New York Slice

Everyone likes pizza right?

Well what about cardboard pizza? Its cheaper, less calories and looks just as appetizing.

New York Slice is a brilliant little game brought to us by Bezier Games wherein players draft and collects pizza slices to earn points. That may need clarifying for some of you: drafting refers to picking from a selection of items, in this case pizza slices, in order to utilise or combine them. New York Slice is a very simple game right out of the oven and makes for a great experience no matter what your exposure to board games is.

When setting up New York Slice first shuffle the pizza slices and place them face down, slices will have different toppings like peppers, anchovies, mushrooms, pepperoni etc, along with numbers at the bottom ranging from 3 to 11.Shuffle the specials and place them face down next to the face down slices.

The active player, known as the slicer, takes 11 pizza slices and makes a whole pizza with them, they also take one of the specials to place after slicing the pizza, the slicer then divides the pizza they have created into sections equal to the number of players there are - they cant rearrange any of the slices when placing or slicing the pizza. Lastly, the slicer puts the special on one of the sections of the sliced pizza. The player to the slicers left gets first choice at which section they would like to take, this continues clockwise with the rest of the players until making its way back to the slicer who chooses last.

(Player 1 in this scenario is the slicer, so player 2 gets first choice rotating clockwise.)

The aim of the game, as in any set collector, is to collect sets. This may sound easy but the challenge in New York Slice comes in how the slicer divides up the pizza: The created pizza will consist of varied and matching numbers, so if any matching numbers are close enough together you may think that you want to divide the pizza so that those matching numbers are in the same section. Remember though, you as the slicer will get whats left over after all other players have chosen, so that may end up being a bad idea as you would give another player a good chance of collecting the most of a certain number. The slicer will have placed a special onto one of the sections, whichever player chooses that section gets the special that can give you a bonus like additional points or tie breakers, be careful though as they can also be a detriment to you. 

After a player has chosen which section they would like to take they then have the option of eating any of those slices. If they choose to eat any those slices are places face down in a stack off to one side and aren't counted towards sets at the end of the game. The reason for eating slices comes in the points scoring at the end: The amount of pepperoni pieces on any pizzas you have eaten counteracts any points lost for any anchovies you have on your pizza. Whichever player has the most 3's at the end of the game gets 3 points, the same is true for numbers 4-11.

New York Slice is played over a number of round equal to the amount of full pizzas you can create and with 69 slices you're going to be playing at least 6 rounds. Because of that there is a substantial amount of gameplay involved in New York Slice and the simplistic style and rules will keep players coming back again and again. The thing that did it for me is the design of the smallest details, usually the focus is on the game, how it plays, the writing and setting, component detail. But the detail I'm talking about it the way New York Slice is presented: The game box is a pizza box with a flip lid which then reveals the game pieces and rule book, which is a menu with a triple flap opening. The score pad is a check and the specials are tiny little chalk boards like you would see in a real New York pizzeria, all of this really stands out for me the designers had an idea in mind and ran with it, really paying off in my opinion. Even down to the imagery on the pizza slices mattering (in other games it would've just been decoration), and the way its shown so realistically to the point of it making me genuinely hungry.

The main mechanic of drafting pizza gives players a lot of choice when they are trying to plan ahead, but slicing up the pizza is probably the hardest part: you may notice a player has multiple 6's but isn't going to win the race to the 10's, so you might want divide the pizza up in such a way that any 6's and 10's sit together to try and dissuade that player from picking that section. Or there might be some anchovies lying around so you might want to put any 6's and anchovies together so that when that section is picked that player will lose points at the end of the game. Dividing up the pizza is an art, one that could show up in other games (probably just lacking the pizza) and New York Slice is a good way of getting to grips with the nuances and subtleties of enticing a player one way when in actual fact its the worst choice they could make.

New York Slice is a nice game to have on your gaming shelf for players of all ages, the theme appeals to everyone - as everyone on earth likes pizza and if you don't then you're the weird one. It's a well designed and brilliantly presented 45 minutes that, after the taste of the first game, players will want to play a second and even a third time. New York Slice is one game that given a small taste i can guarantee players will enjoy every part of it both individually and as a whole, so get down to your local games store and ask for a demo and then maybe head to a pizzeria afterwards as you will have a certain meat, sauce and dough pie on the brain.

Keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming new and updates, along with possible dinner plan ideas for the future.

City Of Zombies

There was a time when zombies were everywhere. I guess with the whole horde thing they have going on that would be beneficial for them, but it did seem that you couldn’t shamble anywhere without running into zombies. Multiple films, video games, art work, literature, the list goes on and on. Zombies are also no stranger to board games featuring in such games as Zombicide, Last Night On Earth and Dead Of Winter.

Love Letter

Imagine a royal family, all regal with lavish clothes and huge banquets, taking high tea and throwing incredibly expensive balls. The problem with all families, no matter how royal they are, is that they always have secrets and problems, usually with each other, and this family is no different. They can be at each other’s throats or maybe take a sneakier approach but either way one will come out on top, think Game Of Thrones, but with more class and subtlety.

Christmas Party Pack - Adults

Party games are always a great option for those times when the energy has gotten a bit low and people need a pick me up. Today I’m going to look at three games that are guaranteed to do just that, with or without alcohol, and get that party started again. Although you may want to avoid playing these with your parents.

Christmas Party Pack - Kids

 

As we edge closer and closer to the Christmas period some of you out there may be looking for ways to keep the family happy and laughing over the holidays. Today I’m going to be looking at three games that will entertain and delight any little ones out there in dire need of things to do in between writing there unfeasibly expensive and incredibly long Christmas lists and waiting for all of those presents to arrive.

Magic Maze

Sometimes the lines between fantasy and reality get blurred a bit. What seems extraordinary and weirdly intriguing can sometimes turn out to be more mundane upon closer inspection, like electricity or a rainbow.

Get Bit!

When creating a game its easy to get a bit too into it and over design causing more complexity and making the game more intimidating.
Get Bit is a card game that has taken the minimalist route of design only having seven playing pieces and a deck of cards to illustrate the simplistic gameplay aspects.

Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a game wherein two players try to gain points by embarking on expeditions to different sites of the world; the Himalayas, the Brazilian rain-forest, the shifting sands of the desert, an ancient volcano and Neptune's realm.

Each player aims to start and continue expeditions which can result in points, the player with the most points wins. You do this by using five coloured suits of cards, each colour has numbered cards 2-10 and three handshake cards called investments.

Set up

Place the game board between both players, this represents where players will place any cards, or expeditions. Then shuffle the deck of sixty cards, deal out eight to each player and place the remaining at one end of the game board, this is the draw pile. Leave a space at the other end of the board for the discard pile.

Gameplay

Players must do one of two actions on each of their turns; play a card or discard a card.

When you player plays a card, they put that card under the corresponding colour on their side of the board. Any expedition can start on any number but once you have played a numbered card, you can't play another numbered card next turn below that number. For example: you play a blue 4, next turn you can play any blue number above 4 but not 2 or 3. The numbers must increase but do not need to increase consecutively.
The other card you can play is an Investment card. Investment cards can only be played to start a colour and not after you've already played a number to start that column. Investment cards aren't necessary for a column but do affect the scoring at the end of the game so it's a trade off between getting more numbers of a certain colour quicker, or getting the pay off later.

The second action you could do is discarding a card. Players play with separate discard piles but they are visible to all players. You can choose to discard a card in your turn instead of playing anything, possibly if you don't have any relevant cards or are after Investments.

At the end of each players turn, that player draws a card, either from the top of the draw pile or from any discard pile, this is why they are visible to all players. You cannot choose to draw any cards you may have discarded this turn however, effectively nullifying the discard and draw mechanics. This can be very effective because your opponent may have come across an Investment card or certain coloured number that you were after and drawing a card from any discard pile can let you utilise a lot more cards.

The game ends when a player draws the last card from the draw deck, immediately.

