CarmaRace—Kickstarter Preview

Even though we already had a Kickstarter Weekly post this week, we wanted to give you a quick preview look at a campaign being launched by Board to Death TV. That's right, some board game reviewers decided to try their hand at design, and CarmaRace was born.

CarmaRace, from first glance, looks to be a humorous card-driven board game. You're moving on the board as a hitchhiker, and the cards you play affect your movement, as well as your opponents.

Here's the catch: When you play a card that hinders your opponent, that opponent can then take that very same card into their hand. So, yes, what goes around, comes around! The luck you're pressing in this game is in the form of your opponents' good graces! Yeah, good luck with that...

The game looks very well done—we've included some preview art in this post—and they'll be launching the campaign July 18, and early birds can get a copy starting at $45. You can check out their launch event on Facebook here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to look for us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

TOG Visual—Darren J. Gendron Talks Scurvy Dogs!

Well, you know I (Jeremiah) have a thing for pirate games, so when we saw the large Scallywags International banners unfurled in the exhibit hall, we made it a point to go and see what was going on. Darren J. Gendron of Scallywags International (which does much more than board games!) sat down and chatted about the high seas and pirates of days gone by! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8bCvvfvuZM&w=560&h=315] Thanks for reading the blog, thanks for watching the videos, and thanks for making our 1-year blogiversary celebration so awesome this month!

Subscribing to the blog get's you entered to win free stuff, and of course there's those Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube things that you can like, follow and subscribe to as well!

Wanna Win This?

If you were around last week, you know that we gave away a copy of The Great Heartland Hauling Co. to a very lucky individual! This week we're giving away a free copy of Sunrise City from Clever Mojo Games! In fact, it's the very same copy pictured here!

How? Easy...

The way to win this amazing prize is quite simple: Just subscribe to the blog! That's right, if you type your email address into the little box over on the right, you'll be entered into our fantastic and unbelievably easy-to-win contest! Already subscribed, you say? Well then you're already entered! Yes. It's that easy! If you enjoy what we're doing here at TOG we would be ever so grateful if you took a moment to share this contest with your friends and family. If you don't enjoy what's going on here on our little blog, then maybe you could inform your arch-nemesis?

There is a bit of not-so-fine print to go along with this contest: We can only offer the contest to US and Canadian residents only. We'd love to ship it across the Seven Seas but the cost of doing so is prohibitive. If  you would like to enter and pay for the shipping, we would be glad to do that!

We get really excited when folks connect with us on social media too! So be sure to hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and yes, even YouTube!

We'd also like to give a HUGE thank you to Clever Mojo Games and Game Salute for furnishing us with this great prize to give away!! Thanks guys!

TOG Visual - Randall N. Bills shows us The Duke!

We'll be FINALLY rolling out our final coverage of Origins from last month this week, today we're featuring our visit with Randall N. Bills from Catalyst Games Lab, Randall took a few minutes to demo The Duke for us. The Duke is a very simple strategic game that we're pretty excited about!

We hope to bring you more about the Duke very soon, but until then check out the video!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyb7RJOee8&w=560&h=315]

As always we thank you for reading (and watching) and this month we're offering all kinds of cool stuff to those who are subscribed to the blog! So type your email in the box over on the right -----> Seriously... what are you waiting for? And you know it's really awesome if you like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and you could even subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Relic Expedition—A Preview to a Review

- by Jeremiah

A week or so ago we featured a nifty looking game in a Kickstarter Weekly piece called Relic Expedition, by Foxtrot Games. We contacted them and they were gracious enough to send us a print-and-play version of the game, as well as take some time to sit down and give us an interview, which we ran yesterday.

Today I (Jeremiah) will give you my review of the game, and then in the near future we will post a definitive Double Take review of the game once Firestone has played it.

Again I need to stress the version I played was not a finished product, so I won't be able to comment on the final quality of the components and artwork, so I'll focus mostly on the game itself.

