Board Games

It’s a while now since we as a family finally picked up a copy of Carcassonne and found our selves completely hooked on this immersive tile laying game. One of the wonderful things about Carcassonne though is that whilst the standard base game is a thing of beauty in itself the various expansions and mini-expansions that are also available take it forward in whole different dimensions. Literally in the case of The Tower expansion.

Carcassonne Base Game

Rewinding a little bit – let’s start with a few words about Carcassonne itself for any readers who are unfamiliar with it. The basics of the game is that players lay tiles to build up a map of a medieval landscape, with the name of the game coming from the French Medieval Fortified Town of Carcassonne. Each square tile in the base game may have on it a road, part of a city, a monastery or just green fields. When you lay a tile it has to have a side adjacent to an already laid tile and you have to make sure that all features line up correctly.

Players also have meeples; little wooden playing pieces resembling people. After you have laid a tile you may be able to add a meeple in a specific role on one of the features on your tile with the aim of scoring points as the game progresses or at the end of the game. Meeples might be positioned on roads, in cities, in a monastery or on a field and different points are allocated to each depending on how a feature is either completed or how it is at the end of the game.

Mini-Expansions in the Carcassonne Base Game

Some of the Carcassonne expansions introduce different meeples as is seen with the mini-expansion that comes with the base game in the form of an Abbot meeple who can be placed (and removed) from Monastery or Garden tiles. Also included in the base game is a second mini-expansion: The River. The river tiles are played at the start of the game and give some added variety to the medieval landscape that you build.

Other Carcassonne Expansions

In addition to the base game there are a number of Carcassonne Expansions which all always require the base game to play them. These expansions can be played alone, or joined together with other expansions to make an even larger game. We’ve slowly started collecting expansions when we see them on special offer, or by buying them as gifts for each other. So far we have: 1. Inns and Cathedrals, 2. Traders and Builders and 5. Abbey and Mayor, but it is expansion number 4 The Tower which I received for my recent birthday that I want to share here.

Introducing The Tower

The Tower expansion contains two key things, the first of which being more of a playing aid than a key part of the game itself. A large cardboard tower is the need for The Tower’s box to be a different shape to make of the other Carcassonne expansions, and it gives an alternative way for players to pick up tiles to lay rather than just using piles on the table or a cloth bag. We’ve found that this works really well for a two player game, but if there are more of you it can sometimes be a bit more tricky to reach it depending where on the table it is, or having to pass it round players when it is their turn.

Building Towers

The second part of the expansion is what you need to play: 18 land tiles with tower foundations on them, and 30 wooden tower floors. The tiles all work in the same way as regular Carcassonne tiles and just all feature a space for a tower to sit on them. The wooden tower floors are shaped so that they can be stacked on top of each other to form a stable tower, and also so that a meeple can stand on top of the tower without falling off.

The number of players in your game determines how many tower floors each player receives at the start. The tower tiles are then shuffled in with the other Carcassonne tiles and play commences as usual.

When a player draws a new tower base land tile they can lay it inn exactly the same way as they would other tiles in the game. Once laid they have a choice as to what to do next.

Players can just place a meeple on one of the features on their tile as they would normally do, or there are three different things that they can do with the tower tiles.

Firstly they could place a tower floor on ANY tower base tile that has already been played. It doesn’t have to be the one that has just been played. They could instead place a tower floor on any existing open tower in the landscape. There is no limit to how tall a tower can be in Carcassonne. Finally they could place a meeple on top of any existing tower, closing that tower.

Capturing Meeples

Whilst this all may sound very straightforward you may be wondering what the purpose of the towers is. Towers enable you to capture meeples, adding a whole new dimension to the game of Carcassonne. Whenever you place a tower floor you may capture one meeple from surrounding tiles. The height of the tower that you have built on determines which tiles you can capture a meeple from. If the tower is only one floor high you can capture a meeple from the tower tile itself, or from one tile in any direction horizontal or vertical, not diagonal. If the tower is three floors high you can capture a mettle from the tower tile itself, or from three tiles in any direction horizontal or vertical.

It’s also worth pointing out here that you can capture your own meeples as well as those belonging to there players. Particularly useful if you have one that is no longer serving a purpose and that you want to return to the game to be useful and score you some points.

