Named after a city in the Aegean Sea, known for it’s bleached white buildings and brilliant blue domed ceilings, Santorini burst into my life in a clattering mess of plastic.
I like toys
The box is larger than average with most of the space being used by these chunky 3D sculps of stackable buildings. Let me tell you the toy factor here is quite satisfying.
Santorini is played on a plastic grid slightly elevated off the table by a brown plastic rock. Each player takes the role of a Greek God and places their two heroes onto the board. On your turn you must do 2 things. You must move one space (diagonal or orthogonal) and you must build.
You can move to any of the 8 spaces around you, unless they already have a hero in that spot, or if a tower spire of plastic is in your way. You can move up one level, or down any number of levels, but unless you have a God assisting you, there is no vaulting skyscrapers in a single bound. If you cannot legally move or cannot legally build on your turn, you lose. The winner is the player who gets one of their heroes to stand on the third level of a building. This sounds easy but considering that both players are vying for the same potential victory spots and if their opponent feels they can’t reach it first, they can simply build the 4th level which drops a bold blue cap on the victory spot, making it inaccessible to both players.
The back and forth play reminds me of a duel between fencers. every turn a step, parry, and riposte. A subterfuge, seeking a hole in your opponents defenses want waiting for your chance to strike (strike in this context is climbing to the top of the tower.
As with most asymmetric games, inevitability the question of balance comes into play. Some Gods do appear better than others, and some Gods specifically seem to do very well against other gods. The real strength of Santorini is the length of each game. If players are afflicted with a serious competitive nature, then play is fast and furious. If you do fall into a matchup that heavily disfavours one side, the game ends quickly and with a sweep of the board you both draw new powers and you start anew.
I really enjoy the production value that went into creating this product. So many abstract strategy games are completely theme-less and embrace the aesthetic of black and white bits of wood on a grid. Santorini by contrast has a risen textured brown board with ivory white towers and brilliant blue tops that lift the game up off the table. The game board develops into spires quickly and it’s visual appeal had made people stop as they walk by the table to gaze in awe at the quality.
Part of me understands that Santorini could be played with simple discs and a much smaller board which would reduce Santorini’s footprint on my shelf by quite a lot and encourage me to bring it along when I travel. But a lot of the charm comes from the satisfying towers and quality components. The strategy is deep too which makes the component quality simply a bonus. I have toyed with the idea of creating a ‘demake’ travel version as most of my 2 player gaming happens at restaurants or airports (at least it used to).
Santorini was a favourite when I got together with my old chess rival. If you have a lot of 2 player gaming going on in your life and you enjoy the head to head nature of a abstract strategy game, then I implore you to give Santorini a try.
Here’s an odd confession to make as an adult man. I don’t like driving cars. I’ve actively avoided getting a drivers license for years until I got a job the required me to have one. The even stranger part of this confession is that I enjoy piloting other forms to transportation; Ski-doo, Sea-doo, bicycles, dirt bikes, ATV’s (4 and 6 wheelers), boats. You name it and I’ve had fun driving it. Something about driving my normal ‘big boy’ car through the streets of my city just creates and stupid amount of anxiety. I prefer to ride a bicycle to and from work, lest I have to put myself into the headspace that I need to drive every single day. If you do catch me on the roads, I’m usually the one driving slower than most of the other traffic and wishing that I were already at my destination.
Automobiles tries to emulate the life of a race car driver. You begin the game with a set number of cubes in your bag (5 white, 5 yellow, 2 light grey), and one card of each colour on the table. The normal colours (brown, white, light grey, dark grey, and black) are always preform the same action. The yellow, blue, green, red, and purple cubes all do different things based on the cards that are selected during setup.
The game begins by everyone getting a ‘buy’ action based on their placement (first player gets $10, second gets $11, and so on), then everyone draws 7 cubes from their bag. On your turn you use your cubes in any order to propel yourself around the track, or modify the cubes that are in your play area. Any cubes you don’t use generate income that you can use to buy more cubes to add to your bag. As you drive, you will generate wear that has to added to your discard pile. If you ever need to draw a cube but cannot because your bag is empty, you pour the entirety of your discard pile into your bag, give it a hearty shake and continue to draw until you reach your 7 cube limit.
