Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Y2Jant Reviews Caverna
Uwe Rosenberg is known all over the world as one of the best
game designers, from Bohnanza to Agricola, he either likes farming or
beans. Caverna: The Cave Farmers is what many people are calling
Agricola 2.0. The game itself not only makes you have your little farm
but now, you get to mine in a cave! Yes, sounds exciting but this made
me love the game that much more.
If anyone has ever played Agricola or any worker placement game, you will understand Caverna. If not, you do have to learn what each action space on the board does in order to get resources, get fields or mine and expand within your cave. Over the course of 12 rounds, you have to feed your dwarves, gather some animals and try to aim for the most points at the end of the game.
The game itself takes about 30 minutes per player so games can get really long inbetween downtime but when you see what’s in front of you, you wouldn’t want to stop (just don’t try to get 7 players to play, that seems a bit long). Caverna replaces the cards from Agricola with the action board, which changes depending on how many players are playing. Rubys are a new component that allows you to trade them for wood, stone, grain, pumpkins or anything else that will get you what you need to feed your family.
A new part of the game is the cave itself. Now you can mine your cave to make more to furnish your caverns to add new rooms to grow your family or any of the other furnishing tiles that comes with the game. You can use these tiles to gather more resources or give you more victory points at the end of the game.
Another new feature is the expedition. Now you can use ore to forge a weapon (between a level 1-8), then going on an expedition to find loot based on your level. After that, you can level up before moving on. This is a neat feature that makes get loot others might take on the action board. You can also use a ruby to allow your weapon dwarves to go first instead of allowing your weaker ones go first, a move that could change the game.
Now, when it’s all said and done, the game is pretty pricy at $90.00. However, you are getting 7 pounds of a great game and all the wooden meeples too! From grains to pumpkins, sheep to dogs, ore to rubies, you get everything in the box. Along with over 400 pieces of cardboard to punch out, the box just closes (I went with two plano boxes to get the job done to sort everything).
If you are on the fence about the game, wait till you can at least get it at the 90 dollar price point because with so many components and with a great game, Caverna is a hit for 2013 and I bet we will see an expansion in the future.
(Just look at it people, so many components)
If anyone has ever played Agricola or any worker placement game, you will understand Caverna. If not, you do have to learn what each action space on the board does in order to get resources, get fields or mine and expand within your cave. Over the course of 12 rounds, you have to feed your dwarves, gather some animals and try to aim for the most points at the end of the game.
The game itself takes about 30 minutes per player so games can get really long inbetween downtime but when you see what’s in front of you, you wouldn’t want to stop (just don’t try to get 7 players to play, that seems a bit long). Caverna replaces the cards from Agricola with the action board, which changes depending on how many players are playing. Rubys are a new component that allows you to trade them for wood, stone, grain, pumpkins or anything else that will get you what you need to feed your family.
A new part of the game is the cave itself. Now you can mine your cave to make more to furnish your caverns to add new rooms to grow your family or any of the other furnishing tiles that comes with the game. You can use these tiles to gather more resources or give you more victory points at the end of the game.
(This was the end of a 5-Player game and it was fun)
Another new feature is the expedition. Now you can use ore to forge a weapon (between a level 1-8), then going on an expedition to find loot based on your level. After that, you can level up before moving on. This is a neat feature that makes get loot others might take on the action board. You can also use a ruby to allow your weapon dwarves to go first instead of allowing your weaker ones go first, a move that could change the game.
Now, when it’s all said and done, the game is pretty pricy at $90.00. However, you are getting 7 pounds of a great game and all the wooden meeples too! From grains to pumpkins, sheep to dogs, ore to rubies, you get everything in the box. Along with over 400 pieces of cardboard to punch out, the box just closes (I went with two plano boxes to get the job done to sort everything).
If you are on the fence about the game, wait till you can at least get it at the 90 dollar price point because with so many components and with a great game, Caverna is a hit for 2013 and I bet we will see an expansion in the future.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
TNA and You
Yes, I think by now, everyone has watched, or heard. . . . . .avoided watching TNA Impact tonight because of the way things went down. Indeed, it seems that AJ Styles has finished his time with TNA and Magnus is now going forward as the Heavyweight Champion for the company. But wait a minute, you question me, what would they let go of a man who has been with the company since the very beginning? Why would they do that to AJ on his last night with the company and let Magnus take the win?
Because TNA is stupid.
I remember watching TNA many years ago and how they put many great matches. I recall cheering whenever Petey Williams hit the Canadian Destroyer on his opponents. When Joe was an undefeated machine, where Abyss wasn't wearing a suit. Ah yes, what about that, "Thing with the X in the middle" match that could leave us all in shock. But where did it all go wrong? TNA has made a lot of bad mistakes but after what we saw tonight, I have no doubt it was one of the worst shows I've seen in a long time.
Now don't get me wrong, I like Magnus and his beautiful flying elbow. But I just don't think he's the one to carry a company forward when they are already in the ground to begin with. AJ was there for the company since the beginning and he knew something had to be done.
So he left.
Even looking back at his title loss to Rob Van Dam, RVD didn't hook the leg. I wonder if that was what AJ meant in his most recent shoot.
Bottom line is that TNA is not having a good day at the moment. Yes we can have a new face going forward with Magnus, but how long is it going to take them to realize that they are moving backwards with every step they try to make.
Because TNA is stupid.
I remember watching TNA many years ago and how they put many great matches. I recall cheering whenever Petey Williams hit the Canadian Destroyer on his opponents. When Joe was an undefeated machine, where Abyss wasn't wearing a suit. Ah yes, what about that, "Thing with the X in the middle" match that could leave us all in shock. But where did it all go wrong? TNA has made a lot of bad mistakes but after what we saw tonight, I have no doubt it was one of the worst shows I've seen in a long time.
Now don't get me wrong, I like Magnus and his beautiful flying elbow. But I just don't think he's the one to carry a company forward when they are already in the ground to begin with. AJ was there for the company since the beginning and he knew something had to be done.
So he left.
Even looking back at his title loss to Rob Van Dam, RVD didn't hook the leg. I wonder if that was what AJ meant in his most recent shoot.
Bottom line is that TNA is not having a good day at the moment. Yes we can have a new face going forward with Magnus, but how long is it going to take them to realize that they are moving backwards with every step they try to make.
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First of all, the game comes with 7 wooden dice and 4 pegboards. The quality of the components themselves is the best I’ve seen in a small game. It’s light and feels great too so you can take it on the go. The game also comes with a huge stack of double sided score pads so that’s nice as well.
You start off with three dice and each side of the dice represents a different symbol. You can either gain food to feed your cities, gain workers to help build monuments or build more cities to roll more dice. And you can gain goods and coins to build developments, avoiding certain disasters or gaining extra food or workers per dice. Disasters are represented as skulls and for everyone you roll, you must keep (unless your playing the solo version of the game). Each disaster will cost you points or your opponents might lose points.
Using the pegboard is easy. The green color is your food and goes up and down with the food you get. Everything else is your goods and every good you roll, one goes up from the bottom to the top. However, if you have more then 6 goods out, then you must get rid of them.
The game is good when you want to play a quick solo game or with 4 players, the fun really starts to pick up. Your battling to build an monument first so that you can get the points in the square. If you do build it, everyone else will earn the points next to the square. At the end of the game, whoever has the most points wins the game and has the mightiest empire!