Well, another summer is nearly over, and that means it’s time for the “Best Four Days of Gaming”… well, in my case, maybe the “best 10 hours of gaming”?! As has been my standard practice, I try to fit as … Continue reading →
Trading card games are one of the anchor pillars of the tabletop hobby. Whether it’s something mainstream like Magic: The Gathering, Lorcana, or Flesh and Blood, something a little more niche like One Piece Card Game or Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, or the crazy phenomenon that is still Pokémon, TCGs will always run parallel to board gaming.
The downside is that TCGs can require a heavy financial investment, and there’s always a risk surrounding the game’s longevity. Unlike staples like Magic and Pokémon, many TCGs fizzle out soon after release, becoming another name on the tombstone. Is anyone still playing Altered?
X: Seekers of Fortune is a card game that simulates the feeling of a TCG with no continued investment, no chase cards to pull, and no meta deck-building. That’s a huge draw for me since I love the playstyle of TCGs, but I’d rather have a self-contained experience like Compile or Mindbug.
The folks at Mega Moth Studios were nice enough to send over the deluxe version of the game, which includes crisp playmats and even a first edition booster pack to mix into the base game. Hmm…do I smell a system being built here?
Even in this age of elaborately produced games, The Game Makers from Bezier Games stands out from the crowd. A “game about making board games”, the team behind this title spent years working on the production, acquiring licenses, and working with Panda Manufacturing, to bring this to tables all over the world. Our man Kevin Brantley had the chance to talk with Bezier Games about this game at Origins 2025 and Gen Con 2025, and even got to sit in on a full play through last year.
The Game Makers features a nearly 12” square cube chock full of wooden components (3 different sizes of meeples, wooden trees), dice in three sizes, plastic buildings, double layer player boards, magnetic wheels, miniature forklifts, and SO MANY CARDS. And all of it is crammed into the box in a very well thought out series of stacked inserts.
How does it play? Quite well actually.
While there’s a lot going on, the main gameplay loop is not only fairly simple, but also simultaneous. Everything starts with the center rondel in which players send their forklifts out to collect resources. Every resource in the game can be used to either improve your personal factory, or to…
Super Dice Battle Designer: Wade Piche Publisher: Ephyrean Games Players: 2-4 Age: 14+ Time: 5-30 min Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4w2PLgM Played with review copy provided by publisher Choose your fighter and play your combo cards to KO your … Continue reading →
I played the physical version of Rumble Nation. This is a minimalistic area majority game. I normally dislike area majority games, but this one is just so clever. It's a game from Japan, and the setting is Japan too.
You roll three dice to determine what options you have on your turn. You must use two of the dice to choose the region you will place your cubes, and the third dice
I am nearing the end of my time here at WBC and I’m starting to get a bit sad. I have tomorrow but I will be leaving 1 day early on Saturday and just am not ready for it to be over. I have had a great time, played a lot of games, 13 by my count, and also seen old friends and made new ones. I have also done 6 videos but have had some technical difficulties with the camera as the batteries keep prematurely dying even though they have been fully charged. Bit I have made great memories and I am happy with that.
Today, we got in a full 6-player game of the excellent Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations. Imperial Elegy: The Road to the Great War 1850-1920 is a card driven game that blends diplomacy, warfare, and statecraft and feels a bit akin to games like Here I Stand and Virgin Queen from GMT Games. Grand scale sweeping epics that play multiplayers and take a day to play. Players play as 1 of 6 unique major powers in the game including Germany/Prussia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
The game is somewhat of a sandbox style game as you have so many options and choices about what to do during the course of the game. Obviously, your faction has some direction about what you should be doing but really it is up the player to spend their resources how they will to accomplish their ultimate goals and score Victory Points. I truly love that aspect about this game and as we played we saw that sandbox and the asymmetry between the various factions. Particularly at the start, each country has some specific goals that they have drawn from the National Goals Deck that are a source of Victory Points, in fact a major source of Victory Points, and players will need to prioritize these cards and decide which ones to attempt to go after from the start. With only 7 turns, they will have to make progress on these National Goals if they have any hope of actually achieving them.
