Remember that time, when I was talking about the games I’ve played the most, but don’t own, and said that Magic Maze just wasn’t a game that I felt compelled to own, despite having played it nearly 3 dozen times? Well, Math Trades are wonderful things, and I’m now the proud owner of Magic Maze, so I’m ready to give it a proper review!
Magic Maze is a real time cooperative game for 1 to 8 players. The goal of Magic Maze is to guide the four characters, a dwarf, mage, ranger, and warrior, all represented by brightly coloured pawns, though a convoluted mall so they can steal an item and be prepared for their next adventure, then escape the mall, all before the time runs out.
What’s special about Magic Maze is that players don’t embody any one of those characters. Instead, each player’s role in this puzzle is moving any character in a specific direction, and/or activate a specific aspect of the mall. Like, one player can move anyone to the north, while another player can activate the escalators and move characters east, and another player is responsible for adding new tiles to the board when someone reaches the edge of the map. Players need to cooperatively use the direction they’re allowed to move the characters to navigate the narrow hallways to find the loot.
The rulebook for Magic Maze includes 17 scenarios that scaffold players into the full game. The first run includes only 9 of the 24 tiles, and teaches players the very basics of the game, which is just getting each character to their loot space. Every subsequent scenario adds a rule or a twist to make the experience harder and more complex, such as adding the exits, then special abilities for each character, and so on, until players need to navigate a mall that’s 20 tiles large.
There are two main hurdles to overcome. The first is that the game runs on a 2-and-a-half minute timer. There are ways to flip that timer, but those opportunities are limited. The second barrier to victory is that all communication is limited. So limited, as in, once the game starts, no one can talk at all. Don’t worry too much about that, as there is one reprieve. The “DO SOMETHING” pawn. An obnoxious red pawn that anyone at anytime can pick up and slam down in front of someone else, telling them that they should be doing something at that moment.
The sound of this big red pawn tapping the table has been burned into my psyche
If players are able to grab their loot and get out of the maze before the sand runs out, they win! If not, they bicker about who screwed up the heist while setting up for another run.
Listen, it’s no secret that I love real time games, and will hoist them upon anyone who doesn’t say no. I love the tension that having a tangible loss condition constantly ticking away, and the game mechanics trying desperately to pull your attention away from those timers so you forget about them and lose. I understand that not everyone shares my love of timers, but don’t listen to them. They’re wrong.
Magic Maze is quite simple to play, as you generally only have one or two things that you can do at all, depending on your player count. It’s not hard to remember that you can only move left. What’s more difficult is having people remember that they can’t fix their mistakes if they go a square too far, or locking down their communication to the level the game wants them to.
The first scenarios in the rule book are perfect for teaching new players the barest version of the game, and the scenario structure makes the game incredibly modular, so you can cater to various difficulty levels by adding and removing complexity as required. If you want things easier, the elf’s intercom module lets players talk whenever the elf is standing on an intercom space. If you want things harder, there are plenty of fun tricks for you to discover.
The reason Magic Maze made it into my “games I’ve played the most but don’t own” post was mostly due to the fact that a game can end after just 2.5 minutes. And, at maximum, take 15 minutes, if players are dilly-dallying and hitting all the timer flip stations. The second reason was because I played it with a couple different groups in quick succession at our local board game café, I always felt like I could just play it there and didn’t need to invest in my own copy.
Well, nowadays, I only visit the café twice a year. This is a by-product of moving much further away, and the fact that I now have my own substantial collection of games, not to mention that my buddies all have their own collection of games begging to be played, left a small gap in my heart. I’m not going to make the trip to the café to play Magic Maze anymore, but it’s still a really fun game that I’d love to break out now and then.
Because Magic Maze is so accessible, it’s real easy to suggest it with any group. This is a boon, but it can also make it really easy to over-play this game. After introducing it to 4 different groups within a couple of weeks, playing the first 6 scenarios over and over, it’s easy to get a bit burnt out on the system. And the scenario approach to learning the game is pretty important, as it introduces the most important concepts first, then adds the spice in later chapters. If you threw someone into the deep end, their head would spin in a flurry of iconography and the furious tapping of the ‘Do Something’ pawn.
