Gen Con 2015 Part 4

Welcome back, Nerd Lifers, for the final installment of the Gen Con wrap up. There are a few more hot games from this years convention yet to look at. 

Wyrd Miniatures

Wyrd Miniatures set up some amazing displays featuring their Malifaux and Warmachine/Hordes miniatures. I am a huge fan of their giant statue of the Whiskey Golem, a fixture that has become a big draw to their booth.

Boss Monster 2

The makers of Boss Monster 2 used a cool new display to promote the sequel to last years smash hit, Boss Monster! This standalone expansion adds more ways to mess with your competitors in a game that was beginning to grow stale due to it’s lack of player involvement. A strong improvement to a very good card game!

Rattlebones

I finally got a chance to try Rio Grande’s novel roll and move game, Rattlebones. This game had very little interest for me going into it due to my dislike of roll and move games. The dice components with changeable faces seemed a bit too gimmicky to me going into playing this. I could not have been more wrong. The ability to modify your dice in this game with all kinds of different abilities added a surprising amount of strategy to a game where you basically move around in a circle and hope to land on spots that gain you points. I probably wouldn’t purchase this but it is absolutely worth playing this charming game once or twice!

Legendary Encounters: Predator

Upper Deck went all out and made an amazing jungle base of operations to celebrate the launch of their newest addition to the Legendary: Encounters game system Predator. This game has remarkable versatility. The game can play through the 1st or second movie story lines as the humans against the predators or you can turn the tables and play as the predators against the humans. If you own Legendary Encounters: Alien you can combine that with this game. When you do that options of playing as humans vs Predators and Aliens or Predators vs Aliens becomes available. No other game gives you that kind of versatility that actually works out to be a great game. One of my favorites!

Stone of Fate

Another big surprise from the convention was Stones of Fate from Cosmic Wombat games. This game won a game of the year award from the smart people over at Mensa this year and it makes sense why. This game is simple to learn but requires a good deal of brain power and strategy to play well. In this game you will have a face down tableau of tarot cards of various point values and victory conditions. You have to use your memory to play your stones of fate in the right positions on these cards in order to win the game. I was not expecting to like this game as much as I did before idly trying out while waiting for another game but it blew me away and became an insta-buy for me.

Campaign Trail

Campaign Trail, another game from my new favorite small publisher, Cosmic Wombat games, was another surprisingly enjoyable game. I’m usually not a big fan of cube pushing games with dry themes but the amazing balance and quick play of this game strongly appealed to me. Don’t turn your back on this game due to the dry theme. Never have I played a game that offered so much different strategy and methods of play in such a simple to learn game. I only had to read the manual once and I was ready to plunge into this deep game. The balance in this game is an amazing achievement by the designers! Each game had several lead changes and stayed very close between all players and each victory was achieved narrowly and by a brilliant play. I anxiously await the arrival of Campaign Trail on kickstarter and I will be releasing a full review of it along with a gameplay video soon!

Takenoko: Chibis

Asmodee released an expansion to one of their most popular games, Takenoko, at Gen Con this year! As a huge fan of the original I absolutely had to have it. This expansion adds a female panda that can mate with the panda from the existing game which creates all kinds of baby pandas which brings mass pandamonium to this fun casual game.  Takenoko: Chibis adds a few more tiles to the game. Some of which are a tile that can grow all three colors of bamboo, a new water feature that can help make irrigating your garden much easier, as well as a cabin for your poor overworked farmer. This expansion adds just enough to keep the game accessible to new players as well as add some new mechanics to freshen up the game for veteran players.

THE HAUL!

I can’t finish the Gen Con wrap up without showing off my haul from the convention! Yes that’s Mall Madness on the bottom, don’t judge.

I hope you enjoyed learning about the cool new games that were on display at the convention this year and I can’t wait to release some in depth reviews of some of them so you can get a better idea of whether or not they are right for you!

Gen Con 2015 Part 3

Welcome back, Nerd Lifers, for the final installment of the Gen Con wrap up. There are a few more hot games from this years convention yet to look at. We will start with one of the games with the biggest hype going into the weekend.

Flick Em Up

Flick Em Up had some of the largest hype going into the convention. Blending the dexterity challenge of Rampage with a fun wild west theme and an engaging story mode Flick Em Up will delight casual gamers along with the more serious crowd looking for a dexterity game with a bit more substance. The $70 price tag is a bit hefty for a game of this type but when you factor in the large amount of wood that comes with this game it is a pretty fair deal.

Mysterium

Mysterium, the paranormal mystery game, finally got it’s United States release at Gen Con this year. Sporting updated artwork of a more cartoony variety, an added screen for the ghost player, upgraded components, and a new psychic points mechanic rewarding better guess work had people racing to Asmodee Games booth each day of the convention to score one of the 100 copies they were selling each day. Having played the original Polish version this year I can attest that this is a game that is well worth all of the hype surrounding it and I cannot wait to have a copy of my own come October of this year!

Arcadia Quest

I finally got a chance to play Cool Mini or Not’s arena style dungeon crawler battle game, Arcadia Quest this year! I was absolutely enchanted by the depth of play this game offered! A wide variety of playable characters each with their own unique skills, beautiful high quality miniatures, a wide variety of avenues for victory, and the unique blend of cooperative and competitive play got this game up to the top of the list of games that I want to buy despite having a terribly awkward and distractable teacher demoing the game! It’s high MSRP of $90 will have me checking out my lovely FLGS Miniature Market for a discount copy!

Strife

Strife was one of the few games that I had almost no knowledge of going into the convention. The demo that I played was a very solid game that I enjoyed quite a bit. Strife gives each player an identical deck of cards filled with fantasy characters or varying strength and powers that you can use to conquer locations on a shared board. The winner is the player that can strategize the powers of these characters the best and outwit their opponents in a quick and clever battle of wits. A good choice for a two player game while you wait for the rest of your D&D buddies to arrive for a night of gaming!

Secrets of the Lost Tomb

By far my favorite game of the convention was a complete surprise to me. Secrets of the Lost Tomb was a kickstarter success that somehow flew under my radar this year and popped up to become one of my most anticipated games! This game takes what could be a great Indiana Jones story and adds a creepy H.P. Lovecraft theme to it. The theme enough was enough to get me excited but after playing the demo and finding that it had inspirations from some of my favorite games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, Arkham Horror, and story driven dungeon crawlers like Descent made this game an insta buy for me!

Ashes: Rise of The Pheonixborn

Plaid Hats big release this year was Ashes: Rise of The Pheonixborn. It has been a smash success and lots of people have really enjoyed it’s similarity to games like Magic and Hearthstone with the inclusion of a unique dice based resource mechanic. I found the gameplay to be a little underwhelming. The play of the game really only replicated the first few turns of the aforementioned games and each play seemed to escalate very slowly without any of the amazing payoffs that you get from those games in the later rounds. As always Fernanda Suarez’s artwork is absolutely stunning and it’s nice to see her get a permanent position in the ranks of Plaid Hat Games, it just isn’t enough to make this game exciting enough for me to suggest very highly. A disappointing step backwards for a company that had an incredible streak of fantastic games.

Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark

Asmodee’s other big hit this year was with Discoveries, a new dice based version of their popular Lewis and Clark game. This game was introduced to me at the Secret Cabal Meet Up on Saturday night and it was a great deal of fun! Luckily they got a resupply of the game in after selling out so I could get my hands on it. The game has you taking on the role of a member of the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase. You will have to roll dice and wisely spend resources to hire Native American guides both friendly and malicious to help guide you through the wilderness as you chart and chronicle the vast new addition to this country. Gameplay was fast, strategic, fun and had a great deal of beautiful artwork that really brought the theme to life!

The Village Crone

Another favorite of mine this year was the Village Crone from Fireside games. This game has players take on the roles of different witches trying to gain control of a small village by using their familiars to acquire the components needed to cast spells that bedevil and pester the poor villagers of Wickersby in a race to become the most feared and respected witch. This game has a lot of deep strategy coupled with a good dose of mayhem as all of the players recite silly spells to further their own agendas while throwing cogs in the plans of their competitors. Great fun!!!

GEN CON 2015 WRAP UP THURSDAY, FRIDAY | PART 2

Greetings Nerd Lifers, Gen Con, America’s largest gaming convention has come to an end. I have spent the past few days meandering through narrow corridors lined with vendors and jam packed with over 61,000 people to bring you the latest news in exciting board games and card games! I have such sites to show you! Let us begin!

