Simply Catan – Review

Simply Catan was first published in 2006 by SimplyFun and is designed by Klaus Teuber. The mission statement of the publisher, SimplyFun is: “To promote the importance of play and create lifelong memories that enhance the quality of life for our Consultants, customers and employees.” (Originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Simply Catan:

• Designed by: Klaus Teuber
• Published by: SimplyFun
• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 30 min
• Player ages: 6+

A Quick Overview

The island of Catan is not yet settled and players take on the role to become the most dominant settler. By acquiring resources such as wood, brick, wheat, wool and ore, players can build towns, develop cities and purchase armies!

Resources are acquired by rolling dice and then bartering or trading them with other players. The player with the most points at the end of the game is declared the winner.

Game Play

On a player’s turn, dice are rolled to determine which cities/town will produce resources which are represented by cards. Players then take these resources and then attempt to trade them with other players in order to convert the resources into needed victory points (VPs).

Players can choose to build towns (worth 1 VP), upgrade existing towns to cities (worth 2 VPs), build roads (longest road is worth 2 VP) and armies (largest army is worth 2 VP) by exchanging a certain combination of resources for these items.

If a player has 7 or more victory points (10 VP for the “advanced” game) at the end of their turn, they win the game.

Observations

I don’t like “Settlers of Catan” nor do I like this game.

Simply Catan is a re-implementation of the original “Settlers of Catan” published by Mayfair which is now in its 4th edition.

Simply Catan is essentially Catan with some streamlining. For instance, Simply Catan provides two sets of rules; a “Basic” and an “Advanced”. The “Basic” game plays to 7 VPs and omits the use of the “Largest Army” and development cards.

If you play with the “Advanced” rules, you are playing “Settlers of Catan”.

Though the box says that the game will play in about 30 min, I have found that this is not the case. A game will last about an hour or longer. As for introducing this game to a six year old, I am not sure that it would work.

I played this game with an 11 year old and a 13 year old and one of the comments I heard was, “This is the worst game ever.” I don’t agree with their statement but I have played other games within this timeframe that I found more satisfactory.

The kids found it boring and didn’t enjoy the trading, moving the robber or rolling the dice. Mind you, these kids have played other games prior to playing this and they know how to get around games.

What I liked about Simply Catan was that setup was much faster; the board was very pretty and everything was laid out quite nicely. The playing pieces were nice plastic models of bridges, cities and towns.

If you don’t already own Catan and you would like a flashier version of the game, then I would highly recommend this game for its pleasing production.

Happy gaming.

Time for a big announcement folks! That's right FallCon is launching a Canadian Game Design of the Year Contest!

Inspired by similar contests in France and Italy (among others), FallCon has decided to support the Canadian Game Hobby by fostering the creative talent behind the game designs. So if :

• you've ever thought about designing your own board or card game,
• you have an old design collecting dust in your closet
• you've been rejected on Dragon's Den

NOW is a great time to submit your design to us. Full contest details can be read here.

We are also looking for fair & impartial judges so if you would like to participate in the selection process, give the judge duty descriptions a read and send Brent an email to let him know how you'd like to get involved.

We welcome all comments, questions and feedback. Hope you're as excited as we are about this!


Brent & Jasen
 

Dominion – Review

Dominion was first published in 2008 and is designed by Donald X. Vaccarino. According to BoardGameGeek.com, this game has taken the boardgaming community by storm! To date, there are two other expansions in the Dominion series that add a lot of depth and complexity to the base game. (This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Dominion:

• Designed by: Donald X. Vaccarino
• Published by: Rio Grande Games
• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 30 min
• Player ages: 8+

A Quick Overview

Each player takes on the role of a monarch of a small kingdom whose goal is to expand the size of their kingdom by acquiring the most duchies, estates and provinces in order to win.

Each turn is simple and quick and players make the best use of their deck of cards to build the most prestigious kingdom as quickly as possible.

Game Play

Dominion is a card game and the entire game consists of cards. In the base game, there are 25 different kingdom cards, of which 10 are chosen to be played with. Before the game begins, the land is populated with 10 different “kingdom” cards. Each of these cards has a cost and specific bonuses when played.

On a player’s turn, he makes use of his hand of cards to “build up” his deck into something that will generate enough coins (copper, silver and gold) to purchase estates, duchies and provinces which are the main generators of victory points (VPs).

