Category: Previews

11/23/13

Hull Breach – First Impressions!

Chris Caran heads to Charlotte, NC for MACE 2013, and discovers a nifty card-driven game of interstellar warfare now on pre-order.  How awesome does he think it is?  Read on….

Preview by Chris Caran, 23 November 2013

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A mixture of cards, dice, and strategy, Hull Breach is a sci-fi deck-deckbuilder with great tactical nuance.

While attending the MACE convention this year in Charlotte, NC I got the chance to play a demo of Hull Breach, a new deck building space warfare game from Not So Broken Games. According to the two-person NSB Games team, it was so new it hadn’t even cleared customs yet.

The game’s premise is that each player represents an interstellar faction vying for galactic dominance. Each player has control of their own space station and associated modules. You deploy ships of different sizes along with associated fighters, drones, and marine complements. In addition to the unit-type cards, there are also various upgrades and options for your units as well as generic galactic events and tactics to give your faction the edge.

It is a resource-building game as well, your resource (raw material) and currency (funds) generated each turn by your station, attached modules, and other breakthroughs or upgrades to modify your turn-by-turn abilities. That being said, it’s pretty simple to keep track of and there was never any point of confusion as to buying power or reach.

In place of miniatures and maps, the combat mechanic takes a cue from CCGs and has a “Magic: The Gathering”-like assignment of attacking units towards another player’s space station.  Once in combat, the game brings more complexity to the table – in a good way.

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11/22/13

GARPA 32 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory

Lloyd Sabin, Brant Guillory, and Jim Zabek, 22 November 2013

Winter is coming. As a blast of cold, icy air descends from the Arctic we here at Grogheads are doing our best to keep your blood hot for some new games and we’re leading off with GMT’s Fields of Fire, which sounds hot even when you read it through the cool glow of your monitor. Don’t miss some other great gaming goodness beyond the Read More link which includes some awesome terrain for sci-fi minis and some remakes of a couple of classic electronic games.

Tabletop Games

Fields of Fire II from GMT Games
Cleared p500 and in final development

Still available at the p500 price of $55, this sequel from GMT Games takes the highly-regarded Fields of Fire series into action with the USMC.  You’ll lead a rifle company through a variety of solitaire scenarios ranging from the WWII PTO through the present day.  A card-driven game with a terrain deck and action deck, Fields of Fire has been described by combat veterans as a pretty damned good representation of the kinds of decisions you need to make in combat.  Check it out here and go place your order with GMT.

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Millennium Wars Advanced: States of Conflict from MCS Group
Still on preorder, no timetable

The Millennium Wars games are an odd fish.  Clearly a map-and-counters wargame that any grog should grok at first glance, but quite complex in the interplay of assets, missions, capabilities, and environmental constraints.  A heavy focus on C4I puts the Millennium Wars series in the forefront of modern conflict simulation, and allows solid modeling of organizational cohesion as well as varied non-combat effects like cyberwarfare and political fallout.  Still on preorder at $49.95, MWA is a package stuffed with a variety of conflicts to make you squirm your way through the difficult decisions faced on today’s battlefields.

 

 

ZeppeldromeGARPA-zeppel
$4600 of $35000, project closes 15 December 2013

Steampunks!  Yeah, you!  Wanna race?  Wanna race an airship?  Wanna race and airship and fight dirty?  C’mon, you know you do.  Interchangeable boards, wacky characters, dirty tricks, and lemmings – it’s all here.  Players have modular airships that allow you to mix and match capabilities.  Racecourses change each game, and the deck of dirty tricks looks like a Mario race in the sky.  Put on your brass goggles and silk scarf, float over to Kickstarter to check out a video of gameplay, and plunk down a couple of bucks for a rollicking ride through the sky.

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11/8/13

GARPA 31 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory

Authors: Lloyd Sabin and Jim Zabek

Next Monday, November 10th, will mark the 38th anniversary of the date the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank. What does that have to do with this latest installment of GARPA? Not much, as best I can figure, other than that the gales of November seem to have come early again this year. At least around these parts, it’s colder, windier, and wetter than usual and Gordon Lightfoot’s lyrics were ringing in my ears as I sat down to start to pen this edition of GARPA on a Tuesday night. Rest assured we’ll be checking the various crowd-funded sites up until the last hours that we publish – but on a cold fall day it seemed like a good time to start my search for the next column.

Boardgames

Tide of Iron core set & Stalingrad expansion by 1A Games LLC

$9,088 pledged of $22,000 ending November 26th

GARPA-31-Tide-of-Iron-RelaunchBack in 2006 Fantasy Flight Games launched Tide of Iron. Set during the Second World War, it was a wargamer’s dream: big maps, lots of minis, and a fun rule system. Now out of print, 1A Games is attempting to bottle some of the magic, but in a smaller box.

Their relaunch of Tide of Iron doesn’t attempt to change the game, but rather enhance it. They are offering tutorial scenarios in a smaller size to help ease players into the game in a more streamlined fashion.

