Board Game Madness 4/25

Smaller edition due to work obligations.

Courtesy of Board Game News, how to choose the perfect board game:

Fun:

• OK, these are really cool looking dice
• Awesome clock!
• Apparently gratuitous cat shots are in vogue again. And again.
• Starlit Citadels is running a huge board game sale right now.
• Mensa has selected their 5 games of the year: IOTA, Snake Oil, Mine Shift, Coerceo, Tetris Link

New Games:

• Archipels: An area control, resource management game where the European powers are exploring the Carribbean. Everyone has a secret objective that can enable them to win the game. Your job is to meet yours while trying to guess and thwart your opponents. Note that the objectives have options to vary the length of play also. Release date: Unknown
• New releases: Sidibaba, BASKETmind

News:

• Ranker.com has their top board games of all time. Chess is currently on top, beating out Settlers of Catan. It’s nice to see Blood Bowl #83 on the list. Go and vote!
• One of the “Shut Up and Sit Down” guys wrote a good article about why board gaming is better than video gaming for Kotaku.

Recently Played:

• Went old school and played some Spades and Gin Rummy this week with the Mrs. My wife set me in Spades in the first 3 hands and was up 370 points in that game. I almost came back too, but she shut me down hard with two more sets at the end. It was ugly.
• Had my Blood Bowl league meet on Saturday. One horrific game where my beloved Necro fell in an interdivisional match 0-3 to an Amazon team. I rebounded though winning a divisional match 4-0 against Chaos and even had a kill (raised by the Necromancer of course!). I’m currently in 1^st place in my division with 2 tough games to go.
• Bought Leader 1 this weekend at The Game Table, but there’s a concept with the Peloton that doesn’t seem to be working. I’m sure we’re doing something wrong. Need to research it…
• Core Worlds with friends, I do like the three player format. But my friend JC won as he always does…
• Lots of gaming with the family: Lost Cities, Core Worlds, Ubongo: Duel (I’m REALLY bad at this!) Tien Zi Que (this too) and Race for the Galaxy (vindication!)

Happy Gaming!

Credits: BGG, Dice Tower News

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Board Game Madness 4/17

Happy Tax Day!

Fun:

• Pimp My Game: Settlers with 3D components (not the 3D version)
• Pimp My Game II: Merchant of Venus (original version) with custom ships
• Pimp My Game III: Absolutely gorgeous 3D set of Notre Dame
• Now this is someone who takes his wargaming seriously – mounting the map to the wall!
• Some say that drinking and gaming is dangerous. But then again, in some cases it just makes sense…
• The Dice Tower Awards nominees have been announced for 2011. Nominees are below:

o   Game of the Year: Eclipse, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Quarriors!, Risk Legacy, Star Trek: Fleet Captains, King of Tokyo, The Castles of Burgundy, Mage Knight Board Game, A Few Acres of Snow, The Ares Project

o   Best Family Game: Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Kingdom Builder, King of Tokyo, Quarriors!, Say Anything: Family Edition

o   Best New Game Designer: Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game, Flash Point: Fire Rescue, The Ares Project, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Nightfall

o   Best Reprint: Can’t Stop, Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War, Evo, A Game of Thrones: Board Game, 2^nd Edition, Puerto Rico: Anniversary Edition

o   Many more awards…

New Games:

• Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small: This is a 2-player standalone game in the “Agricola universe” that is much shorter. You are the farmer and you concentrate on breeding animals. You grow your parcels of land and build new infrastructures to help your herd grow. Release date in US is June (this month in Germany)
• Ground Floor: I try not to pimp Kickstarter projects because, as I’ve previously written, I’m a skeptical of the paradigm and would like to see it stop. Regardless, I had to mention this game because I like Tasty Minstrel and I also “love” the fact that they’ve made a board game out of our jobs. So I get home from a long day at work and play at my job. Anyway, you are an entrepreneur/manager and want to run the most successful business. Resources in this game are money and staff and your constraint is time. Sorry, slipped into work-speak. Release October, pending funding.

iOS:

• Rivals for Catan (new implementation of Settlers 2p card game) coming “soon”
• A Brief History of the World release in June
• Yggdrasil release in May
• Cutthroat Caverns digital version announced

Recently Played:

• Core Worlds with the Mrs.
• Quarriors! with the family
• Lost Cities: The Board Game with friends as a realized that I’m not very good at this game…
• Settlers of Catan with friends, and after the beating I took by Mrs. Former Friend, I swore vengeance upon her husband’s Blood Bowl team. Yeah, I went there!
• I taught Innovation to my 9 year old son and he loved it

Credits: BGG, The Dice Tower News

Board Game Madness 4/10

Happy Passover and Easter!

