Magic in a Box

PAX Unplugged was a great time this year as I got to play many upcoming games and chat with plenty of developers. But there was one game I couldn’t get off my mind. One game that I kept looking at photos of. One game that drove me to numerous Google searches as I sat at a chair munching on a dry turkey sub. One game that I immediately ripped the shrink wrap off of when I got home from the convention.

At its core, Malediction is a skirmish wargame for anywhere from two to four players on a 2.5-foot-ish square battlefield (size may vary), either as a duel or a tag team battle. Each player chooses a Seeker (aka hero unit) and a deck full of creatures to summon and spells to cast. The goal is to gain enough Mastery (victory points) to win the game. Pretty simple. And that’s the absolute magic of Malediction. The gameplay is straightforward and intuitive. Things work how you think they should. If you’ve never played Magic: The Gathering, these cards are still easy to read and understand everything they do. Measuring your unit's movement and attacks is simple, even if you’ve never played a miniatures game. Unlike those two categories of games, however, Malediction feels like a total…

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Fantasy Realms - K. David Ladage

I can remember when I first caught wind of Stonemaier Games releasing Red Rising. I was not familiar with the books series, so that was not a draw. Still, I thought I would give the game a chance. What I found was a game that wanted to be too many things at once. It was muddled and unfocused. However, if you read the various design diary entries over at Stonemaier Games, one of the things you find is that Red Rising was heavily influenced (even based upon) the game Fantasy Realms.

Having played both games, I can say that I enjoy Fantasy Realms significantly more than Red Rising. The deck of cards is smaller and the mechanics are unified (e.g., the game is more focused). The tropes in Fantasy Realms are universal, while in Red Rising I am constantly reminded that I have not read the books.

Perhaps Red Rising could get an expansion that altered things in a way to focus and balance the game (although I am not sure that is even possible). Meanwhile, although I know there exists an expansion for Fantasy Realms, I am uninterested. What the base game does—what it is—requires no embellishment.

Ease of entry?:
★★★★★…

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After a few years of slow growth and recovery, PAX Unplugged was back in the spotlight this year in Philadelphia! After being canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19 and seeing slow staggering recovery, this year’s event was back to full form, sprawling all over the Philadelphia Convention Center and taking up three different floors with demos, shows, panels, vendors, and more gaming than you can shake a set of dice at.

This year, Justin Bell joined fellow author Will Hare and his husband, Brock, as they tag teamed the convention. It was a whirlwind! Check out how much gaming they were able to squeeze into two and a half jampacked days with their thoughts below!

Love a Good Learn and Play (Justin)

Beneeta Kaur reached out to see if I had any interest in doing something different during my PAXU trip—a “learn and play” session, where we would teach the game In the Footsteps of Marie Curie to a group of about 50 people. It’s a game system I know well—I’ve played full games of both In the Footsteps of Darwin and In the Footsteps of Marie Curie at conventions over the last two years, and the games are very accessible—so I was thrilled to have the chance to do something different with a friend like Beneeta.

…

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All Aboard!

It’s the late 1800’s. Up to five fledgling railroad companies are all vying to be the first to complete routes across the country and scoop up valuable real estate. Throughout twelve sessions, the game map will slowly unfurl before you, revealing new mechanics, cities, and new tickets and routes to claim. Power will shift between individual sessions, with certain players claiming temporary power and decision-making based on performance, while last place gets a small boon for the next game to boost their odds.

I’ve played close to a dozen legacy-style games over the last decade or so, and my experiences have ranged from thrilling and immersive experiences to games that never really grabbed hold of my group and got permanently shelved after a few sessions. Designer Rob Daviau is the father of the modern legacy game, kickstarting the craze with Risk Legacy back in 2011, and his modus operandi seems to be taking modern classics and tossing a fresh coat of legacy paint on them. For the most part, it has been a successful formula.

But… Ticket to Ride? Legacy? The mixture just didn’t sit right in my head. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of the base game (though I will play the Europe variant if given the opportunity), but the idea of mashing up such…

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Now that our in-house Arcs expert Andrew Lynch has shared his thoughts on Arcs, we thought it would be fun to have other Meeple Mountain contributors share their thoughts on the latest design from Cole Wehrle, in the form of our Quick Peaks roundups. Since Arcs has spent a stretch as what feels like the only tabletop game out there, let’s see what some of our other writers have to say about the hottest game in the world!

