Thirdfloorgamers.com » Board Game Reviews

OUTBREAK!

Max L. — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:28:11 +0000

What do you do when the world is falling apart as you speak? What do you do when millions are dying of sickness, and nobody has a cure? What do you do when the very human race is on the brink of extinction??????!!!!!!

You play Pandemic!!

Pandemic is an awesome game (one of my favorites), and is an exciting, fast paced game that requires an intelligent mind, quick thinking, a ton of strategy, and luck. Did I mention luck? In Pandemic, players work with each other against the board, like castle panic. The gameplay is also a bit like castle panic, where you try to defend a certain cause against outside forces that the game creates. There are four difficulties to play on, making the game available for all skill levels. The first one is easy. Easy provides a light challenge that is not particularly hard to succeed in, but still provides great gameplay, and a lot of fun. The second mode is medium. Medium is fairly challenging (despite the name), but not so much that the game becomes annoying or boring. This level is recommended by myself. The third mode is hard. Hard is very hard (hence the name) and is only recommended for talented gamers who can figure out a lot of strategy and fine logical solutions to beat the odds. You will need a pile of luck to come out on top for this one. The final level to play on is extreme. I have never played this mode before, but I have played hard, and if this is any more difficult than that, then it is NOT RECOMMENDED. This mode may become boring or annoying due to massive hardness, and even the most SKILLED players will need all the luck they can get to defeat the sickness. Maybe the more daring could try this mode out. Back to the game though. As you can see, the many modes of difficulty can make this game very flexible, suited for almost any gamer. The gameplay makes this one of my most loved games, too! First, lets explain the game board. The game board is basically the map of the world, with major cities marked with various colors and blue lines connecting some to others. In the bottom left corner there is a meter labelled “outbreaks”. If the meter ever reaches the bottom to where the skull is, you lose. In the bottom center there is a small diagram with different colors. This determines which sicknesses you have cured, which you have not, and which you have eliminated. Next to this is the draw pile and the discard pile of cards. At the top right there is another draw pile and discard pile, but this time for infection cards. Below that is a meter showing the rate at which the sickness spreads. To start the game, each player will randomly pick a role card from the selection. There are five roles, and each one has a different ability, which is stated on the card. The roles are medic, scientist, researcher, etc, whatever has to do with disease and all that. (I find the medic particularly useful). After you have picked the roles, you will start the sickness (awww!!). To start, you will draw cards from the infection card pile. For the first 3 or 4, you must place 3 cubes (these will come with the game) of the same color as the city on that city. For the next 3 or 4, you will place only two cubes. For the final 3 or 4, you will place one cube. These cubes represent the sickness. There are 4 sicknesses. The black, the Yellow, The blue, and the red. Each one is in a different area of the board. If a city EVER reaches four cubes, then you keep 3 cubes on the city, but place a cube on every city around it. This is an outbreak! Move your chip on the outbreak meter one down (remember, too many outbreaks, world goes bye-bye). Not only do these make you lose, they lessen your performance with more cubes on the outer areas. (Note: These can cause chain reactions). There are ways to remove cubes though, which will be covered soon. The second thing that needs to be covered is research centers. You start the game with one, placed right where all players begin the game, in the blue area. Research centers are areas to perform many different actions with better results. You can move to a research station by discarding a card with an action, and you can also cure diseases at centers. They are very useful (there is a role that has the ability to build other research centers too!). Now, this is all fine and dandy, but how do you win? To win Pandemic, you have to cure every color of disease. To cure a disease, you must go to a research center and discard five cards of the same color. That disease will then be cured. (with the exception of the scientist, who only needs 4 cards). Now we move on to the actions, and what you do on your turn. There are many different methods of moving around, that use action points and cards. The first phase of a turn is the action phase, where you do everything. You get four action points to spend. This means, in theory, that you can do 4 things per turn. Moving will cost 1 action point, no matter what you do. The first and easiest method of moving is you can move your pawn along the blue lines from city to city. Each city you pass is one action point. You may also discard a card to move directly to that area for 1 action point. You can discard a card to move to any research center on the board, too! Remember you can move from the left side to the right side going off the board, and vice versa. (there is one role that allows you to use actions to move somebody else’s pawn instead of yours). But with action points you can do much more than move. You can also do the following. If you are at a research center, you may cure a disease for one action. Also, the most important action, you may remove cubes. If you are at a city with cubes on it, you may remove 1 per action point. (the medic however can remove all cubes with one action point). This is useful in keeping the sickness at a minimal spread. Many of the roles can do other things for action points, and there are a few other less important actions that can be made, which are explained on the actions description card that comes with the game. there are many actions to be done, and you only get 4 points. Spend them wisely!!! But after the action phase, your turn is far from over. After actions, you draw two cards from the regular draw pile, and take them into your hand. Then, you draw a number of infection cards (the number listed below the infection draw pile). You must put 1 cube on each city you draw. Now we move on to explain the REGULAR card deck. First and foremost, if a player is EVER unable to draw enough cards for their turn (i.e. the deck runs out), then you immediately lose the game. Harsh right? Also, city cards aren’t the only ones in the deck. There are also helpful special event cards to be drawn. When these are activated, they help you in some way, depending on what the card is. Then, there are the deadly EPIDEMIC CARDS!!!! These fatal cards are how the game bites back, striking when you least expect it! For every epidemic card, you must do the following. You must (this is the worst) take the discard pile, shuffle it, and plop it on top of the infection deck. This results in multiple of the same card, and more outbreaks! The next thing you do is move the rate of infection counter up one on the track. The higher it goes, the more infection cards you draw! The third and final thing you do is take the three bottom cards from the infection deck, and infect each of the cities listed with THREE cubes, and then put the cards back in the deck. These are all of the rules of Pandemic, it is a very exciting game with a lot of depth and content, and much strategy involved. I hope I didn’t bore you do death (this review was particularly long) and I hope I inspired you to play Pandemic! It is a sweet game, definately worth a try! Happy gaming everyone!

