Idle Remorse

Review: Spitting Image

By On March 18, 2024 With No Comments

Review: Spitting Image
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Year: 1984
Players: 2 to 6
Tagline: THE GAME OF SCANDAL

Two puppets resembling Gorbachev and Reagan stare at each other
I know, right?

how we met

Since my sister moved to the area, I frequent Madison quite a bit, and Noble Knight Games has a clearance cave that I rarely leave without four or five games in tow. My very first visit I found Spitting Image, a game I’d never heard of. From a show I’d never heard of. With puppets that were once in a Genesis video that I’m not sure I’d ever seen. But the box is pretty irresistible, and I was happy to take Spitting Image home with me.

how it plays

In Spitting Image each player is a World Leader and has three scandals they are trying to keep secret. Your goal is to reveal the scandals of your fellow World Leaders and be the last World Leader with at least one scandal unrevealed. Then you win!

Our heroes?

In true shock value fashion, the fattest player goes first. Hello, 1984.

Movement in Spitting Image is very interesting. You choose where to move, anywhere between one and six spaces. In addition to moving their own pawn, each player also moves the Journalist pawn that number of spaces. World Leaders can’t share spaces with each other, but if the Journalist Lands on the same space as a World Leader, one of that World Leader’s scandals is auctioned off. The highest bidder obtains the scandal – but can’t reveal it yet!

This is what the hidden scandals look like during play.
Examples include "is secret member of flat earth society" and "suspected of insider dealing"
And some of the example scandals.

The player who wins the auction takes the next turn.

When a World Leader pawn lands on a Press Conference space and they have another player’s hidden scandal, they can try to expose the scandal. When the Press Conference is landed on, the following may occur:

  1. Blackmail (optional) where you can ask the World Leader whose scandal you have to pay you to keep it a secret. If it’s paid, you keep the scandal but the Press Conference ends and play goes to the next player.
  2. Accuse the World Leader by reading the headline out loud! Oh no!
  3. Play relevant Dirty Tricks cards to accuse the accuser of lying, but if they have the lie detector card then your accusation will fail and your secret will be out.

If a scandal is exposed, the World Leader that exposed it receives $50 million from the bank. Because the rich get richer.
If the scandal is instead refuted, the World Leader that was accused receives $10 million from the accuser as damages. That’ll show the bastard.

The money isn’t much to look at, but here you go!

The player who wins the press conference always takes the next turn. The rules about play turn are important so you don’t get stuck moving in concert with the Journalist. That would suck.

Other spaces on the board move the Journalist pawn, allow World Leaders to draw cards or grant the World Leaders more money.

Here are the Dirty Tricks cards. National Security lets you escape a press conference without embarrassment, guaranteed!

Play continues until one World Leader remains, and they are the winner!

NOTE: For a shorter game the rules recommend everyone counts up what they have left after the first player is out, cards are assigned dollar amounts and the World Leader with the most wealth wins!

how it went

I played Spitting Image recently with my usual gaming group. The movement took a few minutes to get used to, but then we were booking it around the board and callously moving the Journalist onto each other’s World Leaders consistently.

These are the World Leader cards that you pair with your scandals.

Some of the pawns are not especially easy to tell apart, which can be a pain. I was happy to have the big red nose on our awful Journalist pawn.

A look at our play. Specifically Pope John Paul II.

In a repeat of history, Kinnock (me) and Thatcher (John) were the last two pawns standing in the end, taking shots at each other. John had so much money I didn’t think I would be able to get poor Kinnock to the end. But I wore John down and drew very lucky cards that allowed me to protect my last, precious, scandalous secret. When I revealed that Thatcher “once went on seal-culling adventure holiday” that was it. Kinnock wins!

play or pass

Pass. I enjoy the quirky pawns in the style of Spitting Image puppets, and the movement kept things interesting. But player elimination and the dated content places major limitations on the enjoyment of Spitting Image. I do love a good satire, but it doesn’t always translate to a good game.

Review: The Secret Door

By On March 8, 2024 With No Comments

Review: The Secret Door
Publisher: Family Pastimes
Year: 1991
Players: 1 to 8
Tagline: A CO-OPERATIVE MYSTERY GAME ™

Cover shows a spooky house in the distance

how we met

Bill picked up The Secret Door for me at the Kane County Toy Show <3. I love a 90s game, and this one had pretty decent reviews – which is not always the case when I buy a vintage game. Sold!

how it plays

The Secret Door is a simple memory / deduction game. There are 24 VALUABLES cards and 12 TIME cards that all have identical blank backs. Three of these valuables get hidden away and the object of the game is for the team to deduce which objects are hidden before the clock strikes midnight!

