5 in 4

Pop quiz, hot shot! You've got 5 two-player games and an afternoon to kill. What do you do? What do you do?

The answer? Go and visit David Q. Smith of Mondo Comico fame and play the heck out of them. So here are 5 games we played in (just under) 4 hours.

13. Star System

by Walter Obert
Players: 2
Ages: 9+
Time: 30+ minutes
Type of game: Deductive Card Game
Recommended?: No

 A Cluedo/Guess Who? type game. Be the first to work out which 5 of 20 stars are featured in your opponents movie. Although why he's trying to keep it a secret is beyond me. Not my favourite hidden information game which is why it's now on the shelf of Mondo waiting to be sold!

14. Lord of the Rings: The Duel

by Peter Neugebauer

Players: 2
Ages: 10+
Time: 45+ minutes
Type of game: Hand management
Recommended?: Yes

The fight between Gandalf and the Balrog played out with cards. Exactly turn you must play a card. You shall not pass! Ahahahahahaha! How funny I am.

This is fantastically over produced with Gandalf and Balrog represented by odd little wooden pieces and a lovely cardboard bridge is included to walk them on to represent who has the upper hand at any one time.

Each card has four slots on each side. An filled slot is an attack, an empty one is not. Your opponent plays a card and them you must answer it. Any filled slots that are unanswered by another filled slot means 1 damage to the opponent.

You will play with every card in the deck during the game so you need to make sure you don't use all your best cards up-front.

15. Pick & Pack

by Simon Hunt

Players: 2
Ages: 8+
Time: 20+ minutes
Type of game: Light Abstract Strategy
Recommended?: Yes
A fun little apple collection game where you and your opponent operate a claw grabber like in those fairground machines that contain awful stuffed toys that you can never win because the machine is fixed (or for readers in Japan - UFO Grabbers that contain cool toys and actually give you a very good chance of winning.)

The twist is that one of you controls the horizontal movement on their go as the other moves vertical on theirs. So you've got to try and get something good while denying them on their turn. Or... do you set them up with something so appealing that they'll set you up for an even better tile on your next go.

Beyond the core tiles you have action tiles that can be triggered by landing on an empty space. These can increase the value of your apples or decrease the value of your opponents allowing you to pip them to the top spot.

I've run out of apple gags now.

16. Strike Dice

by Michael Andresakis and Alexander Argyropoulos

Players: 2-4

Ages: 8+
Time: 20+ minutes
Type of game: Random Abstract Strategy
Recommended?: No

Gah.

Full disclosure: I play-tested this game and helped to re-write the rules (as in, make them clearer not change them).

That said, despite being emotionally invested in this and having real respect for the visual attention that these guys have given Strike Dice and their other game, Eragra, I struggle to say many positive things about this game.

An abstract strategy game with pawns of random strength. This unbalances the game so much that it becomes way more about luck than strategy.

The rules are still wilfully obtuse and over-written making a relatively basic game seem complicated and deep at first glance.

Good luck to them but I won't be keeping it.

17. Stratego: Star Wars

by Jacques Johan Mogendorff / Uncredited

Players: 2

Ages: 8+
Time: 30+ minutes
Type of game: Secret movement
Recommended?: No

Classic Stratego with a twist of Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. That's what happens when you make a game midway through a prequel trilogy.

Yours and your opponents pieces are hidden from each other until one attacks the other. Then the pieces involved in the combat are revealed to decide the outcome. The loser removes their piece from the board and tries to remember the location and type of piece in order to make a succesful path to the enemies hidden goal piece.

With certain pieces that work against each other best (think you've found a bomb? You need a droid to defuse it) your brain will be twisting and turn to keep track of what's where.

Unless you're me with my limited patience for abstract strategy games in which case you'll kamikaze charge your way to certain doom.

And yet... I think this might stay. David Q. Smith talked very fondly of playing this as a child and a game like this would be good to have in the house when I finally have children. Because surely I'll be able to beat them at it!

I've weirdly forgotten who won what... Perhaps David remembers.

Risky Business

9. Risk: Nostalgia Edition

by Albert Lamorisse and Michael I. Levin

Players: 2 - 6
Ages: 10+
Time: 120+ minutes
Type of game: Family / War

Reccomended?: Meh

The aim of the game is to defeat  destroy decimate your opponents and conquer the world. A bit like Monopoly but with cold steel and warm blood instead of rent extortion and debtors jail.

In this Nostalgia edition, perfectly replicating an olden days game, you have exciting battles between cubes (1 army) and, if you're very lucky, odd-shaped beads (10 armies). If you're very, very sad lucky you can use a Lego Deathstar* (20 armies).

On your turn, you receive some reinforcements (decided by the number of countries and complete continents you hold) turn in some cards for more reinforcements and then attack!

You attack by selecting up to 3 armies from one of your countries and attempting to invade an adjacent country by rolling the same number of dice. Your opponent will choose to roll up to 2 dice (1 per defending army up to a maximum of 2).

You compare the highest and next highest dice in each roll. The aggressor wins if his dice is higher, defender has a home advantage and wins on tie or higher. Extra dice go unanswered and won't affect the combat.

You remove 1 army for each dice that is beaten. If the country is now empty the aggressor must move at least the undefeated armies from this roll in and may bring further armies from that country (leaving at least 1). If the country is still occupied the aggressor can attack again or decide to leave it until another turn.

On your turn you can attack as much or as little as you like. If you capture at least 1 country you will receive a card which you can trade in at the beginning of future turns for more armies.

And that's about it. There is only 1 way to win. Total annihilation of your opponents. Whilst this ensures you won't have any namby pamby ties, it does mean that for a portion of the game some or most of your opponents will be wiped out and start milling around looking for something more interesting to do.

Later editions fixed this problem by adding victory conditions and secret missions.

In the below pictures, I'm black, Louisa is yellow and Luke is red. 2 things have become apparent from my games of Risk:
1) it's a bit samey and long
2) I'm not very good at Risk

Nothing says Global Domination like a cartoon whale in a jaunty hat

Luke's Deathstar marches across the world

Victory! Now let's play something else...

*Lego Deathstar sold separately.