*Back from a brief hiatus, here’s more Gen Con coverage:
I hope I’m forgiven for occasionally mixing up my blue-themed German publishers, they both put out some excellent games. This time around we’re talking Kosmos – home of the Exit series. In addition to new Exit (and Exit Kids) titles, there was the poker co-op The Gang, temple-building Nunatak, co-op art-buying Belratti, and a kid friendly Dodo game with the slowest moving marble I’ve ever seen. Over at the Friendly Skeleton, the booth folks were going all-in on their games, including demoing one of their newest while wearing a raccoon suit. Trash Talk has players mind-meld around a pile of junk, Speed Colors wants to know whether you are able to color within the lines, solitaire-like Crystallo is expanded, and one of my favorites of the show, Flickering Stars has players flicking ships and missiles to conquer the galaxy.
Friendly Skeleton
Trash Talk
The Friendly Skeleton (formerly known as Deep Water Games) booth had the best pitch-creature of any booth in the exhibit hall, a friendly raccoon ready to introduce passersby to the co-op mind reading game, Trash Talk. It was released last year, but if you’re unfamiliar with it, two teams are given identical sets of random trash objects – and I mean trashy. There’s a cheap plastic Slinky, an even cheaper plastic car, a glass bead, a honey spoon, some weird plant thing, and even a “working” cocktail umbrella. Play starts with identical sets of three objects and three cards are revealed. Both teams assign a piece to each card and then they are revealed. The goal, of course, is for both teams to match up their trash exactly the same. Success leads to a match of matching greater numbers of matching objects – all the way up to a final 10-card matching session. Of course, players are allowed – and even encouraged – to BYO trash to the game.
Speed Colors
An even older game, but my boys and I had a grand time playing Speed Colors. Everyone is assigned a coloring-book style card with one side colored in and the other side blank. Players examine the colored side, then flip the card and race to fill in the blank side in the correctly assigned six colors. When one person finishes coloring, everyone stops. Two twists manage to make the game fun: there is only one of each colored pen available so players must fight over them, and (at least in our game and how we now play) players’ coloring is judged extremely harsh – just a little bit of missed whitespace or over the line and that section is not considered finished. Once coloring has stopped, player cards are judged for points. Filling in a section (with any color) is worth a point whereas sections filled with the correct color are worth two. (Yes, that means you can get 7 points for coloring your card perfectly with only one color.) As mentioned, any section where a player colored outside the line the slightest bit or failed to completely fill in an area (even if the pen itself managed to erase a bit!) gets a bit fat zero. Harsh, but we like it that way!
Crystallo: Den of Dragons
Crystallo is a solitaire -like game where one plays out cards on a grid, trying to make sets of crystals formed by symbols on the corner of the cards. Some cards grant a bonus if multiple sets are created. Once all the crystals of each color are placed, the leftover cards are used in a similar manner to “fight” a boss dragon for a total victory. The Den of Dragons expansion adds more end-game content for your dragon-fighting pleasure. This has players putting down treasures in L-shape polyomino styles in order to ward off this second dragon and score even more points. Future expansions include another new dragon and the addition of some disasters that appear in an event deck and a new travel version of the title that tries to take up less table space.
Flickering Stars
The “Big Deal” for Friendly Skeleton at the convention was Flickering Stars, frequently cited as one of the hottest titles at the show. Releasing in Q4, This is a 2 player (or 2 team) space exploration/combat game where ship movement and combat is resolved by flicking pieces around the play area. Players start on their home bases and explore the table trying to control the 3 central planets to win the game. Players move about the board by flicking one of their four types of ships, each has a specialty. One moves people, one gathers resources (used to get more ships, etc…), one does a little of both, and one is for combat – able to roll a ball onto the playing field, hopefully knocking around the opponents pieces sitting on their ships and planets. Players also have little defensive screen they can move around the battlefield. Resources are mined from asteroids and give players cubes that can be spent for any of the mentioned abilities. Settling a planet will flip it to its back side and give the settling player additional resources. As mentioned, controlling 3 planets is the primary way to win the game. A few starting scenarios slowly introduce parts of the game and there are three scenarios included that use the “full game.” For example, one has players looting asteroids for the win. The two sides are actually different factions with slightly different abilities. Each has two leaders and they bring the ability to build new pieces like special ammo or other ships. Friendly Skeleton is already eyeing expansions that might introduce new factions.
