This week Julius brings us another episode with his son. The talk about the escape room style game Echoes: The Microchip. This game is part of the Echoes series which includes audio interactions in the game.
Echoes: The Microchip (BGG)
This week Julius and I discuss worker placement games. Drat, I forgot to write down the games we talked about in order. I'll have to do that later on when I listen to the episode once it comes out. If you want an exact, clickable list and you don't see it in the notes in your podcast player, visit 1PlayerPodcast.com and view the episode notes there.
Drat.
This week Julius tells us about his smartphone or, really, about his smartphone empire. Smartphone, Inc. is a game in which you build a multinational smartphone company to rival any Android or iPhone! Julius tells us all about interesting looking game with so-so art. At least I think the art is so-so.
Note: This week we suffered some audio issues. The quality is up to our normal standard but occaisonally the software we use, Zencastr.com, froze and we would have to restart. I cut out some of that nonsense but you'll still come across some weird cuts. I used dice rolls to mark those spots.
Unexpectedly, this week Julius tells us about this co-operative Back to the Future game. Just in case you lived under a rock in the 80s, Back to the Future is the classic sci-fi movie featuring Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd and a Delorian. Actually, it's based on all three movies in the Franchise. It being that this is a movie tie-in game, you (or at least I) would expect to be pretty poor. However, it was published by Ravensburger and they make pretty decent games. This one sounds pretty darned cool!
I actually only ever saw the first one. Should I go watch the other two?
Don't be alarmed - this is not the final hour of this podcast! Actually, we are talking about a game called Arkham Horror: Final Hour from Fantasy Flight Games. It being an Arkham Horror game, you can pretty much guess what this game is about and like. If you do, you'll be half right and half wrong. Thematically, this is pretty much the same game as Arkham Horror or Arkham Horror: The Card Game. You are running around fighting monsters and cultists while trying to stop some GOO from showing up. Mechanically speaking, however, you will be surprised. This game feels and plays very differently from other Arkham Horror games.
This week Julius tells us about a dice placement game called Artemis Project by Grand Gamers Guild. This is a really nice looking game with some fantastic artwork and great components. You are trying to colonize one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, by mining and sailing the seas for stuff. Check out what we (especially Julius who has played it) think about this game.
Incidentally, there is a real Artemis project by NASA. It's stated goal is "With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before". It looks like the goal is to have this done by 2024 with the first unmaned mission in the project landing on the Moon 2022.
This week Julius and I embark on a new journey of exploring interesting game mechanics. We start off with multi-use cards. It's more than which card should I play play. It's which card should I play and how should I play it? That mechanic, when done well, adds for interesting choices.
This week we talk about the slasher film game Final Girl by A.J. Porfirio of Van Ryder Games. This game is built on the foundation of Hostage Negotiator and expands on that system to make a fun but creepy game about trying to survive in a horror movie while a killer is after you.
This is a modular game series in which you need to buy at least two boxes to play, the core box with rules and a Feature Film box with a killer and location to play in. With multiple Feature Films, you can mix and match killers for more variety in your games.
This episode is a family affair! Julius and his son discuss the game Sprint, in which you play as the Turtle trying to race the Hare to the finish line! This is a co-operative game that can easily be played solo. Check it out.. is this a game you should get?
I'm starting to feel like I'm trapped in a time vortex as this week Julius tells me about yet another time traveling game. This time, our crack team of time agents must stop the dastardly Professor Evil from stealing famous works of art from throughout time, lest he locks them in his own private vault for all time.
This is a relatively simple to play co-op game in the general style of Pandemic. That is, a player does stuff and then bad stuff happens. This game handles that bad stuff with dice rolls and it seems to work well enough. Check it out!
This week Julius and I have a quick chat about Bismarck Solitaire, a book game published by Worthington Games in an effort to quickly and efficiently deal with the global shipping crisis created by the pandemic. It's a light wargame in which you play as the famous German warship, the Bismarck and travel the Atlantic Ocean (not the English Channel & North Sea as I thought during the recording) trying to find British Warships and sink them. The fact that I wasn't sure what body of water you are can in give you an idea how light the game is. Well, sail the ocean and find enemies to sink while you plot a coarse on the map. What is really different about this game is that you actually are writing in the book as you play.
According to a BGG thread, these are announced but not yet released
Julius and I look at the game Newton by Simone Luciani & Nestore Mangone. This is a really interesting action selection game with some neat mechanisms. Each round if you take subsequent actions of the same type, they become stronger and the types of actions are all very different. It feels like a worker placement game in that you can never do as many things as you really want to. The game was out of print for a couple of years but is now available again.
This week Julius and I talk about the game Skyline Express. This game seems to mix, trains, air travel, maybe steampunk and a post-apocalyptic past to bring you a fun experience but seems to fall short for Julius.
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Skyline Express (BGG)
This week Julius tells us about City: Skylines a cooperative city building game by Rustan Håkansson, who designed Nations & Nations: The Dice Game. Cities: Skylines is based on a video game IP and sounds like a big 'ol jigsaw of a game. Check it out!
This week Julius and I gush about the game PARKS based on the US National Park system and the fantastic art from 59parks.net. In this 1-4 player game, you play as hikers hiking through the parks, buying gear and filling your canteen along the way as you collect parks. At it's heart it is a resource management game without enough time to collect all the resources you want.
