Quinns: Have you finished putting on your make up? The Games News is about to start!
Paul: No! You used up all the rouge, you rogue, I don’t know my lines and this leotard doesn’t fit me at all.
Quinns: That’s a bandanna. Listen, you’re gonna do great! You know the words to the first musical number, right? The one about the newly announced M.U.L.E. board game?
“There’s a game / There’s a new game / It’s about a roooobot donkey”
Paul: What musical number? Wait. There’s going to be a M.U.L.E. board game? Hot damn!
~break~
Quinns: Based on the 1983 computer game of the same name, yeah, and published by Finnish publisher Lautapelit, known for truly stellar games like Eclipse and Nations. It could be fantastic.
M.U.L.E. will be one of those truly cruel economic games. You’re working with the titular M.U.L.E. robots, which the game says that “you hate”, on a hostile planet to gather metal (for more M.U.L.E.S.), energy (to power them), food (for yourself) and crystals (which are useless but profitable back home), but the prices of everything fluctuates massively depending on availability.
In the video game, nasty events like sunspots and pirate raids would be far more likely to happen to the player in first place. Perhaps they’ll keep that in there?
Paul: What’s this mechanical bull for?
Quinns: You’re going to ride that while singing the song. Then I’ll be lowered from the lighting rig to sing about the return of Snow Tails.
Paul: Snow Tails is coming back?
Quinns: Yes! In a new, ugly edition!
Paul: Hoo… ray?
We’ve both been holding out for so long for a new release of this wonderfully silly, tense game of husky racing, but what the heck is going on with the editions? This the third different Snow Tails box we’ve had in 7 years, not including the bizarre escapade that was the Lamont brothers self-publishing about 4 copies of Mush! Mush!: Snow Tails 2, where they skimped on their art budget so they could include plastic buildings and pine trees of the kind you’d find on top of a cake.
What’s your song about?
Quinns: Mostly that, but with some high kicks.
So, have you at least prepared your nine minute soliloquy about Cat Tower?
Paul: NINE MINUTES! No?! Oh god, we have to cancel the… hey, this looks nice!
Players just have to stack cats! But sometimes it might be a fat cat. Oooh.
Quinns: Yeah, but unlike Jenga you have an opportunity to fix anything you knock over if you’re quick enough. Doesn’t it look adorable? It first came out in Taiwan two years ago, and IDW are using Kickstarter to gauge popularity in the West.
Paul: Quinns, this Kickstarter video has a jingle. Could I just sing that instead?
Quinns: Well, it’s only 12 seconds, so you’ll have to sing it a couple dozen times.
Paul: Got it.
Quinns: After that, grab the cutlass from stage left and do your big fight scene.
Paul: Who am I fighting?
Quinns: It’s kind of interpretive. You’re playing a swashbuckler, boarding a ship and taking on 100 sailors! But you’ll be the only actor, so give it your all.
It’s in honour of Rum & Bones, you see. Publishers Cool Mini or Not don’t have the best track record, but what’s interesting here is that they’re taking inspiration from MOBA video games. Each side has a few hero characters who are wading through the other side’s army of pathetic crewmen. Also, it has expansion packs adding brand new ships!
Paul: I do wish there were more pirate board games out there. Actiony pirate board games, anyway. We’ve got Merchants and Marauders or Libertalia, sure, but that sexy brace is just not enough.
And speaking of sexy braces, anyone following us on Twitter this week may have spotted our shout out to artist Kirsty Mills, who created these dashing and quite remarkable Shut Up & Sit Down Resistance cards. Thank you, Kirsty! Those are both fantastic and very flattering.
Quinns: They also upstage us. Paul, Paul, we can’t go on now. Other people’s art of us looks better than we do! How do we get out of this?
Paul: OH GOD BREAK A LEG.
