Dungeon Heroes—A Double-Take Review

The light coming from your flickering torch is getting dimmer and dimmer, but you move forward anyway, stepping over the corpse of the Ogre. As you approach the next room, you see a chest. This is it. What you came for. The treasure! From your left, beyond the nearly extinguished light, you hear the distinct sound of bones rattling...

Dungeon Heroes calls itself a tile-placement dungeon crawl. Does it succeed at either of those claims? Let's find out!

The Components

1 Game board

4 dice to track the Heroes' health: a d10, d8, d6, and d4

4 Hero Boards, which tell you about each Hero's special ability, and are a place to keep the health die

47 Dungeon Tiles, which show the traps, treasure, and monsters of the game

14 wooden meeples. But calling these meeples is an injustice. These are seriously cool wooden figures, with different sculpts for each hero and each type of monster. They look terrific.

The Setup

One person is the Dungeon Lord and the other person plays the Heroes. The Dungeon player puts the tiles near him. These include traps, monsters, treasure, and artifacts. The Hero sets up his Heroes in any way he wants on the starting row.

The Gameplay

The game is split into two different phases, the passive phase and the aggressive phase. These phases refer to the actions available to the dungeon player.

Passive Phase—During the passive phase the Dungeon player must take 4 tiles (chosen randomly) from the available tiles, look at them and then devise a placement scheme. He can place them anywhere on the board and they are placed face down, so it helps to remember where you placed them!

The player turn for the Hero player is the same throughout the game. They receive four actions per turn. An action can be spent to move any of the four heroes, or use the Wizard's ability—turn up a face down tile—or the Cleric's ability—heal a hero in an adjacent square. Each of the heroes can only perform 2 actions per turn before they exhaust and must wait until next turn to be given an action. The Warrior and Rogue special abilities are free actions, if the Warrior steps on a tile that reveals a monster—or has already been revealed as a monster—he slays the monster. If the Rogue steps on a trap tile he disarms it. If the Hero player reveals/finds artifacts the hero character that moved onto that tile gains that item and can use it, or give it to another hero character in an adjacent square

Aggressive Phase—Once all the tiles have been pulled and placed by the Dungeon player, the passive phase is over and the AGGRESSIVE PHASE begins. Any monster tiles that have been revealed on the board are replaced with the corresponding monster. The Dungeon player now has 4 actions, which include moving a monster one tile, or revealing a tile. If you reveal a tile, you replace it with a monster. Then the monsters get to attack any adjacent Hero or any Hero the monster moved onto.

This back-and-fort continues until either the Hero has found three of the treasures, or all of the Heroes are dead.

The Verdict and Recommendations

Firestone—Well, first of all, this doesn't really feel like a dungeon crawl to me. It's really more of an abstract. And that's fine—there have been some great dungeon-themed abstracts, such as Dungeon Twister. Calling it a dungeon crawl just seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Jeremiah - I'm okay with calling this a dungeon crawl, if only because of the abilities the Hero player has to manage in the search for the treasure. Maybe it's a dungeon crawl that uses a few abstract mechanics. But at the end of the day you are searching a dungeon for treasure...

Firestone—I played games against an opponent and a few solo games. I actually preferred the solo games. It seemed that the strategy for the Dungeon player was to keep traps and so forth in the front, monsters in the back, and then once the monsters are out, go after the Warrior hard. Since he's the only once who can kill monsters (other than another Hero grabbing a one-time-use artifact), once you kill him, it's pretty much just cleaning up. This might change after a few plays, or by playing with a different opponent. The benefit of the solo game is that things come out randomly in the dungeon, so it actually felt more like a dungeon crawl where anything could pop up anywhere.

Jeremiah—I think both have merits. I think I prefer the two player version with the bluffing aspect. I found that after playing the same player a few times as the Dungeon player you had to change up your strategy because they would figure it out and send the Rogue in to disarm traps, and the the warrior would clean up the monster tiles before the monsters even made it on the board. If there was one tweak I would make is to put the Holy Grail into every setup, this gives the hero player a fighting chance if the Warrior does get taken out early on.

Firestone—The components are top-notch. The meeples are unique and intricate and really add some great flavor to the game. The tiles are thick and great quality. I like the artwork a lot. And the dice you use to track damage are a nice touch.

Jeremiah— I totally agree, the tactile-ish nature of this game is great! These are the most intricate and still very sturdy meeples EVER! The look of the game is great as well, the art, on the tiles and the board really create a great environment for the game!

Firestone—I feel like we should mention a couple of aspects that might put some readers off. (We are a blog written by two Christians, after all...) First is the artwork on the Damsel. She's another character included in the expansion (The Dragon & The Damsel), and if you rescue her, she joins the party and becomes a playable character. Apparently it's really warm in that dank dungeon, because she's wearing only a bikini-type wrap thing up top (the only part of her you can actually see), and the top and bottom of her breasts are visible. I'm not a fan of hypersexualizing women—my two boys are going to get enough of that as they grow up, and it will be a constant battle for me to teach them to ignore the world's view of women and show them that they're daughters of the King, and not just "a great rack..." So I don't need my games contributing to that battle on the side of the opposition. Yep, I can absolutely choose not to play with her in the game. I just want to make you aware it's there.

Jeremiah—Yeah, I've actually played the base game with my 7-year old. There isn't anything overly intimidating about it. It's a fun adventure type game. But both expansions stay well hidden and won't make their way onto the table much in my house. The other expansion that is included with the first (which is a great value, by the way!) is The Lords of the Undead. Functionally what this expansion brings to the game is great. Two more monster types, a necromancer that can bring back slain monsters. And the White Lady (a ghost)) who possesses a hero character giving the dungeon player control of that hero and thus allowing them to force the character into a trap, over to a monster etc. This is really cool for game play, but creeps me out. Possession isn't something to mess around with in my opinion. Most "dungeony" games walk a pretty fine line with me, and in this instance the line is crossed. Again, I don't have to play with that expansion, and I'm certainly not bashing Gamelyn and Michael Coe for putting it out there!! It's a simple case of my choice regarding this expansion, and I feel folks who are sensitive to this type of thing should know about it.

Firestone Final Verdict—This game was fine for me...but merely fine. I like my abstracts to be abstracts, and my monster-killing to be more...bashy? Total props on the components and the custom meeples and the artwork (other than Chesty La Rue) and making it play well as a solo. I just don't think I'll be reaching for this very often. Leave it on the shelf...

Jeremiah Final Verdict—Expansions aside, I really enjoy the base game; it seems like I'm in a season of life where the 90+ minute big board games are harder to get on the table. We still do, but it takes some effort to make it happen. This plays quick, offers many different strategic choices for both players, and has a lot of things I look for in a game: good synergy between components, bluffing, and sweet components! I say put this one on the table!

