• Publisher:  Lookout Games, 2020
• Players:  2
• Time:  30 Min.

In Glasgow is a 2-player city building strategy game where both players construct a 4 by 5 grid of buildings representing the city of Glasgow.  Even though both players build a central city together, this is definitely a competitive game.

The game is set up building a random rondel of contract tiles and carefully spaced architect tiles.  Two build tiles are randomly drawn and placed above each of the four architect tiles.  Building tiles are an assortment of shops, parks, train stations, tenements, landmarks, banks, and factories.  Factories produce resources when activated.  All other buildings produce points using different methods to score.  On a turn a player moves their merchant figure clockwise around the rondel to the tile of their choice and takes the action of that tile.  Contract tiles generally yield one of the three resources: stone, steel, or gold.  Architect tiles allow players to buy the buildings above that architect tile.  When purchased, these buildings are immediately placed in the city adjacent to an already existing building.  Game end Is triggered when the 4 by 5 grid of buildings is complete.

The tension in the game starts at the start.  Whichever merchant is furthest behind on the rondel goes next.  If a player skips a few tiles ahead to get to a choice spot, their opponent will have turn after turn to move one tile at a time and load up their warehouse with resources and/or purchase buildings.  Each player’s warehouse has a limited capacity.  There is room to store 5 stone, 4 steel, 3 gold, and 1 whiskey barrel.  There is just one whiskey barrel to be had.  It is a wild resource, so use it or lose it. Glasgow is a 2-player, 30 minute game in a small box that packs some significant pop.

• Located at 30 NW 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Gresham.
• We have a full range of family games, strategy games, Euro-style games, war games, card games, dice games, and more.  Additionally, for the jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts we carry quality puzzles from Ravensburger, Cobble Hill, White Mountain, Dowdle, Pomegranate, and New York Puzzle Company.

We proudly serve Gresham and the greater Portland and Vancouver area.

• Publisher:  Renegade Games, 2020
• Players:  1 – 4
• Time:  60 – 90 min.

Viscounts Of The West Kingdom is the third game in the West Kingdom Trilogy.  Architects Of The West Kingdom the first and Paladins Of The West Kingdom the second, each game is a unique stand-alone with different mechanics.  Viscounts features a wide range of mechanics that flows smoothly into a solid whole.  There is a little deck-building, some hand management, a little set collection, some resource management, and some area control all driven by a Viscount on a rondel.

Each turn begins with the placement of a card from a players’ hand of three cards.  Their players’ board has three slots for the cards.  First, push the card in the right-most slot off the board, slide the two cards remaining to the right, and then place the new card in the now available left-most slot.  The distance a player moves their Viscount on the main board is determined by the card played from their hand.  Once the Viscount is moved around the rondel to their chosen location, the action of that location is taken using the action icons on all three cards now on their player board.  In addition, the card pushed off may have a drop off effect as well.  Action spaces can be used to trade for money and/or resources, construct buildings, place workers in the castle, or transcribe manuscripts depending on which type of space the Viscount landed on.  Once that is done, the player can recruit the townsfolk card adjacent to the location of their Viscount to their discard pile for later use.

All points are awarded at the end of the game.  Game end is triggered when one of two different card decks are depleted.  One deck is debt cards and the other is deed cards, both of which are acquired during the course of the game.  Major points are gained by constructing buildings, placing may workers in the castle, and transcribing sets of manuscripts.  The player with the most points is top Viscount.

• Located at 30 NW 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Gresham.
• We have a full range of family games, strategy games, Euro-style games, war games, card games, dice games, and more.  Additionally, for the jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts we carry quality puzzles from Ravensburger, Cobble Hill, White Mountain, Dowdle, Pomegranate, and New York Puzzle Company.

We proudly serve Gresham and the greater Portland and Vancouver area.

• Publisher:  Renegade Games, 2019
• Players:  1 – 4
• Time:  90 – 120 min.

Paladins Of The West Kingdom is the second game in the West Kingdom Trilogy.  Architects Of The West Kingdom the first and Viscounts Of The West Kingdom the third; each game is a unique stand-alone with different mechanics.  With Paladins, the theme is all about defending the West Kingdom by using paladins to build outposts and fortifications to commission monks and to confront outsiders at the gate.

This is a game with some interesting and fairly complex mechanics.  It is not hard to play a turn, it is just that everything a player does affects a couple of other things.  A turn begins with everyone drawing the top three cards of their paladin deck.  All decks are the same but shuffled so the order will be different for each player.  Of the three cards drawn, select one card to play, one to place back on the top of your deck, and one to place on the bottom of your deck.  Each paladin, temporarily grants for that round a special ability, two workers, and one or more attribute upgrades necessary to perform actions.  Next, in turn order each player selects a tavern card that provides 4 workers of a varied mix.  There are six different types of workers and twenty-eight different places they can be used to activate actions on a players’ board.  Some spots require a particular type of worker.  The action spaces on the left side of a player’s board concentrate on engine building and gaining resources.  The action spaces on the right side concentrate on scoring and increasing attributes.  There is no direct interaction between players, but turn order can be important in moving monks and buildings from a player’s board to the central game board where additional benefits can be gained.  Actions on the right side of the player’s board require a certain level of an attribute.  There are three types of attributes: influence, strength, and faith.  These actions require a certain level of one attribute type and will provide an increase to the level of a different attribute.

Paladins is played over seven rounds with each round lasting until everyone has passed.  Points can be gained in may ways and the player with the most points wins.  Each of the three attributes scores based on its game end strength level.  There are three public Kings orders that yield points if completed.  The various buildings can score points if enough of one type was constructed.  Outsiders converted to you cause can also yield points.

Paladins Of The West Kingdom is a game for gamers.  There are a lot of moving parts and everything is interrelated to other aspects of the game.  These interactions are smooth and make sense once a player unravels what’s going on.  There are no gimme decisions.  Players will need to think about which paladin to play, which tavern card of workers to take, what buildings to build, etc. etc.

• Located at 30 NW 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Gresham.
• We have a full range of family games, strategy games, Euro-style games, war games, card games, dice games, and more.  Additionally, for the jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts we carry quality puzzles from Ravensburger, Cobble Hill, White Mountain, Dowdle, Pomegranate, and New York Puzzle Company.

We proudly serve Gresham and the greater Portland and Vancouver area.