Rating: 4.5/5.0

Not content with your current Dominion, you have now set your sights on lands that are far, far away in Dominion: Hinterlands. Get in touch with foreign leaders and set up embassies in their lands. Deal with traders and establish lucrative trade routes between your kingdoms. Carry out a scheme or two to make sure things go your way. Take control of key assets and expand your domain in this expansion for the hit Dominion card game.

Dominion: Hinterlands is the 6th expansion for Dominion, arguably the most popular non-collectible strategy card game out there at the moment. This is an expansion set, and you will need to already own either the base Dominion game or a standalone expansion such as Intrigue in order to play it. This review details the new cards and mechanics that are introduced with Hinterlands. Therefore, if you want to find out more about the basic gameplay, please read our Dominion review.

As the name suggests, the theme of Hinterlands is focused on the outskirts of your Dominion and your interaction with your neighbors. The cards generally include peripheral countryside developments. There are also cards that represent foreign leaders and your attempts to deal with them. And lets not forget the many developments required to set up lucrative trade routes between your kingdoms to earn that all-important coin.

There are cards like the Border Village and Duchess that represent the outer holdings of your kingdom, and cards such as the Embassy and Mandarin that represent the interactions with your neighbors. There are also the trade- and communication-related cards such as the Crossroads, Silk Road and Trader. And no medieval countryside is complete without the presence of a couple of Noble Brigands and some Ill-Gotten Gains.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, Hinterlands does not introduce radically new concepts, but rather expands on a few existing mechanics to make the game more solid and enjoyable. One of the focuses is on cards that trigger an effect when you gain them. An example is the Cache, which acts just like a Gold card, but costing only 5 coins. However, you also gain 2 Coppers when you gain this card, effectively diluting your deck. This is interesting, allowing strong cards to be available for a lower cost, but with negative side effects. The opposite can also occur, such as in the case of Border Village, an expensive card with a weak ability. However, you can gain another card when you gain the Border Village.

Another mechanic that this expansion focuses on is the ability to trash cards from your hand. Cards such as the Jack of all Trades, the Spice Merchant and the Trader let you trash cards (with different conditions and limitations) as part of their abilities. What this does is let the skillful player strategically thin their deck, discarding cards that are inefficient (such as the Estates and Coppers from your starting hand), or other cards that are no longer useful in the late game.

Hinterlands also includes many cheap 2-cost and 3-cost cards that have quite interesting abilities. There’s the 2-cost Crossroads that can potentially gain you 3 extra actions and a couple of cards to boot! These cards make the early game more interesting, letting you do more fun stuff than simply buying Silvers and finishing your turn. In fact, almost all the cards in this set have fairly complex effects, rather than the boring “+1 card, +1 action” abilities of the older cards.

There are also a few standout cards that challenge traditional deck-building strategies. The previously-mentioned Crossroads is one, letting you draw cards depending on how many victory cards you have in your hand. There is also the Trader that lets you trash a card and gain lots of Silvers, and even lets you replace whatever card you gain with a Silver. And then there’s the 2-cost Fool’s Gold which is only worth 1 coin if you have only one in your hand; but each subsequent Fool’s Gold in your hand is worth a whopping 4 coins! These cards will force you to change your strategy, and some of them even require you to design your deck around them.

Dominion: Hinterlands does not add brand new concepts to the fast-growing stable of Dominion cards. What it does though, is flesh out some of the more complex and interactive mechanics introduced in previous sets. It also adds more complicated and interesting card effects, and serves to nicely round out the game for players who have had a fair few Dominion games under their belt. Do remember that you need either the base game or a standalone expansion such as Intrigue to venture into these lands far, far away!

Complexity: 3.0/5.0

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 4 players (up to 6 with the Intrigue expansion)

See the Dominion: Hinterlands Spoiler Card List

Check out the other games in this series!

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Dominion Card List | Intrigue Card List | Seaside Card List
Alchemy Card List | Prosperity Card List | Cornucopia Card List

Back to our Dominion: Hinterlands Review

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Rating: 4.0/5.0

Have fun at your last day of work and go out with a bang in Five Fingered Severance, the irreverent board game of unruly employees and corporate chaos! Steal merchandise from the shop, slack off and insult customers. Avoid the wrath of the boss while directing his attention to the other employees. Gain the most personal profit before the shop closes for good (or you get fired, whichever comes first)!

Once in a while, there comes a board game that’s like a breath of fresh air, featuring a theme and gameplay that we haven’t seen much of before. Five Fingered Severance by Minion Games is one such game. Instead of focusing on creating the most efficient farm or using strategy and tactics to conquer your opponents’ armies, the goal of the game is to be the opposite of a model employee, and have a blast doing so.

