Mayfair's Catan Junior—A Double-Take Review

Well it's probably not a surprise to you that there were more than a few games found under the Christmas trees in our homes. We both ended up adding a copy of Mayfair's Catan Junior to our growing collection of kids/family games, so we thought there's no better time to post our thoughts in yet another Double-Take Review. Let's be honest: If you're a gamer, you probably have friends who tell you how much they LOVE Settlers of Catan. Catan is to board gaming what Dark Side of the Moon is to Pink Floyd. Or Kleenex is to facial tissue. Or "Particle Man" is to They Might Be Giants. Or Coke is to Cola. Or, well...you get my point. Anyone who has had a close encounter with the geek level of gaming has played Settlers of Catan. It's not a bad thing; Catan has probably done more for board gaming than any other title since (gah!) Monopoly. So we won't go into much detail about the original version of the game; if you want to read about it, there are about seven million reviews, tutorials, and commentaries on the game scattered throughout the Internet.

Catan Junior isn't just a simplifying of the already massive hit title. The rules are somewhat streamlined, for sure, but there is also a re-theming to the game. Instead of building settlements, cities and roads, players are now swashbuckling pirates, building pirate lairs (instead of settlements and cities), and pirate ships (instead of roads). The hexes are now represented by individual islands. You start with two lairs and one ship, and you can only build lairs next to ships, and ships next to lairs. The point of the game is to be the first to build seven lairs.

The trading has been changed to be a little more kid friendly. There is a marketplace on one end of the board, and one of each of the five resources (now Goats, Wood, Gold, Molasses, and Cutlasses) are placed at a booth in the marketplace. Players can trade 1:1 with those resources (only once per turn), or 2:1 for anything not in the marketplace—or for an advanced variant, you ditch the marketplace and trade with other players. And you can also purchase Coco Cards, which feature Coco the parrot on the back. These give you various free goods, or allow you a free move of the Ghost Pirate Captain (which we'll explain in a second), and one that allows you to build a lair or a ship for free! In addition to the great stuff you get, having the most Coco cards will allow you to build a lair on Spooky Island (which is the Desert in this retheme), putting you one closer to the seven lairs you need.

The thief has been replaced by the Ghost Pirate Captain (who starts on Spooky Island), and rolling a 6 (in this game there's a single d6) allows players to move the Ghost Captain to an island and take two resources of the type that matches the hex he was placed on. And like the thief he stops production from that hex until he's moved again.

Your turn consists of:

• Roll to produce goods on islands
• Trade
• Build

And that's it. They move along quickly, so there's little downtime.

Firestone—The components are great. The resources are big and chunky and perfect for my kids' little hands to grab. The ships and lairs are small, but they do the job. It's very colorful, and the pirate theme is a hit with kids.

Jeremiah—Yeah, I totally agree; we love the resource tokens (although my wife got a little flustered because the cutlasses were tough to stack), I suppose I would have preferred wooden ships and lairs—the plastic ones seem a little fragile to me. But I will say they have survived at least four plays thus far, so they are surprisingly durable. The retheme is great, although I've taken to calling the Ghost Pirate Caption the Dread Pirate Roberts, but we'll just call that a house rule for now...

Firestone—I've played three games: a 2-player, a 3-player, and a 4-player, and it seems to scale well, though people were getting cut off right and left in our 4-player game. And by people, I mean me.

Jeremiah—I actually haven't played a 2-player game yet, because every time we pull it out both of my boys jump at the chance to play it. So most of my plays have been 3-player, and once the boys talked mommy into playing, so we played 4-player. With 4 it does get a little crowded, but I agree: It's a short game, and it's actually about perfect in play time, so before it gets too cut-throat it's over.

Firestone—One downside I've seen in my three games is that it seems practically impossible to come back once someone gets ahead of you. And if they're building lairs that are cutting you off, it's just that much harder to come back. But since it's short, I can live with this one complaint about it. Oddly, in my house, my 8-year-old isn't all that excited about playing this—he'll play, but it's not his first choice. I'm not sure if that's because he's used to playing "deeper" games with me and this one seems too simple, or what. I do know that my almost-5-year-old LOVES this one. He needs some help with decisions and strategies and the whys and wherefores, but he has a blast playing. He's cuckoo for Coco.