The Manhattan Project

Minion Games quickly sold out of copies of their Manhattan Project board game. A very interesting theme where players place their workers efficiently to help the United States Manhattan project create the worlds first nuclear weapon. An impressive and fun game that also teaches a fascinating history lesson.

Mega Man

I wish there were a lot of positive things I could say about Jasco’s Mega Man game. They did absolutely everything they could to pack as many tributes to one of my favorite video game franchises as possible but didn’t focus enough on making an engaging board game.

The miniatures are absolutely stellar, the artwork is impeccable, and the component quality is top notch. All of the delays this game has been facing over the past few years involve the perfectionism of Capcom having a strong hand in the development of the miniatures and overall look of this game. If more attention was payed to the actual game design aspect of Mega Man than the aesthetic we would have a huge hit.

The gameplay is a lot like the final few turns of Munchkin where everyone is playing negative modifiers against one player taking on the role of Mega Man who tries to play a bunch of cards to give positive modifiers all while gambling the amount of dice they will need to roll for a success on their mission. There are many long rounds of this until a player can finally make it far enough to fight a boss battle that has the exact same mechanics as all the rest of the turns. After doing this long nearly hour long process you will have to repeat it with at least 3 other mini bosses to even have a chance at taking on the big boss Dr. Wily. The person doing the demo stated that this process would only take about an hour to an hour and a half but I honestly do not see a way this game could be finished in less than four tedious hours.

It is a terrible shame that such a great property is ruined by such tedious gameplay. The high price tag of $80 will get you some awesome miniatures and maybe you can make your own rules to fix where this game went so wrong.

Tail Feathers

Jerry Hawthorne of Plaid Hat Games gave me a look at Tail Feathers, an aerial combat game based in the popular Mice and Mystics Universe. In the bottom image you can see that they are employing an interesting mechanic where you can swivel your miniature to bank in the direction you intend to go. This will play heavily into the strategy of the game which looks to have a lot in common with the Xwing and D&D Attack Wing Miniatures games.

Champions of Hara

One of the best games I played all week was Champions of Hara. This game has steampunk adventure and Kung fu fighting all rolled into a beautiful constantly changing colorful universe. I highly suggest getting in on the December pre order for this one.

Swords and Strongholds

Being a huge fan of the Mouse Guard comic I had to check out Swords and Strongholds, a game played in the legends of the guard stories. The game is very abstract and tactical and definitely rewards smart play but the $30 price tag kept me away from a game that has so few components but a price drop might be worth the splurge.

Tides of Time

This was a great 2 player drafting game with stellar art and a good price at $12. Lots of replay and hard decisions to make each turn. Every couple needs a game like this in their collection.

Spectre Ops

I'm a big fan of hidden movement games like Nuns on the Run and Letters to Whitechapel. This game might have them all beat. A rogue agent must infiltrate a top secret facility and access a certain number of targets before he is captured by a group of super powered hunters. The tension in this game was high from the beginning and escalated all the way to a climactic finish on the last possible turn.

This game will find a spot on my shelf.

I hope you enjoyed the first part of my coverage of Gen Con! Keep your eyes peeled for the next installment of my Saturday + Sunday activities as well as reviews of games that I took home from the con!

by: Levi

Gen Con 2015 Wrap Up Thursday, Friday | Part 1

Greetings Nerd Lifers, Gen Con, America’s largest gaming convention has come to an end. I have spent the past few days meandering through narrow corridors lined with vendors and jam packed with over 61,000 people to bring you the latest news in exciting board games and card games! I have such sites to show you! Let us begin!

Mars Attacks Miniatures

Mantic games had an amazing scene set up for their Mars Attacks miniatures game. This set up gave a great example of what a little bit of scenery and and paint can do to bring a game to life!

Kitsune

Independant Gamers Alliance showed off Kitsune, a game about using different fox spirits to trick a bunch of dupes to gain points. Looks interesting and at times a little awkward…

Timid Monsters

Timid Monsters is a great little toy company making great little desk monsters! Check out their lower cost options on their etsy page!

Deep Wars

Anti Matter Games showed off their semi aquatic miniatures game Deep Wars. Their representatives touted that the whole game could be distilled down to a one page rulebook or played with a larger more complicated ruleset to accomodate different play styles. The amazing nautilus miniature was cool enough to get me interested in this very cool war game!

New Salem

Overworld games was offering demonstrations of their recent kickstarter success, New Salem. The game has different players taking on the roles of witches or puritans in New Salem, each trying to play sets of cards to create positivity or despair in their town. Being able to figure out who the witches are is important to winning the game. I love how the different cards line up to create a full picture in each set.

Artifacts Inc.

Artifacts Inc. by Ryan Laukat for Red Raven Games really impressed me! Everyone takes on the roll of 1940s explorers who search for various artifacts to sell to museums. Tight worker placement and drafting mechanics along with a little bit of dice luck and great artwork make for a very fun strategic game!

Warpo Toys

Warpo, makers of some very cool 70’s and 80’s style Lovecraftian action figures unveiled their newest toy in the line, a massive 12 inch Cthulhu!

Make sure to check back and check out what we found at Gen Con the rest of the week!

By: Levi

Treehouse // #GameNightMeetup

We are super excited to be supporting and going to this event!

Join us for a night of games, drinks, and connecting. We'll be spending time at the newly opened Living Room in Maplewood ( 2808 Sutton Blvd, Maplewood, MO 63143 ). They'll have coffee and a special menu for the evening.

Our friends at Game Night Gear and us will be there with a wide array of board and card games to play with new and old friends. With every admission, you'll receive a complimentary beer from 4 Hands Brewing Company.

Socialize, eat, drink, and try a new game with friends new and old.

The event is limited to the first 100 tickets so make sure to reserve your spot by purchasing tickets here.

You can also follow the event on facebook here

A Board Game Subscription Box - Game Night Gear

Game Night Gear is a monthly subscription based board/card game business based out of St.Louis. You can choose to receive games every month, every other month, or every three months. These are games to keep, not to borrow and then return. Right now it is $30 a month, but eventually they have plans on rolling out a smaller mini version and a larger deluxe version.

How did this business come to exist? A lot of it has to do with the fact that Game Night Gear just loves board and card games. Years later they found out that board games have changed. It's not just Monopoly, clue, guess who, or yahtzee.

The problem has been where to get these games and then also what games to get? The big box stores are now starting to carry a few newer games, but not many. Once you find them, what do you get? That's where Game Night Gear comes in. No more shopping, no more staring at games not knowing what to get. Game Night Gear will do it all for you. We hand select games that we play, test, like, and think you will enjoy. Part of the mystery is you have no idea what you are going to get from month to month. Getting your friends together and unboxing that mystery then playing it together is what really excites Game Night Gear.

If you like what Game Night Gear is doing or are interested you can find them on twitter and instagram @gamenightgear , facebook at game night gear, and of course gamenightgear.com

Incredible Expeditions: Atlantis Board Game Reviews

Incredible Expeditions: Atlantis is a steampunk exploration game designed by Liz Spain that has players assembling a crew of steampunk heroes, ne’er do wells, and pets to go on an airship adventure to discover the fabled lost city of Atlantis.

The game is very fun and does a great job of bringing you into a fantastical steampunk universe where you and your strange companions will use heroic deeds, skullduggerous acts, wonderful contraptions and curses to bring you victory in a richly detailed landscape. You feel like you are in an Around The World in 80 days scenario where you are in an intense rivalry with well matched adversaries to discover bizarre, wonderful, and horrific far off lands.

A nice look at all the goodies included in the box.

The gameplay consists of players starting off as Steampunk Airship Captains each with their own unique abilities, personalities, and airships in a bustling port city trying to assemble a crew for the journey ahead. There are all manner of folk looking to get hired for this expedition. Some of the potential crewmembers include Captains both Surly and Stalwart, Assassins, Scientists, Doctors, Clanking Automatons, as well as dogs and cats. You can also hire Saboteurs and Stowaways onto your competitors ships to take up valuable crew space as dead weight.

A look at the amazing variety of crew members you can hire for your journey

Also you will need to procure special resources for your trip. Strange Tinctures that can refresh your crew, relics that can bring you luck when you most need it, and curses that can plague your enemies are all for sale as you make your expedition.

