Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
New to Me – March 2019
It’s March! Or it was March. This post is about March, at any rate.
What was I saying?
Oh yeah, I played lots of new to me games last month because last weekend was a convention weekend. I played a total of eight new to me games!
This made all of my fellow cult members happy.
In fact, they were so happy that they baked me cookies!
They didn’t have to do that.
I’m not sure what’s in them, though.
Hmmmm….maybe that’s why I’m so tired.
I’d better finish this one before I pass out.
So without further adieu (all of my adieu was thrown over the barricades to mollify the Soviets anyway), let’s begin!
Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig Coming to Digital
Great news from the Stonemaier Games monthly newsletter that arrived in my inbox today.
In what could be the game with the longest name that I’ve ever heard of, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig is coming to digital platforms later in 2019. And I’m happy to break the news!
(Editor – You must feel like a real journalist)
Ok, not “break” the news, as it was announced in the game’s Facebook group on March 25, but I have not heard or seen anything about this anywhere else until the newsletter arrived today.
(I can take credit for getting Jamey to put up a page for information about it, so there’s that at least!)
The developer for the digital edition is Daisu Games out of Brazil.
I played this game for the first time this weekend at Terminal City Tabletop Convention (and it will show up in my New to Me – March post coming later this week) and really enjoyed it.
In the game, you are basically building two castles: one with the person to your right and one with the person to your left. At the end of the game, you’ll score them both and your score will be the lowest of the two.
Since you are sort of negotiating with the people to your right and left, it will be interesting to see how the digital format works.
The digital platform could make this game very interesting. According to one of the developers on the Facebook page, the castle design will stretch and re-draw to accommodate your tile placement.
Here’s an early concept screenshot that Daisu tweeted.
Early concept for Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Digital Edition. Lots more to come! #games #conceptart #gameart #boardgame #boardgames pic.twitter.com/Dz0L7RtH7m
— Daisu Games (@DaisuGames) March 26, 2019
No word on the little details like multiplayer or anything like that, and no set release date.
The goal is a late 2019 release on Steam/iOS/Android systems. And maybe some consoles (that seems to be happening more and more)? It’s hard to say.
But those three systems are definite.
Keep an eye on the Stonemaier page, and if I hear anything, you know I’ll pass it along to you.
Because I love you.
Yes, you. And you too. And you…and…
(Editor – Let’s end this before it gets out of hand)
Premium Edition of Valley of the Kings on Kickstarter Now
For those of you who are interested in the Premium Edition of Valley of the Kings (and judging by my visit log, many of you are), the Kickstarter for it is now live!
Yes, this huge edition contains all three Valley of the Kings games (base game, Afterlife, and Last Rites) designed by Tom Cleaver with art by Banu Andaru and Matt Paquette and published by Alderac Entertainment Group.
The second and third games are standalone expansions that can be combined or mixed with the base.
We now have some more information other than what we had before, and it looks like an interesting campaign.
Terminal City Tabletop Convention – Vancouver
Ah, the smell of new games being opened.
The sound of people sitting at a table, chatting. Or perhaps one person talking, teaching others how to play the game that’s sitting in front of them.
I had that experience this past weekend at the 6th annual Terminal City Tabletop Convention in Vancouver (That’s in British Columbia, eh!)
Started and run by Shannon Lentz back in 2014, this is a 2-day convention where you just go and play games. For two whole days! What could be better than that? (Editor – 3 whole days?)
While originally held in Burnaby, space limitations there forced a move last year to the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. Last year, we had a huge room, but there were still a few space issues.
Thus, this year Shannon and his people were able to get another room added. I have to say, this year it did not seem as crowded and was a lot more peaceful because of it. The extra space really worked out for that.
The room was very full and there were tons of people there, but the ability to spread out really helped make it feel less crowded than previous years.
Abomination: the Heir of Frankenstein Coming from Plaid Hat Games
Hey!
I see you over there, enjoying your Friday and knowing that the weekend is just around the corner.
How about I add a bit of horror to your celebratory Friday?
No, not an 8 x 10 picture of me. I’m not that mean to my readers.
I’m talking about today’s announcement from Plaid Hat Games of a new game coming this year.
