Ivor the Engine is designed by <PERSON> and is published by Surprised Stare Games. It supports 3 to 5 players and will take 1 hour to play.
In the sidings, in a shed
As a 40 year old British man I avidly watched Ivor the Engine as a child. I loved it. So I suspect I am right in the centre <PERSON> target demographic. I am his perfect customer, as an Ivor fan I bought this game practically blind. I didn't care how bad the game could be, it was always going to be one of favourite games.
The first major coup is that the game contains exclusive artwork by the original Ivor the Engine artist. The box cover, the rulebook, the cards and the game board It's all so beautiful with lots of different images. But that game board, what a game board it is! The artwork is simply stunning. It's a whole little world of villages, towns, and dwellings in the top left hand corner of Wales. You could spend ours with your inner-child just playing choo-choo trains on that map.
The rulebook itself is as effective a rulebook as you could wish for. Firstly it sets the scene perfectly with the first paragraph being the opening narration from the very first episode of Ivor the Engine. With my nostalgic juices already flowing, this nearly pushed me into overload. Then as you read it you find it's short and concise. It highlights the important rules, and is both very good to teach from and to look up rules from.
Fire up the boiler
The game involves players moving train wagons around the board to pick up sheep and do jobs around the community. A completed job is also paid in sheep, and sometimes gold. But, it is the sheep that are the victory points. The game requires that players take turns until a player has collected 25 sheep in their pen. (20 sheep in a 5 player game), and then the remaining players in the round get to finish their turn. There are some cards that will give end of game bonuses, 1 gold is the equivalent of 1 sheep (this is Wales after all). Then finally the player who has the most sheep will be the winner.
At the start of the game the board is randomly filled with lost sheep. Players are dealt some cards, get a coal and a gold, some face up cards are placed into a face up display, player's wagons are placed in an initial starting location of their choice, and the game begins. The game-play involves players taking turns, obviously. 336
They begin a turn by collecting a sheep at your current location, if one is available. There are some bonus sheep when you get the last sheep in a location. Then comes the real meat of the game. Players can move their wagon to an adjacent location and play cards. Most of the cards are Job cards. These serve two purposes. They can either provide a special action, such as extra moves and adding sheep to the board, or allow you to complete a job if you are at a location where there are no sheep. Extra movement can also be performed by spending some coal.
It's the play of these cards that really makes the nostalgic wonderment into a game-play joy. There is a continual wrestle with using cards for the special action or using it for the job. You want that extra move, but that job is also available. Some cards allow you to pick up other cards, which can then be of used. So it is possible to play out 4 or 5 cards in a single turn. Of course, this will lead your hand of cards severely depleted for future turns. As the game progresses the lost sheep are rounded up making more and more jobs are available, so this combo card play becomes more and more prevalent.
Once players have completed their movement and card play they can take a job card from a face up display of four cards. This helps you take a juicy looking job, or a particular special action you want. There is a hand limit of 4 cards, and taking a card is mandatory. This helps force the play of cards during the move and play phase. The penalty for have more than four cards, is the loss of a card and a sheep from your pen.
Then finally the display of cards is refilled. At this point one of the 8 event cards that are in play and shuffled into the deck may turn up. If so, the event is applied immediately. As in many games events can be good or can be bad (usually for the leading player). If an event card is in the card display when a player is taking new cards they can optionally also take the event card by paying a gold. Why, you ask? Well this gives the player exclusive access to the end game bonus described on the card.
Full steam ahead
As it turns out Ivor the Engine is an absolutely cracking proper full on gamer's game. 629