Dates played: April 2 and April 4, 2020

Basic details: 2-6 players; 5-15 minutes

Gist of the game: The premise is loosely based on Russian Roulette, though you have some control over whether you get a bullet or blank.

Start the game with 3 characters in an order only you know. You also start the game with 3 ammo cards, 1 of which you will load into your pistol (a spot above your character lineup. This will be the only ammo card you generally know the identity of. Between your characters, your pistol, the community chambers, your opponent’s pistol, and your opponent’s character lineup, the table will be configured 3-1-3-1-3). On each turn you will pull a trigger (from your pistol, your opponent’s pistol, or one of the three community bullet chambers). After revealing what was in the chamber, you reveal the character who was in the line of fire and carry out their “blank” or “bullet” action depending on what the card was. Reload your pistol if that’s the chamber you emptied (or if you want to change what’s in the chamber). Make sure the community chambers are fully loaded, and draw your hand back up to 3 ammo cards.

Color commentary: First, this was a Kickstarter purchase that I’m pretty sure I made because the artwork is really fun, and sure enough, the first thing M says when I put the box in his hands is “the artwork’s cool.” (M here to say that the first thing I comment on is almost always the art, because it is the easiest thing to evaluate and quite a few games have excellent art.)

More importantly, I benefited and won multiple games from M forgetting what he put in his own pistol and repeatedly shooting himself, which felt a little like the Rabbit Season, Duck Season Looney Tunes cartoon. Once he got the hang of that (and in fairness, we played the first few games pretty late, so we were both tired), it was much more evenly matched in terms of final outcome. (M actually won both games we played on more even footing, and not coincidentally is the one writing this sentence.)

Thoughts from M: I think this game is a game theorist’s playground. While there’s some strategy to character placement at the beginning of the game, there’s not much, and the order of the cards may get shuffled anyway because of character effects. The real strategy is in choosing which trigger to pull and the extent to which you can trick your opponent into shooting a bullet from your pistol and exploit your opponent trying to plant a blank for themselves in their own pistol and when you can deduce a totally unknown card from the community chamber is actually more likely to be favorable than either individual pistol. Very Battle of Wits, a la “The Princess Bride.”

I really like the ammo fumble card pictured in the collage) because if you’re bluffing by putting bullets in your own pistol, if your opponent doesn’t pull the trigger and then you don’t either on your next turn, you’ve basically exposed what ammo card you played. The ammo fumble card randomizes what’s in all the chambers and makes it truly chance again, all around, for that trigger pull, at least. When played again, I would like to experiment with the use of randomness to keep the opponent guessing, but this is risky because you have, at most, two cards that can be sacrificed in doing so.

Date played: April 2, 2020

Basic details: 1-2 players, 5-20 minutes

Gist of the game: In solo mode, you’re the manager of a down-on-its-luck baseball team. At the beginning of the season, you were given the ultimatum to make the playoffs or get fired. This wouldn’t make sense as a premise otherwise, so it’s come down to the last week of the season. The last 6 games are at home, and you need to win at least 4 of them to keep your job. What’s more, you have to win them well enough that you also earn a sufficient number of manager points — too few manager points and your team makes the playoffs but you still get fired.

The guidelines here will refer to a single game. To complete the entire campaign, you would simply repeat the game process an additional 5 times.

There are a few game pieces of note. First, there are pitch “tokens,” a set of red and white wooden circles with High/Low on one and Inside/Away on the other. These are used to try to predict where a pitch will be thrown. Next, there are two Pitcher dice. One has letters on it: B for Ball, S for Strike, and a C in a triangle for Corner. Coupled with a regular d6, these determine what kind of pitch is thrown. The letter die is called the Pitch die and the regular d6 is called the control die. Finally, the batter has a regular d6 die that basically determines their swing. I dispense with these technical names below and refer to them generically at pitcher dice and batter die.

