Quarantine, an adorable little game of running a hospital, has launched! Seems like only yesterday that Quinns was squeaking about its design diaries over in the games news, and now it’s on shelves worldwide. They grow up so fast!
This one’s a game that Quinns really wants to like. But he’s also the owner of a degree in Tough Love from Newcastle University. Will it meet his ever-soaring standards? Or will he toss it aside like so much medical waste?
Read More
[SU&SD is hugely proud to introduce the Ludological Investigation Society. A regular column on not just what we’re playing, but how we play, written by none other than England’s own Lord Custard Smingleigh.
In this inaugral column Smingleigh offers a heartfelt tale of play, galactic war, and more beautiful boys than he.]
It was the end of the school year at St. Punishment’s School for Boys, and we had finished our end of year exams. Our school work was done, but our time still belonged to the school until it had finished forcing the oldest boys through the educational sausage machine that is the GCSE system, so the teachers allowed us to bring something in to entertain ourselves.
Some brought in decks of cards (with strict gambling prohibition enforced by form master Dr. Blandshaw), some brought in books and magazines, some brought in Game Boys (I’m dating myself here, aren’t I?), and I brought in a board game.
Read More
Quinns: Summer is here! That magical time of year when we move from playing board games indoors to playing them outdoors. As a result the entire SU&SD crew now look like boiled lobsters. Bright red, but with a hint of decadence.
Today’s games news will be arranged from stuff that excites Quinns the most to least, starting with THIS: Neuroshima Hex 3.0 has been announced by Z-Man games. You can read our impressions of 2.0 here, but basically it’s a tricky, colourful, inventive strategy game that’s so lightweight as to practically float off the table. Better yet, 3.0 sounds even better.
Read More
Why does a good game have to fill a gigantic box and weigh 10 pounds? The Level 99 Games Minigame Library is a collection of games small enough to fit in your pocket, but big enough to enjoy over and over again with friends and family. Each game fills a different niche, and each provides a different play experience. This means that no matter what group you’re together with or what genre or style of game you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find pull out a game that provides 15-45 minutes of fun for a party of any size.
Minigames are easy enough to teach in 5-10 minutes, but provide hours of repeated play and excitement. In a minigame, we look for a product that is simple to learn, deep to master, and extensively replayable and enjoyable. We guarantee that your fellow gamers will be requesting to play these games over and over again.
Read More
Get ready to GET EXTRAVAGANT! Matt Lees’ The Opener is back with another game to kick off your evening, and a perfect accompanying snack.
This week Matt picks over the crashed zepplin of ideas that is Level 99 Games’ Minigame Library, and finds something interesting but it goes a bit wrong. He also applies his trademark culinary expertise to an English delicacy known as “vodka jelly”, which seems quite interesting but it goes a bit wrong.
We blame the heat. Englishmen react about as well to heat as chocolate does. When will it end? It must be 20°C in here.
Read More
It Never Snows is a Standard Combat Series (SCS) game covering the pivotal Market Garden offensive in September, 1944. Using a system based on the well-received SCS Game Bastogne, It Never Snows covers the landings and ground offensive endeavoring to link up with them at 600m per hex with units generally companies. Each turn is half a day making for a 17 turn campaign game (uniquely playable among Market Garden games).
The expansive five map area allows each of the airborne division fights to be geographically isolated and separate, as was the case historically. What this does is that it allows each situation to be gamed as its own little tactical puzzle—making it such that a player might be “winning” in one region while “losing” in another, at the same time. Both players are always “in the game.”
While the Allied player is busy dropping paratroopers, establishing bridgeheads and running a ground offensive to link up with them, the German player must devastate the airborne forces clinging to Arnhem, defend the various river crossings and counterattack to sever the Allied supply lines. Both players are attacking and defending at the same time, every turn.
Following on the heels of Bastogne, It Never Snows uses a tactical model with a minimal amount of rules overhead which shows both set-piece as well as “on the fly” attacks and the effects of indirect fires and air support.
A fantastically detailed OOB shows the insane array of German units being scratched together to defeat the Allied offensive—from displaced sailors to the deaf, from elite armor to barely trained school units, from highly motivated SS to penal units being pushed into battle at gunpoint. Against the elite airborne troops of the Allies, this menagerie is hardly the German army many wargamers envision when they think of World War II.
Read More
[You know, after his ominous introduction to wargaming, that one dinner and the library incident, we’re starting to suspect there’s something dodgy about Matt Thrower, our war correspondent. What do you think, Paul? …Paul?]
Paul: Oh, my head! Where am I? Why am I tied to a chair?
Thrower: You’re in my house, and safe for now. You’re tied to a chair because I’ve kidnapped you.
Paul: That seems quite straightforward.
Thrower: Yes. We must play another game, you see.
On 17th September 1944, a German officer in Holland looked into the sky and saw white flakes falling. “But it never snows in September” he thought. Do you know what he’d seen?
Read More
Quinns: Glass making! That’s something we all have a passion for, right? I’m sure there isn’t a child reading this who doesn’t dream of growing up to make glass. Ah, the heat of the furnace! The otherworldy, suggestive nothingness of the… the glass. Where would we be without glass? We’d be sat in the dark counting our armpits, that’s where.
Which is, of course, why the noble Uwe Rosenberg, designer of such crushing hits as Agricola and Le Havre, has announced his next game will be Glass Road: A game of supervising a glass workshop in 14th century Bavaria.
Now, I’ll admit there’s a small chance that you might not be excited by medieval glasswork. If that’s the case, don’t worry! Theme aside, this looks like a lovely game.
Read More
Terra Mystica is a strategy game with a simple game principle and very little luck involved: You govern one of 14 factions trying to transform the landscape on the game board in your favor in order to build your structures. On the one hand, proximity to other players limits your options for further expansion, on the other hand though, it provides some benefits during the game This conflict is the source of Terra Mystica’s appeal.
Structures may be upgraded to provide even more resources, like workers, priests, money, and power . Build temples to gain more influence in the four cults of fire, earth, water, and air . Build your stronghold to activate your group’s special ability. Expand and build new dwellings to have a lot of workers at hand. Or make sure to have a constant flow of money by building trading houses.
The 14 artfully designed factions, each having unique special abilities, as well as the exchangeable bonus cards allow for a large number of possible game plays that constantly keep this game entertaining!
With the kind support of Uwe Rosenberg during the development of the game mechanisms.
Including an English rulebook and no language dependent game components.
Read More
Oh my goodness! Terra Mystica is a fantasy building that boasts two achievements: It’s the heaviest box we’ve ever reviewed, and the one to sell out fastest.
Scientists are at a loss to explain this heinous corruption of the laws of physics. Tell you who’s not at a loss, though! The hot boys of Shut Up & Sit Down. After just few plays of this beast, we’re ready to tell you whether we think it lives up to the hype.
(It does.)
(CREDIT CARDS AT THE READY, PEOPLE.)
Read More