Gamers’ Games are Major Fun for the more experienced gamer. For one reason or another, these games are a bit more difficult or require a greater time investment than the games we generally award BUT we feel that they are well worth the effort.

Matter accomplishes what many believed to be impossible. Through some thaumaturgical process, the alchemists at Simply Fun have found a way to capture the soul of the seminal American band Earth Wind Air & Fire in a single abstract strategic tiling game that fuses the band’s rock, soul, jazz, and disco elements with the raw power of its 6 Grammy Awards…

I’m sorry to interrupt but I’ve just been notified that the band has tragically lost Air when he ventured too close to a television pundits convention and was sucked out of the room. Air’s friends Reason and Compassion are also missing, believed dead.

I’m also being told that Matter has nothing to do with the band Earth Wind & Fire.

Matter is indeed a strategic abstract tiling game. It is also based on the interactions between the four classical elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. The conflict plays out on a hexagonal grid game board on which 2 -4 players try to control strategic locations by manipulating the very fabric of the universe. POWER!! Coursing through my vein!! MWAHAHAHA!!

Where was I. Strategic tiling. There are actually two devices that the players use in the tiling process. First are the Element Tiles: hexagonal tiles of Yellow (Earth), White (Air), Blue (Water), and Red (Fire). Second are the Elemental Gems, clear glass beads that are the same four colors as the elements and represent the Players. REMEMBER: Each player has one color of Gem. Anyone can play any color Tile. If we had one complaint with the rules it came down to the confusion between calling the tiles “Elements” and the gems “Elementals.” For the sake of clarity I will refer to them as tiles and gems.

A quick note before I go on. Learning this game is much easier with visual aids. The rules supplied by Simply Fun are clear and well-illustrated. The game does take some time to learn and master BUT learning it from learning it from text only is like learning to tie your shoes from written instructions.

The game board has 14 spots that are numbered (7, 9, or 10). These numbers represent point values and constitute the primary path toward victory (high score wins). Players use the tiles and gems to control the spaces around the numbered spots. In addition to the numbered spots, the board also features black, white, and grey spots. In setting up the game, the tiles are placed in a bag and shaken. Random tiles are drawn and placed on the grey and white spaces (the rules provide a more strategic variation in which you cover only the light grey spaces).

At the beginning of a four person game players start with 9 gems and draw 4 tiles from the bag (with fewer players each player gets more gems). Starting with the player who got up earliest, each alchemist must play one tile on to the board. That player has the option to place a gem on that tile. Placing a gem claims that tile and any adjacent tile of the same color. Players try to surround the point spaces with colors they control. Whoever controls the power of the tiles controls the points.

What complicates Matter in interesting ways is the fact that each Tile color cancels one of the other colors. Red cancels yellow, tallow cancels white, white cancels blue, and blue cancels red. So, if you have a red tile that touches two blue tiles, that red tile is worth -1 power, but the blue tiles are NOT affected by the red. Each player has a limited number of gems so knowing when and where to play them is essential. It is also important to keep track of neighboring tiles. You might have most of the tiles around a point space but a smart opponent will then surround you with tiles that cancel your power but which don’t change your opponent’s power.

With only a few pieces and some very basic rules, Simply Fun has created a robust, deeply strategic, and exciting game. In many ways it reminds me of the elegance of the Major Fun Award-winning game Dragon Face. It will take new players 15 – 20 minutes to work through the rules and then a game or two to catch on to the intricacies, but you will WANT to play those games.

Major Fun for the strategists out there.

For 2-4 players, ages 10+

Matter was designed by Touko Tahkokallio and is © 2010 by Onni Games Oy, produced by Simply Fun.

Gamers’ Games are Major Fun for the more experienced gamer. For one reason or another, these games are a bit more difficult or require a greater time investment than the games we generally award BUT we feel that they are well worth the effort.

