I must admit, I’ve always been a bit turned off by politics, a communist in a red tie and a fascist is a blue dress, shouting at each other from opposite sides of a room, while a group of people behind them to do their best Lord Melchett impression. I think it comes from always living in a constituency when the current MP is winning by such a huge majority that my vote feels like a waste of time. But this board game review shouldn’t be about real world politics, or should it?
Controversy abounds in our latest little slice of board game news, as we have news of tabletop Kickstarter projects being suspended by Kickstarter themselves and legal shenanigans as Stronghold Games sues Plan B games for taking away a juicy board game printing deal. You could say they re-moo-ved for a reprint.
It’s not all bad news as we find out that table top gaming is the biggest section of Kickstarter (something we’ve long suspected) and that Critical Role have raised a huge portion of that money on their very own, which means we will definitely be getting a Critical Role cartoon (and I now have the CR theme tune in my head) and then there’s all that Balder’s gate stuff too, which we are very excited about.
This week’s Kickstarter Highlights is brought to you with the letter “D” and the number 6:
Dragons, Dungeons, Dinosaurs*, Disease, Demons** and Deepspace! That’s what has our fingers itching over the “Select this Reward” button this week.
After spending his time in the garden, Andy joins Steve to discuss his hooky copy of Terraforming Mars, the latest news and the current crop of games at their table.
They stab the emperor in Donning the Purple, search for lost gold in Treasure Island and provide a spoiler free review of Charterstone, the legacy game from Stonemaier Games. They then cast off the spoiler shackles and have an in depth discussion of the Charterstone game.
It's an odd collection of board game news this week, as we have the Mensa award making us all feel ever-so-clever for playing our favourite tabletop games but then a stupid decision regarding the flagrant brushing aside of historical genocide causes some unsurprising controversy.
Don’t worry though there’s plenty of things to get excited by, from Demons to vampires and vikings to playing games in bed. Not that kind of game you filthy animal.
Don’t worry though there’s plenty of things to get excited by, from Demons to vampires and vikings to playing games in bed. Not that kind of game you filthy animal.
We have some tough decisions to make here in Collider Towers, you see, the biscuit jar is nearly empty, we’re down to the last roll of toilet paper and the only coffee we have left anywhere in the building is Nescafe Original. All problems that can be easily fixed, however, the allure of current and upcoming Kickstarter campaigns has us thinking we can make do if it means we can squeeze another pledge out of the petty cash*.
Regular readers of this site or listeners to our podcast may have gotten the impression that my imagination is a dangerous and scary place. An accurate, if somewhat understated description. I find myself on many occasions mulling over a whole range of ideas from the size of the plastic baggies we use to store game components through explaining to colleagues why using well-defined business processes is to everyone’s advantage, all the way to convincing my other half why getting an Oculus Rift is clearly a good idea; not just a glorified way of kicking the cats.
Due to some unknown administrative oversight, we didn't release a news article last week. In fact the entire Polyhedron Collider team didn’t do a damn thing last week. Now I have a valid excuse, I’ve got a new job and I’m trying to reevaluate the whole work/life balance (or should that be work/board game/life balance?). Steve and Andy obviously decided they just couldn’t be bothered. I think stronger leadership is required and will soon be making my bid to oust Steve as head of the organisation.
Internal politics and lazy writers aside, it's actually been a quiet couple of weeks in the world of tabletop gaming but that doesn’t mean that plenty of board game and role playing game shenanigans haven’t been going on. We’ve got news from the Borderlands, Waterworld and London, and more buses than a National Express depot.
Internal politics and lazy writers aside, it's actually been a quiet couple of weeks in the world of tabletop gaming but that doesn’t mean that plenty of board game and role playing game shenanigans haven’t been going on. We’ve got news from the Borderlands, Waterworld and London, and more buses than a National Express depot.
The boys from Polyhedron Collider are back but are suffering from a lack of sleep due to daylight saving and midnight wildlife encounters. Don't worry though, they have managed to play some board games.
The boys discuss the latest news and Kickstarters and talk about High Society and Dinosaur Island. We also read from the mail bag and present an MS Paint challenge to the budding artist in our audience.