Each player starts with the same hand of 10 cards. These ten cards are of:

• 3 Estates (1 VP each)
• 7 copper  (1 coin each)

The player then draws a hand of 5 cards (which may be modified by other players’ action cards) and then game play follows the A-B-C process listed in the rule book.

• “A” is for Action; a player can only perform one action using a card with an action property.
• “B” is for Buy; a player may only purchase one other card from the existing cards in play.
• “C” is for Clean up; a player then discards all cards, played or not, into a discard pile.

Observations

At first, when I played it, I wasn’t too enthralled by it. I thought it was an ok game. More of a “meh” game. Somehow, the ease of teaching this game and the play time of this game made it one of my favourites.

In fact, after playing it 15 times, I decided that I had to buy it!

Since being released in 2008, I played Dominion 70+ times; I haven’t bored of it yet! There is something about choosing 10 different decks from a set of 25 to play with each time!

And the more I play, the more interesting card combinations become.

What I also enjoy about this game is that it appeals very readily to younger players. The time to play a game is very short and it keeps fidgety kids from getting distracted too easily.

Rio Grande Games is the publisher of this great card game. It is a 30 minute game for 2-4 players and it retails for about $45 US.

Inside the box that is rather similar to Ticket to Ride’s, you will find a nice insert that has nice slots for holding all 500 cards in this game! That’s right! For $45 US you get yourself a nice box and 500 cards!

I don’t use the box for this game because I think it is unwieldy. Instead, I use 3×5″ plastic bags to hold each set of kingdom cards which I place into a smaller container for easier transport. This has the added bonus (for me) of being able to more easily choose a set of kingdom cards to play with.

Happy gaming.

Last Train to Wensleydale – Review

Last Train to Wensleydale was first published in 2009 and is designed by Martin Wallace who has designed a number of “train” games. This game attempts to simulate the movement of cheese, stone and passengers from the Dales all the while trying to make a bit of money. (This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Last Train To Wensleydale:

• Designed by: Martin Wallace
• Published by: Warfrog
• Number of players: 3-4
• Playing time: 2 hours
• Player ages: 13+

A Quick Overview

Each player takes on the role of a director of a small railway company who attempts to make some profit by building rail track in some of the most difficult terrain in England.

Players obtain investment money which they then use to buy influence in the government and other national rail companies, build track and attempt to ship cheese, stone from nearby quarries and the occasional passenger.

Game Play

Last Train to Wensleydale takes place over 4 turns (5 for three players) and build a profitable rail network. Profitability is ensured by delivering goods and passengers along your rail network.

Each turn is broken into 10 “phases” which are played in turn order. These phases allow a player to:

• Receive “investment” income
• Bid for influence
• Build track
• Buy trains; Ship passengers and goods
• Sell off unprofitable track to national railway companies

The heart of the game revolves around delivery of goods and passengers. Over the course of the game, deliveries are slowly exhausted and by later turns, you are struggling to ensure a profitable rail network.

There is also a bit of an auction element which allows players to get influence points which affect turn order in the different phases of the game.

Careful management of your rail network and selling off track to the existing national rail companies at crucial times will ensure that you will come out ahead.

This is a game of bribery and jostling to prevent other players from developing good routes across the Dales!

Do you have what it takes?!

Observations

I *love* “train” games or train-themed games so it is no surprise that I adore this game! I would very much recommend it.

After several readings of the (rather obtuse) rules and several playings, it reveals itself to be a simple game. Mr. Wallace’s prose is a better fit for a book rather than a rules booklet. If you have played other Wallace games, you’ll understand why. (It is because there are several rules’ exceptions scattered throughout the prose which a cursory reading will not reveal!)

This game is easily played in under two hours and offers a great balance of “game weight” to satisfaction. A 3 player game feels fun and “light” while a 4 player game is very tight and sweat inducing

It is a cutthroat game because you will discover that careful placement of tracks will cause much consternation for other players! There are lots of delightful nuances to the game that is discovered after plays.

What I enjoy about this game is the random setup for each game. However, I don’t like that the initial setup and “seeding” of the game can take a bit of time.

The board is functional yet was garish to look at. After a few plays, however, it was ok; the colours do evoke the sense of a biology textbook but that ensures that you aren’t confused about the landscape.

Every game that I have played was different and each game lent itself well for trying out new strategies for the following game. I think this game is more tactical than it is strategic but that’s not a detracting factor.

I would not play this game with younger players because there are a number of things to keep straight.

Happy gaming.