When the game is completed here is what will be in the box:

• 4 pawns
• 16 animal meeples
• 3 dice (two custom, one standard)
• 36 relic tokens
• 70 supply tokens
• 112 hexagon tiles
• 4 large tile boards
• 4 backpack trays
• 1 cloth bag

This again was a print and play prototype of the game; yes, that means we sat around for about an hour and cut out 112 hex tiles, as well as all the supply and treasure tokens. (It's really hard to cut out circles!)

Setup - The game is setup by taking the base camp feature piece, and placing it on the table. Each player then places their pawn at one of the starting hexes on the base camp, and then you place one starting tile in each adjacent space to each of the pawns. A bunch of supply tokens (except vines, bananas, and four panther traps) are tossed into the bag, and the treasure tokens are turned face down in a pile. The remaining tiles are stacked face down (there are even more if you are playing the advanced version with banana, and vine tiles). Each player is given a tray that acts as a backpack to hold supplies and treasures and a d8 is rolled to determine the first player.

Gameplay - The gameplay is pretty easy to learn quickly with just a few tweaky rules on movement to be aware of. On their turn players roll two custom d6's, one with numbers ranging from 2-4 on it, the other with one of four animal icons on it and two blank sides. If there are no animals in play (and there aren't at the beginning of the game) ignore the result of the animal die (or just don't roll it). The result of the numbered die is the number of actions a player can take that turn.

Actions include moving one hex, or drawing supplies from the supply bag. And a few other special things we'll talk about in a minute. As the players move their pawns, more of the jungle is revealed by taking one of the stacked jungle tiles and flipping it over in all of the adjacent open spaces next to the location where there pawn just moved. Do this for every space that is empty and adjacent to the pawn's new location. As you flip these new tiles into place you begin to discover new areas of the jungle—you may find treasure, or quicksand, or animals that will attack you when they get the chance.

There will also be starting points for feature pieces like the river, the cave, and the mountain, which all require special gear to navigate (head lamps, rafts, and climbing gear), and are packed with 4-6 treasure tokens each. There are also helicopter clearings that are discovered and allow players to travel from one clearing to another by spending 3 actions.

As players move throughout the jungle discovering animals and treasures, they can pick up treasure (and don't forget they can always grab gear from the supplies bag) and drop items out of their backpack to be picked up later by other players, in order to make room for more treasure—but you better hope you have that tranquilizer dart when a panther comes running for you!

Animal encounters - As animals are revealed in the jungle, players will get the chance to move them and send them to visit their opponents whenever the corresponding symbol is rolled on the animal die. Once an animal has been rolled, each player takes turns controlling one of the animals in the jungle (if there are more than one of that specific type) starting with the player whose turn it is. They can move the animal 1 or 2 spaces in hopes of attacking another player, or sending it away from themselves! Each animal can only be moved once per turn, so other players cannot control the same one you just moved away from yourself.

If they do enter the same space as the player, the player is either poisoned (by the snake), knocked unconscious (by the boar) or hospitalized and knocked out of the game completely (by the panther). Or if you're playing the advanced game the monkey can come and steal an item from your backpack! Each of these attacks has different results, but most of them mean you lose your next turn, and the worst of them removes your pawn from the game board, and leaves all of your supplies on the space where you were attacked! After your skipped turn you return to the game at the base camp and can make a mad dash for your dropped supplies, or move on and try to recover.

End game - The game ends when one player collects a set of 4 treasure tokens; the set can either be all of the same color, or all of the same type. Once they've collected their set, they then need to head back to any helicopter clearing and use 3 actions to be picked up and carried safely out of the jungle to win.

My thoughts -

Components - I'm commenting here on what is pictured on the Kickstarter page. The only down side of the components is that the animals get these really cool looking meeples and the players get your basic "Pandemic" looking pawns. Would love to see an Indy'ish type of meeple for the players. I loved the artwork—the jungle pieces and feature pieces look great! I can't wait to see them on real tiles and not just card stock!

