Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 86 i Tabletop Gaming

Subscribe and Save! Just one payment of £64.99 for the whole year • Subscriber-only artwork covers • The latest board game news, previews and reviews • Deep dives & interviews with world famous creators and designers HASSLE-FREE GIFT IDEA! Treat yourself or gift a subscription to someone special FREE GIFT - Get a free copy of Village Rails when you subscribe. Modernise the countryside by building rail networks in this top-rated strategy game. To see our latest subscription offers go to: www.ttgami.ng/TTGWinter2023 or call 01778 392034 and quote TTGM/Sub24 *T&Cs apply – Free gift available when you subscribe via Direct Debit between November 1st 2023 and January 31st 2024 at 11.59pm. See website for details.…

PREPARING FOR KICKSTARTER First things first, you’ve got to have an idea of what your game is. You don’t have to have a complete game ready to ship as soon as the campaign ends but it does help. When you come to Kickstarter you want to be able to show something visual about your game and to give as much detail about what you’re making as you can. Next up, if time is on your side, you’ll want to get your Pre-Launch page up as soon as you can. This little page will allow people to sign up to be notified when your Kickstarter goes live which is great for getting your project seen. And finally, if you have something playable already, start contacting reviewers at least three months before…

“My daily role varies a lot” he says, when we ask what being a Head of Games actually means. “It can be anything from someone freaking out because they missed a page in a book that they’re printing, and they don’t know what to do…I use that as an example because I’ve done that before, and I went to the Head of Games at the time and they helped me. So now I do that for other people.” He says. “But then also internally making sure that creators’ voices are heard, feedback is passed internally to the company. And then, that the company understands what the tabletop industry is about. Because you can’t expect a hundred-plus people to know every single industry that’s on Kickstarter. That’s where myself and the…

Is Crowdfunding good for tabletop games? Even as I ask this question I hear the simultaneous crack of dozens of sets of knuckles as various players get set to type an impassioned response. On the one hand, the answer’s obvious. Many designers and publishers will tell you: crowdfunding is an invaluable tool. It allows publishers to estimate demand for a game, whip up interest ahead of a retail release, and the margins are generally better for publishers, too. On the other – most of us have read about big projects that deliver massively late, or fail to fulfil some or all of their pledges, or ask for extra money, ship pledges with missing or substandard components, or worse. And successful Kickstarter projects have a reputation for component bloat – landfills…

If you’ve backed crowdfunded projects for some time, you almost get into a bit of a groove with it. You back the game (often Kickstarter), wait for the pledge manager (often BackerKit) and then wait for the joyful email from the fulfilment company (usually GamesQuest, or Spiral Galaxy Games). Hopefully, you’ll get a few updates during the process that keep you in the know about when to expect it, and hopefully, those updates don’t ask for $227 extra in shipping. Somewhere in the middle of that though, the game gets made. So what do games like Anachrony, Sleeping Gods, Blood on the Clocktower, Oath, Project L, Moonrakers, Merchants of the Dark Road, Root, and hundreds of others have in common? They’re all made through the same manufacturing company – say…

I love Scrabble. It’s a great game. Unfortunately, no one will play it with me, particularly my other half. Common excuses include “it’s dull”, or “it’s dated”; both words (worth five and seven points respectively) which suit me perfectly. Consequently, I’m constantly seeking out word games that will entice players to the table. Mild successes so far have been Tim Fowers’ Paperback, along with the pocket-sized Ansagrams - a rucksack mainstay of mine. This latest contendant though, looks to be particularly promising. Illiterati describes itself as a cooperative survival word game. As a team, one to five players will be racing to assemble words to stave off the evil forces of the Illiterati; an organisation hellbent on ridding the world of literature. As a strategy for tyranny and control, this…

Following the release of Dog Park, a relaxing, yet competitive, game about walking dogs, designer duo Lottie and Jack Hazell continue the dog-friendly theme with their latest game for all the family, Forever Home. Apart from obviously heavily featuring the goodest boys and girls, both games share a few similarities. Both, for example, have elements of set collection and reward players for majorities in different categories. In Dog Park, players are gathering different dogs for a walk, in Forever Home, the theme is more poignant, you gain points for re-homing dogs with new families in city, suburb, countryside or foster homes. The objectives – collecting sets of dog breeds for each area - are dealt randomly, so they will change slightly each game, however, the general goal – earn the…

