1984: Railway Rivals

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

-oOo-

Back in the early 1990s, TSR held European GenCon at Camber Sands, a windswept holiday camp on England’s south coast, much to the shock and amusement of any visiting American guests. The fact that it was within sight of Dungeness nuclear power station only added to the weirdness—and that became a joke in Shadowrun supplement. It was there that I had my first exposure to Railway Rivals to the sound of designer Jack Jaffe extolling you to come and play Save the President. I joined a game run by David Watts, the designer of Railway Rivals, which was played using a map of Ireland. I certainly did not know that I was playing with the designer and I certainly did not win the game, but I enjoyed playing what was essentially my first exposure to railway games. I thought that the idea of drawing on the map to be novel and clever. This memory was enough a decade later to purchase the Games Workshop version of the game and then two decades on, to purchase the original version that came in the heavy cardboard tube that could hold multiple maps.

Railway Rivals is a very stripped back game. It consists of a single six-sided die, six trains (or simply tokens), and a set of washable felt pens that match the colours of the tokens, but at the heart of the game—its maps. Each depicted a geographical area—Eastern USA, London & Liverpool, Germany, and so on—marked with cities, hills, and rivers on a hex grid. Each map sheet is laminated so that it can be drawn on—and that is the point of the game. Each player was setting out to build or draw his own railway network that connected the cities on the map. Then the players would race their trains over their networks to score money.

At the beginning of a game each player receives a train and a pen in a matching colour before rolling for his starting city. Then on his turn a player rolls the die to determine his income which he spends to build, or draw, new track in his network. Most of the maps consist of open plains which are cheap to lay track over, but hills and rivers cost more to cross, as does having to cross or parallel a rival player’s railway line. Money is earned for connecting your network to the cities on the map.

As soon as all cities have been connected, the game’s second phase begins. Races are set up between random cities and the players compete to get there first. Money is awarded to players arriving in first and second place, but must be paid to any railway rival whose track you used as part of your move. This is likely because it is rare for a player to connect to every city on the map. At the end of the game, the player with the most money wins.Once all cities are joined by railway tracks, the second part of the game starts. Players race their trains along the tracks between randomly chosen pairs of cities; just as in real life, players must pay other players to use elements of their track if they do not have a complete route of their own to the current target city. The choice of routes raced is random; each city is used one or more times. Money is awarded to the trains that arrive first and second, and the player with the most money when all routes have been raced is the winner.

By modern standards, Railway Rivals looks simplistic, but that would be an unfair assessment. The laying of the track across a map offers some tactical choice as each player attempts to make the best advantage of his starting position and map’s terrain. Often, this focuses upon certain choke points, typically to cities only accessible via gaps in the surrounding hills that are expensive to build through or to groups of cities, like those of New England.* In such a situation, when it comes to laying track, a player needs to ask himself if it is cheaper to build through the hills or lay track alongside that of his rivals.

*Note that this is typical of most railway games set in the Eastern USA.

Racing the trains in the second phase of course does involve more than a degree of luck, both in terms of rolling for the starting and finishing cities for each race, and rolling movement each turn. Each race will proceed without any complications when a player is travelling over his own network, but should a player need to switch to a rival network to get to a destination, then he needs to pay for the track use. Which loses him money—and thus a potential victory—to his rivals. He can offset this by spending the money he already has to build new track, but again, the cost and any advantage it gains a player needs to be carefully weighed up.

Once all of the races have finished, the players need to total up their money. The player with most is the winner.

Railway Rivals was self-published for many years, but versions have been published by Games Workshop and Queen Games. Despite having won the Spiel des Jahres in 1984,* Railway Rivals is a forgotten classic, having been out of print for almost two decades now. After all, winning the Spiel des Jahres back then did not have the same prestige as it does now, and barring Settlers of Catan, which won in 1995, few winners are remembered from before the rise in popularity of the hobby board game in last fifteen years. Surprisingly it did find a home as a PBEM, or Play-by-E-Mail, game played via fanzines, its simplicity nicely supporting this type of game play. 

*It is unlikely that a game like Railway Rivals would win the Spiel des Jahres today. Arguably though, Railway Rivals was the Ticket to Ride of its day.

Of course, Railway Rivals lacks the sophistication of the modern game. Indeed it looks very plain, but this plainness  suits the simplicity of the game and the simplicity of its game play. In fact the maps are clean, simple, and elegant. The only real complaint about the game is how messy it is—having to wipe a map clean after a game is over is a chore. Yet this write-on, wipe-off feature lies at the game’s heart—prefiguring the crayon games series begun with Empire Builder from Mayfair Games by several years—and makes the game most replayable. Some thirty-five official maps were released for the game, many of them classics in terms of locations for railway games—Germany, New England, France, and so on.

Railway Rivals is all about the maps and getting the chance to draw on them—again and again. Getting to scribble like this has a little of the childhood pleasure to it, but this is a game and a rather charming one at that. Simple and fun, Railway Rivals is not just about lay tracking, but drawing them!

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Tangled Trains

2014 is the year that Japanese boardgames—particularly the Japon Brand—break out into the mainstream. After all, two Japanese games won Origins Awards in 2014, both published by Alderac Entertainment Group. Love Letter won the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game and Trains won the Origins Award for Best Board Game—how long until one wins the Spiel des Jahres? Of course, Japanese boardgames have not sprung from nowhere, there having been a number of them published in English over the past few years. Among the first was String Railway, designed by Hisashi Hayashi, who also designed the excellent Trains and recently had the interesting Sail to India published by Alderac Entertainment Group.

The 2013 UK Games Expo Best Abstract Game Winner, what sets String Railway apart from almost every other railway board game is in the title. Railway board games fall into two types. One uses hexes with players laying railway tracks to connect towns and cities, whilst the other has the players drawing lines with crayons on a map to connect towns and cities. In String Railway the players connect railway stations, not by hexes or crayons, but string—thick, bright lengths of string.

Now published by Asmodée Éditions, String Railway is designed for two to five players, aged eight plus, each of whom is the president of his railway company. A game lasts about thirty minutes and the aim is to have the most profitable railway by game’s end. 