Scoring

Each expedition embarked on costs 20 points. When scoring the game each player scores an expedition with at least one card on it, totals up the value of all number cards on all of your expeditions and then minuses 20 from that total. Do this for all expeditions embarked on. If you have played no cards on a colour then you won't subtract 20 points for that expedition. If you have any investment cards starting a column the total of that column is multiplied by the amount of Investment cards in that column plus one, so if you have one Investment card in a column, you multiply the column total by two, if there are two Investment cards then it's multiplied by three and so on. If a player has a column that contains at least eight cards that player receives a total of twenty points.
Investment cards do give you a good reward but there may be sometimes when you aren't able to progress that much in a column and at that point it's not able to be as effective so be careful and think ahead a little.

Thoughts

Lost Cities is such an intuitive game, it's super easy to learn and is a great game for players that aren't massively into board/card game. It's a mix of solitaire meets rummy in my opinion as it contains aspects of both, in the sense of building columns of sets and colours and choosing the right cards to invest in when drawing blind from the top of the deck or picking and choosing from the graveyard. It doesn't take too long so it makes for a good quick game but still retains challenge and substantiality and for that reason I think it's a perfect addition to any board game shelf or cupboard, it is only two players but a good game of heads up is always fun.

If you wanna check out Lost Cities for yourself head down to your local games and hobbies store and they'll be happy to demo it for you but until then, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.

Geistes Blitz

Geistes Blitz, also known as Ghost Blitz in the U.K., is a German game brought to us by 999 Games.

Geistes Blitz is a recognition game, akin to snap. Instead of waiting for two of the same number in a row hitting the pile, there are five objects that you need to grab before your opponents. The five objects consist of a white ghost, a green bottle, a blue book, a red chair and a great mouse.

The setup of this game is simple; set out the five objects between all players, ideally in the centre of the table and remember to leave a little gap between them in case of knocking them off. Then shuffle the deck of 60 cards and then the first player flips the top card over.

The idea is to then grab the corresponding object that the image on the card either shows or doesn't show. You see, each card has an image involving an array of the objects on the table, the trick is that the objects on the card won't always be the same colour as the same object on the table.



Shown in both the images above is the ghost, one is white and one is blue. If the card with the white ghost is flipped over then each player will attempt to grab the white ghost object in the middle of the table. Pretty straight forward in a recognition game. If the card with the blue ghost is flipped over is when the challenge comes in. This cards image also contains a grey chair, which means you would need to grab the object not shown on the card in shape or colour, in this case it would be the green bottle because you have a blue ghost and a grey chair representing an aspect of each other object.

Whenever a player takes the correct object when a card is shown that player receives that card and then flips over the next card on the deck. If a player takes the wrong object, they then forfeit one of their cards and the player that took the correct object receives any of those cards in addition to the flipped card. The player with the most number of cards when the game is over wins.

Geistes Blitz is a brilliant little game that promotes fast reactions and recognition. It's quick and easy to learn, good with younger players with a cute little art style and colourful aesthetic and still challenging to older players requiring quick thinking. It plays best with three or four players but works well as a heads up game with an increase in tension dramatically. Definitely recommend it for a nice family game for gamers of all ages.

Hanamikoji

Today I'm going to looking at a game that I've been having a lot of fun with over the last couple of weeks, Hanamikoji.

Hanamikoji is a two player game in which both players try to win the favours of various Geisha's - entertainers, artists, dancers etc - and they do this by providing each Geisha with their performance items.

There are seven Geisha's each with their own unique performance item, ranging from a flute to a flowery hairpiece, your objective is to provide them with a majority number of their items to win their favour.

Each Geisha comes with a number shown on their card; there are three Geisha's with a number 2, two with the number 3, one with the number 4 and lastly one with the number 5. The number on the Geisha cards denote two things, firstly: the amount of cards showing that Geisha's item that are in the deck, for instance a Geisha with the number 2 on it only has two of the corresponding items necessary to win her favour in the deck, whereas the Geisha with the number 5 on the card has five copies of her necessary item in the deck.
Secondly, the numbers on the Geisha card represents how many points you gain for winning her favour.

Set up

First, place all the Geisha cards in the centre of the table between both players ranging from 2 to 5, as shown above, it doesn't matter what order you put the three Geisha's with the number 2 on them as long as they are the first three in line and the same for the two with the number 3 on them.
Then place one of the seven victory markers on each Geisha to represent that they are neutral and haven't been won over by either player. Shuffle the deck of twenty one item cards and remove one face down, then deal seven cards to each player.

