A large subset of modern board games are commonly referred to as “rail games”; typically, these put players in the positions of railroad builders (or even a Railroad Tycoon, in the board game version of the popular PC sim series), criss-crossing various countries in an attempt to connect the most locations and earn the most cash (and/or points). On the Underground, one of the newest entries to this venerable genre, has a slightly different thematic take on the genre, confining you to just one city — specifically, London and its famed Underground transit system. The board itself is even based on the London Underground map.

Players are assigned from two to four colors (lines) of wooden rail pieces (depending on how many are playing), as indicated by their scoring marker. One player is randomly assigned to be the Start Player, with play proceeding clockwise around the table as usual. On a player’s turn, he has four builds available to him; these builds can consist of any number of the player’s lines, but a given line can only be extended at its ends unless two Branch Tokens are spent to extend in the middle of a line. A player can earn a Branch Token by forfeiting one build or by connecting to a Terminal location, the latter of which will also score the player two points (but close off that end of the line); other spaces on the board can score points as well, as can completing a loop. The only other source of points is the Passenger.

Despite representing a mass-transit system, On the Underground features only one Passenger; at the start of the game, four Destination cards are dealt face-up and markers are placed on the board at the corresponding stops. At the end of each player’s turn, the Passenger will go to an Express Destination (gold-colored) first if one is available, then travel to a regular Destination (white), according to his own simple rules: 1) He will go to whichever destination involves the least “walking” (spaces not connected by rail lines); 2) In the event of a tie for “fewest walks”, he will take the path that uses the fewest number of lines; and 3) if both walks and lines are tied, the choice of which path he takes is up to the player whose turn it is. Each time the Passenger uses one of your lines to reach his destination(s), you score a point (per line, if applicable). The visited Destination cards (or card, if no Express) are then discarded and replaced by the next ones on the top of the deck. When the last card is dealt from the deck, the Passenger is removed from play and the game ends before the Start Player’s next turn — meaning that everyone gets the same number of turns, although not the same number of Passenger moves.

On the Underground is a fairly quick and close-scoring game, with complete games occupying only about an hour depending on the number of players and how good each player is at planning his move; while I’ve never felt impatient waiting for my turn to come around, you can’t really plan ahead, due to the constantly-shifting Destinations and potential for other players to cut you off from stations with limited junctures. Set-up time is minimal, with some special tokens being randomly distributed among specific locations for scoring purposes and then everything else is either kept handy or assigned to players. Investing in some small plastic bags might be a good idea, however, as the wooden rail pieces come in eleven different colors; I don’t know why there’s eleven when only ten are really needed, but all eleven are assigned at one time or another (three pairs are always assigned together, which can help a bit with organization). Additionally, all of the pieces are very small and easily lost.

As is the case with many rail games, On the Underground is incredibly easy for new players to grasp, with simple rules and gameplay. Moving the Passenger has a little bit of a learning curve to it, but you really only need one person to understand it; his “program” only changes when he has two or more equal choices, at which point the player generally defaults to whichever path either helps himself the most or helps the player in the lead the least.

While On the Underground is simple and fun, it is not without its faults. It is possible for inexperienced (and/or careless) players to find themselves cut off from most of the action, but that danger is really only present in games with four or five players with only two line colors each. On the other hand, having a lower number of players could actually slow the game down, as it would take longer for you to burn through the Destinations; at most, four cards will be refreshed per “turn cycle”, whereas in a four or five-player game you could flip through seven or more before it is your turn again. Ultimately, however, On the Underground is a solid gaming experience that emphasizes a balance of strategy and tactics, with very little luck or time involved.

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Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek.com

In 1997, game designer James Ernest unleashed the very first of his quirky, budget-conscious creations under the banner of Cheapass Games (not to be confused with CheapAssGamer). The company’s mission statement was simple (great games at bargain prices) and facilitated by the realization that, at some level, all board games are the same; anyone who’s ever substituted a Sorry! pawn, Scrabble tile, or even a Hot Wheels© car for a missing Monopoly piece understands this. By assuming any gamer worth his or her dice has an abundance of pawns, money, and indeed dice at his or her disposal, Ernest’s Cheapass Games provides the only unique elements to each of his titles: the board, the cards, and the rules. The first Cheapass Game was a sort of warped, reverse Clue, in which the players’ mission was to Kill Doctor Lucky (which was also the title).

Since then, Cheapass Games has turned out dozens of acclaimed titles, and even if you pick up one that doesn’t quite suit your fancy, you’re only out about six or seven bucks after shipping and handling, so what did you really lose? The original Kill Doctor Lucky has gone on to become one of the most-loved “geek” board games around, and has spawned one expansion and a spin-off (Save Doctor Lucky, which also had its own expansion). Sadly, I had never been able to play the game, as it was frequently out of print.

Imagine, then, my delight and surprise when one of my gaming group showed up at the store Tuesday night with a brown box bearing the words Kill Doctor Lucky…

…a box that included a real board, eight wooden pawns, a couple of dozen wooden tokens, and cards in color? Made by someone called Titanic Games? The hell?

As it turns out, this is the official “Deluxe Edition”, packaged like a non-Cheapass Game. It obviously can’t bear the Cheapass name, but it contains all of the trademark James Ernest humor and design. Needless to say, I was so in to play.

KDL supports up to seven players, which was conveniently how many we had. Or, as it turned out, inconveniently.

You see, in order for you to make an attempt to achieve your objective of killing the good (and lucky) doctor, you first have to be alone in a room with him; he moves at the end of each turn, so you sort of have to plan ahead. You also have to be unobserved, which means that none of the other players have you in their line of sight. With six other players, you might be able to imagine how difficult this is. On top of everything else, assuming you manage to corner Dr. Lucky in some dark corner of the mansion, you have to overcome his eponymous luck, which comes in the form of Fortune Cards played by other players. Should you manage to hurdle all of these obstacles, you succeed in killing Dr. Lucky and win the game. Fortunately for you and the other would-be assassins, used Fortune Cards are not reshuffled into the deck when it is exhausted, meaning the old boy has to run out of luck sometime.

Were that the entirety of the rules, it might not be so difficult, but there are of course a couple of additional wrinkles. The most infuriating is the fact that if the Doctor moves into a room inhabited by another player, it immediately becomes that player’s turn. This can set up an inconvenient series of moves that enable one player to receive multiple turns in a row, or have the turn order cycle between the same handful of players, leaving the others to wait impotently until fate finally looks their way. The Deluxe version includes a rule that prevents this from happening until every player has had one turn, but that’s really just delaying the inevitable.

The other inconvenience, which I believe is unique to the Deluxe Edition, is spite tokens. Every time your assassination attempt is foiled, you receive one token. These increase all of your subsequent attempts’ values, and can also be spent to thwart the attempts of others, who then receive all of the tokens spent this way plus the additional one for a foiled attempt.

Here’s the problem: by the time all of the Fortune Cards had been used in our game, we had each amassed a decent pile of tokens. All seven of us. It quickly became apparent that our game was only going to end in one of two ways: 1) one person accumulates a majority of the tokens and then makes an uncounterable attempt; or 2) someone decides that we’ve been playing long enough and declines to spend tokens to thwart an attempt. Eventually, we took the latter option; we probably could have been there all night just passing tokens around the table.

But despite the dual complications of having a full compliment of players and the somewhat obtrusive dual nature of the spite tokens, it was still a very fun time. The “dynamic turns” nonsense is a realistic reflection of what would happen (why wouldn’t you act immediately as your prey entered the room?) and, while frustrating, was also largely forgivable. If you find yourself with the opportunity to play any version of this game, do not hesitate to do so — although you might want to either abandon the tokens or decide that they can’t be spent as Fortune, just to speed things up.

In Taluva, your objective is to establish your territory by building settlements on a volatile, volcanic island in the South Pacific. Each player’s turn consists of two steps:

1. Draw a random tile of three hexes, one depicting a volcano and the other two depicting two less-fiery terrains (grassland, jungle, lake, rock, or sand) and place it on the play area. You may place it adjacent to any hex, or you may place it on top of already-placed tiles as long as you observe the various restrictions: the volcano hex must be placed on top of another volcano hex; there cannot be any empty space beneath the tile; the volcano must “flow” in a different direction than the one it is covering; and you can’t bury an entire settlement. Also, if a hex has a tower or temple built on it, you cannot cover that hex, and the maximum height of a hex is three tiles — although orchestrating a scenario in which you could play a level-four tile is unlikely anyway. Any huts buried by a tile are removed from the game and not returned to their owners’ reserves.
2. After placing your tile, you must place one or more buildings via four specific options for doing so: you may place one hut on any vacant (non-volcano) one-height hex; you may place a tower on a vacant (non-volcano) hex that is three tiles high and adjacent to one of your settlements that does not currently contain a tower; you may place a temple on a vacant (non-volcano) hex adjacent to one of your settlements that spans at least three other hexes and does not currently contain a temple; or you can expand one of your existing settlements into all vacant neighboring hexes of a single terrain by placing a number of huts in each hex equal to its height. You cannot choose an option for which you have insufficient buildings in your reserve, and if you cannot place any buildings then you are eliminated from the remainder of the game.

Play continues until either the supply of volcano tiles runs out or one player exhausts his supply of two of the three types of building. In the case of the former (and more likely) condition, the winner is whoever placed the most temples, with towers and huts breaking further ties in a similar manner. The player who manages to achieve the second condition claims the “premature” victory.

