This is the second in a four part series on Terra Mystica. In today’s entry I’ll talk about using the Terra Mystica App. It is available forr Android or iOS, but my review will be based on using Android.
Professor discovered the Terra Mystica app and played a game against an AI, then we played a local game together.
Right now the app only has easy AI opponents, but they’re working on adding medium and hard. The game also has tutorials, but since we’ve played the board game, we skipped those.
This is the first in a four part series on Terra Mystica.
When Amazon first debuted their New and Interesting Finds feature, I decided to try it out. Somehow through clicking through various games I liked, I stumbled upon Terra Mystica. It sounded interesting, so I added it to my wish list. Then Christmas rolled around, and my husband bought it for me.
I couldn’t believe all the little pieces inside! My first thought was, “President Gamer would love this!” The more pieces a game has, the more he likes it. The rules seem a bit daunting, but after playing it a couple times, we got it down.
What I really like about the game is each player gets their own little board, and that board tells you most of what you need to know about the game. It tells me how much it costs to build each building, what my income will be at the start of each round, what I can do with the resources I get, etc.
During the Kickstarter for Pursuit of Happiness I noticed some folks talking about how it was not a true “worker placement” game. I had heard the term a few times, but never really looked at the genre. The same folks stated that Lords of Waterdeep was the quintessential entry-level worker placement. I took a look at it on BoardGameGeek and it seemed intriguing so I put it on my Amazon Wish List (side note: everyone should have an Amazon Wish List, it makes gift giving so much more convenient), and promptly forgot about it until I received it for Christmas.
What is Worker Placement?
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This is a worker placement game we backed on Kickstarter. Once we finally received the game and all the pieces, we were excited to play. Unfortunately this game has not lived up to our expectations. We’ve played it a few times, and it’s just not a game we really enjoy.
I think of it as trying to be a more realistic version of The Game of Life, but I don’t think it quite accomplishes that. Each round represents about a decade of life. You start as a teenager which means you can’t get a real job (only temp jobs), and you can’t get involved with a partner (if only! think of all the drama that could be avoided!). You can get involved in projects and get items/activity cards. Certain projects are one turn only while others are long term. In order to progress in long term projects, you have to spend time on them. Some activities are like that as well. If you spend more time on that activity, you can get more rewards.
After the first round, jobs and partners are available. As long as you have the resources, you can get a job which seems simple. Partners also require different resources depending on the one you pick. And this is where we run into problems.
We bought this game for Signing Monkey for her birthday, and it’s a pretty fun game that really makes you think.
Let’s say you have 4 players. You split into two teams: red and blue. The Spymasters from each team sit on one side of the table while the Field Operatives sit on the other side. You lay out a 5×5 grid of codename cards, and the Spymasters randomly choose a Key Card. The Key Card tells the Spymasters which codenames they need to get their Field Operatives to guess and the ones they need to avoid (everyone needs to avoid the assassin!).
This games really shows how differently we all think and view things. If I’m a Spymaster and I see that “microscope,” “lab,” and “teacher” are the codenames I need my Field Operative to guess, I might give them the clue “science 3.” My Field Operative guesses “microscope” and “lab” correctly, but instead of “teacher” they guess “doctor” which scores for the opposing team. When I was looking at the cards, I didn’t even think about “doctor” being a possibility. This happens all the time throughout the game which often leads Spymasters to give clues for single cards instead of groups of cards (for example “magnify 1” for “microscope”). It really forces you to think very carefully about the clues you give and the possible interpretations.
The team that identifies all its codenames first wins.
Things can get interesting when you have an odd number of players. When we played with 5 people, I decided to be a double agent. This meant I guessed for both sides and gave hints to the Field Operatives when they were guessing. My goal was for both sides to succeed.
We enjoyed this game so much, we bought our own copy.
We picked Shadow Hunters up at a local game shop. We were looking for something new to play and asked for a recommendation. Without hesitation the owner said Shadow Hunters. He was so sure we’d like it, he said if we didn’t, he would buy it back from us. We didn’t need to take him up on that because it’s a great game.
The first play through was a little rough. Some of the Hermit Cards can be a little confusing at first, and since you’re supposed to be all secretive about who you are, you can’t really ask questions during game play. Most cards instruct you to do different things depending on what type of character you are. For example, if you’re a Shadow you take 1 damage. That’s pretty straightforward. We got confused on the cards that had more than one option. “If you aren’t X, discard this card,” isn’t written on the card, but that’s what you do. It took us awhile to remember that, which was why we got confused, I think. One player in particular decided that if she didn’t understand what a card wanted her to do, she would just discard it. It made it very difficult to figure out what she was.
