Gridopolis Review

It’s nice to see new game designs that are inspired by ancient games like checkers. In researching the game of checkers or draughts in England, I found that there were games of similar design found in Ur dating back to 3000 B.C. Gridopolis is heavily inspired by those games and takes it to a new direction, or dimensions I should say, as in 3 dimensions.

Gridopolis set up for 4 players in the Matrix blueprint

Gridopolis is a 3D game and also a system where players can design their own play area known as a ‘grid set.’ The game is designed to be played with 2-4 players, so there is flexibility in the number of people needed to play.
The game itself is comprised of 7 types of parts which will be discussed throughout this overview and review. The playing area is comprised of 3 basic parts: pads, posts, and links which can be constructed in different configurations to create the grid set. The pieces easily interlock with each other and there are illustrations in the rulebook that show how to assemble them.

Pads, links, and posts are the basis for building the grid set.

There are 4 other pieces that make up the components for Gridopolis: markers, kingerizers, teleporters, and blocker-boxes. The markers come in 4 different player colors and are essentially double-sided with one side having the pawn side, the other the king side. The kingerizers are placed in the back row of the player’s home row and represent the target that opponents are trying to reach in order to promote their pawns to kings. Teleporters allow players to move their markers to other available teleporter spaces in the grid set, to strategically reposition their pieces. And blocker-boxes can be deployed by players to render some of the pads unusable for the rest of the game.

GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW

The basic premise of game play is very similar to checkers, but there is also a touch of chess here. Players will be moving their markers across the board in 3 dimensions in order to reach opponents’ kingerizers to promote their pawns to kings. As players move about the board, they are allowed to move in either a forward or sideways direction, never backwards towards their home area, until they have king markers.

Once the grid set is in place and each player has their markers in their home areas, each player receives some additional pieces: 2 posts, 2 blocker-boxes, and 3 pads and links. These pieces can be added later in the game to change the grid set for more strategic game play.

On a players turn, players will have 2 options to take. They will either move their markers or build onto the grid set using the pieces they were given at setup. Rules for building are explained in the rulebook. When a player moves, they will move their marker one pad at a time in any direction including diagonally, sideways, and from one level to another. But the can never move backwards. They can jump other pieces, including their own. When an opponent’s marker is jumped, it is removed from play. Jumping can be done in a straight line method and can cross levels as well. There are even kamikaze moves where a player can sacrifice their own marker to eliminate an opponent, by having his marker make a jump and the landing space would not be a pad in the grid set. When building, players can also add pads in different levels or even add levels with posts, to change the grid set and offer new positions for strategic play. Blocker-boxes can be placed to eliminate pads from being used as well.

Once a player’s marker has reached an opponent’s kingerizer space, their marker is turned over to the king side. Just like in checkers, this piece now has advantages. First, it can move in any direction including backwards, and it also can take an optional second move each turn. Landing on a teleporter space, markers must move to any unoccupied teleporter space. If they are all occupied, the marker does not move.

Play will continue in this fashion until the game ends. There are 2 ways to decide how the game will end: either the last player standing or a point system where points are scored after a set number of rounds.

Teleporters allow markers to move around the board quicker

IMPRESSIONS

There are some cool concepts in Gridopolis. The idea of taking checkers and turning into a 3D game with some elements that change the game play area is neat. The variety of blueprints this game offers adds to the replayability of the game as well. Using the blocker-boxes as well as build options sort of act as a double-edged sword. Initial building may have been done to give yourself an advantage for a turn, but now your opponents can use the added pads for their own advantages as well. The blocker-boxes can also cause you your own problems because a pad you may have needed to use is now eliminated.

Where this game shines in in the 3D design. This is for sure going to be strong for developing spatial recognition skills, especially across 3 dimensions. I will say for younger players, jumping across levels in a straight line may be challenging at first, due to figuring where a marker needs to land. Although the kamikaze move is pretty cool to be able to eliminate opponents’ markers without needing a pad to land on.

