Author: Michele

Freedom: The Underground Railroad
Academy Games, 2012

Freedom: The Underground Railroad is a fully cooperative, historical board game for one to four players. The players have two goals. First you must attempt to assist slaves in escaping southern plantations, and move them across the board into Canada. Second, you must attempt to sway public opinion to the abolitionist cause. You and your team mates will have 8 rounds to accomplish both of these goals.

These two goals are made more difficult by having to avoid slave catchers and by having limited supplies of resources. When a slave is moved into the path of one or two of the five slave catchers, the slave catcher moves one space closer to that slave. If this movement causes a slave catcher to move into a space occupied by a slave, that slave is captured and sent to the next slave market. At the end of each round, slaves from the market will be placed into the plantation spaces. If there aren’t enough spaces to place the slaves, then the remaining slaves are lost. Each round has a full slave market, plus any lost slaves to place. Losing too many slaves will cost you the game.

Players start with limited funds and have only a few ways to earn income. All of the support tokens for the abolitionist movement must be purchased by the end of the game to win. In order to gain more options and avoid negative events, you must also use these precious funds. It is a delicate balance, and one that, over several games, I have not yet figured out how to master. Most of the game’s goals and supplies are tiered to the number of players, which makes it a balanced game, no matter how many people play.

I have to say that this is one of the most intense and difficult cooperative games that I have played. It is incredibly thematic. Academy Games is known for their educational games, but because of this, I wonder if they may sometimes get overlooked when people are looking for an entertaining game.

Games like Pandemic or Forbidden Island/Desert, are very thematic as well, but sometimes the win or loss can be pinned on random card draws. While Freedom does have some of this, the cards seem to affect this game less. I feel that the players are more in control of the destiny of Freedom than other cooperative games.  I have played this game several times, and we have lost every game, usually due to not being able to purchase all the supply tokens before the end of the eighth round. We have managed to free all the required slaves (giving us sort of a moral victory?). We are usually very close to winning, within one or two tokes. The cards are very thematic and educational as well.

Overall, I very much enjoy this game and recommend it. It is always challenging, no matter how many players you have. It will keep you involved and “on-the-edge-of-your-seat”. The recommended age is 13+ and I highly recommend following that guideline, as there are a lot of possibilities each turn and analasis of those options to maximize potential can make this game tough for a younger crowd.

New York Slice
Bezier Games, 2017

A game guaranteed to make you hungry, New York Slice is a “I slice, you choose” game. Remember when your parents, or perhaps your kids were given a cookie or other treat, and one child divided the treat, but the other child choose which piece they received? This game is modeled on that principle. This game is played in six rounds or “pizzas” of 11 slices each. The pizzza slice types run from three to eleven points (Three 3’s, Four 4’s up to Eleven 11’s). The slicer (first player) will divide the pizza up into a number of sections, one per each player in the game. Then they will add a daily special event to one of the sections, or may choose to make the daily special its own section. Each player will then choose a section to keep, with the slicer receiving the last remaining section. This is a set collection game, where you are attempting to have the most pieces of each pizza type at the end of the sixth round. If you have the most of a type, you will receive that many victory points. (have 2 or more of the “3” pieces will get you three points)  Ties will receive no points. When you take a pizza portion you also have the option to “eat” any of the slices you just acquired. Those slices will be placed upside down in a pile beside your other pieces. You may only eat a slice if it has a piece of pepperoni on it. Anchovies on slices not eaten will count as negative points against you at the end of the game, and each pepperoni on eaten slices will counts as one point at the end of the game. This makes for interesting decisions throughout the game as you have to determine if you need a slice in order to have the most of its type, or if you may want to eat it for extra points at the end of the game or to negate an anchovy.

At the end of the game, you receive points for the sets for which you have the majority, plus or minus points from daily specials, plus eaten pepperonis, minus anchovies. Special slices like the wild slice or combo slices can tip the balance for ties. Daily specials can add all sorts of strategies. There are 14 daily special included in the game, but only 4-6 are used for each game, giving lots of replayability. This is a fun game, but can get a bit thinky as people try to determine the best slice for their strategy. If you have players with analysis paralysis difficulties, you may want to add a timer for the slicer to keep the game moving. It is a light weight casual game that is lots of fun. Make sure to plan to order a pizza before you play so it will arrive when everyone is hungry after staring at yummy pizza slices for a whole game. Recommended.

Quarto!
Gigamic, 1991

Quarto is a beautiful abstract strategy game along the lines of tic-tac-toe. In Quarto, you are trying to get 4 in a row of any of the characteristics of the pieces, which are either short or tall, light or dark, round or square, solid or hollow.

The first player picks a piece and hands it to their opponent who places it on the 4×4 board, then picks out another piece and hands it back for the first player to place. This adds a layer to the strategy as you have to not only concentrate on where to place your piece, but to also be careful about which pieces you are handing to your opponent.

Quarto comes in several different variations including a full size game, a mini game (about 4″ wide) as well as travel and magnetic versions. Quarto Mini is the newest iteration, from Gigamic games. It has elegant packaging, beautiful real wood pieces and is handy to throw in a suitcase or bag to have as a filler for when you have a few minutes to kill. It plays quickly and is accessible to many ages.

I was taught this game many years ago, and liked it quite a bit, but never seemed to get around to picking up the full size game. When I saw the mini version come out, I was quite excited by the smaller size, which will be much easier to carry around with me. This game would make an awesome gift for a gift exchange or would make a good stocking stuffer (if you have a slightly larger stocking). A nice addition to any collection. Versions with plastic pieces can be found for around $15. I would recommend spending the couple extra dollars and picking up the Mini version with the real wood pieces for $25 (Note that the board is made of composite wood) for a better tactile experience. Especially if you intend to give it as a gift.

Recommended in any version.

Papayoo
Gigamic, 2010

Papayoo is a variation of your standard trick taking game. The deck is built slightly differently with the 4 normal suits (hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades) in the numbers 1-10, and a fifth suit, the Payoo suit with 20 numbered cards. The goal is to take the least amount of points during a round. More on that in a moment. Although the game uses “normal” suits, the artwork is bright and colorful which makes the game a little more fun. Note that it also, besides having the suit shapes, has different textures (circles, lines, etc) making it friendly to color blind folks as well.)

All the cards are dealt to the players. Then each player gives the player on their left a number of cards (3-5 based on number of players) from their hand. After this “draft”, a special 8 sided die (with each of the 4 “normal” suits on the die twice) is rolled. The 7 of that suit becomes the Papayoo for that hand. The dealer then leads a card and all players must follow suit if possible. The highest card in the suit led takes the trick.

Each of the Payoo suit (numbered 1-20) is scores points equal to the number value on the card at the end of the round. The Papayoo 7 (the normal suited 7 of the suit rolled on the 8 sided die) is worth 4o points. Remember, the goal is to NOT score points.

The game can be played to a pre-determined number of rounds or points.

This is a fairly standard trick taking game, without trump, but with the special dice and drafting which make it more interesting than a game of Hearts or Spades. It retails around $12-$15 and comes in a handy small tin. It is great for carrying around in a purse or vehicle to have on hand for a few rounds when you have time. It is easy to learn and play and quite a lot of fun. If you are looking for a different game for someone who likes standard trick taking games, pick this one up. It would make a good stocking stuffer or gift exchange gift. Recommended.