Its play surface is the table itself with the play area formed by a string loop that is pulled out to form either a triangle, a square, or a pentagon, depending upon the number of players—a triangle for three players, a square for four or two players (in a two-player game, each player plays with two starting stations and two sets of strings), or a pentagon for five players. Inside the play area is placed a grey loop to represent the mountains and a length of blue string that runs to the edge and represents a river. Each player then receives five strings of various lengths and a station of the same colour, the latter being placed at a corner.

On his turn, a player draws a station from the deck of thirty-four station cards. He is free to place this station wherever he likes, but he must also use one of his strings to connect this new station to a station his network is already connected to. He is free to run the string through any other station he likes as long as the new station is placed at the end of the string.

The player then earns Victory Points for the station he has placed and any stations that he has run his new placed string through. Each of the eight types of stations scores differently. For example, the Central Station scores three Victory Points, but can only be connected by five players; an Urban Station scores a player three Victory points when placed, but will lose him a Victory Point to a rival if another connects to it, up to a maximum of five players; and a Scenic Station will earn a player one Victory Point if placed on the plains, but five Victory Points if placed in the mountains. Victory Points are lost if a string crosses either the river or another string. Of course, the player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

Play quickly becomes harder and harder as more strings are placed. Players will work hard to place their stations where they can score, but their rivals cannot and work harder to place their strings to their best advantage. Even if that means pulling them to their full length or twisting them again and again; this is what makes the game fun.

String Railway is a nice looking game and the rules are easy to read. Its core mechanics are tile drawing and placing and route-laying, both quite conventional, but the placing of the strings gives the game a physicality that very few games possess. The fact that each player only has five strings means that each only has five turns, making the game quick. (The fact that both players have ten strings in a two-player game is offset by the number of players). Everyone’s last turn usually takes a little longer as they try to maximise points, but that is true of many games. 

Bright and colourful, String Railways is a solid filler. In adding a physical element to the train game genre, String Railways shows how messy and tangled up the laying of railway tracks can get.

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2004: Ticket to Ride

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, will releasing the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles to be reviewed. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

For the fourth entry in Reviews from R’lyeh’s series of anniversary reviews, we look back to the year 2004 and the publication of a successful board game that has sold over three million copies in the ten years since. Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder would win the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award, the Origins Award for Best Board Game of 2004, and the 2005 Diana Jones award, amongst others, and it has also joined Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan—Spiel des Jahres winners both—in forming a triumvirate of gateway games. That is, games that can serve as an introduction to the hobby of playing board games, games that can be played by both board game enthusiasts and the family alike. This factor, along with its popularity, explains why Ticket to Ride has appeared on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop series twice. First with Ticket to Ride and then with Ticket to Ride: Europe.

Designed for two to five players, aged eight and up, in Ticket to Ride the players undertake a race across the USA in the spirit of Phileas Fogg’s race around the world in eighty days. At stake is a prize of $1,000,000 for the competitor who reaches the most destinations and scores the most points. It is played out over a map of the USA and southern Canada marked with various cities connected by routes in different colours and of varying lengths.

At game’s start each player will receive a set of train pieces and some Destination Tickets. Each of these give two cities on the board that need to be connected, such as ‘New York to Seattle’ or ‘Duluth to Houston’. Completing these Destination Tickets will score a player points, but will lose him points if not completed. A player must keep one of the Destination Tickets he is given and can draw more throughout the game. He also receives four Train Cards. The Train Cards match the colour of the routes on the board and are used to claim routes on the board. For example, two four-space routes run between Denver and Kansas City, one in black, the other in orange. It would take four orange Train Cards to claim the orange route or four black ones to claim the black route. A Locomotive Card, which can be any colour, can be substituted in place of any of the cards. A player will score points for each route claimed and each route can only be claimed once.

On his turn, a player can do one of three things. He can draw two Train Cards, either face up or straight from the deck, or a single Locomotive Card; he can use Train Cards to claim a route; or he can draw new Destination Tickets. This sets up a dilemma for the player—does he take Train Tickets that he needs before a rival takes them? Does he claim a route before someone else does? If he takes new Destination Tickets can he complete them before the end of game?

The winner is the player who scores the most victory points, invariably because he has completed the most Destination Tickets and claimed the most routes. There is also an award for the Longest Route. Game play in Ticket to Ride is thus fairly simple, but challenging enough for the casual or family gamer. For the enthusiast, Ticket to Ride offers a number of strategies, such as attempting to claim as many long routes as possible or grabbing the short routes in order to block other players. Either way, Ticket to Ride is a gently competitive game that is easy to learn and easy to play.

It should be remember that what Ticket to Ride is not, is a train game. It has trains as a theme, but the game is about managing a player’s hand of Train Cards and collecting the right set of routes. That said, it can be seen as a stepping onto more complex train-themed games, for example, Ragnar Brothers’ Canalmania or Alderac Entertainment Group’s Trains. 

In the decade since its publication, Ticket to Ride has been supported with a family of core games and expansions. These enable gamers to play using dice rather than Train Cards or with new Destination Tickets, to play core games in Europe, Germany, and Scandinavia, and to take their trains onto maps set in Asia, India and Switzerland, Africa, and the Nederlands. The game has also been adapted to be played on PCs and tablets—both iOS and Android devices. This allows a player to enjoy the game by himself, against the computer or opponents around the world.

In 2014 Days of Wonder released Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition to celebrate the success of the game over the previous decade. Graphically, Ticket to Ride has been given a beautiful redesign and increased in size half again. This includes the size of the box, the map board, the cards, the train pieces, and the scoring markers. What will grab the gamer right out of the box is the board, because it is now in full colour with a colour background to the routes. The original map for Ticket to Ride was decidedly grey, but the map here is full of detail and geography, and the length of the spaces on each route is now a whole inch long!

Below the map, what will grab the gamer next are five colour tins—black, blue, brown, green, red. Each of these deep tins—labelled Black Powder Rail (black), Metropolitan Rapid Transit (blue), Dutch Flat Barrel Co. (brown), Hobo Caboose Central (green), Savannah, Florida & Circus Railway (red)—contains forty-eight sculpted, detailed plastic train pieces. These are not only visually appealing as they look fantastic when on the board, but they also bring a tactile physicality to the game. Similarly, the Train Cards have been given a major redesign. They are also increased in size to make them easier to handle and read, much in line with the Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 Expansion.

