Review: Altered TCG - The new TCG on the block

The Trading Card Game market place has never been more crowded. Every year more and more try to make a name for themselves in the table top world, but is there still room for improvement? Are there still mechanics and gimmicks left to tap?

Altered TCG from Equinox released its first wave of cards and starter decks last month and is already making small waves in the table top community with some unique play aspects and digital synergy. But does it have what it takes to shoulder its way into the room full of big names like Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and the One Piece Card Game?

Fantasy with Fathoms

Altered takes place in a brand new, colourful fantasy world that blends modernity with historical myths and legends. The lore set out on the official website is already showing impressive depth with plenty of room for growth in future releases. The central premise is around a cataclysmic event known in game as the Confluence, a magical storm that merged the imaginary world and ours. A few communities managed to weather this storm and have laid the foundations of a new civilisation in a land known as Asgartha. Once peace and prosperity was secured, humanity has stepped up to venture beyond the frontiers. The six leading factions, one of whom you will choose to play as, each chose a hero and their companion to lead an expedition into the Tumult, a remnant of the Confluence that mutates everything in its wake.

I could go on, but I do recommend taking time to read into this origin story as it makes the game feel very much alive and relevant.

With talk of peace and prosperity, heroes and adventure, you would think that there isn't much call for players to be facing each other in combat, and you would be correct. Altered has chosen to move away from the traditional dueling nature of TCGs and instead centers its game play around the concept of a race to explore the Tumult and the weird happenings within. Of course, there's always some space for some underhanded tactics and sportsmanlike competition (fans of screwing over your competition would do well to start with the Yzmir deck). 

Fantasy with Feeling

There is already an emerging plethora of how-to-play videos up on YouTube so I won't go into full details of how the game works in this review (as a quick aside I will say that some of these videos make the game sound far more complicated that it is. I recommend the learn-by-playing approach with this one), so I will instead skip to my thoughts on the game itself. But in short, players use cards to support two different expeditions, with the aim of having them meet somewhere along the shared adventure track before their opponents'. Cards are played, discarded, reserved, played again, until eventually the surviving cards are compared in what could unfavourably be described as a Top Trumps stat-off.

Firstly, I would like to praise the artwork by Max Fiévé and Ting-Yun Yu. Whoever first described soccer as "the beautiful game" had never seen Altered and it shows. Each of the starter decks showcases a beautiful colour palette and pitch perfect theme. I guarantee that there will be a fair few beginners picking up the game just for the aesthetic alone of the Star Wars-esque Axiom, or the vibrant, punky Lyra decks.  Sadly the one major flaw to the artwork covering these cards is also the start of the next interesting point to make. Each card carries a fairly prominent QR code ("Kids love QR codes" - ed.) which does draw the eye away from the stunning craft put into their design.

These QR codes are the primary way that Altered is trying to slide into the marketplace. Each card printed contains a unique code that, when scanned using the app, creates a digital copy of the card, which only you own, thus creating a digital collection accessible at any time. This app-based collection allows players to build new decks, buy new cards, sell and trade with only a few clicks. Plus for a relatively small fee physical copies of all your scanned cards can be ordered directly from the factory in a language of your choice.

Fantasy with Farsight

Needless to say, this is huge. This is a massive step away from the traditional economy of TCGs which tend to rely on manufactured scarcity to inflate prices to sometimes ridiculous proportions. By creating a system that allows a player to order an infinite number of even the rarest cards, Equinox have stuck two fingers up at the "pay to win" mechanic too often seen on our table tops. By creating a system of openness in this way, players can take their minds away from the value of cards, or protecting them in bullet proof coating, and focus on the strategy of the game itself. Dropped your super-rare Robin Hood Ordis card into a bowl of soup? Not to worry. Provided you scanned it into your digital collection, you can order another with the click of a button.

Of course, this will no doubt enrage people who take pride in owning thair black lotuses and one rings, but to be honest, they have their space. Altered is here for those of us who want an ultra-inclusive experience.

Now on to the game play itself and a small disclaimer. I am relatively new to the TCG world. Though I have played table top games for many years, I've traditionally given TCGs a wide birth because of the economy of constant consumption and growth they seem to engender. However, recently I was persuaded to try Disney's Lorcana by Ravensburger and I haven't looked back. I am in possession of far too many cards and am thoroughly engrossed in how different colour combinations create wildly different play styles. Therefore, as I am relatively new to this aspect of table top, I cannot make many comparisons to existing game mechanics.

