Rolling in the Reef

[b][i]BrainGoodGames[/i] has quite the cult following, and for good reason - they carved out an interesting niche of making video game/Euro-board game hybrids that play well.[/b] With that being said, I've bought nearly every one of their titles and refunded most of them for various reasons. As an avid board gamer, I just don't see anything really new. I don't really get the 'wow factor' that many others do, and I think it's because of spending a good bit of time studying board game mechanics. [b]Like all of [i]BrainGoodGames[/i] titles, this game surely is fun enough to merit the asking price.[/b] No question about it. It has an easy to learn tutorial and you can pick it all up fairly quickly. The 'just one more round' addiction is high. Plus the devs are very helpful on the forums to field any questions you may have. The artwork is par for the course with the [i]BrainGoodGames[/i] library in that it is one notch above programmer art. There is a weekly challenge and a good bit of unlockables. [b]Pros:[/b] +Mildly interesting gameplay with an addicting 'one more round' loop based on leveling up and unlocking stuff +Like all of [i]BrainGoodGames[/i] titles, this does well to play as a video game/board game hybrid +Price-point is more than fair [b]Cons:[/b] -Overall I find it a bit too easy, but I hear after many hours this changes; I'm not sure I will be compelled to slog through it - we'll see -The mechanics are fresh for a video game (maybe), but certainly not for board games proper -While opinions differ, the artwork really isn't for me -What can I say - after about 3 hours I'm just not driven to load it back up at this point [b]This game is well received for good reason.[/b] Is this the freshest thing out there? No. Is it fun enough for less than ten bucks? Sure.

Another winner from BrainGoodGames. This developer just knows how to make VERY GOOD euro-style boardgames as PC games. Each one of his games are very unique to each other, and all of them are easy to learn, but definitely hard to master. There is a lot to unlock, artifacts, different map layouts, and as you level up, the requirements for victory become much tighter and harder to achieve. These games really get you thinking. So, another wonderful boardgame on the PC by my favorite indie strategy game developer. Highly recommended again!

Another very nice strategy game, by B.G.G. I am loving this guy's work, of taking modern boardgame mechanics and applying them to a video game interface, without making the experience overburdened with animations. There are also legacy-unlocks and daily challenges that keep the game fresh and interesting. I play these games for hours at a time, and they do not get old for me. I enjoyed this game on ubuntu linux 18.10, with radeon mesa drivers. This is an entirely mouse-driven game, running the Unity Game Engine, with a 200MB install size. I had no technical problems at all. I highly recommend these games to all boardgame fans.

It reminds me of the best elements of Solar Settlers, Axes and Acres, and Solitaire Golf all in 1!

Starting to sound like a broken record - another great game from BrainGoodGames. All the great features from Solar Settlers are here, weekly challenge and lot of variety through multiple schools of fish (more of which will be added later). At first the game seemed a bit simple to me but as I went up in levels the challenge and enjoyment ramped up. BrainGoodGames are the only games I buy when they are first released and I've never been disappointed yet.

This is yet another amazing game by BrainGoodGames. I have loved almost every game they've made, and this one does not disappoint. It is a simple concept. Basically, it is a dice game, where the dice represent different kinds of fish. Each type of fish is a different kind of die (such as three-sided dice, or six-sided dice, and so on). You will start each board with one fish in the center. This fish has an asterix on it, which can count as any number. You will have a pool of rolled fish that you are going to try to put onto the board. The trick is that each fish placed must be placed next to a fish that is either one higher or one lower in number than itself. (So a three can only be placed next to either a two or a four.) As you place the fish you are either gaining points (by placing them onto blank squares) or collecting power ups that you can use to help you (by placing a fish onto a square with the power up in it). The power ups can be used whenever you feel like it. The game is played in rounds and each round has a set number of suns that can be spent before the round ends. Placing fish onto the board costs suns, as does using an always available ablility to add or subtract one from any of the dice in your pool before using them. You are trying to reach a specific score before you run out of rounds, which can be done in more ways than just placing fish. There are also goals available during the game which is a specific combination of dice that you play from your pool, and there are enemies which need different dice combinations to kill. These can end the game if they destroy your center square. A really cool concept is that you can finish a goal instead of trying to kill individual enemies and the goal will clear the board for you. Of all of the amazing BrainGoodGames, this one might be the most relaxing. I especially like the graphics. I prefer the older BrainGoodGames with their really simple icons and flat colors to the graphics of their more colorful games (such as Solar Settlers, which is also great) and this one seems to be the perfect balance between a colorful and active background, while still having a simple and clear playing field with easy to read icons.

