Lock Paper Scissors offers a number of escape kits – these print and play activities help your “transform your home into an immersive adventure”. They currently offer 6 different kits, each with a different theme. When you buy the kit, you’ll download all the files needed. The main escape room is found in one .pdf – this one spans 17 pages. If you look through the file archive, you’ll also find plenty of other files to help you transform your room with the theme – posters, costumes and other props can also be printed out!
In the 1150’s two different sets of Norsemen under the prospective leadership of Jarl Rognvald and later, under the leadership of Jarl Harald broke into the Maeshowe tomb looking for treasure and relief from a snowstorm. While there, they were trapped and needed to dig their way out of the tomb. Some of their companions went mad.
In Lee Broderick’s game, Maeshowe, you play as one of two Jarls trying to dig your way out of the Maeshowe tomb before you either go mad or die from collapse or starvation.
How to play solo:
The game is fairly straight forward. A player will start with a hand of 5 cards and will then play a card and discard a card. The cards have a “play” effect and a “discard” effect that will affect your health, progress, and sanity.
Times played: 3, with review copy provided by Z-Man/Asmodee USA. Played conservatively 300 times with various versions over the years
So, though gaming has been part of my life for the bulk of my adult years, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively new hobby. I was astonished to see that one of the mainstays of my early gaming years, Carcassonne, just had its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, Hans im Glueck has arranged a special edition to celebrate this milestone.
Played 3 times with review copy provided by Pandasaurus Games
Wild Space is a futuristic game where you are competing with your fellow gamers to assemble the best crew to pilot a spaceship to explore the galaxies! The bulk of the game revolves around the 102 crew cards; comprised of specialists and emissaries of six different animal species as well as robots. These cards are quite busy with icons for species type, occupation type, bonus scoring, etc found on the small squares.
Per the rules: “Welcome, daring ones! Are you ready for a flight into the galaxy of the notorious space dragons? You will need to assemble your crew before take-off, but then what? Will you capture a dragon or patch up the ship before it blows up in your face? Activating shields may sound boring but doing so could boost the mood of your crew — and thus earn you those last few victory points!”
This innovative card game combines drafting cards to generate your hand, and then some interesting game played during the trick taking portion. a total of 7 rounds will be played, and the player with the most points at the end will be the winner.
More Gen Con 2021 coming your way. Only three letters today, but you’d be surprised how many publishers like “G”, “H.” I’ll say no more of that here. As always, any errors on dates, publishers, titles, (and spelling) are mine alone. Don’t go blaming the poor publishers or their overworked booth helpers.
ebay was a big show sponsor. Why? They had a nice display case of trading cards on auction for thousands of dollars. It’s like a market speculation game, but one you don’t want to lose…
Games Workshop
Warhammer 40,000 lies pretty far out on the bell curve of my gaming preferences. I could enjoy the game, but it’s one of those things best enjoyed by a deep dive of time and money. I’m not quite willing to commit to either. However, Games Workshop is working on becoming more accessible with their newest miniatures entry, Kill Team. Kill Team has the flavor of Warhammer miniatures, but with a much more streamlined set of rules and combat. Measuring tape is out, now range is governed by simple templates. Combat is now a single roll of the dice, not an offense and then defense roll. It is even packaged with a beginner in mind. One “starter” set comes with two full teams of miniatures that just snap together and a set of terrain, a core rulebook, and a special rulebook to cover powers and abilities of the factions in the box. The minis are the same scale as standard Warhammer 40k and there is a compendium available that provides statistics to use the Kill Team minis in a 40k game. I have to admit that there is a generous amount of terrain (and minis) in the box. It isn’t one of those situations where a starter set doesn’t actually provide a “full game” until things are added on. On the other hand, it isn’t cheap. A full starter runs nearly $200 and a starter with less terrain runs closer to $150. Each box also includes a campaign of a series of missions that can be played between the two factions.
The Octarius starter set, which is nearly sold out, includes Death Korps of Krieg and Ork Kommandos. Releasing soon is the Chalnath starter including T’au Pathfinders and Adepta Sororitas Novitiates. The goal is to be releasing a new, stand alone, starter set every three months or so.
