Dale Yu: Review of Murder Party Pocket: Deadly Sin  

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Dale Yu

Murder Party Pocket: Deadly Sin

  • Designers: Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli
  • Story by Maurizio de Giovanni
  • Publisher: Cranio Creations
  • Players: 1-6
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 60 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Naples, 1932. One person was killed, and each of you is one of the 6 suspects. The case was entrusted to Commissioner Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi of the Royal Police Headquarters of Naples, supported as usual by the faithful sergeant Raffaele Maione. The murderer may be hiding among you, and it is up to you to help the Commissioner find out who is. Will you be able to do this before the time is over?

At the beginning of the game, each player will be assigned, through a Character card, the role of one of the suspects that they will have to play. Players will have to reflect, collaborate, share the information in their possession without compromising themselves too much, and try to understand what, beyond appearances, really happened. When all the clues will be revealed the players together have to give the solution. 

Will they be able to discover the real culprit or will the murder remain unsolved? Or worse still, will they let an innocent be wrongfully accused?
Murder Party Pocket is a game of crime investigation, mixing a card game, a role-playing game, and an app that guides in the game and dictates the timing and methods of the investigation.  All the investigative cases are written by well-known crime writers. 

— from the publisher

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of Story Teller  

Posted on August 22, 2023 by Dale Yu

Story Teller

  • Designers: Jung Che Hsu, Li-Chung Ou Young
  • Publisher: 2Plus Games
  • Players: 4-7
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 30-40 minutes
  • Preview copy provided by 2Plus Games / Taiwan Boardgame Design

Story Teller is a story-telling game that follows the structure of classic dramatic formulas. As a result, the stories created by players will have a complete structure and include exciting conflicts and twists.   To start the game, the six Chapter boards are placed on the table in order: Purpose, Obstacle, Breakthrough, Defeated, Turning Point, Ending.  There are 5 types of Story Cards: Character, Scene, Item, Action and Status.  Each deck is color coded, and each is shuffled separately to start the game.  One Character card and one Scene card are placed face up on the Purpose Chapter board.  Each player also draws a starting hand of 2 Characters, 2 Scenes and 2 Items.  To complete setup, one player is given the Macguffin token, they will play the role of the Macguffin Player this game.

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Dale Yu: Review of Romi Rami

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Dale Yu

Romi Rami

  • Designer: Antoine Lefebvre
  • Publisher: Randolph
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Says the publisher: “Romi Rami is a game that feels like it’s been around forever, with thousands of people quietly and gradually polishing it over time. Falling squarely in the family of ‘Rummy’ games, Romi Rami features a double market. The first one has number cards, and the second one has contracts to complete. The goal of the game: Make the most points by optimizing the combinations required by the contracts. Keep an eye on the trophies (they change from game to game) which will propel you to to the top spot on the podium!”

The back of the box proudly proclaims that Romi Rami is “The Modern Take on Rummy”, and after reading that, I had no choice but to get a copy to try!  I grew up playing card games like Rummy, and I love seeing modern takes on some traditional games.

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Gen Con 2023 – Hasbro

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Matt J Carlson

Although they didn’t have a booth in the exhibit hall, Hasbro was once again there with a nice presence in the gaming hall next door. They were showing off expansion to popular games like a new Betrayal expansion: The Yuletide Tale – Evil Reigns in the Wynter’s Pale, and new expansions for Heroquest: Rise of the Dread Moon Quest Pack and Hero Collection – Path of the Wandering Monk. There were also new games, Risk Strike – an attempt to jam Risk into an attack/defend game with cards instead of a map, and Galaxy Goldmine that involves tile flipping on a grid with some memory overtones. Finally, if toys are your thing there was a line of plastic D&D monsters that could be folded back up into a 20 sided die.

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Patrick Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2023 (Part 6)

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Dale Yu

We completed Pandemic Season 0 in a most triumphant fashion. We all thought this was our favourite of the three legacy seasons – each game beautifully balanced, going down to the wire, challenging, fun theming, nice twists. The discussions after each game on how to develop each character vs improving the board were engaging and key. The legacy changes may not have had as much wow factor as the other seasons but no mind. It was an excellent campaign!

Look at this Aussie vehicle (HSV)

I think we turn our attention now to working our way through Revive’s mini-legacy campaign and see where that takes us. After that, we’re on the lookout for something new.

Meanwhile, in non-campaign gaming …

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Gen Con 2023 – Chip Theory Games

Posted on August 19, 2023 by Matt J Carlson

Chip Theory Games, who never go halfway in any of their games, has a somewhat surprising new line of dice games entitled 20 Strong, all of which use the same set of 20 dice which are included in the base game. Three of the titles in the line are releasing to backers soon, with more to come later. I was also able to take a peak at an early prototype of the upcoming adventure game based on the Elder Scrolls video game franchise. Planned for a September 2024 release, its full title is The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era.

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