From 18 to 88

The comic’s zine Tintin, which I regularly read during the 1970’s, had as motto “The magazine for young people from 7 to 77 years”. With some minor adjustments, this perfectly fits my last week of August, on vacation with the enlarged family! Firstly, let us replace magazine by games. Then, move the age interval forward, by about a decade, so to achieve a perfect match with the ages of all players present. The result: “Games for young people from 18 to 88 years”, which we could even extend for almost another decade, so to include the game observers!

On the table, a set of games added to the collection this very year, some of which were bought for the occasion, considering the type of games, the player count and this mixed group. 

Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition

Let us start in shades of Blue, matching the colours of the sky and of the nearby waters. Railroad Ink – Deep Blue is a Roll and Write game, where you literally draw roads and railway lines. Your aim is to build the most valuable network, accounting for the interconnected exits, the longest routes of both roads and railways, the central zone occupation, and the unfinished stretches.

In each round every player draws the same basic sections, as determined by a roll of dice. On the dice faces, there are straights and bends, forks, overpasses, and multimodal platforms, enabling to link together roads and railways. And there are also additional special intersections, on a limited number, to use with restraint, so often to ensure that our network further extends and seamlessly interconnects.

This is, in reality, an individual game played in parallel, where there is no interaction between players. The starting point is the same for all, as are the dice to be used each round. What differs, is the way you use them. But it is surprisingly pleasant to play with other people, side by side, up to six players, scribbling down the routes on their own boards, choosing different aesthetic approaches, or attempting to maximize their endgame score. In the end, just erase it all, and start again, maybe adding another couple of dice, representing rivers and lakes.

Roll and Write games are ever more popular, in brand new formats and complexity levels. It is a kind of resurgence of dice, pencil, and paper games, but with an all-new touch, in terms of themes, mechanisms and materials. For all ages and for all players. And to play anywhere.

Just One

From drawing to word guessing, still using some of the base elements that lie at the heart of so many games across time. In opposition to the previous one, relying on independent and autonomous play, this is a fully cooperative game, bringing together up to seven players. The more words the group guesses, the best.

In each round, one of the players will be trying to guess one word, making use of the clues written by the other team members. But pay attention, each clue consists in a single word – Just One -, picked individually, without any conferencing whatsoever. And identical or similar clues, as those of the same lexical family, are removed, reducing the number of clues available for the guesser. 

To each one is own strategy! To choose obvious words, running the risk of duplicating clues, and hence eliminating them. To go for more complex associations, running the risk of a cryptic result. Hope for the clues of other players to give meaning for our own clue. Or even to pick a word which, we trust, will provide a special hint for the guessing player. The success rate on our seven-player group was pretty high! 

It is lots of fun to watch the associations unfolding, either providing clues or trying to guess the secret word, and it is very easy to understand why this game is already a success story, in so short time.

Codenames

Let us keep going on the word-guessing business, moving to another very successful game, now available in several versions. Well, my entry game in the Codenames universe was Duet, for two players, as the name suggests. This vacation we were up to the original Codenames, putting face to face, in competition, two rival teams. Who will be the first to find out all the secret spies? The blue team or the red team?

Each team includes a spymaster and several field agents. The spymasters know the secret grid, holding the key to what is assigned to each of the words on the table: a blue spy, a red spy, an innocent civilian, or the assassin. How to best convey this information to the field agents? How to avoid costly mistakes? How to beat the rivals? 

The main process is to find an association between words, the more the better, on positions corresponding to spies of their own team, and to provide a common clue – here again just one word -, together with the number of instances. For exmaple, “Animal 2” could be used to signal, on the above photo, Bear (Urso) and Unicorn (Unicórnio).

But it will not always be that simple! And as there are other words, one must avoid, at all cost, that our agents might be misled, and will point to civilians (an thus passing the playing turn to the other team), or to opposite spies (giving them the edge), or, in the worst scenario case, to the assassin (immediately loosing the game). Playing slowly and safe is seldom the solution because this is a race, and only one team will win.

We were eight at the table, a pretty good number, enabling lots of discussions inside each team. Lots of fun to play in a group, with a nice mix of competition between both teams, and of cooperative play within each one.

Kanagawa

This painting-themed game is already a recurrent one on our table. It undoubtedly has some appealing material: nicely illustrated cards, the playing mat representing the painting school, the master and apprentice tokens, and the tiny paint brushes.

Game play goes well with the theme. To spend longer time at school, obtaining more knowledge and techniques (more cards), or to put the knowledge into practice, choosing some elements before other players do so. To expand our painting, adding new elements, or to develop our atelier, as a preparation in advance for future rounds. 

Trying to incorporate more elements of a single season into our painting, going for the trees, for human portraits, animals, or buildings. Each option may pave the way to get diplomas, of importance for the final scoring. But beware! There is also room for ambition and dilemmas: it is possible to pass on a diploma, which will never get back again into our reach, in the quest for a more prestigious one. In the endgame, scoring is valued in harmony points.

A game that is simultaneously elegant, simple, and fast, providing enough choices to make it enjoyable, and with cards enough to ensure replayability. Better at 3- and 4-player counts, over 2, because of the added uncertainty related to the choices of each player, namely within the painting school card drafting.

Istanbul

A change of game style and place, and we find ourselves in Istanbul. I had listened to good things, really good things, about this one. And these first couple of games lived to the expectation.

The bazaar was crowded, as it is supposed to be, with five merchants in play (the maximum), totalling some twenty assistants, to spread all over the place only to meet them again later on, plus some family members, alternating between freedom and time in prison, and a governor, and a smuggler.  

Sixteen different locations, each one enabling different actions, with quite original ones, from mosques to the sultan’s palace, from the post office to the police station, the markets, the fountain, the warehouses for spices, fruits, and fabrics, or the luck games around the table for tea. 

An action-packed game, where each turn goes by in a blink, and where what matters is to find the fastest road to the rubies.

Backgammon

An holiday without at least a backgammon match would be a very rare occasion. This set is, for sure, my most travelled game, having visited many locations in the span of some decades. And it is usually packed together with a set of poker dice and two decks of cards!

You may learn here the backgammon basics.

And this is how it went, part of a week into the Blue!