B-Rex Days
New games from the B-Rex Group 2024

As in the previous year, the B-Rex Entertainment Group invited reviewers and guests to test, demonstrate and show their new products from 30th August to 1st September. The B-Rex Group now comprises six publishers, each of which has its own thematic focus. In addition to Giant Roc as a Eurogame specialist for frequent players and games with historical contexts, there are the publishers Corax Games for interactive games, Grimspire for more opulent games in the fantasy and ScFi genre, Funbot for short entertaining games for the whole family, Mirakulus for family games with fantastic themes and Kobold Spieleverlag for harmonious games for family and friends.

With up to 14 new products from each of the six sub-publishers, there was a lot to see and marvel at. It was of course impossible to play all of the games in the three days. But I think I made a good selection with my three fellow travellers, Oliver and Denis from the BGT podcast and Basti from Brettgespräche.

The event was once again held at the imposing bishop castle in Schkopau, which is gradually being renovated. A more than worthy and perfect place to present the new games! Or what do you think?

But let's take a look at what we played:

So what, a classic by Martin Wallace in its second new edition and I haven't even heard of it. The original version dates back to 2010 and was already quite highly regarded at the time.

No idea what it used to look like. The reissued version certainly looks fantastic. We are in London after the great fire of 1666 and our task is to rebuild the city.

To do this, we receive the buildings as cards in our hand, one new card per round. In order to play this card, we need money, which is generated by our already constructed buildings in a scoring phase next to prestige (Buckingham Palace is quite good in this regard), the even more important victory points of the game. However, this effect is usually a one-off, so clever planning is advisable.

Newly constructed buildings are placed in front of us in columns. The more columns you use, the more poverty moves into your neighbourhood while scoring money and prestige. Of course, this is not good, as too much poverty will result in minus points in the final scoring.

The game totally surprised us in a positive way. We found the game much more by chance than selections, as all the other tables we wanted to chose were occupied. And then we almost played a second game straight away if there hadn't been so many other games to try out. Although the publisher describes it as a game for experts, it is easy to learn and plays very smoothly. In any case, the game will be moving into my house soon, that's for sure, and then I'll be tinkering with the perfect reconstruction of London.

In this fat produced game, everything is different from the other Sci-Fi games. Because the game is about destruction. Or rather the devouring of entire planet parts. We take on the role of giant space frogs that devour shards of a world that was shattered a long time ago in their inexhaustible hunger. And of course they get in each other's way and don't begrudge their fellow frogs a single shard. Trouble and confrontation are therefore inevitable, leading to many battles on and off the planetary disc and in space.

A pack of cards with identification cards for the individual space frogs determines the turn order. During the turn, you then have the option of moving around the planet disc, jumping from the ether to the planet disc and back, fighting each other and devouring planet parts.

The latter causes you to take the top hex particle from the disc and add it to your personal game board; it first lands in the maw, which can hold up to four pieces. You can then spit out the swallowed pieces in the ether and position them neatly in your personal supply board. You have to follow a certain pattern to do this - after all, there has to be order, otherwise you won't score any victory points at the end of the game.

Fights are simple, quick and effective thanks to card-modified dice rolls and are used to wrest disc pieces from other space frogs. And then there are meteorite impacts that gradually destroy the planetary disc. So there's a lot going on in space.

After a short familiarisation period, we had a lot of fun with the game. The six-player round lasted about 60 minutes, and our planet disc was destroyed quite quickly. The turns run quite quickly, so there is hardly any downtime. However, you need to have a confrontational streak, as battles lead to severe setbacks in the course of the game.

"Ingenious, absurd, crudely funny comic strips". That's how Funbot Verlag advertises the new little nightcap itself and that's how we experienced the game.

Late in the evening at around 1 a.m. on the first day of the B-Rex Days, we grabbed the game and were able to learn the one-sided rules ourselves, even in our overtired state. Immediately afterwards, we started playing in a five-player round, whereby the game is specified for up to 10 players.

The more the merrier, because someone always gets caught up in the crude humour that develops on the table. Ultimately, the aim is to create a short comic by laying three cards. One player is the moderator in a round and starts the comic with two pictures that are simply placed on the table.

In turn, each player then places a matching card face down on a pile, which is then shuffled. The moderator of the round shuffles these cards and then lays them out for all to see. He then chooses the funniest addition to the story from these cards and the selected player receives a point.

I think it becomes clear that the focus here is not on the game and winning, but on the humour. And so it also helps when the moderator comments out loud on each ending by briefly "reading" the resulting story to everyone.

I think it appealed to my sense of humour, I think it will provide a lot of laughter as a nightcap at the next game night and I will probably buy it. But you have to like the type of humour and, as we all know, tastes differ.

This was the end of the first day and we went to bed tired but very satisfied. However, most of us couldn't think about sleeping, we had experienced too much today. And so the night was ultimately quite short, but that didn't stop us from waking up early the next morning and getting ready for the next highlights:

In Rival Restaurants, the aim is to acquire the right ingredients for a wide variety of meals as quickly as possible at the market. To do this, each of us restaurant chefs has 2 recipe cards to choose from at the start.

In a round, we first secretly choose a market stall from which we want to shop (e.g. the vegetable stall). Here we will find a selection of available ingredients, which are visible on the board in the form of face-up cards. On a command, all players then place their figure in the chosen market. Where two or more players have chosen the same location, they must trade (who offers more).