The components of the game are high quality and are made of durable plastic. The pads, links, and posts all assemble rather easily, and I do like the visual appearance of the game area. Reminds me of some old toy construction things like Tinker Toys or K’nex. I have 2 minor complaints though. First, I wish the posts were about an inch and a half longer. Adults with big hands like myself will struggle with reaching in some of the blueprints such as the Matrix to move their markers. Also in a 4 player game, the grid area can be rather congested and it is a little difficult to see things. I think the extra space would open it up visually. the second complaint is that if you don’t use 2 hands when choosing the build option on your turn, it is possible to push the links out from the pads and could upset the rest of the grid set. This is only a minor issue, because if things were very tight, then it would make assembly a bit harder.

High quality plastic components

In terms of gameplay, even though the game says 2-4 players, I prefer it best with 2. It is easiest at this player count for younger players to manage. 3 players is a solid game as well with the extra element of an additional component. 4 players can be very difficult. I found the basic matrix design to be a bit too cluttered and very difficult to see the play area due to the home areas having a large overhang. The one thing I will say about playing at 4 players is that the action ensues rather quickly as there can be jumps on opponents as soon as a player’s second turn.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall, if you like the old games like checkers and chess, Gridopolis would be a good game for you. If you are not into these types of games, then Gridopolis is not for you. If you are looking to help develop spatial skills using a game as a method for development, Gridopolis would be an excellent choice. Being able to visualize moves across 3 dimensions is a key skill that will extend far beyond the game table. The toy aspect of building the grid set is also a good way to introduce some people into playing games, especially those who like Legos and other building toy sets The tactile feel of the pieces, the chunky markers, and the ability to build onto the grid set during game play are all elements that will appeal to those type of people. I feel between the 3D aspect of gameplay as well as the option to create different blueprints, there is value in purchasing this game because it will have the opportunity to see the table quite a bit. If you are interested in Gridopolis, visit their site.

Disclaimer: A review copy of Gridopolis was provided for the purpose of this review

Game Review: Partners by Game Inventors

Today I will be looking at Partners by Game Inventors. A 2v2 game for ages 8+

In partners, your goal is simple. Get all 4 of your and your teammates’ pawns into the safe zone of your color before the other team does.

The game starts with everyone being dealt 4 cards. On your turn you must play a card from your and if possible. Afterwards the next player will play.

The only way to get a pawn into play is to card with a heart on it. Once you have pawns in play, if you play a number card, move one it your pawns that number of spaces usually clockwise.

As the game progresses, if you land on a space occupied by a single pawn, you bump them back to their start zone.

There are various special cards that when played have special rules. Some of these cards include: move back 4, swap any 2 pawns on the board or spilt 7 moves amongst your pawns.

It is important to note that you can’t be pay any of your cards, you discard your hand and are out until the next deal of the cards.

Rounds will continue until both side of team has locked all their pawns in the goal zones.

My thoughts: Partners is a family style game rooted in classic games like: Trouble, Aggravation and Parcheesi. The fact you only get into the board with a heart card, you send players back to home when bumping them, and pawns can block spaces on the board. Blocking happens when you have your pawn in your heart space, or when 2 of your pawns share any other space.

I like that the game is simple and quick setup time. Component quality is perfect for this game, the cards are decent the pawns nice and sturdy and the board is nice and colorful!

The only possible negative is that if you don’t have a valid play you must pass. Having that happen several times can be frustrating. In my last game, the posing team both passed 2 times in a row, but they came back and won that game!

So, Partners is a fun game to pull out for a good team building game where working together is key!

Game Review: Cafe International by Amigo Games

Today, I’ll be taking a look at another past Spiel winner, Cafe International by Amigo Games. This game plays from 2-4, takes around 45 minutes to play by 10+ years old.

In this game, players will place diner tokens either at the Bar or at tables fallowing some interesting rules

At the start of the game everyone starts with 5 tiles

In the game there’re 24 tables on the board, tiles from 12 counters decided further by male/female diners in each Country. Also, some tables share seats between 2 countries’ tables.

