Love Letter Review

   If you follow any sort of gaming anything, you have probably heard about the fun little game Love Letter by AEG. It was so well received that they are making many different versions of the game. So far, we have three. There is a wedding one you have to order special. You can only get it if you or someone you know is getting married. The one in the box is a Legends of the Five Rings copy. The red one is the original version.

   The game is pretty simple. There is a little baggie with a few cubes in it. These are used to keep track of points. There are cards that tell you how many of each card there are and what they do. The rules also fold up and fit nicely inside of the bag.

   There are sixteen cards in the game. Each card has a number and tells you what the card does.

   Play is simple. Pass out one card to each player. When it's your turn, draw a card. Choose which of your two cards you want to discard and then do what it says. Some let you guess what card people have, Some cards let you look and see what they do.

   You are trying to keep the Princess card. If you have to discard the Princess, you lose that round. If someone plays a Guard and guesses your card, you discard your card and are eliminated from that round. If you get eliminated from the round, don't worry, the rounds are fairly short and you get to join back in the next go around. The round ends after all of the cards are gone or one player is left. Once the draw pile has been used up, the remaining players show what card they have in their hand. The one with the highest number wins that round.

   Whoever gets the number of cubes that are needed to win first, wins the game!

   As you can probably tell, we have sleeved the cards for this game. It's one of the few that we have done this to. It's a game we really enjoy. We take it with us when we go out to dinner to help pass the time while you are waiting. It is a lot of fun for such a small game. My 9 year old loves to play this game with us. It's really easy to learn and the rounds are pretty fast which is nice since people can be eliminated from the game. I highly recommend this game, it's loads of fun!

Smash Up Review

   Smash Up is a card game where you take two factions and mix them together. It really is "The Shufflebuilding Game of Total Awesomeness!" (It even says so on the box)

   The inside of the box has all of these nice slots for the cards. This is actually the base set with two expansions. Plenty of room to grow!

   There are eight factions in the base set. Dinosaurs, Wizards, Aliens, Zombies, Robots, Tricksters, Pirates and Ninjas. Each person picks two factions. You can have Zombie Aliens, Pirate Dinosaurs, Robot Ninjas. Anything you'd like. Shuffle your cards together and draw five. The number on the top left is how many points each Minion card is worth when scoring the base. The writing in the bottom center is what each card does. Each card has awesome art work on it.

   The set up is simple. Take the base cards and shuffle them up. Lay them out so that there is the same as the number of players plus one. This game is set up for three players so there are four base cards. Leave enough room around the base cards to put cards around it. Place the remaining base cards face down in a draw pile.

   When you take your turn, you can play either an Action card, a Minion card or one of both or neither. You can play them in either order you would like. To play a card, place it next to one of the bases. When you play an action, place it next to the card you want to use it on and then do what it says. This Ninja card is destroying the Alien card. Both cards then go into their discard piles.

   The base cards have their own special abilities. They can either be things that happen right away or once the base is scored. The number in the top left (21) is how many points are needed to score the base. The numbers in the middle are the number of points the players get. The player with the most minion points gets four, second gets three and third gets two. After the Base is scored, remove that base and draw the next base to replace it. Whoever scores fifteen points first, wins!

   This is a really fun game! There are enough cards in the base set to play with up to four people. Game play only takes about 45 minutes. If you like card games, this is definitely one worth looking into. It's a favorite of our gaming group!

   What faction smash up would you like to try?

Guildhall Review

   Guildhall is such an awesomely fun game, I really enjoy it! I've played it with just 2 people and also 4. It worked well both ways.

   When you open the box, you will see this. It has a nice little compartment for your Victory Point cards, your Profession cards, and your Victory Point tokens. This makes set up really easy. No sorting through your cards before you play.

   There are six different professions: the Weaver helps move cards quickly between your hand and your Guildhall, Assassin that kills off your opponents cards, Trader makes it so you can trade cards with your opponents Guildhall, Farmer gets you Victory Tokens, Dancer helps you draw cards and get an extra action and the Historian lets you take cards from the discard pile. They come in five different colors. Red, blue, green, yellow and purple.

 

   There are Victory Point cards that range from two to nine. The number of  pictures of the Chapters on the top of the card is how many it costs to buy the Victory Point card. The two costs one chapter where as the nine costs two. We will talk about chapters later. Some of the Victory Point cards have actions on them. You can use these only once when you purchase the card.

 

   These are your Victory Point tokens

 

   To start, shuffle all of your profession cards and deal nine to each player. Shuffle the Victory Point cards and lay out five where everyone can reach them. Place both decks of cards on the side where everyone can reach. Leave room for a discard pile next to your profession cards. Set the Victory Point tokens out in a pile.

   When you start, you are going to look at your cards. Decide who is going to go first. You can discard cards if you'd like and draw back up to the nine cards. Choose three cards to put in front of you. This is your starting Guildhall. When you play your cards, you can not play cards that match what you already have in your Guildhall. You can play the same profession, but it must be a different color. This is the start up round.

   After you go around and everyone has their three cards in their Guildhall, you begin the game. Each turn consists of two actions. You can: Play one card and do the actions. You may discard any number of cards (including zero) and draw back up to six cards in your hand. You can buy a Victory Point card from the center row. You can do any of the actions twice, counting each time as an action. To purchase the Victory Point card, place your chapter(s) into the discard pile.

    Each profession has their own special actions. Some you can do when you play them and some only work once you already have some in your Guildhall. The numbers on the bottom of the card tells you how many cards you have to have in your Guildhall to use that action. The more of the same profession, the better the action. If it has a 0 you can use it when you play the card, if it has a 2 you must have two in your Guildhall to use that action. You don't have to use the action that corresponds with the number of cards. You can always do a lower one, but never over. When you do an action that gives an opponent a card, it must be a card they can place in their Guildhall, you can not duplicate a card they already have placed. This also means that you can only have one row of each profession. You can also only play one card per profession per turn. Example: you can not play two dancers even if they are different colors.

   Once you get all five colors of your profession, this is called a Chapter.

   You stack up your chapter and lay it face down next to you. You will use these to purchase the Victory Point cards. You may only have up to three Chapters saved. Once you get a chapter and turn it over, you can now start another row of that profession.

 

   The rule book is very clear and easy to understand. They included a chart of what the pictures mean on the cards. Some of the actions make it so you can draw more cards. There is no limit as to how many cards you can have in your hand but if you use the draw cards action, you can only draw back up to six cards.

 

   At the end of your turn, you add up your total number of Victory Points. If you get 20, the game is over and you win!

   This is a fairly easy game to learn and play. It's a lot of fun and one we enjoy playing often. There is a bit of strategy, a bit of luck and a whole lot of trying to knock people down while helping yourself. If you enjoy card games, I think this one is a must have!