But all other players can also trade wildly with each other, at least as long as the hourglass has not run out. This trading is the real-time and hectic phase of the game, after which it's all about whether you have all the ingredients for a meal together and can then prepare the dish, which ultimately gives you the victory points. Of course, there are also all sorts of special accessories in one corner of the market, which make cooking easier, improve the flow of money and provide one or two mean things to do to your fellow players

Rival Restaurants turned out to be a fast, fun trading game and I quite enjoyed it. The difficulty level is family / beginner level, but the gameplay is enough for far more than playing just one game of it a night. I also imagine it being a good nightcap after a long evening of gaming.

The game was at the top of my to-do list for the event. We were therefore delighted when we actually managed to get hold of a free table on the second day of the B-Rex Days and were then taught the game perfectly by one of the many helpers.

In the game, we each take over the production facility of a large company, Algae Inc. All production facilities are geared towards the raw material algae, but the end products are different in each production facility. This is why we all have different production lines and distribution options, which are indicated on our personal game boards.

Starting with the raw material algae (there are four different types of algae in the game), we move conveyor belts on our game board to add additives, use production processing machines and ultimately manufacture the end product. We then move from our own player board to the general game board, where the products are distributed and sold in Europe. This distribution network, which all players can use at the same time (after all, we all belong to the same company), is also slowly built up over the course of the game.

A variety of improvements in the production and supply chain can be unlocked on our game board, which in turn unlocks other bonuses.

In a nutshell: a really great Eurogame with a wide range of action options. One of the last games from Game Brewer, but hopefully still available in German from Giant Roc. The game deserves a lot of attention as a connoisseur / expert game, for me already one of the top titles for the upcoming SPIEL.

Crown of Ash (Corax Games)

Necromancers also fight each other for influence and resources. We were able to experience this impressively in Crown of Ash.

In the game, each of us takes on a necromancer who sends his servants onto the playing field in the form of cards to occupy buildings and thus generate influence. You occupy one of the buildings right at the start of the game, but can occupy further neutral buildings during the game or attack the opponent's buildings and - if you are successful - steal them from your rivals.

However, you start with weak and few servants, so you first need to strengthen your army and acquire new servant cards. This in turn requires resources, which can be obtained from the various buildings, provided the space has not already been occupied in a round.

In addition to the strength of the participating minions, battles are also decided by playing a wide variety of battle cards, of which each player has the same set at their disposal. However, a used combat card is usually discarded after use, so that a lot of tactics can be used here, provided you remember which cards have already been used by your opponents.

Crown of Ash really impressed us. The game principle is actually quite simple and nothing special at first glance, but the different abilities of the minions and the battle cards make the game extremely entertaining and enjoyable. For me, it was definitely one of the highlights of the B-Rex days.

Undaunted 2200: Callisto (Grimspire)

How good that I was also able to play the English version of this game at the B-Rex days, which is currently in crowdfunding for the German version.

Now I definitely know that I have to have this version of the Undaunted series. I've actually always been keen on one of the titles because I've heard so many good things. However, the world war scenario in the earlier versions has always put me off a bit.

This is now different with Undaunted 2200: Callisto. The theme is set in the future. 2 or 4 (team mode) players play against each other in a future world. Each faction has access to a few units that can be moved across the playing field using maps, explore and conquer new areas and generally fight each other with different weapons.

These battles are decided by dice rolls, with area and distance modifiers influencing the difficulty of a success. When a hit is scored, the opponent must remove a card of the corresponding unit from his deck; if he has none left, the unit is destroyed. New cards can be "bought" in the same way as with standard deck builders and added to the card deck.

In any case, I liked Undaunted 2200: Callisto so much that I will probably get into the campaign and am therefore already looking forward to the forging result. By the way, the German game will be published by Grim.Spire, the English version has already been published by Osprey Games

Allerley Zauberey (Mirakulus)

It was already late in the evening when we wanted to play a little nightcap on the 2nd day of the B-Rex Days. And so we had a good look around and stopped at Allerley Zauberey, as it looked quite simple and is also designed for a larger group of up to 1-8 players. Fortunately, Basti already knew the rules and so we were able to start playing quite quickly.

First of all, each of us was given a small manufactory in the form of a piece of paper on which all kinds of items were noted. Items that we can make and enchant over the course of the game using resources and magic in order to produce goods for our customers.

The customer requests come in the form of three cards for each player, which are passed on one card per round. One more pen for everyone and off you go: Each round, four coloured dice are rolled and noted at the top of our piece of paper. Now it's all about using these dice rolls skilfully to complete the desired items and spells. Each item and each spell has its own characteristics, so an item may require the yellow die and the red die, for example, with no dice result above 5.

Once you have produced all the required items and/or skills for a customer's request, you can sell the finished product and receive coins, the victory currency.

Allerley Zauberey is a simple roll & write game that seems particularly suitable for beginners to the genre. To be honest, it was a little too simple for us seasoned veterans, so it received a mixed reception in our group. However, I can imagine that it would be interesting for families with younger children. However, it is not easy to keep track of the game, so a test game for the target group is definitely recommended.

This second day was quite a challenge and after arriving late at our accommodation, we were finally able to get some proper rest. The last day started much later for us and as we still had to drive home, there was no big game this time. However, I took the opportunity to take a few more photos of the games, which unfortunately passed me by at this event. But, as we all know, postponed is not cancelled, so stay tuned to our site and I think we'll discuss one or two of the games in more detail here:

Stay tuned
Yours, Ralf

Copyright © 2024 Frank Schulte-Kulkmann and Ralf Togler, Essen, Germany