FallCon - A Cornucopia of Gaming

Days of Steam was first published in 2009 and is available from Valley Games Inc. (This post was originally published on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Days of Steam:

• Designed by: Aaron Lauster
• Published by: Valley Games Inc.
• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 60 min
• Player ages: 10+

A Quick Overview

In this tile laying game, players place tracks and cities creating routes for the delivery of goods. Players who can deliver a variety of goods receive bonus points.

Careful hand management and keeping your engine at the necessary steam capacity will enable you to create the most profitable routes and deliveries.

Game Play

On their turn, a player may do one of the following actions:

• Place a tile from hand
• Move their train
• Place a town tile

Each of these “micro” actions blends together to create an interesting train-themed game.

Each player has a hand of 3 track tiles. Each is valued at a certain number of “steam” points. By placing a tile, a player generates power to move their locomotive. The player’s locomotive can only have a maximum of 6 steam points.

By choosing to expend steam, players move their trains from location to location picking up and delivering goods.

And finally, a town tile can be placed to provide another delivery location and source of goods. This is helpful because each town can only accept a particular good.

The winner is the one who reaches 13 points first or has the most points when the tile deck is exhausted.

Observations

Disclaimer: This game was provided as a sample game by Valley Games Inc.

I have played Days of Steam a few times now and I think it is a fun game. It’s easy enough to teach and plays rather quickly.

I thought this game was interesting in the sense that players were forced to expand the rail network as this was the only way to generate steam to power their locomotives.

If you have been a regular reader of this site, then you know that I enjoy train themed games very much. Days of Steam has a definite train flavor to it but I didn’t like the tile-laying bit.

The tile-laying part was similar to the game Carcassone which I didn’t like that much.

As far as game-complexity goes, Days of Steam is rather easy to learn and teach. There are plenty of examples in the rule book to clarify the game concepts.

I would consider it a nice “gateway” game; a game that introduces people to the genre of train-themed games.

Happy gaming.

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Habitat was first published in 2008 by Valley Games Inc. It is now in its 2nd edition. (This post was originally published on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Habitat:

• Designed by: Elliot Hogg
• Published by: Valley Games Inc.
• Number of players: 2-6
• Playing time: 30 min
• Player ages: 8+

A Quick Overview

In the Northern forests, you create a Habitat and build a diverse ecosystem consisting of resources, complex organisms and deadly predators of the forests.

Your habitat can consist of multiple food chains and a variety of wildlife. The winner is the one with the most biologically diverse ecosystem.

Game Play

There are two game phases in Habitat. The first is the growth phase that occurs simultaneously. The second phase is the event phase where each player takes a turn to play an Event card (which affects ecosystems) or exerts Territoriality.

Events range from seasons (Spring/Winter) to natural disasters (Wildfire, Pollution, etc.) Each player tries to attract a diverse ecosystem consisting of cards numbered from 1 to 8.

The winner is the one that has an ecosystem with at least one card numbered from 1 to 8.

Observations

Disclaimer: This game was provided as a sample game by Valley Games Inc.

I have played Habitat a few times now and I kind of like it. It is a card game and it can be played very quickly though we found our games taking about 30-45 minutes.

There is a lot of “luck” involved in this type of game because of the card draw. The goal is to get a numbered set of cards from 1 to 8. This is a little difficult to do as there are only three “8″ value cards (Cougar, Black Bear, Grizzly Bear).

There are also three “Wolves” cards which are numbered “7*” with the exception that if you have two of these distributed along your food chains, they count as BOTH “7″ and “8″ value cards.

The idea of the game is to build a habitat consisting of resources (eggs, plants, fruits and berries, etc.) which have a value of “1″ and add animals that subsist on them. You can only add to a food chain an organism of a higher number or, thematically, an organism that feeds on the item below it.

It is a nice concept and the cards are lavishly illustrated giving you the feel of actually nurturing a habitat. I have played this game with 2 and 3 players and I prefer playing it 3 players.

The designer took pains to make the ecosystem building process thematic and I appreciate that. I think younger children would enjoy a nature lesson that these cards provide.

It is a little more complicated than a game such as For Sale.

Happy gaming.

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Valley Games Inc. sent me a package a couple of weeks ago containing a selection of games. I was excited to get the games and write about them. Here is a short video that I made about the games in the package.

Please enjoy:

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(Originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Instead of writing a review, I thought I would put up a video of the boardgames that I took photos of last year. You will recognize most of the boardgame photos as the ones that I used for the reviews.

A few exceptions are games like Torres and Attika which I have not yet reviewed.

Please enjoy and thanks for reading!

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