Category: Medium games

“You are an intrepid researcher, unearthing words man was not meant to spell.” Well isn’t that a promising description? For a more mechanics-based synopsis, I’d say Unspeakable Words is a bit like Scrabble, but with cards instead of tiles, less spatial awareness, and more sanity loss.

Here’s how it works: each player starts with five sanity tokens (Cthulhu pawns) and a hand of seven cards. Most cards are letters, assigned a corresponding Lovecraftian monster and a point value based on the number of angles the letter has. For instance, U is for Ubb, and worth 0 points. (Sorry Ubb! It’s not your fault.) On your turn, you may make any common English word of three or more letters using cards from your hand. The total value of the word (the sum of the letters’ values) is added to your score, and the word is written down – it may not be used again by any player for the rest of the game. Additionally, you must roll a sanity check. Roll the d20 – if the roll is equal to or higher than the value of the word, you lose one Cthulhu pawn. (Exception: a roll of 20 is always a success, even if the value of the word is higher.) The results of your sanity check do not affect whether you get to score points for the word, and you always draw back up to seven cards at the end of your turn.

You may notice in the image above that there are a few nuances. The first of these is non-letter cards: I don’t know how many of these are unique to the Deluxe version, which is what we have, but they’re quite useful and shake up gameplay a bit. For instance, you can discard the Yellow Sign card to reroll your sanity check. Another point you have have noticed is that “cx[w]” is definitely not a word, which brings me back to the title of this post! If you have only one sanity token left, you’re officially unhinged, and as it turns out, “unhinged folk can believe anything is a word.” In other words (many), you can now score any word from as many letters as you want, regardless of whether it actually exists in the English lexicon. Convenient, right? Don’t get too ambitious with your nonsense, though – if a player loses all their Cthulhu pawns, they’re out of the game.

For those of us (‘us’ being used very loosely here) who still have enough sanity we’re bound to conventional vocabulary, there may be times we just can’t make a word. And that’s ok! Instead of playing a word that turn, you’d just discard your entire hand without scoring and redraw. In fact, two of the optional rules build on this mechanic, the more benign being Psychotherapy: if you’re playing with this rule, then when a player discards their hand, they may roll against its total value and, if they roll higher than that amount, regain a sanity token. Another option is the Chewx rule, which stipulates that single-sanity players must provide a definition for their gibberish words.

Whatever modifications you’re playing with, the goal of the game is to be the first to reach 100 points without going completely insane. There’s a catch, though. If your word would put you over the victory condition, you must succeed your sanity roll; otherwise, you score no points that turn. You also still take the standard consequence for failing the roll, which means even if your opponents are way ahead of you, there’s a chance you’ll win anyways by being the last one with sanity.

I wish I could take credit for that witty title, but no, that is actually the name of the game. And – surprise! – it’s about gnomes! The objective is simple – be the richest in gems at the end of the game.

There are several ways to get gems, but they all start by rolling the die and moving your gnome; then, you may choose to play a card. There are three types of cards in Oh Gnome You Don’t: Purple (Actions), Green (Items), and Red (Interrupt, Remedy, or Attack), though Red cards don’t actually have to be played on your own turn. Actions are fairly self-explanatory. For instance, the image below shows the “Mining” action, which lets you roll a die and take that amount in gems. You may notice there’s only one gem in the picture – that’s because it’s blue, which actually has 3-gem value; the key for which gems have what value is posted above the Gem Mine on the board. It’s actually a rule that when collecting from the Gem Mine, you have to collect in the highest denominations possible – this is because there are several cards that let you rob your opponents of a gem of any value (except gold, which is the highest, and usually off-limits).

The more honest way to make an income is to collect items along the way (in other words, you always draw a new card at the end of your turn) and play them, tabling the card in front of you to be sold later at a business. This is important because while you can only play one card per turn, you can sell as many of your tabled cards as you want. There are four businesses on the board, and you don’t need an exact roll to enter them – if you choose to stop, your gnome steps inside and your movement ends immediately. Unless a card has interfered in your affairs, this is the only time when you may neither play nor draw a card; instead, you may exchange your tabled cards for their value in gems and discard them. Note: items have specific businesses at which they are worth more (Ex: Firewood is usually worth 4, but sells for 6 at Gnome Depot) and if you want to hold onto some (but not all) of your items because you know they’ll be worth more later, you absolutely can. You can also choose to sell nothing! Moving into a business may still be a strategic move for you, as while you’re in them is the only time you may “change up” your gems for higher denominations (preferably gold, since those are usually safe).

