Hey folks, back again with some board game news. Once again, I haven’t personally played these or used any of these products. If I have, I’ll make sure to let you know. These are things I’ve found in the past week that look interesting and trying to get the word out there for others to look at as well.
This time, we’re looking at crime through the ages, viscounts, castles, a circus, robots, a D&D book, and a labyrinth. No, not the David Bowie labyrinth, but one with heroes and a minotaur.
Chronicles of Crime – The Millennium Series
Chronicles of Crime is a game by Lucky Duck Games. It’s a game that combines a board game, an app, and some virtual reality together. Ever wish you could be that CSI, NCIS, or other TV law and order type series investigating crimes? Well, this board game is a cooperative game where the players pick a case and try to solve it in the shortest time. It uses scan and play technology. You can pick this game up now. What you can’t pick up yet, is this set of stand alone expansions. In it, you’re playing the game but in different times. Yes, it’s not only an episode of Criminal Minds, it’s also an episode of Quantum Leap! The years you’ll play are 1400s, 1900s, and 2400s. While I haven’t played the base game, it’s been on my list of games to try. I find the incorporating virtual reality interesting.
Check out the Kickstarter page here. <—
Viscounts of the West Kingdom
Garphill Games has created a saga of Vikings with the North Seas games. Now players are in the Carolingian Empire for their next trilogy of games. Architects of the West Kingdom and Paladins of the West Kingdom are currently out. On Kickstarter now is Viscounts of the West Kingdom. You can go in on a pledge to get all the games in this saga. Viscounts mixes some deck building, a rondel board, and set collection. You’ll be moving your viscount around the board and increasing your influence by constructing buildings, writing manuscripts, working in the castle and acquiring deeds for new land. This is a game for 1-4 players and the Kickstarter is currently live. I like when multiple games create a shared universe. I haven’t played any of the West Kingdom games, but I’ve heard they are all good. One thing I’ve read over and over again is that the games in the series use the same iconography and it carries over to other games in the same series. This makes it easier to ump from one game to the next. Plus, this has art from The Mico, and I’m really digging his art style lately.
Check out the Kickstarter page here. <—-
The Commanding Castle
Okay, this one is for the war gamer or D&D enthusiast that likes to build the battle maps. If you have a 3D printer, even better! You can pledge for the files to print. This is a system that let’s you build that castle or keep you’ve been wanting to for your games. It’s a modular system, so you can figure out what the shape and size of the castle you want our party to raid or defend looks like and print. I’m a fan of the modular dungeon tiles, so this one looked interesting to me.
Check out the Kickstarter page here. <—-
Meeple Circus Giant
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a new game. Meeple Circus was release by Matagot games in 2017. Since then, it’s had a couple expansions. For those unfamiliar with Meeple Circus, it’s a time dexterity game based on circus acts. Players draft pieces, then everyone has a timed round to present the act, and you score based on different cards. It’s a stacking game that uses wooden pieces and meeples. This campaign is brought to us by Surfin’ Meeple Collector’s Shelf. The other project they ran on Kickstarter was a giant version of Takenoko. By giant, it’s not gigantic, but a bigger version of the game. I like that this company is taking some big games, and making them even bigger. Bigger games mean bigger prices. This is either for the die hard fans of Meeple Circus, or someone that likes to show off their games.
Check out the Kickstarter page here. <—-
Robot Fight Club
When you were younger, did you ever sneak into a closed robotics lab, shift through the old machines, cobble together robots, and start a fight club? First rule of Robot Fight Club, robots need to be programmed not to harm humans. Otherwise we’ll have a Terminator situation on our hands. James M. Hewitt and Sophie Williams are bringing this game to Kickstarter on March 10th as Needy Cat Games. This is their first self-published game. Some of the games they worked on include Hellboy: The Board Game, Blitz Bowl, and Dread Ball. Robot Fight Club is a 2 player skirmish game. The game starts out with players buying upgrades from the scrap pile. Players are building 2 robots. You get a deck of control cards for each robot. In a bout, you shuffle both these decks together. You’ll be playing these control cards to move a robot around and attack. This is at the same time as the other player. In the game there are melee attacks and ranged attacks. This one looks interesting for a couple reasons. First, I’m a fan of simultaneous selection and programming the movement and actions. Second, Robots. Who doesn’t like robots! Robot Fight Club is set to go live on March 10th.
Check out the Kickstarter page here. <—-
Mythic Odysseys of Theros
Dungeon and Dragons are getting a new Magic the Gathering inspired book. This one is set in Theros and will include features such as supernatural gifts, new races, and a couple new sub-classes. The races are Satyr and Leonin. The bard and paladin are getting an official subclass release in this book too. Release date for this is currently June 2nd 2020.
Hades Trap
Hades has defeated the other gods. Now, a group of heroes compete to try and save humanity before Hades drags mankind into the underworld. Hades Trap is a game for 2-4 players that’s played on a modular board. It’s an action point game, meaning each player uses action points to preform actions like moving, discovering new tiles, interacting with objects on the map, and using items. What’s interesting is the player boards and action points. Each player starts with 6 action points and when you put a token on your board, covering the highest action point slot, you’ll gain less and less action points to use on your turn. Oh, and did I mention that there is a minotaur that is moving around the board? When a player passes through a colored thread, the minotaur moves a direction based on that color and adds curse tokens to a players board. Hades Trap has less than a week left on Kickstarter.
Here’s the link to the Kickstarter page here. <—-
Everyone and their Grandmother Games 