Mayday Games is best known for it's line of card sleeves for the hobby game market, but has recently jumped into the game publishing market with a nice selection of original and reprinted games. One of these games is a quirky Korean import called Toc Toc Woodman, designed by Justin Oh. Toc Toc Woodman is a dexterity game that tasks players with using a plastic axe to chop the bark from a large plastic tree without causing the tree to collapse. On the surface, it may sound similar to other popular dexterity games like Jenga, but make no mistakes, this Woodman has a whimsical style like no other.

Components:

The components in Toc Toc Woodman are made from a sturdy, lightweight, molded plastic that is built to withstand the repeated hits from the small plastic axe used during gameplay. Included in the game is a small plastic base upon which the rest of the pieces are stacked to form "slices" in the trunk of a small tree. Each slice has a central, lightly colored "core" with four brown pieces of "bark" that slide into it. Although quite simple in construction, it is surprising the way these components interact with each other to create a structure that is both strong and precarious at the same time.

Gameplay:

Toc Toc Woodman's rules are easily described in just a few sentences. In fact, although printed rules are included, a player can simply read the large lettering on the back of the box, and know everything he needs to play. During the game, players take turns hitting the segmented tree trunk with a plastic axe, trying to knock the bark off of the center core. While this may sound simple, it is usually easier said than done; as players hit the tree, the different stacked segments will be pushed around, causing the pieces of tree trunk to shift their balance. If a player is skillful, he will only knock the brown bark off of the tree, but a misjudged strike can cause one of the center cores to fall - or worse, the entire tree to collapse. For every piece of bark knocked off, the player scores a point, but, if one of the core pieces is knocked down, the player loses 5 points.  Each player must take two hits before the next player gets a chance to wield the axe. When all of the bark has been knocked from the tree, the player with the most points wins. More times than not, however, the game actually ends when the entire tree comes crashing down due to a misjudged chop - which can be very cathartic for the other players when it's the lead player doing the chopping.

That's really all there is to the game. It plays very quickly, and often times, the setup takes longer than the game itself. There are a couple of gameplay variants printed in the manual, and while these add some variety, there is an enjoyable simplicity in the basic game that I prefer.

Conclusion:

Even with the short play time and simple rules, there is a lot of fun to be had in this quirky game. The tension of the barely-balanced tree elicits gasps around my table, and giddy cackling from the children when one of their siblings, or, heaven forbid, one of their parents has caused the entire structure to collapse. In fact, this is one of those elusive games that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike, and more importantly - together. The nature of tapping the plastic trunk with a small "toc, toc" doesn't require the same extended control of small motor skills that a game like Jenga does, which is a great equalizer when it comes to younger folk.  Players only need to decide where to hit and how hard, which actually makes Toc Toc Woodman as much of a press-your-luck type game as it is a dexterity game. Hitting the tree hard can knock a lot of bark off, but there is a high probability that disaster will strike. On the other hand, a player who is too timid with his strength can come away empty handed. When many games I play with my kids can be mind-numbingly boring in their simplicity, it's refreshing that Woodman is able to take very basic rules and deliver something that is actually fun.

Although I have had great success playing Toc Toc with my children, it's important to note that it isn't just a kids game. The fun of being a miniature lumberjack is universal, so even when there are no kids in sight, Toc Toc is still a great experience with the right crowd. Toc Toc Woodman isn't going to be winning any awards for deep strategy, but as a quick social game to play with family or friends, it works exceedingly well. Where children love the simple rules and the inherent destruction of watching the tree collapse, adults will love the quirky theme... and the inherent destruction of watching the tree collapse.

The only negative thing I really have to say about Woodman, is that the 45 seconds it takes to set the game up can sometimes seem disproportionately long; especially when the game can take as little as 2 minutes to play. But then again, it ONLY takes 45 seconds to set up, which is arguably faster than any other game in my collection.

When deciding if you should purchase Toc Toc Woodman, there are a couple of angles to consider: For adult gamers, Toc Toc is firmly entrenched in the silly-fun filler game category, and will find success in a lively game group that enjoys the occasional light game... and perhaps the occasional cocktail. For parents with young children, though, Toc Toc Woodman makes for a great opportunity to bring the family to the table, and offers a chance to truly enjoy the smiles and laughter that gaming with kids delivers - and for me, this is where Toc Toc Woodman really shines.

