See my first day at Unpub 9 here!
For my second day at Unpub 9, I tried out another set of fun games.
1. Coin Pusher Battleground is a two- to four-player game mimicking the classic carnival/arcade game where players stick in quarters hoping to knock over a huge pile of quarters. This game works a bit differently. Each player has a zone on a raised surface where they can add their coins (in this case, poker chips). The first coin has their champion on it. Subsequent coins have regular soldiers. The object is to knock off the other player's champion (in a three- or four-player game, only one champion needs to be knocked off to win the game). A player scores one point for every soldier knocked off and five points for a champion knocked off. The set-up seems easy but, as anyone who played coin pusher games in arcades will attest, mechanically things don't work out the way that you expect them to. Often, the force of coins is distributed in unanticipated patterns, making the game exciting and tense. I played twice--a two-player game and a four-player game. I won neither but had a great time with both.
2. The Monte Carlo Heist Challenge is a card game where players try to steal valuable loot. One player rolls six dice and they are sorted according to number, each die being a piece of loot. Players use their cards to gain the items. Each player has a deck of numbers from zero to six, along with a police officer and a "lay low" card. A first card is played face down and revealed simultaneously. The result gives players an idea what the others are going for. Each player then plays a second card face down. The new number will be added to the first number and the player will get that number's loot....Unless another player has the same total, then neither player gets the loot and they each have to discard one of the cards. Also unless another player played a number card and the police card, in which case they called the cops, resulting in the non-cop player losing both cards and the cop player losing one of his cards (the number or the cop). If the "lay low" card is played, the player doesn't get any valuables except for a card from the discard pile. If a player is the only one with a total matching a number, that player gets the die (or dice) and loses both cards. The numbers on the dice are victory points.
The game is played over two rounds, the heist and the getaway. Once all the treasures are gone, scores are recorded and the dice are rolled again for the second round. The trick is players don't get their discarded cards back, so the getaway is even tighter and more difficult.
I liked this game but wasn't wowed. I thought players didn't have enough low numbered cards to make combinations, making it hard to score the higher numbers, especially in the second round. The art is great for a prototype and the game does play quickly, so those are definite pluses.
3. Running Iron is a cooperative train heist game. Two to five players try to rob all the gold out of a safe on a train. A player rolls one die to determine if a sheriff comes toward that player or one of the neighboring players. The the player rolls six custom dice Yahtzee-style (i.e. with two re-rolls). Any die that comes up with the train symbol is locked and can't be re-rolled. Other sides have a horseshoe, a gold bar, two bullets, one bullet and a star, and two stars. When rolling is done, if there are more trains than horseshoes, the train moves forward on the track. If there are more horseshoes than trains, the horse (which represents the players) moves forward on the track. If they are equal, nothing moves. Gold bars let the player take a gold out of the safe, though multiple bar symbols are needed to get a gold out. Bullets help drive back the sheriff. Stars give reputation tokens that are used as money to buy special abilities for individual characters or items to benefit the whole group (though the special abilities often help other players too).
Each player is a different character with different abilities. I was Buck the Barkeep, so I could give out tankards to players that let them have an extra re-roll, including the trains. I only got to give out tankards when I rolled sets of trains and horseshoes. So I didn't see a lot of other action but I did help out others. Also, I could always give myself a tankard. Other players had different and interesting abilities.
To win, players have to get all the gold out of the safe, not get hauled into jail by the sheriff, and have the horse out ahead of the train. We pulled out a win. The game moves quickly and the player discussion on who should do what was very friendly. This was my favorite game of the convention.
4. Plan Bee is a two- to four-player abstract game where players collect pollen for their beehive. The mechanic is based on the waggle-dance that bees do in the hive to communicate with each other. Each player has one bee on the central hive. It moves either clockwise or counter-clockwise to a new arrow. The second bee moves in the direction of the new arrow as many spaces as the waggle-dancing bee moved. The movement is hard to describe but it becomes intuitive pretty quickly during play.
Pollen is collected from flowers outside the hive, so as the second bee moves, it picks up pollen. That pollen is added to the player's individual hive card. At the beginning of the game, players each get two scoring cards. One card they keep for personal scoring. The other card is placed face-up and everyone scores from those cards. The scores come from collecting pollen colors or from creating patterns of colors (sets of two or three, filling columns or rows, etc.) in the personal beehive. After someone collects twelve pollen, the round finishes and the game ends.
I liked this game a lot. The waggle-dance theme is fun and original, giving a dry abstract game an interesting theme. The mechanics of moving require a bit of thought, as does the placement of pollen in the hive, but those actions didn't cause any analysis paralysis in our game.
I looked at a few other games that I didn't get to play. One big game was Kingdoms Lawn Game, which involved tossing out targets that were they fired upon using wooden balls. It looked fun.
Genetically Modified Lemmings was some game where marbles were climbing up a tower. I didn't get to play this but it definitely has table presence!
A hall with vendors had some games and game crafting equipment for sale. I was impressed with the Carroll County Cake Swap game and bought it since it was locally published (in Frederick, Maryland) and has a cake-making theme like our favorite reality TV show The Great British Bake Off. A review of that is sure to show up soon on the blog.
Unpub was fun to visit and hopefully I will get to do it again next year!
For my second day at Unpub 9, I tried out another set of fun games.