To start the game, draw a situation card and an effect card, and then shuffle the remaining cards of each type together to form a pitcher’s deck. The situation card provides you with information like where any runners are on base, the number of outs, the score at the end of the top of the inning, what inning it is, and the maximum number of innings you can go to. The situation card also provides information about how many manager’s points you get for various win scenarios. The effects card, with names like “The Yips,” and “Wind Gust,” potentially impact dice rolls (more on these later).

Basic game play proceeds as follows:
1. Guess what pitch will be thrown using red and white tokens (one for high/low, one for inside/away).
2. Draw pitcher’s card to reveal actual pitch and divvy up tokens based on what you guessed correctly.
3. Roll pitcher dice and batter die and make adjustments based on effect card, pitcher mitigation card, and tokens. The pitcher mitigation card (shown below) basically serves as AI for the pitcher and determines what actions the pitcher takes given the roll and what tokens they have available.
4. Based on outcomes of dice rolls, if batter made contact with a pitch, enter the run phase. There is a hitter card (pictured below) that shows what kinds of rolls are needed to make contact given the outcome of the pitch die.
5. In the run phase, the first “player” to roll a 5 or 6 “wins” the roll. If the pitcher rolls a 5 or 6 first, the batter is out. If the batter rolls a 5 or 6, they make it to first base. If both a 5 and a 6 are rolled, the 6 wins. Ties go to the batter.
6. Enter cleanup phase. Make any changes needed to pitcher or batter (e.g., replacing pitcher, bringing up the next batter). If same pitcher remains in play, give them “relief” by shuffling a number of cards from the bottom of the pitcher’s discard pile back into the pitcher’s deck equal to the number of empty bases. If a new pitcher enters play, shuffle all discarded cards back into the pitcher’s deck because the new pitcher comes in at full relief.
7. Repeat for next pitch.

Color commentary: It took one YouTube playthrough twice and a second playthrough once before I felt like I understood the rules enough to actually play on my own. Between the rule book, the playthroughs, and my own attempt at playing, I accumulated 18 pages of notes on the game (the last several pages are me describing my own game play in fairly fine detail, but more than half of them are spent just trying to make sense of the rules). I don’t think the rule book provided clear instructions in any way, shape, or form for the solo mode, and my guess is that if I went back and re-read the two-player rules I would find a lot of holes and unanswered questions as well. That said, I think it was time well spent, because this was a really fun game. My color commentary for this game is going to be me walking through the game and explaining the rules as I go along. More pedantic than usual, but I think it both a) explains the rules better and b) gives a sense of what it’s actually like to play the game.

You can build your batting line-up in one of two ways. You can choose 6, or create a full roster of 9 with a player filling each position. Both playthroughs I watched chose the latter option, so I did too. I tried to choose female players whenever possible, and managed to end up with a 5/4 split. Not every position had a female player available. I have 2 expansions. I ordered the remaining 3 earlier this week (added impetus to actually play and convince myself I like it), so the number of female options may increase with those additional expansions. Even so, there are a number of cards I don’t know how to integrate into a game, even two-player, like team mascots or the team organist. Also, players come from a bunch of different teams, and it’s not possible to make them all from the same team, at least not with the cards I currently have, and given the size of at least 2 of the remaining expansions, not then, either. Anyway, my lineup was:

Southpaw Straw – pitcher
Verheerend Staab – catcher
JA Kapowski – 1st base
Tiff McGriff – 2nd base
Hannah Cait – shortstop
Yoshiko Kansai – 3rd base
Benny Sobeleone – left field
Kerry Rumble – center field
KC Petty – right field

Pitchers I faced: Kido Hero, Wake Louder, and Hurricane Patriss

Scenario: “Chess Match.” In the 9th inning, can take up to the 10th inning to win. One out, one runner on second. Down in the score 0-1. Added effect on scenario card: The pitcher changes after each base runner; the 6th pitcher remains on the mound
Effect: “Scorcher.” Pitcher gets 1 less relief during the Clean Up phase.

