Game Reviews, Strategy Articles, and More

Foreword

The Duke is a 2-player chess-like game. It requires about 5 or so playthroughs  before you really start to understand what is going on.

How to Play

Goal

The goal of the game is to capture your opponent’s Duke tile.

Set Up

Each player receives 19 tiles and 1 bag. Every tile is a unit that can be used to capture your opponent’s Duke, which is also a tile/unit.

Both players start the game with their Duke tile and 2 of their Footman tiles. The rest of their pieces go into their respective bags. One player places their Duke tile onto the 6 x 6 gameboard on either of the 2 center squares at their edge of the board. Then, that player places their 2 Footman tiles orthogonally (not diagonally) adjacent to their Duke. Afterwards, the other player does the same on the opposite side of the board.

A Turn

On a player’s turn, they may do 1 of 2 things: activate a tile or draw/place a new tile.

• Activate a tile

Each tile depicts the potential activations it can make on its face. The three types of activations, in the base game, are movement, strike, and command. Movement is then broken into move, jump, slide, and jump slide. If a tile ends its movement on top of an opponent’s tile, the opponent’s tile is captured (like chess).

After a tile activates, flip that tile. It now has a different set of activations. All tiles start on its starting side depicted by the shaded in pawn. The flipped side depicts an empty pawn in a black box.

For move, the shaded circle, the piece goes from its current position to the position of the shaded circle. If any piece would be in the path to the shaded circle, this option may not be used.

Jump, the empty circle, is like move except you place your piece directly on the empty circle and bypass any tiles in the path.

For slide, the shaded triangle, you can move the tile any number of squares in that direction. You cannot move through pieces and if you end on an opponent’s tile, stop and capture it as usual.

Jump slide, the empty triangle, is the same as slide, except you jump to the selected starting spot and then may start sliding.

Strike, the 6-pointed star, means you capture the tile in the square with the strike symbol. The tile that used strike does not move, but it still flips.

Command, depicted by a square with shaded triangles in the top left and bottom right corners, lets you move one of your other tiles. You may move a tile from one command square to another command square. Flip the tile that used command after the activation. Do not flip the tile that was moved by command.

•  Draw/place a new tile

If you do not want to activate a tile you have on the board, you may draw a new hidden tile from your bag. Once drawn, place it starting side up orthogonally adjacent to your Duke.

Game End

If, at the end of your turn you are in a position to take your opponent’s Duke next turn, you must say “guard.” You may not put yourself into guard (leaving your own Duke vulnerable to be taken on your opponent’s next turn).

You immediately win the game by capturing your opponent’s Duke. If you can neither make a move nor draw/place a tile, you lose.

Conclusion

As I mentioned in the forward, the first few games of The Duke weren’t great. While I understood the rules, the strategy was not clicking at all. Most of the games were quick and seemed kind of stupid and unbalanced. But, the more I played, the more I started to see and understand certain aspects of the game. Now, I actually enjoy it quite a bit.

I would say I’m decent at chess, but I never memorized the openings. So, I know generally of concepts such as space control, material value/advantage, revealed check, etc. These same concepts do apply in The Duke as well. If you enjoy chess for the actual playing of chess and not the memorization (statement inspired by Bobby Fischer), there is a good chance you will enjoy this game.

One of the major differences between this and chess is the randomness. When you draw a tile, there is a wide range of tiles you might get. Due to this, there is a lot less ability to predict future turns. In addition, you need to be able to adapt your strategy based on what you get and what your opponent gets. There are also definitely times where I have drawn tiles that have not helped me at all; that is a thing in this game. Overall though, I have enjoyed the randomness (after I figured out different aspects of the game that is).

The most important tip I can give you is this: do not put your Duke in a position where it is trapped by your own pieces. For instance, don’t move it on the bottom row directly behind one of your tiles in the same column. In this situation, your Duke is pinned until your other tile moves or is captured. It isn’t very difficult to force the capture of a pinned Duke.

I would recommend trying The Duke, if you like chess or other similar 2 player games. My main caveat is that you power through at least 5 games to give this a chance to get its hooks in. I definitely do not see this taking the place of chess because chess is so entrenched. The randomness will potentially hold it back as well. Nonetheless, this is a game I would be happy to play with other people who have played it. I’ll teach it to someone, but only if they already show some interest in this type of game.

Foreword

Dixit is a simple, attractive, party game for 3 to 6 players.

How to Play

Each player starts with 6 cards with pictures on them. The current player selects 1 card from their hand. They place it face down and say either a word or phrase, or they make a sound to describe it. Every other player then picks a card from their hand, that they think fits that description, and places it face-down. Once this has happened, the current player shuffles the cards, lays them out on the table face-up, and each other player guesses which card the current player played. The guessing is done by playing a tile face-down with the number of the picture you think it is. All of the tiles are revealed at once.

Scoring is based on the premise that you want your definition to be obscure, but not too obscure.