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Awesome Level 9000—A Double-Take Review (Plus a Video!)

Welcome to Theology Of Games' very first Double-Take Video Review! We're still going to do the written review, but we're experimenting with some video reviews and previews. Yes, we know this video is raw—and we made lots of mistakes and have lots of things to learn. But we're going to get better! So check after the jump for the written and video review...

Awesome Level 9000 is an expansion for the hit "shufflebuilding" game Smash Up. You can read our review of that game right here.

The Components

4 new Factions: 20 cards in each Faction (Plants, Steampunk, Bears, and Ghosts)

VP tokens

8 New Base cards

16 original Base cards with updated graphics.

The Setup and Gameplay

This expansion doesn't really add any new mechanisms, so if you want to see how to play the game, just check the review of the original at the link above.

The Factions

Ghosts

These guys get stronger as your hand gets smaller. So there are a number of cards that allow you to discard cards or get rid of cards, and then others that give you VPs if your hand is small enough.

Bears

The Bears will just eat your face off. They're not complex, and there's not much nuance. There's just face-eating bears that will eat your face off and then poop out your face. Ewwww....

Plants

The plants want to overwhelm you—with both their numbers and their ability to stay out on the table. And the longer they're out there, the worse it is for their opponents. Better grab the weed killer...

Steampunk

The Steampunks are all about playing actions on bases and then triggering effects or talents that let you move your own minions to those bases with actions on them, or move your opponents' away from there. And they have that cool locomotive-helicopter thing!

The Verdict, and Recommendations

Jeremiah—If you love Smash Up!, you'll love this expansion; it's more of the same with enough twists and additions to tell that it wasn't just phoned in.

Firestone—It's a great expansion. It adds more of the stuff you want from the base game, and then throws in some cool extras—all for a low $20 price point!

Jeremiah—I'm so happy AEG added VP tokens, the pen and paper thing was reminiscent of playing 5 Crowns or Hearts or something. Even with my snazzy scorekeeper app it felt like I didn't have everything I needed in the box. It was an oversight in the base set, but they were awesome enough to correct it!

Firestone—Well, the lack of VPs in the base game felt like more than an oversight to me—there's no way VP trackers didn't come up in playtesting. So it just felt like they were being cheap at the expense of gameplay. But they included them here, and they're awesome. All is forgiven!

Another great and unexpected addition is the updated Bases! The font size is now larger, so it's easier to read from across the table. Both this and the VP chits are things AEG didn't have to do, but the fact that they did is really, really great. It shows a company willing to admit mistakes, listen to their customers, and go the extra mile to make it right. I love that.

Jeremiah—I'm a fan of all the new factions with maybe the exception of the Ghosts. Mechanically it's a very cool concept that ties into the theme very well!—It's the theme for me that doesn't jive; it's very non-threatening but. Meh...it's still Ghosts.

Firestone—I don't mind the Ghosts as much as Jeremiah. But maybe that's just because one of the factions in the base game is Zombies, and those are way creepier than the Ghosts.

I really like the Bear and Steampunk factions. The Plants are just okay to me because...well, they're plants. It's hard for me to get excited about plants.

Jeremiah—The plants I thought were cool, they remind me of Little Shop of Horrors, or even better that awesome BBC miniseries of Day of the Triffids! B-film making at its finest!

Firestone—My biggest problem with the base game is unchanged here, so it's still a problem: You spend a ton of time reading cards... I have to read my cards, and then when I get ready to play a card I need to read other cards on the table. And then when I play a card I need to read it aloud to the table. And then when it's the next person's turn, they go through the same thing. It's not at all a dealbreaker for me, and it hasn't kept me from playing the game with my 8-year-old. But it's probably the #1 thing that keeps it from getting played in my game group.

Jeremiah Final Verdict—I'm a big fan if the Smash Up franchise, the shuffle building technique is ingenious, and I learned and can teach the game in about 2 minutes! I love that AL9K offers more options and a little more depth, but doesn't make wholesale fundamental changes to the game, you can pick it up add it to your base set and know the different card abilities in about 30 seconds!

Firestone Final Verdict—This game has definitely grown on me. I thought it was fine when I played in my game group, but it's really shined for me as I've played with my oldest. This expansion is a great addition, and as I said before, it adds just what this game needed in an affordable package. And I agree with Jeremiah: no new major rules craziness means you just open the box and you're ready to seamlessly add to the base game and play! And play you should!

Sooo?

Put It On the Table! You may not bring it out for the young kids because of the Ghosts and all the reading. But it's a fun, light game for gamers, great family game, and the learning curve is fast for casual players!

Thanks for reading! And now...feel free to watch! Here's the video review. Remember: First attempt! But feel free to offer constructive criticism...and subscribe to the YouTube channel! Thanks!

Oh, don't forget! You can get Awesome Level 9000 on Amazon here!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRAnTMZO7gg&w=560&h=315]

Incredibrawl—A Double-Take Review

Today we're taking a look at Incredbrawl, the slick-looking family/casual/gamer card game from Vision 3 Games. In Incredibrawl each player (2-4) is given an identical deck of cards featuring characters from three different types: Natural, Physical, and Energy. They then duke it out in a battle for ultimate glory (or at least 10 glory, the game's VP system) to see who comes out on top of this Incredibrawl!

Let's take a look at the nuts and bolts.

Components

Well, we received prototype copies of the game, but this is the list given in the manual:

• 120 Character Cards (30 per player, matching sets)
• 40 Power-Up Cards (10 per player, matching sets)
• 10 Location Cards
• 4 Rules Reference Cards
• 1 Sheet of Glory Tokens
• 1 Coin
• 1 First Player Token

The game is played in one of three different Modes: Family, Casual, or Gamer. As you probably guessed, they each vary in difficulty and have different things added or subtracted, depending on what version you're playing.

Setup

The game setup (for Casual Mode) looks like this: Each player gets a set of cards (leave the Power-Up cards out), then you place the Grassy Meadow location card in the center of the table (leaving the rest of the locations out), and then give each player one Glory token to begin the game with. Players shuffle their cards, and draw a hand of 5 cards. Then, it's go time!

Gameplay

So here's a quick rundown of the Casual mode, and then we'll touch on the other modes as well. The basic brawl/battle engine is pretty much a Rock, Paper, Scissors type of mechanic: Physical (Purple Sword icon) beats Natural (Green Grass icon), Natural beats Energy (Blue Lightning Blot icon), and Energy beats Physical. Each character also has a power level, which is used for breaking ties; if there is still a tie, then players play an actual game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who wins the brawl.

A turn looks like this: Players select their characters, place them by the current location (which is always the Grassy Meadow in this mode) and then they have it out. In a 2-player game players reveal at the same time, activate any "P" (Play) abilities, determine a winner, trigger any "W" or "L" (Win or Lose) abilities on the involved characters, and then the winner collects 1 glory token from the pool.

