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A Gaming Life
Paladins of the West Kingdom on Kickstarter
With yesterday’s publication of my Architects of the West Kingdom review, I’ve probably been remiss in not reminding you about its companion game that’s currently on Kickstarter.
Paladins of the West Kingdom is still on Kickstarter for 7 more days, and it funded so quickly that I’m not sure any time device known to man actually measured it.
It’s also designed by Shem Philips and S J Macdonald with art by the Mico and is from Garphill Games and will be available later at retail by Renegade Games Studios.
In this game, you’re defending the kingdom that you built in Architects.
Let’s blurb this thing!
“Paladins of the West Kingdom is set at a turbulent time of West Francia’s story, circa 900 AD. Despite recent efforts to develop the city, outlying townships are still under threat from outsiders. Saracens scout the borders, while Vikings plunder wealth and livestock. Even the Byzantines from the east have shown their darker side. As noble men and women, players must gather workers from the city to defend against enemies, build fortifications and spread faith throughout the land. Fortunately you are not alone. In his great wisdom, the King has sent his finest knights to help aid in our efforts. So ready the horses and sharpen the swords. The Paladins are approaching.“
The mechanisms look great, the game play looks amazing from what I’ve seen (check out this overview of the game from 3 Minute Boardgames that will give you a lot of information in a short amount of time.
It sounds like it will be a bit more complex than the other games, which isn’t a bad thing as far as I’m concerned.
If all goes well (and given Garphill Games’ past Kickstarters, they probably will), it’s going to be reaching backers in December 2019.
You have 7 days left! The Kickstarter campaign ends on Thursday, March 21 at 8:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time.
I backed it on the first day, so I hope you join me.
(Note: This is not a paid ad at all. I’m just that enthused about this game coming, and since this is also an opinion blog, that’s my opinion!)
Review – Architects of the West Kingdom
(Edit: 5/16/22) – I did a review of the Age of Artisans expansion. Check it out!
History is my bag.
I was “hist” online for a long time before I realized that I would never be found by search engines with that title. Hence, “whovian223” was born (ok, not much better, but at least it’s findable!)
Western European history is even more my area of interest, so how could I turn down a chance to own Architects of the West Kingdom which takes place in France in 850 AD?
It helps that it’s designed by the brilliant (if I do say so myself) Shem Philips and S J MacDonald, with art by the incomparable The Mico. It’s published by Garphill Games and Renegade Game Studios, it came out in 2018 for 1-5 players.
It also hit #4 on my top games played of all time list. Pretty good for a 2018 game, eh?
What is the point? (Editor – what are you, a philosophy major?)
I mean what are you trying to do?
In Architects of the West Kingdom, you are…well, architects (I want a game where the architects are actually the enemy that you’re fighting) who are trying to impress the king of the Carolingean Empire by building awesome buildings as well as contributing to the construction of the Cathedral in the city. You are competing for raw materials, constructing your buildings, and maybe getting in the way of your opposing architects by turning their workers into the cops!
You can lead the virtuous path or you can be a scumbag and deal a lot with the black market to get your stuff and apprentices (or even rob the tax stand!)
How does it work?
Let’s take a look.
App Review – Tides of Time
(Edit: 5/7/20 – I forgot to link to the review when I posted that they’ve updated the app. It’s still not awesome, but it’s not bad anymore. And it’s temporarily (as of this writing) free!)
There’s something to be said for seeing ages and ages of the world and society appear and disappear in the span of, oh, say, five minutes.
What’s that you say? How is that possible?
In a surprise announcement two weeks ago, Portal Games let everybody know that their 2-player card game from 2015, Tides of Time, would be coming out on iOS and Android last week.
Sure enough, it showed up on Friday and I quickly downloaded it and took it for a spin.
The quick-playing card game designed by Kristian Čurla with art by Tomasz Jedruszek, Chris Ostrowski, Dan Pellow, Blake Rottinger, Artur Sadlos and Rafał Szyma was published by Portal Games (hey, I think I’ve heard of them!).
How does it play?
Let’s take a look.
Terraforming Mars: Turmoil Coming… to Kickstarter?
(Edit: 3/14/19) – While Stephen Buonocore hasn’t responded to my email yet, Enoch Fryxelius (one of the other Fryxelius brothers, I assume?) did respond to the thread on BGG about this with the following information:
“Let me first of all confirm that TM:Turmoil will be run as a Kick-starter first, and then available later through normal retail.