When you are done with your preparations the real meat of the game begins. Each player must journey to two of four random and hidden destinations that lie between their objective of reaching Atlantis. These include obviously dangerous locales such as The Volcano of the Angry Goddess or The Cliffs of Madness or you could wind up in someplace that seems kind of nice but hides a terrible darkness under the surface like the City of Dreams or the Waters of Temptation.

Two of the many exotic locales you can visit in Incredible Expeditions

At each of these locations you will have to complete a set of difficult encounters using the skills of your crew and various resources that you acquire through the game. These encounters can consist of terrifying beasts attacking your crew, scary supernatural manifestations, betrayal by once loyal crew members, or bizarre crippling diseases. All of these encounters are made even more difficult by the infernal machinations of your competitors as they attempt to assassinate, curse, and sabotage your crew.

If you are able to make it through all of the dangers that stand in your way and be the first to discover Atlantis you will have a feeling of not only victory but one of accomplishment and pride. The game feels as if you are telling an epic story with each encounter and location feeling like an excerpt from a tale by Jules Verne or H.P. Lovecraft. Every trial feels personal because of the work you had to put in to hire your crew makes them all feel real and you will suffer pain when you lose any of them not only because it will hinder you in gameplay but because they all feel like they truly belong on your ship and in this crazy universe. On the other end of the spectrum you will rejoice in every minor victory you accomplish because it truly feels like a team effort between all of the working cogs (sometimes literal cogs from your automoton companion) on your ship have to come together to solve a way to defeat it.

On to the specifics of the game. Incredible Expeditions uses a lot of interesting mechanics coupled with excellent art and components to create a captivating game that can be brutal and cut throat given the type of people you choose to game with. Let’s dive into the mechanics first.

To start off, one of the most unique things about the mechanics is that it allows for the game to be played competitively, cooperatively, or solo. This is not something that I have seen very much of. My favorite version of the game by far is the competitive version. That is the version of the game that I described above. The Co op challenge is actually even more difficult, where each player will crew their ship independently but will take on challenges together. The twist is that this version of the game will introduce the peril mechanic which makes each encounter far more difficult and potentially game ending. Paired with the additional rule that you can only make use of your characters a certain amount of times and you have a very difficult mission ahead of you. The solo variant also uses the peril and limited rest mechanics but not nearly as crippling as the co op version. I have yet to beat this game on solo. It’s a beast from hell.

The main mechanics involved are a robust economic system based on money, heroism, and skullduggery. Each of these resources will be used to purchase crew members, relics, and curses that you can use on your journey. These same units of currency are used to defeat the perilous encounters that you will come across on your travels through the strange lands of Incredible Expeditions.

Deckbuilding is also a major mechanic involved in the game. Each of the items, actions, and curses that you purchase will go into a deck that you can draw from to assist you on your journey. You might have a strange relic that will bring you good fortune, an action that will allow one of your crew members to give up their lives to valiantly save the others, or a curse that will lock one of your opponents crew in a neverending nightmare. Cycling through these and weeding out the resources that don’t work so that you can use the more effective ones more often are a crucial element to the game

There is also an exhaust/refresh system in play that your crew members will use. In order to use your crewmembers abilities you must exhaust them, leaving them unable to be used until they take a turn to refresh. This will leave you to make some hard decisions when you are in a dead heat with your competitors and have to decide between pushing forward without the help of some key crew members or stop to rest and play it safe so you can have a stronger team for the next encounter.

Finally the take that mechanism will keep your opponents on their toes. Having a few curses to sling at your rivals will keep them second guessing whether they should risk pulling ahead of you when you might be able to take out a crew member or make their next encounter more difficult to defeat. If you have ever played Munchkin and had every player at the table throw a wandering monster at you just as you’re about to win the game you will be very familiar with this feeling of intense rivalry.

The artwork of this game is stunning. Honestly the thing that first piqued my interest in this game was the detail and splendor that was put into their booth at Gen Con 2014. Then after being drawn in by the charming booth and friendly staff the brief demo of the game showing off all of its artwork and components was all I needed to preorder a copy of this game. 

The eye catching booth at Gen Con 2014. The amount of passion shown by the team at Voodoo Bunny Games for their product is unrivaled by any other company.

I love the photography that combines finely detailed steampunk cosplay with rich beautiful illustrations of exotic locales, creepy monsters and strange relics. Liz Spain’s work as a graphic designer and steampunk expert really came through in the visual design of this game. The look of this is incredibly unique and unlike any other board game universe I have played in. 

The resin components of this game are also incredible. Each captain comes with a different ship that fits their personality and story perfectly. All five ships are very unique in their design and add to the enveloping theme of the game. The material they are made of is a soft, slightly malleable resin that feels nice in your hand and provides a good weight.

In the retail version that released in early February 2015 there is also a special dice. I did not receive this dice since I ordered a prerelease version of this game but from the looks of it I kind of it I wish I had waited for the store release. From what I understand part of the delay for this game was from having to redo this dice so that it could be made of a harder material that rolls better. After seeing this dice I will probably be replacing the plain white d6 that came in my set with a much classier version similar to this. I’m a sucker for a cohesive theme I guess.

The only downfall to this game is pacing. It does feel like it takes a while for the game to get started, especially when playing with more than 2 players. Every game play I have had of this game is spent buying crew and resources in the port city at the start of the game which can be time consuming as you wait for what seems to be forever as people agonize over which cards they will purchase that turn. This part of the game went on for at least 7 rounds for us since the people that I play with are very cautious and like to mitigate any possible bad turn of luck that can eventually come up by having a full crew and all the resources they need before leaving. So be prepared to spend an hour of game time just shopping.

There are a few ways to speed up this process:

The first way is to allow for each player to shop simultaneously rather than one at a time. Just give each player that is taking a rest action the six cards that they can choose from in turn order while other players are purchasing others can spend that time deciding what they will buy, Time spent shopping can be cut in half by this method.

The Second Method is to only allow players to spend a certain amount of turns in the port city before they have to ship out. You can make this fit with the theme by making the cut off round a grand starting ceremony that everyone in the city has gathered for. You can penalize players for not leaving in time by removing a random card from their deck to symbolize investors losing confidence in their expedition.

The Final method and perhaps the most challenging one would be to split up the crew and resource decks to different locations. That way there are only a few things that can be purchased at each location. This will encourage players to explore and take risks in order to gain new crew and resources.

I would strongly suggest this game especially if you only plan to play with 2 players. The game, though still very good, tends to lag with 3-4 and is frustrating with 5. If you enjoy exploration/adventure games like Firefly or Xia or if you are looking for a game with a perfect steampunk theme I think that Incredible Expeditions: Atlantis is an excellent choice. It offers a wide variety of gameplay options depending on whether you like competitive or co op games. There is a ton of replayability due to the wide variety of crewmembers, captains, and locations as well as some very interesting expansions like Lovecraft and Arabian nights to add on later. The game also does the steampunk theme to perfection and will give you a completely immersive experience.

By Levi Bushue

Between Two Cities - Kiskstarter

Greetings gamers! I just wanted to take the opportunity to spotlight two games from some terrific local board game companies, here in the city of St. Louis that are running some very interesting kickstarter campaigns right now.

The first game that I would like to mention is a game from Stonemaier games called Between Two Cities. You may remember this from a preview that I posted in board game news but to refresh you, Between Two Cities is a semi cooperative tile laying and drafting game that will challenge players to construct the best cities they can by cooperating with the players on their immediate right and left. The twist is that a player can only score as high as their lowest scoring city so players will want to do well but make sure their competitors aren’t doing too well to win the game.

An example of a section of a city featuring homes, parks, offices, taverns and factories.

I’m mentioning this game again because I am truly thrilled by the ingenuity of it. Many tile laying games often feel like solitaire games being played in a group without any real interaction. This game will encourage you to work with or sabotage your neighbor to build strategically while keeping an eye on what all of your opponents are doing. I haven’t seen a game where a player is so dependant on others but also must be so wary of their motives at the same time. It looks like it will not only be challenging but also very satisfying given that it provides a ton of interesting gameplay in a short time frame.

The game does have some cool wooden meeples featuring various global landmarks. I love having different tiny pieces of wood to mix and match in other games. This one features a tiny version of the Gateway Arch, the symbol of my city, which excites me because I don’t feel that St Louis gets a lot of positive notoriety in different types of media, especially games. The other miniatures included in the base set are also very neat and feature the Roman Colosseum, Eiffel Tower, and Sydney Harbour Bridge among others. They are also offering a deluxe version of the game that will include many other monuments.

