Board games: Smash Up

Smash Up is a relatively new card game I got to play last weekend.  Requires 2-4 players (preferably 3-4), takes about an hour, depending how long people spend thinking about moves.

There are 8 factions of cards to choose from (indicated by the little drawing on the bottom right corner): robots, ninjas, pirates, wizards, dinosaurs, aliens, tricksters, and zombies.  To start the game, each player picks two factions, and shuffles them together to create his or her custom deck: for example, I played zombie robots.  Each faction has certain strengths and a certain theme to the game play which mean they're best played in slightly different ways.  Faction cards may be either Minions, or Actions.

In addition to the faction decks, there are bases.  The goal of the game is to gain victory points, which you obtain primarily by capturing bases (there are a couple cards that can directly award a point here and there too, but they seem rare).  Four bases are randomly chosen and laid out to start the game.  Each base has a strength number that indicates how much power is required to capture it (top left) as well as three point values indicating how many victory points are awarded when it's captured.  The first number is what the person who contributed the most points to the capture gets, the second and third numbers go to the second and third contributors.  As shown in the examples below, the first place is USUALLY the most points, but not necessarily always.  Each base also has text describing its specific special properties.

Play progresses as each player in turn can play minions or actions against a base.  You get to play one minion and one action each turn, unless the cards or the base tell you to do otherwise (which they often do).  Each minion has a certain amount of power points associated with it.  Once the sum of the minions' power equals is enough to capture the base, the cards are totaled up to determine which player won the base (whoever has most power there) and who got which victory points, then the base is removed from play and a new one replaces it.

First player to reach 15 victory points wins the game.  Simple!  But the fact your deck is different every time depending which factions you pick makes each game very variable.  We found some faction combinations felt better than others (Ninjas and Tricksters seemed a little too similar in function to combine well for example) but both games we played were extremely close in score which indicates it's surprisingly well balanced considering all the multiple variations possible.  I really liked the fun factions, the simple rules, and the many variations that combining the two factions can create in each game.

More good news: there's already an expansion planned adding 4 new factions, and the original box has plenty of extra space leaving lots of room for those expansions!

Board games: Revolution

I used to play board games as a kid, but switched to computer games and the occasional card game long ago.  I hadn't really touched board games for years when I moved to San Diego 5 years ago, but as I moved into the computer game industry I also discovered many new friends and co-workers who still enjoyed playing board games, so I've been catching up on some great board games (and card games) in the past few years.

Someone on Facebook asked me to post some reviews of my favorites, but having realized how long it would take to write up a top 10 (or even decide on them), instead I will just post about a board or card game from time to time.

To start, here's one of my favorites: Revolution.  It's published by Steve Jackson games, a well-respected name you'll see on many board and card games including the infamous Munchkin series.

I like it for a number of reasons:

1. It's very simple to explain and play.  No hours of reading a 50 page rule book here.
2. There's no luck or memorization involved, it's all about guessing what your opponents are planning.
3. It's short: takes about an hour, even the first time you play.

So what's it about?  The board shows you the layout of a small town, which contains a town hall, cathedral, market, barracks, harbor, and similar buildings.  Each building has a certain amount of room for people who work in it.  For example, you can see from the photo below that the cathedral (the cross-shaped building in the top right) has room for 7 people (who stand in those little white squares).  The harbor has room for 6, one in each boat.  Etc.

As the game's name suggests, there is a revolution afoot, and all players are vying for control of the town.  Whoever gains the most influence in the town will take over and win.  Players gain influence by outright buying it (as you accumulate influence directly, you move a token around the outside track on the board to keep count), and also indirectly, by gaining control of the buildings in the town.  Each building is worth a lump sum of influence which goes to whoever controls it at the end of the game.

To gain influence directly and to gain control of the buildings, players can bribe, threaten, or blackmail the town's key residents.  Each resident has influence over a different area of the town and can benefit players in different ways.  Each turn, all players try to bribe, threaten, and blackmail the residents they choose, and then their success (or not) affects their presence in the town.  For example, if you win over the priest to your side, you'll gain influence in the cathedral, meaning you can place one of your people in the cathedral that turn.  Next turn, you could try to win the priest again and place a second person in the cathedral - or perhaps someone else will win him away from you.  At the end of the game if there are more of your people in the cathedral than anybody else's, you'll gain the influence points that the cathedral is worth to add to your total.

The turns are simple: everyone has a combination of tokens indicating either bribes (gold coins), blackmail (black envelope), or force (red fist).  Everyone has a card listing the 12 key residents in the town who can be influenced.  In secret at the start of each turn, all players allocate their tokens onto the people they wish to attempt to influence.  Some residents are immune to certain types of influence: for example, the General cannot have force used on him, the Magistrate cannot be blackmailed.  This is indicated by the colour of that person's square on the board: you can't use a red force token on someone whose square is coloured red, and you can't use the blackmail token on someone whose square is coloured black. Everyone can be persuaded by coins.

Once all players have placed their tokens, as shown below, the privacy shields are removed and players evaluate who won influence over which town resident.  There is a hierarchy: force beats blackmail which beats coin, and more of something beats less of it.  So for example, one force token beats any number of blackmail or coin; but two blackmail beats one blackmail.  One blackmail and three coin beats one blackmail alone.  In the case of a tie, nobody wins.

Depending on the town resident, they will have different effects.  Some directly give influence on the board's outside track.  Some allow you to gain influence within a town building, as in the priest example. Others give you less direct reward but may give you extra tokens to be used the next round.  Some allow you to change places of markers on the board.  The strategy can be quite simple but can also become as complex as you want to make it, if you try to not only second-guess who your fellow players will be trying to influence but also who you need to influence this round to gain useful tokens to win next round also.  Many's the game I've seen where nobody puts even a single coin on the most valuable town resident, all assuming that someone else will have done so.

And that's all there is to the game.  Rounds continue until all spaces on in the town buildings are completely filled up, and when that happens, the influence from controlling buildings is added to the influence scores on the outside score track to determine the final winner overall.

The base game is from 2-4 players (best with 3-4) and there is an expansion which adds an additional building and more town residents, and takes the player total up to 6.