Gameplay - The game plays fairly quickly, and was really quite easy to learn and teach; a few turns in and you find your strategy unfolding as the jungle is revealed. We had one player off on his own on the other side of the jungle, which didn't bode well for him when animals starting popping up left and right, with no one else for them to go after in the area.

I really enjoy the variance of having a board that is never the same, it simulates very well the feeling of exploring a jungle and not knowing what is more than just a few steps ahead of you. A lot of folks are comparing it to Carcassonne because of the way the board takes shape sort of organically. I think that's a fair comparison and a great compliment to the game. Carcassonne is a perennial favorite in the gaming community, and when a game can hearken back to a great game and put a fresh spin on the concept, it's a cool thing that adds to the gaming culture.

Like I said earlier, there are a few tweaky type of rules to be aware of, such as dense jungle on certain edges of certain tiles, and ways to swing across quicksand. As well as the different "states" that animals are in after they encounter a player. But they aren't terribly difficult to grasp, and they don't slow the game down. The dense jungle works well with the supply concept and makes it worth grabbing some tokens in hopes of finding a machete.

Recommendations -

Casual and Non-gamers

Family and Kids Game night

Seasoned Veteran Gamers

Overall - We had a lot of fun with this one. Relic Expedition blends its theme into gameplay mechanics extremely well,  I can see my boys really enjoying this game, as well as serious gamers. There are plenty of decisions and hand-management choices to make, as well as a high replay value due to the ever-changing landscape from game to game, and even turn to turn. I'd love to see this expanded into 5-6 players; it seems to lend itself easily into that, but it needs funded first!

We would like to thank Randy and Tyler of Foxtrot Games for setting us up with the prototype of the game to give a test drive! There's still time to fund the project on Kickstarter as well.

Are you backing the game? We'd love to hear from you! Join the conversation in the comments below. Or chime in on Facebook and Twitter.

And as always thanks so much for reading!

In the Jungle—An Interview with the Foxtrot Games Team

Today we have the distinct pleasure of chatting with the brains behind Foxtrot Games, and the creators of Relic Expedition, Randy Hoyt and Tyler Segel.

Guys, thanks so much for taking some time for us today!

First off, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves, and how Foxtrot Games came to be? RH: My name's Randy Hoyt, and I work professionally as a Web developer and a technology educator. I teach Web development for a startup called Treehouse. I live in Orlando, Florida, with my wife and two boys, ages 6 and 1.

TS: I’m Tyler Segel. I am the Creative Director and co-owner of Factory North, a graphic design studio in Portland, Oregon. I enjoy playing board games with my wife and our friends, going to Timbers soccer games, and camping in the Pacific Northwest.

We have a family reunion every summer, and Randy and I always bring a few board games from our collections. Last summer, we struggled to convince the rest of our family to play games with us. We realized that there was a gap in the market for a game that was easy to learn and had a relatively short play time, but still had enough strategy to hold the interest of Randy and me. We brainstormed quite a bit during that weekend, and then Randy took off with our idea and came up with some solid mechanics. Being in the creative field, it was really important to me that the game looked good. There are so many fun games out there that just look slapped together. I really appreciate when game designers pay attention to those little details.

How did you first get into board gaming? What game sealed the deal for you as a gamer?

RH: I've been playing board games and card games for as long as I can remember. Every year at Christmas we would get a new family board game: games like Clue, Life, and Yahtzee. I would often play games by myself, physically moving around the table each turn and playing each player separately. I remember doing that with an old copy of Risk I found at my grandma's house; I still have that copy. I still love playing cards, the combinations of suits and ranks, plus the possibilities for amazing artwork on the face cards.

I took a bit of a break from board games during and shortly after college, but I'd have to credit two games with bringing me back into it. The first was Texas Hold 'Em. I couldn't believe that people were watching others play cards on television, and I had a lot of poker nights. And then Settlers of Catan. That was my first Euro-style game, I suppose, and I've since been playing the new ones as they come out.

TS: I grew up playing games like Monopoly here and there with my family, but I first got hooked on Euro-style games about 6 or 7 years ago. I was hanging out with some friends, and someone brought Settlers of Catan. I was immediately drawn to the mechanics and strategy of the game. There was so much going on and it was so interesting. That game really opened the door for me to board games.

Have you ever gone on an expedition of your own? Or are you both just big fans of Indiana Jones?

TS: I can’t say I’ve ever been on an expedition. I liked Indiana Jones when I was a kid, and I really thought that the jungle theme was fun and accessible for our game. I’ve always been intrigued by vintage comics, and I had seen some with a jungle theme that I had in mind for our game. There’s something about that aesthetic that really attracted me.

RH: I actually never really got into Indiana Jones; The Empire Strikes Back and Back to the Future are my favorite movies from the '80s. Space travel and time travel appeal to me more than hacking my way through a jungle with a machete. I probably wouldn't make it one day on a real relic expedition!

Take us through the design process of Relic Expedition; were there any games that influenced or inspired your design?

RH: In that initial brainstorming session at the family reunion Tyler mentioned, we came up with most of the concepts in the final game: the expanding jungle board, the backpack constraint, the wild animals, the geographic features. (We had lots of other ideas that I felt needed to be pushed off to future expansions, such as roles with special abilities as in Pandemic.) We knew there would be collectible treasures but hadn't really worked out how someone would win. I didn't want the sheer quantity of treasures collected to matter; I wanted something more subtle than that. My love of playing cards, with their two attributes (rank and suit), came through here, I think, and I gave each treasure two different attributes (color and symbol). We talk about set collection at our house a lot, both the game mechanic and the psychological principle. Having that as the core mechanic for victory really appealed to me.

I made a few different prototypes. The first was made out of cardstock and pieces cannibalized from other games. I played that with widely different rules a dozen times over two weeks, about one game a day. It was a fun process of seeing what was working and what was still lacking. I'll give you one example. In the first few games, players had to get all the way back to the basecamp board in the middle to win, and players would explore different parts of the jungle independently. I added helicopter clearings to jungle tiles for the sixth game; they really worked with the theme and really helped both of those issues.

After about a dozen games, I had a decent idea of how many tiles, animals, supplies, and treasures would make the game work best. I ordered wooden hexagon tiles from some craft Web site, and lots of game pieces from The Game Crafter, and then I cut out the tile boards from the cardboard of an Amazon shipping box. I shipped Tyler the first prototype to play—

TS: I'm the younger brother. I get his hand-me-downs.

RH: — Yeah, Tyler got the hand-me-down prototype. There were still lots of small modifications to the pieces and the mechanics. I played with the number of supplies, the amount of dense jungle, and lots of other things, swapping out pieces and changing stickers and what-not.

TS: I started by researching and referencing illustrations and digging through tons of vintage jungle comics to find the look that I wanted. After that, it just became a matter of incorporating that look into the game from a functional perspective—figuring out how to illustrate all of the pieces of the game to keep gameplay running smoothly, while keeping the aesthetic that I wanted. I feel like we achieved a good balance of everything looking good but still serving a function.

I had fun designing the animeeples. I thought it would add more to the game to have animal-shaped figures as opposed to wood blocks with stickers or cardboard.

What is it about Relic Expedition that sets it apart from other games in the genre?

TS: I think the main thing that sets it apart is its accessibility. I play board games with a lot of people, and usually at least one person in the group is playing a game for the first time. If a game is difficult to learn, it’s not very fun the first time around for the person learning it. I think Relic Expedition is easy enough to get the hang of that it is fun that first time you play it, and it just keeps getting more interesting as your understanding and strategy develop. I also like that it plays in less than an hour and that you can play it with just two people. There’s not many games out there like that.

