I feel like recommending PnP games again

 I’ve written about essential PnP libraries and PnP games that I feel would be good for budget gaming more than once. Unfortunately, I still think there is a real, possibly growing, need for that, although the very concept of PnP games comes with the assumption that people have access to printers, which feels like an arrogant assumption. Still, PnP games is one of my hobbies so that’s what I am working with.

Few disclaimers:

- If you this blog on the regular, there will be no surprises. 

- I’m focusing on games that just require printing. There’s a lot of good PnP games that involve cards and tiles and boards and such but I’m focusing on accessible games. If you’re already making cards and chits and tiles, you don’t need my advice.

I have said more than once that, if you are completely new to Print and Play, a good place to start is to go to Postmark Games and buy their whole catalog. Which I think is currently eight games so it’s not unreasonable. And if that’s as far as you go, you will still do well.

With that said, I want to highlight their first three games: Voyages, Aquamarine and Waypoints. Lots of content, solid mechanics and aimed at the general gamer audience. Accessible but full of interesting choices. Great examples of what you can do with Roll and Write.

All three of those games are multi-player solitaires, which is pretty common in the print-and-go niche of PnP. My next recommendation, on the other hand, is totally in your face.

Beards and Booty from Shiny Pigeon Games  is possibly the best Beer and Pretzels PnP game I’ve found. Pirates with special abilities beating the tar out of each other. Plenty of room for smack talk and other good fun. I do recommend always playing with sea monsters. They mix things up and make sure things keep happening.

Around the World in 10-15 Minutes also from Shiny Pigeon Games gets an honorable mention. It has a strong Ticket to Ride and a Roll and Write vibe and I really enjoy it but I also think it is very forgiving. When I play, it’s less of a question of will I do well, but how will I do well this time? That keeps me from giving it a wholehearted recommendation.

My last recommendation (at least for now) is Chateau from Rolling Rhino Games. It’s also the game that made me decide that I should post yet another blog like this. It’s a fill-in-the-grid Roll and Write, which is a ridiculously common mechanic. However, it has a bunch of different maps, each with their own special power. And it has interaction, letting you actively mess up other players’s plans. That’s when I said. ‘People can use this in their libraries’ 

This is far, far from a full list of PnP games that are out there that are worth your time playing. I will also admit that every last game on the list is definitely on the light side. And there are heavier PnP games out there, including ones that don’t require any construction. And I keep meaning to find the time to look at them :)

Still, like I said at the top, I think there is a real need for budget gaming. And this is my way of trying to help people find a way to do that. At the very least, I think I’ve put together enough for a few good family game nights here.

Roll and Safari lives in a dog-eat-dog world

 Roll and Safari is a Print-and-Play Roll-and-Write for one to any number of players. At the moment, it’s free to download. 

 

The idea is that you are driving around the Savana in a jeep on a photo safari. The actual game play is drawing a path in a hex grid. Every game is going to have some level of abstraction and Roll and Safari doesn’t do badly theme-wise for one sheet of paper.

The core idea is that you roll three dice each turn. You pick one for the direction the jeep is going to go, one to determine the distance and one to determine what direction the camera is pointing when you reach your endpoint.

Any animal you land on gets scared away and is out of the game for good. You start out with a camera that can go three hexes but as the game continues, you can get bonuses to expand that. And, other than the first round, each round has a specific animal that you get to mark down twice per sighting.

Each animal track has bonuses if you check off enough boxes. These are things like treating a distance or direction die as wild or getting bonus watering holes (which get you points) or camera lenses. 

The game ends after thirteen rounds. You add up the number of animals you’ve seen, along with watering holes and unused bonuses and that’s your score. 

Roll and Safari’s roll for direction and distance is not a new mechanic for Roll and Writes, although it isn’t filling in a grid which I have now seen more times than I can remember. The mechanics fit the theme pretty well and the game is easy to understand.

The biggest problem that Roll and Safari has is that it exists in the same word as Voyages. Voyages uses the same core mechanic of rolling for distance and direction as Roll and Safari but is a better, deeper, richer game. Honestly, it’s a top tier R&W and Roll and Safari can’t help but suffer in comparison.

With that said, on its own, Roll and Safari is a clean, streamlined game. It has a family friendly theme and would probably work with youngish kids. And it’s free, not that Voyages is pricy.

If you are looking for only the best in your games or if you are only playing with ‘serious’ gamers, then, yeah, Voyagers is what you are looking for. But if you are looking for variety or something for a younger audience, Roll and Safari isn’t a bad game to add to the library.

My July Gaming

 July was a month for learning quiet games for me. Well, not all of them but a lot of games that fall on the meditative side. I learned:

Paper App Dungeon

Evil Lab

Around the World in 10-15 minutes

A Gentle Rain

Monster Healer Solo IIDX

Mysticana - Curse of Dragons

Battle Card - The Malayan Campaign 

Drakard

Easily the most significant game I learned was A Gentle Rain. The philosophy behind the game, playing for decompression and not to win, isn’t a unique one but A Gentle Rain presents it very well. I made a homemade copy but I’d really like to get a published copy. So it worked out for me and the creaters lol

I had tried out My Little Evil Lab in June and liked it enough to move on to the other games in that family. Evil Lab, the core game, proved to be more challenging, enough that I will keep on looking at the other games in the series. The core concept is simple but the designers find ways to make it difficult.

I also enjoyed the basic map of Around the World in 10-15 Minutes. While a simple game, it has a real family game feel and I can see it doing well as a casual game. Printing out some sheets and calling it a family game night is becoming more and more viable.

