“Daddy? Is this a math game?”

My son recently helped me rip open a box of new games from our partners at Blue Orange, including the new game Scatter Brain. The package was interesting—a pink snow globe-style head on a small tin can that looked like it held a small treasure trove of cards. My son then read the side of the container:

“Scatter Brain–The Quick-Thinking Match & Grab Counting Game.”

Yep, sounds like a math game to me!

Scatter Brain attempts to carry on the great tradition of other real-time snatch/slap/grab games at our house such as Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Gimme That!, Galaxy Trucker, and to a certain degree, co-op games like Quicksand. Somebody scatters 10 cards on the table, featuring numbers that range from 3-18. Then someone rolls the four pink dice before people scramble to grab any cards that match either a single die face or a total based on any number of rolled dice.

For example, let’s say there’s an 11 on the table. If three of the rolled dice showed a six, four, and one, that equals the card’s total, so it’s a legal grab. Any cards grabbed illegally cause the person who touched those cards to miss…

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A few years back I was wandering through various campaigns on Kickstarter (as I am wont to do) and I saw a pair of images that were right up my alley. The images were sci-fi but of the old 1930s to 1950s variety. The sort of images that invoke some of my childhood heroes!

[caption id="attachment_307619" align="aligncenter" width="600"] A return to the golden age of sci-fi![/caption]

Pulp Invasion! I read the description of the game and saw that it was a solo affair. I decided to get two copies: one for me, and one for my friend, Steve (Steve loves solo gaming). I started getting the expansions, too. I stopped, but that is another story (see below).

This game (and Pulp Detective) came about after Mr. Sanders acquired the rights to a whole bunch of pulp magazine covers and interior illustrations. In other words, this is the real deal! These are not modern artists mimicking the pulp era styles, these are authentic pulp era pieces. And they are beautiful!

Engage the hyperdrive!

In Pulp Invasion, you are a Free Captain, a sort of trader and mercenary who roams interstellar space. However, you are no ordinary Captain! In secret, you are an agent of the Intergalactic Council, an arm of the…

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A few years back after discovering Todd Sanders’ latest work (Pulp Invasion), I was looking into this game designer and discovered that he had designed a game around the old Gumshoe genre.

[caption id="attachment_307620" align="aligncenter" width="600"] I need a card in this game that lets me play as Rigby Reardon.[/caption]

I loved it! I searched around and I located the base game for Pulp Detective, all three expansions, the slip-cover to hold all of the boxes together (like a set of books), and the puzzle-piece playing board for the combined experience.

This game (and Pulp Invasion) came about after Mr. Sanders acquired the rights to a whole bunch of pulp magazine covers and interior illustrations. In other words, this is the real deal! These are not modern artists mimicking the pulp era styles, these are authentic pulp era pieces. And they are beautiful!

Just the facts, ma’am!

In Pulp Detective, you are a gritty private eye (or detective, or socialite avenger, etc.) who is hot on the case of some nefarious crime that has been committed. You have a day (or sometimes less!) to find the clues, solve the crime, and confront the culprit what did it!

The game is about playing your odds and hedging your bets. But…

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In classic mythology, the hydra was a many-headed demon that proved very hard to kill. As if its poisonous breath and tainted blood weren’t enough, a hero attempting to slay a hydra would have to contend with its heads not just  regenerating, but doubling, just as quickly as they were lopped off. Back then, the hydra was a friendless, angry beast.

The modern hydra is a much friendlier, more jovial hydra. Much of that is due, no doubt, to the hydra’s affection for the loveable, peaceable otter. Nothing pleases a hydra more than making its otter friends happy and, if there’s one thing that makes them happier than anything, it’s shiny stuff.

In Reef & Ruins, from Carla Kopp (Way Too Many Cats, Roar and Write!), players take on the roles of otters directing their 3-headed friends (represented by three 6-sided dice) as they search through the ruins of wrecked ships and the surrounding reefs for treasure. If they’re feeling particularly generous, they’ll even impart some of their magical essence into their finds to make them even shinier, enhancing their overall value for the end game.

Each round, a player will roll the three dice and players will use those dice however they wish across their three sheets: Ship Ruins, Enchantments, and Reef. Everything a player does…

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Anyone that has followed my work for the past few years knows that I have a weird affection for the deckbuilding genre. I have been into deckbuilders since the days of Ascension and Dominion, and my first handful of reviews were deckbuilders. Because of this experience, it’s hard for me to get interested in any random deckbuilder.

