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

Another bug hunt

Aliens, James Cameron's 1986 sequel to Ridley Scott's horror masterpiece Alien, is one of my all time favorite movies. The scenario of a group of strung-out marines trapped in an enclosed environment with a horde of bloodthirsty monsters is ideal fodder for gaming, so it's no surprise that the film has been mined for game material since it came out, both official (Aliens, Legendary Encounters: ALIEN) and unofficial (Argo, Nemesis, Space Hulk).

Leading Edge's Aliens (sometimes known as This Time It's War) game has long been one of my favorites. It has a simple, elegant tactical movement system and tense game play that effectively simulates the action from the film. The only thing wrong with it is its low production value, with bland graphic design, paper maps, and cardboard standees in lieu of miniatures (the publisher did offer upgrade packs of metal miniatures, but they were way outside of my price range in 1989).

So when Gale Force 9, publishers of the excellent Firefly board game, announced that they were doing an Aliens game, I got very excited. My hope was that they would do something similar to the Leading Edge Aliens, or even a reskin of their own Firefly Adventures, a cooperative tactical movement game that does some innovative things with non-player controlled enemies.

Somewhat surprisingly, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps isn't really either of those things. It's similar to Leading Edge's Aliens in that it is a cooperative game where the players control Ripley and the marines in an attempt to survive and escape rather than defeat all the Aliens (an impossible task). It's similar to Firefly Adventures mainly in that the rule book is confusing and poorly organized, managing once again to make a relatively simple game seem overly complicated. But that's pretty normal for rule books these days.

The components are definitely light years ahead of the Leading Edge game, with heavy cardstock boards and detailed plastic miniatures. There have been a fair number of complaints in various forums online about the fact that the miniatures require assembly, without any warning on the box, but they include detailed instructions and I didn't find it particularly difficult. The only poor design decision here is that the Aliens have long, spindly hook-shaped tails that were a little challenging to attach, get in the way during play, and make the miniatures difficult to store (remember Barrel of Monkeys?). They're nice looking miniatures though, and as far as I know, this is the first time the actual human characters from the film have been represented by official 28mm gaming scale figures.

The game uses miniatures, gridded tiles, cards and dice to recreate the key scenes from the film. Each player takes control of a single character, and any remaining characters remain in the game as "grunts" that the players can order around, but without complex game info to keep track of. This means you always have the same number of characters on the board, but your team has more interesting abilities if you have more players. Of course, that also means the game will be more challenging.

While the game is played out on a grid with miniatures, the core game element is the Endurance Deck, a stack of 60 cards representing weapons, equipment, events, and hazards. The deck is used as a timer (when the deck runs out the players lose the game), a currency to pay for game effects (by discarding cards from the deck), a way to generate random effects and give players extra tactical choices (by drawing or revealing cards). It also contains a few Hazards, negative effects that must be resolved when the card is drawn or revealed. It's very similar to the way the old Star Wars Customizable Card Game worked, but honestly the idea is so good that someone should be using it.

At the end of every turn, the players draw several "Blip" cards to determine where the Aliens appear. Aliens start out as blip tokens, unseen until they move into proximity to the human characters, at which point the tokens are replaced by one or more Alien miniatures. It's a neat effect that mimics the tension-building motion trackers from the film, and allows for some uncertainty as you don't know how many Aliens are approaching until they're in the room with you.

The details of the different scenarios allow for some variety, but ultimately the goal is always to escape the board with as many survivors as possible. This leads to some agonizing tactical decisions: do I take the time to weld that door shut, or just run for it? Do I keep my marines near the door to cover each other and all escape together, or is it better to risk some of them so that others can get out for certain?

If anything, my only complaint is that if too many Aliens are on the board all at once it can get to be a bit of a grind, both with the sheer number of Aliens you're moving around each turn, and also with the repetitive rolling to try to shoot Alien after Alien. But it's a good game that definitely simulates the action and tension of the film.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) I'm docking this game one star for the murky, hard to follow rule book, and another in acknowledgement that my overwhelming affection for the source material makes this game more fun for me than it might be for others.

• Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps official website
• Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps on BoardGameGeek

Rocketeering

The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future is a small board game that was published in 2022, and I'm not really sure why. It's based on the 1991 film, but it's a year late for the film's 30th anniversary, and in any case there wasn't much of an anniversary celebration that I'm aware of. But none of that really matters. I bought the game because The Rocketeer is one of my favorite films, based on one of my favorite comic books.