RH: Yeah, with so many games, the first few times through feel like trial runs or practice rounds while new players learn the rules. But with Relic Expedition, the tougher strategic choices really start once you have a full backpack. This gives new players a few turns to get oriented and to understand the mechanics, and then they can fully participate and enjoy that first game.

A lot of people comment that the game is like Carcassonne because the board is made by laying out tiles, with that board having a different shape each game. But it's quite different in Relic Expedition because your explorer is actually moving from tile to tile, revealing new tiles as he explores. I'm really happy with how well the variable board mechanic and the explorer theme work together.

Give us your top three games of all time, and why you like them so much.

RH:

• 7 Wonders: Simultaneous action, multiple approaches for victory points, lots of depth packed into a one-hour game.

• Tamsk: Abstract game with timers that you move.

• Yahtzee: Managing probability and risk; reconsidering your strategy with each roll.

• BONUS: Relic Expedition: Great theme, easy to learn, lots of replayability. I think it's now the game I've played the most number of times in my life.

TS:

• Through the Ages: Civilization building game. There’s a lot of depth in trying to balance so many moving parts.

• Pandemic: Working together to save the world! The cooperative mechanic is my favorite part about the game.

• Citadels: Fun 2-4 player card game. It has a really fun balance of strategy and luck and super-fast game play.

Gaming is great—and we enjoy it thoroughly—but what matters most to you outside of gaming? Or is life just another big game we’re all trying to win?

TS: What matters most to me is to enjoy my life with the people I care about and create experiences with them. Gaming fits into this because it is a way to connect with my friends and family. I appreciate the opportunity to unplug, turn of the TV, and use our imaginations.

RH: Well, I do believe life is a game, an asymmetrical game where players start from different places and have different objectives—with skills and objectives changing multiple times throughout the game! I think playing tabletop games teaches you (on a small scale) many of the skills you need to be successful in life: managing resources, recognizing patterns, planning ahead, and cooperating or negotiating with others.

But for me, games are primarily about spending time with family and friends. I see making a game as a serious responsibility and a great honor. It's almost magical or religious, taking unrelated bits of wood and cardboard and transforming them into something that brings laughter and joy to people I've never met. I have been so inspired by some of the feedback reviewers have been publishing over the last couple of weeks. One player said to me in an email, "The game has made my children and friends very happy. Not sure what more you can ask for out of a game or of life."

Ok, now it’s time for the 1 word questions! Not that the questions are only one word, but that the answers should only be 1 word (or phrase)!

Oreo or Hydrox?

RH: Oreo

TS: Oreo

Galadriel or Arwen?

RH: Galadriel

TS: Arwen

Heads or Tails?

RH: Heads

TS: Heads

Favorite Batman Villain?

RH: Riddler

TS: Penguin

K.I.T.T. or the General Lee?

RH: K.I.T.T.

TS: General Lee

We would like to thank Randy and Tyler for taking the time to answer our questions and share a little more about Relic Expedition with us! Their campaign is about 65% funded, so head on over and consider backing it!

We have also been supplied with P&P prototypes of the game and will be posting our reviews of the game shortly, so stay tuned for that!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts for more fun and information!

More Smash Up, X-Wing Tiles, and Free Stuff from Mayfair!

Alderac has officially unofficially announced today that there will be yet another expansion for the hit Paul Peterson title Smash Up, releasing in August. It will feature 4 new factions taking on the same format as Awesome Level 9000. With a few twists. From Alderac's Facebook page: There have already been a lot of questions about more Smash Up, so we'll let you know there is another set of 4 factions coming in August! For the first time, this set has an overall theme running through the factions. Each is distinct, with its own focus mechanically and visually, but there is a common thread that runs through all of them. Speculate away! We interviewed designer Paul Peterson a few months ago, you can check out our interview and see if he left any clues for us on this third expansion...

Fantasy Flight has announced that they are releasing a Tile/Battlefield kit for their X-Wing Miniatures game. The set comes with 12 tiles each measuring a square foot, and featuring iconic locations in the Star Wars Universe. They look slick, and appear to offer a great, and FLAT, surface to hold your battles on! Check out the photo we've included. And you can see the official info on Fantasy Flight's site here.