Notably, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition includes not only the Destination Tickets from the original Ticket to Ride, but also those from Ticket to Ride: USA 1910. Together, the Destination Tickets from Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 implement three different variants in which to play Ticket to Ride. These are ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’. The ‘1910’ variant simply replaces the Destination Tickets from Ticket to Ride with the ‘1910’ Destination Tickets and gives a thoroughly new mix of cities to connect. Instead of the Longest Route Bonus in Ticket to Ride, in the ‘1910’ variant, the Globetrotter Bonus is given for the most Destination Tickets completed. Each of the Destination Tickets in the ‘Big Cities’ variant is connected to one of eight cities—Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Seattle—which makes for a much more cutthroat game as the players compete to access the same connections. Lastly, in the ‘Mega Game’, all of the Destination Tickets are used, including those from both Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride: USA 1910, and both the Longest Route and the Globetrotter Bonuses are given out. 

Essentially, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition negates the need to purchase Ticket to Ride: USA 1910—or at least it should have done. For unfortunately, there is a flaw at the heart of an otherwise beautifully done, pretty reprint. What the full colour rulebook, which includes the rules in several languages as well as in English, does not include are the rules for any of the ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’ variants. This is a major omission, one that undermines the inclusion of the Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 in the Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition.

Another issue is with the train pieces. All except one set is easy to spot and that one is the Dutch Flat Barrel Co. pieces. The problem is that the tin for them is brown and the main colour for the pieces is also brown, but they are not brown in the game. They are meant to be yellow as in the original Ticket to Ride. Admittedly, each of the ‘brown’ train pieces has a yellow stripe down each side, but surely they could have just been yellow and another type of wagon created instead of the Dutch Flat Barrel Co. wagons?

Lastly, in the ‘Mega Game’ when the Longest Route and the Globetrotter Bonuses are given out, there is not a separate card for each. Instead, they are printed on the obverse sides of one card. The question is, what happens when one player is awarded the Longest Route Bonus and another the Globetrotter Bonus?

Make no mistake, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is fundamentally flawed and incomplete. Which flies in the face of Days of Wonder’s reputation for attention to detail. Nevertheless, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is still playable and the rules for each of the ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’ variants are available online, but again this is not a satisfactory solution given that this is a highly expensive version of an existing game and a prestigious redesign of Days of Wonder’s flagship title. Ultimately, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is beautiful and impressive, both on the shelf with its black box and in play when the trains start being placed. Despite its flaws, Ticket to Ride is still a great game and the Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is a pretty addition to any gaming collection.

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Your Manhattan Project

The main problem with The Manhattan Project is its theme. As its name suggests, that theme has to do with the design and building of the atom bomb. For some, this may be in poor taste. Which of course means that any board game or indeed computer game, like say, Civilisation, in which nuclear weapons are deployed and detonated, is in equally poor taste—if not more so. That said, no nuclear weapons are detonated in The Manhattan Project and nobody dies, either through atomisation or radiation poisoning. Some of your workers may get sent to the mines though…

Originally launched on Kickstarter and published by Minion Games, The Manhattan Project is a worker placement game for two to five players, aged thirteen and up. They each take control of a country’s atom bomb project and attempt to build the most effective program. Starting with a few workers and a small amount of money, they train engineers and scientists; construct buildings—universities, factories, mines, and reactors; build up their air forces—bombers and fighters; research bomb designs; and conduct espionage against each other, all in a race to see who can build the biggest bombs (and score the most Victory Points).

All of which is built around a simple mechanic—worker placement. Each turn a player must either place his workers on the board or retrieve them. When placing them, a player must place one worker on the main board, but can place as many workers as he likes on buildings of his own. When retrieving them, he must remove all of those he has placed.

The game revolves around the Main Board. This has spaces for the Building Cards—six initial cards followed by the regular buildings; spaces to place workers to gain money, engineers, scientists, workers, fighters and bombers, and yellow cake—which is turned into Uranium and Plutonium; conduct airstrikes and repair buildings; and fuel tracks to monitor how much Uranium and Plutonium each player has, as well as how many spies he can send to make use of other players’ empty buildings.

Each player has a Player Board. Here he tracks the number of fighters and bombers he has and places any buildings he has purchased. A player also has four labourers, but will gain up to four engineers and four scientists as play progresses. If these are not enough, he can hire contractors, but they will not stay under his control for long.

Initially, each player has limited options. He can only place a single worker—which has to be on the Main Board—and needs not only scientists and engineers, but also buildings of his own if he wants to place more workers on subsequent turns. As the game progresses and he gains more workers and buildings, he will have more options for placing his workers—and even more if he has invested in espionage and can send his workers to the other players’ buildings. A player does not have to place all of his workers on a turn, but he must place one on the Main Board at the very least.

When a player runs out of workers or because he wants to, he can retrieve all of his workers. He can start placing them again on later turns, but part of playing The Manhattan Project is knowing when to retrieve and when to place them. It is a matter of timing, more so when espionage is an option and other players’ buildings are available.

Each building gives its benefit as soon as its requirements are fulfilled. This might be as simple as one or two workers or specific worker types to get their output, which can be more workers (including contractors), money, fighters, bombers, or yellow cake. Alternatively, a reactor might require several engineers and scientists and several pieces of yellow cake in order to produce the Uranium or Plutonium. These have to be placed in one turn rather than added bit by bit.

Eventually a player will want to build a bomb. This works the same as any other building, but requires Uranium or Plutonium as well as engineers and scientists. Once built, a bomb adds to a player’s Victory Point total, but he could also load it onto one of his bombers for more Victory Points. Alternatively, if it was a Plutonium device, a player could implode it. This would destroy the bomb, but any subsequent Plutonium device the player builds will be worth more Victory Points.

Apart from espionage, another way of a player interacting with his rivals is to attack them using his air force. To attack another player, he sends his fighters to attack his target’s fighters and then his bombers to target and damage his rival’s buildings. This stops his rival from using them until they are repaired.

Physically, The Manhattan Project is nicely and engagingly presented in a style that apes the look of government style art of the 1940s. The rulebook is also well written and easy to read and understand.

