As a child, my sister and I would sometimes visit my aunt and uncle. They lived about 4 hours away, so it wasn’t every weekend, but twice a year or more we’d make the trip over and spend a week there. We were about 10 years younger than my cousins, so there wasn’t much in the way of age appropriate toys and games for us to play with. By the time I was 6, all the kids toys seemed to move on from the household.
What was left behind was a smattering of board games. While I have memories of hours long games of Risk at the table, my sister and I ended played a lot of Guess Who together. It was a great toy for us, the snappy plastic tray, flipping down faces as we deduced who each other’s secret identity was, then just a quick flip of the tray to reset the game.
Dinosaur Tea Party by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Justin D. Jacobson, published by Restoration Games in 2018 seeks to re-imagine the deductive reasoning game from my youth, but puts a charming coat of paint onto the formula. Instead of cartoonish floating heads for me to pick out the features, players are tasked with remembering the name of the dinosaurs that have come to the tea party. Every guest has a set of attributes that the players can ask about, like if they have a hat, or are currently snacking, or if they’ve brought their pet along to the party.
Players each take a card depicting one of the 20 possible dino guests, then ask questions of the other players to try and narrow down who they have on their card. The game culminates with a guess of who they think their opponents are, and the first player to guess correctly 3 times is the winner. Some dinosaurs will have quirks to throw you off, like one will always lie, while another will alternate their answers. There are plenty of little chits that you can use to keep track of who has been asked what.
Making things even more exciting, artists Matijos Gebreselassie and Jason Taylor have imagined each of these dinosaurs as the Victorian gentry. With genteel demeanour, large stuffy hats, and dainty pinkies up while sipping their tea. To add an extra layer of charm, the rulebook demands that everyone embodies the attitude and conduct of a Victorian Nobel. “Gerald, lovely of you to join us! Come hang your hat and have a spot of tea” “Gertrude, what lovely spots you have, I can’t imagine the effort it takes to maintain that complexion” “Amelia, you’re looking rather handsome these days!” “Not handsome enough if you can’t remember my name!” If you’ve been submerged in media such as Jane Austin’s novels, or Downton Abby, it’s great fun speaking in a hoity-toity manner.
Dinosaur Tea Party is a simple game, it’s not strategic, or fair by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a catalyst for imagination, it’s whimsical and hilarious with the right group. For me, the right group always includes my 6-year-old niece. With a cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches, she loves playing make believe and falls right into her role. The purpose of Dinosaur Tea Party isn’t to scratch the deductive reasoning centres of my brain, but it’s to build a relationship with my family. It excels and creating memories and bonds, and for that, I am thankful.
Sea Salt & Paper is a card game that’s about as clear as a foggy day on the open sea. It’s brought to us by Bruno Cathala and Theo Riviere, and let me tell you, it’s a game that’s had me flip-flopping all over the place.
Bruno Cathala should be a household name at this point. From 7 Wonders Duel to Five Tribes to Kingdomino to Mr. Jack Pocket and so much more, he’s produced many games that I’ve enjoyed, to the point where when his name is on a box, I take notice. Theo Riviere on the other hand, while having dozens of titles to his name, I’ve not experienced a single one.
Sea Salt & Paper is a bit like rummy, but it’s got a few tricks and twists up its sleeve. You draw cards, build a hand, meld cards, and aim to “go out,” all in the name of scoring points. Sounds simple, right? Sea Salt & Paper starts deviating from the norm by having two discard piles, one card in each at the start. On your turn, you can draw the top card from either pile or take a gamble and draw two cards from the deck, keeping one and discarding the other into either trash pile.
Once the cards are in your hand, they’re all searching for their partners. You can play a meld if you’ve got the appropriate pair, and you’re in the mood for a little special power. These special powers can change the tide of the game. Pairs of boats give you an extra turn, two crabs will let you fish around in the discard pile and sneak an extra card into your hand, fish will just pull the top card from the deck into your hand. The sharks and swimmers on the other hand will let you steal a card from your opponent’s hand, like a dastardly pirate.
