Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Caverna: Cave vs Cave – Coming Soon
Uwe Rosenberg games often make my brain hurt. I still dislike Agricola because I feel like a monster when I can’t feed my family (yes, you get begging tokens that cost you victory points rather than little Timmy actually starving, but I know the truth).
Thankfully, my introduction to Rosenberg farming goodness was actually Caverna, where you’re not just farming, but you’re also mining! With dwarves!
That game is much more forgiving, and you’re almost always able to feed your Kid Dwarves (is that anything like Kid Rock?), even if it ends up costing you the opportunity to do something else you want to do.
However, I don’t think Caverna is a very good 2-player game, though I do know that some people enjoy it.
Rosenberg and Mayfair Games has listened to those people (or maybe they just saw the success of Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small and thought they’d do the same), because coming this Summer is the 2-player version!
Called Caverna: Cave vs Cave, this game looks like it could be a hit for those of you who can’t get 3-5 players together for the parent game.
From the Boardgame Geek description:
In more detail, each player starts the game with an individual player board that’s covered with a random assortment of face-down building/room tiles and only one space. Some tiles are face up and available for purchase at the start of play. Four action tiles lie face up as well. At the start of each of the eight rounds, one new action tile is revealed, then players alternate taking actions, with the number of actions increasing from two up to four over the course of the game. As players excavate their mountainous player board, new building and room tiles are added to the pool; some rooms can be used immediately when acquired, whereas others require the use of an action tile.
It will be interesting to see if this has the same impact for 2 players as the A:ACBS had for its parent game.
Caverna: Cave vs Cave is due out in late June or July, and I think I’m going to try it out and see what I think.
Mobile Terra Mystica is Out – First Impressions
Last Thursday, Terra Mystica hit our mobile screens, right on schedule.
It’s a great-looking app. Digidiced should be proud.
I’m not going to go into the rules or how the game itself plays, however, as it would take way too long and probably wouldn’t make sense anyway. That would assume that I actually understand it.
I will talk about the app itself and how well it translates, though.
Through the Ages on mobile? And it looks marvelous
I am a forum regular over on the Stately Play web site. It’s my go-to site for mobile gaming news. You should check it out! It has been the source for a few of my app posts here on Dude! Take Your Turn!
I may have to change my opinion about them, however, out of sheer jealousy.
Dave Neumann, one of the editors over there, has had access to the beta version of the upcoming mobile app for Through the Ages, and it looks glorious.
Through the Ages is a wonderful civilization building game that consists of nothing but cards. And guess what? Cards look great on your phone or tablet!
(Since we have the same first name, I can look at this shot and pretend that it’s me enjoying this instead of him…*jealous sigh*)
Seriously, given the screen shots in Dave’s article (the one here is just an example, as they are all breath-taking), this game will blow you away.
Produced by Czech Games Edition, the app has had a long and rocky road to development. People have been referring on Boardgame Geek to the assumed vapor-ware status of the app for it seems like generations (but is probably only 2-3 years).
I’m not in the beta (and I’m really sad about that), but knowing that it is looking this good gives me great hope for it coming out this year sometime.
The beta only has online play right now, so no idea how they’re going to implement the AI.
But at this rate, who really needs AI? Sit down there in the back. I know you want it.
Check out the article for Dave’s experiences with the game. I’m not going to steal his thunder.
I’m just going to wait here in jealous anticipation as my iTunes wallet starts to cry.
Brass Kickstarter is Live!!!
Last week, I showcased the upcoming Kickstarter for the new version of Brass (rechristened Brass: Lancashire) being published by Roxley Games. Pictures of the new board, new pieces, new art in general, all looked marvelous.
This last Easter Monday, the Kickstarter went live, and it’s already going gangbusters. At the time of this writing, it was already over $670,000 CDN, with a funding goal of $80,000.
I think that’s what they call a success? I don’t know. In this new world of Eric Lang and $4 million Kickstarters, maybe that’s considered a bomb.
Review – Herbaceous
(Designed by Eduardo Baraf, Steve Finn, and Keith Matejka with art by Benjamin Shulman and Beth Sobel, published by Dr. Finn’s Games and Pencil First Games LLC)
Have you ever wanted to be a gardener? To grow your own herbs? Maybe you’re a cook and think that the herbs you really want to cook with cost way too much at the local grocer and you just want to be self-sufficient anyway.
But let me ask you the most important question.
Have you ever wanted to plant cards?
In Herbaceous, you can!
Well, herb cards, anyway.
Herbaceous is a card game that just came out in early 2017, and it is a wonderful little filler game. Who knew that planting cards could be so much fun?
Terra Mystica App Magically Appearing on Apr 20
The two times I’ve sat down to play the game Terra Mystica, I’ve bounced off of it pretty hard. It’s a complex game with a lot of different moving parts that tie up your brain like getting wrapped up in a huge blanket and finally falling over because you’ve tripped over it.
I did enjoy flexing my mental muscles, but I just felt kind of lost. I knew this was a good game and that I would enjoy it…eventually. Once I didn’t feel like I was pounding my head against the pavement.
However…
There’s no need to fear! Digidiced is here! And not even wearing a cape (or droopy dog ears)
Yes, Digidiced, the wonderful boardgame app developer that has created stellar implementations of Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small, Patchwork, and Le Havre: Inland Port, have a digital version of Terra Mystica coming out on April 20 (hat tip: Stately Play). That’s only a week from now!