Designed by Dan Blanchett with art by Mikhail Palamarchuk and Tony Sart, this 2-4 player game is a sequel of sorts to Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein. The game takes place approximately 20 years after that novel.
Lorenzo Il Magnifico Digital on Kickstarter Now
One of the popular games in the last couple of years has been Lorenzo Il Magnifico, a game about, well, an Italian guy named Lorenzo in Renaissance Italy. (Amazing how that works).
The game, designed by Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, and Simone Luciani, came out in 2016 and was published by Cranio Creations (published in North America by CMON, I think?).
And now it’s coming to digital (Steam, at least) with a Kickstarter that opened a few days ago and has already funded 10 times over. The Steam version has been developed by Cranio Creations (so they’re keeping it in-house).
Having never played the board game (though I’m hoping to rectify that soon), let’s blurb this thing!
Review – Space Base
(Edit: This is one of my Top 25 Games Played of all Time, as of February 2019 anyway. Check out the other games as well!)
When I watch science fiction films, with spaceships dashing hither and yon (I think yon is about 100 parsecs from hither, but I’m not sure), I don’t really identify with the brave, handsome captain who’s saving the universe once again from the dreaded alien menace.
No, I identify with the fleet admiral who’s giving the orders to the heroic captain that he then later ignores (Editor – that could be because your interns talk back to you almost as much as the captains do).
I want to be the guy who’s putting together that fleet (that was then destroyed at Wolf 359, but that wasn’t my fault). I want to be the guy who decides what ships to bring in, what to build, which ones are cooler. Maybe watching one of them in action on my office view screen and making “pew pew pew” noises as it goes into combat.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah, fleet admirals.
Fleet admirals, for the most part, leave the logistics to the underlings (if you want something done, everybody knows to talk to the supply officer). I just want to choose ships.
Funnily enough, that’s exactly what Space Base does! It leaves the logistics to the underlings and is just about acquiring ships.
Maybe that’s why I love it?
Space Base is a dice-rolling game designed by John D. Clair with art by Chris Walton. It was published in 2018 by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).
It plays with 2-5 players, and scales remarkably well.
I know I said as much in my earlier First Impressions post last year, but the feeling that this not only kills Machi Koro, but mutilates it and then dances on its corpse is only heightened by my subsequent plays.
How does it play?
Let’s take a look.
Playdek Bringing Fort Sumter to Digital Soon
There I was, getting myself set up to write a review to post today. First thing I did, as most people do, was check my email (ok, most check Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, but I’m a Luddite).
Lo and behold, what did I find in there?
I mean other than the usual ED medication spam that I saved for later deleted.
I saw the Players’ Aid post with the news that Playdek is bringing one of my favourite games to digital!
More Valley of the Kings – Premium Edition News
Hey, everybody. It’s your humble reporter here, with more news about the upcoming Kickstarter of the Valley of the Kings: Premium Edition game which will launch April 2.
The games included, designed by Tom Cleaver with artwork by Banu Andaru and Matt Paquette, are great deckbuilding games with some interesting mechanics to them.
AEG has released some more pictures as well as more information on what the Premium Edition will include.
Review – 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis
The early 1960s were a different time. The chaos in American society over the war in Vietnam hadn’t really started yet. Protests and radicalism weren’t prominent like they became later in the decade.
The Cold War, however, was definitely a thing and it was alternately warm and cold as both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) bounced from incident to incident, with things heating up and then cooling down as time went on.
Check out Clio’s excellent “The Cold War in Board Games” for an overview of how it’s been portrayed in our hobby.
One of the games Clio looks at, and one that I’ve recently played enough to actually review, is 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an event that almost did send the world into nuclear war as the Soviet Union stationed intermediate range missiles in Cuba. This was something that the United States couldn’t stand for and they blockaded the small island nation off the US coast.
There was a lot of saber-rattling and finally the Soviets backed down (with some concessions on the US side as well).
This game, designed by Asger Harding Granerud, Daniel Skjold Pedersen with art by Jacob Walker, came out in 2016 by publisher Jolly Roger Games and Ultra Pro.
In it, you and your opponent play the US and the Soviet Union facing off during the crisis, trying to attain a prestige victory.
How does it play?
Let’s take a look.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 