As a newbie, I have fallen quickly in love with the game play loop of Altered. I enjoy how quickly it encourages players to cycle through cards much like a deck-building game. The tactile element of drawing, playing, discarding, drawing, satisfies some deep part of my psyche that gets bored very quickly. On the face of it, reading of how the game takes place over numerous phases, named for times of day and night, and how within these phases each player takes an amount of turns based on what they are able to afford, it all makes the game sound needlessly complicated. However, after two rounds we found ourselves settling comfortably into the cycle and respecting the game's natural rhythm. 

Fantasy with Future

We have tried three different starter decks: Axiom, Lyra, and Yzmir. While in comparison to Lorcana it might feel like there is less option to create unique decks, as factions cannot be blended together, in actuality the factions behave so wildly different from each other I found myself feeling the character of each deck much faster that Lorcana, which I found took a few games to really understand how they wanted to be played.

We played a total of 4 games using the 3 different decks (I lost every time, but still enjoyed it... honest - ed.) and have already come to love how the Axiom deck thrives by swarming the field with robotic creatures, how the Yzimir deck is just plain cool and focuses on forcing its opponents to discard their hard-earned cards, how the Lyra deck throws caution to the wind and uses chance via dice rolling to encourage players to just "do it and be a legend". Each play style is entertaining and once the player gains a feel for how they should handle each deck, the experience becomes smooth and silk and ten times more enjoyable (more enjoyable than silk? - ed.).

The primary criticism I heave heard of Altered so far is that it doesn't do enough to make itself stand out in a very competitive field, and although I can see the game never quite meeting the lofty heights of MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh!, I believe it will create a strong and faithful fan base of people looking to move away from the some of the more impenetrable TCG characteristics.

I believe Altered is here to stay, and I look forward to seeing the game grow.

Review: Paper App Dungeon - A Pencil Mightier Than The Sword

Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of any board game that can provide a solo experience. These are perfect for when your social battery is low or if you've got some time on a lunch break and need something with just the right amount of crunch to keep your mind off work. As such, games that are designed as a solo experience entirely and also fit neatly into a pocket, tend to get me excited. So you can imagine the thrill I felt when I slipped and fell into my Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS) and discovered Paper App Dungeon by Tom Brinton, published by Lucky Duck Games.

Paper App Dungeons, or PAD if you will (because it's like a note pad...), is a solo experience that puts one in mind of classic PC desktop, time-filler games. It has a charming retro style, simple colour palette, and comes with a pencil designed to act in place of a D6 (P6), which truly makes this one of the most portable and space-friendly games I own, beaten only by Regicide.

The aim of the game is ingeniously simple. Roll the P6 (one of my few criticisms of the game is that P6 is unpleasant to say out loud) and move through the dungeon that number of spaces. Diagonal on odd numbers and orthogonally on even numbers. The only catch is that you cannot change direction until you have moved the full number of spaces or you collide with an obstacle. Retracing steps is discouraged but not technically against the rules. In this fashion you work your way through each layer of the dungeon, looting chests, fighting monsters, and regaining health. Every so often there are "shops" where you can trade hard-earned coin for boosts, extra health, and other useful items to use in the coming levels.

This is where I get to my first major criticism of the format. The pages in each note pad are unique due to random generation so no two dungeons will look the same. This is fantastic in one sense as it allows for a high replay value if you choose to purchase multiple pads (though it is a shame they are essentially single use unless you want to go through and erase all your pencil markings, which is entirely possible). However, I found on my first playthrough that there is no clear difficulty curve. Hard levels were just as common as easy ones.

When playing, you carry health and coins over to the next level, unless you are killed, in which case you tally a death on the tombstone at the end of the book, and start the next level with full health and no coin. Sadly, what this inevitably translated to was my character dying right before I found my way to every shop location so I never had any money to spend on fancy upgrades. This left me feeling like I didn't really get to experience everything the game had to offer.

This frustration was compounded by what I would consider my second criticism, the lack of player autonomy. Although the player can choose the direction of travel, the limitation of travelling diagonally or orthogonally based on the result, coupled with the often tight spaces and the encouragement not to retrace steps, in practice doesn't leave much choice for the player. To be favourable, this does help in what I would call the game's "smooth brain" appeal, but there is a lingering feeling at points of the game playing itself, which the player gets to watch.

These points aside, I would still recommend this game to anyone who has ever used minesweeper or pinball desktop games to pass a scant amount of time. Each level takes no more than 5 minutes to complete, unless you are very unlucky and get trapped in a small corner, constantly rolling the wrong numbers of pinging off walls, which is quite funny to watch really. Plus the premise is so straightforward, it's a very age-accessible game.