In a 4-player game the brawl goes in two rounds, with the winners of each across-the-table brawl facing each other to determine the winner of the overall brawl. And in a 3-player game there is an odd person out who goes up against the winner of the first two.

The Abilities—This is where a good portion of the strategy lies for the game. Some cards actually give you some decent bonuses for losing the brawl you play them in, so you may intentionally be throwing them into the fray in hopes that they get taken down (of course, it is quite possible that they can win due to their power type and what your opponents have played!). While others trigger an ability when they are played (whether you win or not!). For instance, the Roboshark causes each other player to randomly discard one card. The Low Blow card triggers if you lose, and if you discard your hand, the winner of the brawl loses two Glory.

The End Game—The game ends when a player reaches 10 Glory—even if it's mid-brawl; if they have 10 Glory tokens, it's game over, man! The game also ends if a player runs out of draw cards and can't draw another card at the end of his or her turn—again, the player with the most Glory is declared the winner!

MODES

The game comes with three different Modes. The one we've described so far is the Casual Mode.

Family Mode—Family Mode is the same as Casual mode, except you use no card abilities, and players start the game with zero Glory (instead of 1 as in Casual mode). This is a stripped-down version, perfect for playing with kiddos, until they get up to speed.

Gamer Mode—Gamer mode has several variants, including using all of the location cards (which give certain power types extra abilities/bonuses, as in the game Smash Up) and shuffling in your Power-Up cards, which again give you further ways to defeat your foes; these can be played at a time during a brawl, as specified on each card.

Thoughts and Recommendations

Jeremiah—I think the first thing that stood out to me was the artwork—oh my! It has awesome, well-done, stylized graphics that are just super easy on the eyes! The aesthetics of the game (even with the prototypes we received) are very clean, and very slick!

Firestone—Yeah, the artwork is great. Colorful, fun, and creative. My kids saw it and immediately wanted to play. My gamer friends liked the artwork, too.

Jeremiah—I've mostly played the Casual mode, and the Family mode with my boys, but have had a hard time getting this one on the table with my gamer friends. I think once they realized that at its core it's a Rock, Paper, Scissors type of game they're just not excited. Even though the abilities, power-ups, and locations add some needed depth, up to this point it's been a hard sell for them.

Firestone—Well I did play the Gamer Mode with gamers, and...we didn't like it at all. I seriously applaud the guys from Vision 3 for trying to create a game that can appeal to the spectrum of gamers, but it just doesn't work here, IMO. You can add all the bells and whistles and variants you want, but at the end of the day it's still a Rock, Paper, Scissors mechanism at heart, and that just doesn't cut it with gamers—at least not the gamers in my group.

Jeremiah—My boys, on the other hand, HAVE NOT STOPPED ASKING TO PLAY THIS GAME! They think it's the bees-knees (actually they've never used or heard that term); we started playing it in Family Mode and moved up to Casual Mode. They handle it well in Casual Mode, although the youngest doesn't really read (he's only 4) so he plays a W, L, or P and then hopes it does something cool for him.

Firestone—Same here: The boys (8 and 5) love this game. Like you, my youngest doesn't know exactly what he's playing—he just wants to play a pirate or a yeti or an alien or whatever! Of course, because the game is so chaotic and luck-based, it really doesn't matter if that's how he plays—he's able to hold his own when his blindly chosen card beats his older brother's carefully chosen card. So what the gamers hated is a boon for the family!

Jeremiah Final Thoughts—I have to say my initial reaction to the game was a bit along the side of my gamer friends. "Oh... Rock, Paper, Scissors..." But my boys have changed my mind on it; I might not get to play it in Gamer Mode often, but we have a good time playing it in Family and Casual Mode, and it brings them to the game table with excitement, and that's always a good thing!

Firestone Final Thoughts—For me, this is a family game from start to finish. I've got plenty of gamer's games, so I'm totally fine that this is one I'll only bring out with the family.

Recommendations

Put It On the Table—For family game night, or a lighter party/game night. It also could make for a light tournament-style game with a larger group or youth group. There are zombie and a wizard characters in the decks, but they're very cartoonish, and not unsettling in the least.

Put It On the Shelf—When your hardcore gamer friends are coming over. If your group is really okay with chaos and luck—and thinks a game night filled with Munchkin and Fluxx is the height of fun—they may like it. Otherwise, keep it on the shelf.

OVERALL: Put it on the Table!

The game has a little less than a month to go on Kickstarter, and it's 2/3 of the way to its goal. Check it out, and join in to unlock those rewards!

We'd like to thank Vision 3 Games for supplying us with prototype copies of Incredibrawl which in no way influenced our review.

Please check us out all over the internets on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube! And be on the look out for our upcoming podcast! And as always don't forget to subscribe to the blog over on the right ----->

Guile—A Double-Take (P)Review

Is 2013 the year of the tiny card game? I dunno, but we've already seen some corkers in the form of Coup and Hanabi. The guys at Terra Nova Games sent us a preview copy of their new Kickstarter project Guile, and we're here to give you our impressions. Please note: The copies we reviewed were preproduction prototypes. Artwork, rules, and...well, everything might change before the final game is released. This review is based on what we received, with the understanding that tweaks (minor or major) may happen.

Components

8 Knight cards—four of Arthur and four of Mordred

10 Influence cards—three 1's, three 2's, two 3's, and two 4's

1 Cycle card

1 Turn card

3 Victory cards

Setup

Decide which player will play Arthur, and which will play Mordred; there's no gameplay difference between the two of them. Just know that if you're the Mordred player, deep down you're a rotten, thieving, low-down scoundrel. Place the Knight cards in a circle on a table—alternating between the two players' Knights. This will create a Round Table—see what they did there?!

Place the Turn card above one of the Knights on the outside of the circle; then place the Cycle card sword-side-up below that same Knight card on the inside of the circle.

Next, shuffled the Influence cards, deal four to each player, and set aside the remaining two unseen. Each person looks at his or her Influence cards, and players simultaneously place one Influence card onto each of their Knight cards, so that there a bit of the Knight card peeking out from under the Influence card.

Gameplay

You'll play at least two, but no more than three, rounds, and each round will consist of eight turns for each player. The player whose Knight is above the Cycle card (in the game, this Knight is called the Knight-Errant) begins. On your turn you can do one of two things:

Look at the Influence card currently on top of the Knight-Errant, and then place it back.

Swap the Influence card currently on top of the Knight-Errant with any other card—without looking at either one.

Then just move the Cycle card one Knight clockwise, and it's now the other player's turn. When the Cycle card gets back around to the Knight under the Turn card, the game is halfway over, and you flip the Cycle card from the sword-only side to the side that shows the sword and some gold. This signifies you're in the second half of this short round.

