Start here

The man with the green hair (aka designer Friedemann Friese of 2F Spiele) did us proud this year with two new games. Fundstücke is a limited edition card game. The theme is scavenging furniture that's been thrown out. It's another game of guessing what numbers other players haven't played. Those who play a card successfully collect furniture cards: the bigger the number card they play, the more pieces they can take, but the later they play. Playing a zero allows you to steal furniture from others. The aim is to fulfil one or more of the contracts on display. This is pretty good, particularly as the use of tie-breaking numbers prevents continual ties: 8/10.

The second game is a 'proper' board game, Fische Fluppen Frikadellen. The theme is anything but: players are trading to collect fetishes (little wooden things from the South Seas). Scattered around the board are a dozen shops and traders - selected from the total available. Players move round the board, seeking to buy and sell or trade goods with the various merchants. The aim is to build themselves up from nothing to having the various sets of goods needed to trade in for a fetish. First to three fetishes wins, but getting them is progressively harder. This is a clever, entertaining game that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was also a very close result: 9/10.

The unique feature of the game is that it can be played by up to 15 people across three boards. There are three 'flavours' of the game, each different in detail, so that they can be put together without confusion. One of the actions available to players then becomes moving to a different board - though without scouting it out first. I can see this creating complete chaos, so I look forward to trying it out.

Abacus had Rüdiger Dorn's Emerald, a game familiar to me as it's one of the tournament games for this year's European Championships. Packed in Abacus's traditional full-size but shallow box, this is a quirky game. The theme is knights wresting treasure from a dragon, but the game is pretty abstract and centres on collecting (sets of) cards. It has some interesting game mechanics that provide tactical options and throws in a few elements of luck as well. Not a deep game, but entertaining enough: I give it 6/10.

Adlung is well-known as a producer of card games and generally has several new titles each year. This year was no exception. Bayon is by Wolfgang Werner, with an exploration theme - the setting is Cambodia. I haven't played it yet, so I can't comment. Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum have adapted their board game San Marco to create a two-player card game version: Canal Grande. The aim is to win elections in the six districts of Venice through card play. Most cards are votes in a district. Then there are gondolas to move in votes from others (the equivalent of bridges in the board game). Other cards allow players to gain extra cards, steal them from others or trigger scoring. A second pack of cards is numerical - the first to get 10 points is penalised. In play, one player takes cards from both decks and divides them into two sets. The other player chooses one set and plays first. The first player gets to play the remaining set. Then they switch roles. A clever game that captures much of the decision-making of the board game: 7/10.

Express is a word game from Reiner Knizia, which is immediately interesting. However, I'm not sure this would work for English players - and Adlung only provides rules in German, which suggests the company agrees. Perhaps we'll see an English language version from another publisher. I skipped the other two games, Mal mal (Annette Birlenbach) and Sambesi (Jens Rademaker) as they both look to be aimed firmly at children.

Alea followed its usual practice of showing a prototype of its new game for next spring. This year it was Edel, Steine & Reich, a card game that looks simpler than alea's usual strategy board games. It will be worth investigating once it's available. The game for this year was, of course, Andreas Seyfarth's Puerto Rico, about which enough has been written already! Click here for my review of Puerto Rico - the game gets 10/10 from me.

As far as I was concerned, the most interesting thing on the Amigo stand was the prototype of Bohn Hansa. As the name suggests, this is another in Uwe Rosenberg's series of bean games that started with Bohnanza (spot the pun!). However, this one is played on a board and is a delivery game. The idea is to buy goods (beans) in certain cities and deliver them to others against contract. Central to the game is a clever mechanism based on keeping your cards in sequence. These are played in order to move, but include your contracts. So contracts will disappear if you don't deliver them quickly enough. I look forward to seeing the production version of this next spring. A provisional 9/10.

One board game that is readily available is Piratenbucht (Pirate Bay) from Paul Randles and Daniel Stahl. This is intended as a family game: the players move their pirate ships from island to island, collecting gold and treasure chests. Players can spend to improve their ships (more guns, bigger carrying capacity and so on). Very useful if they meet another pirate at an island and have to fight. You also have to watch out for the dreaded Blackbeard, who's tough to beat, not to mention the Royal Navy! You don't have to think too hard about this game, but it's good fun. I give it 7/10.

