Back Space Explorers: Age of Ambition on Gamefound

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Wingspan has sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide since its introduction in 2019. Thanks to its combination of accessible game play, clever engine building, and inviting artwork, Wingspan, designed by Elizabeth Hargraves and published by Stonemaier Games, has become a favorite of gamers and non-gamers alike. In fact, chances are that you, dear reader, have played it at least once yourself.

As a result, while this review will reference how the game is played, I won’t be providing you with my typical How to Play section. However, in case you haven’t played Wingspan, fear not. Fellow Meeple Mountaineer Logan Giannini covered the rules in his review of the cardboard version of Wingspan.

As usual, I’m going to present the type of screen shots I’d like to see if I was reading your review of the digital version of a game to help me decide if it’s something I’d be interested in playing. If you’re just interested in what I think about this version of Wingspan, feel free to scroll down to my Thoughts section.

With all of that out of the way, let’s fly right into the Steam version of the game, shall we?

Set Up

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Terraforming Mars has been a favorite with my weekly gaming group since it first came out. To help keep the game engaging, I’ve also bought most of the expansions for the game and, for the most part, appreciate the additional components and new Project cards each expansion has brought to the table.

[avatar user="tfranklin" size="thumbnail" align="left" /]This review will only discuss the Terraforming Mars: Prelude expansion (referred to hereon simply as Prelude) and not the base game nor the rules to that game. If you’re interested in learning how to play Terraforming Mars or curious to know my thoughts on the digital version of the base game, check out my review of the digital Terraforming Mars here on Meeple Mountain.

These days, due to COVID, we’re each staying in our respective homes on game night. Thanks to the digital version of Terraforming Mars, the game still hits the virtual table on a regular basis.  Until recently, we’ve been restricted to just the base game. Now, the first digital expansion has been released: Prelude.

On the surface, Prelude is a pretty simple expansion — only adding a slender stack of 47 playable cards. When you consider that the five Corporation and seven Project cards aren’t anything all that new and that nothing in the expansion changes the way you…

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Editor’s Note: Meeple Mountain is aware of the allegations -- some of which have been substantiated -- of inappropriate and abusive behavior raised against JR Honeycutt, a co-designer for Machi Koro Legacy. Pandasaurus Games has previously released their statement regarding Honeycutt’s involvement with their company. In accordance with their suggestion, we have decided to make a donation to the non-profit RAINN as part of our process for this review, and we encourage anyone purchasing this game to make a donation if able.

Machi Koro made a big splash when it first hit the scene back in 2012. The peaceful city-builder charmed audiences with its adorable art as well as its gameplay, which mixes engine-building and dice-rolling to create a perfectly crafted blend of luck and strategy. Accessible enough for family game nights while still sharp enough to see play after the kids are asleep, Machi Koro is a game which has stood the test of time. You can find out more about the game, including an explanation of how to play, from our review of the Machi Koro 5th Anniversary Edition.

As with all institutions, Machi Koro has had to adapt to stay relevant. A series of excellent expansions, big-box editions, and even some digital exposure…

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Some Things Get Better with Age

A beloved classic recently celebrated a birthday by receiving a wonderful upgrade. The time has never been better to discover or re-experience Machi Koro’s dice rolling, engine building goodness for yourself. You will have to roll well and plan even better if you wish to be the first to build your four landmarks and be victorious in this fast-paced, city building challenge. Players compete to build various building cards that will grant rewards when dice results happen. Each builder will take turns rolling the dice, collecting rewards and working to build additional buildings to increase the effectiveness of their personal city’s engine. The first player to build their four landmark cards is crowned the winner! Let’s jump in and review the types of buildings you can employ to make Machi Koro thrive.

If You Build it They Will Come!

As you go through the rounds of play in Machi Koro, you will be buying and adding buildings (cards) to your city to gain more and more income based on your die rolls as well as those of your opponents. Cards can activate on your own turn or your opponents’, but you can only ever buy new…

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Ah, college! I remember it like it was yesterday. Late-night parties, last-minute cramming, digging through gravesites to find components for an unstoppable necromantic creature...

Okay, that last one is something you’ll (hopefully) only encounter while playing Studies in Sorcery from Weird Giraffe Games. In this title, now on Kickstarter, players will be completing a variety of magical projects to earn their Master’s degree in the Dark Arts — or as I like to call it, their “PhD in horribleness”.

The Witching Hour

Over the course of a game, players will need to pick their curriculum by purchasing projects, shrewdly manage their available resources through drafting, and assign those resources to their projects in a timely manner to earn credits towards graduation. At the end of the game the player with the most credits is the winner.

Each game of Studies in Sorcery will take place over 16 rounds: 4 months, each consisting of 4 weeks marked by different phases of the moon. Every week, all players will get a chance to take an action, work on their projects, and turn in any completed projects for credits. Completed projects will also often grant a special ability or action to help make future projects that much easier.

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On a particularly fateful voyage, your past crimes have caught up to you. After living a life of greed, excess, and general wretched behavior, you’re tossed into the sea, only to wash ashore on an undiscovered island ruin. Your riches have been taken from you, as well as every worldly possession you own. All that is left is you and the mystical island. Now you have a second chance to rebuild your lost legacy, but this time, with honor.

