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Hanamikoji: Getting charm points with the geishas

By Meeple Lady | December 16, 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

This review of Hanamikoji was featured on Episode 102 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Forbidden Desert, Sorcerer City, Chai and Just One.

There was a time in my life when my two-player games sat unplayed on my shelves. But since 2020, the year that none of us could’ve ever predicted, many of those games have since hit the gaming table.

Hanamijoki, first reviewed by Ruth in Episode 18, is one of those delightful two-player games that have come into the rotation. Designed by Kota Nakayama and artwork by Maisherly and Mashiro Misaki, Hanamijoki is an abstract area majority card game that features gorgeous and colorful Japanese style geisha artwork.

One geisha is holding an umbrella, one playing a flute, one pouring tea — each scene is unique in activity and color. This version I have is published by EmperorS4 but this game is now being published by Deep Water Games.

Hanamikoji comes in a small box that’s easily transportable.

This small portable box, which is about the size of a small paperback, includes 7 geisha cards, 21 item cards, cardboard victory markers and cardboard action tokens — 4 for each player. Though the game comes with few components, it packs a big punch with its tension-filled back-and-forth gameplay. And you don’t need a lot of table space to play this game, which is good these days as many game tables have evolved into multi-purpose spaces within the household.

In Hanamikoji, players are working to gain the favor of the seven geishas by collecting their favored performance item, in this case, cards that match the geishas’ symbol. The seven geisha cards are displayed in between the two players, and this is where most of the gaming occurs as cards are placed above or below each geisha card based on which player plays them. Each geisha card has a number on the top left of the card, which indicates their charm points and equals the number of matching item cards for that geisha. The geishas range from 2 to 5 charm points.

Hanamikoji is played over three rounds. One item card is randomly removed at the start of each round. Players begin a round with a hand of six item cards, and on their turn, they draw an item card from the deck and spend one of their actions playing cards from their hand. For those actions, there are exactly four of them, and each player gets the same set to be used in any order by the player on their turn.

Hanamikoji action tiles — Each player has the same identical four action tiles.

The four actions are represented by cardboard tiles, and if a player uses that action during the round, they flip it over to the non-colored side. So, what are these actions?

The first one is choosing 1 card from your hand and placing it face down in front of you. This card will remain a secret and will be scored at the end of the round to go toward that geisha’s charm points.

The second action is choosing 2 cards from your hand and placing them face-down in front of you, and these cards will not be scored during this round.

The third action is choosing 3 cards from your hand and placing them face-up in front of you. Your opponent then selects one of these three cards to place in front of a geisha on their side, and you get to place the other two cards in front of a geisha on your side of the table.

The fourth action is selecting four cards from your hand and placing them in two piles of two cards each face up. Your opponent then selects one set of cards to place underneath the corresponding geisha, and you take the other ones to place in front your geisha.

Players go back and forth taking one action each until they’ve exhausted all their action tokens. Players flip over secret cards that score, and count which player the geisha favors based on the number of item cards each player has given them. The victory markers on the geisha card will then move toward the player who gains her favor.

Hanamikoji cards — Players play cards on their side of the board to gain charm points.

Players aim to win 4 geishas or 11 or more charm points. If there is no clear victory in the first round, players play until three rounds are over. In between rounds, the victory markers do not reset, but instead stay toward the side of the player who curried the geisha’s favor the previous round. If nobody gets the 4 geishas or 11 or more charm points after three rounds, the player with more geishas wins the game.

This game is tense! You’re initially presented with limited information, as the round progresses, more and more cards are revealed but there’s still are still hidden cards from the one your opponent saves and the one removed from the game.

You also have to make calculated guesses regarding which cards to play or save for a future action because you don’t want to get cornered into giving your opponent only good options because those are the only cards left in your hand.

Hanamikoji is quick to set up and easy to learn. It doesn’t take up a lot of table space, plays fairly quickly at 15-20 minutes, and is compact for easy travel, for when we all decide to travel again. Lastly, even though the game seems deceptively easy, there’s a lot of strategy to explore.

It’s one of the best “I cut/you choose” game mechanisms where you still feel like you have some sense of control over your destiny instead of being at the complete mercy of the other player. And the lovely artwork is just so pleasing and calming — when you’re not racking your brain about which cards to play.

And that’s Hanamikoji! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!

Backgammon: Let’s go play at the bar!

By Meeple Lady | April 22, 2020 | Comments 5 comments

This review of backgammon was featured on Episode 85 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Raiders of the North Sea, Snow Tails, Banned Books and Orleans.

Every so often, I’m watching a movie or TV show and a backgammon set shows up. I immediately pause the program to examine whether they’re playing correctly or it’s just being used as a prop.

For myself personally, backgammon for many, many years was just a game that existed. A game that people always randomly had in their house, probably a gift from their grandparents or a friend. It’s a game I’m surprised that a lot more people don’t know how to play, considering how old it is. It’s ancient — with its roots tracing back to nearly 5,000 years in Mesopotamia. I finally learned the game as an adult, and it has been one of my absolute favorites ever since. I keep my set in my car so I can bust it out at any time. And people, I have.

Backgammon is a classic two-player game that combines strategy and luck. It’s played on a board, often built into a mini little suitcase, and two players sit across from each other. Each player has fifteen pieces, also known as checkers, two dice in their matching color and a dice cup. Players must move all their checkers around the board in one direction into their home area, which then they can start bearing off the pieces.

This is the opening setup for backgammon.

The problem is: your opponent is moving in the opposite direction and can hit you, forcing your checker to start its journey home all over again by entering at your opponent’s home board, which is the farthest area from your home board.

When you open your case, you’ll see the board is made up of 24 long points, which look like long skinny triangles, and the board is divided into four quadrants. For the purposes of this review, I’ll call the points spaces instead so it doesn’t sound like we’re constantly talking about victory points this entire time. Checkers sit on a space and move in a horseshoe pattern around the board. Your home board is the set of 6 spaces closest to you, and your opponent plays the mirror image of the same board. Each quadrant on the board has exactly 6 spaces each.

There is a standard setup for the checkers at the start of the game, then players begin by rolling one die each, and the player with the higher die goes first. They move their piece or pieces exactly according to what’s rolled, in one direction toward their home board. For example, if a 2 and 4 were rolled, the player moves one piece two spaces, and another piece four spaces, or they may move the same piece two spaces and then four spaces.

To be able to move into a space, it has to be empty, or have your checkers sitting in it, or just one checker of your opponent’s sitting in it. If there are two or more checkers of your opponents sitting on the space, it is blocked and you cannot land there.

This is the white player’s opening move, moving one piece 5 spaces and another piece 1 space.

If there is one checker sitting there that belongs to your opponent and you decide to move in, their piece gets knocked off and goes to the bar, which is usually the middle fold of the case. Your opponent must then roll into an open space in your home board, which has their starting spaces.

On future turns, players take turns back and forth, plopping their two matching dice into their own dice cup and rolling. Players continue until one person bears off all their checkers from their home board. A player cannot start bearing off their checkers until they’re all in their home board, and even then, the player must be able to roll high enough to get them off the board. The first player to complete that is the winner.

There is a lot of back and forth in this game, and while it’s true that a couple of bad rolls could set you far behind, there is strategy in how you move your pieces. You want to move them in pairs, so that no one checker is sitting by itself, practically inviting your opponent to come hit you. You also need to understand when to make a run for it, moving all your checkers past your opponent. Sometimes, it’s advantageous to keep a few behind so that you can hit your opponent when the opportunity presents itself.

There’s also something to be said about building a wall of defense in your home board, so that if you do hit an opponent’s piece, they will have a hard time rolling into their starting area because you’ve blocked off many of their opening spaces

There is also the thing about doubles. Rolling doubles will result in four actions of that same number. For example, a roll of two 6’s is very powerful because you get 6 points of movement — four times!

Most of the game you’re hoping for doubles, while taunting your opponent by rage-shaking your dice cup near their face. It’s very fun.

This doubling cube can raise the stakes on your game.

For those who want to raise the stakes, try using the doubling cube. The doubling cube is a marker representing what the two players are betting. It begins at 64 at the start of the game, and when one player is feeling lucky in their progress, they can move it to 2, meaning if they’re playing for dimes, the winner will now be receiving 20 cents instead.

The other player can agree to the 2 or just end the game and pay the 10 cents. The doubling cube’s sides double from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64. Players have to take turns increasing the doubling cube; the same player cannot keep raising the stakes of the game.

If your opponent wins the game, and you haven’t taken a single checker off the board, you’ve been gammoned, and this doubles the stakes. If your opponent wins, and you still have a checker on the bar or in the home board of your opponent, then you’ve been backgammoned — and this triples the stakes. I’ve seen some epic games where someone had been backgammoned and paid a hefty sum to the winner!

I’ve had my backgammon set for years and it shows! I must’ve purchased this for less than $10 at Target many, many years ago. It has been great to me.

In all, backgammon is a quick, fun 2-player game that’s easily transportable and you can pretty much play anywhere. It has a self contained playing area with its suitcase setup. It’s also very easy to find an inexpensive copy, and chances are there are even a few sets at Goodwill. Just make sure all fifteen checkers are included.

And that’s backgammon. This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. May you always roll doubles, and I’ll see you at the bar! Thanks for listening. Bye!

Push Card Game: Push it, push it real good — but don’t bust!

By Meeple Lady | January 24, 2020 | Comments 1 comment

This review of Push was featured on Episode 78 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Ingenious, Deep Space D-6, Vindication and Legendary Encounters: Alien.

At first glance, Push looks like an Uno deck. And for full disclosure, Push was a giveaway at BGG 2018, and I didn’t pick it up because it looked very similar to an Uno deck. At the risk of sounding like a board-game snob here, I’m definitely not playing Uno with you. There are plenty of better card games out there, for even the most inexperienced gamers.

It wasn’t until about 6 months later that someone introduced me to Push, and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately purchased a copy. Push, a short card game published by Ravensburger and designed by Prospero Hall, is a game I often travel with because it’s essentially a thick deck of cards and one 6-sided die.

This 25-minute game works well with a midsize group of 2-6, and I love busting it out with new and older gamers alike. The deck has cards ranging from 1 to 6, in five different colors, as well as Switch cards and Roll cards, which I’ll explain later what they do.

The three types of cards in Push — and that very mean die.

On your turn, you draw one card at a time from the deck until you want to stop or you bust! When you draw a card, you must play them into one of three stacks in the middle of the table. The rules for placement in the stacks is that you cannot have the same number or same color in any of the stacks. If there’s a blue 2 already face-up in the center in one stack, you cannot place a 2 of any other color or another blue card into that same stack. As the active player, it’s up to you how you want to build out those stacks. You can even keep them all in one stack if you follow the rules of placement correctly.

The stacks are important because each card contains victory points based on the number on it. If you decide to stop before busting, you select any one of those stacks in play and sort them into your bench in front of you by color. The next person to your left grabs the second stack if there is one, and so forth.

The Switch cards that are drawn during this player’s turn change the direction of who picks the stacks next. Instead of the stack selection going to the player on your left, it now goes to the player to the right and so forth. Switch cards aren’t placed into stacks either; they’re just shown on the side for reference during that active player’s turn.

Cards on your bench as worth victory points at the end of the game. They are, however, not completely safe from the dreaded Push die. If the active player draws a Roll card, they must place it into one of the stacks that already doesn’t have one in it. Roll cards also follow the placement rules like all the other cards.

