Steve and I did finally get to play Clout Fantasy. It’s good. I would even venture to say that it is a better Diceland than Diceland. Thing with Diceland is that it’s both very random and very chaotic, which are not the same thing. The chaos in Diceland is made
Category: Playtest Reports
Hecatomb First Look
A couple of us Cave dwellers got to play around with some Hecatomb TCG starters early last week. You would’ve heard about it in our OgreCave Audio Report last week if not for the aforementioned pooch-screwage. Now that I’m back from a cross-country jaunt, let me summarize what conclusions we
Rocketmen First Look
Okay, so, new poly-card CSG whatever, due out at Gen Con and I don’t think it got a sneak release anywhere although I could be wrong. OgreCave obtained four packs and got sort-of-enough ships to play a three-player game. If we had played a two-player game we would definitely have
Sword and Skull Playtest Report, plus sort of some news
This interview with Sword & Skull designer Mike Elliott leads off with a note on one of those missing Wizards CCGs – a Xiaolin Showdown license – and goes on to explain some of the numerous ways in which S&S is like Monopoly but less sucky. I mean, how many
Playtest report: Cyberpunk the CCG
There’s a lot of buzz lately about Cyberpunk the CCG. Around my area, much of that buzz is gamers asking “What’s it like?” or “Where can I get it?” It seems some local retailers have been reluctant to buy into another collectible game, at least until it’s a verified Runaway
Sort of an Age of Mythology Playtest Report (but really more like bragging)
I offered some more thoughts on AoM in the comments on this Slashdot Games link.
I’m ready for the exploding computer graphics: BattleBall Playtest Report
I’ve got my hands on it and it is indeed the new Epic Duels. (Except that that other thing is more literally the new Epic Duels, because it’s just like the old Epic Duels. Yeah.) If Blood Bowl is too ponderous for you but seems to hold some appeal, you
Crimson Skies Playtest Report, or: Rules-bogeys at 12 o’clock
If you’re accustomed to other WizKids combat-dial games, the CS Air Action rules are going to throw you some curve balls. Sadly, due to vague technical writing, those curve balls may hit you right in the unmentionables the way they did my test opponent, a MechWarrior fan. Here’s what you
Shadowrun Duels tournament thoughts
At the Tuesday dinner presentation, we got details on some of WizKids‘ plans for the coming year. A humorous promo movie on Creepy Freaks, a number of HeroClix, MechWarrior and MageKnight expansion announcements, and it was on to what everyone really wanted to dive into: a tournament of Shadowrun Duels.
Lift Off Playtest Report
Now that we’ve played more Fightball, and sampled this German real-time card game, I think I can safely say that the future of realtime card games looks a lot more like regular card games than it used to. We’re playing enough Fightball that we may be heading for a full
Gnome Tribes Playtest Report
So a few weeks ago these two games from Tilsit show up at the store. Most of the Tilsit games I’ve seen are longish strategy games, up to 5 hours in average play time, and many of them hue pretty closely to the conquest mold: you have a big map
RollerCoaster Tycoon Board Game Playtest Report
It was like seeing God in the Toys R Us. I was just there to kill some time looking at Legos, and really, honestly did not expect to be looking in the games aisle. And there it was. The video game that devoured so very many neurons during the late
MechWarrior Dark Age Playtest Report
I now own one starter and two boosters of MechWarrior, and have a nice long 300-point game under my belt. With these new developments, I can say with definite confidence that MechWarrior has many more robots than Mage Knight does. Like, at least ten.
Game Of Thrones CCG Playtest Report
…but I’m not too preoccupied to go down to the store and play a test game between House Lassiter and House Baratheon.
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Playtest Report
I got to play this two-player Knizia game (not to be confused with the Sauron expansion to the multiplayer LOTR game) once right after Origins, before it really hit stores, and then extensively last week. It is, right now, my favorite two-player strategy board game. It’s like Stratego for smart