You continue alternating turns until the Cycle card gets back to the Turn card again, and the round is over. Flip over the Influence cards currently on your Knights and count up Influence. The person with the most wins one of the three Victory cards, and the first person to win three Victory cards wins the game.

One of the 4 cards—and one of the 3 cards—has a dagger stuck into the number. If there's a tie on Influence, the player with the highest card with a dagger in it wins the tie. (The 3 card has a dagger just in case both 4's happen to be the two cards that are out this round.)

If no one has won, you move the Turn card one Knight clockwise and do it all over again—including dealing out all-new Influence cards to each player—but the other player will start this round.

That's it!

Recommendations

Youth Group Game? Not really! The biggest barrier for this is that it only plays two players. But if you're meeting a student for a soda, and looking for a quick game to play, go for it!

Party Game? Not really! Again, only two players, so unless you're at a party where everyone but you and a friend is playing Apples To Apples for the 1,000th time, this won't really work.

Family Game? Sure! Not the whole family, but we each played this with our oldest sons (7 and 8), and they both liked it.

Gamers' Game? Depends! My group didn't care for it much, but your group might.

The Verdict

Firestone—I'll start with some aesthetic things: I really think the back of the Influence cards should be uniform. It's not that each card back is different, but if you look at the image above, the whole thing tapers toward one end of the card, and the colors alternate.  I'm not sure if they're asymmetrical so that people can create some sort of private orientation scheme to keep track of which card is which, but it just seems that on games with trackable information it's almost always better to have the card backs look the same—there's a reason standard card decks have uniform backs.. (Again, these are prototype cards, so that might change before it's final. I hope so!) It's also weird that the darker-colored Knight is the Good Guy, and the bright one is the Bad Guy. But that's not a complaint—it's just odd and surprising.

Jeremiah— The asymmetrical backs didn't bother me so much; I mean, what's to stop your opponent from spinning them and blowing up your foolproof plan anyway? I was a little confused as to the color scheme of the knight cards, These aren't things that "break" the game—as Firestone said, they are aesthetics, and prototype aesthetics at that.

Firestone—I played this with a few gamers, and their reaction was mostly neutral. It's not that they didn't understand it, or want to give it a chance...they just felt there wasn't much there there. I had much better luck getting my 8-year-old to play. He enjoyed it quite a bit—especially after we talked about some things to do to move it beyond just playing Guile as a memory game. Once he started bluffing (which he's hilariously terrible at), he liked it even more. He was able to hold his own, too, because his chaotic, unconventional, 8-year-old gameplay completely threw me off and made it really hard for me to keep track of where my good (and bad) cards were. So often the VP reveal was an utter surprise...

I'm not saying this would only work with kids, or that your game group wouldn't enjoy it. This was just my experience.

Jeremiah— Truthfully I haven't played a ton of these 2-player mini-games; to me it seems that designing a game of this type would be a more difficult task than say a larger board or card game. Everything is so incredibly streamlined that the slightest tweak can destroy the core of the game. That being said, the two actions a player can take are a very precarious balance. The "look at the card on your current knight" action seems to be only useful for about half of a round. If you can remember your first one or two cards, there's no need to look at them. But if you put a lower card on the first one or two and switch them right away, by the time you get a chance to look at the card you switched for, it doesn't matter anyway because you can't do much about it (only switch it with the card on your next knight). I kept hoping for a 3rd turn in a round to make the game go more like this: strike, gather information, then counter-strike. It may just be the "big game" gamer in me...

Firestone—Yeah, the thing I kept thinking in this game is that there's not really time to act on the information you're given. In the early game you know what's out there, so if you have a low card, you'll probably swap it, assuming the one you swap for is more valuable. But if you know the card on turn is a 4...what do you do with it? Bluff with it? Swap it with another of yours? Just feign ignorance and look at it? The early game was full of turns where I didn't want to do anything, and later turns moved too quickly to act. I completely agree with Jeremiah—it seems that adding a third round of play would give me a chance to do something with the info I glean. Maybe that would wreck my ability to track cards, though...I dunno.

Jeremiah— I love that this is a game that is super easy to learn, and teach, because it is so streamlined. This style of game is going to do a lot for the industry in capturing the casual gamer. In the case of Guile the downside is if memory based games aren't your thing, there's not much else to grab onto here. The upside is if you like games with a memory based core mechanic, you're going to LOVE this game!

Firestone Final Verdict—I've enjoyed playing this with my son; I wish I enjoyed playing this with my game group. We love small filler card games, but this one just fell flat for us. It's more than just a memory game, but the meta game aspect isn't given enough time to percolate...

Jeremiah Final Verdict— I'm very happy that games like this are becoming popular. I love simple mechanics, and quick-playing games that cause a lot of tension for the short amount of time you're playing, and Guile certainly delivers that! I'm really rooting for this game; I feel with a few small tweaks the game can move from good to great!

There's only a week left in the Kickstarter campaign, and the game has funded! So you can get in on the fun for only $15—or $20 to get the game and some extras, such as variant cards. (We didn't play with these variants, but they look interesting. The Guinevere one, for instance, changes things if she's on Lancelot at game end. I think cards such as this one could really make the game more interesting. Again, it would be nice to have another round to maneuver her...)

Thanks so much for reading, and joining us in this 1-Year Blogiversary week! Don't forget: We're giving away some cool stuff—including a copy of The Great Heartland Hauling Company tomorrow—and all you've got to do to enter is subscribe via email, over on the right.-------->

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FrogFlip—A Double-Take Review

Jason Kotarski is a busy guy. He's a husband, and a dad, and a church planter, and a musician, and a game designer. His first published game—The Great Heartland Hauling Company—is a cool pick-up-and-deliver game. He was kind enough to let us interview him, too. He's got a new little 2-player card game in the works, and we're going to give you our impressions of FrogFlip. Components

14 Cards, which include two cards with instructions, four Lily Pad cards, and eight Bug Score cards.

1 Frog Disc, which is a plastic disc with a frog sticker on one side.

Setup

Take the four Lily Pad cards and place them equally spaced between the two players. Then shuffle Bug Score cards and place them flower-side-down on the side. Then the youngest player grabs the frog disc and starts.

Gameplay

Each of the Bug Score cards has a number of bugs on it—either one, two, three, or four of them. On their turn, each player will attempt to flip the frog to the Lily Pad card that corresponds to the number of bugs on the top card of the Bug Score stack. So if there are two bugs on the top card, I'm trying to flip the frog onto the Lily Pad card that's two away from me. If I miss, my opponent is trying to flip the frog onto the Lily Pad card that's two away from her.

You flip the frog just as you would with flip a coin.

Your hand can't pass the first Lily Pad card, and if the frog falls off the table, your opponent gets two turns in a row!