In addition, 1A already has an expansion to Tide of Iron on the way in the form of a Stalingrad game. However, to generate some extra excitement 1A is offering some Kickstarter-exclusive items for the Stalingrad expansion. These include Special Operations cards, Initiative cards, and even exclusive minis such as the sIG 33B. Stretch goals have already been established in case they get overfunded.

With the original Tide of Iron out of print 1A is hoping to sell copies of its game to folks who missed getting in on the action of the original. And players who own the original will have the ability to buy some of the cool new items on an a la cart basis for a modest pledge level. If any of this sounds tempting head over to 1A’s Kickstarter page and check it out.

 WARFIGHTER – The Tactical Special Forces Card Game by Dan Verssen Games

$12,841 of $7,000 ending November 27th

GARPA-31-WarfighterDan Vessen has found a sweetspot on Kickstarter. His Cards of Cthulhu was well overfunded, and that wasn’t his first success. Warfighter launched this week and within three days it was already fully-funded and kicking in the doors of a number of stretch goals with nothing but good stuff to come.

A card-driven game of modern warfare it can be played either solo or with up to six players. It is a cooperative game where players work together to attempt to accomplish missions. Players equip each soldier with a variety of loadouts. Players select a mission randomly which assigns the number of resource points the squad can use. If this sounds familiar to Dan Verssen Games it’s because it is. The technique has been used in other games including Thunderbolt Apache Leader. In Warfighter the player(s) select soldiers and the soldier skills, weapons, and equipment they’ll take with them. Each selection costs a number of resource points to keep the game challenging – you can take everything you want so you have to choose wisely to bring what you need.

The stretch goals have already unlocked campaign rules and bullet-shaped dice. Further goals are hoped to include miniature figures, so players should keep an eye on Warfighter to see what other goodies may be on offer.

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10/25/13

GARPA 30 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory

Authors: Lloyd Sabin and Jim Zabek

Halloween arrives next week. I know this because my neighbor just a few houses over has a display of decorations that would shame many a professionally stocked haunted house. We moved just a few months ago and I still haven’t found the boxes with the Halloween stuff in them (though Christmas is looking good). The pathetic string of purple lights around my front door makes me feel like I’ve done something to celebrate the season – and it’s better than the guy across the street who is banking on a string of Christmas lights (green bulbs removed to give him plausible deniability) to save his bacon. Still, the lack of assorted skulls, ghosts, and ghastly visages dampens the normal joy I feel as winter begins to wrap its icy fingers around my bones.

So this edition of GARPA is tilted slightly in favor of finding projects that could accompany the spooky spirit of Halloween. But fear not, if we spot something interesting that isn’t creepy or spooky, we’ll include that, too. We are gamers after all.

PC Games

You Are Not the Hero by Donn Manalili

$33,510.00 pledged of $12,001.00 goal, funding ends November 12th

YouAreNottheHeroYou Are Not the Hero [Hero from here on in] has a great sense of humor and confidence in itself to go along with it. Its premise is simple:  things gamers usually do in RPGs should, in a perfect world, piss off the in-game NPCs as well as have repercussions. Slay a beast? It was probably someone’s pet. Kill a witch? That was my sister. And hey, get out of my bathroom!

So, how to remedy these issues? If you’re Donn Manalili, you create a 2D action platform game with an anime style which tells it like it is and places the player in the tiny, quick moving shoes of Petula, Hero’s protagonist.

The royal army has just passed through Petula’s village, scavenging for supplies and stealing some of Petula’s jewelry. Getting the jewelry back is the main quest of Hero. But the real point of the game is ignoring that main quest and doing anything else you could possibly imagine in an open world. Start a business, buy a house, explore ruins or go fishing all day…the open world of Hero intends to focus on details and not get lost in its own scope.

The technicals of Hero include:

  • Pixel-based movement instead of tile-based movement
  • Dealing with enemies through options other than combat
  • Run, jump and explore a world of forests, tunnels, and caves
  • Pound through mazes and solve puzzles
  • Different outcomes for every game depending on how you play it
  • See how the other half lives by getting a job as a farmer, innkeeper or merchant

The response to Hero on Kickstarter has been excellent and a host of goals are being met, including upgraded graphics, and is fast closing on Mac and Linux support. Additional chapters are also proposed including Petula in a modern-themed world as well as a possible horror story, so things are looking very good for Hero and supporters should be able to play it in the not-too-distant future.

 

Confederate Express by Maksym Pashanin

$5,215.00 pledged of $10,000 goal, funding ends November 20th

ConfederateExpressConfederate Express places players in the role of a courier. Doesn’t sound exactly thrilling from the get go, but stay with me. The game let’s players choose what kind of package they want to deliver according to their skill level, what kind of group they have assembled to deliver said package, and of course the player’s attitude towards permadeath.