The game revolves around a convenience store that is running its last day of operations before shutting for good. Players take the role of the shop’s employees, from the light-fingered Lucy and Roger the slacker to foul-mouthed Lock and fast-talking Victoria (each character has unique advantages). Not wanting to go out with a whimper, you all decide to turn your last day into the most memorable day ever!

The objective of the game is to obtain the highest score, which is composed of how much slacking off you’ve done, how much merchandise you’ve manage to hide in your stash, and how many customers you’ve managed to insult. However, each self-serving activity you do will also generate Heat. Accumulate enough Heat, and the boss will fire you before the day is up. You must therefore strategically go about your business accumulating points while keeping a low profile, all while sabotaging the other employees from doing the same. The game ends once the work shift is over, or all but one employee has been fired, whichever comes first. The employee with the highest score then wins the game.

The gameplay mechanic is pretty simple: during a player’s turn, they reveal a Work Marker card and play 2 actions. The Work Marker cards describe new events that happen, such as the boss moving to a new location, or new work opportunities, slacking opportunities or new customers appearing at specific locations. The actions are pretty straightforward; you can move to a new location. You can activate a work or slack card at your location. Work cards will lower your Heat, with more effect if the boss is around to see you work. Slacking (such as playing video games) will earn you victory points the longer you slack, and will increase everyone’s Heat. (If a job doesn’t get done, everyone cops it!)

You can also steal merchandise from your current location (as long as the boss or customers are not around). However, you won’t earn any points from this loot until you move to the storeroom and stash them in your locker. You can also interact with customer cards in your location. You can help them and lower your Heat, or insult them and earn victory points, with the side effect of increasing your Heat. Some customer cards have special effects, such as the friend with the big purse. You can steal and slack when this customer is around, and you can even stash your loot in her purse!

If the boss turns up in your location, you have to make a suspicion check, which is made more difficult if you’re carrying stolen goods or were caught slacking. If you get caught, you take Heat and all the stolen goods get confiscated.

Players also have access to Plot cards that you can play at any time during your turn. They can have basic effects such as moving yourself or the boss to specific locations (to hinder your opponents’ efforts), or more interesting effects such as avoiding a suspicion roll or forcing another player to make a suspicion roll.

You will get fired if you Heat reaches 30, so you will need to make sure you earn the most points before you get fired or the day ends. Gameplay-wise, although the mechanics are pretty simple, there will be a lot of redirecting the boss’ attention to other players, trying to get them fired. At the same time, you will need to maneuver to make sure you will end up with the highest score. With so many Work events and Plot cards flying around, the game is very interactive. It also has a good amount of replay value, since the starting conditions are based on the effects of random Work event cards, and will be different each game.

But what makes the game truly shine is its unique theme. The whole premise of causing chaos at work can be appealing, and many of you will probably wish you could really do it in real life! However, it is this unique and quirky theme that may become a barrier or alienate certain players. After all, the game deals with things such as stealing the gun from the register, tricking your boss and playing video games at work. Some people will understandably feel squeamish about this adult premise, but it’s all good if the players understand that this is fictional entertainment and not something to learn from!

Five Fingered Severance is a fun, fresh and quirky game, and is suitable for players of most skill levels. There will be lots of laughter as you get caught experimenting with the microwave, or inadvertently insulting a foreign customer, or just seeing the boss rush to the toilet. And just imagine the joy of seeing other employees get fired first! You will love it if you like the other games from Minion Games, or other quirky games such as Isla Dorada or the Munchkin franchise.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 6 players

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

Enter the world of illicit trade and smuggled goods in Cargo Noir, a trading and bidding board game! Take control of a trading family and compete against rival clans to obtain the most smuggled goods from ports all over the world. Use your ill-gotten gains to buy up lucrative businesses and become the most powerful family in the trading underworld!

Cargo Noir is a board game by Serge Laget, the prolific designer (or co-designer) of other board games such as Shadows Over Camelot and Mare Nostrum. It is thematically a noirish game about rival families competing to acquire smuggled cargo and lucrative businesses. In terms of gameplay, the main game mechanics involve bidding against your fellow players for cargo, and strategically placing your trading fleet to obtain the most useful cargo.

The goal of the game is to use your trading fleet and cash to bid for precious cargo from various ports around the world. This cargo is then accumulated and used to buy up various luxuries and businesses that provide victory points. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game (which lasts 10 or 11 rounds depending on the number of players) wins the game.

Each player starts with a limited amount of coins (used for bids) and ships to represent their family’s initial trading empire. The bidding portion of the game takes place on a board featuring various ports from around the world (with more ports being available the more people are playing the game). Each port contains 1 to 4 cargo slots which are randomly filled with cargo tokens from a bag.