A preview of some of the cool monument’s that will be included in the game as player score markers.

Another thing that has me really pumped about this game is the way it will scale for multiple players. I have a weekly game group that can sometimes suffer from agonizingly slow turns due to some over analytical players (Mostly from me, apologies) This game will have all players drafting and playing at the same time which will vastly cut down on playing time. Play tests with inexperienced gamers playing without a designer or teacher other than the rulebook have clocked average playtime between 25-30 minutes. This is absolutely perfect for so many game groups that want to get in a quick game that has some very meaty strategy elements and not feel like they have to devote an entire evening to one game. Often times I feel lucky if I can get two games played in a night and if this game goes over well, like I think it might, I might be able to squeeze three in.

The price point on this kickstarter is also very fair. For $30 you can get the base game (With shipping within the US included!) This a great deal for how much custom material you are getting. The tiles and meeples all look fantastic!

Between Two Cities kickstarter will end on Monday, March 16th so I encourage you to jump on board quickly. As of writing this the project has already eclipsed it’s goal of $20,000 and is sitting on a nice chunk of change at nearly $160,000 and is starting to unveil some very enticing stretch goals such as variable art on all of the tiles and a single player variant.

Stonemaier games has built a strong reputation within the gaming community and is well known for delivering projects quickly, often within a few months of funding without sacrificing quality. I can’t recommend these guys enough.

I would like to add, as a caveat, that I, and Livingthenerdlife.com are in no way associated with Stonemaier games. We have not received nor asked for any advertising money or promotional items for any of the above comments. (Though if Mr. Stegmaier would ever like to offer some review copies of upcoming games I would greatly appreciate them. :) I am simply a huge fan of board gaming and the board gaming community and I genuinely believe that this is worthy project to get behind.

Thank you very much for reading. Keep checking Livingthenerdlife.com where I will be posting a follow up to this article showcasing Bottom of the Ninth by another St Louis board game company, Dice Hate Me Games.

Kickstart this gamer here 

How To Serve Man

The fires are lit, the silverware is polished, and the humans have been harvested...it's time for everyone's favorite Cosmic Cooking Show,HOW TO SERVE MAN!

Step into the shoes of an intergalactic Chef competing against other Chefs in a knock down, no-holds-barred Cooking competition! The featured ingredient for this contest… Human Beings!

Impress the Celebrity Judges with your culinary prowess while making sure your ingredients don’t run away. Do you have what it takes to beat out your friends to become the champion of Space Kitchen Arena?

In this light worker placement game, you will gather resources, cook them up, and combine them to create Dishes to present to the Celebrity Judge panel. Impress the judges and you will earn bonus points for future Dishes, and those judges will help shape your overall cooking strategy.

The Chef that earns the most points, while dealing with the inevitable hazards of outer space, wins!

What's in the box?

About Gateway Games

Gateway Games is comprised of 4 lifelong game enthusiasts throwing our hat into the ring years after we probably should have. Two of our number work in the hobby industry already, giving us a bit of insight that we hope will help your confidence in our ability to deliver you a quality product in a timely fashion. All we need is your support (and American Dollars) to make this happen.

Check out there facebook page here.

Board Game News 3.5.15

Tail Feathers

Plaid Hat games finally released previews of their closely guarded secret, “Project TF” at the NY Toy Fair. The game will be set in the company’s popular Mice & Mystics universe featuring anthropomorphic Mice and Rats battling in the skies on winged mounts. Jerry Hawthorn, a designer for Plaid Hat games has been mentioning his playtesting for project TF for months on the Plaid Hat Podcast and it is wonderful to finally see some information coming out. The game will be a head to head skirmish game with a possibility for some crossover with the Mice and Mystics fantasy adventure game. Below are some images of the miniatures that will be included in the game.

Chew The Card Game

IDW announced a card game based on the graphic novel “Chew” by Rob Guillory to be released this May. The game will allow players to use different characters with special food related powers and cyborg animals to solve cases for the FDA. Chew is one of my favorite comics and I am very excited to play a game based on the franchise.

Repos Production leaked the above image for their expansion to Cash n’ Gun$. The Cop expansion will add 2 new guns to the game, a revolver and a deringer. A new character will also be introduced, the cop, whose job will be to send an alert the rest of the police before the criminals discover him.

Tabletop Day 2015

April 11th will mark Geek and Sundry’s 3rd annual table top day. To celebrate they will be offering promotional material from a wide variety of game publishers. They are offering a regular promo kit that carries $250 worth of merchandise and a premium kit values over $600.

The regular kit contains

1 custom Geek & Sundry card deck

1 Reverse Charades Geek & Sundry edition

1 Dead Man's Draw TableTop Day edition

2 Dead of Winter Felicia Day Survivor Promo packs

1 Evolution Promo Coaster Pack

1 Boot Hill Extra Character Promo Sheet

3 Castle Panic TableTop Day Towers

20 Munchkin TableTop bookmarks

14 Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day Fluxx Promo Packs

1 Three Cheers for Master TableTop Promo Card

8 X-Wing Promo Cards

4 Sheriff of Nottingham TableTop Trophy of Awesome Promo Cards

2 Cash n Guns Blackmailer Cards

2 Dixit Card Packs, 4 Terror in Meeple City Space Cowboy Shuttles

1 Roll For It! Owlbear Promo Card

1 Batman Love Letter

2 Geek Out! TableTop Edition Promo Packs

4 Killer Bunnies Promo Card Packs

1 Zombie Romeo & Zombie Juliet Promo Cards

1 Where Art Thou Romeo?

1 Krosmaster Promo Figure

1 Custom International TableTop Day 2015 Poster

While the premium kit will contain:

1 Reverse Charades Geek & Sundry edition

1 Dead Man's Draw TableTop Day edition

1 Dead of Winter TableTop Day edition

2 Dead of Winter Felicia Day Survivor Promo Pack,

1 BioShock Infinite The Siege of Columbia

1 Clubs

1 Evolution Promo Coaster Pack

1 Boot Hill Extra Character Promo Sheet

3 Castle Panic TableTop Day Towers

20 Munchkin TableTop bookmarks

1 Munchkin Premium Hoodie

1 Fluxx 5.0

14 Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day Fluxx Promo Packs

1 Three Cheers for Master TableTop Promo Pack

8 X-Wing Promo Cards

4 Sheriff of Nottingham TableTop Trophy of Awesome Promo Cards

2 Cash n Guns Blackmailer Cards

2 Dixit Card Packs

4 Terror in Meeple City Space Cowboy Shuttles

4 7 Wonders Wil Wheaton Cards

6 Roll For It! Owlbear Promo Cards

1 Batman Love Letter

1 Dark Seas

2 Geek Out! TableTop Edition Promo Packs

1 Geek Out! Alternate Cover

4 Killer Bunnies Promo Card Packs

1 Zombie Romeo & Zombie Juliet Promo Cards

1 Where Art Thou Romeo?

1 Council of Verona Collector's Edition

1 Krosmaster Jr.

1 Krosmaster Promo Figure

1 TableTop Collector's Coin Pack

1 Custom International TableTop Day 2015 Poster

Catan The Movie

Gail Katz, notable producer of Air Force One, recently purchased the TV and Movie rights to popular board game, Catan. I’m not entirely sure how a story will be made from the game but if it doesn’t involve Harrison Ford screaming at a robber to “GET OFF MY GRAIN!” I’m not that interested.

Above and Below - Kickstarter

Red Raven games started a kickstarter for their new game, Above and Below. The game will have players building cities and exploring a cavern system with their workers. Based on which workers are exploring the labyrinthian depths different stories will develop guiding interesting choices to be made by the players that will affect the course of the game. The kickstarter has two pledge levels for $42 you get can get the base game and $50 will get you the game plus all stretch goals. There’s a reason there is only one backer at the $42 level and FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT at the $50 level. It’s a far better deal for just eight bucks.

Hitman Holiday Ending March 12th - Kickstarter

In other kickstarter news, Hitman Holiday will be ending it’s campaign on March 12th. The game is a deductive logic game where each player will be given a secret target to kill before that target can figure out who is out to murder them. Lots of reviewers have been giving Hitman Holiday very positive reviews despite mediocre artwork (no one on this box looks like they’re from the same game) and muddled looking miniatures (see below). The game is very close to reaching its target goal of $18,000 so if you want a chance to straight up murder your friends in a fancy paradise hotel the time to get on board with this project is now.

