Best Week 2013: Alone / Co-Op Time
“What’s this Best Week all about, sir?” I was asked last week by the orphan pulling my rickshaw through the fictional streets of Malgudi. I considered not answering, as talk shortened his breath and subsequently lengthened the journey, but some Christian nook of my heart compelled me to tell him anyway. Perhaps it is because I believe all peoples everywhere should know about Best Week. It is, after all, the most joyous five days of the year, in which all the best board games are compiled, considered, and listed. And everyone loves lists.
Today, on the very first day of Best Week 2013, we’re going to examine the five best solo and cooperative games of the year. There are some natural limitations — I cannot, for instance, award the title of “Best Solo / Co-Op Game of 2013” to a game I haven’t played, and there are one or two games that didn’t come out in 2013 at all. So okay, it’s subjective. But I’d love to hear your input, dear readers, for Best Week is not only about my favorite games — it’s also about yours.
Trust Only in Betrayal: The Agents
With its focus on a pack of untrustworthy super-spies set adrift by the disappearance of their organization (which indicates to me that it was an exceptionally effective secret agency), it’s almost as though Saar Shai set out to create a game that appealed directly to me. I love secret agents. I love double-crossing. I love card games. Certainly that means I’ll love The Agents?
Or were my expectations… betrayed? (duh-duh-dummm!)
BattleLore ’44
I fear I have to begin this review with a disclaimer: The only other “Commands & Colors”-style game I’ve ever played was Memoir ’44 (and only one time), so if you were hoping for any comparative insights into the merits of the brand new BattleLore Second Edition relative to the other games of that family, I’m afraid I’m about as useless as a blue herring at a mystery writer convention. If, on the other hand, you want to hear me talk about four things I really like about BattleLore — four things that just maybe are double-edged swords — then I’m your huckleberry.
Quantum Roll
Chances are whenever you see the word “quantum,” that rather than bearing a passing resemblance to the actual meaning of the word, it pretty much means whatever the author needs it to mean to get the plot rolling. And in Quantum, the new board game by Eric Zimmerman, that rule is taken to the extreme. Why is it your goal to plop cubes down onto planets? Quantum. How is it that your ships can reconfigure into entirely different forms, transforming from a tiny scout to an indefatigable battleship without so much as winking in the direction of the law of conservation of mass? Quantum. Why is the logical endpoint of your imperial research program to suddenly become nomadic? I’ve said it already: quantum.
Ogre Really Is an Ogre
Something came in the mail yesterday. Something strange and a little crazy and a whole lotta wonderful, and also over twenty-five pounds, set up against the screen door so I had to go around out the back and into the cold so I could retrieve it without knocking it off the porch.
I’d heard the stories, of course. Who with their finger on the pulse of the seedy underbelly of the world of board games hasn’t? Even so, I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect Ogre to be such an… ogre.
Triumph of Indines
I don’t have much of a history with fighting games. Oh, there was that time up at Rocky Mountain Pizza Company when a pack of older kids kicked me off the Street Fighter machine, and I owned both Power Stone games on Dreamcast (though they were 3D, so they don’t “count”), and I occasionally got roped into enduring a match of Super Smash Bros with my cousin — but other than those isolated instances, fighting games always stood out as a particularly silly genre, and anyway, I was too busy playing games like Baldur’s Gate II and Planescape: Torment. *raises pinkie ever so superiorly*
So when BattleCON: Devastation of Indines appeared on Kickstarter, I wasn’t exactly out of my mind with anticipation. Still, it was by Level 99 Games, and after gems like Pixel Tactics and the Minigame Library, I figured I’d take a chance. That was nearly a year ago, and now that I’ve played through a couple dozen matches, I can tell you exactly how disappointed I am…
Tomorrow Usually Dies
There’s a board game called Tomorrow. It’s one of the best things I’ve played this year, and to understand what it’s all about, you only need to see two pictures. You’ll find them below.
Baaad, or Bleating the Competition?
When Stronghold Games asked if I’d like to review Space Sheep!, I jumped at the opportunity. The cover sported a fun little riff on Star Wars, complete with an ass-covering “This Cover is a Parody!” disclaimer, and I was expecting a game about, well, space sheep. Who doesn’t like the idea of space sheep?
Instead, I got this. And I’m not sure what to make of it.
Horror Horrorer Horrorest
You know that part of some of my reviews where I say something like, “This new game is from designer X and he designed games Y and Z”? It’s meant to give you a sense of why you should be interested in that person’s new game, because he’s produced something awesome and recognizable in the past. Sadly, this isn’t the case for the creator of Dark Darker Darkest, whose main distinction is that he designed a game so bad that I didn’t bother to review it, because my mother taught me to always insert something positive into my criticism and I just couldn’t manage it that time. And since you’re already switching tabs to ask Goog-El, patron goddess of all knowledge, what I’m talking about, the designer is David Ausloos and the offending game was Panic Station.
But here’s the good news: Dark Darker Darkest is a hell of a lot better than Panic Station, and the foremost proof is that I’m reviewing it at all! It’s actually rather brilliant in a number of ways, though I fear it might be brilliant the way unpolished diamonds are brilliant, because some of its luster is hidden beneath blackened slag. What follows is a list of three things I really like and three things that could have been improved about David Ausloos’s latest efforts to scare you silly.
Eight-to-Twenty-Minute Legend
When people say they’re sick of Kickstarter, you know who they aren’t talking about? Ryan Laukat. In addition to successfully funding multiple titles through Kickstarter, this time he’s shipped his latest game, Eight-Minute Empire: Legends, sequel to plain old Eight-Minute Empire from earlier this year, and done so two months ahead of schedule. A whole mess of delayed projects are suddenly seeming that much more tardy.
Exciting as that is, the question I keep hearing everyone ask is whether Legends is really necessary, riding as it is on the heels of the previous game. Is it worth picking up Legends if you already have the original? The short answer is yes, but I suspect you’ll want the long answer. You can find it below.
SPACE-BIFF! 