The bidding gameplay may not seem intuitive at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will find that it is really simple and elegant. During each player’s turn, he can assign any or all of his ships to bid on any port’s cargo. He also places however many coins he wants together with each bid. Once the bids are placed, the turn moves to the next player and so on. When it comes back to the original player’s turn and his bids have not been outbid by other players, he then wins the bid and claims the cargo in the port. He takes the cargo tokens, and the port’s cargo slots are refilled from the bag. If he is outbid, he doesn’t earn anything but gets his bid money back.

This part of the game basically boils down to whether you want to place a high bid in order to guarantee winning the port’s cargo, or place a lower bid hoping to get it for cheap, but with the risk of losing the bid and essentially losing a turn for one of your ships. In addition to the ports, there are 2 other locations you can place your ships. Placing a ship in the casino will earn you 2 coins; and placing a ship at the black market allows you to either randomly gain a cargo token from the bag, or exchange one of your cargo tokens with another token from the market.

Once you have accumulated enough cargo, you can trade them in for various assets. The trade value will depend on what combination of cargo tokens you have. For each different cargo token you trade in, the value increases in a triangular fashion. So 1 token is worth 1, 2 tokens are worth 3, 3 tokens are worth 6 and so on, in a 1 3 6 10 15… sequence. However, if you manage to accumulate multiple tokens of the same kind, their value increases in a square 1 4 9 16 25… sequence. So your bidding strategy will also depend on what cargo types you are after, and whether you are aiming for multiple cargo tokens of the same type, or one of each type.

The assets that you can buy with the cargo can be split into 2 categories. There are the pure victory point assets (some of which are unique and limited) which just give you victory points when bought. The higher their cost, the better victory point returns they are. There are also 3 “useful” assets: the Warehouse, Syndicate Office, and Cargo Ship. These assets don’t provide much victory points, but provide powerful benefits instead. The Warehouse lets you store additional cargo tokens, the Syndicate Office lets you earn 2 coins whenever you get outbid, and the Cargo Ship gives you another ship token with which to use for bids. These assets are limited as well, so you may not be able to get them if you are too slow.

While the gameplay mechanics are very simple, the game can become quite complex and cutthroat as players attempt to outmaneuver each other. You may be bidding to obtain a crucial cargo token, or to deny your opponents from getting it. You may want to place a bid in order to hinder the efforts of the player with the most victory points, but at the cost of your own efficiency. 10 rounds of bidding may sound like a short game, but the amount of strategizing and second-guessing involved turns it into an intense hour-long competition.

The quality of the game board and tokens are also really good, as expected from a Days of Wonder game. The artwork is also great in a cartoony way, bringing out the noir and underground theme. Overall, Cargo Noir is a fun competitive game, especially if the players are at about the same experience level. You will love it if you like other bidding games such as Power Grid or Vegas Showdown, or shipping games such as Le Havre.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 5 players

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Rating: 3.0/5.0

Discover the keys to Leonardo da Vinci’s lost projects in The Enigma of Leonardo, the fast-paced strategy card game. Scrutinize worn-out drawings and assemble enough of them to figure out the secrets hidden in them. Time is of the essence though, and you need to uncover these secrets and hinder other players who are working to do the same!

The Enigma of Leonardo is published by RightGames, a Russian company known for other fun card games such as Potion-Making: Practice and Evolution: The Origin of Species. This game is a great “filler” or party game, and can be taught very quickly to players of all ages and experience levels. It also plays very fast (about half an hour), allowing you to get a few games in at one sitting.

The story and theme of the game are based on the secrets hidden in the writings and drawings of the great inventor Leonardo da Vinci. You take on the role of modern-day investigators, scrutinizing da Vinci’s works in the hopes of finding the Keys that unlock these secrets. Honestly though, the game mechanics are general enough to be able to fit almost any theme (such as a tactical battle).

The goal of the game is to discover and collect 7 different Keys which unlock da Vinci’s secrets. This is done by playing cards from a deck to form matches in a manner similar to Tic Tac Toe or Bingo.

Each card in the deck contains a beautiful picture of a Renaissance-era drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. The art is a major plus for the game, being simple yet iconic and totally appropriate for the theme. Other than the drawings, each card also features 2 symbols in its top left corner. There are 12 different symbols in total, each representing a different area of research performed by da Vinci. The goal of the game is to match these symbols in order to discover the Keys.

At the start of the game, each player places 5 cards in a cross in front of him, and draws another 5 cards to make up his hand. Players then take turns playing a card from their hand, then drawing a card from the deck. Playing a card means choosing a card in your “cross” and replacing it with a card from your hand. If by doing so you manage to get 3 cards in a row in your cross that feature the same symbol, you have discovered that Key. You can then collect that symbol’s Key token.

