Mountain Goats

Mountain Goats

Designers: Stefan Risthaus
Artist: Anca Gavril, Daniel Profiri
Publisher: Boardgametables, Ostia Spiele
2-4 players 10 min ages 6+ MSRP $19
Time to Teach/Learn: 3 minutes

Written by: Doug Richardson

Boardgametables |  BGG 

What a beautiful day. The sun is shining on the mountains, and the goats are out to play! As they leap from rock to rock, the goats start to get hungry. Where are the most delicious flowers found? At the tops of the mountains, of course. Let’s go!

Mountain Goats is played with a deck of 18 cards, which will form the mountains. The # 5 and 6 mountains consist of 4 cards, the #7 and 8 mountains, 3 cards, and the #9 and 10 mountains are just 2 cards tall each.

Each mountain has a stack of point tokens – 12 for the Mountain 5 and one less token for each successive mountain.

There are also 4 Bonus Point tokens, worth 15, 12, 9 and 6 points.

Each player has six goats and will assign one goat to each of the six mountains.

Finally, there are 4 dice, which players will use to move their goats up the mountains.

Set up the mountain cards with each number card below its peak. Stack the Point tokens above each mountain, and set the Bonus tokens off to the side.

Hand the 4 dice to the starting player, and you’re ready to play Mountain Goats!

Mountain Goats is a game of dice rolling and set collection. The goal is to earn the most points in tokens, including those Bonus Tokens.

Each turn you’ll roll the four dice and then combine them to move your goats up the mountains.

Once you roll the four dice, look for groups, or single dice which produce the numbers 5 through 10.

For each dice group, you’ll move your goat on the corresponding mountain up by one step.

So, for example, if you rolled a 2, 4, 5, and 6, you could set the 5 by itself, pair the 2 and 4, and use the 6 by itself. You’d then move your goat on the Mountain 5 one step, and your Mountain 6 goat up two steps.

Of course, you could also have chosen to pair the 4 and 6, and the 2 and 5, moving one goat up the Mountain 10, and one up Mountain 7.

Note that if you end up with groups of dice that don’t add to numbers between 5 and 10, those dice won’t move any goats.

Any number of player’s goats may share the same space, except at the top of the mountain.

When you move a goat to the top of any mountain, you take a token from that mountain’s stack. If another player’s goat was already at the top, return that goat to the bottom of the mountain to start its climb all over.

As long as your goat is at the top, when you create a new group of dice with that number, your goat won’t move, it’ll simply grab another scoring token. Just watch out for other goats climbing up from below!

If  you collect a set of one token from each of the six mountains, you earn the highest numbered Bonus token available.

In fact, each time you collect a complete set of tokens, take the highest Bonus token available.

The last round of the game is triggered when all the Bonus tokens have been claimed or when 3 mountains have no more Point tokens available. When either of these conditions is met, finish the round so all players have had an equal number of turns.

Players add up the points on all their scoring tokens. Highest score wins the game. In the case of a tie, the player with the most goats on mountaintops wins.

The winner is now the Queen (or King) of all the Mountain Goats!!

Mountain Goats is an excellent re-theming of an older game, Level X. That game made the short list of recommended games by the Spiel des Jahres committee in 2010.

While the base game play is identical, there’s something both fitting and wonderful about this new setting. Now your markers on each mountain are frisky goats, jumping and bumping each other as they bound for the peaks.

Before you were picking up point tokens, now you are motivating your goats higher and higher, all in pursuit of the sweetest flowers.

Why do these changes matter? Because play isn’t just about winning, or out-scoring your opponents, but about the connection the game creates in your mind between what you are doing, and what the theme suggests you are about.

Mechanically? You are using dice to move tokens and gain points. Thematically, your dice allow your goats to scamper up the mountains, gathering tasty flowers, and butting rivals from the loftiest heights.

With this theme, we create an emotional connection. Those are MY goats! How dare you butt them from the top of the mountain?? Yeah? We’ll see about that!

Now, you are invested. This is your team, your family. How dare anyone mess with YOUR family? The pieces and gameplay are virtually the same. What has changed is your commitment.

It’s not business, it’s personal.

Aside from the involvement created by the theme and lovely artwork, Mountain Goats has some strategic considerations. Do you make a blitz to the top of a mountain, hoping to clear it of points?

Or should you lay back, spreading your dice to move all your goats, hoping to nibble away on all the peaks, hoping to earn some of those big Bonus tokens?

And, of course, any other player’s goat at the top of a mountain is automatically a target. You can’t let that goat just stay there to gobble up points round after round!

