Another beautiful production from Chip Theory Games. Dragons of Etchinstone is a high quality remake of the earlier print and play, 18-card, play in the palm game. The game is still super-tough – I’m pretty sure I’m playing the rules right but I just can’t squeak a win on Normal mode.
The PVC foiled cards feel great in-hand which surprised me given how much I claim to prefer the texture of good card stock. Not to mention the cards are virtually indestructible surviving pockets, cafe, and tavern alike.
My copy arrived just before needing to go away overnight for work, so perfect timing. A great travel game, very evocative of Mage Knight but in the palm of your hand. Great fun.
I’ve backed Joe’s new game Radiance on Gamefound, it will be like having a mid-level portable Mage Knight too, for a range of scale options with a similar play style.
We’re playing Arydia right now. And after a handful of sessions we’re feeling a bit mixed about it. It’s definitely fun, but for us it’s turning out to be more of a middling campaign game than a top tier one. Presentation is excellent. Everything looks really cool. Combat is fun. And exploration does throw you into unexpected and sometimes very memorable circumstances. But overall its grand presentation sometimes feels like more icing than cake. There’s certainly high points, but I think they’re being outweighed by the unmemorable moments and admin. And I am usually much more forgiving of excess admin and fiddly bits than other people (I play both SoB and Deep Madness with all expansions at the same time and love it), but there’s lots of trading cards and maps in and out without it always feeling like they amounted to anything meaningful. And this might change, but you can only get a couple of fights in before you’re running back to town to repair and restock. So the most fun aspect of the game can feel like it’s being miserly meted out.
We’re not usually very picky about the quirks of our campaign games, but we had really high expectations here. We both love Xia and there seems to be near universal praise for this one. But compared to other narrative campaign games I think it’s going to end up just being mid-tier for us. I’d 100% recommend Agemonia or the 'haven games first (if we’re talking scripted campaign games).
I really want to like Arydia. I’m struggling with the reality that it would require me to treat it like an 800 page novel or a weekend binge-watch of the entire uncut Lord of the Rings trilogy where I need to focus all my attention on it or I’ll never make headway. It’s been really hard coming to terms with realizing that I just don’t have time for these types of gigantic campaign style games anymore, no matter how great they might be.
This is why I sold it last week, without playing it. I watched two videos and listen to two podcasts talking about this game. It looks so cool, but too much for me right now. I still love campaign games, but with a smaller campaign length. An Aftermath, for example, fits my life situation at the moment much more.
Played Six Sojourns for the first time tonight; managed to fit three full 3P games into 3 hours - very fast paced! It’s a cool game, simple mechanics but still a lot of strategy and plenty to keep you thinking since each card you buy (one per round) has about three different things you use it for (actions, resources to build sets, and potentially a special rule).
Getting a little break at a friend’s cabin and decided it was time to make my way through the Mad Titan’s Shadow campaign, playing with Scarlet Witch. Marvel Champions is a pretty wondrous time for me every time I play. Instantly a strong thematic experience, plays in 30-60 min, possibly the best true solo play I’ve had with a board game, and so much depth, replayability and modularity. I really wish there was a dungeon crawlers equivalent of a game like this, where you pick a dungeon, a character, and a modular set and instantly dive into a game. Iron Helm is kind of like that but lacks the significant gameplay variability in each different game that happens in Marvel Champions.
The Kinfire Delve games are a bit like that. Each set has one deck for the big-bad and ‘dungeon’, plus two character decks. You can mix and match across the three sets to put different characters (singular or up to four) against each of the BBEGs and their associated minions.
LotR Journeys in Middle Earth: I’ve had my eye on this game for years but always stopped myself from pulling the trigger. I recently found someone local selling the base game for $20 and I couldn’t pass that up. Let’s see if this one lands!
It’s one of my all-time favorites and I need to get back to it. There’s an elegance to the gameplay and I love the IP. Keep in mind: exploring is sometimes more important than slaying bad guys. There’s a nice tension between the two.
