The first episode of the interviews we recorded at Salute 2013. Bit later than we would have wanted, but here they are.
Interviews with:
Aquilifer Miniatures (https://www.facebook.com/aquilifer.miniatures?fref=ts)
Gaming Club Network (http://www.gamingclubnetwork.co.uk/)
Leisure Games (http://www.leisuregames.com/)
Fenris Games (http://www.fenrisgames.com/)
The last episode before episode 100 (promise!).
This episode (a bit longer than usual, I warn you) we, as in Kara, Dr Mike Reddy and I, have got together to bring you the latest Game Buffet with our list of best traitor mechanic games out there.
Being the sort of original humans we are, we’ve got some interesting and some downright strange selection. We put our case forward and then decide as a group in what place it should go. It sounds a lot more straight forward than it is!
Our list of proposed games is:
Paco:
Dr Mike Reddy:
Kara:
As usual, your feedback is most appreciated, so please do feel free to email us on podcast@gmsmagazine.com and let us know what you think!
Look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the show!
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If you have enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating a small amount of money to help us with the on-going costs of hosting the website and podcast.
This week in my gaming group there were two copies of Z-Man Terra Mystica and the 8 of us wanted to play it. Well, I wasn’t mad about playing it, but I’m happy to play anything, so I thought “what the heck… let’s play an Euro”.
The game is a competitive euro. During the game, you take control of specific hexagonal areas of the game. Each player has a terrain they can use for free (marshes, mountains, deserts, etc) and the objective of the game is to terraform the adjacent terrains so you can build enough buildings to gather enough points to build cities, which give you advantages. Everything you do gives you victory points and at the end… well, you know the rest.
First impressions of the game were very good. The board looks lovely, the tokens are think and colourful. The character sheets are on the thin side, but the do the job nicely and didn’t bend when probed. The meeples are the standard wooden meeples. Some are little men, and some are buildings. There are 6 types of buildings, houses, cathedrals, temples and some I can’t remember. Although the shape of the wooden tokens is distinctive enough that you can’t mistake them from each other, they not all reflect what they’re meant to be. There is nothing about the temple token that tells is a temple; it’s just a bigger cylinder. Still.. they’re very easily recognisable.
Also the character/player sheets are well designed. It is very easy to see what terrains you can control and the cost of terraforming terrains that are too far from your range. Also what buildings you can build, the resources you get every round, the cost of upgrade… Very, very good.
The only thing I didn’t take a look at was the rules book. Dave explaining the rules to the three of us (bless him!) and didn’t have the chance or, to be honest, the need.
The gameplay is complex. Players take turns to do one action at a time. Terraforming, building, upgrading, placing… whatever they want, until they run out of the resources needed to carry out any action. At that moment, the player must pass. The first player in the round to pass takes the first player token for the next round.
Resources come in the shape of meeples (priests) buildling materials, gold or magic/mana points. Yes, there is a sort of magic system by which you can distribute a number of magic tokens between three areas. That allows you to do “something” in your turn, but stops you from doing it all in one go to overpower the game. A bit complicated…
There is also another board where you can put meeples on and get more advantages, but I must admit I didn’t really understand it. I used it just for the sake of it when I had some meeples I didn’t know what to do with (hey! I learned the game after a long day at work with a headache… And Dave at the table…) and it didn’t impede my participation in the game. Having said that, it is a pretty important part of the game to get victory points and understanding it could be the difference between winning or losing.
The game can take around a couple of hours to play and, sorry to say, it’s not a good game for people with analysis paralysis. It can easily drag on. And on.
That also translate in the fact that there is a fair bit to do in the game and a fair number of creating strategies to get one to victory, though, so this game has a fair bit of replayability.
There is no doubt that the game is a terrific one. Complex and yet easy to get to grips with, it has a lot to offer. But it is not for me.
I felt it’s a bit overworked and it has aspects that are unbalanced. The different races are unbalanced and depending on what terrain you start you’ll have it easier or more difficult. Player interaction is reduced to stopping people from expanding their land and giving them resources when you upgrade buildings that are adjacent to other players. In fact if the players started to terraform and develop cities in opposite sides of the board, player interaction would probably be reduced to nothing.
The theme is also very much pasted on top of the rules. Although it’s a medieval/magic sort of environment, it could have been a science-fiction or a proper medieval or current day theme and it would have worked just the same.
As much as I am not mad about this game, I have to admit, if you like euros, you certainly should get it. The production values are what you would expect from Z-Man so the money you pay is worth it.
The last episode before the centenary episode of the G*M*S Magazine Podcast. Episode 100 will be special. We’ve no idea how yet, but it’ll be special.
Meanwhile, I thought it’d be a good idea to interview Christopher Badell (yes, again), but this time not about Sentinels of the Multiverse, but about their new gaming venture; Galactic Strike Force.
In Galactic Strike Force, the players play cooperatively to build ships and join forces in a tactical battle system. Although it is a coop game like Sentinels, it doesn’t play the same, it doesn’t feel the same and it doesn’t look the same. This one even has minis!
Galactic Strike Force is now being funded in Kickstarter and you can take a look at the project page here.
But I shall say no more and let you get on with the interview. Enjoy the show! (please)
As usual, your feedback is most appreciated, so please do feel free to email us on podcast@gmsmagazine.com and let us know what you think!
Look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the show!
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If you have enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating a small amount of money to help us with the on-going costs of hosting the website and podcast.
Gaming can manifest in many ways and it can make us do some very strange things, like web series.
We have had other web series in the past when we had Joanna Gaskell for an interview about her web series, and now we have another producer with a very different offering.
Game Knights is a web series about a bunch of friends who get together and play role playing games. The series is a mix of real-life and animated cartoons and it shows the players around the table and their adventures.
But I rather say nothing else and let you find out from the voice of Javier Palenzuela, the producer of the series.
Enjoy the show! (please)
As usual, your feedback is most appreciated, so please do feel free to email us on podcast@gmsmagazine.com and let us know what you think!
Look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the show!
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If you have enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating a small amount of money to help us with the on-going costs of hosting the website and podcast.
Thank you for your support
Another episode with a twist. In this episode we don’t talk games. Well… not all the time.
I had the pleasure of taking to Joanna Gaskell, the producer, writer, actress and overall brains and passion behind Standard Action, one of the bet produced and funniest fantasy web series out there.
The series has gone through one full season and season two episodes are being screened now, with still some episodes to come. Season three is currently being funded in Kickstarter and has already got enough money to produce the third season, though there are some really cool stretch goals to come.
But there is a lot more than meets the eye to this series and to Joanna as well. And some seriously exciting plans!
Enjoy the show! (please)
As usual, your feedback is most appreciated, so please do feel free to email us on podcast@gmsmagazine.com and let us know what you think!
Look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the show!
|
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If you have enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating a small amount of money to help us with the on-going costs of hosting the website and podcast.
Thank you for your support
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