The other feature added to Mountain Goats is a nice little expansion. Here, a 5th player can join in the fun, and there’s an additional strategy option.

Using the Big Mountain expansion allows players to group dice in totals from 11-24. As long as there’s not another goat already there, you may send one of your goats to these higher peaks.

At the end of the game, the goats on these higher mountains will score additional Bonus tokens, based on how high they climbed.

Mountain Goats presents us with a compact game that plays quickly, and offers just the right balance of strategy and chance for a family-friendly game.

Mountain Goats shows that sometimes, even a good game can be improved. Here, Level X, a classic modern game, has been given new life and brought to a new generation of gamers.

This game allows us all to frolic together on a tabletop without a long trip to the Alps. Bringing delight to gamers of all ages is certainly a mountain worth climbing. Mountain Goats straddles a peak we call Major Fun.

October 2022

Written by: Doug Richardson

Pioneers

Release: 4/1//2018    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 82 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

Westward ho! Immigrants from around the world have flocked to the United States to start a new life. As the country expands its territory to the Pacific, more and more pioneers set out, using stagecoaches and wagon trains, to reach new cities and towns along the way.

Each town has its own needs – a barkeep here, a farmer there, bankers, merchants, soldiers, innkeepers, and even a gold digger or two. Your job in Pioneers is to help these folks find a place that suits them by building roads and using your stagecoach. The player who does the best job settling this new generation of Americans will win the game

Pioneers is a gateway game to a new generation of players just discovering the hobby. It’s easy to learn, easy to teach and each time you play, you’ll discover new layers of depth and fun by charting a different path, literally.

Each pioneer you settle will give you a new way to see the game. And best of all how everyone else plays will change your decisions. Their choices will let you see the game in a new light every time.

Listen in for a full review and discover why Pioneers deserves BOTH the Major Fun and Spiel of Approval Awards!
Pioneers

Queen Games  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Emanuelle Ornella Artist: Markus Erdt

Publisher: Queen Games

2-4 players  60 min   ages 8+   MSRP $50

For info on the Game Sommelier segment featured on the show, check out the show notes at The Spiel!

Music credits include:

Let Your Yeah Be Yeah  by The Pioneers  |  the song

Pioneers  by Tunng  |  the song

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Squaremino

Squaremino       Frost & Frost |  BGG  | Buy

Publisher: Frost & Frost
2-4 players  15 min. ages 6+  MSRP $28.95

text-the concept

Squaremino is a clever and strategic twist on the tile laying classic. The goal remains the same, however: be the first to play all of your tiles to win.

text-the components

There are 64 square domino tiles in the game. Each one measure s1 1/8” on each side is 3/8” thick. They are made from a nicely weighted material which gives each tile just the right heft. It’s a pleasure just to hold and fiddle with your tiles as you’re setting up and playing.

The 64 tiles are divided into 4 colored suits: red, blue, yellow, and green. Each suit has 16 tiles numbered 1 through 4. So there are four of each number within a suit. Keep in mind, unlike a conventional domino, each tile only has a single number instead of two.

To play, you spread out all the tiles face down and each player draws 12 tiles as a starting hand. The tiles are thick enough to stand on their own, so it’s easy set your hand up in a line.

Like most domino games, you’ll need room for several lines of tiles as the game goes on, so make sure to leave plenty of room in the middle of the table to play. Push the unused dominoes to the side as a draw pile and you’re ready to go!

text-the mechanics

Each player will take turns playing 2,3 or 4 tiles to create a shared board – lines of tiles extending vertically and horizontally, crossword style.

There are two simple rules for playing tiles.

The set of tiles you play must be consecutive numbers in the same color

OR

The set of tiles you play must be the same number but different colors.

So, a 1-2-3 in blue would be legal. So 4-4-4 provided that each 4 was a different color.

There are a few no-no’s in the game.

You can never play a single tile. And you can never play more than four tiles at once or extend a line of tiles past four.

The tiles played must be in a straight line. And the tiles played cannot create a square of tiles on the board.

If you cannot or do not want to play, you draw an extra tile from the face down pile and add it to your hand.

The first player to get rid of all his or her tiles wins the game.

text-apart

Many times a Major Fun game will be a champion of innovation. It will offer up an experience that is totally new and very different from other games.

In the case of Squaremino, what makes it noteworthy is its decision to not stray too far from the comfort zone of the classic on which it is based.

There are certainly new strategies that are very different from the classic. This is not a game of matching numbers. You’re playing either a sequence or a set to build the board.

