Game Review: Unlock! Supernatural Adventures by Space Cowboy

Unlock! Supernatural Adventures by Space Cowboy

This set of "escape rooms at home" use a deck of custom cards and a downloaded phone or tablet app to guide you through the adventure (and keep track of how much time you have used). Some of the games also require components in the box, including the occasional surprise set of components. Here are some supernatural adventures...

Nova City Under Threat

A group of superheroes hangs out at their HQ when the call comes in to thwart a bank robbery! Players use the heroes to save the hostages and end the threat, but that's only the beginning of the action as a supervillain behind the robbery enacts a bigger scheme that could mean disaster for Nova City.

The game has a great premise using a variety of heroes with different powers. Things started off a little slow, making it hard to figure out where the game was supposed to be going. The situation did not improve as we got frustrated with a lot of the logical leaps we needed to make to proceed through the narrative. We took a lot of hints, went down a lot of wrong rabbit holes, and went way overtime trying to solve this one. It was very disappointing.

Dia de Los Muertos

Ana's Abuela wants to celebrate the Day of the Dead, though not all the family ancestors were the most respectable people when they died. Ana has a brother and sister. They all dress up and go to the family celebration, which turn into an adventure in the afterlife, trying to set the situation right.

This game has a lot of fun puzzles that tie in well with the theme. The use of the app is very clever with some unexpected twists that move the story along nicely. We had the usual assortment of very easy and very inexplicable puzzles. We used hints a few times but did not think anything was too much of a stretch (well, maybe the one with dates). This was a lot more fun and a bit easier than the previous deck, which surprised us. We did take a really long time getting through it.

Raganrok

Players start off as a Viking warrior on a ship that fights a mighty sea beast. The ship is wreaked and you wander into the afterlife where Loki has kicked off Ragnarok, the Norse Apocalypse! Can you make it through the end of times and still be alright?

In addition to the usual card and app puzzles, the game includes a couple of cardboard weapons that are used with cards to solve puzzles. Players also use runes that they can cast in sets of four to solve puzzles. One card lists a handful of runes; later in the game another card adds even more. The app has a special spot to "cast the runes" by clicking their images in order. While very thematic, this mechanism was also very problematic. Many times it was hard to tell the proper order of the runes. Some were easily guessable, others were entirely cryptic. Occasionally, we had to guess at which runes were part of the puzzle, making it even more challenging. We used a lot of hints. After about an hour, we took a break to continue the next day. The app rebooted, meaning we had to repeat everything we had already done. That was a bit more frustration added on. We finally made it through, though we were more motivated by completing it than having a great time.

This was the first Unlock! box that was more disappointing than fun. It has some interesting ideas but the implementation did not work for us.

Game Review: Deckscape: Dracula's Castle by dV Games

Deckscape: Dracula's Castle (2021) designed by Martino Chiacchiera and Silvano Sorrentino and published by dV Games

Deckscape is a series of games that imitate escape rooms but only use a deck of cards, not a room full of gadgets, gizmos, and gear. Each card is either a puzzle with a solution on the back or an item that can be used to solve puzzles. Unlike Unlock!, there is no app supporting game play, so only when players are sure they've solved the problem should they check the back of a puzzle card to see if they got it right. If the player is right, they just discard the puzzle card. If they are wrong, they put the card in the box to keep track of their score. At the end, fewer cards mean a better performance. 

This game has Count Vlad D. inviting the players to his castle in Transylvania to deliver a secret tome that he claims is his. The game starts with the invitation delivery and proceeds to the castle and all the surprises inside. Naturally, players don't want to give the book to the Count and must evade all his traps and fight all his minions. Escape from the castle requires a lot of creative thinking and problem solving.

Non-spoiler look at some cards

The puzzles were the typical assortment of easy, fun, difficult, creative, and inexplicable. Using only cards to run the game is okay but limited. Sometimes we were unsure of solving the puzzle but just went ahead and flipped the card anyway because we didn't want to spend more time coming up with new ideas that seemed more off-base than our current solution. So we had a lot of unsatisfying moments. One card does have hints on it but we never used it.

Compared to Exit: The Game or Unlock!, this was lacking. The app in Unlock! is often used creatively and the frustration isn't as bad with tough puzzles. Exit uses a lot of different types of puzzles, with physical manipulation of components in addition to using the cards. The Dracula theme was interesting and well-used but the execution was not our favorite.

Mildly recommended--this wasn't terrible but it didn't sell us on the Deckscape system either.

Game Review: Holiday Hijinks Master Detective Collection Part II

Holiday Hijinks Master Detective Collection published by Grand Gamers Guild and designed by Jonathan Chaffer

The Holiday Hijinks Collection gathers a dozen 18-card escape room games designed over the past several years by Jonathan Chaffer. Each game comes in a small tuck box and contains a mystery centered on a holiday theme. The games use a website to confirm correct solutions and provide hints if players find a puzzle too difficult. The website also provides some codes and other information that might be used in the puzzles (like Morse Code or ASCII, things like that). The designs are compact and meant to take an hour or so for one or more players to solve. I reviewed the first half of the box here, now for the second half of the collection!

The Turkey Trial (2023)

Life on the farm is getting a bit crazy. You notice because you are the turkey and the human family is eyeing you up. Sneaking a peek at their newspaper, you see the story of Thanksgiving and realize that you need to escape! Fortunately the other farm animals are ready to pitch in as long as you help them with their problems. 

