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When a game arrives in a cloth sack, and you open it to find a stack of cardboard discs with art that seems right out of Arabian Nights, you have to be intrigued.

Which is the case with 40 Thieves from Canadian publisher JackBro Playful Creation.

Now admittedly my copy is a preview one, the game is currently on Kickstarter, but appears likely to succeed as they are near 50 per cent of their goal and the campaign will run until Apr. 26, but I'd guess my copy is close to what the finished product will be.

So what is 40 Thieves about?

"In a medina on the borders of the kingdom, thrives a dishonest merchant with excessive wealth," details the company website at www.jackbro.com (a site that is in French but thanks to the Internet a passable translation is a keystroke away. "Gold coins, fabrics and carpets pile up in its hidden and well-guarded landmark. In the middle of his treasure, nine bluish sapphires of great purity. Nine precious stones that make you dream. In the city, looters, thieves and other knaves are challenging themselves: whoever steals the most of these stones by night will be crowned king of thieves.

"Will you answer the call? Will you brave the forty thieves who keep the loot?"

The game comes to us from designers Jean-Thomas Rioux and Étienne Rioux.

The game, which accommodates two to four players, is made of 40 thieves cards and 20 special cards. Each card has a colour and a symbol on the back, but only one is true. Players have to use deduction, memory and push their luck to arrange suits of symbols or colours to steal a sapphire.

The game starts with the placement of 16 cards into a 4 x 4 grid face down.

Through four phases players work to collect sapphire gems. When the last gem is taken, the game ends.
Jean-Thomas Rioux  was good enough to answer a few questions regarding 40 Thieves via email, starting with the initial idea.

"Everything can get you to your creation ideas," he said.

Rioux explained his brother is an illustrator, so a few times they start the creation process with drawings he did. 
"Other times we just do brainstorming," said Rioux.  "There are no rules in game development.  Ideas come from every aspect in your life; funny news, events, movies or from my three little kids."

Rioux said games also take on a life of their own in terms of how they come together.

Vikingar, a previous game from the design team, took a couple of years to come together, said Rioux.

"But for 40 Thieves the situation was different," he said. "The first version was really near of the final product. We had a lot of very good feedback on our first play test session. The game was already balanced."

The biggest part of the process is being able to give up on some game ideas you initially thought to be brilliant, offered Rioux.

"The most difficult aspect is that you have to manage your emotions and be able to destroy your own ideas," he said. "You need to be able to challenge yourself at all times. 

"Another difficult aspect is not to go too fast in visuals and prototypes of qualities. These details are very expensive and often limit us in our modification. 

"It is often easy to turn round corners and not to take enough time to experience a game mechanics, or the fluidity of the game.

"It is also difficult to design a game and to predict developments to limit certain costs of production."

Rioux said they also wanted to create something as unique as possible.

"We always try at Jackbro to make games that are different and not really comparable in the market," he said. "We also try to make strong visuals.

"We always try to make sure that our mechanics come to amplify the theme of the game."

The game of 40 Thieves is the first game in a 1001 Knights series that Rioux said they are working on.

This is a deduction and luck game that has a fairly unique look which should appeal to people who like the process of in game discovery by having a good memory and some good old intuition.

London, 1937 — Intelligence has discovered that Top-Secret documents are missing. So, too, is MI6 Agent Adler. The only clue is an intercepted message: "Trafalgar at seven." MI5 Agent Gold, Inspector Sharpe of Scotland Yard, and Constable Townsend have been thrown this task: "Find and eliminate Adler." They've got seven hours.

So starts the introduction to Get Adler from designer Randy Thompson and the Canadian publisher Caper Games.

Originally released in 2016, the game is getting a new edition and is on Kickstarter until April 11, but I'm sure the new edition will be available for a while as it has already reached its funding goal.

The company website (www.capergames.ca) describes the game as "a multi-player card game in which secret characters investigate each other to unmask Adler. Once the traitor is revealed, the game transforms into an action-packed race against time to eliminate Adler and to recover top-secret documents."

So up front, you have to be a certain type of gamer for Get Adler. There are certain people who are not into the mental exercise of deduction style games, and they are not necessarily a good fit for every gaming group.

