Here are reviews of a couple PnP games I played.
Micropul
A simple to learn, but fun and strategic puzzle game where you harvest micropuls and catalysts.
Complexity of Design - Extremely simple.
Quality of Art - Very simple. The simplicity works pretty well though. Being a game about harvesting energy cores and matter and junk, I feel like they could have kept the simple theme but jazzed it up a bit.
Quality of Game Design - The game design is great. The game is simple to understand and start playing. It is obvious almost right away that this game can be played either casually or extremely strategically and competitively.
Set Up - The set up is easy. Cut out a few pieces and you're ready to play.
This game was great. It took one read through of the rules and we were ready to play. The simplicity was the best part of the game for me. I was worried at first because it seemed almost too simple, but once we started playing I could see how you could get really involved in the strategy behind the game. The goal is to collect the most tiles possible by using the least tiles possible. The game starts with one tile being placed on the table and the players building off of that with their own tiles. You can only connect matching micropuls. In doing so you try to activate the catalysts which let you draw more tiles. You also have three stones you can use to group micropuls. At the end of the game the player with the most amount of points wins. You get points for every micropul in a group and every tile you have. Apart from a few other special circumstances that is the game. Here is a shot from the end of a game.
Another thing I liked about this game was the fact that, in the game world, you are supposed to snapping these tiles together to create energy. It seemed cooler than just laying the tiles down to occupy a space.
I feel like I've played a game similar to this but I can't remember what it was. The mechanics seem familiar....
Castle Builders
A competitive two player game to see who can build the best towers for the king that likes towers.
Complexity of Design - Very simple.
Quality of Art - The art is pretty nice. It is a little cheesy but it fits the theme nicely. The game board is a stylized blueprint of a medieval city and towers. The counters you play with have a cheesy brick texture on them but it fits the theme so it's not so bad.
Quality of Game Design - The game design is pretty good. It is a very simple game to understand and start playing. There is a balance of strategy and luck that seems to weigh more on the luck side, which I did not enjoy all that much. The rules don't specify a couple of mechanics in the game that made the first play feel stupid.
Set Up - The set up is just as simple as Micropul. A small board and some tiles to cut out and you are set.
Castle Builders was fun for one out of the three times we played it. The first time we played was broken because of a misunderstanding of the rules, the second time was fun, and the third time was boring. I think the problem with this game is there is a good simplicity factor but nothing behind that to give the game any worth. There is some strategy behind the game but a lot of it is luck. The luck factor is what made it interesting the second time around. One person is about to win, then BAM, a lucky special counter is drawn and turns the whole game around. In the second game, when that happened, it was pretty fun, but during the whole third game we were just thinking about how none of our moves really mattered because someone was going to draw the special counter and turn everything around. There is no re playability because you are just going through the motions until someone pulls that lucky draw and dominates.
The goal of the game is to have one of your building counters at the top of the tower so you can acquire the designated amount of points. When all of the spaces are full the game is over. Each player has twenty two counters total and holds a hand of two counters at a time. When a counter is placed on the board another is chosen randomly.
There are a good range of different types of counters, but I think they messed up the quantities of each counter. There are far too many special counters.
Originally there are three stop counters, two remove counters, and one remove and continue counter. To try and make the game more interesting we played a round with only one of each special counter. It required a little more strategy because you could only use your remove counter once, but it was still pretty boring. Here is a boring picture, of a boring end, to a boring Castle Builders round.
All in all I think I liked the simplicity of these games the most. To me that is what the print and play games should be. The simpler the better. There were some games with like eight pages of rules and tons of stuff to cut out that turned me off immediately. Maybe it was the nature of the assignment (playing a bunch of different games) but I was definitely drawn to the simpler games. Micropul was a simple game to play and understand but complex in terms of strategy. The game had something else behind its simplicity that I really enjoyed. Castle Builders on the other hand was simple but boring. If this were BK, and I could have it my way, I would mix the art style of Castle Builders with Micropul and be extremely happy.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10660/micropul
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39029/castle-builders
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