Unfortunately, The Manhattan Project is not perfect. Arguably, the use of espionage is too powerful—though it is a great way to win—and cannot be blocked or stopped, except by the targeted player placing and keeping his own workers on this buildings for as long as possible. The Air Raid mechanic is either too powerful or not powerful enough, as any attempt to destroy another player’s fighters leaves both sides vulnerable to bombing raids. Lastly, the appearance of the building cards is too random; beyond the first six, any card can appear in any order and this can all too often affect the flow of the game. Less effective buildings will sit on the board because no one wants to buy them, whilst a slew of good buildings will force a flurry of activity to buy as quickly as possible. Perhaps a more structured draw could have been included, so that the buildings get progressively better and better as the game progresses?

Put these issues aside, for this is an excellent game. The game play is very tight, with almost no luck involved. Above all, The Manhattan Project is a pleasing meld of theme with mechanics that reward efficiency. 

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1974: Kingmaker

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, will releasing the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles to be reviewed. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

It would seem fitting that in 2014, the fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons—the game that would inaugurate roleplaying as a social pastime, that would inaugurate roleplaying and gaming as an industry, and that would influence the multi-million dollar computer games industry—that the first review in this series be of the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. Sadly I do not have a copy of this in my collection, though the year is only half done and there is time for me to obtain such an item yet. Thus the inaugural entry in the anniversary series will be of a grand, classic board game—Kingmaker!

Kingmaker is a simulation of the Wars of the Roses, the period of sporadic Civil War in England between 1450 and 1490 that saw the two rival branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet—the houses of Lancaster and York—and their supporters vie for dominance, and ultimately, the English crown. Each player will take control of one the factions of Noble families aiming to use their influence and military forces to manoeuvre a claimant to the throne and into power whilst preventing rival factions from doing the same. Thus the players are not the claimants and heirs to the throne of England, but potential powers behind the throne, each the very ‘kingmaker’ of the game’s title, itself taken from the nickname for Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the most powerful noble of his age.

The game is designed for two to seven players—though as many as twelve could play—and takes anywhere from two to six hours to play. The ultimate aim is for one faction to control and have crowned a claimant to the throne after all of the others have died or been killed.

The Kingmaker board; a fabulous jumble
of irregular geography.

Kingmaker is played out over a map of the Wales and England of the 15th Century—with the port of Calais to the southeast on the corner of northern France across the English Channel—that is marked with the two countries’ various castles, royal castles, towns, fortified towns, ports, and major geographical features. Broken down into irregularly spaced and sized squares, the map is a messy jumble that is often difficult to navigate or find anything on.

The heirs over which the player factions will feud over are comprised of seven Royal Pieces. The Lancastrians consist of Henry of Lancaster—actually Henry IV of England at the start of the game, plus his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and his son, Edward of Lancaster, the Prince of Wales. Another Lancastrian heir is the noble, Beaufort, but his claim can only be pressed once the other Lancastrian heirs have died. The Yorkists consist of Richard, Duke of York, and his three sons, Edward, Earl of March, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

Crown Pack cards, from left to right (upper row): a Noble, a Noble with
a Title, a Title, an Office; (lower row) a Mercenary Unit, a ship, an
ecclesiastical office, and a town 

Each of the nobles that form a player’s faction is represented by a card and a counter, both marked with the noble’s coat of arms. A noble’s card also indicates which castles he holds and the number of men-at-arms he commands. Most nobles are knights and barons, but some also have a title. For example, Percy is the Earl of Northumberland, owns the castles of Alnwick and Cockermouth, and commands one hundred men-at-arms, whereas Audley owns Tickhill castle and commands just ten men-at-arms.

Titles are important—and others may be awarded throughout the game, like the Earl of Worcester or Duke of Exeter—because they also make a noble eligible to be appointed to an office, for example, Marshal of England, Warden of the Cinque Ports, or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Each of these offices grants the holder further men-at-arms and in most cases, extra benefits. For example, the holder of the Warden of the Northern Marches gains fifty men-at-arms, plus a further one hundred troops when he is north of the River Tees and the towns of Bamburgh and Berwick, while the Admiral of England also gains fifty men-at-arms, two ships, and the towns of Southampton and Lynn. With most offices come certain responsibilities. For example, the Warden of the Northern Marches might find himself sent to Berwick if the Scots launch a raid and the Marshal of England to Bodmin to put down a peasants’ revolt. A noble can also hold ecclesiastical office, for example, Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of Norwich. They each grant control of a town with a cathedral, but more importantly, they enable a faction to hold a coronation and crown an heir—an Archbishop can do this as can a pair of Bishops.

At the start of the game, the seven Royal Pieces are placed in their starting locations and the game’s two decks—the Crown Pack and the Event Pack are shuffled. From the Crown Pack each player is dealt a certain number of cards, the number dependent on the number of players. From these cards, a player sorts his nobles and assigns them titles, offices, and ecclesiastic positions, plus  mercenary units (for example, Company of Flemish Crossbowmen or Company of Saxons), towns (Shrewsbury or Ipswich), and ships (Le Rose, Ship of Plymouth or Le Michael, Ship of Bristol). Any titles and offices that cannot be assigned go into second deck known as Chancery. They can only be reassigned when the faction controlling the sole crown king can summon Parliament during play.

Kingmaker set up for four players.

Once everyone has formed their faction and placed their nobles’ counters on the board, play begins. On his turn a player draws from the Event Pack, moves his pieces and engages in any battles, and then draws from Crown Pack. The card drawn from the Event Pack might grant a noble a Free Move or the faction a Writ of Summons to Parliament, which the player can keep until used. Other Event Cards are potentially more interesting. Each of these is divided into an upper and a lower half. The upper half presents an event, the lower half the victory odds used in battle. Events can include a French Raid, an Embassy, or a Plague. The first of these sends the Warden of the Cinque Ports to Pevensy with one ship—though similar events will send other Office holders and nobles to various places. The second sends the King to a particular location to receive the ambassador, whilst the third causes the death of anyone in the named location, for example, Lincoln or Newark.

Cards from the Event Pack.