Pitcher: Kido Hero

1st pitch: High and Away (I guess both correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Corner 3. To make contact, I also need to roll a 3. Anything other than a 3 will be a strike.
I roll a 5. Because I had both tokens, given my player’s abilities, I got my MVP move, which wasn’t super helpful, and I could reroll my die. I rerolled and got a 2, which was a strike.

2nd pitch: Effect card: Pitcher selects Ace pitch (I guess neither token correctly).
Pitcher rolls a Strike 6. Under normal conditions, the best I can hope for is a foul if I also roll a 6.
I roll a 5. However, the pitcher’s ace pitch effect says that if I roll a 5 or 6 against a strike, I must reroll. So I get a strike because I can functionally only roll a 6. Also, because the pitcher won both tokens, I have to choose the next set of tokens blindly. To do so, I shake them in my hands like dice and “roll” them.

3rd pitch: Effect card: Pitcher selects Ace pitch (I guess “Away” correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Ball 5. Looking at the pitcher mitigation AI card, on a Ball 4-6, the pitcher can re-roll the pitch die if they have the white token, which they do not. I need to roll a 5 or lower for the strike to be a ball. If I roll a 6, it’s a strike.
I roll a 2, and will not use a token; I’ll just take the ball. But because the pitcher used their Ace pitch again, I have to choose my tokens for the next pitch blindly again.

4th pitch: Effect card: Batter predicts both incorrectly.
Pitcher rolls Strike 2. Pitcher mitigation card lets pitcher reroll the regular d6 if they have the white token, which they do, because I guessed both incorrectly. Pitcher rerolls to a 6.
I also roll a 6, which gave me a foul. However, this would be the 3rd strike, so nothing happens.

5th pitch: High and Inside (I guess both correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Strike 6
I roll a 6; foul ball; nothing happens

6th pitch: Low and Inside (I guess Low correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Ball 5. Pitcher can reroll pitch die and does so; now a Strike 5. If I roll a 5 or 6, Kerry stays in. 4 or below and I’m out.
I roll a 6: contact! Because I rolled a natural (as opposed to manipulating with tokens) 6, I “crushed it,” which lets me roll again. If I roll a 1 or 2, we enter the run phase. If I roll a 3 or 4, I get a single. If I roll a 5, I get a double. If I roll another 6, it’s a home run and I win since there’s already someone on second. ….and, I roll a 1, so we enter the run phase.
Pitcher and batter both roll a 6, but ties go to the runner, so I make it to first base.

Per the situation card, Kido Hero gets retired and Hannah Cait comes out as the next batter. With the new pitcher, all the pitching cards get shuffled back into the pitcher’s deck. Wake Louder comes to the mound. Wake’s trait includes something about the runner having +1 speed. I don’t know what this means, so will pretend that it doesn’t mean anything.

1st pitch: Effect: Pitcher selects ace pitch (Low and Away), but since all odds were about the same as to what pitch would be thrown, that’s the token combo I chose to be able to protect against Wake’s Ace, so I get both tokens. On his Ace pitch, a Ball 5 or Ball 6 becomes a Corner 6.
Pitcher rolls Ball 2.
I roll a 6. Because I have both tokens, I can do 2 of: reroll and add +/- 1 to my die. I start with a reroll and get a 5. Reroll again and get a 2, which matches the pitcher’s roll and gives me a ball.

2nd pitch: High and Away (I guess Away correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Ball 6. Pitcher can modify -1 with the red token, which he has.
I roll a 4 and use my white token to roll again and get a 2, so I get a strike.

3rd pitch: Low and Away (I guess both correctly), which is the pitcher’s Ace pitch. If he rolls a Ball 5 or Ball 6, it becomes a Corner 6.
Pitcher rolls a natural Corner 6 (jerk!)
I roll a 4. Because I have both tokens, I can use them one of them twice to modify +2, giving me a 6, which means I made contact and we enter the run phase.
Pitcher rolls 3 and I roll 5, so I make it on base.