Jeremiah—Both my 4- and 6-year-olds are all about this game. I do have to help the youngest one pretty often. The strategy to buy CoCo cards seems to be the choice of youngsters everywhere! They've figured out the value of getting a free lair on Spooky Island and have exploited it very well. In fact, both of my sons have figured this out, and it somehow works, because most of the time they pull out the win.

Firestone—This is a great, great family game. It's ideal for introducing kids to Euros, and the process of creating engines where you get this, to turn into that, to get you VPs. And one of the best things is that you won't feel as though you have to dumb down your play—the kids have just as much chance to win as you—but the game is still interesting for adults. Am I going to bring this to game night with the fellas? Of course not. But it's a game for kids, and it's very good at it.

Jeremiah—Yeah, we both pretty much agree on this one, the rules and theme are super accessible for kids. I will say that I "renamed" the Ghost Pirate Captain because my oldest son lately has been super tweaky about anything remotely scary. (Like when his younger brother impersonates zombie carrots... Yes, zombie carrots weird him out.) Spooky Island he's okay with. But I felt like I needed to hold back on the ost-ghay irate-pay. The game is close enough to the original that it also holds my interest and isn't total kids-game fodder. And as I said, it's short enough to hold the attention of my 4-year old!

Firestone Final Rating—As a game for adults, it's maybe a 6 or 7—it's fine, but I don't much like that it uses dice to control resources...so if people don't roll your number, yer outta luck. BUT, as a kids game I give it a 10. It's the perfect game to introduce kids to Euro-game concepts.

Jeremiah Final Rating—Completely agree, I'd say a solid 7 for adults playing with kids, the board is laid out well enough that you shouldn't get hosed for resources even though you're relying on the dice. And yeah score it a 10 for kids: awesome gateway into euro style games, great theme, perfect rules scaling of a classic game, and solid re-playability.

Get Catan: Junior on Amazon here!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook!

An Interview with Benoit Vogt - Designer of Mythic Battles

Benoit, this is my first international interview; thanks for agreeing to answer our questions!

You are welcome.

Tell us a little bit about life in Luxembourg, and what the gaming culture is like.

I've worked and lived in Luxembourg for 7 years. In Luxembourg people enjoy getting together after work to relax and have fun… So that's a great place for gaming.

How did you first discover gaming; what game got you hooked?

I discovered gaming with RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons, and then Magic: The Gathering. Then I started extensively playing board games such as Agricola.

Tell us what games you find yourself playing the most of late, and why.

I currently play games like Ascension, Zombicide and Quarriors. I enjoy these games because they are fast-paced and there are not a lot of rules to learn.

So what gave you the idea to design Mythic Battles, and how did you and Pay & Win Games come together to get it published?

I enjoy strategy and confrontation games. I designed Mythic Battles because, with my job and family life, I could no longer dedicate a lot of time to learning new games. In addition, most confrontation games require spending quite a lot of money to play them. So I had three goals with Mythic Battles: I wanted to deliver a real strategic game, with little impact of chance. It is easy to learn, and more accessible than games of the same category. Finally, for 40 euros you can afford a game with two complete armies.

What is it about Mythic Battles that makes it unique compared to other games of the same genre?

I think Mythic Battles is unique as it is a new kind of game: a BBB (Board Building Battle). The game takes place on a gridded board (Board) on which units move. There is a strong deck-building side because the constitution of armies is like building a game in Magic The Gathering (Building). Finally, it is a battle where strategy is a key element (Battle).

In Mythic Battles, are there defined roles for the armies…such as good guys and bad guys? Or are the lines between good and bad blurred, and less defined?

Mythic Battles features battles in Mythic Greece. In this world good guys are not so good and bad guys are not so bad… Clearly good and evil is blurred in Mythic Battles. Warriors are the gods’ toys--they don't really care about their lives…

Do you think today, in the real world, there are still good guys and bad guys? Or are those lines blurred?

The same way as Mythic Battles, I think these lines are blurred in reality.

Are there any other games you’re working on designing, or will you be focusing on expansions to Mythic Battles for now?

I am currently finalizing the first expansion of Mythic Battles to be released at the beginning of next year. I am also working on other projects. I will be able to tell you more about them when they will become more concrete. Hopefully it shouldn't take long.

The next set of questions are what we call the 1-Word Response questions. They only require one word (or phrase) responses. Aaaannd GO!

Favorite country you’ve visited?

