Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
New to Me – September 2018
After an August that was gangbusters, September slowed down on the “New to Me” front, but I still did enough that I was able to keep my role as cult leader.
There was no attempted insurrection this month, though that could have been because I secretly switched the coffee in the lunch room to decaf.
I’m evil that way, but aren’t most cult leaders?
It’s a good thing I did, too, because they could have come after me. Most of the games in this month’s list came out in 2018, except one that came out in 2017.
That’s hardly avoiding the “Cult of the New” phenomenon!
In my defense, though, I only own one of these (the 2017 game), so it’s not like I succumbed to temptation that much. (Editor: UPS driver at the door with your latest 401 Games delivery).
That’s not what it looks like…
So without further adieu (all of my adieu hopped a train and headed west anyway), let’s begin!
Review – Takenoko
Sometimes you’re in the mood for a light, relaxing game rather than a no-holds barred slugfest of a game where your brain feels like it’s going to melt from all the decisions you have to make.
Sometimes you happen to find that game and you have a nice smile on your face, ready to enjoy a luxurious romp through some fun game mechanics.
And then a panda comes along and eats it because you’re out of bamboo, and you’re back to square one.
Yes, I’m talking about the classic 2011 game published by Matagot called Takenoko.
Takenoko was designed by Antoine Bauza with art by Nicolas Fructus, Picksel, and Yuio. It plays 2-4 players.
Is it a fun game?
To borrow a phrase, does a panda…uh…do bathroom things in the bamboo patch? (Editor: Actually, we don’t know that they do)
Let’s take a look!
Review – Raiders of the North Sea
(Edit: 7/26/19 – This is coming to digital! Woo!)
(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!)
I’ve always wanted to be a viking.
Not because of the ability to pillage the coastal regions of the North Sea (though that does have its appeal, especially if it lets me shop at Harrods).
No, it’s because of the hats.
I think I would rock one of them.
However, since I will never be a Viking (unless I invent a time machine or get my own History Channel show), I will gladly settle for playing Raiders of the North Sea, the fantastic worker placement game designed by Shem Phillips with art by Mihajlo Dimitrievski (aka: the Mico) and published by both Garphill Games and Renegade Game Studios in 2015.
It plays 2-4 players.
In the game, you are Vikings trying to raise a crew for your raiding ships, then going across the water to raid and pillage various settlements for all of the booty, and perhaps get sent to Valhalla on the way.
They knew what they signed up for.
Let’s see how it plays.
Review – Clank! In! Space!
Everybody loves a good scoundrel, especially in the Science Fiction genre.
When you were a kid, did you want to be Luke Skywalker or did you want to be Han Solo?
The scoundrel always got the girl (we need more SF movies where the female scoundrel gets the guy!). Sure, Luke blew up the Death Star, but he couldn’t have done it without Han.
And he got Princess Leia to fall in love with him to boot!
Why am I talking about thieves and scoundrels?
Because today we’re talking about Clank! In! Space! (and that will be the last time I include all of the exclamation marks in the name. Sorry, Renegade) (Editor: Coward).
Clank in Space is designed by Paul Dennen with art by Rayph Beisner, Raul Ramos, Le Rastislav, Nate Storm, and Franz Vohwinkel. It’s published by Dire Wolf Digital and Renegade Game Studios. It plays 2-4 players with a solo campaign as well.
Clank in Space is the sci-fi version of the classic (Editor: 2016 games cannot be “classics!”) deckbuilding game Clank! (What is it with the exclamation marks, Renegade?).
In the game, each player is a thief scoundrel who has sneaked aboard Lord Eradikus’ pleasure ship to steal one of his valuable artifacts. Lord Eradikus is actually kind of an evil dude, so really you’re doing the galaxy a favour by stealing stuff from him.
You’re just a lovable rogue!
Let’s see how it works.
New to Me – August 2018
After last month’s horribly slim post, August was a cornucopia of new to me games! Spanning from the distant past of 2011 to the near future of 2019.
This should make my good buddy David at Roll to Review happy.
I have a full nine games listed for this month.
There was much cheering among my fellow cult members when I made that announcement.
