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Came to the game being warned it's Feld and I expected I'm not going to like it.

But it's not a typical Feld, it's not a victory point salad, it's got auctions!.

It's not a VPS, yet it's a typical Feld, I guess the game made me re-evaluate Feld and realise VPS is just one of possible expressions for his signature design approach which is cramming as many mechanics into a game as possible and then letting players optimise their path through them.



If you ever need for somebody to design an auction game that never feels like an auction Feld's your guy. I love auctions for being interactive, this isn't quite, if I'd compare interaction level in it to sex, it would feel like having sex while in space suit in zero G with little rockets attached to your butt and other parts of the body, all of which you would control by pushing three buttons. Repeatedly. It's technically interaction, sorta, kinda, but even so it soon becomes a contest of how few presses of button one needs to come. [Sorry for the metaphor, it was written immediately after playing]. Okay, I'll give sane reasoning as well: You don't play against other players as you have no idea what their secret goals are and you don't even know what did they put into their bidding piles of cards. You optimise your bids. Period.



Theme is wafer thin, but as nothing could hide this clockwork spreadsheet it only deserves the blandest themes. I feel compassion for the city of Strasbourg, it didn't deserve this (is this some German retribution as the city is in French hands now?).

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A themeless euro which isn't an abstract. Didn't even try to fake a theme with a promo text - nope, we don't deserve even a lame excuse for a theme.



Uhm, I have no idea what to report on - you put disks or tiles on board, tiles have positive or negative numerical value and in the end a disk is worth as much the sum of tiles surrounding it. And tiles are placed hidden, so you're guessing, maybe remembering a bit.

/.../

There's no dramaturgy, nothing to draw one in, tension is diluted with hidden information, narrative absent. Might as well arrange kitchen utensils around the table and try to discern the patterns.

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Q: What do you get if you cross a cube pushing engine building euro with a Dominion - an engine building deck builder?

A: A box chock full of cardboard chits and wooden pieces and stuff.



Orleans a.k.a. Dominion the boardgame, reminds you that cards were there for a reason (making the game cheaper and smaller).



So, if you thought Dominion is too streamlined, elegant and too reminiscent of CCGs, here's it's done in an old school euro vibe with one of the drabbest visuals ever (worse than Concordia). There are progression spread sheet charts filling the board, there's a lot of stuff arranged in neat lines, waiting to be picked up, and somewhere in the air there hovers at least an impression of many choices - as is the trend in dreary euros these days. The game has one thing going for it - it is more strategic than all tactical VPS games coming out these days, even if shares certain piece galore symptoms with them.



On one hand it's refreshing too see a more strategic oriented euro, on the other hand it's got all the symptoms of boring old school euros. Yawn. I must say there's a serious lack of a frowny eurodude on the cover.

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Mix and match - the game!



Take an arbitrary spread sheet, distribute some random powers, none too powerful and all kinda samey, cut into pieces and shuffle. Then make 7 more decks like this, because it's very important to play each game just with 5 decks out of total 8 as each combination brings a totally different flavour to game. Add to that some arbitrary randomly assembled mechanisms that take care of distribution of the cards and their path through the several domains to the end destination - point scoring nirvana. Along the way there's another mechanism that eliminates certain tactical options which should supposedly create tension and hard, thinky choices. I would say this mechanism is pasted on, except it's hard to make such a claim in a game like this - there is no core onto which parts or theme could be pasted on as everything is just parts pasted next to one another. There's no theme, there's no narrative, there's no strategy, there's no focus and no logic. It's just a sum of random mechanisms printed on cards, shaken and stirred.



Illustrations attempt a nice try at diverting the attention away from nonexisting core of the game.

Seasons is a better game than this. And I hate Seasons. Question: How many more bland games like this do we need?

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A bit unique euro that seems more fun than it actually is. It's set collecting plus hand management, with a bit more rummy feel than most set collecting games. Central mechanism is interesting - called trading, though it's kinda open drafting between cards players decided to share.



Sounds good, no? But while it seemed novel and intriguing I was mostly doing two things per turn - building my engine or getting money. It's this weird situation: it feels like an interacting game, but I was doing my own stuff, not really caring much about what others are doing, except in terms of doing it faster and better. But at least people look each other in the eyes when playing this, so that's good. Other people's comments suggest the game gets samey with repeated plays and I'll trust them on this.

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Basically snakes and ladders, but instead of a die you have this tractor toy. And when you hit it over the roof it starts turning around and then drives off in one direction - hopefully in a cup with a number on it (this is how far you can move).



For such a derivative uninspired product hitting that tractor sure feels satisfying. And amusing.

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It's a 5 minute drafting game that basically plays itself.



The good things:

- if you don't look at people in the face, at least make it short and simple.

- good components. It's a good graphic design that's easy to discern across the table, is beautiful and made from a nice material.



Bad thing: If you make a game this light, why not include interaction? Not a fan of making gamers type games supposedly acceptable for casual gamers. It's kinda boring. As a 5 minute MPS game that plays itself it competes with a hugely strong alternative which is: not playing anything, have a break, come back later.

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No idea what did I just play. Uhm. I did the best I could, I didn't plan much (not that you can), I just tried to do the best thing while looking maybe 2-3 turns in the future. I the end I've juggled myself first place, but have no idea why.



The good part of the game is that it's pretty streamlined and straighforward. Worse part is that I had no feeling I was playing with other players and had no idea where do I stand in comparison with them (3 player game). It's funny as other players do influence you and you influence them and yet I felt like I was playing my own game and had no idea how good I am at it.



Basically it's just set collection turned into points and the then the points tiles also form sets that get turned into points (huh?). Looks neat and evocative with no tension, no narrative and drenched with tactical play.

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Some area majority, some set collection, some engine building (kinda) in a very streamlined package.



But it's ultimately a gamer's filler - basically you get half points by collecting sets and half points from the board play where having an engine helps. But what you mostly do is: optimise. Optimise movements, optimise your spread across the board, optimise your buys. Yes, there is some conflict, which can hinder the opponents a bit, but it's more on the side of the main focus, which is optimising those 8 cards you buy to get the most points out of them.

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For my taste Chudyk's designs are too gamey and literal. Each game is just a sum of its pieces, and sure it's a "wild" combination and there's randomness, but mainly it's about rules written on cards and interaction thereof. It's more about "oh what does this rule do with that rule" instread of "what can I do with this rule". It's just combinatorics and I don't care how funky it tries to be it never gets outside its confines and limited horizons.



Back to Red7 - I heard it explained as "Fluxx done right". Which means: "Fluxx done gamey". And it is. What it isn't is a light filler game where I would get to look players in the face more than the cards they've laid down. Everything that happens in a game happens because of text on cards and this is just tedious. (instead of players driving the game)

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I want to be able to do an action which uses rules but functions as a vector in the mindspace of players, social space of players, or even narrative space of players. Using pieces to venture into intangible. All Chudyk's games I've tried are completely tied to tangible. That's not emergence, just combinatorics, sure it can be a bit more crazy combinatorics, but that's still all it is.

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They (Chudyk's games) depend on too many different rules slammed on too many different cards making these games all about of combinatoric of existing choices (vast amounts of them) to sidestep a notion that nothing ever emerges above the surface of these games. They're totally gamey, stick to the surface of the gaming table and never rise above it. It's like modern Legos with all different prefabricated pieces as opposed to old school Legos with fewer different pieces, but wider options and possibilities.