USA

Favorite American cuisine?

Burger

Favorite day of the week?

Saturday

Have you ever jumped from an airplane?

No

Sausage or Bacon?

Bacon

We'd like to thank Benoit for taking some time to chat with us about Mythic Battles! You can order your copy of Mythic Battles through Iello games right here! 

Encino Man Liveth - A Stone Age Review

- by Jeremiah I went to game night to find Stone Age was set up and ready to play. I was informed that I "probably wasn't going to like it..." Thankfully for all of us at the table that prognostication was incorrect.

Stone Age at its core is a resource-management/workforce-allocation game set in...well, the Stone Age.

The Setup - Players are given a player board and 5 of 10 meeples of their selected color, and 12 food tokens. The board is set slightly differently depending on the number of players with a certain number of structures and civilization cards. And then resource pieces are placed in their respective areas—lumber, brick, stone, gold and food.

The Players Turn - Gameplay consists of rounds more so than turns; there are three phases to a round: placement, production, and nutrition. A player is handed the first player/caveman/king looking thing token and gets to decide where he will allocate his first meeples. Aside from the resource areas players can stake a claim at 3 special areas: the field, the hut, and what I like to call the tool shed. These are highly sought after spots and very limited, only allowing 1-2 meeples (the hut require 2 meeples from the same player) to be placed there, as opposed to the other resource areas allowing for multiple meeples. The field allows you to accumulate 1 food each round, moving your counter up the food track—you'll see why this is valuable shortly. While going to the hut, also known as "The Love Hut," allows players to bring in an extra meeple from their supply. (Now you see why you have to put 2 meeples there.) Going to the tool shed yields one tool; tools help add to your rolls during the production phase. You can also place a meeple on a civilization card (which allows you to purchase it during the production phase) or a structure chip (which you also can purchase during the production phase). Cards give you special abilities during the game and can score points at the end of the game. Structures score you points immediately but give no special powers.

The Production Phase - Once each player has placed all of their meeples, players go in order making all of their production checks and purchasing anything they may have dibs on. This is where the game gets dicey, literally. For each meeple you've placed in a certain area, you get to roll one d6, add the total, optionally modify that total with your tools, and then divide by a certain number depending on the resource you're going for. (Food/2, Lumber/3, Brick/4, etc.) The three special locations don't require rolls; they produce just by having placed a meeple there. You gather resources, because they allow you to buy your civilization cards and structures and in turn score victory points. And that's how you win the game.

The Nutrition Phase - After everyone has gathered resources, bought things, etc., you gather all of your meeples back to your player board, and then pay 1 food token for each of them, minus the number your counter is at on the food track—the higher you get your counter, the less hunting you need to do!

The Game Ends - When all of the civilization cards are depleted, or when one pile of structure cards are depleted. You then add up any final points awarded by the civilization cards and whoever has the most points wins.

The Cup O'Stink - About 25 minutes into game play there was an awkward exchange of sideways glances at one another. We discovered that the foul smell at the table was not due to any of us lacking in personal hygienic aptitude. But it was in fact due to the the cup which was included for rolling the dice. It was made, apparently, out of real rawhide, or some form of leather. Thematically it was cool. But in essence it just stank. Otherwise the packaging was great; Rio Grande included lots of baggies, and perfect compartments for all of the pieces and components to fit into nicely!

The Bottom Line - Stone Age, was really enjoyable. There are some timing questions that took a little digging to resolve and in fact do have a pretty substantial impact on the game itself. But once you get the nuances hammered out, it plays smoothly and is a lot of fun. If you hate games that rely heavily on dice roles, you may be in for a rough ride, as gathering resources + bad rolls can = a bitter experience. But if you think out your turns a little in advance you can hedge some of the randomness. Thematically, the game is fun. If I'm riding a hard-line Christian view of it, yes, the "Stone Age" really wasn't what games like this, and TV/cartoons make it out to be, neanderthal men living in caves, grunting, and beating each other with large clubs. I view it as a historical fiction game, just as I would look at Battlestar Galactica as a science fiction game. By the way, there is no beating of each other with large clubs in this game; that was pure hyperbole. The "Love Hut," as it were, will cause some Jr. High-ish giggling, but there is nothing lewd about it at all.

Thanks for reading! And as always we love to hear your thoughts on the games we review!