The game comes in at under £10 in most retailers and I would say it certainly gives that back in entertainment value.

As a final note I would like to admit that I don't really understand why it's called Paper App Dungeon (OK I understand the first and third words, just not the second), so if anyone can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

Have you played the game? Am I being too harsh in my criticism? Let me know in the comments down below.

Play as an Act of Rebellion

The Culture of Defiance

Regicide - Abrahams et al.

Skye Jones and Lex Lancaster, University of South Carolina Upstate, wrote that Kawaii culture in Japan was an act of rebellion by young girls against the oppressive culture of "conformity and gendered expectations". Kawaii's emphasis on the hyper-feminine and "cute", which it is a direct translation to, promoted an attitude of vulnerability and childishness that directly contrasted against the societal expectations of responsibility and uniformity in post-war Japan, rising to its peak in the 1970s. In particular the prevailing narrative in Kawaii media is the "magical girl", which is/was distinct from typical Japanese media of the time due to the depiction of everyday girls as "interesting and important people". In this respect Kawaii acted as a strike back at the social narrative that women in positions of prominence are separated from their peers, and are only permitted to have nuance and power if they actively distance themselves from "girlhood" and childish things. 

"Kawaii... is most associated with a complete rejection of refinement and beauty, focussing on a childlike attitude of vulnerability, overindulgence, and fantasy." - Jones & Lancaster

At the same time that Kawaii was growing into the powerful youth and feminist movement that it is, in the UK a similar rejection of authority and oppression was kicking its way into the public consciousness; Punk. Much like it's cute sibling on the other side of the world, the youth in the UK embraced Punk and its intentionally unpleasant and viscous aesthetic. 

Matthew Worley, writing for the Museum of Youth Culture, concisely summarised Punk as "a negation of pretty much everything: a line drawn in the cultural sand to reboot and rejuvenate youth culture as a site of provocative fun, protest, and imagination". The way in which Kawaii kicked back at oppressive social norms through the hyper-cute, Punk used its vibrant aesthetics and attitudes to take a swing at the muted compliance expected of the British public at the time. Hand in hand, Kawaii and Punk, rejected the status quo and acted in an exaggerated, non-conforming way to undermine the systems of oppression.

I'm not going to fall into the trap that so many columnists have fallen into, and state that something (let's face it, usually right-wing) is the new punk (I'd argue that punk is still the new punk). But I am going to state that in the modern, western world, playing is an act of rebellion.

Can't Spell Punk-tuality Without Punk

(See me about this heading - ed.)

A punk in the wild

Never has it been more obvious that when Millennials entered the workforce, that western, capitalist society has been constructed on the premise that childish interests should be abandoned or repressed on becoming an adult. Play for adults traditionally falls into the realms of socially acceptable sports and gambling. There seems very little room for playing video games or those that involve the imagination or little plastic figurines (let's face it, they're toys). I am sure that many readers here will have experiences of telling members of the older generation, or perhaps some more socially acceptable peers, that they spent their weekend pretending to be a wizard fighting a floating one-eyed monster that can shoot laser beams. There is little that can fill that peculiar silence that follows...

However, many millenials entered the workforce still very much attached to their childhoods, which seemed only to be exacerbated by the harsh economic realities of the times. This yearning for the simpler times before gas bills, shopping lists, and mortgages (for those lucky enough to own a house), created almost an entire generation with a meager expendable income keen to channel it into playful pastimes and hobbies. Of course, these traits aren't only held by millenials, but it cannot be ignored that the vast growth in the video games industry in the decade leading up to 2020 and beyond.

Dave Neale, an Affliate of the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) at the University of Cambridge and designer of many board games, writing for the British Psychological Society, noted that there has also been a rise in other "play experiences" for adults as well.

"This is striking because it is at odds with the dominant view in Western culture... that play is largely confined to childhood." - Neale

Neal makes the case that play and playfulness are more central to adult humans than commonly believed. In most other cases animals leave behind playfulness following adolescence. However, humans experience a "persistence of our child-like qualities". The reason for this is posited as an evolutionary benefit. The retention of child-like characteristics like curiosity and "behavioral plasticity... drove our success as a species". 

Furthermore, Neal cites Whitebread et al., 2017, in offering an explanation for the retention of playfulness as the psychological benefits similar to those proposed for childhood play. There is a growing body of research exploring the benefits of play in adults and various aspects of adult life. It is becoming more obvious that play is healthy for adults and society as a whole will reap the benefits of a mentally healthy and socially satisfied work-force.

Is It All Just a Worker-Placement Game?

