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Welcome to Which Game First where we boldly explore the hilariously huge world of board games. Did we unearth any hidden treasures you’ve been missing out on? Let’s find out!
First up: We shuffle up the side shows and deal out the circus in Scout
Next: We neatly navigate neighborly needs in Between Two Cities
Lastly: We present personalities from past and present one card at a time in Image
SCOUT
Designed by: Kei Kajino (梶野 桂)
Published by: Oink Games (2021)
Players: 2 – 5
Ages: 9 & up
Playing time: 20 min
SCOUT is a ladder-climbing card game in which all cards have two potential values. You are dealt a hand of cards, and you get to choose which direction is up – and those will become the cards you play.Cards are numbered 1-10. But here’s the rub … You can never rearrange your hand of cards. Always keep your cards in their original order.
On a turn, a player takes one of two actions:
• Play: A player chooses one or more adjacent cards in their hand – if playing more than 1 card, then the cards must all be the same number, or a straight from low to high. Other than the first player of a turn, in order to lay down cards, a player has to beat the card played before them.
• Scout: A player takes a card from either end of the set currently on the table and places it anywhere they wish in their hand in either orientation. Whoever played this previous set receives a 1 VP token as a reward for playing a set that wasn’t beaten.
Once per round, a player can scout, then immediately play.
When a player has emptied their hand of cards or all but one player have scouted instead of playing, the round ends. Players receive 1 VP for each face-down card, then subtract one point for each card in their hand (except if they were the player scouted repeatedly to end the game). Play as many rounds as the number of players, then whoever has the most points wins.
Between Two Cities Essential Edition
Designed by: Matthew O’Malley, Ben Rosset
Published by: Stonemaier Games (2022)
Players: 1 – 7
Ages: 14 & up
Playing time: 30 min
Between Two Cities is a tableau building tile drafting game where the object is to design two cities that yield the most VP’s, but your final score is the city with the lesser VP value.
Essentially, it is a set collection game, where the strategic placement of the sets of tiles will yield the most VP’s. For example, you want to have all your park tiles orthogonally arranged to score more points. And you want your shop cards to appear in a row. And then there are civic tiles, which score points for being next to specific other types of tiles, and penalties if they wind up next to less desirable tiles.
After three rounds of drafting tiles, the player with the best “lesser” of two cities wins the game.
Image
Designed by: Henry Szwarce
Published by: 3M (1971)
Players: 2 – 6
Ages: 9 & up
Playing time: 1 hr
Image is a trivia game where the players have a historical or fictional character in mind and then they play cards which describes the person:
– Place where they lived or were born
– Time when they lived
– Activity:
– Status cards:
– The first letter of their last name.
This action closes the image and it scores for the player who played the letter card.
The players score points for the number of cards played on an image. You may play a card on another player’s image (and thus possibly steal it.) And an image can be challenged and if the player has no one in mind, he is penalized.
When the game ends, the player with the most points wins.