Speaking of that obnoxious relic, I both love and hate the ‘Do Something’ pawn. On one hand, it’s loud and grating, having it tapped sharply every time someone picks it up and places it in front of someone else. On the other hand, the tension when both you’re the own trying to get someone to move a character, and when that pawn is placed in front of you, is simultaneously dreadful and delicious. What path you want to take is obvious to you, but is utterly hidden for someone else. When the pawn lands in front of you, and you’re frantically searching for anything you can or should be doing, all while the precious seconds are ticking away, goodness I live for this sort of fun.
My feelings are best summed up thusly. I recently went to a friend’s house to play Revive, a heavier economic action efficiency game. I brought along Magic Maze “just in case you actually wanted to have fun tonight.” and we did end up playing it at the end of the night, and all three grown adults playing the game collapsed into a fit of giggles as we failed the first mission 3 times in a row. Magic Maze is a fun game, one that puts a smile on your face, while also offering a challenge to overcome. It’s not the same kind of sophisticated fun that a game like Brass: Birmingham offers, but more of a slapstick juvenile type of fun that leaves you grinning from ear to ear, if not wholly satisfied. I don’t want my game night to consist only of Magic Maze, but I’m sure glad when it makes an appearance.
Considering how often I profess that I love dexterity games, I’ve never really liked Jenga. Even that’s an understatement. Jenga stresses me out and makes me want to leave a room. So imagine my surprise when I found Jenga Maker on clearance after Christmas at my local Canadian Tire. Perhaps it was the brightly coloured pieces that drew me in, but at rock bottom prices, I figured worst case, it’ll be a toy for my toddler to play with.
You’re supposed to play Jenga Maker with 4 or more players, split into two teams. One player on each team is the director, while the others are the builders. Each director draws a card, then dictates to their team how to build their structure. The first team to do so, snatches the crown piece, places it on top, then once the other team checks for accuracy, claims a point. The first team to 3 points wins.
It’s a treadmill
Oh. That’s how I knew I’d like Jenga Maker. Real time and dexterity. Love both of those mechanisms right from the start. The Jenga Maker box is thin and doesn’t waste much space. The pieces fit snugly within, but not too snugly that it becomes a challenge to put away at the end of the day. Each of the pieces are hefty and chunky wooden shapes, brightly coloured and really, a joy to handle. There are some interesting shapes beyond the normal tetromino shapes I come to expect.
I don’t recommend playing Jenga Maker with more than 4. Having extra people on each team doesn’t really add to the experience, as you’re still only building one structure per team. The dictator will tell you how to manipulate the yellow piece, one player will grab the yellow piece and start putting it in its place, and the other player(s) just watch the game unfold. Perhaps with lots of practise, directors could give directions to two players at once, but doing so isn’t going to add to the game experience.
A Canoe and a Sword
So, my fallback plan of “being a toy for my toddler” worked tremendously. Lately, she’s taken an interest to my board games, and will often say “I want to play a game”. Having a game like Jenga Maker is the perfect solution. Sometimes she loves drawing a card and just following the recipe, creating whatever is depicted. And sometimes she’ll just want to stack all the pieces together to create a boat or a castle. Either way, the wooden pieces are fun to manipulate, are weighted and balance well, and when she joyfully collapses whatever has been built up, there’s no harm to any of the pieces.
I can’t recommend Jenga Maker for much. I paid ~$10 for it, and it was a worthy investment for me. That said, I recently saw it again at a different store for $25, which is a bit more than I’d be willing to pay for it if I were looking for a gift. Jenga Maker does make a great gift for any child who likes stacking blocks, as they’re fun shapes to play with, and come with decks of ideas for what to build, if you can find one at the right price. I do love playing this with my toddler, and she loves it too. It’s kinetic, colourful, and nearly indestructible. But as a frowny face ‘serious’ board game, it’s a fine activity.
My trajectory as a board gamer has taken an interesting dip lately. When I first got into the hobby, I skyrocketed up the weights, seeking out heavier and heavier games at every opportunity. Nothing was too long, too complex, or too onerous for me. But over the past few years I’ve regressed back into the mid-weight range. Someone inviting me over for a 4.0 or higher on the Board Game Geek complexity scale would give me a lot more pause than it used to. I just don’t want to put in the effort of learning a big, complex game, only to play it once and never again.