The frog only has to touch the Lily Pad card in order to count; you get to take the Bug Score card, and the number of bugs on it is your score. If you manage to get any part of the frog disc to rest on the correct Lily card, you get to take the Bug Score card and flip it onto the flower side—the score is the same, but flowers are tie-breakers.

You continue back and forth until either the deck runs out, or someone claims five of the eight Score cards. Whichever player has the most bugs on their score cards wins, and flowers break ties.

Recommendations

Family? Definitely! It's just the right depth for a quick game with the kids. The only downside is that it's only for two players—though there are rules for a 4-player variant that requires two sets of the game.

Youth group/party game? Probably not! It looks like a kids game, so I don't think teenagers would like this much. And since it's two-players-only, I'm unlikely to even try this at a party.

Gamers game? Mmmmaybe! If your group likes Flowerfall, and other quick-playing, small fillers, this might be a good one to throw into the bin. But I'd probably still just pull out Flowerfall, though...

The Verdict

Firestone—This is yet another example of someone creating a "micro-game"—one that's fully contained in a very small package. I like that trend, as it keeps the price down and the portability high.

Jeremiah - Agreed, the brevity of the game is a highlight too; we can play best of 3, 5, 7, and so on, depending on how close it is to bedtime when we start playing. And my boys can teach it to others (friends, grandparents, etc) without my help. They really like it when that happens!

Firestone—The 5-year-old loves it, and the fact that the frog only has to touch the card means he has a chance. My 8-year-old likes it, but he's sadly getting to the age where he'd rather play deeper stuff. But he does love playing with his younger brother, so we'll see how long that lasts.

Getting that frog where you want it isn't as easy as it sounds! There were plenty of times it would go off in some crazy direction—and I've had years of coin-flipping experience! I think this adds to the fun, though, as it keeps kids competitive with grown-ups, who have obviously inflated opinions of their frog-flipping abilities.

Jeremiah - I feel like we're in the same boat. Frog Flip is definitely going to hit closer to home for the 4 or 5-year-old range; the novelty of the coin flip is still a draw to the older kids. The flipping mechanic seems to level the playing nicely, and the theme ties in perfectly with the game play.

Firestone's Final Verdict—This is an adorable little family game. I fear it has a very short window where it will continue to interest my boys, but I'll happily play it until that window closes.

Jeremiah's Final Verdict— This is a fun little game, and it did give me the opportunity to teach my boys how to properly flip a coin. (I guess that's a skill I've neglected to teach them in my parenting.) The boys had fun with it, and like I said, it's a great length for the times we don't have time to play a lengthy game before bedtime. My oldest is advancing into games like Heroclix and Pokemon so I, like Scott, don't know how long this will hold his attention, but it's still right in my youngest's wheelhouse and he loves it!

Jason just announced this week that the game's been picked up by Michael Fox's Sprocket Games. Watch for a Kickstarter campaign in July—and we'll try to get Jason to sit down for another interview. Thanks for reading!

Theology Of Games would like to thank Jason for providing us with review copies of FrogFlip; this in no way affected our opinions of the game.

DC Comics Deck-Building Game—A Double-Take Review

Marvel! DC! Superman! Batman!

Comic books are a beloved part of Geekdom. And with the release of the DC Comics Deck-Building Game, both major publishing houses have a player in the deck-building genre of board games.

So how does Cryptozoic Entertainment's DC game stack up? Let's find out!

Components

214 cards—Standard-sized cards.

7 Super Hero Cards—These are oversized cards

A word about the insert. They tried really hard to make it useful, but it falls short. The space for the Hero Cards has grooves in it for you to slide your fingers down and get the cards out easily. Yay! Except the grooves don't go all the way down to where the cards are, so it's not helpful at all in actually getting the cards out. Also, the slots for the regular cards are so tight that once I (Firestone) had sleeved the cards, they didn't fit in there anymore. I was able to move some things around and make it all work. I do appreciate them trying to make a not-terrible insert, though...

Setup

One of my complaints about Legendary is how stinking long it takes to set it up. It's the same reason I'm mostly lukewarm about playing Dominion anymore: I'm just not sure it's worth the hassle. The setup here is easy breezy. You shuffle up the Super Hero Cards and give one to each player (or you can allow people to choose their own). Then you give each person their starting hand of crappy cards—7 Punch cards (each gives you 1 Power [the game's lone currency]), and 3 Vulnerability cards (which give you jack squat, and gum up your hand). You set out the Kick cards (1 Power and 1 VP), Weakness cards (-1 VP), and then set up the Super-villians deck (this will vary depending on the number of players). Finally, you shuffle up the giant stack of regular cards, deal out five into a row, and you're ready to go.

Gameplay

The game has one currency: Power. You draw five cards, add up the Power, and buy stuff...err...defeat stuff...err...it depends. There are Villain cards, Hero cards, Superpower cards, Equipment cards, and Location cards. These all function the same way (giving you Power and sometimes letting you do other cool things), despite the different names. So you're buying Equipment or defeating Villains, all with the same Power. It's not the strongest thematic tie-in, but it's fine. You can buy as many cards as you want on your turn, but the cards in the line-up aren't replenished until the end of the turn. You also have the option to defeat the top Super-villain. Ra's Al Ghul always starts on top, but beyond that, they're random, from a set of 12.

You start the game with one Super Hero identity, and each has a different special ability that is available to use each turn. So Batman's ability gives you +1 Power for each Equipment card you play on a turn—Superman's similar, but substitute Super Power card for Equipment. Wonder Woman lets you draw an extra card at the end of any turn you buy or gain a Villain card. And Aquaman lets you put any cards with a cost of 5 or less that you gain on a turn on top of our deck rather than in your discard. They're fun, and they tried to be thematic with them.

Just like most deck-builders, everything you buy goes into your discard, and you draw five new cards. Then you replenish any cards you bought from the lineup, and if you defeated a Super-villain, you reveal the next one. Every one besides Ra's has a First Appearance attack, which means that as soon as you flip that Super-Villain over, it will attack each player. Parallax makes you discard all cards in your hand with a cost less than 2. Captain Cold makes you flip your Super Hero card facedown until he's defeated. And so forth. Once these guys are defeated, they go into your deck and they have powers they add just like any other card.

Many of the Villain cards will just give you some sort of Power boost once they're in your deck. Some of them also have an Attack, so when you play them, every other player is attacked, unless they have a card that says Defense. For some of the Villains they tried to do some thematically cool things—for instance, Scarecrow's Attack gives other players a Weakness card. Two-Face lets you choose even or odd, draw the top card of your draw deck, and if its cost matches your guess, you get to draw it—if not, you discard it. I think they could have tried to make a few more tie-ins—like having Solomon Grundy have one power if you're playing on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday, and a whole other power if it's a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. But that's a small thing.