Movement is simple—all units can move five spaces per turn. Sea movement is greater because the squares are larger and it possible to transport troops by sea. Battles—and there can only be land battles—are handled not by rolling dice, there being no dice in the game, but by odds. When two factions engage in battle, each side totals the men-at-arms it has at its command—derived from titles, offices, mercenaries, and so on, and the ratio between the two sides determined. An Event Card is drawn and the ratio on the card compared with the ratio of forces involved in the battle. If the ratio of the forces is greater than that on the card, the lesser side has been defeated, its nobles killed and stripped of their titles and offices. Both titles and offices go into the Chancery deck, while the nobles go onto the bottom of the Crown Pack, where their heirs will be drawn later in the game to declare for one faction or another.

Although battles come down to which side is larger, they are all the more interesting for two factors. The first is that bad weather can delay an attack, enabling one side to escape from the other. The other is that each battle result is accompanied by one or more names of nobles. If they are part of either side in the battle, then whatever the outcome, they are also killed.

For example, an Event Card has been drawn that brings down the Plague! upon London, resulting in the death of Henry of Lancaster. In response, Neville, the Earl of Warwick (50) and Archbishop of York in command of a Company of Burgundian Crossbowmen (30) is racing north to capture the leading Yorkist heir, Richard, Duke of York. His aim is to crown Richard and proclaim him king. He has a total force of 80 troops.

To prevent Neville from gaining an important lead, two other nobles move to counter him. Clifford (10), the Earl of Westmoreland (40), in command of a Company of Scots Archers (20), Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham (30) and Warden of the Cinque Ports (50) together have a total force of 150 troops.

Neville versus Stafford and Clifford with the Battle Card
that determines the results between them.

This pits 150 versus 80, giving a 3/2 odds of Neville being defeated. An Event Card is drawn which gives the desired result—Clifford and Stafford are victorious and Neville is captured. Unfortunately, the card also states that Stafford and Greystoke are killed. Greystoke was not involved, but Stafford was and so is killed. His card is removed from play and added to the bottom of the Crown Pack, whilst his office, Warden of the Cinque Ports goes into Chancery. Meanwhile, Clifford, having captured Neville, can ransom him or kill him. He does the latter, sending Neville to the bottom of the Crown Pack. Clifford also takes command of Neville’s Company of Burgundian Crossbowmen (30) and takes over as Archbishop of York. His plan now matches that of the late Neville—get to York and capture and crown the leading Yorkist heir, Richard, Duke of York.

Under certain circumstances, Parliament can be called. Primarily this can be done with a Writ of Summons to Parliament by whichever faction is control of the sole crowned king. If one of the nobles in a faction is the Chancellor of England, then he may also summon Parliament under certain circumstances. Doing so enables the summoning faction to reassign many of the titles and offices that have been lost to Chancery through previous events. It is a means for the summoning faction to bolster its standing.

The last action a player does on his turn is draw from the Crown Pack. This may give him a new noble, ship, town, or company of mercenaries to add to his faction. It may also give him a new title or office—one that has not entered play yet and thus is not in Chancery. The player may add this to his faction immediately if he can, but he can also choose to keep it secret. In this way, the true strength of a player’s faction can be kept hidden until revealed at the right moment—perhaps a noble declaring for one faction or another, a faction making a propitious hiring of a company of mercenaries, and so on.

This then is the core of the game. Once past the set-up, Kingmaker proceeds with most factions trying to build their power and bringing their nobles together. This will be hampered by events drawn from the Event Pack. Too often a faction will find its forces riven by the effects of events. This occurs to nobles, to office holders, and to the King. So the noble Douglas will be forced to return to Douglas in the Isle of Man due to piracy; a peasant revolt will oblige the Duke of Exeter to return to Exeter, the Chancellor of Duchy of Cornwall to Plymouth, and the Marshal of England to Bodmin; and the King must go to Preston to receive an Embassy from the King of Scots, and whichever faction holds the King has to decide whether or not to accompany him. This has a number of effects. First, it splits the forces and nobles of factions apart and weakens them. Second, it makes these nobles vulnerable to attack by factions which would otherwise be too weak to attack the combined faction that the nobles were split from. Third, it slows the game down as factions try again and again to bring their nobles together. Fourth, it adds a sense of verisimilitude to the game.

The aim of this power build-up is two-fold. First, it gives a faction sufficient combat strength with which to defend itself. Second, it gives a faction sufficient combat strength to capture claimants. Initially, there are one or two ways in which a claimant can be captured. One of these is for a noble to hold an office which grants him the town where the claimant is. For example, Constable of the Tower of London grants a noble the deeds to London, so is a powerful office at the start of the game because that is where the King, Henry of Lancaster starts the game. Similarly, the office of Marshal of England grants the holder the town of Harlech where Edward of March, a Yorkist claimant is found. In other cases, simply receiving the town, for example, that of Coventry where Edward of Lancaster begins the game, will grant a faction access to a claimant. A faction can only hold claimants from one house, not both, and a faction is free to do with the claimants with what it wants—it can exchange them, give them to other factions, or simply have them murdered.

This highlights the role of the Royal Pieces in the game. They are a resource, a possible bargaining chip, and a means to an end. It is necessary to have one in order to win the game, but if a claimant stands in a faction’s way, then he is disposable, and similarly, if a faction stands to gain by giving a claimant to a rival faction, he is also disposable. In all three roles, the use of the Royal Pieces becomes part of another aspect of Kingmaker—diplomacy. The players are free to engage in alliances and deals throughout the game. Doing so is one means for weaker factions to harass and even destroy stronger factions by working together, and of course, breaking a deal and betraying your allies is perfectly in-keeping with both the game and the Wars of the Roses.

Physically, Kingmaker is very nicely presented for a game published in 1974. The map is large and colourful and the pieces are equally colourful. In most cases, they are easy to identify, but some are identical bar their different colours. The game’s cards feel a bit soft and flabby, but they are large and easy to read. What was surprising on returning to the game was that the rulebook, though done in black and white without any illustrations, was well written. Despite it being over thirty pages long, it is easy to read, the rules come with plenty of examples, and it ends with a lengthy discussion of how the game should be played.