What are the benefits of the app? The ability to play alone against the AI so you can figure out just what the hell you’re doing. Or, you can get some asynchronous games going with friends in other parts of the world and learn as you go, but not having to sit down at the table for 2 hours and discover that you’re no better off now than you were when you started.
Go to the Stately Play article linked above for some wonderful screen shots (I’m not going to steal their thunder). It’s a truly beautiful-looking app. How can you go wrong with asynchronous multiplayer, three levels of AI, the ability to add an AI player to a multiplayer game (if you only have one other opponent but don’t want to play 2-player game, for example).
I have enjoyed two of the three Digidiced apps (I haven’t played Patchwork as I’m not a fan of the game itself), and they were both phenomenal.
Instead of the screenshots, I will embed the trailer though. And will be anxiously awaiting April 20 (the App Store is getting a lot of my money in the next month or two).
Terra Mystica will be released on iOS and Android systems, and according to their Twitter feed, they are trying to get greenlit for Steam, so it may come out there sometime in the future.
New Edition of Brass from Roxley Games – Kickstarter April 17
One of the best economic games for those players who don’t necessarily want to feel like they’re nothing but an accountant using spreadsheets is a game called Brass (now apparently renamed Brass: Lancashire for reasons I’ll get to in a moment).
The game, designed by esteemed board game designer Martin Wallace, is about the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. Through the use of cards, you build cotton, oil, or iron industries, ship cotton to market, and basically try to make a lot of money and (of course!) earn victory points in the process.
It’s actually a really fun game for those (like me) who don’t want to sit down for 3 hours and crunch numbers. Don’t let the description or the name fool you, it’s not that dry of a game (ok, maybe a little dry, but really, do you want to be swamped with water all the time? Sometimes a little dryness can help).
Race for the Galaxy speeding toward your electronic device
Some exciting news came out this week for those of you into electronic version of board games.
The venerable card game Race For the Galaxy is coming to mobile devices on May 3. (hat tip: Stately Play).
The card game has always intrigued me and I have played a number of games against the famous Keldon AI online. It’s a real bitch to beat, though I think I managed to do it once (out of maybe 30 games?).
One of the knocks against boardgame apps is often the really lame AI that is so easy to beat that it’s not even funny (Ascension, I’m looking at you). That won’t be the case with this one.
Temple Gates Games, the developer of the app version, is going to be using the Keldon AI as the AI for the game, though there will be easy and medium difficulty levels for those of us who are truly terrible at the game.
It will also have a lot of the features that, in my opinion, are almost required for any boardgame app: multiplayer that is real-time and asynchronous, AI that’s actually competent, good graphics that aren’t too flashy, the ability to tap on the card to zoom in and see what it is (required for phone play).
Once it is out, it will be $6.99 US and available for iOS and Android systems. I have also heard via Boardgame Geek that it will be out on Steam eventually as well.
The base game will include six new base planets, and there will be two expansions available immediately as in-app purchases (The Gathering Storm and Rebels vs Imperium).
If you’d like to get involved in the quick Beta before it comes out, you can sign up here.
There are so many great-sounding board game apps coming this year. It’s going to be a great year!
Shut Up & Sit Down – A must-see board game site
With yesterday’s post about the Dice Tower, I have to now talk about my second (and probably more important to my style) blogging inspiration, Shut Up & Sit Down. You can even see the inspiration from them in the name of my blog, that irreverent tone which is just so fun to read or listen to. Though I guarantee I won’t make anybody laugh as hard as they make me laugh.
These guys do wonderful video board game reviews as well as written reviews. They have their own site with a very large fan community that is active in the forums there (I’m a proud member now). In fact, I have to give a shout-out to the community there as well, which is so welcoming and fun to discuss things with.
I had heard of Shut Up & Sit Down a few years ago, but didn’t really check them out until a few months ago when I was in search of videos to watch. And I was entranced, except when my sides were hurting from laughing so hard.
Happy 500th to the Dice Tower!
I do all of my podcast listening in the car to and from work, and sometimes at work. Since I was on vacation last week, I didn’t get a chance to listen to the 500th episode of the Dice Tower podcast when it came out.
I’m almost done with it now, and I have to say what a wonderful celebration of 500 episodes; what a sense of history that this provides, and what a lot of hard work that I’m sure has gone into making the podcast as good as it is.
The Dice Tower started in 2005, but I only started listening to it around episode #275 or so (I can’t quite remember). That was a little over four years ago. The only reason I remember even that closely is because it was early in my listening career that the whole “is Eric going to take over the podcast?” running joke culminated in episode #300.
Over those 4+ years, Tom Vasel, Eric Summerer, and the large number of contributors have made my commutes very pleasurable, listening to such knowledgeable people talking about one of my favourite topics: board games. I don’t get much of a chance to watch videos until recently, so the video channel didn’t do as much for me. But the podcast has been a mainstay, and one of the few podcasts that I never even considered culling when I started cutting down on the number of podcasts I listen to.
The 500th episode has been really neat, hearing all the history behind the podcast, the old clips that I had never heard before, so many of the ending-credits puns from Eric, and so much more.
I’m looking forward to the new direction the podcast takes, without the contributors and with some format changes. It will be interesting to see what Tom and Eric have come up with. Not that I minded the contributors. Some of them were quite good. But the format changes are intriguing.
Kudos to you, Tom, for starting this wonderful thing. And thank you to everybody who has contributed over the years for making the Dice Tower podcast what it is.
It’s even been one of the inspirations for me starting this blog.
I am greatly anticipating listening to episode #1000 in 12 more years.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 