Game Reviews, Strategy Articles, and More

Foreword

This is a deck-building word game. While everything may not be perfectly balanced, it is still an excellent game that works with a lot of different people.

Deck-Building

In a deck-building game, everyone starts with an identical deck of cards. These cards are used to acquire new and better cards during the game. All cards you acquire are eventually shuffled into your deck. This means that you will then be able to use the new cards you acquired, in that same game. In addition, all of the decks will diverge as each player makes their own card acquisitions.

Different deck-builder games handle scoring and end game in different ways. Some other deck-builders include but are not limited to: Dominion, Baseball Highlights: 2045, Star Realms, Thunderstone, and Valley of the Kings.

How to Play

Starting Deck

Each player starts with a 10 card deck containing 5 wilds and the letters L, N, R, S, and T.

Turn Overview

At the end of each turn, you draw 5 cards from your deck to use on your next turn.

On your next turn, you use up to all of the letters in your hand and the common vowel to spell a word. That word is worth a number of cents equal to the combined total of the value in the top left of each card used. For instance, if you spelled ‘s*lent’ using 4 of your starting letters, the common card, and 1 wild, it would be worth 5 cents. The wild is worth 0 cents.

With the cents earned from your word, you may buy new card(s). If you had 6 cents, you could buy 3 2-cost cards, 1 6-cost card, or any other combination that adds up to at most 6. Cards you buy go directly to your discard pile.

After you buy your card(s), discard all cards from that turn, whether you played them or not. Repeat this process until the game ends.

Card Type and Abilities

Cards are either Letter cards or Fame cards.

Letter cards have higher cent values (for purchasing more cards) than the starter cards. They can also have abilities that trigger when used in a word. For instance, there is a P that costs 5 cents to buy, is worth 2 cents when played, and, when used as the first letter in a word, it is worth 2 more cents.

Some of these abilities include drawing additional cards at the end of your turn, gaining cards, trashing cards (removing cards your your deck), and even giving a one-time double word score.

Fame cards are either wilds or common cards. Wilds provide 0 cents when used in a word, common cards provide 1 cent. Fame cards are important because they are what give you points at the end of the game.

Your deck starts with 5 1-point wild cards, and there are 4 other wild cards that can be purchased during the game. The higher the cost, the more points it is worth at the end of the game.

Common cards are worth 5 points at the end of the game. You get common cards by making words with at least 7 letters. To get the first common card, you need a 7+ letter word. The second common requires an 8+ letter word. 3rd requires 9+. Final requires 10+.

Game End

The game ends when 1 of 2 conditions is met.

• Any 2 piles of fame cards are depleted

or

• All of the common cards are depleted

Conclusions

I enjoy Paperback. I bought this for a family member that plays a lot of Words with Friends, and she loves this game. Paperback works well as a word game, and it works fairly well as a game in its own right.

As a word game, you get the same feeling of accomplishment when you create an excellent word. In addition, it’s generally not difficult to know the most potential points you can score in a hand, and it feels great when you find a word that does it. I generally see the word game enthusiasts chase after cards that let you draw more cards. This lets them create these impressive 7+ letter words which award the common cards. These long words are generally also worth significant cents, for buying.

For those of you who do not enjoy chasing massive words, you can go after individual high cents cards and fame cards. I frequently go this route. Doing this lets me buy the fame cards, and I am frequently the player that ends the game. As a gamer, I do feel like the balance of the cards might not be perfect; the 4 or 5 cent letters and the single-use double word scores are just so powerful.

The other downside of Paperback is the potential length. When a player takes an incredibly long time to think of a word, the game can drag on. This is especially true if there are multiple people in a row taking a long time. In gaming, this phenomenon is known as Analysis Paralysis (AP). The game does address this by allowing players to ask for help. The helping player then gets a reward. In addition, there is a cooperative mode, but I have not played it yet. There are also a bunch of other “expansions” included in the base game. The expansions that I have tried haven’t been great.

Overall, Paperback works excellently as a game I can play with casual players. It works particularly well for fans of word games.

Foreword

Kahuna is a short 2-player game that makes me feel clever. I really, really like feeling clever.

How to Play

Overview

Kahuna is all about timing, efficiency, and momentum. This is a game where each card is a potential bridge (or half of a negative bridge) used to control islands which by controlling you remove other bridges letting you control more islands. I let myself get carried away there purposefully, but the rules are actually fairly simple.

