Archive for the 'On the Radar' Category

It seems the Essen pre-hype began even earlier than usual this year with many, many new games being announced for release.  It’s interesting to see how many new publishers there are this year too.

I shall be posting about forthcoming games that have caught my attention.  As well as posting them, I have also added an Essen 2012 page where I will collate them as I go.  Hopefully, I will get a chance to play them at Essen and then review them too.

Here’re the first few:

Bora Bora (Stefan Feld / Alea)
Stefan Feld always seems to find some interesting game mechanic to place at the heart of his games (Trajan, Luna and many others).  In Bora Bora, players allocate dice to actions (the higher the number, the greater the effect of the action) and following players can use a previously used action but only with a lower value dice. So, a player could use an action with a low number and get little effect but would know following players would get even less out of that action.  Sounds neat (and humorously mean).

Aztlan (Leo Colovini / Ares)
It’s funny how it can take some time to notice you like a specific game designer’s games.  This game is designed by Leo Colovini so I checked what else he had done only to discover I have a lot of games by him and I like them too (Atlantis, Masons, Clans, Carolus Magnus).  Aztlan sounds interesting too.  From what I can tell, players secretly select a terrain type card (which determines where they get advantages) and then start placing meeple into regions for dominance (although can co-exist as well as fight) – players try to get control of areas whilst trying to figure out what terrain cards their opponents’ played so they know where they should pick their battles.
Check out more info on Ares’ site here: bga.me/aztlan

Rattus Cartus (Berg brothers / White Goblin)
I like the Berg brother’s games (Rattus and especially Oregon which is one of my favourite games) and the Rattus card game rules sound like it should be fun with some interesting mechanics that keep the theme and feel of Rattus but without directly duplicating it.
Check out more info on White Goblin site here: bga.me/rattuscartus

Balance of Power (Catalyst Game Labs)
Risk/Diplomacy looking game but using 3 types of unit that work in a rock/paper/scissors style.  On a turn a player gets one action with each type of unit and actions are to move, attack or duplicate themself.  Points are earned for controlling areas, capitals and your own country.  Sounds simple yet tactical and without any luck.  (This one just got released in the UK.)
Check out more info on the Catalyst site here: bga.me/balanceofpower

City of Horror (Asmodee)
I really liked Mall of Horror but it was broken as the person who controls the Security Room could hold it and win the game.  However, City of Horror is a mjaor re-working of the original game and looks like it will be the game the original one should have been with lots of new game mechanics.  Really looking forwards to this one.
Check out more info on the Asmodee site here: bga.me/cityofhorror

Call to Glory (Schacht / White Goblin)
Nice, simple card game.  Some push-your-luck element as you lay down sets of matching cards to get points but can’t add to them once they’re down and an opponent can take those points if they can lay down more cards of that type.  Players draw from the two draw decks or the two discard decks.
Check out more info on the White Goblin site here: bga.me/ctglory

I read the rules to Dark Minion recently and it sounds really promising.  The players are all dark hordes descending upon towns to attack and loot them, which I already liked the sound of, but it contains some interesting game mechanics delivering a mix of meeple allocation, area control and dice.

On their turn, a player rolls 3 dice which they use to either attack towns, respawn minions from the graveyard, or capture towers.  Attacking towns is the core of the game where a player can allocates dice to the towns (a maximum of one dice per town) allowing them to place that many minions next to the town.  When there are enough total minions from all players next to a town to exceed its defense number, the town falls and the player who allocated the most minions gets the tile, the victory points (VPs) and the skulls printed on the tile.  Also, the player who allocated the second most minions gets 2 VPs, and the player triggering the event gets 1 VP.

One aspect I really like the sound of is that the 1’s on the dice are actually +1’s which can be added other dice results.  I like this because rolling low in games usually penalises a player through sheer bad luck but, in this case, rolling +1 allows a player to make other dice stronger.  This sounds like a subtle but clever mechanic to balance up the luck of the roll.  Also, this idea is taken further by the white dice – a player can choose to roll a white dice instead of their usual dice which can add +1 or +2 (or a skull) which is also a nice idea. Read the rest of this entry »

BURDIGALA
I was interested to read that a new (at least to me) publisher is releasing a game by Bruno Cathala at Spiel this year.  The game is Burdigala and plays 2-4 players.

The setting is Bordeaux in 56BC and players are constructing the port town.  The winner is the one with the most prestige points (PPs) which are earned by involvement in building construction, completing a building, merchandise and plot cards,  So, fairly standard sounding stuff so far.  However, the game sounds like it has  some neat game mechanics.

First, each turn players roll 2 dice and use one of the results to move one of their meeple to an unoccupied space on the board which have to one or two building sites next to them.  The player places a cube on the building site and scores a number of points equal to the spaces still left.  If the player places the final cube to complete a building they score PPs equal to the building’s value (and any players next to the district get a plot card which give their owners special abilities).  Not only do I like the sound of the simple but strategic movement system, but I also like how this system encourages players to get building. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been very impressed by GameWorks’ games as they’re always so beautifully produced with real attention to detail.  The box inner for Tikal II not only had specially moulded sections for all game parts but each section was numbered and these matched the numbers in the rules.  Last year they released: Tikal II, Water Lily and Sobek.  This year GameWorks have two new games:

	Tschak   Tshcak is a trick taking game where players go through 3 levels in each of 4 dungeons. The images of the cards released show various adventurers, monsters, spells and so on.  One of the green adventurers looks to be inspired by a certain laser disc videogame adventurer which is cool. The info on the game revealed so far doesn’t give much away but the goal  is to get all the treasures and no monsters.  However, Tschak is designed by Dominique Ehrhard who designed the superb, and superbly simple, Water Lily and Lascaux, so I will definitely give this one a try. Plays 2-4 players in 30-40 minutes.
	Bonbons  This is a memory game to get candy but with a twist because it seems you can also steal back some of the candies other players have won.  I don’t know much more than that. Plays 2-6 players in 10-20 minutes.

