Quinns: Very rarely do we flaunt our being English on this site, so I think we’ve earned the following:
THUNDERBIIIIIIRDS BOARD GAME BOX ART REVEALED! And it’s got Thunderbird 2 dropping a little Thunderbird 4! F*** yes!
Back off, America! This box is ours. Oh, I vooow to theeee, my coountry, that I will buuuy this booox…
If you don’t know what Thunderbirds is (or if you know it by its name in the Czech Republic, “International Phallus Patrol”), I explained it in detail here, when this board game was first announced. And let’s be clear, this isn’t some cheap tie-in for the 50th Anniversary of Thunderbirds. It’s being designed by Matt Leacock, designer of amazing co-op games like Pandemic, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert. It might not be shit!
Here’s literally everything we know about the game itself:
“Players have to constantly juggle the rescue missions happening around the world (completing them before time runs out) while never losing track of the long-term threat of the Hood. If time runs out on any mission or the Hood completes his evil scheme, the players all lose the game. You can assemble a large cast of characters — increasing the odds that you’ll be successful — or you go solo and attempt a long shot, hoping to save time. If your mission is a success, you’ll gain bonuses that can be used to help bring the Hood’s scheme crashing down around him!”
The Kickstarter goes live next month, and I sincerely hope that under “Risks and Challenges” they’ll just write “You might not be able to handle it tbh”. So for now I’ll just link you to Matt and my conversation about it on Twitter.
Favor of the Pharaoh (left) was announced just today, a 2015 re-imagining of Tom Lehmann’s 2006 game To Court the King (right). As you can see, To Court the King looks a little bit grim. But Bezier Games publish an awful lot more great games than bad so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt (while also stating that you should avoid Subdivision like the plague).
The idea in the original game of To Court the King is that players roll their dice, then use these dice to claim members of the King’s Court. Finally, players use the courtiers they’ve amassed in a final, spectacular dice-off to try and get the most of a single number.
I like that a lot. Bless any game willing to undermine it’s central challenge to end in a spectacular fireworks display of luck. The new edition sounds like Bezier are going all-out, too, with new, custom dice, more than 100 “sturdy” tokens, a big box and (of course) that more evocative Egyptian theme.
Over on Board Game Geek there’s fantastic news that three Korean games are also scheduled for a release this year. If 2015 marks the year that we get a steady flow of games out of Korea as well as Japan, I’ll just be over the moon. New ideas! New cultures making games! Hopefully some smaller sodding boxes! What must Korea and Japan think of our giant boxes for everything, eh? They must think we’re animals.
Diceperados (above) is some kind of bluffing and deduction game where your bandits are dice, hidden behind a little three-dimensional fort, plotting to rob various properties. But this one’s my favourite:
My Neighbour Monster is some kind of madcap card game where one player is a monster, one player is a hunter, but everybody is exchanging cards constantly and the monster in question is being hiddden in your hands, or something. I don’t know. But oh my god, look at that box art. It made me laugh out loud.
Finally, Downgo Dungeon is another of those cards games where everybody’s trying to land the last hit on a monster, but with lots of “sneaky bluffing and negotiation”.
I want all of it! Now! What else are you hiding, Korea? Don’t hold out on your old buddy England.
Let’s close with some cool new games that you can buy right now.
Linknotize is a terrible name for a fantastic idea. Trivial pursuit for the Millenial Generation, it sees players picking two cards from the spread on display, and racing from one page to the other on Wikipedia with as few links as possible, against the clock.
It’s true that the Internet is wrecking our long-term memory retention, but this is what we get instead. The ability to navigate all of human knowledge with astonishing elegance. I think this game sounds wicked and I’ve already reached out for a review copy.
Who remembers our Escape From the Aliens in Outer Space review?
This silly, savage little Italian hidden movement game is finally getting a new print run, and you can pre-order it right now! The new “Ultimate Edition” will include all the maps that were available as downloads from their website and a few “surprises”. Ooh!
Incidentally, Escape From the Aliens is one of only two games we recommend that also has the best size of box, the other game being Samurai Spirit. 7 inches by 7 inches, and about 2.5 inches deep. Ooh. It looks so good and feels just right. Am I right, ladies?
AND FINALLY, this is going in the news because it made me swear aloud when I saw it.
We get emails from people selling custom inlays for your board games all the time. They’re always somewhere between “fine” and “ok”. But these e-Raptor board game organisers that have little indents for every card and token on your personal player mat? Holy crap. That’s some next-level gaming. Just look at them!
