Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
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)
Stronghold Games Relaunches Kickstarter
Ok, they relaunch *their* Kickstarter…
After all of the brouhaha three weeks ago (has it really been that long?), Stronghold Games is back on Kickstarter with Aftershock: San Francisco and Venice.
They’ve retooled the campaign along with adding the subtitle to the name to differentiate it from other games with similar names.
Here are a list of the changes:
- We are launching with the Venice components included, which allow for more dynamic and interactive games at lower player counts
- We are also including the previously optional District 6 expansion with every pledge
- No deluxe components, which lowers weight, shipping & production costs
- Updated name to help differentiate from other games with similar titles
With all of the kerfuffle with the original launch, I never really told you about the game.
What is it?
To quote the Kickstarter page:
“Aftershock: San Francisco and Venice is an area control and resource management game for 2-5 players that plays in 60 minutes. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!”
Given Stronghold Games’ reaction to the whole situation last time, I’m happy to pass the word on about this.
Good luck to them on the campaign, and I hope it’s a smashing success!
Friday Blog Roundup – 2/22/19
It’s Friday! You know what that means, right?
That’s right, it’s roundup day!
(Editor – You started this last week. People may not remember)
This is the weekly post where I tell you about some cool people to check out.
This week, instead of blogs, though, we’ll do some video content instead.
(Editor – That’s it, start a thing a week ago and you’re already changing the format!)
There are tons of great boardgamers on Youtube putting out some great gaming content, and I wanted to highlight a couple of them.
That’s right, video may be killing the blogging star (though I will go out fighting) but that doesn’t mean we don’t love them as well.
Expansion Review – Smash Up: Oops, You Did It Again
What other game other than Smash Up would allow you to see what would happen if such varied things such as Cowboys, Monsters, and Teddy Bears got into a big fight?
I think that’s one of the things I love about the game, even if sometimes the factions don’t go together that well.
While Smash Up did not quite make my Top 25 Games Played of All Time list, it was quite close (#27) and I’d have to say that I’ve played it the most out of any game that’s not a quick dice-rolling game.
And had a blast with it as well.
The Oops, You Did It Again expansion (the latest, and yay I got this review in under the shadow of the impending next release!) is a great new addition to the franchise.
Alderac Entertainment Group opened the door again to letting fans vote on which factions would be included in this expansion, and let’s just say the fans went a bit nuts. But that obviously inspired designer Paul Peterson and the rest of the AEG group who work on the factions because they took what the fans wanted and turned in some brilliant work.
Let’s see how things go.
Pursuit of Happiness expansion – Experiences
Just a quick news post to start the week (it’s Family Day up here in most of Canada, so we’re all at home freezing our bits off instead of at work freezing our bits off).
Last year, I discovered the brilliantly fun game The Pursuit of Happiness when the Community expansion went onto Kickstarter.
I’ve been meaning to get it back to the table after my initial plays last year, but haven’t been able to.
Maybe now’s the time to do that.
The Pursuit of Happiness: Experiences is coming to Kickstarter on February 26!
Designed by Konstantinos Kokkinis, David Chircop and Adrian Abela with artwork by Panayiotis Lyris, this 1-4 player expansion for the base game will add even more stuff to do with your already crowded life that you’re trying to live.
It’s a holiday Monday and I’m lazy, so let’s blurb this puppy:
“The Pursuit of Happiness: Experiences expansion introduces the concept of dreams. This new mechanism allows players to store cards of any type on their ‘dream’ board, in order to make them a reality later in the game. The expansion also includes a new board to place the new Experience cards and features new actions. Within the Experiences deck, players will find a wide variety of trips and events around the world. Players also get to have kids, meet new partners, and order services bringing their games to the next level.”
It all sounds really cool, with a neat addition to the regular game play.
I’ll be taking a look at the Kickstarter campaign when it goes live, but at this point I think it will be an insta-back.
And reminds me that I need to play it again!
Check it out on the 26th, and let me know what you think of the base game and the Community expansion if you’ve played them before.
(Edit: 2/26/19) – It’s live! And it funded in two hours! Congratulations to Artipia Games on a successful campaign in it’s first day.
Friday Blog Roundup – 2/14/19
One of the things I like about boardgame blogging is the community that builds up around it.