Shuffle the VALUABLES cards and set aside three of them face down in the Secret Passage. Keep all of the cards face down and add the TIME cards, shuffling all the cards together. Then place them throughout the mansion, face-down. (NOTE: I highly recommend storing the VALUABLES and TIME cards separately in the box to aid in setup)

A door card and two stacks of other cards, one showing clocks the other various valuables
The door is only there to hide the three secret valuables!

Players work cooperatively, taking turns placing two cards face-up. The goal is to find pairs of VALUABLES. If a player turns up a TIME card, that card goes to the Clock area of the board to indicate another hour has passed.

Because this is a cooperative game, there are a couple of tips that I strenuously recommend:

  • Make sure all players see your cards when you turn them face up. If a player is not paying attention, get their attention and politely ask them to get their head in the game.
  • Do not turn your two cards up super-quickly-one-after-the-other. If you turn up the first card and do not remember seeing its pair, maybe another player does. If you turn them both up boom-boom then an opportunity for a match could be lost.

If you make a pair, place the cards into the Safety Deposit Box and your turn is over.

The board has various rooms shown, like a cut out of a house
A look at the board. I recommend as you uncover TIME cards to place them along the clock section face down so they stick out from the board more than if you place them face up

Once the Clock strikes midnight (all TIME cards have been found) then players must cooperatively make a single guess at which three VALUABLES are hidden away, keeping in mind it’s possible to have more than one of a given type. If you think you know before midnight you can guess earlier. If you guess any VALUABLES correctly, they are saved from the thieves! Any you got wrong are made off with. 🙁

how it went

There’s a lot to be said for a game that is fun, simple and rather quick to play. I played The Secret Door with my ol’ standby gaming group of four. We had a good time and played twice back-to-back.

In our first game, we were only able to identify two VALUABLES cards that were hidden away. In our second game we identified only a single item! I was a veritable magnet for the TIME cards, which probably led to a poorer performance in the second game. Time sure does fly! (The rules make this joke as well)

The TIME cards are one of my favorite aspects of The Secret Door. Knowing you can let your team down by revealing a TIME card brings tension and really helps elevate what is essentially a memory, pair-matching game.

An overview of the board
A look at the end of one of our games. I can practically see my fingerprints on those TIME cards

A common criticism of The Secret Door is the component quality. This is important to note, especially if you find the game used. You want to make sure all the cards are present, and ideally that they do not have damage that would allow you to identify a type of card face-down, like a severe fold or some such thing. My cards are well-worn and bordering on gross, but they do not have markings on their backsides. And if you are worried about it, you can always sleeve your cards. I have seen worse games get card sleeves.

And it’s worth noting, while we did not play with children, many of The Secret Door’s beloved fans enjoy playing with kiddos: improving memory, practicing co-operative play, partial win scenarios, etc.

play or pass

Play. The Secret Door is simple fun, a good filler vintage game. Combining memory with deduction against the backdrop of a spooky mansion and hailing from the early 90s — The Secret Door checks a lot of my boxes! Add to this that it’s family-friendly and quick to play, and it just might check a lot of your boxes too.

Review: Ingenious

By On January 22, 2022 With No Comments

Review: Ingenious
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Year: 2007
Tagline: An Amazing Game for 1 to 4 Brains!
Players: 1 to 4

how we met

Ingenious had been on my shelf of shame for a long, long time (if you are not familiar with the self-flagellation of board game enthusiasts, a shelf of shame is the term for any group of games you have purchased but not yet played). I probably found Ingenious at thrift four or more years ago. The cover is simple and implies the abstract game that it is. I have seen it at thrift before, but not much. It was just elusive enough to entice me, without me knowing anything about the gameplay.

Also, realistically, I probably looked Ingenious up on BGG and saw the incredible rating. There’s not a trick in the book that can pull a game out of my hands at that point.

how it plays

Although Ingenious is listed as a 1 to 4 player game, the 1 player game is a solitaire version that I have not tried and probably will not discuss. The rules will cover that if you are interested, and if you have tried it as solitaire, I’d love to hear what you thought!

Each player gets a score board and a little rack that will hold their tiles so that only they can see them (like in Qwirkle). Players should always begin their turn with six tiles on their rack. The size of the board will vary based on number of players.

A look at the board behind my rack of tiles
A look at our early play

On their turn a player chooses one of their tiles and places it on the board with the goal of creating lines of matching symbols that will increase their score. So the turns are very simple to remember: place a tile, score your tile and refresh your hand by drawing a new tile.

There are two special things to remember:
During the very first round only, each player is required to place their first tile next to a different one of the symbols already printed on the board.

The empty board has six symbols printed on it

And, if your rack of symbols does not contain any of the colors in the lowest position of your score board after you have played a tile, you can refresh your entire hand after showing your tiles to your fellow players.