Meeples on Towers

Once a tower has a meeple on top of it, it is classed as closed, meaning that players can no longer place more tower floors on it. However, that’s not necessarily the end of the tower, as a player can capture a meeple on top of a tower if they build floors on another one within striking distance.

Meeple Exchanges

When two players have captured meeples belonging to each other you have to exchange them immediately and then those meeples go back into your stock to be played again as the game continues. If you don’t have a meeple to exchange with, but you want one of yours back you can buy it back with points. Each meeple costs you three points and so you remove three points from you, and add them to the player that you are buying the meeple back from. If you do not have at least three points then you can’t buy your meeple back.

The Tower and other expansions

In the way that all Carcassonne expansions are beautifully designed to work with each other, there is a whole page of the rule booklet explaining how you combine expansions and with details of which meeple types can and can’t be placed on a tower, and which ones you can and can’t capture from the board. There are also other wonderful lines in there about dragons being able to eat meeples on towers and how a fairy does not protect a meeple from capture. It almost makes me want to get the Princess and Dragon expansion just so I can quote rules like this at the start of a game!

What we thought of The Tower

Oh how this expansion has changed our game! I think that so far The Tower has to be my favourite Carcassonne expansion. The ability to disrupt another player’s game is actually huge. It doesn’t just mean you can stop other players gaining points, but it really makes you think about where to risk placing your meeples so that they are not in danger. With just a handful of games under our belt so far we are yet to combine it with other expansions, but again I think the impact will be great. You have to be so much more strategic in how you play and think ahead about what might happen further on in the game. It’s made me re-think how I play and breathed new life into the game yet again.

Buying the Carcassonne The Tower Expansion

With more and more toy and book shops selling the Carcassonne base game you have to look a bit further to find the expansion packs. Specialist game shops often have a great selection, but otherwise many independent shops sell online, or you can pick them up online easily enough from Amazon. Just be careful when ordering from there that you ensure you are getting the correct language version of the expansion. An English version of The Tower is available here.

Disclaimer: All products mentioned in this post have been purchased with my own money. The links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links. If you go via them and make any purchase I receive a small commission, but it costs you no more than if you’d arrived there under your own steam. All commissions are very gratefully received. Thank you.

Our family board gaming has taken a twist away from some of the much loved vintage games lately, and on to some of the more modern games that appear to be finding their way on to the high street via various book and game shops. After seeing a video describing gameplay on YouTube Azul quickly jumped to the top of my want list, mainly due to the tactile nature of the game.

Azul – Aim of the Game

The main aim of the game Azul is to tile a wall in pretty Portuguese style coloured tiles – which in this game are just that; incredibly tactile physical tiles which feel lovely to touch and play with. The way in which you tile your wall dictates your score and at the end of the game the player with the highest score wins.

Azul – How to Play

Azul works for 2 to 4 players and each player has their own double sided playing board and a scoring marker. On one side of the board there is a wall template to follow, whilst the other side has a blank wall for you to tile. At the top of each playing board is a scoring track and each player keeps track of their own score will a small black scoring cube. All players start on zero.

All the Azul tiles are kept in a lovely cloth bag and there are additionally a total of nice circular card discs which represent the factories and a first player tile.

The number of players dictates the number of factories in the game and it should be twice the number of players plus one. So in a two player game you have five factories and in a four player game all nine factories. The required number of factories are placed in the middle of the playing table in a circle and the player who is going first takes the first player tile and then draws from the bag four tiles for each of the factories in play.

Once the factories are set up the first player can choose one factory from which they want to select tiles. In one go they can only take tiles from one factory, and they can only take tiles of one colour at a time. All remaining tiles in a factory are then placed in the space in the centre of the factories. Once they’ve taken their first tiles the first player also places the first player tile in the middle of the factories, alongside the additional tiles.

Once a player has taken tiles they then place them on the area to the left of their playing board where it looks a bit like a ladder wall. Tiles can only be placed on one row of this at a time and at the end of a round only completed lines on this section will allow tiles to be placed on the final wall. For the top row of the wall you only need one tile, but the bottom row requires you to have all five tiles in place by the end of the round.