Queen by Midnight’s hook is that’s a battle royale with a heavy emphasis on diplomacy and a round limit. Yes, a round limit, in a deckbuilder game. Absolutely bonkers proposition that engrossed me enough to play the game and spend some time writing many sentences about it.

The plot is not too hard to understand. The Queen is dead and her last wish is to have a trial by combat with the deadline being midnight. Six princesses show up and you know the ending to this one.

Like many other deckbuilders, the starting deck is full of money cards that you use for the first few rounds to buy new cards to improve your deck. So far that seems quite straightforward, until you look at your options to buy. While this does use Ascensions’ familiar “market row” system where you buy your cards from a row, the similarities end there.

Dealt a Royal Hand

On your Princess playmat, you have a “Vault…

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The PARKS brand—featuring the most popular game in the Keymaster Games catalog—is well known in my circles. Multiple players love PARKS as the casual game of choice both for core hobbyists (as a medium-length filler) and those looking for an easier time at the table with a handsome, well-produced experience.

Each time I play PARKS, I come away uttering a version of “yeah, that was pretty good” while being thankful that the teach takes about five minutes and decisions are not too taxing. And the cards are so beautiful! Even if someone doesn’t like PARKS for the gameplay, everyone loves the look.

In that same vein, I was pretty excited to hear that Keymaster was working on a roll-and-write game in the PARKS universe…and now we have Parks: Roll & Hike, hot off the press and ready to go. (I clarified with the Keymaster team that going forward, game titles in the PARKS line will not be written in CAPS.) During a recent trip to the beach, I was able to unleash Parks: Roll & Hike four times—a mix of solo and multiplayer play, using four of the six included maps—to get a solid feel for the experience.

If you liked PARKS, I think you will enjoy Parks: Roll & Hike. The game is easy to teach,…

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I was born after the decline of the milkman. I live in a small town where the idea could almost live again. Folks around these parts walk to pick up milk from their organic suppliers, but no one dons the cap and uniform for house calls. I have fond childhood memories of food deliveries, helping the mailman with his daily rounds, and, obviously, the daily passing of the ice cream truck. There’s some nostalgic romance in those aspects of bygone days, I guess.

The whole home delivery scene is appealing as a setting for a game. Milkman, from Dice Hate Me Games, puts players in charge of the whole operation—from farm to front door.

Raw

Milkman is a dice-chucker. Players each roll their two black dice on every turn. With two possible rerolls, they then make the best of their results and take action. The active player also receives a single roll of four white dice, granting a few extra options and first dibs in selecting customers for the turn.

On the dice, cows produce raw milk that is stored in tanks with limited capacity. Bottles convert an entire tank into whole, skim, or chocolate, stored in refrigeration with its own limits. Cash gives wooden cash tokens. Meeple select…

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I'm largely unfamiliar with the Aviation Wargame genre of gaming, although not due to lack of interest. As much as I'd love to sink my teeth into something like Star Wars: X-Wing, I'm well-known for going all-in on miniatures games only to find myself lacking someone who would mirror the same investment. Therefore, I was intrigued to see Aerodome: Rising Horizons as a budget substitute for the sprawling miniature experience.

Aerodome: Rising Horizons Overview

The object of the game is aerial supremacy. Take down your opponent by reducing their Hit Points to 0 before they do the same to you.

When starting a new game of Aerodome: Rising Horizons, you need to select the Stadium that you'll be fighting in. It's called a Stadium as opposed to a Battleground or Location because you're playing as pilots of aircraft across time and dimensions. At least, that's what I was able to glean from the 'Story so Far' section of the rulebook that really just outlined the various factions battling in the game.

Each player hops into the proverbial cockpit of a fighter, assuming the role of a prodigious pilot like Alice Drummond or Van Vertigo. The pilot determines which types of cards—and how many of each—can be combined to make your Maneuver Hand. Think of the Maneuver Hand as…

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Hello and welcome to ‘Focused on Feld’. In my Focused on Feld series of reviews, I am working my way through Stefan Feld’s entire catalogue. Over the years, I have hunted down and collected every title he has ever put out. Needless to say, I’m a fan of his work. I’m such a fan, in fact, that when I noticed there were no active Stefan Feld fan groups on Facebook, I created one of my own.

Today we’re going to talk about 2010’s It Happens.., his 12th game. For the sake of giving autocorrect a break, from this point on, I will be referring to the name of this game without the weird ellipses in the title.

