Hand-Off, Gametime Scoreboard featured in LSU Tiger Tailer Newsletter

CSE Games is excited to report that our award-winning Hand-Off football board game and Gametime Scoreboard have been featured in the official LSU Tigers Tiger Tailer Newsletter.

This quarterly newsletter is sent to the most prominent retailers of LSU Tigers merchandise and features new and unique LSU products. It is also posted online at www.LSU.com.

Quartex: Abstract fun

by YorktonThisWeek.com

The best of board games are generally those which fall into the abstract strategy category, well at least in my mind they are.

What are sometimes referred to as ‘perfect-information’ games are the best-of-the-best. Like Chess or Arimaa or Hive, both players know exactly what the other player has at their disposal.

Then there is Quartex, a new offering from CSE Games, a Canadian company which has produced some solid offerings in recent years.

After selecting your initial tiles, you pull five from the bag, you begin playing your tiles by matching and placing them beside other tiles already in play. If your tile completes a four-corner shape, you earn a point token of that colour.

“The 55 unique tiles have symbols on each corner. The symbol for each corner is the same on both sides, giving you a mirror image of the tile simply by flipping it over. There are four different symbols that could appear on each corner of a tile. When a symbol from one corner is matched with the same symbols from the corners of three other tiles, the four corners form the following shapes, a purple X, a turquoise star, a red diamond or a yellow circle,” explains the rules.

“Choose one of the tiles you have behind your shield. Place it on the table against the edge of at least one tile currently in play. Each edge of a tile can only touch one other tile and the symbols on all touching edges and opposing corners must match exactly.”

When you complete a four-point match, you gain a token of the matching colour.

The game continues until the tile bag, and players are no longer able to play any of their already drawn tiles.

What I particularly like about Quartex is the method of scoring, which reminds somewhat of that used by Gute Nachbarn by Alex Randolph one of the best-known of recent game developers.

In the case of Quartex, “each token a player has in front of his or her shield is equal in value to the number of unclaimed tokens of the corresponding colour. For example, if there are three purple, two red, six yellow and no turquoise tokens left, then the purple tokens are worth three points each, the red tokens are worth two each, the yellow tokens are worth six each and the turquoise tokens are worth zero,” details the rules.

The ever changing value of the scoring tokens creates many tough in-game scoring choices, and allows for some good comeback wins.

Quartex is nice in that it plays for two-to-five players, so has good versatility in that regard, and a rule set which is simple enough to learn quickly, yet the game plays with its share of decisions to make which can truly influence a player’s ultimate fate.

Check it out at www.csegames.com

Quartex review in Casual Game Insider magazine

Click the image below and enjoy the review of Quartex which appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of Casual Game Insider: The Premier Guide to Casual Board and Card Games.

About Casual Game Insider

Casual Game Insider is a quarterly magazine that is the board game industry’s premier printed resource for all things related to casual board games. The magazine contains news, reviews, recommended games, interesting articles for both casual game enthusiasts and industry professionals, as well as posters and shelf talkers for retail stores.

About Quartex

For more on Quartex, click here.

CSE Games sells out first print run of Quartex

CSE Games is proud to report that the first print run Quartex has completely sold out. Initially introduced at the Gen Con game expo in Indianapolis, IN in August of 2012, Quartex was received with great enthusiasm by retailers and gamers across Canada and the US.

The last copies of Quartex went out the door within a month and a half of its official release date. The next run of games will be available soon.

Quartex is a great new abstract strategy tile game for the whole family. Play your tiles by matching and placing them beside other tiles already in play. If your tile completes a four-corner shape, you earn a point token of that color, but as the number of tokens collected increases, their value decreases.

Quartex is the second title in CSE’s line of strategic, easy-to-learn, family-oriented games developed by Toronto-native Tim W. K. Brown.

For a review of Quartex, and description of game play, enjoy this short video.

NHL Fastrack: simple, addictive fun

Simple, addictive fun

Wed. Jan. 9, 2013

by Calvin Daniels

Sometimes the best games are just mindless fun.

NHL Fastrack is one of those games.

Not a new idea, Fastrack first appeared a few years ago, the NHL version puts the hockey spin on things, and in this case it fits pretty well as a pasted-on theme.

The game comes with a wooden game board, complete with NHL team logos as decoration and 10 resin pucks and is ready to play right out of the box, so no construction required.

Across centre ice is a barrier with a single hole in the centre, just large enough to let a puck pass through.

At each end is an elastic band.

As the game website describes, “use the elastic cord to shoot the pucks through the opening at center ice. Get all 10 pucks on your opponent’s side and you win the period. Best two out of three periods wins the game. That’s a whole lot of intense hockey action in 10 minutes.”

The game is about as simplistic as you can get, and can be taught in maybe 32-seconds, even to youngsters.

That is where NHL Fastrack shines.

Youngsters, say 10-12, and under, are likely to have a blast playing this, especially if they are hockey fans and they can add some imagination to the process so they are scoring as their favourite player.

It’s also good for youngsters that a game such as NHL Fastrack develops dexterity and quick reflexes, and sharpens visual perception.

That said, for older players NHL Fastrack is not likely to hold your interest past a few plays, although I imagine most dads would be ready to play with their kids often. It is fun. It is quick. It is easy to play.

As a finger hockey game option NHL Fastrack is a solid offering, and one definitely offering family fun if you have younger children and hockey fans at home.