Over the past few months I have been taking a journey into the world of hex and counter wargames. Facilitated by Victory Point Games' varied and beginner friendly catalog, I have been learning to enjoy a genre that, to me, was shrouded in complex rules and drenched in history that I regret to say, I didn’t really pay attention to in high school. As I grow older, however, my interest in learning and understanding this history grows, and I am finding these games to be both fun and interesting. I am bringing my two teenaged kids along for the ride, and I have enjoyed witnessing their reactions to these games.

Today we take on a Paul Koenig designed game about the 1944 World War II conflict “Operation Market Garden”. Aptly named: Paul Koenig’s Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge. This Koenig designed game has players experiencing part of the Allied operation that sought to utilize paratroopers to gain control of several strategically important bridges in Germany; an operation that, had it succeeded, would have opened the way for an armored attack on Northern Germany.

Components:

The components are typical Victory Point Games quality. They are printed using Desktop Publishing equipment, but are clean, and serve their purpose well. The maps are supplied on thick card-stock, with vivid colors that do not bleed or smear, and the chits are double-sided in full color, with a matte finish.

The map itself is clear and colorful, and the graphic design allows enough detail in the terrain to be interesting, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming. Player aids are printed at the top of the map, allowing for clean, easy access to the most commonly referenced information.

There are three parts to the full-color rulebook: The general rules that are to be shared by all of the games in Koenig's Market Garden series; the exclusive rules that apply only to the Arnhem Bridge game, and optional rules that allow players to add some extra flavor to their games. I had to read through the rules a couple of times to understand how everything worked, and the separation of rules across two sections made that process a bit more difficult than it could have been.

Gameplay:

Like the previous games that I have reviewed in my beginning wargame series, Paul Koenig’s Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge (PKMG:AB), is a hex and counter based game. But, though it has many of the same cosmetic underpinnings as others I have explored, it plays very differently.

The most notable difference is that Arnhem Bridge does not utilize zone of control as a game mechanism. Units can freely pass adjacent enemy units, and even enter the same hex as an enemy unit to perform close combat. This lack of ZOC gives the game a very claustrophobic feel, which works well in the close urban spaces that are being simulated. Hexes are restricted to containing two units - a mechanism called “stacking-limit”, which opens up some interesting strategies. Simply occupying a hex does not limit an opponent’s movement into the hex; only by doubling up on defense in a given hex, can movement into that hex be truly blocked. Since the Arnhem Bridge itself acts as a bottleneck between the north and south portions of the map, taking advantage of the stacking limit is critical.

Koenig’s design also steps away from a structured, predictable turn sequence, opting instead for a “chit-pull” mechanism. When determining the units that can be activated, a representative “HQ” chit for each color-coded group of units is placed into a cup. During play, these chits are are randomly drawn, allowing the corresponding units to take their actions. Due to the random nature of activation, players never know the order that the units will move, which makes it somewhat difficult to coordinate tactical maneuvers between the different units. Since disorganization and loss of communication were some of the major hurdles that the Allied soldiers faced during Operation Market Garden, the chit-pull mechanism makes strong thematic sense.

Combat in Arnhem Bridge is interesting as well. The design does a lot to simplify combat calculations and forgoes lookup tables by calculating success through the comparison of a die roll against the strength of the attacking units. That’s not to say combat is simple, though. In fact, PKMG:AB allows for 4 different types of unit actions, three of which are combat related: Full fire, mobile fire, and close combat. All of these combat types can result in damage to the attacking or defending unit; or an exchange, causing damage to both units. Units in Arnhem Bridge are fairly resilient, and can withstand multiple hits before being completely destroyed, using small double sided “Hit” counters that slide under the chits to show how much damage they have taken. A unit can sustain a single hit without any negative impact, but the second hit causes a loss of attack power, and a third hit destroys the unit entirely.

