麻豆视频

Last week I wrote about a Print 'n Play game from Todd Sanders 'They Who Were 8', a game which employs only 18 cards and a handful of markers.

Well sticking with Sanders, one of my favourite game designers overall, and certainly atop the PnP world in my mind, is a look at Aether Captains: The Search.

To start Aether Captains is an over-arching world of Sanders creation, a world which is the setting of a number of his games. The world is certainly steampunk, lots of dirigibles and the like, with a certain 'Venice' feel.

The world is one which appeals as a steampunk fan, and in the case of 'The Search' it is an ideal fit.

"The Search is a game of evade and capture for two players taking place in the Aether Captains world of Arkady. One player, the criminal, must visit three marked map cards committing a heinous crime at each location. The other player takes on the role of the Watch & Ward, the court police force of Val Justinia, and must surround the criminal with their police officers and barricades," begins the one game rule sheet.

That the rule set is so straight forward as to be encapsulated in a single page is to start with a bonus.

'The Search', as are the majority of Sanders games, card-based. In the world of PnP that too is a good thing, especially for beginners.

The game deck consisting of 20 map cards, 17 blue game cards for the police and 17 gray for the criminal.

The game has one player assuming the role of a criminal trying to hit each of three crime scenes (on the location cards).

The opponent takes the role of the police trying to capture the thief. The police win by surrounding the criminal on all orthogonal sides with police pawns, barricades or the edges of the 5x4 map.

To start players separate and shuffle the 20 map cards and lay them out, face up, in a grid of five cards by four cards.

Three map cards have white diamond/blood spot icons. These cards cannot be in the same row or column, and players should adjust the layout as needed. The criminal must visit these crime scene locations, leaving a crime scene marker on each, to win the game.

So on an action, you move, play a card (if desired), and then redraw to a three-card hand.

It's then a case of chase and avoid, using the cards and certain on map powers, to achieve the win condition.

'The Search' is easy to learn, has replay value, goes to the coffee shop easily, and is free to PnP, a combination that makes it a definite winner.

The PnP files are available at www.boardgamegeek.com