Wow.
Unbox, do a playthrough, I wanted to get cloudspire.
But time and money are tight enough to force choices, so I chose Too Many Bones.
My wife and I cracked open our new copy of Red Rising today. The game is based on the eponymous book series, though the theme mostly comes through in the various card colours and how they score at the end (e.g. Reds do not get along with Grays, Obsidians stick together, Certain Golds are allies, and other are enemies…).
First of all, the production values are fantastic. The Collector’s Edition sold by Stonemaier Games comes with an insert, card holder, metal components and gold foil on Gold cards. It’s reasonably priced too.
Second, the game is a ton of fun. So much so that we played it 3 times today. It’s inspired by a game called Fantasy Realms, though with more gameplay mechanics added to it. It’s all about hand management to end up the game with high scoring combos. Some cards will add points if together at the end, others will subtract points from your score. To curate your hand, you make use of the card abilities when you “deploy” them (play them on the board) during the game. Of course, a deployed card is there for your opponent to pick up…
The game plays quickly. And, as the end game conditions get close to triggering, it is time to figure out exactly what you want to keep for the end game and how you will get there.
My wife convincingly beat me in 2 out of 3 games (something not uncommon in our 2 player games, unfortunately for me :) ). But I took my revenge in the 3rd.
Fun time. Highly recommended from us.
Nice, I really want to take the time to learn this game. There is a great mod in Tabletop Sim, just need to sit down one day and do a learning session.
So far I’ve mostly just watched Paul Grogan (of Gaming Rules! on Youtube) play a few sessions and did one TTS coop scenario (all pre-actual-game-arrival) but the former really helped get the game down. The actual game rules aren’t that complicated, IMO. The rulebook’s not the densest thing I’ve ever used and there’s a separate alphabetical reference booklet for easier lookup. What’s going to be a whole thing is that every one of the seven factions’ units and base upgrades are different and a lot of the keywords etc are unique to a given faction (plus most units are double-sided). And then add on top of that that there is a whole stack of market chips (mercenary units and items heroes can use) and landmark chips (monsters and locations) and they have unique shit too, and there’s relic and event decks… yeah.
Also, having used the mod - it’s quite comprehensive, but it’s kind of awkward in practice and I think playing in person is going to be smoother actually. (Definitely nicer, but then TTS just can’t convey how great Chip Theory’s components are.)
The thing about Cloudspire is that you don’t really learn the game. You instead learn the factions. It’s the cost of that kind of asymmetry. Like Root, but way more intricate.
-Tom
My son and I played the first two scenarios of Dice Throne Adventures today. We are going to try to play it online with some of his friends tomorrow through the phone. He plays head to head a lot that way over covid but this will be more of a challenge as we have the cards for the campaign with us and will have to keep track of everyone’s turn in the central location. We think it should work.
We enjoyed the game so far. Made some mistakes concerning the Loot cards and on setting up the boss fight. It was helpful to watch a youtube on how to play from ManvsMeeples. After playing we went back and watched the same video again and picked up on things we didn’t learn the first time listening. Learning a game seems to always be like that. Play it a bit, find out what you mixed up and then play it correctly the next time or three.
I was on my way out of my FLGS today empty-handed (sniffed around Death May Die, but looks too long and too expensive (fucking miniatures) as well as Pinball 4-Cade, but didn’t bite) when I saw two boxes of King’s Dilemma. I’d almost forgotten I had been waiting for it to come back into stock.
It’ll have to wait until we can game in person again, but that’s feeling like it’s close, so I’m looking forward to it even more now…
Anyone have an opinion on the Deckscape or Escape Tales series?
Ginkopolis must be a reprint, because I’ve played it. And it’s pretty good!
And at first I thought that said “Ruins of Maps”. And in fact when I figured it out I was slightly disappointed.
Yeah, Ginkopolis had been out of print for a long time I think.
Also if anyone wanted Dwellings of Eldervale there are a few available from the publisher now. Get those sound effect minis while you can:
Sounds like an expansion ks is in the works, which might be a cheaper way to pick it up, as long as you don’t mind waiting.
Nice, I hope they have an option to get the couple of extra gameplay/cardboard elements from the bigger versions without paying twice the price for minis I don’t want.
Cool…been waiting for this new stock but forgot the date.
Thanks.
That’s crazy that it’s a reprint because i was about to post that with a topic like “Ginkopolis” board gaming definitely has jumped the shark. Whatever Chinese companies are doing all the physical printing are the real winners now.
My wallet curses you for this. ;) (But I personally say thanks!)
You know how people resist legacy games because they don’t like damaging or throwing away game components? Today I smashed a Cloudspire chip tray with a hammer. And I did it because Chip Theory Games told me to.
Specifically, it had three whole factions worth of chips in it and the lid was on so tight I couldn’t get it to move even slightly. I asked if they had any ideas and they said that they’d talked internally and thought anything I might try to loosen it would risk damaging the chips, so I should just wreck the tray and they’d send me another one. So I did. Took quite a bit of hammerwork and breaking most of the lid into small pieces to get it loose and the chips free. Those suckers are sturdy. I declined the replacement tray - I had a spare thanks to having all the expansions and all four coming with new trays they only partially use. And only the six trays I now have fit in the box w/ everything else anyway.
A second edition revamp of Cole Wehrle’s John Company has hit Kickstarter. It will have a new solo mode. It won’t be coming to retail.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1243243962/john-company-second-edition/description
Yeah, I had promised myself not to buy any more games until I got some of these played with other people. But…the minis have sound effects.
I hadn’t had a Kickstarter account before last night. Cole has a really good record right now and I’m a huge fan of his. I just pledged for John Company.
WHAAAAAAAT