Bases are now loaded, and Wake Louder leaves the mound. KC Petty comes up to bat. All the pitching cards get shuffled back into the pitcher’s deck, and Hurricane Patriss swaggers up to the mound.

1st pitch: Effect: Fatigue 2 (i.e., discard 2 cards from the pitcher’s deck), draw again; new card is Effect: Batter predicts both incorrectly.
Pitcher rolls Ball 1 and could in theory modify -1, but doesn’t need to.
I roll a 3 and get a strike.

2nd pitch: High and Inside (I guess Inside correctly)
Pitcher rolls Ball 1 and doesn’t need to modify.
I roll a 6 and can reroll. I roll a 6 again and get a strike.

3rd pitch: Effect: Pitcher selects Ace pitch (Low and Inside). (I guess Low correctly)
Pitcher rolls a Strike 2. Ace pitch lets him switch pitch die to opposite side, which gives him a Ball 2.
I roll a 5 and strike out.

Now at 2 outs, Hurricane Patriss stays in, but gets no relief because there are no empty bases. Benny Sobeleone comes onto the field to bat.

1st pitch: Effect: 3 relief, draw again. Bottom 3 discarded pitcher cards get shuffled back into the deck. The second draw is High and Away (I guess Away correctly).
Pitcher rolls a Strike 1 and can reroll the regular d6 die and rolls a 4. If I roll a 4, I foul. If I roll a 5 or 6, I make contact.
I roll a 5 to make contact, entering the run phase.
1st roll is a dud.
2nd roll is a dud.
On the 3rd roll the pitcher rolls a 6 and I roll a 5, so Benny is out, taking the team to three outs and losing in a heartbreaker with bases loaded.

So I think this one game took a solid 20 or so minutes. Both playthroughs I watched played a single game, and one lasted just under 30 minutes and the other lasted about 35. I get that baseball is an open-ended sport in terms of time, which is why I enjoy going to see live games, but also why I don’t like watching it on TV and why I think actually playing the 6-game campaign would be kind of a nightmare because there’s no way to really estimate how long it may take to play through. That said, playing this one single game was tremendously fun.

And I will say that the playthroughs were excellent, because I didn’t have any questions come up while I was actually playing, which was a relief. I don’t know if I had the emotional capacity today to figure out some minute aspect of the game from the cryptic rule book.

Thoughts I think M might have had if he had played (which he never would have if he had had to watch 2 playthroughs to figure things out): I think the playing-the-odds aspect of choosing the pitching tokens is interesting. Each value is present in situation cards 4 times, and you start out with a situation card. You can also check the discard pile anytime and can track the odds that way. You could also read through the Effects cards carefully before playing and know what’s possibly in store, like multiple cards for a pitcher’s Ace pitch. That would change the odds depending on what that Ace pitch is, but you can still make pretty educated guesses for each pitch based on the odds.

I really like the aesthetics of the pitcher and batter cards, which are exactly like old school baseball cards with the super thick cardboard. Reminds me of a Wade Boggs card I had in my youth. And the pitch tracker (balls and strikes) is also on a strip of paper that looks like a stick of gum on one side.

The Pitcher Mitigation card is also interesting, because it brings the pitcher closer to perfect rationality about what they should do with their dice based on what they rolled (and if they have the appropriate token). If you play the 2-player game, you may not be playing against someone who is perfectly rational or especially strategic/crafty. It would be interesting to see how much human fallibility about what the best decision is given the roll and available tokens matters.

Date played: March 31, 2020

Basic details: 2-4 players, 30 minutes

Gist of the game: You and your team arrive on a previously undiscovered retreat from the ancient mystical Achaen empire. The Achaens kept four treasures thought to be able to control the elements hidden on the island. Inconveniently for you, the Achaens also designed the island to sink if anyone tried to reclaim them. Shockingly, the arrival of your team marks the first time anyone has tried.

In this cooperative game, you and your fellow adventurers must work together to both pillage the treasures and keep the island from sinking. Or, at least, sinking before you can leave, because once you have all 4 treasures, you have to make it back to the helicopter pad and play a card to lift off.

