Go Forth And Game

I thought I would do a quick update and highlight some interesting Kickstarter games.

First up, Dungeon Roll from Tasty Minstrel Games. Dungeon Roll is a quick dice based dungeon crawler. Here’s some flavor text from the KS – “A vicious dragon is out there… Assemble your party at the tavern… Slay the dragon! Grab the treasure! OH GLORIOUS GLORY!!! Dungeon Roll is a light and quick press-your-luck dice game with many important and interesting decisions.” It has custom dice, cool art, and a TON of other stuff. It  is only $15 delivered! Here’s the link.

Achtung! Cthulhu is a really cool rpg setting that deserves some attention. Here’s the flavor text – Discover the secret history of World War Two – stories of the amazing heroism in which stalwart men and women struggled to overthrow a nightmare alliance of science and the occult, of frightening inhuman conspiracies from the depths of time, and the unbelievable war machines which were the product of Nazi scientific genius – and how close we all came to a slithering end! The Secret War has begun! It is compatible with Call of Cthulhu RPG and Savage Worlds RPG. You can support it here.

Here’s an older game that is making a fresh new start – Deadwood Studios from Cheapass Games. Deadwood is one of Cheapass’s ‘bigger’ games.  From the KS – “The game happens at Deadwood Studios, makers of terrible Western movies. Players wander across the backlot each day, looking for acting jobs. After you take a role, you can roll a die and try to “act,” or you can “rehearse” to improve your odds.’”It had a base game with multiple expansions for different genres of movies. I really like the Cheapass Games that I have played and this one, with the sweet update, looks just as good. Check it out here.

Nothing Personal is a game from TomVasel and Stephen Avery that had a successful KS campaign a while back. Now there is a deck of standard playing cards with the art from Nothing Personal available on KS. You can check it out here.

Next, Zombie House Blitz from Stupid Awesome Games. A speed card game to play with friends and family. Save people from the zombies, even if grandma might have to be left behind. This sounds like a pretty cool take on Ligretto from designer Jeremiah Lee. You may remember him from Zombie In My Pocket, one of the most popular print ‘n’ play games on BGG. Jeremiah is back with ZHB. AND he’ll be a guest on Go Forth And Game very soon.  Support Zombie House Blitz right here.

Let’s get right to it.

What I played:
Z has taken to 10 Days In The USA. He has chosen that over the rest all week. We have played it about 4 times. And he didn’t win any of them. Yet he keeps choosing it. That’s the mark of a good game. The oldest daughter even joined us for a game (and subsequently won).
We played Memoir’44 again too.
We also got a play in of my game, Opening Day. In Opening Day, players are duck hunters trying to bag the most ducks. It has a lot of ‘take that’ and some interesting decisions. I’ll talk more about it in an In The Lab post soon.

I played the tutorial for Summoner Wars on my iPad.  It was fun and I’ll probably buy the bundle soon so I can actually play someone.

Gaming News
The biggest thing to me this week was all the talk in the blogosphere about game reviews. I think every game blogger and podcaster was talking about whether getting review copies of games affects the review. I have something to say about this but I think I’ll leave it for another post.
Another issue that was all over the place was The Jones Theory and whether it makes sense. The Jones Theory states that if you have two games that, in Tom Vasel’s words, ‘scratch the same itch’, you do not need them both. Get rid of one. I’ll post on this later too.

The Dice Tower awards were announced. You can find them here.

Days of Wonder announced the return of Mystery of the Abbey.  I’ve not played this one so I’m kind of excited to play this at some time.

Spiel des Jahres winners were announced.  The Spiel des Jahres 2012 winner is Kingdom Builder.  This is no real surprise.  It’s a game that hits all the check marks.  It’s a good game.  I’ve played it a couple of times and like it ok.  But it has some issues.  I hear the Nomads expansion fix this so I’m hoping to play it again soon.  The Kennerspiel winner is Village.  I’ve not played it yet as it is not imported into the USA. Yet.  Tasty Minstrel will be bringing it over soon I hope.  I’m hoping to snag a copy.

Ace Detective funded successfully on Kickstarter.  This one is a card game from Richard Lanius and has a pulp theme and art from Black Mask.  So of course I had to buy it.  It looks great.

That’s about it.  I’m off to work on those posts I talked about and an interview with Bully Pulpit Games’ Steve Segedy and Jason Morningstar!

Go Forth And Game,

Tom G

There are 71 hours left to get on board the Titans of Industry Kickstarter.

Head over there and give them some support – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gozergames/titans-of-industry-board-game?ref=category

Gozer Games is Kickstarting their first board game, Titans of Industry.  Titans is a worker placement game in which you are building factories and other businesses.  Look for an interview with Matthew Duhan of Gozer sometime this week.  In the mean time check out the Kickstarter page and pledge your support.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gozergames/titans-of-industry-board-game