The Jam - Board Game

[sizzlakalonji]

This is a conversion of a Russian board game, and its quite fun.




Here's the link to the physical game:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/103828/the-jam

[sizzlakalonji]

OK, I'm HOOKED on this game! If you like board/card games, you owe it to yourself to get this. No, it's not $.99, but it's worth every penny.

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by sizzlakalonji

OK, I'm HOOKED on this game! If you like board/card games, you owe it to yourself to get this. No, it's not $.99, but it's worth every penny.

It does look fun. How's the AI? Does it...now there is no way you could guess where I'm going here...track any stats?

[Mythbuster]

Originally Posted by LordGek

It does look fun. How's the AI? Does it...now there is no way you could guess where I'm going here...track any stats?

+ Different AI Level?

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by Mythbuster

+ Different AI Level?

Now I'm confused. It does have AI, right? Not sure about multiple levels and I was asking if the game tracked career stats of any type.

[Mythbuster]

Originally Posted by LordGek

Now I'm confused. It does have AI, right? Not sure about multiple levels and I was asking if the game tracked career stats of any type.

Yes, it has ... but my question is: Does it have different AI Player / Level?

[sizzlakalonji]

There is indeed AI, but no different levels. The AI seems quite competent, though. Unfortunately, there is no stat tracking of any kind, nor are there achievements. Now, these things have never really mattered to me, but I know they do to some. I just really like the core mechanic of gameplay...it's quite unique.

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by sizzlakalonji

There is indeed AI, but no different levels. The AI seems quite competent, though. Unfortunately, there is no stat tracking of any kind, nor are there achievements. Now, these things have never really mattered to me, but I know they do to some. I just really like the core mechanic of gameplay...it's quite unique.

Thanks for the recommendation, Sizzle, it is great and I love how it has you juggling stuff on so many dimensions!

Each card is a recipe and an ingredient so which aspect will you use it for? Even on top of that twist is that when you make a jam is it just for the sake of making the jam or are you making it for some deeper purposes (like bonus objectives or to convert into a pie)?

My one question, how the heck does Karlsman work? His card was dealt and I wanted to "Bet" but I wasn't sure if I needed to just hit the bet button or if I had to drag one of my jams over to that pop-up?

[sizzlakalonji]

Originally Posted by LordGek

Thanks for the recommendation, Sizzle, it is great and I love how it has you juggling stuff on so many dimensions!

Each card is a recipe and an ingredient so which aspect will you use it for? Even on top of that twist is that when you make a jam is it just for the sake of making the jam or are you making it for some deeper purposes (like bonus objectives or to convert into a pie)?

My one question, how the heck does Karlsman work? His card was dealt and I wanted to "Bet" but I wasn't sure if I needed to just hit the bet button or if I had to drag one of my jams over to that pop-up?

No problem! I find myself playing this all the time. You have to drag jams over to bet on the Karlsman card. Whoever bets the most wins the card. I tend to avoid betting on him unless I just had to make a jam or two that wasn't in the recipe book and was therefore expendable. For what it's worth, that Shinobi app is from the same developers and is also a Russian board game. I don't rate that one nearly as high as this one, but it's not bad.

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by sizzlakalonji

No problem! I find myself playing this all the time. You have to drag jams over to bet on the Karlsman card. Whoever bets the most wins the card. I tend to avoid betting on him unless I just had to make a jam or two that wasn't in the recipe book and was therefore expendable. For what it's worth, that Shinobi app is from the same developers and is also a Russian board game. I don't rate that one nearly as high as this one, but it's not bad.

While it might just be me sucking, the AI seems darn competent, with them more often than not able to reach almost all of the bonus objectives (thus the AI isn't just blindly making jams and pies but focusing on whatever it needs to do to create all of the game's randomly chosen bonus objective pie/jam/ingredients)!

I love that even final weird twist of the "Bonus Ingredients" which is based on the ingredients showing on all of the recepies the player had created that match the random list of 4 ingredients...so it's based on those normally meaningless/unused ingredients on the bottom half of the player's created recipes!