I understand that it’s hard to be original in today’s board game universe; whether theme or mechanisms, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out. Many bigger manufacturers aren’t even trying anymore and why should they? With so many new people entering the hobby, and so many games facing a short print run before disappearing, there are plenty of old ideas to resurrect. Undeterred, I always look through new release lists for gems that break this trend. Prehistoric euro game Footprints jumped out of the Essen lists for this reason and I’m pleased to report it met my expectations. While it certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel (insert caveman game joke here), it does plenty else to write home about. Footprints is a light-ish euro game that plays out in around an…

Sometimes a game will just have a certain table presence that really catches the attention. Often it’s incredible artwork that draws a player or perhaps it could be some wonderfully detailed miniatures. For Startropolis it’s a bizarre, multi-coloured plastic space station being passed between players, which quickly grows over the course of a game. Things start off pretty small though. You’re the CEO of an alien corporation that’s investing in the development of a space station. Think Dragon’s Den but with more tentacles. Each turn you purchase a new module to attach to the existing development before choosing where best to build it and make the most cash. The available modules are randomly chosen and their corresponding cards are placed on the Construction Track at the start of each round.…

Vikings might be second only to pirates in terms of how many games in my collection are themed around their antics. And why on earth not – they have axes, lovely braids and like sailing. Knarr takes this intoxicating cocktail and asks: what if Vikings, but cards? Rather than emphasising the plundery side of Vikings’ nautical jaunts, Knarr is a game about trade and reputation. In fact, your reputation is a little factory that coughs out points every turn depending on how far up the Reputation track you’ve climbed. To push your marker higher, you’re going to be recruiting crew members and sailing off to explore new locations. In mechanical terms, Knarr is a game of card markets and set collection. There are five colours of crew cards. Each crew…

Holy Grail Games, publishers of Rallyman: DIRT, have ceased trading, however, there’s a healthy second-hand market for this game. There are two things - in cardboard format - that I’m always a sucker for: driving games and fictional sports. Weirdly, I actually have a moderate disregard for both in real life. I enjoy running, maybe a little basketball, but I’ve no idea who won the Champions League last year, and I don’t care. Yet make up a nonsense sport, with a board and dice and ball throwing and fouls? Blood Bowl, Dreadball, Blitz Bowl… I’m always there. Driving is the same for me. Jumping in the car is a chore, and long drives are my nightmare fuel. But racing games? Whether it’s Car Wars, Gaslands or even the hand management…

The circus has come to town and one to four people are invited to come and enjoy the spectacle. Of course, the circus has changed over the years, slowly declining from the glory days of Circus Maximus with deadly chariot races and Christians being fed to lions. Although 3 Ring Circus doesn’t turn the clock back that far, it is a trip into the past, specifically the era of the touring circus in late 19th century America. Each player controls a touring circus, performing in small towns, medium cities and large cities, to accumulate the most Fame points by the time the Barnum Circus caravan has travelled all around the board, returning to the start point of Boston. There are alternative rules for different start points and if fewer players…

Legend Story Studios has joined forces with CCG Youtube star Tolarian Community College (TCC) to bring us Round the Table, a complete Flesh and Blood kit for playing its multiplayer format Ultimate Pit Fight, with enough decks for up to four players to play against one another. Whilst usually a 1v1 game, the Ultimate Pit Fight format was a fan originated design inspired by similar formats like Commander in Magic, letting players go all-out in a massive brawl but only capable of striking opponents on their immediately left or right, to stop things from going too chaotic. This set includes both new and previously printed cards, all of which can be played in other Flesh & Blood (FAB) formats (though you’re unlikely to be using the cards that care about…

There are few joys sweeter than playing a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, and Gods of Metal: Ragnarock matches that description to a tee. It’s an RPG that sets out to be over-the-top, powerfully energetic, and metal as hell, and absolutely nails all three. Coming out of Hunters Entertainment, Gods of Metal: Ragnarock bills itself as a heavy metal RPG. However, rather than being about the reality of making it as a band - like trying to book gigs where the promoters pay on time and finding a new drummer at six hours’ notice it’s about the kind of stuff that floats through your brain when a really, really good metal song comes on. Think dragons and leather trousers. The core premise involves the Gods of…

In America, Snap Ships is a well established toy range. A collection of modular units that can be snapped together in order to create fun. It has a loyal fanbase and some of the fans happen to be big kids with bigger disposable incomes. It was only a matter of time before someone who liked playing space battles with pieces and rules suggested ‘What if we did the same for this?’ When you open the box, Snap Ships Tactics has the normal rulebook, but then underneath there’s a bag of pieces and an instruction book. Instantly you’re back to being ten years old, flipping through pages and finding pieces and squinting, while you put your Snap Ships together. You’ll be forgiven if you then pick up your creation and make…

