Forever Late Review! - No Man's Sky

This is a thing you can do.

I've been playing No Man's Sky finally. Does that means its time for another Forever Late Review?
Of course I haven't ever done one of these by name, but since I never seem to get around to buying and playing games when they are new... this sounds like a plan. To be fair, I've only picked it up in the last week and a half. So new to me, right? Okay, Lets go!

Trogdor: The Board Game - Review!

Behold in all its glory.

Okay team, My copy of Trogdor: The Board Game arrived in the mail yesterday. I have gotten a couple games in, so lets dive in and look this thing over.

This game is a Co-op only game that runs for 30 to 45 min for 1 to 6 players. There are two main versions, the regular and the deluxe. The regular has wooden meeples as pictured to the right, and the deluxe also has plastic pre-painted figures in addition to all of those. Both sets are quite nice, though I went with the deluxe version. Seriously, I'm not sure I'll ever not use the minis.

Fiction Day! - Session #1 of Android RPG pt.1

Sci-fi Noir Fun times!

Ding! Icarus pulled out his pad from a pocket. The message notification light shown a dull red. "Seraphina has a job for me, Nice." She wanted him to come down from level 55 where he roomed in an apartment with no questions asked to the park down on level 5 where she built up her market. It comprised a collection of stalls and merchants who sold legally questionable merchandise and information. Icarus bought and sold there frequently, they didn't mind his clone heritage. There were 2 other names on the message Icarus didn't know. "This must be important. She knows I work alone." One check on his watch confirmed it, there wasn't time to kill.

Legend of Signum Review Pt 2!

So, If you haven't read review part one, you can do so Here. Its been a bit since the previous review, but I have had a chance to play a few games with the system and it seems to be fairly solid. Lets start with a run down of the regular turn / some basic rules. Each turn you get a money, draw a card, and then get the option of adding to your city. The city is your source of Mana (to borrow from Magic: the Gathering), and each card needs up to three buildings either specific, or generic. I would even hazard that the build order for your city is the primary learning curve of the game.

Legends of Signum Review! Part 1!

Okay Team! So, my kickstarter for this game has come in the mail. Lets break this thing down.

Legend of Signum: Battle for Vallor is a 2 player game that is approximately 50% Collectible card game, 50% miniatures war game. The decks range from 20 to 40 cards and must comprise at least 50% creatures. These are summoned to the battle field where they move and attack in a miniature format. Most of the cards needed to play are purchased in a CCG format, with 7 cards per pack with a normal scale of rarity. Common, Rare, Legendary, and Mythic. there are 6 commons and one Rare, and then there roughly 1 legendary in every 8 packs. Mythics are not in normal packs, but are going to be like promo cards, and prizes. Also, some packs will have a building/terrain card in addition to the above. The characters are purchased in blister packs, and come with all the cards needed to play with.

Time Breaker - Review!

Okay, So got a copy of this game yesterday. Its a game where you are a time cop trying to catch someone screwing up time, before the other agents do. Lets go over the basics:

• 2 to 5 players
• 10 to 40 min play time
• Card game with Tile board
• high quality Meeples

Played a few games and 

Gonna start a new RPG!

So coming up in the near future is going to be a a new RPG group (to me) and we are going to run a Android Genesys game setting. Session Zero is up coming so were going to start planning what I want to roll with now. For those of you not in the know, Session zero is a preliminary meeting where you all plan characters and get an Idea of what you as a group want to do, and in this case I'll be meeting some of the group here for the first time as well. There is normally zero role playing going on, and more just making sure everyone is on the same page. Not every group needs a really formal session, especially if the full group has played together before. I have done groups where both have and haven't done them and it has been fine for that group. Its more important for game systems that are more open, like Genesys, BESM, or Gurps. You don't want someone bringing a full conversion cyborg to your fantasy punk golem noir game... Which I did, because the rules allowed it. Or the time I brought a very much fantasy Fairy to a pretty hard Sci-fi setting. 

Look, mistakes were made. Even if they were super memorable and super entertaining for the group.

Making a Game 2

My office drones come in all colors.
Also, they work weekends for free.

Okay, so last time we worked on making a depressing office simulator board game. Lets look at some basic game play elements. I need to have a tile laying system so we can play office workers. I'm thinking that you draw from one deck, and play anywhere on the office. You want to play yours farther from the breakroom/bathrooms, and closer to the printers and the office supply. Some actions in the game will let you play extras or even force opponents to remove workers. The tiles will have to be placed to that the workers can leave, but I think maybe making it worth more to make the cubicle farm maze like should be an option. I can already see some neat options here. But I think this is just something you do while playing the actual game. Some extra player interplay as they do their thing.

I think everyone starts a project from either a dice role or from a card deck at the beginning of the game. Cards could let me go more projects with funny names and a greater variety of what the goals are. This would both add replay value, and add some good humor. We could have projects range from "Upgrade accounting software" to "Develop new flagship product." The points values could be more targetable for each one, and some could have a random amount of points with a random size of the project. On the other hand, keeping it to a table you roll dice on makes it easier to make the projects as you can keep the list very generic. I.E.

Making a Game

Standard meeple army

Okay, its time to make a game. Specifically, a table top board and or card game. This series going to mostly be a design diary, but if I get a really strong interest in moving forward.... Who knows. Lets get started.

First things first, I need some basics. I could go with a very complex or a very simple game. I'm going to try to keep it simpler. First, its just me play testing this game later. I cannot play test enough for a complex game like say Warhammer 40,000 or Magic the Gathering. So no to tactical miniatures, and collectible card games. I want to stay away from lots of tokens and draw decks. some are fine, too many can make the game take more time to set up and clean up than to play. Long setups can stop a game before it starts, and long cleaning ups will cause either lost pieces, or be the last thing you remember about a game. I want player turns to be relatively quick no more than 1 min or so per turn, with a total playtime of 20 to 40 min. Longer games will likely run afoul rules complications and such. Do I want a board for this game? I suppose I will find out later.

Keyforge Review

Taken from Fantasy Flight Games Website
used without permission

So, Spent some time playing Keyforge since the pre-release this weekend at my local Brick and Mortar. It was fun, we played a sorta tournament thing and I ended up undefeated over 4 games. Turns out with some games later this week I still am. So that almost never happens. My track record with card games like these is normally weak deck building so this might be a place where I really shine, who knows. But lets get into some immediate thoughts on the game.

First, some info: The game is played with pre-constructed decks built by computer algorithm. The whole process happens at the factory, and each deck gets a custom generated name and card back as well, to enforce the not changing decks. The game play spends quite a bit of time finding ways to do common things card games do and doing them absolutely opposite. I and most Magic players will find they are always doing things the wrong way, for instance: