Dutch designer Corné van Moorsel brings Factory Fun to the US courtesy of Z-Man Games. A deceptively complex game, Factory Fun will tax your brain as you struggle to arrange machines in your factory in order to maximize your profit. This is not an easy task; by the end of the game your factory will most likely be a chaotic snarl of pipes unless you plan carefully — and are a little lucky. 

Each player (from two to five) is issued a factory board (each slightly different), three white output reservoir tiles, one of each of the four colored supply containers, and a stack of ten face-down machine tiles. Available to all players are an essentially unlimited supply of connecting pipe tiles, thirteen black end product reservoir tiles, and two spare supply tiles of each color. All players start on the 2 position of the money/score track, and the object is to have the most cash after ten rounds.

Each round begins with all players taking one of their face-down machine tiles and simultaneously revealing them in a central area. Players then get to take one of the available machines to install in their factory, but it’s not quite as simple as that. Any player can take any machine; whoever touches a given machine tile first is the one who is stuck with it, for better or worse, so you have to quickly evaluate the feasibility of actually using each machine before a rival swoops in and takes it from you. If you take a machine and do not place it you are penalized five dollars/points, unless you are the last player to select one in a given round.

Each machine has one or more colored inputs with values ranging from 1 to 3 and one output that is either a similarly-valued color or a black end product. All of these connections must be satisfied in order to install the machine. Inputs must be connected to either a supply container or an output of the same color and equal or greater value; outputs must be contained by a white reservoir, other machine’s input or equal or lower value, or a black end product reservoir. You will often need to use various pipes to meet these requirements, and a given pipe can only contain one color of product, so plan accordingly. Placing any non-machine tile costs you one dollar, calculated after you are finished with the installation; each machine is worth its printed value, with more cash being awarded for more complicated and/or demanding devices. You can also move or rotate tiles relatively freely (a move costs one dollar; you are effectively picking it up for zero and replacing it for one), although you are limited to being able to move only two preexisting machines (at a cost of two each) each time you install a new one.

Careful management of your outputs is critical. The limitation of only getting three of the white catch-all reservoirs is one major reason, as is the fact that it will be all but impossible to have all of your inputs satisfied by your supply containers, but connection bonuses are the most important factor. Whenever you connect an output of one machine with an input of another (bearing in mind that you have to meet the input’s requirements), you earn an end of game bonus of five times the value of the connected input (5 for a 1 value, 10 for a 2, and 15 for a 3). With skilled pipe work you can even combine or split outputs in order to make the numbers work: a 3 output can be split to feed a 2 and a 1 input, or three 1 outputs could merge to satisfy a hungry 3 input. Bonus points are often the difference between winning and losing.

Being aware of what outputs you have available to you is key when determining what machine to take each round, but there are a couple of other factors to keep in mind. Certain tiles award you a bonus supply container of one color (one even lets you choose which color), which can be a life-saver in tight situations. Machines that produce the black end product are often worth a lot of cash, but the trade-off there is the fact that the black reservoirs are dead ends and can’t be combined. Perhaps the most important skill to develop is knowing when to forfeit constructing a machine; it can be worth taking a loss if you’re generating bonus payoffs, but sometimes the cost will simply be too much given your current layout.

The amount of thinking and manipulation required to manage your ever-sprawling network of pipes and machines makes Factory Fun seem like less fun than advertised, but successfully surviving the entire ten rounds often changes the overall impression to that of a good mental workout. My only real complaint is the difficulty in keeping track of the cost of extensive remodels towards the later rounds, but that could jut be relative inexperience. The factory boards are double sided, with the reverse “expert” side containing more difficult layouts for advanced play. Factory Fun retails for around $50, which feels about right for the sheer amount of cardboard contained within. As mentioned, it’s a serious brain burner, but even with all of that work a game still plays out in the space of about forty-five minutes to an hour.

Andreas Steading’s Hansa Teutonica (published in the US by Z-Man Games) is a difficult game to describe, since there is a lot going on and not a lot of thematic reasoning to help explain it.

