Deckbuilders continue to be a popular mechanic, present in both the interaction-heavy exploration and area majority Galactic Renaissance by Matagot and Slay the Spire: The Board Game by Contention Games.  Slay the Spire is of interest as it is a roguelike dungeon crawl videogame that embraced deckbuilding and is now a cooperative deck builder based on the videogame. Rounding out today’s report is the shedding game Seers Catalog by Bézier Games and the 3D garden building Babylon which requires placing nifty plastic garden items on the highest levels to score big points.  

Contention Games

Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Slay the Spire by Contention Games is a very popular video game that uses deckbuilding as the backbone of a roguelike game. These are games where a player goes on a little adventure, gaining abilities and powers until they finish the adventure or die trying. The roguelike part comes in when players are then able to store up some small abilities or powerups from one run to make future runs easier. There are a number of these roguelike games that also use deckbuilding as the main game mechanic for the adventure. The cooperative Slay the Spire: The Board Game is one of the most popular and the board game version tries to remain faithful to the original videogame while trying to make the game more streamlined for a non-digital experience. Cards are streamlined so that they require less juggling of various effects (requiring players to keep track of ever more balancing plates) and the cards are set up to try to minimize how often they all need to be shuffled – always a danger in a deck builder. Players begin with a set of cards that are weak but slowly improve their deck – each player buys/obtains new cards from their own source, distinguishing the various player “classes” from each other. During the game, players make their way through a branching dungeon encountering monsters, events, and even shops selling goods and services for gold collected from defeating monsters. Combat has players playing their cards against the current enemy. Cards are laid out in a grid with each player responsible for their own column of incoming cards. To keep players on their toes, enemies will often roll a die to see what particular attack they will use at any given time. Once an enemy is defeated, players get to choose one card from a set of three to add to their deck. I believe in my notes there are currently four classes in the game: Ironclad, Silent, Defect, and Watcher – listed from simpler to more complex. The game has been well-received so far, quickly selling out at the convention.

Matagot

Galactic Renaissance

Published by Matagot, Galactic Renaissance is a light deck builder (there’s no shuffling) of exploration and area control for 2 to 4 players. Cards are used to to take actions (acquire more cards, explore, send out units, etc…) It’s a very conflict-rich game with ways to displace or outright steal other players’ toys. Planets consist of two pieces, the larger tile and a circle tile that is placed on top. The larger tile has various symbols, some of which determine the connectivity of the galaxy – all planets with the same colored symbols are “connected” to each other. Home planets, of course, have all three colors. Players can send units to planets to take control of them (if you ally with the planet you can even take the circle tile and add it to your home world.) Planets have a maximum number of troops. If that maximum is exceeded, players then take turns removing one at a time until the planet is within the maximum. Players can construct buildings on planets to increase their hand size and (I think) other effects. There are always five objectives available that can be scored for points. These are revealed three at a time, over the course of the game. The game is played to 30 points, but in an interesting move, a player can only “save over” a maximum of 20 points from one turn to the next. Thus someone has to have a “final turn” of at least 10 points to end the game and win.

Kyoto no Neko

In Kyoto no Neko, 2 to 4 players are kittens who explore the modern-day city of Kyoto, Japan. Each game has a set of goals to accomplish and kittens move about the city, revealing tiles. They may then interact with the revealed tile using one of their four skills: agility, fighting, befriending, and hunting. Success brings rewards, typically progress towards one of the game’s goals, but failure grants a player an improvement in that ability. There are three main scenarios in the box, each with their own sets of goals to accomplish. Examples include stealing food, befriending a school boy, fighting other cats, climb a tree, go hunting, and messing around with bicycles – in at least one scenario there are a granny and grandpa cyclist that whiz around the loop near the outside of the board. Most of the scenarios require exploration to reveal the requisite tile before they can be accomplished. Players are trying to obtain five medals (for meeting goals, etc…) for a win. After two medals are earned, kittens “level up” and get a nice boost in their skills. A few copies were being sold at Gen Con but the game will see a full release at Essen this fall.

Bézier Games

Seers Catalog

The OpG card fans are very positive about Seers Catalog. It’s a shedding game – a game where everyone is trying to get rid of all their cards. The deck is comprised of suits (one suit for each player – 2 to 5) with cards numbered 2-13. Players play cards onto a central pile if they are able to play a stronger card, set of cards or run of cards (depending on what’s being played at that moment.) Players are also given two artifact cards at the start of the hand which can be used to change suits or work as a 13 (for sets) or highest card (for singles.) Players do not have to play if they can, but they must play if they have 5 or fewer cards. All of this is pretty standard, the new bit comes in near the end of the round. When a player “goes out” and plays their last card, the round ends and all players score -1 point for each card remaining in their hand. However, if a player has five or less cards, they also score positive points worth the value of their lowest card. This means players really want to almost go out, but not quite. They also want to hold onto their highest cards – but those are the ones they’re most likely to be forced to play. Don’t hold onto your artifacts, though. They have a point value of zero – so they’re horrible as your lowest card. The Easter egg in the name comes from the for many Werewolf-themed games produced by Bézier Games. The images on the cards are all taken from a “Sears Catalog” style company that sells items good for fighting your local werewolves.

Geek Attitude Games

Babylon 

Babylon, is a 2-4 player game of 3 dimensional garden building from Geek Attitude Games. Each player will build their own 3D garden of pillars, bridges, and other garden bits throughout the game. Players draft a tile from a tableau that determines what sorts of pillars and pieces they get for that round. The number of pillars received depends on what’s displayed on the surrounding available tiles. Players construct their own garden by placing down pillars and then setting more tile bases on top of them (where there are 3 or 4 pillars of support.) Getting more pillars is good because it is important to build tall. Points for structures are scored based on the level on which they’re placed in the garden. There are four main scoring structures: statues score 1 point per level, but can also serve as a pillar to support another level, fountains score 3 points per level, bridges score 3 points per level, and stairways score the sum of the two connected levels. All but the statues will require two adjacent spaces for room. At the end of the game, the rule of thumb is that “only plastic scores” on the board. All pieces that are not covered by anything above them (partially covered structures still score) earn points based on their point value x the level on which they sit. The game is played for a set number of rounds with each round having a minor “event” which tends to be favorable but might have slight negatives. The game should run 30 to 60 minutes or so, particularly since players can gather up the pieces from their chosen tile and then think about placement while the next player can start evaluating their choice of tile.