Goal

In this game you fight for control over 12 islands. Whoever controls the most islands, at 3 points in the game, scores points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The Turn

1. Play any number of cards in hand
2. Draw 0 or 1 card

Playing Cards

You gain control of islands by playing cards.

Each card has the name of an island on it. When you play that card, you place a bridge on any of the connections stemming from that island. For example, if I play an Aloa card, I can place a bridge on the Aloa-Bari connection, the Aloa-Duda connection, or the Aloa-Huna connection.

If placing this bridge grants you a majority of potential bridges controlled for an island, you remove all your opponent’s bridges touching that island and place one of your discs on the island. The disk shows that you control that island. For example, say I have the Aloa-Bari connection and my opponent has the Aloa-Duda connection. I then place a bridge on the Aloa-Huna connection (I could use either an Aloa or a Huna card to do this). I now have a majority on Aloa and would remove my opponent’s Aloa-Duda connection. This could cause your opponent to lose a majority on a different island. This in turn means they no longer control that island.

The second use for cards is to remove bridges. It takes 2 cards to remove 1 bridge. You can either use 1 card from each island or 2 cards from 1 island. For example, if I wanted to remove my opponent’s Aloa-Duda connection, I could use either 2 Aloa cards, 2 Duda cards, or 1 Aloa card and 1 Duda card.

Drawing Cards

At the end of your turn, you may draw 1 of 3 face up cards, 1 face down card, or choose not to draw. If your opponent chose not to draw on their turn, you must draw on your turn. Your hand size is 5 cards, if you have 5 cards in your hand at the end of your turn, you may discard a card face down to draw a card. If you draw a face up card, turn a card from the top of the deck face up to replace it.

Scoring

When you draw the last face up card of the deck, the round ends and scoring occurs. A game has 3 rounds. Bridges are not removed at the end of each round. Shuffle the discard pile to reform the deck for the next round.

• After the 1st round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 1 point.
• After the 2nd round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 2 points.
• After the 3rd round ends, the player who controls the most islands gains 1 point for each island they control more than their opponent. So, if player A controls 6 islands and player B controls 3, player A would gain 3 points.
• The player with the most points wins.

Conclusions

I enjoy this game. Like all of my favorite games, this game has a decent amount of depth to it. The rules are simple, but the more I play it, the more I realize. How much do you hoard cards? When is the best time to gain majority on an island/kick your opponent’s bridges off of islands? Which island connections are safe and which are risky? Do you want to expand your bridges on islands where you already have a majority? When do you want to not draw a card? How often should you remove bridges? These are a few of the interesting questions that arise when playing the game.

This game also has the potential for really huge, impressive moves. “I remove your bridge here, so I can play mine there and take control of this island. That then makes you lose control of this island so I will take control of that one too, kicking you off it entirely as well.” I also find it interesting that sometimes the most dangerous thing you can do is to gain control of an island.

Planning is highly rewarded in this game, but you can get lucky face up draws as well. You can mitigate this luck slightly by not drawing a face up card. This in turn doesn’t give your opponent a guaranteed new, situationaly perfect card. I very much still want to play this game more.

Foreword

Medieval Academy is my go-to game for introducing people to drafting, which is one of my favorite game mechanisms. The game is short, fun, and easy to grasp.

Drafting

There are 2 major forms of drafting: simultaneous hidden drafting and sequential open drafting. Medieval Academy uses simultaneous hidden drafting.

Simultaneous Hidden Drafting

In this form of drafting, every player starts with an equal number of hidden resources, usually cards. Each player simultaneously picks a resource (keeping it hidden) and then passes the remaining resources to the player on their left (sometimes right). This then continues until there are no resources remaining to pass.

For example, in Medieval Academy each player starts with 5 cards. Everyone picks a card and passes the remaining 4 to the player on their left. Then everyone picks a card from the 4 passed to them, followed by the remaining 3 cards being passed, etc.

Simultaneous hidden drafting is also used in Epic’s cube draft and dark draft formats, Magic: The Gathering’s 8 player draft, Sushi Go!, Seasons, and 7 Wonders.

Sequential Open Drafting

This form of drafting is not used in Medieval Academy. Sequential open drafting involves a set of resources available to all players. Players then take turns selecting resources. This is usually done by “snaking” between the players. For example, in a 4 player game with Adam, Becky, Carl, and Diana the order could go like this:

Adam picks 1st
Becky picks 2nd
Carl picks 3rd
Diana picks 4th

Diana picks 5th
Carl picks 6th
Becky picks 7th
Adam picks 8th

Adam picks 9th
etc.