KOSMOS
Exit: The Game
One of the very first at-home escape room games, Exit: The Game continues strong with several new titles including another one in the Kids line titled Riddles in Monsterville. Exit: The Game stands out as one of the few escape room games in-a-box that destroys itself as its played. Avoiding a reusable requirement allows them a much wider array of options for interesting puzzles, I highly recommend the line.
Masters of Crime
Masters of Crime is a line of cooperative puzzle/deduction games where the players are trying to solve a murder mystery. Each game has a deck of cards and some physical clue bits but the game also makes use of the internet – both use of common tools like Google Maps but also custom designed web sites one must log into during the game. The mystery is slowly revealed through a sort of choose-your-adventure style where players must make (semi-branching) choices as they progress through the game/puzzle. The games are non-destructive and while you couldn’t run a second playthrough they are entirely regiftable. I believe they may have been available in Germany and are just now coming to the US. Vendetta released in August while Shadows should be September. Rapture and Incognito come in later in the year. Of the four, Shadows might be the best for a slightly younger set while Rapture does have a bit more of adult themes (the game involves the “Boogie Bungalow” – a somewhat questionable establishment.)
Belratti
Belratti is a co-op party game based around the idea of detecting painting forgeries (Beltracchi is a famous German forger.) The players are split into curators – who buy the paintings, and painters – who will supply the paintings. Two cards are flipped which determine the topic and how many paintings need to be created. The painters then select paintings from their hand of five cards to fit one or the other of the topics. These are put into a deck and additional random cards are added. The cards are then laid out and the curators need to decide which paintings are the ones provided by the painter players and which are the fakes. Player roles are switched each round and the game continues for six rounds or ends prematurely if the “curators” select too many fakes. To spice things up there are a few “power-up” cards that can be used. They are slowly unlocked so that players can use their abilities after a specific number of paintings are bought.
Dodo
Dodo is another co-op and my favorite at the booth. It plays 2-4 players and leans toward the younger set. Players are trying to build a path down a tower before a dodo egg rolls off of the edge. Players roll a die and then must find a specific item from face-down tokens. They may then add another ramp to the tower. Once the ramps are in place the players must also put together a boat at the bottom. Complete all the building before the egg gets to the bottom to win the game. The egg, though, is one of the coolest things I saw at the convention. It slowly rolls down the ramps in a little jig-jog wobbly motion that keeps moving even though it looks like it is going to stop entirely at any given moment in time. Definately feel like there’s a little cartoon dodo in there keeping you on your toes.
The Gang
One of the few games I had heard about before the fair, The Gang has players attempting to play a game of cooperative Texas Hold-em poker. The idea is that everyone is playing poker and, without explicitly talking about their cards, they must determine the ranking order of everyone’s hand at the end of the deal. This is accomplished by players taking chips after each new card is added to the set of communal cards in the middle of the table. Players “win” the round if they’re able to rank their cards in correct order after the last card is revealed. After a win, a challenge card is added that modifies the game to make it a little harder. However, each loss grants the players a bonus card granting some small benefit. The goal is to win three rounds before losing three.
Nunatak: Temple of Ice
Nunatak: Temple of Ice has players coming together to build a Nunatak – a mountain completely surrounded by glacial ice. While the (1-4) players build the pyramid together it is not a cooperative game. Players pick a card which determines where they will place a pillar onto the game board. These cards will be used for set collection points at the end of the game. When a set of four pillars are placed in a square, a card is laid across them and a little “hat” is put on top – if the hat matches the colors below, bonus colors are scored. Points are also awarded to the majority and 2nd place majority when a complete square is made. Completing a row or a column lets players move up the architecture track. Cards also have a little bonus power depending on their color. As mentioned, points are scored throughout the game, with extra points awarded to players based on set collecting of the various cards obtained during the game.
*Hiatus due to a wonderful perfect storm of school starting, family issues, and the realization I should always prioritize playing games with my kids over writing about them…
