Above and Below:

Today when I arrived at the meet up spot for gaming (Silver Grill Cafe in Austin Tx) I ran into one the group reading through a game I had just gotten on Kickstarter myself.

This is the game Above and Below. A.....well, hard to say what type of game it is. It has elements of worker placement and lots of resources from rope, to pots, to fruit and paper. That part reminds me slightly of the game Euphoria. Then, it also has the "below" part where you adventure through the endless caves below the ground in this world. It unfolds with stories as you send your people of to adventure. That part reminded on of Agents of SMERSH, or Tales of the Arabian Nights, complete with an adventure story book.

This is a game by Ryan Laukat who also designed The Ancient World and Empires of the Void, to name a couple. You know it is one of his games by the signature art style ( He is both game designer and the artist) that while different in each game is still distinctly his.

Anyway, we played a test few rounds then invited a third to play a full game. It is fun! While I liked The Ancient World there were elements of that game (Ryan's last game) that weren't as smooth as other games he has done.

Above and Below manages to blend two very different types of games into a game that works well at both. The way the adventuring is managed is part of your decisions with what to do with the folks in your growing village. You can build, harvest, labor, recruit, and adventure and it all just works.

Getting your head around all the different ways you can score is a bit of a challenge but you totally get it after one play.

We played two games with three players, the third player was different for each game and everyone enjoyed it. I can see that adding a fourth player would not add any appreciable time to the game and might make the trading between players more prevalent.

I would not call this a gateway game. it is a bit deep as it does require to manage resources and worker placement. The decisions are critical and like most of these games you never feel like you have quite enough of what you need.

I think this might be my favorite Ryan Laukat game and if there is any one thing I might say as a negative there always seemed to be a big score gap between the first place winner and the rest. Though, it was not totally obvious until we totaled up scores at the end.

I came in second both times. grrrr. but was nearly twenty points away from the first place winner each time. I was scoring in the high 40's while the first place each time was near 70-80 pts.

Like the game Euphoria, that this one reminds me of a little, it appears to be one of those games I am not going to win ( I never win at Euphoria for some reason) but is fun enough to lose.

Check it out! This is not an official review but just my thoughts. Having only played two full games I don't believe I could fully review it but my thoughts might help you as to whether this is a good game for you.

A Touch of Evil:

My play through series of A Touch of Evil is going strong.  Check it out. The story is getting fun.

Who should like this game:
So, A touch of Evil is a story telling board game with tons of cards, lots of dice chucking, and entirely based on luck.
It is known as a "roll and move" game where you roll for your character's movement and then take the action or actions at the location you choose to move to. It is far more flexible then say, Monopoly but is the main mechanic for getting from place to place in the game.

This game is about enjoying the moment and telling a story. Some times it goes your way and other times it does not. Some of he greater moments come in when it does not go your way.

If you want to have some fun creating a story this game will be something you enjoy. If you are a hardcore euro, war, or strategic gamer this may not be the game for you. I enjoy both!

I hope you enjoy this play through series and the events that create the story for our four characters, The Scarlet Shadow, Eliza, the Witch Hunter, Lucy Handbrook, the Lord's daughter, and Doctor Edwards as they try to thwart and ancient Unspeakable Horror!

Bean Boozled

Do you remember the every flavored jelly beans from the Harry Potter books and movies?  Well, Bean Boozled is a game that combines a spinner push your luck game with those every flavored beans.

I would classify this as a family game. Heck, when we sat down to play this we had every generation at the table from my kids to the grandparents. I did not expect eating a barf flavored jelly bean would be fun for the whole family but it actually was.

So  how do you play this? It is incredibly simple. You spin a spinner that points you to a specifically colored jelly bean and you have to eat one that matches. The problem is that one will have a typical jelly bean flavor, but one won't.

For example. You spin and get the dark brown jelly bean. You pick one out of the bunch and you might get lucky getting the chocolate pudding, or you might get not-so-lucky and get the other one that tastes like dog food.

We played about six round and the one that spit out the least of them was the winner.

I did not fair so well and actually never got one of the regular tasting beans. The one that was fruit or toothpaste was not so bad. I was glad to get that one last as the one before was skunk.  Yes , and it tasted just like the musk smell of a skunk too. Blah!

What amazed me is how well the terrible flavored beans matched the taste of what they were. Rotten eggs tasting just like a rotten egg and Barf did taste like barf. I think the regular tasting ones were good as no one spit them out but I never got one.

