. Steps 2-10 get done very quickly. The winner of the game is the player who have accumulated the most Political Power at the completion of the 3rd Age. 

What we like about the game 

        Once the basic rules of the game are understood, the game is really easy to play. We do like that in subsequent rounds you can go to the locations that have your opponents buildings (unless it is the house specific one) and still take actions as if it were your own building. 

        We love that the components of the game are of high quality. They are built to last and be useable for hundreds of plays. The game board is also double sided with an alternative set of achievements which allows you to mix up the game play a bit. However, see below for the only thing in this category we have issue with. 

        As for the game play itself, we love that once all workers are placed then the rest of the steps are done together. So overall there is little downtime in the game. 

        Even though the game is on the larger scale, it leaves a great table presence. If it was smaller it would not have that “larger than life Mythical” feel to it. 

        Last thing to mention is that we like that each House has a specific focus which can benefit the player and possibly the other players too. Also, the Myths in the game are not House specific so at the beginning of the game you can pick the one you want use. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        The only exception to the components is that the three resource trackers are small, a bit too small. Other than that, one thing, we like the game a lot. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        This game takes you to a time when stories of mythical beasts were around to help defend a soon to be lost civilization. It is a fun and engaging game that no two games will be alike. El Dorado Games created another hit in our books. 

        We loved The Island of El Dorado and its expansions. We would not be surprised if there will be future expansions to this game too. 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game a 9 out 10. 

        Big, beautiful, and fun. This game just might make it to next year’s 10x10 Challenge. It is a game that will keep seeing our game table and many other players will be introduced to it too.

Entry 90: Week 46- Sharks Feeding Frenzy

        My wife and I were all geared up to play a different game for this week but because our daughter didn’t want to get ready for bed and she wanted to hang out with Mommy and Daddy in the game room we picked a game that we felt might be good for our daughter (after all, when we got the game she wanted to claim it as hers). 

        So how did we like the this game and how did our daughter do with it? Read on to see… 

SHARKS FEEDING FRENZY (2022) 

BGG Description 

 You and your friends (or people you hire off Craigslist) each take the role of a competitive shark, battling it out to eat tourists, locals, or even a dead whale carcass in a race to get 50 points. There's tricks and treats and fights and bites along the way. It's a back and forth tile-laying-take-that-oh-no-you-didn't finfunfest (I think that's German for shark-party.) With so many different tile types and draws, each game is delightfully different, like the friends you hire off Craigslist. There's luck in the tile pulls and dice rolls. There's strategy in tile usage, plans of attack, and fight or flight choices. Adults and kids and hobos alike will love the quick-natured fun battle of Sharks Feeding Frenzy! 

—descriptions from the designer 

No Weight provided at this time (still to new of a game) 

A Little More Info 

        The game board is a 10x10 grid and at the top of it is a crate that you fill with the action tiles. Each player selects a shark character and roll the two d10 dice to see where the head is placed and then a player will fill the crate with file tiles you draw. If you draw a food tile you roll the two d10’s and place it on the board. 

        On your turn you draw tiles until the crate is full, then select one of the tiles to either keep in your collection or play (or any tile from you collection). 

        The last thing to do on your turn is to roll the d4 die and move your shark. 

        The object of the game is to collect the food tiles anyway possible which includes fighting another players shark (both players roll the d10’s and the highest number wins the battle and randomly draws a tile from the other players collection). 

        There are over a 100 tiles to draw from with most of them being various action tiles and not as many food tiles. 

What we like about the game 

        The creator is a professional illustrator so the artwork of the game is wonderful. The gameplay is simple and easy to understand but that is where it ends. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        Due to the number of food tiles to action tile ratio, the game does take a long time to play. What could help with this that there should be at least one food per player placed on the bord at the start of the game. In each game has been played so far there has been zero food on the board for the first few turns so basically your shark is swimming in circles waiting. 

         Speaking of swimming in circles, rolling a d4 for movement on a game grid that 10x10 is not really fun and draws the game out even longer. Yes, there are a few tiles that can increase your movement but those typically only last for a single turn. A standard d6 should have been used for movement instead. 

        The next thing is the whole battle mechanism is wrong for the game. Instead of rolling two d10s for battle, each player should roll a d6 each with highest number winning. Certain tiles in the game you do battle against that have a set strength to it (the one I am thinking of has a strength of 75), why not have those at a strength of 5 and a roll of 5 or 6 would defeat them? 

        Another thing that is AWEFUL with the game is the rule book. It is hard to follow and it needs to be simplified. There is too much extra text in crucial sections of the book. For explaining the rules and the tiles, please, please, just give us the information that we need. Save all the “fluff” and jokes for an appendix telling us more of a story. The section that tells the story of each shark was nice because it didn’t contain anything we needed to know about playing the game. 

        The last thing that to mention is getting a score of 50 is possible with just a couple of tiles. We feel that if the highest tile value is 15 instead of 25 (and there are more food tiles) the game would be more engaging. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

         So, the question of the day is how did our daughter do with the game? She likes the pictures, rolling the dice to place tiles and move the sharks around but after about 30 minutes she became disengaged with it because there wasn’t much food out to go after (yes, she is only 3 so that is understandable). 

         We actually brought the game with us to our FLGS and had a friend play the game with my wife (I was busy taking care of our BGG Secret Santa gifts) and got about the same feedback from the game.

        With some tweaking and revisions this game could be one that would more positive attention. 

        *** Sidenote: Rocky’s other illustrations (seen from his website) are great and impressive. Just that this was his first game he designed and does need a bit more work to make it better and more playable. 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game a 5 out 10. 

        Will this game get more table time? Probably, but it is not one that we would immediately grab off the shelf to play. It is one that we could keep our daughter occupied with for a little while.

Entry 89: Week 44- NONE & Week 45- Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders

Week 44 

        We did not have an opportunity to play anything this week. We were busy working hard to get our new home in order. We did get the game room unpacked and games put up on shelves but had no room on the game table to play since it was used as a staging area for the boxes and boxes of stuff we still needed to unpack. 

Week 45 

        This week we really wanted to play a game that we enjoy but haven’t played the expansion for; plus it would be our first game to be played at the game table in the new place. 

        After debating on a few games, we decided to play Lost Ruins of Arnak since it was on our 10x10 Challenge for this year and we were still behind where we wanted to be. We added the elements from Expedition Leaders so it would count for the blog plus we had introduced a friend to the base game a few days before. 

        We will not talk much about the base game in this blog, just the elements of the expansion. 

LOST RUINS OF ARNAK: EXPEDITION LEADERS (2021) 

BGG Description 

Return to the mysterious island of Arnak in Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders! 

Give your expedition an edge by choosing one of six unique leaders, each equipped with different abilities, skills, and starting decks that offer different strategies and styles of play for you to explore. In addition to the leader abilities, which bring a new element of asymmetry to the game, this expansion contains alternative research tracks that offer even more variety and a bigger challenge, new item and artifact cards to create new combos and synergies, along with more guardians & assistants to meet and sites to explore. 

Weight 3.09/5 

A Little More Info 

        This section we will cover the new components that from the expansion. So bear with me because some things will be short, others will require more description. 

        Item and Artifact Cards 

         There are 18 new Item cards and 12 new Artifact cards plus one replacement Artifact card (but you could use both versions of the Stone Key if you want). 

        Level I & II Sites

        Level I sites have 5 new ones added to the game and 3 new Level II sites. 

        

        Guardians 

        

        There are 5 new Guardians in the game. 

         Assistants & Idols 

        There are 3 new Assistants plus one replacement from the base and 4 new Idols added to the game. Depending on which Temple (see below) you play you may need the extra idols or not. 

        Red Moon Staff 

        The base game has a Blue Moon Staff that is used to track the rounds and divide the Item and Artifact cards. The expansion replaces the blue with the red staff. 

         Red Mood Staff variant changes the game by having you discard two of each Item and Artifact cards in between each round instead of one. This does help with certain abilities of the new characters added to the game. 

        New Research Tracks (Temples) 

        There is a new double sided research track board that you can use. It had the Monkey Temple and the Lizard Temple that each provides new challenges to the game. Besides new icons in used, there is two unique items with each temple. 

        The Monkey Temple about halfway up the board splits your magnifying glass and research journal into two tracks. The magnifying glass track has a 3-compass cost Artifact card that you get to use for free upon reaching it. The journal track adds one additional step before rejoining the magnifying glass for the top half of the board. 

        The Lizard Temple has in the middle a Guardian that is placed face down until a magnifying glass reaches it to turn it over. Once the guardian is reveal, no research token can pass until it is defeated. You can defeat the guardian in the traditional way or use one of the three cards that help defeat guardians, however, the guardian cannot be moved. At the end of the round if the guardian is not defeated you get a fear card for each of your tokens on the spot. 

        Another thing to note about the new research tracks is that you can research the bottom row of the temple (bronze level) if you are two rows from the top. If you are right below the temple you can research the silver and bronze levels. The only way to research the top level (gold) of the temple is to make it to the top of the research track. This is different from the base game in which your magnifying glass has to make it to the top of the research track. 

        Tent Tiles 

        Due to being able to select or randomly select a character to play with, there are four color tent tiles you can use to help you keep track of what color pieces you are using. This is a good way to keep the character boards clean of extra clutter (plus one character has a spot on the board you can use as an action). 