Knarr, by Thomas Dupont and published by Bombyx in 2023 is a medium-light engine building game where players are in charge of a viking clan, and are tasked with growing your clan members and sending them out on expeditions. Gameplay wise, it’s smooth as butter. On your turn you can either play a viking from your hand to your crew and collect the benefits on all the cards of the same colour, or, send vikings on an expedition to claim a land card, which usually has some instant benefits, and increases the value of your trade action. After doing one of those two things, you can choose to trade, then your turn is over.
The goods you’re collecting are victory points, reputation points (which move you up a track that gives reoccurring victory points at the start of all your turns), silver bracelets (for trading), and recruit tokens. The game continues turn over turn until someone hits or exceeds 40 points. Then the current round completes and the player with the most points is the winner.
The first thing that I love about Knarr is the compact size. The game is 3 decks of cards, a cardboard player area, and a 6 cardboard tokens per player. It’s simple, elegant, and unobtrusive. The second thing that I love about Knarr is that the card art is quite beautiful. There’s a variety of vikings depicted on the crew cards, both men and women of all ages. Not every card features unique artwork here, the duplicates are on the cards that provide the same reward (so all the blue bracelet cards feature the same artwork). The land cards, on the other hand, are all unique, and gorgeous. And what’s more, each land card forms a panorama, if you can find it’s pair. That’s a lovely detail, considering I played Knarr half a dozen times and never noticed.
The gameplay of Knarr is smooth as butter. Either play a card from your hand, collect the benefits of the suit you played, and pick up a card, or, remove cards from your tableau to claim a land card, then, you may trade bracelets for more goodies. Game ends at 40 points. It’s easy to play, and the growth of the amount of goodies you get is really satisfying. At first, getting a point and a bracelet feels like an accomplishment, but near the end of the game, you might have 6 or 7 cards of a single colour, and each turn ends up being a cavalcade of rewards.
The trick of Knarr comes in learning when exactly is the best time to start dismantling your engine to gather those land cards. Those cards are powerful, they can bestow great rewards immediately (up to 9 points even), and they make your trade action better. Another slot machine to belch goodies upon you.
Knarr, at its heart, is a race. The first to hit or exceed 40 points triggers the end of the game, which concludes at the end of the round (so all players have the same number of turns), and then that’s it. There’s no bonus end of game scoring, just, whomever has the most points in the round when the game end is triggered. I’ve had games where I ended my turn on 39 points, only to have the next player just barely hit 40 to end the game before I get another turn, and I’ve had games where someone triggers the end game with 42 points, only for me to leap ahead of them by claiming a 9 point land card. It’s not over until it’s over, and the final moments of a race are the most exciting!
I feel like there’s multiple paths to victory in Knarr. I’ve won by maximizing my reputation track and earning 5 points at the start of every round, and I’ve won games without taking a single reputation point. I’ve had massive swaths of vikings in my tableau, doling out goods no matter what colour I play, and I’ve been highly specialized with 8 cards of a single colour. I’ve had games where my bracelet economy is strong, and games where bracelets would be a waste of my time. Knarr is flexible, every path feels viable.
I don’t have much in the way of criticisms. There is a lack of diversity, but it’s a game about vikings, of course every character is going to be Scandinavian. There is a lack of player interaction, if someone has built a great engine, there isn’t much you can do other than hate draft the cards away from them. Other players can’t drag you down, they can only beat you to the finish line. There is some amount of luck, in that the person who plays before you could reveal the perfect card for you, but hey, it’s a 30 minute game. Some luck isn’t going to hurt you. I guess my biggest complaint is that I didn’t find the artifacts variants particularly interesting. When you play with artifacts, you deal out a single card which offers a small extra rule. It’s fine, I’m glad it exists, but I wouldn’t hesitate to play without them.
Another thing that I appreciate is that publishers Bombyx have obviously engaged a cultural consultant to flesh out this project. From the foreward by Lucie Malbos, Senior lecturer, specialist of the northern worlds in the Middle Ages, particularly the viking phenomenon, to the glossary at the end, giving details to all the terms you’ll find throughout the rulebook. It feels like the creators of the game appreciate and value the theme, it’s not just something they slapped on because they thought it looked cool.
