Primate Fear

Ten years ago, you thought spanking the monkey was harmless fun. But you spanked him too hard, too long, too violently and the monkey died. Now, on this night, the money is back from the grave, and he’s out for revenge. And none of the above was a euphemism for anything!

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Terra Mystica

Terra Mystica was the first game by German publisher Feuerland Spiele last year, and to say that it turned out popular is a bit of an understatement. It’s an entirely peaceful fantasy game about colonizing the world, there is no direct conflict, no destroying opposing settlements. But space is very limited and you’ll soon be standing on everyone’s feet. Even more so because the game punishes you for being far away from everyone else. So, did it deserve the rave reviews so far?

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Mush! Mush! – Snow Tails 2

Five years ago, the Lamont Brothers created a racing game with an uncommon setting. Snow Tails wasn’t about racing cars, motorcycles, speedboats or spaceships, it was about racing dog sleds. This year, they’ve returned to mushing with Mush! Mush! – Snow Tails 2, a new racing game that uses the same basic mechanics but is different enough to make it exciting again. And, as you expect from Fragor Games, it looks great as well.

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Sanssouci

Sanssouci, a palace in Potsdam near Berlin, Germany. It’s famous for it’s beautiful gardens, and those gardens are what Michael Kiesling wants you to recreate in the game named Sanssouci. But it’s not about their beauty, their symmetry or even their completion. All you care for is: how far down the garden paths can someone walk?

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The Palaces of Carrara

The city of Carrara has been famous for its marble since Roman times. It’s been used, by people who can afford it, all over the empire. In The Palaces of Carrara, you don’t take it quite so far, the furthest your marble travels is about 100km down the coast. But you wouldn’t want it to go further, anyway, because that short distance already gives you enough to consider if you want to win in this game, because for a game of only about 60 minutes, it sure keeps you busy.

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Trains

Deck-building was a big game genre the last few years. But pure deck-building is exhausted, every major publisher has a couple of deck.-building games already. But deck-building as a mechanic still has a lot to offer, and incorporating it into a larger game offers many options yet to explore. Trains is one such game that takes deck-building and builds a wider game around it. So build your decks to build your tracks and lay rails across Japan.

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Sigismundus Augustus

Sigismundus Augustus

Long, deep and historical games are not uncommon, but they usually focus on war. Sigismundus Augustus goes a different route, it’s all about Polish Politics under the King with the game’s name. A completely different type of challenge, but just as tricky to win. But how much fun is history without bloodshed?

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Guildhall: Job Faire

Guildhall was a surprise release by Alderac in 2012, there were no announcements or anything, the game was just there. Now the expansion/sequel Job Faire is out and was much less secretive. I guess we could all see the expansion coming. Just like its predecessor, its better if you don’t think about the game to thematically, if the medieval guild system had really worked like this game we’d still only have five bricklayers in the world, and where would we be then, as a civilisation? We probably wouldn’t be hating our fellow man over a card game, that’s where. And that would mean we’re not playing Guildhall.

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