Each player (from three to five, with additional two-player rules provided and a double-sided board accommodating either 2/3 or 4/5 players) has a board indicating his strength in five different abilities; all of the spaces on the board save the left-most in each ability begin the game with a cube or disk covering it. The rest of a player’s cubes (and one remaining disk) are split between his active supply and his stock according to player order. The abilities and supply/stock mechanic are reminiscent of another Z-man published title, Endeavor, but the similarities (and easy comparisons) end there.

On a player’s turn he has a number of actions as indicated by his current ranking in that ability. Each of those actions can be one of five different types: 1) placing a cube or disk on a route; 2) claiming a completed route and either installing an office in one of the cities (if you have the appropriate privilege level for the current office; the other cubes/disks are returned to the player’s stock) on one end or advancing in an indicated ability if applicable (the removed cube/disk is added to the player’s active supply and the ones on the route are all sent to the stock); 3) drawing a number of cubes and/or disks from your stock to your active supply (the number determined by your “money bag” income ability); 4) rearranging a number of cubes/disks on the board (equal to your current “book” ability); or 5) displacing an opponent’s cube/disk. Displacing a cube costs you one additional cube, and displacing a disk costs two cubes; the displaced player then gets to take that many cubes and/or disks from his stock and places them, along with the displaced object, on an adjacent route. Forcing other players to displace your pieces is a very strong tactic, as it costs them pieces while providing you with additional ones.

A point is scored whenever a player has control of a city (the most or, if tied, right-most offices in that city) and an adjoining route is completed. Additional points can be scored by claiming certain offices (often ones with only one adjoining path) or if a player manages to connect the two red-indicated towns (on opposite ends of the map). A player reaching twenty points will end the game, although the scores will not remain there for long. There are also two other ways to trigger the end of the game: when the supply of bonus disks is exhausted, or when ten cites on the board are completed. Bonus disks lie along certain routes and provide one of several free actions for later use; when a disk is claimed, a new disk is placed along an empty route by the active player at the end of that turn. Completing cities is such a rare and difficult task (due to privilege requirements) that a situation in which that condition is met before one of the other two seems impossible to visualize, but it must exist as a viable condition for a reason.

Regardless of how the game ends, bonus points are then scored for various categories. Each maxed-out ability (save one) is worth four points. Claimed bonus disks (used or not) are worth an increasing number of points based on how many you have collected. Each player scores one point for each office he controls in the longest chain of connected towns, which is then further multiplied by that player’s “town key” ability (the one ability that doesn’t award a bonus on its own). A player also scores two points for each city he controls. Finally, any players that have placed a disk on the “Colleen” space on the board scores the corresponding number of points (from seven to eleven). 

As you can see, there are a ton of options, which means a staggering number of choices each turn. New players can (and usually will) be overcome with a sense of having absolutely no clue what to do, and observing a game in progress doesn’t help as there is seemingly no rhyme or reason as to what is going on. The only real way to learn is to play; if one or two players have even only a couple more games’ worth of experience they will probably be destroyed. Not helping matters is the incredibly dry theme (something about 12th – 14th century Germanic merchants forming a sort of trade league… yeah) which does nothing to draw in new players. That basically just leaves a lot of wooden cube-pushing to wade through, which is decidedly not for everyone. The strategy is definitely there, and multiple apparent routes to victory provide additional depth. If the lack of theme is something you can deal with (or, in some cases, prefer), Hansa Teutonica can be picked up at a gaming store for about $50, although I’d recommend playing a game or two first if possible to make sure.

If there’s anything goblins really enjoy, it’s fighting. Kim Satô’s GoSu (published by Moonster Games) puts each player (from two to four) in the position of a goblin warlord looking to assemble an army and seize Goblin Supremacy. By combining goblins of three different levels from the five clans into a fighting force, warlords hope to achieve victory in enough Great Battles to do so.

