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Gizmos Review: Build the Most Efficient and Innovating Gizmos!

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The Great Science Fair is near! We have to create the most efficient, creative, and innovative Gizmos (production engine). We only have one homemade laboratory and 4 energy sources: heat, electric, atomic, and battery. Let's build Gizmos!

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Gizmos

Who never fantasized about building gizmos or a gadget to do something highly dubious? As children, we play, imagine, and make up in our minds the most fantastical, and, at times, useless, machines. But, in fact, this is great for our creativity, as well as quite fun.

Gyro Gearloose
Gyro Gearloose

Now it's your turn to be a scientist and build your own Gizmos! Let's get it working properly!

Game Info

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Gizmos is a board game played with 2 to 4 players, for ages 14 and up, by designer Phil Walker-Harding. It was illustrated by Hannah Cardoso, Mathieu Harlaut, Saeed Jalabi, and Giovanna Guimarães.

Game Box.
Game Box.

Gizmos was released in 2018 by CMON (Coll Mini or Not). In 2019, it was released in Brazil by Galápagos Jogos. It includes basic mechanics like collecting sets, action queues, and open drafting. Gizmos, by the way, is considered very inclusive because it isn't language-dependent. This means you can play it even if you don't speak the language it was published in.

As usual, Gizmos, ever since it was released, has been collecting awards and nominations. Among these nominations, it was nominated for the "Best Family Game" in 2018 by Board Game Quest Awards and Golden Geek. In 2019, it was named the Best Australian Game by Boardgames Australia Awards, as well as the winner of the Originality and Challenging category by Mensa Select.

I've mentioned Phil Walker-Harding before when I discussed some of their excellent titles, like SpellBooklink outside website. He's really great. One of Gizmos' artists is also Brazilian: Giovanna Guimarães, who is a senior illustrator at CMON.

Let's see the game!

The Game

In this game, we're scientists and the Great Science Fair is just around the corner. We need to present our best project with limited resources at first - you can get better resources as you develop your project, though. That's Gizmos!

Game Components
Game Components

Gizmos is a simple but highly strategic game that will put your logical skills to the test. We have to build a gadget and create a chain reaction as perfectly and efficiently as possible. This means you have to create the best "production engine" possible to get even more value out of your turns.

Basically, we'll have to manage the energy we have, our ability to store Gizmos, and our ability to research.

You have four types of energy:

  • Heat (red);

  • Electric (yellow);

  • Atomic (blue);

  • Battery (black).

    Energy Spheres
    Energy Spheres

    They'll be the basis of everything, and we'll use them as they are or, at times, convert them into other types of energy and multiply them to yield more results. However, these actions (converting and multiplying) are only possible when we upgrade our laboratory with our Gizmos.

    Energy Dispenser
    Energy Dispenser

    But, how can we actually upgrade our laboratory? You'll have at your disposal a dispenser with your energy arranged in a row (which you can get), and a common area with multiple Gizmos cards to file or build.

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    Gizmos Cards
    Gizmos Cards

    To sum up, all you have to do is: get energy and build Gizmos to make your lab more efficient. You'll do that with your actions.

    In your turn, you can do 4 possible actions:

  • Pick: get 1 energy of your choice from the energy row;

  • File: file 1 Gizmo from the display area to build in the future;

  • Build: build 1 Gizmo from the display area or from your archive;

  • Research: draw Gizmo cards from 1 of the face-down level decks and choose 1 to file or build.

    The Game
    The Game

    The genius about it all is the fact that Gizmo cards give us great rewards, as they let us:

  • upgrade our energy storage ring, our ability to file and research;

  • set up converters to use the energy we have available more efficiently;

  • they also give us points and boost other actions (they let us get more energy or give us more points when we build other Gizmos).

    The Gizmos logic: use energy, get Gizmo, and get rewards
    The Gizmos logic: use energy, get Gizmo, and get rewards

    The idea is to create a "chain reaction" - that is, one action triggers another, which triggers another, and so on and so forth. This means on your turn, instead of playing a single action, you'll play a bunch of them. The secret is precisely in the balance between all your Gizmos!

    After you play your action and access the possible chain reaction created by your Gizmos, the player to your left gets to play.

    Basically, that's a turn in Gizmos!