And the game does offer a bonus for completing a row of four tiles. Each time you do this you have the option to turn in a tile and draw a replacement. Setting yourself up for these bonuses and also keeping your opponents from them is key.

What makes Squaremino special and noteworthy, though, is that it resists the urge to reinvent the wheel. It would have been very easy to add several additional layers of complexity to the game, bonuses for longer runs or making certain shapes within the layout of the board. But I’m certain this would not make the game better.

Sometimes the key to fun is knowing when to stop. Knowing what not to ad,. Perhaps it’s like negative space in painting. The things that are not there help give art shape as much as the things that are.

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The structure of the game is one any domino player will recognize. And though it borrows some of its inspiration from games like Qwirkle (another Major Fun winner), Squaremino feels familia and comfortable. Like a favorite sweater or perfectly broken in old pair of shoes.

Its so familiar, in fact, many may even think they have played before because it stays true to the soul of the classic. It celebrates its heritage but finds a way to stand on its own.

That’s a fine line and a fun line for any Major Fun game to walk.

Whether you’re learning for the first time or the pips on your set of double twelves have worn off, Squaremino is a game almost anyone will find hours of fun playing.

Ancestree

Release: 3/1//2018    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 68 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

Genealogists are a curious and squinty lot. They spend much of their lives buried in the archives doing research, trying to uncover hidden branches of their family trees.

All those late nights are about to pay off. If all goes well you’ll have enough information to prove your lineage is historically significant – a family tree for the ages!

Ancestree is a tile drafting game where each player cultivates a family tree over three rounds. You’ll build dynasties, marriages, and wealth to score points.

The game is wonderfully simple to learn but the scoring system makes each decision matter and each decision fun.

Ancestree is also inclusive. It celebrates diversity and allows us to play with the idea of family. Allowing more people to find themselves in the game is a powerful and playful idea. Inviting more people to the table helps open a door to the wider world of games and (we hope) allows even more people to share the joy and fun we find through play.

Listen in for a full review and discover why Ancestree is Major Fun!
Ancestree

Calliope Games  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Eric M. Lang

Artist: Larry Elmore & Adelheid Zimmerman

Publisher: Calliope Games

2-6 players  20-40 min   ages 8+   MSRP $30

For info on the Truckloads of Goober segment featured on the show, check out the show notes at The Spiel!

Music credits include:

We Are Family   By Deborah Dixon & Nova Bossa  |  the song

We Are Family (Adam Clarke Club Funk Mix)  |  the song

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Majesty: For The Realm

Release: 2/19//2018    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 64 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

From millers and brewers to knights and nobles, it takes all sorts to build a kingdom.

In Majesty, players recruit subjects to help create a prosperous new realm. Each character offers a simple but specialized way to bring wealth, health and security to the crown.

Majesty is an easy to learn, wonderfully elegant and interactive card game. Each character card you add to your kingdom will have implications within and beyond your borders.

The game is simple enough for almost anyone to learn but also modular, so as you learn, you can tailor the rules to suit your tastes.

Not only does this make Majesty: For the Realm Major Fun, it means you have a hand in defining the kind of fun you have every time you play!

Majesty: For The Realm

Z-Man Games  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Marc Andre

Artist: Anne Heidsieck

Publisher: Z-Man Games

2-4 players  20-40 min   ages 7+   MSRP $40

For info on the Back Shelf Spotlight Games we cover, check out the show notes at The Spiel!

Music credits include:

Queen Majesty   by The Chosen Few   |  the song

Teach Me How to Curl   by Todrick Hall  |  the song

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Word Slam

Release: 10/17/2017    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 50 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

Word Slam is a team-based word guessing game.

One teammate provides clues in the form of word cards on a rack.

Can your team guess the target word first?

Now this might sound like many other party games BUT… Word Slam does something different. Something noteworthy. Something ridiculously simple and ridiculously fun.

Word Slam forces each team to use a fixed set of words as clues.

The challenge and the joy in the game comes from the very clever omissions from the decks of words you use as clues. The word you want is never there, so the game pushes you to be creative with the words provided. To find freedom inside the limitations imposed.

This simple twist – limiting the language you can use to communicate with your team makes Word Slam both frustrating and fun, because, in a very real way, the fun comes from the frustration.

Listen in to learn more about the game and why we think it is unequivocally Major Fun!

Word Slam

Thames & KOSMOS  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Inka & Markus Brand

Publisher: Thames & KOSMOS

3-99 players  45 min   ages 12+   MSRP $39.95

Music credits include:

Boy Meets Goy   by Benny Goodman   |   the song

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Fuji Flush

Release: 9/7/2017    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 34 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

Fuji Flush is a wonderfully simple card game.