On your turn, you will do 1 of 3 things:

1.Place 1 or 2 tokens at tables

2. Place 1 token at the bar

3. Exchange a multinational token

When you place diners at tables, there are 2 rules that must be fallowed:

1. Diners must be played at their countries tables or at a table neighboring their table.

2. Diners must alternate genders.

As you place diners you score for each placement. 1pt per tile if the table or tables has a mix of countries or 2pts per tiles if all tiles are from the same country. There’s a further incentive to swat an all-country rave. You may decide to draw 1 less tile from the bag whenever you refill you hand

Placing at the bar has no country/gender restrictions. There are 20 seats at the bar. The first 5 give points, the rest subtract from your points as the game continues. If at any point you run out of points you lose the game.

There’re 4 multinational diners in the game., 2 males and 2 females that can played to any table but still fallow the gender rule. As your 3rd possible action, you may exchange for a multinational on the board with a playable tile from your hand. You don’t score or draw a tile from the bag.

The game continues with players taking 1 action until 1 of the 4 endgame triggers is met:

1. All tables are full.

2. All bar seats are full.

3. 3 tiles remain in the bag

4. A player as no tiles to play and not required to draw any

At the end of the game, any normal diners are -5 prs and any multinational diners are -10pts. The player with the most points wins.

My thoughts : I have come to like this quite a bit, only after 2 plays! The first game took a while to understand the placement rules and to really identify which are male/females for each country. The only other negative we all said was that there wasn’t enough of the scoring chip in the game as a whole.

Aside from the above points, the remaining are all positive! The art style has a nice classic feel, quick rules and as the game goes on, there are nice subtle moments of strategy that can ruin a best laid plan.

Game Review: Heimlich & Co. by: Amigo Games

Today, I will be taking a look at

This game can be played by 2-7 players , the age range is 8 and up and should take 30-45 minutes to play. In this game you all take control of seven agents from various countries collecting “intel” (victory points) all the while keeping the identity of the country you work for a secret!

You will use a number of agents based on the number of players for example, with 3 players , you will you 6 agents the 1 remaining agents’ items are put bock in the box.

as you can see, the board as several buildings with point values from -3 to 10. To start the game, place all scoring token on the arrow on the board. Place all agent pawns on the building marked with the 0 “Church”. Play the safe pawn on building 7. Shuffle the agent IDs you have in the game, deal 1 to each player then place the unclaimed once tucked under the board, the are called “free agents”.

On you turn, you’ll roll the die. This 6 sided die has numbers 2-6 and a 1-3 once you roll, you have that many movement points to use as you see fit with any agent on the board

Movement is always in a clockwise direction. If you get 1-3 you may either move 1, 2 or 3

If after you make your moves, one of the agents you moved lands on the safe pawn a scoring happens. When scoring, each agent scores the pictured points on the building they’re in. If you don’t score, it’s the next player’s turn.

After scoring is triggered, the triggering player will relocate the safe wherever they wish.

This process is repeated until one or more scoring tiles reaches or passes 41 after which IDs are revealed the agent with the highest score id the winner. Be careful though, the winning agent may belong to no one, thereby no one wins.

My thoughts: What I just described is the basic game. First and foremost, this is a family-weight game. So it ticks the boxes I look for in a family game: 1. Easy to teach 2 quick playing and 3. Slight strategy. However, gamers trying to find more substance won’t find much here.

But wait, there’s more! Included in the box there’re 2 small variations

1. Once a scoring token lands or passes 29, the games pauses and players write down their guesses of which agents are controlled by players and which are “free”. Each correct guess earns that player 5 points

2.

These are Top Secret cards. Everyone’s dealt 2 to start and can have a max of 4 in hand. After moment but before scoring these can be played. Simply read the card and take the action then discard it.

Now with all that said, this a great intro game for families and introducing younger or new games to this style of game. However, this game would not fair so well with seasoned gamers without the use of the additional variations.

As sometimes happens with previous Spiel des Jahees winners they tend not to age well within the hobby. For me this sadly didn’t

Game Review: Portal of Heroes by: Amigo Games

Today, I’ll be reviewing Portal Of Heroes by Amigo Games.  The game is suited for ages 10+, takes around 45 minutes to play, and plays anywhere from 2-5 players.

 

Portal of Heroes is a race to 12 victory points  played with 2 decks of cards: the Pearl deck and the Character deck.  In the  pearl deck, you will find numbers 1-8 with each number appearing 7 times. In the character deck  you will find  cards will have a combination requirement, to take the victory points on it, and a one time ability (red cards) or a permanent  power  (blue cards), and sometimes a diamond as a reward along with the points.