Looking at the cards now that I’ve played more, they make perfect sense to me. It’s one of those instances where I wonder why we couldn’t see it before, but it’s probably just a matter of spending time playing the game.
You also have to remember a lot of information. Unless you get the super awesome Hermit Card that just lets you see another player’s character card, you have to remember what you’ve “accused” people of being and how they responded. This also caused a bit of confusion the first time we played. Someone mixed up their information and ended up attacking and killing their ally. Oops!
It gets easier after the first couple times. Luckily for Signing Monkey she got an easy character card for her first time playing.
A play by play doesn’t really do the game justice because we can’t know what Hermit Cards are given, so we don’t really know what the responses mean. In any case, this is what happened:
Fu-ka, undercover as Chubby Unicorn, knew there were two Shadows lurking on the streets. She also knew another Hunter was in town, but hadn’t been able to identify her ally yet. She’d narrowed the possibilities down to four: Professor, Space Cat, Clumsy Ninja, and Signing Monkey. One was the other Hunter and two were Shadows which meant one of them was a neutral party. She would have to observe their actions carefully to discover who was who.
Professor and Space Cat had a series of altercations at the Church and Cemetery. Space Cat came out worse than Professor, though Clumsy Ninja and Signing Monkey also attacked him. Either they were attacking each other blindly, which only complicated matters, or Professor was the other Hunter. Just in case he was her hidden ally, Chubby Unicorn decided to help Professor tend to his wounds. In any case, she hoped to foster a bit of good will to stave off any attacks from him.
Clumsy Ninja continued on her violent spree, attacking Chubby Unicorn and Signing Monkey. Chubby Unicorn began to suspect Clumsy Ninja of being a Shadow, especially since she attacked with a creepy doll. Signing Monkey was lucky to walk away without a scratch. Before Chubby Unicorn could recover from the creepy doll incident, Signing Monkey attacked. Chubby Unicorn decided it was time to start fighting back, even without confirmation of her ally, and counterattacked.
This is a quick and fun little card game. And who wouldn’t want a treehouse with a water slide, butterfly garden, and laser arcade?
Game 1 first scoring
It’s a pretty easy game to learn. You get a tree and a hand of cards. You choose one of those cards to go on your treehouse and pass your deck clockwise. When you place a room (like a butterfly garden), you have to move your balance marker. This means you can’t just build rooms on the right side of your tree because your tree would fall over! There are only two times you don’t move the balance marker: on levels 3 and 5 you can place a room in the middle of your tree.
Game 1 Final Scoring
After the first level, things can get tricky. Let’s say on level 1 you played an orange room and a blue room. On level 2 you can continue to play orange and blue rooms (if they’re available in the hand you get), or you can play other rooms. If you block your blue room, you can’t play any more blue rooms for the rest of the game. This is because if you already have a room of that color, all rooms of that color have to connect.
Once all cards have been placed or discarded, players get to choose Game Changer Cards. These change how rooms are scored at the end of the round. You don’t have to play with these cards, but it does make things more interesting.
This process if repeated two more times (total of 3 rounds), and the player with the most points wins.
A game that basically lets you customize dinosaurs? Of course we had to have it!
Dinosaur boards bought from the game’s web site
The game seems simple enough. You get a species and add trait cards (up to 3) to help your species survive. You can get more species, and various trait cards can help your species protect each other. You need to feed your species, and the more food you get, the more points you get at the end of the game.
Despite this, we’re still working on our game play. Certain cards (like Cooperation) are completely useless without other trait cards (like Long Neck). Also, there are only so many other traits that work with a Carnivore trait because Carnivores can never eat plant food. You really have to understand what each individual trait does and how that trait interacts with other traits. It can get pretty complicated.
You also have to think strategically when it comes to food. If you’re the first player, you’re pretty much guaranteed that your species will get fed. If you’re the last player, you may see a species or two go extinct, unless you have Carnivores (in which case you better make sure they’re beefy otherwise they won’t be able to attack). Sometimes it can be beneficial to have a species of your own that your Carnivore(s) can eat from just in case.
Mid-game I had 8 species
Some of our favorite cards/combos:
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This is another one of our favorite games. We have the Alhambra Big Box which has the base game plus the first five expansions (The Vizier’s Favour, The City Gates, The Thief’s Turn, The Treasure Chamber, and Power of the Sultan). We recently acquired The Falconers expansion.
Only once have we played with all the components of the Big Box; it took us six hours to play! There are just too many choices and too many things to keep track of, so this time around we decided to select just a few:
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