The Thanksgiving theme works very well and is consistently appied. A lot of the puzzles involve food, which we enjoyed. We also worked through it very fast, finishing in under 25 minutes. We didn't use any hints, another gratifying point. Have we just gotten used to the style of puzzles or are we really that good? Either way, we had a good time and are glad not to be served for Thanksgiving dinner.

The Easter Escapade (2024)

You show up for your volunteer gig at the local community center to help with the Easter Egg hunt only to find nobody else there and none of the eggs hidden! Finding the eggs and hiding them in good spots while trying to figure out what happened to your co-workers takes up all your attention for the next hour or so.

The puzzles were not too hard in this one except for one or two. Typically, a set of four eggs needs hiding in a room of the community center, so figuring out which egg goes where is eighty percent of the work. The web site is critical for this, inputting where each egg is supposed to go. Thankfully, using the website is not the challenging part. We enjoyed these puzzles, which had a good variety, and the final resolution of the story was cute. 

The Marriage Mix-Up (2024)

You run the reception hall for a marriage that is happening soon. You get there and find the place is a wreck--table assignments are all over the place, confetti has been spread too early, mass hysteria! You work your way through puzzles to get things back in order and to find the culprit.

The new twist for this is the division of players (so no solo play for this one). Almost immediately, the group has to separate out into the Bride's group and the Groom's group, each with their own cards and puzzles. Each group can talk about the cards but not show the cards to the other group. The new and interesting challenge was fun, especially trying to describe images on the cards. The puzzles are not too hard, we used zero hints. The final resolution was humorous if unlikely. A lot of fun!

The Leprechaun Larceny (2025)

You are about the celebrate March's most popular holiday, Saint Patrick's Day, at the local festival when a short man enlists your aid in a "quest for lost treasure." Naturally, the guy is a leprechaun and he wants his treasure back. So a fantastical adventure begins as you solve puzzles to find and restore his pot of gold.

The game has the usual assortment of puzzles that we found mostly easy. One or two were very challenging, blending multiple codes available on the game's website. We used two hints, which lost us half a star in the final score. We had a good time playing this, but maybe the series is running out of steam?

The New Year Nightmare (2025)

Going back to the inventor's house from The Groundhog Gambit, players get stuck in another time-looping adventure, bouncing back between Father Time and Baby New Year (though not literally). 

This game has similar duplicating puzzles like The Groundhog Gambit, which can be a little frustrating or amazing. Here, things move faster, coming in under an hour of playtime. We enjoyed it but felt more like it was a lesser copy of The Groundhog Gambit rather than an awesome sequel. We certainly had fun, but not as much fun as before. 

The Krampus Caper (2025)

Santa Claus and the Missus have gone on a tropical vacation, leaving you and Krampus to fill in for the Christmas delivery run. Krampus, being the one who delivers bad things to the kids on the naughty list, has some ideas about what to do, but also many wrong ideas. You work with him to get the North Pole production on track, get the reindeer and sleigh in order, and head off on the world-wide journey of gift giving. If you can just avoid giving lumps of coal to everyone.

This has the usual variety of puzzles that are more or less challenging while being more and more fun. We didn't have any big problems, except when we hit the rows and columns puzzle. We kept getting small details wrong until we worked it out properly. This was a fun finish to the set of calendar conundrums.

As I write this (May 2026), there are two more in the series, so maybe they will keep designing these until they run out of holidays. We will definitely be shopping for these extras, even if they won't fit in the cute box seen above.

Game Review: Holiday Hijinks Master Detective Collection Part I

Holiday Hijinks Master Detective Collection published by Grand Gamers Guild and designed by Jonathan Chaffer

The Holiday Hijinks Collection gathers a dozen 18-card escape room games designed over the past several years by Jonathan Chaffer. Each game comes in a small tuck box and contains a mystery centered on a holiday theme. The games use a website to confirm correct solutions and provide hints if players find a puzzle too difficult. The website also provides some codes and other information that might be used in the puzzles (like Morse Code or ASCII, things like that). The designs are compact and meant to take an hour or so for one or more players to solve.

The Kringle Caper (2020)

Christmas morning starts with an invitation from Santa to come to the North Pole to help investigate a crime! Though the crime is not immediately obvious, you follow clues and solve puzzles involving the Christmas theme, using popular songs and Santa's workshop to discover the culprit.

The mystery is fun even if the solution does not quite make sense. Not every card had a puzzle on it, some just provided more clues or information to make other solutions. Like other escape room games, some clues are scattered about, showing up before they are needed, though it was always clear what was relevant to the current puzzle. We enjoyed solving this one.

The Independence Incident (2021)

Visiting a museum for Fourth of July, players are drawn into a mystery trying to defeat the Culper Ring, a group bent on hiding secrets from the rest of America. Players examine a lot of museum exhibits for anomalies to solve problems and get to the next stage of the conspiracy.

The storyline is interesting and the puzzles are fun. Each puzzle is built around some aspect of American history or politics, making it a fun little civics review in addition to the creative puzzle-solving. This was easier and more enjoyable than the first one. 