You need to collect 7 different Key tokens in order to win the game. This can be difficult to achieve as it is pretty random which symbols are on the cards you draw. However, if you manage to get all 5 of your cross cards featuring the same symbol, you can collect any Key token of your choice.

All that is just half the game though. What makes the game interesting and interactive is how your actions can affect your neighbor. When you replace a card on your cross, that replaced card is then used to replace the card on the exact same spot of the next player’s cross! This adds a lot of unpredictability to the game. You can set up the perfect cross, only to have it disrupted next turn before you can collect your Key. Similarly, you can play an attacking or denial game, making life difficult for the player after you.

The random and ever-changing nature of The Enigma of Leonardo makes for an enjoyable and exciting filler game rather than one where you must carefully plan all your moves. There will be times when you finally draw the card with the right symbol into your hand, only to see your opponent replacing a critical card on your cross. This is a great party game, but it may get boring for players who are after a more strategic and intellectual challenge.

You can find out more about the game at RightGames’ website.

Complexity: 2.0/5.0

Playing Time: 30 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 4 players

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Rating: 4.0/5.0

Welcome to the exotic Isla Dorada! As part of an expedition to explore the island, you will travel on yaks, gorillas, camels, giant birds, kayaks and an airship to the island’s various villages to uncover priceless treasures. Well not exactly priceless, since the explorer who recovers the most valuable treasures is the winner.

In Isla Dorada, the board represents the island where the expedition’s plane has crash landed. Various locations are marked on the board with numerous paths between them. Each path is color-coded and can only be traveled on using the appropriate vehicle/animal. There is a single playing piece which represents the entire expedition which must move together to a new location every round, and each player will try to influence the expedition to travel to particular locations.

At the beginning of the game, each player receives 10 gold coins, 2 treasure cards, a destiny card and a curse card. The gold coins are worth a point each at the end of the game. Treasure cards are worth different amount of points, indicating the value of the treasure while curse cards are worth negative points. Each destiny card has different objectives that can be achieved by the player for points. The treasure cards indicate the locations where the player can find the treasure, and only the player with the card has access to that particular treasure. When the expedition arrives at a location, each player who has a treasure card that matches the location can play it but if a player has a matching curse card he or she must play it. Destiny cards are more varied and can range from requiring the player to visit certain locations, collect particular travel cards or avoid a certain mode of transport.

Based on the cards they receive at the beginning of the game, each player will have differing objectives and locations which they want the expedition to visit or avoid. The destination of the expedition is chosen by the expedition leader who is determined through a bidding process. Each player starts with a hand of travel cards, which represent the various modes of transport available. Starting from the previous expedition leader, each player can bid travel points (usually 1 travel card equals 1 travel point, but there are some that are worth more) to travel to a particular destination and the player with the highest bid is elected the new expedition leader and the expedition moves to his or her chosen destination.

The bidding process is complicated by the requirements of the travel cards to match the route to the destination. Each route to a different location is colored and only certain modes of transport can be used to travel on those routes. Kamel cards can only be used to bid on sand routes, Yak cards for mountain routes, Gonogo cards for forest routes, and Kayak cards for water routes. There are also two special cards (Drako and Airship) which represent air travel and can be used to augment a bid on any route or can be used by themselves to travel to any location on the board. However, using air travel requires the payment of gold coins.

Once the expedition travels to a new location, a travel marker is placed on the location and players now play treasure cards and curse cards. During certain rounds denoted by orange travel markers, players receive new treasure cards. Then, starting with the expedition leader, players take turns gaining new adventure cards from either the 4 face up cards or from the adventure card deck. The adventure cards contain a mix of travel cards, bonus cards and action cards. Travel cards are used for bidding while bonus cards augment the value of treasure cards that you play. The action cards have various effects such as transforming your travel cards, stopping a player from bidding or even summoning the mighty Leviathan or Bigfoot to block travel routes. Each player also has the chance to spend an additional gold coin to draw another card. Once all players are done drawing adventure cards, the round is over and the current expedition leader starts the bidding for the next round. There are only 16 travel markers and the game therefore only lasts 16 rounds. At the end of the 16 rounds, the players total up points from treasures, gold coins and destiny cards minus the negative points from any curses, and the player with the highest total is declared the winner.

The gameplay of Isla Dorada is relatively simple and to be honest, there is not a high level of strategy in this game. It is also very easy to teach and is a great game to play with non-gamers. However, Isla Dorada is not meant to be a brain-burning strategy game but is more about the experience of discovering treasure and screwing over your cursed friends along the way.

