You Watch My Back and I’ll Watch Yours: Week July 9 to 15
Scratch that. Athena landed her promotion at work and immediately left for vacation. And now I’m stuck here without a note or whatever to suggest what’s launching next week. Sweet. Guess I’ll just make some stuff up.
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Hamlet: By The Lake is an expansion to the Danish king-killing game that adds lake tiles. Here’s a picture.
In this tile-laying game you build a village, while travelling around on a donkey Mother-Mary-style. I did not make this up. It is launching on Kickstarter on July 11.
Personal opinion: To back or not to back… I suppose as with all expansions it comes down to how much you like the base game and then, how much you think it still lacks something these tiles will solve. Personally I skipped Hamlet as I sometimes have nightmares where Turczi solo modes come to haunt me in my sleep urging me to go on a killing spree. But there’s method in his madness, so if you like your AIs crunchy, by all means play the thing.
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Stonespine Architects is based on the misconception that Minotaurs are some kind of miners, constructing underground passages. Where of course in real life they build towers.
The game has the players simultaneously drafting and playing cards, which shouldn’t be too hard to do solo after some practice. You will build a 4x4 card dungeon, so it will be a bit like mini-Earth I guess, just like Ulus is a mini-World. It will launch on Kickstarter on July 11.
Personal opinion: I managed to stay away from this designer’s previous game Cartographers but I understand that one's good fun. So I might check this out. Or I’ll wait for Zerbique to buy it and play it with him.
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Luddite is a roll and write graphic novel, where you roll a die then ink the panels as they couldn’t be arsed. You play as a laid-off engineer, part of the new “useless class”, planning revenge on the AIs that took over your job. The story is rated 16+ which I had to look up, but expect harsh language, intense graphic violence, drug abuse and nudity.
The novel supplies an infinitely replayable campaign that you can tackle solo or multiplayer, cooperatively or competitively, as deciding what kind of game they wanted to make was also too much trouble. You can get a cool blinged out version or a cheap Print & Play on Kickstarter on July 11.
Personal opinion: Great theme, and I like graphic novels, but I haven’t found a roll and write I enjoy playing yet. I may get the P&P though.
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The Sword & Sorcery expansion Abysmal Legends brings the Ancient Chronicles and Immortal Souls campaigns to an end by letting the heroes sail towards Cthulhu. Such imagination.
This expansion to the epic fantasy game for which the noun “fiddliness” was invented will launch on Kickstarter on July 11.
Personal opinion: I’m stunned by the creativity and wish them bon voyage.
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Serengeti Sanctuary is a light game in which you try to expand your African wildlife reserve, so that rich foreigners can come over to shoot the big five and your employees will be able to do some poaching on the side.
In the game you’ll draft cards depicting wild animals to build sets, then try to reach 50 points in three rounds. You can already find a page on Gamefound, where it will launch on July 15.
Personal opinion: Nature conservation is the new Cthulhu, and personally I’ve reached my saturation level. That said, if you don’t have any of those kind of games in your collection yet, this might be a nice first step on the road paved with good intentions.
Congrats to@Athenafor her promotion 💛
I'll definitely check out the KS for Stonespine Architects for more inclined to wait for retail and see what the ratings are.
Luddite looks cool and a PnP or digital edition is definetly an option.
I’m stunned by the creativity and wish them bon voyage.
@JW thank you for a smile on a sunny morning
JW, I haven't made any Comments recently, but your statement, "Personally I skipped Hamlet as I sometimes have nightmares where Turczi solo modes come to haunt me in my sleep urging me to go on a killing spree.", was SO funny I had to tell you your wittiness is quite impressive. Well, many of the participating Members of ST are quite witty, but you have an exemplary record, IMHO. 🙂
Great news for Athena and a well deserved vacation! Also good step up JW :)
As I'm slowly dying of heat, cause Europe doesn't believe in AC hardly being able to put together a few coherent sentences, I can't see much of interest for me.
However I will look into two. Stonespine Architects really isn't my theme, but the gameplay somehow reminds me of Limes. But meatier. Which might interest me, or not. I suspect the theme will still make me skip it, but I'm curious to see what's what.
The other is unsurprisingly Serengeti Sanctuary, unlike most people I'll never tire of nature theme. However the gameplay of many nature themed games is a miss for me. We'll see how…
Great post JW, thank you! I hope you remember we have a shared spreadsheet that you created and that I try my best to keep up-to-date, with all the upcoming KS releases that I have been able to glean over BGG.
Absolutely nothing for me this week in this selection, but that's fortunate as the Burning Banners will come to an end and it's my wallet that will turn to cinders.
First off: Congrats to Athena for her promotion at work! 2nd: I actually remember a time when HP Lovecraft was basically an unknown author. I was actually embarrassed in a bookstore once in my 20s because I believe the store owner thought I was asking for a writer of romance novels. All in a sudden there was this surge of all things Lovecraft and now there can’t be enough. I actually prefer his random horror short stories as opposed to his Cthulthu universe. Although something can be said about JW’s reoccurring nightmares of Turczi solo modes, quietly working its way into his head. Now ”that” would make for some good storytelling, although I am not sure I’d want to stick…