Widget's Workshop

Phase Shift Games have a particular penchant for games where you're dropping components (see Drop Drive) so we weren't at all surprised to find that you start every play of Widget's Workshop by scattering the components by dropping them onto the table. The components are gear cogs with a mix of symbols on four of the cog's six teeth and a robot part in its transparent acetate centre. Of course if you're dropping the cogs onto the table at least some of them are likely to end up face down and you won't be able to see which symbols they hold...

Designed by Alex Cutler, with art by Jason Miceli, Widget's Workshop is a set collection and dexterity game. You're trying to assemble cogs to form robots that ideally have appropriately matching components because they'll score more than robots that are a mere mishmash. You are only allowed to draft a cog by dragging it out of the pile using one finger. You can go for a single face-up cog or you can draw out two face-down cogs, choose one to keep and drop the other face up on the pile. Watch out tho' because that means you could be helping another player by revealing a part that they need for their set...

Players place out their cogs on their boards in the position corresponding to the robot's body part (head & torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg) but part of the appeal of the game is that when a robot is completed, you can stack the five component cogs to see its name in the translucent centre and what the robot looks like. It's a little feature that adds greatly to the appeal of Widget's Workshop, especially when played with children.

If you're up for it, you can also play Widget's Workshop as a real-time speed game: you just abandon the idea of taking turns and instead allow a free-for-all where the 2-5 players drag and draft cogs simultaneously. It makes for a short, fun, chaotic game - tho' it's a variant to avoid if you think overexuberant players could damage the cogs in their grabby excitement.

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