Stardew Valley - 

Despite this, it is still clear that society is built to ensure constant growth and productivity. The core requirements of late-stage capitalism are fundamentally at odds with the concept of providing adults with play. Although time spent playing is constructive in terms of mental well being, which in turn could produce positive benefits in the work place, it still feels that it is under-valued at best and actively discouraged at worst.

I suspect that the reason for this is that it benefits the worker primarily and the capitalist secondarily. Whereas typically benefits to the worker are largely only encouraged where the business owner is the primary target of the benefit.

Neal does dip his toes into territory that I would consider troubling. In his article for the British Psychological Society, he cites companies such as Google that provide employees with "play areas" to make play a part of working life. The following passage shows how Neal suggests incorporating play into the workplace:

"... Introducing play into the workplace needs to be done with care to be effective. For example, games need to be designed to engage and motivate players, and to accurately reflect workplace objectives. Otherwise, it is possible for employees to use games as escapism, or for games to lead to learning outcomes that are not work-relevant, or even detrimental to work. Play can easily become a distraction, or trivialise serious issues, if it is not introduced in the right way (which may be the thinking behind the traditional play-work dichotomy)."

While I agree with the management of play to reduce the risk of it trivialising serious issues, I find the concept of play only tolerated where it can benefit the employer concering. This feels sinister and potentially weaponises play against the worker to ensure continued compliance. I am particularly curious as to what Neal thinks constitutes learning outcomes that are "detrimental to work". Benefits for workers? Unionisation? Seizing the means of production? And gods forbid workers should use any activity as a form of escapism! It might give them ideas of freedom.

This recommendation of the use of play to ensure productivity, for me, removes the player as the core beneficiary of the activity and further creates a system where play is only tolerated in adults if a tangible productive outcome can be measured and exploited.

Stick It to the Man Meeple

Final Girl: Terror from Above - Porfirio et al.

So what do I really mean when I say that play is act of rebellion?

Well, firstly I believe that any activity which puts the benefits of the worker above that of the ruler is a good thing. If playing provides a stronger sense of connection, education, and well being to the players and cannot be exploited to feed into the Constant Growth Machine, it is undeniable an active stand against oppression.

Secondly, as seen in the Kawaii and Punk movements, there is nothing an oppressive society is more intolerant of that the demonised happily adopting the branding put on them. If cute and childlike traits are branded as undesirable, Kawaii took that ore and turned it into iron (pink, sparkly iron with big round eyes). If being loud and unfeminine are traits branded as undesirable, Punk put a safety pin through them and wore them like armour against oppression. So if spending time on playing games is seen as undesirable and unproductive in adults, then playing games in-spite of that becomes rebellious. 

Finally, and bringing this firmly back into the realms of table top gaming, if playing is seen as an act of rebellion against a society bent towards endless productivity, then in an increasingly digital world, a world in which large tech companies can stake claim to every aspect of our presence online, playing table top games, away from the digital realm, is the purest form of rebellion.

(I would like to caveat this all with the understanding that many will claim that without capitalism and the digital world, I would not be able to write a post like this online about games produced by the likes of Hasbro. To those people I would like to point them in the direction of the politics and ethics section of their local library where they can read up a bit better on the concepts of socialism).

This is an opinion piece, of course, so I would like to hear what people think about the statement "Play is and Act of Rebellion".

It Tolls for Thee: A Eulogy for Dicebreaker

"No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminished me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to now

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee."

    -John Donne

Word broke last week (12/06/24) that popular table top news site, Dicebreaker, has been effectively closed down after 5 years, following redundancy announcements of all key staff:

Matt Jarvis - Editor in Chief

Alex Meehan - Senior Staff Writer

Michael "Wheels" Wheelan - Head of Video

It is understood at the time of writing that Olivia Kennedy and Maddie Cullen, both members of the Dicebreaker video team, have secured positions elsewhere in the organisation.

After a weekend of preparing for, exhibiting at, and participating in the fantastic Medway Gaming Festival, hearing of this news was a real blow.

This move comes on the back of IGN Entertainment acquiring the website portfolio of UK publisher Gamer Network, which operated Eurogamer, Dicebreaker, and other popular gaming news outlets. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but clues of IGN's intentions were present when Dicebreaker's popular London TTRPG networking event, which formed part of MCM London, was cancelled last month with only a few days notice. This, coupled with the sudden lack of content from both the Dicebreaker website and YouTube channel, both of which could be relied on for new postings every 2-3 days, encouraged speculation that table-top gaming was set to lose a vital news outlet.

It should be noted that UK-based events EGX, MCM, and the digital brand Pop-Verse, were not included in the sale.