Of the three combat types, full fire is the one that is the most familiar; a unit in an adjacent hex can use his entire action to roll against his strength and see if he hits the enemy.  Mobile fire is the second type, and acts as a movement/combat hybrid; while only half as effective as full fire, a unit engaging in mobile fire can move using half of his movement, and then perform a half strength fire, or vice versa. Both Full fire and mobile fire only take the attacking units' strength into consideration when calculating the outcome of a battle. As long as the number rolled on a 6 sided die is less than the combined strength of the attacking units, the defending unit takes a hit.

Close combat however, is a bit different that the previous types and gives an advantage to the defender. In close combat, the attacking player enters the same hex as the defending player, and combat commences, with each player rolling against his unit strength until a player takes a hit or chooses to retreat. In this scenario, however, the defender gets the first attack. This is a very important rule that has some very dramatic implications. I overlooked this rule for my first couple of plays, and it resulted in a shockingly unbalanced experience that allowed the attacking player to steamroll the competition. When played correctly, however, close combat is quite a gamble for the attacker. But, with the density of units in the close quarters of the urban landscape, it is often critical to take a gamble with close combat in order to move forward in the greater strategy.

One of the most interesting aspects of wargames is the use of terrain, and Paul Koenig’s Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge uses terrain effects quite effectively. Different types of terrain can affect movement, as well as the effectiveness of full and mobile attacks. In addition to terrain in a given hex, features of a given hex side can affect gameplay as well. For example, a hex side that borders a river cannot be crossed, and there are several sloped hills on the map that can affect combat accuracy. I really enjoyed the diversity of terrain on the map, and the different tactical options that could be considered. Unfortunately, most likely due to my general inexperience with wargames, I found that there was not a whole lot of opportunity to utilize the terrain on the outskirts of the map, as it was often a mad rush to get to Arnhem Bridge before it was completely barricaded by the enemy. While I wanted to sit on a hill, and rain death upon my enemy, more often than not, without zone of control to slow my enemy down, I would simply watch as they zipped past me and out of range.

Scoring in PKMG:AB was surprising to me as well. Where most of the beginning wargames I have played had very strongly defined win conditions, success in Arnhem Bridge was much harder to easily quantify. Similar to many Euro style games that I have played, certain objectives scored differing numbers of victory points, and the player with the most is declared the victor.

Destroying an enemy unit, occupying city hexes, and securing Arnhem Bridge itself are all worth differing points. These objectives aren't arbitrary though, as the scoring system takes into account the important factors that would influence the likelihood of success in the conflict after the events of the game. One of these factors is the positioning of the German 16th SS infantry batallion. This unit is introduced during gameplay, and must be successfully exited from the bottom of the board by the German player. Failure to accomplish this gives the Allied player a giant point bonus, because this unit plays a pivotal role for the Germans later in history. The introduction of this special unit adds an interesting twist to gameplay, and turns what could have been a strictly area control game, into a bit of a cat and mouse game.

Conclusion:

Paul Koenig's Market Garden: Arnhem Bridge intrigues me with smart design choices that closely fit the theme of the game. There was obviously a lot of thought put into the design to exemplify the feeling of loss of communication and cramped urban combat. The scoring system rewards actions that would have a meaningful impact on the larger conflict, confronting the players with some hard decisions about where to focus their manpower.

While I enjoyed the game and appreciate all of the thematic nuance, it's gameplay didn't really resonate with me. Much of this may be due to the nature of the conflict; in simulating communication breakdown and organizational chaos, Arnhem Bridge is inherently chaotic. Players do not know how much support they will receive in any given round, nor how many of their units will be wounded or killed as they parachute into the battlefield. The order that units are activated is completely random, due to the chit-pull mechanism, which can drastically affect the ability to build a strategy, as unit locations can change a lot during play.

Determining success during game was difficult too, as the myriad of conditions that generate victory points need to be analyzed, opening up the potential for analysis paralysis. Personally, I like to have a concrete goal in 2 player games, and feel that victory points can often kill the tension of the end-game when players move to tally their points to see who won. There is something viscerally rewarding about a game that slowly converges to the ultimate end where the point of success is inherently known by all players.

