17 Mar
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, Classic Board Games, Electronic Games, Modern Board Games, RPGs
There’s a Call of Cthulhu computer RPG coming in 2017.
Expected sometime this month is a VR version of Reiner Knizia’s Lost Cities card game. When networked head-to-head play is offered (it may not be at launch), the idea is to have head movements tracked so one can see which card an opponent is staring at.
Ubisoft studio, Red Storm Entertainment, is making a VR version of Werewolf where the system will cause a player’s in-game character to move and make hand-gestures based on the position of their head and the tone and volume of their voice.
The Uwe Rosenberg title, Glass Road, is now available on Android and iOS, featuring online play and graphics from the board game version.
Another Uwe Rosenberg title, Patchwork, recently launched on iOS, Android, and Windows PC/Phone.
An unofficial but designer-approved Eminent Domain: Microcosm Scoring app is available on Android.
Sagnithi Systems is seeking support on Steam Greenlight for a computer version of Snakes & Ladders that’s a first-person shooter!
Another board game Greenlight project is for a single-player version of Stratego.
Under the watchful eyes of Bob & Angus, in a demo area thronged by ribbon-seekers, Mayfair Games gave me the lowdown on a variety of recent and upcoming releases.
Beadpans & Broomsticks, which shipped in June ($35), puts most of the players in the role of old folks trying to escape a retirement home. One player, though, runs the nurses, who try to stop them. Each retiree player gets two tokens, one for the actual patient and one as a decoy.
Villainy (at retail for $50 later this month) is a supers game where the players are up-and-coming bad guys. Starting with petty crimes like putting a kitten in a tree, and working their way up to bigger, nastier plans, such as decaffeinating the world’s coffee, players build skills and recruit henchmen with the ultimate goal of defeating Fantastaman.
Johari is a push-your-luck, set-collection game about buying and selling gems. Counterfeit gems are part of the mix, though players try hard not to get caught selling them.
Catan Collector’s Edition Ancient Egypt (November, $70) builds on Settlers of Catan (obviously) but incorporates the Nile river running through the board. Resources in the game are cattle, papyrus, and stone. With them players collectively build the Great Pyramid. And ten god cards work similarly to the Helpers of Catan scenario, each providing a unique ability to the player who holds it.
Among the games Mayfair has planned for release in 2015 are Extra Extra and Flea Market. The former has players running competing newspapers. They build stories (with a card drafting mechanism), sell adds, and do layout. Somewhere in that mix there’s also supposed to be worker placement and a lot of player interaction. The latter is a quick, silly dice game that has players collecting artifacts, sometimes from the center market and sometimes taking them away from other players.
Participating in Mayfair’s booth was Lookout Games, with whom Mayfair has a distribution arrangement in the United States. Lookout’s Gold Ahoy is a two-player tile-laying game, where the winner is the player with the most gems in a network of connected tunnels. Patchwork is a game about quilting that uses pentomino or Tetris-like pieces with 9×9 player boards. Players try to fill their boards by collecting pieces. Each piece, though, has a time value and a button value. Buttons are victory points but quilting time is limited.