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Games News! 19/05/14

Quinns: This week’s news is brought to you by Poolside.fm, whose smooth jams have had my soul vibrating like a sex toy since I got up. Try not to watch the accompanying video feed, though. Not because it’s bad, but because it will kneecap your productivity.

Hmm. I wanted to start with our smoothest story, but when you’re writing about board games that’s like trying to pick the straightest banana from the bunch. Let’s go with Board Game Geek’s preview (almost a review, really) of upcoming game Istanbul, seen above. A game of making money and being a boss under a sweltering sun.

Are you ready for the most half-arsed impersonation of explorers Lewis & Clark the internet has ever seen? We’ve got you covered. We’ve also got a lengthy review of much-hyped board game Lewis & Clark, on the off chance you come here for the board game reviews.

It’s an interesting game, though. In a year when fantastic eurogames are coming thick and fast, like hail in the Great Plains, this one looks pretty enough to make a name for itself. But does it have that frontier spirit? Quinns will let you know. Probably. Assuming he doesn’t get distracted and start talking about sodding Timeline again.

Depending on the weather, what we’ve had for breakfast and whether Quinns has won a game of it recently, Cosmic Encounter will sometimes be SU&SD’s official favourite game. We’ve reviewed it before, chatted about it endlessly and played it even more than that. So of course now it’s back in stock Quinns had to spread the love to the mighty Eurogamer, who published his review this morning.

It starts well:

“I want you to imagine poker. It’s not untrue to call poker a perfect game. It’s also not untrue to call it occasionally boring and exhausting, and to disapprove of its chapped mathematical underbelly.

“Now, imagine if poker was made for gamers. Imagine if it was wildly inventive, with a mean streak and a wicked sense of humour. Best of all, imagine if it was a different, surprising game every single time you sat down to play. Or don’t imagine, and pay £40 for this set of linen-finished cards, plastic UFOs that stack like poker chips and gorgeously illustrated aliens. Odds are, you’ll be very glad you did.”

…But then quickly descends into him getting overexcited and just listing aliens. Do you have your copy yet, readers?

“Ugungu!” howled the caveman, a genius of his day. Club in hand, he stomped his feet meaningfully until his tribemates lifted the giant stone block. Thus, the first monument was born.

Club your tribemates to architectural domination! Ugg-Tect is a hilarious game of prehistoric architecture in which two teams, made of up to four player each, race to complete stone-aged structures. Leading each team is the charismatic ugg-tect, who must guide his workers to victory using nothing but a simple vocabulary of primitive grunts, a series of exaggerated gestures, and his trusty club.

Monikers is available exclusively through http://www.monikersgame.com/.

Monikers is a dumb party game for smart people. A game about naming the most inappropriate people and things you can imagine.

We’ve taken the basic formula from the classic guessing game Celebrity and tried to perfect it. The result: 400 of the weirdest, most interesting names we could think up over years of playtesting with friends.

On November 30, 1803, the United States purchased Louisiana from Napoleon. Thomas Jefferson decided to send two explorers, Meriweather Lewis and William Clark to discover this huge terra incognita.

In Lewis & Clark, each player leads an Expedition aiming at crossing the continent. Each player has his own Corps of Discovery that will be completed by the Native Americans and the trappers met during the trip.

Pairs is a “New Classic Pub Game” designed by James Ernest and Paul Peterson. You can play with 2 to 8 players, the rules are very simple, and each game takes about 5 minutes.

Pairs is a press-your-luck game. Each round, players take turns deciding whether to take a card or fold. Folding gets you some points, but catching a pair could get you a lot more points (and points are bad.) The first player to reach a target score loses the game.

Fwssh-pop! A new Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has dropped out of hyperspace, its hull slick with enthusiasm, and its bulbous cargo bays heaving with games. In this episode Paul and Quinns are joined by Mike, Reference Pear’s personal assistant, to discuss the ludicrous architecture of Ugg-Tect, shapely card game Pairs, the somewhat astonishing … Read more

Quinns: Good evening board-babies! Welcome to a sexy, late-nite edition of the news, posted two whole hours later than usual because I was doing my laundry. Oh, yeah. Mmm. Give it to me! This one goes out to that very special lady at the laundry place. The one with the knees that go all the way round.

We begin with a double-bill of new card games with “Shinobi” in the title. I’ve got a lot of time for shinobis because, like me, they’re smooth operators who move with skill and grace in the dead of night*. First off is Shinobi Clans (box art above left, same card above right), a game of dispatching ninjas to protect, assassinate or even equip vulnerable dignitaries. But before we get to that, can I just comment on how much blood is on the cover?! It’s like a pipe burst. I can only conclude that the accompanying shinobi is hoisting that helmet out of harm’s way.

What a sensible shinobi. I’d want him in my clan.

In Mice & Mystics players take on the roles of those still loyal to the king – but to escape the clutches of Vanestra, they have been turned into mice! Play as cunning field mice who must race through a castle now twenty times larger than before. The castle would be a dangerous place with Vanestra’s minions in control, but now countless other terrors also await heroes who are but the size of figs. Play as nimble Prince Colin and fence your way past your foes, or try Nez Bellows, the burly smith. Confound your foes as the wizened old mouse Maginos, or protect your companions as Tilda, the castle’s former healer. Every player will have a vital role in the quest to warn the king, and it will take careful planning to find Vanestra’s weakness and defeat her.

Mice & Mystics is a cooperative adventure game in which the players work together to save an imperiled kingdom. They will face countless adversaries such as rats, cockroaches, and spiders, and of course the greatest of all horrors: the castle’s housecat, Brodie. Mice & Mystics is a boldly innovative game that thrusts players into an ever-changing, interactive environment, and features a rich storyline that the players help create as they play the game. The Cheese System allows players to hoard the crumbs of precious cheese they find on their journey, and use it to bolster their mice with grandiose new abilities and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Mice & Mystics will provide any group of friends with an unforgettable adventure they will be talking about for years to come. Assuming they can all squeak by…

Games News! 19/05/14

Review: Lewis & Clark

Eurogamer Review: Cosmic Encounter

Ugg-Tect

Monikers

Lewis & Clark

Pairs

Podcast #16: On the Death of Bothans

Games News! 12/05/14

Mice and Mystics

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