http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/559/metro
Via BGG:
Similar to Streetcar, Tsuro, Tantrix and Spaghetti Junction, this game has players putting square tiles onto the board to form rail lines. The major difference in this game, however, is that players are not striving to make short, direct routes like those sought in Streetcar. Instead, the object of the game is to make the rail lines as long as possible. Players start with a number of trains ringing the board. Whenever a tile placement connects a train to a station (either on the edge or the center of the board), that train is removed and the player scores one point for each tile that the route crosses, which can cause one tile to score multiple times if the track loops around. However, players score double for city connections, which are the stations in the center of the board.
Metro is one of my favorite tile laying games. I think it improves upon Tsuro. Trying to figure out how to make your route longer and avoid getting screwed over by another persons placement is part of the fun of this game. You want to get your train to the middle to score double points but don't want to get there too quick. It's fun if you like screwing over people and it's also fun if you don't. The only drawback I have with this game is that turns can take a while if everyone is seeing what every spot they can place track does every turn. Overall, a fun time though.
39. Tokido
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123540/tokaido
In Tokaido, each player is a traveler crossing the "East sea road", one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places but at the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road you'll have to be the most initiated traveler – which means that you'll have to be the one who discovered the most interesting and varied things.
The potential action spaces in Tokaido are laid out on a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action. So, players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces.
The action spaces allow a variety of actions which will score in different, but roughly equal, ways. Some action spaces allow players to collect money, while others offer players a way to spend that money to acquire points. Other action spaces allow players to engage in various set collections which score points for assembling those sets. Some action spaces simply award players points for stopping on them, or give the player a randomly determined action from all of the other types.
All of the actions in Tokaido are very simple, and combined with a unique graphic design, Tokaido offers players a peaceful zen mood in its play.
This is not the last of the Antonie Bauza games you will see on this list. Tokaido is a fun, light, relaxing game. I talked about this on my last blog about Gateway. The rules are simple, it's easy enough to teach. This is a fine gateway game. The expansion, Crossroads adds a little more to it and I prefer to play it with it because it gives you more stuff to do.
38. Caylus
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18602/caylus
Once upon a time ...
1289. To strengthen the borders of the Kingdom of France, King Philip the Fair decided to have a new castle built. For the time being, Caylus is but a humble village, but soon, workers and craftsmen will be flocking by the cartload, attracted by the great prospects. Around the building site, a city is slowly rising up.
The players embody master builders. By building the King's castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King's favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins the game. The expansion Caylus Expansion: The Jeweller was included in the 2nd Edition.
Each turn, players pay to place their workers in various buildings in the village. These buildings allow players to gather resources or money, or to build or upgrade buildings with those resources. Players can also use their resources to help build the castle itself, earning points and favors from the king, which provide larger bonuses. Building a building provides some immediate points, and potentially income throughout the game, since players receive bonuses when others use their buildings. The buildings chosen by the players have a heavy impact on the course of the game, since they determine the actions that will be available to all the players.
As new buildings are built, they stretch along a road stretching away from the castle, and not all buildings can be used every turn. Players have some control over which buildings are active by paying to influence the movement of the Provost marker. The final position of the marker is the newest building that can be used that turn. The Provost marker also helps determine the movement of the Bailiff marker, which determines the end of the game. Generally, if players are building many buildings and the Provost is generous in allowing them to be used, the game ends more quickly.
For as high ranked as this game is, I don't see it around much, which is a shame. Worker placement is among my favorite game types and this is a pioneer in that genre. I dunno if I'm a big fan of the Provost marker, but this game has a lot of stuff I like. Stuff that appears in later games on the countdown. I need to play this more.
37. Coloretto
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5782/coloretto
Game play in Coloretto is simple: Either draw a card to play to a row, or take a row of cards to add them to your collection. A row can have at most three cards, so at some point everyone is forced to take a row. Once all the rows have been claimed, players start a new round, drawing or taking once again.
What are you trying to do with these cards? Collect huge sets - but only in three colors as every color beyond the third will cost you points. Jokers are highly-prized as they always match what you want, and +2 cards provide sure points, giving you a back-up plan if everything goes south in terms of the colors you're collecting.