So, if you want to kill 15 minutes with a little game everyone can play and enjoy at a very cheap price this is a good one. Everyone laughed and had fun with it.

I recommend this for a party of family gather to help break the ice with a little game. Good stuff that tasted bad!

Xia: Legend of a Drift System:

This week I played a great sci-fi board game call Xia. I am a fan of role playing style board games and in a sense this game gives me that feel. It is a sand box game, meaning there are many things you can do, and you can do whatever you want within the confines of the rules.

That is quite a bit and there are many paths to victory (fame). You can be a trader, a pirate, a cruise ship for intergalactic passenger, an explorer, etc. Each one can gain you a win in the game.

This game will not be for everyone. There is a lot of dice rolling and randomness and some times a players turn can take quite a bit of time. The payoff is the freedom and story that is created. Also, while there are many paths to victory it is very clear how you can win.

There are dozens of different ships you can pilot, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and with unique, very cool special abilities. You can upgrade your ship to a different, more powerful model as well as upgrade components like shields, engines, and weapons. There is a little bit of a puzzle aspect to this as the more powerful the part you put in the more room it takes, which will reduce your ability to carry cargo.

In some aspects it reminds me of a space opera version of Merchants and Marauders. Which is great because I love that game too.

Expect a rather long game as well. You can control the length by changing the fame point requirement but to
get the most out of the game you can expect a few hours of play.

I played this Vlaada Chvatil game today and must say I liked it quite a bit.

It is a great party game with just enough meat to it to make you think a bit.

I like the fact that it is team based and could actually accommodate a great number of people.

So in this game you create a 5X5 grid of words. One team member is the spy master while the rest of the team are trying to uncover the words that make up the code.

The spymasters (or team leader) of each team are looking at a color grid that shows them which of the words they need their team to find.
The Spymaster will say a word that generally represents the word on the card or series of cards he is trying to get the team to select. He then provides a number for how many words fit the code world clue he has given. For example, let's say that the words the leader wants his team to find are Horse, saddle, and shoe. He could say something like Equestrian 3 as he has three words he is considering with his clue.

It is very simple with just a few rules. You can use the timer to keep the flow moving or if that frustrates people worse than someone staring at the word combinations for fifteen minutes, you could do without.

The game is getting lots of hype and, while I have other party games I really enjoy like Cards Against Humanity, One Night Werewolf, and Telestrations, this one fills a different niche'.

I do recommend it and it is good but it still does not replace One Night Werewolf or Telestrations as my go to games at parties.

UNLEASH THE KRAKEN:

So, I asked my viewers if they wanted me to keep going with my Rum and Bones play through. I got a resounding (at least mostly) yes. This surprised me a bit as I did not think it would that interesting to watch me play a two player game against myself.
I thought about that though and concluded that the game does weave a bit of a story with the crew boarding action of the two pirate crews.
I am not sure if these crews are well balanced against each other or as one viewer pointed out, I am rolling better as Mazu's Dreadful (or Dreadly as I have been saying) Curse but both crews are fun to play.
Now, this is not a heavy weight game and is purely meant to be fun and give you a sense of crazy fantasy ship boarding actions.
What people really want to see, come on, you know you do, is the destruction of the Kraken coming into the game which should be soon.

If you are not watching then pop over to my Youtube channel and check out this video series. It has been fun.

All In

ALL IN!

So I have never been good at doing something halfway or NOT taking something to the next level. As my gaming channel grows I have started to formulate an idea. It is one I hope to see through to fruition and it is something I think will support the hobby well.

Heck, Felicia Day and Will Wheaton started up Geek & Sundry (great Youtube channel if you have not watched some of it) and while I do not want to do something as big as that, I do want to ramp up to forming some sort of studio.

This is a dream at this point but one I can see happening. I can envision it and hope to get the support I need.

When I started my channel I was using my Ipad to film. now I have good equipment and have learned a great deal about camera angles and editing.

I am thinking the next level is soon to come but we shall see. For now. I launched my website, created a blog, activated my twitter account again and am just generally ratcheting things up.

While I slowly build this dream into a reality please support me in any way you can, with likes, shares, money, and by posting in discussion. It all helps.

I hope you are enjoying my play through of Rum & Bones.

That is it for now. Keep gaming!