Gen Con Wrap-Up Post 2 - Demos Part 1

Arcs by Leder Games 

I sat down to learn Arcs one late afternoon, and I followed that up by hopping into a tournament so I could play one “full” game since I then knew the rules (I knew there was no way I'd be winning). I know Werhle games garner strong opinions - both positive and negative. I also know that, often times, it takes playing one of his games multiple times before you really “get” it. That being said, I mostly just had an okay time with it. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but what I got was a “sort of” trick-taking game with a heavy focus on area control, resource control, and combat where you are constantly having to change your plans.

Something just did not click with me on this one. I had a decent time, but I mostly attribute that to the folks I played with. Otherwise, I felt like I was constantly fighting the game in order to play the game. I could never do what I wanted to with my hand, which I understand is the point. You're supposed to get your hand, see that someone led with a suit that does not help you, and then change your tactics accordingly. However, I could never quite figure out what I was supposed to change my tactics to. I would often find myself simply building ships or placing influence just because, hoping that I'd see some sort of path to victory emerge on the next turn, but things just never really came together.

Scoring in Arcs takes place at the end of “Chapters,” each of which consists of several rounds of players taking turns to play a card into a “trick,” taking actions accordingly, and then starting a new trick until everyone is out of cards to play. Scoring itself, however, is variable. At the start of a trick, the leader can opt to declare a scoring condition for the Chapter (an “ambition”), which then becomes a scoring avenue all players may pursue. Ambitions are the only way to score points in Arcs, and sometimes you will need to use a good chunk of your hand to get an ambition declared, leaving you with only a couple of other tricks to ensure you succeed at it.

There's a lot more to it, of course, but ultimately you are balancing the action efficiency of playing in or out of suit, the power and cost that comes with leading a trick to declare an ambition, and actually performing actions you need for scoring even if it's very inefficient.

The upside to Arcs when compared to another popular Werhle game, Root, is that it's MUCH easier to teach. While the game becomes asymmetric over time, or minorly at setup with expansions, it's never quite to the extent of asymmetry in Root where you're teaching and playing four different games at once.

Root is possibly my favorite board game. I haven't even had a chance to play it that often, but I adore it. It didn't click for me immediately, either. So what's the deal with Arcs? Am I not clever enough for it? Was I just tired when I played? Is it too long for what it is? Do I need to give it another try? Who knows. What I do know is that I walked into the demo room fully intent on purchasing a copy, and I walked out without one. I'd like to try it again, and I know Kim still wants to give it a go, so maybe we'll revisit this in the future if we find someone who has a copy and is looking for players.

🟣 Devin 🟣

Middle Ages by Studio H 

I was able to sit down in the Hachette room to get a full game demo of Middle Ages which plays 2-5 players. The turn structure is pretty straightforward with a grid of tiles placed on the table with each row organized by the number on the back going from the lowest to the highest number. Each turn, players put their player marker on the tile they want going row by row making sure to refill the rows as they are drafted. The player who drafts the lowest numbered tile gets first pick on which tile they want in the next row.

Each player in turn order then adds the tile they drafted to their fiefdom (player) board in the appropriate place and activates the actions. There are eight different tile types that, when added to your fiefdom, have different effects based on the number of x symbols you have in your fiefdom, or the number of x tiles your opponents have in their fiefdom, and they have their own scoring systems which earn you money (points) based on certain tiles you have present. There is a lot of player interaction in Middle Ages that will have you trying to have more types of some tiles in your fiefdom than your opponents. There is also quite a bit of “take that” happening as a certain type of tile will allow you to “break” your opponents tiles so they have to work to add them back to their fiefdom, so that’s something to be aware of if that’s not something you usually gravitate to.

I really enjoyed my playthrough of this as it is fairly quick to play and easy to learn once you understand all the iconography. However, in the end I decided not to pick it up as I feel it would be better at higher player counts, which is something we don’t get to do too often. But I would definitely play it again if presented with the opportunity!

🔴 Kim 🔴

Dueling Princesses by First in Heart LLC 

This was a neat little 2-player dice game from First in Heart LLC. In it, players roll and place dice on their player mats, competing for the highest score once one player has finished placing all of their dice. You can place 1 or 2 dice on your turn, and the rest are re-rolled for the next turn. When you cover a “curse” space on your player mat (which you'll be forced to do if you want to reach higher scoring positions), you add a curse die to your pool. Curse spaces and curse dice behave just like their non-curse counterparts with one major caveat: scoring. Once a player runs out of dice, they earn a handful of bonus points and the game ends for scoring. Players will score points for each column according to the highest non-curse die, non-curse spot filled in the column! This extra condition for scoring adds a nice little push-your-luck element when deciding where to assign curse dice, and how many dice you want to assign each turn.

I believe the goal is to be the first player to win two games in a row (it's been over a week now so my memory is a little foggy), but there is really nothing stopping you from playing little one-off rounds here and there.

While Dueling Princesses is a pretty simple game, the reverse side of the player mats have a much more complex layout that might be more interesting to you once you get the hang of the rules. Overall, though, this is a pleasant, light, quick, two-player game that is easy enough for families and doesn't take up a ton of space. 

🟣 Devin 🟣

Tower Up by Monolith

I got a quick demo of Tower Up at the Flat River booth and I’m glad I did because this is one we wanted to learn more about after seeing it on the Monolith Facebook page. This is a 2-4 player city builder where each turn a player can either choose a card from the display to gain the associated resources or start a building. When you start a building you choose an empty space on the board, adjacent to a previously placed building, and you place a floor from your supply. Some restrictions are that buildings of the same color cannot be adjacent to each other, and you have to be able to “pay” for the building you start by contributing one floor from your supply to each building that is adjacent. Buildings cannot be multi-colored, so you have to have the correct colors to pay. After you pay, add one of your roofs to the top of either of the building you started or to one you contributed to and move the associated color vehicle on your player board for each level of the newly-roofed building.

There are three goals present on the board that players should be working toward, and whoever finishes it first gets the highest point token. The end of the game is triggered when a player places their last roof at which point they count how many roofs they have at the top of buildings and put their traffic cone on that number on their player board. Each other player then gets one more turn. At the end of the game you will add up all of the tokens you got from objectives, where your traffic cone is, and where each of the vehicles ended up on your player board and whoever has the highest score wins.

This game is very easy to teach since your turn consists of one of two actions, but there is still a lot of strategy going on trying to figure out the best place to start your buildings that benefit you the most. I ended up picking this one up and we played it as soon as we got home and we're really liking it so far! 

🔴 Kim 🔴