    End of the Match

    The game ends when a player builds their 4th level 3 Gizmo or their 16th Gizmo (including their starting Gizmo). After this, the game goes on until all players have played the same number of turns. Obviously, if the player who triggered the end of the match is to the right of the player who first played a turn, then the game ends when they finish playing their turns.

    Calculating your score is quite simple. Just add:

  • victory points from your Gizmos and

  • any victory points token they acquired.

    The player with the most points wins!

    If there is a tie, the player who has built more Gizmos wins. If there is still a tie, the player with more energy in their archive wins. If there is still a tie, the tied player furthest from the first player, going clockwise, wins.

    Strategy Tips

    Gizmos is so cool that there are countless strategies you could use in it. I'll list down below the most logical and obvious ones that brought me multiple victories.

    The first thing you should do is get the Gizmos that let you get more energy. Some of them let us get them straight from the energy row (the visible energy), or let us get them straight from the dispenser - that is, without looking at them, so we'll need a bit of luck.

    After that, I suggest you upgrade your storage energy ring, as you'll only be able to hold 5 energy at a time at first. If you upgrade how much energy you get, you'll have to, obviously, upgrade how much energy you can store.

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    Then, you'll need to focus on your converters. I recommend you get as many of them as you can because they let you double your energy and convert them - that is, converting one type into another. This is incredibly useful, trust me!

    When you have set up all of this, I recommend you upgrade your filing system, as, occasionally, you'll be able to get Gizmos, but you won't have enough energy to build them straight away. In this case, you'll have to file them to build them later, that is, reserve them. Being able to file more of them is a great strategy for you and to prevent your opponents from building something incredibly efficient and winning the game.

    Furthermore, for filing, you should get Gizmos that give you bonuses for building cards from your archive: with a bigger archive, you'll have more Gizmos stored, and building from your archive will give you even more advantages. Don't forget that, as it makes a huge difference!

    As for investing in research, you can do that, but I rarely ever did. I only recommend you do this when the Gizmos you have to build are terrible, that is, if they don't give you many points or give you bonuses you already have. In any case, I didn't personally see researching being that effective. Namely, research lets you look at the "closed" Gizmos at the face - down level deck and either file them or build them immediately.

    That's why I don't recommend this strategy. To use it, you need to, first, have several types of energy available, and enough space left in the archive, as you'll need to use either one or the other. So, if you do take a turn to research, you'll basically lose that turn, considering you might get a Gizmo you don't even need. I don't believe researching in Gizmo is that great.

    I strongly recommend you get Gizmos that give you bonuses when you build other Gizmos of specific colors. This way, whenever you build a Gizmo of that color, you'll get other actions or victory points. Remember: chain reactions are important!

    Finally, I highly recommend you get level 3 Gizmos, which is one of the ways you'll end the game. With them, you'll be able to pick up the pace when you have more points and are set to win, and they will give you many points throughout the game as well. And I truly do mean "many points", as some Gizmos give you points according to other factors that you acquire during the game. This will boost your score exponentially.

    Follow these tips, create an efficient line of production, and win the game!

    Unboxing, Rules, and Gameplay Videos

    Check out this unboxing:

    Learn the rules:

    Watch some gameplay:

    Teaching Moments

    If you want to teach someone about the basics of logic, math, and chain reactions in a very fun way, Gizmos is the game for you!

    Obviously, you can tell Gizmos relies a lot on chain reactions and logic. It really forces you to think about the order of your actions and how they impact your results. This is a valuable skill for the game and also for real life!

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    I strongly recommend that, when you sit down to play Gizmos with a group of friends for the first time, that you encourage them to think logically and show how to do it like this: "see, if you do it this way, you'll get this bonus", and so on and so forth until they learn how to do it on their own, with autonomy.

    Letting them and yourself make mistakes every once or twice and not get that much advantage is essential, but you also need to learn how to do it properly. This isn't too frustrating, in my experience, and will make you want to do it again, correctly this time. You'll want to play again and set up the right plays.

    The game encourages you to think logically at all times and rely on math when you're managing your energy and the archive, as well as building your Gizmos and triggering bonuses.

    Chain reactions, as a concept, are fantastical and great for any situation, and Gizmos shows you exactly how they work. It is the type of game that makes me believe learning is always better when you have fun. It is an excellent teaching resource, without a question!

    I highly recommend Gizmos for your collection!