Probably the most important part of this game is making the engine noises with your mouth when you move your car around the track. Seriously, it’s the most fun. Especially when you coerce your usually stoic friend into doing it too. The bag building element does a good job of conveying momentum as you speed around the track lap after lap fine tuning your bag. If you ignore your wear and push your car hard, you’ll end up having a turn or two where you only draw one useful cube with everything else being wear that goes back into discard pile. If you’ve built a good engine, you can clear half a lap in a single turn and clear the wear out of your discard at the same time.
The last time I played this game on the table, the green cube specifically lent itself to some great moments. The ability “Move as many light gray spaces as your current position. If you’re in last, move an extra light gray space” created situations where we all were sling-shotting past each other, trying to move our selves into positions so we’re barely in last place so we could rocket toward the finish line!
Usually, buy the end of the third lap, people more or less stop buying cubes, as they have what they want in their bag and adding any more cubes just lowers the chance of drawing the ones you really want. This is slightly changed when you play the season campaign.
The season campaign has you decide on 3 maps ahead of time, and your bag carries over from race to race. I’ve only played this variant on Yucata.de, but I really enjoyed my time with it. Especially when you have a race that requires white and light grey cubes, then the next race that benefits having black and dark grey cubes. At some point between these two races you need to pivot and try to remove some of the cubes that you’re relying on for this race in order to put yourself into a better position for the next race.
The season campaign does require buying expansion, which also includes variable player powers and ‘managers’ who give you money and/or the ability to remove cubes in between races. Honestly, the base game is fun for at least a dozen plays, especially if you have kids of non-gamers involved, but if you find Automobiles racing up the track of your favourite games list and you have someone who wants to play 3 games in a row, the expansion with the season campaign is absolutely worth your time and money.
Automobiles usually gives me the feeling of speed and momentum, with the tension of a car weaving through a space barely big enough to get ahead of someone, and narrow photo finishes. Sometimes the game comes to a screeching halt as you find yourself pulling a handful of cubes but none of which move you forward because they are the entire wrong colour that you needed or the only way you could move forward is blocked by another car. As much as I feel a sense of momentum from the game I can’t deny I’ve had a turn where I do almost a full lap, breaking away from the pack, only to have the next two or three turns in a row stuck in a single spot because I didn’t draw the dark grey cube necessary to move from the black lane to the other lanes. I don’t fault the game for that though, it feels way more like my own failing to plan than anything.
Pros:
Great game for lots of gamers, from beginners to experts
You can must make the vrrom vrrom noises with your mouth
the each of the special power cubes have 5 different effects, meaning lots of modularity and variability
Cons:
the base game only comes with 2 maps, one of them being a boring oval.
luck of the draw can have you pull all ‘good’ cubes, but you are unable to move because of your current lane, or because other players block you.
Tokyo highway has plain, unassuming cover, yet somehow the plain grey and large white letters stands out among the dozens of boxes with browns and greens promising wealth to the person who can trade their silks or spices in the most effective manner. The box is significantly larger than it needs to be, but I can’t fault it for that, it does lend itself to an impressive image on the shelf of a board game cafe (where I first played it).
The first time I played Tokyo Highway I was at a board game cafe with my little brother. He’s always wanted to do the things I do. He’s always read the books I’ve read, played the video games I’ve played. But when it comes to board games, while he tries his best, they really aren’t his cup of tea.
I tried to introduce Century: Spice Road to him. A simple trading game, only two players, lots of room to try new things and even some helpful pointers every now and then. He took literal minutes to make each decision, unable to quantify a value for each of the cards, often prioritizing the wrong cards and leaving the strongest cards for me to pick up for free when they get to the end of the queue. Needless to say, after a long game, I ended up crushing him. By the time I picked my 6th score card he had just managed to achieve his second one.
Having already paid the $5 entry fee, we didn’t want to pack up and leave. Tokyo Highway caught my eye. A big grey box nestled on the shelf between Splendor and The Voyages of Marco Polo. I pulled the box from the shelf, checked the back for a unhelpful summary and with a shrug dumped the contents of the box onto the table. Perhaps my brother would do better if we both were learning a game for the first time.
