Weekly News
5/15/14
New Games:
Penny Arcade is crafting Thornwatch, a hybrid board/card/roleplaying game. (via BGG)
Funforge recently released some details on Antoine Bauza’s Samurai Spirit. The game is due out in Aug/Sept 2014, which is typically code for GenCon. Samurai Spirit is a co-op game that sees players defending a village from wave after wave of bandits. The samurais must choose when to fight and when to hold back, and the game is toying with the idea of acceptable losses. How much are you willing to sacrifice today so that you are able to fight tomorrow? (via BGG)
Time-Travelling Robot Bakery pits players against each other as their subordinate robot bakers compete for ingredients and vie for the honor of baking the first cake of the day. Well, that explains the “robot bakery” part, I suppose, but what about the time travel? Each robot is also a time machine capable of propelling itself into the near past or future. Naturally, the robots have been pre-programmed with knowledge of Harry Potter and are aware of the subplot in which Hermione is given a Time Turner and uses it to attend multiple classes at once. Similarly, the robots use their time travelling abilities to essentially duplicate themselves. This leads to an interesting increase in complexity as the game goes on. (via BGG)
The Walled City: Londonderry & Borderlands is a political city-building game due out in October. Players are politicians founding a medieval walled city while trying to manage its citizens and consolidate their own power. There’s an interesting and natural blend of mechanics at work here – negotiation, politics, city-building, influence – and I hope that the gameplay is just as intuitive. (via BGG)
Finnish game Vasaran Alla is receiving an English translation. Foreclosed! (punctuation definitely theirs) sees players fighting for Uncle Moneybag’s estate. He’s deep in debt and everything must be sold. Players must negotiate with each other to secure the largest share of loot. (via BGG)
Colt Express is essentially The Train Job in board game form, and it uses an interesting programming mechanic to simulate the difficulty of carrying out plans in a chaotic environment. Players are bandits robbing a gold-heavy train and the bandit who collects the most money wins. At the beginning of each turn, players pre-select 2-5 action cards per person and assign them in order. When that’s done, the cards are flipped and the actions carried out, even if they don’t necessarily work as planned. (via BGG)
Privateer Press has announced the August release of the next Level 7 iteration: Level 7 Invasion. In this one, the evil aliens that have set up shop on Earth in previous games are now the targets of another evil alien race who have shown up to settle some kind of grudge. And these new aliens are willing to destroy everything on the planet to accomplish that goal.
Expansions:
Fantasy Flight’s Talisman: The Woodland is due out near the end of the summer.
Fantasy Flight is also expanding their Lord of the Rings TCG. Celebrimbor’s Secret will arrive near the end of summer. Android: Netrunner is also growing, with Up and Over also expected at the end of summer.
Gloom: 2nd Edition features streamlined rules and better packaging for both the base game and its expansions. It’s at the printer now and no word on when it’s expected in stores.
Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men is all the rage right now, so it’s the perfect time to let slip a little information about the standalone sequel, Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men. (via BGG)
Plaid Hat Games has announced that Summoner Wars: Alliances Master Set will be available in August (which, as we discussed above, means GenCon). (via BGG)
Other News:
Kobold Press and calligrapher Kathy Barker have teamed up to create a series of scrolls compatible with Pathfinder. You can currently find Fireball, Battleward, Fire Under the Tongue, and Gear Barrage at DriveThruRPG.
Linkee, a trivia game that was initially pitched on The Dragons’ Den is now being adapted for television by the BBC.
Maybe this should be going down in the Crowdfunding Top 3, but Geek & Sundry’s Tabletop Season 3 raised $1.4 million over the course of its Indiegogo campaign. Not only was that enough to fund, but it broke the crowdfunding record for digital series.
A mysterious documentary titled War Games: A Tabletop Obsession was just added to IMDB by production company Paper Street Films. It has an anticipated release date of 2015, but no other details are available just yet.
These complex masks made from game pieces are probably not going to become a staple at your regular game night, but the suggestions of war, battle, and showmanship crafted into each mask cleverly mirror the systems and strategies we use during play.
Wizards of the Coast is filing a suit against Cryptozooic over the HEX MMO-TCG, which Wizards (and others) claim is a clone of Magic: The Gathering. It’s not the first time Wizards has done something like this, but this is the first time where their legal basis is based heavily on the views of a blogger and forum users. We’re not sure how this will end, but it also raises some interesting questions about blogging roles in gaming.
Crowdfunding Corner:
Brave the Elements is a card game that takes place in a Greek-themed island where different factions summon the power of the elements in order to gain control of its fractured population. Players attempt to steal or destroy each other’s territories, and the person who is the most successful at the end of the game wins. We recently previewed this game, earning our Seal of the Republic.
The Queen’s Cavaliers – With a tagline like “Go for Baroque,” you know this game is, at the very least, going to be entertaining. The Queen’s Cavaliers is an RPG set in an alternate fantasy France in the 1600s. Think the Three Musketeers, but with spells and clockwork. It focuses on dramatic storytelling and cinematics.
Maha Yodha – Maha Yodha is a two-player strategic card game that pulls its influences from Indian mythology, and this is the first real attempt in a while that seems to succeed at doing so. Each player takes on the role of one faction fighting, and there’s a level of complexity in the card set so that certain combinations can lead to powerful special abilities.
Honorable Mentions: I Say, Holmes! The Case Solving Card Game; Primo: The Beautiful, Colorful, Mathematical Board Game; A World of Dew – A Samurai Noir Role-Playing Game.
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