Also of note was a card game from Messrs Moon and Weissblum again. This one is called Im Schatten des Sonnenkönigs (In the Shadow of the Sun-King, I'm told). In their turn, players lay cards of the various suits in front of them. Holding the majority in any suit allows you to use the appropriate special power. Much of the game play centres on taking gold and power chips away from other players - people can be knocked out. This is a game I need to play again as I'm not sure I understood it when I played it at the show. Provisionally, I'd give it 7/10.

There were lots more new games on the Amigo stand. Lots of D&D, Pokémon and Star Wars stuff plus other licences and children's games. Of more interest were a German edition of Guillotine (Paul Peterson, originally published by Wizards) and a new version of the classic Ogallala (also known as Blackfoot) by Rudi Hoffmann. Amongst the several card games was Ehre der Samurai, which appears to be a German language edition of Scott Kimball's Honor of the Samurai, originally published in the US by Gamewright.

Sports games have been the remit of AZA Spiele and they are continuing with this. The new game on show was a prototype of GolfProfi. As the name suggests, it's a Golf game. I'm afraid this was enough for me to turn tail: Golf has no interest for me. And this game appears to be attempting a board game simulation of the real sport - apparently players increase their handicap (and the number of dice they roll) as they get better. I will be interested to see if AZA can make something of this, as previous attempts at a Golf game have died a death.

Bambus Spieleverlag is Günter Cornett's publisher for the games he designs. This year's game is Arabana-Opodopo. This is a 3-4 player version of the earlier Arabana-Ikibiti (also published by Kosmos and Rio Grande as Kahuna). I didn't try it, so I won't comment further. Bambus also had Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Wolfgang Werner, apparently a re-working of his earlier Twilight. According to the information I have, the game is played in teams of two, the goal being to take Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde to victory over the other self. But Dr Jekyll players will also have to play Mr Hyde cards and vice versa. Successful play requires careful communication with your partner, as well as good tactics. It sounds interesting, but I didn't get to play.

A new kid on the block was BeWitched Spiele, publishing a new game from designer Andrea Meyer. Ms Meyer is a friend and colleague of Friedemann Friese (2F Spiele), who encouraged her to publish the game (I wonder if he had anything to do with the green box?). The game is ad acta, a cynical look at the working life of the civil service. Each player is a department and has a number of files to get processed and filed away (each file scores different points according to which specific cabinet it ends up in). However, the processing has to be done by the other departments (players). So, in your turn, your actions are telling the other players to get on with things and deal with the files in their in-tray. As they'll only handle things in strict sequence, there's some horse-trading to be done. It's a clever little game and created quite a buzz at the show. I haven't actually played it yet, so I'll reserve giving it a ranking. Latest news is that the 500 copies of the first print run sold out and a new edition is planned for December.

Clementoni is not a company I have associated with board games, let alone good board games, but they seem to have a winner this year. The game in question is by Wolfgang Kramer and is called Wildlife. This bears a superficial resemblance to Evo, as the board features an island divided into half a dozen different terrain types. Each player is a creature, adapted differently to the terrain. Some areas are inhospitable, some the creature can move through, some it can breed in (and move through) and some it can attack in (and breed in and move through). Players play cards to do things - getting additional pieces on the board, moving around, attacking the others, change their adaptation to the terrain and even evolve (gaining special abilities). There are several ways of scoring points, but essentially each player wants to expand. This is a clever game that requires some thought, some decision-making and taking account of what other players are up to - a typical Kramer game. I liked it: 10/10.

Cwali is the vehicle for Corné van Moorsel's games and he had two on show. Street Soccer is a two-player game with chunky wooden pieces that attempts to simulate a kick-around football game. It seems pretty straightforward: roll a die and move one of your men that number of spaces. If he reaches the ball, he kicks it for the spaces he hasn't moved yet plus one. If the ball arrives at another of your players, he can kick it on - again at remaining spaces + 1. A strong element of luck, then and, I think, mostly of interest to football fans. Not my cup of tea at all: 5/10.