The rules were easy to read and explain. A mere two pages with simple and helpful graphics. While I read the details of how to win, my brother busied himself with stacking his cars on top of each other. The goal of the game is simple, the first person to place all of their cars first is the winner. You get to place a car if you ever place a road above an opponents road where there are no other roads above it, or if you place a road below an opponents road where there are no other roads below it. You place your roads (Popsicle sticks) from pillar to pillar, going up and down (you must always go one above or one below the last pillar you placed) and trying to weave above and below your opponent while they try to do the same to you. If you drop an opponents piece, you have to give them some of your construction pieces AND rebuild the game state. If you run out of construction pieces, you’re out of the game.
A bit of back story on me, I’m not know for loving dexterity games. My wife absolutely adores Jenga, and when that stack of blocks hits the table I prefer to take up knitting. The stress and anxiety the grips my shaking hands when trying to surgically remove a block from this tower is not a feeling that I ever seek to replicate.
Tokyo Highway somehow overcomes that aversion and fills my heart with joy. This is a game that makes me grin from ear to ear from the early turns all the way up to the crashing conclusion. When my turn to place my next road I relish the possibilities. Do I build high above everyone, scoring easy cars for going above? Or do I play a low game, conserve my pillars and snake close to the table sneaking under the highway when I can, sometimes causing my own demise when I try to wedge myself into a spot that I just wasn’t meant to fit.
The idea that when the intricate series of highways collapses, you’re supposed to relinquish building materials and rebuild the game state didn’t really jive with my experiences. I much rather to play with the option that if you knock stuff down, then that might as well count as a loss. It doesn’t make for interesting or intriguing game play watching the player who was just embarrassed rebuild the entire structure.
From a competitive viewpoint, I don’t like it either. If someone else rebuilt my roads, but it fell on the next couple turns I’d forever be suspicious that they deliberately sabotaged my roads sending all my tiny commuters to their demise.
Part of me has to think of the thematic part of that rule. “You were not as good a builder as the rest of us, so we’re going to make you rebuild our roads too.” In any case, trying to rebuild the structure brings the game to a screeching halt. This issue is exacerbated when playing with more than two players. If multiple players in a row make a mistake, it can take entirely too long before the game gets back around to you.
I recently received the game for my birthday and promptly forced it upon my wife. The game started well with us both seemingly giddy with excitement that comes with having official car placing tweezers. We played one game that ended with a cataclysmic crash, sending at least 4 of my roads to their demise. We reset and played again, this time our roads were much tighter, resembling a double helix shape. We had junctions and half of my roads were high in the sky while the others snaked close to the ground, looking for any easy roads to sneak under. My wife took advantage of my strategy by managing to place one of her roads both above and below two of my own in a single move. I was flabbergasted with her mastery and skill with the official road placing tweezers.
I’m quite happy to have Tokyo Highway in my collection, and I do anticipate bringing it out during game days every now and then. I suspect it will be a hit with the kind of people who can’t make it through more than 15 seconds of rules, and it gets bonus points for looking great too. I can’t think of a single game of Tokyo highway that’s gone by where I didn’t pull a camera out and take dynamic shots of the impossible roads that make up Tokyo Highway.
Artist: Nikoletta Vaszi, Naomi Robinson, Benjamin Shulman
Publisher: Gamelyn Games
Banana for scale
One of the games I spent over 100 hours on in my youth was Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. That game kicked off an addiction of an entire genre that I’ll hereby refer to as “Tactics” Other games in this Tactics genre that I loved: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Pokemon Conquest, XCOM, Into the Breach, Banner Saga, Fae Tactics, Fire Emblem (every English release to date)… you get the idea
Side note here, I’ve never been a fan of the Advanced Wars style of tactics games. I’ve tried a few Advanced War entries, as well as Wargroove and it just doesn’t jive with me. I think (speaking specifically about Wargroove because I played it most recently) the big problem is that the specific units don’t have any kind of growth. There’s no level ups, no managing equipment or spells that make the units unique to you. You don’t affect any change to make the units yours.
