Game Review: The 12 Jurors

The legal world is no joke, the fate of people lies in the balance and truth and justice are at stake. But the profession is also the butt of jokes for a reason, all too familiar with unscrupulous slicksters with every trick under their sleeve to gain themselves a verdict no matter what.

So, for the consideration of the jury, I will now recount the events of the following game.

The 12 Jurors is a cooperative game for 1-5 people where you try to convince the jury one juror at a time, but this review is based on the solitaire version. The main game consists of 8 levels worth of 18 trials that you progress through. For each trial the goal is to land a guilty verdict by convincing every juror to a unanimous decision. You start with three jurors in play and in each turn you play a card of the same suit to a juror, the second card played on the same juror sets the direction of the sequence(ascending or descending) of numbers said row of cards must make. If you don't want to play a card you discard a card, if you can't play any card you replace your hand.

A juror is convinced if a certain number of matched cards is played to it, kings 4; queens 3 and jacks 2. Once a juror is convinced it is removed from the row of juries and another one is brought in, this continues on until either all jurors are convinced, a win, or your run out of cards to play, a loss. In subsequent levels you get extra actions to help you through the extra challenges of a new set of starting jurors and in two levels card play restrictions.

These additional actions include being able to play a card of the same color on a juror, swapping cards between jurors and even a wild card joker. The moveset expands when you level up and has no limits on use.

Foresight doesn't matter much in this game but you should keep open favorable card plays you don't want to skip. Holding cards is a terrible idea cause trying to wait for a good play will get you penalized with a short suit. Some actions allow you to open up possibilities so use them wisely to avoid bad forces. 

The solitaire version lets you have at least one joker(in multiplayer this only appears at the last level) in your deck, a powerful tactical tool.

To convince jurors of a suit you need exactly nine cards, with only 10 cards of each available per suit to make this possible, some tactical play is necessary and this makes the first trial seem hard as you have no special actions, but even with the special actions you are still limited by the deck.

Each level's trial's jury starts with jurors of certain criteria, making opening play in each game different enough to affect the middlegames. A couple of them even include special rules to throw a wrench in the gameplay. While there is no big life-changing trial at the end of all the levels, there is a decent sense of progress that doesn't make the game feel repetitive.

The game can be played without levels, the jurors are selected randomly and determine any special conditions. Special actions are usable only once per game.

Game Review: Treasure Solitaire

One of the 2023 traditional deck contest's toughest offerings is Treasure Solitaire, a puzzle game that plays like a Flash puzzle game but is not as forgiving.

Themed to treasure hunting, you start with some rumors, search for clues and use these clues to try to confirm the rumors and find the treasure. Your first deal four rumors, then start each basic expedition by drawing 19 cards, laying 15 of them on a hexagonal map and using the remaining four cards as your hand.

Each turn you draw a card to your hand and use two cards in it to remove cards from the grid based on some comparison. You do this two more times with the goal of leaving a single card on the map that should match the last card in your hand in either suit or rank. If you succeed you keep the card on the table as your clue.

After six basic expeditions you gather your clues for the final expedition, where you match them against the rumors from earlier but only remove one card per term: extra matches become exhausted rumors. This time the goal is to expend all your cards to leave one unexhausted rumor, that becomes the treasure.

Failing this, you take one of the face-up rumors as your hunch, shuffle them with your clues and other face-up rumors and hope the card you draw is the one.

 

There is more skill involved in this game, with the only strong luck element being the lay of your hand as everything else is face up information. It's one thing to clear a grid of cards, it's another to leave a single matching card, so your moves have to take out the right chunks at a time and not split the map too much. Planning ahead doesn't get spoiled by a draw too often to become a problem.

There's a lot of planning ahead involved, not only in how to clear the grid but also in what card to try to get as a clue. Every move has consequences and they all come out in the final expedition. As I said, this is no easy game, and mistakes are costly. Taking risk isn't much of an option and zugzwang is even possible, e.g. the only options either clear the map early or split it too much. 

Something can be said about having to play six basic expeditions, that while they are all different, how well you do in one doesn't affect the next ones (only the final expedition) so the puzzling is the same throughout.

You can opt not to play the luck-based ending, in this mode losing a clue means losing the game as you need all six to make the final expedition possible. The game is hard enough as is so this extra challenge is a small change.

After rambling on about chess variant pieces I should also start talking more about variants in general. The internet has not only made chess more widespread, but it also gave a new avenue for variants that were only known in small circles mostly through the Chess Variant Pages. Recently, Chess.com and Lichess included variants in the games you can play in real time online, thus there's now more opportunities to play and analyze these hitherto rarely played games.

So, chess variants. Why? Games don't really just pop up out of nowhere (we're not going to get into the whole intellectual property thing) and most of them simply develop over time, where changes come and go until something sticks and we're stuck with it in an official level. The earliest roots of the chess as we know it came from India and its direct ancestor from Persia. Those games also count as variants, and so do the other descendants as they appear in places like China, Japan and Southeast Asia.

In terms of game design no one is really trying to make Chess 2. The classic game as we know it does have its share of problems that designers just can't help but want to tweak, but save for Fischer Random none of the proposals have gotten that much traction. A chess variant is expected to be "chess-like," whatever that means: usually "has king to mate" and "is still abstract strategy" is enough but even those two get done away with when needed.

Variants are also made for experimentation. Ralph Betza has done a lot of work on piece values and has created various games based on a single concept used to its full extent such as variants where pieces move differently depending on some condition it is in. As for compositions, variants come up to make some clever theme a reality, with some variants only working on a problem but not practical play (we'll gloss over retro for sanity's sake). The fun in fairy chess problems is in the use of ideas not possible in orthodox problems, may it be a theme or a geometric trick (some stipulations not in practical play are considered orthodox options in problem circles anyway)

For designers there is a certain paradigm in how a variant should work, while problemists are more interested in conjuring cool lines, whether or not the variant works in practical play. Grasshoppers are a favorite in compositions yet never featured in a dedicated game, but while game designers can't help but love the Xiangqi cannon, they rarely appear in compositions.

More importantly, though, the game has to be fun, or something worth playing in addition to chess. Variants appeal to those who already know chess, and the way they are presented includes allusions to the game everyone knows. There is no sense in trying to pass off a game that feels like chess as some new thing so the best it can do is be a nice extra game for the chess enthusiasts or be another game in the collection for the more general board game folk.

The Chess Variant Pages has already answered the question why play these variants, so I won't add to it any more, but let me conclude this mess this way: Amid the kinds of popular designer board games floating around in the scene, chess variant fans are happy enough to get something new.

 

Soxfan196o: When you just cannot wait for an autograph.
Noodley1: "WORLD IS MINE"
NotWinlogon: when your daughter thinks the arena is a stage
SirStabsalot: i'm about to sing this motherfucker a lullaby!
The Tainted Wisdom: "When someone disrespects your man in front of you"
Fluffy the Destroyer of Worlds: "Wait a second! Who's that!? It's Miku with a steel leek!"
panic lord: Tonight on WWE SUPERSLAM, pay for the seat, but you'll only need the EDGE. In the blue corner, she'll make you MIKU your MAKER.

anomynus: "Time for some text-to-screech action!"

Geodis: Before all those steel chair memes.
Zanthia: Come to Cosplay, they said. It will be fun, they said!

		2		3		2		2		9
		1								1
2								1		3
	2				1	3	2	3		11
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3		3		1			1			8
			2	2						4
	1				3					4
1			1		2	1				5

Chess Piece Essay: Mix and Match

In the world of generalized chess, anything goes. Chess variants have always introduced new pieces wherever applicable, and if they befit the game's needs. Not every piece will be as one-track as the pieces I've shown earlier; there's no restriction against going crazy with your pieces.

We will deal with hybrids, pieces made from combining movements from leapers, riders and hoppers. To clarify, if a piece does one leap forward and another kind of leap back, it is simply a compound leaper, for a piece to be a hybrid it has to be able to move in two different movement types.