The KS backers will have the benefit of receiving Turmoil before everyone else, and also enjoy some exclusive extra material, that we will present later. But it’s really good stuff!
Why Kick-starter?
When Indie merged with Stronghold, they brought with them long experience of launching games successfully on KS. At first, we saw KS as an opportunity to launch our future big games Angels&Demons and Fate (probably 2020 and 2021), because they are miniature games with a lot of components. But we then decided that it would be good for us to start with a smaller project, to get some experience on doing KS together, before going big.
FryxGames has very limited experience from KS (except a failed KS on our war-game Fleets), and as game designers we need to look at different ways of promoting and selling our games. As some of you might know, it’s actually hard to make money on designing and developing games. The market for boardgames grows, but the number of games on the market grows even faster, and there is fierce competition. This means that money is made by selling games – not making games! KS offers a way to make direct sales, which could help us (the designers) make the same profit that the distributors and retailers make, instead of the very low revenue per unit gained when selling to distribution. And don’t forget, KS means that a portion of the funding is lost in taxes, administration, KS fees, and shipping arrangements – everyone wants their piece of the cake.
So we will try this and evaluate it. I think the boardgame market will continue to be a mix of KS and retail – I hope that the FLGS will find a way to co-exist, and even prosper in these new times.”
So there you have it. It’s official, and there will be some exclusive extra material for the Kickstarter backers.
What will it be? Will it still be an Essen retail release, or an Essen Kickstarter pickup?
We have a month or two before we find out.
Stay tuned!
(Original Post Below)
As an acknowledged Terraforming Mars fan, I always follow with interest stories about upcoming expansions.
The upcoming expansion, Terraforming Mars: Turmoil has been talked about on BGG for a few months now and everybody sounds kind of excited.
This expansion will add new projects, some new corporations, and Global Events that you have to prepare for!
Weird and wild stuff.
Then, last week, I saw this on Twitter.
This. Is. A. Thing. pic.twitter.com/AR702VYOKy
— Stronghold Games (@StrongholdGames) March 8, 2019
What????
Coming to Kickstarter in April/May? Not just coming out in October for Essen like so many of the other expansions?
What has gotten into Stronghold Games?
Galaxy Trucker Ships Out to Steam
Yesterday, one of the best boardgame apps ever made finally appeared on Steam after a long period on iOS/Android.
Galaxy Trucker, by Czech Games Edition, is a game that doesn’t really seem like it would be a good fit on digital.
It’s a real-time grabbing of ship parts, old pipes, batteries, and other crap in order to make a ship that will go out on a mission to find goods and deliver them somewhere.
The tabletop game has a bunch of tiles face-down on the table and everybody grabs stuff willy-nilly to try and make the best ship as possible. You’re taking tiles, looking at them, trying to decide whether or not it will fit in your ship, and then either putting it back, putting it “on hold” for later, or putting it on your ship. As soon as you look at another tile, the piece you put on your ship or in your storage is locked. You can’t get rid of it.
The real-time element is why I’ve never been a fan of it.
Yet back in 2014, Czech Games Edition came out with the app on mobile and it was a phenomenon. Read More
Harold Buchanan Interviews Gene Billingsley from GMT Games
Harold Buchanan is the illustrious game designer of the American Revolution game Liberty or Death as well as the awesome-sounding game Flashpoint: South China Sea (which has made the cut! Woo!! I’m on that list).
He also has a great podcast called “Harold on Games” where he interviews noted game designers, artists, and other figures in the boardgaming industry.
Recently, he did a 2-part interview with Gene Billingsley, founder of the great company GMT Games. Since joining the gaming world, I’ve enjoyed many of their games, including my #1 game ever played, Time of Crisis.
I listened to Part 1 last week and finally got to Part 2 this week.
Valley of the Kings Premium Edition – Kickstarter April 2
I’m a big deck-building fan, and the various Valley of the Kings ones are no exception.
The three games are the base game, Afterlife and Last Rites. They all come in really small boxes.
The games are designed by Tom Cleaver with artwork by Banu Andaru and Guillermo H. Nuñez and published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
So what would be next in the Valley of the Kings franchise?