Which stack do you want? Are you willing to push your luck?

When a player grabs a stack with a roll card in it, they must roll the 6-sided die. Each side of the die has exactly one color on it, and then a black square. Whatever side the die lands, the player loses all of those matching colored cards from their bench. It’s quite devastating when you lose a bunch of points this way! If you roll the black die, all your cards are safe — for the time being.

Also, if you keep drawing and flip over a card that you cannot place, you bust. You also roll the die and you don’t get to pick up a stack. Instead, the next person gets first choice.

Lastly, on your turn, you can choose not to draw cards but instead bank one pile of your colored stacks. If you decide to do this, you flip over those cards and then it’s the next person’s turn. All those cards you’ve flipped over will be safe from the dreaded Push die.

Might be a good idea to bank this yellow pile in your bench on a future turn!

Game play continues until you finish the entire deck. Players calculate their VPs based on the cards that are both in their bench and those banked faced down, and the person with the most VPs wins the game.

For non-heavy gamers, I like to play a variant I created for this game. Instead of placing the Roll card into one of the stacks in front of you on your turn, the active player just rolls the die and faces the consequences. That sense of impending doom adds to the experience, as everyone can relate to that Jack in the Box feeling of will this next card wipe out the 12 points of Red cards you have sitting in front of you. Why, yes, it will. It most definitely will. I like to reserve the option of placing the Roll card into a pile for more experienced gamers.

Even though this looks like Uno, it’s nothing like that game! Push is actually fun!

Push is perfect for a chill night with friends, whether you’re gathering around the bar or dining table chatting. It has a very small footprint so it’s easy to transport. It unfortunately isn’t very color blind friendly, as there aren’t any symbols on the cards to differentiate the various colors.

Other than that, it’s a fun game that is easy to jump into and create lots of laughter and merriment when you egg on the active player by saying, no, no, there’s no way you’re going to bust. And then they do!

And that’s Push! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening! Bye!

1846: The Race for the Midwest: A good introduction into 18xx

By Meeple Lady | February 25, 2019 | Comments 1 comment

This review of 1846: Race for the Midwest was featured on Episode 54 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Otys, Wingspan, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival and Gizmos.

If the world of 18xx is something you’ve been interested in but never knew where to start, check out 1846: The Race for the Midwest.

Published in 2016 by GMT Games, 1846 is a great introductory game into the world of 18xx.

The rulebook for 1846 is a little daunting to go through on your first go-around. I’d highly recommending finding someone who can teach and run the game so that your first experience is as smooth as possible. There is quite a lot to keep up with, and having a game of all inexperienced players could potentially turn you off from these types of games. And that would be unfortunate, because 18xx games are fantastic.

Well, fantastic if you love super crunchy, math-heavy, puzzly and economic games that manipulate the stock market and can be sometimes kind of mean. There’s a whole bunch of 18xxes in the wild, and if you learn one 18xx, many of the other games are built upon similar concepts with slight tweaks in gameplay, so really, you’ll be ready to jump into all the other train games soon enough.

We are building routes and collecting incomes! Choo-choo!

In 1846, 3-5 railroad tycoons are competing to earn money and build the best stock portfolio by investing in and operating railroad corporations within the Midwest during 1846-1935. Players begin the game with $400 and begin first drafting private corporations that may provide some income for the first part of the game. The drafting here is important because many other 18xx games start with an auction, and if you’re not a player with any 18xx experience, a misstep at this starting auction can be brutal.

In 1846, each round consists of a stock round and two operating rounds. Game play continues until players break the bank, and the person with the most cash in their personal stock and the value of their stock shares wins the game.

A large component of 1846 is that each corporation has their own treasury, which is used to lay down tracks or upgrade tracks and purchase trains, and this treasury is completely separate the player’s personal stock portfolio and bank. The crux of the game is balancing when to infuse money into your corporation to do actions, or pay fully yourself and other stockholders out, either action affecting the stock price of the corporation.

