You know when you buy a game, and you know it’s going to be good?
“This will be a great time,” you announce to your cactus or spouse. “I have been convinced by this game’s art and premise that I will enjoy myself.”
Your coat’s still on. You pick up the phone. “Barry?” You say. “It’s me. Would you like to come over and have a great time?”
I was convinced Robinson Crusoe was the game for me. Guess what!
Quinns: Welcome to Games News, our new Monday morning feature. It’s now… 4pm, so it’s not morning anymore, but that’s OK, because this isn’t really news. Rather, it’s whatever hot reveals and dank announcements the SU&SD team have been excited by this week.
Don’t know what to be excited by in board gaming? Just follow our lead.
Yes, we’re still working on something. You’d better be patient, it’s still some way away.
In the meantime, Quinns continues his dirty scribbling for the big videogame sites. He’s doing good work, though! Look here! Over on Kotaku he’s written about why big ol’ licensed games aren’t the beginning and end of board gaming. A balanced diet needs Eurogames, for their fibre and slow-release energy. It goes a bit like this:
No, I don’t know, either. Go read!
Here’s something to keep you guys hungry. Quinns has just posted his review of Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar on Eurogamer, and it’s ONLY the most impressive game we’ve played this year.
Ooh, it’s a fine game. Go read!
Quinns: I’m meeting a lot of board gamers here in New York. It’s like Christmas, and I’m Santa, except they gift me with a game and only rarely sit on my lap and you know what this analogy doesn’t work at all
Today I was walked through WONDERFUL post-apocalyptic tactics game Neuroshima Hex!, released in 2006 and since expanded by a untidy bag of army packs. My friend took out this game, taught it to me, and promptly put it away again.
“We’ll play on the iPad,” he said. “It’s better on the iPad.”
My face promptly crumpled up like a plastic bag in a strong breeze. Worst part of it is, he was right.
Quinns: The first edition of Innovation, a card game ranked in Board Game Geek’s top 150 games of ALL TIME, looks - as you can see - supernaturally boring.
The tiny box looks like it should contain soviet suppositories, and inside it you’ll find 110 cards in the same hospitalised colour (Lung? Nicotine?). The deathly manual informs you that every one of these cards is an “innovation”, from archery to automobiles, and 2-4 players will use them to race from one end of history to the other.
Let’s say you agree to play Innovation, even though it’s clearly not your thing. That experience can be compared to going to drink a tall glass of dirty water, and discovering it’s neat whisky.
Quinns: Oh god. OK.
Because board games age so goddamn well, running a board game site can be a bit like running a daycare centre. Those guys can’t rest because it might mean a kid getting stuck behind a radiator or someone eating a rock. We can’t rest because even if we stay on top of new games, we’re writing under the weight of every awesome game we’ve never played.
Shadows over Camelot is one such older game we need to tell you about. One of HUNDREDS. It never ends, but all the same we’re going to talk about it with the good humour of men throwing a shiny penny into a wishing well.
Or a fabled lake. Here’s a co-operative game from 2005 about King Arthur and his knights trying to save Britannia (a similarly momentous task to our own, so we sympathise) EXCEPT their quest has a twist like the deadly whip of a dragon’s tail. One player might be a traitor trying to doom the kingdom. If you can’t figure out who’s against you, or if they aren’t, all might be lost. Probably.
Quinns: What are you doing RIGHT NOW? Swallow that food! Drop that baby! We’ve found a board game you should buy. It’s kind of what we do around here.
Mission: Red Planet is a game of racing to colonise Mars in a congenial, steampunk fashion. 3-5 players jostle to load their tiny astronauts into ships on the launchpad board, these land them on the planet board, and you all try and dominate regions and fulfill secret objectives in a game of area control.
That’s the idea, anyway. It’s probably written on a post-it somewhere in mission control. Mostly, you ‘ll be looking at your private hand of character cards, from which you must play one card each turn. And oh no. Oh no. You’re turning pale. You’re trembling. Opposite you, a player throws up in his mouth a little bit.
It takes 5 minutes to explain Mission: Red Planet, after which you and your friends will blast off in a game lasting 10 turns, and built from 10 excruciating decisions.
Quinns: TWO games based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books have come out recently. Don’t worry, though. We’re here to guide you through this difficult time. There’s Guards! Guards! which we’ve heard is about as much fun as actually being arrested, but there’s also Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, which we heard is quite good! So we got it and played it. Isn’t that right, Paul?
Paul: That’s right Quinns, and-
Quinns: That’s right!
Paul: …so the best thing we can say about Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is that it’s equal parts family friendly and utter chaos, so it’s perfect for a Discworld game. Two to four players are trying to gain control of the 12 districts of the city of Ankh-Morpork, clutching at power with their clumsily, pudgy hands as if they’re all trying to model clay on the same pottery wheel.
Quinns: Fingers slipping over oily fingers, all of you swearing, someone’s got clay in their eye, until finally the thing comes to a stop and all you’ve made is a mess.
Paul: In other words, Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is exactly like that scene in Ghost, but even sexier, because no-one knows who anyone else is. Ankh-Morpork (the game, not the city) is all about hidden roles, and each role has a different win condition, each needing Ankh Morpork (the city, not the game) to be in a different state for them to emerge victorious.
