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As a Jurassic Park game finally lets us eat Jeff Goldblum, the gaming world unites to stop a plagiarising Kickstarter and 40k goes to a place less Grim Dark than usual.
And now we can play the T-Rex
There’s been a fair few dinosaur related games recently, and that’s got everything to do with the rebirth of the Jurassic film franchise. Now Mondo are heading back to the (amber covered) source to create a dungeon crawler based on the original Jurassic Park. There’s a lot of explanation about modular boards, multiple scenarios and experience points, but your scribe stopped reading and started salivating when they saw you can play one of four asymmetric groups, which include the visitors, the staff… the raptors and the T-Rex. Yes, as one of you is trying to save Ian Malcolm and the kids another is trying to eat you all. Yummy. ‘The Chaos Gene’, for that is the title, is out later this year.
Villainous sees you play Disney Baddies
Did you see Malificent and think ‘this is much better than Sleeping Beauty ever was’? Then Disney have the game for you. In Villainous you play some of the House of Mouse’s most famous characters, but not the good ones: you’re Ursula, Jafar, Prince John etc. You and your players each take a Disney villain and compete to complete their task (such as cursing the world), with interruptions from the supposed good characters.
Now, every misunderstand PC / evildoer stays in their own worlds so there’s no crossovers here (or slash fiction), but you can interfere each other’s actions and the pedigree is strong: the design team created Harry Potter: Hogwarts’ Battle. Also, it’s out August 1.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Dice Rush
A Sonic the Hedgehog game really has to move fast, and in ‘Dice Rush’ you’re rolling dice to pull tiles and build levels from the digital games and you can be penalised for being too slow. As you can guess, the play time is a filler 20 minutes, and with 21 dice in the tin that’s a lot of rolling.
The Game No One Expected: 40k Monopoly
In the grim dark future there are only… estate agents? The game that no one anticipated is here, because Warhammer 40,000 Monopoly has been announced and it begs the question how much paint stripper had been drunk before that meeting.
Given that 40k and Monopoly are among modern gaming most internet-contentious properties it’s actually glorious to see that chimera coming towards us, and we bet there’s going to be many a confused relative on the afternoon of Christmas day (not least of which because there’s still a free parking section.) The game no one is calling the Shadespire Killer is out August.
Fallout: Go to California
The Fallout board game has begun the herculean task of catching up with its digital mother when it comes to expansions with New California. This takes you to… yeah you got it, with 12 new map boards, five new PCs including Mister Handy and two new scenarios including one which is co-op (you’re solving a water issue… or are you.) It’s an autumn release, but we don’t know how many bottle caps it’ll cost.
Jamey Stegmaier is Working on a Game Inspired by Zelda, Time Stories and 7th Continent
Okay, jumping ahead so no one gets excited: the game from the title is at least a year of development away. Now back to the right order: Charterstone and Scythe creator Jamey Stegmaier is a media friendly chap and has been talking about his plans, which include a vast open world exploration game which draws on 7th Continent’s “variable play”, Time Stories’ development of plot and the hundreds of hours of Zelda footage he’s been watching (that’s Zelda: Breath of the Wild for fans).
We won’t try and pin specifics down because he’s open about the fact he’s deep in development and everything might still change, but please allow your scribe a massive woo-hoo at this.
Overturn: Rising Sands caught plagiarising and suspended by Kickstarter
The big gaming news of the week came on Kickstarter, and while that’s not new, sadly the reason is different to normal. Overturn: Rising Sands had been chugging along, raising 100s of 1000s, exceeding goal and roping in a large number of backers before eagle eyed gamers noticed parts of the sample rule book had been stolen entirely from Massive Darkness (MD). There’s no legal danger to saying that as the ‘creators’, and I use the term hesitantly, admitted it, saying that’d cribbed MD to speed up a reply to rules hungry backers.
But this is the internet, and gamers went to town finding numerous other thefts and a multitude of bad situations. As CMON issued a copyright takedown notice the gaming community tried to reach out to blissfully unaware backers, yet the Kickstarter – while falling in revenue – seemed set to fund… until Kickstarter suspended the campaign with 25 hours to go.
FFG Tease Discover: Lands Unknown
Fantasy Flight Games are building the hype for their newbie ‘Discover: Lands Unknown’, but all we know so far is the picture they released with a smidgen of text and a date: “Do you hear the call of the unknown? It’s your next great adventure from Fantasy Flight Games…announcing August 6th.” The image has mountains, a figure with a staff and little else. Is this part of the Oracle game system? It’s certainly not Netrunner.
Neon Gods doesn’t let that title down
City of Remnants was a 2013 game of dystopian futures and area control competition. It’s being revamped by one of the designers and turned into Neon Gods, and changes include moving the setting to an alternative reality 2009, changing the colours to neon and whacking in loads of 80s references. It’s all gone classic Tron. There’s gameplay changes too, the system now being deemed similar at the core but smoother around the edges. Just not on the eyes. There will be copies at Gen Con.
Spell Smashers / Word Mashers
Does anyone remember those typing games from the PC age where you had to hammer out words at speed to defeat the baddies rushing to eat you? That’s probably in no way related to Spell Smashers, which sees you playing fantasy heroes killing monsters, taking loot and buying goods, only instead of dice you’ll be forming words to win the battles and performing ever more complicated words as you progress. It’s from Christopher Chung, who did Lanterns: The Harvest Festival. The Mico is on visuals and October is the purchase date.
Rallyman Returns
Jean-Christophe Bouvier’s Rallyman was a self-published game that you haven’t been able to buy for a good few years, but one with a community that ran frequent events including a yearly Championship tournament. It was all about dice rolling and rally car moving as you aimed to complete the course first, and the great news for fans is that it’s coming back in a revamped edition.
Rallyman: GT won’t be self-published, as it’s being released by Holy Grail via Kickstarter, and there’s a host of changes to improve and evolve the game. The Kickstarter starts in November, with other forms of racing planned if it ‘hits’.
TomaTomato
TomaTomato sounds like the name of 60's Batman villain, but it’s actually the new party game from Oink, the minds behind Deep Sea Adventure and A Fake Artists Goes To New York. The game revolves around the syllables in tomato, with you having to play cards to form a word you have to pronounce, from the easy tomato to fiendish combinations like TomaTomatoMatoma. Or something. Fast, fun, silly. It’s out August.
Expancity Reaches Up
Expancity tasks you with building New York style skyscrapers, but it’s not all about height. You’re aiming to build in good areas of the city and avoiding bad ones, while getting the best contracts. The age limit starts at a family friendly ten and the game is coming to retail in August.