LudiCreations

And once more, we have made it to Saturday.
Isn't that just grand? I certainly think it is. Hope you've got yourself some gaming lined up, because... I mean, that's the way things should be, amirite?
Anyway, let's get to those reviews I know you so desperately desire.

Today we have: Manaforge, Magmeda Monsters, Menu Masters, Coal Baron, Model Box – The Monthly Subscription Box for the Miniature Hobbyist, City of Kings, Saboteur, Morocco, They Who Were 8, and 7 Wonders: Duel Pantheon Expansion.



Toucan Play That Game:

Manaforge Preview

In this paid video you can find out about Manaforge by Mystic Tiger Games.

Magmeda Monsters Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Magmeda Monsters by Rapid Leaf Productions.

Board to Death TV:

Menu Masters Review

It’s a fine dining frenzy! In Menu Masters, you are a world-class chef, brimming with ideas for the greatest menus ever crafted, but the only way to become the Menu Master is to beat the other chefs to Market Street for the freshest, most delicious ingredients! You may choose to open a store to earn some money…or just grab your shopping basket and be the first in line at the market. It’s the only way to get the best selection! But beware of the other chefs as they drive up demand and increase prices! Earn your stars in this deliciously fun race to gourmet supremacy, proving you are the greatest of menu masters!

Drive Thru Review:

Coal Baron Review

Intro (00:00); game overview (01:07); final thoughts and review (12:44)

Meeples & Miniatures:

Model Box – The Monthly Subscription Box for the Miniature Hobbyist Review

Model Box is a monthly subscription box designed for wargamers, collectors and painters. Similar to other subscription boxes (like Loot Crate), each month’s box is based on a theme. Our boxes contain at least 1 miniature, paints and a mixture of other accessories for our hobby such as brushes, scenery, terrain materials etc.

Polyhedron Collider:

City of Kings Kickstarter Review

Thankfully, I am more than happy to say that City of Kings is actually pretty damn good. There, I said it. I don’t even feel dirty. Well, no more than usual. Frank was good enough to take me and the rest of the motley “Polygon Colander” crew (nice to see we left an impression on him) through the game at Airecon. Approaching the game, it’s very visually striking. The artwork is fantastic and it’s obviously got a lot going on. Frank had partially set the game up as we sat down, assuring us that he’d not spend ages telling us the rules and how to play, we’d just learn it as we went along. He then proceeded to spend ages telling us half the rules and what each of the counters was for. Nice one Frank.

Magmadea Monsters Kickstarer Review

We recently received Magmeda Monsters from Andre at Rapid Leaf Productions; a card game centred on a galaxy containing a lot of Monsters in the Magmeda Galaxy. Pretty self-explanatory really and in keeping with the complexity of the game overall. The aforementioned monsters are sat on two sides of a war – the Liberation side or the Oppression side, each represented by their own deck. If you can hear the resonance of a Star Wars-like theme, you’re not the only one, although the two sides is about as far as this likeness goes provided you don’t count the Force powers…er..I mean magic.

iSlaytheDragon:

Saboteur: The Duel Review

Saboteur: The Duel is played over three rounds. The object of the game is to be the dwarf with the most gold at the end of the game. To find all this gold you must skillfully deploy your cards to build pathways through the maze, while also blocking your opponent’s movement through the maze.

Board Game Quest:

Morocco Review

In Morocco you are a trader in a market. I guess. To say the theme in this game is thin would be giving it too much credit. So, for starters, if you are a theme-first gamer you may want to look elsewhere. In Morocco, you get cubes and try to put your meeples in areas to control them and score points.

That isn’t to say Morocco isn’t exciting. The way you gather resources is unique. Those resources restrict which areas you can place your workers. And when sections of the market close, the workers “overflow” into adjacent areas changing how those areas are populated. There is a lot going on in a relatively simple game.

They Who Were 8 Review

A game of They Who Were 8 features multiple player partnerships with each partnership trying to become dominant through the playing of cards for victory tokens. However, the winner of the game is the player who is the weaker partner of the partnership. All of this is overlaid with a theme of ancient gods acting heroic or deceitful.

7 Wonders: Duel Pantheon Expansion Review

7 Wonders: Duel Pantheon expands the game environment of 7 Wonders: Duel to include a new board for placing gods of varying cultures, cards for god powers, additional Wonders, new Progress tokens, and alternate Age III cards representing Grand Temples to the gods. As the players progress from one Age to another, additional choices can be made as to which gods are available and then how they are utilized.