But, a good thing about Get Adler is its versatility, playing from four-to-eight players. That makes the game quite adaptable for a gaming group. Those who like deduction games can play Get Adler, the couple that don't can opt to play cribbage, (never a bad alternate choice in my world).

So what is a key element in Get Adler?

For the answer I turned to designer Thompson for the answer figuring he knows the game better than a humble reviewer like myself.

"We always seem to get at least one new innovative twist into our games," he said via email. "With Get Adler! the interesting thing is that there are two distinct parts that work very well together. The first few rounds are all about trying to deduce who Adler is.

"But the last few rounds (after he is found out!) it's all about trying to catch him. If you try to arrest him, he will most likely play an escape card: a motor-car, or jump on the bus, or take a bike, or take the tube or take a boat along the Thames. The good guys can match the escape card! Adler can then play another one, and then another hero can match it. "There is also a shootout and Adler can throw a bomb. So the escape and chase is the best element."

Just as background Thomson grew up in beautiful Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. "Looking back on my childhood, I can remember inventing games," he states in his online bio.

"At around 9 and 10 years of age, I used to sit down outside and show hockey cards to my beloved dog Spotty. I also made mini baseball games in the dirt with sticks and small pebbles. And best of all, I used to cut out those same hockey cards and play hockey at the kitchen table, with a silver ball for the puck: the foil from my mother's cigarette package."

As of 2017, he has designed seven games and authored two books.

But back to Get Adler; I am always fascinated with how a game comes to exist in the first place.

"My girlfriend and I were watching a few episodes of Sherlock Holmes from Britain, starring Jeremy Brett (Granada TV)," explained Thomson. "At some point around this time the idea popped into my head. I always thank God for any new idea I get. I still remember drawing out the first four characters on cut out bristle-board: Inspector Sharpe, MI5 agent Gold, Constable Townsend and double-agent Adler. Gold was also inspired by Laura Holt from Remington Steele."

But a few rough notes is a long way from a published game.

"We worked on Get Adler! for two years," said Thompson. "I drew out the first characters in early 2014. I really wanted a female character in the story line, and created Sarah Gold from MI5.

"We Kickstarted the first edition of Get Adler! in January 2016. In early 2017, we Kickstarted the Premium Edition and currently we are on Kickstarter with our Signed Edition (just raising extra funds for shipping and customs)."

There were of course a few bumps on the design road.

"Originally the game was designed for four players, but a distributor in Britain asked us if it would be possible to expand the game to six players," said Thompson. "So I had to come up with two additional characters. Although characters five and six were easier for me than (eventually), characters seven and eight. Character five became Kate Collins, an accomplice for Adler. She is now essential to the game. I am so glad I was challenged to come up with more characters. Russian good-guy agent Tarasov became character six. I love them all."
And there was of course the hurdle of money.

"As a small Indie publisher the biggest hurdle was raising money to manufacture," said Thompson. "I had never done a Kickstarter before, so that was very interesting. And thankfully we funded.

"What I learned, though, is that shipping and customs can add lots of extra costs, and you have to be ready for that. You are manufacturing and shipping not only for your backers, but for the rest of the games you will need to sell that year. I'm very thankful for Kickstarter."

My first impression of the game was two-fold.

The cards look great, with a sort of 'vintage British' feel to them, which works perfectly.

But I have to say with Adler in the name I would have loved this to be a full blown Holmesian game. I recognize such rights might have been nearly impossible to acquire but it would have added an extra layer of interest for me.

The greatest strength though goes back to the four-to-eight player option. Not many games easily accommodate such a range.

As designer Thompson remains happy with his creation now that it has been out in the hands of the gaming public.

"Love it," he said. "We always listen to feedback and then try to improve the rules with any new edition. We did that with the Premium Edition, so I think that overall the rules and gameplay are excellent. It is our best game to this point."

And just as a hint for what might come next.

"We are just finishing up our playtesting for Vertium - a strategic game of space colonization," said Thomson. "We have a teacher in the USA who is playtesting it at the moment. We have tested it and developed it a lot. There are two phases in this game also. The first part is all about competing with other factions as you try to colonize the planets of Coper in Quadrant 1 of the Milky Way. The second phase is all about battling for those planets. We have an excellent new mechanic that has to do with moons, but you will have to wait till the Kickstarter to see that."

