Blog Archives
D B S A B-Z B
Say one thing about Todd Sanders, say he’s prolific. Not only have we seen him tackle airship combat, fantasy sieges, space exploration, warring mages, the Silk Road, and more, now he’s gone and made a game about… um… letters and puns and… bees and… stuff.
Well. I don’t know exactly how to classify LMNOP. Let’s find out together.
Saving Us: And Then We Held Hands
Just for tonight, Space-Biff! is going to act as my personal tell-all gossip rag. Gather round, because I’m going to spill a whole mess of secrets about my celebrity marriage.
Parsex is Way Better than it Sounds
Want to hear a secret I haven’t told anyone else ever? I think 4X games kind of drag. I mean, you’ve got to explore, expand, and exploit, and by the time we finally reach that point, I’m all, enough already, but then you’ve gotta go exterminate everyone too. I mean, sheesh!
Alright, alright, put down those torches, you’ll make black spots on the ceiling. And anyway, I’m just being controversial to bait extra clicks. The real problem is that while I love 4X games, I rarely have enough time to get through the exploit part, let alone the meatier extermination bits.
Once again, Todd Sanders leaps to the rescue, this time with Parsex — pardon me, Parsec X, which for the life of me I cannot pronounce or spell properly. Here’s a game that’s 4X, compact, free (to print yourself, anyway), and takes about 30 minutes to play. Oh, and even though you wouldn’t expect a 30-minute 4X game to be any good, this one is actually pretty respectable.
They Who Were 8 (out of 10)
It wouldn’t be a Tuesday in February without a look at another print-and-play title from Todd Sanders, or at least that’s what my grandma used to say once the dementia had really dug in its claws. Our previous features of Todd Sanders’ work have mostly focused on his solo and two-player efforts, but today our topic is They Who Were 8 — or They Who Were ∞, if you’re an altcodemancer — which is a four-player team-based microgame about a jealous pantheon of gods as they seduce, give birth to, and conflict with one another. Just another day at the Mount Olympus office for these guys.
It’s In Their Nature, After All
Over the last week, a few hundred of you wrote in to express your extreme disappointment that this most recent issue of Alone Time wasn’t about yet another Todd Sanders game. Thank you kindly for your ebullient correspondence. My only defense is that I’ve instead been playing some of Mr. Sanders’ two-player games, which don’t really fit the solo requirement of that series. Which is to be, ahem, solo.
The good news is that I’ve recently wrapped up a few plays of Mage Clash, one of Todd’s more recent print-and-play projects, and I’m ready to tell all.
Plains of Dust, Caravans of Silk
I’ve covered the work of Todd Sanders before — a whole buncha times, in fact — but Serica: Plains of Dust is still one of his more unusual designs. Yes, more unusual than haunted fantasy kingdoms or clockwork airships, Serica is about the famous 4,000 mile Silk Road strung from the Roman Empire to the distant Han Dynasty. It’s also a deck-building game, though being designed by Todd Sanders, you can bet it’s unlike any deck-building game you’ve ever played.
Alone Time: Aether Captain Todd
By a show of hands, is anyone getting tired of me highlighting the work of Todd Sanders?
If you raised your hand, too bad! If you didn’t, good, because we’re not done yet! Seeing as how all of Todd’s games are free in spite of being surprisingly good, you’re crazy to not want more. And more we’ll get — although we’ve already looked at most of the games in the Shadows Upon Lassadar series, Todd’s got an entire second universe under his belt. It’s the steam-driven floaty world of “Aether Captains,” and while I won’t be going over every single title (after all, there’s a whole bunch of them: Aether Captains, Capek Golems, Clockwork Cabal, Dread Supremacy, Pirates and Traders, The Search, Triad, Triad 2, and Compass and Empire) (those games entitled “Triad”? Those are three games apiece), today we’ll be taking a look at three of them.
Buckle your steam-seatbelts, because on page two, we’re talking about the original Aether Captains, one of Todd’s earliest designs.
Alone Time: Three Sieges
The ever-prolific Todd Sanders is something of a patron saint for us solo-flying boardgamers, which is why I’ve minted a series of collectible totems you can carry in your pocket. Just incant Todd’s name three times (in the dark, looking into a mirror, gnawing a sprig of Conium maculatum between your molars) (please don’t swallow) and rub the totem betwixt pinkie and the back of your thumb to have one of Todd’s solo games teleported directly to your location — okay, okay, I didn’t get around to finishing them. Turns out black magic is harder than the manuals made out.
Instead, I’ve previously covered a couple titles from his Shadows Upon Lassadar series here on Alone Time, and I recently finished playing the entire second Lassadar trilogy. So you’re in luck, because I’m ready to tell you about not one, not two, but three solo games (because trilogy apparently means three. Huh!).
Buckle up! On page two, we’re talking about the Siege At Dalnish.
Play Coin Age for Only $1.56!
Hold on, I know what you’re thinking: A buck fifty-six? Dan, you hyperbolic hipster! Surely, no game worth playing could be so affordable! Alright then, I have a pair of rebuttals for you. First, you’re using the word “hipster” far too haphazardly, and it makes you sound like a YouTube commenter; and second, if you think cost is the best indicator of a game’s quality, then surely you haven’t heard of Adam P. McIver, Project Game, or the freshly-minted Coin Age.
Oh, and the best part? Since you can print and play it right now (proof!), you can even use some of that $1.56 for dollar menu food once you wrap up your game.
A Short Review of a Shorter Version of a Long Game
Ever since first playing Battlestar Galactica years ago, the cry of “Cylon!” can often be heard ringing through the burgundy corridors of Château de Thurot. Usually during game night because one of our besties is preparing some horrible machination or another, but it’s not an uncommon shout at other times either. “Will you empty the dishwasher?” Somerset asks me. “Cylon!” I scream back.
The only problem is that we can’t seem to find the time to play Battlestar Galactica anymore. Fantasy Flight’s two-hour playtime estimate doesn’t help, as it’s so conservative it makes the Tea Party look Left. For whatever reason, BSG is just one of those games that always takes a few too many hours to play — so thank goodness for BSG Express from some fine gentleman who goes by the obvious pseudonym of “Evan Derrick.” This version really takes less than an hour to wrap up, and, best of all, you can put it together all by yourself.
SPACE-BIFF! 