Yomi is a card-based fighting game for two players. The game sets up a world in which ten characters fight in a tournament called Fantasy Strike. Each character has his or her or its own special abilities, but at heart, Yomi is a very colorful game of paper-rock-scissors. DON’T LEAVE YET!! I wouldn’t waste your time with that old chestnut. The learning curve for Yomi is actually quite steep BUT if you can keep in mind that the prime mechanic is a glorified exercise of paper-rock-scissors, then you will understand why I even considered reviewing this game for Major Fun.

Let me digress for a bit. The advent and subsequent popularity of collectible card games is a topic of fascination for me. I do not like CCGs in general. Not because of game play issues, but because of economic and equity issues. To my mind, the artificial rarity of games like Magic the Gathering and Pokemon creates a lot of waste and favors those who have more money. Constructing an effective deck is a wonderfully strategic and challenging endeavor, but it seems heavily weighted in favor of those who can either afford to buy lots of packs to sift for a few treasures OR those who can afford to buy a good card from someone who could afford to buy a lot of packs and sift for the treasures.

It is no surprise to me that card-based, deck-building games like Dominion and Yomi have emerged and are popular. These games use the engaging and strategic qualities of the CCGs, but all players start from the same pool of cards (or at least pre-established and balanced sets of cards). The only economic question is: can you afford the game? Once you have the game you and your opponents have everything you need. Winning and losing rests on your strategic choices (with a bit of luck).

Yomi contains 10 decks of cards and two playing mats where you place your cards and keep track of your character’s health. Each 56-card deck represents a character in the Fantasy Strike tournament. The cards are numbered and suited like standard playing cards (2-10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades). Each deck has 2 Jokers. The suits and numbers are one of the complicating factors of the game but each card essentially allows the player to make one of three actions: Attack, Throw, or Block/Dodge. This is where the paper-rock-scissors mechanic enters. Attacks beat Throws. Throws beat Blocks/Dodges. Blocks/Dodges beat Attacks. Each player starts with seven cards in hand. The round begins when each player selects a card and places it face down on the mat. Both reveal their card at the same time and use the paper-rock-scissors mechanic to determine who wins. Attacks and Throws and Dodges cause damage. Blocks prevent damage. The object is to reduce your opposing character to zero health.

Simple enough BUT complications abound. Each character has special abilities. Cards can be played in combination. Some cards must be played with other cards. Some cards negate other cards. Results from one round can affect how cards are used the next round. Not only does each card have a wealth of information encoded in symbols and several small boxes, but many of the cards are double sided (turned one way the card is a Block but turned the opposite way it is a Throw).

Needless to say, reading lots of fine print is a must in this game and even then you probably won’t appreciate many of the strategies that will work for each character until you have had a chance to play several times. There is a big time investment up front, but once you become familiar with the cards and the order of play, you realize that each deck represents a difference in style and strategy, not substance. What is impressive is that each deck, each character, has a unique skill set and these are balanced so well. A lot of thought and effort went in to creating characters that are equally matched.

I certainly appreciated the online version of this game. You can play the game against other humans OR you can play against the computer. I have only played against the computer, but in doing so it helped me understand how many of the special abilities work and how some cards can be played in combination with others. This helped me teach the card game to new players and bring them up to speed.

There are fighting games that are certainly easier than Yomi (Slugfest’s wonderful Kung Fu Fighting comes to mind), but the balance, variation, and strategy of Yomi makes it a rich and highly re-playable game. Competitive, addictive, and fun.

Yomi was designed David Sirlin and is © 2011 by Sirlin Games.

Gamers’ Games are Major Fun for the more experienced gamer. For one reason or another, these games are a bit more difficult or require a greater time investment than the games we generally award BUT we feel that they are well worth the effort.

Betrayal at House on the Hill by Avalon Hill / Wizards of the Coast is just such a game. The premise is very cool: you and the other players are exploring a creepy old mansion when you find yourselves part of the plot of a familiar horror movie. As you explore the sprawling edifice you will be attacked by mysterious forces and you will discover strange and powerful items. The tension mounts as you look through the rooms until the Haunt occurs, at which point everything changes and one of the players could become a traitor…

There are a lot of pieces to the game. This is one reason we felt that Betrayal is more suited for experienced gamers. There is a lot of reading so younger players might need more support. There are three rulebooks. Yup. THREE. This sounds more intimidating than it really is, and I’ll talk about the books a bit later. For all its pieces, the game breaks down to a few important items: 8 dice (the dice are numbered 0-2 instead of the traditional 1-6); character cards (information about your character); room tiles (add these to build the mansion); Event/Omen/Item cards (things that happen to the adventurers); and the Haunt Books (what to do when the Haunt occurs).