The Pumpkin Problem (2021)

The most horrible Halloween discovery ever--someone has substituted the contents of candy bar wrappers with raw vegetables!!! To find the culprit (and the hidden stash of authentic candy), players have to hunt down the trick-or-treaters and get information from them about the suspicious house on the street, solving other puzzles along the way.

This had a nice variety of puzzles and used the fronts of the cards in creative ways. We only had two challenging puzzles that needed hints (or the bonus information on the web site). The whole thing was very satisfactory and took less than an hour. Nice design job (except for the genuinely horrifying theme)!

The Cupid Crisis (2022)

You have an awesome Valentine's Day date planned at a fancy restaurant. The restaurant also has an awesome plan. You show up early and get locked in by yourself. The door has a keypad lock to get out, but you'll have to go through a lot of puzzles to find the right combination.

This was the most satisfying yet. The puzzles are thematically tied to Valentine's Day and to fancy restaurant stuff (like the reservation book, menus, dance floors, etc.). We only needed hints once or twice and relied on the sets of codes a few times. The humor is good and the creativity of using the cards is very enjoyable. We also liked that we could solve puzzles in different orders since we didn't immediately get what some of them were going for.

The Birthday Burglary (2022)

A birthday party for you is a bit spoiled by the fact that no one is there. A bunch of stuff has been left around, including presents and party games. As you look through all the stuff, you slowly uncover the secret that is waiting for you not too far away.

Players have to interact a lot more with the website. Found items become tools to use with other items or devices. For example, there's a cotton candy machine that needs a little maintenance before you can get yourself some flossy goodness. One object will fix the machine, another will let you get cotton candy from the machine. But don't try the lollipop, because it's too short and that would be too much sugar (or so the website said when we tried it). The puzzles are fairly intuitive and move along at a good pace. We were stumped by one because we made a wrong assumption on how to solve it. Other than that, it was a fine time.

The Groundhog Gambit (2022)

You are trapped in an inventor's mansion where the code pad to open the front door is locked, alarmed, and frozen over. As you explore the inventor's home you solve various puzzles that all lead back to the front door. Again, and again, and again. Just like that movie where Bill Murray has to relive the same day over and over and over.

The game goes through a lot of loops varying the puzzles as it goes. At first, the set-up was frustrating for us. Then we got into the rhythm of the repeats and things felt like they were moving faster. About half-way through we got the option to take a break and come back later, not realizing this was a double-length mystery. The box says 120 minutes and highest difficulty but we didn't look at that till afterward. With so many puzzles, we did use some hints, especially when we reiterated through one that needed a hint on the previous run. 

In retrospect, the design is very clever, using the same elements with one or two shifts to force the players to find different answers. The intricacy and variety were amazing, especially toward the end when we were able to use solutions to puzzles that didn't work earlier. Ultimately, this was a very satisfying experience.

So far, the last one has been the best one. More reviews in the future as we work our way through the back half of the box!

Game Reviews: Scott Almes Solo Game Sampler

Here's some reviews of games designed by Scott Almes to be played solo. They are all published by Button Shy, so they are all 18-card games. The Simply Solo games are crafted to be "one player only, light on rules, and big on replayability."

He's designed more games than I am listing here, these are just the ones I have.

Food Chain Island

An island full of animals is the perfect place for a food pyramid scheme! The cards are laid out in a four by four grid of animals, each with a number that represents its size and a special rule on the card. The objective is to have as few animals as possible left on the island. Play stops when no animal can eat another because the numbers are too far apart or the cards are too far apart in the play area. 

The animals are only allowed to eat orthogonally and only a number that is 1, 2, or 3 less than its own number. So the Rat (#5 card) can only eat the Lizard (#4), the Mouse (#3), or the Spider (#2). The predator card moves on top of the prey card, replacing it on the island. If it eats again, the stack of cards gets even bigger. Written on the bottom of each card is a special rule that must be followed after the predator eats another card. The Rat says "Move one animal 2 spaces," which could be the Rat or any other critter still on the island. The lower numbered cards have more useful abilities. The game also has cards for the Whale and the Shark that can be used at any time to help the player rearrange the other cards to maximize eating. The Whale and the Shark don't eat (poor things!).

The player wins if only one, two, or three animals (stacks of cards) are left on the island.

Middle of a game

While the art is cute, I found the game not very thematic. Some of the food chains are not quite convincing (sure, the Rat is bigger than the Mouse but would it really eat a cousin?). Some abilities are thematic (the Bat can fly around to anywhere), others are just random (moving other cards or requiring certain actions to be taken). The game mechanics make you plan ahead as much as you can, so there's a little brain burning going on but nothing too tough. Occasional layouts are hard to manipulate into a successful outcome. I was never excited to come back to this game the couple of times I tried it. It isn't bad but it isn't my thing.

The game does have expansions but I don't have them and thus haven't tried them. Maybe they would spice things up.

Mildly recommended.

The Royal Limited

It's the swinging Sixties in England, where celebs are traveling in style which means they travel by train. Regular people want a chance to see them, so they get on the trains too! To support their endeavors, the player will build a train and populate it with celebrities and common folk. The game has twelve Train/Passenger cards, five VIP cards, and one Conductor card. The Conductor is used as a timer, keeping track of the four rounds of the game (the card is rotated at the end of each round). At the beginning of the game, the player draws two random VIPs and uses either side of the card.