I have “met” (virtually, for the most part, but not totally) a number of wonderful boardgaming people on Twitter and some on Facebook too. Indeed, somehow this happened in the Board Game Reviewers & Media group on Facebook.
I was shocked, and very happy to see it!
Anyway, I was reading a question from one of that group’s members (not identifying him since it is a closed group and I don’t want to overstep my bounds) asking about “curated content” vs “original content” and the “80% curated content/20% original content” general guideline.
While I agree with that on social media (if you’re doing nothing but sending your content along on social media, then you’re pretty much a spammer, or at least not an interactive member of the community), I don’t agree with that as far as blog content goes. If anything, it should be the other way around.
But it did spark a thought in my mind even as I answered his question: am I wasting an opportunity to not only add more content to my blog with posts about other bloggers, but also to promote some of the bloggers that I really enjoy?
Why not make that a regular Friday thing?
So welcome to the first week of a (hopefully) weekly series of favourite blogs that I’ve read this week.
Top 25 Games Played of All Time (5-1)
Happy Valentine’s Day!
What a fitting day to share the love I have for my Top 5 Games.
We’ve reached the end, those of you who have been holding your breath to see what my Top 5 games played are. Hopefully you didn’t hold your breath so long that you went blue in the face!
I’ve heard there are problems with that.
Anyway, these are my 5 favourite games, and is it any surprise that all of them have reviews on this site (other than one, which said review is coming but I didn’t want to spoil the list by posting it first)?
It’s been fun doing this list, also knowing that most of these games wouldn’t really be on anybody else’s Top 25.
I like being unique.
As I’ve said in every entry, please keep in mind that this is only out of a total of 296 games, so it’s very possible that your favourite game is one that I haven’t played.
So why don’t we get on with this before I get a bunch of Aladdin fans swarming the blog commenting on Will Smith (I’ve heard they’re kind of like Islanders fans…)
Tiny Epic Tactics Announced – Kickstarter February 19
Gamelyn Games has been putting out Tiny Epic games consistently for the past few years.
Funnily enough, the only one I’ve played is Tiny Epic Galaxies (most recently with the Beyond the Black expansion), but I’ve heard good things about the other ones.
Today, Gamelyn Games announced that Tiny Epic Tactics is coming to Kickstarter on February 19.
Designed by Scott Almes with art by Naomi Robinson and playing 1-4 players, this game looks to be a battle royale between players.
Here’s how competitive play works (from the BGG description):
“In Tiny Epic Tactics, players will have a team of 4 unique heroes: a Fighter, a Wizard, a Rogue and a Beast. Each hero type, and each character within that type, offers unique advantages to movement, attacks, and/or support. Finding the synergy in your team is key to victory.
In competitive play, players will pit their teams against one another in effort to score the most victory points by the end of the game. Each turn, players will have 3 actions to assign across their team. They can move and/or attack with their heroes. Victory points are rewarded for area control, enemy heroes captured, and keeping your own heroes alive. Gaining complete control of one, or multiple, specific areas offers the most victory points in competitive play. Gaining control of said areas requires your heroes maintaining majority presence in these areas over the course of a few turns. This requires a careful balance of offense and defense. The control of these areas can easily shift from one player to another based on which player has the majority heroes present in the designated spaces. Once a set number of areas are captured, or one of the players has lost all of their heroes, the end game is triggered.”
The game will also offer solo and cooperative play.
The 3-D terrain concept seems neat, especially considering how small the box will be. The idea of nesting boxes and configuring them to get a massive 3-D board out of a tiny box is actually quite innovative.
Will it be enough to satisfy those of us who aren’t really “tactical combat” fans? (Skirmish games generally don’t do much for me).
We’ll see.
Check it out on Kickstarter on February 19 and see if it’s something that would appeal to you.
(Yay, a timely news post!!!! And two in one day too. I must be sick)
Star Wars Outer Rim from Fantasy Flight Games
Something looks familiar.
Something coming from Fantasy Flight Games in the Star Wars universe sometime in the next few months.
Late last week (Editor – Late to the party as usual!), FFG announced Star Wars: Outer Rim, a game where you can play as one of the rogues in that galaxy far, far away.
The game is designed by Corey Konieczka and Tony Fanchi and plays 1-4 players.
You get to trade goods, do jobs, maybe fight off some of the bad guys, outfit your ship and hire crew.
(All pictures taken from the FFG blog post announcement)
Hmmmmm.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 