Some other games that use Sequential open drafting include Epic open draft format, Catan (opening settlement placement), Smash Up (official faction selection), and Heroscape (unit selection).

How to Play

Goal

The goal of Medieval Academy is to compete in 7 categories to become the best knight.

Set Up

Lay out the boards as shown in the picture below.

Place the respective coat of arms markers near their respective boards.

Each player chooses a color and places one of their discs on the first space on each board; order does not matter on the first space of a board.

Place the hourglass marker on the first spot on the draft direction board.

According to the rulebook, the player who strikes the most chivalrous pose takes Excalibur to determine the first player.

The Round

This game consists of 6 rounds with 3 parts.

Drafting Cards

This game uses simultaneous hidden drafting described above. At the start of each round, each player is dealt 5 cards. Players simultaneously draft 1 card at a time and then pass the remaining cards. (The direction the cards are passed changes after each round. The hourglass marker keeps track of the current direction.) This continues until each player has drafted 5 cards.

There are 6 types of cards available for drafting. Each type of card corresponds to one (or two in the case of Jousts and Tournaments) boards in play. Each type of card ranges from a value of 2 to a value of 5 (except Jousts and Tournaments which have no 2s). 5 is the best value. 4 of these 5 cards will be played in the next phase to advance a player on that respective board.

Playing Cards

Once everyone has finished drafting, players take turns playing a card. Each card advances a player’s disk a number of spaces on a single board. You can never split movement. For Jousts and Tournaments, they share the same card, but you can use it for either board. If your movement would put you on top of another player’s disk, you are ahead of that player. You continue this process until everyone has played 4 of their 5 cards.

Scoring Boards

After the final card is played in a round, certain boards score. Each board (except Jousts and Tournaments) scores differently. You either want to be ahead of other players or at a certain point on the board. The 7 boards are as follows:

• Gallantry: This board scores every round, and it is the first board to score. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place (in a 4+ player game) finishers are able to advance any one of their disks. First, the 3rd place finisher advances 1 piece 1 space. Then, the 2nd place finisher advances 1 piece 2 spaces. Finally, the 1st place finisher advances 1 piece 3 spaces.

• Jousts/Tournaments: These boards score every round. The player in 1st gets 3 points, 2nd gets 2 points, and 3rd gets 1 point.

• Education: This board scores every round. The player in last gets -3 points. The player in 2nd to last gets -1 point.

• King’s Service: This board scores on the 3rd and 6th rounds only. Relative position does not matter on this board. If you make it to at least space 6, you get 6 points. If you make it to space 12, you get 12 points.

• Quests: This board only scores on the 6th round. The player in 1st gets 17 points, 2nd gets 10, and 3rd gets 4.

• Charity: This board only scores on the 6th round. The player in last gets -10 points, and the player 2nd to last gets -5 points.

After round 3, the Gallantry, Jousts, Tournaments, Education, and King’s Service boards reset. All disks on those boards are returned to the first spot of that board. Play then resumes as normal.

Points you get (positive and negative) are kept face down so no one can check a player’s current score. All players on the start space are tied for last. This means that if you are on the starting spot you can not gain points, and you always lose the maximum amount of points. As a reminder, being on top of another piece means you are ahead of that piece, just not for the starting space.

Game End

The game ends after the final scoring of the 6th round. After that, everyone adds up all of their points. The player with the most points wins.

Conclusion

I stumbled across a demo of this at Gen Con, and I had to buy it. Drafting is one of my favorite game mechanisms, and I think this is a very good introduction to it. This isn’t one of my favorite games since it is fairly light, but I do enjoy playing it. More importantly, I am able to get more people to play a drafting game with me.

It is also pretty satisfying when you put your disk directly on top of another player’s. Generally, it doesn’t feel that awful when someone puts their piece on top of yours though. Most games are also fairly close, and it is not a long game either.

I haven’t experimented much with the variants the game includes. In my next game, I plan on trying out at least a couple. The one that seems the most interesting is the dueling knights as opposed to the Jousts and Tournaments boards. In the dueling knights variant, you can support either or both of the knights. The knight that gets the most support awards more points. While the game works perfectly well without the variants, adding them in could give the game enough depth for it to get more play.

Currently, I frequently introduce this as a new game, especially if the players have never drafted before. Without adding in the variants, it isn’t a game I want to play all of the time, and I do not know if the variants will change that. However, I believe I have more than got my money’s worth out of this game, and I am happy with the purchase. This game will definitely be seeing more play.