https://youtu.be/rSl_lNXfdw4 Rolling in the Reef is another solid installment by BrainGoodGames and continues the developers niche of casual, dice-based, light strategy games. The game is easy to understand and offers a bit of replayability. However, the game feels a tad rushed due to a lack of overall narrative. BGG has proven to have compelling and fun games with engaging storylines underlying the core gameplay. Their last game, Solar Settlers, is a prime example of good story telling in a casual game. However, Rolling in the Reef lacks a story to keep me engaged to play more. The procedurally generated levels offer endless replayability but, as I said, I lack a REASON to play the game after more than a level or two. You are tasked with, I believe, building and maintaining a coral reef by using different schools of fish. You can discover artifacts along the way and must protect the reef from predators. That's as deep as the story gets. Despite this drawback, Rolling in the Reef is a great game to waste time or for elementary-age kids who want to work on pattern recognition and basic counting. That's a big plus for a gamer parent like myself. I'm excited to see how my kids take to the easy-to-understand mechanics. Pros: + Gameplay is easy to learn + Overall UI design is solid + Kid-friendly game Cons: + Lack of storytelling For a bit more of an in-depth look, please watch my Initial Review video on YouTube.

You roll several different kinds of dice and place them on the board next to dice that show one more or less pip than the one you are currently placing. If you place on arrows you get more fish (dice) to place. You're limited in how my moves you can make in a turn (I think 8), and carnivores will come and attack your dice which you want to have happen because defeating them with pairs or straights or the current "team up" ability gets you the most points. You have a limited number of rounds to make quite a predetermined number of points based on your rank. There are four or five different sets of dice you can play with, which start out easy (3 sided or 6 sided with all the numbers) and get more complicated (one set has odd numbers on one kind of dice and even on another. I hope you're keeping balanced between the two types). The complicated sets are compensated by have more special faces on the dice (usually the 1 or the 6) which do useful things when placed. Every new game you play the game gets easier or harder based on whether you lost or won. The difficulty curb is gradual to say the least. Nearly four hours in and I haven't lost a game yet. I think there maybe a way to skip levels, which I might do. But it's pleasant enough even if it remains too easy.

Another great and brilliant game from BrainGoodGames. If you like puzzle games (kinda chess-like in style but based on placement and with random elements) and you don't have the full BrainGoodGames corpus in your library, you are missing out. This is a good one to start with, but be sure to also check out Solar Settlers (similar) and Axes and Acres (kinda similar). One downside of this one compared to the others is the shape of the learning curve (for me, anyway -- I am sure it is different for others). I went from cruising to appx level 20 in each of the four versions without a single loss, to struggling to get appx 4 more levels up, to stuck (unable to advance except when I lost games and thus dropped back a level to where it was easier before advancing again). I see it is possible to advance because there are a half dozen people on the global leaderboards with up to ten more levels than I have, but I am baffled about how they are doing it. So, having reached the "one step forward and one step back" point, and having gotten the final achievement (win 100 games; I was the first to get it among those appearing in the global leaderboards [takes bow]), I may be done. That said, I *really* enjoyed the game and got my money's worth of lots of great gameplay out of it (about 30 hours - my stats reflect a bunch of time afk). So do buy it if you like card-puzzle or chess-like puzzle games! (Update: Tried to come back to it. Found it too hard to be fun. Definitely a finite game. Still, it was a great run.)

This is a game with fish but at the same time it's not a fishy game! A non-fishy game with fish! It's a logical paradox that you can't resolve until you play this game because it trains your logic! Play this game with fish and your logic will become less fishy!