Once only a few cards remain in the deck, the round ends and everyone tallies their score, choosing three colors of cards to score positively while any other colors count against you. Each color is scored using a triangular number system: the first card in a color is ±1 point, the second card is ±2 points, and so on. The player with the high score wins!
A two-player variant is included with some versions of Coloretto, with the only change being that rows can have only 1-3 cards placed in them, depending on the icons on the row cards.
Coloretto is a nice simple card game. I like the set collection aspect. You are trying to collect as many card in a few certain colors as you can, but you might have to take cards that cost you victory points to get them. It's a good system of risk/reward and pushing of luck. It's a game I've considered getting as a nice filler I can teach non-gamer friends.
36. RA
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12/ra
Ra is an auction and set-collection game with an Ancient Egyptian theme. Each turn players are able to purchase lots of tiles with their bidding tiles (suns). Once a player has used up his or her suns, the other players continue until they do likewise, which may set up a situation with a single uncontested player bidding on tiles before the end of the round occurs. Tension builds because the round may end before all players have had a chance to win their three lots for the epoch. The various tiles either give immediate points, prevent negative points for not having certain types at the end of the round (epoch), or give points after the final round. The game lasts for three "epochs" (rounds). The game offers a short learning curve, and experienced players find it both fast-moving and a quick play.
I'm not too big on auction games, but I like me some RA. It's a well done game about pressing your luck. You have to play to what suns you have to spend and try and get the best value for your suns. It's exciting to see what tile is coming out next, especially if you are pushing your luck that there is not an automatic RA to end the round. There are many different ways to get points but you need a good mix of all of them or you lose or miss out on points. It's a good game to play for an hour and has a pretty good ios app.
35. Spyrium
Spyrium is set in an alternate world, an England set in a steampunk-based universe. Players build factories, needing workers to manage the production of a commodity previously unknown to us called "Spyrium". Producing Spyrium in one factory, then processing it in the next results in victory points (VPs) for that particular player. Alternatively, Spyrium can be purchased, but the material is rare and expensive, and players are constantly scraping for money.
Only those who from the beginning of the game manage to increase their regular income or their base of permanently employed workers (who can be used again and again to raise money) will be flexible enough to get their hands on the important end-of-game buildings to generate many VPs.
The circular nature of the game is flexible as each player can decide for himself when to move out of the placement phase and into the activation phase. With the two tracks in the game, those involved with delivery during the worker phase can then be used to raise money, to purchase an adjacent card, or to work on their own in an idle factory. All of these things are important, but in the end only the player who has dealt best with the lack of money, workers and Spyrium will win.
Spyrium is an interesting game. I feel each move has to planned out carefully. It's a game where money is somewhat tight. You have to rely on being near other people to pull for money. But keep your guy there for too long without scooping up the card you need you can be in trouble. You need to get a good system going to gain points. You need to create spyrium and then have a way to convert it to points. I like games where resources are tight, it creates more tension in the game. I also like games where you can have a shit ton of resources and score copious amounts of points too.
34. Forbidden Island
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island
Forbidden Island is a visually stunning 'cooperative' board game. Instead of winning by competing with other players like most games, everyone must work together to win the game. Players take turns moving their pawns around the 'island', which is built by arranging the many beautifully screen-printed tiles before play begins. As the game progresses, more and more island tiles sink, becoming unavailable, and the pace increases. Players use strategies to keep the island from sinking, while trying to collect treasures and items. As the water level rises, it gets more difficult- sacrifices must be made.
What causes this game to truly stand out among co-op and competitive games alike is the extreme detail that has been paid to the physical components of the game. It comes in a sturdy and organized tin of good shelf storage size. The plastic treasure pieces and wooden pawns are well crafted and they fit just right into the box. The cards are durable, well printed, and easy to understand. The island tiles are the real gem: they are screen-printed with vibrant colors, each with a unique and pleasing image.
With multiple levels of difficulty, different characters to choose from (each with a special ability of their own), many optional island formats and game variations available, Forbidden Island has huge replay value. The game can be played by as few as two players and up to four (though it can accommodate five). More players translates into a faster and more difficult game, though the extra help can make all the difference. This is a fun game, tricky for players of almost any age. Selling for under twenty dollars, oddly, Forbidden Island is a rare game of both quality and affordable price.