Board Game News 2.17.15

GHOSTBSUTER The Board Game - Kickstarter

Cryptozoic opened the floodgates of funding on it’s kickstarter for Ghostbusters: the board game last week to flurry of backers.

There is not a whole lot of information concerning actual gameplay at the moment except that it will be a 1-4 player co-op with varying tile placement and varying difficulty depending on which enemy your team of paranormal scientists will be facing. The game seems to have a basic roleplaying stat based combat mechanic along with some roll and move aspects to get to different spots on the board being plagued by ghosts.

I was a little hesitant to back this project myself given the pretty high price tag, $80 for the base game and $125 for a “deluxe” set including exclusive minis and glow in the dark dice. Also Cryptozoic has a pretty spotty track record with board game duds featuring the Walking Dead, Hobbit, and Big Bang Theory properties. However their Adventure Time: Card Wars, Archer, and DC Deckbuilding properties have proved that this company is capable of making some decent games once in a while. Something I’m hoping to see with their entry into the Ghostbusters franchise, one of my most beloved fandoms.

The thing that put me over the edge and convinced me to jump in on this project was the amazing kickstarter exclusive stretch goals. The original game only offered up a few recognizable enemies but now that they are including a miniature of the ecto-1 instead of the proposed cardboard piece as well as some Zuul, Vinz, Gozer, and Jeanine Melnitz minis I am far more interested in the $80 base game. The $125 version only offers up a few different bosses, a sandman and a “Super Sized” 100mm Stay Puft Marshmallow man (Which I would just use my pop vinyl stay puft and design my own rules around anyways), an art print, glowing dice, and a few extra game tiles. Not quite worth the extra moolah in my opinion.

Another interesting thing that builds value is ALL OF THE STUFF that comes with this game. Despite the possibility for some pretty uninspiring mechanics this game has a lot of great miniatures and artwork.

If you are a big fan of the Ghostbusters I strongly suggest checking this kickstarted out HERE.

Floating Market - Kickstarter

Floating Market is another interesting game looking to get some dollars on kickstarter. The premise is based around the players acting as kids trying to get enough fruit from a Taiwanese floating market to make a yummy fruit salad. They do this by placing their miniatures at different boats and rolling a set of dice to see which boat produces the fruit they want. The first player to get all the fruit they need wins the game.

The worker placement mechanic combined with a settlers of catan style resource production mechanic seems like it will make a pretty fun lightweight strategy game. The artwork and components seem to be of good quality and the production company has a good history of putting out quality games. The $29 dollar price tag is a great deal on this game especially since it will undoubtedly be a $50 MSRP when it releases to the public.

Shield Wolf Miniatures

Shield Wolf Miniatures in Greece is producing some pretty nice 28mm fantasy miniatures for it’s “War is Coming” game. The funding on this project is a bit more unorthodox than others since instead of a “pledge x get product x” system Shield Wolf is offering different “Coin Purses” based on each pledge level. The Coins, in turn, can be redeemed for different miniatures in their line, adding a whole extra step to the kickstarter process.

The upside on this project is that the miniatures look extremely well detailed and the project is already pretty well funded. Also Shield Wolf is offering a 100% money back refund if you are not satisfied with their product, a sign that they are supremely confident in their work.

The downside is that very few of the actual miniatures are shown on the site. Most images seen are only 3d computer models which can vary greatly from the actual product. Also this is a young company without any mass production experience. These kinds of companies with grand plans and not much solid product to show off oftentimes can be skeptical investments and y’know the whole investing in anything from Greece can be seen as little risky too at this moment.

If you’re feeling like taking a chance on a young company with big dreams this seems like it will be a pretty decent product especially if it means you can get your hands on this mammoth.

Magic: The Gathering board game

Wizard of the Coast released the box art for their new Magic: the Gathering board game featuring miniatures of their most popular planeswalkers. The initial impressions that I’m getting from this is that we are going to see a lot of the same slap dash paint jobs, googly eyes, and droopy staffs that we see from their heroclix lines. Low budget miniatures aside it seems that this game will be borrowing heavily from the heroscape game system featuring highly customizable armies and terrain which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Legendary Encounters: Predator Expansion

Upper Deck announced the follow up Predator expansion to it’s Legendary Encounter franchise. The only information available at this moment is that it is slated for release in July. If this game is anywhere near as good as the Alien Legendary Encounters it will be an instabuy for me.

Lord of the Rings Card Game: The Lost Realm Expansion

Fantasy Flight issued a preview of it’s newest expansion to the Lord of the Rings LCG, The Lost Realm. This expansion will feature the Dunedain of the north. Most of the gameplay mechanics will involve reducing the threat of enemies in the staging area, a mechanic that is sorely needed in the game.

The Settlers of Catan

Mayfair Games announced that they are officially shortening the name of their flagship game “The Settlers of Catan” down to simply “Catan” which is what most gamers have been calling it anyways. Along with the shorter moniker Mayfair will also be releasing an updated 5th edition featuring a more in depth rulebook which will also be the standard for all tournament play. The new 5th edition will also feature new artwork and will be compatible with all 4th edition versions of the game.

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As always, thank you very much for checking out the latest board game news here at livingthenerdlife.com!

-Levi Bushue

XCOM: The Board Game Review

Fantasy Flight Games has finally released it’s long awaited revolutionary board game, XCOM: The board game. One of the first board games to take advantage of an app as a game mechanic. But is this new development a boon or a bane to the tabletop industry? Is the game actually any good? Read on my nerd lifers, I’ll give you the details in my review of XCOM: The Board Game.

The object of XCOM is for you and up to three other team mates to take on the role of different department heads of the extraterrestrial combat team, XCOM. By fulfilling your departments duties you will, hopefully, probably not, good luck, stop the invasion of a menacing alien race looking to conquer our lovely little planet. Why are aliens attacking Earth? Don’t know, really. But we’ve got guns, satellites, science, and a little bit of rapidly depleting pocket change and we’re gonna blow em up!

The different roles that each player takes on will determine how they will aid in the combat against the aliens.

This is the app that will control your game and your sanity. You may want to get damage protection because the urge to throw this thing across the room will happen. A lot.

The Central Officer controls the app which in turn controls the game. Most of the time this player will be shouting at all of the other players to do their jobs faster before the timer runs out and game penalties get applied.

While doing this the officer will also be tasked with putting more UFO’s into the various countries and managing a small minigame where you place satellites into orbit that can destroy other UFOs in orbit that can possibly jam up the way the app works, thus making the game infinitely more insane, or move UFO’s to other places on the map in an attempt to stall the rising chaos caused by people shouting “Oh my God, there’s an alien spacecraft hovering above my city!” Basically just think of the game as the first 30 minutes of the film “Independance Day.”

This is probably one of the worst jobs of the game however it is also the most important. The management of the app is crucial to how the game works and good management, explanations, and encouragement from a Central officer can make or break a team.

This is your crack squad of soldiers that will protect your base and go on missions to defeat the aliens. Don’t bother naming them. They tend to die at the most inopportune times. So maybe name them after your enemies...

The Squad Leader is quite possibly the most heroic of all the playable roles. This player gets to send elite strike forces that fight the alien menace with guns and rocket launchers. Throughout the game the app will be sending aliens to attack the XCOM base of operations. The defense of this base is extremely important since if the base blows up, you blow up, and you can’t save the world from aliens if you’re all blowed up.

The Squad leader will have to find the right match of people to fight the different types of aliens by matching the symbols representing their units strengths against the aliens unique weaknesses. If an attacker can’t harm the aliens by not having the proper symbol things are going to go very badly.

The squad leader will also send these troopers on a variety of missions. Each mission consists of three tasks that must be completed to gain much needed bonuses for the rest of the team. The completion of these missions also speeds along the occurance of the “FINAL MISSION” that you must complete to drive the final spear into the heart of your extraterrestrial foes. The longer you dally on completing these missions means that your teammates will have a much more stressful time stopping the invasion inevitably making your job more difficult. This mechanic adds a huge sense of urgency to the game on top of the time limit stress already imposed by the app. Hope you work well under pressure soldier.

Ahh private sector science, just kick back buddy, no one expects much from you.

