Blog Archives
Scribbly Koalas
My odyssey through Postmark’s catalog of single-sheet print-and-play games continues. This week’s titles are none other than Scribbly Gum and Koala Rescue Club, both designed and illustrated by Phil and Meredith Walker-Harding.
You can tell we’ve reached the really good games when I’m covering them two at a time. Although this makes for a good twist, because one of them is pretty dang solid. For babies. I mean that in a good way.
Combat Results Postcard
Battle Card is as apt as descriptions get. Designed by David Thompson and Nils Johansson, this is the fourth project in the Postmark Games lineup. Like its earlier peers — Voyages, Aquamarine, and Waypoints — this is a print-and-play title that can be produced with functionally zero budget. Unlike those projects, however, Battle Card is billed as a wargame on a single postcard-sized sheet.
That’s true enough. With a few dice and a smidgen of experience to help interpret the rules, Battle Card covers six engagements from the Second World War. And their format is indeed very small, highlighting some real resourcefulness on their designers’ part in compressing battles and even campaigns into ten-minute experiences.
But unlike those other titles, Battle Card is a mixed bag. I’ll give an example.
Touch Grass (Metaphorical)
Voyages, the first of Matthew Dunstan and Rory Muldoon’s single-sheet print-and-play roll-and-write games, used three dice. Aquamarine used two. Waypoints continues the trend by using a single die.
That’s cool in its own right. But that isn’t what makes Waypoints special. What makes Waypoints special is the way it handles the movements generated by its rolls. Where those other titles — and let’s face it, most board games — featured straight movements, point to point, A to B, nearly every move in Waypoints is the sort of move you might actually make while traversing an open space.
Here, I’ll show you.
Dive Tables
Here’s something you probably didn’t know about old Dan Thurot: I’m a scuba diver rated for search and recovery. There aren’t many of us here in the desert, which is probably why I receive unexpected calls to dredge the ponds of local golf courses whenever there’s a Silver Alert. Thus far, I have declined these requests. Those waters are, like, four feet deep. That’s a job for snorklers. Or a tall guy with hip waders.
Instead, I mostly use this as qualification to comment on scuba stuff. That cave rescue in Thailand? Legitimate. The roll-and-write shenanigans of Aquamarine? Um. Okay, look, Aquamarine isn’t the most robust scuba simulation. But as another print-and-play title from Postmark Games, it’s a worthy followup to Voyages.
High O’er the Billows We Are Wafted Along
Let it not be said that I don’t take requests. A number of readers have pointed out that it’s been a long time since I’ve covered any print-and-play games. Too true. But there’s a reason for that. Voyages, the six-map design by Rory Muldoon and Matthew Dunstan and the launchpad title from Postmark Games, is both an illustration of my reticence and a roundhouse kick to that same reticence’s noggin.
SPACE-BIFF! 