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Well, one of 2F's big releases as the publisher has a second title also due out at that convention, a new version of Friese's Fresh Fish, which he first released in an edition of — let me check the back of my box — 300 copies waaaay back in 1997. So two revamps in one year? Yes, that's the plan, although most gamers are not familiar with Fresh Fish — or if they are, they've seen only the hum-drum version from Plenary Games. In any case, Friese has learned a lot in the past seventeen years, and the new version is both more attractive and easier for players to intuit in terms of what needs to be done when and how screwed they are when those things are done. First, an overview of the setting and gameplay:
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It's time for the next market day! As a rising trader, you are trying to get the best spaces for your market stalls. Only the trader with the freshest goods will get the most customers.
In Fresh Fish you try to build your market stalls as close as possible to the matching delivery trucks on a huge market square. A delivery of goods directly from the delivery truck into the market stall is not allowed; at least one path space must lie between them. Unfortunately the competition between the traders is quite intense, so you will block each other from the shortest paths with your market stalls. Neutral flea market tables will get in the way, too.
To secure the prime spaces for your market stalls, you must buy the stall tiles cheaply at an auction — but if you bid too little and lose the auctions you may later get a space much further away.
At the end of the game you add all the paths between your market stalls and the delivery trucks, then subtract the saved coins from this sum. The player with the lowest value wins as he offers the freshest goods to his customers!
To give you some sense of the game and what's changed, here's three pics from a playing on the Plenary Games edition:In Fresh Fish you try to build your market stalls as close as possible to the matching delivery trucks on a huge market square. A delivery of goods directly from the delivery truck into the market stall is not allowed; at least one path space must lie between them. Unfortunately the competition between the traders is quite intense, so you will block each other from the shortest paths with your market stalls. Neutral flea market tables will get in the way, too.
To secure the prime spaces for your market stalls, you must buy the stall tiles cheaply at an auction — but if you bid too little and lose the auctions you may later get a space much further away.
At the end of the game you add all the paths between your market stalls and the delivery trucks, then subtract the saved coins from this sum. The player with the lowest value wins as he offers the freshest goods to his customers!
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In general, factories are placed at certain locations on the game board, then each turn players reserve a space around the factory — with those spaces ideally being used as building sites for retail outlets that sell a nearby factory's goods — or draw a location tile and place it on a space that they've previously reserved. Many of the tiles that you draw will be office buildings or locations that you don't care about, but you must place them on the board all the space, using up one of your reserved locations. Sometimes, though, you'll draw a retail outlet, and all players can bid for this tile through a closed fist auction. Whoever gets the tile must place it on one of his reserved locations; once you've placed a retail outlet of a certain type, you can't bid on another one.
The tricky part of the game — and what drives all of the action: where you reserve, what you bid, where you place buildings, everything! — is that all of the factories and retail stores must be connected by a road, so if a factory in the corner of the game board has a building placed next to it, then the only other vacant space adjacent to it is expropriated by the town and transformed into a road. Had you reserved that space? Too bad! It's now a road and you get your cube back to reserve a spot somewhere else, most likely somewhere farther away from the factory and that's bad since your score at the end of the game is the sum of the distance from each factory to your retail outlet of the same type, and you want the lowest score possible.
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In the new Fresh Fish, you no longer have a single game board but instead a set of modular tiles that allow you both to adjust for different player counts and to create a space of varying dimensions to change the game experience.
More importantly, each large tile is divided into different color-coded fenced regions (as shown in the expanded image below); each region has a number, and each space in the region depicts a small representation of the region with its particular space in black. When the number of spaces coverd by tiles in a color-coded region equals the number in that region, then all of the other spaces are covered with paths and any reserve cubes on them returned to their owners. Thus, you no longer have to monitor the entire board to watch for spaces that require expropriation as the board is broken into manageable chunks.
What this does — and I say this based on a single playing of a prototype of the new version — is allow you to focus on small regions of the game board. I know, for example, that if green places something on that pink 2, then my yellow token will be removed from the other pink 2, so I probably want a back-up space in the same area (which is probably why I have a token on the blue 1). You still want to monitor the entire board, of course, as new tiles will be placed everywhere, but now you can more easily follow what could happen in each region, which therefore affects how and where you reserve spaces and bid on available retail outlets.
In some cases, your retail outlet cannot be connected through the paths of the game board, so you'll need to lay down a path adjacent to the board, as you can see at the bottom of the image below. When you do this, each path space counts double.
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During the medieval goings-on around Orléans, you must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France.
In the city of Orléans and the area of the Loire, you can take trade trips to other cities to acquire coveted goods and build trading posts. You need followers and their abilities to expand your dominance by putting them to work as traders, builders, and scientists. Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions. Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work. Scholars make progress in science, and last but not least it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate.
In Orléans, you will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.
In the city of Orléans and the area of the Loire, you can take trade trips to other cities to acquire coveted goods and build trading posts. You need followers and their abilities to expand your dominance by putting them to work as traders, builders, and scientists. Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions. Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work. Scholars make progress in science, and last but not least it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate.
In Orléans, you will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.
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Grab your paper hat and a pair of pocketless slacks! You and your friends just started work at the world's most popular crab-based fast food chain, "McJohny's". In the kitchen, time doesn't stop. We're cranking out crabs at full speed! While you man the grill, your pal is already starting up the bike to deliver his first order on time. You can't afford to be the weak link in this chain!
McJohny's is an action-packed party game for 3 to 6 players that takes about 20 minutes. The game is comprised of different mini-games. Each shift, one player is the manager and decides who has to do what. Together they try to satisfy some of the four customers that come to the restaurant. Employees are allowed to work only one minute because of very strong unions. Also due to the low budget, there aren't always wages for everyone, so not all of the staff wants to cooperate.
In the end you count up your acquired little crabs — the only currency usable at McJohny's — and trade them in at the restaurant gift shop. Maybe you'll earn enough to go on holidays to Crab Island!
McJohny's is an action-packed party game for 3 to 6 players that takes about 20 minutes. The game is comprised of different mini-games. Each shift, one player is the manager and decides who has to do what. Together they try to satisfy some of the four customers that come to the restaurant. Employees are allowed to work only one minute because of very strong unions. Also due to the low budget, there aren't always wages for everyone, so not all of the staff wants to cooperate.
In the end you count up your acquired little crabs — the only currency usable at McJohny's — and trade them in at the restaurant gift shop. Maybe you'll earn enough to go on holidays to Crab Island!
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