The Simple Mix

Take one movement type and a different movement type, put them together, and you have a simple hybrid. The most notable examples are the knight hybrids commonly explored in more well-known chess variants. The common names for these are the Chancellor (Rook + Knight), Archbishop (Rook + Bishop) and the Amazon (Knight + Queen). As a piece with a Knight and Queen move can be a real monster, some games either try to neuter the piece or place it on a larger board, but there are also games that let the anarchy of an Amazon dictate play, fun but horribly unbalanced.

Not much can be said here that I haven't spitballed on the previous essays; hybrids function as two pieces at once though no one splits hairs at this level.

One Way, then Another

In orthodox chess a piece moves the same way wherever it is on the board whether it is capturing or not, the only piece not to do this is the pawn. 

Pieces whose moves depend on where it is on the board is as much of a topic under pieces as much as it is under board geography. Chinese chess for example has two features that affect how pieces play and some variants use board features to allow some moves that are not possible otherwise, so in this regard the two are intertwined.

A piece moving differently to capture isn't unusual: the pawn for example. The key point here is that the piece only moves a certain way to capture and would not do so otherwise. This then gives us the two general additions: 1) the piece can also capture with its non-capture moves but has additional moves when it captures, 2) the piece has different moves for non-capture and capture. 

Next factor is the direction the piece moves in. On a standard square board there are four main directions: left, right, forward and backward. Board geometry allows more directions than these but in practice these four directions define whether a piece can move a certain way, for example Betza's menagerie is filled with pieces defined this way. Tony Paletta made variants where pieces move depending on destination, and a piece can change movement depending on where it stands (commonly through squares of a color on a checkerboard).

In the hopper essay I have talked about conditional hoppers, though the condition in that case is in whether or not a hurdle is involved. Upon further review conditional hopping is more likely to make a piece a hybrid. In a broad sense this section may be about conditional movement, but convention has it that movement types depending on the piece's state are independent of each other and so we need not get too hung up on classifying such pieces; it is a better exercise to classify the conditions needed instead.

Morphin' Like Morphy

Pieces are expected to stay the same in chess. For these kinds of pieces let's disregard that for a bit and give them the ability to change. Thus follows the first question, into what? Conventionally a piece an only change to a piece that exists in the game; you cannot introduce a piece that should not exist. Next thing to consider is what triggers the change: a capture? being at a certain part of the board? merely moving? 

Parton created a variant that uses the morph cycle of pawn-knight-bishop-rook-queen-king which may have been the standard cycle for a while(not willing to pin Parton as the source yet).

The other way is for a capturing piece to change into the piece it captured, not to be confused with the capturing piece taking in its properties. In the former a rook capturing a bishop becomes a bishop, in the latter the same situation nets a queen.

In any case, the effects kick in after the change is complete

The Piece Moveth, the Piece Taketh

Pieces usually take as they move, that is their capture moves are the same as their normal moves. Displacement capture is taken for granted in chess that changing it is enough to make it a variant. 

Must a piece move to capture? An early variant with a different capture is Rifle Chess, where pieces capture enemies in their range without having to move, 

The first serious attempt at playing with more than one capture property is Ultima, giving everyone in the back row who isn't the king other means of capture, seven in total. Later variations trying to improve on Ultima added extra moves, like Rococo replacing some captures with three new ones. Having pieces move the same but take differently doesn't play like chess but is still chess-like albeit with a lot of queen lines.

A capture that has seen some use is that of jumping over pieces to capture them, analogous to checkers. There's even a variant dedicated to it, reminiscent of earlier variant Dynamo Chess.

Wait, What About the Pawn?

Most chess piece taxonomies label the pawn as a separate thing and sometimes add a sort of separate class of pieces based on pawns. This classification assumes variants that are meant to be played, but a pawn is still a piece anyway. A pawn is a sniper as the only piece to move different in a capture or non-capture, a short rider on the basis of its two-step first move but ultimately hops. Only pawns can promote but if a pawn is given enough power this can be done away with. 