I also realized that I had only tried the first two maps of Voyages. I decided to try the third map and ended up playing all six maps by the end of July. And each one is remarkably distinct. I keep changing my mind about which is my favorite Post Mark Games R&W but they are all top notch.

I don’t know of what August will bring but I have at least a couple games on my To Do list.

Looking at the second maps of both Voyages and Aquamarine

After I played the second map of Voyages, I really wanted to blog about it. However, I didn’t want to go down the road of writing about every single map in the series. Pretty sure I’d really start boring people.

So I decided to wait until I played the second map in Aquamarine and compare the two. Same publisher, same designers, both R&Ws  I think that’s fair.

Voyages - Marauder’s Reef

Ho boy. I quite liked the learner map, Trade Winds Blow. But Marauder’s Reef takes the core concepts you learn in Trade Winds Blow and makes them razor focused on one concept. Beating people up.

Trade Winds Blow did have one hex that involved combat but Marauder’s Reef adds fuller (but still very simple) combat rules and makes them the centerpiece of the game.

The other major change is the duty chart. In Trade Winds Blow, you filled lines to get bonus items. In Marauder’s Reef, it’s a flatout tech tree that lets you get permanent upgrades. This is a literal game changer.

I have been playing Voyages as a solitaire where games are only 16 turns and if you don’t earn three stars, you automatically lose. It is definitely harder to earn stars in Marauder's Reef, creating a more tense game.

Marauder's Reef isn’t a more advanced Trade Winds Blow. It is a different experience.

Aquamarine - Apex Predators

This map makes two meaningful mechanical changes to Aquamarine’s first map, Exploratory Expeditions. It replaces the shipwreck and their bonuses with research magnifying glasses and it adds in caves.

The research tracks are a very nice addition. Filling out a complete track gives you points but certain spaces give you special moves. Unlike the wrecked ships, you have more choices in how you use the research check marks.

Plus, most of them are in caves with the new giant squids, tying almost all the new elements together. 

Caves are special spaces that are restricted. You can have them in a box if it’s daytime or if you use a torch. And you have a very limited number of torches. Between the sharks (which take up more space than map one’s jellyfish) and caves, this map has more bottlenecks and tough choices.

Apex Predators isn’t just map one with a new arrangement. It’s a definite step up. With this one provision, I think you do have the focus on the giant squids to get the best results.

Overall Conclusions

When I first played both Voyages and Aquamarine, I was really impressed. I mean, it’s one thing for a Roll and Write to work for me since I’m kind of an R&W addict.  But I think anyone would have fun with both of them.

I felt that Marauder’s Reef definitely affirmed my feeling that Voyages is a game system. I was working with new goals and new mechanics. It could have been marketed as a different game. On the other hand, while Apex Predators definitely showed new things Aquamarine could do, it didn’t push it to that extent. And it doesn’t have to.

The second maps in both games affirm my first impressions.

Why Voyages is an amazing system

I became interested in Voyages because I liked Postmark Games’ free game Battle Card: Market Garden and I was curious about how it would approach Pick Up and Delivery in a Roll and Write format. Plus, I’m always looking for more Print-and-Play Roll-and-Write games lol

In a very real sense, instead of a game, I found that Voyages is really more of a game system. The actual core mechanics are very simple but each map adds a bunch of extra cogs and wheels that make for the actual game. There are six official maps and at least fifteen fan maps (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hv19mg9pa9gckik/AAAq-gs5IeyR9QmByTqUMns0a?dl=0)

This is the core idea of Voyages. You are drawing a line on a hex-grid map. Each turn, you roll three dice. One die determines the direction. One die determines the distance. And the last for is used to fill in a box on a duties chart. (The chart is different on every single map and, quite frankly, can add a lot to a map)

It’s not a new mechanic to me. It’s pretty much the mechanic of Go Goa, for instance, which I played a lot of last year. It also brings back memories of Outdoor Survival, whose first scenario is the stuff of legends and nightmares.

And, to be fair, it’s not a bad mechanic. But on its own, it’s pretty meager. You need more. Fortunately, Voyages delivers.

All over the maps are special hexes. Land (not pass through) on a special hex and you perform its action. It often is get something but it can also be fight something or sell stuff you picked up at other hexes. 

Your most crucial resource is sailors. Sailors can be used to modify dice. They can also be upgraded and they can be spent to perform some actions, like defeating enemies.

And the duty charts that I already mentioned can really affect how maps work. In the Trade Winds map, which is really the tutorial map, you just get bonus items. However, looking ahead, the duty charts can become tech trees or even hitpoint management.

The maps also have achievement stars that also work as a timer. In multiplayer, anyone getting a third star triggers endgame. In solitaire, you play sixteen turns and not having a third star by the end means automatically losing. You can earn them via the duty chart, exploration, trade or winning combat. But they all take planning and investment.

I have only played the Trade Wind map so far. And, if that was the entire game, we would still be looking at a strong piece of work, one with a lot of replay value. However, looking at how the other maps create new goals and mechanics, Voyages as a product is top notch.

My only disappointment is that it really isn’t a pick-up-and-deliver game. The Trade Winds map is the only official map that uses the mechanic and it doesn’t feel like the efficient way to play or the primary goal. That said, some of the fan maps might address pick-up-and-deliver more. And this is really about my expectations, not an actual game issue.

Over the last few years, I have played a lot of Roll-and-Writes. As a PnP option, they are incredibly rewarding. And Voyages is a game I would recommend to anyone who has access to a printer.