But it’s not just about pairs and special powers; there are other cards in the game that’ll push you to collecting whole sets of cards. Sailors are worth squat on their own, but can make a pretty penny if you collect both of them. Shells and octopuses? Worthless on their own, but they get more valuable the more you collect. Penguins? Same story. And then there are these multiplier cards that offer extra points for these sets, pushing you even harder to ignoring the power cards and gathering the appropriate sets. Lastly, there are mermaids that score based on the number of cards in your most abundant colour. Oh, and they have this push your luck mind-boggling “shoot-the-moon, win-the-entire-game” effect that’s about as rare as a unicorn sighting.
So, what’s the name of the game? Score the most points, of course. When someone has at least 7 points on the board and in their hand, they can trigger the end of the round. They’ve got two choices. You can call STOP and end the round right then and there, and everyone scores the points in their hand. Or, you can shout LAST CALL and bet that your opponents can’t beat your score in one turn. If you win the bet, you score your cards and a colour bonus, while your opponents score only their colour bonus. If you lose the bet, your opponents score their card points, while you only score your colour bonus. After the round ends, all the cards are gathered, reshuffled, then you play again. First player to 40 points takes the crown.
Now, if all of these rules sounds like quite a mouthful for what should be a simple card game, that’s because it is! Sea Salt & Paper feels unnecessarily obtuse with it’s 9 different card types, 4 different powers, and 4 multiplier cards, all interacting with each other in different ways. The rules are as clear as a stormy night at sea, and the game doesn’t hold your hand.
My first play of Sea Salt & Paper felt dismal. It felt like I had no agency, the cards I got never seemed to work, and by the time I managed to get a single meld, someone ended the round. It felt like a random, muddy mess to me. Thankfully, I kept at it, and subsequent games revealed quite a bit of nuance that I completely missed on my first play. I realized just how much of a push-your-luck game Sea Salt & Paper really is. It gives you a dozen different paths and tries to lure you down each one of them. Holding melds in your hand is powerful, allowing you to capitalize on its full power, but you risk someone else calling a sudden end of the round.
One thing I haven’t touched on yet is the charming and gorgeous card art. Nearly every card features a unique origami vignette. It’s so utterly cute and calming that I can’t help but be relaxed and enjoy Sea Salt & Paper. I’ve said before, but pretty games bring people to the table. Even if someone is frustrated by the obtuse rules, gorgeous card art will keep players engaged, even if only to discover all the variety of fish that exist. And by the time the discovery has worn off, the rules feel much less obtuse.
Sea Salt & Paper is a beautiful game for calm moments. This is the deck of cards you should bring with you on vacation, or at the beach. It takes no table space, it’s attractive, and the nuance of all the card interactions allow you to play again and again, discovering new strategies every time. It’s worth summiting the learning curve, and makes for a great afternoon game with friends and family.
I’m often looking for games that travel well, which generally leads me to amassing many games that come in tiny boxes. But an important aspect to a travel game is how much table space it takes up. A few times I’ve packed a small box game into my backpack, and pulled it out at an airport or pub, only to realize that the game demands much more table space than we anticipated. This is the case with Bandido by Martin Nedergaard Andersen and published by Helvetiq.
Bandido starts with a light-security prisoner card with 6 tunnels extending out from its starting point. The goal of the game is to close off all the tunnels. If you do, you win! If the deck runs out, players all lose.
Players get 3 cards in their hand, each one depicting various shapes of tunnels that they can place wherever they want, as long as no tunnels abut a wall or overlap existing tunnels. A turn consists of simply playing a card, then drawing a card to refill your hand. Players continue to play until they win or lose.
I received Bandido as a stocking stuffer from my wife for Christmas. She always tries to buy me some kind of small game for my stocking, as she knows I love exploring new games. Bandido lends itself incredibly well to being stuffed in a sock, as the box fits in the palm of your hand.
Being a coop game, it offers a low-barrier gameplay experience, drawing in family members who may be nervous about learning all the rules to a competitive game, again, the perfect game to have around the holidays when you may find yourself rubbing elbows with people who don’t automatically default to playing a board game when they have a moment of free time.