Knarr is an incredibly fun game, one that has immediately cemented itself as a favourite of mine. It’ll be one that I bring with me when I travel, it’s one that I’m looking forward to introducing to my family and friends. I have no doubt that it’ll appear in my next top 100 games of all time list (whenever I do that again), the only question will be how high it appears. I recommend Knarr without reservation, if you haven’t given this one a try, it’s available on Board Game Arena, although, you’ll need a premium account to start a game there.
There was a period of time when it felt like every board game coming out featured medieval austere white men staring over a city, kingdom, or grimly staring at you from the box cover. It was around that time when I started really getting into board games, so the theme of ‘trading in the Mediterranean’ became fairly synonymous with board games in my head.
Thankfully the hobby at large has moved on from that trend, and now we get more whimsical and fantastic themes, such as the one you’ll find in First Rat. You are controlling a colony of rats who have set their sights on landing on the cheese moon. You’ll collect resources to construct rocket parts, grow more members of your colony, read comic books to attain superpowers, collect bottle caps and energy drinks, train to be rastronauts, and more.
The gameplay is straightforward. On your turn you can either move one of your rats up to 5 spaces, then collect the resource from the space you landed on, or, you can more 2-4 of your rats up to 3 spaces each (provided they all land on the same colour) and collect resources from all the rats that moved. That’s basically it. There are a couple shops along the way selling useful items that you can either pay for with cheese, or, steal for no cheese, but the thieving rat gets punted back to the start space.
As you collect goods, you trade them in for rocket parts, which just has you placing cubes on tracks to earn end game points. The same goes for the apple core track, the light track, the rastronaut track. Once one player had placed 8 of their score cubes, or all 4 of their rats reach the top of the track, the game concludes, and the rat family with the most points is crowned the winner
I’ll be honest, I kind of love First Rat. First, the theme is whimsical and brilliant, and I adore telling people the story of what’s going on. The board is adorned with all kinds of charming details, like the cockroach thugs guarding the entrance to the shortcuts, or inserting the special personas onto the tails of the rats. There’s a lot of charm to this game. Then the game has a really satisfying growth to it, as more and more rats enter the tracks and the rats manage to get further along to the really powerful spots, players go from earning a measly 2 cheese per round to pulling in absolute ludicrous numbers of goods in a single round.
First Rat is a race in every respect. The first player to do anything gets the most benefits. The first to reach the shops gets first pick, the first player to find the comic book stash gets the first pic, the first player to turn in goods gets the most points. In that same respect, there’s tremendous value in being able to do multiple things first, as if you specialize in a single thing, you’ll be receiving diminishing returns. In our most recent game I had a banger of a turn, landing 3 rats on orange tiles, complete with backpack and lightbulb bonuses to get 7 goods, then used a soda can to double my total yield, and cashed in all those resources to get 2 cockpits and a thruster, which completed a full shuttle. A single turn, placing 4 cubes sounds amazing, doesn’t it? The downside was that I wasn’t first in any of those categories, making the average score of each cube just 6 points. The player who won, managed to be first on a couple tracks and got their rastronaut to the end of the track and won with a whopping 92 points over my 67.
On the flip side of the board, all the tracks are blank, which allow you to randomize the spaces and the values for accomplishing each of the tasks in the game, which can vary wildly. There are slightly more backpacks and comic books in the game than is required, meaning you won’t always have the same set of special powers each game, but those are minor to the experience. Every game will ultimately feel the same, run your rats up the tracks, amass resources, trade those in for points.
That being said, First Rat is a really satisfying engine building game. I love the trade-off of choosing which rat(s) to move, deciding between activating one space that you need right now, and activating 3 spaces for a bigger, but less urgent benefit. I like the concept of stealing from the stores to reset your rat back to the start of the race, which may or may not be very beneficial to you. I like everything about First Rat, it’s just a satisfying game to play. But at the same time, it doesn’t light my world on fire, nor does it beckon for me to return to it again and again. I think the real strength lies in its whimsical theme, plus it’s light and satisfying gameplay. It’s a game I won’t hesitate to suggest if I’m in a group of people whom I don’t game with often, as it’s a pretty inoffensive. There’s not too much you can do to cause bad feelings amongst your peers, and when you win or lose, it’s not because of randomness or luck. You can generally pinpoint what you did wrong and figure out how to play better next time.