        New Characters (and random-role tokens) 

            Six individualized characters that each have a unique character board, four starting cards, and different abilities to use. There is also a random-role token for each character so that you can randomly select what character to play with. 

        The descriptions below are from the rule book that provides an overview of each of the characters: 

        CAPTAIN – A military man whose courage inspires his big team. He has 3 archaeologists.

        FALCONER – A woman who knows the ways of the animal kingdom. She has an eagle she can send to retrieve useful trinkets. 

        

        BARONESS – A lover of the arts, but also a shrewd investor. She has many ways to get the items she will need for this expedition. 

        PROFESSOR – A researcher who studies the language and culture of lost civilizations. Academic contacts give him access to a wider range of artifacts. 

        EXPLORER – A loner who prefers to explore the island by herself. She is only one archaeologist, but she can visit multiple sites. 

        MYSTIC – The most mysterious leader of them all. He has many ways to gain and exile fear, which he can use to power arcane rituals. 

What we like about the game 

        We love that each character has different abilities that affect the focus of a player’s game. Some want you to overcome guardians, some want you to gain and exile fear cards, and more. What strategy you used in the base game to win might not work out in the expansion. 

        We love that there are additional research tracks to use. The base game being a double-sided board provide you two and the expansion doubles it with more twists to the researching tracks. 

        We do like that the Red Moon Staff variant allows you to cycle through more of the cards in the deck. Even if you are not playing a character that can benefit from this, it is nice to go through the deck more. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        The same gripe as with the base game is that we still feel like each player needs three archeologists instead of two to be able to accomplish more such as exploring new sites. 

        However, if you are the Captain you do get a third but if you are the Explorer you get only one. 

        The Explorer is the only character that we haven’t played with in our four games with the expansion (we randomly drew our characters each game). 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        Don’t get us wrong when we say that sometimes expansions don’t do much for a game. But in this case, the expansion does a lot to enhance the game all for the better. 

        We would recommend the base game to help you learn the basics of the game but after a few plays adding Expedition Leaders is a must. The expansion kept us more engaged in the game and making us yearn for more. 

        Does it need another expansion? Maybe to add more characters but that is about it. 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game an 8 out 10. 

        As stated above, this expansion enhances the game and is a must have if you own the base game. Even though we have only played with 5 out of the 6 characters, we have liked each one so far because of their uniqueness.

Entry 88: Week 43- Legend Raiders

A note from our Family… 

        Due to having to move again in an unexpected rush (we had to move everything out of my mother-in-law’s house in two evenings) we have fallen behind on writing our blog entries. Even now, we are still working on unburying everything and getting the new place settled in. 

        The reason why we had to move was because it wasn’t safe for my family to be in that home and our main focus is to protect our three-year-old daughter from being in harm’s way. So we are blessed that our friend is renting her dad’s rental home and is having us live with her. 

        A positive for us is that we have a dedicated game room in the new place and our big game table is out of the cold and is being used again. 

         Anyways, now time back to the normal blog…. 

        The game for this week is one that I am ever so grateful to a few people for. First, it is a game from my favorite designer, Francesco Testini, so I am grateful for him telling me about it. Second, I am grateful to Nick & Tim from our FLGS (Around the Table) who went to Essen Spiel this year and picked up the game for me AND had Francesco sign it. So now, I present to you, the next great game from the one, the only, Francesco Testini called Legend Raiders. 

LEGEND RAIDERS (2022) 

BGG Description 

Hail to you, intrepid explorer! You've been selected to take part to the biggest event in the world. The best among explorers, archeologist, and adventurers will compete to decide who's the most excellent. The veil of mystery continues to surround many treasures and legendary places: Will you be able to dig them up and prove that you are the best? —"Legend Raiders Inc. - Scouting Bureau" 

In Legend Raiders, each player represents an adventurer who wants to collect as many ancient coins (a.k.a., victory points or VPs) as possible, searching for legendary treasures and mythical places. In every round on the main board are four different missions, each composed of a discovery to be performed and two random tools (ropes, shovels, compasses and maps) supplied by the bureau. The explorer who gains the most points wins. 

On their turn, a player chooses between two actions: 

    • Take a discovery and place it on the personal board together with the two randomly related tools, or 

    • Perform one or more discoveries with the tools already on the personal board. 

To be discovered, each treasure requires a specific combination of tools. Places require more tools than artifacts, but will give more VPs in the following expeditions. When a player uses their favorite tool, they gain more VPs; the torch can be used as a joker by turning it off, but only if it's on! 

