Blog Archives
In the Margins
At a mechanical level, In the Ashes, the gamebook by Pablo Aguilera, is a major accomplishment. Full of novel solutions to problems that have dogged the format since somebody first decided to put a game inside a book, I was repeatedly struck by Aguilera’s creativity. Nearly every encounter did something new, exciting, or innovative. Sometimes all three at once.
But before you order the thing, let’s rein in our expectations. In the Ashes is also a hot mess. At least in the format I played it, anyway.
Fire Hazards
Alley Cat Games recently sent me three board games that have one thing in common: each one of them is about a different fire hazard. That’s right, kids. Only you can prevent forest fires.
I guess there are some other commonalities. Like the fact that each of these games is packaged in a mint tin, costs fifteen bucks at most, and knows exactly how to make a tiny board game look amazing. Take my hand as we kindle each fire one at a time — or douse them. It’s safety time!
A Desire for More Cows
Something is in the air. Unseen. Vibrating. Friscalating. Between A Message from the Stars, City of Six Moons, and Out of Sorts, it almost seems like we’re being prepared for some grand task, an entire species press-ganged into the labor of translating alien missives.
Or maybe I just really like first contact stories.
Signal, created by the design collective Jasper Beatrix, bears a singular honor. This is the best of the recent spate of games about communicating with aliens. But more than that, it’s a game I’ve delayed writing about so I could play it over and over again, reveling in its unparalleled sense of experimentation and discovery.
Gleaning Aidalon
I suspect there’s some wordplay behind Hubworld: Aidalon, the forthcoming card game by Michael Boggs and Cory DeVore. In ancient Greek literature, an eidolon is an image-spirit, a sort of displaced hologram that allows a character to be present without actually, you know, being present. In his drama Helen, for example, the Athenian tragedian Euripides contends that Helen of Troy had been whisked away to Egypt prior to the great war. There she languished, replaced by a phantom who launched a thousand ships in her name.
As references go, it’s a subtle but fitting nod. Hubworld: Aidalon is itself an eidolon, an image-spirit of Android: Netrunner that may perhaps launch a thousand icebreaker runs in that game’s absence. Certainly it’s already launched a couple dozen such runs on my table. Coming soon to Gamefound, Earthborne Games is offering two decks for the cost of shipping while supplies last. And I’m pleased to report that this early peek is as promising as they come, not only burning the afterimage of Netrunner into our retinas, but in some ways offering a fuller and more exciting take on the concept.
Cul-de-Sac Caper
It’s incredible how the smallest change — like, say, player count — can transform a game from a perfectly fine experience into a cerebral tango. That’s a dance with brains, m’dear.
Agent Avenue, designed by Christian and Laura Kudahl, is one such title. Two secret agents have gone undercover in the same suburban neighborhood. Now they’re recruiting their neighbors in a race to out their rival before they get similarly de-closeted.
Two Minds in the Wild
Brock: What’s that noise from the woods? Is it the call of a rare bird?
“Coo. Coo.”
No, that’s not quite what I’m hearing…
“Two. Two.” Yes, that’s it! “Two… Minds!” Once again, I have lured Dan into the mountains to talk about a board game.
Dan: I can’t believe I agreed to let you write the intro.
Sharkboy vs. Octoboss
Carl Robinson is onto something with Kelp: Shark vs. Octopus. Hidden movement games have always been asymmetrical; there’s no hide-and-seek without both hiders and seekers. But in Kelp, that asymmetry is pushed in exciting new directions.
The concept will make sense to anybody who’s so much as glimpsed a nature documentary. One player becomes the Shark, a sleek killing machine running on pure reflex. The other is the Octopus, doing its darnedest to rustle up some snacks without becoming one. It’s a battle of muscle versus wits, one evolutionary path pitted against another to determine which is the more viable.
Strategic Prayer
Faith. On a few occasions, I’ve written about the prospect of board games as expressions of belief. More than one designer has made the attempt, usually by offering some perspective on history, as in The Acts of the Evangelists, The Mission, and Nicaea, but not so often by reflecting on individual devotion. I suppose Ierusalem: Anno Domini is the closest I’ve seen, with its sacramental closeness, but that one was so burdened by its gamier elements that any deeper relationship was washed out with the flotsam.
Imagine my surprise when such a game appeared on my table, not born of my native Judeo-Christian education or background, but courtesy of the third branch of our shared family tree. Designed by Ahmad Salahuddin, Usolli is about performing salah, the five daily prayers of Islam, amid the hustle and bustle of modern life. It’s lighthearted but earnest, sweet and funny and focused wholly on personal action. And although I have a few hangups about Usolli as a game, I appreciate what Salahuddin is trying to do here.
Kinfire. That One.
Here’s a funny thing: playing Kinfire Delve, the three small boxes spun off of Kevin Wilson’s much grander Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall, I figured they must be runty versions of the larger thing. Those side quests feature the same cast of heroes as Chronicles, albeit parceled out two per box, with a card system that sees them either using cards for their principal effects or to boost their fellow heroes. Surely, I assumed, the massive slab that was Kinfire Chronicles would be deeper, smarter, more compelling?
If anything, it’s the other way around. I’ve been playing Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall for some months now, picking through its storybook, slaying its monsters, and scouring the lighthouse-protected city of Din’Lux for its coziest inn. And I have to say — I prefer the little ones. By a lot.
Magenta Four: Fruit Fight
Of course, there’s a Knizia. Fruit Fight is the final entry in CMYK’s Magenta, a series of four brightly-colored card games that each introduce a new concept. It’s also perhaps the most storied of the bunch, with multiple reissues over the years, masquerading as Hit!, No Mercy, and Cheeky Monkey. This time around, you’re apparently chucking fruit at each other, complete with blurred images of foodstuffs sailing through the air. As with the rest of this set, the aesthetic is downright charming.
The game itself? Eh. It’s fine.
SPACE-BIFF! 