At the beginning of a round, the player draws five cards from the Train/Passenger deck. Each card has a color (all pastels--either blue, green, or red) and a number (from 0 to 3). If a card is played as a train card, the player has to discard cards from their hand equal to the number on the card. Subsequent Train cards must not have the same number or color as the rightmost train card. That's how the train is built.

The player can also place a Passenger or VIP onto one of the train cards. The color or number of the occupant must match the Train card's color or number. VIPs only have a color, though some of them have no color and can be put in any train card. But the VIPs have special requirements, like being placed between specific values of passengers or in specific cars after the train is three cars long. So picky!

Once an occupant is placed, the special ability at the bottom of the Train card is activated and must be followed. Once the player is out of cards or doesn't (or can't) play any cards, the round is over. The Conductor card rotates (assuming it's not the end of the fourth round), any cards still in hand are discarded, and five new cards are drawn. 

A final situation--not good!

The score at the end adds up all unused cards (including unused VIPs) and an unoccupied Train cards. The picture above shows a score of six--five unused cards and one empty train car. Four or more is a loss, two makes you a Beginning Conductor, 0 makes you the Royal Conductor.

I found the game very fiddly and arbitrary. I was constantly scoring two to four points after spending a lot of time thinking about moves and rewinding moves that turned into impossible situations. For me, there are too many arbitrary requirements. Having VIPs restricted to certain colors and placing a train car with a different number and color created a lot of unfun tension. I just don't enjoy playing the game. I looked at some strategy tips online and they helped a little with scores but I still haven't gotten a zero score.

The game does have expansions but I don't have them and thus haven't tried them. Maybe they would get the engine running better.

Not recommended.

Unsurmountable

I previously reviewed this game here. Below is a cut-and-paste of parts of the review!

Unsurmountable challenges the player to build a continuous path up a mountain. Play starts with a "base camp" which is a row of five face-up cards. The rules are simple. The player can either place the leftmost card of the base camp on the mountain or use an ability listed on the base camp cards (the card with the ability gets discarded, so use wisely). The mountain is built up as a triangle--cards can only go on higher levels if there are two adjacent cards beneath it. The bottom row has a limit of four cards, the next a limit of three, the next a limit of two, and only one on the top.

A completed mountain with base camp

As the cards are put down, the paths don't have to connect. It's okay to have dead ends or cards that are not part of the ascent. The path has to start from the bottom edge of the mountain and go all the way up to the middle of the top card (the top card does not need the path exiting on the very top). A helicopter card is set aside as a one-use ability--the player can take a base camp card and put it on the bottom of the draw deck. The challenge of the game is to plan ahead in using the cards to build the path or switch things around with the abilities.

The game plays quickly (in about ten minutes) and is a lot of fun, especially trying to plan ahead with the cards. Making a trail isn't too hard until you start using the other limitations (like only one type of card per level or per side), adding more things to plan ahead for. I found myself not using the helicopter. It's nice thematically but the base camp would have to have be a bad combination to make it feel necessary.

The game does have expansions and I have enjoyed playing with them. See my review for more details.

Recommended.

A Nice Cuppa

The player is just trying to relax and make a cup of tea to soothe away the worries of everyday living. It's a simple seven-step process, from selecting a flavor of tea to the enjoyment of said tea. But the worries are ready to make trouble for you. 

Seven cards represent the Steps to make tea. The player shuffles these and plays them out in a random order, with the Focused side up (more about the other, Distracted side later). Seven of the ten Worry cards are shuffled and placed face down under the seven Steps. 

An initial set-up

On a turn, the player flips up one Worry then proceeds down the line of worries from left to right, performing the action listed on the bottom of the card. The actions make the player move around the Steps cards, which could be beneficial or could create problems. After the Worry cards have all activated, then all the Steps that are above an active Worry card are flipped. The other side of the Step cards are the Distracted side, though throughout the game they will flip back and forth. Once the flips are done, if any Worry cards are below a Focused Step, they are removed. As a final action that is optional, the player can swap the places of two adjacent Step cards. Then a new round begins. Rounds continue until the final Worry card is flipped up. Then the player has a last round without flipping a Worry card (since they are all flipped) but doing the other actions (performing the Worry actions, flipping cards, eliminating Worries under Focused Steps, and maybe swapping two neighboring cards).

For a score, all cards to the left of Step 1 are discarded (hopefully none if Step 1 is the leftmost card!). All the cards in ascending order from 1 are kept until there is a number lower than the previous one. The rest of the Steps cards after that are discarded. The player scores two points for every Focused Step card, one point for every Distracted one, and loses one point for every remaining Worry card.

Final scoring situation

The game moves smoothly and it is easy to see how you have to manipulate the card order. Planning to get the cards in proper order, flipped to the Focused side while removing Worry cards is the challenge. The slow build up of greater complications creates more tension, especially if the player gets all seven cards in the right order before the game is done. I found the challenge interesting and not overly taxing. The Worry cards are usually in different orders and the player doesn't see all the same cards every game, making for a lot of replayability.

The game does have expansions and I do have them but haven't tried them. I haven't played the base game enough to move on to more complicated Worries!

Recommended.

So it's tough for me to say whether I like Unsurmountable or A Nice Cuppa more. They both provide interesting puzzles that are not overly complicated or overly restricted. They give a nice brain-burn without brain-melt. I will definitely keep playing them both.