I just saw the new games that White Goblin Games will be releasing at Essen in Germany in October.  These are looking really good.  They’ve also just started taking pre-orders too.

	Lost Temple A game based on the excellent Citadels but this time it’s a race game to be the first one to the temple to plunder its treasures. In Citadels, players select a role/character from a fixed set and pass the rest to the next player to make their choice. Figuring out which role each player has probably selected is a big part of the game as some characters foil others and no-one knows who picked which character until everyone has chosen for that round. Not sure how much of this is in Lost Temple but it sounds very interesting as Citadels is a classic. Plays 2-8 players too.
	Panic Station This game really interests me as it’s like the movie The Thing with a single player who has been taken over by an alien amongst lots of uninfected players; however, the infection can spread so the infected players start to increase.  Each player controls an android and a human trying to stop the evil aliens – well, unless they;re already evil aliens. The reason this interests me so much is that I actually have game design notes going back some years with the exact same premise, so I’m very interested to see how this game compares. Plays 4-6
	Read the rest of this entry »

Kickstarter.com is growing in popularity as a way to finance board game production and I’m always interested to check out any new games on there.  In fact, it was through Kickstarter that I ordered my copy of Triumvirate back in April 2010.

A game on Kickstarter that has caught my attention is Lyssan as it looks like an interesting Medieval-themed game that mixes Diplomacy on the board (as there’re no dice for movement and attacks) but with card play to sway the conflicts.  Helping your opponents can be a useful tool so you can plot against them such as getting inside their castle and then turning their followers against them.

Check it out on Kickstarter – the video is a very good introduction and the designer (who seems like a very pleasant guy) describes the game.  Lyssan has reached its $20k funding but you can still pledge and, as with most Kickstarter projects, any money over the goal is always well-appreciated so larger production runs can be made.

I look forwards to seeing more about this game and hope it can deliver its mix of intrigue and confrontation.

James.

Wow!  There are few announcements these days that really are big news but FFG have just managed one by announcing they’re going to be releasing their own Star Wars games.  FFG have been going from strength-to-strength as a company as they secured bigger and bigger licenses – much in the same way that Electronic Arts did the same with videogames back when they were young.  I have a few issues with FFG in terms of the costs of their expansions (as they release so many) but they do release solid, quality games and have created a couple of my favourite non-Euro games.

For me, this is great news.  As a major Star Wars fan, I’ve been wondering for years why no-one’s done any serious games.  Even to the point last year that a friend and I discussed creating a Star Wars large battle game with a demo set using the toys to potentially get Hasbro’s attention.  In my opinion, the last great Star Wars game was Assault on Hoth by West End Games (a lot of randomness and very cheap production but a game we still play to this day) and since then Hasbro continually released weak board games that primarily served kids.

FFG have announced two games X-Wing (http://bdg.ms/afdi) – a 2-player, space combat, dogfighting game – and Star Wars: The Card Game (http://bdg.ms/afdj) – a 1-4 player co-op card game.  I’m definitely more interested in the first one as I find living card games a bit daunting due to the continual churn of new cards; however, I’m sure I’ll try the basic set at least..

So, congratulations FFG.  I look forwards to some great Star Wars gaming to come – just keep it in the original trilogy era please (which looks to be the case so far).  As Vader would say: Impressive.

I just noticed a new game on the Fantasy Flight Games site called ‘Elder Sign’.  It’s an Arkham Horror Files game (like Mansions of Madness) so uses the same setting but this time it’s a co-operative, dice-based game for 1-8 players.

The investigators are at a museu hunting for Elder Signs with which to block the Ancient Ones arrival.  From the info on the site, it sounds a bit like Arkham Horror: The Card Game (which certainly isn’t a bad thing) as there is no board but still features Ancient Ones with doom tracks, stamina and sanity stats, and the other usual Arkham elements.

Players try to complete adventure cards in order to search the museum for the elder signs but they will suffer ill effects if they do not complete cards fully.  Each time the clock strikes midnight, a Mythos card is drawn which has a negative effect representing the strengthening of the Ancient One’s evil.

Check out the preview and the site for more details (link below).  Not a lot of details about it yet but it looks very interesting indeed – especially if you’re an Arkham Horror and Cthulhu fan as I am.

Link to preview on FFG site (and there’s a link to the game’s site there too): http://bdg.ms/ae9v

Pantheon is by the same designer as Stone Age which is one of my favourite boardgames.  I read through the rules recently and it’s definitely one I want to try out.  As the name suggests, the theme involves the Gods.

The game’s played over 6 turns (epochs) and each turn one of the nations on the board is activated which means loot tiles are placed on hexes with that nation’s symbol, that nation’s special effect is executed and some god tiles are revealed.

During their turns, a player can either:

1. Move – Spend cards to place their coloured pieces on the board; thereby, claiming hexes in chains across the board which in turn can gain loot tiles.
2. Buy – Purchase sacrifice tiles & more pieces to place on the board
3. Gain a god tile – Gained by having enough sacrifice tiles and cards (although, unlike tiles, cards are single-use)
4. Draw 3 cards Read the rest of this entry »

The guys creating RoboArena – an iPhone and iPad app they’re creating via Kickstarter which is a mix of RoboRally and turn-based X-COM – got in touch with me recently to tell me about their project.  Looks very interesting.  Check out their Kickstarter page and lend your support if you want to get involved.

Check out the details here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bravadowaffle/roboarena-an-iphone-casual-strategy-game (Be quick as there’s only 5 days left to back them.)