GAMES NEWS! 20/07/20

Tom: I’m doing it! I’m finally piloting the newscopter! I can see so many games from my perch in the sky! I’ve dialed down the whimsy-ometer, and the daftosphere has been calibrated. All the news is trickling out the newspipes – I can see my NEWS from here!

Matt: OK Tom, gosh. Fine – you can keep flying the newscopter for a COUPLE OF MINUTES, but for heaven’s sake – crank the Reprint-Rotor before we have a terrible accident?

Tom: Yessir!

Queen Games’ delirious Twitter teasing has finally led us to its natural conclusion. The cities have been revealed, the mystery is gone, you can all go home now thank you very much that’s quite enough. The first of the City Collection is Hamburg, a reimplementation of 2013’s Bruges – which, as you can tell, is not Hamburg. It’s Bruges.

Matt: Yeah, switching from Bruges to Hamburg isn’t exactly the most enthralling re-theme?

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Review: Tammany Hall

Review: Tammany Hall

This week, Paul looks at the notorious Tammany Hall, a game all about the not-entirely-pleasant, not-completely-wholesome New York political machine that was cranking its way through the second half of the 19th Century.

Is it a cynical game for cynical times? Perhaps, but the reprint was certainly a terrific Kickstarter success. The much more important question is… just how good is Tammany Hall?

Here’s your answer!

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Podcast #23: The Christmas CarolCast

For our 23rd podcast Paul and Quinns discuss board games past, present and future. That sounds more hifalutin than it probably is. We begin by discussing the consenting tentacle sex of Consentacle, and how our next live podcast will be an excuse to review Cat on Yer Head. We fret about Prophecy, chat about Tammany … Read more

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Tammany Hall

Tammany Hall

“The way to have Power is to take it,” said William “Boss” Tweed.

Tammany Hall is a game of backstabbing, corruption, temporary alliances, and taking power at all costs. If you want to rule New York, you are going to need to play the city’s growing immigrant populations against one another. Help the immigrant groups who owe you political favors, call in those favors to slander your rivals, and win elections.

In Tammany Hall, players help immigrants settle in New York, collect political favors from those immigrant groups, send ward bosses into Manhattan to secure votes, and slander political opponents. An election is held at the end of every fourth year, and the player who uses his power base best will be elected mayor. The Mayor’s grip on the city is tenuous at best. After every election, the Mayor must pay off his political rivals by placing them in offices that they can wield to try to take control of the city. Every player is your friend, every player is your enemy.

Tammany Hall was the political machine that dominated New York City politics by organizing the immigrant populations. While the organization’s influence spanned from its founding in the 1790s to its collapse in the 1960s, this game is set in lower Manhattan roughly between 1850 and 1870 – the era of Boss Tweed.

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