When it comes to board games I have played a rather extensive list over the decades and among the growing legion of games crokinole remains at the top of my list in terms of favourite games.

While not exactly a board game, Dungeons & Dragons -- at least the older version before the release of the watered-down, every one is the same fifth edition – rates quite high on my favourite list as well.

So how it happened that I had missed out on Catacombs which released back in 2010 is something I simply have to hang my head in shame over.

Fortunately a third edition of the game released in 2015, and I have my hands on a copy of this beauty.

The reason I mentioned crokinole and D&D off the start is simply that Catacombs marries the two games.

Now it might seem an odd couple pairing, a finger flicking dexterity game such as crokinole merging with adventurers on a dungeon crawl, but designers Ryan Amos, Marc Kelsey and Aron West managed the union flawlessly.

The result is a game which I suspect will soon be bumping something off my top-100 list as it skyrockets into the top-25. I say soon because I generally give games some sober second-thought time before altering the long term list.

But Catacombs really does hit a sweet spot for me.

I have always preferred games where skill wins out, and the luck factor with Catacombs comes down to the occasional card draw for treasure and the like.

As the game outlines; "players take control of four Heroes - represented by wooden discs - that must fight their way through a series of rooms filled with monsters controlled by the Overseer player. Battles are fought by skillfully flicking different types of wooden pieces across the game board.  The board and obstacles are setup according to the instructions on a series of room cards."

The meat of the game however is the skill to flick wooden disks in much the same vein as the aforementioned crokinole. This is a game you can actually practice to get better at.

If your barbarian wants to smite an orc with his sword you flick his disk into melee battle. Hit the orc and you do a point of damage.

If your elf wants to shoot an arrow, you flick a much smaller arrow disk to hit the target.

"Once all the heroes have completed their actions, the Overseer performs all the monster actions in retaliation. When all the monsters are dead, the Heroes collect their treasure and move on to the next room. 

"Items to upgrade your hero can be purchased from the merchant, if you get far enough into the dungeon.

"If the heroes have survived all the rooms, they will battle their most powerful opponent, one of the catacomb lords. The heroes win when the catacomb lord has been defeated."

Having a number of big bad guys in the set means good variety from game-to-game, and that is critical to keeping the game fresh. With the various catacomb lords come some very neat critters to deal with from tiny wooden disks representing rats and beetles to a huge gelatinous cube that is essentially a child's building block to flick around.

Once familiar with the game the overseer can customize what he puts in each room in terms of bad guys to up the challenge easily too.

The wooden disks all have stickers to apply which adds a Saturday morning cartoon look to things. Kwanchai Moriya, an artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles, provides the art. "Receiving a BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design, and working steadily illustrating a variety of projects since, he has a particular love for that space where art meets gaming," noted his bio.

His renditions here might not be for everyone, but I think they work perfectly.

Catacombs provide a bag full of disks representing monsters ranging from rats to orcs to owlbears, some poisoning player character when hit, some doing greater damage, some turning into walls of fire. It captures the feel of D&D well.

There are multiple, reversible boards, each with spots to add columns which mean most shots have at least some cover to deal with. Again variety here is high. And you could easily design a board on a gaming mat and go that route too.

The suggested entry level run through is a tad too easy, but it does teach the game.

The rule book is illustrated, but could use a page explaining some things such as how some wizard spells work. We had to go online and find at least one answer on our first run through.

And you do need some room for this one. Players have to move around the table to get the best angles for shots and since it will play five, you need space around the table more than table size itself.

As to playing five, Catacombs would be smoothest with two players involved, works nicely for three, and declines a bit after that because of room and lack of things to do.

That all said, as a game of skill for two or three players, this one has tons to offer. A gem from the Canadian company Elzra Corp (www.catacombs )

Thanks to fellow gamers Trevor Lyons and Adam Daniels for their help in running through this game for review.

As a game reviewer it is always best to have the actual game on the table to allow for a serious review, not just of game play, but all the other aspects of a game, from component quality to aesthetics.