I recently sat in my local gaming cafe (The Dice Box – you can read about them later in this issue) to play Everdell with a friend, and in sitting down to write my first Welcome, I’m struck by the feeling that it’s a little like the passing of the seasons, the handover from one editor to another. A flurry of new ideas – and in real terms, a bit of snow – a reset, and there you have it, a cheerful meeple ready to start the new season! That might be a bit of a stretch, but welcome of course, to the newest issue of Tabletop Gaming magazine, and my first as Editor. This issue we’re dedicating a third to exploring crowdfunding, and discovering the companies involved at all…

Each February - except that one time they decided to change it to August - Kickstarter runs an event called Zine Quest. During this event, RPG designers put up their crowdfunding campaigns for all manner of weird and wonderful games and supplements. It has been running for five years but it still remains a relatively niche event. So what is it? And why are there two? THE ZINE At their hearts, Kickstarter’s Zine Quest and Feral Indie’s Zine Month are ways to promote the ancient art of the zine. These small form stapled booklets originated back in the 1920s as a way for people to distribute stories, poetry, and information without having a big budget and without having to rely on support from publishers. By the 1960s fanzines - fan…

Just funded KICKSTARTER Let’s start with the big one, and the one you’re likely most familiar with: Kickstarter. Long have we seen that green logo, long have we handed over our hard-earned pennies in exchange for greatness, and long have we received astonishingly good games in return. For many of us, Kickstarter is synonymous with crowdfunding, in the way we still call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover, or a jacuzzi a hot tub, and that’s where most products will automatically go. Whilst it does all the basic functions exceedingly well - ie, you find a game you like, a pledge level you want, hit pledge, and if it funds, you get charged - it’s been arguably a little slow to innovate. In the scheme of things, it’s not been long…

There’s no doubt about it Crowd funding can be an exhilarating world to enter. There’s something visceral about the feeling of making a game happen; taking it from an imaginative idea to an actual item you can hold in your hand. The best projects take you on a journey, asking for card suggestions, art feedback, and social stretch goals that you can help them reach by sharing the news. I think, for many of us, it’s the closest we ever get to being a game designer and bringing our own cool creation to life. Unfortunately, the flip side of the fantasy can be failure. Projects that raise hundreds of thousands of pounds, and then disappear. It’s actually very rare that a creator runs off into the sunset, never to be…

THE TUMBLE INTO THE WHOLE BUSINESS “When we first did our business, we were an online retailer,” Matthews says, when we ask about the start of the company. “I was a bedroom seller. I didn’t have that money to invest in my own website and all the SEO marketing, I was literally losing money on selling on my website at one point. We became this global Amazon reseller on every Amazon site in the world. I kid you not, I was on Japan, I was on America, I was in Canada, Germany, France, I was everywhere. So I learned everything about international shipping.” The process also meant that Matthews was making a name for himself, and word travels fast. Before long, he was put in contact with Dr Finn’s Games,…

SYMBAROUM: DAVOKAR AWAKENS The climactic chapter of the epic Throne of Thorns campaign, Davokar Awakens asks players to stand against the Eternal Night as darkness engulfs the ancient Forest. The adventure offers a chance for heroes to shape the world’s fate, and features rich adventure locations, detailed battles, and plenty of new treasure. Free League | £31 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: THE DECK OF MANY THINGS Make a luxurious addition to your D&D collection with The Deck of Many Things. This set includes a detailed book and an expanded deck of beautifully illustrated cards. Though the price tag is a bit steep, it’s a way for devoted fans seeking to add a touch of extravagance to their campaigns. Wizards of the Coast | £95 THE LORD OF THE RINGS RPG: RUINS…

Back in the summer of 2019 we visited France on our tabletop tour yet, somehow, it has taken this long to take that short journey south to its neighbour, Spain: A country where traditional games have contributed to a rich history for centuries. Of particular note is the Libro de los Juegos, published at the request of King Alfonso X in 1283. The book details popular games of the time, with both text and illustration providing a fascinating document of the hobby during the middle ages. Amidst games such as chess and backgammon, the book records more obscure entries such as Catch the Hare - an early asymmetric game played out on an alquerque board. Elsewhere are four-player variants of chess - entitled Four Seasons Chess - and backgammon. Further…