Another Saturday, another Review Roundup.
It's a calm and subdued Saturday here at the den. Just chillin' for a cool, December day.
So, let's just head over to today's articles.

We've got: Rise of the Kage, Imhotep, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Conan the Board Game Review, Dominion: Empires, Dicey Goblins, Theomachy, Microfilms, Clank!, and The Amberden Affair.



Toucan Play That Game:

Rise of the Kage Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Rise of the Kage by GCT Studios.

Play Board Games:

Imhotep Review

Imhotep is a fast-playing gateway game set in Eygpt. You collect stones, put them on ships and score when they are added to monuments

Polyhedron Collider:

Arkham Horror: The Card Game Review

I should preface this review by saying I love the Arkham Horror series of games from Fantasy Flight Games. Arkham Horror is up there as one of my favourite games of all time. I love the way it blends the works of H P Lovecraft, filtered through the Call of Cthulhu RPG, with a heavily thematic and punishingly difficult cooperative experience. So far every game in the series (with the exception of the now defunct Call of Cthulhu card game) have managed to deliver on that base concept, whilst still bringing something different to the table.

At the same time I am losing faith with the LCG or Living Card Game concept, the system requires a dedication both from a financial standpoint and finding players who will share that path with you.

Drive Thru Review:

Conan the Board Game Review

Intro (00:00); game overview (01:19); final thoughts and review (15:00)

iSlaytheDragon:

Dominion: Empires Review

Dominion: Empires is an expansion for Dominion and follows the basic rules for the game. It introduces a few new concepts.

The first new concept is debt. Some cards now either cost or give debt tokens to players. Debt tokens may be paid off at any time during a player’s buy phase, but that player may not purchase anything until all debt tokens are paid off.

Empires introduces split piles, where several piles contain two different cards that interact in some way with each other. The first five cards are on top, and players may only purchase the top card of the pile.

Dicey Goblins Review

Dicey Goblins is a race to score 18 points, in the form of dragon egg currency. To do this, players will risk forays into the Dragon’s lair in an attempt to steal the most valuable dragon eggs without awakening, and thereby facing the wrath of, the indwelling Dragon.

Board Game Quest:

Theomachy Review

In Theomachy, players take on the role of an ancient god, gambling the souls of their faithful. Each round, players will be betting their followers, casting spells, possibly trying to bluff their opponent, and eventually, fighting with each other. Fail to win the match and you’ll lose all the followers you gambled. Win, and you’ll not only keep your stake, but earn a few more for your congregation. However, once you’ve lost all your faithful, it’s game over for you.

Microfilms Review

In this hidden role game, players are randomly given the role of a spy from the USA, USSR, UK or China, while in games with more than three players, the hitman, interpol officer and information specialist are also thrown into the mix. At the start of the game, two spies are allied together as indicated by the two representative alliance-envelope cards (think passing notes) in the draw deck. The third spy is on her own.

Clank! Review

Players in Clank! represent thieves venturing down into a dungeon to retrieve valuable artifacts and hopefully stay alive long enough to reach the exit. Actions in the game are accomplished through deck building, with cards played representing a more macro view of your adventures.

The Amberden Affair Review

Each player takes the role of a servant at a party in the illustrious Amberden Manor. Attendee’s include the Governor’s Wife, the General and the Baron. While all players will have orders they are attempting to carry out, one will also be trying to poison as many of the esteemed guests as they can without drawing too much suspicion.

So, since I spend all my regular workdays gaming, I will often step away from it on my time off. You know, you don't want to get burned out on a thing. However, last weekend and this, I've been all-out gaming just about every chance I can! Last week was game day at the Milton, GA. library. Yesterday a friend came over for some Guild Ball. Today I'm headed to another friend's (and co-worker) house for more gaming, along with Italian beef and fresh-baked cookies.

So that's what I'm doing. How about you (besides reading this article)?

Speaking of this article, this week we have: Deadzone 2nd Edition, Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction, Mission to Mars, Tumult Royale, Expo 1906, The Cohort, MODX, The Siblings Trouble, Super Motherload, 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis, Fury Of Dracula, Dead of Winter, Potion Explosion, Dastardly Dirigibles, Apollo XIII, Snow Tails, Kune v Lakia, Deathbot Derby, Game of Train, and Ice Cool.