Hero, Equipment, and Super Power cards are straightforward, and usually there are combos that work well together. So Batman and Wonder Woman and Robin usually work better with Equipment cards, and Superman with Super Powers. Cards with Flash on them let you draw cards and run through your deck faster. The thematic tie-ins make sense.

One last card is the Location. You play this down in front of you and it has an ongoing effect—usually it lets you draw a card the first time you play a [Villain, Super Power, Equipment, etc] card, depending on which Location it is.

The game ends when either:

• You can't refill all five slots in the lineup—I've never seen this happen.
• You defeat all of the Super-Villains.

Count up VPs, and declare a winner!

Recommendations

Youth group game? Maybe! it's certainly accessible enough, but it's not a large-group game.

Family game? Possibly! Older kids (probably 8 and up) will enjoy it, but it leaves the younger ones in the dust. And there's no way our wives are playing this one!

Gamers' game? Yes! Provided they're open to another deckbuilder—and one that's lighter than most. There's some good gaming to be had with this one.

The Verdict

Firestone—I have to get this out of the way: Why wouldn't they try to come up a with a better name?! That's like naming Village, The Medieval-Times Worker-Placement Game.

Jeremiah—I agree, the name is pretty utilitarian. If it was a horrible game, it would be one more thing to pile on, but the game is good so I'm willing to overlook it.

Jeremiah—The components are great; in all reality it's pretty hard to screw up a bunch of  cards. I haven't sleeved mine yet, so I don't have any problems with the tray insert, except the Super Hero cards do slide all the way down into the abyss.

Firestone—I used this to teach my 8-year-old how to play deck-builders, and it's PERFECT for that. It's straightforward, easy to understand, thematically fun, and just...perfect. He loves it, and it's his go-to game right now.

Jeremiah—I thought the gameplay was great! It's really quite easy to learn, and after you've played it once or twice you start to see the synergy between many of the cards and can really combo up. I love that it supports up to 5 players as well.

Jeremiah—I really like how there's a competitive edge to the game, and I think that comes from how the "line-up" works. Instead of the standard format of many deck-builders (cough, cough Dominion) you only have access to cards for  a brief period of time, so I found myself trying to not show much interest in cards in hopes it wouldn't get bought up before my turn came around.

Firestone—Yeah, and unlike some other games with line-ups, things don't stall out in this one—you always have something to do. It was fun playing with my son, because I could always tell when he really wanted a certain card. Super cute...but a terrible poker player.

Jeremiah—There are a few thematic elements that don't make complete sense. Such why the other heroes (players) are referred to as "foes" on the cards, and as mentioned above, Superman wouldn't drive the Batmobile. But for me, they were minor hurdles to overcome on the way to enjoying a really fun game. The fact is, when you shuffle up a couple hundred cards together, wacky stuff is going to happen. Just roll with it.

Firestone—There are a couple of things I found slightly problematic. A few of the cards seem very, very strong. The Super-Villain Parallax lets you double your Power on the turn you play him. And the Man Of Steel card gives you +3 Power and lets you put all Super Powers from your discard pile into your hand—depending on when that comes up, you'll be able to destroy just about anything. Those cards are expensive, but in my experience, if you get Parallax—especially early—you'll just roll. Given the weight of the game, though, I'm generally okay with it.

My other small complaint is that the game usually rushes toward the end. People get such powerful decks by the end that someone on each turn is defeating a Super-Villain. But that means the Super-Villains on the bottom of that deck won't ever get played because the game will end before they can cycle through. The designer recently addressed this by offering a variant where the Super-Villains are shuffled into the main deck, you have six cards in the line-up instead of five, and the game's not over until you go through the whole deck. I can't wait to try that out—seems fun!

We should probably also mention the women in the game. Almost all of them are showing a fair amount of cleavage. This is standard comic-book fare, but if my son has a hand filled with Wonder Woman, Poison Ivy, and the Suicide Squad, he's going to be staring at a lot of cartoon cleavage. It's not a deal-breaker but it is disappointing.

Firestone Final Thoughts—The combos are cool. The theme is well-integrated. I can't think of a better intro to deck-builders. The art is terrific. And above all, it's FUN. If you have kids who like superheroes and dislike being bored (Dominion...Zzzzz....), get this game!

Jeremiah Final Thoughts— This game is working its way into a pretty regular rotation among my gamer friends. One of them referred to it as "my jam" a week ago.  It's a really fun game, and at its core it's pretty easy to learn—but offers plenty of depth for strategies and card combos.  I'm giving this one a big thumbs up!

Theology Of Games would like to thank Cryptozoic Entertainment for providing a review copy of the DC Comics Deck-Building Game. This in no way affected our opinion of the game.

Thanks for reading, and we would be so grateful if you would join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and if you would subscribe to the blog over on the right! —->

Pick-a-Pig/Pick-a-Dog—A Double-Double-Take Review!

Yes, you have arrived at TheologyofGames,com; no, we haven't changed to a livestock or 4-H blog. Today we're giving you our thoughts on a nifty set of sister games from Gryphon Games called Pick-a-Pig and Pick-a-Dog. Each of these games is identical—with one significant distinction: one features a pig on each card, and the other... wait for it...a dog!

Components

• 96 - Square playing cards featuring the animal species of that particular game. (i.e. pig, or dog)
• The rules
• Yep that's it!

Setup

Deal each player one card (which is called their Captain Card) and then deal out a 5 x 6 grid of cards, face up. Put the rest of the cards aside.

Gameplay

On the word "Go!" each player tries to find a card matching their Captain Card, or a card that has only one attribute that is different from their Captain Card. If they find such a card, they grab it and stack it face up on top of their Captain Card, and then search for a card that matches—or only bears one difference from the new top card of their stack. This is not done in turn: Players are reaching for cards, throwing elbows, flicking the backs of others' hands, etc. trying to make a mad grab for their cards all at once. Once a player has determined that they can no longer legally grab a card, they slam their hand down and yell "STOP!" Everyone double-checks to see if the player who yelled stop was correct; if they were, they get to add an extra card from the grid to their pile. If they jumped the gun, they discard all the cards they gathered that round.

Then all the players lay their cards out in order to check that they made no errors; if they didn't make mistakes, they keep all of their cards (which count for 1 point at the end of the game); if they made even one error, they lose all of those cards.

Then each player is dealt a new Captain Card, the grid is refilled, and a new round begins. The game is over when there are not enough cards to refill the grid (usually after about 3 rounds). The cards are counted and the player with the most wins!

Here are the differences on the cards:

• Size of the animal (big/small)
• Number of arms (one/two)
• Color of the animal (brown/pinkish)
• Wearing sunglasses/Not wearing sunglasses
• Holding popcorn/Not holding popcorn

A single set of either game supports 2-5 players, and adding the two sets together will allow you to play up to 8 players, and also allows for an additional one difference: the animal species itself!

