This text is part of the special book Culture as a gift
There are the games that we offer, and those that we open to play together on Christmas Day. No question of making people jealous, we have selected three titles for you, for three totally different gaming experiences and for all budgets.
Released last year, the graphic investigation game Micro Macro: Crime City won all the honors, including the precious Golden Ace (Game of the Year at the prestigious Cannes International Games Festival). The latest version, called Full house, offers a new series of crimes to solve, without touching an inch to the perfect mechanics of this game. The “oh! “And” wow! »Burst out as soon as we unfold the huge poster teeming with details that serves as a game board. We stick our face to it and we discover the life of the hundreds of inhabitants of Crime City who go about their business, while sixteen unfold crimes, each more abominably cute than the next. Grab your pipe and tweed cap (the game already provides a welcome magnifying glass) and choose one of the sixteen new items in the box. In each envelope, a series of numbered cards defines the objectives and clues to be discovered chronologically to resolve the case.
First mission: locate the victim. Then, in a clever mix of Who is it ?, Where is Charlie ? and Search and find, follow her path, identify the interactions she has had with other inhabitants, and go back in time as in a cartoon backwards. ” The ! He entered the metro! “I see him: he came out through the station at the other end of the map, then he turned the corner to get into a convertible car!” “, ” Look ! This shady guy has been following him from the start! Everyone works at the same time around the table (or better, on all fours in the middle of the living room) to reveal the peregrinations of the protagonists of the affair.
Micro rules for maximum pleasure!
The attention to detail in this game is breathtaking, as much as the simplicity of the concept. Despite their size of the order of a centimeter (astigmatic, abstain!) All the awful characters that we meet are perfectly identified, with a unique style and attitude. A rare sensitive experience, the swarm of drawing draws us completely into the city. Concentrated on a neighborhood, you could almost hear crowd noises and firefighter sirens. The games rarely last more than fifteen minutes and manage to offer a real feeling of urban investigation. Playable solo, the game takes all its salt with several, the only limit of participants being the space around the table. We scratch our heads, jostle each other to find the next clue, and we congratulate ourselves when one of the players puts his finger on a scene cleverly hidden in the background and that no one had spotted. A unique experience to try with the family as soon as the gift wraps are torn.
Micro Macro: Full House, Spielwiese, 1-6 players, games of about 20 minutes, $ 40
One more wonder for Seven Wonders
After many expansions, followed by an excellent version for two players called Duel, the family of games Seven wonders grows with the arrival of Seven Wonders: Architects. We put aside the development aspect of civilization to focus on building a wonder of the ancient world. Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Pyramids of Giza and the other Colossus of Rhodes are presented in the form of five reversible tiles, with one side “under construction” and one side “completed” offering various bonuses. Playable from two to seven players, quick to set up thanks to its clever storage system (seven individual boxes containing cards and tiles for each player), and very pleasant to handle: Architects is a dynamic and accessible game, even more so than the previous iterations. It is essentially a race, where each player seeks to build his wonder before the others.
The mechanics are simple. We draw a card from the three available stubs and we resolve its effect: a new resource to advance the construction site of its wonder, an army to prepare for war, scientific progress with various effects… and we move on to the next one. The game is going at full speed, and even with seven players, you can never wait too long before being able to replay your turn. A sign of a successful game, everyone is having fun around the table, and completing the top floor of their wonder offers a very satisfying sense of completion. A title that will delight all players, from the youngest to the oldest, except perhaps the adepts of finely crafted strategy, who will have to play piecemeal like the others, without really being able to plan for the long term. But for them, we kept an asset up our sleeve.
Seven Wonders: Architects, 2-7 players, games of about 30 minutes, $ 60
Of claws and fangs
Don’t be fooled by the delicate illustrations artist Kyle Ferrin produced for Root, and that one would think straight out of a cute animal tale for children. Its universe could refer to the rabbits of Beatrix Potter, but the complexity of the first parts may surprise even the most seasoned players. Staging a struggle between the different peoples of a beautiful forest, Root is not that hard to understand, but it pays the price for its ambition.
This is an asymmetrical game, where each clan has its own mini-board, with its particular rules and unique ways of achieving victory. While cats and crows dominate by their armies, others will bet on faith or trade, or even mutual aid between players. The cats must develop their industry, the crows plan a political system that will snowball, the little people start a long guerrilla war, the vagabond go on an adventure in the ruins and exchange shares of the loot … Imagine a bar where everyone of your interlocutors speak a different language, and you will have a little the effect that gives Root Firstly.
A playful flagship
After this warning and this little time for appropriation, this game is undoubtedly one of the best we have been able to play. It is said. Whether through the intelligence of the concept, the immersion offered (we get attached so quickly to our little wooden creatures), the fluidity of the game turns, the more or less temporary alliances, the sense of urgency that dominates the whole game, not to mention an exemplary replayability, this is a jewel fashioned with absolute standards. A true work of art, and a flagship in any game library worthy of the name.
The French version published by Matagot is therefore a success. It includes the first extension, River, that is, two additional peoples (lizards and otters), as well as a cooperative mode against a mechanical marquee. Everything is absolutely perfect, from the perfectly thought out thermoforming to the wooden card holders, not necessary but which signify the attention to detail brought to this game. oneself given the price which may seem dissuasive, but which any true board game lover will dream of opening under the tree.
Root, Matagot, 2 to 6 players, games of about 2 hours, $ 135