There is one important exemption to the standard business mechanics, and that would be the last one: the Tinker’s Cart. Here, the value on the item card is disregarded, and the price is bartered by a roll of the die. Any remaining tabled items when you reach the end of the trail are sold for half price, rounding down, so it’s up to you whether you think bartering is worth the risk. There are a couple other places on the board that have special rules, too. The first is the Slug Slime space, which acts sort of like a ladder in Chutes and Ladders – if you land exactly on its start space, you slide right on over to the other side and get to skip the path in between. You can actually see my gnome, Barney (yes, they all have names) at the Slug Slime exit in the photo above. The other spot is the Troll Bridge, where you can either pay to cross the bridge or hazard the path beyond it; these spaces are rife with penalties such as “Roll for gem loss” and “Lose 2 items.” Honestly, if you can afford to take the bridge, I’d advise you do that, though my opponent skipped the dilemma altogether by playing a card that let her teleport to my space… safely past the toll and its alternative.

If you’re playing with the advanced rules, sharing a space isn’t just a way of cheating the troll out of its fee; it’s also an opportunity to brawl! Any gnome sharing a trail space with another player may choose to start a brawl, regardless of whose turn it is or how they got there. All players on that space then look at their brawl deck (numbered from 1 to 10), select their card of choice, and reveal – whoever has the highest card wins the brawl! They also collect the difference in gems from their humiliated opponents. You collect separately from each of them, so if Jud’s player played “6-Shin Kick,” Wayne’s played “3-Nose Tweek,” and Dave’s played “8-Head Butt,” Dave would collect two gems from Jud and five from Wayne. Because there’s nothing that says “friendly competition” like shaking your friends down for loose change! Be careful, though, because once you use a brawl card it’s discarded for the rest of the game, and if you tie (like in the picture below) nobody wins anything! Also: no brawling in businesses. It’s rude to the proprietors.

Scoring is pretty simple. When you reach the Gnome Cottage at the end of the trail, you get a reward dependent on how many folks have already arrived (unless you’re fifth or sixth, in which case there’s a penalty), you can no longer play cards nor be affected by anyone else’s, your hand is discarded and your remaining tabled items are totaled and sold for half price, rounding down. Once everyone has reached the end, whoever has the most gems wins!

In Quetzal, you are an archaeologist with only five days to explore the great city — and you’ve got competition! Here’s how it works:

First, everyone rolls their meeples. No, I’m not kidding – this will determine your team for the round. Any meeples that land dark side up will be adventurers, light side up will be archaeologists, and on their side or standing means they can be either; for each meeple that’s standing, you also get one coin. Your character meeple (as opposed to your team meeples) will always be usable as either color, but you roll it anyways in case it lands upright.

Which type you roll matters because of step two: placing the meeples. You see, while there are several locations on the board, which pieces you can place there are limited by their type. While some places have no such restrictions, some, like the Black Market, will only take one of the two, and others like the Temple Surroundings will take either, but all pieces there have to be the same type. The Temple Surroundings are an example of a bidding location (orange), meaning you can one-up each other’s meeple placements, with the caveat that they all have to be the same type as the pieces first placed there. The other player gets their displaced meeples back to put somewhere else, too, so don’t push the bid too high! Non-bidding locations are either one meeple per space (yellow) or places where multiple players can coexist (green), and vary whether there’s a price in coins to explore there.

So what do these locations do? Coincidentally, that’s step three, activating the locations. The only location that gets activated before this step is the Camp, which activates as soon as you place a meeple there, allowing you to immediately gain 1 coin and reroll one of your unplaced meeples; if it lands standing, you get an additional coin. The rest of the locations activate once all meeples are placed, in the following order: The Stela of Knowledge, The Temple, The Temple Surroundings (a, b, and c), The Black Market, The Village, The Harbor Master’s Office, and finally, The Ships. Each of these has a different effect. For instance, the Temple and its Surroundings allow you to collect the Artifact cards associated with them, which you can later deliver to the Harbor Master’s Office or The Ships for victory points — a complete set is three of the same kind, but there are smaller rewards for two or one.

The other major collectors’ item is Upgrades, which are acquired in The Village. A couple of these activate immediately as one-time bonuses; the rest are equipped as continual benefits. You can see one of each in the photo above — the red X on the left Upgrade indicates that it’s a one-time use (gain 5 coins), and the one on the right allows you to exchange 3 coins for one Discovery point whenever you so choose. As you can see, each player has slots to equip up to two Upgrades at a time, plus a personal Upgrade discard – this is important because Upgrades grant you victory points at the end of the game, regardless of whether they’re equipped.