It’s important to hold the high ground
Tiny Epic Tactics designed by Scott Almes and published by Gamelyn Games is a 1-4 player take on the tactics series. This entry in the Tiny Epic series is specifically designed to appeal to the gamer with a nostalgic feel for the aformentioned Tactics games. The main map is a scroll with 5 sturdy boxes stacked in various spots to create elevation. The rulebook has several modes of play (2-4 player competitve, 2 v 2 player team play 2-4 player free-for-all, 1 player solo adventure, and 2 player solo adventure. As I’ve only played the 1 player solo adventure, that’s what I’ll be focusing on here
To begin the game, you will have 4 characters to control, one from each of the 4 classes (warrior, rogue, mage, and beast). Variability here feels high as there are 8 options for each class, theoretically offering thousands of different combinations. Once your heroes are selected you set up 4 more (one of each class) as your opponents and leave the rest to the side (they can get subbed in if you successfully beat down the opposition).
8 characters for each class
You begin the game with the party split, two characters in each corner and 4 enemies randomly spawned in 3 spots closer to the middle of the board. On your turn you can do 3 actions that can be taken with up to 3 different characters. If you elect to use two actions with a single character, they’ll be put into a weakened state where they either need to not move next round, or lose two HP.
This mechanic makes it so you can’t just run up and attack in the same turn, but try and predict where your opponents will be so you can maximize your actions. it also prevents you from favoring one character too often, which you probably shouldn’t be doing if you want to win the solo game
The goal of the solo game is to explore 5 caverns, collect each of the crystals, and then fight your way through the final cavern to win the game. You lose if all 4 of your characters die, or if the game timer runs out. You start out with only 7 turns to get all of this done, but each time you defeat an enemy you regain 2 turns. This leads to a cost/benefit analysis in your head, trying to decide if it’s worth your time to spend the actions necessary to get the reward of time back on your side.
Gotta get them crystals
There are some times where you will need to knock your opponents off a cliff before you can enter the dungeons (the dungeons are the 3d terrain tiles flipped upside down), but this leads to one of the biggest challenge of the solo game. Getting everyone off the final box. When you kill an enemy character they are removed from the board. But the next turn you respawn them at one of the three spawn points with one of those spawn points being on the final dungeon. This would mean you need either to get lucky with the spawn point, kill the enemy with 2 ranged actions and one move into the dungeon, do a hit and run melee attack (either killing them or pushing them off the terrain, or lure the enemy off the box. In my (one) experience, this portion of the solo game grinds to a halt and just frustrates you against the RNG of the solo game.
The mechanics of Tiny Epic Tactics do manage to evoke feelings of the tactics games that I referenced before, but lacks any personalization beyond assembling your initial team. During the solo game I found my thought pattern following the same path that I would when playing a proper Tactics video game, such as considering elevation, or moving one character before another to take advantage of their positioning. That part of the game does feel good, but it also lacks depth. There is no character progression, no way to change the abilities of your characters, or modify the party composition to deal with changing situations.
The image quality on the boxes are much higher than the playmat
I do have a small complaint with how the dice are used in the game. Each attack uses the die in a different way. The Melee attack uses die to determine how far the target is pushed. The Ranged attack uses die to determine how many ammo has to be used before the attack is successful, and the magic uses the die to spend more mana to possibly do more damage (in my experience). This is a mild annoyance and the fact that I need to think “Is rolling dice good or bad for this action?” adds to the mental load of playing the game.
From someone who is not a Solo gamer, this solo mode felt fairly well done to the point where I will likely try to play it one more time. This time with a better understanding of what each attack does and if/when abilities could be useful. It did remind me that I’m not really a solo gamer, as a lot of the time I spent playing this on the table, I found myself thinking “I never did get around to playing Fell Seal”. It’s hard for a solo board game to make me want to play it instead of a video game, but I believe one day I’ll find the right solo system that will let me in on what makes solo gaming special.
Tiny Epic games don’t waste a lot of space in their boxes