Finally, take the action tiles - there should be four pairs of two - and give each player one for each of those pairs.

Gameplay

Each turn, players must use one of their action tiles to try and provide the Geisha's with their corresponding item in order to gain favour.

Action Tile 1 - Take one card from your hand and remove it from the game face down. At the end of the round, take that face down card and place it in front of the corresponding Geisha. This tile is very useful if you are worried that your opponent will get the majority on a Geisha, you can use it almost as a late game trick to possibly tie for a Geisha or maybe even win the majority.

Action Tile 2 - When you use this action tile, you take two cards from your hand and remove them from the game. Unlike the first action tile, you don't get to put them in front of a Geisha at the end of the round, these cards a removes until the start of the next round. This tile is useful if you know you have the majority of items for a Geisha and don't want your opponent getting their hands on them, so you can get rid of them guaranteeing the victory point of one Geisha.

Action Tile 3 - Using this tile requires you to take three cards from your hand and reveal them to your opponent. Your opponent then chooses one of those three cards and puts it in front of the corresponding Geisha and you get the other two cards and do the same. Using this tile early can give you a good idea of what your opponent might have lurking in their hand and it could create a tough decision for them as they only get one of the three cards.

Action Tile 4 - For the last action tile you must take four cards of your choice from your hand, split them up into two piles of two cards each - the split is completely up to you - then your opponent gets the choice of one pile and puts those cards in front of the corresponding Geisha and you get the remaining pile and do the same. The beauty of this tile is giving your opponent an option between a duo of cards that looks good for them but leaving a great set for yourself, possibly resulting in winning the majority for a Geisha.

The object of the game is to gain the favour of four Geisha's over a number of rounds, keeping the victory point of each as long as your opponent never gains the majority, or scoring eleven points. Points are scored equal to the Geisha you have a majority and therefor have gained the victory point of, for example; if a player wins the majority of the Geisha's with four and five in the corners, that player has scored 9 points, players keep track of their points scored from round to round to make sure the game has an ending point. If at any point both scoring eleven points and gaining the favour of four Geisha's would happen, the four Geisha's takes priority as it's harder to achieve.

Thoughts

Hanamikoji as a whole is a very interesting game that promotes forethought and strategy. It has a lot of replay-ability and has a lot of charm and enjoyment when it comes to the design; compact, colourful and the right amount of challenging that doesn't always punish you for making errors. It's a very easy game to grasp and hard to master and will always vary from player to player as to what cards they want to use with what tiles, but overall I think players will have a lot of fun with this little two player game and get a lot of use out of it.

Hopefully this look at Hanamikoji has inspired you to try it for yourself, in which case head down to your local games and hobbies store and they will be more than happy to demo it for you. Until then however, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.

Tides Of Time

There are many drafting games; Dominion, Century, Star Realms to name some, but very few are as stripped back as Tides of Time.

Brought to you by Portal Games, Tides Of Time is a two player game in which players draft, or pass cards back and forth while taking one at a time, using amounts of different symbols on the cards in order to score more points than your opponent.

Overview

There are 18 cards in the deck and most of them will have one of five symbols in the top left corner; a gold crown (palace), a pink hand (temple), a green leaf (garden), a blue ribbon (library) and a red tower (stronghold).
 

There are three cards for each of the five suits.
Some cards have no symbol on them electing to instead have text relating to symbols or scoring, some cards also have a mix of both a symbol and text on them.

Set up and game play

Shuffle all eighteen cards and deal both players five each, put the other eight to one side. Each player takes one card from the five three we're dealt and passes the remaining four cards to their opponent, repeat this process until all cards have been drafted (taken by each player). Each player should end up with five cards. That marks the end of the first round, both players then total up all their points from the cards they have drafted and note them down.

Both players then choose a card from the five they have drafted that they would like to keep and represents this by putting a Relic Token on top of it and putting it to one side.