Much like one of our earlier Gamers’ Games, Forbidden Island, this is largely a cooperative game. Before the Haunt occurs, players simply wander through the house, collecting artifacts and items that may help them (and in some cases hurt them) later. Even after the Haunt begins, most of the players will work together to defeat the evil that they face.

The early phase of the adventure is all about exploring the house. The players start off on one long tile (the Entrance Hall, the Foyer, and the Grand Staircase). Doors lead off this tile but players don’t know what they will find on the other side of the doors. When someone goes through a door, he or she draws a room tile (there are 44 possible rooms) from a shuffled stack. The room is revealed and something can happen to the character. There are generally four possible outcomes to entering a room: an event occurs; an item is found; an omen occurs; or nothing (this is very rare). Events usually require the character to roll dice to see if they are hurt or helped by the event. Items are generally useful although some can also hurt the character (a statue that gives you more dice to roll but lowers your sanity). Omens provide useful items BUT they also herald the beginning of the Haunt. Each time an Omen is revealed, there is a chance that the Haunt will begin (determined by rolling dice). Each time an Omen is uncovered, the chance that the haunt will occur increases (50% chance with 6 Omens and 100% at 12).

The Omen device creates palpable tension, especially as the characters approach the fourth or fifth Omen. There is a lot of pressure to explore rooms to discover useful items as well as some of the dangers that exist in the house. The more you know about the house, the better prepared you will be for the Haunt BUT the more you explore means the more Omens you will find.

When the Haunt bursts onto the scene, the game makes a sudden shift. At this point, one of the players usually becomes the enemy, a Traitor, and tries to defeat the other characters. A chart tells the players what to do. Players look at the chart to find the last uncovered Omen AND the room in which it was found. The chart provides the name of the Haunt and the identity of the Traitor (there are a few Haunts in which there is no Traitor, but the mechanics are essentially the same as what I will describe here). The Traitor takes one of the rulebooks called the Traitor’s Tome and leaves the room. The rest of the players get the rulebook called Secrets of Survival. Both the Traitor and the Survivors turn to the page that describes their Haunt. This page provides a set of goals and instructions for winning the scenario. If the Traitor fulfills his or her goals, then the Traitor wins. If the Survivors fulfill their goals, they win.

There are 50 different Haunts!! Each one corresponds to storylines you have probably seen in various horror movies and novels. They have names like “I was a Teenage Lycanthrope” and “The Heir.” Perhaps the hardest thing about this game is refraining from reading through all the Haunts. The Traitors and Survivors are not supposed to know what each other is trying to do. In one game I played, the survivors had to escape the house but we were under attack by the Traitor and his minions. The process of escape was complicated so I thought that if I attacked the Traitor, he would have to defend himself and leave the others alone to make good the escape preparations. I was wrong. The Traitor’s character on the board was completely irrelevant to his victory conditions. My character went mad. His minions kept up the attack and the other Survivors met a gruesome death. Major Fun for all!!

The first game you play will probably take a while (over an hour) but successive games are much faster, sometimes over in 20 – 30 minutes. There is a lot of replay value, even with Haunts you know. The house constantly changes and there is room for many different strategies. Ultimately, Betrayal succeeds so well because it creates tension like any good piece of horror AND the Haunt scenarios engage players in familiar but challenging plots.

Betrayal at House on the Hill was designed by Bill Glassco and is © 2010 by Wizards of the Coast.

Cooperative board games such as Forbidden Island present a special problem for us at Major Fun.

