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Eight-Minute Empire

Short on time but you want to build a civilization? From Red Raven Games, the people behind the board games Empires of the Void and City of Iron, comes Eight Minute Empire. In Eight-Minute Empire, 2-4 players take turns selecting a card from six displayed. The card gives a good, and also has an action that the player takes immediately. Actions help players take over the map, but sets of goods are worth points at the end of the game, so players have to balance the two aspects. Eight-Minute Empire is the super-quick area control game with tough decisions. It’s easy to learn and perfect for when you only have a few minutes.

Paul: Brendan! That’s a fine flag there. What is that the flag of? An organisation? A cause? An idea? Please don’t tell me it’s the flag of those most arbitrary of constructions, the nation.

Brendan: This is the flag of the Brendovian Empire. You will respect it. You will honour it. You will put it on mugs and t-shirts and probably socks at some point. We have destroyed our enemies. Laid waste to continents. Far is the reach of Brendovia. No persons in the world match the might of our brave men and women. No foreign fiend can meet the ferocity of our will. Our national dish is lemon tart.

Paul: Is that… Is that the Brendovian flag on the news? Is that Panama? Has your empire invaded Panama!? I don’t understand. When did all this happen? When did you found an empire!?

Brendan: About eight minutes ago.

Paul: Oh no. I know exactly what you’ve been playing.

Quinns: Morning, everybody! It’s a very special edition of the Games News today as we’re joined by SU&SD accomplice Leigh Alexander, former news director of Gamasutra!

Now Leigh, that’s an impressive resume, but don’t worry if you can’t keep up with the salsa-like tempo of the Games News.

Leigh: Thanks, Quinns. I’m really looking forward to this unique and challenging opportunity and I hope to learn a lot as well as have a great time doing it.

Quinns: That’s a great attitude.

Leigh: A positive attitude is the first step to a successful career.

Quinns: Fantastic. Let’s keep that mindset as we move forward in this space.

Battle Lore! Battle or…? Battle Lore!

This week, Paul seems to have found exactly the sort of game that would appeal to his twelve-year-old self, a game of magic and monsters, of hexes and strategy. Battle Lore is Fantasy Flight’s attempt at an easily-digestible miniatures wargame, the kind of thing where you slaughter an army in an afternoon and still have time for biscuits.

But is that going to be your sort of thing? The game, we mean, not the biscuits. After all, Battle Lore may have a bigger, bolder relative whose company you might well prefer…

Apologies for the lateness of this, everybody! Sometimes the internet is a very slow thing, but we don’t give up easy.

EDIT: It seems we have a problem with the right sound channel. An audio fix is on its way!

ANOTHER EDIT: The audio should be behaving better now. Sorry about that!

Prepare for fantasy battles beyond your wildest imagination with the onslaught of BattleLore Second Edition. Set in the fantasy realm of Terrinoth, BattleLore Second Edition is a two-player board game focused on squad-based battles between the hardy defenses of the Daqan Lords garrison in Nordgard Castle and the unleashed ferocity of the demon-worshipping Uthuk Y’llan. You must strategically command your troops and use the power of lore to tip your battles in your favor.

In every game, you will create new maps and scenarios, before mustering a new army for each game, so you can tailor your army to suit your favored play style. Command armies of fearsome warriors and deadly creatures, and lead them against the enemy in this intense game of warfare and military strategy. By seizing victory points from objectives on the battlefield and by eliminating enemy units, a skilled commander can raise his banners as the victor over the borderlands of Terrinoth!

BattleLore Second Edition comes with a game board, ninety-two detailed figures, forty-three map overlay pieces, more than one-hundred fifty cards, rules, four custom dice, and everything else you need to win the borderlands of Terrinoth!

Have you ever considered the humble scratchcard? Brendan would like you to. There’s a ceremony involved, you see. Like a papery King Canute, you must take joy in coaxing a tide of wealth forward, and agonise in watching it retreat. Within the scratchcard, perhaps, is all of life. A written transcript is available here.

[We’re trying something a little different here. Brendan recently wrote an article about scratchcards on his blog which we thought was rather special. He’s kindly let us republish it here as text (below) and as an improbably transporting spoken word piece in our podcast section. Take your pick, everybody! And enjoy.]

Brendan: Scratchcards – the most worldly and humble of the lesser gambles. Although I am far from being one of the people who are inexplicably and tragically addicted to them, scratchcards nevertheless maintain a power over me. I was talking about them with some friends recently and concluded that my enjoying a scratchcard has more to do with ritual than money. Although, let’s be honest, like all forms of gambling, the money is at the nucleus of its strange charm.

Brendan: Oh man, since Paul and Quinns left at the end of the sci-fi special I have nobody to play board games with. Hey, Supercomputer, do you want to play Anomia with me? It’s a quick-fire party game about blurting out words under pressure and beating your friends to the punch. You’ll like it!

Supercomputer: Anomia. Latin origin. Meaning “without name”. Would you like me to run a simulation of the universe without names, nouns, pronouns, designa—

Brendan: No! I mean, no Supercomputer, but thank you. I just want to play this simple card game with someone. I’m sad that my friends left. You remember what we talked about? Sad? It’s an emotion.

Supercomputer: Runtime error. Do you mean when those called Paul Dean and Quintin Smith inexplicably abandoned you to become an accountant and a low cost assassin respectively? Reducing the number of your human friendship circle from 2 to 0?

Brendan: It’s not zero! Matt is still my friend.

Supercomputer: Initial and ongoing analysis of his facial expressions indicates that the one called Matt Lees regards you as subhuman and without merit. Would you like me to run a simulation of some friends?

Brendan: …

Quinns: Good morning, my playful pickles! Before we start, realise what a marvelous audience you are. You want for nothing more than a glimpse of the fun you’ll be having with your friends in the future. You’re beautiful, all of you.

If you’re anything like me, Hand Made Wonders (pictured above) will be the source at least one evening of boozy giggling. This is an upcoming Taiwanese game where players build monuments out of their hands, but where your left AND right hand will need 3 points each to win, and everyone’s hand is part of a different team (determined by the two different-coloured bracelets you’re wearing).

After being pulled through a black hole, four spaceships find themselves in a dimension with physics never before encountered and without fuel. By mining and collecting basic elements from the space dust and asteroids in the area, you can muster just enough thrust to move your ship. But in this bizarre dimension, gravity is not working like how you’ve been taught. Your ship will typically travel towards the nearest object… which is usually another ship… and those ships are moving. Sometimes forwards, and sometimes backwards. It’s a real mind-bender!

Time is running out to save your crew and your ship! As a grim reminder of the cost of failing to escape, the frozen hulks of dead spacecraft litter the escape route. But with careful cardplay, you can slingshot past these derelict craft and be the first to escape from the Gravwell!

Eight-Minute Empire

Review: Eight-Minute Empire

Games News! 14/07/14

Review: BattleLore

BattleLore (Second Edition)

Brendan’s Correct Way to Scratch

Brendan’s Correct Way to Scratch

Review: Anomia

Games News! 07/07/14

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

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