How about a Premium Edition to make everything go together nicely?
Coming to Kickstarter on April 2 is the Premium Edition with a big enough box for everything, and lots more cool stuff.
First, the game’s BGG page says that the number of players is now 1-6. That will be interesting to see how it works. The new solo rules sound intriguing.
Secondly, the game has new artwork and 300+ tarot-sized cards.
I’m not sure how much I like tarot-sized cards, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it to see how good they look.
No word on pricing yet (guess we’ll have to wait for the Kickstarter), but I’ll be watching.
The picture above is all we have so far.
If you don’t have any of the games, this may definitely be the best way to get them. As somebody who bought all three, traded one away and doesn’t see any need to have all three, it would have to be something great to make me bite.
But I’ll be promoting this one as the games are wonderful and well-worth getting.
Let’s see what happens on April 2!
New to Me – February 2019
February didn’t feel like it was going to be a good month for new to me games, mainly because I was horribly ill during one weekend and missed a game day.
Thankfully, the other days had a good variety of new games as well as some older classics and I was able to get a sizeable post done.
So sizeable that it’s almost a week late!
I don’t think the minions cult members are liking that.
They’re also not liking that over half of them were published last year.
The Cult of the New to Me can’t have that!
In my defense, the other two are 2016 games, which is considered ancient by this point.
Right?
Right?
I don’t hear anything.
I may have to rethink their sedative doses.
But that’s beside the point.
Without further adieu (all of my adieu was thrown through a stained glass window and washed away in the nearby river anyway), let’s begin!
App Review – Mystic Vale
This year has been a big year for digital boardgames already, just two months in.
(Editor – Not that you would have heard about it reading this blog)
One game that’s sort of left over from last year, but just had the first expansion quietly slip onto Steam to join its base game, is Mystic Vale by Alderac Entertainment Group.
The game, designed by John D. Clair with art by…well, a lot of people (all right, I’ll list them: Ralf Berszuck, Storn Cook, Andrew Gaia, Katherine Guevara, Heather Kreiter, Kiri Østergaard Leonard, Matt Paquette, Kiki Moch Rizky and Martin de Diego Sádaba) was developed for Steam by Nomad Games, developers of the awesome Talisman and Cat Lady app.
Currently, the game is only available on Steam but iOS/Android is planned in the future. The first expansion, Vale of Magic just released to little fanfare, which is too bad because it adds some good cards.
But this is a review of the base app, and it’s a great one.
Undaunted: Normandy Announced by Osprey Games
Not a lot of time to finish the “New to Me: February” post today, so that will be early next week.
Instead, how about some quick news about what looks like a really intriguing World War II deckbuilder?
What’s that you say? You’re asking how those two concepts could ever go together?
I know! I’m the same way.
Osprey Games has announced Undaunted: Normandy, a 2-player deck-building World War II strategy campaign game designed by David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin with art by Roland MacDonald.
What? Campaign game? I know what you’re saying.
You’re saying “Dave, you look great in those jeans.” Awww, thank you.
But you’re also saying “Dave, you don’t do campaign games, so why are you so excited about this?”
Let’s blurb this puppy.
“Undaunted: Normandy is a deck-building game that places you and your opponent in command of American or German forces, fighting through a series of missions critical to the outcome of World War II. Use your cards to seize the initiative, bolster your forces, or control your troops on the battlefield. Strong leadership can turn the tide of battle in your favour, but reckless decisions could prove catastrophic, as every casualty you take removes a card from your deck. Take charge amidst the chaos of battle, hold fast in the face of opposition, and remain undaunted. “
Sure, that sounds great. But again, why so excited?
I’m excited because Pete Ward of Osprey Games confirmed to me on Boardgame Geek that each individual mission has taken them 30-45 minutes to play.
That’s a perfect lunchtime game!
Deckbuilder: Check. World War II: Check. Short duration: Check. Campaign: I guess I’m on the campaign bandwagon now!
When is it coming out? August 2019.
I will definitely be keeping my eye on this one. Unfortunately, no images or more information than that in the press release has been sent out.
I’ll keep you posted.
Check it out if you want a little more information.
Now get back to work, you maggot!
(Sorry, just was having flashbacks to my old Sgt Rock comics)
Dude! Take Your Turn! 