This is a game where I just enjoy the game regardless of whether I win or lose. The auction mechanic is flavorful and usually goes pretty quickly as sometimes the expedition leader could pick a location that no one objects to. There are some tactical decisions to be made, but the hidden treasures, destinies and curses make it difficult to predict player bids reliably and there are also some pretty random action cards. As such, the game can sometimes swing wildly and become unpredictable. In any other game, this might turn me off it but since I really enjoy the theme and flavor and I still find the game engaging when I’m not “winning”; I usually just sit back and enjoy the ride (and try to mess with other players’ bids).

The theme and art are light-hearted and lend to that sense of fun and adventure. I absolutely love the art and visual design of the game, which I think is its strongest point. The art is cute and evocative, with bright colors and distinctive designs. I especially love the quirky names of the locations and the cards, and I enjoy just calling out the names of the locations and cards as we play. The game also comes with three plastic miniatures for the expedition, the Leviathan and the Bigfoot which are just gorgeous to behold.

Overall, Isla Dorada is a fun romp of a game with simple mechanics and beautiful art and I give it 4 out of 5 Kamels and an additional bonus Gonogo for the fabulous visual design. I enjoy the theme and the player interactions in the game and would recommend it as a light-hearted introduction to non-traditional board games.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0 (fair amount of text and variations for destinies)

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Number of Players: 3 to 6 players

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

Do you have what it takes to slay a god? Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a deck-building game from Gary Games that lets you recruit heroes and build constructs to aid you in your quest. Defeat monsters and cultists loyal to Samael in an effort to defeat the fallen god!

The basic gist of a deck-building game is that each player starts with a personal deck of cards and utilizes those cards to add additional cards from a common pool to their personal deck until some predetermined endgame condition is met, after which a winner is determined based on the prescribed victory conditions. After Dominion kickstarted the genre in 2008, various games have been published which use the same basic mechanic and Ascension is one of them. Throughout this review, I will constantly refer back to Dominion as it was my introduction to the genre and there are many parallels to be drawn between the two games.

At the start of each game, every player has the exact same 10 cards which form their personal deck (8 Apprentices, 2 Militia) and draws a starting hand of 5 cards. There is also a central randomized deck of cards, 6 of which are revealed as part of the “Center Row” and 3 piles of cards that are present in each game (Mystics, Heavy Infantry and the eternal Cultist). On each player’s turn, they can play any number of Hero or Construct cards, activate effects of Constructs they control, and acquire Hero and Construct Cards or defeat Monster Cards from the Center Row. Cards that are acquired are immediately put in their personal discard pile, while defeated Monster Cards are immediately put in a communal discard pile called the Void. At the end of the turn, all Hero cards played in the turn are also discarded to the personal discard pile and the player then refills his hand to 5 cards, and passes the turn. Constructs are not discarded and stay in play indefinitely. If ever there are not enough cards left in the personal deck, the personal discard pile is shuffled to form the new personal deck.

Pretty easy so far. So how do you acquire new cards? Hero and Construct cards usually provide either one of two resources when played: Runes or Power. These two resources are basically two different currencies. Runes are used to “buy” Hero and Construct cards while Power is used to “defeat” Monster Cards. To buy a Hero or Construct, just pay the Rune cost printed on the top right of the card and it is added to your discard pile. The Rune cost is only paid once when initially acquiring the card, after which it can be played for free. The effects of the Hero and Construct cards are pretty varied and some are definitely more powerful than others. Each card also has an Honor Point value printed on the bottom left corner. You can buy as many cards as you want as long as you have the Runes to pay the Man. Similarly, you defeat Monster Cards by paying an amount of Power equal to the Power Cost printed on the top right of the Monster. Defeated monsters are put into the Void, which is a central communal discard pile, and you can then claim your reward! Once defeated, Monsters turn into succulent Honor Tokens and also usually provide an additional effect. There is also another action called “banishing” which is to discard cards into the central Void for no effect.

Remember the Honor Tokens you get for crushing those hideous monsters? Well, once those Honor Tokens run out, the game ends. Every player who has yet to complete their turn for the round gets a final go, so that everyone has the same total number of turns. Then everyone tallies up their Honor Points from a combination of Honor Tokens and the Honor Point values on the cards in their decks, and the person with the highest total wins!

After that whole long ramble describing the game, it is time to get to my impressions of the game. To me, the influence of Dominion is still very strong in Ascension. It feels like someone took Dominion and tried to make it less “Eurogame-y” if that is even a term. A major change to the Dominion model was to have the actions and buys available to each player unlimited.