We Are Dead - Kickstarter Weekly

In other news, someone has designed a zombie board game. I know...shock and awe. We Are Dead is a collaborative effort between a couple of very accomplished artists Mike Morris, and Mike Collins. Morris being a 5-year veteran animator for The Simpsons, and Collins, whose accomplishments are a laundry list of Cartoon Network series. We Are Dead is a co-op play game, where players are actually not trying to survive the zombie apocalypse but you are actually inciting the apocalypse. Through co-op efforts and resource management you move through the mall infecting, and feasting, upon shoppers while trying to defeat any uprising heroes.

The game is touted as an easy-to-learn, fun romp, in a very stylized, cartoony zombie setting.  The game is completed, tested, and ready to go, Never Peak Games is simply asking for funds to send it to press.

This Kickstarter is one of the less expensive ones to get into on the ground floor; if you're one of the first 100 backers, you can get a copy of the game for $30. [Update: This level is sold out, but you can still get the game for $35.] You can also—for $20—get yourself a We Are Dead t-shirt.

As always, we'd love to hear what Kickstarters you're backing, or if you're starting your own campaign, let us know!

What You Missed

If you haven't been around this week, you've missed out on some fine blog posts here at TOG! Let's take a quick look back, as we move into the weekend! The News on Monday: Z-Man Games is releasing an English version of Robinson Crusoe, a co-op game of island survival!

The Review on Tuesday: Firestone reviewed Donald X. Vaccarino's Gauntlet of Fools.

The Interview on Wednesday: This week's interview featured Jesse Catron as he discussed his new Kickstarter campaign, Salmon Run, a racing, deck-builder with a fishy theme.

Kickstarter Weekly on Thursday: We featured the campaign of the converse version of Castle Panic! Known as Storm the Castle!

Also Today, we've added another little page to our humble site titled "Get Your Game Reviewed", enjoy!

Stay tuned next week, or else you'll miss more news, reviews, and interviews, including a very special, presidential interview with a very special guest, don't miss it!

Thanks again for reading, and have a great weekend everyone!

Storm the Castle! - Kickstarter Weekly

Somewhere in the Bizzaro Universe while Castle Panic! was being developed, Storm the Castle came into existence, and made its way to our reality--well, at least it will if Giant Goblin Games has its way. Storm the Castle is a 1-4 player semi co-op battle game where, unlike Castle Panic!, players are joining forces to lay siege and conquer the castle. Over on Kickstarter there's still plenty of time to jump in on the campaign, and there are a TON of stretch goals waiting for you (all the way up to $100k).

The game looks interesting and the concept sounds really fun! The premise of "being the bad guy" is always an interesting twist on your gaming experience. Giant Goblin is promoting this as a kid/family friendly game, although to be honest, I'm not sure I'd be cool with my 6-year-old taking control of the "Undead Horde."

The Kickstarter Campaign looks like it will be funded, so jumping in now is just one step closer to the next stretch goal! Head on over and check out their campaign, and we'll see you next week with another Kickstarter Weekly!

Running the Gauntlet Of Fools

by Firestone

Donald X. is the incredibly successful designer of hit games such as Dominion and Kingdom Builder. His latest is nothing like Dominion at all, but don’t let that stop you from playing this fast, fun game.

Gauntlet Of Fools comes with:

• 90 cards—divided into 20 Class cards, 20 Weapon Cards, and 50 Encounter cards.
• 30 dice
• 4,000 tokens—okay, that’s an exaggeration, but there are a BUNCH of tokens.
• 1 Playmat on which to place Boasts before they’re taken.

You’re going to control a hero, who will enter the dungeon, and who will die. (Well, you'll almost certainly die, unless you get really, really lucky. But plan on taking dirt nap...) Your goal is to end up with more gold than your opponents at the end of the dungeon.

First you deal out one Class card per player; they’re the Heroes, and include ninjas, barbarians, zombies, and jesters. Each one of them has an inherent defense, and a special power that you can use in the dungeon. Then you attach one Weapon to each Hero; they include spears, axes, whips, holy swords, and deadly fists. Each one has a number of dice you will roll for your attacks in the dungeon, along with a special power. Every game the Heroes and Weapons combinations will be different, so there’s plenty of replay value here.

Heroes and Weapons have special powers, and while you can use a few of them automatically, almost all of them cost an Ability token. The number of tokens varies based on the power (with a low of zero and high of 20), but on average you’ll get two Class Ability tokens and Two Weapon Ability tokens.

