Gamenight Review: Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy

I viewed Legacy being played on the Watch It Played YouTube channel so I was so excited when one of the members of my game group brought it to game night.   

The objective of the game is to build the most prestigious family tree, and in doing so actually create a life story.  It is very interesting as you need to learn to balance long term and short term strategies.  The game deals with all aspects of family life, ie, marriage, children, death, money, titles, mansions, etc.

Each player starts off with a secret goal, which if achieved will earn them points at the end of the game.  There are opportunities to complete missions to earn more points.  The key objective is marriage.  You find spouses for you and your children and grandchildren through friends you make.  All friends have special abilities which you take on as marry them.  Your family earns points and prestige through marrying well, charity donations, acquiring titles, and building mansions.

Your friends are very important, there is a lot of variety in friend cards so acquiring the right ones is key to victory.  Some friends can raise or lower your prestige and others can help you in other ways with their abilities  

As mentioned, this game is all about balancing your actions as you don’t have very many per round; you must use them wisely because you only have three generations to work with – much like true life where decisions are made that affect generations to come.  

Basically a really cool game.  There are two things I wish were don’t differently

1.      There are not enough friend cards which means they get recycled in the same game which takes away from the story a bit.

2.      The mission cards require an action that doesn’t make much sense to me but it doesn’t really affect the game so it was just strange, but not an issue.  

I say, give this one a try!

Pros

Friend cards are all very unique

The player boards are excellent and really make your options clear

Fun theme to play; I found myself making up stories about my family

Cons

Not enough friend cards.

A very large table space is required

Not a lot of interaction between players

Gamenight Review: Splendor

 

I have wanted to play Splendor since I heard it was nominated for the prestigious 2014 Spiel de Jahres award, and had the opportunity at last week’s game night.  I enjoyed it.  It’s a quick one to learn and a good one to play when you don’t want to devote too much time to a game. 

This one is all about gemstones.  The gems are represented by very sturdy “poker” chips.  These chips are used to buy cards that give you points to win the game.  It takes 15 points to win the game. 

Each turn consists of one of the following moves:

a.      Take 3 different color gemstones from the gem pool

b.      Select 2 of the same color gemstones (if at least 4 are available)

c.      Reserve a card from the board so that no one else has the opportunity to purchase it until you have enough gems to afford purchasing it yourself. You also get a wild gemstone when you do this

d.      Purchase a card

 

There are 3 value tiers of cards available for purchase – the currency used to buy the cards is gemstones.  The higher the tier, the more gemstones are needed for purchase. 

·        Tier I cards generally do not provide victory points, instead these cards have a gemstone printed in the top corner which will provide a discount of that gemstone on all future purchases. These help you build up gemstones so that you can afford more expensive cards.

·        Tier II cards provide victory points as well as providing permanent gemstones.

·        Tier III cards provide the most victory points and also provide permanent gemstones.

A bonus can be earned with “Noble” tiles.  These have a printed gemstone requirement on them.  The first player to meet these requirements will collect the noble tile and earn additional victory points. These tiles are not replenished and can really sway the game in someone’s favor.    

 

Overall, this game is interesting but not super exciting. There isn’t a lot of variety in the game because there aren’t that many unique actions.

Positives

• Rules are simple to learn and teach
• The gem chips are well made
• Artwork is very pretty 

Negatives 

• It is hard for a new player to compete with a more experienced player
• If a player falls behind, it can be very difficult to catch up
• Not enough unique things to do in the game

 

Game Night Review: Jamaica

Pirates, treasure, racing and battles! All of the components of a good game are present in Jamaica. I have been wanting to play this one for a long time and it didn't disappoint.

 

The objective of this game is to race your opponents around the island of Jamaica in your pirate ship collecting as much treasure as possible along the way. As you race around the island, you will need to feed your crew, pay to dock your ship, collect treasure, or enjoy a piece of open ocean depending on which spot on the board you land on.

 

Each player "pirate" has their own ship with cargo space to hold their food, gold, and gun powder and a set of action cards. Each turn, a pirate rolls two dice and assigns one of the rolled numbers as the daytime value and one as the nighttime value. These values correspond to symbols on the action cards and dictate what whether the pirate moves forward, backward, or how much food, gold, or gunpowder will be received on that turn.

 

The ship's cargo hold must be carefully managed because space is limited which means valuable resources must be discarded in order to bring new ones on board. This leads to really difficult decisions because gold gives pirates points at the end of the game; food is required to land on many of the board spaces; and gunpowder can prevent other players from stealing resources.

 

Pirate battles ensue when more than one player occupy the same spot on the board; the winner of the battle gets to carry off some of the loser’s supplies or bounty. We had a very bloody battle on the very first turn of our game as we all played a movement card which meant we all had to battle immediately. I won my battle and got to take a hefty sum of treasure from one of my fellow pirates which gave me a great head start and then I hightailed it out of the area before they could reclaim their booty.

 

Another way to gain treasure is to be the first person to land on a treasure chest space. While generally a blessing, earning the pirate extra points and items to help on the quest such as extra cargo room, sometimes a cursed treasure is drawn which results in negative points. During our game I managed to collect four treasures three awesome, one cursed which really gave me an edge in the game.

 

When the first pirate crosses the finish line, the round is complete and scoring begins. The pirate who crossed the finish line first gets a nice bonus of 15 points. Other pirates will either earn or lose points depending on how far away from the finish line they were at the end. Any gold coins earned during the round will add a point to your final scoring. I ended up winning this game due to my battle win, great luck with treasure and my strong finish.

 

Final Thoughts

The theme is so fun and incorporates all that we know of pirates in the game.

 

The game has one of the best box inserts I have ever seen. Every single thing has a place where it fits perfectly and everything is easy to put in and take out of the box. This makes cleaning up so easy. I wish every game was like this. The artwork in this game is awesome and I really like how colorful everything is.

 

The instruction manual, while nice to look at, is really hard to use because it unfolds like a treasure map making it awkward to use and pass around. Also, the player action card deck cards are long and thin so they are a little awkward to shuffle (they kind of bend inward when you shuffle them). Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It was light and very simple to teach and play.

 

Positives

• Theme is well incorporated and fun
• Insert is amazing
• Easy to teach to new players

 

Negatives

• Instruction manual is awkward
• The game seems more luck based than skill based
• Action cards are hard to shuffle