The entire scene appears to have disturbed the cleric’s nappytimes.
That looks like the cover of just about every D&D module I ever saw. So maybe I’m desensitized now.
See they should base game times on 1st play. Because only new players care about time it takes to play the game. Still a lot of fun hoping to play again next weekend.
garin
3944
I was going to say it reminded me of the EverQuest loading screens. But apparently it’s the actually the same artist.
My wife and I played Dominant Species for the first time this weekend. It took about 2-3 hours, but we broke it up into two sessions. She whomped me in a Birds vs. Insects matchup. She called me a dick several times for the moves that I made, but she made several nasty moves herself. Overall, we both enjoyed it. It has loads of theme and it is very interactive. Finally, the rules are written very well, and the whole game made sense, even though there are lots of moving parts.
Eclipse looks very very “busy”. Curious how the reviews will go once it hits a full release.
I have quite the opposite reaction to Eclipse. It does some slick work with player economy boards to streamline the end of turn maintenance such games often suffer from.
Some of the pics of it were using tiles that are smaller than the release tiles. Those pics do look busy. Other than that it doesn’t look any worse than a typical game of Agricola which is manageable.
I mentioned that over in one of the iOS threads a couple of days ago. Definitely awesome pricing. Day one, all armies. Just release the damn thing, Playdek.
To me the bigger news from that newsblorp was a release date for T&E. November 14th. Finally completing the tile laying trilogy.
Now someone just needs to urge Conlan Rios to update Samurai to use GC, goddammit.
(Also that thingy about an Assassin’s Creed iOS board game was a little odd.)
SlyFrog
3950
For a combined family Christmas present (oh who am I kidding, primarily for me), we just ordered Merchants & Marauders, Dominions: Intrigue, Power Grid, and Star Trek: Fleet Captains.
I am seriously considering a pledge that this is it for game buying. I already semi-successfully met a six-month pledge not to buy anything until the end of the year by making this a Christmas present. But I’m not sure how much of a legitimate pledge that is when you buy 4-5 games at a time when you do buy them.
Obviously your intent is to economize on shipping costs – sounds legitimate to me! ;-)
Yeah, think of all the money you saved by getting them all at once!
Re: Eclipse - I meant busy in terms of number of pieces/tokens/tiles/etc. Just looks like a lot of bits to manipulate.
Scuzz
3953
I saw a Stratego game advertised over the weekend with pieces that looked almost like the Mass Effect Shepherd character. I have the old version from 30 years ago so I wonder what they have out there now.
SlyFrog
3954
Well, that’s why I did it, because the shipping was free and I also got an additional 7.5% discount for ordering it now (though that deal is over) on top of the already low internet retailer prices.
It’s not hard for me to talk myself into buying more. The problem is my growing realization that I have enough, and don’t have time to play everything as it is. I need to translate that into a moratorium on buying the next cool thing.
The best modern game that builds on Stratego’s basic model is Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. One of the best quick-playing two-player games in existence.
Sorry I missed that post.
I’m so glad Playdek got the contract for SW. I, too, am looking forward to T&E, but there’s a very good chance it’ll be a farce because Codito did it. Their Tikal app was (and to the best of my knowledge still is) a joke, and that game is not nearly as nuanced as T&E. They also released serviceable but not outstanding versions of Medici and Ra, so there is some hope, but not much.
I bought Elder Sign: Omens HD last night and it’s done up in typical FFG overproduced fashion but is easier to play solo than dragging out all the little bits in the box. I have no idea why they only included one Old One (oh wait, yes I do, it wouldn’t be an FFG game without a zillion expansions) and took away the allies, but it’s nice to see them dipping another toe into the iOS ocean. I could always do with more overproduced board games on my iPad.
Scuzz
3957
I have a daughter who would love that game.
It’d be nice if Codito took a look at the great job Ravensburger did on Puerto Rico, and what a boon that adaption was to their label, and decided to follow suit with a great implementation and a fantastic tutorial.
Wasn’t trying to bust your balls or anything. It’s sometimes hard to know where to post news. I don’t always want to flood this thread with iOS news, even if that’s where I do most of my boardgaming these days. Maybe we should get an iOS board games thread.
No doubt. It’s really a Mayfair problem, as they aren’t holding Codito’s feet to the fire to make apps that compete with the top stuff from other companies. It seems “good enough” is good enough for them, which is par for the course with Mayfair, a company with management that always seems to be a bit out of touch with its customers.
Wasn’t trying to bust your balls or anything. It’s sometimes hard to know where to post news. I don’t always want to flood this thread with iOS news, even if that’s where I do most of my boardgaming these days. Maybe we should get an iOS board games thread.
Heh. My balls remain intact, and I didn’t intend to imply you’d busted them. Just trying to give a belated hat-tip since I missed you posting that in the other thread.
Yeah, there is a bit of that, but once you see what’s going on I suspect it won’t seem so bad as it’s all clutter well spent. Hexes can have the following things:
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Wormholes. These are printed on. Normally to move between hexes there most be a wormhole on both hex edges. Makes for a more interesting map than your usual hex based affair.
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Ships. Of course!
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Influence Marker. This does double duty, both showing whose hex it is, and how much upkeep you have to pay. Placed influence markers are pulled off your economy board, uncovering progressively higher upkeep payments. Each action you take also uses a influence (later returned), thus increasing your upkeep. Having them on the map means you don’t need to calculate upkeep.
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Planets. This I suspect is what seems cluttering. Planets are in three colors according to what resource they produce, can be several per hex, and often have your population cubes on them. These population markers are also pulled off your economy board thus uncovering increasing production numbers, so you don’t have to calculate production either. No need to add up all your planets numbers, or refer to TI3-style planet cards beside the board.
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Ancients. There are also sometimes NPC ships defending a hex, and a facedown reward for clearing them out and taking over. These typically can’t be there at the same time as the above components though.