Bandido can be lost or won within the first few turns. If you have the cards that combine or end tunnels, you can make short work of the task. On the other hand, if the only cards available to you are the ones with several open ends, you’ll find the game quickly spiral out of control.
You need to be aware when placing cards. Much like in Carcassonne, you can create situations in which a tunnel could technically be placed, but the specific orientation of tunnels may no longer exist. In which case you’ll just keep playing cards, spinning off the side of the table, drawing cards until the deck runs out and you lose.
Speaking of loss, unlike other cooperative games that have multiple loss conditions and a single way to win, Bandido has one way to win and one way to lose. Winning happens when you close off all the tunnels, and losing happens when you’ve run out of cards. Again, quick and simple to explain.
Unfortunately, because the cards often feature several tunnel openings, placing cards often makes the board state worse, and combining tunnels can be an impossible task, unless you got lucky. And that’s where the game comes down for me, if you’re lucky you can win and if you’re unlucky you’ll lose. I never felt smart or clever when I managed to combine tunnels, just lucky that I pulled the right cards. My wins didn’t feel earned, and I never felt like any amount of clever play would overcome poor card draws.
Bandido is a little game that can travel well, and that aspect alone gives it some credit. Pulling it out at a family gathering is a great way to introduce what a simple little deck of cards can do in this modern board game hobby, and even introduce what a cooperative game even is. In the end, it’s a game that I’d move on from quite quickly, but I was happy that it existed in my stocking while I was at my in-laws for the holidays.
Brian Boru: High King of Ireland is an area majority game utilizing a trick-taking mechanism as a way for players to earn the right to place their influence onto each city as they vie for control of the Irish countryside. The historical note at the beginning of the rule book proclaims that Brian Boru made his name as a warrior, repelling the Viking invasions, defeating domestic rivals on the battlefield, and deftly married off his various family members to forage important alliances. He also rebuilt many monasteries, gaining him the favour of the church. Are you able to follow in this Irish King’s steps and emerge the victor?
How to Play
Brian Boru: High King of Ireland utilizes a unique trick-taking mechanism to run this area majority game. Each round starts with a draft; all the cards are shuffled and dealt out between players. Each player will pick two to keep, then pass the rest along to their neighbours. Once all the cards have been divvied up, the first round begins. Turn by turn, whoever has the lead player token, places it on a location on the board to initiate a bid for control. They then must play one card from their hand matching the colour of that city.
All other players in clockwise order must then play a card of any colour. After all cards have been played, control for the city is assessed. Whoever played the highest numbered card of the matching colour wins the trick. All the other cards are resolved in ascending order, with the ‘losers’ getting a consolation prize of taking one of the bottom row actions. The winner of the trick gets to take the top row action, which always includes putting one of their discs onto the location that the subject of the bid, and takes the focus token into their supply. Often, the top action will either give you some more actions or coins (in the case of the lower numbered card), or force you to spend money (in the case of the higher numbered cards). If you need to spend money but cannot, you lose victory points instead.
Each of the colours of cards correspond with the three consolation actions around the board. The yellow cards will move your token up the marriage track. Whoever is highest on the marriage track at the end of the round will acquire the suitor of the year, then, they’ll lose all their progress on that track. All the players remaining on that track will earn a small amount of income, as a thanks for their interest in the marriage.
The red cards are all about the Viking invasions. At the start of the round, a Viking invasion card will be flipped up, dictating how many Viking tokens will be invading Ireland. The consolation action on the red cards allows you to take a number of those Viking tokens into your supply. At the end of the round, if there are any Viking tokens remaining in that pool, the player with the most Viking tokens in their supply can place a Viking control token on any location of the player(s) who has the least Viking tokens in their supply. This reduces the value of the location to 0 when determining who has a majority in the region. Regardless of whether the Vikings invaded or not, the spoils of battle are the awarded. The player with the most Viking tokens gains a renown token from the supply, then gain one point for each of their renown tokens in their supply. They then return all of their Viking tokens back to the supply. After that step, whomever now has the most Viking tokens gains one point, and returns a single Viking token to the supply.