• If every other player guesses the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
• If no player guess the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
• If at least one player guesses the current player’s card and at least one player guesses incorrectly, the current player gets 3 points and each player who guessed correctly gets 3 points too.
• Finally, if you are not the current player, you get 1 additional point for every person who guessed your card that round.

After this is resolved, everyone draws a card and the next player becomes the current player.

Example

Anne places a card face down and says “alone.” Each other player places a card face down as well. After shuffling the cards and placing them face up, Bob, Carol, David, Edna, and Frank make their guesses.

Anne had played the number 3 card.
Bob played the number 1 card and guessed 3.
Carol played the number 2 card and guessed 4.
David played the number 4 card and guessed 5.
Edna played the number 5 card and guessed 3.
Frank played the number 6 card and guessed 4.

Anne gets 3 points because Bob and Edna guessed correctly and Carol, David, and Frank guessed incorrectly.

Bob gets 3 points because he guessed correctly, but no one guessed his card.

Edna gets 4 points because she guessed correctly (3), and David guessed her card (1).

David gets 2 points because Carol and Frank both guessed his card (1 each).

Carol and Frank get 0 points because neither player guessed correctly, and no one voted for their cards.

Conclusion

I enjoy this game, but about 1/4 of the people I have played it with do not, and they really do not. I, personally, love thinking up interesting and obscure ways to describe the cards. Trying to connect the interesting cards to something only 1 or 2 people would get is fun for me. I don’t think I have ever won though because I go too obscure, but still, I like it.

The people that I play with that do not like Dixit dislike coming up with those words/phrases/etc. Generally, they do not mind thinking which card they want to use to match someone else’s word/phrase, but they are, to an extent, self-conscious about coming up with a “good” one on their turn.

One problem I do have with the base game is that it can get repetitive. The cards are pretty cool looking, there are a good number of them, and you can describe them in a myriad of ways, but seeing the same ones over and over again can get stale. Luckily, there are expansions which add a lot of new cards. I do not have any of these expansions though, so I can’t actually recommend them, yet.

Overall, this is another one of my games I like to break out with “non-gamers,” but I haven’t had as much success with it as I would like. I do recommend it, but it very much isn’t for everyone.

Foreword

This is a rules-light two-player abstract strategy game. I like rules-light 2 player abstract strategy games.

How to Play

Goal

The goal of the game is to eliminate all of a single type of your opponent’s pieces. (There are 3 types.) You do this by capturing their pieces and building stacks with your own. Stacks can only capture stacks of equal or lesser height.

You can also win by making it impossible for your opponent to capture a piece on their turn.

Set Up

You can either randomly set up the discs, use a predefined setup, or alternate placing discs on the board.

Turn

1. Capture
2. Capture, Stack, or Pass (Skip this step for the first player’s first turn.)

Capture

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto an opponent’s stack of equal or lesser height. Remove your opponent’s stack from the board.

Stack

Pick a stack of 1 or more disc(s) of your color. Move that stack along a straight line onto another one of your stacks; this combines the two stacks into one. For determining if you have a disc of a type, only the top disc of a stack counts.

Pass

Do nothing.

Conclusion

This game is simple, elegant, and excellent.

When I previewed this game, I characterized it as a hunting game, and I think that nails it. The ringed piece (Tzaar) is quickly hunted down to just 1 remaining for each side, since each player only starts with 6. To protect their last Tzaar piece, each player will put it on top of a stack. The first player to do that will always have the higher stack, if they stack it every turn. Due to this, that player can chase down their opponent’s stack(s) with impunity.

While this happens, the second player will generally need to shift into hunting their opponent’s second or third rarest pieces (the Tzarra and Tott respectively). So now, the first player is still trying to capture the last Tzaar piece, but they also need to protect their other pieces. The second player, on the other hand, needs to focus on evading the first player’s mega stack while chipping away at the more plentiful discs. This is frequently accomplished by having a few smaller stacks of 2 to 4 discs, as opposed to a big 4+ stack.

Throughout this process, each player can also set traps to ensnare their opponent. For example, player 1 leaves a 3 stack vulnerable. If player 2 captures that 3 stack they might be allowing their opponent to capture one of their stacks. Or, the capturing stack might be put into a position where it can no longer move, neutralizing it. Overall board awareness is critical to winning this game.

Another major decision point in this game is determining when to make a second capture and when to stack. In almost all games, you win the game by capturing your opponent’s pieces. So, capturing moves you directly toward victory. Stacking, on the other hand, is necessary to prevent you from losing; but, it does also give you an offensive edge for capturing. In general, big stacks are better for defense. Multiple small stacks are better for offense.

Everything I have discussed in my conclusion is emergent from the incredibly simple rules. The strategy is surprisingly deep and the better player will usually win. But, there is a lot to pay attention to, and if you neglect something, you can quickly lose. It is easy to focus on attacking and let yourself be eliminated. I really enjoy the back and forth of this game. If you enjoy abstract strategy games like Chess, The Duke, or Push Fight, I highly recommend this game.