Meople News: Quantum Perdition

Terraforming Mars (Image by FryxGames)
Terraforming Mars (Image by FryxGames)

FryxGames

If you have been following the previews for FryxGames’s Terraforming Mars, then you know by now that cards play an important part in your efforts to terraform Mars. To reduce the associated luck of the draw to an acceptable minimum, players will not only rely on their hand cards alone. If they need something specific but don’t draw it, they’ll also have access to Standard Projects, special cards that are always available for a few credits more. They don’t create combos with other cards, either, but getting them is still better than being stuck in a strategic dead end because you don’t draw the right cards.

Fantasy Flight Games

Last week we learned about all the new things the Imperial player gets in Imperial Assault: Return to Hoth. This week, we meet the new Rebel heroes. Next to a marksman and a Rebel assassin, the one new character that really stands out is the medical droid MHD-19. He’s not the best at killing Imperial forces, but his skills at keeping his team mates alive are impressive, thanks to his special ability he always has the right equipment.

The first time I read that Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game will come with two campaigns, it sounded too short. What do you do after those two campaigns? Well, turns out that’s not the whole truth. While there is one scripted campaign with five adventures, the other campaign is more random. You won’t encounter all possible dangers in one game of that campaign, but you don’t know at the start what is waiting for you. That will make it more interesting to play the same campaign multiple times.

Thunderworks Games

The first Kickstarter project by Thunderworks Games, Roll Player, is different from other boardgames that mix role playing games in. Usually, those games adapt the role play part. Roll Player is a game about character creation. With a random character race, class, alignment and backstory, players have to get the right attributes and equipment to make their character the best there is. That involves a lot of dice, but it’s more about tactics than luck, because each die you pick has a number of different functions. The number it shows is important, of course, because it contributes to your attribute scores. But each attribute you can assign a die to also gives you a special action, and based on your backstory the color of the die you put in a position is important, too. And that’s before you buy equipment and skills that modify your attributes and, for skills, your alignment, which is also worth points in the end if you get the right one. Roll Player sounds very simple at first, but each action you take has a long list of consequences.

Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift (Image by Dragon Dawn Productions)
Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift (Image by Dragon Dawn Productions)

Dragon Dawn Productions

We’ve already talked at length about the dice-less, sinister dungeon crawler Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift in our preview last week. It’s a dungeon crawler that uses mechanics of a eurogame style cooperative game over the traditional handful of dice. Why do I bring it up again? The Kickstarter project launched today, so now’s your chance to secure your very own copy.

Game Fabrica

Cargotrain, a very cool card game about trains and transport by Game Fabrica that we reviewed earlier this year, is now on Spieleschmiede looking for funding for a German language edition. Except for the translated rulebook, the game will be unchanged from the English edition we reviewed, so you’ll get those beautiful, minimalist cards, too. And optionally some treeples – that is train meeples. Who can say no to treeples?

Ragnar Brothers

With the title Nina and Pinta many of you will already guess that the new Kickstarter project by Ragnar Brothers is about Columbus and his discovery of the New World. But wait, that’s not all. It gets a bit weird from here on. In this game, Columbus doesn’t discover one new world but three of them, because in the middle of the Atlantic it’s easy to cross over into another quantum universe, and each has its own New World – I guess that’s why they call it the Americas. Each of these new worlds holds its own threats and treasures and you’ll have to figure out how to develop your holdings to send the most gold back to the old world and invest it into your cultural development. And all that with the other players standing on your toes and pirates lurking just beyond the horizon. As if discovering one new world wasn’t hard enough.

This week’s featured photo, taken by Flickr user dr_zoidberg, shows the city of Valletta, capital of Malta. The city is one of the most historically dense places on Earth, with more than 300 monuments in its area of 55ha. This is due to a long and eventful history, with the later parts of it tied to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, colloquially known as the Maltese Knights. And if you ever want to be astonished about international law and the fun of quasi-sovereign entities, you have a look at the Wikipedia article on the Order. Calling their status unique is an understatement. Anyway, dr_zoidberg shared the photo with a CC-BY-SA license. Thanks a lot for sharing!

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