Of course, goblins need structure or they’ll just run amok. Each player is dealt a starting hand of seven cards from the communal 100-card deck: fifty level-1 (“Bakuto”) goblins, five each from each of the five clans (colors), duplicated; thirty-five level-2 (“Hero”) goblins, seven from each clan; and fifteen level-3 (“Okzeki”), three from each clan. The clans themselves are Ancient Globan (white), Alpha Goblins (green), Dark Goblins (black), Meka Goblins (blue), and Fire Goblins (red); the colors and general feel of the clans generally correspond to their equivalents from Magic: the Gathering, as does the overall look of the cards themselves, but there’s really no tie between the games. Using these cards, players will assemble an array that maxes out at five columns wide and three rows high. But as with anything goblin-related, it’s not quite as simple as that.

On a player’s turn, they can take one of five actions: 1) play a goblin from his hand to his army; 2) mutate a goblin in his army into another one from his hand (or in the case of some Dark Goblins, the discard pile); 3) play one of their two activation tokens on a goblin with an activated ability (no goblin can have two tokens on it); 4) spend an activation token to draw a card — or both tokens to draw three; or 5) pass, ending their participation in the round. It is important to note that you cannot reclaim a spent activation token within a round unless a goblin’s ability allows it; otherwise you have to wait until the round ends, so use them carefully.

Playing your first bakuto into your army is free; if your army is later reduced to no goblins (generally this happens early on) any subsequent “first” goblin(s) is also free. Any additional bakuto is free if it is the same clan as a bakuto already in your clan, otherwise you have to discard two cards from your hand. In order to play a hero you need to have 1) at least one bakuto of that hero’s clan in your army and 2) a bakuto without a hero already “above” it in your ranks; there are no other costs. Ozekis have similar requirements, except you need both a matching bakuto and a matching hero and the empty space needs to be above a hero. Any goblin with a mutation cost (indicated on the card next to a yin-yang symbol) can be replaced by another one of equivalent rank by discarding that number of cards; unlike playing a goblin, there are no clan requirements, so you can use this ability to add a goblin of an unrepresented clan to either your bakutos or heroes (ozekis don’t mutate). The only restriction is that a given bakuto cannot mutate into the other copy of himself.

Once all players have passed for the round, the Great Battle for that round begins. Each level of goblin is worth a set amount of strength: two for bakutos, three for heroes, and five for ozekis. This makes math quick, as each full column (one of each) is worth ten, each two-thirds column is worth five, and each lone bakuto two; often a casual glance at each army can determine the winner without any real math being done. Whoever has the highest strength wins the Great Battle and earns a Victory Point, three of which are required to win the game. Certain ozekis have abilities that can grant victory to any player who meets their alternate requirements, so keep track of what’s going on in the upper ranks. If nobody has claimed victory at the conclusion of a Great Battle, everyone reclaims their spent advantage tokens and a new round begins.

What does not happen, however, is any drawing of cards. All card drawing after the initial hands are dealt is done via the abilities of various goblins (or spending activation tokens as an action). There are all kinds of abilities, so it helps to be aware of the options available to you. Some Dark Goblins have the ability to “trap” other goblins; a trapped goblin is turned face down, counting for neither clan nor strength, until the end of the Great Battle — although it can still be used as a support card when placing a goblin of a higher level. Other goblins interact with “free” cards; a card with no card on its right or above it is considered “free”, so there are only from one to three free cards in each army at any given time. Finally, the abilities of some goblins increase in strength if you are not leading in Victory Points.

A game of GoSu can vary wildly in time, as certain abilities can result in everyone drawing additional cards and potentially quite lengthy rounds. This can be especially annoying if those abilities happen after you’ve passed for the round and thus you have to just sit and watch everyone else play — and then you get crushed in the Great Battle since you had to stop developing your army. On the other extreme, a couple of timely destruction effects can quickly reduce a player to no legal plays and an easy victory in the Great Battle; this problem is especially prevalent in two-player games. Further adding to the fluctuating time requirement are the Dark Goblins who have the “zombie mutation” ability, as they allow players to dig through the entire discard pile to find a replacement; I recommend keeping the discards sorted by level to cut down on that issue. 

