Brawl Review by Jabberwock

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Brawl is a little game with a big heart, and a big punch. Literally.

It’s from Cheapass Games, and is a very pretty game, considering its pedigree (Cheapass are notorious for providing the barest minimum of components and artwork in an effort to provide good, cheap games (hence their name)). Each Brawl deck (and you will need at least two) comes with 35 full-colour cards, and is everything you need to start playing immediately (except another deck and a friend to beat up).

Most of the cards in the deck are Hit cards, but there are some Block and Press cards, and maybe one or two other cards thrown in to mix it up (depending on what decks you have). The idea at the end of each game is to have the most Hits on each Base. The player with the most Hits on their side of the table on each Base win’s that Base, and the player who wins the most Bases wins the game.

The trick here is (apart from one or two practice runs) the game is played in real-time, with each player throwing down cards as quickly or as deliberately as they can manage.

Thankfully, the cards themselves are big, colourful and not-cluttered, allowing each player easy recognition – a definite must in a real-time game! The gameplay is fast and furious, with each player slapping down Hits, Blocking other players’ attacks, Pressing their way through Blocks, Clearing Bases, and Freezing the moves before adding up the scores at the end. It’s over very quickly indeed, and there is always time for several games in a short time frame.

There are several decks to ‘collect’ (although the decks are all the same in each copy, so there is no random distribution, thankfully), and each has a distinct flavour, allowing you to tailor your gameplay by finding the deck that suits you the best. For example, Chris is fast, and balanced, with no weaknesses, but great strengths either. Darwin is described as tricky, as he can Block often, and can Press through other people’s Blocks. There are several ‘runs’ of the game – the first set came with six decks, and there is also a ‘Club Foglio’ set with another six decks illustrated by Phil Foglio. Another set is the Catfight Set, with three decks all of the furry anime style cat lady in short skirts and tight tops (I mean, really – they have taglines like this: “Tamiya has lots of boyfriends, but her best friend is her giant wooden hammer! The other girls tease her because she’s so good in school, but she just knocks them out cold.”) There is also a unique deck available called Ting-Ting, with a new kind of card.

I only have three of the first six decks, and am quite happy with the selection I’ve got.

Summary

Presentation: The cards are sturdy and tough enough to withstand the fast and furious play that is essential for a game like this. The corners are rounded, and the artwork is eye-catching and functional, ensuring each player can see what a card is and does at a glance. The art is very manga-esque, with Fairly-Large-Eyes, and Quite-Small-Mouths (FLEQSM), and the characters are varied enough that there is an interesting mix. 7.9/10

Clarity of Rules: The rules are, by necessity, simple enough to remember when dealing cards at a furious rate. The single, double-sided sheet enclosed does a fairly good job of explaining what happens and how. There isn’t much in the way of examples, however, although they have managed to put in a brief strategy guide, and multiplayer rules (eek!). 7.6/10

Game Length: Blink and you’ll miss it! The game does not drag, but often has the opposite problem – it’s over before you’ve really gotten the hang of things. This problem will be countered by experience, and as you play more and more, you will get a better understanding of how to win (rather than the random card-dealing-fest it seems to be when you play your first game). 7.8/10

Value: It’s cheap, it’s pretty, and it’s expandable. If you want to test it, get two decks, and then branch out. This way you can judge how much you enjoy the game before committing more money. 8.9/10

Overall: I enjoy Brawl, and it joins a not-very-large group of real-time games in my collection (which only has two other games in it – Falling and Lightspeed - both of which are also Cheapass games). It is a very decent filler, but suffers somewhat when two unequal players are playing – a newbie to this one will lose horribly against someone with even a vague inkling how to play. Again, this is down to experience, and the veteran could always ‘take it easy’ on the newbie. Pfff, yeah right…! 8.4/10 (not an average)

Geographical Edutainment by zombiemonkey

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Geography. The merest mention of the word is often enough to send some people running for the hills. The average adult’s grasp of geography is often shockingly poor, but to be honest it’s not really surprising when you consider the dull way that it is taught in schools. Geography is a subject that can make even the dullest subject (yes, even History!) seem far sexier. It’s a pity that Geography (or indeed, any subject for that matter) isn’t taught using tools that could make it interesting to actually learn, rather than a near-thankless chore. Take our beloved board games for instance. Imagine a class of children who can’t wait for their next lesson, anticipating another game or two of something that’s not only educational, but also fun. Make a subject fun, make it something that children find themselves wanting to learn, and students will excel. This is where ‘edutainment’ games such as the ‘10 Days in…’ series from Out of the Box Publishing could happily fit in. Not only are they simple, enjoyable and of reasonable length (which helps with a bunch of kids who are more than likely to have short attention spans), but they’re surprisingly educational too.