Vindication is a 2-5 player fantasy strategy game with a plethora of mechanics. Through area control, exploration, and resource management, you compete against other players with the goal of having the most honor at the end of the game. What the “end of the game” looks like may change depending on certain cards or in-game events, and your strategy to get to the end can vary wildly, depending on which combination of over 72 ability cards you collect. In Vindication, it’s all about choosing the right set of companions and abilities to help you become… well… vindicated.

From Wretched to Revered

Gameplay in Vindication is centered around three simple actions on your turn and you may perform then in any order. You must perform a move action, a visit/rest action, and an activation…

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Before we dive in, we need to talk about the flow and theme. You and your friends are bird enthusiasts with your sanctuaries and personal agendas to complete. For whatever reason, you decide to have a competition to see who can have the best bird sanctuary out of the group in four rounds. To measure your success, you will gain victory points which will come from a variety of sources such as eggs, bird cards, tucked cards, and bonus cards. Don't you love board games pretending they have a sensible theme?

The trick here is there are severe restrictions you must maneuver around. Each round, you will start with a certain number of “action cubes” that you will spend on each turn. When everyone’s cubes have run out, the next round begins but with one less cube. The purpose behind this is to make the beginning of…

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If you’re not familiar with Splendor or need a refresher on how to play, please follow the link above to go to my original review of the game, then click on the “learn how to play the game” option. It’s a fairly quick read, I promise!

Opening the App

Starting a new session of Splendor takes you to the game’s landing page with a great many things to click on.

[caption id="attachment_21637" align="aligncenter" width="500"] The opening screen for the digital edition of Splendor. (1) Options (see below) (2) Token Victory & Leaderboards (3) Link to the Space Cowboys website (4) Purchase link for all Splendor expansions (5) This button actually lets you play the game! (6) More games by Asmodee (7) Quit App (8) In-game achievements (9) Spinning box of Expansions that leads nowhere (10) Link to learn more about the game and…

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Introduction

Meeple Mountain writer JP wrote on his appreciation for Scythe several years ago. His review covered the world that Scythe creates and the depth of play the game provides. Luckily, the digital version of Scythe builds solidly on both of these factors, so let’s dive right in.

NOTE: This review assumes that you already know how to play the analog version of Scythe. If you’re unfamiliar with it, then we highly recommend Rodney Smith’s “Watch it Played” tutorial.

Opening the App

One of Scythe’s most striking aspects is the undeniably beautiful artwork by Jakub Rozalski. That artwork is on full display in the digital version. For anyone who looked at any of the artwork and wished it was bigger, just take a look at one of the many start screens for the game.

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Maybe you’ve heard of this game, Terraforming Mars? Released in 2016 by FryxGames, it has collected over 16 nominations and/or international board game awards and has spawned four expansions as well as the digital version we’re reviewing today. As of February 2020, four years after its release, it still holds the #3 spot on BoardGameGeek’s Hotness chart. Meeple Mountain’s own Kurt Refling placed it at #46 on Meeple Mountain’s list of 100 Most Important Board Games of the 2010s.

Thankfully, Andrew Plassard has already reviewed the original Terraforming Mars for Meeple Mountain, so if you’re unfamiliar with how the game is played, please read Andrew’s review. However, if you’re new to the game and have the app, the Tutorial and Rules sections have you covered.

Tutorial and Rules

[caption id="attachment_18736" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The introductory Tutorial screen[/caption]

From the Main Menu, tapping on the Tutorial button brings up an interactive series of lessons designed to show you how typical actions are taken throughout the game.

The Tutorial starts with an overview of the goals of the game and primary terraforming actions. From there, you’ll select…

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Overview

In Fantastic Factories, the players will be competing to earn the most victory points (VP) by the game’s end. At the beginning of each round, players will take turns selecting cards from a lineup to add to their hand. Once the players have selected their cards, they simultaneously roll their dice and assign them to the locations in their player areas to produce resources and goods. These are used, in turn, to pay the costs associated with the various functions printed on the cards in their tableau to produce VP or save up for the purchase of more cards in future rounds.

The game goes on like this until one of the end conditions is met and then the players tally up their final scores. The player with the most VP is declared the victor.

This is, of course, a very high level overview of Fantastic Factories. If you’d like to know more about how to play the game, continue reading. Otherwise, feel free to skip ahead to the Thoughts section to see what I think.

Setup

Setting up a game of Fantastic Factories is pretty easy. First, each player is given a Headquarters board, a player aid, 2 Energy tokens, 1 Metal token, and all 4 dice of a…

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Vindication is perhaps one of the more interesting games to come out in a long time. This was a bit of a surprise because publishers born out of the Kickstarter craze tend to follow the latest trend and slap as many miniatures as they can.

This is Orange Nebula’s first Kickstarter and it shows. You have typos in the rule book, even in the second printing, and most of the pieces are more focused on being decorative than functionality. Your character is represented by a standee that is made out of an earth-tone metal piece that blends wonderfully with the earth-tone board. Great. That means you will be paying attention to the brightly colored base instead of the entire standee. You paid extra for this.

Expensive Nonsense

To add more pain, there are also miniatures that don’t serve any purpose. One of them is the…

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