If you’ve read The Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One Nights) collection of stories, you might be familiar with the fate of the sultan’s bride, Scheherazade. In Almadi, rather than kill her as he intended to, the sultan is won over by her tales, and decides to build her her own realm – Almadi.
The word canopy conjures up three images for me. Parachutes, rainforests, and misheard hors d’ouevres. Canopy in this instance is about the one in the middle – rainforests.
Anno 1800 has made the transition across the ethereal planes between digital and physical, and thanks to Martin Wallace and Kosmos Games, we can now play it on a table
Lots of good things come in bags. I’m a big fan of crisps, for example. But now, now dear reader, you can get a whole freaking dungeon in a bag! Bag of Dungeon is a dungeon-crawler game from Gunpowder Studios, which, unsurprisingly, comes in a bag.
Ahau: Rulers of Yucatan takes the Maya civilisation as its inspiration, delivering a Euro game mixture of area influence and engine-building. During the game you’ll be expanding your city state, building pyramids, and if push comes to shove, asking the gods for a helping hand
You play as entrepreneurs who have bought derelict space stations, and aim to turn them into the swankiest holiday resorts in the cosmos. This isn’t your Airbnb style holiday, think about it more like Space Vegas. (note to self – trademark ‘Space Vegas’, it sounds awesome)
Roiks Raggy! People fall into one of two categories: those who can do a passable Scooby-Doo impression, and those who think they can. Whichever group you fall into, you’ll want to call upon your inner Scoob’ to get stuck into Scooby-Doo: Escape from the Haunted Mansion.
“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?”. Why yes, yes I do Harry Callahan. It’s a good thing too, as push-your-luck is one of my favourite things in a game.
The rather wonderful people at Big Potato Games sent me a selection of their games to play, so I made the most of the Christmas break to test them out. A collection of people from 9 to 70-something helped me out, and here’s what we thought.
English country gardens are exactly what spring to mind when I’m playing Flourish, the latest game from James and Clarissa Wilson, names you might remember from one of the prettiest games ever – Everdell