Dominion could sometimes feel very restricted, allowing only one action and buy per turn unless you had the right kingdom cards. This is not a bad thing as it made players really consider their decisions on how best to spend their action or buy. Ascension on the other hand, allows more freedom in playing actions and buying, and also provides “safety valves” in the form of the static piles of Mystics and Heavy Infantry and the eternal cultist such that there is always something to do on your turn.

Dominion had a very elegant tension built into the game where the object of the game was to buy victory cards which usually did not further contribute to the function of your deck. It presents a challenge for players to build a deck that can balance buying sufficient victory cards while still not letting those additional “dud” victory cards impede their ability to continue doing so. Ascension bypasses this by assigning point values to each card and using victory point tokens external to the deck. Dominion eventually introduced kingdom cards in the expansion that have those functions, but the limited nature of the available kingdom cards meant that this was not always the case and rewarded players for recognizing and capitalizing on those opportunities whereas Ascension makes this an intrinsic part of the game. However, what Ascension does is introduce the tension of having two separate currencies. Monster cards can only be “bought” with Power while non-Monster cards can only be bought with Runes. This challenges the player to balance Rune and Power production. Coupled with the freedom of having multiple actions and buys, this leads to a feeling that every turn is productive as you will get some victory points every turn. Very simplistically, while the challenge of Dominion seems to be to maximize the number of productive turns, the challenge of Ascension is to maximize the points gained per turn.

So far it seems that the design is shaping up to be some sort of feel-good sped-up version of Dominion. However, the main spanner in the works is the change to how the buyable cards are made available. Dominion has a limited set of 10 kingdom cards available for purchase, which can be randomized between games but are equally available to all players. Ascension has a randomized set of 6 cards available at any time in the game, with replacements being drawn from a randomized deck when a card is bought. The number of each card in that deck also varies, with some cards even being unique. This added layer of randomness is what can lead to frustration sometimes, especially when there are more players in the game. It reduces the ability of the player to plan ahead as the available cards are constantly in flux and leads to a more tactical focus of the game.

Another thing worth mentioning is the art and design of the cards. The style chosen for the art is fairly unique, and I like it on an individual card level. However, due to the muted color palette, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between different cards. The Mechana constructs are especially egregious and I find myself looking to the cost of the construct to identify the card as each Mechana construct in the base set has a different cost. The card design should serve to clarify this and generally works due to the different colored frames used for different factions, but the choice of light blue and grey for two of the factions could lead to some confusion. Fortunately, faction does not play that big a part in the game (at least in the base game). Overall, the art and design is very evocative but I feel it could have been improved to allow for better readability and identification. A minor quibble maybe, but I thought it may be relevant to point out.

Overall, I feel that the game is a decent entry in the deck-building game genre. Its heritage is very evident, but there are enough differences that the game feels quite different. What I like about Ascension is that feeling of playing an insane 20 card chain where I draw my entire deck and can now buy whatever I want, which definitely seems to occur more often than in Dominion. What I did not like was the increased randomness in the game due to the center row and some minor annoyances with the art and graphic design.

In summation, I would give Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer a solid 3.5 out of 5 Honor Points. It’s a great introduction to the deck-building genre of games, and a solid addition to any game shelf. Personally, I own both Dominion and Ascension, and they both scratch different itches to warrant an equal place on my shelf, but I can understand if some people decide to skip on one for the other as there are still many similarities.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0 (fair amount of text and unique effects)

Playing Time: 30 to 60 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 4 players (player number can be increased with extra game copies or expansions)

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

Gather your military forces and take control of key regions in The Kingdoms of Crusaders, the medieval strategy card game. It is the time of the Crusades, and kings and knights from all over Europe and the Middle East have gathered at the Holy Land to wage war. Succeed where others have failed by outsmarting your opponents and strategically taking over the majority of the contested land!

The Kingdoms of Crusaders is published by RightGames, a Russian company known for hit card games such as Potion-Making: Practice and Evolution: The Origin of Species. This is a great filler game that is easy to learn and can be played in half an hour. At the same time, it boasts a great mechanic that allows a surprising amount of strategy, and is suitable for players of various skill levels.

The theme behind the game is the Crusades, the religious campaign during the Middle Ages where the Christian forces of Europe tried to gain control of the Holy Land. There are five regions in the game, including Jerusalem and Cyprus, and each player represents an army trying to take over these lands. Players take turns placing armies in each region, and the player with control of the most regions at the end of the game wins.

The armies are represented by cards, each of which comprises of various types of forces. From weakest to strongest, the units are Militia, Archers, Soldiers, Knights and Leaders. These units are represented by symbols along the top of the cards. A card can consist of just one unit type, or it can function as multiple types.

The rules are very simple. At the start of the game, each player draws 5 cards. Every turn, a player draws a card, then places a card onto a region of his choice. A player can only place 4 cards onto each region, and the game ends once all regions have their full army of 4 cards.

