Space tourists

Space Park is the type of game that tends to appeal to me right away: great looking illustration and graphic design, at a low enough price point that I can afford to take a chance and buy the game on impulse. These impulse purchases can be a mixed bag, sometimes resulting in great looking games whose novelty wears off quickly (Grimslingers), or games that sounded more interesting than they actually are (Deadline), but every once in a while we end up with an entertaining game that, while simple, bears out repeated plays and earns a place in our collection.

First let's talk about the artwork. The game board is made up of a series of large tiles, each intended to look like a tourism advertisement for a location in outer space. The illustrations are gorgeous: any one of them would look great at poster size, framed on a wall somewhere. The rest of the game's printed components use snippets from these pieces of artwork along with some considered and sophisticated typography and graphic design.

Okay, so the game is pretty, but is it any fun to play? Yes it is. Space Park is an interesting marriage of familiar game mechanics with a few unusual ideas. At its core it's a resource collection game: players move around on a board made up of the aforementioned tiles, each representing a location where various different resources can be picked up, exchanged, or spent in various combinations to purchase victory points and game advantages.

What sets the game apart is the way players move around the board. Regardless of the number of players, there are three silver rocket ships, each starting at a different location. On a player's turn, they perform the action at a location where there is a ship (usually collecting a resource), then move that ship to the next empty location. This is interesting for several reasons, the most obvious being that each player doesn't have their own playing piece, they always have a choice of three pieces to move. More strategically, it means that every time a player takes their turn, they need to think about where the piece will be moving and what advantage they're giving the next player by moving it there.

It's one of those rare games with simple rules but a lot to think about that's great for when you want a lighter game with a reasonable amount of strategic depth. And it's very pretty to look at.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Not necessarily an immersive "play all day" type game, but excellent for what it is: lightweight and fun.

• Space Park official website
• Space Park on Boardgamegeek

We need more information

The story behind CIA: Collect it All is a fascinating one. Last year several games designed by the CIA for use as training simulations were declassified by the U. S. government. Since they were designed by a government employee in the course of his work they are automatically in the public domain in the U. S., so an enterprising game publisher got to work designing a commercial version which was funded using Kickstarter and delivered to backers in December of 2018.

The game uses cards to represent intelligence collection techniques such as media analysis, satellite imaging, and data hacking. Players use those cards to solve global crises like foreign missile testing or election interference, by matching the correct types of intelligence to the crises they will be effective against. Opponents can interfere by playing "reality check" cards which represent the idea that nothing ever goes as planned.

As a training tool, an important part of the game was the inclusion of "manager challenge" cards, which forced the CIA trainees to justify the plays they made, explaining how, for example, "document and media exploitation" would be effective against "European crime and corruption" in the real world. These are included in the game as an optional variant, but the rules suggest only using them if all the players have a "firm understanding of intelligence techniques."

In theory the idea of this game is very compelling, but without the manager challenge cards, it's really just a symbol matching game, with each player trying to match the symbols on their collection cards to the ones on the crisis cards. It might have worked a lot better if there were more background information on the cards, to give players more information they could use to at least bluff their way through a manager challenge. I think the designers really missed an opportunity to create a game that would be informational and intellectually stimulating as well as entertaining.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) not a terrible game but a huge missed opportunity.

• CIA: Collect it All official website
• CIA: Collect it All on BoardGameGeek

Superhero dungeon crawl

On first glance, Marvel Strike Teams looks like another variant in Wizkids' Heroclix line of games. It has many similarities, both thematic and mechanical, but a number of differences that make it an interesting game in its own right.

Like Heroclix, Marvel Strike Teams is a tactical superhero battle game. It uses a grid system for movement and range, and characters find their powers and abilities decreasing in effectiveness as they take on damage, which is a hallmark of the Heroclix system.

Unlike Heroclix, Strike Teams is a one vs. many style game, with one player taking on the role of a supervillain and his minions, and the others each controlling a single hero and working cooperatively to foil the villain's dastardly plans. It's also much more mission oriented, with victory centered on accomplishing certain in-game goals (such as rescuing hostages or finding macguffins rather than just trying to obliterate your opponent's forces. In spite of the superhero theme, the game structure is that of a classic "dungeon crawl," with heroes creeping through rooms and corridors in search of treasure and a quick exit.

The game is designed to be played campaign style over multiple game sessions, with both the heroes and the villains gaining experience and improving their abilities between games, another thing that sets it apart from the one-off battles of Heroclix and makes it seem more like a D&D-style dungeon crawler.

But the really innovative thing about Strike Teams is that it uses a diceless system for combat. Players instead use resource management and damage control to accomplish their side's goals during the game.

Each round, characters are given a certain number of action points, which can be spent to move, heal damage, use special powers, and most importantly, attack and defend. Action points can be saved up from round to round (up to a pre-set maximum), so game play is a balancing act between moving, attacking, and saving aside points to defend your character against attacks.

It's very different from most battle games (including Heroclix), which use random dice rolls to determine the outcome of combat. Sure, most of those games will include game mechanics to mitigate the randomness such as rerolls, bonuses, and extra dice, but there is always the chance that an attack will go badly due to random chance that is outside the player's control.

Monolith's Conan game is probably a closer comparison in terms of the level of strategic resource management and focus on scenario goals over outright fighting, but even it uses dice to resolve combat.

With only a handful of characters to choose from in the base game an one small expansion, Strike Teams lacks the epic scope of what Heroclix can offer with its thousands of different figures over multiple franchises. It's a pity there aren't more expansions planned for Strike Teams, because mechanically it's a much more interesting game.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A terrific alternative to battle games like Heroclix, but unfortunately its lack of commercial success will limit this game to only a handful of characters and limited replayability.

• Marvel Strike Teams official website
• Marvel Strike Teams on BoardGameGeek

A disease of invaders

Pandemic has taken Settlers of Catan's place as the foremost gateway into hobby gaming, and with its simple yet challenging design, engaging cooperative theme, and deep market penetration, it's earned it. In an effort to get the game to even more tables, Pandemic's publisher has re-skinned the game in a plethora of different flavors, changing the threat to a flood in Rising Tide or Lovecraftian horrors in Pandemic Cthulhu.

We've only played Pandemic once or twice, and never got around to buying a copy for our game library, so we decided to pick up the Fall of Rome version, which replaces spreading disease vectors with invading armies of barbarians intent on sacking ancient Rome. Since we have little experience with the original Pandemic we can't really compare the two, but that might be better as we can look at this version of the game on its own merits.

It's easy to see why Pandemic has been such a successful game. The rules are simple but allow for a good amount of meaningful decision making, and watching the board fill up with counters representing the barbarian hordes gives the game a great sense of drama. Players can command Roman legions to fight off the barbarians, but the real strategy is in collecting sets of cards that can be turned in to make peace with individual barbarian tribes. This doesn't stop them from attacking, but it makes it possible to convert barbarians into Roman soldiers to help fight off their former allies.

Players are also given a handful of special cards that offer great advantages in the game, but at a price. Each time one of these cards is spent for its more powerful effect, it moves the decline marker closer to the eventual collapse of Roman society from within, which gives the game another clock to race against.

The engaging game play is coupled with some terrific artwork that helps sell the idea that these are cultured Roman citizens fighting off invading armies and their own decline, rather than just colored cubes on a piece of cardboard.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A robust and well-designed game that we will play often, and it's usually an easy sell to our non-gamer friends and family too.

• Pandemic: Fall of Rome official website
• Pandemic: Fall of Rome on BoardGameGeek