As a board game evangelist, I’ve found Ticket to Ride the most useful weapon in my arsenal. I’ve owned a copy for more than 15 years, and have bought it in charity shops for non-gamer friends whenever I’ve seen it to introduce them to the hobby. However, I was underwhelmed by the first small box versions. Turning a popular classic into a shorter, simpler experience is tough, cutting while keeping the essence of the original. For me, Ticket to Ride: London (and New York) took too much, leaving an empty experience. So it was with trepidation I approached Ticket to Ride: Berlin, the latest small box 15-minute Ticket title but halfway into our first play, my fears were washed away. For those new to Ticket to Ride games, each player…

Elawa is a card game of assembling groups of Neolithic people in a competitive attempt to build up the best tribe. It’s relatively simple, although there are some nuances to its resource management and set collection that elevate it in an extremely crowded field. You build your village from Tribe cards; each turn you choose a card from one of the six central stacks. Each card has a resource number; you take a matching number of tokens from the piles in clockwise order from the stack. If a token pile you would take from is empty, you instead collect from the central fire pile and refill the empty resource pile. If the central fire pile is empty then finish the round and the game ends. The Tribe cards come in…

“Settle down. Settle down! You there at the back, take a seat, put that cursed dagger down and be quiet. Dungeon Crawler 101 is now in session. This is your introductory lesson where we’ll learn a little about moving around, treasure and fighting monsters. Who threw that fireball? Now, if you’ll just take out your textbook - Explorers of the Woodlands rulebook - then we’ll begin…” Like most dungeon crawlers you start by choosing your character. There are only four heroes but they do play differently enough. One can perform ranged attacks, another has the power to heal and so on. What’s more, they each have two unique abilities and two special powers that can be upgraded as you slay monsters, which helps to add some variety. Each round is…

If you play video games, you may have heard about Baldur’s Gate 3, a roleplaying game set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons that has taken the whole gaming community by storm with its reactive world, enthralling story and lovable characters. What you may not know, is that before Baldur’s Gate 3, the game’s developer Larian Studios released a game called Divinity: Original Sin 2, which while had less cinematic flair than their latest release, was much beloved by the CRPG community, especially for its incredibly tactical skill-based combat. This combat, turn-based, with various cool-downs and combo effects seemed to be ready-made to be adapted into the board game and sure enough in 2019 the Kickstarter for the game. Divinity Original Sin: The Board Game went through a somewhat…

I struggle to this day to understand the hype that grew up around Wingspan, Hargrave’s first big design hit. At the time of writing, that game is number 25 on the all-time list on Board Game Geek and number two in family games (behind The Crew, fact fans). Let’s just say, I’d beg to differ. I actually preferred her less erregarded follow-up, the butterfly themed route-builder Mariposas, although that wasn’t a keeper for me either. And now we have The Fox Experiment, another animal-themed light-euro game with pretty artwork and lovely components. So why are you reviewing this, Marling? You’re clearly not a fan. Two reasons. First, my better half has a bit of a fox obsession. Second, I’d actually read quite a bit about it and was intrigued before…

Although it’s set in 2080, Shadowrun: Edge Zone may make some feel like it is 1997 when the original (Shadowrun: The Trading Card Game) was released. Now, following a £100k Kickstarter campaign, it is “restarted and upgraded” as two sets sold separately – Magic and Mayhem. Whilst £100k is undoubtedly a lot of money, it is a modest amount in crowdfunding terms. So how far has Catalyst Game Labs made that cash stretch? For those who missed out the first time around, the game is set in a mean yet magical dystopia, where orcs stomp alongside trolls, elves and humans. Dragons and corporations rule the world and everyone in it. You, however, are different; a runner, an underground renegade who does whatever they can to stay free. The gist follows…

Stealing Stories For The Devil is a boxed game RPG about reality-shifting time travellers. It makes the rather bold claim that it requires “zero prep”; always a dangerous promise. The problem with the concept of zero prep is that it leads to potential players thinking they can turn up at a game night, tear off the cellophane and immediately start playing. The reality, with Stealing Stories For The Devil, is that actually the Games Master needs to read three books and Players need to read a full one themselves before the game night. Then, once a very specific setting and a somewhat simpler system are fresh in their brains? I’ll accept that the game could potentially be run with minimal prep. So, what’s actually going on here? Travellers on a…