Arcs: That Campaign Was Something Else - Justin Bell

I have played Arcs eight times now—five plays of the base game, and a three-game series of “Acts” known as The Blighted Reach, the Arcs campaign expansion. The campaign is quite an investment, starting with a learning curve that I would describe as significant. The base game rules for Arcs can be taught to almost any gamer in about 15 minutes. The campaign rules might take you 30-40 minutes on their own. I did the five base game plays before trying to learn the campaign…and I was still checking the campaign rulebook by the end of the third and final Act. There are so many new rules that there is literally a second rules booklet that players build during the…

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Thomas Wells

What was your introduction to modern board games?

I grew up in rural Wyoming, so my access to gaming was filtered through my dad, who grew up playing games. I was dropped into Avalon Hill wargames by him when I was about 9 (which was not the most optimal experience--what 9-year-old relates to Afrika Korps?)

Then, later on, I found a group of fellow dorks in high school, and we went in on a web order of Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. We spent many weekends lasering and war-sunning each other into oblivion. For a long time, I thought that conflict-heavy games were the only types of games there were. There was no FLGS for me growing up, so BoardGameGeek became my portal to a mythical land of cardboard and bits.

What are your feelings on gateway games?

Board gaming has been a very lovely experience for me, and I enjoy games all across the spectrum. As a rabid fan and lover of games, I remind myself often that some people are just not interested in moving through the gateway to more complex stuff. With that in mind, I’ve never had a bad experience introducing someone to a Knizia game. High Society, Lost Cities, The…

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The Corporate Lunar Race

Lunar Rush is a thrilling simultaneous–play worker placement/bidding game for up to four players. In it, players take on the roles of megacorporations that have recently discovered the valuable crystals and ore hidden on the Moon. As they are wont to do, the corporations throw care aside in a mad dash to the moon to open shipping lanes, build moon bases, and ultimately increase their profits. 

Each round in Lunar Rush, players bid for initiative using bid cards. From highest to lowest, bidders win priority in turn order and pay the cost for their bids. Different routes will arrive at different times. Fast routes arrive almost immediately but can hold less cargo. Conversely, slow routes take a few turns to reach their destination but can carry more stuff. Then, in turn order, players choose any available route to claim. Routes are either moonbound or earthbound, referring to whether they are leaving to head to the Moon from Earth or vice versa. After everyone has chosen two routes, players simultaneously load up their ships on Earth with astronauts (workers) or items needed for modules and upgrades, and then they move their ships from Earth along the routes to the moon. Afterward, the moon phase happens simultaneously, with players building modules and producing resources. Each player begins…

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Pampero - Justin Bell

Pampero is the new heavy Euro designed by Julián Pombo, who served as the co-designer of Mercado de Lisboa along with Vital Lacerda (Kanban EV, Inventions: Evolution of Ideas, Vinhos: Deluxe Edition). While Pampero is interesting, it plays like a game just shy of something that would hit my table repeatedly.

Players are investors working to build out the energy network of Uruguay by building wind farms and electrical towers across a massive, beautiful playspace graphically designed by Ian O’Toole. Across a short series of turns (18, give or take), players manage a hand of cards to take actions while doing a bunch of Eurogame-y things like boost income tracks, fulfill public contracts, and race other players to have the most of certain icons before each of the game’s three scoring rounds. Pampero looks great, has a ridiculous number of high-end components, provides a fantastic player aid that answered all of my in-game questions, and plays much faster than I would have guessed (an hour and 45 minutes with four players).

But some of the upgraded action cards are strictly better than other cards in the same market, and some of the basic action cards were not used at all during my game, including…

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Playthrough, the Raleigh area convention for all things gaming, took place over the March 16-17 weekend. Two of our North Carolina area reviewers, Tom and Will (plus Will’s husband, Brock) attended. Here are their reports on the proceedings.

Tom’s Take

The Raleigh Convention Center is located at the edge of Downtown Raleigh, walking distance to the North Carolina State Capitol building, the Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Governor’s mansion. It is also near the endpoint of Raleigh’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, held that same morning, something that made parking a bit of a challenge.

The lower floor of the Convention Center was home to this year’s Playthrough event. Two walls of the 150,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall were filled with video game screens with seated driving games along one wall, with a combination of PC and classic video game consoles along the other. About a third of the floor space was turned over to gaming tables. There, people could join D&D one-shot sessions, play games from the Playthrough game library, or have longer game sessions with some of the exhibitors.