-Max L

Thirst for Navigation!

Max L. — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:19:20 +0000

Rule the lands! Conquer the seas! siege the cities! All in this incredible game called Endeavor! Endeavor is an awesome game in which 3-5 players compete in a struggle to navigate and take over the new parts of the world. It takes around 1 hour and a half to play through, and is very fun. To play, players move through four phases each round. These phases, in order, are the building phase, the worker gathering phase, the worker paying phase, and the action phase. Each player gets a small board which shows the status and achievements, buildings, and cards of that player. In the building phase, you build buildings to help you later. The power of building you can build depends on how far you are on the industry track. The second phase the culture phase, is where players receive their workers. The amount you receive depends on how far you are on the culture track. The third phase, the finance phase, is where you take your workers back from off your buildings to your harbor to use them again. The further you are on the finance track, the more workers you can bring back. The final and most important phase is the action phase. This is where players put workers on buildings and carry out the action on the building. This can be drawing a card, attacking another player’s city, moving to an undiscovered area, etc. When you take a city you get the cites item on it, and replace it with your marker. Even if you lose the city, you keep this. If you have two cities connected by a line, it is called a trade route, and you receive the good that is on the trade route. To go to an undiscovered area, you must first discover it by placing markers on the side track, and gaining those resources. Then you can visit the cities in that area. That is how the game progresses. Now back to the player’s boards. The top of that board shows the industry track. This track shows how good of a building the player can build. To get further on the track, you must grab the industry resources scattered around the board during the action phase. The second to top is the culture track, which lets you get more workers in the second phase. Again, you obtain culture points during the action phase on the board. The third track is the finance track, which lets you take more workers back from buildings. You obtain these the same way as the other two. Finally, there is the politics track, which lets you have more cards than the normal of one. Below the four tracks are your buildings. Those I already explained. Then at the bottom are the cards. The more politics points you have, the more cards you can have at a time. To get a card, you must get one during the action phase. Each card has a requirement though, and that is a certain amount of cities on that area of the board. If you get a card, you put it in one of the card spots, and you receive the effects of the card. If you lose the card, you lose the effects. Some cards have handcuffs on them. These are slave cards. They do not count against you for politics, so you can have as many as you want. However, if the abolishion of slavery card is in play, at the end of the game you lose one glory for each slave card you have. This brings me to my final point. Glory. Glory is how you win the game. After the 8 rounds, the player with the most glory wins the game. Glory can be obtained on cards, and how far you are on your tracks. For every 3 workers in your harbor at the end, you gain 1 glory. For every city you own, you receive one glory. If your governor space on your card slots is free, you earn another 3 glory. If you have a university building, you receive three glory. For ever trade connection on the board you have, you receive one glory. Keep in mind glory is only tallied at the end of the game. The person with the most glory wins! That’s how you play endeavor, and it is an extremely enjoyable game. Happy navigating!