Playing Arnhem Bridge got me thinking about wargames as simulations. It seems that wargames can be very different things to different people; one could almost say that some titles may have a bit of an identity crisis. They work to both simulate historical events, but also provide a fun, competitive gaming experience. Some gamers take the "game" out of wargames entirely by calling them "Conflict Simulations" - and I can certainly see how this distinction rings true in some games. Paul Koenig's Market-Garden: Arnhem Bridge succeeds wonderfully as a conflict simulation. Its mechanics and rule choices really drive a rich, emotional, thematic experience. In order to effectively portray this historical conflict, a feeling of hopelessness and chaos was necessary. Unfortunately, that chaos did not personally make for a great gaming experience. During some of my games, I would get frustrated as I lost units due to combat or being shot down before I had a chance to utilize them. I felt that I had no control over this, and things often felt very unfair. I want to say that the game would have been made better by decreasing the amount of randomness, but in that conversion it would lose a lot of it's thematic flavor.

So I'm torn. Arnhem Bridge succeeds in one area, but leaves me wanting in another. It's success is largely determined by what you are looking for in a game. If you are looking for an unrelenting, chaotic, and often cruel simulation that puts you in the shoes of the brave soldiers who fought in Operation Market Garden, then Arnhem Bridge is a definite success. If you are looking for a balanced game as a military themed contest of wits between two players, then Arnhem Bridge may not be your cup of tea. I find myself somewhere in the middle - Arnhem Bridge is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Last August, I had the exciting opportunity to play and review Greater Than Game's first published card game: Sentinels of the Multiverse, a non-collectible, cooperative card game based in a vibrant comic book universe. Sentinels of the Multiverse is fun, has awesome pacing, and really captures the feel of the superhero genre.

Now, hot on the heels of the Sentinels release, Greater Than Games is offering the next installment in the Sentinels' story: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City. Rook City comes packaged with new villains, new heroes, and new locations themed around the gritty, urban, Rook City.

As Rook City is entering the last week of its Kickstarter Campaign, Design Director Christopher Badell agreed to an interview with www.nerdbloggers.com about his project - and dispatches our crafty questions with true superhuman skill.

What is Rook City? What secrets are hiding under its urban exterior? And what happens when we play a game of "What If"? Stay tuned for the answers to these, and more exiting questions, starting NOW!

Nerdbloggers: First of all, can you tell me a little about yourself, and your background? I'm always interested to learn about the people who make the games we play.

Christopher Badell: Christopher was born on a dark and stormy night in a dingy hospital in Venezuela . . . oh, that's probably not the sort of information you're looking for.  Well, I have a pretty lengthy background in all the things that led to this game working.  I'm a writer with a history of teaching and tutoring, a game player with a love for cooperative games (obviously), a teacher and storyteller (which is why a strong narrative is so important to Sentinels of the Multiverse), and a fan of comic books.  Now, to be fair, our primary comic guru is Adam Rebottaro, the artist of Sentinels of the Multiverse.  He knows more about comic books than anyone I've ever met, and his knowledge of and love for the medium really led right into this being possible.  Greater Than Games, LLC, is just the three of us, Adam, Paul, and myself, and we're all well suited to making this happen.  I mean, this would never have been a company at all if it wasn't for Paul's business smarts and ability to make things happen.  I'm lucky to be working with such talented people. 

Nerdbloggers: I reviewed Sentinels of the Multiverse during it's initial release, and I was really impressed by the detail and care put into the characters, environment, and gameplay. Sentinels was very successful at portraying unique characters that each played very differently, and it also delivered  a roller coaster ride of interaction between the heroes and the villains. With Sentinels' first expansion, Rook City, how is Greater Than Games planning on enhancing this cinema-like experience?

Christopher Badell: A big part of the way Rook City fits in with the world of Sentinels of the Multiverse is the theme.  Every expansion we have planned has a very specific theme, so we're not just adding more characters and challenges to the game; we're expanding the “Multiverse” experience, as well.  Rook City's gritty, urban theme shows up in all of the characters and settings, and really sets a definite feel to new games.

The two new Heroes, Mr. Fixer and Expatriette, have some exciting new mechanics and card interactions, and there's a lot to discover there, both in terms of how their decks work and how they interact with other heroes. 