This tile refresh can be important because the scoring of this game is, well, ingenious. You track your score per each symbol, and when the board is full your final score is your lowest marker. So if you blast ahead on five of your symbols but ignore the sixth, you will have a terrible score. It’s important to nurture each of your symbols along the way and/or block your fellow players.

The score board is tracked with wooden cubes for each symbol
A look at my score board. If the game ended right now, my score would be 3 since my lowest level symbols are at 3 🙁

The player with the highest end score (which is whatever your lowest symbol is), wins Ingenious!

how it went

When I finally busted out Ingenious, I played with my normal game group so we played 4 player. We enjoyed the game so much we played three times in a row.

Check out this review by Mason on The Five By podcast. As he points out, there’s a lot of room for strategy in a 2 player game. 2 players is probably where Ingenious shines the most. I think there is a lot more disruption in a 4 player game, and I think I am used to that since I play so many games with 4 players. But it’s not the worst thing: this type of play prepares you for other games like Gloomhaven, where your best laid plans may turn to ashes before your eyes. Ingenious still requires a steady hand and plenty of examination to ensure you are scoring your best hand or blocking others, not to mention the strategic decision of which symbol or symbols to focus on based on what is in front of you.

NOTE: Mason does a good job of explaining the differences in versions and if you look at Ingenious ratings you will see some complaints. I was lucky enough to find the old Fantasy Flight Games version and the components are great.

Further along in play. In my version, the white space is used for 1 or 2 players, the light grey for 3 players and the full board including dark grey for 4 players

In our play, Keri won once and Bill won twice. John did fairly well while I was never even close because I am generally terrible at abstract games. The scoring system helps to ensure there is not a runaway winner, but you can still be a runaway loser if you get unlucky enough. But there is still plenty of enjoyment to be had in deciding your best move, whether it is offensive or defensive.

Game over and time to see who won!

play or pass

Absolutely play. This is one of the best games we have reviewed on Idle Remorse and has a very elegant, enduring gameplay. Ingenious is very approachable, plays quickly and offers a lot of strategy. If you see it at thrift, do not pass it up. And if you already own it, buy it for your local coffee shop or brewery; it is the perfect game for a chill evening with friends.

Review: Bottle Topps

By On December 4, 2021 With No Comments

Review: Bottle Topps
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Year: 1993
Tagline: Stack ’em High & Stack ’em Wide
Players: 2 or more

Cover shows a bottle with disks balanced on top of it in a wide canopy

how we met

I had never heard of Bottle Topps before finding it at thrift recently. But I like a dexterity game, and it seems impossible to me that this many wooden disks can truly branch out as wide as the cover suggests, just being balanced on a single little bottle. I was intrigued.

how it plays

The game comes with a small wooden bottle with a cap that sits on top of it. From there, players take turns placing a single wooden disk on the cap or on another disk. For beginners, the game suggests playing up to nine levels. Once you get to nine levels, you place the red stopper on top (an ever-so-slightly different shade of red than the other disks). This means no players can build at that level. All other disks need to get placed within the first nine levels.

A few disks on the bottle at this point
Here we are warming up. In case you were wondering, there is no difference or relevance to red vs white disks

If a player knocks disks off during their turn, they need to add twice that many disks onto the pile. Players can use their disk to push other disks to tighten the pile.

The rules also say that you must stay in your seat, so you can’t get up and move around to find a better spot. You can spin the bottle to change what you can access, but I feel like you’d have to be nuts to do that.

As with many dexterity games, there is one loser rather than one winner. The player that causes the chips to fall down loses Bottle Topps!

how it went

It’s probably not worth mentioning, but I am annoyed that the game is called Bottle Topps with two P’s. I know this is probably for purposes of disambiguation, but I don’t like it. However, that is not important. Let’s talk gameplay.

I really wanted to play around with Bottle Topps on my own to see how many disks I could get on the bottle, but I didn’t want an unfair advantage against my gaming group when we went to play. So I didn’t.

Further along in play
Here we are growing our little bottle! You can see in this photo the “red” disk on top. It is an ever-so-slightly more red, red than the other red disks. No one can play at the level of that top red disk, everything must be lower.

As we played, John probably did the most attempted sabotage by placing his disks in awkward spots. Like if you place your disk directly on top of another disk, that’s awkward. It won’t last terribly long. It will set someone up for a bad spot, but you don’t know when or who.

Our bottle did not get terribly wide in its growth, but still. I think it’s cute. Note how many are stacked on top of each other instead of outward 🙁

As play progressed, and as expected, it was getting more difficult to find places to slip a disk into the pile. Eventually on my turn I was really struggling to find a decent location when it all came crashing down. And I lost Bottle Topps!