But sometimes you get a sneak peek at a game that is just on the verge of being produced. Generally today that means a game being promoted on kickstarter.com, a crowdfunding website where many games find the dollars to be produced.

The miniature battle game Brutality is going through that fundraising process right now, raising its initial goal of $54,000 Cdn in just 29-hours. Of course they hope to far exceed that goal to allow for a range of add-ons and Kickstarter bonuses.

The game is by Game Devastation out of California, who were good enough to email me the rules as they exist at present, and a print 'n 'play version of the game components, sans the miniatures of course.

So a couple of caveats need to go here.

To start with a miniature game largely lives and dies by its miniatures. While the ones in Brutality look fantastic in representation on Kickstarter, that is not the same as handling physical pieces.

From the photos these are going to be large models with lots of detail, so miniature painters are going to love this one.

And, rulesets at the Kickstarter stage are generally living documents, which get tweaked at least a little by the time the game is produced, so again it's a bit of a guess on an early review like this one.

At its heart this game is best described as a game of gladiatorial battle, albeit with a darker, fantasy/medievalesque setting.

This particular type of game is quite popular at present with a few examples recently released; Aristeia is one that falls into the same general category, and a game which will be reviewed in this space soon.

In one-on-one play, each player takes two characters into the 'arena' to do battle. There will be a minimum of eight characters with the game, although since Kickstarter campaigns are notorious for adding neat things to the box based on money raised that number may grow, and if expansions are forthcoming the stable of characters will certainly grow. That is the best part of a game such as Brutality, the ability to vary the characters you play, which provides lots of replay with the game as a player looks to find the 'team' of characters with the greatest synergies.

The heroes are playable characters that have different movement speed, special attacks, health point values, and personalities, so each offers something unique in terms of in-game mechanics and the 'feel' of using them in battle. Once selected, the player will place one hero on the left corner, one hero on the right corner of their side of the board. The opponent will do the same. And the 'gladiatorial' battle is set to begin.

That is a huge part of the game, learning how to play your two characters as a true team where what they do on the board compliments the other.

The victory condition in the game is straight forward kill both heroes on the opponent's team by reducing both of their health values down to zero. The first team to do this wins the game.

The play area is a basic grid, but in terms of play, it is an ever changing arena, at least on a game-to-game basis.

So, why chose this one among the choices in terms of gladiatorial games?

It is rarely and either or, with games. Having multiple games on a favoured theme is never bad, and these sorts of games are tons of fun, and elements such as the large models, artefact cards, and replay potential certainly make Brutality worth a long look.

Players take turns choosing 'environmental hazards' to place on the board.  The hazards include things such as deadly spikes and fire to toss an opponent into, which of course is part of every post-apocalyptic b-movie fight arena.

From the rules, "Players have two actions per character on their turn, out of a few options they have to use. They can move, or use special attack. The order in which you perform these actions is up to the player. The player can also move two spaces, use a special attack, then use their remaining movement to move one more space."

The board is not large at 7X8, so movements are pretty limited.

Once an enemy is within a hero's attack range, the player can attack that enemy. Heroes have different abilities that they can use to attack enemies. The amount of damage their attack does to an enemy is listed on their character card. On a successful attack the amount of damage is deducted from the attacked hero's like total.

There are of course some twists beyond move and attack.

At the beginning of each turn, the player draws one relic card. "Some cards can be used when the player chooses, some are instant, some take place next turn, and some take place on the opponent's next turn. These are typically positive effects for the player who pulled it, or damaging against their opponent. There is no Action cost on cards and they can be played at any time on their turn. Players can only have three cards at a time, they can't draw a card until they have less than three cards. All three cards can be spent in one turn, if that is the player's desire," explains the rules.

These are the cards that players will find interesting in terms of learning when to use certain ones to best effect.

Before the game begins, players can select one artifact per character on their team.

"Artifacts are powerful items that players can use independent of an action. Each artifact has unique cooldowns (number of turns until they can use the cards again), so after the player uses an artifact, there is a time period where these cannot be used. Once that time is up, the relics can be used again," explains the rules.

These are the spice of the game, and because they have a cool down period before they can be used again, timing is everything with their use.