In a similar fashion, both players also choose a card from the remaining for they drafted to discard from the game and place those cards in the box. They then draw two cards each from the deck and repeat the drafting process for a second and third round, choosing to keep a card from each round and a card to discard.
The cards both players chose to keep effect the scoring in the later rounds as well as the round they were drafted in, so it can help you in the near future to try and keep

At the end of the third round both players total up their overall scores and the player with the highest score wins, it's as easy as that.

Thoughts

Tides Of Time is a very beautiful game with lovely artwork on each card relating to a historical fantasy monuments, including a tall spired church-like building, a castle on a cliff top and a very picturesque port at sunset. It's a very easy to grasp game with the same gameplay being repeated three times over one game, and it does cause you to rearrange and rethink your strategy on the fly which is a great skill to have as it can serve you well in other game situations especially other drafting games like the ones I mentioned at the start of the review or even drafting in TCG's.

It's small, it's cheap and you will get a lot of play out of it for a two player game and if anyone is looking to get better at drafting in any other capacity, I would definitely recommend Tides Of Time.

If you guys wanna check out Tides Of Time, head down to your local hard and hobbies store but until then, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.

Colt Express

Have you and your friends ever wanted to rob a train?
Ever had the desire to experience playing an outlaw in the Wild West?
Well now you can with Colt Express.

Colt Express is a board game in which 2-6 players act as train robbers attempting to rob the passengers traveling on board while avoiding the Marshal. But once you've all made it aboard the plan goes awry and greed takes over.

Setting up the game:

Each person adopts the guise of different characters making their way through a 3D cardboard train of unsuspecting passengers.

 All the characters have unique abilities represented by the small picture in between the train and the picture of themselves: 

Belle cannot be targeted by a Punch or Fire action if there is another character that can be targeted. 

When Cheyenne Punches another character, she can take a loot bag that character would have dropped, but cannot take a gem or the strongbox they just fall on the floor as usual.

Tuco can shoot through the roofs of train cars able to hit a character either above himself or below.

When Django shoots another character, the shot knocks them back to the train car behind if able.

Ghost is able to play his first Action card of each round face down no matter if the Round card calls for it or not, if you choose to draw three cards instead of playing an Action card you cannot use his ability later in that Round.

At the beginning of each round, Doc allows you to draw up to seven cards instead of the normal six.

Once characters are selected, each player takes the corresponding character card and places it in front of them, taking with it 6 Bullet cards of matching colour, ordering them into most bullets from least. They also take 10 action cards, (each player has a set of the same 10 action cards) shuffles them and places them face down in front of them, this is their personal deck.

The Action cards in players decks consist of six different cards;

Moving horizontally (From the train car you're in to one either side of it if able.)

Moving vertically (Either leaving the train car you're in and going onto the roof or moving from the roof to the train car below.)

Robbery (When this action card is played, the character can take a piece of loot in the same train car, you cannot take loot from the train car if your character is on top of it and vice versa.)

Fire (When firing, you choose an opponent in a train car adjacent to your character and give them a bullet card which they place in their deck. You cannot shoot a character in the same spot as you. When firing on top of the train cars you can shoot an opponent in your line of sight no matter how far away they are. If there are two characters occupying the same roof, you can choose which one you hit.)

Throwing a punch (Punches can only land if there is another character in/on the same train car as you, the punched character then drops a loot token of your choice on the spot they were occupying and moves one train car in either direction of your choice.)

Marshal (You can move the Marshal one train car either way of your choice. If the Marshal enters the train car where any characters are or characters enter a train car where the Marshal is, all characters must move to the roof of that train car.)

A bag of loot equaling $250 is given to each player and placed face down on that players character to hide the value. There will be other pieces of loot, gems and a strongbox, that have different values scattered throughout the train for you to accumulate as well.

In the middle of the table, placed between all players, is the locomotive, attached with as many train cars as there are players. Each train car has purses and gems on the floor, each indicating how many should be placed in each car. The Marshal and the Strongbox, containing the ultimate treasure each character is after, are placed at the front of the train in the locomotive. Four Round cards of the seven, which correspond the number of players, are selected and shuffled. Then randomly select a Train Station card and place it on the bottom of the four shuffled Round cards creating a face down pile with the Train Station at the bottom.