The moment of my non-victory

Board Game Geek user Teppolainen mentions in their rating comments that this is based on an old pub game where you balance matches on a beer bottle. I believe that, but unfortunately I haven’t tried that game yet. I’ll have to pick up a box of matches soon.

play or pass

Play. Bottle Topps is a balancing dexterity game. I was impressed at how broadly the chips fan out if the weight distribution is right. This is not my favorite, but it brings everything you expect in a dexterity game. Things like tension. Sabotage. Luck. Patience. Shaky hands. Color confusion. Naughty words. Trash talking. “Accidental” table bumping.

Review: The Garden Game

By On September 12, 2021 With No Comments

Review: The Garden Game
Publisher: Ampersand Press
Year: 1996
Tagline: A Celebration of Cultivation For All Seasons
Players: 2 to 6

how we met

When I found The Garden Game at thrift, it was clearly an educational game about gardening. Educational games intrigue me (much more than they should) so I wanted to bring it home and soak in all of the gardening wisdom it had to offer me.

I should probably mention, I am not a gardener. We raise sheep and lambing happens around mid-May. That’s not the height of planting season, but it is important for weeding, watering, other things. And so we just never have prioritized gardening. So I probably have plenty to learn on the topic!

how it plays

The Garden Game is a spin and move game where your goal is to have the most points in the end by having the most amazing garden of all!

On their turn, players spin the spinner to see how many places they move. At the end of their turn, they draw an Almanac card and do what it says. If they happen to land on a space with another player, they draw a Garden card before drawing an Almanac card!

The spinner, which has some gentle education

Almanac cards usually have you pick a Garden card, but they can also cause you to lose a Garden card, Lose a turn or Spin Again. Drawing a Garden card always means you can choose the visible card in the discard pile or draw blindly from the deck.

At the beginning of each turn you can try to trade Garden cards with other players. Trades are really where this game is won or lost.

Garden cards are placed out in front of you face up – don’t hide that beautiful garden! Some Garden cards will protect you from unpleasant Almanac cards. But the ultimate goal is to have the most points. Every single garden card you have is worth a single point, but garden cards double in points if you create a pollinating set. This means having two copies of any single plant plus whatever it takes to pollinate them. Pollinating sets consist of either two (for self-pollinating plants) or three cards. Each card in the set is worth 2 points instead of 1 point.

These are example Almanac and Garden cards

Once the first player passes the End space then each other player has one more turn. Then the game ends and everyone should count up their garden scores. The player with the most valuable garden wins The Garden Game!

how it went

Oh, our play went largely as expected. And as much as I appreciate an indie, labor-of-love educational game, there’s a few gripes I have.

First, the pawns are small rocks. I appreciate the message and natural approach, I really do. But my game comes with 21 of these small pebbles/rocks. And approximately 18 of them are semi-identical. The biggest trick is finding four pawns that you can all tell apart. And I just can’t shake the image of the game creators literally grabbing a handful of pebbles and throwing them into the box.

A collection of rocks, most of which are grey
These are the pawns from the box. I wondered if it was just my copy but an image on BGG seems to indicate something like this is what came in each box

Second, the game is not super educational. It comes with a short booklet that includes information on plant life cycles, pollination, gardening basics, a glossary and a bibliography. The back of the booklet is where the game rules can be found. The cards do go into some best practices, but I feel like the majority of the educational aspect is outside of the game and in the booklet.

This is the booklet that teaches you about gardening

Third, the game departs from reality as needed, which I do not appreciate in an educational game. The booklet prepares you for this if you actually read it, but otherwise the rules may get confusing when you encounter self-pollinating plants in your garden, as an example. You still need two of them to make a pollinating set.

Fourth, and I feel bad saying this, but the art is not my personal taste.

We dutifully traveled around the game board. The goal, probably, is to travel as slowly as possible so that you can draw as many Garden cards as possible. We had amazing gardens. But your Garden cards will get stolen and lost and all kinds of bad things.

In the end, I won The Garden Game with 28 points! Keri had 27 (what a loser!), Bill had 18 and I do not have John’s points recorded. I think he was just happy it was over.

This is my garden, with pollinating sets in the upper right corner

FUN FACT: my copy of The Garden Game came with an original Packing List from when it was ordered by someone in Milwaukee in December 1997. They paid $26.95 which is a lot more than I paid. 🙁 But the paperwork included other neat things you could order from this company, like Angels of the Daily Grind rubber stamps!

Angels of the daily grind show angels doing daily chores like ironing, making the bed
The game cost a couple bucks but this insert was priceless

play or pass

Pass. I have a special place in my heart for educational games like this, but I want the theme to be relentless. In this case, the theme is pasted onto a spin and move game. Nothing about the actual gameplay says gardening to me. I didn’t learn much about gardening. The most difficult part of play was figuring out which pebble pawn was mine.

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