During a stock round, players taken turns buying stock from the stock market or a share from a corporation’s treasury, paying the market price for it.

Taking the Grand Trunk, or as affectionately like to call it “Grand Funk,” Railway to victory!

Players can also purchase the President’s certificate, which is two stocks of a corporation, and launch that corporation and put it on the map. You can get to select its initial stock value. Each corporation has exactly 10 shares. The person holding the most shares is the president of the corporation.

Then comes two Operating Rounds. Each operating round consists of issuing share to the market to raise capital, and then laying down one yellow tile onto the board. The player can also lay down a second yellow tile or upgrade one tile. All tile lays and upgrades cost money, depending on the cost printed on the empty hex or the preprinted which it replaces. Upgrades must be done in a specific color order: yellow, green, brown and gray, and the new tiles must preserve its type (city or not) and the orientation of the previous tracks laid out.

City tiles have spaces for tokens to be placed by corporations for a cost. These tokens have the potential to block other corporations from going through your city, which is bad news for running your route.

What is running your route? Depending on what type of train you have at the start of the operating round, this determines how many hexes you can reach and how much revenue you’ll be receiving for that operating round.

Next comes the payout. To pay full dividends, divide revenue by 10 and pay this amount to each shareholder for their personal bank.

To pay half dividends, divide total revenue by two. Round this amount down to the nearest $10 and retain it in the corporate treasury. Divided the remainder 10 and pay this as dividends to each shareholder.

1846: Race for the Midwest in all its glory. Those cubes aren’t part of the game; we used them to more easily calculate our routes.

Depending on what the corporation pays out, this will determine if the price of the corporation stock goes down one, stays the same, or jumps once, twice or three times.

After you complete a corporation payout, you may purchase trains to use for the next round, if your corporation has money, as trains get very expensive, very quickly.

And thus begins the brain-burnery dance of running your corporation so that others will invest in it so you have money to do things and increase the price of your stock, while making money for yourself so that you can purchase stock in the hopes that it’ll become valuable later in the game.

GMT Games’ 1846: The Race for the Midwest is a great introductory game into the world of 18xx.

Game play continues until the bank breaks, and 1846 usually takes 4-5 hours to play. Each player cashes out their shares at the current stock value, and adds to their cash on hand, and the person with the most money wins the game. Money left over in a corporation’s treasury does not count toward anything in the end.

If you like route-building and economic stock games, and have more than a few hours to devote to a game, then 1846 could be for you. And you really, really have to not care about what the board look like as well. Because, more often than not, the board and hexes for an 18xx are really boring looking and plain, and 1846 is no exception. This game however has excellent components, all thanks to the high quality production of GMT.

And that’s 1846! Choo-choo! And this is Meeple Lady for the Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as meeplelady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!

Lisboa: A Masterpiece from Vital Lacerda

By Meeple Lady | October 29, 2018 | Comments 2 comments

This review of Lisboa was featured on Episode 46 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Mr. Jack, Lords of Waterdeep, Apocrypha and KLASK.

Lisboa is a game published by Eagle-Gryphon Games, designed by Vital Lacerda, with gorgeous artwork from Ian O’Toole. It plays 2-4 players, and even though the box says 60-120 minutes, my experience is it plays a little bit longer than that with maximum players.

Before we begin, Lisboa is by far one of the most complicated games I’ve ever had to teach, learn and play. In real life, rules explanation can take about 30 to 45 minutes. So if heavy games are not your bag, feel free to skip ahead five minutes. I totally will not be offended.

Lisboa is gorgeous, from outside the box to the game itself.

Lisboa is beautiful, crunchy and has a little bit of everything that a heavy gamer like myself enjoys. The game has area control, set collection, card drafting and tile placement. And probably most importantly, you get to decide your end-game scoring conditions.