What can I say? They love me.
Of course, that monthly payment I make to them might help.
What was I saying?
Oh, right. New to me games!
Maybe you’ll find a game or two among all of these lovely games that you’ll like as well. I hope that’s the case.
So without further adieu (all of my adieu was batted off the table and under a shelf by the cat anyway), let’s begin!
First Impressions – Mephisto
One of the pleasures of going to a convention like Dragonflight is the ability to playtest/demo upcoming games, most of the time with the designers themselves.
On Sunday morning, after I had checked out of my room and was looking for a game (or two) before leaving for my 3 hour drive, I was wandering through the Ballroom at the Hilton and stumbled upon a guy sitting at a table with the “Players Wanted” balloon floating above. I had just seen somebody else get up from the table, so I thought this one might be interesting.
The game looked to be a card game and the art work was fairly striking, even from the distance. I walked up and took a closer look.
“The guy” was designer and artist Dylan Mangini and the card game in question is his first design (or at least first that he’s working on publishing) called Mephisto.
This was a really fun 1-4 player (there are slightly different rules for 3-4 players) dueling card game where you have made a deal with Mephistopheles to provide him monster souls, but you are competing with your opponent to get him the most. Only one person can get all of the cool stuff he offers!
I talked with Dylan after playing it, and it’s actually a really cool story.
Dylan designed the game and did all of the art work for it. He is self-publishing the game and currently plans to put it on Kickstarter in October. I hope to get a review copy and do a full review before the campaign starts, but we’ll see.
Please note that this is a “first impressions” post (not a full review) and that this is a prototype so not everything is finalized. Dylan did say that the graphic design is pretty much final but the card text could be tweaked some.
First, a brief overview of how it plays.
Dragonflight 39 – Another Successful Convention
Every August, there is a wonderful boardgaming convention in Bellevue, Washington, called Dragonflight.
It’s been held at the Hilton hotel there, and I’ve been going to it since 2015.
This past weekend was the 2018 version of it, and it was just as much fun as it usually is.
Even the Doctor was there!
Somewhere, anyway. She must have been hiding.
I’m not going to go into detail on the new games I played on this fabulous weekend, as those will be in the monthly “New to Me” post that I will be doing later this week.
However, I will list the games I played and just talk in general about the experience.
Review: Sagrada
Stained glass windows are beautiful things to look at. No matter what you think of a church’s architecture, the stained glass is usually one of the main attractions and draws your eye to them.
You know what else draws your eye? Beautiful boardgames! (Editor: That transition was painful)
What has to be one of the most beautiful boardgames of the past two years, or at least the most colourful (maybe after Azul) has to be Sagrada.
Sagrada is a dice game about creating stained glass windows. But with dice!
I’ll bet you thought you’d never hear stained glass and dice in the same sentence, unless it was that news story a few years ago about vandals throwing dice at stained glass windows and breaking them.
Sagrada was designed by Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews, with artwork by those two and Peter Wocken. It’s published by FloodGate Games and plays 2-4 players (Disembodied voice: “Until the expansion…muwahahahahahahahahaha!”).
Let’s see how it plays.
New to Me – July 2018
I know this is very late, but it’s been a sad time in the Cult of the New to Me headquarters.
There was a bit of an insurrection with our Cult member over doctrine and my leadership, and because…I know this is heresy and everything…
I ONLY PLAYED ONE NEW GAME IN JULY.
It was pretty brutal. There were pitchforks and torches involved.
Thankfully, I survived and am still cult leader.
For now.
I promised to do better in August.
With only one game on the list, this will be a very brief post.
So without further adieu (all of my adieu was lost in a trading office somewhere between Hanover and Minden by some incompetent lackey), let’s get this show on the road!
Review – Cat Lady
We all know the stereotype of the old lady living alone with hundreds of cats, right?
Of course you do.
What’s the next best thing to becoming a cat lady, though?
Playing a card game where you get to collect cats, of course!
Cat Lady is a set-collection card game for 2-4 players published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). Published in 2017, it was designed by Josh Wood, who also did the artwork.
Let’s see how it plays.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 