One issue with the game is when it runs into a stalemate. Typically, the factions have built themselves up as powerful as possible and retreat to their power bases, regions where they have extra troops because of an office. For example, the holder of the Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester has two hundred extra troops whilst he is in Wales. When this happens, it will take an Event Card to drive them from their refuge and leave them vulnerable to attack by a rival faction. In the meantime, not a lot may happen… Which given the potential playing time of the game, it can make the game a little dull. Another issue is that combat is simplified by modern standards, with little chance of a smaller force surviving an attack. The best it can hope for is bad weather and the chance to escape—there is no chance of it snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Originally published in 1974, Kingmaker would receive the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Professional Game of 1975—these awards being given annually for excellence in the historical wargaming—and be republished in 1975 as a second  edition by Avalon Hill. A later Expansion would add new Event Cards, but the second edition added a more complex means for handling Parliament, bringing voting into the process—a discussion of which can be seen here—as well as adding Ireland and parts of Europe to the game. It was certainly popular enough to be the subject of numerous articles in The General, Avalon Hill’s house magazine and it was turned into a computer game by Avalon Hill in 1994. Much like the earlier Diplomacy—a game that itself is sixty years old in 2014—Kingmaker has the capacity for player negotiation away from the board and thus could be played over time by post as a PBM or ‘Play-By-Mail’ game rather than face-to-face with everyone sat round the table. It has though, been out of print for several years, although the Wars of the Roses have been revisited more recently in game like Columbia Games’ Richard III: Wars of the Roses and Z-Man Games’ Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York. Further, its influence can be seen in Games Workshop’s Warrior Knights and more obviously in Fantasy Flight Games’ A Game of Thrones—but then that is a given since the George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels are themselves inspired by the Wars of the Roses.

Revisiting Kingmaker satisfies a sense of nostalgia for the game and the chance to revisit it as an adult rather than the teenager I was when I was first playing it. When I was originally played, it was out of an enjoyment of the game’s sense of history. That history—even though that history is ahistorical rather than absolutely faithful—is still much present in coming back to the game. As is its pageantry and its theme, all of which is very well handled in the game. As a game design though, Kingmaker does show its age, it is perhaps too slow in places and too basic in others, but the pageantry, the theme, and the history more than make up for the deficiencies in the design.

Kingmaker is rightfully regarded as a classic boardgame and there can be no doubt about that. The question is, forty years on from its original release, is it time for a redesign and a release? 

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Psssh-ti-cooff Fun

If you have never watched Ivor the Engine, then you should watch this video before reading the rest of this review. Made by Smallfilms, also responsible for other classics such as The Clangers and Bagpuss, this BBC children’s television classic told the tales of the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the “top left-hand corner of Wales” and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited with the help of his driver, Jones the Steam. Most of us will remember the colour episodes from the 1970s, but the original six episodes were made in black and white in 1959, making the series fifty-five in 2014. So it seems as good a year as any to celebrate the series by us helping Ivor the Engine out. Which is exactly what we get to do in Ivor the Engine, a new board game designed by Tony Boydell—whose previous game, Snowdonia, also involved trains and railways, and also happened to be set in Wales—and published by Surprised Stare Games.

Illustrated by Peter Firmin, the illustrator of the Ivor the Engine television series, the Ivor the Engine game asks the players to come to the aid of Ivor the Engine and Jones the Steam in rounding up lots of lost sheep and do any number of good deeds. Designed for three to five players, aged eight and up, Ivor the Engine is a game of tidying up sheep and fulfilling tasks that can be played in about an hour or so—arguably much quicker once the players know the game. The winner is the player who at the end of the game has the most sheep—gained in  rounding up sheep and completing jobs. 

It is played out over a map of forgotten corner of north Wales, with various locations such as Grumbly Gasworks and Gwynaudolion Halt, Mrs Porty’s House and Pugh’s Farm, Tan-Y-Gwlch and Dinwiddy’s Gold Mine, and towns like Llangubbin, Grumbly Town, and Tewyn. All of these locations are connected by branch lines. In addition, a main line runs between Llangubbin and Tewyn which allows direct movement between the towns. Most of these locations consist of a single large hexes, although some consist of two, so the players need to be careful with their movement.

Besides the board with its map, Ivor the Engine consists of a rulebook, several cardboard Trucks (the players' pieces), cubes of gold and coal, plenty of wooden sheep (sheep meeples or  ‘sheeples’!), wooden tokens to represent flocks of sheep, and various cards and cardboard pieces. The cards consist of Sheep Pens for the players and a mix of Job Cards and Event Cards. The cardboard pieces include lost sheep tokens, a pair of Sleeping idris tokens and a pair of Runaway Sheep Tokens, and an Ivor the Engine Token. 

At the start of the game, the map is seeded with sheep—the number on each location determined by the random placement of the lost sheep tokens; each player receives three Job Cards, a Sheep Pen and matching Truck, plus a single piece of gold and coal each. Each player also places his Truck on the board starting with the youngest player, who also receives the Ivor the Engine Token. Three Job Cards are laid out face up alongside the board in a Card Line.

On his turn, each player does three things. The first is to take a sheep from his current location and place it on his Sheep Pen. Second, he moves his Truck. He can move from his current location to an unoccupied adjacent location along a connected single-track branch line. He cannot move into a location if another player has his Truck there and he wants to move further, he must steam up and shovel more coal into the boiler, one piece of coal for each extra location. If a player starts at either the towns of Llangubbin or Tewyn, then a player can use two coal to travel from one to the via the main line. If a player needs more coal, then he can purchase more by spending gold.

Before or after a player has moved his Truck, he can play a Job Card. Each Job Card has a task and a location, a reward for completing the task—anyway from three to six sheep, and an action that a player can do instead of completing the task on the Job Card. For example, “Fetching  Mr Brangwyn’s pigeons from” … “Llangubbin” instructs a player to travel to Llangubbin where in return for fetching the pigeons, he will be rewarded with three sheep. Alternatively, the player can use the Job Card for the action, “Make 2 extra moves.” and discard the card. Other actions enable a player to take coal or sheep or gold, put sheep back onto a location (from the supply or another player’s Sheep Pen), or take cards from the Card Line. More special actions temporarily force another player to give up any sheep he collects as they run away—this is what the Runaway Sheep token denotes, or allow him to take extra Job Cards from the deck. He also takes a Sleeping Idris token to indicate that he misses a turn for taking this special action.

What is important to know is that a player cannot complete a Job Card on a particular town or village until it has been cleared of sheep—the player who does so, also receives bonus sheep. What is also important to know is that when a player completes a Job Card he must read out the details of the Job Card. (A Welsh accent is not required for this.)