Players then continue in turn to draw tiles from the factories, or if they prefer, they can take tiles from the space in the middle of the factories. The first player to draw from the middle is also forced to take the first player tile. This means that they go first in the next round, but this tile also has to go on the Factory Floor on their playing board. At all times players must only take tiles of one colour and they must take all tiles of that one colour in that location.

Factory Floor

In addition to the first player tile mentioned above, if, after drawing tiles you have any tiles that you can not place on the left hand side of the board then these fall to the “factory floor” where they are rendered useless and deduct from your score at the end of the round. The factory floor is depicted by the space at the bottom of your playing board. This might happen if you take more tiles than you need to complete a row, or if you are forced to take a colour that you can not accommodate in your final wall design. Each row and column of your wall can only contain one tile of each design and colour.

End of the round and scoring

No more tiles left denotes the end of the round and this is the point at which players can start tiling their wall. It is only possible to move a tile over to your wall if you have completed the whole corresponding row on the left hand side of your playing board. This means that you’re much more likely to complete the top row of your wall (which only requires one tile) than the bottom one (which requires five). Starting with the top row you move one tile over if you can and you score then one by one. Each tile moved over is one point but if it is horizontally or vertically adjacent to any other tiles then you also score an additional point for those tiles as well. It therefore pays to try to tile your wall in a specific order if the tiles allow.

If you have moved a tile over to your wall all remaining tiles in that row go back in the box. If you do not have a complete row you leave the tiles in place on the left hand side of your board and they carry over to the next round.

Players with tiles on the factory floor also have to deduct from their score accordingly and these tiles also go back in the box with the exception of the first player tile.

Further rounds

Once all scoring in the first round is complete play continues, starting with which ever player has the first player tile. Play continues in this way until one player has completed tiling a horizontal row on their wall. At the soonest this will be after five rounds as it is only possibly to lay one tile in each round and the row is five tiles wide. If you have exhausted all the tiles in the bag then the tiles that have been returned to the box are moved to the bag.

End of the game and final scoring

After the scoring in the final round players carry out the end of game scoring, adding on to their original scores. At this stage each horizontal line adds an additional 2 points. A vertical line adds 7 points and if a player has managed to use all five of one colour tile on their wall then it is an additional 10 points.

Azul hints and tips

When you start playing Azul and use the pre-planned side of the playing board it can just be a case of trying to add whatever tiles you can and not really thinking about the order in which you are collecting colours or laying them on your board. Once you get familiar with the game mechanics players start to plan ahead and look at which colour tiles could gain them the most points at the scoring stage of the game and how they might be able to get vertical lines or even all tiles of one colour to help bag extra points at the end of the game.

Azul is not played in isolation though and the best players are also keeping an eye on what goes on around the rest of the table. Is it possible for you to pick up something that forces another player to take a colour that will end up on their factory floor? As each game progresses players’ choices become more limited in terms of what they can place on their wall and it is possible to sabotage another player’s game.

Counting tiles can also help, especially in a two player game when you might only go through all the tiles once if the game is completed in five rounds. There are 20 tiles of each colour in the game and if at the end of round four you can see that 18 of one colour have already been pulled from the bag there’s no point trying to fill your bottom line with that colour in the fifth round as there simply won’t be enough tiles.

Azul – what we think

As soon as it was out of the box Azul became an instant hit in our house. The two player game can take less than 30 minutes making it perfect for us to fit in between tea time and the youngest’s bath. We’ve even trained her up so she can help us with drawing the tiles from the bag and placing them on the factories at the start of each round. A perfect way for her to practice counting to four and also her fine motor skills too.

The older two kids (9 and 11) really enjoy the game too and it’s a great way for me to have some one on one time with each of them whilst the other is having a shower or doing some homework.

Azul Expansions and other versions

There are many different expansions and other versions of Azul on the market now that I’ve got my eye on. We treated ourselves to Summer Pavilion when we had some Amazon vouchers to spend and I’ll pop up a separate post soon on how we found that. Whilst it has some of the same mechanics as the original game it’s also quite different. It’s worth noting that Summer Pavilion is a stand alone game not requiring the original Azul to play it.

Another standalone version is Azul Stained Glass of Sintra which looks like a bit of a mix between the original Azul game and Sagrada which is also seeing a lot of regular play in our house at the moment.