You should be aware that there are some “darker” cards in these, such as necromancers, zombies, and demonic blades. Their power is abstracted, but they’re there; if you felt strongly about it, you could easily remove those cards from the game without really affecting anything.

There are two phases to the game: the Boasting Phase and the Gauntlet Phase.

First comes the Boasting. Starting with the start player, each person takes one of the Heroes—and the Weapon attached to that Hero—and places it in front of them. If they think the Hero might get taken from them, they can attach a Boast to it, but it’s not required. Now the next player takes a Hero. If they take one that’s already in front of another player, they have to attach at least one Boast to it. That continues until each player has a Hero in front of him or her.

The Boasts include things such as “One Arm Tied Behind My Back,” which means that when the Hero is in the dungeon, he’ll ignore all 1s and 2s rolled on the dice. Or while “Hopping On One Leg,” which means you reduce the Hero’s defense by two. Or “With A Hangover,” which means you reduce your Hero’s attack dice by one and defense by four, but as soon as you kill a monster you get rid of the Hangover—fighting sobers you up! There are a few others, too.

So you can take the Hero someone else has, but you’re going to “pay” more for it—in the form of Boasts. And you might really want a Hero, but you have to ask yourself if it’s worth all the Boasts. It generally feels that a Great Hero with a Great Weapon—and a Boast or two—is more valuable than a Good Hero with a Good Weapon. Of course, that’s not always true, and some Boasts feel more harmful than others. It’s a sort of auction, where you’re valuing what’s out there, and trying to do a better job of valuing than your opponents—it reminds me of the province auction in Amun-Re.

Now comes the Gauntlet Phase, where you fight the monsters. And die. Early on, people were comparing this to Munchkin, and that scared me off. I can’t stand Munchkin—for lots of little reasons, but the big one is that the games often take FOREVER. FOR. E. VER!!!  Gauntlet of Fools is only superficially like Munchkin (fight monsters in a dungeon), but it’s also got a natural timer to it. You’re going to die. Everyone’s going to die. You might live one or two rounds longer than someone else—or vice versa—but that’s it. This keeps games at around 20 minutes, and that’s just perfect for this weight and type of game.

Anyway, you play a series of turns, and in each one you determine the encounter (draw the top card of the Encounter deck), attack the monster, defend against the monster, and then check to see if you’re dead yet. Most of the time the Encounter will be a monster of some kind. Each one has an attack strength, a defense strength, a gold amount for if you kill it, a wound amount if it hits you, and finally a special power. They’ve done a good job of conveying a lot of info in a clear way on a single card.

There are a few special Encounter cards. There’s a Spear Trap where you automatically take a wound, and some modifiers that make the next monster worth more gold, or have extra defense, or extra attack power—or do double damage. There are also some good Encounters that give you gold, or tokens you can use on your special powers, or allow you to heal a wound.

So for each regular Encounter your Hero will roll however many dice he or she has for attack, and if the total is as much or more than the monster’s defense, you’ve killed it, and you get the gold. Even if the monster dies, it still gets to attack your Hero. Again, if its attack equals or bests your defense, you’ll take one or more wounds. This attack and defend portion is where you can also use those Ability Tokens you got with your Hero. You might be able to turn one in and automatically kill any monster, or turn one in a roll an extra attack die, or turn one in a reroll all attack dice.

So there are definite decisions to be made in the Gauntlet. When should you just attack, and when should you spend a precious Token? Will I die this turn, and can I somehow prevent that?

Eventually everyone dies (four wounds and you’re dead at the end of the turn), and you count up the gold; whoever has the most gold wins. That’s not necessarily the person who lived the longest. If I was able to kill a couple of big-money monsters—but died early, that could be better than you living a longer time, but only killing monsters that give you one gold.

That’s an exhaustive look at the game. It probably took you longer to read this than it will to play a game. (Okay, that's an exaggeration...)

So what do I think? I like it! It’s a fast and fun dungeon delve. Some people don’t like that you only Boast once and use that one Hero through the whole Gauntlet, but it’s meant to play quickly and easily, and that’s just what it does. Want more? Play another game! Want Mage Knight? Play Mage Knight!