At the end of the game, each region is examined to determine which player’s army of 4 cards is stronger. The player who managed to accumulate a set of 4 of the same symbol is considered stronger than another who only managed to get a set of 3 of the same symbol, and so forth. And if you get 2 sets of 4-of-a-kind, that is stronger than just 1 set of 4-of-a-kind. However, if both players have the same number of sets, the rank of the symbol then takes precedence. A set of Leaders is stronger than a set of Knights, which in turn is stronger than a set of Soldiers. After figuring out who controls each region, the player that ends up controlling the most regions is declared the winner.

The game mechanics are very basic and easy to learn. There is a fair amount of strategy involved though. You have to decide which regions you want to fight for, and which ones if any you want to give up to your opponent (you only need to control 3 regions to win). You could be aggressive in taking control of regions or wait for your opponent to make a wrong move. You could choose to use more complex card combinations, gambling that you will draw the correct cards to complete your sets of symbols.

The quality of the cards is pretty basic, and the regions are printed on small and flimsy cardstock. However, they serve their purpose and do not detract from the fun and intensity of the game. All the cards also feature the gorgeous art and engravings of 19th century French artist Gustave Dore. His art illustrates the Middle Ages very well, and creates a beautiful setting and atmosphere for the game.

Kingdoms of Crusaders is meant to be played with 2 players, but can be expanded to 4 players if another copy of the game is purchased (rules and victory tokens for 3- and 4-player games are included). It could have been better to have the game pre-packaged for 4 players, but limiting it to 2 players and keeping the price of the game low is also a good way to get it into the hands of more players.

You can find out more about the game at RightGames’ website.

Complexity: 2.0/5.0

Playing Time: 30 minutes

Number of Players: 2 players (up to 4, with another copy of the game)

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Rating: 4.0/5.0

Evolve and nurture your creatures as they compete against other species in the exciting card game Evolution: The Origin of Species! Make your creatures stronger by giving them powerful traits. Use carnivores to attack the competition and protect your own creatures from the same. Maintain control and prove your superiority by becoming the most dominant species!

Evolution: The Origin of Species is published by RightGames, a Russian company known for other card games such as Potion-Making: Practice and The Enigma of Leonardo. The game is designed by Dmitry Knorre, a PhD in Biology, and stays true to the basic concepts of evolution. It doesn’t get bogged down in too much science though, and manages to deliver an exciting and fast-paced competitive game.

The game mimics the way competing species fight over food and each other to become the dominant species. This is played out entirely via a deck of cards and food tokens. The goal of the game is to make sure your creatures receive enough food each age (via the food supply or by eating other creatures), and the winner is the player with the most numerous and evolved species when the deck runs out.

The game is separated into multiple rounds of 4 phases each. The first phase is the Deployment phase, where players take turns to play and upgrade their creatures using cards. You can place any card face down as a new creature (the back of each card is a cute lizard representing a new species), or you can use the trait or ability on the card to upgrade your existing creatures.

The traits are the main part of the game and provide very interesting gameplay. There is the Carnivorous trait that allows the creature to eat (!) another creature. There is a Camouflage trait that allows a creature to avoid carnivores, but there is also a matching Sharp Vision trait that allows carnivores to see Camouflaged prey. There are also cooperative traits played on 2 creatures such as Symbiosis or Communication. These traits either protect the creatures or help them gather food faster. There are many other traits, each of which can evolve your creatures to become either specialized killers or hardy grazers.

The second phase is the Food Determination phase, where the amount of available food for the round is determined by a roll of the dice. A low roll will mean a period of famine where lots of creatures are going to die, while a high roll will mean those creatures prepared with Fat Tissue (a storage trait) can take advantage of the abundance of food and stock up.

The third phase is the Feeding phase, and players take turns performing actions. This usually involves choosing a creature to take food from the available supply. Certain traits will alter this, such as the Grazing trait that lets you destroy food from the supply, or the Communication trait that lets two creatures grab food at the same time. And there is the Carnivorous trait that lets you eat another creature. Your creature will receive food, and the victim (and all their traits) will have to be discarded. This phase continues until every creature has eaten all they can and/or used their Carnivorous trait.

Then comes the Extinction phase, where creatures who have not received food will die off. A creature is considered fed if they managed to get one food token in the Feeding phase. However, there are some traits that increase the amount of food they need. An example is the offensive Parasite trait that you can play on opponents’ creatures, making them require 2 extra food tokens. Once the unfed creatures are killed off, new cards are drawn and a new round begins where you can play new creatures or upgrade your existing ones. This continues until the deck runs out, and the winner is the player who has the most surviving creatures and traits on the board after the last Extinction phase.