 

 

Red card: 1pt, requires 3 cards that add up to 7.  Ability: discard a character from an opponent’s  portal. Blue card:  1pt, requires any number of cards that add up to 10.  Ability: hand size increased by 1 

The set up is super simple.  Give each player a portal mat in their color of choice,  shuffle each deck and deal 4 pearl cards face up, ignoring any of the discard character symbols on cards that may have shown up (shown in the above picture), deal 2 characters face up.  Lastly, decide the first player, and have that player flip their portal over so that the gold medallion is showing

2 pts & 1 diamond, requires any pair and a pair of 6s

On your turn, you have 3 action points to use in which you could take the same action more than once if desired.  The actions include:

1. Take a pearl card
2. Discards all pearl cards and replace them all
3. Take a character and place it on your portal
4. activate a character on your portal

Taking a peal card simply means you put that card into your hand and replacing the row back to 4 cards immediately.  When refilling the row, a discard charater symbol shows up, you discard the 2 character cards and display 2 new ones, only once! (shown in picture 3)

When you take the discard pearl cards action,  discard all 4 cards and replace them.  Remember to discard characters if need be

Taking a character card is almost the same thing as taking a pearl card.  Except, that each player only has 2 slots for character cards.  Taking a third character causes a discard of an unwanted character.  Note: you are allowed to take the top character  from the character deck blindly  instead of a revealed one!

2 pts & 1 diamond, requires any pair and a pair of 6s

 

Finally, the last action, activate a character on you portal.  Based on the requirements on the card, you will  discard the necessary combination of pearl cards to the discard pile.  After activation you’ll remove the card from your portal,  rotate the card so that the points/diamonds/ability is viable.  Red abilities are instant and one time, while blue cards have a range of permanent effects.

Time to talk about the elusive diamonds on some of the character cards!  When you get a diamond as a reward from a character, draw the top character from the character deck. That card now is a diamond.  Diamonds can be used to increase the  value of 1 pearl card up by 1.  Multiple diamonds may be used as long as 1 diamond is paired only with 1 pearl cards.  Once diamonds are used they are discarded to the character discard pile face up. (Please refer to the rules for full details on the character card combinations and their various powers.}

Once a player has spent their 3 action points, the next players takes their turn.  The game continues in this way until a player reaches 12 or more victory points.  Finish out the current round.  Then, everyone gets one final turn!  Afterwards the player with the most points wins.  If a tie arises, the tie is broken by the holder of the most diamonds.

My thoughts:  I enjoy this game whenever it hits the table.  It’s a filler game that plays quickly and is super easy to teach and understand.  (Since I basically taught you the game within this review!)  The only hard part about this game is knowing  what all the symbols on the cards mean, but everything’s spelled out for you nicely on the back of of the rules.  After a few games, it’ll be second nature to you!

 

 

Game Review: Pikoko by Brain Games

Today I’ll be Reviewing Pikoko by Brain Games The game is suited for for ages 10+, 3-5 players and takes around 30 minimum for a game

Before I go any further, let me show you what you will be playing with

here’s everything for the white player:

Every players gets: A 2 piece hard plastic colored peacock which acts as a card holder, a set of confidence cards and 9 bidding tokens. The last major complaint of this game is the deck of cards itself.

In the deck there’s 5 colors: red, white, blue, purple and yellow. The card values range from 1-13, plus the multicolored cards are interwoven as well. There are only 4 multicolored cards in total. These cards represent 3 out of the 5 colors.

Pikoko is a very unique trick taking played in 3 rounds. Each round has 4 phases: decal, bid, play, score.

Deal- 8 cards are dealt 1 at a time to each player. After the cards are dealt, without looking at them, place them into your peacock with the backs facing you! That’s right, you will never be able to your cards! Once everyone has arranged their peacocks correctly, flip the top card of the remaining cards left over face up. That card will be the Trump suit for the round. If a multicolored card comes up there will be no trump for the round.