Lastly, a player takes a new Job Card from the Card Line, which is then refreshed. If the new card added to the Card Line is an Event Card, it has an event that takes effect immediately, is seeded with a single sheep, and a reward that takes effect at the end of the game. To select an Event Card from the Card Line, a player must pay a single piece of gold. For example, the “Bani Moukerjee” Event Card forces each player to move his truck to Llanmad or discard a sheep—this is the only time that the players’ trucks can be on the same location. If selected, this Event Card will reward a player with an extra sheep for each Job Card completed.

The end of game is triggered when one player ends his turn with a certain number of sheep, the number dependant upon how many players there are. Then everyone else receives one further turn to ensure that everyone has the same number of turns. Once done, everyone counts up their sheep and the player with the most is the winner.

Physically, Ivor the Engine is a lovely game. The artwork is delightful—both on the cards and on the board; the rulebook—which initially looks intimidating—is well written and easy to grasp; and the wooden sheep are, of course, delightful.

There are exactly two things wrong with Ivor the Engine, both to do with the components. First, the cardboard pieces used to represent the players’ Trucks are disappointing and add little to the game—wooden locomotives would have been far more in keeping with the charm and feel of the game.  Second, the flat wooden pieces used to represent the flocks of five sheep are equally disappointing, not to say dull, and add nothing to the game. It would have been nice if larger wooden sheep had been included to represent sheep. Of course, including such components would probably have increased the cost of what is otherwise a very reasonably priced game, but then, there is nothing to stop the owner of Ivor the Engine from replacing them himself.

At first glance, Ivor the Engine looks like a children’s game—no surprise given the source material. It is not that though, although it can be played by children. Given its length and subject matter, it offers a surprising degree of complexity that adult gamers will enjoy. There are plenty of choices to make—what sheep to take, which places to visit, and what Job Cards or Event Cards to select. The game is primarily competitive, although one player can block access to a location and some of the Job Cards give actions that target other players, so adult games can get cutthroat...

Unsurprisingly, given its theme, Ivor the Engine is also a train game, but in terms of complexity it lies somewhere between Ticket to Ride and a more traditional route-building, pick-up-and-deliver game such as Canalmania or Age of Steam. Although in Ivor the Engine there is no route-building, in effect a player is building a route by rounding up the sheep—once the sheep have been rounded up deliveries, or rather Job Cards, can be completed. Whilst there is no ‘pick-up’ aspect to the game, there is certainly delivery in the game in the form of the Job Cards. 

The complexity of Ivor the Engine means that it is not quite an introductory game—the game is more complex than say Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan, but not much more. For younger players that may mean that it is is more of a challenge, but for seasoned gamers, Ivor the Engine is pleasing light filler. Utterly charming, Ivor the Engine  is a delight, offering enjoyable play for casual and enthusiast gamers alike.

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Empire Building Filler Thriller

Eight-Minute Empire could be described as wargame. It has armies, their leaders contest for territory, and at the end of the game, the leader who holds the most territory wins the game. It is though not a wargame—certainly not in a traditional sense—but is instead a Eurogame that combines area control and card drafting mechanics with a set collection mechanic. It is a little game with big themes that can be played through in the eight minutes of the title with just two players, but just twenty minutes with the maximum number of five players.

Published by Red Raven Games, inside Eight-Minute Empire’s small, square box can be found one double-sided map board, a four-page rulebook, forty-two cards, and five sets of armies, forty-four coins, and ten Goods Tokens. The map board depicts various continents broken up into regions, connected by safe sea routes. At the centre of the map stands a city—this is the starting point for the game. At the top of the map is a line of numbers—[0], [1], [1], [2], [2], [2], and [3]. These are the costs that a player will have to pay for the cards placed in the corresponding line placed at the top of the board. The cards are marked with an order that the leader will give his armies and with a Good such as a Carrot, Pine Tree, or a Gem. A leader will gain more Victory Points if he has managed to collect these symbols in sets by the end of the game. The five armies—in blue, green, pink, red, and yellow—each consist of fourteen cubes (the armies) and three discs (the cities). The coin tokens are used to purchase cards and the Goods tokens replicated the symbols on the cards and are used as part of the game’s advanced options.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled and six laid out at the top of the board face up. Each player receives his armies and some coins. Initially he will use these to bid on who goes first in the game, but their primary use is to purchase cards. He will also place three armies in the starting region. On his turn, he will purchase one of the cards at the top of the board, the cost being determined by its position in the line. Cards towards the left are free or cheap and get progressively more expensive to the right.

Purchasing a card gains a player its Goods symbol and an order that he can give his armies. This order may be to place armies (from his reserve onto the board), move armies (already on the board), move armies by sea (already on the board along a sea route between continents), destroy armies (remove an army from the board), or build cities (in a region where a player has armies). Some cards give a choice of options, others two options, while others give the player the choice of Goods symbol at the end of game to add to the sets he is collecting.

Each player has two aims in the game. The first is to dominate as many regions as possible—a player needs to have the most armies in a region to hold it, though having a city in a region will also contribute towards the number of armies in a region. The second is to collect sets of Goods tokens. At the end of the game, a player will receive a Victory Point for each Region he controls and for each Continent he controls. He will also receive Victory Points for each set of Goods cards he has, the number varying from one Good to another. For example, three Carrots scores a player one Victory Point, five Carrots two Victory Points, seven Carrots three Victory Points, and eight Carrots five Victory Points, whereas one Gem scores a player one Victory Point, two Gems two Victory Points, three Gems three Victory Points, and four Gems five Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

The Eight-Minute Empire rulebook does feel a little cheap, but it is clearly written. The other components are all of a high quality. It could be argued that the auction at the start for first player delivers little given its potential cost. One way to balance this would be to have an auction at the start of every turn, but the game does not include enough gold for this. If it did, it would also mean that the players might have too much gold with which to purchase their cards. Another issue might the game’s lack of theme. My suggestion would be that the Emperor’s sons’ rivalry threatens to erupt into civil war, so he directs his sons to take their armies and compete for dominance without course to open conflict.