The Head Scientist role works a whole heck of a lot like a real scientist role does. You offer valuable inventions that benefit all of mankind but no one really appreciates you and your government doesn’t want to spend very much money on you, or even pretend you exist. Sigh…

As Head Scientist it is your job to create new inventions by reverse engineering the corpses of aliens that the Squad Leader hopefully brings to you by the dripping bag full. These inventions will give amazing game breaking bonuses to your allies and help them all do their jobs waaaay more efficiently. The problem is that you need scientists to research these technologies, and scientists cost money, money that buys soldiers and jets and satellites that blow up aliens. So often times science gets a little bit neglected when all you want to do is save humanity.

Scramble the jets commander! It’s time to vent your frustration with your teammates!

Finally the Commander role ties all of the team members together. It is this players job to keep the XCOM budget balanced by paying for all of the soldiers, scientists, satellites, and fighter jets. This. Is. Maddening. The app gives you a small pittance each turn to spend on all of the support units you require to keep your team ahead in the game. Each turn you will have to explain to your team why they can’t have a team of 9 scientists working on alien technology AND a full battalion of soldiers to attack the aliens that are beating down the door. These decisions also need to be made in an incredibly short amount of time.

The game designers anticipated the stress involved with this job so they threw in an extra job which involved control of the fighter jets that can kill all of the invading flying saucers. Which is a pretty good way to vent your frustrations concerning the budget. This however is another huge job because any saucers left over after combat will cause the public in countries containing saucers to go crazy and increase the panic level. If two countries reach maximum panic the game ends and the aliens take advantage of the destabilization of the human race and take over. No pressure.

The gameplay revolves almost exclusively around a push your luck mechanic involving dice. Each combat, mission attempt, or attempt at scientific progress requires the players to roll two sets of dice. The first set consists of the blue d6’s which determine the amount of success you can have. The second is a red d8 that you will learn to hate with a fiery passion. Each time you roll the red dice you run the chance of all of your units involved in that roll being destroyed. With each consecutive roll you make the difficulty to continue increases. For instance on your first roll you need to roll greater than a one on the d8 on the second you must roll greater than a two and so on. This results in a lot of units being destroyed by a simple stroke of luck, often times at the most inopportune moments.

The miniatures look an awful lot like the miniatures from Star Wars Imperial Assault…

aaaand the figures from Gears of War…

The components are of a good quality. The plastic miniatures that come with the game will feel very similar to other fantasy flight miniatures. Actually everything about this game feels like fantasy flight and offers a cohesive feeling of brand familiarity. The small crisis cards, large tarot size cards and cardboard game pieces are exactly like the small cards and cardboard pieces are very reminiscent of those found in Xwing, Elder Sign, Red November, etc. Though the quality is fine and I understand the financial reasons it does give the feeling that Fantasy Flight is sacrificing creativity for cost in the component department.

The most frustrating thing about the components included is the complete lack of a rulebook. A small setup guide is included in the box but everything else is based on the app which does a very poor job of introducing rules in a clear order. Doing the tutorial mission is time consuming and leaves out a lot of particulars. For instance I had no clue what to do with the special ability cards that were given to each different role, which caused me to get completely destroyed in the most basic version of the game.

Also only get this game if you intend to play with 4 players. Anything less causes way too much confusion and chaos and playing single player is impossible since the timer moves way too fast for someone to run across the table back and forth to keep track of everything.

The game itself is fairly interesting given the use of the application. Having every event  be a complete surprise without the use of books, cards or other charts really streamlines the gameplay and is a welcome feature that I would like to see used in other games. Seeing this feature used in a game like Arkham Horror or Mice and Mystics would cut down on so much time spent organizing cards and eliminate a ton of wasted box space. The timer function really isn’t anything new to games but it does seem to help the game by creating a lot of tension in a game that otherwise would basically be a pretty formulaic dice roller.

Though this game is receiving a lot of buzz due to the use of applications and exhibiting the potential they have in the tabletop hobby, the game itself does not seem like it will have a lot of staying power. The theme isn’t incredibly heavy and many aspects of the game seem to be pretty generic and pasted on from the XCOM video games without the soul of its parent series shining through. The use of the app, though handy for organizational purposes doesn’t bring anything truly new to the gameplay either. XCOM will most likely be remembered for paving the way for using applications in board games but will not be seen as a standard for what can be done with the medium. I look forward to playing the new games that are following suit and driving this trend like Alchemists by Matus Kotry which will use an app to take a picture of an assembled amount of ingredients to discover recipes for magic potions.

A look at the upcoming Alchemists game that dares to take a more innovative approach with applications in board games.

I did like playing this game and would suggest playing it if you enjoy team puzzle games akin to Pandemic or if you want a chance to try something a little unique in the multiplayer co op department. Purchasing this game however is a tougher call to make. I’ll admit that I got a little swept up in the hype surrounding this game and my love of the XCOM video game and the very similar megagame “Watch the Skies” got me excited for what this game could be, but the hype just didn’t deliver.

Posted by: Levi @levithepirate

Board Game News!

The world of table top gaming had another big week. Announcements for some anticipated new releases were dropped. One of the most influential games in recent history is getting a reprint. Wiz Kids announces a big change to their organized play structure for D&D Attack Wing, and some exciting new Kickstarters hit the ground running.

Hans Im Gluck announced a rethemed Star Wars version of Carcassonne to be released in the Fall of 2015! Carcassonne is one of my favorite games and introduced me to the world of board gaming. The addition of a theme starring my favorite film franchise is very exciting, however I’m not entirely sure how it will work out. The above image is a prototype version of the game showing what appears to be some type of hyperdrive lane to replace the road system and some planets to replace the cities. I’m not sure what this will do to the city building and farming mechanic of the game or what the Imperial and Rebel Alliance logos will have to do with the gameplay but I am very excited to find out and will definitely be keeping my eye on this project.

Speaking of Star Wars, Fantasy Flight Games released an in depth look at the Rebel Alliance faction from their upcomming Star Wars Armada miniatures game. The game looks to build on the foundation of their massively popular Xwing miniatures franchise by introducing much more large scale combat featuring capital ships and squadrons of fighters in favor of the dog fight skirmishes that are featured in Xwing.

The ships featured are the Correllian Corvette, the Nebulon B Frigate,and the Assault Frigate MKII. For more info on these ships visit the announcement page here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5348

Wiz Kids announced a change to the organized play structure of their D&D Attack Wing miniatures game. Originally the company had each player bring a prebuilt 120 point value faction to the event. New rules now require the players to bring a prebuilt 90 point faction that will be supplemented by one of fiver blind box miniatures to be provided at the event.

Wiz kids offered a preview of three of these new miniatures along with the announcement featuring a fighter, druid and a ranger.

This new announcement is going to add a good deal of randomness to organized play events and will not only give a bit more balance in favor of gamers with less impressive factions but will also be a good source of sales for the stores hosting the events.

Stonemaier games released new artwork for my most anticipated game of 2015, Scythe! Scythe is a asymetrical miniature wargame combined with a worker placement economic game. The setting is in an alternate 1920s WWI scenario where players will have to harvest resources on a game map and construct different mechanized walking machines of war to defeat their enemies and defend their territory. The game features absolutely stunning art by artist Jakub Roalski who inserts giant terrifying mechs into scenes from the era. More artwork for this game can be found here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/fact-vs-fiction/jakub-rozalski-killer-robot-paintings?click=pm_news#slide-1

El Grande, the game that introduced most of the world to the concept of the worker placement game is getting a much much deserved reprint. This big box reprint does not only give you a much upgraded version of the game featuring meeples instead of giant cubes and a nicer tower but you also get every expansion ever made for it.

The game communities excitement around this release is palpable and I am very excited for new information about a release date and price to come out in the future.

In Kickstarter news Stonemaier games announced that they will be launching their partner driven city building game, Between Two Cities, on February 25th. The game features an interesting mechanic where one player will have to build two cities collaboratively with the player on their right and left in an attempt to build the most impressive city in the world.

I am very intrigued by the mechanics of this game which will include a bit of co-op play, drafting, and tile laying. The artwork looks like a really appealing mishmash between Suburbia and Machi Koro and the miniature meeples featuring The St. Louis Arch, Taj Mahal, The Roman Coliseum, The statue of Christ the Redeemer, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Harbor Bridge, and the Great Pyramids all look really fun to play with.

Reportedly both standard and Deluxe versions of the game will be available at less than $40 pledge tiers which seems like a decent value for the game.

Slaughterville is a cooperative survival horror game featuring a group of college students exploring the haunted town of Slaughterville.