Pitchcar

Julia R. — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:57:38 +0000

Pitchcar is the game of flicking “race cars” around a track twice trying to come out victorious. The race starts with a jump. The jump is very hard because to make because you need to land on the other side. You could get not enough force and land in the middle of the jump or too much and fly off the table. After you make it over the first jump there is the first turn and a second jump. This one is easier right? Wrong! It is just as hard. If you can make it over that you have a turn that goes for some weird little curves. This area is pretty challenging because there is only one railing per curve. If you ride it the wrong way you will surely fall off. If you survive the curves there is one last turn and then the straight away (unless your on your first lap then go around again). The straight away seems so close and yet so far. If the force you flick the race car is too fast you will go off the jump for the third time and have to wait until your next turn to finish. It is a very fun and challenging game, but very easy to understand. On amazon.com it sells for $54.99 though prices may vary. Also their are some expansions with different tracks. Their is even a Pitchcar Mini. Here is a link to a video of some people playing Pitchcar Mini. Go have fun playing Pitchcar and as always Happy Gaming.

Pitchcar Mini

Click here to view the embedded video.

Foreclosure Fiasco…

ibrahim — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:22:15 +0000

I haven’t posted in a while, and I recently played For Sale, while Zach and I were learning about it for a video review, so I decided this would be a great time to make a new post.

Anyways, on to the game. For Sale, is a light filler-strategy game which involves buying and selling different properties. We started the game with 2200 dollar tokens, which you use to buy different properties. There are also two decks of cards, one with the numbered properties in it, and the latter with checks of varying sizes in it. There are two phases to this game; one where you can buy properties, and another where you sell the properties for checks, which are used at the end of the game to determine who the winner is.

You start the game by flipping up 3 property cards, and then going around and placing bets on it, or freely taking the lowest card. The cards go around until all of them have been taken. For example, if there was a 3, 8, and 17 on the table. The first player could freely take the 3, or bid tokens to vie for the top card. If one player took the 3, another player could take the next lowest available card, the 8, or bid more token to go for the 17. You repeated this until all the cards were gone.

Next you moved onto the check phase. Each player has the same number of properties, and you bid the properties for different checks which ranged from 0 to 15,000. After you have auctioned off all the properties for checks, you counted out your score, and the person with the highest points was the victor.

When we played our game, there were only 3 players. Zach, Mr. Matera, and myself. It was my first time, and I carelessly wasted my money earlier on, and was empty later on when the better properties came out, and was forced to take the terrible cards, such as a 1 or 2, while Mr. Matera picked up cards in the higher 20s. The game continued in the same fashion in the second phase. Mr. Matera easily came in first with an astonishing 100 points, with Zach in second with 79. I came in last. (How did you guess?) with only 69 points.

For Sale is a great game and I really enjoyed playing it. Hopefully the video review will be on the site by the end of next week.

“For Sale”

kearney — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:31:16 +0000

Today in Game Club we played a fun filler game called For sale. It is a quick game that only takes about 20-25 minutes. Yu start out with a set amount of chips depending on the amount of people playing. If there are 3-4 people you get fourteen $1000 chips and two $2000 chips. If you have 5-6 you get ten $1000 chips and two $2000 chips. There are two typs of cards in the game, house cards and check cards. I will explain the check cards later. There are different cards ranging in point value from one to thirty. The one pointer is a cardboard box, and the 30 is a space station, with all others in between. You flip over as many cards as there are players, and the bidding begins. Say there are five people, so you flip over five houses. We will say the values are 5, 11, 13, 22, and 28. The first person can bet as much as they want or pass. If you pass you get the lowest point value and half of your money back. If it is an odd number, you round up. We’ll say the first person bets one, the second two, and the third person passes. They get the five, and then we’ll say everybody else passes. They get the 11, 13, 22, and 28. If you get the highest, you lose all your money. This then proceeds for several more rounds. The second and last phase is the check phase. First you would lay out the number of checks equal to the number of players. All the players choose one of their cards and lay it face down. Everybody flips over their cards, and the person with the lowest gets the lowest check, the second lowest the second lowest check, etc. The checks range in money from $1000 to $15000. There are also two void checks, checks worth no money. After the end of the game the person with the most $ after the checks and the leftover money from the betting wins. This is a quick fun game that I’m sure that you will love.

Economic Downturn…..

ibrahim — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:33:23 +0000

Last week Thursday, Game Club was introduced to a completely new game………. Ad Astra.

Ad Astra is a economical game and is slightly similar to Settlers of Catan, but is far more challenging and requires more thought on your part. It most resembles Catan with its building rules. (You have to have this and that to make this. etc…) The game didn’t really have a lasting effect on me, or anyone else on my table, but that could have to do with the fact that we played the game ever so slightly incorrectly. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but the action on our table was a little too slow-paced. But no worries, I’m still ready to give Ad Astra another try.

The game starts off with each player selecting a color, corresponding “player”, and card decks. Everyone picked their colors pretty fast, and I was stuck with red, and this slightly-strange-mohawk-laser-gun-guy. Sam W. started off first, and he placed his colony on a random planet in the beginning solar system, and a spaceship in deep space. Yaseen, Zach, and I did the same thing. You also have resource and “play cards”, which you use to build things, and to be able build things and do certain actions.

There are actually “phases” in the game, so every player doesn’t just go around throwing their pieces on the board with no organization. There is a card board to the side of the playing field, and it contains a certain number of card spots. (Twelve, in this case.) Going in order, each player puts down one card, until everyone has put down three. ( Or four, depending on playing conditions.) After you this, each player flips up their “play card”, each one has a special effect, such as moving your starship to another galaxy, or cashing in some gold to make a colony.

The effects of these cards can have a great effect on your score, making you win or lose. The game continues onward from their, from action phase to card phase, and vice versa. In order to win, you have to get 50 points. Sadly, half our players could barely reach 15. This was probably due to our faults, and problems understanding the rules.

The rules are slightly difficult to understand, and the game is a little challenging and hard to play, but it was still a fun Game Club experience and I wouldn’t mind playing the game again.

Choose your own game club

Sam W. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:30:39 +0000

Today we had the first game club where we got to pick our own game to play. How this worked was that you picked a group to play a game with and then you choose what game you want to play. Our group chose Pitch car and the other two games were Formula D and Castle Panic. In my game we did a first course that wasn’t that long but had lots of jumps. Then we built the worlds hardest course with two tables pushed together! Some of the obstacles included, a bridge to go over and under, three very long jumps, and many many turns. The unofficial winner of that course was Matthew B. I say unofficial because we ran out of time before we could finish and Matthew was in first. The other difficulty was that you knew that the other people could overtake you if you made one bad move.

The other games seemed to go well. Formula D as always looked exciting at the game break and Castle Panic looked very intense. (even though I don’t know how to play!) All in all I think that this idea of picking your own game to play is cool and I hope we do it again!

Intergalactic economy!