Finally, place 13 Neutral Bullet cards next to the locomotive. These Neutral Bullets indicate when a character has been shot by the Marshal and get placed into that players deck, these Bullets don't have a colour.

Now you're ready to start.

To determine which player goes first, take the character cards from all played characters, shuffle them and randomly draw one. This is the first player for the first round, this player takes the face down pile of five cards, with the Train Station at the bottom, and places it in front of them. This is player one and going clockwise will be players two, three and so on.

 The players with an odd number in the order place their characters in the caboose, or the back train car, and the players with an even number in the order place their characters in the train car next to the caboose.

The aim of the game is to gain the most loot from the train, or other characters, and try and get hit the least.

At the beginning of each round, players shuffle their deck and draws a hand of six cards, then the first player reveals the top card of the Round cards. The Round card will indicate how many turns will occur in each Round and thus how many actions each player will have per Round.

The Schemin' Phase

The actions are split into two choices; Either players can play an Action card in their hand, or they can choose to draw three cards from the deck in exchange for playing an action card.

Starting with the first player, each player plays and Actions card into a common pile in the center of the table corresponding to the number of turns shown on the Round card. These Round cards will give you different hints as to what players need to do while playing their cards.

Blank space: the Action cards gets played face up on the pile.

Tunnel: the Action cards get played face down on the pile.

Double blank space (speeding up): Each player plays twice, either drawing six cards, playing two cards, or drawing three cards and playing one card.

U turn (switching): The current turn is played counter-clockwise, starting with the first player.

Once all players have used as many Action cards as the Round card has called for, that marks the end of the Schemin' Phase and the start of the Stealing Phase.

In this phase, the first player takes the common pile of Action cards and turns the deck over without changing the order of the cards. The cards in the Action deck then get played starting with the top card (the order the cards were played.) After all Actions in the pile have been performed, they are then returned to the characters that played them and put back into their decks.

At the end of each round, each player shuffles their deck to randomize all cards that may have been played in the most recent round. There may also be additional Events that appear on the Round cards.

The Round events are things that happen at the end of a round:

Angry Marshal: This is indicated by an arrow point towards a Marshals badge and means the Marshal shoots all characters on the roof of the car he is in, giving them all neutral bullets, then the Marshal moves one car towards the caboose.

Swivel Arm: This is indicated by an arrow going from the Locomotive to the caboose and means that at the end of the round all characters on top of any train cars automatically move to the caboose of the train.

Braking: Indicated by an arrow pointing from the back of the train cars towards the Locomotive, and means any characters on the roof of any train car at the end of the round move one train car forward.

Take it all: Indicated by the Marshal's badge and a strongbox, at the end of the round you put a second strongbox into the train car where the Marshal currently is.

Passenger's Rebellion: Indicated by an explosion in a train car, this means that any character inside the train cars at the end of the round get a neutral bullet.

Pick pocketing: Indicated by a train car and a purse, this means if a character is alone in a train car at the end of the round, they may pick up a piece of loot from that train car.

Marshal's Revenge: Indicated by a train car with a Marshal's badge and purse and this means any character on top of the train car the Marshal is in at the end of the round loses the least valuable purse they have, if they don't have any purses they don't lose anything even if they have gems or a strongbox.

Hostage taking of the conductor: Indicated by the locomotive and $250, this means that any character in the locomotive or on top of it at the end of the round receives a $250 ransom.

At the end of the game, each player totals up all the loot they have acquired to determine who is the richest. There is also the Gunslinger card that is awarded to the character that has shot the most, or has the least of their coloured Bullet cards left, and gets an additional $1000. The richest character wins, if characters are tied for the most money the one with the least Bullet cards from other players wins.