Sadly, it appears that the sparse information released from IGN or Gamer Network to fans of the site was mirrored with an almost complete lack of communication with the Dicebreaker team. Mike Didymus-True, writing for BoardGameWire, reported that communication from both former and new owners of the site with those facing redundancy was "extremely minimal". Furthermore, no public statements about the redundancy's or site's future have been made since the takeover.

Original Dicebreaker Line-Up. From Left: Michael Wheelan, Alex Meehan, Alex Lolies, Johnny Chiodini, Sara Elsam, Matt Jarvis.

It is upsetting to hear about the poor treatment of workers in any industry and the lack of respect given to creators by the corporations that buy and sell their work. It is also noteworthy as another possible example of games media suffering upheaval in the wake of the rising tide of the use of AI in journalism. 

While I am sure this acquisition will benefit the pockets of shareholders and CEOs, I can say with some certainty that the table-top industry will be all the less for it. Dicrebeaker was known for regularly providing articles that went beyond simple press-releases and new game reviews. Their staff and contributing writers have been instrumental in providing insight into the industry, such as an exposes of toxic workplace culture at high-profile publishers, industry lay-offs, and controversies such as the D&D OGL update early last year.

Dicebreaker was launched as a YouTube channel in 2020 by veteran games journalist, Johnny Chiodini (who left the organisation 3 years ago to pursue their own career), during a turbulent period in global history when many people found themselves stuck indoors (thanks, Covid) and turning to the rising popularity of table-top gaming. Speaking from personal experience, Dicebreaker provided a fantastic entryway into the hobby and provided trustworthy, high-quality journalism and reviews, without which I may have struggles to find my way into the hobby and community that I adore. I am certain that this will be an experience shared by many others and that there will now be a vacuum in desperate need of filling, not just on an industry-scale, but more specifically within the UK, which often suffers with a lack of reliable communication on a national level.

So with sadness that we say goodbye to Dicebreaker as we know it and the valuable contribution that they made to the industry for creators and audiences alike. It will be interesting to see if, how, and when the void that is left will be filled.

Chaos is a (Snakes and) Ladder: 5 chaotic games for all you lil' goblins

Last year Oxford English Dictionary declared Goblin Mode as Word of the Year. This, on the face of it, was a joyous occasion for all the Lil' Goblins out there. Until the OED stated what their chosen definition of the phrase was:

Goblin Mode (Noun): The behaviour of someone who wants to feel comfortable and do and eat whatever they want, not caring about trying to be clean, healthy or attractive, or about pleasing or impressing other people.

As an honorary member of the Goblin Contingent of the Hand Limit board game group, I can only begin to describe the frustration of my goblin comrades at this unworthy definition. Sure goblins may occasionally shun hygiene standards, sure they might survive for days on a diet of cereal and gummy worms, and sure they might sometimes present themselves in a way that doesn't comply with society's standards of beauty, but this is all part of a wider shunning of societal expectations and pressures in favour of running wildly off into the woods to worship an interesting looking mushroom, or eat a loaf of bread right out of the bag. It is so much more than the desire for comfort!

Goblins are emerging from the desire for chaos to replace late-stage capitalism. We all have an inherent desire to rid ourselves of the shackles of oppressive standards and embrace the chaos of the natural world. 

So, for all you Lil' Goblins out there, here's 5 table top games that will help you embrace the chaos and unleash your inner goblin.

Happy Salmon, Ken Gruhl et al. Exploding Kittens

3-6 Players (3-12 with 2 sets). 2 minutes.

When considering chaos, Happy Salmon is a force to be reckoned with. I find it hard to believe this was something that someone designed, rather than being discovered as a forgotten artefact of the big bang itself, forged from pure chaos.

It's a chaotic game, is what I'm getting at here.

This turn-less card game gives the simple objective of being the first one to rid yourself of all your cards, like Uno. Unlike Uno however, the only way to discard a card is to complete one of 5 possible actions that the cards show (pound it, high-five, switcheroo, or Happy Salmon), with someone else around the table who is also trying to complete the same action.

All players talk over each other with increasing volume and speed, arms flail wildly, cards are thrown aside, then someone slams the table to announce they've depleted their deck mere seconds before anyone else. This all happens within the space of about 30 seconds to a minute.

As party games go, it is the most adrenaline I have ever experienced from one deck of cards, and for a very reasonable price it is a must have to anyone looking for an energetic and age-accessible game. A single pack will allow up to 6 players but buying both colour variations can allow up to 12, though a game of that size may need to come with a health warning.