It Happens was Stefan Feld’s fourth game to be published under the Queen Games banner, and it was the last of his games published by them in their small box form factor—the other two being Roma, his first game, and Arena: Roma II, his sixth, which was released just a year earlier. You read that right. Within the span of a single year, from the publication of Arena: Roma II to the publication of It Happens, Stefan Feld had published seven different games.

Here’s another interesting fact: if you thought something along the lines of “This game’s title sounds awfully close…

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“Yes, but which sylLAble receives the emPHAsis?” I asked. “Is it P’RAM-i-dice, like Paradise with an extra half-beat? PY-ram-i-dice, which begs pronouncing the first syllable as if I were Archimedes? Pyramid-ICE, as if it were a beverage? Or maybe emphasizing every syllable—PIE-RAM-EYE-DICE!”

I guess it’s a good thing when a game offers that sort of conversation before the teach, a conversation that inevitably ends with allowing the eventual winner to select the pronunciation that will live in perpetuity.

Pyramidice is a dice rolling pyramid builder from Ares Games and the mind of Luigi Ferrini, who had a semi-hit a decade back with Stronghold’s The Golden Ages. Rather than building a civilization, players are marking their civilization with pyramids on behalf of the Pharaoh while seeking the favor of the gods—and the occasional sacred cat.

Building blocks

Pyramidice is, in many ways, a procedural affair—add a stone die to the quarry, roll a number of dice determined by available workers, then choose from a list of possibilities until the dice are spent. You might reroll, attain a god card, send a stone die to a pyramid, carry out a god action, discard a die to refresh a card, or discard two dice for a point. As needed, you’ll discard cats to modify dice.

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At last year’s SPIEL event in Essen, Germany, I had the chance to try The Warp, a game I followed during its crowdfunding campaign because I was intrigued by its approach to the 4X genre of spacefaring adventure games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate). The campaign, which ended in late 2020, gave me the sense that there would be a real chance at being blown off the map, so the “eXterminate” portion of the 4X mechanic here looked real…and many games in this category do not really follow through on that promise.

I’ve now played The Warp in both three-player and four-player arrangements, and after these plays and a promising demo back in Germany, I know that The Warp does a lot of things well, particularly in the way objective scoring takes place. While it falls a tier below the best 4X and 4X-adjacent games I have played, such as Voidfall, Scythe, Circadians: Chaos Order and Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy, I think The Warp delivers on many fronts.

The real challenge? Finding it, especially if you live in North America.

“Do You Want to Follow?”

The Warp is a relatively rules-light, 1-4 player area control and hand management experience that can be…

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If you’ve had the chance to read any of my previous Mindclash Games coverage, you probably think I’m a fanboy…and, you are right.

Mindclash has put out a bevy of bangers, including Anachrony, Trickerion: Legends of Illusion, and the granddaddy of them all, Voidfall. I wanted to try the 2022 release Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles Episodes 1 & 2, so I reached out to the Mindclash team to grab a review copy and I spent about a month working through both episodes.

The format is wild. Perseverance is a four-game series that will wrap up with a third and fourth episode later this year, so I wanted to get in now to ensure I know what’s going on when the new games are delivered to backers. Players take on the roles of leaders stranded on a remote island in the present day that also happens to be inhabited by dinosaurs. By the end of Episode 4, I’m guessing Perseverance (the name of the game’s deserted location) will be a full-blown city where dinosaurs and humans are living side-by-side, working together to further a shared way of life.

The backstory is richer than that, so while I’ll talk about both episodes in the first box, I won’t talk about the things that Mindclash always does better…

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Hello and welcome to ‘Focused on Feld’. In my Focused on Feld series of reviews, I am working my way through Stefan Feld’s entire catalogue. Over the years, I have hunted down and collected every title he has ever put out. Needless to say, I’m a fan of his work. I’m such a fan, in fact, that when I noticed there were no active Stefan Feld fan groups on Facebook, I created one of my own.

Today’s a departure from the norm. Today, I’m not reviewing a game so much as I am reviewing an experience. And, I’m not doing it alone. Recently, Awaken Realms ran a campaign for a The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition (referred to as Special Edition from here on out) reprint, and that’s caused some chatter in the Meeple Mountain Slack channel.

It turns out, I’m not the only one currently in possession of this magnificent version of this magnificent game. Meeple Mountain’s own (and dare I say ‘magnificent’) Andrew Lynch has also got a copy… and we have some thoughts which we’re excited to share…

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