Drive Thru Review:

Deadzone 2nd Edition Review

Intro (00:00); game overview (01:50); overview of command dice (10:54); review of campaign system (13:16); final thoughts and review (19:53)

Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction Review

Intro (00:00); game overview (01:06); final thoughts and review (08:18)

Board to Death TV:

Mission to Mars Review

Mission to Mars 2049 is a light weight strategic family board game that keeps a dynamic game pace from the beginning till the very end. You start with a single base on the outside of the map and gradually build you colony larger one base at a time until you reach the North Pole of Mars and build a road through the polar ice cap. The player who builds the water extraction station on the center of the map first, wins the game. In order to do that you will need lots of resources (air, food and minerals) which you can acquire by building resource stations. Each time someone rolls that station on the game die, you get one card for each of the stations you have built for that resource.

Tumult Royale Review

In Tumult Royale, you play the royals. Round after round, you collect taxes from your subjects in order to build statues of yourself across the country, thereby securing your rank. If you leave enough commodities for the people after taxation, all is well and you can continue to build monuments to your own vanity. But if you take too much, the greediest of you will be punished. Who will build the most statues and win the game? Remember: the greedy shall rule, but the greediest is a fool!

Expo 1906 Review

In Expo 1906, players will win by totaling more prestige points at the end of the game than their opponents. Points are awarded for completing Projects which represent historical inventions of the period. To complete a Project, a player must purchase Resources and place them in a proper combinations together with a Project in his Laboratory. This is a challenging task as Projects come in many different shapes and must fit together with their resources in an already tight space. Soon the available room in the Laboratory will reduce and players will face the puzzle solving aspect of the game.

The Cohort Review

The Cohort is a fast-paced card game for 2-6 players in a race to be the first to assemble a Legion and show Caesar you are the greatest of his commanders.

MODX Review

In the abstract strategy game MOD X, each player has 14 game pieces and 18 score markers, with the goal being to reach an established number of points (determined by the number of players). Players take turns placing a game piece on the board and trying to create scoring patterns – an “X”, a “+”, or a line, with each pattern requiring five pieces – while simultaneously trying to block their opponents from scoring with these same patterns.

The Siblings Trouble Review

The Siblings Trouble is a card-driven, cooperative, storytelling game inspired by finding the mysterious places in your backyard.

The Siblings Trouble boils down all the core elements of an RPG (storytelling, exploration, discover, treasure, encounters, etc) into a fun-to-play narrative romp with your family or friends.

Super Motherload Review

Super Motherload is a tile-laying deck-building game, which means that you have your own deck of cards from which you draw each turn. The cards in your deck start out very basic, but over the course of the game you add new and more powerful cards to it. You use these cards to bomb and drill minerals and other bonuses from the game board. You then use the minerals you’ve collected as money to purchase better cards for your deck. Some cards give you an immediate bonus when you purchase them, and some give you other bonuses when you use them to drill. Each card you purchase from your library is worth victory points (VPs). You can also gain VPs from achievement cards that become available throughout the game. Whoever has the most VPs at the end of the game wins.

13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis Review

13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis is a nail-biting, theme saturated two-player strategy game about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Your fate is determined by how well you deal with the inherent dilemmas of the game, and the conflict.

Polyhedron Collider:

Fury Of Dracula Review

For those of you who are familiar with the Bram Stoker classic, Fury is pretty close to the book’s canon in terms of characters. Aside from the big D, the hunters consist of John Seward, Lord Godalming, Lady Harker and of course, Van Helsing. Although this time, he’s not an Aussie with a penchant for bearing his claws whilst riding a Harley.

Dead of Winter Review

Picture the scene; it's the middle of both a post-apocalyptic zombie invasion and the worst winter in recorded history, you're running low on everything from food to medicine and you come across a horse. A horse would be very useful for getting around town quickly, it's a majestic beast and for one to have survived this far into a zombie outbreak means it's a fighter, but it also represents a significant quantity of fresh protein and there's plenty of starving mouths to feed back at the colony. So what do you do?

This kind of decision is at the very heart of Dead of Winter, it's the crossroads element that turns it from a mechanical cooperative game of survival into a story. These difficult, morally ambiguous decisions don't come up as often as they should, but when they do they're often agonising. What did we do? Let's just say it was Findus Lasagne all round.

Dog and Thimble:

Potion Explosion Review

Try not to lose your marbles as you make spells in the great all-ages game, Potion Explosion! CMON Games and Horrible Games deliver a 30-minute light strategy board game that is fun, funny, and easy to learn.

iSlaytheDragon:

All My Eye and Betty Martin (A Review of Dastardly Dirigibles)

You are an inventive engineer competing with other great tinkerers to create the world’s most Dastardly Dirigibles. The victor wins Hornswoggle’s factory – gears, cogs and clockwork casings! To stand out amongst your competitors you’ll build your airship using the most perfidious means you know – set collecting! Okay, so maybe that doesn’t sound terribly devious, but worry not. There are still ways to mag your foes and leave them bellows to mend as you snidely grin, wheezingly snicker and twirl your mustache!

We Just Lost The Moon (A Review of Apollo XIII)

Apollo XIII is, naturally, a cooperative game. Players represent mission control, and they must do everything they can to get the crew of Apollo XIII back home safely.

The game is divided up into 7 different historical stages, representing the various key events of the mission. You start before the launch, carrying through events including the explosion that started the crisis, failing to land on the moon, and the desperate crawl back home. (Spoiler alert: you can’t land on the moon).

Board Game Quest:

Snow Tails Review

Snow Tails overall theme and objective is straight-forward and unique. You lead a dog sled against other dog sled racers and see who the best is. Unfortunately, the race is set in the Arctic Circle and so your course is made of some unforgiving snow. Racers will be drifting back and forth, trying to stay on the course while avoiding other racers and obstacles to the finish line.

Toucan Play That Game:

Kune v Lakia Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Kune v Lakia by LudiCreations.

Deathbot Derby Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Deathbot Derby by Royal N Games.

Game of Trains Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Game of Trains by Brain Games.

Ice Cool Review

In this video you can find out my thoughts on Ice Cool by Brain Games.

LudiCreations is in their final couple days for their Pocket Imperium Kickstarter campaign. In this quick-playing (30-45min game), players are looking to build their fleets of starships and expand out into the galaxy, taking over resources from their opponents in the process. There is no luck element in the game (no dice or card flips), just strategy.
The game is around 2.5x funded and has right around a week to go.

Source

From the campaign:

During a game of Pocket Imperium 2-4 players* will Expand (get more ships), Explore (move fleets) and Exterminate (conquer planets). At the end of each round, they will Exploit (sustain their fleets) and earn points.

Timing is everything, as the choices that each player makes has consequences! If more than one neighboring player chooses the same action, then they both have to make do with less.

A further layer of gameplay rests on the way players move their fleets on the map. The constantly changing power dynamics lead to temporary alliances - which may have unintended consequences, as players seek an edge.

Finally, choosing what sectors of space to receive points from is yet another strategic choice. Combined with the constant struggle to control (or deny the control of) Tri-Prime, which gives an often-significant bonus, players must choose wisely where they draw their points from.

LudiCreations has launched their Kickstarter campaign for , their spy board game of intrigue, secrecy, and subterfuge.



Source

From the campaign:

In the 45-60 minutes of , each player must take actions, use items, and interact with other players while in the hunt for intel. Each agent has one or more partners, and must find them - while outwitting the enemy agents.

On a player's turn, an agent may move from room to room of an embassy, while a gala reception is taking place, looking for the intel that the ambassador is trying to sell. Once found, it must be extracted safely. Failing that, an agent must stop the enemy from doing the same.

For security reasons, the true loyalty of each player is hidden, even from their teammate. Players will have to obtain information the hard way, interrogating or hacking each other, in addition to using items and their surroundings to gain the upper hand.

LudiCreations has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Town Center's 4th edition. They've already doubled their funding goal with still 30 days to go.



Source

From the campaign:

Town Center has been through a lot. It has been done in tiny 10mm cubes, in Lego bricks, in big 16mm cubes, even in giant 30mm cubes. Now, it is time for the game to reach its full potential, and be published for all to enjoy building their city, growing it to become a mini-metropolis.

Town Center could be the best adaptation of a city-sim computer game, *and* a fun, challenging board game in its own right.

With your support, we have the opportunity to create a living game that fulfills Alban's vision for everything this fine specimen of European game design can be.