Thoughts:

When first playing Colt Express, initially I was drawn in by the aesthetic, brightness and unintimidating feel. After playing it however, I've found that it can be a very intricate game, resulting in mind games and planning several actions ahead to get the most loot from the train or your opponents. The game-play is simple to understand, making it accessible to a younger audience, while still being challenging for older players as well, which is definitely the sign of a good game being able to simplify to the best degree and still provide a great experience.
I feel there is a bit of replay-ability in Colt Express especially when combined with the expansion packs, allowing you to play as the outlaws on horseback and play as the Marshal himself.
I would heavily recommend Colt Express to gamers looking for a game with decent length, a great experience with two or more players and a lot of possible variants. You're plans may not come to fruition as they should have when they were thought up, but you'll still have a lot of fun throughout your journey.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this has given you a good idea of what Colt Express is like, and possibly even made you want to play it. In which case I would advise heading to you local games/hobbies store and inquiring about it, but in the mean time, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.

Camel Up

 

When looking for board games to play there are some criteria that most people look for before making their purchase; Is it easy to understand? Is it easy to set up? Does it have much replay-ability? Is it fun? Recently I've been playing a game called Camel Up which I believe hits all of these points.
In Camel Up, 2-8 players take on the guise of gamblers betting on a Camel race taking place in the desert, at the end of the race the player with the most money wins. Sounds simple, but this isn't your ordinary race around a Pyramid. 

Setting Up:
The game board is set up with three card spaces at the top, one on the left and right with stacked Camels, and one in the middle with a Pyramid. Underneath that there are five spaces each with a coloured Camel on them just above matching tents. Finally, there is a race track with 16 squares around a Pyramid.
Working from the top down, on the square in the top center with the Pyramid you place five Pyramid tiles. Just underneath those Pyramid tiles are the coloured Camel squares where the Betting Tiles are put, there are three tiles for each colour and are placed in the following order; the 2 money tile goes on the bottom, the 3 money tile on top of that and the 5 money tile on the top. On each of the coloured tents are placed the corresponding Camels all ready for the upcoming race. Lastly, there is a Pyramid in the center of the track that you put five coloured dice into that dictate how much the matching Camel moves, the Pyramid has a tab that you push when holding the Pyramid upside down to release a die. Now, the game board is set up each player is given five Betting Cards, a Desert Tile and 3 Egyptian Pounds from the bank. 

Game Play:
As the first move of the game, the youngest player takes the Pyramid where the coloured dice were place and releases all of them to see where the Camels start the race. The dice in the Pyramid have 1,2 and 3 on them, meaning Camels can only move up to a maximum of 3 squares each turn. So for example if 3 is rolled on the White and Blue dice and 1 on the other three, the White and Blue Camels are placed on the third square to start the race and the Yellow, Green and Orange Camels are placed on the first square. You then stack the Camels on top of each other, in no specific order, however the camel on top is considered to be in a better position than the ones its stacked on, EG; If the White and Blue Camels on square 3 are stacked in a way that the White Camel is on top, the the White Camel is in first place and the Blue Camel is in second place.
The Camels move clockwise around the race track when their matching dice is rolled from the Pyramid. If a Camel would land on a square that is already occupied by another Camel, the Camel that moved that turn would stack on top of the one already on that square to form a Camel Unit. If a Camel that is part of a Camel Unit would move and has any other Camels on top of it, the Camel and all Camels stack on it get moved as well, the Camels beneath the moving Camel however don't move. For example; If the Camel Unit has the Orange Camel at the bottom, the Blue Camel above it and the White Camel on the top, if the Blue Camel gets to move, it takes the White Camel with it but the Orange Camel stays where it is. As I said before, the Camel on the top of the stack, or Unit, is considered to be ahead of the ones it sits on.

A race is made up of several legs, each leg consists of Camels moving around the track and players making bets on which Camel they think will be ahead at the end of that leg. The leg ends when all the dice have been rolled from the Pyramid and each of the Camels has moved. There is scoring at the end of each leg where players can increase, or decrease, the amount of Egyptian Pounds they have.
Every turn each player, starting with the youngest, starts the leg and can do one of four actions; Take the top Betting Tile to back a Camel of their choice, Place their Desert Tile on the track, Take a Pyramid Tile to enable one of the Camels to move or use one of the five Betting Cards they were given at the start of the game to bet on either the overall winner of the race or the overall loser.