And finally the deadline is quickly approaching to enter Mayfair's giveaway for a prototype copy of the new Catan expansion Explorers & Pirates! Go follow this link to enter; it's easy!

Thanks as always for reading, and please don't forget to sign up for TOG via email, or RSS feed! And for even more fun do the Facebook and Twitter things!

Emperor's New Clothes—A Double Take Review

A couple of weeks ago we received prototype copies of the Kickstarter game Emperor's New Clothes—a game with a new twist on an old tale. We can't wait to share our thoughts with you. The game includes:

1 - Game Board

64 - Player cards

8 - Role cards (1 Emperor, 2 Swindlers, 4 Townsfolk, and 1 Child who breaks the illusion)

4 - Six sided dice

A whole pile of resource tokens

4 Meeples (for score keeping)

1- Starting player pawn

and the rule book.

The game begins with players randomly choosing a role and keeping that role secret. And dealing 5 cards to each player—it's pretty much that easy!

The player turn goes something like this: The starting player rolls all four dice, then decides whether to keep them, or re-roll any number of them, up to two times. The reason for keeping a certain numbers/combinations relies solely on the cards in your hand. Each card has certain abilities that can be triggered by certain dice roll totals or combos (or both in some cases) which will then allow you to score resource tokens.

Resource tokens are used for 1 of 2 things on your turn: either to buy you victory points, or you can cash them in for more cards. It often depends on what your role is. So the players take turns rolling dice, and using them to activate cards out of there hands, which then scores them resource tokens. After players have decided whether to spend or save their resource tokens, the round continues with the next player's turn. One round consists of each player taking a turn, and then victory conditions are checked. If no one has won, then the next round begins; players select new roles, the starting player pawn is passed to the left, and the whole thing starts over. The tricky part is there are sooo many ways to win and/or lose in this game! It all depends on which role you have (which, by the way, changes after every round!!). There's an element of "The Resistance" in this game, which basically means that if someone finds out who you are mid-round, there are plenty of "Town Crier" cards in the deck which players can use to block certain actions, take dice away, and stop you from scoring resources.

The beautiful part of this game is the marriage of old-school table-top gaming, and technology. The cards, game board and even the dice have been printed using some ridiculous ground breaking process - that we would almost call magic! We certainly don't claim to understand how it works, and Hoke's gaming (designers) and Game Salute are definitely not spilling the beans (something about patent lawyers and all that). But as far as we can tell it's like a mix between those "hidden picture" images they used to sell at the mall kiosks, and the technology described in this video from MIT:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rWycBEHn3s]

It's said that because of the printing process there are actually a small percentage of gamers (estimated to be around 3%) who will actually not be able to see the artwork—or at least not in great detail.

Jeremiah—Let's put aside the unreal components for a minute. If this game was printed via a standard process, it would be an amazing game. There's enough depth in the mechanics to keep the veteran gamers coming back, but it's light and fun enough to introduce to a new or casual gamer.

Firestone—I'm always looking for a game that's going to be a hit with my game group, but that I can also bring out with newbies. Emperor's fills that void.

Jeremiah—Let's also not forget the humor side of this! Sabotaging your friends with cards like "Skid Mark" and "Holey Sock" add a decent and light-hearted amount of skullduggery to the mix, without giving too much power to the swindlers!

Firestone—I thought the "Bamboozle" card was a little overpowered, but for the most part these were a good mix. I'll never forget the look on my friend's face when I played "The Man Who Was Thursday" on him.

Jeremiah—I know Scott is probably going to disagree with me on this, but I love the randomness of changing roles after every round!! It keeps you invested in the game, and keeps you always thinking! Having just ONE strategy will not score you the victory in this game!

Firestone—Oh Jeremiah, you and your crazy love of chaos...