The blue cards revolve around the church, allowing you to place your influence tokens into a pool to display your piety. Whoever has the most tokens in this pool at the end of the round discards all their tokens, and gains the first player/focus marker, and a special blue monastery ring, which they can place on any of their locations, improving its value from 1 to 2 (I’ll get to the value in a moment). Then, whomever now has the most discs in the church area gain one point, then remove a singe disc from the piety pool. Finally, should anyone still have 4 or more tokens remaining in the church pool, they gain a single blue monastery ring and remove the remainder of their discs from the board.
Finally, we move to the bulk of the game. Every region is now assessed. Should any region meet the threshold of number of towns (each influence disc counts as 1, and each influence disc with a monastery ring around it counts as 2), the region tile gets flipped face up and handed to whomever has the majority of influence in that area. Each area is assessed, and should a player manage to surpass the influence of a player who is holding a region tile, they gain that tile from that player. If they tie for influence in an area, the tile remains where it is. It’s valuable to be the first one to gain a tile.
Play continues for 4 rounds (or just 3 rounds in a 3 player game), and whoever has the most points after assessing final scoring is the winner!
Review
Brian Boru: High King of Ireland is a very interesting mix of area majority, which is a genre of game I don’t generally like, and trick taking, which is a genre that I do enjoy. I quite enjoyed the choice of playing a low-ish card and hoping that you’ll win the trick, but also being prepared for the likely event that someone else takes the trick from you.
Like many area-control/gerrymandering games, a player can really benefit by earning the majorities in the provinces early, as players who want to wrestle control from them need not only match, but exceed the incumbent’s influence, and the opportunity to do so in Brian Boru feels quite limited. At the start of each trick, the leader will dictate one location to be the field of battle. Then, lead a card. Whoever wins that trick places their influence token down, while everyone else takes their consolation prizes listed on the bottom of the card.
There is a special feeling of push and pull, winning and losing, as it’s the way in which you place influence tokens on the board. Making that that mechanic as the way in which you are able to spread your influence feels quite unique, but also makes it harder to really flip the board state. In our games, one player always managed to gerrymander successfully, having the minimum number of people to take control, then just barely hold onto power, reaping all the rewards while the other players struggled to wrestle control at the same time.
If you can’t usurp control from someone by via trick taking means, there is a mechanic to reduce an opponent’s influence disk to 0 by sending invading Vikings upon their settlement, or you can increase the value of one of your influence tokens via the monasteries, or slide up the marriage track which can earn you points or offer a back-door influence in a region associated with your spouse. All of these actions are consolation prizes, when you lose a trick, instead of being able to put your influence token down, you build towards triggering these special powers. They balance the game and make anything feel viable.
Area majority is not a mechanic that I usually enjoy, it generally leaves me feeling frustrated as every time I try to commit to an area, someone else commits just as hard, and we’re stuck in a stalemate. At the same time, the third player is able to control half the board while I’m stuck in my sunk-cost standoff and end up throwing away good influence after bad. That ‘problem’ still exists in Brian Boru, as the player who takes control of a province first, retains control until someone else has more influence in an area than they do. This heavily benefits getting an early lead on a province, especially when opportunities to place more influence in the exact right location can be few and far between.
I have to wonder how much player skill comes into effect here. There is a draft at the beginning of every round, hopefully allowing you to control what you want to do in a round. If you want to go hard putting out influence disks, take a lot of high cards. If you’d rather focus your efforts on the church and Vikings, take the low cards. One of the rubs is that frequently the consolation prize is almost as good as winning the trick anyway, so you never feel shut out. That said, on a first play, players will need to try and buck the feeling of needing to win every trick.
Brian Boru: High King of Ireland feels like a special and unique game. If offers lots of great decisions and never makes you feel pigeonholed into a single strategy. The gameplay is dynamic, and the trick taking is exciting. It’s a one-of-a-kind mix that makes it a bit of a gem in two increasingly crowded fields. It’s not a game that I want to marry, but it’s absolutely worth taking on a date or two.
