Lots of variety in today’s rundown. Slugfest Games was showing off Positano, a pastel-filled bonanza of simultaneously bidding for draft order in three different areas, all in an effort to build buildings on the cliffside tall enough to look out over any towers in the way. Steve Jackson Games had a card-filled Munchkin Big Box on display with essentially 7+ expansions plus the core game for your Munchkinning needs. There were a couple small Car Wars expansions on display but also news of the upcoming roll-dice-to-take-a-tile game, Purrfect Potions. MindWare had lots of advertising around their new Qwirkle Flex – now with unique backgrounds to also score. I also looked at Ringer, which is sort of Uno-ish but with a die in the middle of the hollowed out center of the cards in the play pile. The Dice Throne people had a new entry, a collectible version of pogs called Slam Throne where the slammers have unique powers within the game. Finally, I hit up a launch party for The Sims Board Game. It has players moving around a board, spending “needs” to move around to collect icons and attract Iconic Sims for points. Players must head home if they need to refill all their needs again.
Slugfest games
Positano
Positano is a 1 to 4 player game about building apartments along the Mediterranean coast. Players will earn points for the best apartments, but only apartments with a view of the sea will matter. It is a drafting game where players bid for first choice. However, there are three areas for drafting each round and players use one card to bid for all three areas. The numbers for each area vary, but every card’s combined bids will equal 120. Thus, if you’re bidding high in one area, you’re bidding low in another.
The three areas for drafting are set up in rows. In the top row, players draft for building locations. The middle row indicates how many blocks (levels) players get to add to their building stockpile, and the bottom row gives players ways to modify their buildings. These include things like higher quality of roofs (enhance scoring), exceeding height regulations (you can normally only build 1 high on the first level, 2 high on the second level, etc…), etc… Some of these tiles will be more useful than others, so less-powerful cards tend to also grant a player gelato, which has end-game scoring possibilities. Players actually bid with two cards. Their main card, and then a kicker card that provides a bonus to all of the bids on the other card. This adds just a hint more strategy as a good kicker card can help push for a good draft in two areas at once.
Players score points for their gelato, their levels with a clear view of the sea, but also three goal cards drawn at random at the start of the game. These push players towards specific strategies. Players may be trying to build different heights, build on the edges of the board, or even majority scoring of the back two rows of buildings.
There’s also an expansion, The Crowded Cliffside, which adds two new colors (making it play up to 6 players) as well as expanding the cliffside build area from a 4×4 display up to a 5×5 area. It can also be played with 4 players if gamers want a longer game (6 rounds instead of 4.) There’s also a solo mode that has the player (and AI) using two colors at once.
Steve Jackson Games
Munchkin Big Box
The big thing in the Steve Jackson Games booth was the big box of Munchkin BIG BOX! It’s got the base game and six previously released expansions. Then there’s another 100 new cards and 20 promo cards. A handy (huge) box to store things in as well as classy bits and bobs to bling your game (and life) up thrown in as well. 
Purrfect Potions
Coming out in September-ish, Purrfect Potions has players rolling specific conditions on 11 dice (1 moon, 4 cat, and 6 regular dice) in order to claim any one of 12 tiles – typically worth 2 or 3 points each. The moon die has six phases and it determines where a cat die can be placed. When rolled, the regular dice can be placed on any tile, but they stay there even after the turn is over – giving other players a chance to steal your efforts. Once a tile’s condition is fully met, the active player scores points for the tile and it flips to its back side – which is always a single die spot only for cat dice. Once all tiles have been flipped, players finish the round and compare scores.
Car Wars Expansions
Also in the booth were some Car Wars (6th edition) expansions from the past year. Sonic Strike has (surprise) sonic weapons and some new crew cards. Gonzo Gear has a bunch of new cards, all on the strange end of the spectrum. Note, they are sometimes listed as single player expansions. This does not make the game into a solo affair. The label is to indicate that the equipment in the expansion is enough for outfitting on a single car at a time. There’s not enough cards for multiple cars to have a good sturdy flail bolted on, for example.
MindWare
Qwirkle Flex
MindWare was making some waves with a new version of their evergreen title, Qwirkle. The new version, Qwirkle Flex, does not now have pieces made of rubber. Instead, the flex part refers to the fact that tiles now not only have a color/symbol on them, they also have a background (white, black, and ½ and ½.) Colored symbols score the same as they have always done, but now players can score on the diagonal for matching tile backgrounds. For example, the blue square above scores 4+2 = 6 for color/symbols, but then an additional 2+4 points for diagonal scoring. Notice, backgrounds do not place restrictions on where a piece can go but colored symbols must still “match” the row/columns they are in. Look for the game to release into the wild in a September or October timeframe.
Ringer
Also in the MindWare booth was the 2 to 5 player game, Ringer, played with cards with a central hole large enough to let a die rest inside. Players are placing cards onto a stack around a die. Players must play cards that match the color or bump the number up or down. Players have 6 cards and are allowed to play as many as they can. When a player manages to play a card that exactly matches the number on the die, they can claim the stack of cards. Once the draw pile of cards is depleted, the player with the most cards wins. Note, some cards give special powers. You can steal other players’ cards, ask for a card in a Go-Fish style moment, draw extra cards, and even interrupt another player’s turn to take your own.
Dice Throne Inc
Slam Throne
The superpowered Yahtzee-combat people of Dice Throne were showing off a new game, Slam Throne. It is basically the classic game of pogs – stack up some cardboard discs and smack them hard with a heavy plastic disc, hoping to flip some over. It’s the same game, but now each “slammer” has its own health and special power. Players are trying to slam a stack of enemy pogs representing their health. Any pogs flipped are removed, you have essentially damaged them that amount.
The last player with health pogs left wins. Each slammer (there are 4 so far I believe) has two special powers. One is an ongoing sort of effect that happens throughout the battle. The other power is one that only triggers if a player manages to catch their pog after slamming it down. A player must decide which power (ongoing or catch) they plan to use at the start of the game and may not change it later. The game is sold in randomized packs containing 1 slammer and enough pogs to play the game.
Goliath Games
The Sims Board Game
Goliath Games has a nice little launch party for The Sims Board Game, complete with grilled cheese sandwiches (that probably means more if you’ve played The Sims videogame…) This game for 2 to 5 players has them trying to be the first to score 8 points. Players score 3 points by collecting the 3 required resources on their Aspiration (ie. goal) card and 1 point for each Iconic Sims they can coax into their home. This is done by collecting cards that match an Iconic Sims’ interest. Note, that once an Aspiration is completed, a player can immediately begin working on another one.
In addition to collecting symbols on cards, players have a Needs Tracker that monitors a player’s various needs – like food, sleep, social interaction, etc… As players move about the game board, they must lower some of their needs to empty. If you don’t have a specific need “full” you can’t enter a location that depletes it. Players can refill needs by interacting with other players and some actions, but the primary way to refill one’s needs is to take a turn back at home which raises everything back up to maximum. When at home, players also have an opportunity to swap out their aspirations if they don’t like their current one.