Jeremiah—What can I say about the components... When I opened the box it was breathtaking. To get that kind of depth, movement, and clarity on a completely FLAT surface, without the use of glasses or special lights! Totally science-fiction-type stuff; the future is here, folks!

Firestone—Agreed! The kids were begging to play this as soon as they spotted that board. And it's not just pretty; all of the information you need in the game is right there on the board. The meeples were great; I'm so sick of companies insisting on giving me crappy plastic pieces. I love the old-school basic-ness of the wooden bits. Basic-ness sounds like bacon; now I'm hungry...

Jeremiah—I fell in love with this game and the idea from the word go! The mechanics are an incredible amalgamation of card and resource management, dice rolling, and backstabby role playing, with a dash of chaos mixed in. All that wrapped in a beautiful package! This is a future Game Of the Year candidate, I score it an 11!

Firestone—This gets a big thumbs-up from me, too. Often games with this many mechanisms don't do any of them particularly well, but they've managed to combine everything into a nearly perfect whole. Emperor's New Clothes should be seen to be believed.

The Kickstarter project ends in just 6 days, so check it out and see what you're missing.

Gears of Whoa!—A Tzolk'in Review

By Firestone

One of the most buzzed-about games of the last year was a little game called Tzolk'in. But it seemed like the interest might be simply because of the cool gears that cover most of the board. Well I've played it now, and I can assure you, there's a solid game to go with those cool gears.

The game is set in Central America during the time of the Mayans, and you're trying to earn the most VPs through careful placement of your workers. There's a large, ornate gear in the middle, and five smaller gears around that one. The large one acts as the game's "timer" It will turn once around, and then the game ends, while the smaller ones will turn many times over the course of that large gear's one turn. Science! There are also a few tracks—including a tech tree and three temple tracks. And there are spaces for buildings and monuments, which you'll buy with resources. The game crams a remarkable amount of information onto one board without becoming overwhelming.

Turns are "simple": You will either place one or more workers onto the board, or you will take one or more workers off the board.

Each of the gears has spaces for the workers to sit on, and each gear has different actions around them. You have to place your worker on the lowest available space on each wheel, and possibly pay to do that. The spaces start at zero corn (the game's currency), and go up from there. So you have to pay corn to place your worker (unless it's on the lowest space, which is free), but you also have to pay for each worker you place beyond the first one each turn. And the prices ramp up for each worker, so you always have to carefully consider whether you can afford to place workers.

At the end of each turn, you turn the big gear, which turns the little gears, which move the workers on those gears. So each turn a worker will move ahead and be in front of a new action space. The spaces get better the further along the gear you go, but because you have to either place workers or take them off, it can be a tricky thing to get workers to ride that gear for a while.

When you decide to take a worker off a gear, he gets to do the action that's in front of him when you take him off. (If you decide you actually want to do an action further back on the gear—because something on the board changed, or you timed the taking off/putting on poorly, or whatever—you can, but you have to pay one corn for each space behind you that action happens to be.) One of the gears has actions that let you take corn or wood. One lets you get building resources, such as wood, gold, stone, or crystal skulls. The third gear has actions that let you advance the tech tree, build Buildings, and build Monuments. The fourth gear lets you do things such as pay corn to advance on the Temple track, get another worker to use in the game, and build a Building using corn rather than resources. The last couple of spaces on every gear allow you to take a earlier action on the gear, but without having to play the extra corn. The fifth gear is a little different, in that those spaces give you straight VPs and let you advance on the Temple track. The further on the wheel, the more VPs, but each space costs one crystal skull, so once someone has claimed a space with their skull, no one else can use that one.

As if all of that weren't enough, I still have way more stuff to explain!

There's a space where you can put a worker down to claim the first player marker. Each turn where no one does that, you put corn on the wheel. So as the corn adds up turn over turn, there's incentive for other people to grab that first player space.