Fun:

• Geek Madness is about to end and as of 11am 4/10, Power Grid is trailing Agricola in the finals by 38 votes
• Now this is someone who knows how to put away their game!
• I’m thinking the next navigation system I get will have a Carcassonne plug-in
• Yeah, that’s it. Next board game party, we should dress for our games! (I’ll get kicked out of the group…)
• Somehow Cave Evil slipped by my game-dar. But these minis are awesome!
• Want a look at Star Trek Catan? How about the trekkies who are playing it?
• Pimp My Game: I’ve seen painted cars for Formula D, but this is by far the best. These too from the same artist.
• Pimp My Game II: Outstanding painting job on Wrath of Ashardalon. Painted minis always make a game better, right?
• Pimp My Game III: Same as above, but for HeroQuest. I have to say, this would turn my head to play this game. Even if it might be collectible.
• Meeple eggs for Easter!
• Interesting read on how to get the women in your life into gaming. I think he’s oversimplifying, but it was interesting putting it in the light of the games of Core Worlds I’ve had recently with my wife. Yeah, she hasn’t seemed to enjoy these so much. Although she keeps suggesting it. By the way, my favorite is Ryan Moses’s reply about ¼ of the way down the page.
• It’s blocked where I am right now, but just the subject is worth posting, so I’ll have to check it out later: Cracked’s 9 Most Insane Board Games of All Time
• Interesting short read on the possibilities with gaming and Project Glass from Google

New Games

• Redshirts: Funny card game where you are the Starfleet captain and try to eliminate all of your redshirts. This is not going to have Star Trek licensing tied to it though. Release May 2012.
• Suburbia: Develop your suburb better than everyone else. This a tile laying game with intermediary goals and the ability to take advantage of services offered by other suburbs. Sounds really interesting. Release TBD.
• Recent Releases: Stone Age: Style is the Goal, Herding Cats, Bomber Command, Flapjacks and Sasquatches, Masters of Commerce, Travel Qwirkle

iOS

• Blokus is free on iTunes for a limited time
• Nightfall has been released
• Masters Gallery (new art for Modern Art) hoped for April
• Fealty released
• Gobang Social released
• MindFeud (Qwirkle knockoff) released
• Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 announced in addition to PS3, Xbox and PC. Date TBD

News:

• There will be a Quarriors! World Championship at GenCon 2012
• TableTop, the Wil Wheaton board gaming video I told you about took in over a quarter of a million views in just a couple of days according to Board Game News
• GameSalute is now offering the chance to be a demo monkey and earn store credit, t-shirts, con badges and possibly even travel/lodging expenses if you demo games at the major conventions.

Happy Gaming!

Credits: BGG, Dice Tower News, Purple Pawn, Game Salute

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Board Game Madness 4/4

A day late due to work, but still here!

Fun:

• TableTop, the first show of Felicia Day’s new Geek & Sundry YouTube channel, has been posted. This is Wil Weaton (Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: TNG fame) leading other Internet/pop culture celebrities through a board game experience. The first episode is GREAT! Grant Imahara of MythBusters and a couple of Internet people I’ve never heard of play Small World with Wil. It’s really entertaining. They apparently do Settlers of Catan and Pandemic in the future. I’m not sure how often they will release this, but it’s a great way to popularize our hobby. Subscribe for regular updates.
• The Geek Madness tournament has reached the final four: Twilight Struggle vs. Power Grid and Agricola vs. Puerto Rico
• For fans of the old Cheapass Games, this guy was pimped for Dungeon Petz, but man he looks like our old friend Devil Bunny!
• Pimp My Game: This amazing work is for The Legend of Drizzt from WotC. Absolutely incredible craftsmanship…
• Pimp My Game 2: How about easels for Modern Art? Could probably be used for Pastiche too.

New Games:

• Sky Traders: Fantasy Flight’s new game is actually a Euro. A pickup and deliver game where you are a merchant sailing your airships, using influence and manipulating markets. Due June 2012.
• Power Grid: Quebec & Baden-Wuerttemberg: New maps for the four-time Geek Madness champion. This is a single print run so get it if you want it. April/May release date.
• The Mystery of the Templars: Play a templar and assign your knights to missions to gain balance trade, development and battle. Due in May, this sounds like a very interesting game from Stratelibri, an Italian distributor.
• Space Cadets: From Geoff Engelstein and the rest of his family (The Ares Project), Stronghold Games (Core Worlds) is releasing their new cooperative game with a sci-fi feel of being a bridge officer on a starship. You work with the rest of the crew to accomplish mission goals. Due in late 2012. Also, they are releasing a mob-play event game called Space Cadets – Live! that will support up to 30 players where everyone divides into teams for different functions of the starship. This will premier at DEXCON 15 in Morristown NJ on July 5^th.
• Recent releases: Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature, Caveman Curling, Pizza Theory, Zong Shi, Word on the Street: Expansion I

iOS:

• Nightfall submitted to App Store
• Le Havre due in May
• Ubongo Puzzle Adventure Lite released
• Shogun in development
• Thunderstone AID released – has card pics, randomizer, saved setups and a card creator

News:

• In the Podcasting world, a couple of shout outs. The D6 Generation, who gives a little Euro love, but mostly adventure and miniature gaming, just hit their 100^th episode. Also, Game On! with Cody and John just released their penultimate episode where they review Wiz-War and reveal their “gaming manifesto”. Both are very entertaining and should be honored.
• Interesting take on the history and evolution of the game Risk. I had no idea that it was released by a French company, not US. So much for Ameritrash…
• A Game of Thrones: The Board Game is reviewed by Time Magazine. Yes, that’s right. Time.

Recently Played

• We had I-CON this past weekend and it went pretty well. I ran games of Invasion from Outer Space: The Martian Game, Thunderstone (Epic variant) and Core Worlds as well as the annual Texas Hold ‘em poker tournament. Other than that, not much time to play games this week.

Happy Gaming!

Credits: BGG, Purple Pawn, Dice Tower News, Google News, Game Salute