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.