I would not have guessed we’d see a Star Trek adaptation of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Underworlds, but 2023 has been a silly year. While the influence is uncredited by the design team at Gale Force Nine, perhaps to avoid litigation, this is absolutely a fresh iteration of that exceptional miniatures board game. It shares nearly all of its main systems and its very structure. This is a skirmish game with delightfully asymmetric forces. One side plays the Borg, and the other the Federation. You take turns activating figures and performing actions. These are typical options such as moving around and attacking. But the objective is more nuanced and certainly more interesting than a straight-up head-to-head assault. Each side has a unique deck of mission cards which is built prior to…

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Traditionally, race games are what the Victorians liked to call games of chance rather than games of skill. The usual pattern is that each player has one or more pieces that move from a starting (‘Start’) position to a finishing position (‘Home’), and whoever gets home first wins. Movement is determined by the roll of dice or casting of binary lots in the form of sticks, shells, knucklebones, or whatever. If you move only one piece the game is certainly one where chance predominates, but the more pieces you move, the more skill enters into it, thus making Backgammon and its relatives games largely games of strategy. Which is why Backgammon features every year in the Mind Sports Olympiad while Snakes & Ladders doesn’t. In the 20th century race games…

There are few among us who haven’t seen on a shelf the glossy boxes of Gloomhaven, or Frosthaven. The big sprawling table-consuming game of Gloomhaven offered gleeful surprises without pulling any of its punches, amidst an engaging narrative, that had you fighting lots, but with your friends, rather than against them. Only for that to be followed up by Frosthaven, more of the same logic, but bigger, in some places better, and after over £12 million in pledges, you can certainly also say “more successful”. Showing no signs of slowing down though, came the recent crowdfunding extravaganza with the Festival of Gloomhaven, which said goodbye to Kickstarter, goodbye to traditional campaign limitations… and hello to Backerkit, traditional pledge managers and new crowdfunding platform, hello to four launches in one project…

ARKYVR - ALEWOOD GAMES A MOTHERSHIP based Zine, Arkyvr is a setting and toolkit for 2-5 players to play as documentary filmmakers in space. Created by, and in collaboration with industry film makers, it’s a 40+ page zine putting deadly space adventures through the lens of the camera. Document life amidst the horrors of space, meet corporate media contracts – but beware the truths beneath the surface – and discover how you might use your recorded stories to shift the balance of power. In-game effects take place based on inferences from real life media, making the outcome something unique. You’ll be able to find ARKYVR on Crowdfundr. THE WIGMAKERS FINGERS – MAX MOON GAMES Written by Lewis Colburn, this Into the Odd compatible adventure certainly looks the part – it…

Keyforge had a chance. It really did. In a world where a game like the Transformers TCG was made by Wizards of the Coast and featured an extremely strong licence but never made waves, Keyforge had a chance. The first Keyforge set, Call of the Archons, launched in November 2018 and initial sales were extremely strong. It’s hard to get an accurate idea of collectable game sales but the website ICV2.com makes a list twice a year and in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 Keyforge came 4th behind only the “big three” TCGs (Pokémon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh) and even outsold Yu-Gi-Oh to come 3rd on the Hobby Channel in Spring 2019, looking specifically at sales in hobby stores, as opposed to the mass channel looking at sales in supermarkets etc.…

PREVIOUS PROJECTS Has the Creator/Company previously delivered a campaign successfully? Many of the worst stories come from inexperienced creatives having an unexpectedly popular project; causing a vast amount of additional work that’s beyond their ability to cope. After all, the person who can design a brilliant and fun game is not necessarily the same one who knows how to build a database, arrange foreign manufacturing and orchestrate worldwide shipping. KEEPING YOU UP TO DATE Are there regular updates? Even in a campaign lasting two weeks, it is usual to expect a few updates from the Creator on how their campaign is going. In their previous projects, monthly updates are a good norm to look for. If the creators have a history of going unexpectedly silent for months on end without…

DRAGONMEET AWARD The day began with the very first award, the inaugural Ian Livingstone Award for Innovation in Games, chosen and presented by the man himself. The winner, who he explained was in line with his own current ventures in using board games to teach functional skills in his academy, was Game Therapy UK, which is providing evidence-based therapeutic games in a way underutilised in the UK. It is described as similar to Drama therapy, where players act our scenarios safely, but through mediums of TTRPGs such as D&D instead. They work with groups of all kinds, from those suffering from addiction to PTSD, experiencing homelessness or struggling with mental health. WHO WAS THERE? Whilst it’s tempting to say “everyone!”, it’s at least fair to say that the trade halls…

Do you like a board game where you can meticulously strategize your own game, claiming victory with finesse and grace? Well, that’s not this. Prepare yourself for absolute carnage. RoboRally is themed around a group of factory robots who, when the warehouse closes for the weekend, come to life and compete with one another in races across the factory floor. Each player controls a robot throughout the race, passing through all given checkpoints and beating their opponents to the final destination, wreaking all kinds of havoc along the way. Each turn has three phases, starting with the Upgrade Phase. Robots gain energy during the race which can be used as currency to install temporary or permanent upgrades from the upgrade deck. Next is the Programming Phase, where all players simultaneously…

Some fantasy aspirations involve dragons, wizards and chainmail; others are more humble in origin; the realms of cute mice welding buttons and doing rather a lot of scurrying. From the same genre-corner as Redwall and Mouse Guard comes Hickory Dickory; a board game based around the well-known nursery rhyme and the timepiece at its heart; “The mice run up the clock…” Each player controls five adorable wooden mice, who must scamper around the numbers on a clock face, taking trips on the minute hand and aiming to collect chunky acrylic tiles to deliver for rewards. Play takes place on a huge representation of a working clock, and there’s no denying that Hickory Dickory has a real table presence. There’s a huge cardboard clock face with moveable plastic minute and hour…

Why do you play board games? To escape, or to engage? Most of us would answer the former, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Board games have value precisely because they transport us away from the daily grind and the stresses that come with it. But since their earliest days, many board games have also encouraged us to engage with ideas and relevant themes, by exploring or at least considering pertinent concepts or issues through play. The danger with this kind of game, however, is that its preachiness – or teachiness – can drench the fun. A first look at Daybreak might set some escapists’ alarm bells warning. After all, it fundamentally and directly concerns one of the greatest causes of modern anxiety: climate change. Its bright, appealing design…

How often do you think about the Roman empire? What about the wall they built to keep out the Picts? It took six years to build Hadrian’s Wall and after six rounds of this game, you’ll know if you could have done a better job yourself! Armed with two player sheets, twelve path cards and a supply of multicoloured meeples, players compete to fill in boxes as they each to create the best version of the iconic landmark they can. Each turn of this flip-and-write game, you will choose your path, locking in some endgame objectives and immediately generating bonus resources before being gifted a trove of resources depicted on a shared card. Like all games in the genre, spend resources to cross off boxes on your player sheets, which…

There are few things I would’ve loved more as a child (and perhaps as an adult) than to be responsible for baby dragons, so how could I resist the draw of a box with a gigantic dragon splashed across the front – not a monstrous enemy to defeat, but a big, fluffy firebreather reminiscent of a highland cow? Players are, fittingly, Dragonkeepers, looking to gather amulets by collecting sets of dragons. You lay out two stacks of cards, each designed to look like one half of a book: the left is a number and a prize reward, the right is a colour of dragon. Begin your turn by picking up to three dragons from in front of the book (the ‘display’), drawing from either pile. All the cards are double…

Point Salad was a surprise hit for AEG and the Flatout Games design collective back in 2019. A quick-playing game, perfect for non-gamers, with a punny title aimed squarely at seasoned ones. Thanks to the game’s slick playability, AEG have sustained this balanced audience and are now set to build upon it with the (less wittily titled) follow up Point City. Unsurprisingly, there’s a clear aesthetic similarity between the two games, albeit here dollar signs and industrial cogs supplant the predecessor’s peppers and onions. Nonetheless, the immediately recognisable continuation of this graphical style is a smart and appreciated move. Indeed, it could be argued that this aesthetic is the primary aspect tying the games to one another, as Point City represents a significantly more calorific next course. Point City is…

Do you wish character creation was more personality driven? Fate removes classes, eliminating the need to pick the closest template that doesn’t quite fit. Fate gives you Aspects: descriptive sentences that shape gameplay. You spend Fate Points to gain an advantage. In my game, the King’s Advisor used “I know better than you” to resolve the king’s problem. However, the game master (GM) or other players can also use these against you and get a Fate Point back. e.g. Someone deciding not to help the King’s Advisor because he’s arrogant. This push and pull creates the mindset of telling a cool story rather than trying to make the character seem cool. Fate integrates unique mechanics smoothly, without reinventing the wheel. Its more typical skills system pairs well with its unique…