Each player will take on the role of a college student archetype such as the nerdy one, the angry guy, the goth girl, etc. They will be investigating the town of Slaughterville which is being haunted by a random horror movie monster like vampires or bodysnatchers. Throughout the game players will be finding powerups and different survivors to help them combat the different spooky events that will be randomly occurring throughout the game until finally they get strong enough to take on the big bad monster.

The artwork and style of the game is fairly reminiscent of Flying Frog’s a touch of evil. I like the combination of photography and illustration. It gives off a sense of realness to the terror that is going on in the game and seems like it will help bring the character further into the world.

The text on the cards looks a little small and wordy but it does look like it’s trying to add a lot of theme to the game and is adding some story elements to give a more immersive experience. Small text is never good for playing in dimly lit rooms which this game is pretty much meant to be played in.

The downside is that the game is currently hovering at about $2,000 of its $15,000 goal and has some pretty unimpressive stretch goals. The price point of $55 is fair for a game of this type and quality and I think that having a $10 print n’ play option is a nice touch so that you will at least get a playable version of the game at the end of the campaign.

The designer seems like a first timer and doesn’t seem to have a lot of game design credentials. Some rookie mistakes do seem to be getting made on this campaign by having some plain video work to describe his goals and game, small card text, and undervalued stretch goals. But the game itself does look solid and seems like a lot of fun.

Look for yourself at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2138513287/slaughterville-a-game-of-fun-and-horror

Finally, on kickstarter are these giant 40 sided spindown dice for use primarily with magic the gathering. I’m not really sure why Magic players prefer using dice to keep track of their life instead of pen and a piece of paper but these dice look like they would be very useful for the EDH and Two Headed Giant formats that require multiple dice to keep track of life.

The $20 price tag seems a bit costly, but then again just about everything is with Magic. If you are looking for a cool way to keep track of your life points and have a good conversation piece for your game then go fund this project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxstats/40-sided-spindown-dice-life-counters/

 Thank you for checking out Board Game News here at Living the Nerd Life. Keep checking back for more great reviews and news on your favorite geeky hobbies!

 -Levi Bushue

Castles of Mad King Ludwig: REVIEW

Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a fun, moderate difficulty tile placement game for 1-4 players with the objective to build the best castle according to the whims of the Mad King Ludwig.

Players will do this by purchasing different room tiles with a varied amount of points and stipulations regarding what other rooms they can be placed next to. Sleeping rooms don’t like to be next to rooms where loud work is going on, living rooms like to be near majestic views of the estate, etc. At the end of the game the player that has placed the room tiles in the most efficient manner of a variety that the King prefers and thus gains the most points is the victor and Master Builder of Bavaria.

An example of the many different room sizes and types in the game

There are a few interesting mechanics at work in this game. The tile laying aspect that goes into your room placement is reminiscent of games like Carcassone where tile placement is very important to maximize the amount of points you will receive. Placing rooms next to beneficial rooms, for instance, a dining room next to a kitchen will gain you extra points. Whereas placing rooms in a poor layout, like having a bowling alley next to a bedroom will yield negative points. The locations of your doorways also play a pivotal role in room placement since there are incredible bonuses for having each doorway match up with another providing good flow through the castle. This mechanic works great for rewarding strategic thought and creative planning.

The beginning of a castle featuring a grand tapestry chamber with a small piano room, dressing room and a quaint little pond for sporting.

The same castle later in the game with many additions including a lovely hallway to nowhere.

The second major mechanic utilizes an auction type system for gaining new rooms. Each turn a player will take on the role of “Master Builder,” whose job is to assign values to the new rooms that become available each turn. This adds another deeper level of strategy since the Master Builder gets paid based on what people spend on these rooms. This provides a dilemma to the builder to decide how much to charge other players for rooms that they want so that they will pay the maximum value and earn the builder more money, while also valuing the rooms the builder wants to purchase low enough to be a good deal without other players scooping it up.

The magnificent master builder token lets all the other builders in the land know who to pay their fealty to.

Finally there are many ways to earn bonus points in this game. Kings favor tokens are random room types (i.e. living rooms, work rooms, gardens, and kitchens), room sizes (large, circular, small), or myriad other whims that the King publicly desires to have in his castle. The player that fills the largest amount of these requirements can earn a sizeable amount of points. Also bonus cards work the same way but are used as secret personal goals to build certain rooms for additional points.

The components in this game are on good thick cardboard that doesn’t have a lot of bend, which is good because players will be picking them up and manipulating them a lot. The artwork is a little bland and it can be hard to see all of the fine details that make each room unique. Mostly you will be paying attention to the type of room and the requirements therein.

The game also looks pretty gray and monochrome when you first set it up which isn’t too pleasing at the start of the game. Luckily as the game goes on and players start to build their castles more and more bland gray pieces will get flipped over to create these colorful zany works of architecture that are really fun to create.

The game works extremely well with 2-4 players. I recommend playing with 4 as much as possible since you get access to the maximum amount of room tiles that way. The game balances itself by limiting the amount of room tiles by the amount of players so if you want to have the feeling of making a large elaborate castle, play with more people. It is for this reason that I did not enjoy the solitaire variant. The turn constraint along with not having a large variety of rooms to work with left me feeling more like a had built a goofy, terribly organized little cottage for a mad hermit than a majestic castle for a King driven crazy with power.

This King, for some reason, required a massive garden as large as his castle along with an audience chamber right in the middle of it all. But it’s not my place to question nobility…

I strongly suggest trying out this game. The wide variety of tiles and different objectives means you will likely never play the same game twice. The Master Builder mechanic adds a great layer of strategy that will lead you to question the motives and shrewdness of your fellow players and the bonus cards will always leave you with the feeling that your place in the lead is never quite secure, making every turn feel tense and important. If you like games like Carcassone, Suburbia (By the same designer, Ted Alspach), or Keyflower this game will satisfy your tile laying needs. It plays quickly in about an hour and is tons of fun!

Levi Bushue

Board Game News

This has been a very exciting week with plenty of new game announcements, company mergers, and opening registration for the largest gaming convention in the country. Fantasy Flight is finally releasing a game that turned a lot of heads at conventions last year. Also a company has finally stepped up to challenge Geek Chic with a more cost effective line of gamer Furniture.

Let's dig in with the latest kickstarter announcements.

First off is the triumphant jump start of Exploding Kittens featuring the art of Matthew Inman, creator of the Oatmeal webcomic. The game works by having players take turns drawing cards until eventually someone draws a kitten , explodes, and is removed from the game. Play continues until all but one player is covered in exploded cat guts.

The gameplay seems pretty simple even by filler game standards. But what truly sets it apart from other games in the goofy light card game category is the art by a very very popular cartoonist, that and the flying space shuttle full of cash it has made in just 3 days.

If you have a game group that enjoys a quick game in between larger heavier games or enjoy edgier themed games like cards against humanity this might be a good project to check out.

I'm not expecting this to be the next cards against humanity or love letter gameplay-wise but the cheap price point of $20 along with the huge following of The Oatmeal there is absolutely no way this thing is going to fall through. We will see this game coming to a lot of tables in the future.

One of the biggest hits of Essen 2014, Orleans, has a kickstarter going for a deluxe English edition so all of us here in North America can enjoy some eurogaming goodness.

Orleans combines worker placement and economic engine building mechanics in a medieval French setting using farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science to see who can become the leader of the city of Orleans.

For $57 you get a hold of one of the top eurogames of the year improved with some very nice components. Not a bad deal.

Monolith board games is currently crowdfunding a dungeon crawl adventure game based on the adventures of Robert E Howard's Conan.

This game looks like it has some incredible detail put into it. The plastic miniatures look stellar and have a lot of variety and the artwork on the terrain pieces really pops and draws you in. Every bit of this game seems made to draw you into the world of Hyboria and looks like it has a lot of great interactive stories to tell.

My only concern about this game is that it is up against some stiff competition against very good and very popular adventure story games like Imperial Assault, Descent, and Mice and Mystics.

The $90 dollar price tag is pretty comparable to other games in its class and the stretch goals this game is reaching look really cool. I'd say this might finally be the game Conan fans have been waiting for.

Finally I would like to mention Epic PVP. This game just got a huge endorsement from AEG and it makes perfect sense seeing how the gameplay borrows a lot from its Smash Up franchise.

In Epic PVP players choose a deck of cards based on different classes in DNDesque role-playing games and combine it with a deck based on a fantasy race and do battle against others with the special abilities your cards grant you.