I mentioned Discovery points – these are signified by the bird symbol, and tracked along the top of the board. When you reach certain points on that path, you get additional bonuses, such as coins (the cross in a circle), victory points (the rising sun symbol), and Upgrades (the crate). Discovery points, victory points, and coins are also bonuses on some of the Artifact cards, redeemed when those cards are delivered.

There are a couple modifications made for a two player game. The most significant of these is the Automaton deck, which simulates a third player by dictating the placement of a third set of meeples. These can be kicked off of bidding spaces the same as any other piece (and won’t be re-placed, because there’s no player to choose its revised placement) but if it’s in a unique (yellow) location that you hoped to visit this round, tough luck. This is especially hampering if it takes one of the higher Temple spaces, because then it has first pick of the Artifacts there… and, of course, it takes the highest value ones first. If its choice is between multiple cards of the same type, it also has a hierarchy of bonuses, which I thought was quite thorough of the creators. Unfortunately, these cards go straight to the discard.

At the end of the round, all empty Artifact and Upgrade spots are refilled, the Plane token is moved one space on the turn track, and if you’re playing with the Automaton, you draw its next placement. If the Plane token is already on the 5th space, the game ends immediately, and scoring happens. Conveniently, most of the scoring has already been tracked over the course of the game, so there are only a few additional points to be doled out. First off, whoever has the First Player marker gains two victory points — this isn’t necessarily whoever went first, mind you, because The Stela of Knowledge location lets you steal the marker, as well as gain a Discovery point. Not bad, right? Especially if you go there on round five, so the other player has no chance to steal it back. Anyways, the other two additional point factors are remaining coins (one victory point per three) and, of course, Upgrades. Whoever has the most victory points wins, or in case of a tie, the most Discovery points!

This game is a lot of fun, and it does a great job of balancing its many mechanics in a way that’s not overwhelming. In the two-player version there are some spaces that don’t get used, and I love that they use covers to make those blend perfectly into the image. Which is just icing on the cake, really, because this board is gorgeous!

There aren’t a ton of games where you have to draw your own board, but in Doodle Dungeon, it’s not just setup — it’s part of the fun!

The concept of Doodle Dungeon is that you’re the proud new owner of your very own Dungeon, purchased at a surprisingly affordable price… because, as it turns out, it’s just a cave. Hero season is rapidly approaching, but before you can slay the foolish adventurers, you need to hire your monsters and lay out your traps!

This is the first phase of the game. Trading off the starting player token (pencil sharpener) each turn, players go around the table choosing one of the face-up cards; there will be one more than there are players. The bottom part of the card you pick will determine what you add to your dungeon this turn. Note that if it’s a trap, goblin, orc or dragon, it has to have at least one open space between it and any other trap/monsters. Don’t worry though, you can make sure the hero gets hit by ’em all anyway with… walls! Walls usually come first on the card, which you address from left to right, and also come with set configurations — for example, two adjacent spaces and then a diagonal — but you choose how to orient it. The only other rule of placement is that every non-wall space must be accessible and not completely blocked off. And don’t worry, there are stencils for all of these, so while the faces are at-your-own-risk, the shapes are uniformly recognizable.

There are two other additions during the drawing phase: treasure and improvements. When you get a treasure, you write down its location secretly, on a separate sheet — it doesn’t have to have a monster on those coordinates when you place it, but if by the time you’re scoring there either is no monster there, or the monster is dead, you don’t get the points for having it. How many points it’s worth is determined by improvements, and so are several other important factors. These are at the top of the page, in a series of checkboxes — each box is worth one improvement, and, checked off in order, each new row that you’ve marked is the next level of that stat. This determines the treasure’s value, the trap’s damage, how many cards you have in hand, and each monster’s strength — I’ll get to that part later. First, finish your drawing and place your card face-down next to you. Make sure you’re sure before you do, though! Once you’ve flipped it, all placements are final.

Once you’ve gotten through 14 rounds of drawing, it’s time to draw the hero’s path from entrance to exit. More accurately, time for your neighbor to draw your hero’s path — you didn’t think you got to choose your own, did you? This part is a strategic balancing act — on the one hand, the fastest route to the end will leave the hero with the most remaining hit points, which are -1 point deductions each for your opponent; on the other, they get points for each surviving monster, proportional to its damage level (goblins are 1, orcs are 2, dragons are 3). This is, of course, providing they left you multiple routes, and not a very strongly suggested main path, with a few optional branches (probably where the treasure’s hiding, but is it worth the detour?). The hero can pass over each space a maximum of twice.