Game Review: Unlock! Legendary Adventures by Space Cowboys

Unlock! Legendary Adventures (2021) published by Space Cowboys, designed by Matthieu Casnin, Marion du Faouet, and Dave Neale

This set of "escape rooms at home" use a set of cards and a downloaded phone or tablet app to guide you through the adventure (and keep track of how much time you have used). Some of the games also require components in the box, including a surprise set of components.

Action Story--Stella's stolen a jewel of immense value and you are in hot pursuit! Luckily, you have a James Bond-like car with a grappling hook and all sorts of tunes to listen to. The high speed chase quickly morphs into something quite different in an enjoyable way as the puzzles keep coming.

This is supposed to be the easiest challenge in the box but I found a bunch of the puzzles were not at all obvious how they should be solved, including the final puzzle which was unfortunate. I used some hints and the walk-through to get through tight spots. I really enjoyed the theme but the implementation could have been a lot better.

Robin Hood: Dead or Alive--Players are part of the Merry Men, working with Robin Hood to rob from the rich and give to the poor. Things quickly turn against Robin, who winds up in the Sheriff of Nottingham's jail. It's up to the players to get Robing out of the jam he is in. Solving puzzles lets players explore a bit of Robin's world and do some of the iconic deeds like fighting with quarterstaffs and doing trick shots with a bow and arrow.

The game play is a little tricky, relying on a lot of in-app bits to unlock the next puzzle or challenge. Some were a bit hard to follow, like the bard whose song needs to be decrypted to get one of the codes. We had a couple of misfires and needed hints. Most of the mechanics were fun, including some additional components we didn't know about. We enjoyed the game but found it a bit harder than it needed to be.

We almost ran out of time but still got four stars. We need to improve our cyber-archery skills!

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Burnt Angels--Players help out Sherlock Holmes as he investigates three murders in London. The murderer is a man named Red Henry who seems to be bent on some sort of revenge. The clues take the investigation all over London, requiring a lot of movement and a lot of observation.

This is the hardest-rated adventure on the box. Players get the usual deck of cards and a special "magnifying glass" which is a heavier card with a whole cut in the middle. For certain clues, this "magnifying glass" helps to find the right number for the next card. One of those clues was a bit of a stretch and we only found out what we were supposed to do afterwards. A couple of cards come together to form a map and players use the app to travel to London locations where further clues (i.e. cards) are revealed. The whole investigation worked fairly well with only a few hiccups here and there for us. We enjoyed it, though we did pause in the middle for bedtime and had to restart the adventure in the app the next day. Catching up wasn't hard.

The Holmes adventure was my favorite in this set. I would definitely try more Unlock! games in the future.

Game Review: Paris Pastries by Gamrana

Paris Pastries published by Gamrana

In Paris Pastries, players are bakers in early 1900s Paris, making delectable treats for customers. The game accommodates two to six players and plays in about half an hour.

The game comes with a rule book and four decks of cards: Tools, Ingredients, Recipes, and Customers. Each player starts with two Tool cards. These give special abilities to use either one time or throughout the game. For example, the Coal-Fired Deck Oven lets the player make two recipes on a single turn or the Brass Balance Scale doubles the points on the first pastry made (so obviously a one-time use Tool).

Some of Tool Cards

Five Recipe cards and five Customer cards are laid out between the players. These constitute the currently available recipes that players can create. Each customer craves one special ingredient, marked in the corners of their card and written on the bottom.

Recipe and Customer cards

Recipes require three to five ingredients. Some of the ingredients are more rare than others. The Ingredient deck also includes some Wild cards that can substitute for any other ingredient. Each recipe has a point value in the top left corner of the card and a bonus if any current customers match an ingredient for that recipe. 

Some of the Ingredient cards

On their turn, each player can do one of two actions:

• Collect Ingredients (The Baker's Gambit)--Draw ingredient cards one at a time. The player may stop at any time to take all the drawn cards. If a duplicate ingredient is drawn, the player busts and can only keep one of the ingredient cards (and the player cannot choose a Wild card as the one to keep).
• Bake a Recipe--Discard all the ingredients required for one of the five displayed recipes and take that card and any customers who match an ingredient for that recipe. Once this is done, the Recipe and Customer lines are replenished to their original five. The baker also draws two ingredient cards from the deck with no penalty if the two cards are the same ingredient.

Play proceeds continues clockwise until the ingredient deck runs out. The deck is reshuffled and used for a second time. Once that runs out, in a game of up to four players each player has a final turn to complete recipes. In five- or six-player games, the ingredient deck is reshuffled a second time and ends after that runs out.

At the end, players total up their scores for what they have baked using the number in the upper left and adding a bonus for any customer cards for that recipe. Include any end-game bonuses from Tool cards. If the score is a tie, the player with the most customers wins. If that is also a tie, the player with the most leftover ingredients wins. 

The game provides an interesting combination of pushing your luck and collecting sets. The Recipe cards have a variety of ingredients, making it possible for players to focus on one or two recipes as their targets. But the element of chance is very strong. A player could collect all but one ingredient and start pushing to get the last thing they need for a recipe. The harder they push, the more likely they are to bust. It's hard to see five cards go down to one. The luck factor can be frustrating, either busting early or not getting that one ingredient in a long line of cards.

