Paul: Attention please, passengers! Now arriving at platform two is this week’s Games News, stopping at High Fantasy, Kickstarter Reflections and Wargaming Central. A light buffet service of links will be available throughout the trip and free wifi is offered for your convenience.
Quinns: Paul I have trapped my coat in the carriage door.
It could be the voices that whisper ceaselessly inside our skull, but it seems everyone is talking about Arkham Horror: The Card Game! We’re only going to review it after a lot more plays and a few more expansions, but for now why not watch Matt and Quinns play the first chapter of the first campaign? For reference, here’s that Garth Marenghi thing they keep referencing. If you haven’t yet seen it, do get the DVD. You’re in for a treat.
And hey! Since we’re in the middle of a donation drive right now and it’s the season of giving, we’ve got yet another video coming in just a few days. Want it a clue? It rhymes with “Wingdom Beth Ponster Peview.” What could it be… ?
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Pip: After writing about my infatuation with Exploration as an artefact from another time in board gaming (and reading through your equivalents!) I found out about Restoration Games – a project to dig out and polish up older games in order to give them a new audience. Their tagline is cute: “Because every game deserves another turn.”
Restoration Games is actually a trio right now: attorney, Justin Jacobson; designer, Rob Daviau (of Risk Legacy and Pandemic Legacy fame); and graphic designer, Jason Taylor. They’ve also just announced their initial slate of games to restore – Dragonmaster, Top Race and Stop Thief! I caught up with Justin Jacobson to find out more about the project – particularly what “restoration” even means when it comes to board games and why these three made the cut…
Justin, as I mentioned above, is an attorney. He’s based in South Florida and had the kind of family I definitely didn’t – one which was into board games. “My father and uncle were always regular game players, and we lived nearby growing up,” he says. “So, unsurprisingly, my cousins and I played games constantly. We played a lot of D&D and a lot of video games, but mostly we played board games. Tons of them. All kinds. I guess I’ve always been around games and so I’ve always had a passion for them.”
Hey you!
You might have noticed that a lot of work goes into Shut Up & Sit Down. This month we’re asking for you to become one of the donors who make that possible.
Never mind “digging deep”- if every person reading this had a just a paddle in their pockets that would more than suffice for Team SU&SD to keep the lights on for another 6 months. If you donate by December 18th you’ll receive our donor newsletter telling you everything we’re planning for 2017, and you’ll also have supported us in our quest to make play better.
We talk a little about inclusivity in the above video, which always results in some people asking why we keep banging on about it. This month we found we had one more reason why: It turns out that while women are only a fraction of our viewership, they’re disproportionately more likely to make a donation to SU&SD.
Finally, if you have any questions regarding donations, please email [email protected].
Thank you all for another incredible, loved-up six months. And do look forward to the next two weeks on the site! We have one or two very exciting slabs of calorific Christmas content coming your way.
– Team SU&SD
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Quinns: Ladies and gentlemen! Take a seat. Get comfy. Buy some ice-cream from the attendant I had sent to your place of work (yes, YOUR place of work, so keep an eye out for her). It’s time for Quinns’ Corner Awards ‘16.
In other words we’re one year on from 2015’s Corner Awards and I still haven’t figured out a better solution for review copies than letting them pile up in the corner of my flat. I bet Tom Vasel doesn’t have this problem. Not to worry! Once again I’m dispensing awards to all those games that didn’t suit a full review, but were too weird to eject from the corner.
I’ve heard the rumours. “Quinns is getting too old to review seven games in one article! They already use CG for any scenes where he has to bend his knees.”
To which I say: Ha! Watch and learn, kids.
Quinns: You and I need to talk about Not Alone. There are more exciting card games out there, and funnier ones, and ones that are sharp as a tack, but Not Alone is the most deliciously playable little game we’ve encountered since Crossing. This box might as well be full of popcorn.
Between 1 and 6 players are the survivors of a crash-landing on a wild alien world. This team (possibly made up of just one nervy player) is opposed by one final player controlling the beast that lives there. A long, thin board measures the progress of each team: The humans win if they can survive until help arrives, the beast wins if it can wear down the humans and absorb them into the ecosystem like beer into a shag carpet.
Each turn, each human player plays a card face-down showing where they’re going, and the beast has to second-guess their movements and slap fat poker chips onto those locations, invalidating your turn or worse. If the beast itself catches you then it devours a precious “Will” cube.
Do I have your interest? Of course I do. You’re a weak-willed human, and this game is a seductive new land. Let’s go exploring.
Paul: Quinns. Quinns I have a strange comment from you here in the Games News notes. It just says-
Quinns: DO NOT READ THAT OUT.
Paul: “Where did the boobs and swinging dicks go”?
Quinns: Ok, I can explain.
Paul: There’s no need! It’s a question all men must eventually ask themselves.
Quinns: I don’t doubt that, but that note actually refers to the Kickstarter for Kingdom Death: Monster, version 1.5. Not only has Kickstarter’s most ambitious board game made a comeback, it seems to have been de-sexed.
Who wants to get extravagant! Inspired by his own Chinatown review, Quinns has published a negotiation triple-bill. Three new smallbox games, each one telling the story of dividing up loot after a cool crime, but each with a radically different approach.
At the time of writing H.M.S. Dolores looks like it has some European stock availability, but Millions of Dollars and Gentleman’s Deal aren’t yet broadly available for purchase. If you want these games and can’t find them, simply call your friendly local game shop (or your friendly regional game shop) and put in an order.
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Paul: Oh my word. I have had A Hot Time in Texas and, boy oh boy, I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Do you want to know all about BoardGameGeek Con 2016? Are you settled and ready? Are you prepar- I DON’T CARE LET’S GO. The starter pistol has fired so LET’S TALK ABOUT FLAMME ROUGE.
Quinns: GOOD MORNING everybody! Who’s excited about board games? All of you? Not yet you’re not. Soak up the below news like an high-end paper towel and then we’ll talk.
Fantasy Flight has announced the next big box expansion for the superb Android: Netrunner, and it’s Netrunner Legacy.
The copywriting on the announcement page for Netrunner: Terminal Directive is a bit of a nightmare, but basically anyone who owns a Netrunner core set and the Terminal Directive expansion will be able to play through a narrative campaign of runners vs. corporations. Sealed packs of never-before-seen cards will be opened one after another as a cyberpunk murder mystery plays out, and players will apply new stickers to their faction’s sheet as they win or lose games.
Going into this expansion blind sounds like a delight. Not only do you get the surprise of adding brand new cards to your deck, you then get to surprise your opponent as you unleash them mid-game!