All characters available to choose from are unique criminals that come from the local prison when assembling your courier team. There’s also a whole slew of loot scattered throughout the game world that you can gather as you explore while on your delivery runs. Maps are varied and randomized every time a new game is started, with the promise of a new game every time it’s started.

Of course this would all be very pedestrian without zombies, right? The back story of Confederate Express involves homeostasis, bio-engineering, a horrible ‘side effect,’ and many, many zombies, as well as an entire opposing army, rebels and angry robots. All will try to stop you from getting to where you are supposed to make your delivery.

Confederate Express is rendered in 2d sprites, with advanced lighting effects, in an interesting blend of old and new school graphic technology. The end result is a unique looking game with a bit of a creep factor and a dark sense of humor. Funding is ongoing as the developer is still looking for an audio composer and an animator, but Maksym Pashanin seems hell bent on completing this game and making his supporters happy.

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10/11/13

GARPA 29 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory

By Lloyd Sabin, Brant Guillory, Dan Pinkham, and Jim Zabek
October 11, 2013

The days are really starting to get shorter now. For gamers, that means fewer issues with sunlight reflecting off their monitors and maybe getting the kids to bed a little earlier to get some gaming going. As usual we have some great ideas to make that heavy wallet you’re lugging around a little less cumbersome.

Card Games

Oracle – Mystifying Playing Cards by Chris Ovdiyenko
$9,970 pledged of $20,000 goal, funding ends Friday, November 8

OracleIs there anything more appropriate to this time of year than a card deck based on Ouija boards, spirit photography and spiritualism? Probably, but I can’t think of what it is right now.

Spiritualism was a movement developed between the 1860s and the 1920s that centered on contacting the dead. Initially practiced by American Civil War widows, it gave people hope during the darkest times of their lives and eventually became popular enough and was taken seriously enough for the wealthy and powerful to practice, including a series of American Presidents and politicians. And luckily for printer Chris Ovdiyenko, spiritualism is loaded with instantly recognizable images, as you can see from these screen shots.

For this card deck, the suits will be the big differentiator. Each suit will be unique, with its own theme, whether it is a séance, automatic writing, or ectoplasm. The designs are created by Chris, who etches them onto wood plates with a laser and then applied to “museum quality artist paper.”

It’s a simple but quite interesting project, which is more appropriately shown with images than words. If you’re into the subtly creepy like me (after all, I work here), I think you will appreciate this Oracle card deck. The art is intricate, a bit disturbing and tells many good stories. And while playing cards, a good story can be even more valuable than a good hand. Oracle’s Kickstarter page can be found here.

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Miniatures

Reaper Miniatures Bones II: The Return Of Mr Bones!
$1,613,460 pledged of $30,000 goal, funding ends Saturday, October 26

GARPA-29-ReaperOnce or twice each year it seems like a game (or game-related concept) appears on Kickstarter and the internet goes supernova. Last year Reaper Miniatures had that happen to them. They served up a project, asked for a modest $30,000 or $40,000 (I forget exactly) and ended up with gamers literally throwing money at them. When it was all said and done they had well over a million bucks raised and their biggest problem was trying to figure out which building was large enough to hold their inventory until they got it distributed.

Well, lighting has struck twice.

Asking for a modest $30,000, gamers have responded with $1.6 million in pledges and the folks at Reaper are probably starting to consider wallpapering their offices in twenty dollar bills. Kickstarter-ish projects don’t always have a fairytale ending, but if past success is any indication of future results both Reaper and its gamer fan base have some crazy stuff to look forward to. And they lived happily ever after. Until next year, when Reaper will probably do it again. Reaper’s Kickstarter page can be found over here.

Mars Attacks – The Miniatures Game
$250,477 pledged of $50,000 goal, funding ending Saturday, November 10

GARPA-29-Mars-Attacks-MinisThe day before Halloween in 1938 Orson Wells made his famous broadcast that set half of the US East Coast running for the hills. What better time to celebrate a Martian invasion than over the Halloween holiday time? Mars Attacks appears to be (emphasis on “appears” – we have not investigated the issue in any depth) the legitimate representation in game form of the cult-classic movie of the same name.

And, similar to the Reaper Miniatures project above, it has already hit its funding goals and is merrily knocking off stretch goals as gamers toss money their way.

As with most miniature games the figures and scenery are supplied unpainted, but hey, we’re talking about a Martian invasion here. Let your imaginations run free! Unlocked bonuses seem to run the gamut, from additional earthling soldiers to flying saucers to flaming cattle (steak on the hoof for real!).

The designers behind Mars Attacks, Mantic Games, are not newcomers to miniatures gaming. I’ve not played any of their games, but I have seen them in a store and was intrigued. Mars Attacks might be the game to put them on the map and cause gamers to take a second look at all their offerings. In any case, with funding levels already achieved it looks like Mars is indeed going to invade the Earth, and if that sounds like a good time head on over to their Kickstarter page for a closer look.

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