The game has a couple of balance issues with the Tool cards. The cards that provide endless Puff Pastry or Pastry Cream or Butter provide a very large advantage to the player who has one or more of them. The advantages don't necessarily balance out. Also, the player with the endless Puff Pastry might collect the Puff Pastry Ingredient cards and then those cards are out of circulation for the other players in the reshuffle. We have thought about but haven't implemented any house rules on that.

The art is nice, evoking a Paris from more than a hundred years ago. The icons are clear and easy to understand. The theme is delightful. Who doesn't like French pastries? We certainly do and find the game mouth-watering, even if we don't win at the end.

Mildly recommended--this is a fun but very light game and has an issue or two.

Game Review: Adventure Games: Monochrome Inc. by P. Walker-Harding et al.

Adventure Games: Monochrome Inc. designed by Matthew Dunstan and Phil Walker-Harding, art by Maximillian Schiller, and published by Kosmos

The Adventure Games series is a set of cooperative games where one to four players explore a mysterious location. We played The Dungeon a long time ago (and didn't review it), which was a fun medieval mystery that had us exploring a castle. This game is set in modern times. Players are a crack infiltration team on a heist, hired by an unseen financier. Monochrome Incorporated is developing a new medicine but something fishy is going on. Breaking in at night, players explore various floors of the building to discover the formula for the new drug called "Rainbow." The drug promises amazing healing abilities but side effects do occur.

The game is played like a computer "point and click" adventure. Each large card representing a floor has several locations that can be investigated by reading paragraphs out of a booklet. Players collect items which can be combined together or with locations to move the story along. Occasionally something big enough happens to swap out large cards or start new chapters in the narrative, of which there are three.

Initially, we followed the turn order system of the instructions. It was a little tedious at points having to move around a lot or not do things until characters and items were in place. So we switched to discussing what to do, who should go where, and what we could accomplish to move the story along. The game became faster and more enjoyable. The game isn't timed like Unlock! or Exit: The Game (we never time ourselves anyway), though it does have a similar score system. We ignored the score system because we were interested in the cooperative narrative rather than the victory conditions. We wanted a great story, not a great score, at the end. Alternate endings are possible and we read through some of them because we were not going to replay the whole game just to get a different outcome in the last five minutes of play.

We enjoyed the game. The puzzles are not too hard though sometimes collecting all the right items requires some patience. One or two narrative bits didn't make sense to us but they were very minor and had no effect on our enjoyment. The game is a nice way to sit around for a couple of hours (which we divided into three sessions, leaving it set up on the dining room table) and work through the story.

If you like "point and click" adventures and don't mind a bit of zombie grimness (not too much) this is a fun time. Even my zombie-hating daughter thought it was okay.

Recommended.

Game Reviews: Wild West at Breakout Games and The Inflation Monster Card Game

My family took me to a local escape room for Father's Day. The room is called Wild West at Breakout Games in Columbia, Maryland. The theme is fun: We were gold miners who had been robbed by some local bandits. Half of our crew was handcuffed inside a local saloon while the rest of us were just outside. So there were three tasks: free our friends, find our gold (hidden in a vault), and get the heck out of there. 

The game had a lot of old west flavor and we had a big enough group to solve all the puzzles in a very quick time. The puzzles had a good variety of mechanical and verbal solutions. The finale was satisfying. We had a lot of fun working together.

Very good considering we had 60 minutes to finish

At home, my daughter got an early birthday present, a card game called The Inflation Monster. It is based of an episode of the Tuttle Twins on Angel Studios, flagging up how damaging inflation is. Players start with a little money that they can invest in real estate, gold, stocks, bitcoin, or a new business. The various ventures bring in money in a couple of different ways. But after each player has a chance to invest, a die is rolled and the inflation number moves up (or possible down, though only one side of the die is a -1). Then everyone has to pay the amount on the inflation counter. Pretty soon, only one person is left with any money and is declared the winner.

It was interesting to play and brought up some discussion about what are really good investments and how you can mitigate inflation in various ways (including actions not in the game). We had fun playing though getting wiped out by inflation in the game is not so much fun. 

Playing the game

Posing for a picture

Game Review: Sky Team by Scorpion Masque

Sky Team published by Scorpion Masque, designed by Luc Remond, and art by Eric Hibbeler and Adrien Rives

Winner of the 2024 Spiel des Jahres (the German board game of the year award), Sky Team is a two-player co-operative game where players land a plane as pilot and co-pilot. 

A central board represents the plane's controls and each player has a set of four dice (blue for pilot; orange for co-pilot) which they roll behind a screen. 

Control Panel

Before they roll the dice each round, they can discuss what strategy they will use for that round. After the roll, players are not allowed to talk. They place their dice one at a time, alternating between pilot and co-pilot. In the first round, the pilot places the first die. In each subsequent round, they swap who places first.

Players have seven different spots they can place dice representing seven different actions. Two actions are mandatory:

• Axis--Each player must place one die. Once the second die is placed, the plane's axis tilts toward the higher die, moving the number of space of the difference between the two dice. So a 4 and a 2 result in the plane tilting two spaces on the central axis control. If the plane tilts too far, it crashes and the players lose.
• Engines--Each player must place one die. Once the second die is placed, the die numbers are added together to get the speed. Just below the central axis control is the speed gauge with two markers (blue and orange). If the total speed is below the blue marker, the plane does not move forward. If the speed is in between the blue and orange markers, the plane moves one space forward on the airport track. If the speed is greater than the orange marker, the plane moves two spaces forward.