Playthrough also boasted an Escape Room, something I hadn’t seen at a local convention before. Other vendors included people selling classic video games; a variety of D&D accouterments; aluminum chainmaille jewelry; plushies; custom keyboards; custom video…

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St. Patrick’s Day, that time of the year when everyone seems to be Irish for a day!

While that might seem like hyperbole, St. Patrick’s Day is more widely celebrated around the world than any other national festival. It’s an official holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Newfoundland, and Montserrat. It’s also celebrated in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Some of this is due to the Irish Diaspora, and some of this is undoubtedly because it’s the one day during Lent when restrictions on drinking alcohol are lifted. That, alone, has turned the day into a proper Irish cèilidh, or a gathering with dancing and Gaelic music.

To help you celebrate the day with your friends, we’ve put together a list of six Celtic-inspired board games for your consideration.

Sláinte!

St. Patrick

Where better to start a list of games to play on Saint Patrick’s Day than a game named after Ireland’s Patron Saint himself?

This St. Patrick is a trick-taking card game where players work to not take tricks—or, specifically, any cards displaying Snake Bites. Players start by claiming relic cards that will protect them from Snake Bites, but lose points equal to the number of relics in their hand when the…

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Saddle Up

Designer Paul Dennen has won my trust with his design work on Dune: Imperium (and the recently released Dune: Imperium - Uprising), the Clank! games (Clank!, Clank! In Space, and their associated expansions). Publisher Dire Wolf first caught my eye with the digital card game Eternal and has continued to put out fantastic digital implementations of some of my favorite board games. I had to pry myself away from a challenge run of the Root digital adaptation to force myself to finish some work today. So when I heard Dennen was releasing a brand-new game under a new IP, I was immediately intrigued.

Wild Tiled West is, as the name implies, a Wild West-themed polyomino tile-laying game. Players will throw dice and take turns drafting tiles to add to their growing settlements, adding pastures, roads, and buildings to complete towns or fulfill certain scoring conditions. By covering specific grids, players will receive resources that help them buy fancier buildings or take out the ne’er-do-wells lurking among their towns. After four “years” of drafting, players will score up their settlements, and the person with the most points wins!

It may sound straightforward, and that’s because it is. But is that simplicity a strength or a weakness?

Fur-ocious Fun

The first thing to…

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Let Freedom Ring

Monopoly tends to be a hot-button board game to discuss. Most people grew up with at least one copy floating around somewhere between their family and extended family, and it has remained ubiquitous since its release. There are hundreds of special versions and variations of the game. Famously, Monopoly originated as The Landlord’s Game, designed by American anti-monopolist Lizzie Magie. The game wasn’t intended to be a solid bit of game mechanics as much as it was intended to be a statement piece in support of an economic philosophy known as Georgism.

I am not a smart man. If you ask me how the economy works, most times, I would stare at you like a deer in the headlights, grunt, and shrug. But this bit of context is important because Freedom Rings is similar to Monopoly in so many ways. It wears its influence on its sleeve. It’s just that this game happens to be based on a different economic philosophy, taking influence from Stephen Taft’s 2015 book A True Free Market: Conversations on Gaining Liberty and Justice Through Economics. It’s unclear how involved Stephen was in the creation of the game itself, as there are no credits listed on the box or in the rulebook (other than the artist), but the opening…

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Tales from the Tavern

A group of evil monsters has stolen all the drinks in the land of Barcadia, and now it’s up to your merry band of adventurers to brave the dungeon and recover all the drinks. Or… something like that. Heroes of Barcadia is less about the narrative and more about the laughs and, of course, the drinks. What exactly is it, then?

Well, it’s a dungeon-crawling game for 2-6 players (or up to 8 with the expansion), but unlike many dungeon-crawlers, you’re in direct competition. These other heroes are not your allies; they are your rivals! After all, what good is recovering the lost hoard of stolen drinks if it’s not you getting all the glory? You’ll take turns exploring the dungeon to find power-ups and slay monsters. Once you have three power-ups, you can try to take on the final boss and recover the drink hoard.

As a game, it’s… pretty basic. Heroes of Barcadia keeps the gameplay dead simple. There’s very little room for strategy. The rooms you uncover, the power-ups you get, and the dice you roll to fight the monsters are all random. You have little control over your destiny here. It is less of a game and more of a classed-up, shiny new way to have fun with your friends and…

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