Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
A Sequel to A Study in Emerald – the Game?
“Perfect timing” is something that we say a lot but sometimes it just fits.
A couple of months ago, I bought a bunch of games, including one that a friend of mine had been wanting to try for a while. It looked truly interesting, so I thought “why not? It’s on sale.”
That game was Martin Wallace’s A Study in Emerald (2nd Edition), based on the Neil Gaiman short story of the same name.
The basic premise of this story and game is that the Cthulhu Old Ones have taken over the world and there are two factions fighting around the world: Loyalists who are minions of the Old Ones and Restorationists who are fighting against them and trying to get the world to see what’s really happening.
It’s a cross between Cthulhu and Sherlock Holmes, and it sounded damned interesting.
I finally got it to the table on Sunday (Spoiler: it’s a lot of fun!)
So what’s the perfect timing?
This morning, I read today’s Boardgame Geek news entry and see that there is a “sequel” of sorts coming out.
Review – The Networks
(Edit: This is one of my Top 5 Games Played of all Time, as of February 2019 anyway. Check out the other games as well!)
Do you think you can run a television network better than the morons who thought it would be a good idea to cancel not only the incredible Firefly but also the incredibly underrated Adventures of Briscoe County Jr.?
(sorry, that one still hurts)
In Gil Hova’s The Networks (published in 2016 by Hova’s Formal Ferret Games, with art by Heiko Günther and Travis Kinchy), you can! You and up to 4 opponents will vie for viewers by developing shows for your network, landing ads and recruiting stars to try and build your network from a public access channel to one that will command the eyes of every viewer in the world!
Ok, that may be an exaggeration.
Let’s see how the game works briefly.
Through the Ages App Finally Released!
And there was much rejoicing.
Yes, the anxiously awaited Through the Ages: a New Story of Civilization app has finally been released on iOS and Android, with Steam coming at a later date.
This deep and wonderful card-based civilization game by Czech Games Edition has long been a favourite of the boardgame community, being #1 for quite a while on Boardgame Geek. The app version was started by a different company many years ago, and gamers honestly began to believe it was vaporware until CGE took the reins back and promised to make it good.
When the original board game was going to be tweaked and turned into the “New Story of Civilization,” they said that the app was going to have to be reworked to reflect this.
And yesterday it came out.
It is real.
And it is marvelous.
(Oh, already used that joke. Sorry)
And beautiful!
This is going to be a first impressions post, as I haven’t had the chance to play any full games on it, though I have run through the marvelous tutorial. Read More
Q & A – Gil Hova – Designer of The Networks and more
Gil Hova is a man of many talents. Prolific and one of my favourite game designers, game publisher (Formal Ferret Games, where he self-publishes his games now), podcaster, all over Boardgame Geek answering questions about his games, social media star (may be an exaggeration, but I am an avid follower of his Twitter account), and probably much else as well.
Now I can also say that he’s an incredibly nice man. He’s always come across that way, of course, but he proved it when he agreed to do a Q & A for me during a very busy time. I’m very appreciative of the time he took to answer my questions.
I know what you’re thinking. “Dave, he has a new project on Kickstarter. Of course he wants the publicity.”
Considering how small and starting out this blog is, I’m sure he could easily find other outlets to get the word out.
No, he’s just an incredibly nice guy.
Before getting into the Q & A, though, I do want to mention that the expansion for his game, The Networks, is now on Kickstarter, and I encourage you to check it out. It’s called The Executives, and it sounds amazing.
So without further adieu, let’s see what Gil has to say!
Temple Gates Continuing Their Mobile Assault on the Galaxy
Hot off the heels of their totally impressive mobile app adaptation of the Race for the Galaxy card game, Temple Gates is not resting on their laurels.
Thom Lehman and Wei-Hwa Huang’s dice version of that game, Roll for the Galaxy is also being brought to mobile by Temple Gates.
On the table, I much prefer Roll to Race, so I am chomping at the bit for this one since I loved the app for Race so much.
International Gamers Awards Nominees Announced
I feel like I have finally arrived as a gamer, after 6 years in the hobby.
How do I know this?
Because a major awards nominee list was released and I’ve played at least 30% of them! I guess I will have truly arrived when I’ve played all of them, but this is a start!