The second game comes in Cwali's usual drum-shaped box and is ZooSim. Like van Morsel's other games (or at least those I've played), this is a very abstract game, with thinking required. However, it is very accessible: the complexity lies in the options and tactics that the rules make available to you. In the game you are trying to build up the most popular zoo. You do this by laying rectangular tiles (sections of your zoo), carefully linking them by the paths shown - already you have a spatial element as you work how/where you can add a tile to your zoo. Tiles show animals in two of the several groups - reptiles, mammals, fish etc. - and a star rating. The player with the most stars in a group gets two 'people' pawns to show that s/he is best - second place gets one. But you only add up the stars if the areas are adjacent to each other. You can also get pawns for having the most trees and you get one for each loop of paths you create (a very useful bonus). Tiles are auctioned to the players one at a time. After each five, players score the current position (weighting the scores, so that later rounds are more valuable) and gain more money. The game ends once all 25 tiles have been sold and the player with the most points wins. This is a sophisticated little game with a lot of subtlety in it, but relatively easy to understand. 9/10

DaVinci Editrice is an Italian games company that is distributed by Heidelberger and their game Bang! (designed by Emiliano Sciarra) was to be found on the Heidelberger stand. This is a card game themed round a Spaghetti Western. Each player starts with a character, giving them a special ability and a number of 'hits', plus a role. Only the Sheriff reveals his role: his job is to get rid of the outlaws. The Deputies support the Sheriff and win (jointly) if all the bad guys are dead. The Outlaws win if the Sheriff is killed. And the Renegade wins only if he is the last man standing! In turn, players draw cards and then play. As many as they like, but only one 'Bang!' (unless they have a special ability or card that lets them play more), which is a shot at another player within range. Each successful 'Bang!' reduces the targets hits by one, and you're dead if you run out of hits. The cards are great fun: play a Mistress and steal a card from another player; play a Beer to regain a Hit and so on. The game is reminiscent of Family Business, but is its own game and is great fun to play: 10/10.

Don & Co is Kris Burm's vehicle for his Gipf project: a series of two-player abstract games. Kris was much in evidence demonstrating his games and attracting plenty of attention.

One of the American companies at the show was Eagle Games, who had a sizeable stand in the middle of Hall 9. The company was showing its big-box wargames with lots of pieces (think Axis and Allies). They are attractive looking games, but the new one was rather different. This was Sid Meier's Civilization - the Boardgame. Yes, a board game based on a computer game (allegedly) inspired by a board game. The game looks rather like the Hasbro Avalon Hill version of History of the World: a big, coloured board of the whole world and lots of interesting plastic playing pieces. It's a game I'd be interested to try - though I doubt it will dislodge the original Civilization in my affections!

Eight Foot Llama (no, really) was another of the American contingent and publisher of Jim Doherty's games. On show were last year's game, Who Stole Ed's Pants?, and this year's title, Monkeys on the Moon. Who Stole Ed's Pants? is an entertaining card game of trying to pin the blame for the eponymous crime on other players. This is done by planting evidence on them or changing the facts. When the game ends, the player in the middle of the frame gets the blame. It's good fun, but I found I kept having to think about the mechanics of the game. 7/10 as far as I'm concerned.

Monkeys on the Moon is a different kettle of fish (or barrel of monkeys?). The game defies succinct description, so let me just say that it's a game of multiple levels. That is, you do one thing, in order to be able to do another thing in order to get what you need to win. Except that this is also influenced by what you did in the first place. Very clever stuff with intriguing game play and a truly silly theme: what more could you want? Well, a bit more of a challenge: 8/10.

Top of page / Page 1 /Page 3 / Page 4 / Reviews index

About Pevans

To Win Just Once magazine

Reviews and articles

Les Petites Bêtes Soyeuses

Swiggers games club

Postal games

What's new

Contact