At first glance it seems like Taluva has a pile of rules that restrict your choices, but game play simplifies once you realize the implied rule of “you can’t place one tile completely on top of another one” — since every volcano hex “flows” the same way on every tile, the only way to achieve the “different flow” condition is to have the new tile span two or three lower tiles. Once that becomes apparent, the other, more intuitive mechanics quickly fade into the background (with the assistance of useful rules summary cards), allowing you to concentrate on actually playing the game.

Taluva is a quick game — even with three of our four players never having played before, our first game only took about an hour; more experienced players should be able to complete a game in about 30-40 minutes. Your choice of tactics is subtle but important, as there is no random element beyond the types of non-volcano terrain on each hex; everything else is dependant on the actions and decisions of yourself and the other players, which makes for more satisfying strategy and conflict. Taluva is also a good-looking game, with the full-color, lightly textured tiles being made out of very thick cardboard and the four sets of wooden buildings painted in red, yellow, brown, and white to make them stand out on the predominant greens on the tiles. The choice to use cardboard instead of wood or plastic for the tiles mitigates both the overall cost and overall weight of the game without sacrificing durability; the wooden building pieces are rather small, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for most families/playgroups. Overall, Taluva‘s strategic emphasis, quick game play, and general aesthetics combine to offer a rewarding experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Which Renaissance aristocrat can inspire the greatest intellectual works and gain the most prestige amongst his peers? That’s the premise behind The Princes of Florence (Princes), a game that combines auctions, restricted actions, limited resources, and a wide variety of options into seven turns of possibilities.

The strategy inherent in Princes begins before the actual gameplay, as you get to choose your starting roster of three Professions out of the four cards dealt to you; each Profession is inspired by different buildings, landscapes, and freedoms that you can potentially add to your palazzo over the course of your seven turns. Once that’s taken care of and you’ve received your starting Florins, the game begins.

Each turn is divided into two phases. In the Auction phase, each player bids on one of seven items that can aid them in their journey of inspiration; this is the only way these items can be acquired, so you will only be able to obtain seven of them over the course of the game — choose wisely. Further coplicating the matter is that once a specific item has been won, no other player can win that item on that turn, presenting a potential opportunity to deny your rivals of a vital piece of their strategy… that is, if you can outbid them. There’s also a limited number of each item available, so don’t miss your chance to pick up something you really need.

After the final player wins an item at the Auction, each player enters his Action Phase, wherein they have two opportunities with which to complete five different actions. These actions include completing the Work of one (or two) of your Professions, which is the primary method for gaining Prestige — and the only way to earn more Florins for future purchases… but at the expense of some of your hard-earned Prestige. Of course, unless you use actions to add buildings (if you have space) and freedoms (if any are left), the Works produced in your palazzo won’t be worth very much, so you need to plan carefully. As an additional complication, each turn carries an ever-increasing “minimum Work value”; if you can’t meet that minimum value, then you can’t produce a Work that turn… maybe you should invest in your palazzo (or a Bonus card to goose a future Work’s value) instead?

Once the final turn has ended, there is one final phase in which any Prestige Cards (purchased at Auction) may come into play. These can be powerful, game-swinging effects that might add from three to as much as eight Prestige points to your score if you can meet the conditions on the card. Picking one of these up early will allow you to tailor your plans to meet their conditions, but at the expense of a potentially vital stage of early palazzo development. After these last-minute adjustments, whoever has the most Prestige is the winner.

As you can see, Princes offers a dizzying array of options and a tormentingly limited number of chances to take the ones you want (or need). There are strategic decisions that have to be made at every turn, and making the wrong choice could result in a sacrifice of Prestige in order to fill your meager coffers with enough Florins to proceed. It’s a delicate balance that may seem overwhelmingly complicated at first, but most players pick up on the basics quickly and are soon in the clutches of the varied strategy provided by Princes.

The physical appearance of Princes isn’t quite as intricate as the actual gameplay, however. There is a substantial amount of text, including three different types of cards (actually four, but Recruiting cards are all identical), and some rules aren’t outlined on the players’ palazzo sheets, so additional reading for reminders might be necessary on occasion. The other pieces are mostly lightweight cardboard with basic illustrations; the Florins are a little thicker, because they get handled more often. Landscapes and buildings are arranged in Tetris-like structures that must be fitted into your palazzo’s limited space when purchased; additionally, buildings cannot be adjacent to each other unless you have won your second Builder at Auction, adding yet another layer to the game’s strategy. The final components are colored wooden markers for keeping score on the track and for marking which Auction items have been won by which player.

Of course, Princes isn’t out to win any beauty contests. The very premise of the game is the completion of great intellectual works (ok… some of those have aesthetic roots), so naturally its greatest strength is its intellectual challenge. While this may provide something of a barrier to the more casual gamer, the depth of play offered by Princes will reward anyone willing to give it a shot (or two).