Whaleyland
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« on: November 16, 2009, 12:40:55 pm » |
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This is a re-post of my session report from BoardGameGeek:
Tunnels and Chits The four Tunnel tiles are great quality and, unlike Spielbox's release of The Cult, are once again the proper thickness. Their colors are slightly yellower than the usual Carcassonne tile, but it isn't overly unmatched. The little tunnel chits are made of the same thickness cardboard and the colors fairly well match the players' pieces. The backs are the same pattern as the tiles instead of a matching reverse as with most other accessory components.
Gameplay I played Der Tunnel at the same time that I tried out Wheel of Fortune. It was a 2-player game with my girlfriend. Unfortunately, the Tunnel tiles weren't very well mixed in despite my best efforts, so all four appeared in a batch of around 20 tiles (of 76). Following the somewhat vague rules, we each took two sets of tunnels since it is a 2-player game.
My girlfriend picked up the first tunnel before anyone had claimed any roads. The rules are somewhat vague concerning if a tunnel can be claimed on the same turn that someone places a follower. Since the rules aren't clear and no roads had been claimed, we decided to allow both claiming roads and tunnels on the same turn. In hindsight, this probably was a bad choice since I think the Tunnels are suppose to be more competitive in nature. In a 2-player game, though, it's hard to make 8 tunnel entrances competitive when all of them can be claimed without conflict by the players. Regardless, she claimed a tunnel and a road and we continued.
She also drew the next tunnel and so decided to connect her two together. Her road wasn't complete on one side, but was completed a few turns later. It seemed quite obvious and easy adding them together, although only 6 points were earned. I drew the other two tunnels and claimed an entrance each time (and placed a follower on a tunnel the first time). As the game progressed, we quickly claimed entrances and exits of tunnels to complete them. Combined with Wheel of Fortune, we often used 0-placement turns to claim both a tunnel entrance/exit and a crown spot on the Wheel. Again, tunnels probably should be claimed INSTEAD of placing a follower, making placement of tunnel entrances/exits more difficult and competitive. Instead, our tunnels didn't really impede us at all.
Conclusion Ultimately, the tunnels failed in their mission of conflict. We never once competed over a tunnel entrance/exit and both of us completed one tunnel-road and had an incomplete one at the end. The incompletes, though, had both ends of the tunnels claimed, only a road was unfinished. The result of playing with our rules meant that the expansion was not that challenging or confrontational. In future games, the other rules will certainly be attempted. Spielbox, though, needs to get its act together to define these rules. As they stand, their ambiguity makes playing the game difficult. Playing 2-player probably didn't help.
Final Results Quality: A- Presentation: A- Price: B Rules: C- Concept: A-
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