Recommendations

• Kids/Families? Absolutely! The game plays fast, and is easy to learn!
• Veteran Gamers? Probably not! It's a fast filler, but just not very deep. So leave this one home and play with the family.
• Party Game? Probably! Again easy to learn, and brings out a little competitive edge in folks.
• Youth Groups? Yep! The narrower the age gap, the more competitive it gets. You could totally run a tournament around this game, because of the speed in which it plays!

The Verdict

Jeremiah—First off, I really like this game, but I probably won't bring it out at a game night. My kids and family love it and we have lots of fun with it, but it's just not a "Daddy's game night" sort of game.

Firestone—Yeah, there's no reason to ever bring this to game night with my regular group. But that's fine; it's not aimed at that audience.

Jeremiah—It's designed for ages 8+. My oldest will be 7 in a month, and he does well with it. Our youngest is almost 5 and he doesn't do so well with it.

Firestone—Yeah, our 5-year-old was on my "team" and he kept grabbing the absolute wrong cards...the little stinker. But he'll be ready for this in a couple of years.

My wife seemed to enjoy this one, too. It might be because she and her Type-A personality CUH-RUSHED us. Any game my wife likes is a win in my eyes.

Jeremiah— We've had the game only a few weeks and the boys love it; we've brought it out to play with the grandparents and friends. We've combined the games and played with 7 players—it's sheer pandemonium! Lots of vicious competition, and good clean fun!

Firestone—My one complaint is that—as someone who's color blind—I had a little trouble telling the color difference between the cards. In fact, the difference was so subtle to me that we played two rounds before I even remembered that was a thing... Once I was intentional about it, I could tell the difference—I just had to try harder to see that difference. Not a big deal at all, but it's there.

Jeremiah Final Thoughts— Pick-a-Pig, Pick-a-Dog is a great set of family games that you can play when you may not have a lot of time. Pick it up; this is a no-brainer! It plays fast, it's competitive, and you can teach new gamers how to play in about 90 seconds. The more we play it, the better we get at it, and the more fun it becomes!

Firestone Final Thoughts—The MSRP on these is a mere $10—who can argue with that price-point? It's a great, cheap family game that plays in 10 minutes...and I'm just awful at it.

Thanks for reading!

Reverse Charades—A Double Take Review

Ugh. Do we really need another charades game?

Yes. Yes we do.

Reverse charades is like charades...in reverse. Instead of one person trying to get multiple people to guess a word or phrase, Reverse Charades is multiple people trying to get one person to guess a word or phrase. And it's a ton of fun.

Components

• 1 timer

• 360 double-sided cards

• 1  set of rules—the easiest, simplest rules card we've seen in a long time.

Gameplay

Players are divided into teams of at least 3 or more players. When it's a team's turn they choose someone to be the lone guesser and the rest of the entire team takes the stage! The other team then holds the cards and reveals one at a time so only the actors can see them, and then the zaniness commences! The team of actors has to act out as many of the clues as they can, scoring a point for each card they get the guesser to correctly guess. The one strict rule in the game is that you can not make a sound, you can't mouth words to another actor, or to the guesser. But you are certainly allowed to use objects, and people as objects, to get the guesser to shout out the word(s) on the card!

Play continues until a point goal is reached, or until everyone is laughing too hard and can't go on any further!

Recommendations -

• Parties/large gathering
• Youth events
• Team-building exercises

Jeremiah—We really enjoyed playing this game; we had some teenagers over and I busted it out—what a hoot! It takes about 45 seconds to explain, and we had some great laughs.

Firestone—I played it with our adult small group from church—4 vs. 4, Guys vs. Girls. When I told them the premise, they were interested. When we got done playing, they wanted to know where they could buy their own copies...

Jeremiah—If there's one downside to the game it's that it requires a larger group (at least 6 people or more) to get a game going. And that's not much of a downside, it's just the nature of how the game works. Anything less and it's just plain old Charades.

Firestone—My one complaint is that the two sides of the cards are identical. They should at least be different colors so we can easily track which words we've run through. I can't believe no one thought of that. It's my only complaint, and I can just put used ones upside-down. But come on, guys! :)

Jeremiah—I love that there are a ton of words/cards included, I'm very interested in checking out the expansions. (Especially the holiday edition! I think this would be a great game for a Christmas party!) I will say that the best and most fun clues were ones that required a team effort. Things like clothesline, assembly line, etc.

Firestone—Yeah, some of the words didn't lend themselves well to the group doing anything together ("Moustache," for instance). It was much funnier when the words did, and the majority of the words were that way. I fear I will never be able to wipe clean the mental image of the guys acting out "Baby Powder"... *shudder*

Jeremiah—The concept is such a simple twist on (what I feel is) something that is kind of worn out. But that twist makes it about a million times more fun than the original. We found that folks who wouldn't normally feel comfortable playing charades in a traditional format—getting up by themselves and feeling singled out—jumped right up when there were other victims involved in the public ridicule!

Firestone—Being alone up there giving clues can be terrifying. Being in a group somehow makes it way easier. One of the quietest people in the group dove right in and was hamming it up.

Jeremiah Final Thoughts - We had a TON of fun playing this game! It definitely takes a party atmosphere to get it going; it's not your typical Board Game Night type of game. This is a top-notch party game, a very well done spin on something that has been public domain for some time. Reverse Charades will be a part of my party game collection and find its way out to many parties and large gatherings!

Firestone Final Thoughts—This is definitely going to every party with me for the foreseeable future. Everyone had a blast, and we laughed A LOT. If you're sick of Apples To Apples and Scattergories, give Reverse Charades a try; you won't be disappointed—unless you're at the bottom of "Dog Pile." Ouch!

Thanks to Gryphon Games for providing review copies; this in no way affected our opinions on the game.

Thanks to you for reading!

The Great Heartland Hauling Co.—A Double-Take Review

"Breaker, breaker one-nine, you got a county mounty comin' up on your back door. You might want to back off the hammer." "No can do. I've gotta get these pink cubes pigs up to Jericho."

The Great Heartland Hauling Co. is a "cubes and cards game" for 2 to 4 players from Dice Hate Me games, and designer Jason Kotarski. You can read an interview we did with Jason right here.

Components

• 46 Freight Bill cards (15 each of soy beans and corn, and 8 each of cattle and pig)
• 19 Fuel cards (10 Move 1, 6 Move 2, and 3 Move 3)
• 12 double-sided Location cards
• 1 Distribution Center card
• 8 Score/Cargo cards
• 4 wooden trucks in the player colors
• 60 wooden Cargo Crate cubes (15 of each of the four colors)
• 4 Reference/Variant cards
• [My Kickstarted copy also came with a Badlands Expansion, a Truck Stop "inspansion", and pieces for a 5th player. I have no idea if these come with all copies of the game or not.]