Your goal is to flush all the number cards from your hand, one card at a time. There are lots of low cards in the deck and fewer high cards.

The higher number you play, the more likely you are to flush it BUT here’s the twist. If two players play the same number, they are added together. This means low cards can often band together to beat high ones.

It’s a game about strength in numbers. And the more people you play with, the more fun the game becomes.

Fuji Flush

Stronghold Games  |  2F Spiele  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Friedemann Friese  Artist: Harald Lieske

Publisher: 2F Spiele, Stronghold Games

3-8 players  10-20 min   ages 7+   MSRP $14.95

Music credits include:

Free Fallin’       The Almost  |  the song

Farrah Fawcett Hair    Capital Cities  |  the song

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Mole Rats in Space

Release: 8/15/2017    Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Run Time: 38 min    Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

It might come as a suprise to learn that mole rats make perfect astronauts.

Or maybe we should call them ratstronauts?

Their skin can’t feel pain. They can lower their metabolism and breathing. They’re resistant to cancer and can even survive without oxygen for a time.

You and your fellow players are mole rats living on a space station in a galaxy far far away.

Suddenly, the alarm blares… INTRUDER ALERT! The station is being overrun by intergalactic snakes!!

It’s up to your team to gather the right emergency supplies and find a way to the last escape pod before time runs out. Just don’t forget the duct tape!

Listen in to discover why we think this cooperative game is great for kids and adults and is most definitely… Major Fun!

Mole Rats in Space

Peaceable Kingdom  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Matt Leacock  Publisher: Peaceable Kingdom

2-4 players  20 min   ages 7+   MSRP $20

Music credits include:

Mr Spaceman    The Byrds |  the song 

Space Funk    The Baker Brothers  |  the song  

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Ninja Camp

Ninja Camp   Action Phase Games  |  BGG  |  Buy

Designer: Adam Daulton   Art: Chris Byer, Jaqui Davis
Publisher: Action Phase Games
2-4 players  15-30 min. ages 10+  MSRP $20

text-the concept

It’s a little known fact that animals make the best ninjas. In fact, there’s a secret camp where they go to train. Whether you’re a hamster, a camel, a sloth or a platypus, Sensei Saru can teach you to master the arts of the shadow warrior.

Today, the Sensei has a special challenge for all his students. Each animal clan will enter the arena and face each other in a grand melee. You must use your skills combined with the opportunities you find in the arena to remain standing while others fall.

Do this and Sensei Saru will name your clan to be his personal apprentices, and the best students at Ninja Camp!

text-the components

The Ninja Camp is a card game. There are 80 cards in total.

There are 8 clan cards. These represent the different animal students attending Ninja Camp. Each player will play animals from a clan and each animal has a special ability you’ll be able to use once per game. The artwork is ridiculously charming and you may want to take a minute to let everyone look through the cards and decide which one they like best.

The main deck is made up of Skill cards, Walls and Traps. These cards will be laid out in a grid to form the training ground, the arena where your animals will compete for the Sensei.

Skill cards will make up the bulk of the arena. Each card describes a specific ninja move and shows the point value of the card.

Each player will also start with two basic skill cards to begin the game : Evade and Sprint.

Last but not least, each player has four wooden ninja meeples (ninjeeples!) These nifty little guys represent your animal clan and will move about the arena as you play cards.

You’ll take turns placing 3 of your ninjeeples into the training ground one by one, making sure each one is on a different Skill card. No ninjas allowed on the walls !

text-the mechanics

Ninja Camp is played over a series of turns. On your turn, you will either play a Skill card from your hand OR you will use your animal clan’s special ability. Your card or your clan ability will enable you to move one of your ninjas on the board.

Each clan has a very cool and very powerful special ability, BUT… you can only use your clan’s ability once per game. Once you have used it, flip your clan card over. Here are some examples.

Most turns you’ll be playing a Skill card from your hand.

Each Skill card describes a specific way you must move one of your ninjas on the board. You must be able to follow the movement instructions on the card in order to play it.

Here are the 7 different skills ninjas use to move in the arena:

Evade – move 3 spaces in any direction

Stealth – move 2 spaces and claim the first card your ninja steps onto.

Dodge – move 1 or 2 spaces, including diagonal

Sprint – move in a straight line until you reach an edge, wall, hole or another ninja.

Ambush – move straight until you land on an opponent’s ninja. Push that ninja one space back.

