Games News! 03/04/2017

Paul: Oh my GOODNESS Red Scare looks very interesting indeed! This is officially Paul’s Most Exciting Game of the Week, without a doubt, with its fancy social deduction, special glasses and double agents. SPECIAL GLASSES, I hear you shout! In glee! In awe!

Y’see, everybody is playing a team of FBI agents who know that somewhere in their midst are communists that they absolutely have to rat out. Everybody sports a special pair of glasses and, depending upon which ones you wear, you can read certain secret text written on some of the game’s many cards, while remaining completely blind to other text. This is a wonderfully simple idea and I’m immediately thrilled at the idea of players trying to convince one another of what they can or can’t see, blusteringly bluffing and desperately trying to get someone else to confirm (or deny) that things are (or aren’t) what they seem.

Quinns: What a concept, indeed! I’m very excited to test this box from first time designer Benjamin Kanelos. If you were wondering about the box’s striking appearance, this is actually yet another work from Ian O’Toole, who does the layout and illustration for all the breathtakingly lovely new Vital Lacerda games like Vinhos Deluxe. What a guy.

Are we entering an age where artists get as much kudos as designers? Being an enormous fop, I hope so.

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Games News! 23/06/14

Diplomacy

Quinns: Hello Quintin’s kittens, or my quiddens! Is that a good intro? It’s the worst, isn’t it. Let’s never do that again.

Our big news this week is that Days of Wonder has unveiled the box and artwork for Five Tribes, and you can see it above! We covered this classy collaboration with Bruno Cathala, designer of such unapproachably perfect games as Shadows Over Camelot and Cyclades, back in February. And as you can see above…

(The turn order tokens look like penises. Don’t say that. But what else can you say? It’s the elephant in the room, except it’s a neat row of penises pointing RIGHT AT ME)

…the board is, um… ah…

(DON’T SAY IT, QUINNS. YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT)

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Kotaku Article: Top 5 Friendships-Ruiners

Kotaku Article: Top 5 Friendships-Ruiners

Quinns: This month I gave Kotaku a powerful gift. The top 5 board games to play if you want to leave your friendships as cold and laced with poison as old scorpion shells. It starts like this…

“One piece of trivia orbits modern board gaming like a dark, sexy star. Someone who doesn’t really play them will always have heard from their friend, who heard it from another friend, that something like Game of Thrones or Battlestar Galactica is mean it ruins friendships.

“But Game of Thrones? Battlestar Galactica? These are games where the backstabbing and twists of the knife are expected. If you really want to test your friendships, these are the games you should be playing.”

…and rapidly moves on to the five games I think should be handled with care. I’d recommend you all go and peruse my warnings, before it’s too late.

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