Maybe just a short walk: Tokaido Duo

Tokaido is one of our favorite games. We've found it to be especially good for engaging our non-gamer friends and relatives, thanks to the uncomplicated game play and stunning graphics. This is great, but honestly, we don't have very many non-gamer friends. The vast majority of our board gaming time is spent with just the two of us, and Tokaido (like most worker-placement games) is a much better game with three or more players, to the point that if you play it with only two you have to use a third "dummy" player to maintain the competition for optimal spaces on the board.

The dummy player is fine, and it doesn't interfere with our enjoyment of the game, but what if there were a version of Tokaido that was designed for two players? Enter Tokaido Duo, the game we didn't know we needed.

Having recently played Tokaido's sequel game Namiji and rejected it for being too similar to Tokaido, we were naturally a little wary of introducing yet another variation on the theme. But in this case, we found the game to be different enough from the original to keep us interested. It has too many small parts to be Travel Tokaido, but it is a version that works well for two players and can be played in a shorter period of time and on a smaller table.

Rather than each player choosing a single character with a unique ability, Tokaido Duo gives each player the same three characters: an Artist, a Pilgrim, and a Merchant, each of whom uses a different part of the board. The Pilgrims travel around the perimeter of the board, which works in much the same way as in the original game, with each space offering a particular benefit that usually racks up points exponentially, so the more often you move your Pilgrim to the same type of space, the better. The Merchants travel the paths between mountain villages, where they buy items, and coastal towns, where they sell them, with each town only interested in a specific item.

The paths between the mountain villages and the coastal towns also form the borders to the different areas of the board where each player can move their Artist. The more other character pawns there are in spaces next to the area the Artist ends up in, the better, introducing a more tactical level of movement than the more single-minded race of the original game.

Who gets to move when is determined by three dice, one for each type of character. At the start of a round, one player rolls the dice and chooses one, indicating which character moves and how many spaces. Then the other player chooses one, and so on. After the third dice is chosen, the other player rolls them and chooses one, becoming the first player. The game ends when any of the characters of either player complete their task: either the Artist gives away all their paintings, the Merchant fills their board with gold, or the Pilgrim visits a temple or garden a certain number of times. This adds another layer of strategy to the game, as players will want to try to manipulate things so that the game ends when it is to their best advantage.

Even though it's meant to be a two-player version of a game that we already have, Tokaido Duo feels like a new game, and will be great for those times when we don't have enough players, enough time, or enough space on the table for the full version.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Tokaido Duo has all the flavor of the original game but provides a different set of interesting game play challenges.

• Tokaido Duo official website
• Tokaido Duo on BoardGameGeek

Starship Captains: reporting for duty

For the most part, the point of publishing a game based on a licensed property such as a book or television series is to take advantage of brand recognition and a pre-existing fan base. They present fully realized characters and worlds that game designers can assume the audience is already familiar with, and thus don't need to be explained the way they would if the game took place in a new setting. Star Trek presents an interesting case: its tropes are so well known and ingrained in our culture that it's possible (even fairly easy) to do Star Trek without doing Star Trek. It's what makes it possible for Seth MacFarlane to do his own spin on Trek, or for the jokes in Galaxy Quest to be easily understood, even by an audience of non-Trekkies.

All of which brings us to Starship Captains. This is easily my favorite new game of 2023 (although it came out at the end of 2022), and possibly my favorite Star Trek board game of all time. Of course it's not an official Star Trek game, but it's close enough in terms of the world it describes and even in terms of the gameplay structure. In particular it very strongly evokes the tone and story structure of the brilliant Star Trek: Lower Decks animated series -- it's a game about assigning cadets and ensigns to do menial tasks aboard the ship, and occasionally sending them on missions where they're sure to be out of their depth.

Each player takes on the role of the captain of a starship which starts out in a state of disrepair. You start with a small crew of ensigns and cadets who need to be assigned tasks, ranging from repairing and upgrading the ship, to moving the ship to new locations in order to solve missions. Solving missions (and fighting pirates) awards medals and other benefits, which allow you to train your crew so that they are better and more efficient at their tasks. Whoever scores the most points after four rounds wins.

