We sat down with R&R Games and saw several items that were releasing just after Toy Fair. In fact, all of the items we’re showcasing have just been released and if they aren’t on your local game store’s shelves, they’re on the way.
Hashtag Me ($16) is a storytelling game, where one person follows a prompt and, as they’re relaying the story, the other players start playing cards with hashtags on them: #ThatsGoingToLeaveAMark or #CRAZY. When the storyteller is done, he or she selects the best cards.
Coin Quest ($30) is a bidding game where all players use coins to collect bigger and better coins. It’s a thirty-minute long deck building game with coin tokens instead of cards.
In Ulm ($40), players take the roles of guild masters and patricians in a city where a cathedral is being constructed. A bit of area control, trading, and influence gathering are in this one hour euro-style game.
In Touria ($40), all players take turns controlling a common party of adventurers around an enchanted land, gathering treasure, defeating dragons, and preparing you to approach the castle to find the rulers. Actions you can take on your turn are guided by the 3d towers on the board’s corners. The sides you can see dictate which actions you can take, once taken, the tower is rotated to the left or right. No one player has all possible actions available to them and must plan based on what they can see. Clever.
Lastly, Pyramid Poker ($20) is an… interesting two player game. You’ve got dominoes with card symbols like Q [diamond] on them. You build a pyramid-shaped structure using the dominoes with the ones you place facing you. Once it’s complete, you start dismantling the structure, placing the tile into one of three poker hands. Now, I don’t care for games that “do” poker, and I don’t particualry care for domino-like games, but this was crazy fun. If you have the same reservations that I do when it comes to this type of game, try a demo at your local store. I’m thinking it’s going to be a hit for R&R this year.