In Applejack players are… actually, don’t worry about the theme. The goal of the game is to earn the most honey by growing cultivating collections of apples in your orchard, and arranging beehives to produce the most honey.
I think it’s safe to say we’re firmly in the era of “Cozy Games”. Games featuring zombies, war, and general turmoil, while not absent, are popping up less frequently. Meanwhile, farming, animals, and nature themes are becoming much more prevalent. Now, designer Uwe Rosenberg is no stranger to comfy cozy themes, with his biggest hits being Patchwork, Agricola, and A Feast for Odin, but something in Applejack hits differently. It starts with the delightful cover by Lukas Siegmon of a man admiring an apple, sitting on his bounty of fruity, taking a rest after a long day, with a flock of sheep grazing on the grass in the background. This single piece of art sets the tone for Applejack.
A game of Applejack starts with a fallow field, devoid of fruit, but full of promise. Turn by turn, the die will travel around the central board, and players take turns pulling tiles and placing them into their field. Each tile depicts one of the 6 apple varieties, and include some beehives, that indicate how much that tile costs, and how much it might get you later on in the game. At certain points during the game, the round tracker die will pass over various apple varieties, triggering income for anyone who has collected apples of that type.
I have nothing but respect for Uwe Rosenberg’s past tile laying masterpieces, and I feel Applejack is among his best work. Choosing and laying a tile is tough when you start, or, you may just pick the biggest numbers and hope for the best. But as you play Applejack more and more, the intricacies of the design begin to reveal themselves. Is it better to diversify and collect tiny bits of income frequently, or do you go all in on a single apple variety and reap a major bonus. Maybe placing a tile of the wrong variety would net you a huge honey bonus, but segment your red apple variety into two halves, cutting your potential income for the rest of the game. Honey is generated when two beehives meet, but only the lower number is what you’re scoring. It’s painful to pay 10 honey for a tile because it has the right apple, but you’re forced to place it against a measly 3 beehive, losing 7 honey overall. Foreseeing and managing these tradeoffs are what gives Applejack it’s delicious texture!
Perhaps a downside of the cozy setting is that the barbs of Applejack can catch players unaware. Much like Agricola (AKA Misery Farm), the start of the game sees players barely scraping by. The honey income is slow and more often than not you’ll have to pass up the more expensive tiles, simply because you don’t have the honey to afford them. Go big early, and you’ll starve for a couple rounds and fill your board with useless sheep.
Another complaint I have has to do with the chosen apple varieties, and the fact that they made two of them slightly different shades of green. More than once I’ve taken a tile, only to realize during the next scoring that one of my tiles was the wrong green, not only accidentally cleaving my biggest orchard in two, but also incorrectly influencing my decisions for several rounds until my mistake was discovered.
Overall, those are some pretty minor gripes about. Full disclosure, I’ve only played Applejack on Board Game Arena, which may sand off some other complaints, like, refilling the market with tiles and the fiddly activity of constantly trading in bits of honey tokens after doing the same basic math over and over again.
After my first play, I was lukewarm on Applejack, it felt shallow and devoid of interesting decisions. But the more games I played, the more layers were peeled back. I started to realize how you can plan ahead, and how some of the tradeoffs and timings really work. There’s depth and crunch to this game, from the spatial puzzle of apple placement to the timing of the economic decisions. Playing Applejack well requires some interesting decisions, and it’s turned out to be much more fun than I initially thought.
I’m thrilled that I gave Applejack more than a single play, as I am truly relishing in its charm with each subsequent game. The very first modern board game I experienced with my mother was Patchwork, a game she adored, and I believe she would also love Applejack, despite her unfortunate apple allergy. As it stands, I would happily use Applejack as a means to introduce novice gamers to my hobby. Uwe Rosenberg, once again, has fashioned a remarkable creation, a true gem of a game that has the potential to expand and share the joy of board games far beyond its current horizons.
