BOARD GAMES EVERYBODY SHOULD...
  • Home
  • Board Game soundtracks
    • The 7th Citidal
    • Kemet
    • Titan
    • Abyss
    • Claustrophobia 1643
    • The 7th Continent
    • Lucky Duck Games
    • Poule Poule
    • Syrinscape
    • Last Night
  • Board Game Talk
    • Reviews in English
    • Reviews en Français
    • Kickstarters
  • Burky & Badger podcast
  • Contact me

RECENT REVIEW THUMBNAILS

Barry has just played... 

Picture

Twister... a puzzle game

2/11/2019

0 Comments

 

Globe Twister (2018) review

Picture
designer: Richard Champion
publisher: Act in games


for 1-5 players
ages 8 and up
15-30 minutes

written by ​Barry
Picture

Many people spend many hours connecting tiny pieces of cardboard together to complete one image. My wife and daughter have just started doing one right now. A 1000 piece puzzle of London landmarks. Eventually this puzzle will be glued together and then hoisted up and mounted on a wall somewhere in our house. Hopefully out of my sight. This is something that I think we are all addicted to as children. If fact, this pastime has been turned into a board game, called Puzzle Battle. Where players are racing to complete their puzzle before the others.You can check out a review I did here.

The natural progression was then the slide puzzle. A plastic or wooden framed toy with an image, broken into many squares and left with one space in which to shuffle the pieces into the correct order. This too has been transformed into a board game. ​
Picture

In Globe Twister, players are trying to put their memories of their holidays back together. The game comes with five unique individual images for five players. And one universal image on the back of these double-sided tiles. Again it’s a race to finish your puzzle before the other players but unlike puzzle battle, it’s not just a one on one affare, plus you can adjust the difficulty level for each individual player. And on top of that it is a logical programmation game.
Picture

Players will have a handful of cards and each card will have an action depicted on it. For example one card will have a rotate a tile 90° left,while another card, 90° right. There are cards that will make you switch the positions of two tiles, either adjacent or on the opposite side of this 3 x 3 grid. The other neat twist to this concept is the fact that you’ll be placing these cards in an empty frame that represents the 3 x 3 tiles of your image. The position that you placed your card in this frame will corrisponde to a tile, dictating its action. Each space can only contain one action card. So as soon as you have placed all the actions that you can possibly do or are a little out of actions that you need to do you can stop.
​So you'll be racing to use your logic to get these tiles into the right spaces. Each card that you have has one unique action whether it be a rotate or a move. And placing each card in its correct space becomes very important when it comes to your turn to carry out your programmation.
Picture

Your puzzle will be given to you at the beginning of the game from another player who will be shuffling the tiles before hiding them behind an image of the final photo. Sometimes your puzzle will be handed to you, and a majority of those tiles will need rotating. Where as the puzzle you shuffled for another player may just need them to place their tiles in the right space is, without rotating. This is where the only technical bug of the game lays. In its unfairness of the shuffling, may require one player to do more programming than another. ​
Where this could be great is where adults are playing against children and the adult gets the harder puzzle. It’s not really that big bug as it only affects the generic image that has only one orientation. Where as the unique images can be made any way up, the puzzle becomes which way is the quickest to complete.

If you are the first player to finish programming, you will place your image over your puzzle and turn the sand timer. This gives 30 seconds for the other players to finish playing cards before the end of the round. Then players will, one by one act out their programmation. And this is where the fun begins.​
Picture
Picture

​The programmations are carried out in reading order, meaning that the first card in the top left hand corner of the frame activates first. After it has activated or there is no card there, it goes to the next card to the right of that. And all the way down to the bottom right hand corner. Fun you say! Well yes, sometimes you will move a tile to a different position where you have a rotate tile. And if you have not correctly thought this through you may rotate the tile that didn’t need rotating. This can lead to giggles from your children if you are playing against them. Or banging your head against the table when you’re playing against your friends.

After everyone has carried out their programmation you start again. Just until one player has completed their image, ending the game.​
Picture

​This is a perfect game for a family or for people new to hobby gaming, due to the fact that it is relatively simple. You are doing a picture puzzle and everybody can relate to that. I just think the adjustment of the difficulty level is an added bonus. As there are two powerful cards that can be removed for experience players. These allow tiles to move anywhere that you wish and rotate at any angle you wish too. A major rule with these cards is once they are used they are removed from the game. But if you see fit your children could keep these cards and carry on using them throughout. Also the images reflect the varying degrees of difficulty. The five unique images are very colorful and very mixed with their design. They are also very much like a fish lens image going all around the outside of the puzzle. Where is on the backside of the universal image, has a horizon.

