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Games News: Crowdsourced Edition! 15/06/15

Quinns: Good news everyone! This morning I wrote 1,000 words of Games News in the SU&SD backend and then accidentally hit Ctrl+F5, erasing it from existence.

Writing it all again would be heartbreaking, so I turn to you guys, the best community in the business. I’m going to link to six stories, and if one of you wants to write it up in an informative yet funny SU&SD style, just do so in a comment and I’ll paste you into the article proper and attribute it with your handle!

Try not to put us to shame, and GOOD LUCK!

Star Realms is a spaceship combat deck-building game by Magic Hall of Famers Darwin Kastle (The Battle for Hill 218) and Rob Dougherty (Ascension Co-designer).

Star Realms is a fast paced deck-building card game of outer space combat. It combines the fun of a deck-building game with the interactivity of Trading Card Game style combat. As you play, you make use of Trade to acquire new Ships and Bases from the cards being turned face up in the Trade Row from the Trade Deck. You use the Ships and Bases you acquire to either generate more Trade or to generate Combat to attack your opponent and their bases. When you reduce your opponent’s score (called Authority) to zero, you win!

Multiple decks of Star Realms and/or Star Realms: Colony Wars, one for every two people, allows up to six players to play a variety of scenarios.

Everybody’s got an opinion. The Metagame gives you a chance to exercise your smartest and most ridiculous opinions on just about everything: music and movies, fine art and fashion, junk food and videogames. It’s a card game where you do what you already love to do with your friends: talk about culture. There’s not just one way to play – The Metagame comes with six unique games. Each one makes use of both types of cards in The Metagame deck:

CULTURE CARDS feature a single cultural object or icon, from the Mona Lisa to Ms. Pac-Man.
OPINION CARDS say things like “Which feels like first love?” or “Best reminder of our mortality.”

Some of the games get you debating, and some are more strategic. Some are best for a handful of players and others are designed for dozens of them.
The six games are:

Matchmakers: match your culture cards to the right opinion cards
History 101: put everything in the right chronological order
Debate Club: argue to the critics for your hilarious opinion
Head to Head: a fast-paced race to get your cards out first
Massively Multiplayer Metagame: for big parties and events
Metaquilt: a tricky combination of strategy and discussion

You don’t usually find games where players have debates like: Which is more fundamentally misunderstood – Fox News or the rainbow flag? The Metagame covers every possible kind of design, media, and art and helps you see culture in new ways. We’ve played The Metagame at hardcore tabletop game conferences and in dimly lit hipster bars. The Metagame works in just about any social setting – just pick the game variation that suits your group and situation the best.

Quinns: Hello everybody! Take your seats, the show’s about to begin.

We get sent twice as many games as we review on SU&SD. We cover the good games and set fire to the bad ones, but there’s a sort of purgatory in between of games that don’t get reviewed and pile up in my corner.

Maybe a game’s too interesting for me to burn it. Maybe it’s too similar to something we just reviewed. This is what lead to 2013’s Rapid Review Special Episode– a big, weird release valve of a video that let me reclaim my corner for a hot minute and put a pot plant there.

That time has come again. Today, SU&SD is proud to present no less than seven reviews of the best and weirdest games to be found in my corner.

Paul: I can’t count the number of chips I have. There are too many.

The croupier has smeared them across the felt toward me and I’m hurriedly scooping up these coloured disks as if they were spilled bonbons. I’m trying to arrange them in piles of five so that I have some idea how much I have, how many I have, except I’ve forgotten to return my cards and now the croupier is reminding me that he needs them before he can deal out the next hand. So I’m now trying to collect my chips, arrange my chips, return my cards and also put in my blind bet. If I was an octopus I could pull this off. Instead, I’m more of a puppy, flailing at my winnings. I must look so clumsy and everybody can see.

The noise was the first thing that got me. Forty-seven people entered this tournament, spread across five tables of ten or nine players. Before the first hand came out there was nothing but the sound of chips clacking. So many chips clacking as dozens of players flipped and fingered and meshed them together like mantis mandibles. I was pretty sure the young man in a black hoodie to my right was good, but I couldn’t quite explain why. Opposite me sat someone who could have just slithered off a Harley Davidson. His face was the greying crags of a cliff. His rings would mangle anybody he swung at. His top was as ragged as his features. His clothes were worn. His cap was worn. His face was worn. His indifference was underlined by a mustache that never, ever moved. He looked like Danny Trejo.

Hello, Danny Trejo, I am English, what what. I weigh less than 130lbs and yesterday I was so tired during my fencing class that I couldn’t hold my sword up.

Paul: So I’ve been looking at the Games News Style Guide don’t like the idea of Games News “coming at you” because that gives me the impression of some sort of oncoming, impending, unstoppable, inevitable, colossus of a thing that rolls through your front door. You know, sort of like…

Quinns: A monster? A disaster?

Paul: Right. And I don’t want people to associate us with disasters.

Quinns: No, I want Games News to be the opposite of a disaster. What’s the opposite of a disaster? A… a balm. I want Games News to be a sort of gentle, soothing, relaxing experience. I want Games News to be something you can rub all over your body to make your day infinitely better. Yeah, that’s right. So, with that in mind, let’s give our readers things they would just love to smear all over themselves. Like these Mage Wars tiles.

Oh snap! Welcome to the Dungeon is the best Japanese game since Love Letter, the best bluffing game since Skull, Iello’s new edition is gorgeous and it’s on shop shelves right now!

Nobody’s saying you have to buy this. We wouldn’t dream of it. Just don’t come tweetin’ to us when it’s sold out in a month’s time.

Knightmare Chess is chess played with cards! The cards break the rules in wild and unpredictable ways. Some affect a single move, and some change the entire game. Knightmare Chess plays quickly out of the box, but it also includes variants, and it’s easy for players to customize. The possibilities are endless, and so is the fun!

This new edition includes Knightmare Chess 2, for a total of 158 beautiful cards, each painted by Rogério Vilela. Bonus: two blank cards for those who want to create their own fiendish, clever rules.

Note: Knightmare Chess requires a working knowledge of chess and a chess set to play.

7 Ronin is an asymmetric 2-player game in which the attacking player control a group of ninja attacking a village defended by seven ronin (masterless samurai) controlled by the defending player. The ninja player wins by occupying five of the village’s ten areas, while the ronin player wins by surviving eight rounds.

Each turn starts with the players distributing their forces over the village areas simultaneously and separately. Their choices are then revealed, and combat resolved. Each of the ronin have a different special ability to aid the defender, while each of the village areas have a special ability usable by the attacker once it has been occupied.

In For the Crown, you must gather key resources, train an army from scratch, and capture the rival King and Heirs to prove your claim to the throne!

In this game that combines the highly popular “deck-building” mechanic with the most engrossing variations of Chess, do you have what it takes to wisely divide your attention between preparations and military maneuvering? To outpace your opponent’s development while eluding capture? Strategize your position and seize glory in For the Crown!

Games News: Crowdsourced Edition! 15/06/15

Star Realms

The Metagame

Presenting Quinns’ Corner Awards, 2015!

Spent: The Story of a Poker Tournament

Games News! 08/06/15

Review: Welcome to the Dungeon

Knightmare Chess (3rd edition)

7 Ronin

For the Crown (2nd edition)

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