Blocks! Richard III

Review

On the main menu screen there’s Continue, New Game, Options, Quit and Load Game once you have already started a game. Selecting a New Game will give you three game campaigns to choose from: The War of the Roses 1460, 1470 and 1483. The War of the Roses 1460 is a complete game and consists of three campaigns which take place over the whole length of the War of the Roses conflict. The War of the Roses 1470 has two campaign scenarios from 1470 onwards. The War of the Roses 1483 has only the one campaign scenario.

Once you have chosen which campaign to play you can then choose to play the game as either the Lancaster (Red Rose) or as York (White Rose). Selecting any of the campaigns will give you some historical information on the war, historical characters and battles from that timeline.

You can play against a friend in local two player (Hot Seat) or against the AI. There are three options to choose from regarding the AI Persona (difficulty). The options are Balanced, Defender and Aggressive, Balanced is the default setting, Defender AI will have your enemy being more defensive in their actions while Aggressive AI will be more offensive towards you. Once you’ve finished selecting the AI Persona and have chosen your side, you can hit the Start button to proceed to your game. You can also select Display Tutorial if you would like to have the tutorial displayed while you're playing the game.

Once a game starts, there’ll be some information explaining the objectives of the game and how many campaigns in your chosen game. Each of the campaigns consists of seven turns and each player will receive seven cards from a deck of twenty-five. So, if you play the 1460 campaigns, you’ll play three rounds of seven turns.

At the start of each turn you will be able to play one of the cards you currently have in your hand. The cards have information on them along with Action Points, which range from zero to four. Selecting one of your cards and the AI will do the same and the player who has the highest action point will win and go first in most instances. There are some Event cards and playing these will outrank normal cards with higher action points. If both players play the same event cards, then the Pretender wins the tie.



After you find out who has won and goes first you will then find yourself on a map of the greatest country in the world … England (Rule Britannia!!!). There’s also a bit of Scotland, Ireland and France on the map. The map is divided into many regions which are broken up by coloured borders depending on whether they’re vacant, friendly or hostile regions.

The Lancastrians start with control of the throne with the Yorkists in exile and waiting to invade and snatch the throne from the Lancastrians. Choosing to play as the Yorkists, you will play using the white blocks, the Lancastrians are the red blocks. The Lancastrians are already placed on the map, and they start with control of ten nobles to the Yorkists’ zero nobels in 1460 campaign. The object of the game is to become King (as the Yorkist) or to hold onto the Kingship (as the Lancastrians) at the end of the three campaigns. You can also win by default if you manage to kill all five heirs to the throne.

When it’s your turn to move, you will be able to use your action points, depending on which card you chose. So, if you choose a card with four action points you will be able to make four moves. There is a pool of nobles from which you can select yours. Clicking on one of the nobles will show some details on them, such as who they are, whether they are loyal or a potential traitor, their strength, power, status and initiative. Some of these nobles can only be placed in a certain region if there isn’t an enemy already there. So, you can only place London Urban Militia in the region of Middlesex, but once you have them on the map you can move them as you please.

Each noble you bring to the board from the pool of nobles will cost one action point. They won’t be able to move until the next turn. If you have multiple nobles in one region you can select them all and then drag them to another region, which will only count as using one action point. You can move one block by sea, although if you move to a major port then you can move two blocks, costing you one action point.

Having multiple nobles in the same region is a good thing, as any noble on their own won’t have much chance against multiple nobles attacking them. You can have four nobles in any one region except for Cities, where you can have five. You can have more in a region, although each region can only supply up to four blocks (five in Cities) without any penalty. The penalty will reduce one step from one of the nobles of your choice in that region. The more nobles you get under your control, the better, as it will increase your score. Although, to win you will be required to reduce the number of nobles the Lancastrians control.

You’re unable to know which noble is where on the board; the only way to find out is to go into battle. You do this by dragging your nobles into a region with the enemy. So, you could drag two nobles to battle with one of the enemy nobles and you’d think you’ve got the edge. However, if you decide to do this and you are going first in that turn, you could lose that edge if the enemy decides to move more nobles into the battle region. At the end of each players’ turns, the battle phase will start.

Each of the blocks involved will have one battle turn per battle round, with a maximum of four battle rounds.  The available options will depend on the block (noble).  You will be able to Fire, Retreat or Pass, although you will not be able to retreat on your first move. There are other options, Charge and Treachery, and if you brought two groups into the battle then one of them will be in reserve for the second turn. The sequence of turns will depend on the combat initiative of those blocks. There are three initiative types: A blocks, B blocks and C blocks.  A blocks go first, then B blocks and finally C blocks. Defending A blocks will go before attacking A blocks and so on.

Each block has a strength of up to four, which will transfer onto the battle screen. If they have a four, they will be at the highest step on the board. When you select your course of action (Fire, Charge or Treachery) some dice will then be rolled. The outcome of the roll will determine whether or not you are successful. If you are successful, then it will remove one strength, if you reduce them to zero, then you will have defeated that block and it will reduce their overall score.

The end of the campaign happens after seven turns; the player who has control of the most nobles and heirs in England is designated King. If you play the 1460 (three campaigns) or 1470 (two campaigns), then the winner will be whoever is designated King after the final turn.

The options consist of Language (English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and Italian), Resolution with Refresh Rate, Full Screen On/Off, Music and Sound Effect sliders. You can also find the Rules button here which will open in a PDF format along with Credits.

Blocks! Richard III is quite an interesting little game.  It’s not too hard to learn, which I always like. It looks nice, plays well and smoothly, and I’ve enjoyed playing the game so far. How your game pans out all depends on which cards you draw at the beginning of each campaign. The battles are decided by random dice rolls, which were a little bit frustrating at times because I wasn’t quite sure what I needed to roll. Sometimes rolling one, two or three would do damage, while other times rolling a three wouldn’t do anything. Rolling four, five or six didn’t seem to do anything for me at all, so I’m a little confused (.com) with the whole rolling dynamics. However, I still enjoyed playing the game; it’s not overly complicated, nor does it take too long to complete. Worth giving a bash.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!

 


Positives

+ Not overly complicated
+ Enjoyable playing at your own pace
+ It’s England … Rule Britannia!!!
+ Nice graphics and music
+ Has achievements

Negatives

- Frustrating at times with cards drawn and dice rolls

Review Summary

Lead the House of Lancaster to the throne or change English history by leading the House of York to victory.

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Zeepond Rating: 7/10

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