Blog Archives
Atlas Boogied
Something I’ve always appreciated about John Clowdus’s games is the way they evoke larger worlds with two sentences and a half-dozen illustrations. In the Shadow of Atlas, for instance, speaks to the way extra-solar colonization will necessarily change us, physically and socially both. Some of those changes look pretty good from where I’m sitting. I wouldn’t mind being a member of the Laverna Order and sashaying around with a fur-trimmed coat and saber. Others are more mixed, like becoming one of the clone-slugs of the Janus Order. These dudes can step into any other role. Which might seem nifty until you realize they’d be the underpaid substitute teachers of the twenty-ninth century.
Or maybe In the Shadow of Atlas is just another lane battler. Not that that’d be a bad thing. Clowdus has long established himself as one of the form’s most studied hands, and this title demonstrates that he’s still shaking up the genre.
Robots Punching Robots
space-biff: noun (informal) A sudden, sharp blow or punch or lasering, as delivered from a robot or spaceship to another robot or spaceship
I believe it goes without saying that any game about gigantic mechs will receive default coverage here on the site that is their namesake. CogDrive Neon isn’t John Clowdus’s first game about gigantic mechs slugging other gigantic mechs. But is it his… most recent? Yep. It’s definitely that.
Pariahs Non Grata
It’s been a hot minute since we covered a title from John Clowdus, creator of Omen: A Reign of War, An Empty Throne, that historical trilogy from a couple years back, and so many others that listing them all would quickly make this sentence tiresome. Here’s the short version: almost nobody has been creating small-format games for as long or with such consistently impressive results as Clowdus.
His most recent game, Pariahs, is a perfect example. Set in an evocative pocket universe where future humans live in capsules and only occasionally grant permission for select members to carve their own path, Pariahs riffs on familiar ideas while being entirely unlike anything else out there. It’s small, it’s weird, it’s fantastic.
Once More Unto the Omen
Omen is an old friend. I first wrote about John Clowdus’s masterpiece eleven years ago, and swore off repeating that review more than once. We’ve been through good times (the Olympus Edition) and shaky times (the eventual glut of Kolossal spinoffs). I once alienated my brother-in-law by trouncing him a little too thoroughly. When my daughter’s appendix ruptured, I grabbed the first thing off the shelf on my way out the door. Dusty and well-worn, it was Omen I spent the night shuffling, drafting deck after deck, doing anything to keep my mind occupied.
Clowdus recently bought back the rights to Omen. Now he’s rebuilt the game from the ground up. New art, new style, tighter focus. It’s a different experience, in some ways. That’s no surprise for a game that’s always shifted with the times and Clowdus’s evolving design sensibilities. I can’t wholly assess whether it’s the best incarnation of the series; we’ve grown old middle-aged together. But I think it’s great, the work of a designer who can’t quite leave his masterpiece behind.
An Empty Omen
Look, you already know that John Clowdus’s Omen: A Reign of War is one of my favorite games ever designed. I’d still be lying if I called it a perfect game. It’s very phasey, full of insistent procedures and favored approaches, not to mention being reliant on learning that pool of cards and winning in the pregame draft. If Clowdus announced he was going to redesign Omen from scratch, I’d be over the moon.
To some extent, that’s exactly what An Empty Throne purports to be. Like Omen, this is a Battle Line-alike game about fielding units, comboing powers, and trickling more points into your pool than your opponent. That’s where the similarities end. Foremost because, at fifty-five cards, this thing is lean.
Oh, and there are no phases. An Empty Throne is nothing but action.
Talking About Games: Excavating Memory
There’s a phrase we use in English, one meant to strike upon its hearer the importance of a topic or the need to keep an atrocity close at heart for fear of its repetition. You’ve heard it before, cast in somber and memorializing tones: “Lest we forget.” The irony, of course, is that we’re a fastidiously forgetful species. We forget things all the time. As a defense mechanism, forgetfulness is unrivaled. In the rare occasion that we don’t forget, we do our damnedest to afflict ourselves with collective amnesia. Lest we recall.
John Clowdus’s history trilogy plays like variations on a theme. Its three titles, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and The Middle Ages, are mechanically similar. They’re all about excavating cards from a deck and then using those cards to build toward a brighter future.
They also express something deeper: cultural memory, in all its complexity and simplicity.
The North Goes West
It’s been a while since we traveled to The North, John Clowdus’s high-tech take on an apocalyptic wasteland. Such a while, in fact, that there’s now a sequel, The West: Ascendant, which abandons the robotic striders of the frozen wastes for the latent facilities of the blasted wastes. Seems a wanderer can’t catch a break.
Alone Among Nobles
Nobles is a snack. Like John Clowdus’s Pocket Galapagos, it’s a bite-sized solo game preoccupied with the movement of cards from one place to another. Unlike that game, Nobles also taps into the joy of putting things into their proper arrangement, even when — perhaps especially when — it doesn’t feel much like a game at all.
Elegy: The Oxidation Struggle
One of the oft-unacknowledged talents of designer John Clowdus is his ability to evoke a complete world in the most compact format possible. I’m not only talking about Omen: A Reign of War, although my affection for that card game has been documented and documented again. Clowdus is also responsible for the messy prehistory of Neolithic, the undying carnival that is Hemloch, the collapsing Bronze Age, and, more recently, the chilly The North. His games are transportations in miniature, showing a cross-section of a world that stretches far beyond the limitations of the small boxes he crams them into.
The same is true of Dirge: The Rust Wars. Returning to Aaron Nakahara’s dilapidated style from The North — with additional contributions by Liz Lahner of Bronze Age — Dirge evokes biomechanical vultures picking over the last scraps of bone in a world that’s fallen apart and won’t be put back together again.
Is That a Galapagos in Your Pocket?
John Clowdus is best known for his sharp two-player designs, including gems such as The North, Bronze Age, and the big one, Omen: A Reign of War. Instead of sticking to the script, his latest effort is a solitaire game that fits into your pocket. Even a small pocket will serve. How does it stack up? Let’s take a look.
SPACE-BIFF! 