In order for a co-op game to really engage the players, it has to present a challenge more than once. This means that the game has to change at least a little each time you play. The game must also present a real challenge. Maybe the game throws lots of obstacles at the players. Or the obstacles get more difficult as the game progresses. Or the goal of the game changes. Whatever the case, cooperative games generally thrive on the principle that the players have only a few actions but a wide variety of tasks. Much of the struggle is in how the group decides to spend their limited actions in the face of escalating difficulty.

In short, cooperative board games are generally complex, and one of the criteria we have for our prestigious Major Fun Award is that the game rules must be easy to learn from a cold start. Someone who has picked up the game with no previous experience should be able to read and remember the rules in just a few minutes.

So, after much discussion, I could not give Forbidden Island a Major Fun Award. BUT, I’m gonna take some virtual real-estate to praise it because it is fun and worth the extra time investment.

You and your teammates are on a strange, unstable island. In order to escape you must recover the island’s four treasures and make it back to the helicopter landing pad before the waters rise and the island sinks. The island is composed of 24 beautifully illustrated tiles with intriguing names like “The Crimson Forest” and “Phantom Rock” and “The Howling Gardens.” As the game progresses, the tiles begin to “flood” and many will be lost completely as they sink into the Abyss. When tiles are lost, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate the island and recover the four artifacts. The players have only three actions on their turn and they must decide how to split those actions between moving, trading resources, recovering artifacts, and shoring-up flooded sections of the island.

Each player has a role with a special ability. The special abilities make things like movement and trading easier for that player, but there are still many sacrifices that have to be made. I was surprised the first few times I played how quickly a game can go from “It’s no big deal. We can save those tiles next round.” to “Oh my god! Get the treasure get the treasure get the treasure. Marines, we are LEAVING!!” One of the best things about this game is the analysis at the end. Every time I’ve played and lost (a fair number), there is a period where we just want to talk about what we should have done differently. Fortunately the game is quick and you can shuffle the island tiles and play another to see if your strategies work on the next round.

This is an excellent gateway to other cooperative board games. The rules are very simple (especially in comparison to most other co-op games) and it has a lot of replay value. The game is very compact and the artwork is beautiful. This is well worth the investment.

Forbidden Island was designed by Matt Leacock, with art by C.B. Canga. © 2010 Gamewright.

Will Bain, Games Taster

In another review (Up for Grabs) I could scarcely contain my glee at the opportunity to mess with my opponents. I should take a moment and convince you that this is not one of my defining characteristics, merely a small fraction of the games enthusiast that visits with you periodically. I should do that but I can’t because sabotage and schadenfreude must be hardwired into my small, cold, gamer’s heart.

Enter Manhattan, from Rio Grande Games: a strategic stacking game that challenges players to compete against each other by building (or stealing) skyscrapers in six different cities. Each player has 24 stackable building pieces of varying heights. They can play these segments of skyscraper in any of the six grids that represent six of the world’s biggest cities, but in each round there are two limits: each player has only a few segments (in a three person game each person has 4 segments per round) and each player has a hand of five cards that indicate the available spaces.

You get points for having the tallest skyscraper.

You get points for having the most skyscrapers in a city.

You get points for each skyscraper.

You get to steal skyscrapers from other players by stacking your color on top of theirs (pause to catch breath and allow maniacal laughter to dissipate).

While some of the rules for stacking take a little experience to master, the game is easy to learn and the strategy grows out of the choices players make as they consider the number and size of their segments. Is it better to go for the tallest high-rise? Is it better to have a lot of small buildings? Will you have to sleep on the couch if you take one of your wife’s buildings? These are some of the many legitimate strategic questions. The instructions are clearly written and organized and the examples deftly clarify the few complicated aspects of the game.

You might not make any friends by stealing the tallest skyscraper, but you know that everyone is gunning for your buildings as well. And it’s all in fun.

Manhattan is distributed by Rio Grande Games and is © 1994 by Hans im Glück Verlags-GmbH. Designed by Andreas Seyferth with art by Ramon Mascarenas and Zeilbeck & Natzeck Design Company.

Will Bain, Games Taster