Bid- Bidding has 3 steps:

1. The first player marker is given to a random player in the first round. The first player is the first player to be bid on. All other players will take their bidding tokens into their hands. After looking at all the cards you can see, bid on how many tricks the bid target can take! Also keeping in my 0 is a valid bid and if there’s trump or not! Everyone will put their bid in a closed fist and reveal at the same time placing their bid in front of the bid target.

The above process continues until all players have some number of bids from all other players in front of them.

2. After the first stage of bidding, each player will be bidding on themselves using the info they can see and the amount of bidding tokens the may have left.

3. Finally, everyone will bid once more with their confidence cards. At the beginning you have the confidence cards for all players in your game plus your +1 card. Everyone will place a card down. If you bid with a player color, if you bid in that player is spot on, you will score +3 otherwise you loose a point.

Play- After all the various bids are locked in, the hand is now played. Another unique aspect of Pikoko is, you’ll only play cards from the player on your left! Your cards are played by the player on your right! Fallowing this rule, there are some very basic trick taking that must fallowed as well: 1. The first card of a tick can be of any color. 2. All other cards played must be of the the same color if able. If not, you may play any card or a trump card. 3. Once everyone plays a card, a winner is determined. If all cards are of the led color, highest value wins. If there are any trump in the trick, highest played wins.

If someone leads a multicolored card, the player must announce its color. Keep in my multicolored cards act as 3 colors. If when playing a multicolored, please note that if the lead color was yellow and red was trump, the card would be played as a yellow!

The winner of the trick stacks the trick face Down and the player on the right would play s card to start the next trick.

This continues until 8 tricks are played, the we go to scoring

Scoring- At the end of each hand, starting with the start player we will go and look at his bids and score his points. There are three types: correct, close, bad. A correct bid on a player Scores the building player 2 points. A close bid is when that Bid is one higher or one lower than what they actually took. A close bid gives the building player 1 point. A bad bid is when it is off by 2 or more tricks. That gives the betting player zero points

Scoring Example-

White won 3 tricks

Blue won 4 tricks

Red won 1 trick

White placed 1 on red, 3 on blue and 0 on themselves. Before the conference card is scored, white would have a score of 3 points. Lastly whited reveals his facedown confidence card, which is his +1. This ends up giving white a round 1 grand total of 4 points. If you played a players color and got a correct bid on that player, +3. Otherwise it’s a -1.

Once each player has been scored the new round can start. Pass the first player marker to the left and start a new round. The player with the highest score after three rounds is declared the winner.

My thoughts; When I first heard about this game I was intrigued. After realizing it was like Hanabi and the bidding seemed wierd I wasn’t jumping at the bit to try this one. All the components are very functional, the card holders are nice and sturdy and the cards are nice and thick and reliable. Plus it looks good on the table it’s very colorful and very fun. This game was a little bit hard to figure out at first- as someone who has played a lot of trick taking games over the years this one really was rough for me at the beginning trying to get my head wrapped around. But once I did it made sense and it is quite enjoyable. I will admit shortly after this game came out, I saw many people saying that this got them into trick taking games and I was surprised. This is definitely not a good choice for starting someone out on trick taking games. There are many other simpler trick taking games that a new player can pick up way quicker and understand efficiently. Once you figure this game out though it’s a great little filler

Review – Tiny Towns from AEG

In this video, Dave gives his thoughts and impressions on Tiny Towns from AEG. To view the playthrough, click the link: https://youtu.be/OU1sClwRbYY

Playthrough – Tiny Towns (Solo Rules) from AEG

In this video, Dave does a playthrough of Tiny Towns using the solo rules. How good of a builder can he be?? Click the link for the review: https://youtu.be/qSDzQ-xr2wk

Review – Point Salad from AEG

In this video, Dave and Chris share their thoughts and impressions of Point Salad which is a quick tableau building, drafting game where players collect veggies and point cards to combine them to score the most points to win the game.

To see the playthrough, click the link: https://youtu.be/jCEKQYQyhOI

Playthrough – Point Salad from AEG

In this video, Dave and Chris do a 2-player playthrough of Point Salad which is a quick tableau building, drafting game where players collect veggies and point cards to combine them to score the most points to win the game.

To see the review, click the link: https://youtu.be/CPAc8a1C0Xk