Freshly added to BGG, March 10, 2022

After a small hiatus due to your newshound being busy chewing some tough bones, here I am, yapping like crazy about all sorts of new games (yes, yes, enough about cats).

I’ll begin with some barbaric display of raw violence, which seems to be the whole premise of Anastyr from Mythic Games, featuring heaps of gorgeously detailed minis of savory monsters! Have you ever heard some negative-thinkers point out that all these mini-fests of a board game actually start with the minis, and how the producers come up with a design later on? Well, that’s exactly how Anastyr was conceived, starting with a minis line, and now being given a new breath of life through actual game rules. The gameplay is card-driven, and you can improve your deck at the end of each scenario in the campaign mode.

Then I have got a game that seems new, but is actually the latest re-implementation of Thanos Rising, this time in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe. The game is called Fire Nation Rising, and it’s good news both for fans of the IP and for those who revel in engaging in speculations regarding the next title in the line.

Speaking about the infinite declination of a design across various IPs, we now have a My Little Pony Deck-Building Game, from Renegade, who already brought us the GI Joe and Transformers versions of the recipe. Apparently, they are all quite different from one another, so there is hope for even more thematic deck-builders along the line (here again, speculation is open, and I’m betting on a Teenage Mutant Turtles one). And, yes, I know, you’ve probably heard about this one before (in the Lounge, to begin with), but, hey, you just can’t hear enough about My Little Pony.

Another game you’ve probably heard about already (again, starting with the Lounge), Andromeda’s Edge is the next super-production of Cardboard Alchemy, after the insolent bling of Dwellings of Everdale. If you like complex Euros with more thematic flavor than your regular Ameritrash, and even more bling in the components, this one has the potential to trigger your interest. I certainly always enjoy looking at pretty Sci-Fi pictures like this box art.

Another iteration of a design, Moon is the last design in the trilogy of board games that initiated with Villagers, featuring drafting and set collection. Villagers is the first Kickstarter I sold without opening it, and what this tells you about the game is that Sinister Fish Games are at least pretty good in marketing. The games in the trilogy are also decently priced while featuring a beautiful production. And they may be actually fun on top of that, but this I'll let you research by yourself.

To remain in the same category, I have Room 25: Hypercube, the third or fourth iteration of the Room 25 design (I may have lost count at some point…). The latter has been described as being the closest thing to Cube: The Board Game (if you have heard of this movie), so apparently the designers took this pretty literally and added the appropriate subtitle to their sequel. What does it add, you may ask. Well, a new dimension of course. I’m not making this up. This is about the whole extent of info you may find in the BGG description.

Still in the re-implementation department, Goldblivion, after Goblivion and Dinoblivion, is a soloable deck-building, now featuring dragons instead of, well, goblins and dinosaurs. Dragoblivion was a bit too far-fetched I guess.

I promise it’s the last of the recycled design category: The Search for Lost Species is the “nature/animals” re-theming of The Search for Planet X, which has been praised for being a solid logic-based deduction game with an actually interesting solo mode. So, if you prefer furry critters to celestial bodies, this new title may be more to your taste.

Then we have Biomes, a nature-themed tile-laying game, on the minimalistic side this time. Well, you know the drill: lay tiles, connect biomes, score points. Apparently the game is available as an app, but I couldn’t try it.

And since you know I love nature-themed games, here is a third one: Nestlings is a “dice worker placement game”, where you must explore biomes to find enough food for your little chirping kiddos back at the home nest. I have heard that the game was initially about miners struggling at work to sustain their family in a bleak nineteenth century England marked by industrial revolution, but that they switched the theme in the last minute for something a bit more light-hearted (I’m joking here).

Finally we have Epoca Moderna, another worker placement game, in which the ultimate goal is to establish your domination upon Earth. At least I can relate to that. If I am to hire some workers to do stuff for me, world conquest seems to be the very least I can feel motivated for.

I’ll end with my usual “PnP pick”, which is a quite lazy one as it’s another game by Joseph Propati, 9-Card Ultima. But there are dragons, it’s free, it’s fantasy, and rules are available. And it draws inspiration from the first Ultima games, with the same dated, pixelated art (how convenient an excuse).

#Anastyr #Avatar #FireNationRising #MyLittlePony #AdventuresInEquestria #AndromedasEdge #Moon #Room25 #Hypercube #Goldblivion #TheSearchForLostSpecies #Biomes #Nestlings #EpocaModerna #9CardUltima

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All images taken from the respective game's pages on BGG.