‘Edutainment’ is a buzzword created to describe products that aim to entertain as well as educate. Often, products described by their producers as ‘edutainment’ are not entertaining enough to be educational, or too educational to be truly entertaining. Striking the right balance is a delicate juggling act, and one which is not often successfully achieved, but the ‘10 Days in…’ series carry the ‘edutainment’ mantle with aplomb.

The ‘10 Days in…’ series sees players competing to be the first to complete a ten day itinerary around the country or countries featured in the game. Drawing tiles from a face down stack or from a choice of discard piles, players take turns to place destinations or transport methods (cars, planes and ferries each feature in one or more games in the series) in their allotted racks and once a viable ten day journey has been planned, their racks are revealed to show their complete trip. There are currently three games in the series (Africa, USA and Europe) with a fourth to follow in 2007 (Asia), and they are almost unique in their ability to entertain as well as educate, in that the attempt to educate is not foisted upon the player heavy-handedly; rather, it is woven into the very DNA of the games so invisibly that players often do not notice that they are being taught valuable lessons about the location of real-world places. Education through play is a startlingly effective tool. “I believe we all learn better when we are relaxed,” says Matt B. Mariani, Director of Marketing at Out of the Box Publishing. “The stress of studying for a test can often get in the way of retention. When we play, we are relaxed - we absorb and retain information much easier. So any method of education that allows the information to be distributed in a hands-on or playful way will stay with us much longer.”

Interestingly, Mariani has even had a chance to put the knowledge gleaned from the game to use while on a trip with his children. He says, “I recently went to a ‘Wild Africa’ zoo here in Michigan, and there was a series of banners and maps that represented each country in Africa. My kids were very proud of me when I pulled an exhibit manager aside and told him the map they had for the Democratic Republic of Congo was actually incorrect - they had mistakenly used the map for the Congo [and they] are two different countries. I would never have known this if it was not for our ‘10 Days in…’ games.” This is perhaps unsurprising: how many of us can claim to know where in Africa the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Congo are located, let alone the sizes and shapes of these countries? Yet after just a few plays of the game ‘10 Days in Africa’, such knowledge is easily acquired and retained.

Another interesting and subtly educational aspect of the games is that each featured country’s population and capital city is displayed on the relevant tile, which allows players to learn even more – without necessarily realizing - and this information is not needed for playing the game. Given that so much educational information is included in the game, it’s easy to think that education was the prime aim when designing the game – but Mariani explains that this is not the case. “Our first goal in any game is to make it fun,” he says, “but since we knew that schools would use the game[s], we did want to make sure the maps were as accurate as possible. So I’d say we always had the educational market in mind as we developed the game - but it wasn’t the first priority”. Perhaps this is where many educators and ‘edutainment’ products go wrong – rather than keeping in mind that something needs to engage and entertain as well as educate, education is pursued at the expense of any potential entertainment that a product should offer.

The success of these games, according to Mariani, is that “the basis for the game[s] is creative problem solving. Playing the game is like solving your own unique puzzle, so anyone that likes puzzles or is challenged by problem solving situations loves the game[s].” The key word there is creative: allowing players the freedom to creatively challenge the system as well as competing with other players who have the same objective is an important factor in the enjoyment of the ‘10 Days in…’ series.

One flaw that the games have, however, is that some countries are not included in some of the games. An Out of the Box information sheet outlines that this is “in the interest of map readability and gameplay”, and even though these countries are not included, the information goes on to clarify that “they are outlined on the maps in grey”. There are several African countries not included in the Africa game, and also a number of smaller European countries not included in the Europe game. These omissions are explained within the rules to the relevant games, so it is not too damaging to those wishing to use the games as an educational tool.

Overall, the ‘10 Days in…’ series of games provide an invaluable source of education-through-entertainment, and they are short enough and simple enough to be played and enjoyed by just about anyone, regardless of age or actual geographic knowledge, which of course grows impressively after playing any game in the series a few times. The ‘10 Days in…’ series teach us a valuable lesson aside from the obvious geographical one: that entertainment and education needn’t – or perhaps shouldn’t – be mutually exclusive.

Marvel Heroes Competition!

Hello All,

Sorry about missing last month's competition, the good news is, this month we have a copy of Marvel Heroes to giveaway!

To be in with a chance of winning just create an article over 500 words and submit it to the following forum post or email address marvelheroes@iguk.co.uk.

The article can be a review, commentary, anything really as long as it is about gaming and has not been published any where else.

The author of the best article will win a copy of Marvel Heroes, and the best articles will be posted on the IGUK Blog.

Good Luck and Happy Gaming, :-)

Steve Wood

Spooky Stairs Review by Jabberwock

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A game for children, all about children being naughty – and a Kinderspiel des Jahres winner to boot! How could it possibly fail?

In Spooky Stairs (or ‘Geister Treppe’ (subtitled ‘ein magnetisches verwechslungsspiel’)) the players all take on the roles of daring children scurrying up the stairs of an old abandoned castle to frighten the ghost at the top with a well-aimed “BOO”!

The trick here is that the ghost at the top knows full well that the children are on their way, and has cursed the stairs so that the children all turn into ghosts on the way (the implication is that they all die during this transformation, but this is a kids game, so this is not explicitly mentioned – safe to say it is best to leave sleeping ghosts lie…)

The kids are all represented by little wooden pawns with magnets on their heads, and the board is a big ol’ staircase with a ghost at the top. During the game, the children roll the dice to see how far they move up the staircase. But if they roll the ghost on the dice, they are transformed, and must place a ghost pawn over their own pawn (it is kept in place by a little magnet inside the ghost pawn, so the child pawn is completely hidden and you have to remember which ghost covers which pawn).

If your child is already a ghost and you roll the ghost again, then you need to cover one of the other children with a ghost pawn. Pretty soon all the children have been transformed, and nobody can be really sure where anyone else is. Especially when, at this point, the ghost on the dice signifies a ‘switch’. When all the children have been horribly killed (allegedly) and transformed into ghosts, and another ghost on the dice is rolled, that player gets to switch the position of any two ghosts.

Pretty soon – unless you have Herculean memory – nobody has any clue which child is under which ghost, and it becomes pretty much pot luck as to who reaches the top first.

And therein lies the problem. If nobody is really very sure which pawn is which, and you are moving a pawn you mistakenly think is your own, and it turns out not to be (or even more amusingly, two different players are both moving the same pawn with the unshakable conviction their child pawn lies underneath), there can be quite an upset for the losers who were sure that they had the right pawn…

I’ve been sure before, absolutely sure which ghost hid my pawn, and put all my efforts into getting that ghost to the top of the stairs, only to find that I helped another player to win. It is quite galling, and when you are five, this can get very upsetting (as I have found out to my detriment having inadvertently won due to the efforts of my son). Players need to have their entire attention on the game at all times or risk losing complete track of who is where.

It’s actually a very heavy brain-burner, and not a game to play lightly. But it is quite good fun to laugh and joke about who might be where, and how everyone thinks they are doing. The wooden pieces and childish artwork try to lighten the mood, and it does help. But when it comes down to it, this is not a game for sore losers…

There is also an expansion available for the game, adding two more player’s pieces to take it up to six players, and more rules in the form of a bottle that fits over a ghost to prevent it from moving. I don’t own the expansion, however, and cannot make any further comment.

Summary

Presentation: Brilliant – can’t be faulted. The great wooden pieces, the magnetic ‘gimmick’ that actually works and has a gameplay element. There are even little coloured wooden disks to place in front of each player so you can remember who is which colour. It all fits together into a nice package. My only minor gripe is that the board is pretty boring. It’s basically a big staircase, with a cartoon ghost at the top. There’s some ivy and cracks and things, but it is not very pretty all things considered. 8.9/10

Clarity of Rules: The rule book has rules in German, English, French and Italian. The simple rules mean it is pretty easy to explain, and the rules do a good job of covering all the eventualities – even leaving room for an ‘older children’ variant at the end. 9.1/10

Game Length: Each game should take no longer than fifteen minutes. Almost every turn one pawn will be moving up the track, and the stairs aren’t that long. Plenty of scope for another game (and more opportunity for tears later should the ‘wrong’ person win!). 8.8/10

Value: The game is actually quite expensive, but the pedigree of a Kinderspiel des Jahres and the lovely wooden bits mean this is a pretty decent purchase. 7.9/10

Overall: It’s a very easy game to play, but an almost impossible one to master. A moment’s wavering attention can spell ruin for any player, and there is no hope for redemption until the pawn is turned over at the end of the game so you can see which pawn you were really moving…! And be prepared for some laughs, fun and upset all at once when your little one spends all his efforts moving the wrong pawn to the top of the stairs. 7.4/10 (not an average)