Gameplay

First you'll randomly set up the board, depending on the number of players. The Distribution Center card is always in the middle, and that's where the trucks start. Each Location card has a "native good," and you'll place five cubes of that good on each card. You'll shuffle the Fuel and Freight Bill cards together, deal five to each player, and the place the top three cards of the draw pile next to the draw pile a la Ticket To Ride.

There are 3 Phases: Move / Take an action / and Refuel

So you have to move every turn; you can do this in one of two ways. First, you can discard fuel cards and move the exact number on the cards. You can add more than one card together, but you can never move more than three spaces on a turn. The second way to move is to pay $1 for each space you move—again, up to three spaces. If you're out of Fuel cards and money, you move to the Distribution Center card, discard as many cards as you want, and then draw up to five cards again in the Refuel phase.

There are a few rules that govern moving:

• You can only use either Fuel cards or cash—not both.
• You can only move orthogonally.
• You can't backtrack to spaces you already passed in that turn.
• You can move through a space with another truck, but can never stop on a space with another truck.
• You can't stop on the Distribution Center—unless you're out of cards and dough, as I said before.

Phase 2 is where you take actions; you have to Load, Unload, or Discard. To Load, you discard Freight Bill cards and load the matching good onto your truck—which holds up to 8 goods of any combination. If the good is a native good for that card, you can load one good for each card you discard. If it's not a native good, it costs two Freight Bill cards for each good you load. If you choose to unload, you discard one Freight Bill card for each good, unload it on a card that has demand for that good, and get cash for each good. You can only Load or Unload one type of good on each turn.

FREQUENTLY FORGOTTEN RULE: A Location card can only hold eight goods cubes at any one time.

Finally, you can take the Discard action. You discard as many cards as you want, and then pay $1.

After you've taken an action comes the Refuel phase. You draw from the supply until you have five cards again—you can choose from the faceup cards, or take your chances with the facedown draw pile.

When a player reaches a certain money level ($30 in a 4-player game, $40 in a 3-player game, and $50 in a 2-player game), every other player gets one last turn and the game ends. If any players still have goods cubes in their truck, they lose money (-$1 for soy beans and corn, and -$2 for each cattle or pig). Most cash wins—with ties won by the player with the fewest cubes left in his or her trailer.

My copy came with some fun variants:

First, each of the Location cards is double-sided. The regular side has the location, a native good, and then two other goods the Location "demands." If you flip to the advanced side, the cards have some obstacles/ For instance, a Road Closed symbol means you can't move into or out of the location from that direction. The Toll Road forces players to pay $1 to move through it. And the Weigh Station forces players to pay $1 for each cargo cube above four in their trailers. These are interesting—though I think the Weigh Station is kinda harsh. It's already risky to stockpile goods, but to get charged for them seems rough.

The Badlands expansion is for a five-player game—you place the two cards on the furthest reaches of the board. There are no native goods on these, but they pay more for the goods they demand. We haven't played with this one yet, but it seems fairly straightforward.

Finally, there's the Truck Stop inspansion, which are special power cards you can purchase and use in the game. They include powers such as making one diagonal move per turn, paying $1 to not move on your turn (which is more useful than it sounds), and the ability to unload multiple goods types on one turn. They're interesting and fun; the only one that doesn't seem to fit is the Ham Radio, which lets you trade goods with a adjacent player. It doesn't really fit the rest of the game at all, and we'll likely never play with that particular card. (Also, I'd be fine if the word "inspansion" never catches on...)

Recommendations

Youth Group Game? Under the Right Circumstances! It won't accommodate a crowd, but if you've only got a few, it's light enough to play with nongamer teens.

Family Game? Definitely! My 8-year-old played this a couple of times with open cards, but he'll soon be ready for playing the "real" game—cutthroat style!

Gamer’s Game? Yes! It's a meaty, longish filler—and I like those kind of games a lot. Groundbreaking? No. Fun? Yes!

The Verdict

Firestone—Dice Hate Me have packed a ton of game into this tiny package. There's a full game, and three variants/expansions in a perfectly sized box; I love that.

Jeremiah—Agreed...talk about bang for your buck! In an industry that is full of expansions, and re-releases, and add-ons, etc., it's awesome to get a great bunch of stuff packed in the box!

Firestone—My youngest (5) is too young for this right now, but he does love moving the trucks and drawing cards for us. My oldest really liked it; in fact, he said, "This game is so fun!" One thing the Truck Stop expansion is great for is evening out his game. I randomly gave him one of the powers cards to start with, and that seemed to settle any disparity in playing level. It won't be long before he won't need that, though.

Jeremiah—I love playing games like this with my kids, because they also just blurt out their praise or disdain for the game. My youngest (4) is far too young to play so he often "helps daddy," but my oldest loves it. In the short time we've had the game it's made its way to the table several times with my boys already. And that's not counting the times I've played with my gamer friends.

Jeremiah—The components are really of a high quality as well. I LOVE the truck meeples. My own personal pet peeve, is that they packed SO much into, I can't sleeve the cards and still fit them all into the box. Bummer.

Firestone—The truckles, truckeeples, big-rig-eeples, whatever are awesome. I agree about the sleeves. It seems like this will show wear fairly quickly—since the entire game is cards—but there's just not room in the box. :( Also, this could have used 100% more Pork Chop Express in it...

Firestone—The game group thought this was pretty good. Fillers are always welcome, and this is one of the better ones.

Jeremiah—Meaty fillers are even more welcome. There's something to be said for a game that moves quickly, and packs lots of gameplay, strategy, and decisions into a pretty compact amount of time.

Firestone—One thing I like is that this isn't another game about trading goods in the long-ago Mediterranean. Trucking is a rarely used and unique theme, and it fits perfectly.

Jeremiah—I believe the discussion we had was something to the effect of "I really like this game, but the theme isn't what I would have chosen. Maybe if we were pirates, or sailors, sailing to different ports to trade goods..." The theme works well for the game, but as a matter of taste it wasn't up my alley.

Firestone—Since the board changes every game, each game will be slightly different. And if you play with the Truck Stop, those are randomized and only a few used. So there's plenty of replayability.

Jeremiah—This speaks again to the value of picking up a copy of the game. Lots of variants. Here's a thought, too: Use some locations with the advanced side, and some with the normal side up. You've just doubled your variance in the board setup!

Firestone Final Thoughts—This game is just fun. I can play with gamers, family, and nongamers—and that's awfully rare these days. The box size, price-point, and amount of fun crammed in make this a great deal. I recommend it heartily!

Jeremiah Final Thoughts—Completely agree, it's super easy to learn for all skill levels, and tons of fun. The game moves really well, too; there are constantly decisions to make, but none that bog down the pace. The Great Heartland Hauling Co. gives enormous bang for your buck!

Thanks so much for reading!