Meople News: The Russian Roulette Guild

Here we are again with this week’s boardgame news. New announcement, previews, everything your gamer heart desires. But the big news for this week is already out: the Spiel des Jahres nominations. We had a closer look at them for you: Spiel, Kennerspiel and Kinderspiel des Jahres. The jury picked some great stuff, I find myself agreeing with them for a change. I hope you find something you like on the list, too!

Fantasy Flight Games

With Eldritch Horror: Signs of Carcosa Hastur will enter the game as a new Great Old One for brave investigators to face. He looks like a bit of a weakling compared to his colleagues, with only two solved mysteries needed to defeat him instead of the usual three. But don’t let that fool you. If you know your Mythos, then you know that Hastur’s domain is madness, and he’ll drive the investigators insane quickly enough that even two mysteries will be a challenge. And if not the investigators, then their allies, turning them against their former friends. Remember when having allies was good for you? Well, not so much when they set fire to your hotel room.

Lookout Spiele

The coming new edition of Agricola is not just a reprint with new art, Lookout Spiele will put a lot of new, never seen before stuff in as well. The new edition will include a number of variants for you to explore. Some of them are rule changes, for instance card drafting variants or rules to play Agricola as a partner game. Other variants add new action spaces. All of them will make you rethink your strategies. And since we are talking about Agricola already, Lookout will also release an expansion to let you play with five or six players, including new cards meant specifically for those larger games.

Tuesday Knight Games

Some games and sports are not meant to have championships, and Russian Roulette is near the top of that list. So lets all be happy that World Championship Russian Roulette is Tuesday Knight Games’s second Kickstarter game project and not an actual sporting event. WCRR is a push your luck game where all players bet on how many cards they can draw form their gun deck without getting a bullet. The more they bet, the more points they earn, but drawing a bullet eliminates one of your team members. Cheating can obviously improve the odds, but get caught and the judge shoots one of your team members. They don’t believe in warnings around here. Finally, action cards that you earn during the game can mix things up a bit more.

Tides of Madness (Image by Portal Games)
Tides of Madness (Image by Portal Games)

Portal Games

Tides of Time, a strictly two player drafting game by Portal Games, was a big success last year. It’s coming back now for a second part – not an expansion – and follows the premise that everything is better with some Great Old Ones – at least the guy on the cover looks a lot like Cthulhu. Tides of Madness does exactly what the title promises, it enhances the Tides of Time mechanics with madness. You gain madness from some cards, and if your madness goes to high you lose the game immediately. Because Cthulhu is not your friend.

Alderac

With their re-themed Guildhall series Guildhall: Fantasy Alderac wants to appeal to players who’d rather not be peddlers and bricklayers but rogues and wizards. A new preview post this week shows what you can do employing Fighters, one of the new fantasy cards. Fighters attack your opponents and remove cards from their display. You send them out to keep your enemies down, but to grow your own empire you’ll have to hire someone else. Lets see what class Alderac will present next.

Plaid Hat Games

Rob Daviau gives us another look at his coming game SeaFall, the biggest Legacy game to date. SeaFall will be a great Age of Sails exploration adventure, but even the biggest adventure starts at home. This new preview explains the significance and possible upgrades of your player character and your home province. Remember, both those things will stay with you for the whole campaign, so careful planning is important here.

This week’s featured photo shows the Pitons, two volcanic peaks on Saint Lucia. They and the area surrounding them make up the Pitons Management Area world heritage site, a site with a great biodiversity in all its habitats, ranging from tropical forest to coral reefs. The photo was taken by Stefan Krasowski and generously shared with a CC-BY license. Thank you for sharing, Stefan!

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