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Can I share anything less about Phil Walker-Harding's Gizmos, a whiz-bang combo engine title from @CMONGames? —WEM pic.twitter.com/RMHVyShQxO
— BoardGameGeek (@BoardGameGeek) January 31, 2018
Completely unhelpful, I know, other than informing you that Phil Walker-Harding was doing a game with CMON, which is more than what you learned by looking at the box on its own, so you're welcome.
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Quote:
The smartest minds of our generation are gathering together at the Great Science Fair. Everyone's been working hard on their creations, but only one will be crowned champion. Contestants have to think on the fly to build their machines quickly and efficiently. Whose project will be the best?
In Gizmos, you want to build engines — engines within the game to get things done faster. Using the four types of energy marbles, plucked from the 3D marble dispenser, you purchase and construct new additions to your works. As you build, new attachments can trigger chain reactions, letting you do even more on your turn. Whoever builds the greatest machine and collects the most victory points wins!
That description is pretty minimalistic, but the game itself fits that same model, calling to mind Splendor or Machi Koro in how you take tiny actions each turn and how those actions add up to something bigger over time, but in Gizmos those actions can compound much more quickly — as long as you're doing a good job of building your engine.In Gizmos, you want to build engines — engines within the game to get things done faster. Using the four types of energy marbles, plucked from the 3D marble dispenser, you purchase and construct new additions to your works. As you build, new attachments can trigger chain reactions, letting you do even more on your turn. Whoever builds the greatest machine and collects the most victory points wins!
The centerpiece of the game is that 3D marble dispenser mentioned earlier:
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On a turn, you take one of the four actions, with those being depicted on the dashboard: file, pick, build, and research. Initially you are limited to having only one item filed and researching only three cards at a time. In more detail, the actions as I remember them are:
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• File: Take one of the project cards on display and stick it in your file. Ideally you'll build it later because otherwise you just wasted your time.
• Pick: Choose one of the exposed marbles in the trough and place it in your ring. If you have the chance to do so, take the only marble that your left-hand neighbor wants.
• Build: Discard marbles from your ring back into the dispenser to pay for the cost of a project (shown on the lower left of a card) either on display or in your file.
• Research: Draw face-down cards from the deck, then build or file one of them, discarding the rest.
As you build projects, you power up those four actions. Note that you start with one project under file, and the power of this item — your basic desk — is that when you file something, you then pick a marble at random from inside the dispenser. This action — "If file, then pick at random" — is depicted on the upper part of that card.
Here's another example of what could happen on a turn: You discard three blue marbles from your ring to build what appears to be a blue goo measuring-and-washing machine. Because you have built a blue project, you first receive a one point token (the star icon), then select a marble of your choice from the trough, then (because you have built something from your file) activate the new item to draw two more marbles from the trough.
Again, I think I'm remembering all of this accurately, but if not, you get the gist of what I'm saying. Gizmos is a game about building combo-engines, and as such it starts slowly, then picks up the pace as the turns progress, then *zoom* the game is over and you're counting points.
The game ends after someone has built a certain number of projects or after a certain number of cards have been built from the highest age, so as in many games you can have those who attempt to rush the endgame before someone gets their engine fully revved, but your specific actions will depend on the marbles available (because sometimes a color runs dry), cards available (unless you want to research forever to find something specific, but that's probably a terrible idea), and the players at the table. Some of the projects allow you to convert marbles into different colors or use a color of marbles for jokers or do all of the other types of things that you'd imagine such games would allow. It's a combo game, y'all, so you need to dig and block and be efficient and hope that you get that magic (whatever it is) that you need at just the right moment, all the while accelerating toward the finish line.
CMON lists Gizmos with a $35 MSRP and a release date of August 31, 2018, although I'd hope that this game will be available at Gen Con 2018 in early August.
Tried a thing in the works from @CMONGames being developed by @eric_lang. No details allowed now, alas. —WEM pic.twitter.com/4seGSicNx7
— BoardGameGeek (@BoardGameGeek) November 18, 2017
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