AEG is offering a free print and play version of this game on its kickstarter page so you can try it before you commit a pledge.

Fantasy Flight Games will be releasing its tabletop / mobile gaming hybrid, XCOM later next week. The game is based off of the popular video game and will set a team of players against a sophisticated system of game mechanics controlled by an app on a mobile device. Players will have to cooperate in this game to keep aliens from infiltrating our society and conquering our planet by deploying military forces, analyzing the technology of alien invaders, managing resources, and influencing, public opinion to keep the world from plunging into mass hysteria.

I am very excited to see what the combination of mobile technology and tabletop gaming will bring to our hobby. Look forward to seeing a review of this game here at Living the Nerd Life very soon.

Furniture makers, boardgametables.com have released two tables for your gaming enjoyment. These tables feature felt lined reliefs, cup holders and drawers that rival that of Geek Chic but at nearly half the price. The tables lack many of the different wood types that their high dollar competitors offer but for $1300 compared to nearly four grand for a comparable Geek Chic table I can make an exception. Currently the company is offering a 68x43 rectangular model along with a smaller hexagonal model similar to a card table. If you've been wanting to upgrade to a fancy gaming table this may be a great deal.

Asmodee continues to gobble up game companies left and right! After last years major acquisitons of Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight the gaming conglomerate has turned it’s insatiable appetite on Pearl Games and Ystari. Pearl Games is known for publishing last years critical success, Deus and Ystari put out the incredibly immersive deduction game, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. Hopefully having these companies under the Asmodee umbrella will increase the distribution range and volume of these two difficult to acquire games!

Gen Con, the largest board game convention in the United States began open registration for attendance badges on Friday. The Convention which boasts “The Best Four Days In Gaming” runs from July 30th to August 2nd. Convention organizers believe the trend of increasing record breaking attendance will continue this year, which is terrific news for the board gaming hobby.

Keep your eye on more board gaming news, reviews and playthroughs, as well as information on all things nerd culture here at Living the Nerd Life!

Doomtown Reloaded: Review

Doomtown: Reloaded is a living card game similar in construction to Android:Netrunner and The Game of Thrones card game realeased with tons of publicity and fanfare at Gen Con 2014 by AEG, the board game company behind Love Letter and Smash Up. The game is set in an alternate wild west and is filled with all sorts of interesting characters and weird inventions. It is a ton of fun and offers strong replayability for a long, long time.

Doomtown: Reloaded has a brilliant wild west theme coupled with dark undertones of magic and steampunk technology that shines through in every aspect, a great twist that I have yet to see in any other game. The game consists of four factions each competing over the dusty frontier town of Gomorra and its supply of a new type of resource, ghost rock, which is used not only as currency but to provide a source of power for all kinds of insane twisted futuristic technology created with old west flair.

The four factions involved in the showdown for this town are the Law Dogs, Lawmen and Women that fight to maintain order and Justice by placing bounties, making arrests, and general politickin;. The Sloane Gang, a group of thieves, cheats, and no good ragamuffins hell bent on securing the town as a base of operations for their nefarious deeds.

 

Now this game would be great if the game designers stopped right here and made this a simple game of “This town aint big enough for the two of us” cops vs robbers type of game. But the next two factions take this game into some weird and interesting territory that makes Doomtown something really special.

The Morgan Cattle Company seems like your normal family of wealthy cattle ranchers, but what they cook up in their research laboratories are more horrific and amazing than any pink slime you’ve seem come out of a meat processing plant. This faction sets itself apart by recruiting mad scientists to create crazy inventions like force fields and flame throwers powered by moonshine and magic to confound and overpower their foes.

Creepiest and most terrifying of all is the last faction, The Fourth Ring, the mysterious local circus that performs crowd pleasing shows by day for the simple folk but secretly gain power by brainwashing government officials, using dark magic to destroy their enemies, or if you really get on their bad side you might find yourself kidnapped by a gang of sinister clowns to join their macabre big top show against your will. This is by far the most terrifying addition to the game. When you see a posse of creepy clowns, freak show abominations, and huckster ringleaders you are fixing for a fight where nothing is predictable.

The object of Doomtown is to get more control points than the opposing players influence. Y’see throughout the game, players will be playing different cards showing a wide variety of locations such as the local branch of the pony express, the saloon of ill repute, or the mysterious carnival on the outskirts of town. These locations will be placed on the game board in a layout representing the town of Gomorra. The more locations you take possession of by sending members of your gang to take them over in thrilling showdowns of gunfightin’ and politicalinfluence the more control you have over the town. If at sundown you control more of the town than the other player’s influence over the town you win the game. This leads to a lot of strategic planning and movement as to where you send your posse because one wrong move or push to overexpand your territory can lead to disastrous consequences.

Conflict in this game is carried out in games of five card draw that match the theme so well it feels like you’re in a saloon just when the bandits kick in the swinging doors and the player piano switches to a minor key. Each card in the game doubles as a card from a 52 card deck. The power of your posse in the gunfight dictate how many cards you can initially draw and discard. This means that a really powerful gang can potentially draw a 10 card hand with the ability to discard and redraw 6 of those cards to make the best 5 card hand possible, and since you can create your own decks of cards it’s possible to have hands that consist of 5 aces all of the same suit. Showdowns are resolved by each player showing their hand of cards and the loser taking casualties based on the hand difference between the two.

For instance if a player reveals a three of a kind to defeat another players one pair the losing player would have to send 2 members of his gang to the discard pile with the possibility of having them reshuffled into the deck for later in the game OR completely killing off one member and all copies of that card in the deck with no hope of seeing them again. Showdowns have all the intensity and stakes of a gunfight at high noon and draw you further into the immersive theme of the game. One bad luck draw of the cards can hinder you badly in this game so you best put on your poker face if you hope to do well.

The box contains a massive assortment of good quality, slightly textured cards with terrific art that carries the weird wild west theme incredibly well. Each faction’s cards are very unique and can be easily differentiated from each other while maintaining enough cohesive theme that makes everything seem like it’s a part of the same universe no matter how weird and outlandish the subject gets. It is an amazing talent for the artists and game designers to take a normal frontier lawman, put it next to an abomination from the depths of hell and somehow how make them look like they belong together.

The game also includes two optional playmats that help players learn the game and offer reminders of some the more finicky rules. This is something that I would love to see in just about every game. Doomtown is not without its fair share of confusing and sometimes seemingly contradictory rules about where, when, and why your gang of dudes can move around and get into gunfights. Having a playing area that not only helps the players but also provides a great layout that makes you feel like your characters exist in a town with real geography gives you feeling that you are building and fighting over something that is important and unique.

I do however have a few complaints about the game.

The Rulebook, though an entertaining read with lots of fun flavor text and a well organized layout, leaves out a good deal of explanation on how some specific mechanics work. For several decisions regarding the outcome of a shootout and rules regarding movement when performing jobs required me to look online for clarification. Luckily AEG has a nice FAQ and rule addendum section on their website as well as a large and helpful community on board game geek that answered every question that I had. It was just an annoyance to have to pull out my phone occasionally to look up a rule that wasn’t adequately covered in the rulebook.

I will complement the company on including a secondary rulebook that walks you through a sample game with two prebuilt decks as well as advice on building a deck for each faction (some tinkering with these decks is necessary since the Sloane Gang deck build is VASTLY unbalanced and wins a vast majority of games against the other deck builds. Some adjustments to the starting dudes fixes this though.) The walkthrough really helped me figure out the game much faster than just reading the main book would have.

Another complaint would be with the poker chip components. Included are a handful of cardboard poker chips that can be used to mark how much influence and control you have in the game as well as any other status effects your dudes or buildings may have. The quality is fine and they match the theme well but the blue chips and black chips are so close in color that it was difficult to tell if a card was providing extra control or had some sort of status effect, which is very important when developing a strategy for your turn. I plan to remedy this by using some of my own poker chips to up the thematic value of the game and prevent this confusion going forward.

Currently this game is selling for $26.79 at Miniature Markets and $27.99 on Amazon if you have free shipping through prime. Both of these are great values off of the $40 MSRP Price. The game has a lot of replay value due to the fact that it was built to have the cards and decks reshaped and improved to your liking. The game also already has 2 expansions out that add even more story, depth, and strategy to an already great game.

If you enjoy card games like Magic: The Gathering or Netrunner I strongly suggest that you give Doomtown: Reloaded a try.

 

Posted by: Levi Bushue