Czech Games Edition had its traditional gaming room across the hall (and upstairs) from the main Gen Con dealer hall. In it was a world of wonders showing off many of their best games. I especially appreciate when they create an extra-large version, often an obnoxiously large version, that people can sign up to play. There was almost always a big line waiting outside, primarily to purchase the newest stuff – I think the new Lost Ruins of Arnak expansion, Surprise Shipment was usually the one. Fans of the live-play RPG, Critical Role, could snap up a special version of Codenames: Critical Role Adventures – one that is NOT just new words. It actually has characters to play and an adventure map to track progress. I was given a tour of the new deckbuilder-esque euro, Drillers, where players mine down to collect gems but then have to go back up and sell them to upgrade their drills. Finally, I had a very brief (compared to the size of the game) overview of the new euro-ish adventure game Kingdom Come; Deliverance – The Board Game. It’s very much an open world/sandbox game, based on the popular videogame franchise.
Lost Ruins of Arnak: Surprise Shipment by Elwen, Mín
Look at the cute puppy and kitty! Aw! And why are you dragging them around with you in the jungle again???
Starting off with the surprise shipment expansion to Arnak, it’s a card and site tile only expansion. It has 50 new cards and two new sites. A third site is included as an “upgrade” to upgrade one of the past ones needing adjusting.
It still fits into the mega-box storage solution released earlier this year. Since the box is full, this is also the last expansion. (I really appreciate this attitude as one can claim to have a complete game without constantly having to purchase a slow drip of little expansions here and there.) Of course, all that some people need to know is that the expansion includes a new puppy and new kitten card. These artifacts are slightly lower cost artifacts than the dog & cat found in earlier releases.
Dedicated fans of Arnak looking to spruce up their game should be happy to know now that there are special deluxe tokens, made of zinc alloy, available for use as coins and compasses in the game. (SETI fans will also note there are now special bits available for that game, too.) I believe you can get them in stores starting in late September.
Codenames: Critical Role Adventures by Vlaada Chvátil, Felix Podlesny
Codenames: Critical Role Adventures is NOT just a new set of word cards based on the popular Critical Role fantasy universe. It is its own complete game that just happens to use Codenames mechanics. This is a co-op Codenames that takes players on a mini RPG campaign.
Three different maps to explore.
A campaign consists of a book and an accompanying map (there are 3 in the box.) The clue giver is the “GM” for the group and players pick a character (out of 7) to play.
Pick your hero and guide them through the adventure as they level up and gain items.
Characters each have a little special power to help win the game. To make a Codenames guess, a player physically puts their little character miniature on that card. Correct guesses earn experience points and incorrect ones do damage to the character. Most games are played with a timer, encouraging people not to think too long about guesses.
It’s not just blue/red/black anymore!
Unlike the standard Codenames layout – red/blue clues, tan non-clue cards, and black insta-death cards, Critical Role adventures have many different colored clue locations. Red answers are still the goal, while blue answers often provide a bonus (sometimes “crazy” stuff to change up the game), grey cards are the null wrong answers (like tan was), gold answers are almost always required for a game, and the black spot(s) are where players must fight the boss of the level. Similar to games like The Crew, specific games may have special rule requirements to win. An example being: players must guess all 5 gold cards then pick the black spot on the 6th guess.
Winning the game grants experience for all players as well as coins which can be turned in at shops encountered on the map.
There are a LOT of fiddly bits that track things for character abilities, items, etc…
Shops (and other events) can provide players with items that let them break the game in one way or another, to try and help players get through more difficult levels of the adventure.
There is an expansion pack, Codenames: Critical Role Adventures – Vox Machina that includes one new character, two new items, and a set of 42 words to add to the word pool. These are themed after the first Critical Role liveplay campaign.
Codenames: Sci-Fi Expansion Pack, Fairy Tales, Cute Critters by Vlaada Chvátil
Not to leave regular Codename fans left out, there are three new word (and picture) expansion packs for use in Codenames or Codenames Duet. Sci-Fi and Fairy Tales do what they say – words found in both genres, and there’s a picture expansion entitled Cute Critters – again, one would hope you could piece together what’s in the package.
Drillers by Roman Bednář, Adam Španěl
In Driller, 1 to 4 players are using cards to pay for digging with their drills down into a mine. Once there, players can gather resources and then drive back up to the top to sell them and use the money (credits) raised to improve their drill (and their deck of cards.) Much of the driller management will be around managing one’s fuel while credits are usually used to purchase new cards. Players draw 3 cards each turn and keep one, although one can draw more by spending fuel. One’s draw deck is kept face-up so that a player will always know at least one of the next few cards. Purchasing a card puts it back on top of your deck, ready to be drawn
Two cards. Note the energy at the top, or spend the (red) energy to use the abilitiy.. in the left case: one drill (but its free.)