The dice add a lot of uncertainty. There were plenty of times that a Hero should be able to best a Monster, but then he'd roll a bunch of 1s and 2s. We played once, and then we immediately wanted to play again. And then we played another after that.

If there's one thing I'm uncertain about, it's that I'm not sure how well this would go over with nongamers. Auction games might be the hardest genre to bring out with Grandma and your Aunt Fanny. It's hard to figure out just how much something is worth, and if they undervalue or overvalue something, it can kinda throw the whole game off. But Gauntlet's light enough and fast enough that I'm far less concerned with this than I would be with, say...The Princes of Florence.

There’s plenty of room for expansion with this game, and I’ll eagerly add them if and when they come out. In the meantime, I’m going into the Gauntlet with my mace-wielding knight—unfortunately, he’s blindfolded and he skipped breakfast…

Our thanks to Indie Boards & Cards for graciously providing a review copy to Theology of Games.

Robinson Crusoe - en anglais

Earlier this year Z-Man Games announced that they will be publishing, in conjunction with Portal Games, Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island, in English. The English edition will premiere this month at Spiel. In what appears to be a top notch co-op game, players work together, discuss strategy, and learn to make sacrifices for the good of the team. Everything about this game hits home with me; can't wait to pick up a copy of this one!

For more news you can check out the title over at Z-Man's website, RIGHT HERE!

When We Last Left Our Heroes...

It's been a busy week for us here at Theology of Games—unfortunately, not because of gaming, but because of our busy lives. But we did get out a few new reviews, and share some news about the gaming world with you all! Stay tuned for more from the world of gaming next week! Here's your weekly recap of the week that was, on TOG! We all got giddy over the news of Wizkids' plans to release a Lord of the Rings themed dice building game!

Jeremiah reviewed the indie game "Walls of Light".

We looked for a little feedback on the blog and the possibility of a video post or two.

And Firestone reviewed Wizkids original dice builder, Quarriors!

Thanks for reading and thanks for the feedback! We hope you're enjoying reading the blog as much as we are writing it!

Quarriors—A Quawesome Queview...Errr Review

By Firestone Maybe the most influential game of the last few years is Dominion. It’s made a TON of money and spawned a ton of similar games. WizKids' Quarriors is one of the more unique “copycats” to emerge from the pack.

It’s called a dicebuilding game, rather than a deckbuilding game. Rather than buying various cards, as you do in Dominion, you’re buying dice. And let me tell you, these dice are cool. They’re all sorts of colors, and each type is unique and engraved with a different design.

Quiddity is the currency in the game. Just like in Dominion, you start the game with a few “coins”—in this case, a few dice that either give you 1 point of Quiddity (on 5 of the 6 sides of the die) or 2. You also start with a few weak monsters.

I won’t go into all of the details for a turn—they’re kind of involved, and MUCH easier to explain when someone’s sitting in front of you where you can explain by showing. Basically, if you have any creatures left alive at the beginning of your turn, you score VPs—then they go away. Then you draw six dice and combine them with any that were already in your Ready area, roll them, and decide what to do with them. Any Creatures you rolled will now attack each of your opponents. (That’s one of my favorite things about this game. There’s no trying to decide whom you should attack. You just attack each opponent, regardless of how many there are.) Your opponents’ creatures may be killed because of the attack, but any that survive and are still alive at the beginning of that player’s turn will score VPs. Now you buy dice. There are two “classes” in the game—Spells and Creatures—and you can use any Quiddity you rolled to buy one of those die.

The game ends when someone scores a certain number of VPs—which varies depending on the number of players.

There are a few things for Christians to consider before playing the game. Spells are the first thing. It doesn’t feel as though you’re “casting a spell.” You’re just rolling a die that gives you a certain boon if it lands on a certain side of the die.

Another thing to consider is that the second expansion is called Rise of the Demons.  One of the Creatures you can purchase is a Demonic Overlord. I know it’s “just a game” but I’m not comfortable with my kids using a Demonic Overlord to help them out in the game, so I won’t be purchasing that particular expansion. They’ve since come out with another expansion called Quarmageddon, and there’s nothing questionable in that expansion.

Let’s be honest: When you’re dealing with dice, the luck factor goes way up. But the bottom line is that it’s just a ton of fun to roll these terrific dice. I’ll play Dominion with my gamer friends, but I play Quarriors with my family. It’s lighter and luckier, but it’s also more fun.