The purplish-blue board game, whose color scheme is reminiscent of the Portuguese tiles the city is known for, is set in 1755, when Lisboa was struck by many natural disasters: an earthquake, fires and a tsunami, pretty much leveling the city. And now we’re all tasked with helping the city recover economically. We are taking turns to clear rubble, build ships and sell goods, get permits to construct public buildings, and set up shops so that the city can prosper. And we all want wigs. Lots and lots of wigs, which are VPs in this game.

The board is divided into two main parts: one side shows all the actions you can do on your turn, and the right side is filled with rubble and street locations for storefronts and public buildings.

The right side of the game features the city of Lisboa, where players are tasked to remove rubble, and build storefronts and public buildings.

What the game boils down to is its multi-use cards, and players picking from one of two actions with those cards from their hand of five cards. You can either tuck the cards into your portfolio, or play cards into the royal court to meet with the king, prime minister or master builder. These two main actions, either tuck or play, however, unlock a spiderweb of many, many other actions.

If you decide to tuck a card, you receive the reward or penalty for tucking that card. And then the card either gives influence for later or some permanent ability. You then can sell goods on an open ship or trade with the nobles, which will require goods. There are four goods in the game: gold, cloths, books and tools. Each noble wants a specific type of good, but all of them will take gold. If you trade the nobles, you can perform two different state actions if you meet the required good for that particular noble.

There are six different state actions you can choose from: recruiting officials (which you place on the board and will affect how other players meet with nobles), acquiring a plan (which you need to build public buildings), building a ship (which gives you influence and wigs when people sell goods to your boat), producing goods (if you have a storefront on the map), meeting the cardinal (which gives you Clergy tiles and benefits), and getting royal favors (which allow you to follow someone’s noble visit).

If you decide to not tuck your card, but instead play a card, you can visit a noble or gain the benefit from the treasury card. To visit a noble, you have to pay influence, and depending on who you visit, you can build a store (which is calculated by the rubble left at that intersection), take a decree card (criteria that will score you wigs at the end of the game), or open a public building (which requires to you already have a building permit of the same color in your possession and workers on the board).

Here are a few of the decree cards that score you VPs at the end of the game if you fulfill them.

As more stores are built in the city, it becomes less expensive to take that action because the rubble slowly get cleared. Rubble cubes are randomly placed at the start of the game so at the intersection of each storefront location, the price is calculated based on how many cubes are still there and which color, with beige being the most expensive and blue the cheapest. When you build, you remove one cube, and then pay the cost of the remaining cubes. And this is how you can collect sets of rubble on your player board, which will then unlock more spaces for cards to tuck and progress the game.

Also, when you satisfy the requirements and build a public building, you then gain the rubble the public building will sit on, and then if there is a storefront along that street where the public building was just placed, then the storefront scores VPs. In all, a storefront can score up to three times, if public buildings are placed on the north, east and west sides of the board.

So after you either tuck a card or play a card, you carry out the actions that correspond with the tucking or playing, and then you take a card from one of the face-up piles and your turn ends. The game is played out over two identical periods. The first period ends when someone collects two sets of rubble or three of the four piles of cards are depleted. The second period ends when someone collects four sets of rubble or three of the four piles of cards are depleted as well.

Lisboa manages to keep other players engaged even when it’s not their turn. As with other Lacerda games, there’s an option to follow another player’s main action. At the end of the game, you score any decrees you’ve collected, the various streets are scored according to who has the most storefronts on that street, and you a couple other items such as ships, influence and money.

I love teaching this game, especially when I have the giant tweezers with me!

The interconnectivity of all these actions is what I love most about Lisboa, which I believe is a masterpiece. Each action isn’t difficult per se, but there are a multitude of microsteps that need to first happen in order for you to do something large like, build a public building.

And that’s the super quick overview of Lisboa! This is Meeple Lady for the Five By Games. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as meeplelady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!