Taking any of the top Betting Tiles and placing it in front of you means you have backed that Camel to be in the lead at the end of the leg, if you have chosen correctly and the one you backed is first at the end of the leg then you gain the amount of Egyptian Pounds that is show on the left side of the card. Each of the Betting Tiles also has two other outcomes shown on the right side, the one on the top right is if the Camel comes in second at the end of the leg and the one of the bottom right is if it comes in third or worse. Depending on the Betting Tile a player has acquired the Egyptian Pound values are different, for example; If you pick up the top Betting Tile and it has five Egyptian Pounds on the left, that means that if the corresponding coloured Camel comes in first at the end of the leg you gain Five Egyptian Pounds, if it comes in second you would gain one and if it comes in third or worse you would lose an Egyptian Pound. All Betting Tiles are place back on their original square at the end of each leg.

Placing your Desert Tile on the track could give you an edge over other players. While they may be spending their turn betting on a Camel, you can place your Desert Tile to try and catch them out, or help the Camel you have invested in. The Desert Tile has two sides to it, on one side you have an Oasis and on the other you have a Mirage. If a Camel Unit ends it's on a Desert Tile, the player that placed that Desert Tile immediately gains one Egyptian Pound and depending on which side you placed, the Camel unit either moves forwards one space if you placed the Oasis Tile face up or moves one square back if you placed the Mirage Tile face up. At the end of each leg, all Desert Tiles are returned to the players that placed them.

Whenever a player takes a Pyramid Tile as their action for the turn, that player takes the Pyramid with the dice inside, turns it upside down and releases one of the dice and then moves the same coloured Camel around the track and, like I said earlier, if the moving Camel is part of a Camel Unit, it takes all Camels on top of it with it. Each Pyramid card also gives the player an Egyptian Pound at the end of every leg before being placed back for use in the next leg.

Betting on the Overall winner/loser can be done in any leg as an action and requires a player placing one of the five Betting Cards they were given at the start of the game face down on one of the Camel stack Squares at the top left or top right of the game board, either side of the Pyramid Tile square. If you want to back and overall winner, you place the coloured Camel Betting Card face down on the square on the left, if you think a certain Camel is going to come in last, you place a coloured Camel Betting Card face down on the square on the right. All Betting Cards must be played face down so no other players no what you're betting on, if any other players want to bet on the overall winner, they place there Betting Card face down on top of any other Betting Cards already placed. Both these squares have values of Egyptian Pounds based on who backed the right Camel.

The End Of The Game:
The end of the game occurs when the first Camel Unit passes the finish line, at which point you score for the end of the leg like normal and once that's done you need to do the end of the game scoring. First in this process you take the Betting Cards that have been played face down for the overall winner and turn the pile face up so the last card played face down on this pile is now at the bottom, you then proceed to see who backed the right Camel. The player that played the first Betting Card backing the winning Camel gets the maximum Egyptian Pounds of 8, the second player that also backed the winning Camel gets 5 Egyptian Pounds, the third player gets 3, the fourth gets 2 and all others get 1. This is only for the winner however and if any player has bet on any other Camel to be the overall winner, and was incorrect, then that player loses 1 Egyptian Pound. Next, turn the pile of overall losing Camels face up and do the same with this pile, in the losers case its the Camel furthest back on the track and, in the scenario of a stack, the Camel on the bottom of the Camels furthest back on the track is in deemed to be in last place.

Once the winners and losers are sorted, each player counts the Egyptian Pounds they have accrued throughout the game and the player with the most wins, if there is a tie then all players tied win.

All in all, I really enjoyed Camel Up. It's a simple game that doesn't require much set up or any prior knowledge and is easy to pick up very quickly, it's a game that I would recommend for new and veteran players alike as it involves a nice mix of strategy and unpredictability that can lead to some tight games, such as all the Camels being stacked two squares from the finish line and each player trying to scramble at the last minute to try and salvage any bets they may have made. It would also a great family game as it doesn't take too long and like I said, once you start playing it becomes very easy to understand.

I would highly recommend Camel Up if you're looking to teach someone about board games or even just trying to find something new to play with your friends, I'm sure it will find its way into your normal board game rotation.

I hope you've enjoyed my look at Camel Up and I will be looking at more board games soon but until then, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.