If you are lucky enough to get your hands on an original version of the game it comes in a neoprene, fish-shaped bag. It's worth the money.

Cheating Moth, Emely Brand & Lukas Brand. Drei Magier Spiel.

3-5 Players. 30 minutes.

What could be more chaotic than a game that encourages, neigh requires, cheating to win?

At it's base level, Cheating Moth is another simple card game in the vein of Uno. First person to rid themselves of all their cards wins. Players take it in turns to play numerical cards into a central pile that value one higher or lower than the last card played. There are also cards that trigger certain effects, like the spider card that allows a player to give one of their cards to another, or the mosquito that punishes the last player to slap it with more cards into their hand.

Oh and did I mention that it's totally fine if you want to just ditch cards beneath the table, up your sleeve, or maybe into a friend's packet of crisps?

Here we see the cheating of cheating moth. Within certain parameters, players are allowed to dispose of cards however they see fit provided they can get away without being seen by the "Guard Bug", a random player who may not cheat but must keep an eye out for players who are. If they successfully catch a player cheating, the cheater becomes the Guard Bug, until someone manages to spirit away their entire hand.

Cheating is essential. The eponymous Cheating Moth card may only be removed from your hand through cheating. It cannot be played legally. 

This is another incredibly simple game that is filled with chaos as cards are slipped into pot plants, spun across the room right beneath an unsuspecting Guard Bug's nose, or someone stands up at the end of the game to reveal quite how many cards they were hiding up their top.

When you realise quite how sleight your friends' sleight-of-hand can be, you'll find it hard to look at them the same way again!

Wiz-Nerds - TTRPG, Michael Whelan. Available on itch.io.

1+ Players, 1 GM. 2-3 Hours (chaos depending).

We've all been there. You've just joined a Wizarding School but within 30 minutes of your first day everything goes wrong. Maybe the school is invaded by goblins? Perhaps a time-hole has opened up in the third floor corridor and dinosaurs are getting all over everything? Or maybe something much better? However it plays out, it is up to the gang of plucky first-years to save the day, armed only with their introductory text books which they, of course, have not even opened yet.

Wiz-Nerds is a rules-light TTRPG that is perfectly designed for a one-shot, chaotic adventure. Each player is provided with a sheet of magical words with no explanation or translation. Through trial and error and different combinations of words, they might start to figure them out well enough to use them to their advantage and save the day. Or, as one player managed when we played, turn a fellow student inside-out and explode them...

The GM, naturally, knows what all the words do but will never explicitly tell the players. They will need to learn through the effects of their random spells. This game requires very little set up as, trust me, it will take players considerably longer to solve simple problems when they can't control their own powers. The game is a pleasure to GM and a riot to play.

I don't want to say too much about this game because it would be better if you just gave it a go! Michael Whelan has done an excellent job of creating a set of rules that make chaos inevitable. There is no way to get through the game without something melting, going on fire, or someone meeting their end in an explosive way. 

Blood Bowl Sevens, Games Workshop.

2 Players. 45-90 minutes.

How could I have a list of games for lil' goblins and not include a game that involves actual lil' goblins?

Blood Bowl is wargaming for those who don't wargame and it's sport for those who don't sport. As Games Workshop like to put it, it's Fantasy football (or hand-egg, if you're so inclined). Imagine a world in which the vast armies of orcs, dwarves, elves, and the like, lay down their arms (well... sort of) and take up blood sport to resolve their differences. The sport in question is styled like American Football but actually plays a bit more like rugby, if such a distinction matters to you.

Blood Bowl is a frankly chaotic game because of the sheer amount of chance involved. Almost every action your players take involves a dice roll, the consequences of which range from success, to failure, to failure so bad your player dies...

Aside from the sheer amount of customisation of your team that this game allows, it provides a fantastic environment for story telling. There is nothing more hilarious than having a player pass a ball an improbably distance, avoiding interception, executing a perfect catch, having the receiving player dodge through the grasp of the other team, push themselves to get to that end-zone, only to fail the final roll, slip over... and die from their injuries. Or, as a recent game played out, be within spitting distance of a touch down only to have players repeatedly fail to pick up the ball, leaving them all scrabbling around like idiots as the ball bounces around the pitch.

It's this kind of unpredictability that will have players recounting tales from the table for a weeks after a game.

Our list specifies Blood Bowl Sevens, rather than the full game, and there is an important distinction as to why we have chosen this. While the main game is awesome, Blood Bowl Sevens is designed to be a shorter and easier to digest experience, with only 7 players per side rather than the usual 11. It makes the rules slightly easier to learn and the games last closer to 1 hour than the 3+ hours needed for the full game. 