Every card has a fuel cost as well as a fuel gain. Play the card to get the fuel gain, or pay the fuel cost to do the card’s special ability. Your personal driller board has slots for players to store their fuel. This is typically topped off when they rise to the surface. Thus, upgrading the fuel capacity of one’s driller is always a good thing.
The mine in all its glory. Note the walls on the left an the unique level cards on the right.
As for drilling, players have to spend resources to go deeper and deeper into the mine. Levels in the mine will have randomly assigned level effects (drawn from a stack) so no two games will quite be the same. The walls of each level must also be drilled to open up the opportunity to collect gems. This requires spending several drills at once, but they also provide a healthy number of points. Gems are placed explicitly on the board, some of which are more valuable than others, which can determine which level to mine.
Your driller… Walls ploughed up top left, storing gems/cubes on the right, Energy tracker in lower middle (with costs to upgrade on right.) The three circles on the bottom means you have three drones to use. (The two slots above your energy are just to help you track money and drills during your turn…)
Once a player surfaces, they can sell their minerals by slotting them into their board in the gem storage area. These will provide both points and cash to buy cards.
The market
There is no limit on purchasing cards. There are four card decks: one will improve your drill, one helps with drill movement, one will offer various utility functions, and one has more complex and/or advanced abilities. These will typically have a cost when used/played. Players start with one damage card (and can end up with more) in their deck that is worth -3 points and blocks up their deck. These can be removed for 5 credits when at the surface. The surface is also where players pay to improve their fuel storage or their gem storage.
There are special drones that can be obtained (you start with one) that provide drone-like functions. You can use one while down in the mines to send up some gems (freeing some slots in your storage) or even to send it up there to buy a card. Drones are one-use only but a player can have up to 3 on hand at any given time.
The game ends when one player has drilled through four walls, filling up their scoring wall storage. Everyone gets one more turn and points are tallied. Players get points for some cards, walls, and gems. A player can earn extra points if they manage to gather enough gems of one type to overflow that storage in their base.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – The Board Game by Vlaada Chvátil, Tomáš Holek
OK, so Kingdom Come is a big game, and I only had time for an overview but suffice it to say that it’s a pretty open-ended exploration/adventure game where players can earn points in all sorts of ways. In that way, it’s sort of a sandbox game, do what you want, with deckbuilding as one of the main mechanisms.
Do you like big maps?
In the game, players take on the role of peasants in 15th century Bohemia just trying to make their way in the world. You have no skills, a knife, and a piece of old meat. Everyone is assigned a personal quest, to give some guidance on what to do, but completing it is entirely optional. Some of the options in the game include hunting, gathering herbs/making potions, and outright stealing from people in the game.
While players are running around the board, things continue to change on the board. There are cities to visit, with their associated markets (full of horses, weapons, other items – yes you can steal from them) but some cities may be affected by story elements. These trigger optional quests for the players to complete. There might be a plague and the players may need to look for a cure. Perhaps a murder plot where players must investigate and find the culprit. Maybe even a wedding and the players must go out for a bunch of mini-quests like getting flowers, food, or other items. These events will continue even if the players do not participate, so that plague-ridden city may not be useful if you leave it too long.
The color coded skill marketSpeaking of markets, there are four main types of cards to acquire. Brown ones relate to one’s stealing abilities, blue ones typically improve relations with other people, red cards help with fighting, and green cards typically deal with hunting. Most events that players attempt used a skill check. One card is played, and then supplemented by flipping additional cards, the number determined by the quality of gear used. This can be modified some. For example, if a character is well-fed, they may get to flip more cards.
Do you want to buy a pony? Who can say no to Pebbles?
Of course, there are also the markets found in each city, full of items to buy. A horse is handy for travelling around as it increases both your speed and your storage.
Hunting, you need two hunt/arrows in the skill check to get 3 meat and 5 pelt.
Let’s look at a hunting skill check. The top corner of a hunting challenge will state how many successes are needed. If successful, the right hand side will state how much meat and/or pelts are acquired.
The whole game is run over five days. Each day has a morning, noon, evening, and night. The first three give players a main action (and any number of free nations) and players rest at night. If you make friends (use some blue cards maybe?) you might even be offered a bed to sleep in for the night. This can provide points and possibly a benefit for the next day. The game can get a bit detailed. In addition to sleeping in a bed (or not) if a player walks through a swamp they probably will “get dirty” which stays with them and hinder social interactions, at least until they wash off.
Your player board, it’s where you keep all your toys.
It is a competitive game but the open-ended side shines through because there are points available everywhere. There is some interaction between player tokens but only mild ones. At the end of the game, score up all of your resources, points acquired during the game, and all the quests completed. Most points wins, of course, but you are always welcome to ignore points and just do your own thing.