Gameplay is relatively quick and within 10 minutes, your puzzle will be complete and you'll probably play again with a different image. Unfortunately it lacks more images that could add to replayability. Maybe down the road they’ll be a new version with a 4 x 4 grid and more picture postcards for you to complete.​
Picture

​The art is jolly and colorful and the components are of good quality. The rulebook does and exceptional job at explaining everything in good detail, from each of the different cards powers to how the programmation works. It also has some suggestions on how to play without the timer or without the frame. And there is even a solo mode, where you will have to complete a set puzzle in a set amount of turns. This could be very interesting when playing with experience players. Either as a group logic puzzle cooperatively. Or as a competition to see who can complete their puzzle the quickest. It’s all packed into a nice small size box which makes it a nice game to take away on holiday. There is enough game play here for young children. And with the imagery of different cultures from around the world will give them something to talk about as they play. I do enjoy the logic puzzle aspect of the game but it gets a little old, too quick.


Technicals score 9/10
Small and portable. Simple and well presented. Colourful and easy for anyone to play.

My BGG score 7/10
(Good - usually willing to play)
A good logic puzzle that is 10 minutes of fun, then sadly forgotten.

Combined score 8/10
​
and now it's over to you...
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Authors

    Barry &
    Guilou & Arnauld

    shortcuts

    All
    1st Impressions
    99 Monkeys
    ABACUSSPIELE
    Act In Game
    Alderac Entertainment Group
    Ameritrash Games
    Arnauld
    Asmodee
    Atalia
    Aurora Games
    Barry
    ​Bellwether Games
    Blackfire
    Blackrock Games
    Blog
    Blue Orange Games
    Bombyx
    Bonjour Games
    Burky & Badger
    Buzzy Games
    Catch Up Games
    Choice Provisions
    Clyde & Cart Press
    CMON Limited
    Cool Mini Or Not
    Cosmo Duck
    Cranio Creations
    Cryptozoic Entertainment
    Czech Games Edition
    Draco Ideas
    Druid City Games
    DV Giochi
    Eagle-Gryphon Games
    Eclipse Editorial
    Edge Entertainment
    Eggertspiele
    Elwin Klappe
    EmperorS4
    Essen Spiel
    Events
    Fantasy Flight Game
    Filosofia Editions
    Flying Carpet Games
    Flying Frog
    Funky Sheep
    Game Brewer
    Game Works
    Gen Con
    Gigamic
    GMT Games
    Golden Egg Games
    GREIFERISTO
    Grimlord Games
    GRRRE Games
    Guillotine Games
    Guilou
    Haba
    Hasbro
    Helvetiq
    Hexy Studio
    Holy Grail Games
    Homosapien Lab
    Homosapiens Lab
    Horrible Games
    How To Play
    HUCH!
    Iello
    Imperial Publishing
    Impressions
    Inside Up Games
    Interview
    Intrafin
    Itten
    Japan Brand
    Jeux Opla
    Jolly Dutch Productions
    Jolly Thinkers
    Jumping Turtle Games
    Junk Spirit Games
    Karma Games
    Kickstarter
    KOSMOS
    La Boite De Jeu
    Last Night
    Lifestyle Boardgames
    Lucky Duck Games
    Ludonaute
    Ludonova
    Mandoo Game
    Matagot
    Meeple City Games
    Modiphius
    Monolith
    Monthly
    Moonster Games
    Morning
    MOZI Game
    My Cup Of Tea
    Mythic Games
    Nauvoo Games
    Next Move Games
    Norsker Games
    North Star Games
    Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag
    Oink Games
    Oka Luda Editions
    Osprey Games
    Oya
    Ozaku Brand
    Oz Editions
    Pandasaurus Games
    Paris Est Ludique
    Parker Brothers
    Pegasus Spiele
    Pixie Games
    Plan B Games
    Player 3
    Podcast
    Precisamente
    Preview
    Quantum Quiz
    Queen Games
    Renegade Game Studios
    Review
    RUNES Editions
    Say Cheves
    Schmidt Spiele
    Second Gate Games
    Serious Poulp
    Sit Down!
    Sorry We Are French
    Soundscape
    Space Cowboys
    Spielworxx
    Steamforged Games
    Stronghold Games
    Superlude Editions
    Super Meeple
    Sweet Games
    Tasty Minstrel Games
    Tested
    The Flying Games
    ThinkNoodle Games
    Tiki Editions
    Top Ten
    Treefrog Games
    Twitch TV
    TWOPLUS Games
    UK Gaming Expo
    USAopoly
    Weta Workshop
    White Goblin Games
    Yoka By Tsume
    Z-Man Games

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture

Contact me

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Board Game soundtracks
    • The 7th Citidal
    • Kemet
    • Titan
    • Abyss
    • Claustrophobia 1643
    • The 7th Continent
    • Lucky Duck Games
    • Poule Poule
    • Syrinscape
    • Last Night
  • Board Game Talk
    • Reviews in English
    • Reviews en Français
    • Kickstarters
  • Burky & Badger podcast
  • Contact me