Blog Archives
Yoink: The Gathering
It occurs to me that I’ve never written about Mindbug. Co-designed by Richard Garfield, a fact the box prominently advertises, along with Skaff Elias, Marvin Hegen, and Christian Kudahl, there are a bunch of these things out in the world. Six core sets and well over a dozen promos, I think. It’s the sort of game some folks decry as “lucky” and “random” and “vacillating.” And it is those things. But it’s also clever in a way that feels like a remediation of Garfield’s past work, especially titles like Magic: The Gathering and its many collectible descendants.
I Don’t Wanna Do Your Dirty Work
Whenever someone gets rosy-eyed about “the good old days,” it’s a surefire sign they’ve never cracked a history book. Ahh, the good old days, back when men were men, their eyesight obscured by forty thanks to sun damage. When women were women, dead at thirty from childbearing. When children were dropping like flies from preventable diseases, when ninety percent of jobs consisted of picking stones from dusty fields, when the nights were so cold that one curled about their steaming chamber pot for warmth.
At the same time, there are certain myths about human misery that simply won’t kick the bucket. Medieval people, for example, were not shabby peasants sitting around in their own filth. Even the poor bathed regularly, wore colorful clothes, and liked to attend dances and festivals. Reality occupies a strange middle ground. In the past, most folks were sicker, fed more poorly, and struggled daily against decay, but still strove to fill their lives with good and pleasant things.
Night Soil is not about most folks. Taken on its own, one might come away thinking that everybody padded their clogs with their own BMs. That’s because it’s about the dirty task of clearing Tudor London of human waste. Gathering poop, transporting poop, shoveling poop into the river — these are the game’s occupation. It’s a greasy, brown-hued business. I adore it.
A Prickle of Trickers
Say it with me now: All I play anymore is trick-taking games.
Every so often, one comes along that makes me perk up and take note. Which is an exciting (if unfair) way of setting these three Indie Games Night Market games against one another. Three trickers enter. All three leave. But one of them leaves with its head held a little higher than the others.
Queen of Lies
I’ve said before that Salt & Pepper Games is doing some of the finest work in the industry, especially when it comes to historical titles that draw in newer and veteran players alike. Queen of Spies pairs Liz Davidson with David Thompson, who produce a handsome, if uneven, solitaire perspective on resistance and spycraft in the Great War.
All for Freedom and for Pleasure
The more I play The Old King’s Crown, the more I become enamored with it. Which is saying something, given that I’ve been playing it for something like five years, beginning with Pablo Clark’s rough digital prototype, then a more polished physical prototype, and now the finished thing. It’s a hard title to describe, not quite a lane-battler, not quite a bluffing game, not quite an auction. It isn’t quite like anything because there’s nothing quite like it.
It begins with the disappearance of the king and the four factions who immediately vie to don the proverbial circlet. The contest that follows will be suitably nasty for a war of regicides, unusually vicious for a board game, and gorgeous from start to finish.
Lovers’ Quarrels
Who was it that said that every tale is a tragedy, it’s only a question of when the story ends. I bet that person was a real hoot at noon tea. Personally, I think every story is a comedy, provided the punchline is a trillion years of black holes and fading background radiation. (I, too, am fun at teatime.)
It’s been three years since we took at look at Persuasion, the relationship game by Xoe Allred. In the time since, Allred has given us Velocirapture and Vibes, imperfect little games that peel into our assumptions about victory conditions. Now it has two new games out: the Hollandspiele version of Persuasion and the self-published Conviction. Put together, we’re offered a two-act tale about the beginning and (potential) end of a relationship. I couldn’t speak to their suitability over tea, but together they offer contrasting — and sometimes all too familiar — perspectives on what it’s like to chase one’s Happily Ever After.
Cutting the Cottage Pie
At this point, I don’t believe the fine folks at DVC Games have it in them to publish a bad game. Pacts, for example, is not only a fantastic divide-and-choose game, it’s probably the best example of its ilk.
Maybe that isn’t a tall order. Certainly it would sound more impressive if we were talking about deck-builders or trick-takers. Divide-and-choose is one of those mechanisms everybody understands at an instinctual level. We use it whenever we split a slice of pie. We contemplate it whenever the check comes due at a group dinner. But for all that, it’s never quite found its footing. Open a teach with, “Okay, this is one of those I-divide, you-choose things,” and my mind doesn’t exactly spark with excitement.
Until now. Because Ben Brin has cracked the code. Even though it isn’t quite as offbeat as other DVC titles, Pacts is one of their sharpest offerings yet.
Respond or Re;ACT
We’ve rightly developed some suspicion around the suffering artist trope, but I think deep down we’re all holding onto the idea that our art becomes a little bit tastier with some angst mixed in. I think the artists of Jenna Felli’s Bemused, wracked by doubt and dread. Or Jasper de Lange’s Bohemians, all penniless syphilitics. Want to create a masterwork? Sure. Go right ahead. But it’ll be better if you wedge a needle under your toenail.
But then there are the artists of Re;ACT: The Arts of War by Chris Lin, MingYang Lu, and Eric Zeringue. These folks are out here dueling each other in an arena, and although it might seem like the footrace between calligraphy and animation was settled long ago, here they both are, having the time of their lives. Step aside, suffering artists. This one’s for the artists who can’t wait to get back to the drawing table.
As for the game? Oh, right. That.
Space-Cast! #51. Mori, Zucchini, Napoleon
Ah, Napoleon. Old Boney. Roll’n’Bones. The Bone Zone. The guy’s got a lot of nicknames, and even more board games! The latest, and one of the most intriguing, is Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, codesigned by Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini. Today on the Space-Cast!, we dive into the creation of this approachable hex-and-counter title, including its creators’ aversion to combat results tables, their choice of battles, and why they decided to publish under their own label.
Listen over here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.
Sun Besties!
At the risk of sounding like a backwater bumpkin, I’ll admit I don’t know much about Inca mythology. After playing Ayar: Children of the Sun, the latest collaboration between Fabio Lopiano and Mandela Fernández-Grandon after last year’s overstuffed Sankoré… well, I still couldn’t tell you much. As near as I can tell, we’re following in the footsteps of a creator god’s grandchildren, founding civilization in our wake. Planting corn, thatching islands, that sort of thing.
For a nu-euro, that’s par for the course, I suppose.
SPACE-BIFF! 