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)
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
Whirling Witchcraft is the latest in a proud line of games which let you build a tableau, your ‘engine’, on the table in front of you. Rival witches are aiming to wield magic so powerful that they simply overwhelm their neighbours, claiming victory in the process.
In space, no-one can hear you scream. Luckily they can hear you shouting “Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that! You absolute nerf-herder!”, because you’ll be saying things like that quite often when you play Gravwell: 2nd Edition.
Roll-and-write games are bigger now than they’ve ever been. The runaway success of games like Railroad Ink and Ganz Schön Clever paved the way for more ambitious, complex games like Hadrian’s Wall. There are plenty of games out to the gap between those light and heavy titles, and Rolling Realms is one of the latest.
For many people, board game nirvana is teams of finely-detailed miniatures beating the fluff out of each other. Godtear, from Steamforged Games, is a game which epitomises the idea, where warbands of humans, creatures and… rocks throw down the gauntlet and vie for domination of the battlefield.
The best kind of mystery is the one that doesn’t reveal the culprit at the start. It leaves you to work out whodunnit for yourself, either by pulling you along through a story with the protagonist, or giving you the clues to do it yourself. The Detective Society takes this concept and runs with it.
Do you know that feeling at the start of a game of Chess? Your opponent makes their first move and you immediately start trying to get into their head. What are they doing? What’s their plan? That’s how Senjutsu gets after just a game or two.
Spooky is a great word. It conjures up images of ghosts, ghouls, monsters and horror, but does it through the lens of something safe and fun. It’s kid-friendly, it’s all things Scooby-Doo, and it’s one of my favourite feelings. Vast: The Mysterious Manor aims to recreate that feeling in the poster child for all things spooky – a haunted mansion.
Arkosa, the new title from Toon Hammer, plonks you on the titular planet of Arkosa, and makes you try to get back off of it. You see, there’s an opportunity to get off this desert world, but only the most prestigious of colonies gets the ticket.