Axis & Engines (sounds like another game)

The other actions are not mandatory but are necessary to land the plane safely:

• Radio--The airport track has planes on it and the crew needs to radio the airport to remove those planes. In each round, the pilot has one radio space, the co-pilot two (at the top of the control panel). If the planes are not cleared before the airplane advances, the plane crashes into the other plane and the players lose.
• Landing gear--Only the pilot can deploy the landing gear, i.e. all three wheels (on the left side of the control panel). As each is deployed (they can go in any order) the blue marker on the speed gauge moves one space. The pilot has to activate all three before they reach the airport or the plane crashes and the players lose.
• Brakes--Only the pilot can deploy the brakes. The dice are played sequentially (2, 4, 6) to move the red brake gauge forward, though the dice can be played in separate rounds. In the final round, the speed has to be less than the brake amount or the plane crashes and the players lose.
• Flaps--Only the co-pilot can deploy the flaps (on the right side of the control panel). The die are played sequentially from the top to the bottom of the flaps area. Each time a flap is deployed, the orange marker on the speed gauge moves one space. If all the flaps are not deployed when the plane reaches the airport, the plane crashes and the players lose.
• Concentration--Either player can add a die with any face value here to brew a cup of coffee. The cups can be spent to change the face value of a die up or down one number per cup used. 

Brakes and coffee

After all the dice are placed, the altitude track moves down one and the players retrieve their dice from the controls and can start talking again. They slide under the two slots at the top of the control panel. As you can see below, sometimes the team will have to fly two spaces toward the airport in order to arrive when the plane reaches the ground. The black cube icons on the airport track indicate adding extra airplanes using a black die.

First flight

Once the altitude track and the airport track are on the same space, the last round is triggered. The plane needs to have a level axis, the speed value has to be less than the brake value, the flaps and landing gear have to be completely deployed, and no other airplanes can be on the airport track. If all those are true, the players win!

A successful landing!

We found the very first mission, landing in Atlanta, to be fairly easy. The game comes with several different airport tracks, all of which are two-sided. A harder approach is on the back! The game also adds in other complications, like controlling fuel usage, having an intern to train, dealing with headwinds and tailwinds, and other challenges. A second rule book details the additional rules and the airports have symbols at the top indicating which add-ons to use. One possible add-on is a bonus power (or two) that give some help (like an extra die or cup of coffee) in landing the plane, so not all the add-ons are challenges...just most of them. In the photo above, the synchronization card is a bonus power and the fuel track on the left is an extra challenge.

My wife and I enjoy the game immensely. We got it for Christmas and played it once or twice every day for a couple of weeks. Most of the airports take more than one go to have a successful landing. Part of the challenge is the luck of the roll, but the variety of spots to place the dice helps to mitigate the randomness. On an easy airport, the players get two re-roll tokens to use during a round. The hard airports only provide one. Re-rolling after getting four of the same number on the dice might be necessary. Since the players are not allowed to talk, the player choosing to reroll does so on their own though the other player can also reroll their dice. Each player can choose how many dice to reroll. Any placed die cannot be rerolled.

Making a successful landing is very satisfying. The game plays very quickly (under twenty minutes) so we have had times where we just tried again right away, especially if we crashed early. That happens with bad dice rolls or bad dice placement, often a combination of both. But resetting the game is easy and replaying is rewarding. We can see why it won the award.

Highly recommended--easy to get to the table, quick to play, and cooperative!

 

Game Review: Pizza Pizza Yum Yum by Button Shy Games

Pizza Pizza Yum Yum designed by Lance Schricke and published by Button Shy Games

This two-player cooperative game has players crafting pizzas and menus to satisfy customers. The game is a micro-game with only eighteen cards, a rules book, and a little wallet barely bigger than the cards. The eighteen cards are dual use--they show a quarter of a pizza (with two toppings on it) and a half of a menu order (with two toppings on it too).

Sample cards (bottom two are the backs of the cards)

The game is played in three round. In each round, the deck is shuffled and six cards are dealt to each player. The remaining six cards are set aside and will not be part of the round. Players look at the cards and have to figure out a good scheme for laying down the cards to maximize scores. Players put down one card at a time. Those cards are played simultaneously. The first card is played face-up to a player's own pizza; the second is played face-up to the other player's pizza. The third card is played face-down to the player's own pizza as half of the menu order; the fourth card is played face-down to the other player's pizza as the second half of the menu order. The fifth card is played face-up to the player's own pizza; the sixth card is played face-up to the other players pizza.

After all the cards are played, the menu cards are flipped and the pizzas are scored. For every topping that is on its menu cards, a pizza scores one point. If there are duplicate ingredients on the menu cards, that ingredient on the pizza scores multiple times. The two pizzas are totaled separately and the players earn the points from whichever pie has the lower score. 