I have now played 3 times and very much like the grand scale of the game. It is a tad long, todays game took us about 11 hours to play, and I am starting to have concerns with the ability of France and Germany to team up and dominate the game and the Great War. I played as France today and did fairly well scoring 9 VP’s from my National Goals and doing really well in Africa and Asia with colonies as well as breaking into Mexico. I was getting 8 cards near the end of the game because I had done well in my colonial keys and my stability. This gave me lots of options with my cards and I also built up a sizeable army with 5 full Armies on the board and 5 reserve armies with 5 squadrons on the high seas and several naval bases in the east, Africa and the Mediterranean.
I think the game is a tad bit long. This is because players have at least 5-7 cards each and the Battles are very long and are their own little sideshow with a war budget and multiple movements and attacks allowed. I like the game. Love it in fact but am beginning to think it is just going to be hard to get to the table often. Here I Stand is similar in scope and scale and uses the same system but can be played in 6-9 hours versus 10-14 hours for IE.
In the end, France, Germany and the Ottomans were teamed in the Triple Entente while UK and Russia formed the Triple Alliance even though Austria and Italy were left out in the cold. The TE won the game as they just had too much muscle. I look forward to the next time I can play but it might be a while.
I was then able to watch a few minutes of play of the new upcoming Here I Stand Series game called TheNight Watch: European Global Conflicts 1618-1648 from GMT Games, which focuses on the Thirty Years War. Just a prototype of the game but it looks epic and those playing seemed to enjoy it!
I was able to then go down to the vendor hall and bought quite a few games including The Alamo from Art of Wargames (solitaire), Sails at War from B2M Games, Year of the Rat Vietnam 1972 Deluxe Edition from Decision Games, Fortress of Oblivion from White Dog Games (solitaire), Le Conqueste from White Dog Games (solitaire), Model’s Counterattack from Dissimula Edizioni, On To Berlin from Multi-Man Publishing and Strike Counter Strike from Multi-Man Publishing. I was gifted a new copy of Assault Red Horizon ‘41 Revised Edition from Assault Games. Lots of great stuff to explore over the next several months.
I then met up with Bob Tkach designer of the upcoming Above the Trenches: The Fokker Scourge 1915-1917 from Flying Pig Games coming to Kickstarter this fall. This is a 2-player aerial dogfighting wargame that combines tactical, operational, and strategic elements of World War I air combat on the Western Front into a fast playing and fun game. The game focuses on the early years of WWI aerial warfare and the German-versus-British air battles.
The players will have to deal with the strategic board that has sector based objectives that will provide Victory Points and then place out their air units on the operational board where they will focus on height and positioning of observation balloons and fighters to protect them and finally will duel using cards on the innovative and very interesting combat wheel system for tactical positioning.
The players will draw a hand of technology cards, maneuver cards, speed cards and ace cards that all have numbers and some written events and will then play them to move the plane counter around the wheel and its various areas to take shots with front or rear based guns, avoid contact by maneuvering out of harms way and then starting over until one side or the other wins.
This game is not just about the dogfighting but players will be faced with the management of their squadrons, taking out of service planes to upgrade and repair them, give training to pilots to learn new skills and also to build new and upgraded planes.
A very fun and exciting game. As I was playing, I could really fell the excitement and tension building and very much loved what this one was trying to do. After playing, I was able to shoot a 30 minute video with the designer Bob and his developer Rich and I could feel their passion for the subject and the game.
After finishing up, I then met up with Uwe Wallentin from Sound of Drums to get a look at their upcoming lineup of games which includes many great looking titles such as Neither King Nor God Expanded Edition,No Retreat! The Russian Front Designer’s Edition, Battles of Napoleon Volume II: QUATRE BRAS 1815 / WARTENBURG 1813, Iron Cross Army Group North and Iron Cross Kharkov.
Uwe is a great guy and Sound of Drums is doing a great job of designing playable games with fantastic graphic design and artwork. I very much enjoyed our chat and we did a 30 minute video that’ll be up later on the channel.
That was it and I landed in bed around 10:30pm and need to get some rest for our final day tomorrow where we are playing Here I Stand from GMT Games.
For over five years (but fewer than seven), Postmark Games has published high-quality, low-cost print-and-play games. Oh, you need examples? How about roll-and-move titles like Voyages, Aquamarine, and Waypoints? Or ditties like Battle Card, Scribbly Gum and Koala Rescue Club? Or even 52 Realms: Adventures? Now the company is working on their first coin-flip title, Master of Coin. For today’s Space-Cast!, we’re joined by Rory Muldoon, half of the Postmark team, to discuss the beginnings, current status, and future of the company. How does one build a business on games that players print for themselves? Maybe we’ll find out!
Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.
TIMESTAMPS
2:06 — the origins of Postmark Games: when Rory met Matthew
11:33 — the first game
15:20 — roll-and-moves: Voyages, Aquamarine, and Waypoints
24:52 — licensed games: Battle Card, Scribbly Gum, and Koala Rescue Club
31:55 — Postmark’s compact form factor
40:19 — playing card games: 52 Realms: Adventures and 52 Duels
51:48 — from the customer’s perspective
58:28 — the current title: Master of Coin
(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read the next installment in my series Talking About Games, this time tackling the topic of what makes a good list! Naturally, the piece includes a list.)
I recently read an interesting announcement on Board Game Wire that Scott Brady (co-designer of one of my favorite party games, Caution Signs, along with some others I really enjoy like Boop and Hues & Cues), is trying a new “proof-of-play” model of publishing through his company, A Game Studio. Their goal and methodology is to make a single, small print run of selected games “to generate real-world sales, player feedback, and retail validation before presentation to larger publishing partners.”
In the interview, Scott mentions a few problems he is trying to solve through this model:
Publishers are passing on great games because they already have a full schedule for the next few years.
Publishers are wary of taking on risk for a big print run without knowing how people will respond to the game.
Mass-market games aren’t a good fit for crowdfunding.
I agree that those are all legitimate problems facing publishers (and designers). This certainly isn’t the only solution or approach, but I appreciate Scott for trying something different. He’s aiming for a single print run of these games at smaller quantities (1500-3000 units), then try to license the game to a studio that wants to invest in a bigger print run.
Of course, like any publisher, A Game Studio has limits as to how many games they can publish, so they may quickly run into the same issue that any publisher faces when they are inundated by submissions. Scott is starting with two games, and he says in the interview, “I am personally staking my reputation on the games I choose to help.”
I have some questions about the model, and I’m genuinely curious to see how it plays out.
If a game does extremely well in the proof-of-play model, wouldn’t A Game Studio prefer to keep it in house?
Are publishers actually looking for more games than they already have in their crowded release schedules?
Is this actually similar to a publisher signing the worldwide rights to a game that’s currently only found in one language or that had a single successful crowdfunding campaign?
Given the slim margins on selling games into distribution and retail, will publishers be willing to decrease their margins on these licenses? In this model, a publisher would pay both the designer and A Game Studio based on the sales they generate.
I 100% applaud Scott for trying to create a win-win-win situation for designers, publishers, and his studio, and I genuinely hope it works. I’m sorry I don’t have a link to his website or where publishers can submit to this process–I can’t find it on any of the articles, and web searches for “A Game Studio” aren’t providing accurate results.
“What’s next?” This was the question on everyone’s minds after we had just wrapped up a 10-month campaign of Betrayal Legacy, and it was time for my monthly legacy gaming group to pick our next campaign. We had already done … Continue reading →
There are times, engaging with this hobby of games, when one is confronted with the very real possibility, regardless of one’s self-esteem, that one is in fact stumbling through this harrowing and at times magnificent experience we call life with a dearth of cognitive capacity.
Put another way, there are games that make you wonder, “Am I a dumdum?”
Thief’s Market, from publisher PickPocket Games and designer Dave Chalker, is just such a game. This is surprising for a few reasons, not least of which is because Thief’s Market is, mechanically, a breeze. It’s a challenge to think of something simpler without tipping over into party games. Each round is divided into two phases: grab some loot, then spend said loot on resource conversion powers and points until someone wins. This is not, in theory, the stuff analytical types tend to lose much sleep over.
The starting player rolls all the dice, which are then placed in the middle of the table along with the first player token. Players take turns drafting dice by either staking a claim from that middle or picking the pocket of a fellow player. If…
Haratama is a trick-taking game from Japan with a horror theme and great art. Every round, three card values are randomly drawn to become the penalty values for the round. That means if you win these cards you will be penalised. This is a game about scoring as few points as possible. Points are bad.
Most standard trick-taking rules apply. You must follow suit if you can. There is a
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