Boardgame talk for Meeple & People
Combining boardgames with mobile apps into a game that people actually want to play is the current Philosophers’ Stone and Holy Grail rolled into one for game designers and publishers. The Philosophers’ Grail, maybe. Previous attempts have had lukewarm success at best. But Alchemists is the first in a new wave of games with companion app, and it might just have found the magic formula how do it right.
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Fields of Arle is Uwe Rosenberg’s love letter to the home of his ancestors, East Frisia and especially the village of Arle. It’s a worker placement game that is unusual in not allowing more than two players, but is equally unusual in the number of options you have and factors to consider. It’s a big game, a long game, and a game that brings many aspects of medieval Frisia to life.
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Egyptians, Romans, the Japanese empire, Barbarians – lets call those last ones huns, they seem to fit best with the illustrations. Four empires that were widely feared by their neighbors. Lets forget, for a moment, that they were not only separated by a few thousand kilometers but also also by a few hundred years. Physics is a funny thing, anything can happen if you just get lost enough. That’s how colonists from these four empires end up on a mysterious island, where they all start building an outpost of their culture. It’s only a matter of time before they run out of space and into each other. Welcome to Imperial Settlers.
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7 Wonders is still one of the most popular games out there. Simple rules, quick to play even with 7 players, different every time you play. It’s no wonder the expansions keep coming. They might not necessarily improve the game, just because it’s very good already, but they add enough to keep 7 Wonders interesting even after many, many games played. Babel is the latest expansion, and the one that changes the game the most yet.
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In 2050, running a global enterprise isn’t an easy job. Profit is still the top priority, of course, but because of government regulation and consumer behavior, you can no longer ignore sustainability issues. You either take care of the environment, of your employees and of society as a whole, or all the profits in the world won’t save your company. Balance between those concerns is not always easy, but if you run your company well it’s possible.
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In space, no one can hear you scream. Which is a shame, because the frustrated screams of your opponents really are fun. And you’d have plenty of opportunity to hear them in Theseus: The Dark Orbit if it wasn’t set in space. A simple movement rule that gives your opponent the chance to influence where you can and can’t go is the basis for a tense science fiction game that would have Sigourney Weaver seriously worried about her chance to survive.
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The Roman Empire has always been a popular setting for games, so Concordia is not innovative in that respect. But it is a game by Mac Gerdts, so you know it will not be a run-of-the-mill, nothing-new-to-see-here game. Gerdts’s games are special. But even by the high standards he set with Antike, among others, he has outdone himself with Concordia.
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Year2013PublisherQueen GamesAuthorStefan FeldPlayers2 – 4Age10 – 199Time90StrategyLuckInteractionComponents & DesignComplexityScoreStefan Feld is fighting the good fight again: he’s out to tame luck[…]
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Even the most insane, megalomanic despot will usually plan for a few months of war to conquer the whole world. Eight minutes is optimistic, to say the least. But that’s exactly what you’re going to do in Eight-Minute Empire: carve your name into the world, in mile high letter, in eight to twenty minutes. That’s shorter than your court-appointed painter will take to paint your regal countenance.
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Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends offers epic fantasy battles in the arena, with wizards, dragons and more. But the battle is fought in a very different way from what you expect: with pattern matching abilities.
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