So there are three Temple tracks. Since you're Mayans, and Mayans believed in many gods, you'll be trying to win the favor of the gods and advance on these tracks. It's not like there's a Sacrifice A Villager space—it's completely abstracted. You take an action on one of the wheels, and move your marker up the ziggurat. That gets you more VPs during scoring, and a couple of spaces give you resources, too. There is a mechanism in the game where you can beg for corn if you can't pay for something, but this "angers the gods"—which simply means you have to move down one of the tracks. It's not the focus of the game, and there's nothing that made me feel I was being asked to worship anything—it's just one of the game's mechanisms given a thematic coat of paint.

The tech trees let you do things such as gather extra corn when you take the Gather Corn action; get extra wood, stone, or gold when you gather that resource, or get resources when you build a Building—plus a few others. The tech trees are cool, but as with so many great games, you can't do everything, so you have to choose wisely, and hope your choices are better than your opponents' choices.

Finally, there are two tracks on the bottom of the board. One holds Buildings; at any time there will be six of them on the board. They let you do things, such as move up on a tech tree, or move up on Temple tracks, or spend less to feed your workers at the end of each turn. There are two batches of Buildings; you use the first ones in the first half, and switch to the second batch for the second half—and the second batch has better Buildings. Another reason to build Buildings is that some of the Monuments will give you VPs for having certain-colored Buildings.

The game comes with a number of Monuments, and each game you'll use exactly six of them. Those—unlike Buildings—won't be refilled. They give you bonuses and VPs at the end of the game, but you have to build them using resources, just like a Building.

The game is divided into four quarters, and at each quarter you'll have to feed your workers—two corn each unless you've built a farm Building. Unlike Stone Age, starving your people here is a BAD IDEA. Also depending on the quarter, you might score some of the Temples, or get some resources. After the last quarter, you count up VPs, add in bonuses from the board or from Monuments, do a couple of other fiddly things, and whoever has the most VPs, wins!

Whew! Well that's it. As you can see, there is a LOT going on. Your first game will probably take you a while, because even though you can only take off or put on workers, there is a lot to think about. This game is all about timing. You'll constantly be trying to figure out whether putting these guys down this turn will allow you to take that action later to get this resource to later turn into that Building provided your dude on that gear can ride far enough along to get to the Building action. This is NOT a light game...

One the great things about the game is that there are many things that change the experience from game to game. The Monuments are different each game, for one. Another thing is the starting resources. The game comes with tiles that have various bonuses on them, such as a free movement up one of the tech tracks, or another worker to start the game with, or a free skull, or moving up the Temple tracks. You get four tiles, and you choose two of them to start the game with. That will often determine what route you take (at least at the start). Your experience from game to game should be quite different. And because there are so many viable routes to victory, you'll feel complete freedom to explore a different strategy from game to game.

You'll need to determine if the Temple tracks are enough to keep you away from the game. Again, it's completely abstracted, but there is talk of "pleasing the gods" to move up, or "displeasing the gods" and having to move down. You're not sacrificing people to these gods, or worshiping them in any way. But we'd understand if that makes you uncomfortable.

This is one of the best games I've played in the past year. I can't wait to try out some new tactics and strategies—and I REALLY can't wait to get my grubby hands on a copy of the game, and paint those sweet gears. If you like deep games, and/or worker-placement games, check out Tzolk'in. It's way more that a gimmick.

Inconceivable! A Princess Bride Board Game!

Yes, you read that right. The folks over at Game Salute are putting together a board game based on the cult classic The Princess Bride. The game will be a part of Game Salutes Storybuilding line, and will tie into many short/mini games that represent different scenes from the modern fractured fairy tale. Not only that...while they are working with some of their top notch game designers, Game Salute is also accepting your submissions for the project! If you have a game design that you think would represent a scene of the movie you can send it in for their consideration.

Looks like it's time to dust off my old "Rhyming Game" design... Which consists of players trying to end their next statement with a word that rhymes with the last word of the previous player's statement... It's still a work in progress...

You can read the whole announcement from Game Salute, right here.

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