To play, you first create a randomized island by placing the 24 tiles in a 4×4 grid with an extra two cards placed along each side (so that top to bottom, the island has 2-4-6-6-4-2 tiles in each row). There are two tiles for each treasure on which the treasure can be claimed.

The island begins sinking immediately upon your arrival, with the top 6 cards of the flood deck (each tile has a corresponding card in the flood deck) being flooded before the game even begins. The beginning water level is set according to the desired difficulty. The flood deck also contains 3 cards that cause the water to rise one tick mark. Because the deck is fairly small, though, you will cycle through it multiple times, thereby increasing your water total more than 3 times.

Each player has the role of a specific adventurer (explorer, pilot, engineer, diver, messenger, navigator), and receives a color-coordinated pawn that is likewise placed on a corresponding tile.

On each turn, a player takes up to three actions. Players can move to adjacent tiles; shore up adjacent tiles, which means flipping them from a flooded stage back to an unflooded stage; giving a treasure card to a player on the same tile as you; and capturing a treasure by discarding 4 matching treasure cards on one of that treasure’s 2 associated tiles. After taking their maximum of  3 actions, players draw 2 treasure cards, and then draw a number of flood cards equal to the water level (rounded down to whole number), flooding locations or removing already-flooded locations from the game completely.

When a player draws a card raising the water level, the tick mark is advanced, and the discarded flood cards are shuffled back onto the top of the flood deck, re-threatening places that may still be flooded.

To win, players must capture all 4 treasures, make it back to the launch pad, and take off. There are 4 ways to lose: if both treasure tiles sink before you can capture a treasure; if the launch pad tile sinks; if a player is on a tile that sinks and there is no adjacent tile to move to; and if the water level reaches the skull and crossbones.

Color commentary: This was a fun, breezy game. It was easy to master, and to develop a pretty sound strategy. Because you can only have 5 cards in your hand at any given time, we decided to each focus on a treasure and swap cards as needed to get us to 4 of that card. I drew the helicopter take-off card early on, so I kept that on hand so we’d have it when we needed it, as opposed to having all  the treasures and not being able to leave even after making it back to the launch pad.

Shuffling the discarded flood cards back onto the top of the flood deck has a Pandemicy feeling, although the fact that cards get removed when their accompanying tile sinks means that you do go through more of the cards than we did in Pandemic. We lost a number of tiles, and the launch pad kept flooding, but our last treasure had a tile right by the launch pad, so we were close at hand to constantly shore it up immediately after it flooded. Which was lucky, because the launch pad was on one of the 2-edges, so well only had one path to get there. Micah was the diver, which would have let him move across missing tiles, but I had no such ability, and would been stuck without a way to get back to the launch pad.

We won, with the water level one tick below 4, having drawn a total of 5 Waters Rise cards. I’ve really been enjoying the cooperative games we’ve been playing, which makes me more convinced that Hanabi is coincidentally an awful game, and not indicative of cooperative games in general. But since it was the first cooperative game I had played, I had no way to know that, and it nearly poisoned an entire game medium for me. Fortunately there was a period where I was buying games pretty indiscriminately without regard to the minimum number of players needed or mechanics, so we had a number of cooperative games on hand anyway. If I had been more strategic about my purchases, Hanabi might have prevented me from buying more cooperative games. I shudder at the alternate reality in which we never played another cooperative game.

Thoughts from M: This was a very fun game that seemed a lot more complicated initially than it was after you actually got playing (Petra here: I think this might be in part because we sat in silence for like 20 minutes while I summarized the directions for this post before I started to explain how to play). There’s a very basic strategy, with each person trying to collect one prize at a time and assisting the other players with their prize, before moving on to the next prize. Because cards are played open-handed, it’s very easy to see how to assist them (Petra here: plus, you know, talking to each other). So: not especially complicated but a lot of fun. The artwork was ok. The best part of the art was probably the treasure figurines. The griffon especially was pretty great.