The way Games Workshop has built this into the fiction is through dressing Sevens up as more like the College Football leagues rather than the NFL. As such the players are underfunded, less well trained, and prone to far more significant injuries. These minor tweaks only serve to enhance the chaotic nature of the game whilst also making it more accessible to new players.

Don't want to invest in a whole team before trying the game? Find someone who already plays, I guarantee they will have multiple teams painted and ready to go.

Camel Up (2nd Edition), Steffen Bogen. Eggertspiele.

3-8 Players. 45 minutes.

What's more chaotic than a game where none of the players are actually controlling the pieces on the board? In Camel Up 2nd Edition players take the roles of pundits at a camel race, placing bets on camels in the hope of ending the game with the most money.

However, working out form and probability is nigh on impossible when the camels move at random speeds (sometimes not at all), hitch rides on each other's backs, or simple run the wrong way around the course carrying any hapless camels with them.

Races are separated into Legs, which each carry their own smaller bets and allow for players' fortunes to rise and fall throughout the game. Someone getting off to an early lead might lose everything when the camel they were betting on gets carried to the back of the pack by the pair of wild camels that run the wrong way round the track each race. 

This is an accessible game for almost the whole family (younger children might get a bit lost with the betting mechanics but will still enjoy making the dice roll out of the 3D plastic pyramid) and differs from the others on this list in that players are not actively participating in the chaos. Instead you can sit back, sip a mint julep, and enjoy the unfolding shambles.

Special Mention: Colt Express, Christophe Raimbault. Ludonaute.

2-6 Players. 45 minutes.

I can't in all good conscience have a list about chaos and not mention one of my favourite games of all time. Colt Express injects chaos into the game by taking your carefully thought out plans and filling them with more holes and a prospector's union suit!

For our full thoughts on this game, see our list 5 Board Games To Get You Started.

Is there a game that should have appeared on this list? What's your most chaotic table top tale you have (within the realms of the rules - no table flipping)? We'd love to hear what you think in the comments section below.

Review: Final Girl - A board game with a Killer theme

I'm sure we're all familiar enough with horror films to recognise the "final girl" trope. This is the character (due to convention it tends to be a female character) who is left standing at the end of a horror film surrounded by the remains of her fallen companions, usually victorious in defeating or evading the horror that has pursued them for the last 90 minutes. She often portrays some characteristic that the film-makers, or society, feels embodies the one "worthy" of survival. Perhaps she has been the voice of reason, compassion, or she's simply a virgin and therefore not deserving of a gruesome death. 

This character has managed to stick it out to the end, either through kick-ass bravery, or just screaming and stumbling far enough through the woods that they get picked up at the highway. Their journey has been transformative, terrifying, and usually good for 3-4 sequels.

Final Girl, the board game now on "Season 2" releases (I'll get into how that works more below), places you in the shoes of one of many possible, and legally distinct, Final Girls. You are constantly caught on the back foot, fighting for time, and a helpless witness to the growing horror of the situation, while given just enough hope to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Final Girl has condensed this age-old scenario into a loving homage to the many, many hours of screen time given over to our favourite horror cliché.

How do we kill something that's... already dead?!

That's it for the flowery introduction. What exactly is Final Girl?

Final Girl is the rarest of table top games, one that has been designed to be played solo from the ground up. A smart choice considering the aim of the game is to make you feel alone, but that isn't the first thing that makes the game intriguing.

I mentioned above that Final Girl feels like a love-letter to the golden age of horror, and this goes well beyond the theme and mechanics, to the make-up of the game itself. The foundation of the game is the Core Box, which all players will need to purchase in order to play the game, but does not allow you to play the game by itself. Much like the artwork of the boxes, this game harks back to the time of the VHS. Simply buying a VHS player was not enough, you had to actually buy a film to put in it. Think of the Core Box as the VHS player and the various expansions as the videos ready to be loaded in.

The Core Box comes with some universal components that will be used across all games: health tokens, action cards, meeples, etc. and each individual "Feature Film", as the expansions call themselves, comes with a location, a foe, a choice of Final Girl, and specific components to match. 

For example, the first Feature Film I purchased was "Frightmare on Maple Lane" featuring Not-Freddy-Krueger, Dr. Fright, who hunts his victims in their dreams. The ingeniously designed boxes come with location and enemy specific rules, tokens, cards, everything you need to play. So you load these components into your game, grab your popcorn, and enjoy the show!

