Yomi’s Gate is board game based on the old struggle of feuding Japanese clans where every single component is made from laser cut acrylic and it makes a unique sight.
If you have played Commandos then you’ll get what V-Commandos is doing because it is recreating the same form of game play but in tabletop form.
Recorded at Essen Spiel 2014, the video gives a very in depth run through of the mechanics of the game but is still an early prototype, so the pretty miniatures we've been seeing on the Conan Facebook page aren't to be seen.
Update: We may have reviewed it almost 3 years ago, but housing crisis has made it onto Kickstarter - you can go back it here
Original article: I must admit, when I first played Housing Crisis I hated it; a dull theme, a cash in on the micro game craze and a strategy that plays like tic tac toe but with numbers rather than noughts and crosses. It really did not win me over. I was ready to give up on the game and write a scathing review when I tried the game with a different player, a software engineer with a more analytical mind and the entire thing clicked.
Cthulhu and World War II is an odd mix when you think about it. The horrors of war are bad enough and then our twisted imagination decides that it’s not scary enough and that we need some otherworldly beings added to the mix. It’s a recipe that has succeeded in many genres with obvious seeds in the Hellboy comics and movies and the popularity of the Achtung! Cthulhu role playing game. Emergent Games have already had success with Fireteam Zero, a tactical miniatures game that blends Lovecraftian horror with an alternative World War II but are heading back to Kickstarter for a slightly different reason to usual so I spoke to Mike Langlois from Emergent Games about Fireteam Zero’s return.
I was about to start this piece of news by talking about my favourite science fiction novel, where the AI overruns mankind and cripples its entire infrastructure. Then I realised this happens at the end of the book and is kind of a huge spoiler so let’s not go there. The reason I was thinking all this is because MIND: The Fall of Paradise is a board game that simulates this cataclysmic event. One player takes on the control of the power hungry AI and the rest of the players are the rebellious humans attempting to spoil its nefarious plots.
Friends and Foes is evoking a fantasy version of Galactic Arena, the science fiction gladiatorial combat game that we previewed a couple of months back. Galactic Arena had its issues (the biggest of all was a poorly written rulebook) but Friends and Foes appears to sideswipe these with logical card driven actions and a more straightforward ruleset. In Friends and Foes you’ll team up with a like thinking group of fantasy archetypes to kick the magic wielding, armour wearing snot out of another team of fantasy archetypes.
Since the release of Rogue Trader, the Warhammer 40,000 universe has spread across multiple games, rules iterations and media. From the original tabletop miniature games, to board games, video games, books and even ropey films. In Warhammer 40,000 Conquest The Card Game (to give it its full name) the grim dark future of the 41st millennium has been recreated in a customisable card game (and not for the first time I might add) but can a deck of cards truly capture the iconic characters and epic conflict of the setting?
Wednesday was Fantasy Flight Games’ LCG State of the Union address. This is where the company communicates with its LCG players and talks the current state of the game catalogue, tournaments and gives news on upcoming changes and events. The big news out of the event was a second edition of A Game of Thrones the Card Game and a change to the legality of LCG cards that can be used competitively.
This got me thinking what over imaginary games from film and TV would make great games in the real world. So here are five of my favourites, some of which are actually real!
Update: Privateers has relaunched and the new project can be found here
Privateers! is a modular scenario driven board game of pirate adventures with a good deal of fantasy and otherworldly horror thrown into the mix. Try to imagine Arkham Horror on the high seas with the options to play competitively, cooperatively or as teams. This is Myling Games’ first board game and first Kickstarter.
I had the pleasure of interviewing the game’s designer and artist Tina Engström about the game, its development and a certain Disney ride turned film.
Lords of War, the amazingly tactical two player card game, has returned
to Kickstarter with Magic and Monsters, a new dual deck of Orcs and
Dwarves but this time kitted out with new abilities.
The other week, while browsing the upcoming Essen releases on Board Game Geek, I stumbled upon some amazing artwork for a game called Heroes by Historical Games Factory. I wanted to know more about this new game and about this Polish games company that I’ve never heard of before. Instead of doing what any normal person would and partake in a bit of google sleuthing I thought I’d go straight to the source and started talking to Piotr from Historical Games Factory about who they are and their new games.
Those cheeky Chinese have done it again and created a physical version of the online CCG sensation Hearthstone. Since first released by Blizzard card gamers have been asking if Hearthstone will come to a physical version, hoping for a replacement for the now defunct World of Warcraft TCG but most people who have played Hearthstone agree that it just wouldn’t work as a physical game.
I like Tash-Kalar. It’s an interesting and unique abstract game that involves laying down tokens in patterns to release giant monsters into a gladiatorial battlefield. I really like Tash-Kalar buy apparently Z-Man Games doesn’t like me.
King Down is the prequel to Chess, well in the narrative sense at least (Chaturanga is the real prequel) but that’s not a very good description of what this Kickstarter game is all about. A better way to explain it would be that King Down is a card driven battle game that takes a lot of its ideas from Chess but mixes them up in interesting ways.
Eminence: Xander’s Tale, the
card collecting video game we featured a few months back, has hit
Kickstarter. Influenced by the triple triad card game from Final Fantasy
VIII, Eminence blends the card battling and collecting features of
trading cards games and mixes them with an exploration reminiscent of
Pokémon and 8 bit Zelda titles.
At this very moment there are over 150 active tabletop gaming projects on Kickstarter. 150! That means you need to make your project stand out. I get to look at loads of Kickstarter projects and there’s nothing worse than looking at a project and knowing that it isn’t going to fund. The game itself could be absolutely awesome but if your Kickstarter project is terrible then its chances of funding are severely reduced.
Now I’m not pretending to be some form of Kickstarter expert here, and I can’t promise you millions, jet skis and Kickstarter success but I do see the same mistakes happen over and over again. Here are the top 8 mistakes I keep seeing and what you can do to fix them (I couldn’t think of two more and no number 7 won’t shock you).
At the UK Games Expo 2014 I spoke with Joaquin Meier Battlefront miniatures where we spoke about Dust Tactics, Firefly, upcoming games from their partnership with Gale Force Nine and I make a horrible faux pas about Dust Warfare.
Unfortunately we had some problems with the sound, we’ve done our best to try and edit it out but there are still some issue which I apologise for.
We all kind of knew it was true, what with the rumours and wild speculation floating around the internet, but Z-Man games have officially announced that Pandemic Legacy is coming.
