Meople News: Copper Galaxy

We’re still busy here with a lot of family stuff, so please accept my apologies for not having the daily news you’re all waiting for on the social media in a timely fashion. Next week, the situation will normalize. Until then, we still have news, news and more news for you.

Mr. Card Game (Image by Evertide Games)
Mr. Card Game (Image by Evertide Games)

Evertide Games

Bashing monsters in the head is a lot of fun, there was never any doubt about that. But it’s even more fun to bash them in the  head with something, and that’s the point of Combat Items in Mr. Card Game, the Kingdom of Loathing deck-building game. Some cards give you straight-up more damage, others have a damage type a monster may be vulnerable or immune to, and the third type stuns the monster, giving you time to draw more cards to use against it.

Cryptozoic

These guys have their hands in many pots. They’re making boardgames, deck-builders, CCGs and, now, a word game that is described as being somewhere between Apples to Apples and Dixit. In Word Whimsy, a Prompt Card gives the theme for the round, then all players use multiple word cards to create, for instance, a “Good Name for a Metal Band”, and the judge for the round picks the winner. That sounds like a lot of fun for us here in the Meeple Cave who enjoy Dixit and The World as I see it. But the announcement mentions the game being PG, so I’m already wondering how it will combine with the evil, evil, EVIL cards from Cards against Humanity. (via ICv2)

Fantasy Flight Games

Now that we know the three news teams in Blood Bowl Team Manager – Sudden Death, it might be a good time to look into the recently published rulebook to figure out what to do with them.

Franjos

The small German publisher Franjos is looking at an interesting year. This week, they announced two coming projects. The first is a new release of Günter Burkhardt’s Kupferkessel Co. (not available in English, but translates to Copper Cauldron Inc. ), a game that received some honors back in 2002. In Kupferkessel Co., players walk around the outside of the magic ingredient shop, picking ingredients from the row you land on. But planning ahead is required as the card you pick dictates how far you may move on your next turn. Unlike the strictly two-player original, the new edition will support up to four players.

Also this year, announced is April, Franjos will start their first crowdfunding project on the German platform Startnext. (I have to admit that I’m losing track of the new crowdfunding platforms at this point). The game in question is, so far, unnamed, but is authored by Heinz-Georg Thiemann, known for his speculation and trading game Planet Steam. I’m very curious what he and Franjo will cook up together.

Both announcements together look like Franjo is looking to expand his business this year.

Ares Games / Gremlin Project

Galaxy Defenders, projected to launch on Kickstarter in April, is a cooperative effort from Ares Games as publisher and Gremlin Project as the design studio. It’s a cooperative, tactical miniature game by Nunzio Surace and Simone Romano in which up to five players, as agents with different special abilities, take on the alien menaces threatening Earth. The Aliens will be controlled individually by a card driven mechanism.

Catan / Kosmos

The question we’ve all been asking since the new Catan expansion Entdecker & Piraten (Explorers & Pirates) was first announced: how will it combine with other expansions. It’s been answered by Klaus Teuber himself. Seafarers is, not surprisingly, completely incompatible with Explorers and Pirates: two different ways to go to sea in one game, that wouldn’t fly. In Traders & Barbarians, it depends on the scenario, some will work, some won’t. The really pleasant surprise is that Cities & Knights will not only likely work with Explorers & Pirates to create what Teuber calls “a complex and maybe unwieldy game”, the Master of Catan himself has created a rough draft how the rules for such a combination might look. Now, please don’t take that as him saying “this combination will definitely be awesome like this”, but it’s a great starting point for you to experiment with both expansions. Here’s a quick translation of his rough outline, as a service to our faithful readers:

  • Cities: a Settlement can be upgraded into either a City or a Port Town, but you can not change one into the other.
  • Starting Island: when building the starting island, replace one Forest with a Field
  • Founding Phase: build a City instead of a Settlement, so you start the game with a City and a Port Town.
  • Knights: Knights cannot use ships, they always stay on their island. They can not be used as Units to attach the Pirate Camp, nor as Traders for the native villages. They may only move to corners where all adjacent tiles have been explored.
  • Barbarians: to find the Barbarians’ strength, count Cities on all Islands. Port Towns do not count.
  • Units: Units (to fight Pirates) do not contribute strength against the barbarians.
  • Trade Goods: may not be bought from the supply for Gold. Players with the advantage Quick Gold may buy a Trade Good instead of a Resource for one Gold.
  • Aqueduct: players with the Aqueduct may, on a roll where they do not receive resources except the seven, take any one resource (according to Cities & Knights rules) and one Gold (according to Explorers & Pirates rules).
  • Game End: to find the number of VP required to win, take the points from the Explorers and Pirates scenario and  add five.
  • Progress: some progresses need their effect changed. I don’t have an English copy of Cities & Knights at hand, so forgive me if the names are of, I hope you can recognize the right ones.
    • Medicine: for one Ore and one Wheat you can turn a Settlement into a City or a Port Town
    • Bishop: since there is no Robber in Explorers & Pirates, the Bishop allows you to place your own Pirate Ship
    • Mining / Irrigation: you gain Ore / Wheat for a Port Town bordering Mountains or Fields, just like a City
    • Turncoat: only works on Knights, Units can not change sides
    • Inventor: all chips, excluding 2, 6, 8 and 12, may be exchanged, including chips on discovered islands and defeated pirate camps
    • Road Building: you may only build roads, not ships

Please, if you try this out, let me know how it goes!

This week’s featured photo was taken by Andrew Parnell in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand and shared with a CC-BY license. The volcanic mountains at the center of the park have religious significance for the Maori people, and they are a very beautiful landscape, too. 

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