These boxes tend to be released in waves that the designers are calling Seasons. While I understand the terminology has its uses, I do worry when board games use this term as it might put off potential players who "haven't played season 1 yet", even though that really makes no difference.

The Feature Film boxes themselves are not overly pricey, averaging around £16 if purchased from your friendly neighbourhood board game shop, so after an initial splurge to get set up, adding further experiences isn't prohibitively expensive and they offer considerable replay-ability.

Furthermore, there is the added bonus of being able to easily mix and match all Final Girls, enemies, and locations to create completely unique experiences. Feel like Creech Manor is too claustrophobic for your battle with the Poltergeist? Why not take them to Camp Happy Trails? Or maybe see how Dr. Fright handles himself in the Storybook Woods from Once Upon a Full Moon?

He was never really dead...

The game operates in phases with players spending action cards, purchasing cards for future turns, fulfilling the killer's moves, then planning for the next turn. Each killer and location is unique enough to make it difficult to describe the game in full detail but your standard win/lose-condition is kill or be killed. The Final Girl has already had her character development so now it's the showdown.

The killer will perpetually hunt you and the various other "victims" that spawn around the game map. With each kill, their blood lust increases along with their movement distance and strength, even unlocking their dark powers, which invariably make the game considerably harder. This unavoidable levelling up of the enemy is what helps keep the player feel they are working against the odds and makes the ultimate success or death even more exhilarating.

Actions such as sprinting , searching, and fighting can only be used if you have the necessary card in your hand, but even then it requires a dice roll to succeed, with only a 5 or 6 on a D6 considered a definite success. Of course, as the killer gets stronger so does the horror level which can reduce the number of dice you get to roll for each action.

Time, aside from being a key currency in the game used to purchase actions and often forfeited for unsuccessful rolls, it is represented through the deck of Terror cards. This deck indicates what horrible events or actions your nemesis does each turn. Once depleted your time's up and you move into the End Game. The killer unleashes one final power in their attempt to stop you, which unless you're in a strong position already will usually spell the end of your Final Girl.

A really neat mechanic the game uses for it's health trackers for both Final Girl and the killers who can actually be, well... killed, is the Final Health Tokens. These tokens act as the final health markers for both hero and villain but once they are spent they are flipped over. The back will reveal a number of hearts from 0-3 that the character regenerates. I love the suspense this creates. The murderer lies prone at your feet and you hold your breath as you check to see whether they are truly dead or if they will spring back in a final jump-scare cliché. Or perhaps it is you who has been defeated and you get to punch the air as your Final Girl, beaten and bruised, finds the inner strength to pull herself up and rescue her young charge from the clutches of the poltergeist?

If you're successful in defeating the threat, the game includes a reward for the Final Girl you are playing as. A small envelope comes with each Feature Film addressed to each of the Final Girls inside with instructions to open after a successful game. I won't say any more than that here but I will note that it was a nice surprise to find a legacy element in the box. It felt like a pleasant after-thought on the part of the designers.

He's slicing off his own fingers!

You can probably tell that I think very highly of this game, and I'm not the only one. My local board game shop has said that Final Girl has become one of their top-selling games this year, which is a pretty high accolade for a solo game.

Whilst the mechanics, the artwork, the theme, and the novelty of the Feature Film pick-and-play design are all excellent reasons to enjoy Final Girl, the thing that stands out for me above all else is its capacity for story telling. Everything about the game is built to recreate a scene we all know well, from the flavour text on the item cards to the titles of the Dark Powers, and this all works together to create an environment that activates the player's imagination. Each success and failure adds another line to the unfolding story so that by the end you will be completely invested in the experience.

Although this is a solo-game at heart, I think there is a lot to say for sitting around a table with some friends and enjoying it together. We're all comfortable sitting around a horror video game such as Alien: Isolation and taking it in turns with the controller. This is the board game equivalent. It is a game designed around one character but I think it can entertain an audience of more. 

As ever I recommend pairing this game with theme appropriate music, specifically some 80s-style Horror Synthwave. Nothing like hearing the chilling sounds of Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma to get the hairs on your neck to stand on end...

Have you tried any of the Final Girl games? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Final Girl is designed by Evan Derrick and A. J. Porfirio. Artwork by Tyler Johnson and Roland MacDonald. Published by Van Ryder Games.

Can playing board games help us cope with failure?

Kingdomino - "I can't remember the last time I won this one" 

I have a simple rule with any board game: I am not happy until I've lost as many or more times than I have won. Losing in cooperative or competitive gaming is just as important for the enjoyment of the game as winning and a well designed game will recognise this and reward effort with entertainment, but how can losing at games help us in our daily lives?