Brought to you by USM, the same group that gave us Settlers of Catan, Keltis, and Ingenious - comes War of the Roses. It was also the winner for best abstract game in the recent Board Game Geek iOS 2011 awards. This unassuming little game is one that may surprise you.

Gameplay

The principle of the game is to capture dominance of the board by having the most powerful territory. To achieve this, players will take turns to attempt to position coloured stones on a grid in such a way as to create large contiguous sections, which must connect orthogonally. The game acknowledges the historicity of this game by having the white stones represent House of York and the red stones representing the House of Lancaster (if you’re a George R.R. Martin fan, just pretend they’re Stark and Lannister instead).

Your score at any given moment is relevant to the single largest territory you possess. Its value is squared by the number of stones in that territory. Strategically, this means that the competition between the two is not a matter of a few points, but massive gaps. It places a much more significant onus on each player to block their opponents.

During your turn, you may either play a card and place a stone accordingly, or draw a card (up to a maximum of four). The placement of stones is done according to the instructions on the card. Each card will have a sword indicating a direction (one of the four cardinal directions and cross-directions) and a number from one to three. This indicates which direction and how many squares you can place your stone from the last one placed. So there is not as much freedom of choice in placing but it is here where most of the strategy lies. You have to try to think ahead as you can see your opponent’s cards as wella s your own. Ideally you’d like to either force them into zugzwang, or no positioning move.

Throughout the game, you will also have three overpowering moves, which will allow you to replace a stone, turning a neutral or opponent stone into your colour. This can be used either to connect two smaller territories or divide an opponent’s. It is a keystone to the strategy and so by forcing your opponent to move in certain ways you may force them to use their overpowering cards early and to little effect. Players must make judgements about when it a good time to deploy them.

Implementation

The game has only a token invocation of the theme of the game. The backdrop and context of this war does give it some colour (literally in the case of the stones) but doesn’t seem to serve any purpose than beyond a framing exercise for the game. Don’t get me wrong, I believe a story enhances the experience of a game but unfortunately the nature of this abstract game means it just feels a bit arbitrary and worse, provides an excuse to pad the game out with a campaign mode.

However, don’t let this detract you. The user interface is intuitive; it’s graphics, sounds, and artificial intelligence are servicable.

Verdict

7/10: This game will challenge you and give you pause for thought and reflection while you try to outwit and outmanouevre your opponent.

[Editors note: this game appears to have no relation to the original War of the Roses board game]