Interestingly, the game’s feel and flow will be influenced by the cards drawn. For example, the lack of Sea movement cards would limit travel to other continents, concentrating the contest for territory to a limited area, whilst lots of them, would enable the players to spread their armies and vie for wider regions. Balance this against the need to collect Goods for sets and limited gold to spend, and a player has some tight choices to make over the course of cards he must choose—varying according to the number of players, more players means fewer cards. Eight-Minute combines tactical play in its armies and area control with strategic decisions in the Goods needed for sets in a pleasing presented and re-playable package. The result is that Eight-Minute Empire is a rather charming little filler.

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Charming Chemistry

Compounded: Better Gaming Through Chemistry is a game about chemical research. It is a beautifully appointed, heavily themed game that sees the scientists undertake the roles of scientists competing to complete as many Compounds as possible whilst avoiding the possibility of lab explosions! Originally published through Kickstarter.com by Dice Hate Me Games, it is a set collecting and trading game that can be played through in roughly ninety minutes and is designed to be played by two to five scientists aged thirteen and up.

The theme to Compounded starts with its components. The first is the Scoring Board, which is done as a Periodic Table. It is perhaps a bit fiddly in use once everyone’s scoring counter is on the scoring track, but thematically, it is perfect. Second is its decently written Rulebook, which looks a little like a scuffed and battered chemistry school textbook.

The third are the scientists’ Work Benches. These have spaces for each scientist’s Element Storage Area, Lab Tools gained, and to track the progress of his Discovery, Study, Research, and Lab experiments. Each Experiment can be improved by completing certain Compounds.

Fourth are the game’s Compounds, such as Calcium Oxide, Acetylene, Nitric Acid, and Methanol. Each Compound is a square card marked with a name, its chemical formula, spaces for each of the elements it is comprised of, a spot to place a Claim token, and a scoring value—the latter ranging between three and eight Atomic Points. Others also have icons that grant Lab Tools and improvements to one of a scientist’s Discovery, Study, Research, or Lab experiments when the Compound is completed. Some also have icons indicating that they are flammable and could explode.

Fifth are Compounded’s Lab Key—a wooden key used to determine scientist order and various Lab Tool tokens—Bunsen Burners, Graduated Cylinders, Lab Keys, Pipettes, Safety Goggles, and Journals. Sixth, and lastly, there are the game’s Elements—in ascending order of rarity—Hydrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Calcium, and Sulfur (sic). These are represented by coloured chips of plastic. Again, pleasing on the eye and nicely tactile.

At the start of the game, each scientist receives a Work Bench and the wooden tokens to indicate his progress on the Bench. He also receives a Fire Extinguisher card. If this is filled, it can be used to stop the effects of a Lab Fire or saved until the end of the game for more Atomic Points. Likewise, he also receives a Wild Element that can be used or turned in for Atomic Points. He also receives his initial allotment of Elements. Then, sixteen Compound cards are laid out in a four-by-four grid Research Grid. Initially, these will include the yellow-bordered starting Compounds. The Compound deck is seeded with Lab Fire cards.

Compounded is played in four phases—Discovery, Study, Research, and Lab. In the Discovery phases draws Elements from the black cloth bag included in the game. Initially, each scientist can only draw two Elements and can only store four Elements in his Element Storage Area, but both can be increased by three. Once Elements have been drawn, scientists are free to trade Elements—as well as Lab Tools, promises, and so on.

In the Study phase, each scientist can use his Action tokens to claim Compounds. Once a scientist has claimed a Compound, no other scientist can score from it. Initially a scientist has only the one Action token, but by completing Compounds can increase this number to four. 

During the Research phase, the scientists take turns placing Elements on their claimed and unclaimed Compounds. This involves placing an Element of the right type on the spaces marked on the Compound cards. Initially this is just two, but can be increased to six. If a scientist does not have the Elements he wants, he can now trade in three of one type for one he wants.

Lastly, during the Lab phase, the scientists score Atomic Points for completed Compounds on the Periodic Table and adjust their Experiments if the completed Compounds help improve them. Completed Compounds are replaced from the Compound deck. If a Lab Fire is drawn, Flame Tokens are added to any flammable Compounds that have empty Flame icons on them—typically no more than two on any Compound. Should a flammable Compound gain enough Flame Tokens, the Compound explodes and is removed from the game. Any Elements on the exploding Compound ricochet around the Research Grid and will reappear in empty slots on adjacent Compounds—if they have space for that type of Element. 

A game of Compounded ends with one final round once a scientist has either scored fifty Atomic Points or completed three out of four of his Experiments. The game ends immediately if the Compounds in the Research Grid cannot be refreshed to a maximum of sixteen. The scientist with the most Atomic Points is the winner.

This is for the three to four player standard version of Compounded. Included in the game, is a two-player variant that adds a third ‘dummy’ player named Nobel, his actions being controlled by the lead scientist. Another variant, this for three and more scientists, adds ‘Lab Partners’ Compounds, double-sized Compounds intended to be completed by two scientists, who each receive the Atomic Points and its benefits for completing the Compound. They are much more complex Compounds and require many more Elements.

Although Compounded has very nice and thematically fitting production values, it is not quite perfect. The text on the Lab Benches and elsewhere is too small to read with ease, and the wooden tokens to track each scientist’s Experiments and their Action Tokens are a bit small and difficult to use—as are the Flame Tokens. Nor are the phases—Discovery, Study, Research, and Lab—as obviously named as they could be. In game terms, they are ‘draw Elements’ (Discovery), ‘claim Compounds’ (Study), ‘place Elements’ (Research), and ‘score Compounds and effects’ (Lab), but this is not all that clear on the Lab Benches.

Compounded is not a complex game—in fact anyone who has played Ticket to Ride or Pandemic will have no difficulty in understanding its rules and play, its complexity being light-medium rather than medium. The game is also informative, educating players as to both the nature of the research process and the atomical content of each of Compounded’s compounds. Beyond drawing Elements and new Compound cards, there is very little randomness to the game, though Lab Fires can upset many a scientist’s aim of completing particular Compounds. Compounded’s chemical theme is quite gentle, which when combined with its mechanics, makes the game unthreatening in terms of play. Although Compounded’s theme might be said to be rather dry, it is not ‘pasted on’; rather Compounded fully engages in its chemical theme to create a relatively light and appealing reaction.

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