Now comes the actual adventure phase. If you’re thinking it took us a while to get here, you are absolutely right, but you’ll find you don’t mind when you get to watch the poor overconfident hero stumble into a dragon on space one, or get forced through that carefully unavoidable corridor of trap after trap. The way this works is simple — on your turn, your hero moves to the next encounter in your dungeon, and either takes the trap damage or fights the monster. How this works is pretty simple – you roll two dice, add that monster’s strength to the sum, and if it’s 20 or higher, the monster survives and the hero takes damage (meddling via cards notwithstanding). If it’s lower than that, the monster dies. This is the time to play Dungeon cards (blue), which mostly affect the outcome of combats.

Where did you get your Dungeon cards, you ask? Well, when you were picking earlier, of course! Those 14 cards that built your dungeon are now your deck, so I suggest you pay attention to all parts of the card when you’re choosing. (We didn’t, the first game, and I was bitterly surprised to discover Bomb cards and their habit of gravitating towards me.) Bombs are an example of Hero cards (red), which you play once your Dungeon phase is complete. These are cards that will help your opponents’ heroes win fights, regain health, and generally be greater nuisances. It is important to note that there is no out-of-turn play in this game, so all screwing over of other players must be done in advance. Once you’ve sabotaged to your heart’s content, you can choose to recycle any card in your hand by placing it at the bottom of your deck; afterwards (or if you didn’t recycle), draw back up to whatever number of cards your checkboxes indicate.

The game continues until everyone’s heroes are dead or have made it all the way through the dungeon, so if you’re already done, you’ll just have to watch and wait. You still technically have a turn, though, so if you have Hero cards you’d like to play, you can! At the end, everyone tallies up their successfully hidden treasure, surviving monsters, and deductions for hero HP (or +5 bonus for a dead one), and whoever has the highest score wins!

It’s a small detail, but I also appreciate how each page is double-sided for multiple uses, and they include both an eraser and a pencil sharpener along with the pencils. All in all, this game is a fun, well-executed balance between creative strategy and sheer dumb luck, and I highly recommend it.

Because November’s the perfect time to talk about that, right? Well, maybe not for an actual summer camp, but this is Summer Camp, the board game! Good for any season, Summer Camp is a competitive deck-building game where you race to be the model camper.

The first step is to choose which three activities you’re playing — the choices are Adventure, Arts & Crafts, Friendship, Games, and, the three recommended for first time players, Cooking, Outdoors, and Water Sports. Each of these is a separate deck within the larger box, so all you have to do is remove the four “Move 1” cards in the deck, shuffle it, and place it next to one of the three paths on the board, then rinse and repeat with the other two. Meanwhile, each player will get one “Move 1” card from each of the decks in play, as well as 7 “Lights Out” cards from the basic deck, and shuffle these into their own personal draw pile.

On your turn, you can play as many cards as you want, either for their actions or to use them as 1 Energy. For instance, Lights Out cards have no action, so they’re most useful as discards. Energy is in turn used to buy cards from the display — the two face up cards next to each activity deck, plus three piles from the basic deck: Smores (Gain 2 Energy), Free Time (Move 1 space on any path) and Scavenger Hunt, which lets you discard 1-3 cards and draw that many from your deck. Each of these has a red circle in the lower left corner with how much energy it costs to purchase. Any cards you buy will go in your discard pile until you next reshuffle.

I’ve already mentioned movement cards. Some of these, like Free Time, let you choose which path to move on, while others, like Washing Dishes (move 1 space on the Cooking path) are predetermined. Each player has 1 piece on each of the three paths, which correspond to activity decks. When a piece moves, there are a few special effects that may occur, should it land on or pass through a marked space. The effect is indicated by the sign next to the space: the card with a plus sign simply means “draw another card from your deck,” the walking sign indicates you can move any of your pieces forward one space, and the snack bar… well, means you get a snack bar. An important currency, snack bars can be used as 1 energy in a purchase; the difference is that excess energy is lost at the end of a turn, whereas snack bars hold over, with a maximum of six at a time.

At the end of your turn, a few things happen. First, you discard all remaining cards in your hand. In practicality, this means you should aim to play all your cards every turn, if at all possible. Then, you draw five cards to form your new hand, reshuffling your discards if your draw pile runs out. Once you have your hand (or, honestly, I skip to this step first and reshuffle/redraw while the next person’s taking their turn) flip up new activity cards to fill any empty spots on the display, and check for merit badges.