The cards are sturdy enough to play without sleeves, and are wonderfully illustrated, but there are only 100 of them. That is a very tiny amount for the size of the $30 box that contains them (which is about 4″x6″x2″); even with any potential future expansions (the first should arrive in March 2011) there’s still a bunch of room in there. Overall I find GoSu to be a fun experience, but not one I personally want to play with any regularity. There’s just too much variance that can tilt the game towards one player without any real chance of the other(s) catching up, and later rounds are often forgone conclusions. Still, it captures its theme well and enjoyable enough when I’m in the mood for some chaotic fun with just enough strategy to keep things interesting.

This civilization-building game designed by Antione Bauza (Ghost Stories) will task you with taking your randomly-selected ancient city from nothing to dominance in three ages (rounds). From three to seven players can participate (the game also includes an advanced 2-player option), but no matter how many are actually playing you are really generally concerned with three until the final scoring: you and your immediate neighbors.

Also independent of the actual number of players is the time it takes to complete a game; generally a half an hour is all you need, although a few learning games are to be expected that might take as many as forty minutes if someone is particularly prone to analysis paralysis.

The quick play time is due to simultaneous execution of actions each turn. An age consists of each player playing six cards, one at a time. A card can either be built as the indicated building for its indicated cost (if any), used as part of your city’s Wonder if you have access to the required resources, or discarded to gain three coins. Resources are generated by previously-constructed buildings (each city has an inherent resource available as well) or purchased from a neighbor for two coins; some buildings allow you to build a specific building or two in the following age without paying its cost, which can be very useful, although it is worth remembering that you cannot have two copies of the same building in your city. Each player is dealt seven cards, but it wouldn’t be much of a game if you just had to choose six of them and play them out — which is where the real fun of 7 Wonders shows up: drafting.

Of the seven cards you are dealt, you will only play one; the rest are passed to one of your neighbors (to the left in the first and third ages, to the right in the second). After everyone plays the card they selected, you pick up the passed cards and select your next, repeating this process until the sixth action when you choose one of the final two passed cards to play and discard the other one for no effect. Being aware of what resources and/or free buildings are available to the neighbor receiving your passed cards is a key strategy (and one of the few times non-neighbors are even remotely relevant to you); “eating” a key card as part of your Wonder or for coins can be very useful. This can also be important when considering the green “science” cards, which score based on completing sets of  them (including both sets of one of the three types as well as sets of all three types) and can be devastating if someone is allowed to collect them unchecked.

Interactions with your neighbors are not just restricted to commerce and strategic card denial. At the end of each age, neighbors wage war with each other by comparing the number of shields they have in their city. Whoever has the higher total across each neighboring border earns extra points (one in the first age, three in the second, and five in the third), while whoever has the lower total loses a point; ties score no points. Losing a battle is always just a single-point penalty, so arms races are rarely worth the effort — although a six-point penalty (three losses each age to each neighbor) could be crucial, as scoring is often tight. Every three coins is also worth a point at the end of the game, although it is almost always better to spend to build cards (by buying resources from neighbors) rather than hoard cash.

As the game progresses, the available cards change. The first age is mostly basic resources and a few small bonuses. The second age has essentially double the potential resources, while the deck for the third age contains no resources at all but instead contains a randomly-chosen subset (two more than the number of players) of ten “guild” cards that provide bonus points (mostly) based on what your neighbors have accomplished. The number of players also dictates which cards are present in each age’s deck; each card has a number from 3+ to 7 on its face, indicating how many players allow that card to be used, and removing the invalid cards is the only real set-up required. This makes some cards rarer than others in certain configurations, but mostly exists just to balance everything out. Each of the cities’ Wonders have various benefits to constructing each level, although on Side A all Wonders’ first and third stages are identical (save cost); every city board is two-sided to provide more replay variety, and both sides are balanced to play against any combination of A and B sides.

7 Wonders occupies a curious borderland between “filler” and “main” game. Anything that can comfortably accommodate seven players is a useful addition to any gaming group, and the quick set up and play times ensure that it won’t overstay its welcome. The retail price of fifty dollars seems a bit much for 160 large cards, some cardboard, and a few wooden disks, but the true value of 7 Wonders lies in its versatility.