Discovering new treasures gives the player VPs based on number of ancient coins visible on the personal board, uncovered by the ongoing missions. Solving one mission at a time allows the player to have more visible ancient coins and thus to score more VPs, but having more missions on the board and solving more of them in a single turn gives the player a benefit in terms of time. Each time one or more legendary treasures are discovered, the player also gains a expedition card from the four available at the bureau; expedition cards show goals that grant VPs at the end of the game if achieved. 

At the beginning of each round, the player rolls the adventure die and gains the resulting benefit — or causes the torches of all players to be flipped over! The game ends when the first player has dug up six or more ancient treasures. Which strategy will you choose to apply? Will you succeed being the best explorer in the world? How many and which mythical treasures will you uncover? 

—description from the publisher 

No Weight provided at this time (still to new of a game) 

A Little More Info 

        The description above does a good job talking about the game. 

What we like about the game 

        We love that this game is not complex at all. The rules are easy to understand. You roll a die and apply the effect and then take one of two actions. Simple enough, easy to understand. 

        The artwork is very fitting for the game which takes you on an adventure. We love that for each Character board you can choose between a male and female character and each one is different. Do you want to be Lamar Croft or Lin Diana Jones?? (Actual character names from the game). 

        The game looks great on a table and does not take up much space. Our first game we played was on top of a bed at my parent’s house. 

        We do like that it doesn’t take long to play. With having a three year old that constantly wants our attention, this game can still be completed in under an hour. 

What we don’t like about the game 

        We are kind of biased when it comes to Francesco’s games. This one we LOVE too and like everything about it. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        We love that most of Francesco’s games are designed so that younger players can play them. Knowing that he has two young children who are lovers of board games too is helpful since I am sure that they help their dad test out new ideas and concepts for games often. 

        This game is one for young and old to enjoy. We are grateful that Francesco puts his heart and soul into designing his games. This is why we love his games so much (of course, Tang Garden is still my all-time favorite). 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game a 10 out 10. 

        Again, there is some bias on our part for the rating but in all truth, we really do love everything about this game. We would highly encourage you to pick up a copy and dive right into the adventure.

      (Not a picture of us, some people trying the game at Essen this year)

*** All Images were retrieved from the Legend Raiders BGG page.

Entry 87: Week 42- Everyone Loves a Parade

 *** Please see Week 43 for the brief explanation as to why we were behind on blog entries *** 

        This week we decided to play a lighter game that is easy enough for families to play together without having to worry about a lot of rules. 

EVERYONE LOVES A PARADE (2019) 

BGG Description 

It's a beautiful day, and everyone in your hometown is excited to watch all the fun, pageantry, and spectacle of the upcoming parade! But first, the floats that will thrill the crowd must be built... and the one who crafts the most exciting floats will become the Grand Marshal! 

In Everyone Loves A Parade, 2-6 players act as float designers, selecting colorful decoration cards (flowers, balloons, and flags) to add to their floats and wow the crowd, which is represented by dice showing colors and items they wish to see. 

Each decoration card allows an immediate action that can give you an edge, allowing you to move or reroll crowd dice! At the end of each round, players reveal their secret order cards, perform one last action, then enter their completed float into the parade in front of a crowd. You gain points for giving the crowd what they want, and the player with the highest score after three rounds wins and becomes the Grand Marshal! 

Weight 1.0/5 

A Little More Info 

        The rules of the game is pretty straight forward and easy to understand. The game consists of three rounds with three turns per player. That’s it, easy as pumpkin pie. 

        For each round, you reveal three new crowd cards, receive a secret order card, reveal five new decoration cards, take three turns, place your floats (based on your secret order card), and then score. 

       Each turn you take a face up decoration card to add to your float (then flip over a new card) and take the optional action associated that is on the card. There are nine different actions available and, again, you do not have to do the action. 

       Once everybody has taken their turns, you place your float based on the turn order card and, optionally, take the action on the card. After that you score. 

What we like about the game 

        We love that this game is super easy to play and that it doesn’t take long to play at all. The game is ready to play right out of the box. 

        We do love the artwork on the cards. The crowd cards do remind you of a small town parade in which you see groups of people standing in front of stores to watch a parade down “Main Street, USA.” 

       We do like that the dice are easy to understand with some being colored and others just black and white. Also, the various symbols in the game are easy to understand and remember once you learn them. 

What we don’t like about the game 

There isn’t anything about the game we didn’t like. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

        We really like that Calliope Games publishes games that are easy to understand and play. Their games are family friendly and even younger players can play this game with some assistance. 

FAMILY GAMER VERDICT 

        We give this game a 7 out 10. 

        The only reason we give it this rating is that we tend to enjoy more in-depth games. However, if we are wanting a light game that plays quickly, then this one will hit the table more often than not. 

        This game would be fun for a family and for a group of up to six players.