Quinns: I used Uber for the first time last night, which is a great service if you want your life to stop making sense. Summoning a car out of the ether like a fat metal pokémon? Chatting to the driver and getting a five star rating as a passenger? Madness. Naturally, my thoughts this morning are all polite chauffeurs and luxurious leather interiors, so I’d like to invite you all into the Games News Taxi.
‘Ello there! Where you off to? Kickstarter Plaza, is it? Lot of dodgy blokes down there, mate. Lot of chancers. You look like a classy sort, not that it ain’t not none of my business, mate.
Oh, look up there! That’s La Nuit du Grand Poulpe, that is. It’s comes out in English later this year. Normally I feel funny about all these foreign games coming along, taking our shelf space, but I wouldn’t mind if they all looked this good, eh! Wouldn’t mind having a rummage around her inlay.
I suppose it sounds like a fun little secret movement game, too. Players need magic ingredients for their little chibi cthulu cult, and you all pick where you’re going, then move your lads at the same time. If you end up as the only person in a space, you get a little bonus, but if you go for the same spot as someone else, you both get penalised! Lovely jubbly.
Oh, bless me, look over there! It’s only a big preview of how Madame Ching’s going to play. Remember that one? A lightweight game where players all plot voyages in the employ of the famous Chinese pirate?
It doesn’t sound half bad! Players have all got these gorgeous “expedition” cards, and on your turn you continue your voyage by playing a card that’s a higher number than what you played before. If the card is the same colour as the last one you played, you ship’ll go east one space, otherwise you go south. If you can’t or don’t play a higher card, your voyage ends and you claim a reward based on where you got to, with players all racing to certain spaces.
There are encounter cards too, and missions and skills. Not much murder and pirate pillaging in this game, though. Why are games all so bloody namby-pamby these days? When I was a boy me and my brother used to play nothing but wargames, and dad would be waiting with a wooden ruler and a slap on the bollocks for the loser. Made me the man I am today, I don’t mind tellin’ you.
Did you catch the game last night? Nah, not football. I’m talking about Pagoda, innit. Two player game, lots of wood? Board Game Geek News published a big preview of it, and it looks a bit lovely.
Basically, each player has got these cards, and you have to play them to do… something with these pagodas, and when you do, it means your opponent has to do something. Or can’t do something. And then when you place tiles to make the pagodas bigger you can use the power of that tile, although you could kind of use it before. It sounds brilliant!
I dunno, some of it might have gone over my head, but I do like those big 3D pagodas. Why don’t more board games build upwards, eh? Why have they all got to spread out sideways like a dog’s dinner. You shouldn’t let a dog eat a board game, though. It’s not right.
You’ll never guess who I had in this cab last week. It was only Mage Wars Battlegrounds! Here, let me draw a picture of it for you. I’m telling you, they looked just like that.
Only just announced, this one. Battlegrounds is an upcoming expansion for the fantastic Mage Wars that’s gonna be right proper mental and no mistake. Get this- it’s gonna turn it from a strict arena game into a varied board with scenarios, different arenas and robust rules for more than 2 players.
The new arenas are going to be “modular”, which Arcane Wonders say is going to let people make their own arenas. I know their game, though. Saving on glue are you, Arcane Wonders? Don’t want to stick together one big board? Cheeky bugglers.
Tell you what else Arcane Wonders are doing. They can’t be bothered to design their own game, so later this year they’re re-publishing Robin Hood under the name Sheriff of Nottingham! I’m a patient man, but they should lock those people up and throw away the key.
Robin Hood does sound like a right laugh. You all play merchants delivering goods to three parties being thrown in the king’s castle, and you can make a little money from selling chickens or potatoes or what have you, but the big money’s all in the crooked stuff, like booze and gold. Problem is, you might be searched by the Sheriff himself on the way in! Then there’s some kind of mechanic where you can ask for help from Robin Hood and he’ll steal things for you.
You played that Mundus Novus yet? It’s a lovely card game with a great bit of wheeling and dealing. I’d love some of that, but with the chance to get one over on the filth. Know what I mean?
Ah, here we are, mate. Kickstarter Plaza. I… what the blazes is that? “AVGhost Paranormal Investigation Board Game”? Oh goodness gracious. You play it in the dark? And it has audio and video segments featuring real-life ghosts, and uses QR codes and smartphones? That sounds worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I mean, what you get up to in your own time is your business mate. But it’s not for me.
As for the fare, that’ll be… oh, a pithy ten word observation should do it. Yeah, just leave it in the comments, that’s great.
Have a good one, mate! Be lucky! Oi oi!
