Colin Parton's Blog, page 11

Who Said Bird Watching Was Boring?

Wingspan - Stonemaier Games  8/10

In this game you curate different species of birds into their habitats. As you place birds onto your game board you gain access to their abilities.

It’s essentially an engine building game. From the birds available you need to choose the ones that will work best together to produce the most victory points.

Intuitive and Complex Game play

There is a lot going on, especially once the game processes. Your one action allowed each turn can end up triggering many more actions as you activate all the birds in a region of your board.

While there is a lot to keep track of the actual way that each bird works is rather intuitive. Once you have the overall game mechanics down the birds tend to look after themselves – as long as you don’t forget any of them.

There are 170 unique birds to play with. The combinations available and decision options this allows will give this game heaps of replay value, and lots choice for hardcore gamers.

Quality of What's in the Box

I seem to talk about this a lot. That’s because when you play a game you want to see the love that the designers had for the game coming through to you.

The easiest way for a game designer to do this is to make great game pieces. This game is beautiful. As soon as you crack the box you will be drawn to the colourful eggs. These are some of the most beautiful game pieces I’ve ever come across.

The art in the game is brilliant as well. It fits very nicely with the theme. The bird-box dice roller is a fantastic touch as well.

Concept

This game is a perfect example of a simple idea done well. The bird watcher theme is everywhere – from the design of the cards to the bird box and even the food and nesting mechanics.

Every bird card has a fabulous little fact on it and includes the area the bird is found as well as its wingspan. The birds location and wingspan play an important part in the game as well, so they aren’t just fluff.

The designers have done a great job capturing the way some of these birds work in real life. For example: the eagle ‘hunts’; and the sparrow ‘flitters’ around the board.

Final Thoughts

This game was so much fun to learn and play. You thought you had it all down and then you would notice another way that your birds could interact.

The execution of the game concept is a big draw for me as well as the quality of the pieces.

People who are new to gaming might find it a bit overwhelming. Avid gamers might find the different engine paths a bit repetitive. So I think that overall the complexity is good.

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Bounty Hunting in the Outer Rim

Star Wars - Outer Rim - Fantasy Flight Games  6/10

You play a bounty hunter in the Outer Rim of the Star Wars universe. You are trying to obtain victory via different paths to become the most famous outlaw in the galaxy.

The game is for 1-4 players with everyone starting on an even footing. The decisions that you make allow you to improve your skills, ship, and crew.

The Star Wars skin is a lot of fun. There is enough from the main movies, as well as other characters from niche spin offs, to entice even the most avid fan.

Goals

In many Fantasy Flight games I haven’t liked the way quests have operated. Through setup or decisions that the players make quests become available. But they are available to everyone at the same time.

So if you were working on something else or are far away on the board you can be severely disadvantaged. In this game all the quests are individual.

You choose your path to victory. And the paths are clear – the cause and effect is pretty obvious. Importantly, all the different routes to victory appear achievable

Your Decisions Matter

Your actions feel like they have an effect on your path towards victory rather than the world continuing around you and you having little control over your victory or defeat.

You have to be efficient with your actions – while you may be able to make a motser delivering contraband from one end of the galaxy to the other – your opponent will likely be well ahead of you by this point.

You can also focus excelling in one aspect of the game or becoming a jack-of-all-trades. The expert will have to avoid areas that they do not excel at but the jack with be able to have a go at all but the hardest of quests.

Typical Fantasy Flight Game

All of the pieces are here. You have a board and about the same room taken up with the different decks of cards.

You have  cards to collect to improve ship and character. Missions that require you to move along a board and randomness via dice that you can modify by increasing your abilities.

This game feels like a mishmash between Fallout and Eldritch Horror. Player board has a lot of items and quests. You character has control over a ship which you can get upgrades and a crew for.

There is a lot going on. If this is your sort of thing you will find the game has a lot to offer. If it isn’t there might be too much to keep track of but it isn’t on the scale of Eldritch Horror.

Bad Aspects of the Game

There isn’t any player interaction – other players simply roll for the enemies. This is a huge downfall because the whole point of board games is to get people together – if we have no reason to interact what’s the point?

The different characters you can play as are unbalanced. Once you have had a few games your play group will be able to pick the broken characters. The Doctor is one. She can choose a skill for a turn that she excels at.

This removes the need for you to have a diverse crew or to increase your own skills. This makes her better than any other character apart from in combat, which you can just avoid.

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