A Dragon Age pin badge arrived for me today. It’s based on the Swords & Shields cover and says “It’s smutty literature”. I love it.
This week in development
How pleased I am with The Lion & The Unicorn and my enjoyment of Arboretum has given me an urge to explore ideas for simple card games. And this weeks games have me considering area control ideas. Shove those together and you end up with several bizarre attempts to create an area control game using a deck of playing cards.
It’s definitely not worth showing to anyone yet, but I’m on the edge of something.
This week in games
On Wednesday, there was only two of us, so I gave Speakeasy its first try. It’s a good, quick game. One I could probably drive myself mad trying to play well, but I won’t.
We had plenty more time, so went with Evolution: The Beginning. Definitely not as good as the full game, but a great way to get a similar feel in less time. And the differences mean the player interactions are different. Creating a carnivore is definitely much more successful when you don’t have to worry about body size.
On Saturday, Alex and I checked out a beer festival. While there, we had a lot more games of Hive Pocket and I even managed to win once! The psychedelic effect SU&SD used in their video review is definitely how I feel when playing it.
I picked up a cheap, damaged copy of Mexica the other day, so this was a great chance to try it out (especially as lack of a third player meant Great Fire of London was out). Lovely simple rules (well, some of the placement rules are a bit fiddly, but they make thematic sense) and such nice components that it’s just a pleasure to play.
Tried out a couple more games of Speakeasy. So far there’s a pattern of me winning the first game against a new opponent, and losing the second. Interested to see if I’m just bad and only win because everyone else is equally bad to start.
Guilds of Cadwallon was good but much shorter than I expected. I managed to confuse myself and ended up with hardly any points. I like the game, but I really wish it had been themed differently. The art is kind of offputting, and more so when it has no effect on how the game plays.
We finished off with another game from the same designers as Mexica: Torres (a complete coincidence that Alex picked this up at UKGE just before the cheap copy of Mexica popped up online). It’s definitely got similar DNA, but is different enough that it didn’t feel like a replay.
The rules are a bit more esoteric and harder to understand than Mexica and I found myself struggling to find good plays, leaving Alex with a runaway lead.
This week in everything else
Ok, so I’m still listening to War On Women constantly. But when I’m not doing that, I’ve just started watching Critical Role (the second campaign – because then I might get caught up and could watch it live??). It’s good, but would be so much more convenient if the episodes weren’t 3-4 hours long D: