Riot in Cell Block Arkham
Considering how often the supervillains incarcerated at Arkham Asylum mount successful escapes, we’d do better to confine them inside a Chuck E. Cheese. At least that way they’d have to contend with food poisoning and sticky benches.
Still, the idea behind DC Breakout: Arkham Asylum is a strong one. Designed by Geoff, Sydney, and Brian Engelstein, this is another entry in the “wacky race” genre, marking it as the fourth such title in the past year. How does its coterie stack up against bun bangers, slippery bananas, and underdog brontos? I’ll put it this way: in any other race, it might have won a medal.
Battlefields of the Kitchen Table
Under normal circumstances, it might seem a bitter irony that Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini’s partnership will be lauded for Toy Battle over the supernal Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars. But these are no normal circumstances. Not when Toy Battle is currently up for a Golden Geek alongside its crunchier sibling, which I’m sure has infuriated a certain class of grognard, but strikes me as maybe the perfect encapsulation of that silly award. (If you needed further proof that the Golden Geeks aren’t especially rigorous, my podcast is also up for one. “LOL,” as the kids say.)
It helps, too, that Toy Battle is a tremendous little plaything. I’d even say it’s good in much the same way that Old Boney’s Battlefields is good, threading an uncommon needle between strategy and chance, heft and approachability. Or maybe I’m just saying that because it’s colorful, feels great on the fingertips, and my twelve-year-old can give as good as she gets.
Lifestyle Content XXX
Certain words set my teeth on edge. “Content” is the worst offender. If you want to tell me you don’t care about something, call it content. The other is “influencer.” Michael Barnes, once the finest critic of board games and the source of my first gig writing paid reviews, would sometimes call me an influencer. I never knew what to make of that. I figured he was joking. I hope so.
Wendybuxxx leans into both terms and understands intimately the hard-edged meanings they carry. As a game it’s an enigma. Combine one measure new-media crossover, another bitter satire, and a third earnest arrested metamorphosis, and the slurry would look something like Wendybuxxx. It carries deep redolences to its author’s previous title — that title being Molly House, the author Jo Kelly — but calls to mind sickly-hued films like I Saw the TV Glow and Love Lies Bleeding. It’s a fascinating artifact. Provided you can get past the purposely confounding cardplay, that is.
Deck-Build with the Devil
I don’t know what I expected Tom Lehmann to design next, but Dominion on Adderall wasn’t on the list. That’s as short a summary as I can muster for Dark Pact, and it’s a surprisingly apt comparison, right down to the action limits and buy phase that marked Donald X. Vaccarino’s genre-defining title. Like the version of Dominion you’d get if a moody teenager popped a double dose and spent six hours scribbling demons in their spiral-bound notebook.
Is it good? Yeah, it’s good. Is it great? Hm. It sits somewhere near Res Arcana in Lehmann’s ludography, sans that game’s brevity, plus a bit of Justin Gary’s Ascension in its flowing market and excessive tallying. Great might be a stretch. Perhaps it would be fairest to say that it contains moments of greatness.
Nepo Demibabies
Yesterday we looked at Pillars of Fate, a kinda-sorta remake of extended family reunion simulator Veiled Fate, and found it wanting for much the same reason as the original. The gods are capricious, everybody knows that, but their fickleness doesn’t exactly make them the most appealing playmates.
But here’s the thing. At the same time Austin Harrison, Max Anderson, and Zac Dixon were designing Pillars of Fate, another remake was, um, remade. On a superficial level, this one, Scales of Fate, resembles its namesakes. As in those other titles, dueling gods intend to deduce the identity of their rival’s offspring, minimize their impact on the world, and elevate their own bastards over everybody else. Basically, it’s a race to promote your nepo babies over everybody else’s at the family tire shop. And that tire shop happens to be the eternal mountain at the root of the world.
And it’s excellent. Scales of Fate just might be one of the tightest, nastiest deduction games out there. That it was built for two players only makes it the more impressive.
Gods in All Their Fickleness
Ah, Veiled Fate. It’s been a while since we encountered IV Studio’s game of spurious divine parentage. At the time, it was dearly close to becoming a favorite, but its shortcomings were sufficient that the possibility was as scuttled as my own Olympian provenance. Now the team behind the original game — Austin Harrison, Max Anderson, and Zac Dixon — have revisited the concept via not one but two separate titles.
Today, we’re looking at the one that recasts the whole thing as a lane-battler. What could possibly go wrong?
Hey! A Place I’ve Actually Been!
At this point, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to crown Josh Wood the king of tableau-builders. Yes, yes, like a trampler of horse glue I’m invoking Santa Monica yet again, but the more relevant touchstone today is Let’s Go! To Japan, a lovely, if flawed, game about planning a vacation to Tokyo and Kyoto.
Let’s Go! To France is Wood’s follow-up to that latter title. It tackles every single one of my reservations with that game, and then goes on to produce one of the most delightful, evocative, and grounded tableau-builders I’ve ever played. Maybe it helps that I’ve actually been to France. More likely, it’s that Wood knows precisely what he’s doing with every mechanism, component, and locale.
Space-Cast! #55. Burnt Poop
Poop! Spies! What do they have in common? Both are featured in board games designed by Jon Teixeira Moffat, naturally. On today’s Space-Cast!, we’re joined by Jon to discuss the long development of both Night Soil and Burned, the hidden cost of labor, and cinematic hidden movement games.
Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.
Flippin’ Mickey
FlipToons was designed by Renato Simões and Jordy Adan, the latter of whom gave us Stonespine Architects and Cartographers, but the real star of the show is Diego Sá, whose animated characters make me want to rate the game significantly higher than I would otherwise. Just look at those little dudes! The camel is two seconds away from winding up a punch. The rabbit wouldn’t feel out of place leaning in for a kiss, only to be rebuffed when the ostrich hides her head in the sand. The sheep is just is out there boppin’ to her tunes.
As a game? Oh, it’s pretty good. Clever at points, nice to play, the usual. My larger reservation is the way it makes me feel during and after a play.
Brine & Origami
Sea Salt & Paper sure was hot a couple years back, huh? I didn’t think much of this thing the first time I encountered it, perhaps a symptom of having only played it with a single partner; in contrast to some, I find it needs room to stretch out. Perhaps it helps, too, that the expansions, More Salt and More Pepper, both give the game a small kick in its folded shorts.
SPACE-BIFF! 