Friday, 19th February 2021 ◆ Vegetable roll tips found in oyster (5)
Abyss is a 4-player boardgame, by game-design titans Bruno Cathala and Charles Chevalier. I'm excited to have created the implementation for this game over at Board Game Arena, where the game has just been officially announced.
The art in the game is beautiful, and even more so with the physical version. You collect "Ally" cards in your hand, and use them to purchase "Lords". The Lords are worth points, and usually come with a one-off or passive effect. It's one of those games which is pretty simple when you look at the rules, but nonetheless it feels satisying and deep. You are playing in the Deeps, after all...
Saturday, 9th January 2021 ◆ Enthusiast arranges stay in dream (7)
I almost exclusively read fantasy, and I love richly developed worlds which include linguistic, geographic and cultural detail. I am also a fan of board games, and as such I am particularly excited by the creation fictional games for such worlds. I have thought that creating the rules to a fictional game would make for an excellent game jam theme.
Friday, 27th November 2020 ◆ Innards: icy and blue (4)
A fourth set of specials has now come to Wodka: the Blues. This now means we can have games in which every card has an effect... it's complete chaos, but I like it!
Here's what they look like:
As ever, we feature increasingly tenuous iconography.
My favourite new card is the Blue 7 (everyone discards a card). I'm really excited for the moment when both members of a team successfully complete a Grand Wodka with it, pulling off a comeback history has never seen. Let's hope I don't end up sabotaging my future teammates trying to make this a reality...
Wednesday, 18th November 2020 ◆ Detain for finite arrangement to find differences (15) ◆
Comments (2)
I used to play a lot of Age of Empires when I was younger, but I had largely forgotten about the game until my brother suggested we try playing the definitive edition, which released a couple of years ago.
In the main, it's been a joy to rediscover the game. Despite being over 20 years old, the game is still great. I admit that my enjoyment of the game may be coloured by nostalgia, but even still I think there is one key factor which its sequels have gotten "wrong".
Tuesday, 17th November 2020 ◆ A king who chews will be the one to settle it (7) ◆
Comments (2)
I think chess is a fun game, no matter that I'm wholly awful at it. I approach chess as I would approach any of the genre of modern European board games which have recently become popular (Agricola, Dominion, Puerto Rico, and so forth). That is to say, I don't think too far into the future and I don't take too long to make my decision.
I don't think this is necessarily a problem, and I'm more than content to play at this level. Games can still be close and exciting, against like-minded players. However, a player who wants to be good at the game, will probably not be able to achieve that with their own brainpower.