Check it out at http://www.csegames.com

— This review originally appeared in Yorkton This Week newspaper in Saskatchewan, Canada

Another great review of Ice Breaker

Special-edition cards excellent addition to game

Wed. Jan. 9, 2013

by Calvin Daniels

It was going on three years ago now that I was first introduced to Ice Breaker: The Card Hockey Board Game.

After only a couple of plays it was obvious the game was a must for anyone who loves hockey, and board games.

In terms of mechanics Ice Breaker is essentially war. Each player flops down a card, and high card wins. The deck is 54 cards in size, a regular card array, plus two jokers, which are high card.

High card wins a showdown, usually, allowing you to move, pass and shoot. There are exceptions to the high card wins rule. If a player drops a higher card, say a king, and you’ve only put down a six, you can win by playing a second six. Two of a kind beat a high card, although three-of-a-kind is still better.

While war would make for a pretty boring game, Ice Breaker designers at CSE Games, a Canadian company, have done a simply amassing job of adding the feel of hockey to the game.

With each win, a player gets to move the puck across a rink-shaped game board, according to the pattern laid out on the winning card.

As the puck moves, it can land on a number of highlighted squares, which call for a card to be drawn from the deck and the special ‘ice breaker’ rule used. Here the rules range from the puck going over the boards, creating a face-off situation, to a penalty being called, reducing the offending player’s hand from five to four cards, or a big body check is thrown allowing the identified player to play additional cards.

Through the play you want to move the puck into the ‘shooting zone’. Once in the zone the cards played represent the shooter and the goaltender. If the shooter has high card he scores. If the defensive player plays the high card the netminder has made the save. Unless of course you have played a trump card.

Back in the spring of 2009 I wrote a review on Ice Breaker, and I was a fan.

Its late 2012 now and the game remains a fun diversion, especially for a hockey fan who might be in withdrawal as millionaire players and multi-millionaire owners argue over a contract with the National Hockey League season in limbo pending a deal.

What makes Ice Breaker work so well is that the basic ‘war’ mechanic is so simple it can be taught in minutes.

The game plays fast, and with the ice breaker cards, it can change the flow rapidly, which really mimics the real game of hockey well.

The designers have also done a great job of adding the flavour of a real game to the mechanics.

As an example, in the third period a player can call a time out, allowing him to replenish his hand by two cards, without requiring the usual stoppage in play.

There are also rules allowing a player to ‘pull the netminder’ allowing them to draw an extra card, but automatically giving up a goal if the puck ends up in their shooting zone.

Rules allow for an overtime period and shoot-out scenarios too. This is all stuff I talked about in 2009.

So why am I once again reviewing Ice Breaker?

Well, CSE Games has recently released two special editions of the game. One highlights just two NHL teams, the historic Montreal Canadiens and the defunct Quebec Nordiques team which should be resurrected if NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman ever gets off his high horse long enough to move struggling American teams north to cities where they will be relevant.

The cards in this edition, which is limited to 5,000 copies, is of course in both English and French, and highlights jerseys from throughout the history on both franchises.

The game rules are just as easy to understand, and is basically the same as the earlier editions except there are some special cards which help players define what ‘specific year’ of the Nords and Habs they are playing.

Province of Quebec fans will want this one, as will fans of either franchise, although as a boy from the west growing up at a time the only Canadian teams were Montreal and Toronto, I would have preferred those teams. Down the road a ‘Battle of Alberta’ edition featuring Edmonton and Calgary would be a natural too.

A second special edition of Ice Breaker highlights Team Canada. The edition features Team Canada jerseys from 1920-to-2010, so there is a real sense of Canadian hockey history here.

The Team Canada edition is limited to 2,400 copies, and among the three sets now available is the one I rate as most desirable based on it highlighting this country’s proud heritage. It really is interesting to look at the old sweaters worn by our international hockey warriors throughout the decades.

Regardless of which edition you pick, Ice Breaker is a great card game and a great hockey-sim game. You will not be disappointed with this one.

Check it out at http://www.csegames.com.

— This review originally appeared in Yorkton This Week newspaper in Saskatchewan, Canada

Quartex named to F. G. Bradley’s Top Ten Gift Picks

CSE Games is proud to announce that our new abstract strategy game – Quartex – was named as a Top Ten Gift Pick by prominent specialty games retailer F. G. Bradley’s.

Every year the good people at F. G. Bradley’s select their top 10 “hottest, most desired fun stuff” going into the holiday season. In 2011, the uber-popular Rory’s Story Cubes, Spot It and Perplexus games topped the list.

Quartex is a great new abstract strategy tile game for the whole family. Play your tiles by matching and placing them beside other tiles already in play. If your tile completes a four-corner shape, you earn a point token of that color, but as the number of tokens collected increases, their value decreases.

Quartex is the second title in CSE’s line of strategic, easy-to-learn, family-oriented games developed by Toronto-native Tim W.K. Brown.

For the complete list of Top Ten Gift Picks, click here.

For more information on Quartex, click here.

About F. G. Bradley’s

F.G. Bradley’s has built a name for itself as Toronto’s premier retail destination for billiards, games, and everything you need to have fun. Founded in 1988, the company’s personality is as distinctive as its product lines.

F.G. Bradley’s does far more than just sell products for your game room – it is a source for expertise, a supporter and enthusiast of the pastimes it loves to sell and a reflection of the community it serves.

First opening its doors in the Pickering Town Centre in 1988, at that time as a dealer with the Dufferin Games group of companies, F.G. Bradley’s has focused on becoming a leader in the billiards and games industry.

Quartex on display at F.G. Bradley’s at Fairview Mall in Toronto:

Quartex on display at F.G. Bradley’s at Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga: