Charlie's Take - Quartermaster General: Victory or Death Quartermaster General was a game that caught my interest yet majorly underwhelmed. It took a long while after my first play to really articulate what bothered me about the game. Gathering my thoughts proved as aggravating as the card-driven invasion of Europe. After a single play I was content divining that this design was not for me and I'd avoid it in the future. Then I was hoodwinked. My buddy Aaron, a masochistic Quartermaster General fan, grabbed Victory or Death at Gen Con. He lured me in 10/04/2016
Quartermaster General was a game that caught my interest yet majorly underwhelmed. It took a long while after my first play to really articulate what bothered me about the game. Gathering my thoughts proved as aggravating as the card-driven invasion of Europe. After a single play I was content divining that this design was not for me and I'd avoid it in the future. Then I was hoodwinked. My buddy Aaron, a masochistic Quartermaster General fan, grabbed Victory or Death at Gen Con. He lured me in
Dr. Eureka - Not a Game for Charlie In my house Dr. Eureka is derisively referred to as Dr. Jekyll. No other game has offered such a dual experience of fist pumping joy and back breaking anguish. Half the table seems to be throwing high fives while the rest of us poor schmucks are hanging our heads and asking if we can assemble a five man team to pull Cthulhu Wars off the shelf and wash the acidic taste out of our mouth. Dr. Jekyll is very much a case of the have and the have nots. It does have a sense of style. You can't deny 07/23/2016
In my house Dr. Eureka is derisively referred to as Dr. Jekyll. No other game has offered such a dual experience of fist pumping joy and back breaking anguish. Half the table seems to be throwing high fives while the rest of us poor schmucks are hanging our heads and asking if we can assemble a five man team to pull Cthulhu Wars off the shelf and wash the acidic taste out of our mouth. Dr. Jekyll is very much a case of the have and the have nots. It does have a sense of style. You can't deny
Ferox - 80's Exploitation Slaughterfest A sadistic film crew. Tribes of unforgiving cannibals. A battle of unparalleled brutality. Yes, yes, and yes. Some games just stick a knife through your eye and start twisting long before it even hits the table. Like a sadistic puppet master, Ferox grabbed a hold of my scalp and started dragging me about when I first read about it. That pillaging of my faculties continued when the physical product arrived. Coming from an independent publisher with a humdrum name like Craft Fair Games, it's 07/15/2016
A sadistic film crew. Tribes of unforgiving cannibals. A battle of unparalleled brutality. Yes, yes, and yes. Some games just stick a knife through your eye and start twisting long before it even hits the table. Like a sadistic puppet master, Ferox grabbed a hold of my scalp and started dragging me about when I first read about it. That pillaging of my faculties continued when the physical product arrived. Coming from an independent publisher with a humdrum name like Craft Fair Games, it's
Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: T.I.M.E Stories Through Under The Mask This article assumes you have played all T.I.M.E Stories scenarios through Under The Mask. Spoilers be here like flies on a corpse. You have been warned. T.I.M.E Stories has dug through my skull and is firing electric right into my dopamine receptors. As soon as it starts to fade at the back of my mind, like that picture of Marty McFly's siblings, a new chapter hits and I'm 9 year old Charlie tearing into the latest LEGO set on Christmas morn. While The Asylum and Marcy Case were my two 07/14/2016
This article assumes you have played all T.I.M.E Stories scenarios through Under The Mask. Spoilers be here like flies on a corpse. You have been warned. T.I.M.E Stories has dug through my skull and is firing electric right into my dopamine receptors. As soon as it starts to fade at the back of my mind, like that picture of Marty McFly's siblings, a new chapter hits and I'm 9 year old Charlie tearing into the latest LEGO set on Christmas morn. While The Asylum and Marcy Case were my two
Zimby Mojo - Zimbies, Zombies, And Cannibals Jim Felli makes weird games. First he hit us with Shadows of Malice, an open ended fantasy RPG coop that left much to the imagination. And now Zimby Mojo - a game where players take on the role of shamans forming temporary alliances and burying nasty little blades into each other's backs. From the perspective of someone who loves Cave Evil and Legend of the Cipher, weird is great. Zimby Mojo self-declares as a co-opportunistic game. We've seen semi-cooperative elements before in designs such as 07/10/2016
Jim Felli makes weird games. First he hit us with Shadows of Malice, an open ended fantasy RPG coop that left much to the imagination. And now Zimby Mojo - a game where players take on the role of shamans forming temporary alliances and burying nasty little blades into each other's backs. From the perspective of someone who loves Cave Evil and Legend of the Cipher, weird is great. Zimby Mojo self-declares as a co-opportunistic game. We've seen semi-cooperative elements before in designs such as
FUSE - Encyclopedia Brown In Real-Time FUSE is an interesting game where players COOPERATE in REAL-TIME to defuse a whole gaggle of EXPLOSIVE bombs that have been planted on their otherwise serene spaceship (why are we shouting? I DON'T know!). Facilitated by a free proprietary app, the 10 minutes tick away like an F-15 slicing through a clear sky. The table is full of terse shouting and backhanded vocal jabs as you try to muddle your way through bomb defusal via rolling handfuls of dice. Oh those damn multi-colored dice. Forget the 04/28/2016
FUSE is an interesting game where players COOPERATE in REAL-TIME to defuse a whole gaggle of EXPLOSIVE bombs that have been planted on their otherwise serene spaceship (why are we shouting? I DON'T know!). Facilitated by a free proprietary app, the 10 minutes tick away like an F-15 slicing through a clear sky. The table is full of terse shouting and backhanded vocal jabs as you try to muddle your way through bomb defusal via rolling handfuls of dice. Oh those damn multi-colored dice. Forget the