The villains are just awful.  They don't have the vast “world domination” plans that the villains from Sentinels of the Multiverse do, but they are very powerful and have terrible goals.  Also, they bring lots of new villain mechanics and flip abilities to the table, so each of the four new villains is an entirely new game.

Nerdbloggers: I noticed in the original games, there were villains who had a hero nemeses that was not included with the base game. In Rook City, are we going to meet some of these heroes?

Christopher Badell: Absolutely!  We've been keeping that information secret, but I'll go ahead and lay it all out now.  Citizen Dawn's nemesis is in this set – it's her daughter, in fact!  Expatriette!  Several clever fans already picked up on that, so it's good to finally officially reveal that.  Additionally, the Rook City villain The Matriarch is the nemesis of Tachyon, and Spite is The Wraith's nemesis.  The Chairman and Mr. Fixer are nemeses, so that just leaves Plague Rat from Rook City and Omnitron from the Sentinels of the Multiverse Core game.  Their nemeses will certainly be in a future expansion.  In fact, we have many exciting plans for both of them!

Nerdbloggers: Can you divulge some details about the backstory, and abilities of the new cards, and do you have any personal favorites?

Christopher Badell: Hmmm, there is a lot that we still have yet to release, so I don't want to say too much.  However, I will say there is a ton of background information on the updates to the Rook City Kickstarter here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1787899968/sentinels-of-the-multiverse-rook-city-expansion/posts

Also, in terms of new card abilities, look forward to being able to deal irreducible damage, and for certain villain cards which cannot be destroyed, changing game play permanently when they are played.  Also, there is one villain in particular who can play through their entire villain deck in just a few rounds.  It's terrifying. 

As for favorites?  That's tough.  It's like trying to pick a favorite child!  So, don't tell the others, but Spite's deck is probably my favorite of the new villains.  Shhh!

Nerdbloggers: In my review of Sentinels of the Multiverse, I had erroneously mentioned that the different environments and villains didn't appear to share a common "universe". Since the release of Sentinels, I've come to understand that there is actually a very rich backstory behind Sentinels of the Multiverse. Would you mind giving a general overview of the sentinels universe, and how rook city fits into the bigger story?

Christopher Badell: Yikes!  That's a tall order!  Well,  The primary hero team that drives the Sentinels of the Multiverse story is the Freedom Five, made up of Legacy, Bunker, Tachyon, The Wraith, and Absolute Zero.  They fight crime!  Baron Blade and Legacy have been nemesis forever, really, as Baron Blade's father and Legacy's father (who was also Legacy!) were nemesis back around World War II.  So Baron Blade is the primary Freedom Five villain.  However, Citizen Dawn's “Citizens of the Sun” cause a lot of problems for the heroes as well.  So much that they have to occasionally recruit help from outside the Freedom Five, which is where you start seeing appearances of other heroes like Ra, Fanatic, and Haka.  Tempest first shows up as a precursor to Grand Warlord Voss's troops assaulting the planet, and it's only with Tempest's help that the Freedom Five are able to save the world from Voss's alien hordes.  Baron Blade constantly shows up, regardless of how many times he is “defeated”, and his big story arc, called “Moonfall”, is where he attempts to pull the Moon into the Earth using his TerraLunar Impulsion Beam.  Right after that story arc is Citizen Dawn's big push to take over the world, and that arc is named “Sunrise”.  See what I did there?  At some point in all this, Omnitron gains sentience and decides to stomp all the humans, and The Visionary shows up from her future to attempt to stop the current timeline from becoming the world she lived through in her book “New Memories”.  And that's just a brief look at the stories of these characters!  Whew!
As for Rook City, it's the hometown of The Wraith, so much of her solo crime fighting takes place there.  Unfortunately, crime seems to just attract more crime, and sometimes the villains in Rook City become a large enough problem that The Wraith calls in her teammates, or possibly other heroes she's met in her adventures.  As mentioned before, the villains in Rook City aren't trying to take over the world, but their plans are no less terrible, and they must be stopped!

Nerdbloggers: The basic rules for Sentinels were very simple, with the interesting game interactions delivered through the text on the cards themselves. Will Rook City see any changes to the basic rules?