Max L. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:24:21 +0000

In today’s game club we played an awesome game called Ad Astra! This game is where players compete to control the most of deep space, and earn the most victory points! The game has a very unique form, and this is how it is played. In Ad Astra, there are six resources; water, wheat, gold, energy, red rock, and small metal [red rock and small metal are not the real names for those resources, but the real names are extremely long and nobody bothers to memorize them ]. These different resources can be used to build extra spaceships for flying around the galaxy, colonies to put on planets, terraformers, and factories to put on planets. To obtain resources, you have to play a producer card. Producer cards have resources on them, and you must chose one of the two. Everybody then produces the chosen material. Well, everybody who has a colony on a planet producing that resource. You need to put a colony on a planet with a resource to make the resource. Having a spaceship on a planet gives you one of that resource, as well as having a colony on it. Having a terraformer does nothing except earn you points, and upgrading your colony to a factory will earn you two of that resource when that producer card has been played. Every person playing starts out with a home planet, a spaceship, and one of each resource. Each home planet is in the home galaxy, in the center of the game board. There are many other galaxies to be explored, too! One of the resources, cannot build anything. This resource is energy. Energy is what you use to fly around the universe in your spaceship. To fly from deep space (any position in where you are not on a planet in a galaxy) to a galaxy does not cost you any energy. Flying from a galaxy back to deep space costs one energy. Flying from planet to planet in one galaxy is also one energy. However, flying from a planet in one galaxy to a planet in another galaxy is two energy! Energy is a very valuble resource, and it is suggested that you use it wisely when playing. The game is won when the first person gets to, or over, 50 points. To gain points, a scoring round must appear. The player of the scoring card chooses what will be scored, out of the two options on the card. These options vary with different scoring cards. You can be scored on the amount of terraformers you have, the amount of colonies you have, the amount of spaceships you have, or the amount of different galaxies that you have something of yours present in. You earn points for each of the objects that you have, and the person who has the most earns an additional 3 points! How the cards are played is the most unique part of the game. Off to the side of the game board, a board numbered 1 through 15 should be present. Players take turns placing one of their cards on that board, in any of the number slots. Once all of the slots are filled up, each card is flipped up in number order, and the effects of the card take place. It will be a producer card, a scoring round, a building phase, a trade phase, or a movement phase. In building phases, each player may build a colony, spaceship, terraformer, or factory, on a planet, using the resources required (note: Factories may only be placed after a colony is present on that planet). The owner of that card may build as much as he/she would like, but others are restricted to one building/spaceship. A trade phase is simply a phase where players can trade resources with each other, and bargain over deals. However, players may only trade with the owner of the card. The owner may also trade to the bank, but at a 2:1 ratio. A movement phase is where players have the opportunity to move around galaxies. You may make one movement, either into deep space from a galaxy, or to the galaxy that the owner of the card chooses, from anywhere. These are all the rules of gameplay. But there is one final twist! In some galaxies, there exist alien planets, that do not produce a resource. Placing colonies on them though earn you instant points. Also, if you choose to fly to an alien planet, you receive an alien card. Each one has special effects that can be used to your advantage during the game.

Although slightly complicated, Ad Astra is an extremely fun and exciting game, that can be played over and over again, with new outcomes every time! This game is one of game clubs many awesome games, and I hope everyone who plays it enjoys it as much as I did!

[View with PicLens]

Days of Wonder

kearney — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:20:30 +0000

If you have ever played Shadows over Camelot, you must have liked it. This game was manufactured by Days of Wonder. Other games manufactured by them are Fist of Dragonstones, Ticket to Ride, and Small World. Now we will learn how to play Ticket to Ride. Recently in Game Club we played the awesome game of Ticket to Ride. There are two main versions, America and Europe. The two are basically the same thing, with one minor change. The board has two functions, it is the game board, and it keeps score. There are two types of cards in Ticket to Ride. The main cards are trains of varying colors. The locomotive card is many different colors and works as a wild card. You start out the game with four of these cards. These cards are used to lay down trains, which I will explain later. You get point values for laying down trains. There are also the route cards. You take three at the beginning of the game and you can choose whether to take two or three. Routes are longer than trains, so you have to lay down several trains to complete them. Subsequently, some routes are worth more than trains. When you complete a route, you get the points from the route and the points from the trains. The routes have point values of varying amounts. The next part if the games is the houses. You lay these down at a junction and one of those routes becomes yours. You have to pay a price for these, however. You have three, and each time the price goes up. One card for the first one, two cards, and then four cards. This is unique to Europe. You have forty-five train cars Ticket to Ride. Once one person’s total is three or less, everybody gets one final turn. At the end of the game, the person with the most points wins.

Monza!

Minhal :) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:41:18 +0000

Yesterday in game, some of us played a filler game called Monza. It is a very quick game where everybody has a tiny colored car. The cars go on the start line and we take turn rolling some dice. The dice have different colors on them which match the colors on the board. When you roll, you have to try to get as far as you can on the board. For example, if the blocks in front of my car on the board are green, yellow, white and purple, and I rolled those colors, I would play the dice in that order, moving to as many blocks as I can with the dice. You can only use one die once and the blocks you move to have to be touching the block your car is on. You always have to move to the block in front of you, but you can. There are also blocks on the board that are gray and have tires in them. You can’t move your cars on those. Over all, this game is very fun and very short, so you can play it again and again.