Watch your Back: Week July 10 to 16
After a short, much-needed vacation, I'm back to duty. Four games are scheduled to launch this coming week. Nothing special enough to make me forget the joys of sunny beaches, but we can't have it all, can we.
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Let's start with Isle of Trains: All Aboard: as the title suggests, this is a 1-4 player game in which you build trains and transport passengers and goods across an island. Engine-building is the main mechanism, with multi-use cards which you can spend to build and upgrade your vehicles, or load as cargo. Solo mode hasn't been revealed yet. It is launching on Kickstarter on July 11.
Personal opinion: Not jumping on this band-wagon.
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Then we have Moon: a new game by Haakon Gaarder who you may know from his previous titles, Villagers and Streets. This is a 1-5 player drafting and set collection game in which you are trying to create the most popular Moon base for people to come and inhabit.
In each round, you will draft construction cards which give bonuses while also trying to meet your reputation goal for the round. Whoever has the most points in the end, wins. Solo mode rules haven't been revealed yet. It is launching on Kickstarter on July 12.
Personal opinion: I've skipped the designer's past titles because of my aversion to artificial opponents, and this won't be any different.
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The One Hundred Torii: Diverging Paths is an expansion for the 1-4 player tile-laying and set collection game The One Hundred Torii. The expansion adds new scoring possibilities with shrines, and two new characters, the gambler and the pilgrim.
Your goal in the base game is to score the most journey points by passing through as many gates as possible. Solo mode is played against the Onatsu AI. It is launching on Kickstarter on July 12 alongside a Hanafuda deck illustrated by Vincent Dutrait.
Personal opinion: Vincent Dutrait art is always a feast for the eyes. The game isn't for me but I'll take a look at the Hanafuda deck as a collectible.
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And last, we have Dead Throne: World of Veles - Core Edition: a 1-7 player adventure game which supports both competitive and solo/co-op gameplay. Dead Throne had first launched in 2019 (I remember the fancy box setup), and is advertised as open-world: you can choose to wander around the map killing monsters, completing side quests and building your own scenarios.
In the co-op mode your goal is to defend the towns from the attacks of evil creatures, while in solo you will roam around fighting monsters in order to save the people and yourself. It is launching on Kickstarter on July 13.
Personal opinion: I like the premise but not the looks of this game. Let's face it, the games market is very competitive, and visuals can make or break a project.
Today (July 12), Leviathan Wilds has launched on KS.
This is a game where you play a Fantasy character climbing up a titanic creature to cure it from a blight infection. The gameplay is card-driven as you move around on the titan's back, each titan being represented in a grid-like fashion on a spiral-bound book à la Jaws of the Lion.
I like the theme a lot. Athena, it looks as if you're "negotiating" with the bad guys. Do you know if there's an option to go 'British SAS' or 'U.S. Navy Seal' on 'em (modern version of goin' 'Medieval' on 'em)?
On July 15, Bag of Dungeon will kickstart a sequel, The Cursed Forest.
This is a light dungeon crawler game that holds in a bag where you sequentially explore a dungeon by laying tiles and slaying monsters.
And I've just found out that Temple of Horrors is launching as well this Wednesday (July 13). Here is the Gamefound link.
Temple of Horrors is a dungeon crawler in the vein of Heroquest featuring a great many adventures you can play. All adventures are played with a time track. Combat is performed by throwing cubes on a board. You can expect many items to collect, monsters and traps, and a lot of dungeon tiles. These tiles seem to be used in an original fashion (you need to lay out specific patterns to activate hidden stuff), but I didn't really get how it works exactly.
Thanks for the post Athena!
I remember backing Dead Throne during the last, canceled campaign. Even though the art is not the greatest, I like that they went the old-school way: the game is more of a sandbox than anything (so no giant minis that come with each specific scenario à la Euthia), the rules seemed rather simple, with a great margin of freedom (no optimization stuff).
Even though the characters' art is not great and the box cover is borderline repellent, I think the tiles' art is great, and this is what matters most in an adventure game to me. I want the tiles to be evocative of a Fantasy world, which is the case here: the call for…