Sample pizza and menu

In the above pizza and menu, the pineapples score two point for each on the pizza, so six points. One point per mushroom and one per pepperoni, so three and two points respectively. Six plus three plus two is eleven, a pretty good score for one pie. If the other pie scored eleven points (a tie!), the team gets eleven points for the round. If the other scored higher, the team gets eleven points (since eleven is the lower score). If the other scored lower, the team gets the score for the other pie.

Then the cards are collected and shuffled, ready to start the next round. After three rounds, the three scores are added to see how well the team did. The rule book provides a scale for success.

The game plays very quickly, even if someone has Analysis Paralysis. Figuring out how to cooperate is not too tricky. There's enough variety in the cards to have different outcomes. That being said, my wife and I have been pretty consistent in scoring eight points per pizza, though we did get some better pies sometimes. The rounds go so fast, it's hard to get too invested in "if I had only done X" thinking. 

Recommended--this is a fun, two-player co-operative game, of which there are not many.

Game Review: The Walking Dead: Surrounded by Button Shy Games

The Walking Dead: Surrounded designed by Jason Tagmire and published by Button Shy Games

The publisher Button Shy Games is famous for its unique design model. All the games are eighteen cards with an instruction booklet and a small wallet. Some games require other materials provided by the player (like tokens or something to write notes or scores on) but typically the whole game is just the small deck of cards. Occasional expansions add more cards or substitute some cards. In The Walking Dead: Surrounded, players build a tableau of eighteen cards alternating locations and character cards, hoping to set up many locations with more humans than zombies adjacent. 

The cards are two-sided with the fronts showing locations and the backs four different characters on each edge.

Sample locations

Some locations have a special rule at the bottom, a person or a walker already there, and/or an end-game scoring symbol (a number or an item in the top right corner). 

The character cards are a mixture of walkers and humans, with the humans divided into leaders (with a star next to their picture) and survivors (with a head and shoulders next to their picture). Some humans have special abilities which will be described below.

Sample characters

To start the game, the cards are shuffled location-side up. The first location is put on the table and the second card is flipped to the character side. One of the zombie sides must be placed next to the location. The game then proceeds with playing cards from the deck, building a checkboard pattern of alternating location and character cards. The player has two choices with the next card on the deck.

First, the top deck card can be played to Explore, using the location and putting it next to one of the characters already in play. After the location is played the next card is flipped and a zombie-side of the card must be placed next to this new location. In some cases, that may not be possible (the location has two or one open sides available). Then the player is free to place the card next to some other location without having to match a zombie to any location. 

The second choice is to flip the top deck card and play it to Occupy an open location. The card can go to any legal spot (i.e. a location with an open side) with no restriction on placing a zombie next to a place. If the card has a Walker on the location side, then it can only be played as an Explore.

Some humans have an Ability, so when they are played to a new location (through either the Occupy action or the zombie-spawn after the Explore action) the special power may be used. Move lets the player move a card at the location to another side (if available). Look lets the player examine both sides of the top or bottom card of the deck. Burn lets the player take any card from the tableau and put it on the top or bottom of the draw deck. The only restriction on Burn is that the map has to remain contiguous, i.e. no cards only adjacent diagonally to other cards.

The game ends when the deck runs out of cards. Then the score is totaled. At each location, subtract the number of zombies from the number of people. If the number is negative, that's a negative score and the location is overrun (some locations have penalties for being overrun--additional negative points!). If there are an equal number of people and zombies, the location is empty. If there are more people, the player scores one point for each survivor. Leaders score a little differently. If there is more than one leader, they eliminate each other. Any leader left scores one point and additional points for any other survivors still at the location. The player can strategically use the Walkers to take out an extra leader or two if necessary. Any location that is surrounded by cards scores if it has a symbol on it (a number or an item). 

A high-scoring final situation

The game says one to four players play cooperatively, but this is basically a solo game because there is only one goal and people would just group-think the play (or an alpha player might take over). Players don't have individual hands, they just play off the top of the deck.

The rules come with special scenarios that add achievements in order to win. For example, Fuel Up requires locations with gas cans to be surrounded in order to win. Each scenario has levels. For Fuel Up, Standard level requires two gas-can locations to be surrounded; hard level requires the two locations not to be overrun (i.e., more humans than zombies); expert level requires the two locations to also have a leader and at least one survivor. Other scenarios involve other resources or limit the number of special actions or require specific leader/follower configurations. My favorite scenario is Betrayer, where the player works against humanity and tries to make a very low score--less than -10 for standard, -15 for hard, or -20 for expert!

The game creates a nice puzzle with a bunch of variations. After I mastered the basic game, I had fun trying to accomplish the various scenarios. The game involves a small amount of "luck of the draw" which can be mitigated by using the abilities to recover or move needed cards. It's similar in feel to Sprawlopolis but a little easier.

The cards use art from the comic books (which I have read), so it's nice for fans to see familiar faces and locations (even when I don't quite remember everyone). The theme is well suited to the game, trying to manage a very difficult situation.

An expansion, Under Siege, adds six new cards with new abilities and bonuses. The mercenary ability lets that character kill all Walkers at the location but doesn't count as a survivor or leader. A new bonus item, Dynamite, is added and must be surrounded or else the player loses a point at the end of the game (surrounding it gains a point, so a two-point swing is involved). The expansion adds some more challenge and variety to an already interesting game.

Recommended, highly for fans of The Walking Dead.

The game and expansion is available from the publisher's web store.