You might be able to tell from my tone that I don’t really know where I come down on First Rat at the end of the day. I really like, I know I do. But the more I think about it, the more criticism I can draw. And I think I’m okay with that. It’s a great little game that’s fun to play. Not every game needs to be a lifestyle game, nor does every game need to be a desert island game. First Rat is a great game that you can play with almost anyone and have a good time. While it’s not something that I’m going to write a strategy guide on, nor will I spend a lot of time dwelling on the design or decisions the game presents, I’m still really happy each time I get to play First Rat. And that’s what I’m really looking for in a game. One that lets me have fun!
I’ve started adding “Board Game Review” to the title of my posts to make it easier for me to schedule my posts according to my schedule, and because it’s surprisingly helpful with SEO, but I feel weird doing it when I’m reviewing a game that is just cards, like Too Many Poops.
I think I should start with the story of how this game entered my collection. My wife was out of town with her friend, and the two of them love to go thrift store shopping. Often, it’s more the hunt that they enjoy, over anything that they actually find, but recently she brought me home a present. A shrink-wrapped copy of Too Many Poops, solely because she knows I love games, and cats. A perfect gift, no?
To play Too Many Poops, players are dealt 2 cat cards and 2 tool cards. A pet shop is established in the centre of the table with 3 cats and 3 tools face up. To begin, all players pick one cat from their hand and plays it face up in front of them to establish their “house”.
On your turn, you must play at a cat card from your hand to your own house, your opponent’s house, or to the ‘wild’, which is just an oversized green card off to the side. After playing one cat, you may play up to two tool cards, and resolve their effects accordingly.
At the end of your turn, draw cards from the pet shop until your hand is back up to 6 cards, and add one poop for every cat in your house to your litter box. Players take turns one after another until one player has achieved 10 points to become the winner. Each cat is worth 1 point, but if you have cats of the same colour in your house, those cats are worth double. However, if you have two rival cats in your house, they’re flipped over to their colourless side and are worth 0 points. If your litter box ever has 10 poops at the end of your turn, then you’ve become overwhelmed with poops, and you’re eliminated from the game.
The first thing I noticed about Too Many Poops was the presence of pooples. Little wooden poop tokens. The next thing I noticed was that the rest of the production was pretty lush for a simple little card game. Each player gets a dual layered tile for their litter box, and a couple of the cards were iridescent. These rainbow cats have no rivals, and can belong to any colour. As a nice touch, the game also comes with non-foil versions of these cats, if you find their sheen distasteful. Another nice touch, they included a full set of rainbow cats, but with the names blanked, so you can add your own felines to the mix.
Playing the game is pretty simple, much along the lines of the incredibly popular Exploding Kittens. You play a cat to yourself to earn more points, or if you happen to have a rival for a cat in your opponent’s house, you can stymie their efforts. The tool cards are fairly varied, with effects that happen right away, or persist throughout the game, along with giving and stealing cats. There’s a lot of directly interacting or messing with your opponents, Nothing you have is safe.
When playing with larger player counts, the game descends into chaos. As more cats are on the table, more people taking turns and playing cats in between every one of your turns, the likelihood of your rival cat being foisted upon you gets exponentially higher. And with more cats in your house means more poops to have to clean up.
This was actually the part of Too Many Poops that I found the most interesting. The more cats you have, the more poops you generate, the more of the tools you take and use are spent mitigating your poop generating engine. It can feel like walking on a tightrope as you balance bringing more cats into your house for the points, but also needing to deal with the waste. That said, if you just so happen to get screwed on the tool cards a couple rounds in a row, there isn’t anything you can do to mitigate it. And other players can’t really affect the cards available to you, except via hate-drafting, and even then they’ll take the tool you wanted, only to have a similar one get revealed on the flop.
Too Many Poops was better than I expected it to be, but that’s hardly praise, as my expectations were in the basement. For fans of Exploding Kittens, Unstable Unicorn, or just cats in general, Too Many Poops offers a fast, chaotic, combative experience with a touch of set collection. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s best enjoyed with children who giggle every time you say poop. I won’t be bringing this out to my serious game group, but if you have a group who enjoy these kinds of take-that card games, Too Many Poops could be a hit!