When it comes to pure expansion versions, I’m yet to try the Crystal Mosaic Expansion which requires the original Azul game, or the Glazed Pavilion Expansion for the Summer Pavilion version of the game. If money were no object then they’d definitely both be on my shelves.

I’m also really keen to get my hands on the Queen’s Garden which is the newest standalone version of the game. Friends who have already played it tell me it’s well worth buying so I’m hoping to try it out for myself one day soon.

Disclaimer:

I purchased all versions of Azul that we currently own with my own money and have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links in this post connect to Amazon and are affiliate links. Any purchases that you make through these links cost you no more than if you had arrived on Amazon’s site independently, but I receive a small commission from any purchases you make. I am incredibly grateful for any purchases you do make. Thank you.

Lockdown 3 here in the UK has seen us continue our regular boardgame evenings over Skype with friends. We have however got into a bit of a rut with playing some of the classic old games, so in an attempt to shake things up a bit I went for a rummage in our pile of boardgames and pulled out something new from my charity shop purchases to try – 5 Second Rule.

Now this is a game that I saw demonstrated by University Games at a Toy Fair years ago and at the time I thought that it would work well as a podcast episode for the (now slightly neglected) HandI Pod. The version we played last night I picked up in a charity shop sometime before Covid and it looks like it was probably only played once as one of the sets of cards is still in its cellophane wrapping inside the box.

The general premise of the game is incredibly simple. Players have 5 seconds to name three of something. It could be “name three famous Michaels” or “name three magazines” or even “name three things that annoy you”. If they manage it they get to move one space along the board. If they don’t play goes around the board until all players have a turn. If one manages it then they get the point and it stops there. If no one can do it then the player who had the first go score the point. Play then moves on to the next player.

The five seconds is measured with a spiral timer in which a series of tiny ball bearings run down the tube. It makes a noise when you turn it over, but there’s no real noise when it finishes which made it a tad trickier when playing remotely as we just had to tell the other players when their time was up instead.

The board part of the game has just 12 spaces on it and the first player to get to the end is the winner. On the way there are two “danger zones” and if a player is in the danger zone and doesn’t manage to name three then they miss their next turn.

Incredibly simple really.

The only part of the game that we sometimes found a tad confusing was remembering whose turn it actually was. Whilst you might start with one player trying to answer, you can on some questions move around quite quickly and it then took us a while to figure out who had actually started answering.

An added twist to the game are that each player starts with two “switch” cards and two “pass on” cards. With each of these card types, the player has the opportunity to quickly play the card before they start answering once they have heard the question. The “switch” card allows them to be given a second question to respond to. Meanwhile the “pass on” card is used to pass their turn on to the next player around the table. If they manage to name three then they get the point, but if they don’t then the player who played the “pass on” card gets the points. Useful if it’s a subject that you know the next player has no clue about. Like football in my husband’s case!

Overall 5 Second Rule is a fun, simple game. It game us quite a few laughs. Naming three things might sound easy, but when the time pressure is on it’s much harder than you think. As the player who claims to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of football found when asked to name three England Football team managers! There’s a list here that you can check your answers against or just to swot up with before you play.

If anything we felt that the board could have been longer. With only 12 spaces on there it didn’t take that long for someone to get to the end. Good if you want a quick game, but if you’re planning a whole evening playing you might want to do a “best of 5” type competition instead.

Whilst the version of 5 Second Rule that we played was published by University Games it seems that newer versions are by Interplay. There has also been a flurry of different versions. For completeness here’s a list:

• 5 Second Rule – original version
• 5 Second Rule Jr – a children’s version aimed at age 6+
• 5 Second Rule Mini Game – a version without the board
• 5 Second Rule Spintensity – an electronic version that gives you new challenges on each turn

All the above are published by Interplay, but in addition I’ve also found an additional 18+ version, 5 Second Rule Uncensored by PlayMonster. Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend you leave this version around the kids, but it would work perfectly for an adults games night, especially at something like a hen party.

Disclaimer: I paid for this game myself and received nothing for this post. The product links above are affiliate links. If you click through and buy anything it will cost you no more than if you’d arrived at the site on your own, but I will receive a small commission. Any purchases and subsequent commission are very much appreciated.