Meople News: My Pretty Whale Friends

Pretty Pretty Smash Up (Image by Alderac)
Pretty Pretty Smash Up (Image by Alderac)

Alderac

I didn’t see this coming. There will be another Smash Up expansion. Okay, that I did see coming. But I never guessed that it would be Pretty Pretty Smash Up. Just like other expansions, there will be four new factions in this one, but they will be very, very different. There are Fairies, with magic wishes and fairy dust. There are Mythic Horses, winning with the power of … togetherness – I guess using a different word there could have caused trademark issues. Kitty Cats can haz base, controlling your minions. And Princesses use their love and happiness to order everyone about, trample enemies under their high heels and win world domination. This expansion is certainly different, I just hope all the pink I’m sure will be in it won’t give me a headache.

Dice Hate Me Games

Whaling on a large scale is not something I approve off, but it is historically significant. Especially in the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the world’s whaling capital in the 1800s. Growing “the city that lit the world”, so called for the vast amounts of whale oil exported from here, is the goal of Dice Hate Me Games’ newest Kickstarter project: New Bedford. In this worker placement game, you create buildings around the city that you use to create and trade resources, but everyone has to pay the building’s owner for using them. Whaling is also part of the game, you pay to send out ships that will try to catch whales. The further out you send them, the better is their chance for a good catch, but sending your ships further is also more expensive and you may be forced to wait longer so you can pay for them. And, realistically, the whale population declines during the game …

Fantasy Flight Games

The last Star Wars: Imperial Assault preview showed off the might of the Empire nicely with units from Stormtroopers to Darth Vader himself. But fighters are not the only threat of the Empire, there are also the vast resources at the Empire’s command, giving the Empire player a steady stream of reinforcements and allowing him to force the Rebels into side missions of his choice. During a mission, the Empire player collects Threat at the end of every turn. Threat can be used to call reinforcements – Darth Vader will cost you 18 threat to get on the board – or to use special cards, similar to Descent‘s Overlord cards. Agenda Cards let the Empire influence the campaign. The simpler ones grant him a bonus or weaken the Rebels, but other Agendas let the Empire force difficult side missions on the Rebels and offer big benefits to the Empire if they fail.

Imperial Settlers: Why Can't We Be Friends (Image by Portal Games)
Imperial Settlers: Why Can’t We Be Friends (Image by Portal Games)

Portal Games

I’m a bit surprised to find that the first expansion for Portal Games’ Imperial Settlers will not introduce a new nation to the game, another deck of cards would be the classic expansion for this style of game. Instead, Why Can’t We Be Friends will add cards to the common deck and all the existing nation, introducing “open production” as a new game mechanic. Cards with this new feature can be used for production by all players, not only by the owner, but the worker used will stay with the owner of the card as payment.

Gen-X Games

In 2015, Gen X Games will release a Victorian horror card game called London After Midnight. Each player will secretly be either on the side of the Monsters or the Heroes. On their turn, players either draw a card or play a card. Cards are either Monsters like Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster, worth Black points, or Heroes like Van Helsing or Arsene Lupin, worth White points. On top of their points, cards have a special action players may take when playing them. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins, but Monsters only count black, Heroes only count white, and giving away which side your own too early is probably not going to be a winning strategy.

This week’s featured photo was taken by Flickr user Rosino and shared with a CC-BY-SA license. It shows the historic center of Florence, Italy, with the 13th century cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore. Thank you for this beautiful photo, Rosino.

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