Every now and then a game comes along that becomes my obsession for a short period of time. Those obsessions eventually fade as the next game comes along to steal my attention, but rarely one manages to keep my heart and become a comfort game for me. Istanbul was one of the first games that managed to worm its way into my heart and become a seminal classic for me.
Istanbul, designed by Rudiger Dorn and published by Pegasus Spiel in 2014 is a race game. You’re racing the opposing merchants to be the player to earn 5 rubies before the others. Throughout the game you’ll collect coins and resources, and use those to pay for those said rubies, by giving gifts to the mosque, selling at the market, upgrading your wagon, and visiting the gem sellers.
The main board of Istanbul is created by laying out 20 cards in a 4 by 4 grid. Each of these cards are an action space that you’ll utilize in your quest for the fastest rubies. One of these cards is the fountain, where the stacks of player discs begin the game.
The top disc of your stack as a sticker on it, that’s you. The discs below you are your merchants, and when you want to move onto a new action space, you’ll move your entire stack, and drop off a single disc onto the action space to take that action. On your next turn, you’ll leave that disc behind and move your remaining stack to a new action, depositing a disc again. Should you ever take an action a second time by moving yourself onto an action card where you have already deposited a disc, instead of shedding another one, you instead pick that disc up to replenish your stack. I think it goes without saying that if you move onto a new action, and you don’t have any discs to shed, you cannot take that action.
Keeping on with the race motif, almost everything in Istanbul starts out cheap and gets more expensive as the actions get used. The first gem to buy costs 12 coins, the first mosque tiles only require a showing of 2 goods, but by the end of the game, a gem can cost 18 or 19 coins, and those mosque tiles want you to have 4 goods before they bestow their power upon your carriage. It’s wonderfully satisfying to see that an opponent has JUST enough resources to take an action, but getting there first puts it just out of their reach again.
The other point of interaction with your opponents is just being in the space where they want to go. Your merchant existing in a spot doesn’t prevent anyone else from going to the same action, but they do have to pay you 2 coins for the privilege of standing next to you. It’s only right.
So, you run around the board, scattering discs to get coins, goods, and powers, all in an effort to earn rubies. The rubies can be bought directly for just coins or sets of goods, but there are a few extra ways to pick up a bonus ruby. If you manage to earn the favour of both mosque tiles that exist on a single card, you get a ruby. If you manage to completely fill out your cart, expanding your cargo capacity, you earn a ruby. First player to earn 5 rubies, wins the game.
There are two tiles on the board which have you rolling dice to earn goods or coins. The tea house has players say a number, then roll the dice. If your sum is higher than what you spoke, you get your bet. If it’s lower, you get a 2 coin consolation prize. Similarly, the Black Market lets you roll the dice, and if you get more of the luxury blue resource the higher you roll. These push your luck elements of the game can and will alter a player’s fate. If someone chooses to go to those spots and just happens to roll super well, they get a massive head start. That said, if someone goes there and fails two or three times in a game, they’ll be so far behind the other players that they might as well not even be playing. It’s an odd beast, gamble at your own peril.
Istanbul is fast and satisfying. I particularly love the phone implementation, as I can play a full 4 player game against some AI opponents in just 5 minutes. Perfect for when I’m idle, waiting for something to happen. Generally near the end of the game, you can figure out who is 4 turns away from ending it, and you are either in a position to get in their way, or you aren’t, and that’s just that. Thankfully, as long as players aren’t agonizing over their turns, by the time the game gets to that point, it’s over fairly quick. One more boon, because the game is ended by someone collecting their final ruby, there’s no need to count points. It’s just, done, and the player who achieved the goal has won!
It’s kind of amazing that I enjoy Istanbul as much as I do, considering how much I value discoverability in my games. Specifically with Istanbul, once you’ve played it, you’ve seen everything that’s there. But I find so much joy in running through game after game of Istanbul. And I’m not even seeking the mastery here, like I would be in Chess, I’m just enjoying the tight race that Rudiger Dorn has designed. Every turn feels like it has good decisions to make, and the action selection mechanic of dropping discs is super satisfying, especially when you can make it through a whole game without needing to go back to the fountain. I recommend Istanbul without reservation, and even more so when you add the expansions, but I’ll talk about those another day.