1. Coin Pusher Battleground is a two- to four-player game mimicking the classic carnival/arcade game where players stick in quarters hoping to knock over a huge pile of quarters. This game works a bit differently. Each player has a zone on a raised surface where they can add their coins (in this case, poker chips). The first coin has their champion on it. Subsequent coins have regular soldiers. The object is to knock off the other player's champion (in a three- or four-player game, only one champion needs to be knocked off to win the game). A player scores one point for every soldier knocked off and five points for a champion knocked off. The set-up seems easy but, as anyone who played coin pusher games in arcades will attest, mechanically things don't work out the way that you expect them to. Often, the force of coins is distributed in unanticipated patterns, making the game exciting and tense. I played twice--a two-player game and a four-player game. I won neither but had a great time with both.
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| Early on, the blue champion looks like he is in trouble |
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| Later, the blue champion made a comeback! |
2. The Monte Carlo Heist Challenge is a card game where players try to steal valuable loot. One player rolls six dice and they are sorted according to number, each die being a piece of loot. Players use their cards to gain the items. Each player has a deck of numbers from zero to six, along with a police officer and a "lay low" card. A first card is played face down and revealed simultaneously. The result gives players an idea what the others are going for. Each player then plays a second card face down. The new number will be added to the first number and the player will get that number's loot....Unless another player has the same total, then neither player gets the loot and they each have to discard one of the cards. Also unless another player played a number card and the police card, in which case they called the cops, resulting in the non-cop player losing both cards and the cop player losing one of his cards (the number or the cop). If the "lay low" card is played, the player doesn't get any valuables except for a card from the discard pile. If a player is the only one with a total matching a number, that player gets the die (or dice) and loses both cards. The numbers on the dice are victory points.
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| Monte Carlo Heist in progress |
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| Some of the cards |
The game is played over two rounds, the heist and the getaway. Once all the treasures are gone, scores are recorded and the dice are rolled again for the second round. The trick is players don't get their discarded cards back, so the getaway is even tighter and more difficult.
I liked this game but wasn't wowed. I thought players didn't have enough low numbered cards to make combinations, making it hard to score the higher numbers, especially in the second round. The art is great for a prototype and the game does play quickly, so those are definite pluses.
3. Running Iron is a cooperative train heist game. Two to five players try to rob all the gold out of a safe on a train. A player rolls one die to determine if a sheriff comes toward that player or one of the neighboring players. The the player rolls six custom dice Yahtzee-style (i.e. with two re-rolls). Any die that comes up with the train symbol is locked and can't be re-rolled. Other sides have a horseshoe, a gold bar, two bullets, one bullet and a star, and two stars. When rolling is done, if there are more trains than horseshoes, the train moves forward on the track. If there are more horseshoes than trains, the horse (which represents the players) moves forward on the track. If they are equal, nothing moves. Gold bars let the player take a gold out of the safe, though multiple bar symbols are needed to get a gold out. Bullets help drive back the sheriff. Stars give reputation tokens that are used as money to buy special abilities for individual characters or items to benefit the whole group (though the special abilities often help other players too).
Each player is a different character with different abilities. I was Buck the Barkeep, so I could give out tankards to players that let them have an extra re-roll, including the trains. I only got to give out tankards when I rolled sets of trains and horseshoes. So I didn't see a lot of other action but I did help out others. Also, I could always give myself a tankard. Other players had different and interesting abilities.
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| The game just starting |
To win, players have to get all the gold out of the safe, not get hauled into jail by the sheriff, and have the horse out ahead of the train. We pulled out a win. The game moves quickly and the player discussion on who should do what was very friendly. This was my favorite game of the convention.
4. Plan Bee is a two- to four-player abstract game where players collect pollen for their beehive. The mechanic is based on the waggle-dance that bees do in the hive to communicate with each other. Each player has one bee on the central hive. It moves either clockwise or counter-clockwise to a new arrow. The second bee moves in the direction of the new arrow as many spaces as the waggle-dancing bee moved. The movement is hard to describe but it becomes intuitive pretty quickly during play.
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| PlanBee set up |
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| In mid-game |
Pollen is collected from flowers outside the hive, so as the second bee moves, it picks up pollen. That pollen is added to the player's individual hive card. At the beginning of the game, players each get two scoring cards. One card they keep for personal scoring. The other card is placed face-up and everyone scores from those cards. The scores come from collecting pollen colors or from creating patterns of colors (sets of two or three, filling columns or rows, etc.) in the personal beehive. After someone collects twelve pollen, the round finishes and the game ends.
I liked this game a lot. The waggle-dance theme is fun and original, giving a dry abstract game an interesting theme. The mechanics of moving require a bit of thought, as does the placement of pollen in the hive, but those actions didn't cause any analysis paralysis in our game.
I looked at a few other games that I didn't get to play. One big game was Kingdoms Lawn Game, which involved tossing out targets that were they fired upon using wooden balls. It looked fun.
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| Playing the lawn game indoors |
Genetically Modified Lemmings was some game where marbles were climbing up a tower. I didn't get to play this but it definitely has table presence!
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| Marble tower game |
A hall with vendors had some games and game crafting equipment for sale. I was impressed with the Carroll County Cake Swap game and bought it since it was locally published (in Frederick, Maryland) and has a cake-making theme like our favorite reality TV show The Great British Bake Off. A review of that is sure to show up soon on the blog.
Unpub was fun to visit and hopefully I will get to do it again next year!
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