There are 3 types of merit badges: Participation badges are awarded once all three of your pawns have made it past the first bridge, Camp All-Star badges are awarded once they’re all past the second bridge, and Activity merit badges are achieved once that piece reaches the third and final bridge, regardless of where the other two are. In each case, badges are first come, first serve, so the sooner you get there, the greater the reward!

Once someone has reached the end of all three paths, play continues until everyone has had an equal amount of turns (there’s a Starting Camper token for exactly this reason), and the game ends. A player’s score is calculated by three factors: merit badges, points on cards you’ve purchased (in an orange star on the lower right corner) and, if any of your pieces were between the second and third bridges, the value assigned to their current space — the closer to the end, the higher the consolation points. Whoever has the highest sum wins!

A couple of notes: 1) the game starts off a little repetitive, and with a lot of reshuffling, because you start with a ten-card deck. As you buy cards, turns will get a lot more action-packed, but this progression can help ease new players into learning the mechanics. Aside from that… I think the theme’s a lot of fun, each deck has a clear emphasis on a particular function (ex: Water Sports is all about movement), and you can mix ‘n match your activities for something new and fresh every time!

The third and final game from the trio that includes Let’s Dig For Treasure and Let’s Summon Demons, Don’t Talk to Strangers is the only one that’s founded on particularly good advice– that is, don’t get abducted by aliens.

In this game, each player is responsible for a set of children. If at the beginning of your turn, none of your kids are outside, you place one in the school, from where they will be trying to reach some safe spot. The board has several of these, like homes and pools, though some have more available space than others. To reach these locations, players will play one movement card per turn (ex: Run, which lets you move two spaces). Some of these make use of either city buses or school buses, with stops indicated on the board.

After you’ve moved, you’ll draw a card; if it’s a Stranger Sighting, it gets played immediately, and you choose a Stranger Space on the board to place an alien. Any child on that space when the stranger is placed is automatically abducted (removed from the game), and unless a card says otherwise (i.e. Heroic Dog) kids cannot move through that space. If you drawn an abduction card, choose a kid on the board (doesn’t have to be yours) and flip the flying saucer token like a coin. If it lands saucer side up, the kid gets abducted. This includes kids in “safe” spots. So, you know, it’s not so much that they’re safe as that they’re scoring points while they hide for their lives.

What do I mean? Well, each safe space has a point value associated with it, so the actual goal is to get your kids into high value spots — but if you get too greedy, you risk an abduction toppling your lead, which is your incentive to save many and save often! Some safe spaces also have additional effects, such as the library, which lets you have +1 cards in hand (base is 3), or the parks, which let you have an additional kid in play at a given time — effectively, this means you don’t have to wait for your current one to be safe before placing the next.

The game ends when all the Strangers are placed, and whoever has the most points wins; that said, I’ve never actually done that part, because there’s also a card that has the potential to end the game.

No, no, I’m not being rude or mean, and I’m not shouting at anyone today, I promise. That’s just the name of the game! That’s right, Burn In Hell is an actual game, and it’s loads of fun!

In Burn In Hell, you’re Demon princes (or princesses) fighting over the souls in the “Permanent Pitchfork Party.” The deck is made up of notable souls from throughout history — dictators, tycoons, serial killers, etc. Each card has their name (of course), an illustration, a biography (on the back), and actual mechanics-relevant material. These include their special ability, if applicable, and a number of categories: the value of the card, the “tags” (dictator, tycoon, serial killer, etc.), and however many of the Seven Deadly Sins apply.

It is with these traits that you match up groups, “Circles,” of four or more souls to score points. The mechanics for getting there are complicated, involving roundly sacrifices to the Pit, trading with the Pit, trading with other players, burning souls, and incredibly complicated multi-trade maneuvers, but basically, you’re trying to get groups of cards that either all share at least one trait (bonus points for more) or represent the Seven Deadly Sins, one each. The value of the cards involved, combined with the combo bonuses, along with any special pairings (some people who had met in life give you extra points if they end up in circles together) are added to your score.

While it’s important to make Circles wisely, you also need to make them quickly — the value of the cards sacrificed to the Pit each turn determine how much colder Hell gets, and the game ends when Hell freezes over. If you don’t watch the temperature, you could end up losing by a turn to your mother, and having to listen to her bemoan the irony in her winning score of 665.