In the end, a piece is a pawn by virtue of being the first line of defense in the starting position, expendable but nonetheless a vital part of the king's army.

Game Review: Club♣Fight

The first rule of Club♣Fight is to eliminate all the cards coming at you in a grid with your 13 cards by playing them in actions that remove cards from the grid. The second rule of Club♣Fight is that some moves are disabled if at least three cards of a suit appear on the grid.

Moves you can always do include removing every card matching the one you played, removing cards equal to the sum of the one you played or the inverse and playing a sequence of three cards to clear the grid. The card values are standard pip values with aces always low, there is also a joker that isn't worth anything and isn't any suit.

The special moves that can be blocked are removing a line of cards containing the card played (blocked by diamonds), playing a card and removing every card lower (2-7) or higher (7-K) than it (blocked by spades) and removing a sequence of cards that includes the card played (blocked by hearts).

First observation is that you should take out 3.1 cards per card played, easier said than done with nine visible card at most and the whole blocked moves affair limiting your attack output, but merely playing the most damaging move isn't enough, you have to remove the right cards lest you find yourself blocked: a grid with a 3-3-3 distribution in suits is not an uncommon sight.

The optimal moves are always the single card ones; clearing the grid may be useful tactically but is worth 3 cards per card, at least you have other ways to change the grid without being forced  to nuke.

Fun and unpredictable, this game is a quick diversion with a challenge.

 

NotWinlogon: just a normal day at work in russia - 6 pts

firemummy: "It is always surprising where we find ourselves when the ADHD meds kick in" - 9 pts

Soxfan196o: Somone was on thin ice at work. - 11 pts, 6 vts

Chadomancer: This isn't exactly what she meant when Jill said she wanted a cool new job. - 8 pts, 2 3's

JoeyX: "Take your time, we can start the zoom call whenever. I'm just chillin'." - 8 pts, 1 3
KoL Miners Daughter: So, you say you had to walk uphill through the snow to get to school? Well... - 7 pts
LukeMcNuke: The influencers are returning to the frozen lakes- nature is healing :) - 6 pts
HuntaNomad: It's a dry cold - 1 pt
noobsauce: just chillin', WFH life - 2 pts
SirStabsalot: "when hell's frozen over but your name is summer" - 3 pts
Not Me Yet: when the elder scrolls 6 drops - 0 pts

Gawea: Elsa gets an office job. - 11 pts, 5 vts

	2					1				3			6
			1		3	2	1		2				9
2	1			2				2	3		1		11
3					1		3			1			8
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				3		3		1					7
		3	2	1									6
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													0
1	3				2			3		2			11

Game Review: Aces of Warfare

Wargames need not be ornery. Aces of Warfare simplifies the solitaire wargame to a deck of cards in a system of sorts.

The aces and courts of the deck represent enemy forces that you have to defeat in a battle taking place in four locations. In general you play two cards at a time either to the left or right of each location until all eight slots are filled(you can use up a joker if you want to rearrange cards already in play), then an attrition phase follows where you might lose cards, and if aces show up on board extra powers kick in. Then comes your turn to fight, the result determined by the difference of the number on the right from the number on the left, negatives counting, you can lose, rout the enemy out of the area or win the battle outright but if you get zero or less expect reinforcements. 

You win by eliminating all 16 enemies but if you are unable to do this as you don't have enough cards special game end conditions kick in.

Designer Mike Heiman supplied the game with 10 historical battles, each with their own goals, geographical quirks, special rules and ace powers. You can probably even make your own battle with your own mix of these things.

In the interests of speed (reviewing each battle might be a later project), this review will cover the system, which is pretty intuitive for a wargame. Though the battle mechanisms are a bit too simplified to fit the material, it does use the luck of the cards to make the game have that bit of uncertainty. In the game your discarded cards can still be used for later but lost cards are "buried," this distinction might be confusing at first and there's no getting away from it.