Christopher Badell: Nope!  The basic rules will stay the same, because that's the core of Sentinels of the Multiverse!  As a player, you play a card, use a power, and draw a card.  On the villain turns and the environment turns, you put the top card of the appropriate deck into play.  Follow all instructions.  However!  Rook City does introduce some new interactions, and all of the villains have unique flip abilities, so there is still plenty of new stuff to keep the game interesting.

Nerdbloggers: Greater Than Games self funded Sentinels of the Multiverse, but Rook City is being offered as a Kickstarter project. Now that you have gone down both routes, what benefits does Kickstarter give you as a developer, and a publisher.

Christopher Badell: The most useful part about Kickstarter for us was finding out what sort of demand there was for a Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion.  And with the fast and overwhelming response we had, we know – there is absolutely a demand.  So, that was probably the best part.  People are excited that we've raised so much money, and we are as well, but the thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of that money is presales of the expansion, so while Kickstarter does give us the ability to offset the costs of printing the game due to those presales, Rook City will need to be strong enough to continue making sales in order to keep generating revenue for future expansions and other games we're also working on.

We have had such a great response from the gaming community with the Rook City Kickstarter that it is likely we will use Kickstarter again in the future to fund the printing of future projects.

Nerdbloggers: Rook City has already met it's funding goals, so it's definitely being published, but there are some pretty interesting stretch goals that have been announced (and some intriguing teases for some that haven't been). Could you tell us a bit about the rewards for these goals?

Christopher Badell: At the time of this interview, we are VERY CLOSE to the $25k reward level, which will send every backer some exciting Rook City art prints.  We love art prints, because it gives us a chance to showcase Adam's fantastic art in a size larger than a couple inches on a card.  We already broke the 20k level, which was the big one for most fans, as it means we'll be sending out HP and Damage-Modifier Tracking Cards to all our backers.  That was a big deal for us, because it was asked for by the Sentinels community, and we love having the opportunity to make something that people want.  Moving forward, there are three big levels left: 30k, 40k, and 50k.  The 30k levels is possible, but I'm not holding my breath.  We've already come so far, and we've certainly seen a decline in pledges since hitting 20k.  However, at the 30k level, we print up some awesome Rook City t-shirts and send those to all the backers who are getting the game.  At the 40k level, we have an awesome alternate version of Baron Blade, though it looks like we probably won't hit that level.  But we still have exciting plans for him!

Nerdbloggers: Okay, Last Question! The Wraith and Legacy get into a fight. Who would win?

Christopher Badell: Ooh, that's tough.  First off, which Legacy?  I'm assuming standard Legacy, not his daughter (or his father!) so we have to get past the point of him being unwilling to attack The Wraith, due to their camaraderie and that she's a fellow hero.  Hmmm, so, Legacy believes, due to a mind-affecting beam deployed by Baron Blade, that The Wraith is in fact an imposter who has taken her place!  He fights with all of his power to defeat her, knowing that only in defeating this vile doppelganger can he save his friend, The Wraith, from her imprisonment!  The Wraith has been affected by the same mind-beam and believe that killing this false-Legacy before her will save the world!  Their fight goes for hours, Legacy flying through stone walls in his hunt for the evil Wraith, while she uses all her skills and gadget to not only evade him, but set up a devious trap for her super-powered foe.  However!  Just as Legacy tears through a steel plated floor to find The Wraith, moments before she is able to spring the trap, which would drop Legacy into a vat of flesh dissolving nerve-agent, Tachyon appears between the two heroes holding some odd device.  In half the blink of an eye, Tachyon dons dark sunglasses and quips, “Deal with it” as the device she carries emits a blinding flash.  Both Legacy and The Wraith are stunned momentarily, then realize their error!  This was Baron Blade's dastardly plan the entire time!  Resolved, the three heroes turn their attentions to the now fleeing mad scientist, once again united to defeat evil and stand for justice!

Nerdbloggers: Thanks so much for taking the time out to answer our questions! 

Christopher Badell: Thanks for asking them!  Keep on saving the Multiverse!

Check out the Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City Kickstarter page to support Greater Than Games, and pick up a copy of Rook City for yourself. If you haven't already picked up the base game, there are plenty of great packages in the Kickstarter page that include both the base game and the expansion, and an awful lot of really cool kickstarter rewards.