One of the things I really like about the game is the lack of randomness. Tasks are performed by assigning crew of the appropriate color to them, who then go into a queue that determines which crew will be available on the following round. Each round players get a new cadet, who starts out grey but can be upgraded. Additionally, crew can be promoted, which allows them to do two tasks in a turn, or pull another crew out of the queue so they're available for use sooner.

The range of tasks in the game covers the Star Trek gamut, from fighting (or maybe just outsmarting) pirates using diplomacy to get in good with other cultures, another way to score points and other bonuses that will make future turns more effective. The rules are deceptively simple but there are a lot of interesting decisions to be made, and a little but of forward planning is needed, as the order in which you assign your crew determines which ones will be available later.

The components are as good as they need to be, and the cartoony artwork keeps the tone of the game friendly and fun. If I have any complaints, it's that games tend to end a little abruptly -- I often feel like I'm just getting started when the final round is over.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A well designed, well presented game that evokes the feel of a certain beloved franchise in a way that many "official" games don't always seem to manage.

• Starship Captains official website
• Starship Captains on BoardGameGeek

Now there's something I never thought I'd see: Doctor Who in Magic the Gathering

Let's pause for a moment and consider the fact that there is a Magic: the Gathering card for Peri Brown. This is definitely something I never thought I would see.

As a Doctor Who fan who started watching the show on non-profit public broadcasting in the early 1980s, I never could have imagined the success it currently enjoys. Back then we had to huddle in front of the cathode ray tube TVs of the previous century, crossing our fingers that the seasonal pledge drive for donations would be enough for the local PBS station to buy another year's worth of the Doctor's adventures, and it was rare that you ran into anyone who had even heard of it, let alone was a devoted fan.

But of course, the show's 2005 revival was incredibly successful, to the point that Doctor Who now goes out worldwide on Disney's streaming channel, and Wizards of the Coast considers it enough of a recognizable property that they're willing to devote an installment of their Magic: the Gathering: Universes Beyond product line to it. And they've done a great job.

The cards themselves are amazingly well thought out, with a lot of deep-dives into the show's 60-year history. There are cards for every single Doctor and companion, as well as most (if not all) of the major villains and many memorable guest stars ranging from Madame Vastra to Duggan, the punch-happy detective from 1979's City of Death. The artwork is uniformly spectacular, in many cases giving us what amounts to big-budget versions of scenes that may have been a bit...disappointing on classic Doctor Who's notoriously tiny budget.

Rather than a randomized set of cards that come in blind booster packs and require players to assemble their own decks for play, the Doctor Who Magic set consists of four preconstructed decks for the Commander format. Buying all four Commander decks will get you a complete set of all the cards in their basic, non-foil versions, but if you want to chase after the foils, extended art, and alternate art versions, you'll need to look for Collector Boosters.

Most of the set consists of new cards, but they did do a number of reprints of classic Magic cards with new Doctor Who artwork. Even the basic Land cards (the core building blocks of any Magic deck) got new artwork featuring the TARDIS in a variety of alien landscapes. Also included in each deck is a set of oversized Planechase cards, an optional add-on that introduces different locations to Magic games -- the idea of players moving between different worlds and environments is a natural fit for Doctor Who. 

In theory, having this card set come as preconstructed decks is a great idea, as it gives potential Doctor Who fans who might be new to Magic a way to get playing right away. The Commander format, which asks each player to come to the game with a deck consisting of exactly 100 unique cards, even makes sense as it allows for a wide range of new cards to be featured. However, Commander is also a bit more complicated and cumbersome than a normal game of Magic, so if you're new to the game and want to learn how to play, this might not be the best place to start.

For Doctor Who fans who are also Magic players, the set is fantastic, both in the breadth of Doctor Who characters and storylines that are covered, and also in the attention to detail and just the downright fun of it all. The development team was clearly made up of dedicated fans, or at the very least did some exhaustive research.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) a beautifully designed set of cards for Magic: the Gathering. Non-Magic players might find it all a little baffling, but Peri's card looks great!

• MTG Universes Beyond: Doctor Who official website