The game was designed by Prospero Hall, the design collective known primarily for what I call "Barnes & Noble games," light strategy games based on recognizable film and television properties that you would expect to see tastefully displayed at your local mall book store. This is not a criticism. These types of games frequently serve as gateways to get new players into the board gaming hobby, and to do that effectively, these games need to be easy to play, visually stunning, and remind players of the the intellectual property they're based on. The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future does all of that very well.

It's a two player game. One player controls the heroes: Cliff Secord, his girlfriend Jenny, and his irascible mechanic friend Peevey. The other player controls the villainous Neville Sinclair and his henchmen, gangster Eddie Valentine and hulking brute Lothar. All the memorable characters from the film are covered. The game consists of playing cards that move the various characters along the board, where they gain resources, fight to take possession of the plans to the fabulous rocket pack, and most importantly, draw Finale cards that provide victory points based on where everyone is at the end of the game.

Once you get past the theme, the actual game play is a bit too simple to be really interesting. If it weren't based on a beloved film, the game would be mediocre at best. But that's the point. It is based on a beloved film, and it evokes that film at every turn, from the 1930s style graphic design to the stunning artwork that reflects the characters without looking too much like the actors -- the decision not to use still photos from the actual film was a good one, as the artwork plays on hazy memories of the movie rather than the possible reality that it may be a little dated and not quite as good as we remember it being.

The real stroke of genius, though, is that the movie's plot is essentially about the characters running around to to different locations and fighting over the plans to the fabulous rocket pack. While it may not be a brilliant game in and of itself, it is an excellent simulation of the film. And that's all a game like this needs to be.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) Not an overly compelling game, but I'll play it any time I want to be reminded of the Rocketeer film without actually taking the time to watch it.

• The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future official website
• The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future on BoardGameGeek

Buy low and sell high with Vikings on the Volga

Vikings on the Volga is a very simple game from the designer of Leaving Earth. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Leaving Earth is by far one of the most complex games in our collection. The themes are broadly similar; both games are about planning a voyage in the most efficient way possible. But where Leaving Earth is a very complicated yet oddly compelling game about weight-to-thrust ratios, fuel consumption, and making certain you have enough food for the return voyage, Vikings on the Volga is a much simpler game about delivering the right commodities to the right city at the right time, and avoiding the dreaded Golden Horde.

The board is pieced together randomly out of very nice wooden tiles representing the Volga river and the cities that sit on it, as well as empty overland spaces that ships can travel over if they're willing to take extra time to do it. Each city has a corresponding pass that players can invest in; be the first to buy the pass for a particular city and all the other players have to pay you each time they want to enter or pass through it.

The game revolves around three different trade goods (amber, fish, and furs), each of which can be purchased in one city. There will be a number of public contract cards in play that determine which cities will buy which goods, and the price they sell for is determined by the number of cities that have been burned down by the Golden Horde (more on that in a moment). The bulk of the game is spent buying goods in one place and then selling them in another, hopefully along the shortest route possible.

While all this buying, moving, and selling is going on, there are two non-player pieces that move around the board: the aforementioned Golden Horde, and the Price of Kiev. Any player can give up their turn to move either the Horde or the Prince. If the Horde moves into a city, they burn it down, which will prevent buying or selling there. Also, when there are 5 burned cities in play, the game ends. If the Prince moves into a city, he puts the fire out, so moving the Horde and the Prince to help yourself and slow down your opponent is a key tactical move in the game.

It's a pretty basic pick up and deliver game, but the variable tile setup and the way the Horde and the Prince affect the game makes it a little more interesting. The graphic design is unusual but excellent, with understated colors, bold text that's easy to read, and lovely wooden tiles and player pieces that are much nicer than the punched cardboard you would normally expect from a game like this.

Rating: 3 out of 5. Gameplay alone is fairly mediocre, but the surprising production value is enough to make this game a little more noteworthy.

• Vikings on the Volga official website*
• Vikings on the Volga on BoardGameGeek

*Note: this game is made by a very small publisher who appear to print to order and do all the manufacturing in-house, so orders can take several months to be filled. I can't recommend ordering direct from the publisher unless you are extremely patient.