The cards and tokens aren’t the best quality, and the art is pretty basic and generic. However, the game mechanics are very good, providing exciting and reasonably complex play for a game that lasts just over half an hour. There are many ways you can play the game. Do you evolve creatures that are well-protected and efficient food-gatherers? Do you focus on carnivores to eat up the competition? Or do you create a whole colony of swimmers that basically ignore all other species? Do you invest many traits on just one creature, risking everything on it? Or do you spread your cards out over many creatures, potentially getting into trouble during times of famine?

Control of the game swings very wildly as players gang up on the most dominant species. There will be rounds where an unobservant player may lose all their creatures and have to start from scratch. However, this is just a temporary setback and they can quickly rebuild their colony while the other players are killing each other’s creatures. This is a fast-paced and exciting game, and is a great filler game for players of all experience levels.

You can find out more about the game at RightGames’ website.

Complexity: 2.5/5.0

Playing Time: 30 to 45 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 4 players

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Rating: 4.0/5.0

Show your mastery in alchemy as you compete with fellow students to create the most powerful potions in Potion-Making: Practice! Brew potions and elixirs, create talismans and summon magical creatures using special reagents such as firelight, mandrake root and snakes’ eyes. Successfully use the many available recipes to become the greatest alchemist in this strategy card game!

Potion-Making: Practice is published by RightGames, a Russian company known for other card games such as Evolution: The Origin of Species and The Enigma of Leonardo. Potion-Making: Practice has long been considered one of the most popular board and card games in Russia, and it’s not hard to see why. Now that it has finally been translated into English, the rest of us have a chance to experience this gem.

As the name suggests, this game is all about creating potions (and other magical stuff). Pouring over recipes and ingredients, you will feel like being in the world of Harry Potter, sitting beside Hermione Granger in Professor Snape’s Potions class. And don’t worry, the potions in this game won’t blow up in your face! The goal of the game is pretty straightforward: earn the most victory points by successfully using recipes to create lots of potions, talismans and magical creatures.

The game is simple and elegant. Each card is separated into two sections. The top section contains the name of the card’s recipe, and what ingredients are required to make it. The bottom section shows what element or raw material the card can be used as, and there are a whopping 16 elements in the game. When the card is in your hand, it can be used as a recipe. And when it is on the table, it becomes an ingredient.

The game begins with each player drawing a hand of 4 cards. 4 more cards are revealed face up on the table to act as a starting pool of raw materials, known as the Table of Elements. Each turn, a player draws a card from a central deck, then plays a card from his hand. This continues until the deck runs out and all players have played the last card from their hand. The player with the most victory points then wins the game.

Playing a card can involve one of 2 actions. If none of the recipes in your hand can be created (i.e. their ingredients are not available), then you have to discard a card to the table as raw material. This isn’t so bad though, since you gain one victory point if that raw material was not previously available on the table.

However, if the ingredients are available for one of your recipes, then you can play it. Basic potions require 2 raw elements as ingredients, and give you 2 victory points when played. There are also plenty of other recipes that are more complex, giving you more victory points. For example, the Talisman of Teleportation requires an Elixir of Flight and a Liquor of Eternity as ingredients and gives you 8 points. Previously-created potions can be used as ingredients for your recipes, even if they were created by another player. However, using other players’ potions will also give them half of the victory points you earned with your recipe.

There are also a few special cards that can be played in addition to the basic one card a turn. These are spells that can have a big impact on the playing field. There is a spell that lets you grab a card from the table into your hand to be used as a recipe. And there is another that lets you swap one of your previously-created potions with a card from the table, and treat it as if you had created that potion instead.

The rules of the game are really easy for anyone with any level of experience to master, and it can easily be played in just over half an hour. However, it should be considered elegant rather than simple, because there is a surprising amount of strategy involved. Do you discard a crucial raw material to the table for a victory point or withhold it to prevent your opponents from creating their potions? Do you piggyback on other players’ potions or try to create your own potion chains for a larger point difference? Do you try to focus on one type of potions and make it difficult for the other players to create other types? There are a lot of things to consider in this deceptively simple game, and players of all experience levels will appreciate it as a quick filler game.

The quality of the cards, boards and playing pieces may not be the best, but the art is simple yet striking, and captures the feel of the game perfectly. It is also really cheap for a game that will provide you with countless hours of fun. If you haven’t tried or heard of Russian board games before, Potion-Making: Practice is one that you have really got to try. You’ll also like it if you are into the world of Harry Potter or like games with a medieval fantasy or magic theme.

You can find out more about the game at RightGames’ website.

Complexity: 2.0/5.0

Playing Time: 30 to 45 minutes

Number of Players: 2 to 6 players

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