For those who enjoy Forbidden Island, a follow-up project by Gamewright titled Forbidden Desert was released in 2013.
From the publisher's website:
Dare to discover Forbidden Island! Join a team of fearless adventurers on a do-or-die mission to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. Your team will have to work together and make some pulse-pounding maneuvers, as the island will sink beneath every step! Race to collect the treasures and make a triumphant escape before you are swallowed into the watery abyss!
Forbidden Island is a fantastic gateway game. If you want to introduce non-gamers into co-ops, this might be the choice. It's simple enough for people to get. Yes, as in any co-op there can be an alpha gamer problem, but since it's somewhat simple enough, new players can easily figure out what needs to be done. I like Desert as well, but I find this to be the more fun option. And it's short enough a game, that sometimes you can play again if you failed the first time.
33. Concept
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147151/concept
In Concept, your goal is to guess words through the association of icons. A team of two players – neighbors at the table – choose a word or phrase that the other players need to guess. Acting together, this team places pieces judiciously on the available icons on the game board.
To get others to guess "milk", for example, the team might place the question mark icon (which signifies the main concept) on the liquid icon, then cubes of this color on the icons for "food/drink" and "white". For a more complicated concept, such as "Leonardo DiCaprio", the team can use the main concept and its matching cubes to clue players into the hidden phrase being an actor or director, while then using sub-concept icons and their matching cubes to gives clues to particular movies in which DiCaprio starred, such as Titanic or Inception.
The first player to discover the word or phrase receives 2 victory points, the team receives points as well, and the player who ends up with the most points wins.
Concept is a great, new party game. It's interesting to figure out how to get your team to guess something just based on placing cubes near pictures. There are many different and creative ways to get your clue across. It's fun talking post game about how you would have went about someone's clue. It's more creative and works more brain muscles than a game of Pictionary or Charades.
32. Istanbul
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148949/Istanbul
There's hustle and bustle at Istanbul's grand bazaar as merchants and their assistants rush through the narrow alleys in their attempt to be more successful than their competitors. Everything must be well organized: wheelbarrows must be filled with goods at the warehouses, then swiftly transported by the assistants to various destinations. Your goal? Be the first merchant to collect a certain number of rubies.
In Istanbul, you lead a group of one merchant and four assistants through 16 locations in the bazaar. At each such location, you can carry out a specific action. The challenge, though, is that to take an action, you must move your merchant and an assistant there, then leave the assistant behind (to handle all the details while you focus on larger matters). If you want to use that assistant again later, your merchant must return to that location to pick him up. Thus, you must plan ahead carefully to avoid being left with no assistants and thus unable to do anything...
In more detail, on a turn you move your merchant and his retinue of assistants one or two steps through the bazaar, either leave an assistant at that location or collect an assistant left earlier, then perform the action. If you meet other merchants or certain individuals at the location, you might be able to take a small extra action. Possible actions include:
- Paying to increase your wheelbarrow capacity, which starts the game with a capacity of only two for each good.
- Filling your wheelbarrow with a specified good to its limit.
- Acquiring a special ability, and the earlier you come, the easier they are to collect.
- Buying rubies or trading goods for rubies.
- Selling special combinations of goods to make the money you need to do everything else.
You likely thought #32 would be Constantinople. But #32 is Istanbul, not Constantinople. I'll never not make that joke when playing this. Even though there is no game named just Constantinople. This game just came out this year and I really like it. I like games where you have to plan moves ahead. You have to find the most effective way to move through the bazaar to get you the most rubies. There are many different avenues to go down. The first time I played this it was pretty epic, all 5 of us got to 5 rubies on the exact same turn. 5 way tie! Tiebreaker was money and had little money so I finished 5th.
31. For Sale
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172/sale
For Sale is a quick, fun game nominally about buying and selling real estate. During the game's two distinct phases, players first bid for several buildings then, after all buildings have been bought, sell the buildings for the greatest profit possible.
For Sale is a great, short game. It's a game about correct timing and predicting when people will play certain cards. It's simple to teach but also can have a decent about of strategy in a small package. Again another game when getting the best value for your moves is the way to win. I do enjoy short filler games along with my meaty Euros.
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