Leap – move over a hole in the arena and land on the next card after the hole.

Shadow – copies the skill of the last card played.

There are a few general guidelines that apply unless a Skill specifically allows you to break the rules: no diagonal moves, no passing through other meeples (yours or another player’s), and no passing through or landing on the same space.

One of the key challenges in the game is deciding what card to play and what ninja to move. But there’s another factor you have to consider on every turn and this factor is….

text-apart

When you move your ninja, you collect the card where your ninja began its move and add it to your hand.

This means you will have more options available in your hand of Skill cards as the game moves along.

Suddenly, the choice of which card to play and which ninja to move may be determined by what card you want to pick up OR what card you want to land on! You may move a ninja because you really need the Leap card where it currently resides. Or you may move a ninja because you want to finish your move on an Sprint card, so you can pick it up later on in the game or simply prevent others from getting to it.

Picking up cards from the arena also means that the board will have gaps or holes. This will make movement more difficult or downright impossible as the board continues to shrink turn after turn. It’s inevitable that your ninjas will come to a point where they are trapped in a small area of the board. The trick in Ninja Camp is to keep as many ninja active as long as possible so they can collect more cards.

When you cannot move any ninjas (or you choose not to move) you pass and play will continue without you. When all players pass, the game ends and we’re ready to score.

The cards you collect and/or play during the game determine your score. If you were unlucky and collected any traps, they count as negative points. You also get points for the cards your ninjas rest on at the end of the game.

This scoring system also adds a simple but nifty level to each choice you make in the game.

It might seem obvious that you want to head for the highest point value Skill cards as often as you can. And this does make them juicy targets. But there’s just one problem. The higher point value Skill cards are also the more difficult cards to use in the game because their movement rules are more restrictive. So you might end up landing on a big point Skill card but find it very hard to move from it. Most often, the player whose ninjas remain active and agile wins, not the player who focuses solely on big point cards.

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A game of Ninja Camp feels like a sparring match. You act, your opponents react. It’s a dance of move and counter move on a rapidly shrinking board.

The beauty and fun of Ninja Camp comes from its simplicity and economy. Now, I don’t mean economy in terms of its price (though it is a great deal at $20). I mean economy of language in its rules.

So often games that offer challenging strategy on this level require a much more complex set of rules.

There are seven basic moves in the game and after using or seeing these moves used a couple times, it will be easy for most players to remember each one.

This means you don’t spend time fighting the rules ; you spend your time looking for the best possible option based on the choices available. No one wants to be mired in a laundry list of exceptions and rules to remember.

By keeping the rules so streamlined, designer Adam Daulton allows a wide range of players to dive into the game really quickly and gives each player a chance to discover the fun and challenge that comes from deciding what to play and who to move and trying not to get your ninjas trapped.

For this reason Ninja Camp makes a great game for both kids and families while providing a wonderful challenge for more experienced gamers as well.

The charming variety of animals and the random arena also gives Ninja Camp great staying power since it will be a different experience every time you play.

Ninja Camp finds depth through simplicity. That’s the kind of wonderful surprise that makes it Major Fun. And it’s a reason you might want to step into this arena and go toe to toe with the next clan of hamsters you meet!

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Picassimo

Release Date: 5/15/2017 Download:  Enhanced  | MP3
Running Time: 43 min Subscribe:  Enhanced  | MP3 | RSS

There’s trouble brewing in the small town of Forgerville. The night before the new abstract art exhibition at the museum, all the paintings have gone missing! 

Luckily the museum employees have a plan. Overnight, they will paint furiously and replace the paintings with abstract works of their own.

Picassimo is a party game where players create, disassemble and reassemble works of art. You’ll use a 6 part canvas to create your drawing and then mix up some of the parts and present your masterpiece to the other players, your critics. They must then try to guess the subject of your artwork, even though the pieces are out of order, by mentally reassembling the parts.  

Best of all, you really don’t have to be an expert artist to do well at Picassimo. That’s because Picassimo allows you to look at each work of art and draw each work of art in a new way.

That’s what we call innovation. And it’s also what we call Major Fun!

Listen in to learn all about the game and discover whether Picassimo should be hanging in your gallery at home.

Picassimo

HABA  |  BGG  |  Amazon

Designer: Carlo Rossi   Publisher: HABA  |  HABA USA

3-6 players  30 min.  ages 8+  MSRP $45

Music credits include:

Theme from Picasso Summer  by Nelson Riddle  |  the song

Picasso’s Last Words   by Paul & Linda McCartney   |  the song

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