The International Gamers Award nominees were just announced, and there are some great games nominated, and some great-sounding games too, though I guess that’s to be expected since they are, you know, awards for best game of the year.
I’ll give you my choice for the winner above the fold, and then the list of nominees will be after (which will also include my predictions)
This is in the Multi-Player category.
Terraforming Mars – Jacob Fryxelius – FryxGames/Stronghold Games
I’ve played this 5 times now and enjoyed every one of them. I’m chomping at the bit to play it again, or one of the expansion maps.
Review – Okey Dokey
Sometimes when you sit down for a board game, you want something really deep and thinky. Something with meaty decisions where one bad choice will suddenly set you back for the rest of the game.
Other times, you want something silly and fun. And short
Lunchtime games can be very short.
Okey Dokey is the perfect example of the latter of those choices.
Designed by Hisashi Hayashi, art by Ryo Nyamo and published by Tasty Minstrel Games, Okey Dokey is a cooperative card game where all players (1-5) win or lose together.
Pandemic: Rising Tide – The King of Bad Timing
Poor Z-Man games. What happens when you have all of your publicity planned for a game, ready to go out on a certain day, and then suddenly the world explodes with not one, not two, but three events that would each individually make you step back and say “oh shit, that was bad timing”?
Z-Man games had to do that with their announcement of the newest Pandemic series game, Pandemic: Rising Tide.
The post is dated September 1, but news was announced before that, just as Harvey was hitting. They quickly apologized even though they really had no need to (but I don’t blame them for thinking that they should, in this day and age of Internet Outrage).
They have a wonderful thing at the end of the post where they say they will donate $5 from every pre-order to Hurricane Harvey relief.
And then Irma hits. And there’s also flooding in India that’s been happening for the last couple of weeks.
I guess other games news sites were busy, or didn’t cover it last week out of respect (or maybe request?), but today’s Boardgame Breakfast on the Dice Tower was the first I had heard of this game, 10 days after this post was released.
It then showed up on Shut Up & Sit Down’s news post for this week.
Anyway, the game itself looks fascinating and has nothing to do with hurricanes.
Cult of the New to Me
Among the boardgame community, there are quite a few people who will generally only play new games that have just come out. They must have as much of the new “hotness” as possible, even though they’ve been raving so much about the new game that just came out that they now consider their favourite game ever, something new will come along and divert their attention.
There is a name for this among boardgamers: “The Cult of the New.” It describes people who will rarely even consider playing something that’s a couple of years old. If they do, they’ll do it begrudgingly, and only if you agree to play “Hot New Game #52” that just came out last week and they picked up on the first day.
And when “Hot New Game #53” comes out on March 1?
I don’t subscribe to this myself. I have neither the money, the inclination, nor most importantly the time to indulge myself with this kind of thing. There are too many games coming out to keep up.
Also, as fellow gaming blogger Katie Adley said on Twitter:
Sometimes we all need to remember, including myself that this hobby is about more than buying the newest games and having a huge collection.
— Katie Aidley (@katiesgamecrner) September 8, 2017
I do fall victim to what some may consider a subset of this mentality though.
That is “The Cult of the New to Me”
Lords of Waterdeep App – 2 Steps Forward, 1 Back
Another bit of news that happened while I was gone, which falls into the “have a little bit of crap in your caviar dinner” category, is that the Lords of Waterdeep app from Playdek received a major update last week.
First, it became a 64-bit app and thus was saved from Apple’s “Thou Shalt Not Have Any Apps That Are Only 32-bit or We Shall Smite Thee” edict for when iOS 11 hits. (Stately Play already took the best term, “Appocalypse”, but mine wins in the “way too many words” category). Without this update, Lords of Waterdeep would have been unplayable when iOS 11 hit.
This update also brought the game out for Steam and Android finally, for those who have been holding your breath for it (I hope you weren’t holding it too long or that could be deadly).
However, for us long-time players on iOS, the update brought about a major change that really detracts from the game.
The app is now entirely in landscape orientation, and it looks like shit.
It’s not as bad as some people have made it to be, but it is way too cramped, especially on the phone (on the iPad it looks just as bad, just more readable).
Dude! Take Your Turn! 