Blog Archives
Being Pheidippides
It’s possible that my fascination with ancient games traces to the fifth grade. We were required to do a project on Dynastic Egypt, and while the other students were thatching Nile boats or mummifying the family cat, I drew up a theoretical set of rules for Senet, a game dating to around 3100 BCE. The rest, as they say (literally in this case), is history.
Ah, to know the true rules to Senet! Or to the other Egyptian board game mystery, the serpentine Mehen! To play the Royal Game with the Kings of Ur, or wager blankets against Montezuma’s riches in Patolli! To march hoplites through the narrow canyons of the Peloponnese in Nika—
Right. That one’s possible.
Darkest After the Dawn
“It’s like Among the Stars, but in space,” is how one of my friends jokingly summed up New Dawn, Artipia Games’ follow-up to one of our favorite games of last year. Of course, what he meant is that apart from the gloss — the same color scheme, a few recurring faces, and a setting that could best be described as a pan-galaxy alliance of alien races getting all passive-aggressive about building the best space station — New Dawn has pretty much nothing in common with Among the Stars.
Unfortunately, that largely includes compelling gameplay.
Space-Biff! Was Recently Devastated
Back in the day, our game group used to hold these little house tournaments all the time. Mostly Summoner Wars, though we could be counted on to make a lively competition out of nearly anything, from Omen: A Reign of War to The Duke. If we could play more than one match at a time, sharing table space and laughing about each other’s flubs, we were set.
Then, for whatever reason, we stopped playing like that.
Over the next year we occasionally discussed giving it another shot. Especially if we could hold a tournament using BattleCON: Devastation of Indines, because a colorful fighting game full of thirty asymmetrical characters, dead simple rules, and outguess-your-opponent gameplay seemed like the perfect sort of thing for a winner-takes-all brawl. Even so, our plans never coalesced into an actual event.
Well. A few weeks back, entirely unexpectedly, we were treated to a perfect situation: exactly eight players, all of whom arrived exactly at 8, nobody who reported needing to get to bed early, and every single one of them ready and willing to play.
It was on.
Unemployment is a Laughing Matter
I once had a job interview where I accidentally let slip my identity as a devout Roman Catholic. This was apparently a real mark in my favor, as the interviewer was also Catholic — right until I stuttered out that I wasn’t actually.
“Not actually what?” she asked.
“Not, um… I’m not actually Catholic,” I replied.
The look on her face. Jeez. You have no idea how much I wish I were just trying to be funny right now.
Anyway, Funemployed! is a game about that, except played for laughs instead of a lifetime of cringes. Come on in and we’ll talk about it.
The Ancients Had No Turnips
“It looks like City of Iron,” one of my friends said upon first judging The Ancient World by its cover.
Not that there would be anything wrong with that, but The Ancient World, the latest Kickstarter success from Ryan Laukat, has very little in common with his previous game City of Iron. Let me persuade you.
A Salvo of Space Expansions
In all honesty, I get bored reviewing expansions. As with the assembly of a cloak-seeking photon torpedo, it’s only fun once — which is why, across all of Star Trek’s many series and movies, they only did it the one time. The Federation could have obsoleted cloaking technology altogether, but one man had already boldly gone there before.
So today I’m going to rapidly launch a full three expansions reviews out my aft torpedo-tube, which is just one of the many phrases I use to refer to my bum. These are all expansions for games I enjoyed — Core Worlds, Space Cadets: Dice Duel, and Among the Stars — and as happy coincidence would have it, they’re all set in outer space. They’re also all published by Stronghold Games, but that’s not quite as interesting as the first coincidence.
Here we go:
Page One — Core Worlds: Revolution
Page Two — Space Cadets: Dice Duel: Die Fighter
Page Three — Among the Stars: The Ambassadors
The Xia Drift
There are two ways of looking at Xia: Legends of a Drift System, and the perspective you adopt is very likely to determine how you feel about its spacefaring antics.
Land of Marginally Better Moves
Lagoon: Land of Druids would really like you to settle in and be a druid for the evening. Which is pretty cool, right? There aren’t many board games that cast you as a druid, or that are set in such a pleasantly drawn world full of peculiar floating edifices, tiny glimmerwisps playing ball with conifer cones, and day-glo mushrooms, shrines, and caves. Which is to say, Lagoon is a gorgeous game, painted with vibrant strokes, colors popping like a drive down the Las Vegas Strip at midnight.
But is it any good? Well… let’s talk.
Six Places I’ve Played Oddball Aeronauts
I don’t normally plug Kickstarter campaigns, but there’s one in particular I’ve already reviewed twice this year, and both times my assessment was pretty much glowing. It’s called Oddball Aeronauts, from Maverick Muse, and it’s rad. Basically, it’s a light game about a fight between airships in which you wager a number of cards on the outcome of each round of battle. There’s guesswork, bluffing, and special powers. Furry creatures too, if that’s your sort of thing. It’s also incredibly portable, playable even without the benefit of a table.
If you’re interested, check out their Kickstarter over here. If you still aren’t convinced, rather than review it for a third time, I’ve put together a little list of six absolutely real and genuine places that I’ve played Oddball Aeronauts.
Harry Potter Wouldn’t Last Two Minutes
I might be more partial to the University from The Name of the Wind than I am to Hogwarts, but I don’t think there’s a single human being among us who can say they haven’t dreamed of being accepted into a school of magic. Ah, what a life! The power, the prestige. The non-committal make-outs with gorgeous magically gifted people. The, uh, education, I guess.
Now there’s one more reason to head off to magic boarding school. It’s Argent: The Consortium, the newest title from Level 99 Games, set in the perplexing world of Indines where people spend roughly 92% of their time punching each other. Now they’re punching each other with intrigue. Also the not-so-occasional fireball.
SPACE-BIFF! 