Speaking of losing cards, what a great way to bring home the risk of losing too many troops out of either bad tactics or superior enemy forces. Strangely, even if you do have to play with a reduced hand it doesn't mean your fighting chances would change dramatically; there are only two battle outcomes with precise values.

Game Review: Sandcastle Solitaire

Kicking off my attempt to cover as many solitaire games in the 2023 Traditional Deck Game Design Contest, Sandcastle Solitaire is not just any column-piling game. True to the name, these cards are now made of sand and can collapse, not to mention the tide kicking in.

Each turn you draw and play a row of cards onto columns and discard some cards into a discard pile. You must start your row on an existing column can only play it in either the order drawn or the other way around. If a card is played onto a face-up card it must either be higher or the same suit lest the entire column collapse and all its cards flip. After playing your row, you discard half the number of live columns in cards from the draw pile. This cycle continues until the deck runs out. If you have more face-up cards than discarded cards you win.

Easy enough rules to get the hang of while having some flexibility in trying out different plays(you can draw a row from 1 to 7 cards), the game's strategy includes both foreplanning how many cards to draw and which columns to save and tactical considerations in choosing how to play the row and what losses can be taken. 

In my playthroughs so far I have played with long rows which meant risking inevitably losing columns as extending the tableau means more discards to try to outnumber. Someone in the linked thread used a more conservative strategy that requires precise card-counting. Most games end with close margins but is not at all unpredictable as it would seem.

The game can be played with jokers: they don't have a suit and represent the highest card in a column, a joker played as the first card of a column immediately collapses.

NISEMONO: Joji playing Shogi by the Sea - 2 pts
Chadomancer:

Man: Check

Nature: Uh...tidal wave to Rook 4, mother f****r!s

- 13 pts

Soxfan196o: When you play chess on the beach, every move is a 'shore' thing! - 9 pts

bitnb: Dolphins, it turns out, are not as playful as he had assumed. - 10 pts
Gawea: "GO to the beach day" wasn't as popular as Brian thought it would be. - 9 pts

Unconventionable: Ling on a hot date - 3 pts, 2 vts

panic lord: Man takes Go to the beach too literally - 4 pts
HuntaNomad: And just like that, the house of cards falls like dominoes. Bingo. - 4 pts
Blamefulrednas: i heard there are good chess players at the beach, but i think they are cheating, they are all acting fishy. - 7 pts
Leonardo Da Turtle: "You're using the Wade Defence?" - 3 pts

LukeMcNuke: The only time I'm ever able to use my favorite chess move without being mocked is when I play myself. Oh "bongcloud" attack, the scandal of our affair makes it all the better! - 2 pts

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			3	2	3		1	1	3				13
	3				2			3	1				9
	2			3	1			2		2			10
2		3				1	3						9
						3							3
3		1											4
			1							3			4
	1	2		1					2	1			7
1						2							3
							2						2

 

Soxfan196o: When you go for a handshake but your student challenges you to a game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors, Teach! - 6 pts, 2 vts

NotTaskmgr: yan jung chen bung ping pong (translation: welcome, professor, let's play rock paper scissors while explaining algebra) - 0点
Asixton: Point,scissors,slap - 2 pts
Bobby cool: cmon Jennifer this is the 15th time we ve practiced this handshake - 6 pts, 3 vts
HuntaNomad: "If you expect your sneak attack to work, think again" - 7 pts
Cheese: "This fight took 4 episodes in the anime" - 15 pts

NISEMONO: Peace was never an option. - 9 pts, 5 vts
Silverwolf4455: Rock, Paper, Scissors Introduction - 2 pts
Chadomancer: That awkward moment when you confuse an offered handshake for Ro Sham Bo. - 9 pts, 4 vts
slifty: hand shake lessons - 4 pts

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	2									2
1					3			2		6
			1		1		2	1	2	7
2	3		2	1		3		3	1	15
		1		2	2		1		3	9
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3	1	2	3							9
				3		1				4