This gaming weekend was a bit of a mixed bag. It’s not a big secret that I’ve been dying to try Arkham Horror for ages, and then our first attempt turns out so disappointing that we aborted before we even managed to die. I’m not blaming the game, we did play in eight people when the rules recommend three to five, so I don’t get to complain about waiting for a long time between turns. We’ll try again soon with less players, I’m not giving up on this. Just for curiosity, do you guys have any recommendations how to play Arkham Horror in eight? Or do you recommend not to try it? On the plus side of gaming, we had eight people in one place so we gave Masters of Commerce another spin. Just like last time, everyone had a blast, and this time no one went bankrupt either. I liked the game from the start, but I find it’s still growing on me.
Queen Games
On the Queen Games homepage a new game popped up this week: Edo. Edo, as a little research revealed, is based on the design Altiplano by designers Louis and Stefan Malz and will most likely just put a Japanese theme on that design. In Edo (or Altiplano) you will explore and settle a tableland surrounded by mountains, compete for resources and trade with travelling merchants. The base mechanic seems to be action selection. Edo will be the Malzes first published design, and with Queen Games they found a publisher that is known for high quality games and production. I’m looking forward to the finished product.
Fantasy Flight Games
A while ago, one more item in the list of re-releases from Fantasy Flight was announced: Nexus Ops. While the game is not all that there might still be some people that don’t know what it is about. For those people, there is a quick introduction to the science fiction strategy game, together with a look at the first new feature in the re-release: the chaotic and deadly vortex.
Wizkids
Quarriors has been one of this years crazier new game ideas: a dice-building game. Of course, you’re not literally building a dice, you only do that in Lego games. Instead, Quarriors is a new idea based on the recently popular deck-building mechanic where you also collect dice to roll whenever you have the chance. I haven’t played it myself, but many people have been quite enthusiastic about it. And just because there’s dice added to the mix there is no reason to give up on deck-building’s great appeal to publishers: expandability. And so Rise of the Demons is about to be released as the first expansion.
Indie Boards and Cards
Earlier this year, we mentioned the Kickstarter campaign for Flash Point: Fire Rescue, a cooperative game with a rarely used setting that is emergency rescue. Now the preorders are about to ship and Flash Point: Fire Rescue will be available in stores soon.
Valley Games
In the category of weird setting this week: Octopus’ Garden. You take the role of an octopus and set out to build a garden. You are also trying to attract pretty clown fish and to protect your oysters from the starfish so they can produce more pearls for this. I’m not making this up. Author Roberta Taylor won the first ever Canadian Game Design award last year, so besides the unusual setting the game must have other qualities as well, making this another one I’m really hoping to try soon.
Kickstarter
Stratus Games has launched a Kickstarter campaign for their newest game DiceAFARI, a game for families and gamers that takes you on a photo safari around Africa. The description on Kickstarter looks very promising, so I suggest you check it out
The otterly adorable photo of sea otters was taken by Mike Baird and shared with a CC-BY license. Thanks a lot, Mike!